Revenge served very, very cold
It is an autumn night, 19:48 of day 14, month 12, turn 19 of Interval 10.
The Glass Fountain, Fort Weyr
Despite its subterranean locale, the creamy wall paint, pale woods, and frosted glass give the cavern a light, airy feel. Oil lamps reflect softly in the polished wood of high-backed booths, glimmering through the opaque glass dividers that help lend intimacy to the seating arrangements; round-backed seats with deep, terra-cotta colored padding and the addition of strategic, lyric shapes painted in a subtle red shade at regular intervals around the walls add a little depth to the color palette. The sweeping, half-circle shaped bar with its top of smooth stone, backed by cut-glass-fronted cabinetry flows gracefully into the soft lines and mellow colors that dominate the Glass Fountain.
All the atmosphere aside, the main attractions of the room are clearly the massive, multi-pronged chandelier that hangs from multiple chains from the ceiling and the re-worked leak - which no longer resembles a leak at all, having been channeled through lass to become a beautiful piece of art. A curving wave and a series of glass bubbles guide the water past a bank of glows, allowing the light to shine through the water and turn it into a sparkling fountain. From its dark, dim, shabby history, the Glass Fountain has become - frankly - a swanky place with lattice-stands to hold the menus with their selection ranging from typical 'bar food' to high-end dishes and fancy desserts.
Obvious exits:
Inner Caverns
Y'nolek is sitting at the bar, hitting on a girl; he has been for the past forty-five minutes. There are two empty drink glasses in front of her, so things /must/ be going reasonably well. But then she's sliding off her stool, and taking her leave with a sweet little smile and a peck on Nolek's cheek. He watches her go in dismay, and then leans forward, slumping against the bar on folded arms. The bartender sees his need and, without asking, thumps down another drink in front of him.
"Thought we wasn't s'posed t' be drinkin' none," Kai says as he takes the place of the exiting girl - and that'll have to serve as 'hi, Nolek, how are you'. "Just gimme a shardin'... shells. Whatever. That ain't got no booze," he adds to the bartender, who isn't Harry for a change. To his clutchmate, "What's got your straps twisted?"
A tall young man with a tendency to slouch, Y'nolek is nearly six feet in height, with long, thin arms and legs. His wavy hair is blond with a reddish glint, and he wears it loose, cut with rough ends that fall just past his chin. His eyes are a smoky grey, wide and serious under dark brows. He has a wide mouth and thin lips which smile only rarely, and his voice - when he uses it - comes as a surprise; on the high end of the tenor range, he could be mistaken for a woman by the sound of his voice alone. Y'nolek carries himself aloof, reserved, though always attentive to his surroundings.
Y'nolek is wearing a peach-colored button-down flannel shirt, old and soft with sleeves that are threadbare in places, and dark smoky grey trousers of a sturdy weave. There's a knot on his shoulder that marks him as a weyrling at Fort Weyr.
Y'nolek looks to be about 18 turns old.
"Who said?" Nolek says, looking around and grunting in greeting. "We can /now/, we can do whatever we want. We got our weyrs." He picks up the glass in front of him and takes a big gulp. "Just, you know, women. She lets me buy her two drinks, sits here chewing my ear for forty-five minutes, and then all of a sudden it's 'Oh it was soooooo nice to meet you, I have to go meet my giiiiirlfrieeeend,'" that last delivered in an artificially high pitched voice. "Bah. Whatever. What are you up to tonight? Got anything going on?"
"Jantha said," the greenrider answers promptly, scowling but nodding his thanks for his glass of virgin whatever. "An' V'rel, an' D'kai. 'Til we're goin' *between* real solid." In a muttered undertone, "Ain't like -I'm- doin' it no time soon." Still, he follows the path of Nolek's time-waster before turning back to the rider himself. "Well, what was you lookin' for? Shoulda took her back t' your ledge already, if you was gonna."
"What, just throw her over my shoulder? She was never going to," Nolek argues. "Women, I swear, they aren't worth the damn trouble. Hey Kai, let's go do something. I got an idea." He grins, mischief all over his face.
