Rise And Shine
Location:: The bowl of the Weyr, and a guest weyr
Time: Day 2, Month 1, Turn 3
Players: R'vain, D'ven, Roa, Ruvoth, Tialith, Teraneth, and two NPCs by Reyce: L'sten (with Grastanth) and R'stan (with Trioth).
Scene: Tialith screams back home just in time to blood and run. The boys give chase.
The snow spills downward in one of those unusual afternoons where the sun is out despite the whiteness pouring from the sky. There is a quiet calm to the air. Perhaps it is the lull and exhaustion felt after a morning threadfall. Perhaps it is simply the way the snow mutes and blankets the world. Things are silent, peaceful, and white.
The pale monotony is interrupted with an icy burst of air that is likely lost in the overall cold of High Reaches in winter. A queen is gliding swiftly downward from the sky, and the sunlight illuminates off of a golden hide that reflects it back with a sheen so bright than some might say she was glowing. She wears no straps, but as the gold lands in the feeding grounds, a small figure tumbles off from between her neckridges and lands with a muffled thud in the snow.
The little rider is not dressed for the weather. In nothing but a sleeveless shirt and a sari, Roa is tearing through the trampled snow in bare feet to swing over the fence and land on the bottom slat, toes curling around the wood. Her fingers cling to the top rail and wind whips her long, dark hair behind her, unusual in that it is unbound. Her eyes, wide and blue, peer out of a darkly tanned face as she watches her Tialith fell one of the larger herdbeasts. The queen's pale and gleaming muzzle lowers to the bovine's throat, teeth sinking into the artery that still pulses as she begins to drink. Roa shivers, but she seems unaware of it. Both rider and dragon are utterly and eerily silent.
Some of the weyrlings had their first turn on home ground crew as riders this morning. Some of them had the morning off. But all of them have the afternoon to themselves, to recover from what was, for some, a stressful event, a rude awakening to the realities of Threadfall-- or to relax and work on their straps, their letters home, their mending. So their master, too, has had a quiet afternoon. Time to bathe and scrub down his hair, to wash off the smoke and stains he acquired tending to the dragons returning from 'fall-- and the weyrlings too. Time to retreat with Ruvoth to their ledge, to begin the bronze's caretaking, since his rider's own is complete.
R'vain's broad palms are therefore stroking thick oil into a sleek, stretched neck when Tialith's arrival and the waves of visceral attraction that accompany it wash over the lazing, half-drowsy bronze. "Oh, no y'don't," growls R'vain, first to understand even if he's second to feel. "Y'take me down first." He unhooks his oil-pail from his hip and drops it unceremoniously on the stone, then starts up the beast's shoulder.
Silence personified is R'stan's bronze Trioth. He drops off his ledge just moments after Tialith reappears, taking a leisurely swing around the bowl on his way to the feeding grounds. His rider clings to his neck, huddled close and wrapped in a blanket that was the best he could do on such short notice - not that he isn't clothed, just not for going outside in the snow. The two are an old pair, Trioth gray at the muzzle and R'stan in his thin brush of a mustache, but age has made this bronze wily, not slow. With the confidence of a dragon who's won more green flights than anyone can count, Trioth eyes the blooding gold as he lands and waits for his blanket-wrapped rider to slip off his shoulder and go crunching away through the snow. No Threadfall tired his wings today.
Teraneth and D'ven are out in the bowl, the Wingsecond leaning against the huge beast's side to protect himself somewhat from the cold. It's a lesiurely way to relax after a hard threadfall, just watching the world go by. When Tialith appears in the skies above, Teraneth's head snaps upward and his rider almost falls before he staggers away from the bronze to look for himself. His face is a mask of confusion, fear, and expectation as he stands in the snow, Teraneth quick to make his way to the feeding grounds.
Grastanth has just settled into a bath when the gold and her rider return, so it takes his tired mind a moment or two extra to process their arrival. His rider, L'sten, goes about bathing him in peaceful innocence, whistling a cheerful little tune he picked up at the Turn's End celebration. It's a complete surprise to the young wingrider when his bronze hefts himself up and makes for the door, allowing the water to just drain off him as he goes, ignoring the char marks that still blur his pale hide. His rider, he leaves behind: L'sten would freeze if he went outside, wet and near naked, but Grastanth must go /now/.
