<< You're being stupid. >>

It wasn't the first time Taineth had said as much and it probably wouldn't be the last. Ch'son ignored him, though. He took another drink, the last, from the bottle he was holding before setting it down carefully on the table he sat beside.

<< Ignoring me won't help you feel better. >>

"Can't hurt," Ch'son said out loud. To nothing, of course, not Taineth. The bronze's frustrated snort echoed mentally. Fetch had already gone to find someone happier to be friends with for now. Neither bothered Chaes. Nothing much bothered him at the moment. And yet everything did. Such were the joys of alcohol.

He'd been more quiet, almost stoic in the days following Fasha's death. He dealt with drills and whatever else needed to be dealt with in the course of everyday life but it always came back. That clutching sensation in his chest that took his breath away, nausea enough to make him turn green. And the guilt.

He'd never been particularly close to the greenrider, only in the sense of being her clutchmate. There had been the usual flirting and teasing he did with most girls. The usual feeling of protectiveness when she was feeling down or needed someone to sit by her at meal time.

Abruptly Ch'son pushed himself to his feet and started for his ledge and the dragon that was already a little restless there. "I need t'get outta here," he told Taineth who snorted at him but obliged by standing still long enough for Chaes to sort things out and mount up.

The bronze took them to the beach. It's where Taineth felt more peaceful and he figured, even hoped it might help his rider, too. Ch'son sat down like he used to, partway in the surf, and he stared at the ocean. But the feelings the dragon tried to share with him only rubbed him more raw.

M'sar probably didn't mean anything when he came across the bronzerider but it probably would have turned out better if Chaes wasn't already nearly a bottle under sober. "I'm sorry," the greenrider said and he went safely ignored until he continued a little anxiously, most likely not meaning his words the way they came out, "You should've sent someone else."

It struck a nerve with Ch'son and he was on his feet more quickly than a drunk person should be moving. It was the back of his hand that sent M'sar to the sand, shocked and suddenly scared.

"Get up!" Something about the way M'sar moved, not quite cowering, set the bronzerider's sudden, uncharacteristic temper over the edge.

<< Ch'son. >>

"Get up!" Ch'son repeated more emphatically, trying to ignore Taineth's lights and that nervous roar of meaningless noise echoing inside of his head.

"It wasn't my fault! You're the one that told me to get her. She didn't stay! Not my fault!" M'sar was trying to stumble to his feet and Ch'son helped by grabbing for the front of his shirt and jerking him up as his other fist met the boy's face, closed this time.

When instinct finally kicked in for the greenrider to start fighting back, Ch'son was only seeing red and in no mindset for rational thought.

It ended with an angry, metallic growl from the bronze and Ch'son finding himself suddenly in the sand and gasping for the air that was knocked out of him. When he managed to get back to his feet, his lifemate steadfastly blocked his path back to the greenrider.

M'sar was crumpled unconscious a short distance away. Taineth tried to sooth Inath when she came closer to worry over her rider even while he called for someone more appropriate to come and take care of the boy.

This was not how he wanted his rider to stand out and be known.