[PernMUSH] Pickup RP Log: Flaming Ropes
Who: A'riste, D'kai, Valioth, Mikhuth, NPCS: Saryan/Sayarith, Neala/Twilith, G'ben/Vrusith, Z'eren/Falstath, J'vran/Namuth
When: 9:07 on day 21, month 6, Turn 17, of the Interval.
Where: Fort Weyr Bowl, by the weyrling barracks
What: A group of Weyrlings get up into the air to flame some ropes out of the sky.
Fort Weyr Bowl, by the weyrling barracks
The Bowl of Fort Weyr, a large, nearly featureless plain surrounded by steep mountain cliffs, stretches out before you. It is vaguely oval in shape, long from the southwest to the northeast; you are standing near the wall northwest of its center. To the west is a cavern, carved into the cliffside, where newly-Impressed dragonriders live with their young dragons before they have been fully trained. When they join a regular fighting Wing, the young riders are ready to inhabit weyrs of their own.
To the south is the fenced off area where the Weyr's herds are kept. Along the north rim of the bowl, to the east of here, are the junior queens and weyrleaders weyrs, and the entrance to the Hatching ground. The center of the bowl, off which is the entrance to the large living caverns, stretches out to the southeast.
Summer is getting into full swing and it's a nice clear day at Fort. P'draig's got the weyrlings out this morning doing yet more firestone and flaming practice. Tidy mounds of stone have just been sorted and a couple of the assistants have taken off upward into the air with armfuls of ropes dusted in colored chalk. "Good job on the sorting," P'draig states to the group clustered around. "Now split up into groups of three and tell me when you're ready, today we're going to take what we've been working on up into the air and flame some actual ropes. We'll be taking things slow at first, one group of three up at a time and keep yourselves spaced by two wingspans at all times. They'll drop rope down on you and you get to flame it. Pay attention to where you are in the air and /don't flame/ if you see /any/ of your wingmates come across your path. Also for this exercise, /stay in formation/. Let the rope drop if you can't get it, we'll work on movement a little later when you've all get better flaming control." He takes a breath and grins encouragingly. "Questions? Ready to get up there?"
For once, D'kai doesn't seem like the most eager one in the class to just throw himself up there and get-to. Instead he's having a little tete-a-tete with Mikhuth, pressing his head against the bronze's and muttering something low to empahize what seems to be an ongoing conversation between the two. Finally, he straightens, and glances about for two others: little Ph'lyp sticks close by Deke's side, but the two boys seems vaguely surprised as Neala joins them, too. "Hey, 'La," Deke greets, as the trio retrieve their firestone sacks and mount. "Ready, guys?" To each at his side, D'kai in the middle, the boy grins, and then nods to P'draig at the mostly hesitant response he garners from the two others.
P'draig waits until those trios have formed up, he too looks surprised by Neala's choice and Saryan? Well there's no describing the look on /her/ face. She flounces off to pair with G'ben and Z'eren, giving both lads equally fake and saccharine smiles. "All right then, first up?" P'draig calls for volunteers and squints upward, likely conveying the signal to get ready to the assistants circling above.
Neala has the belated decency to shoot Saryan an apologetic look, and she mumbles in a 'don't-look-too-much-into-it' sort of way under her breath to her wing partners (both who leaned out, a little incredulously, to look at her), "I can't just be flying with her all the time, can I? What if we're tapped into different wings?" D'kai shrugs, grins, "Glad to have you, then," and then looks between the girl and Ph'lyp, who seems near shaking in his boots. Deke sits forward, lifting his hand. "We'll do it, P'draig -" despite an indignant little squeak from Ph'lyp, who clutches tighter at Daizath's neck, "- Won't we?" Surprising, Neala agrees, hesitantly as it is. "Sure. We'll - we'll do it."
"Absolutely," P'draig says approvingly to Neala and shoots Saryan a quelling look that then turns to a sympathetic smile. The surprise volunteers earn a nod from the Weyrlingmaster. "All right then, D'kai, want to play wingleader for this exercise?" he offers, since the bronze Weyrling seems to be doing a decent job of holding the other two together already. "And Ph'lyp, take a few deep breaths and try to focus, okay?" Paddy closes the gap between himself and the nervous weyrling and has a few quiet additional words with the lad. It might be that Jekzith's touching minds with Daizath too, then the Weyrlingmaster steps back. "All right, form up in that basic triangle formation, leader in front, wingriders on the sides, and keep your spacing! Off you go."
