Born on Danach's dark side, to a huge family of merchants, traders and seafarers. Emser's inheritance ought to be a fleet of ships, should his family live long enough to bequeath it to him. Emser's mother is a sail-mender, and his father owns a small fleet of ships which travel from one island to the next, finding new items to trade each time they land.
The quiet young lad Emser proved to be quite talented at locating new islands, from the crow's nests of their ships. But he also learned to steer the ships away from dangers that he could spy as well. Taking the less dangerous pass when they could have ploughed right into a nest of threats. For twelve years he did this.
He is 21 years old, with yellow-bronze skin, a wide nose and narrow eyes. His hair is vibrantly black, with reddish highlights, and he keeps it cut short as you can see. His eyes are deeply brown, almost black. He is more unusual than handsome, but Rell sees much in his sly visage.
He stands around 6' tall, but he doesn't look that tall. He tends to look like he's sneaking about, at any given moment. His choice of dark browns and blacks in his wardrobe compiments his appearance nicely.
With a large number of maps and trade routes memorized, Emser would make an ideal trader or merchant on the seas. However he thinks that trading on the dark side is lunacy - there are too many dangers and not enough profit.
So he insists that his future is in the twilight area, neither bright nor dark. But he also insists that his future will be on dragon back, and not on a boat.
Boats are for the weak, and if there is something that Emser isn't, is weak. He would rather brave the winds and the howling dangers of the sky than the rocking, slick wetness of the sea. Not that he hasn't had his share of trials at sea. He just never speaks of them.
Until now.
Rell stared at Emser until he looked away. His dark eyes couldn't meet her bright yellowy ones, "What do you mean?" She asked.
"I mean, I've stood several times and not bonded to a dragon. I've watched them walk by me, but ... I think you're going to bond. And this time I think so will I."
"... How many times?" Rell asked. She remembered how traumatic it was supposed to be not to bond on the old world, and this would certainly be no exception.
"Six," Emser said, swallowing a squeek of his voice. "I first stood the day we landed at our first real Cathair. It wasn't here, it was far away and that place was overrun by Tabriz when we left it. Their dragons didn't choose to fight them off, and ... well, they didn't seem so organized to me."
He took a breath, and knew that Rell wouldn't stop staring at him with those beautiful frightening eyes of hers, until he'd told the rest of his story.
"Then, it was a year later. We'd actually found a pair of dragons who were wild, no contact except they heard about human kind. The rest of the island was deseted and we brought them some fish. I think the pair of them couldn't hunt for fear of losing their clutch. But none of the five eggs bothered to hatch for me, they hatched for each other." He sighed deeply again, remembering with a bit of a twinge that these were his scars - though Rell knew he had them she couldn't see them.
So he bared them to her. The sly manipulative Emser, showing some foreign girl all his secrets. Rell was looking like she thought the story was sad. Good. It was sad. It hurt. But Emser didn't show that, at least not seriously. He blew it off. He blew it all off.
"The third time I stood was at a major Cathair, but it was so busy and filled with candidates I think I just didn't get in close enough. There were some really nice hatchlings there. They've grown into fine fighting dragons."
"But... how do you do it? I mean, stand and be denied like that?" Rell asked, half innocently.
"Being denied something that you've never known? I mean, I guess it'd be different if I'd bonded before and were trying for a new dragon if the first died or something. But that doesn't happen either, I don't think. Anyway, the fourth time I was really sick, and none of the dragon hatchlings wanted anything to do with me. They just walked on by, one of them sniffed at me but didn't stop."
"So they value health," Rell said, obviously pondering that she ought to be in good health herself, should she want to stand.
"They do, but they also value personality and I guess mine wasn't right the next time... There were a lot of really froofy dragons at the fifth hatching, and I don't even think I would want to know what I'd be like on a female dragon."
"All females?" Rell giggled. "Well you do fine with me, but I'm not flying you anywhere..." She smirked. Emser laughed.
"That's true, only physically... Mentally my love, you make me fly to the moons."
"And maybe I'll have you in the stars," Rell whispered, she certainly was being lusty today.
"I hope so," Emser said. "The last time was here, at the Cathair." He waved his hands, and shrugged. "Two years ago, though. Then I went on the trade tour and met you. I wouldn't have bargained for that, but I wouldn't trade it for anything either."
"I'm glad you found me, too," Rell said, smiling and hugging him. "Because I don't think I could have done well there. I mean, farming's nice, but I don't know what the rider was thinking dropping me there. It was in the middle of nowhere."
"They do make nice pies..." Emser said, remembering the smell of the lemon or whatever it was, that was baking and cooling on the shelves of the house they had located the navigator at.