"What," Kai scoffs, "Like you -asked-?" He snorts at the very thought and plants both elbows on the bar in the time-honored way of men with Things to Think. Or maybe he's just taking up more than his share of space. At that grin-and-mischief he glances over, wary, but juice isn't -that- enthralling. "Yeah? What?"
"Little bit of revenge on Fort Sea Hold," Nolek says, lowering his voice, but still grinning wickedly. "I dunno about you, but I got damn tired of going around with a patch across my ass. And they never did get what was coming to 'em. You in?"
B'kaiv blinks at his clutchmate, blinks again. "Whadda you got in mind?" he asks, his own voice pitched rumbling low. "They ain't never done nothin' t' me." Though Kai's also been pretty much wearing the same clothing since he got here. A fashion plate (or W'ton, or N'eph) he is not. "How drunk -are- you, anyhow? How many of them you had?"
"Just two," Nolek says defensively, though that would make the one he's holding his third. "It's not the hard stuff anyway. Alright, so here's what I'm thinking. You know how the gardeners bag up what the herdbeasts leave in the pens, to throw on the garden? Well. They ain't never gonna miss if it we grab a bag or two. We could fly over there straight and you know, leave some 'presents' for them all along the paths." He grins in appreciation of his Brilliant Idea. "I mean, I'm saying, what they did, they did it to all of us, you know? They have to learn they don't mess with the weyr. We do a night run, and nobody'll ever know it was us. They can't see in the dark."
B'kaiv captures one of those mostly empty glasses anyway, sniffs it with a practiced nose without taking his eyes from Y'nolek. "Uh-/huh/. What's Agrith think 'bout it? And shells, I can think of plenty better places t' dump shit than there. B'sides, that were... what. Months ago, it got fixed. Yeah? What's that tellin' 'em then? Don't mess with th' weyr, or once we got some drunk weyrlings who can fly we'll do somethin' bad, you're just gonna have t' wait a while first."
Y'nolek fixes B'kaiv with a Look, raised eyebrows and all. "Agrith's up for it," he says firmly. "But you know, if you're /chicken/..."
"I already spent more time in th' barracks than I want," Kai replies, equally firmly. "I ain't sayin' I ain't gonna do it. 'M just sayin' it's a stupid-ass reason t' do it. Besides, what's got you so hot over it no-how? Ain't like you're weyrleader, or nothin'."
"Weyrleader isn't doing anything about it," Nolek says stubbornly. "Nobody will! I'm just sick of it, is all. They ought to have been punished a long time ago, like you say, but if nobody's doing it. Then you know. We should get a little revenge. That's what I'm saying."
Kai continues to look dubious, but eventually he lifts a shoulder and reaches to take Nolek's glass away. "All right. You get th' stuff, me an' Chielyth'll meet you... shells. Uh. You remember that little clearin' 'bout half hour east of th' bend in the road? There."
Y'nolek starts to object to having his glass taken away, but then he shrugs, and grins. "Alright. Sounds good," he says. "I'll get a couple of sacks. Be sure and bring some old gloves you don't care about," he says, as he hops off the stool, and pulls some money out of his pocket to lay down for the tab.
B'kaiv only snorts and waves his clutchmate off, though he waits until Nolek's gone before tossing back the remnants of the bronzerider's drink. Finders keepers! It's perhaps forty-five minutes later before Kai and Chielyth wing down to the clearing, the tiny green bright and alert, bugling her excitement at the evening's outing. "I brung soap," her rider calls. "Since I don't got no extra gloves. How many bags did you get?"
"Four big ones," Nolek says, gesturing to the bags that are, for now, attached to Agrith's straps much in the manner of firestone sacks. He heads over to unhook two of them, though, to hand off to Kai. "Figured that would be enough. We could get all the approaches, that way."
B'kaiv takes them when they're tossed up, bends to fasten the smelly bags to Chielyth's straps. "Yeah. There ain't enough of us t' do a proper formation, but I was thinkin' the straight line'd be best. 'Nless you wanna split up?"