Play wingleader? "Me? Cool." The tall lad nods agreement, and waits for P'draig to finish speaking with Ph'lyp who, as the Weyrlingmaster moves away, at least has a shaky smile for his two 'wingmates'. Daizath rumbles encouragingly, to both clutchmate and lifemate, and steps back as Twilith does, too, leaving a rather pleased-looking D'kai and Mikhuth forming the point of the triangle. "Spacing," he repeats to the other two, as much for himself as them, and then at P'draig's command (and maybe a mental of Mikhuth's, too) the three launch quite neatly into the air. Daizath wobbles a bit as they climb higher, and Neala's forced to call something to D'kai so that in his efforts to avoid the little green he doesn't collide with her, too, but after a moment the trio manage to set things straight.
There's nods of encouragement again from P'draig for each of the Weyrlings as he waits for them to mount up and head up into the sky. Jekzith takes off , marking their path upward. << Steady, steady! >> he tells them and visualizes the proper spacing. << Now P'draig says to take stone and be ready to flame! >> A few minutes later, the assitants start off-loading the first sacks of rope.
At the command, all three bend to pass firestone down to their lifemates. Little Ph'lyp has to ask Daizath to please curve her neck around as he can't quite reach out that far, and even D'kai has to flatten himself against Mikhuth's neck to manage to pass the lumps of 'stone to Mickey's waiting mouth. It's not graceful, but it'll work, and soon enough all three dragons have stoked their furnaces and craned their heads up to see the ropes tumbling towards them. As they near, they start flaming - not doing too badly until Mikhuth, the largest by far of all three, automatically banks his wings to avoid a clump of chalky rope, nearly colliding with Twilith while D'kai thumps the bronze and shouts, "Mickey! Formation! Formation!" Meanwhile, little Daizath is doing quite well, charring the nearby falling ropes with fair success, though she and Ph'lyp seem to have overlooked the near-miss entirely and drift in the other direction.
On the ground, P'draig's watching closely, arms folded, waiting to see what happens. There might be some tension in his shoulders as that near collision takes place. << Let it hit you if you're going to go out of formation. >> Jekzith reminds. Saryan has her hans up over her mouth, eyes wide as she watches Neala and Twilith. << One more round of ropes, coming. >>
Mikhuth waggles his wings, bringing him back to his original position. Surprisingly, it's Neala who calls for Ph'lyp to return, and the green-riding weyrling startles to find himself drifted so far beyond the others. Daizath wings her way back as Twilith and Mikhuth set to laying waste to the last round of ropes, and the green manages to get one last good burst of flame in, charring a falling red rope, before that's the last of it and the trio are turning to make their way back ground-ward. For once, Mikhuth's landing is decent, the bronze's head drooping meekly as D'kai slides down from his neck. Neala's quite pleased, and she flashes Saryan a thumbs-up as she shakes out her hair; Ph'lyp, despite his initial hesitance, seems to have regained his ground, and nods, even laughing a bit. "For a first time, Weyrlingmaster," D'kai smiles mildly, "That wasn't too terrible." Was it?
P'draig breathes a sigh of relief as they land and walks over. "Not too bad, guys. We'll work on not missing clumps next time. And technically D'kai, you got scored," Paddy notes, flicking at chalk dust. "But not bad at all for a first go. All right, you lot go get cleaned up. Next group into the air!"
Mikhuth waggles his wings, bringing him back to his original position. Surprisingly, it's Neala who calls for Ph'lyp to return, and the green-riding weyrling startles to find himself drifted so far beyond the others. Daizath wings her way back as Twilith and Mikhuth set to laying waste to the last round of ropes, and the green manages to get one last good burst of flame in, charring a falling red rope, before that's the last of it and the trio are turning to make their way back ground-ward. For once, Mikhuth's landing is decent, the bronze's head drooping meekly as D'kai slides down from his neck. Neala's quite pleased, and she flashes Saryan a thumbs-up as she shakes out her hair; Ph'lyp, despite his initial hesitance, seems to have regained his ground, and nods, even laughing a bit. "For a first time, Weyrlingmaster," D'kai smiles mildly, "That wasn't too terrible." Was it?