It is only after the first herdbeast is drained that the long and lean gold lifts her head, eyes a turbulent mixture of red and violet. She takes in those who have already landed and then her neck stretches high and her narrow chest fills. Tialith unleashes a single roar, long and pointed. She is here! She bloods! It is a summons and no mistake. The announcement made, the whipcord gold lunges for another panicked beast, dropping it with a practiced snap of her jaws. Again, she goes for the throat. Again she drinks instead of bites.
Roa does little other than stand and stare and shiver. Her hands hold white-knuckled tight to the top rail, toes cling to the bottom, and good luck to any who would try to remove her. She is barely blinking, her focus narrowed to the glowing figure claiming the feeding grounds. Her breath comes in sharp gasps and plumes outwards into the frigid air.
Trioth doesn't respond to the roar, just keeps his eyes (literally) on the gold. He watches her move, watches her hunt. From a distance he's been doing so for months, ever since R'stan realized they had a shot at Weyrleader. His name has not turned up in the betting pools only because he is so old - no one thinks he can fly a young queen - but Trioth has confidence. You can see that confidence in the way he launches himself at a passing herdbeast, slamming it to the ground so quickly and neatly the thing barely knows it's dead by the time he rips its throat out. He drinks.
R'stan climbs over the fence, not seeming to care that his long blanket (and a nice one, by the look of it) is getting snow all over it from this little sojourn outside. The loud thud of his feet announces him when he lands on the other side, glances at Roa, and then moves to a spot about three feet from her. Wordless, he stretches the blanket out towards the young weyrwoman and just holds it there, watching his bronze.
Ruvoth sails off of his ledge, his rider curled astride without straps, uttering a low litany of a single syllable repeated. He cants a wing toward ground early on and swings around tight, careening along the curve of the bowl wall toward the feeding grounds. He has no patience to allow his rider an easy dismount. Thick talons splay out, tail lashing to steady his landing in the snow. He slides a few feet and digs in, forepaws delving through the bitter white to find purchase on frozen soil beneath. R'vain slides down, boots landing with snowy thuds, and leaps clear in a hurry, setting out an urgent run toward the gate nearby. He knows better than to bother fighting the drifts to open it-- up and over he climbs, while Ruvoth undulates on slinking feet toward a beast panicked by Tialith, cowering. It does not cower for long-- that fresh-oiled neck, glossy and sleek, whips out furiously. Jaws snap. And fear is ended by the relief of bloody, thirsty death.
The problem with water is that it freezes when it gets cold, as Grastanth now finds. There's no ice on him, and surely he'll shake it all off before ice can form, but the cold doesn't help joints that are already swelled and sore from a day of hard flying. He eschews flight for the trip to the feeding grounds, shaking himself from time to time as he lumbers through the snow on foot. A single bound takes him over the fence when he gets there, but it takes him two tries to catch a herdbeast and blood it.
L'sten is still staring after his bronze, but he's starting to get the idea. A bluerider, sharing the baths with him at this time, waits to catch his eye and then lifts an eyebrow. Well, would-be Weyrleader? Got a plan? L'sten clears his throat awkwardly and drops away from the gaze almost as soon as he catches it, wading back through the water to fetch himself a towel. He dries with his back to the other man.
Teraneth is quick to act when he gets going, though it's clear threadfall has left him in less than optimal condition. A herdbeast is brought down, jaws fixing deep in the thing's neck before his head swings back upward to drain the blood as his rider has often done with a bottle. D'ven is slightly slower, making his way over the fence toward Roa and the gathering riders. As he approaches he's moving faster, losing more of himself to the emotions rolling through the link.
The second beast is drained and a third is taken. Tialith hunches over this kill, suddenly possessive, and her wings open half way, curling forward in an attempt to shield her meal from view. This time her head rears back and bloodied jaws part as if she'd sink her teeth into the flesh and eat properly. Only, the little figure perched on the fence intervenes.
