Log: In which poor, poor Taikrin is abused
Date: Early afternoon, day 13, month 9, turn 26 of Interval 10
Summary: Taikrin was only trying to scope out the newest goldrider, honest. Yet somehow, it ends in violence. Why does it always end in violence?
NorCon MUSH - 9/6/2011
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Lake Shore, High Reaches Weyr(#276RJs)
The rest of the bowl may be barren, grass barely surviving at best, but here by the lake, it's brilliantly green in the warmer months: thickening and thriving in the silty, boulder-dotted soil just before it transitions to soft sand and thence to the cool, clear water itself.
A large freshwater lake fed by a low waterfall, it not only provides warm-weather bathing space for humans and dragons, but has one end fenced off as a watering hole for the livestock in the feeding grounds. The water there is often muddier than the rest of the clear lake, whose shallows drop off abruptly several yards out into deep water, and whose edge undulates against the coarse-hewn bowl wall: here close enough to just be bramble-covered rocks, there far enough away that a narrow land bridge divides the main lake from a smallish pond. Between are several rocky outcroppings that form excellent makeshift diving points, though only one -- across the bridge -- has a set of narrow, slippery, quite possibly tempting stairs.
A layer of patch clouds covers the sky. The air feels cool and damp, but there is no rainfall today.
Contents:
Szadath(#1824Qabe$0)
Iolene
Obvious exits:
Diving Cliff Lake [Gardens] Bowl [Far End of Lake] [Sky]
It is an autumn afternoon, 12:47 of day 13, month 9, turn 26 of Interval 10.
Ysavaeth has arrived.
Dragons keep growing. Riders, who don't actually ride just yet, keep learning. Well, in theory at any rate. /Today/, Iolene's been somehow granted a respite from her constant lessons. Maybe the harper's given up and needs a break himself from trying to drill history and memorization of leaders and facts into a stubborn girl's head. Maybe she's just lucky. Maybe she's actually skipping. Does it matter? The end result is Iolene standing at the lake shore, underneath that ginormous cloud that refuses to put out, skipping stones with a just barely interested Ysavaeth watching. << How come that one skipped twice? >> "Because I'm not good at this." << You got it to skip five times once. >> "Just lucky, I guess."
Rest days must be going around. Szadath and Taikrin have been scarce lately, especially when it comes to weyrlings; word might or might not have gone around about their corrupting influence. But the pair are out and about today, spiraling down at speed towards the water. At the last minute, the brown's wings furl in and he crashes into the water with tsunami force, heralded by Taikrin's wild laughter. Almost belatedly, he calls in overly loud echoing tones just as he hits the water, << CLEAR WAY! LOOK OUT BELOW! >>
The warning comes too late. But dragons (and people) were given eyes (and ears) for a reason, so who can really miss the speedily spiraling brown, or the heralding laughter of a crazy woman? It's here that Ysaveath establishes herself as the smarter of the pair, for while Iolene looks up, eyes shaded by the curve of her hand, to watch what this brown and rider will do, the gold dragon takes four rather large steps back. Of course this means a sputtering Io gets drenched and the bells of Ysavaeth's mind peal into a ringing, all-encompassing laughter. Whatever expletives Io might be thinking privately, Ysa's response is all too public, indolent and entirely unsympathetic, << You /were/ watching. You knew what would happen. >>
Taikrin's, "Sorry!" is totally unrepentant; she really /does/ look like a crazy person as she dangles off Szadath's side and, once the brown has reached a good wading point, drops off into the water. She's grinning like a fool, and has a couple of colorful bruises marring her cheekbone and bare arms. << Impressed, little queen? >> Szadath certainly is; impressed with himself, that is. His mental voice booms, swelling with his own sense of self-importance. "Y'alright there, kid? Ain't drownin', are ya?" At least Taikrin is making an effort to be charming. Sort of. In her own special way.
Ysavaeth dismisses the designation as little with an upward draw of her -little-in-comparison- limbs; her neck for starters. A decidedly regal slant tilts her head away from Szadath's loftily. But what she might do and what she might say or convey are two different beasts. She's certainly in a good humor with a curious, << Were you aiming to impress? Or is that just a lucky consequence of your prowess? >>, that doesn't really /seem/ to be mocking. It doesn't, really. Given Ysavaeth isn't having a herdbeast over her rider, or going off into between without knowing how, Iolene is likely ok, despite the bent over sputtering she continues to do to spit out the cascades of water that flew into her gaping mouth. Cough. "I'm fine. I'm fine. Really. I'm fine."
<< Just tends to happen. I'm good at what I do. >> Szadath isn't even pretending to false modesty, at this point. He lunges up onto the shallows, then sprawls out bonelessly to get a better angle on the little weyrling gold. << So. What do you do? Do you fly? Or are you too little? >> His tail flicks back and forth in the water, creating little ripples over which he projects an image of a golden dragon-fish riding the tides. << Maybe you swim? >> His rider, meanwhile, splashes over towards Iolene's side to offer a hearty back-slap. She's helping, really! "Thought all you island-types knew how to swim like shipfish or somethin'!" There's laughter in her husky voice, layered under the false concern.
The months have been taxing, between culture shock and then brain shock, and Taikrin's hearty back-slap doesn't seem to do much for Iolene other than it helps her let out one last sputter and chokes out the remnant water left in her throat. Other than that? When the girl can finally right herself, sharp blue eyes are pointed down at the shorter woman in the shallows. With her moment of quiet broken, what does she have to lose? Particularly when those narrowed eyes finally recognize Taikrin; for who and possibly what (if rumors are to be believed) she is. "Is that a challenge? Do you want to swim with me and see just how well an islander can swim?" Sitting queenly is something Ysavaeth is getting to be quite good at, her little limbs arranged /just so/ with her neck held /just so/, as she awaits for dragonkind to pay court. Sitting asolutely still is also a skill of hers, and a glance down that takes in Szadath in the waters is an unintentional mimic of her rider's own movements. << We will learn to fly, >> is diplomatic enough and doesn't quite convey the indigination that /she/ is being held back. After a beat. << I swim. >> But not with you. Not yet. It hints of watching to see what he's like first, how magnificent he can be in the water and if he can actually impress her enough to make it worth her time.
Taikrin is cheerily, willfully oblivious to whatever looks Iolene might be giving her; she'll just smile her lopsided grin and carry on as if the weyrling were suitably impressed by their prowess. "Nah, I ain't into swimming so much. Leave that to you sorts. I'd rather just watch, me." Beat. "So you're sayin' you /are/ good at it, yeah?" There's no obvious care taken at all to the way Szadath sprawls, though the fact that his broad sails are nearly at full spread as he floats them over the water might just be deliberate. << You are very small, still, >> Szadath allows. His poking is quintesentially unsubtle; indeed, the brown doesn't seem to have a subtle bone in his body. Likewise, subtlety is lost on him. He either ignores or doesn't notice the challenge inherent in Ysavaeth's retort. << Swimming is good to practice maneuvers in the air, you know. >> A quick flash: tiny golden dragon-fish barrel-rolling in water, then sprouting wings to repeat the same in mid-air. << Do you practice? You'll have to practice to be as good as Iskiveth. >> A brief shower of sparks marks his mental impression of her, their heat a startling contrast to his otherwise icy touch.
Ysavaeth takes this all in stride, recognizing that her brand of language doesn't make the impression she intends on the brown. Just as well he mentions another queen's name and suddenly the curiosity favored Szadath is magnified. Can she take someone else's toy? Does she want to? It all boils down to time and worth, so in the mean time, she'll sit and watch with fascination whirling gently in those ever-blue eyes. << What would I need to roll like that for? Why does Iskiveth do such things? >> Curious and curiouser. Iolene's little bubble bursts; the outlet she might crave without knowing finding a brick wall and the blonde's thin shoulders slump. "Yes. I am. Most of us are. We kind of have to be." But enough about her, slumping only lasts so long before a sidelong glance looks to Taikrin, past the wet hair that clings to her forehead and cheeks. "You're Riorde's friend."