P'draig breathes a sigh of relief as they land and walks over. "Not too bad, guys. We'll work on not missing clumps next time. And technically D'kai, you got scored," Paddy notes, flicking at chalk dust. "But not bad at all for a first go. All right, you lot go get cleaned up. Next group into the air!"
"Technically," D'kai nods. "I know. But! you said not to go for something if we had to break formation. Not that we did that so well, either." The lad chuckles, ruefully, wiping his hand at a chalky green streak on Mikhuth's hide. "Okay! Now we know for next time, right, Mickey?" The bronze rumbles, plopping his haunches down to the ground, head already steered up and away as he passively observes the other trios preparing for /their/ attempts.
"Keeping in formation is important this early on because you guys are still learning flaming control. But we /will/ move on to dealing with that later," P'draig tells D'kai. "Hopefully this gives you an idea though of what it's like to be up there, to have to deal with stuff falling at you. Of course, rope doesn't hurt like Thread does." And solemnly, Paddy rolls up one sleeve to show the faint scar of an old score. "Anyway. With Thread out of the picture, hopefully for good, you shouldn't have to worry about actual scores. Just learning to dodge right to teach the next generation and the next for when it's back."
"Right. Not just pretend-Thread to worry about, but... each other, too." D'kai cranes his head about to peer at Neala and Twilith, and then Ph'lyp and Daizath, thoughtfully. "Oh, it did, sir. It's pretty - harrowing." This last word trails off as P'draig rolls up his sleeve, and both D'kai and Mikhuth lean in to examine the scoring, the former shaking his head - in commiseration? empathy? "I'm almost glad we won't have to see it - but it is our duty to be able to pass it down to people who /will/. Right?" This seems to be a strange concept to the boy, and he simply 'huhs' in thought, falling silent and leaning back against his lifemate's chest.
"That's exactly it, D'kai," P"draig says with a nod. "And shells, I hope you don't have to see it, I really do. I didn't expect to myself. I Impressed right at the start of the Interval. Thought we were free and clear, heh." Paddy's grin shades wry and then he looks away, watching the next trio to lift off. G'ben, Saryan and Z'eren, though Saryan's shaking in her boots and looks like she's going to hurl any minute.
A'riste, looking on from his trio, isn't quite shaking. He's just watching, pale and wide-eyed as he always is before such new things, and his grip on his riding-straps is tight, but there's no shaking and there's no whining; he's lifted his chin resolutely and waits with his 'wingmates': /Failure/ is the enemy here, not ropes.
There's a few tense moments for the trio in the air and halfway through their turn, there's a collision, though thankfully no burns. Falstath bugles as Sayarith and Vrusith tangle and start to drop. << Falstath, stay! >> is Jekzith's prompt command and the older brown shifts in to bolster smaller Sayarith until Vrusith works free and wings beat to loft her up again. "Down!" P'draig calls out, echoed by the brown. << Down to the ground! >> And the second trio all land looking rattled and pale and covered in chalk dust from several missed ropes. "Okay - go sit over there and shake it off," P'draig tells them. "This is why it's important to stay in formation. If you botch it again, there'll be laps to run," he warns then signals the next trio to get into place and take off.
Bracketed by the largest and the smallest of the blues (and their riders, the largest and the smallest of the weyrlings!), the last trio launches itself into the sky. A'riste's lips move slightly, as if he were repeating something -- but only a few words -- over and over. "/Stay in formation./" A'rit begins to veer off before he should, but a sharp rumble from Valioth brings him back. There is great concentration on A'riste's face, and on those of his companions-- having watched the others, and restrained by the watchful bronze, they cautiously sweep through the ropes, flaming what they might hit and leaving the rest to fall beyond them, or to strike hide. Flame! And a yellow rope is seared. Flame! And a red one is incinerated. But A'riste's composure is frayed when a green rope unexpectedly smacks against his arm, and he shrieks in surprise; Valioth falters, and a blue rope hits his nose! With an irate roar, he shakes it off and flames it, too!