Roa is trembling violently now, her hair is dappled with gathered snowflakes, her lips and toes are faintly blue, and goose bumps cover her arms and legs. R'stan and his offer of a blanket remain unnoticed. The little rider doesn't seem to see anything other than the happenings in the pen. The single word she speaks is quiet and calm; disconnected from the cold and, perhaps, from herself. "No." The gold snarls but for a third time, she bites only the throat and does no more than drink.
No, no blanket? If R'stan is surprised or offended to find his offer ignored, he doesn't seem so, and he doesn't maintain his generosity for long. After all, while he and Trioth are still in fine fettle, they are old at the root of it, and an old man has just as much need to stay warm as a young woman. He wraps the blanket around his shoulders like a cape and hunches over the fence, leaving Roa alone.
Trioth lingers by his meal, flicking his tongue out over that gray muzzle and picking up the stray drops of blood. His whirling eyes reflect all there is to be seen, all the other bronzes gathering in this pen and all the motions of the gold who brought them there. The first beast sated him and there's no need to go for another, no need to anything but watch, and wait. Wiry old muscles tense and his lips tremble with pent up excitement, all of him ready to go and just waiting for the excuse.
Grastanth hunches over the warmth of his kill, his eyes half-lidded as the steam rises up from it and heats his jaw. Shifting a heavy step forward, he settles his shoulders over the animal and crouches low, letting its heat warm his wing joints as best as he can. He flexes them while he waits, extending and retracting them to get the ichor flowing again and wear out the stiffness that his bath was supposed to ease. Most of the water has slicked off his hide, dragging the char marks into long, dark blurs like some kind of draconic camo.
L'sten is taking his time preparing for the outdoors, ruffling up every hair on his head till he's sure they're all dry. And then ruffling them again because he needs the time. The bluerider leaves him alone while he prepares, sitting down to pull on warm socks first and after that every layer of clothes he brought with him. He won't be suffering as his dragon does.
R'vain, safe on the non-horrified-herdbeast side of the fence, crouches, ostensibly to tuck the cuffs of his leathers into his boots as guard against the snow. But he's faced toward Roa, by happenstance no doubt, and with an elbow on his knee steals a moment to glance up at her, eyes narrow. What thoughts might stew behind that keen gaze remain his alone. A paw sweeps up the top of his thigh and tugs at the leather bunched there while he starts to straighten, head shaking, a rumble latent and soft in the back of his throat.
Ruvoth is not so gentle. His sides, so often sunken with misery, tremble with delight. His head cants toward Tialith, a drop of blood swinging off of his moving muzzle to land red in the snow spoiled beneath him. A rumble escapes him, more telling than his rider's, dragon-laughing. He sees her. And he bows his head again, and drags his fangs across the neck of the calf in his claws, thrilling to the flesh splayed open against his moving maw.
Teraneth is quick to discard his empty beast, and go for more. Fall has left him drained, and in need of the energy the hot, thick, blood provides. As he bloods he keeps one eye always on Tialith, ready to go when she does. Meanwhile, his rider finds himself drawing closer and closer to Roa. D'ven seems to be fighting it, but as every second passes the fight ebbs and he loses himself a little more.
Once more the queen's head lifts, her tongue flicking out to lap away the blood smeared along the edges of her mouth. Whirling eyes take in the space around her and the other dragons that are waiting. There is no flirtation in her study, and a low growl rumbles along her throat as muscles bunch and gather. Even Ruvoth is not exempt from this calculated assessment, not just now. Her wings snap open, the mosaic sails beating down as her legs push upwards. In a moment, she is airborne and tearing higher on a steep incline.
Roa pushes up onto her toes, legs and back straining as Tialith makes for the sky. She cannot, for a long moment, tear her gaze away, and then her eyes close and she sucks in a shuddering gasp that matches the vanishing gold's first aerial swerve. Eyes open again slowly, and the girl makes an attempt at speaking as her attention slides to the riders. "We have to...should..." but that's all she manages before her eyes close again and her head lowers until her forehead rests against a fence post.
Trioth's coiled muscles spring up and throw him into the air after Tialith, his broad wings snapping out and beating with level intensity to bring him up. He is one of the first to launch, but the first few moments will find him behind, patiently measuring his efforts so his energy can last till the end. Breath steams pale from his nostrils, blurring the line between his gray muzzle and the sky he's pointing it into. Up up, as though this were a mere joy ride, except he is always too intently watching Tialith.