<< Well, if you were in a battle it would be useful. >> Szadath is very vague on what a dragon might be battling; it doesn't matter, really. << You can get flame in a lot of directions that way. Well. Iskiveth doesn't flame. I flame for her. >> Smug, again, as if this were his primary calling in life -- and one that he's unabashedly good at. "Riorde's friend," Taikrin echoes, wryly. "Sure, yeah. That's what she call it?" The brownrider turns to look down the shore, shading her eyes as if that might will Riorde into being. "How she doin' down in there? Alright? Sforzath ain't given her problems?" For just a moment, Taikrin has forgotten that she's putting on a show and seems to be geniunely interested in the brown weyrling's wellbeing.
<< Sforzath is well, >> Ysavaeth answers for Iolene, to a question that wasn't even posed to her. But what's Iolene is hers, though not apparently vice versa, as the girl also answers, "Sforzath is doing ok, I think. I- I haven't had the chance to speak to Riorde much outside of classes. We're both required to take your history classes." Ysavaeth's little queenly perch slowly disintegrates; a two month old only having so much willpower to hold still for so long. Long and lean, the little queen wends her way down closer to the lake where Szadath is and noses at the water, first to watch the ripple radiate and then up, in a child's delight to the big big brown. << Why doesn't Iskiveth flame? >> "Riorde's friend. You're the one we got into a fight about that day."
<< Queens don't flame. That's why they have to have mates, so that the mates can flame for them, and win battles, and find treasure. >> Hatchlings are just a convenient side-effect of that whole process, really. "Ugh. I don't miss those. Felt like I was doin' nothin' but learning for, like, /months/." Taikrin's face scrunches up into a moue of distaste. "Had to do all kinds of crap until they'd let us get to the good stuff. I mean, if I need to know who was the Weyrleader at Telgar twenty turns ago, I'll just go ask Teris. Y'know?" There's a beat as something dawns on her, but she doesn't have a chance to pursue it because there's talk about fighting and-- "Wait, what? What d'you mean, fight /about/ me?"
<< Battles? >> Ysavaeth absorbs everything Szadath teaches. << What kind of battles? What kind of treasure? Are you Iskiveth's mate? >> In the last, way past the curiosity lies an undercurrent of uncertainty. A brown, a gold's mate? "What does any of it matter when they can-," Iolene's rant of the month gets cut short with Taikrin's sudden inquiry, which is initially greeted by two very slow blinks. "Yes? You didn't know? You didn't hear? The reason we were banned from the sands was you. Rhaelyn baited Riorde about being disgusting with- you." Iolene might not have had names /then/, but living at the Weyr this long and with Riorde as a friend? It doesn't leave you ignorant for too long. "And they fought and we hurt an egg and Rhaelyn has-," the blonde can't complete the thought and just dismisses the entire incident with a shake of her head. Instead, bluntly: "Do you like her? Is she just a game to you? Or do you really like her?"
<< Important ones. Over shiny treasure. >> Gold, jewels, gaudy things. The images he sends are vague, more imagination than the ever-fallable draconic memory. << Of course I'm her mate. >> Szadath is certain in this one thing, though -- it's a truth around which he orbits, at least for now. << I'm the best. >> Not just any brown. /Szadath/. It really says something about Taikrin that she's not horrified by this revelation; rather, she's an odd mix of amused and bemused. "Didn't quite realize I was so... involved. Ain't ever really got a clear story about what happened, an' I didn't really want to /push/ her about it, and-- the shells kind of a question is that, anyways?" There's a clear none-of-your-business, back-off note in her voice. "What d'you mean, a game? You sweet on her or something'?"
"No. But she's my friend and-," Iolene doesn't drop her gaze from Taikrin. Those big, dark blue eyes fix onto the brownrider, determined not to deviate even if threatened. Taikrin /is/ shorter than her, as the quick flicker of lashes down and up assesses, but Io's gotten so skinny in the last half year. Still. Must. Hold. Ground. "She wasn't interested in girls until you showed up and now you've made her all confused and," foot stomp, arms akimbo, "Do you like her or not? How is this so hard for you to just say yes or no to?" Bemused, Ysavaeth's neck turns back sharply to watch Iolene put her very not so intimidating foot down an a little mental sigh whooshes over to Szadath, unfiltered. Then, a careless agreement, << Of course you're her mate. >> One queen who lets browns fly her marked down as insignificant, two more to go.
It's probably for the best of all involved that Szadath doesn't pick up on Ysavaeth's dismissal of Iskiveth; the last thing any of them probably want is an angry gold coming to put the smack down. Instead, << One day we will be in charge, you know. Because we're the best. >> It's not that Taikrin likes or doesn't like Riorde; it's that she refuses to get backed into a corner. Any corner. She evades huffily, levelling a glower at the weyrling. "On account of how it ain't any of your business! Reckon you don't know your friend near as well as you think if you reckon she just started likin' other girls, though. Maybe you ought to be askin' /her/."
"Don't say that! I know Riorde better than you ever will." Iolene trying to pick a fight might be the funniest thing in the world. Rebuffed in her prior attempt at letting off steam, a hand flies up in the air, fingers curled into a fist and flies forward. What is it about Taikrin that incites people to punch or throw down and grope? Ysavaeth, having only paid half a mind to her rider's conversation by this point, turns and just stares, for once, completely boggled.
So startled by this sudden turn, Taikrin very nearly lets that fist collide with something squishy. At the last second, she ducks to the side and grapples with Iolene. Her arms go around the slender weyrling like two iron bands, seeking to hold and quell as opposed to cause any actual pain. "The shells you playin' at, girl? Lookin' to get yourself killed?!" Szadath? has seen this happen before, whether or not he actually remembers it. He looks on the action with mild interest, then remarks to Ysavaeth, << Yours needs more practice. Her form is sloppy. >>
<< Agreed. And yours will teach her. >> Capitulation and directives all in one. << As her other instructor has disappeared. >> Finding her hands ineffectual, Iolene kicks her feet instead. "Let me go. /Let me go/! I'm tired of people telling me what I know and don't know. Let. Me. Go!" Aimlessly kicking feet stop for just a moment, long enough for her to try and get her bearings again, and one (sadly) bare foot bucks backwards towards Taikrin's knee.
"Soon as you calm the flaming shells down!" Taikrin moves backwards with Iolene a few paces, absorbing the force of most of her wriggling. "Didn't know they were lettin' /crazy people/ impress dragons nowadays-- enough!" She bellows the last of it as the foot makes glancing contact with one knee; down she goes, but she's determined to bring Iolene with her and, if she can manage, use her own bulk to get atop the slighter girl and press her against the ground. << She might, >> Szadath agrees amiably. << We're very good at fighting. >> There's just a flicker of an image, teased and then withdrawn: his rider, grappling with a taller man, while a circle of blurred faces cheers.
With Taikrin felled by her backwards kick, it should totally be easy to scramble away. But it's not and not having counted on the woman to hold onto her so damn tight, Iolene falls too. It's in that stunned moment where she finds herself on the ground that Taikrin might see the opportunity to scramble atop, and lying there, prone with a brownrider on top of you might be on some people's bucket lists, but certainly not on Iolene's. << That was a little anti-climactic. >> Is she disappointed? Perhaps. "I'm not crazy," is Iolene's suddenly far less fervent retort. "/I'm/ not a criminal."