<< Just let the ropes hit or fall, >> Jekzith reminds, voice steady to the weyrling dragons and on the ground, P'draig is looking upward once more, eyes on the movement of this last trio. The assistants keep sweeping back and forth dropping a curtain of rope. And the Weyrlingmaster's voice murmurs the same mantra on the ground: "Stay in formation ... stay in formation."
Which doesn't, despite the mini-wing's momentary distraction. The other two begin to falter at the shout, but Valioth snaps, his voice colored with A'riste's own sharp tones, << Riders scream in Fall! Would you look over then? >> and the formation holds. They do better this time, searing at that Threadlike rope with reasonable efficiency until they complete their sweep.
Again relief from P'draig as the trio head to the ground with Jekzith coasting alongside. "Well that's two that did well," he says encouragingly, then waves to the trio of Saryan, G'ben and Z'enar. "Up again and make it smooth this time," he tells them. There's obvious reluctance among them to hop up again, though Z'enar looks more stoic than the other two. Paddy walks over to greet the returning trio while the others prepare to lift off again.
A'riste looks the other two over, who seem a little stunned but then proud; he himself eyes every last paintmark critically and turns to face P'draig with a very red face and a lifted chin. Valioth stands stoically, like some silent guardian, and moves not at all.
"Nice work pulling together," P'draig tells A'riste's group. "Being a dragonrider's really all about teamwork," he continues, "and working together. Some of you got marked up and if that had been real Thread you'd be hurt or worse, so keep that in mind as we keep on with the training and start doing more work in the air." He nods to the three then looks up to watch a much smoother go from G'ben's trio and ten all Weyrlings are back down on the ground. "Okay, hopefully everyone learned something important about staying in formation and how /easy/ it can be to get 'scored in a real Fall if you're not able to be mobile. So we'll keep working on flaming control and step up rope flaming over the next few weeks until you're all comfortable in the air and able to dodge those clumps. Being able to go Between will help with some of that too, but there's still some visual work everyone needs to do before we try those first jumps. Good job today everyone, go clean up and get some lunch! Dismissed!"
When: 9:07 on day 21, month 6, Turn 17, of the Interval.
Where: Fort Weyr Bowl, by the weyrling barracks
What: A group of Weyrlings get up into the air to flame some ropes out of the sky.
Fort Weyr Bowl, by the weyrling barracks
The Bowl of Fort Weyr, a large, nearly featureless plain surrounded by steep mountain cliffs, stretches out before you. It is vaguely oval in shape, long from the southwest to the northeast; you are standing near the wall northwest of its center. To the west is a cavern, carved into the cliffside, where newly-Impressed dragonriders live with their young dragons before they have been fully trained. When they join a regular fighting Wing, the young riders are ready to inhabit weyrs of their own.
To the south is the fenced off area where the Weyr's herds are kept. Along the north rim of the bowl, to the east of here, are the junior queens and weyrleaders weyrs, and the entrance to the Hatching ground. The center of the bowl, off which is the entrance to the large living caverns, stretches out to the southeast.
Summer is getting into full swing and it's a nice clear day at Fort. P'draig's got the weyrlings out this morning doing yet more firestone and flaming practice. Tidy mounds of stone have just been sorted and a couple of the assistants have taken off upward into the air with armfuls of ropes dusted in colored chalk. "Good job on the sorting," P'draig states to the group clustered around. "Now split up into groups of three and tell me when you're ready, today we're going to take what we've been working on up into the air and flame some actual ropes. We'll be taking things slow at first, one group of three up at a time and keep yourselves spaced by two wingspans at all times. They'll drop rope down on you and you get to flame it. Pay attention to where you are in the air and /don't flame/ if you see /any/ of your wingmates come across your path. Also for this exercise, /stay in formation/. Let the rope drop if you can't get it, we'll work on movement a little later when you've all get better flaming control." He takes a breath and grins encouragingly. "Questions? Ready to get up there?"