"Straight line," Nolek agrees. "We should stick together unless we run into some kind of issue. If we do, then you know, we play it by ear. Just like in Threadfall!" He sounds awfully chipper about /that/. Clambering aboard Agrith, he looks back as he straps himself in to see if Kai is ready. "All set?"
"You don't play it by ear," the greenrider snorts. "Shells - ain't you never had no brothers? We get caught, we split up. You swing out t' sea. Agrith's big enough he could be a brown or a blue. Me an' Chielyth'll cut south. Then when th' lights ain't in sight no more, you cut north an' go around. We'll meet back here."
Y'nolek considers this for a moment, then smiles. "That's good," he says, admiration in his tone. "That's a good plan. We'll do it." He raises his hand, waits a few moments, and then drops it in the signal to take off.
Who would ever have pictured B'kaiv as a wingleader? Not Kai, that's for sure. Chielyth springs into the air after her brother, the pair of them settling into an easy pace that eats up the miles. Night flying? Is dull. The lights of the Fort Hold complex appear and disappear again; it's close to an hour later that Fort Sea Hold emerges from the darkness.
Y'nolek passes the time relaying really awful jokes to B'kaiv through the dragons. Agrith doesn't understand the jokes, which makes it a losing proposition, but it's something to do. Finally the sea hold is visible, and Nolek takes Agrith lower, then lower still, making a pass over the hold before looping around and doubling back to fly over the main road. He starts littering the road with his cargo several hundred yards out. Then they're over the hold proper, and then Agrith veers so that they can cover the side approach. That's enough to use up one of his sacks, and then Agrith is in touch with Chielyth. << Mine wishes to know if you have used all of your 'ammunition' >> he states. << He has enough for a second pass. >>
Chielyth is probably having more fun than her rider: she relays the jokes enthusiastically, and scribbles increasingly improbable pictures for each. << Yes! >> she passes along. << Wait, no. He says he's got some left. >> She adds another image of the pair of them skimming along the beach, careful to avoid the ships bobbing in the harbor. << Then we think we'll be done! >>
Agrith sends his eager assent; he's excited, because his rider is excited. << Nolek says as soon as the last is gone we should split up and go back separately. If we do not arrive at the same time, the watch dragon will be less suspicious. >> So he says, as he swings out over the beach, on his way back around for another run.
<< Yes, >> Chielyth agrees. << Kai says we'll go back first. I'm smaller. >> She's smaller than everyone, but it's still a good card to play. She adds a wordless WHEEEE as she pulls off a tricky wing-over that would cause a larger dragon to wrench a wing, and settles back into place beside the bronze. The second pass goes as successfully as the first, though there are a couple of shouts beneath them that get swallowed by the wind. << Bye, Agrith! Kai says, remember to fly over the ocean! >>
<< We will not forget >> Agrith promises, though he's not ready to go over the ocean /quite/ yet. Nolek has a bit left in his bag -- but they'll return when it's dumped, too. << Nolek says, clear skies, and wasn't that more fun than the bar! >>
Chielyth definitely thinks so! It's Kai who has to suffer through the cold not-quite-winter's air, gloveless. But she doesn't say anything about that, just disappears into the night, winging back to the west well out of human eyeshot.
It was quite the stir at Fort Sea Hold when the sun rose to reveal, on both the roads approaching the hold, a stunning amount of splattered herdbeast and runner manure, the clods flattened as though they had been dropped from a great height. The overnight watchman on the fireheights reported seeing a wing of dragons fly over several times - as well as /could/ be seen in the darkness. Of course he thought nothing of it at the time, but when his boy lit the bigger firepit -- to better light the way, of course -- one of the dragons flew over again, and this time he was pelted with dung. The watchman had thought, at the time, that it was just his bad luck to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But of course now it's obvious that there was something more going on.
Back at Fort Weyr, three pieces of dung were found on T'rev's ledge, as well. Who's to say if it was dung from the same herdbeast? But, it is certainly a curious coincidence.
Shells, that were stupid. Kinda fun, though. Hope nobody saw me washing up. And shells, gotta get to bed or tomorrow's gonna be... aw -shells-, Chielyth ain't the least bit sleepy!