That little jab provokes a response that's not just disbelief: Taikrin establishes her dominance by consolidating her grip on Iolene's arms and giving a squeeze that probably borders on painful. "Watch it, kid. I'm gonna let that pass on account of you bein' a weyrling and a goldrider and a shardin' little kid, but you only get /one/ pass." She masters control of her ragged breathing, and scowls down at Iolene. "Now you gonna tell me what the shells is your problem, or am I gonna get one of the weyrwomen to straighten you out?" Szadath rumbles at Ysavaeth, then sets his head down on the sand; he really doesn't seem very interested. << It usually is. >>
If it's painful, Iolene isn't letting Taikrin in on that secret, though the sudden rigid control of her face might be all the answers the older woman needs. "My problem," Iolene elucidates, a series of jerks her attempt at struggling out from beneath Taikrin, "Is you. I asked you a simple question. You act like I don't know a person I grew up with. Knew. Like you know her better than us? You're just one of them. And I don't need your weyrwomen to set me straight. Tiriana's already told me what I'm worth to her or this Weyr." Of course Szadath can be uninterested, it's not his rider pinned beneath a known criminal, though all Ysavaeth can glean of what that particular word means, other than bad, is a jumble of mixed emotions and the uncertainty of Iolene's own head. But he's putting his head down, and so shall she, even though it's not onto the ground, but rather rested lightly atop Szadath's own head, perched there, so she might continue to gaze and keep tabs on the riders.
Riorde heads in from the bowl.
Riorde has arrived.
Sforzath has arrived.
"What's this us and them crap, anyways? Just 'cause you grew up somewhere altogether, nobody can ever understand y'all? Guess what, other people're from isolated places, and we ain't got a thing about it. Boo hoo, it's so hard for you." Taikrin's expression darkens further, and the mocking note in her voice is not in the least bit kind. "I reckon I'm sleepin' with her, and I /do/ know her pretty shardin' good. Know all /kinds/ of stuff about her you don't, like how--" She drops down, lowering her head to mutter huskily, "-- if I'm bitin' her here, she makes the cutest little noises." Her gaze is hard as she pulls back to hover right over Iolene's. "You got me? We got your questions answered, little goldrider?" Szadath is totally cool with being used as a baby-gold's pillow. It just makes sense.
She's seventeen. She grew up too fast just trying to survive. So her emo, the world hates me phase has come a few turns too late. While she might have gotten too skinny in the last few months, weight loss certainly hasn't affected her lungs, as she yells, "/No one ever told you you're a fucking/ FLUKE just because you came from isolated places." The heat has returned to Iolene's voice and her struggles to buck Taikrin off become all the more enraged, particularly when the brownrider leans in and shares Riorde's bedroom habits. How is it that even angry, crying, and mad all over, Io still comes off as a harmless kitten? Right, it's cause she's still pinned under Taikrin.
The way Sforzath and Riorde come hurtling towards the lake, it's practically as if they're drawn the mayhem like moths to the flame -- that, or they just have impeccable timing. Riorde's racing Sforzath, and he's clearly winning, putting increasing distance between himself and his dark-haired weyrling. He's on course to barrel into Iolene and Taikrin or perhaps leap over them, but at the last instant tacks to the side and passes them by with no more harm done than a shower of pebbly mud. Riorde's awareness is belated, focused as she is on her dragon and her race, and the shout of warning comes out as a burst of isolated sound. She stops still a few lengths off as Sforzath clears out of her line of eyesight, at which point the figures on the ground crystallize into distinct people, Iolene and Taikrin. Riorde gulps in a breath of air, then charges over with a more intelligible yell. "What the hell!" There's no telling exactly how much she heard.
Taikrin laughs, but it's not a particularly kind sound. She rides out the bucking, more or less, but she's not particularly seeking to cause pain anymore. Just to, well, hold her there. For her own good. "You're an idiot, kid, sayin' that to me. I been told all /kinds/ of things, what'd make your poor little girl ears shrivel right up. So don't you talk to me, kid, 'bout life bein' unfair. /Goldrider/. /Now/---" She grinds her hips down, hard, over Iolene's to emphasize her statement. "You got all this crap outta your system, yet?" Because oh look, it's raining, and the already-damp Taikrin is starting to drip all over . "Or we gonna go a couple more times?" And then-- oh look, deer in the headlights. "... Riorde?"
It's raining. There's dirt. That means the more Iolene struggles, the muddier she gets, and the second, the /second/ Taikrin gets distracted by Riorde's arrival (an entrance the blonde doesn't even pay one attention to, seething as she is at Taikrin), Io's fist wrenches free to try and aim at the brownrider's jaw again. Here lies Iolene, she had a death wish.
Well, there's one more bruise to add to Taikrin's already-colorful collection; it's going to look like she's painted in motley come morning. It must be more surprise than actual force that knocks her off Iolene to sprawl ingloriously in the mud. That's what she gets for staring at Riorde like an idiot! Szadath rouses somewhat, surprise coloring his mind. << Huh. >> Then, << She does have a weak spot for the cute ones. >>
Riorde upgrades. "What the /fuck/ are you two doing?" Her hair's come undone in her run, tie lost somewhere back behind her, so that her hair settles down around her shoulders in wet ropes of mingled rain and sweat. Riorde, more one for action than for words, doesn't wait for explanations; she storms over to try to haul Taikrin off Iolene, though the other weyrling's punch gets to the brownrider first. Sforzath swirls around in the shallows, at first victorious that he's won the race and then bewildered when he realises Riorde isn't immediately joining him.
For a little girl, Iolene's thrown punch isn't all that weak. She did, after all, have muscles at one point. It just means tomorrow, she's going to be aching with pulled muscles galore. Heck, forget tomorrow, later tonight. Successful in finally getting Taikrin off her, there's that definite pull to her shoulders, where the girl is looking for more. More punches. More blood. More something and an instinctive foot brings her forward. She could climb on top of Taikrin herself and start wailing on her. But something stops her short, and by something, we mean Ysavaeth. Uncurling herself from near Szadath and lifting that warm little gold-chinned hat she was providing for him for a while, Ysavaeth trots forward, tail a'swishing and glances it across Io's legs. A warning if you will, that takes the wind out of the weyrling's anger. But only just. "So... so /there/!" Ineffectual and immature to boot, Iolene storms off after her dragon without even one last kick for Taikrin. Ysavaeth is that effective.
Poor Taikrin. It's really, /really/ not her day. All she wanted to do was check out the new goldrider; who knew she was a headcase? She groans, rubbing her muddy jaw, and flops over onto her back to try and dash some of the filth from her eyes. The only time Szadath twitches is when it looks like Iolene is going in for seconds; Taikrin likewise stiffens in anticipation of a real assault, but goes flat and floppy again when Iolene storms off. Eloquently, and with much extra moving of her jaw as she tries out the new sore spot, "/Fuck me/."
With fortunes reversed, Riorde finds herself reaching towards the young goldrider instead, but then there's no need, really, and her hands fall ineffectually to her sides. Where another girl would gape, Riorde instead looks a little wide-eyed, gaze travelling rapidly from one to the other. She stays where she is when Iolene storms away, but even towering over Taikrin it's clear where her priorities are, since she calls out, "Io!" Or maybe it's mixed priorities, since she stays.
Blearly, through the raindrops pelting down on her muddy face, Taikrin stares up at Riorde. "Reckon you could'a warned me your friends were shardin' crazy, yeah?" She's a little bitter about this, maybe.