For once, D'kai doesn't seem like the most eager one in the class to just throw himself up there and get-to. Instead he's having a little tete-a-tete with Mikhuth, pressing his head against the bronze's and muttering something low to empahize what seems to be an ongoing conversation between the two. Finally, he straightens, and glances about for two others: little Ph'lyp sticks close by Deke's side, but the two boys seems vaguely surprised as Neala joins them, too. "Hey, 'La," Deke greets, as the trio retrieve their firestone sacks and mount. "Ready, guys?" To each at his side, D'kai in the middle, the boy grins, and then nods to P'draig at the mostly hesitant response he garners from the two others.
P'draig waits until those trios have formed up, he too looks surprised by Neala's choice and Saryan? Well there's no describing the look on /her/ face. She flounces off to pair with G'ben and Z'eren, giving both lads equally fake and saccharine smiles. "All right then, first up?" P'draig calls for volunteers and squints upward, likely conveying the signal to get ready to the assistants circling above.
Neala has the belated decency to shoot Saryan an apologetic look, and she mumbles in a 'don't-look-too-much-into-it' sort of way under her breath to her wing partners (both who leaned out, a little incredulously, to look at her), "I can't just be flying with her all the time, can I? What if we're tapped into different wings?" D'kai shrugs, grins, "Glad to have you, then," and then looks between the girl and Ph'lyp, who seems near shaking in his boots. Deke sits forward, lifting his hand. "We'll do it, P'draig -" despite an indignant little squeak from Ph'lyp, who clutches tighter at Daizath's neck, "- Won't we?" Surprising, Neala agrees, hesitantly as it is. "Sure. We'll - we'll do it."
"Absolutely," P'draig says approvingly to Neala and shoots Saryan a quelling look that then turns to a sympathetic smile. The surprise volunteers earn a nod from the Weyrlingmaster. "All right then, D'kai, want to play wingleader for this exercise?" he offers, since the bronze Weyrling seems to be doing a decent job of holding the other two together already. "And Ph'lyp, take a few deep breaths and try to focus, okay?" Paddy closes the gap between himself and the nervous weyrling and has a few quiet additional words with the lad. It might be that Jekzith's touching minds with Daizath too, then the Weyrlingmaster steps back. "All right, form up in that basic triangle formation, leader in front, wingriders on the sides, and keep your spacing! Off you go."
Play wingleader? "Me? Cool." The tall lad nods agreement, and waits for P'draig to finish speaking with Ph'lyp who, as the Weyrlingmaster moves away, at least has a shaky smile for his two 'wingmates'. Daizath rumbles encouragingly, to both clutchmate and lifemate, and steps back as Twilith does, too, leaving a rather pleased-looking D'kai and Mikhuth forming the point of the triangle. "Spacing," he repeats to the other two, as much for himself as them, and then at P'draig's command (and maybe a mental of Mikhuth's, too) the three launch quite neatly into the air. Daizath wobbles a bit as they climb higher, and Neala's forced to call something to D'kai so that in his efforts to avoid the little green he doesn't collide with her, too, but after a moment the trio manage to set things straight.
There's nods of encouragement again from P'draig for each of the Weyrlings as he waits for them to mount up and head up into the sky. Jekzith takes off , marking their path upward. << Steady, steady! >> he tells them and visualizes the proper spacing. << Now P'draig says to take stone and be ready to flame! >> A few minutes later, the assitants start off-loading the first sacks of rope.
At the command, all three bend to pass firestone down to their lifemates. Little Ph'lyp has to ask Daizath to please curve her neck around as he can't quite reach out that far, and even D'kai has to flatten himself against Mikhuth's neck to manage to pass the lumps of 'stone to Mickey's waiting mouth. It's not graceful, but it'll work, and soon enough all three dragons have stoked their furnaces and craned their heads up to see the ropes tumbling towards them. As they near, they start flaming - not doing too badly until Mikhuth, the largest by far of all three, automatically banks his wings to avoid a clump of chalky rope, nearly colliding with Twilith while D'kai thumps the bronze and shouts, "Mickey! Formation! Formation!" Meanwhile, little Daizath is doing quite well, charring the nearby falling ropes with fair success, though she and Ph'lyp seem to have overlooked the near-miss entirely and drift in the other direction.