"Yeah, but I don't know how to make them, and they couldn't use star charts... Bunch of low tech hicks..."
"Don't knock them. They pay well for foreign goods, and ... well, if you and I bond we might do a tour before you head off. To wherever it is you're looking at going to."
Rell tussled his short black hair, and kissed him on the cheek. "I wouldn't leave without you. Or, I'd be taking you with me anyway. The dragons are big enough for two people. And you seem to have the confidence that I'm going to bond. But what about you?"
She paused, and lowered her eyes. Then she hugged him close. "Emser, you will bond. I know you will. The dragon on the sands seemed to like seeing us both when we were there. I don't know why I know that, but I do."
"You can hear them?" Emser said, almost ... almost bitter about it. Yet another strength this beautiful woman had that he didn't.
"No, I mean, I could just tell. Like one woman to another. I can't explain it."
Then a sound went up, a huge hooting and bellowing. Dragons, voices raised in a huge cheer.
"Then the explanation should wait, because that's the hatching signal. Come on." Emser took Rell's hand, and almost dragged her back to the sands. Only this time, they entered by the bottom hall, and the towering cavern above them intimidated them both.
But Emser knew these sands, and hoped. He would soar with his love, and her dragon would lift her high. He only hoped that he could go that high to follow her.
Emser and Rell waited on the sands, as the dragons shifted the eggs around one more time. The first egg exploded and a beautiful male came out. There were more than a dozen others - including a lovely bright green who bonded to Rell... Yet the last egg had stopped moving long before the last hatchling broke shell.
Emser was about to let his heart break, one more time. It could only figure - how many times could one person stand this grief?
Then... the queen nudged the egg until it moved of its own accord. A darkish head came out first, then broke the rest of the shell with paler wings. A copper-white! Looking around, the dragon seemed to be surveying his territory. He might not be the biggest hatchling of this nest but he certainly had an air about him! He looked at Emser and gave off a croon.
I'm sorry you had to wait so long, but perhaps I was worth the wait, the copper-white said smoothly. My name is Kendorisoth.
Emser's eyes brimmed with tears, but instead of being the desperate and dreary ones he'd been so commonly apt to shed, these were bright, shining happy ones.
"You're so worth it... Let's surprise Rell and her bond..."
With nothing but wind below them, Emser and Kendorisoth mastered the third flanking manuver and soared into the practice field to see how they scored. The teachers and their aged dragons appraised each pair's work, and awarded daily congratulations or chiding accordingly.
This time, Emser and Kendorisoth were surprised to hear a stream of insults coming from one instructor's mouth, regarding their performance.
"... Sir? I don't understand. We were to do a low swoop, switch wingleads, and circle back. We did that move. We even watched for incoming from the sides and rear."
"And would have crashed into a mountain you were looking so closely at them!" The man bellowed. "I canno' believe I've trained such idiocy!"
With due respect, Kendorisoth spoke carefully, I was looking correctly. We were not even told to glance back and forth, yet I knew that if others were in combat around me, I would want to watch for them. There was no threat to the front - this exersize went as well as we could perform it. And, you did not chastise the others for their lack of attention to their flanks where you could have.
"We -" Emser started but the look in the instructor's eye was vicious. "Sir! I regret our mistake. Next time I will make sure that when Kendorisoth is looking one way, I'll be looking ahead."
"Good," the elder rider grunted, sneering, and he turned away to watch the next pair go up.
Emser and Ken decided the rest of the afternoon would be best spent elsewhere.
Why did you let him say those things!? We were perfect!
"I know, Ken. I know." Something nagged at the back of his mind. Emser knew that the instructor had just lost one of his nephews to a band of attackers, and guessed that it was to a move of being outsmarted from the front, not the sides.
You think that he is replacing his nephew with you? I do not like him. He is demanding and not consistant.
"He is demanding, but... I can understand his feelings, Ken. I really can. And next time I'll just do what I think he wants us to do, instead of what everyone else is doing."
I just feel he'd put us into trouble any way we do things. He has always been hard on me. I am not as big as the other coppers, is that why?
Emser chuckled, and patted his dragon down a little. "Ken, you're copper white, something new. He's not holding you to a standard, he's checking what you can do yourself. I think if he's pushing both of us, we'll both be better than if he let us get away with being average."
I do not want to be average.
"Neither do I," Emser said. Later that evening, they got a little mental knock from Jeleneresth.
I wish to go with them, the stars are pretty. But I still do not understand everything about how they move.
"Then leave that to Jel and Rell, they're best at it. So we'll probably want to bring some food along tonight. You two might be looking at the stars, but... um, no offence, I'll be looking at Rell."