Riorde's expression is briefly open in all its conflicted bafflement. Then, with Taikrin saying what she says, it shifts into defensiveness. Riorde shifts too, squatting down. "She's not crazy," she retorts instantly, protectively. "She's just having a hard time of it is all."
"Yeah, well most people havin' a hard time don't let it out by takin' a few swings at someone like /me/." Taikrin is still rubbing her jaw she she smiles grimly up at Riorde. "Reckon that counts as crazy in most people's books. Girl's aimin' to get herself killed." Just because she can, she flicks mud off her face and up at Riorde. "So you comin' to my rescue, or hers?"
Riorde wrinkles her nose as a couple muddy drops strike their mark. She swipes them off her cheek with the back of her hand but neglects the one on her forehead. "Neither. Figured I'd hit you both." Her reply neatly ducks the issue of taking sides. "Io wouldn't swing unless she was provoked." It may not be entirely true -- there were those kneeing incidents -- but Riorde delivers her statement evenly, with an unflinching stare.
"Zuman'd be shittin' himself," Taikrin remarks half to herself. "People pay good money to try an' see me laid out, and it's a teenage pretty-girl who does it." With a groan, the brownrider levers herself up to a sitting position and rests her arms across the tops of her knees. "I didn't do nothin'. She was askin' all kinds of questions, and I told her to back off. So she lost her shit and started swingin' at me. Somethin' about the Weyrwoman, an' bein' useless, an' Faranth knows what. It was a lot of gibberish." Her voice might be rueful, but her gaze is flat. "She's /real/ lucky she's one of your friends an' a weyrling to boot, else I'd have laid /her/ out."
"You're lucky you didn't." Riorde rejoins. It's maybe an up-jumped claim, but the girl is ballsy enough to make it fearlessly. She claws her hair back from her face regardless of her muddy fingers and pushes herself up to standing, then reaches down a hand to help Taikrin. "Io always asks questions." A note of objection is present in her tone. "Must have been some question." Her eyebrow lifts a little.
"Yeah, I don't know I'd want to pit Szad against even a baby queen. They can do weird mind shit, you know?" She might be deliberately misunderstanding, or Taikrin might just be baiting Riorde. "Oh, you know. Pokin' her nose where it don't belong. Diggin' about me, maybe a little about you-- you sure she ain't got a thing for you? Goldriders ain't as straight as they want you to think, you know." Because that's likely to be a preconception Riorde has. "Don't know what it is about your friends-- Rhaelyn, Iolene, they all got a thing for diggin' around about me."
With what she reads as a deflection, Riorde looks almost amused but not quite; she lets it pass. Real amusement creeps in when she rolls her eyes and snorts air out her nose with a faint 'hmmph!' "Thing for /me?/ No." Closely followed by, "Rhaelyn's not my friend." She settles her arms across her chest and watches Sforzath out of the corner of her eye. He's grown bored of being all alone in the shallows by himself and now squelches in the mud, stalking up the shore. "You're more interesting than most," she offers. It can't be entirely complimentary, since she adds, "Or you just have a knack for pissing people off."
"Yeah, well." That last comment from Riorde earns a crooked grin, which is promptly followed by a muffled oath as Taikrin rubs her rained-on jaw again. "You know me. Reckon I maybe been told that a time or two. Ain't my fault if people like to go off all half-cocked." From the look of the bruises on her face and arms, she's been pissing people off a lot lately. "Been hard for me, you know. Szad keeps throwin' these greenflights, I'm the laughingstock of the Snowasis, this girl I been seein's gone totally off-limits..." She's teasing. Probably. Szadath, likewise, teases a tendril out at the little brown. << Hey little brother. How fast can you swim? >>
Squelch, squelch. Unconsciously, Riorde curls her bare toes into the mud in mimicry of Sforzath as he explores the shoreline and the sensations it yields. "How /do/ you manage." Riorde dryly commiserates, and it seems the danger of her indignant fury has passed. Likely she just doesn't want to cause rifts with the off-limits girl /she/ was seeing, especially given how infrequent actual seeing happens these days what with lessons and classes and the rest. << Swim? >> Sforzath puts his forefoot down with particular attention and care, squelch, and as the mud bubbles up between his talons, his mind fastens on to the question. << Fast. >> A sense of speed, a sudden gust; everything Sforzath does is fast, fast, /fast./
"S'a hard life, what can I say." At least Taikrin really doesn't seem too angry about that whole being-punched thing. Then again, it's got to be something she's used to at this point in her life. "Really, all I was tryin' to ask her was how you were doin', on account of-- well, you know. Classes an' all. It was tough for me, so I reckon it's gotta be pretty hard for you, too. I just didn't want to-- you know, be a distraction." Especially given how distracting she was last time. << Fast-fast? >> He flicks his tail in the water, summoning an image of a tiny little brown dragon-fish darting this way and that. << Can you go all the way to the other side? >>
Hard life indeed. Riorde considers Taikrin, or rather Taikrin's bruises, but memories of last time's distractions and the questions her flutter of unsettled emotion caused Sforzath means Riorde resolutely keeps her hands to herself. "They're fine," she asserts. "I don't mind them, even if they're tough. Don't like people thinking we're all ignorant." Her mouth turns into a hard line to match the surliness in her tone. It's an old song of hers, one Taikrin's probably heard before, and likewise it's probably not the first time she looks at the other brownrider like she should understand the complaint. Sforzath's response is accelerated motion, first in the way he pushes that little mind-dragonfish into a blur, a reddish glow making him stand out under watery blue. Then the real brown hits the water, dragonfishing fast as he can.
"You shoulda /heard/ Meara," Taikrin offers, voice rising in echo of the Weyrlingmaster's indignant tones. "'What do you /mean/ you can't read? What about this? Not even /this/?'" She says it like it's funny-- which, to her, it probably is. "Swear on Szad's shell they had me doin'so many classes I didn't know which way was up no more. Y'all ain't ignorant; least you got a good excuse for not knowin' who was the Weyrleaders at Telgar twenty turns ago, you know?" She looks, for a moment, like she wants to touch-- but restrains herself at the last minute and instead gets to her feet and starts wiping off globs of mud. << Swim! >> Ebulliently pleased, Szadath provides running commentary for Sforzath's every move. << And his off-- ooh, look out, there's a wave, can he make it-- >> Complete with dragon-sourced waves from vigerous splashing of the brown's tail.
Riorde eases into a smile for Taikrin's approximation of the Weyrlingmaster before she confesses, "Don't think she likes me much. I said something, and now she watches me, you know?" Sforzath is a good distraction so that instead of watching Taikrin Riorde watches the brown valiantly cut through one wave after being engulfed by one former. "He's tired," she judges although limitless Sforzath would disagree. "He'll pull something again. I'd better jog round and make him get out on the other side."
"Really? Always found Meara to be pretty fair. And Leova's good people, even if she /is/ playin' the Weyrlingmaster gig, you know? She's Glacier." Wingmates-4-Lyfe. "Faranth, what'd you tell her, anyways?" Taikrin glances at Sforzath, and must say something to Szadath because all at once the brown leaps into the air and splashes mud everywhere. He hovers over the lake, tracing the littler brown's progress without a break in his commentary. << ... ooh, almost bit it in that wave, but look, there he goes again-- but is he getting tired? >>
"She's okay," Riorde allows, without distinguishing which of the weyrlingmaster team she's speaking about. "Nothing really." It's easier to make light of the question with Riorde's attention off with Sforzath as it is. "Just had a question is all. I gotta run," she decides. A convenient out? Sforzath is redoubling thanks to Szadath's commentary, but riders know best, and so Riorde takes off with a quick, "Bye!"
That leaves Taikrin to stare after Riorde. She's bemused, and muddy, and sore, and-- well. "Faranth," she mutters to herself. "Why do I like girls, again?"