On the ground, P'draig's watching closely, arms folded, waiting to see what happens. There might be some tension in his shoulders as that near collision takes place. << Let it hit you if you're going to go out of formation. >> Jekzith reminds. Saryan has her hans up over her mouth, eyes wide as she watches Neala and Twilith. << One more round of ropes, coming. >>
Mikhuth waggles his wings, bringing him back to his original position. Surprisingly, it's Neala who calls for Ph'lyp to return, and the green-riding weyrling startles to find himself drifted so far beyond the others. Daizath wings her way back as Twilith and Mikhuth set to laying waste to the last round of ropes, and the green manages to get one last good burst of flame in, charring a falling red rope, before that's the last of it and the trio are turning to make their way back ground-ward. For once, Mikhuth's landing is decent, the bronze's head drooping meekly as D'kai slides down from his neck. Neala's quite pleased, and she flashes Saryan a thumbs-up as she shakes out her hair; Ph'lyp, despite his initial hesitance, seems to have regained his ground, and nods, even laughing a bit. "For a first time, Weyrlingmaster," D'kai smiles mildly, "That wasn't too terrible." Was it?
P'draig breathes a sigh of relief as they land and walks over. "Not too bad, guys. We'll work on not missing clumps next time. And technically D'kai, you got scored," Paddy notes, flicking at chalk dust. "But not bad at all for a first go. All right, you lot go get cleaned up. Next group into the air!"
Mikhuth waggles his wings, bringing him back to his original position. Surprisingly, it's Neala who calls for Ph'lyp to return, and the green-riding weyrling startles to find himself drifted so far beyond the others. Daizath wings her way back as Twilith and Mikhuth set to laying waste to the last round of ropes, and the green manages to get one last good burst of flame in, charring a falling red rope, before that's the last of it and the trio are turning to make their way back ground-ward. For once, Mikhuth's landing is decent, the bronze's head drooping meekly as D'kai slides down from his neck. Neala's quite pleased, and she flashes Saryan a thumbs-up as she shakes out her hair; Ph'lyp, despite his initial hesitance, seems to have regained his ground, and nods, even laughing a bit. "For a first time, Weyrlingmaster," D'kai smiles mildly, "That wasn't too terrible." Was it?
P'draig breathes a sigh of relief as they land and walks over. "Not too bad, guys. We'll work on not missing clumps next time. And technically D'kai, you got scored," Paddy notes, flicking at chalk dust. "But not bad at all for a first go. All right, you lot go get cleaned up. Next group into the air!"
"Technically," D'kai nods. "I know. But! you said not to go for something if we had to break formation. Not that we did that so well, either." The lad chuckles, ruefully, wiping his hand at a chalky green streak on Mikhuth's hide. "Okay! Now we know for next time, right, Mickey?" The bronze rumbles, plopping his haunches down to the ground, head already steered up and away as he passively observes the other trios preparing for /their/ attempts.
"Keeping in formation is important this early on because you guys are still learning flaming control. But we /will/ move on to dealing with that later," P'draig tells D'kai. "Hopefully this gives you an idea though of what it's like to be up there, to have to deal with stuff falling at you. Of course, rope doesn't hurt like Thread does." And solemnly, Paddy rolls up one sleeve to show the faint scar of an old score. "Anyway. With Thread out of the picture, hopefully for good, you shouldn't have to worry about actual scores. Just learning to dodge right to teach the next generation and the next for when it's back."
"Right. Not just pretend-Thread to worry about, but... each other, too." D'kai cranes his head about to peer at Neala and Twilith, and then Ph'lyp and Daizath, thoughtfully. "Oh, it did, sir. It's pretty - harrowing." This last word trails off as P'draig rolls up his sleeve, and both D'kai and Mikhuth lean in to examine the scoring, the former shaking his head - in commiseration? empathy? "I'm almost glad we won't have to see it - but it is our duty to be able to pass it down to people who /will/. Right?" This seems to be a strange concept to the boy, and he simply 'huhs' in thought, falling silent and leaning back against his lifemate's chest.