The Glass Fountain, Fort Weyr
Despite its subterranean locale, the creamy wall paint, pale woods, and frosted glass give the cavern a light, airy feel. Oil lamps reflect softly in the polished wood of high-backed booths, glimmering through the opaque glass dividers that help lend intimacy to the seating arrangements; round-backed seats with deep, terra-cotta colored padding and the addition of strategic, lyric shapes painted in a subtle red shade at regular intervals around the walls add a little depth to the color palette. The sweeping, half-circle shaped bar with its top of smooth stone, backed by cut-glass-fronted cabinetry flows gracefully into the soft lines and mellow colors that dominate the Glass Fountain.
All the atmosphere aside, the main attractions of the room are clearly the massive, multi-pronged chandelier that hangs from multiple chains from the ceiling and the re-worked leak - which no longer resembles a leak at all, having been channeled through lass to become a beautiful piece of art. A curving wave and a series of glass bubbles guide the water past a bank of glows, allowing the light to shine through the water and turn it into a sparkling fountain. From its dark, dim, shabby history, the Glass Fountain has become - frankly - a swanky place with lattice-stands to hold the menus with their selection ranging from typical 'bar food' to high-end dishes and fancy desserts.
Obvious exits:
Inner Caverns
Y'nolek is sitting at the bar, hitting on a girl; he has been for the past forty-five minutes. There are two empty drink glasses in front of her, so things /must/ be going reasonably well. But then she's sliding off her stool, and taking her leave with a sweet little smile and a peck on Nolek's cheek. He watches her go in dismay, and then leans forward, slumping against the bar on folded arms. The bartender sees his need and, without asking, thumps down another drink in front of him.
"Thought we wasn't s'posed t' be drinkin' none," Kai says as he takes the place of the exiting girl - and that'll have to serve as 'hi, Nolek, how are you'. "Just gimme a shardin'... shells. Whatever. That ain't got no booze," he adds to the bartender, who isn't Harry for a change. To his clutchmate, "What's got your straps twisted?"
A tall young man with a tendency to slouch, Y'nolek is nearly six feet in height, with long, thin arms and legs. His wavy hair is blond with a reddish glint, and he wears it loose, cut with rough ends that fall just past his chin. His eyes are a smoky grey, wide and serious under dark brows. He has a wide mouth and thin lips which smile only rarely, and his voice - when he uses it - comes as a surprise; on the high end of the tenor range, he could be mistaken for a woman by the sound of his voice alone. Y'nolek carries himself aloof, reserved, though always attentive to his surroundings.
Y'nolek is wearing a peach-colored button-down flannel shirt, old and soft with sleeves that are threadbare in places, and dark smoky grey trousers of a sturdy weave. There's a knot on his shoulder that marks him as a weyrling at Fort Weyr.
Y'nolek looks to be about 18 turns old.
"Who said?" Nolek says, looking around and grunting in greeting. "We can /now/, we can do whatever we want. We got our weyrs." He picks up the glass in front of him and takes a big gulp. "Just, you know, women. She lets me buy her two drinks, sits here chewing my ear for forty-five minutes, and then all of a sudden it's 'Oh it was soooooo nice to meet you, I have to go meet my giiiiirlfrieeeend,'" that last delivered in an artificially high pitched voice. "Bah. Whatever. What are you up to tonight? Got anything going on?"
"Jantha said," the greenrider answers promptly, scowling but nodding his thanks for his glass of virgin whatever. "An' V'rel, an' D'kai. 'Til we're goin' *between* real solid." In a muttered undertone, "Ain't like -I'm- doin' it no time soon." Still, he follows the path of Nolek's time-waster before turning back to the rider himself. "Well, what was you lookin' for? Shoulda took her back t' your ledge already, if you was gonna."
"What, just throw her over my shoulder? She was never going to," Nolek argues. "Women, I swear, they aren't worth the damn trouble. Hey Kai, let's go do something. I got an idea." He grins, mischief all over his face.