Summary: Taikrin was only trying to scope out the newest goldrider, honest. Yet somehow, it ends in violence. Why does it always end in violence?
NorCon MUSH - 9/6/2011
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Lake Shore, High Reaches Weyr(#276RJs)
The rest of the bowl may be barren, grass barely surviving at best, but here by the lake, it's brilliantly green in the warmer months: thickening and thriving in the silty, boulder-dotted soil just before it transitions to soft sand and thence to the cool, clear water itself.
A large freshwater lake fed by a low waterfall, it not only provides warm-weather bathing space for humans and dragons, but has one end fenced off as a watering hole for the livestock in the feeding grounds. The water there is often muddier than the rest of the clear lake, whose shallows drop off abruptly several yards out into deep water, and whose edge undulates against the coarse-hewn bowl wall: here close enough to just be bramble-covered rocks, there far enough away that a narrow land bridge divides the main lake from a smallish pond. Between are several rocky outcroppings that form excellent makeshift diving points, though only one -- across the bridge -- has a set of narrow, slippery, quite possibly tempting stairs.
A layer of patch clouds covers the sky. The air feels cool and damp, but there is no rainfall today.
Contents:
Szadath(#1824Qabe$0)
Iolene
Obvious exits:
Diving Cliff Lake [Gardens] Bowl [Far End of Lake] [Sky]
It is an autumn afternoon, 12:47 of day 13, month 9, turn 26 of Interval 10.
Ysavaeth has arrived.
Dragons keep growing. Riders, who don't actually ride just yet, keep learning. Well, in theory at any rate. /Today/, Iolene's been somehow granted a respite from her constant lessons. Maybe the harper's given up and needs a break himself from trying to drill history and memorization of leaders and facts into a stubborn girl's head. Maybe she's just lucky. Maybe she's actually skipping. Does it matter? The end result is Iolene standing at the lake shore, underneath that ginormous cloud that refuses to put out, skipping stones with a just barely interested Ysavaeth watching. << How come that one skipped twice? >> "Because I'm not good at this." << You got it to skip five times once. >> "Just lucky, I guess."
Rest days must be going around. Szadath and Taikrin have been scarce lately, especially when it comes to weyrlings; word might or might not have gone around about their corrupting influence. But the pair are out and about today, spiraling down at speed towards the water. At the last minute, the brown's wings furl in and he crashes into the water with tsunami force, heralded by Taikrin's wild laughter. Almost belatedly, he calls in overly loud echoing tones just as he hits the water, << CLEAR WAY! LOOK OUT BELOW! >>
The warning comes too late. But dragons (and people) were given eyes (and ears) for a reason, so who can really miss the speedily spiraling brown, or the heralding laughter of a crazy woman? It's here that Ysaveath establishes herself as the smarter of the pair, for while Iolene looks up, eyes shaded by the curve of her hand, to watch what this brown and rider will do, the gold dragon takes four rather large steps back. Of course this means a sputtering Io gets drenched and the bells of Ysavaeth's mind peal into a ringing, all-encompassing laughter. Whatever expletives Io might be thinking privately, Ysa's response is all too public, indolent and entirely unsympathetic, << You /were/ watching. You knew what would happen. >>
Taikrin's, "Sorry!" is totally unrepentant; she really /does/ look like a crazy person as she dangles off Szadath's side and, once the brown has reached a good wading point, drops off into the water. She's grinning like a fool, and has a couple of colorful bruises marring her cheekbone and bare arms. << Impressed, little queen? >> Szadath certainly is; impressed with himself, that is. His mental voice booms, swelling with his own sense of self-importance. "Y'alright there, kid? Ain't drownin', are ya?" At least Taikrin is making an effort to be charming. Sort of. In her own special way.
Ysavaeth dismisses the designation as little with an upward draw of her -little-in-comparison- limbs; her neck for starters. A decidedly regal slant tilts her head away from Szadath's loftily. But what she might do and what she might say or convey are two different beasts. She's certainly in a good humor with a curious, << Were you aiming to impress? Or is that just a lucky consequence of your prowess? >>, that doesn't really /seem/ to be mocking. It doesn't, really. Given Ysavaeth isn't having a herdbeast over her rider, or going off into between without knowing how, Iolene is likely ok, despite the bent over sputtering she continues to do to spit out the cascades of water that flew into her gaping mouth. Cough. "I'm fine. I'm fine. Really. I'm fine."
<< Just tends to happen. I'm good at what I do. >> Szadath isn't even pretending to false modesty, at this point. He lunges up onto the shallows, then sprawls out bonelessly to get a better angle on the little weyrling gold. << So. What do you do? Do you fly? Or are you too little? >> His tail flicks back and forth in the water, creating little ripples over which he projects an image of a golden dragon-fish riding the tides. << Maybe you swim? >> His rider, meanwhile, splashes over towards Iolene's side to offer a hearty back-slap. She's helping, really! "Thought all you island-types knew how to swim like shipfish or somethin'!" There's laughter in her husky voice, layered under the false concern.
The months have been taxing, between culture shock and then brain shock, and Taikrin's hearty back-slap doesn't seem to do much for Iolene other than it helps her let out one last sputter and chokes out the remnant water left in her throat. Other than that? When the girl can finally right herself, sharp blue eyes are pointed down at the shorter woman in the shallows. With her moment of quiet broken, what does she have to lose? Particularly when those narrowed eyes finally recognize Taikrin; for who and possibly what (if rumors are to be believed) she is. "Is that a challenge? Do you want to swim with me and see just how well an islander can swim?" Sitting queenly is something Ysavaeth is getting to be quite good at, her little limbs arranged /just so/ with her neck held /just so/, as she awaits for dragonkind to pay court. Sitting asolutely still is also a skill of hers, and a glance down that takes in Szadath in the waters is an unintentional mimic of her rider's own movements. << We will learn to fly, >> is diplomatic enough and doesn't quite convey the indigination that /she/ is being held back. After a beat. << I swim. >> But not with you. Not yet. It hints of watching to see what he's like first, how magnificent he can be in the water and if he can actually impress her enough to make it worth her time.
Taikrin is cheerily, willfully oblivious to whatever looks Iolene might be giving her; she'll just smile her lopsided grin and carry on as if the weyrling were suitably impressed by their prowess. "Nah, I ain't into swimming so much. Leave that to you sorts. I'd rather just watch, me." Beat. "So you're sayin' you /are/ good at it, yeah?" There's no obvious care taken at all to the way Szadath sprawls, though the fact that his broad sails are nearly at full spread as he floats them over the water might just be deliberate. << You are very small, still, >> Szadath allows. His poking is quintesentially unsubtle; indeed, the brown doesn't seem to have a subtle bone in his body. Likewise, subtlety is lost on him. He either ignores or doesn't notice the challenge inherent in Ysavaeth's retort. << Swimming is good to practice maneuvers in the air, you know. >> A quick flash: tiny golden dragon-fish barrel-rolling in water, then sprouting wings to repeat the same in mid-air. << Do you practice? You'll have to practice to be as good as Iskiveth. >> A brief shower of sparks marks his mental impression of her, their heat a startling contrast to his otherwise icy touch.
Ysavaeth takes this all in stride, recognizing that her brand of language doesn't make the impression she intends on the brown. Just as well he mentions another queen's name and suddenly the curiosity favored Szadath is magnified. Can she take someone else's toy? Does she want to? It all boils down to time and worth, so in the mean time, she'll sit and watch with fascination whirling gently in those ever-blue eyes. << What would I need to roll like that for? Why does Iskiveth do such things? >> Curious and curiouser. Iolene's little bubble bursts; the outlet she might crave without knowing finding a brick wall and the blonde's thin shoulders slump. "Yes. I am. Most of us are. We kind of have to be." But enough about her, slumping only lasts so long before a sidelong glance looks to Taikrin, past the wet hair that clings to her forehead and cheeks. "You're Riorde's friend."