"That's exactly it, D'kai," P"draig says with a nod. "And shells, I hope you don't have to see it, I really do. I didn't expect to myself. I Impressed right at the start of the Interval. Thought we were free and clear, heh." Paddy's grin shades wry and then he looks away, watching the next trio to lift off. G'ben, Saryan and Z'eren, though Saryan's shaking in her boots and looks like she's going to hurl any minute.
A'riste, looking on from his trio, isn't quite shaking. He's just watching, pale and wide-eyed as he always is before such new things, and his grip on his riding-straps is tight, but there's no shaking and there's no whining; he's lifted his chin resolutely and waits with his 'wingmates': /Failure/ is the enemy here, not ropes.
There's a few tense moments for the trio in the air and halfway through their turn, there's a collision, though thankfully no burns. Falstath bugles as Sayarith and Vrusith tangle and start to drop. << Falstath, stay! >> is Jekzith's prompt command and the older brown shifts in to bolster smaller Sayarith until Vrusith works free and wings beat to loft her up again. "Down!" P'draig calls out, echoed by the brown. << Down to the ground! >> And the second trio all land looking rattled and pale and covered in chalk dust from several missed ropes. "Okay - go sit over there and shake it off," P'draig tells them. "This is why it's important to stay in formation. If you botch it again, there'll be laps to run," he warns then signals the next trio to get into place and take off.
Bracketed by the largest and the smallest of the blues (and their riders, the largest and the smallest of the weyrlings!), the last trio launches itself into the sky. A'riste's lips move slightly, as if he were repeating something -- but only a few words -- over and over. "/Stay in formation./" A'rit begins to veer off before he should, but a sharp rumble from Valioth brings him back. There is great concentration on A'riste's face, and on those of his companions-- having watched the others, and restrained by the watchful bronze, they cautiously sweep through the ropes, flaming what they might hit and leaving the rest to fall beyond them, or to strike hide. Flame! And a yellow rope is seared. Flame! And a red one is incinerated. But A'riste's composure is frayed when a green rope unexpectedly smacks against his arm, and he shrieks in surprise; Valioth falters, and a blue rope hits his nose! With an irate roar, he shakes it off and flames it, too!
<< Just let the ropes hit or fall, >> Jekzith reminds, voice steady to the weyrling dragons and on the ground, P'draig is looking upward once more, eyes on the movement of this last trio. The assistants keep sweeping back and forth dropping a curtain of rope. And the Weyrlingmaster's voice murmurs the same mantra on the ground: "Stay in formation ... stay in formation."
Which doesn't, despite the mini-wing's momentary distraction. The other two begin to falter at the shout, but Valioth snaps, his voice colored with A'riste's own sharp tones, << Riders scream in Fall! Would you look over then? >> and the formation holds. They do better this time, searing at that Threadlike rope with reasonable efficiency until they complete their sweep.
Again relief from P'draig as the trio head to the ground with Jekzith coasting alongside. "Well that's two that did well," he says encouragingly, then waves to the trio of Saryan, G'ben and Z'enar. "Up again and make it smooth this time," he tells them. There's obvious reluctance among them to hop up again, though Z'enar looks more stoic than the other two. Paddy walks over to greet the returning trio while the others prepare to lift off again.
A'riste looks the other two over, who seem a little stunned but then proud; he himself eyes every last paintmark critically and turns to face P'draig with a very red face and a lifted chin. Valioth stands stoically, like some silent guardian, and moves not at all.
"Nice work pulling together," P'draig tells A'riste's group. "Being a dragonrider's really all about teamwork," he continues, "and working together. Some of you got marked up and if that had been real Thread you'd be hurt or worse, so keep that in mind as we keep on with the training and start doing more work in the air." He nods to the three then looks up to watch a much smoother go from G'ben's trio and ten all Weyrlings are back down on the ground. "Okay, hopefully everyone learned something important about staying in formation and how /easy/ it can be to get 'scored in a real Fall if you're not able to be mobile. So we'll keep working on flaming control and step up rope flaming over the next few weeks until you're all comfortable in the air and able to dodge those clumps. Being able to go Between will help with some of that too, but there's still some visual work everyone needs to do before we try those first jumps. Good job today everyone, go clean up and get some lunch! Dismissed!"