"What," Kai scoffs, "Like you -asked-?" He snorts at the very thought and plants both elbows on the bar in the time-honored way of men with Things to Think. Or maybe he's just taking up more than his share of space. At that grin-and-mischief he glances over, wary, but juice isn't -that- enthralling. "Yeah? What?"
"Little bit of revenge on Fort Sea Hold," Nolek says, lowering his voice, but still grinning wickedly. "I dunno about you, but I got damn tired of going around with a patch across my ass. And they never did get what was coming to 'em. You in?"
B'kaiv blinks at his clutchmate, blinks again. "Whadda you got in mind?" he asks, his own voice pitched rumbling low. "They ain't never done nothin' t' me." Though Kai's also been pretty much wearing the same clothing since he got here. A fashion plate (or W'ton, or N'eph) he is not. "How drunk -are- you, anyhow? How many of them you had?"
"Just two," Nolek says defensively, though that would make the one he's holding his third. "It's not the hard stuff anyway. Alright, so here's what I'm thinking. You know how the gardeners bag up what the herdbeasts leave in the pens, to throw on the garden? Well. They ain't never gonna miss if it we grab a bag or two. We could fly over there straight and you know, leave some 'presents' for them all along the paths." He grins in appreciation of his Brilliant Idea. "I mean, I'm saying, what they did, they did it to all of us, you know? They have to learn they don't mess with the weyr. We do a night run, and nobody'll ever know it was us. They can't see in the dark."
B'kaiv captures one of those mostly empty glasses anyway, sniffs it with a practiced nose without taking his eyes from Y'nolek. "Uh-/huh/. What's Agrith think 'bout it? And shells, I can think of plenty better places t' dump shit than there. B'sides, that were... what. Months ago, it got fixed. Yeah? What's that tellin' 'em then? Don't mess with th' weyr, or once we got some drunk weyrlings who can fly we'll do somethin' bad, you're just gonna have t' wait a while first."
Y'nolek fixes B'kaiv with a Look, raised eyebrows and all. "Agrith's up for it," he says firmly. "But you know, if you're /chicken/..."
"I already spent more time in th' barracks than I want," Kai replies, equally firmly. "I ain't sayin' I ain't gonna do it. 'M just sayin' it's a stupid-ass reason t' do it. Besides, what's got you so hot over it no-how? Ain't like you're weyrleader, or nothin'."
"Weyrleader isn't doing anything about it," Nolek says stubbornly. "Nobody will! I'm just sick of it, is all. They ought to have been punished a long time ago, like you say, but if nobody's doing it. Then you know. We should get a little revenge. That's what I'm saying."
Kai continues to look dubious, but eventually he lifts a shoulder and reaches to take Nolek's glass away. "All right. You get th' stuff, me an' Chielyth'll meet you... shells. Uh. You remember that little clearin' 'bout half hour east of th' bend in the road? There."
Y'nolek starts to object to having his glass taken away, but then he shrugs, and grins. "Alright. Sounds good," he says. "I'll get a couple of sacks. Be sure and bring some old gloves you don't care about," he says, as he hops off the stool, and pulls some money out of his pocket to lay down for the tab.
B'kaiv only snorts and waves his clutchmate off, though he waits until Nolek's gone before tossing back the remnants of the bronzerider's drink. Finders keepers! It's perhaps forty-five minutes later before Kai and Chielyth wing down to the clearing, the tiny green bright and alert, bugling her excitement at the evening's outing. "I brung soap," her rider calls. "Since I don't got no extra gloves. How many bags did you get?"
"Four big ones," Nolek says, gesturing to the bags that are, for now, attached to Agrith's straps much in the manner of firestone sacks. He heads over to unhook two of them, though, to hand off to Kai. "Figured that would be enough. We could get all the approaches, that way."
B'kaiv takes them when they're tossed up, bends to fasten the smelly bags to Chielyth's straps. "Yeah. There ain't enough of us t' do a proper formation, but I was thinkin' the straight line'd be best. 'Nless you wanna split up?"