<< Well, if you were in a battle it would be useful. >> Szadath is very vague on what a dragon might be battling; it doesn't matter, really. << You can get flame in a lot of directions that way. Well. Iskiveth doesn't flame. I flame for her. >> Smug, again, as if this were his primary calling in life -- and one that he's unabashedly good at. "Riorde's friend," Taikrin echoes, wryly. "Sure, yeah. That's what she call it?" The brownrider turns to look down the shore, shading her eyes as if that might will Riorde into being. "How she doin' down in there? Alright? Sforzath ain't given her problems?" For just a moment, Taikrin has forgotten that she's putting on a show and seems to be geniunely interested in the brown weyrling's wellbeing.
<< Sforzath is well, >> Ysavaeth answers for Iolene, to a question that wasn't even posed to her. But what's Iolene is hers, though not apparently vice versa, as the girl also answers, "Sforzath is doing ok, I think. I- I haven't had the chance to speak to Riorde much outside of classes. We're both required to take your history classes." Ysavaeth's little queenly perch slowly disintegrates; a two month old only having so much willpower to hold still for so long. Long and lean, the little queen wends her way down closer to the lake where Szadath is and noses at the water, first to watch the ripple radiate and then up, in a child's delight to the big big brown. << Why doesn't Iskiveth flame? >> "Riorde's friend. You're the one we got into a fight about that day."
<< Queens don't flame. That's why they have to have mates, so that the mates can flame for them, and win battles, and find treasure. >> Hatchlings are just a convenient side-effect of that whole process, really. "Ugh. I don't miss those. Felt like I was doin' nothin' but learning for, like, /months/." Taikrin's face scrunches up into a moue of distaste. "Had to do all kinds of crap until they'd let us get to the good stuff. I mean, if I need to know who was the Weyrleader at Telgar twenty turns ago, I'll just go ask Teris. Y'know?" There's a beat as something dawns on her, but she doesn't have a chance to pursue it because there's talk about fighting and-- "Wait, what? What d'you mean, fight /about/ me?"
<< Battles? >> Ysavaeth absorbs everything Szadath teaches. << What kind of battles? What kind of treasure? Are you Iskiveth's mate? >> In the last, way past the curiosity lies an undercurrent of uncertainty. A brown, a gold's mate? "What does any of it matter when they can-," Iolene's rant of the month gets cut short with Taikrin's sudden inquiry, which is initially greeted by two very slow blinks. "Yes? You didn't know? You didn't hear? The reason we were banned from the sands was you. Rhaelyn baited Riorde about being disgusting with- you." Iolene might not have had names /then/, but living at the Weyr this long and with Riorde as a friend? It doesn't leave you ignorant for too long. "And they fought and we hurt an egg and Rhaelyn has-," the blonde can't complete the thought and just dismisses the entire incident with a shake of her head. Instead, bluntly: "Do you like her? Is she just a game to you? Or do you really like her?"
<< Important ones. Over shiny treasure. >> Gold, jewels, gaudy things. The images he sends are vague, more imagination than the ever-fallable draconic memory. << Of course I'm her mate. >> Szadath is certain in this one thing, though -- it's a truth around which he orbits, at least for now. << I'm the best. >> Not just any brown. /Szadath/. It really says something about Taikrin that she's not horrified by this revelation; rather, she's an odd mix of amused and bemused. "Didn't quite realize I was so... involved. Ain't ever really got a clear story about what happened, an' I didn't really want to /push/ her about it, and-- the shells kind of a question is that, anyways?" There's a clear none-of-your-business, back-off note in her voice. "What d'you mean, a game? You sweet on her or something'?"
"No. But she's my friend and-," Iolene doesn't drop her gaze from Taikrin. Those big, dark blue eyes fix onto the brownrider, determined not to deviate even if threatened. Taikrin /is/ shorter than her, as the quick flicker of lashes down and up assesses, but Io's gotten so skinny in the last half year. Still. Must. Hold. Ground. "She wasn't interested in girls until you showed up and now you've made her all confused and," foot stomp, arms akimbo, "Do you like her or not? How is this so hard for you to just say yes or no to?" Bemused, Ysavaeth's neck turns back sharply to watch Iolene put her very not so intimidating foot down an a little mental sigh whooshes over to Szadath, unfiltered. Then, a careless agreement, << Of course you're her mate. >> One queen who lets browns fly her marked down as insignificant, two more to go.
It's probably for the best of all involved that Szadath doesn't pick up on Ysavaeth's dismissal of Iskiveth; the last thing any of them probably want is an angry gold coming to put the smack down. Instead, << One day we will be in charge, you know. Because we're the best. >> It's not that Taikrin likes or doesn't like Riorde; it's that she refuses to get backed into a corner. Any corner. She evades huffily, levelling a glower at the weyrling. "On account of how it ain't any of your business! Reckon you don't know your friend near as well as you think if you reckon she just started likin' other girls, though. Maybe you ought to be askin' /her/."
"Don't say that! I know Riorde better than you ever will." Iolene trying to pick a fight might be the funniest thing in the world. Rebuffed in her prior attempt at letting off steam, a hand flies up in the air, fingers curled into a fist and flies forward. What is it about Taikrin that incites people to punch or throw down and grope? Ysavaeth, having only paid half a mind to her rider's conversation by this point, turns and just stares, for once, completely boggled.
So startled by this sudden turn, Taikrin very nearly lets that fist collide with something squishy. At the last second, she ducks to the side and grapples with Iolene. Her arms go around the slender weyrling like two iron bands, seeking to hold and quell as opposed to cause any actual pain. "The shells you playin' at, girl? Lookin' to get yourself killed?!" Szadath? has seen this happen before, whether or not he actually remembers it. He looks on the action with mild interest, then remarks to Ysavaeth, << Yours needs more practice. Her form is sloppy. >>
<< Agreed. And yours will teach her. >> Capitulation and directives all in one. << As her other instructor has disappeared. >> Finding her hands ineffectual, Iolene kicks her feet instead. "Let me go. /Let me go/! I'm tired of people telling me what I know and don't know. Let. Me. Go!" Aimlessly kicking feet stop for just a moment, long enough for her to try and get her bearings again, and one (sadly) bare foot bucks backwards towards Taikrin's knee.
"Soon as you calm the flaming shells down!" Taikrin moves backwards with Iolene a few paces, absorbing the force of most of her wriggling. "Didn't know they were lettin' /crazy people/ impress dragons nowadays-- enough!" She bellows the last of it as the foot makes glancing contact with one knee; down she goes, but she's determined to bring Iolene with her and, if she can manage, use her own bulk to get atop the slighter girl and press her against the ground. << She might, >> Szadath agrees amiably. << We're very good at fighting. >> There's just a flicker of an image, teased and then withdrawn: his rider, grappling with a taller man, while a circle of blurred faces cheers.
With Taikrin felled by her backwards kick, it should totally be easy to scramble away. But it's not and not having counted on the woman to hold onto her so damn tight, Iolene falls too. It's in that stunned moment where she finds herself on the ground that Taikrin might see the opportunity to scramble atop, and lying there, prone with a brownrider on top of you might be on some people's bucket lists, but certainly not on Iolene's. << That was a little anti-climactic. >> Is she disappointed? Perhaps. "I'm not crazy," is Iolene's suddenly far less fervent retort. "/I'm/ not a criminal."
That little jab provokes a response that's not just disbelief: Taikrin establishes her dominance by consolidating her grip on Iolene's arms and giving a squeeze that probably borders on painful. "Watch it, kid. I'm gonna let that pass on account of you bein' a weyrling and a goldrider and a shardin' little kid, but you only get /one/ pass." She masters control of her ragged breathing, and scowls down at Iolene. "Now you gonna tell me what the shells is your problem, or am I gonna get one of the weyrwomen to straighten you out?" Szadath rumbles at Ysavaeth, then sets his head down on the sand; he really doesn't seem very interested. << It usually is. >>
If it's painful, Iolene isn't letting Taikrin in on that secret, though the sudden rigid control of her face might be all the answers the older woman needs. "My problem," Iolene elucidates, a series of jerks her attempt at struggling out from beneath Taikrin, "Is you. I asked you a simple question. You act like I don't know a person I grew up with. Knew. Like you know her better than us? You're just one of them. And I don't need your weyrwomen to set me straight. Tiriana's already told me what I'm worth to her or this Weyr." Of course Szadath can be uninterested, it's not his rider pinned beneath a known criminal, though all Ysavaeth can glean of what that particular word means, other than bad, is a jumble of mixed emotions and the uncertainty of Iolene's own head. But he's putting his head down, and so shall she, even though it's not onto the ground, but rather rested lightly atop Szadath's own head, perched there, so she might continue to gaze and keep tabs on the riders.
Riorde heads in from the bowl.
Riorde has arrived.
Sforzath has arrived.
"What's this us and them crap, anyways? Just 'cause you grew up somewhere altogether, nobody can ever understand y'all? Guess what, other people're from isolated places, and we ain't got a thing about it. Boo hoo, it's so hard for you." Taikrin's expression darkens further, and the mocking note in her voice is not in the least bit kind. "I reckon I'm sleepin' with her, and I /do/ know her pretty shardin' good. Know all /kinds/ of stuff about her you don't, like how--" She drops down, lowering her head to mutter huskily, "-- if I'm bitin' her here, she makes the cutest little noises." Her gaze is hard as she pulls back to hover right over Iolene's. "You got me? We got your questions answered, little goldrider?" Szadath is totally cool with being used as a baby-gold's pillow. It just makes sense.
She's seventeen. She grew up too fast just trying to survive. So her emo, the world hates me phase has come a few turns too late. While she might have gotten too skinny in the last few months, weight loss certainly hasn't affected her lungs, as she yells, "/No one ever told you you're a fucking/ FLUKE just because you came from isolated places." The heat has returned to Iolene's voice and her struggles to buck Taikrin off become all the more enraged, particularly when the brownrider leans in and shares Riorde's bedroom habits. How is it that even angry, crying, and mad all over, Io still comes off as a harmless kitten? Right, it's cause she's still pinned under Taikrin.
The way Sforzath and Riorde come hurtling towards the lake, it's practically as if they're drawn the mayhem like moths to the flame -- that, or they just have impeccable timing. Riorde's racing Sforzath, and he's clearly winning, putting increasing distance between himself and his dark-haired weyrling. He's on course to barrel into Iolene and Taikrin or perhaps leap over them, but at the last instant tacks to the side and passes them by with no more harm done than a shower of pebbly mud. Riorde's awareness is belated, focused as she is on her dragon and her race, and the shout of warning comes out as a burst of isolated sound. She stops still a few lengths off as Sforzath clears out of her line of eyesight, at which point the figures on the ground crystallize into distinct people, Iolene and Taikrin. Riorde gulps in a breath of air, then charges over with a more intelligible yell. "What the hell!" There's no telling exactly how much she heard.
Taikrin laughs, but it's not a particularly kind sound. She rides out the bucking, more or less, but she's not particularly seeking to cause pain anymore. Just to, well, hold her there. For her own good. "You're an idiot, kid, sayin' that to me. I been told all /kinds/ of things, what'd make your poor little girl ears shrivel right up. So don't you talk to me, kid, 'bout life bein' unfair. /Goldrider/. /Now/---" She grinds her hips down, hard, over Iolene's to emphasize her statement. "You got all this crap outta your system, yet?" Because oh look, it's raining, and the already-damp Taikrin is starting to drip all over . "Or we gonna go a couple more times?" And then-- oh look, deer in the headlights. "... Riorde?"
It's raining. There's dirt. That means the more Iolene struggles, the muddier she gets, and the second, the /second/ Taikrin gets distracted by Riorde's arrival (an entrance the blonde doesn't even pay one attention to, seething as she is at Taikrin), Io's fist wrenches free to try and aim at the brownrider's jaw again. Here lies Iolene, she had a death wish.
Well, there's one more bruise to add to Taikrin's already-colorful collection; it's going to look like she's painted in motley come morning. It must be more surprise than actual force that knocks her off Iolene to sprawl ingloriously in the mud. That's what she gets for staring at Riorde like an idiot! Szadath rouses somewhat, surprise coloring his mind. << Huh. >> Then, << She does have a weak spot for the cute ones. >>
Riorde upgrades. "What the /fuck/ are you two doing?" Her hair's come undone in her run, tie lost somewhere back behind her, so that her hair settles down around her shoulders in wet ropes of mingled rain and sweat. Riorde, more one for action than for words, doesn't wait for explanations; she storms over to try to haul Taikrin off Iolene, though the other weyrling's punch gets to the brownrider first. Sforzath swirls around in the shallows, at first victorious that he's won the race and then bewildered when he realises Riorde isn't immediately joining him.
For a little girl, Iolene's thrown punch isn't all that weak. She did, after all, have muscles at one point. It just means tomorrow, she's going to be aching with pulled muscles galore. Heck, forget tomorrow, later tonight. Successful in finally getting Taikrin off her, there's that definite pull to her shoulders, where the girl is looking for more. More punches. More blood. More something and an instinctive foot brings her forward. She could climb on top of Taikrin herself and start wailing on her. But something stops her short, and by something, we mean Ysavaeth. Uncurling herself from near Szadath and lifting that warm little gold-chinned hat she was providing for him for a while, Ysavaeth trots forward, tail a'swishing and glances it across Io's legs. A warning if you will, that takes the wind out of the weyrling's anger. But only just. "So... so /there/!" Ineffectual and immature to boot, Iolene storms off after her dragon without even one last kick for Taikrin. Ysavaeth is that effective.
Poor Taikrin. It's really, /really/ not her day. All she wanted to do was check out the new goldrider; who knew she was a headcase? She groans, rubbing her muddy jaw, and flops over onto her back to try and dash some of the filth from her eyes. The only time Szadath twitches is when it looks like Iolene is going in for seconds; Taikrin likewise stiffens in anticipation of a real assault, but goes flat and floppy again when Iolene storms off. Eloquently, and with much extra moving of her jaw as she tries out the new sore spot, "/Fuck me/."
With fortunes reversed, Riorde finds herself reaching towards the young goldrider instead, but then there's no need, really, and her hands fall ineffectually to her sides. Where another girl would gape, Riorde instead looks a little wide-eyed, gaze travelling rapidly from one to the other. She stays where she is when Iolene storms away, but even towering over Taikrin it's clear where her priorities are, since she calls out, "Io!" Or maybe it's mixed priorities, since she stays.
Blearly, through the raindrops pelting down on her muddy face, Taikrin stares up at Riorde. "Reckon you could'a warned me your friends were shardin' crazy, yeah?" She's a little bitter about this, maybe.
Riorde's expression is briefly open in all its conflicted bafflement. Then, with Taikrin saying what she says, it shifts into defensiveness. Riorde shifts too, squatting down. "She's not crazy," she retorts instantly, protectively. "She's just having a hard time of it is all."