"Straight line," Nolek agrees. "We should stick together unless we run into some kind of issue. If we do, then you know, we play it by ear. Just like in Threadfall!" He sounds awfully chipper about /that/. Clambering aboard Agrith, he looks back as he straps himself in to see if Kai is ready. "All set?"
"You don't play it by ear," the greenrider snorts. "Shells - ain't you never had no brothers? We get caught, we split up. You swing out t' sea. Agrith's big enough he could be a brown or a blue. Me an' Chielyth'll cut south. Then when th' lights ain't in sight no more, you cut north an' go around. We'll meet back here."
Y'nolek considers this for a moment, then smiles. "That's good," he says, admiration in his tone. "That's a good plan. We'll do it." He raises his hand, waits a few moments, and then drops it in the signal to take off.
Who would ever have pictured B'kaiv as a wingleader? Not Kai, that's for sure. Chielyth springs into the air after her brother, the pair of them settling into an easy pace that eats up the miles. Night flying? Is dull. The lights of the Fort Hold complex appear and disappear again; it's close to an hour later that Fort Sea Hold emerges from the darkness.
Y'nolek passes the time relaying really awful jokes to B'kaiv through the dragons. Agrith doesn't understand the jokes, which makes it a losing proposition, but it's something to do. Finally the sea hold is visible, and Nolek takes Agrith lower, then lower still, making a pass over the hold before looping around and doubling back to fly over the main road. He starts littering the road with his cargo several hundred yards out. Then they're over the hold proper, and then Agrith veers so that they can cover the side approach. That's enough to use up one of his sacks, and then Agrith is in touch with Chielyth. << Mine wishes to know if you have used all of your 'ammunition' >> he states. << He has enough for a second pass. >>
Chielyth is probably having more fun than her rider: she relays the jokes enthusiastically, and scribbles increasingly improbable pictures for each. << Yes! >> she passes along. << Wait, no. He says he's got some left. >> She adds another image of the pair of them skimming along the beach, careful to avoid the ships bobbing in the harbor. << Then we think we'll be done! >>
Agrith sends his eager assent; he's excited, because his rider is excited. << Nolek says as soon as the last is gone we should split up and go back separately. If we do not arrive at the same time, the watch dragon will be less suspicious. >> So he says, as he swings out over the beach, on his way back around for another run.
<< Yes, >> Chielyth agrees. << Kai says we'll go back first. I'm smaller. >> She's smaller than everyone, but it's still a good card to play. She adds a wordless WHEEEE as she pulls off a tricky wing-over that would cause a larger dragon to wrench a wing, and settles back into place beside the bronze. The second pass goes as successfully as the first, though there are a couple of shouts beneath them that get swallowed by the wind. << Bye, Agrith! Kai says, remember to fly over the ocean! >>
<< We will not forget >> Agrith promises, though he's not ready to go over the ocean /quite/ yet. Nolek has a bit left in his bag -- but they'll return when it's dumped, too. << Nolek says, clear skies, and wasn't that more fun than the bar! >>
Chielyth definitely thinks so! It's Kai who has to suffer through the cold not-quite-winter's air, gloveless. But she doesn't say anything about that, just disappears into the night, winging back to the west well out of human eyeshot.
It was quite the stir at Fort Sea Hold when the sun rose to reveal, on both the roads approaching the hold, a stunning amount of splattered herdbeast and runner manure, the clods flattened as though they had been dropped from a great height. The overnight watchman on the fireheights reported seeing a wing of dragons fly over several times - as well as /could/ be seen in the darkness. Of course he thought nothing of it at the time, but when his boy lit the bigger firepit -- to better light the way, of course -- one of the dragons flew over again, and this time he was pelted with dung. The watchman had thought, at the time, that it was just his bad luck to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But of course now it's obvious that there was something more going on.
Back at Fort Weyr, three pieces of dung were found on T'rev's ledge, as well. Who's to say if it was dung from the same herdbeast? But, it is certainly a curious coincidence.
Shells, that were stupid. Kinda fun, though. Hope nobody saw me washing up. And shells, gotta get to bed or tomorrow's gonna be... aw -shells-, Chielyth ain't the least bit sleepy!