"Yeah, well most people havin' a hard time don't let it out by takin' a few swings at someone like /me/." Taikrin is still rubbing her jaw she she smiles grimly up at Riorde. "Reckon that counts as crazy in most people's books. Girl's aimin' to get herself killed." Just because she can, she flicks mud off her face and up at Riorde. "So you comin' to my rescue, or hers?"
Riorde wrinkles her nose as a couple muddy drops strike their mark. She swipes them off her cheek with the back of her hand but neglects the one on her forehead. "Neither. Figured I'd hit you both." Her reply neatly ducks the issue of taking sides. "Io wouldn't swing unless she was provoked." It may not be entirely true -- there were those kneeing incidents -- but Riorde delivers her statement evenly, with an unflinching stare.
"Zuman'd be shittin' himself," Taikrin remarks half to herself. "People pay good money to try an' see me laid out, and it's a teenage pretty-girl who does it." With a groan, the brownrider levers herself up to a sitting position and rests her arms across the tops of her knees. "I didn't do nothin'. She was askin' all kinds of questions, and I told her to back off. So she lost her shit and started swingin' at me. Somethin' about the Weyrwoman, an' bein' useless, an' Faranth knows what. It was a lot of gibberish." Her voice might be rueful, but her gaze is flat. "She's /real/ lucky she's one of your friends an' a weyrling to boot, else I'd have laid /her/ out."
"You're lucky you didn't." Riorde rejoins. It's maybe an up-jumped claim, but the girl is ballsy enough to make it fearlessly. She claws her hair back from her face regardless of her muddy fingers and pushes herself up to standing, then reaches down a hand to help Taikrin. "Io always asks questions." A note of objection is present in her tone. "Must have been some question." Her eyebrow lifts a little.
"Yeah, I don't know I'd want to pit Szad against even a baby queen. They can do weird mind shit, you know?" She might be deliberately misunderstanding, or Taikrin might just be baiting Riorde. "Oh, you know. Pokin' her nose where it don't belong. Diggin' about me, maybe a little about you-- you sure she ain't got a thing for you? Goldriders ain't as straight as they want you to think, you know." Because that's likely to be a preconception Riorde has. "Don't know what it is about your friends-- Rhaelyn, Iolene, they all got a thing for diggin' around about me."
With what she reads as a deflection, Riorde looks almost amused but not quite; she lets it pass. Real amusement creeps in when she rolls her eyes and snorts air out her nose with a faint 'hmmph!' "Thing for /me?/ No." Closely followed by, "Rhaelyn's not my friend." She settles her arms across her chest and watches Sforzath out of the corner of her eye. He's grown bored of being all alone in the shallows by himself and now squelches in the mud, stalking up the shore. "You're more interesting than most," she offers. It can't be entirely complimentary, since she adds, "Or you just have a knack for pissing people off."
"Yeah, well." That last comment from Riorde earns a crooked grin, which is promptly followed by a muffled oath as Taikrin rubs her rained-on jaw again. "You know me. Reckon I maybe been told that a time or two. Ain't my fault if people like to go off all half-cocked." From the look of the bruises on her face and arms, she's been pissing people off a lot lately. "Been hard for me, you know. Szad keeps throwin' these greenflights, I'm the laughingstock of the Snowasis, this girl I been seein's gone totally off-limits..." She's teasing. Probably. Szadath, likewise, teases a tendril out at the little brown. << Hey little brother. How fast can you swim? >>
Squelch, squelch. Unconsciously, Riorde curls her bare toes into the mud in mimicry of Sforzath as he explores the shoreline and the sensations it yields. "How /do/ you manage." Riorde dryly commiserates, and it seems the danger of her indignant fury has passed. Likely she just doesn't want to cause rifts with the off-limits girl /she/ was seeing, especially given how infrequent actual seeing happens these days what with lessons and classes and the rest. << Swim? >> Sforzath puts his forefoot down with particular attention and care, squelch, and as the mud bubbles up between his talons, his mind fastens on to the question. << Fast. >> A sense of speed, a sudden gust; everything Sforzath does is fast, fast, /fast./
"S'a hard life, what can I say." At least Taikrin really doesn't seem too angry about that whole being-punched thing. Then again, it's got to be something she's used to at this point in her life. "Really, all I was tryin' to ask her was how you were doin', on account of-- well, you know. Classes an' all. It was tough for me, so I reckon it's gotta be pretty hard for you, too. I just didn't want to-- you know, be a distraction." Especially given how distracting she was last time. << Fast-fast? >> He flicks his tail in the water, summoning an image of a tiny little brown dragon-fish darting this way and that. << Can you go all the way to the other side? >>
Hard life indeed. Riorde considers Taikrin, or rather Taikrin's bruises, but memories of last time's distractions and the questions her flutter of unsettled emotion caused Sforzath means Riorde resolutely keeps her hands to herself. "They're fine," she asserts. "I don't mind them, even if they're tough. Don't like people thinking we're all ignorant." Her mouth turns into a hard line to match the surliness in her tone. It's an old song of hers, one Taikrin's probably heard before, and likewise it's probably not the first time she looks at the other brownrider like she should understand the complaint. Sforzath's response is accelerated motion, first in the way he pushes that little mind-dragonfish into a blur, a reddish glow making him stand out under watery blue. Then the real brown hits the water, dragonfishing fast as he can.
"You shoulda /heard/ Meara," Taikrin offers, voice rising in echo of the Weyrlingmaster's indignant tones. "'What do you /mean/ you can't read? What about this? Not even /this/?'" She says it like it's funny-- which, to her, it probably is. "Swear on Szad's shell they had me doin'so many classes I didn't know which way was up no more. Y'all ain't ignorant; least you got a good excuse for not knowin' who was the Weyrleaders at Telgar twenty turns ago, you know?" She looks, for a moment, like she wants to touch-- but restrains herself at the last minute and instead gets to her feet and starts wiping off globs of mud. << Swim! >> Ebulliently pleased, Szadath provides running commentary for Sforzath's every move. << And his off-- ooh, look out, there's a wave, can he make it-- >> Complete with dragon-sourced waves from vigerous splashing of the brown's tail.
Riorde eases into a smile for Taikrin's approximation of the Weyrlingmaster before she confesses, "Don't think she likes me much. I said something, and now she watches me, you know?" Sforzath is a good distraction so that instead of watching Taikrin Riorde watches the brown valiantly cut through one wave after being engulfed by one former. "He's tired," she judges although limitless Sforzath would disagree. "He'll pull something again. I'd better jog round and make him get out on the other side."
"Really? Always found Meara to be pretty fair. And Leova's good people, even if she /is/ playin' the Weyrlingmaster gig, you know? She's Glacier." Wingmates-4-Lyfe. "Faranth, what'd you tell her, anyways?" Taikrin glances at Sforzath, and must say something to Szadath because all at once the brown leaps into the air and splashes mud everywhere. He hovers over the lake, tracing the littler brown's progress without a break in his commentary. << ... ooh, almost bit it in that wave, but look, there he goes again-- but is he getting tired? >>
"She's okay," Riorde allows, without distinguishing which of the weyrlingmaster team she's speaking about. "Nothing really." It's easier to make light of the question with Riorde's attention off with Sforzath as it is. "Just had a question is all. I gotta run," she decides. A convenient out? Sforzath is redoubling thanks to Szadath's commentary, but riders know best, and so Riorde takes off with a quick, "Bye!"
That leaves Taikrin to stare after Riorde. She's bemused, and muddy, and sore, and-- well. "Faranth," she mutters to herself. "Why do I like girls, again?"