Down below, his rider echoes his intensity with a stare that snaps towards Roa as soon as the first ripple of haunches announces her dragon's launch into the air. Watchful and withdrawn, he makes no effort to guess at her intended sentence or help move things along, but he waits to see what she will do.
Ruvoth, unwilling, rips his muzzle from the beast he's bathing it in, teeth clacking and sending a fine spray of bloody droplets out into the frosty air on a hissing cone of steam. She leaps, so he must leap as well. The calf falls from his paws and he leans back into his haunches, then bolts skyward in a heady, furied launch. His wings beat maybe twice before his mind begins to leak, and in a few wingbeats more that substance leaking begins to take form. Every wicked thing that could ever have been attributed to his rider's appetites rolls into one long, rich betrayal of intent. Speed. Sky. And success-- violent, self-certain success.
"G'inside," suggests the Weyrlingmaster, voice low, ragged. "Pick an inside." He jerks his chin toward the low ledges that belong to the queens. Jerks it again, his breath steaming through flared nostrils, at the guest weyrs. Another time toward the main caverns, even. And then R'vain, ever the furnace, never cold, wraps his arms around himself and shudders in the chill.
Slow. If Grastanth searched his soul at this moment, he might have difficulty determining whether it preferred to chase the gold or stay by the warm meat. Absent the soul searching, however, instinct takes over and pushes the bronze out of his crouch and into a delayed launch, his wings laboring heavily over the first few motions while they get the motion back into them. He compensates by throwing a little extra speed into his movements once the muscles have warmed up enough, and soon catches up with the pack. He gets no further than the middle of it, keeping to the outside as he swings around them.
L'sten only hoped to be fully dressed by the time he went out there. He's putting a coat on when the link with Grastanth suddenly shocks him out of it and sends him barreling outside, his coat hanging by one arm. Just outside the baths he stops and cranes his neck up, a hand going to shield his eyes as he finds the gold-tipped mass of bronzes rising through the winter air. Then he's off again, leaping through the impediments of snow on his way to catch up the other riders, before they disappear into whatever inside place Roa might select.
There's a sickening thud as Teraneth drops his latest drinking vessel, discarding it without a thought as Tialith rises. With a speed one might think impossible of his build, the bronze is off the ground and heading upward with the pack as they all chase the golden prize. D'ven, on hearing R'vain and Roa's words, turns to say something but no words come. Just a strange, half-growling, sound that was once a coherent reply.
The gold is wasting no time in gaining elevation, and it might be argued that she is pushing too hard, too soon. A common mistake for a virgin flight. She twists in the air, cutting a sharp turn and then another, in an attempt to slow up those who pursue her. For the barrage of leaking thoughts that Ruvoth telegraphs to her, he receives only this in return: disbelief. He cannot. No one can. Not her. Wings beat, beat, and then spread wide to coast for a moment before the movement is repeated. Higher, higher, always higher, even as her direction changes, her aim remains constant.
The rider still perched on the fence swallows convulsively and offers a faint nod for the helpful suggestion. Or maybe for the growl. Roa steps down, bare feet sinking into snow as she begins to move at a pace that is not quite running. She moves not towards her own weyr and (thank Faranth) not towards the living caverns. The guest weyr seems to be the destination of choice.
Fall into step, L'sten, like you were here all along. This is precisely what the bronzerider does when he sees the detachment of riders move away towards the fence and, following Roa, towards the guest weyr. With a casual skill that his tired dragon currently lacks, the man sidesteps into the thick of things, hands shoved in his pockets and eyes on the many imprints of boots (and one lighter, barefoot tread dancing awkwardly through the cold) that precede him.
The weariness leaks out of Grastanth when he takes to the air, feeling the air rush past and sweep him cold, but dry, and shock life back into him. Maybe it's the trickle of confidence from Ruvoth that infects him, but any way the bronze is more alert now, moving with more energy. He swings after both of Tialith's turns, banking them easily and allowing some of his own contentment with his good flying to seep out.
It is Tialith's constant aim that, after the first few jogs back and forth, teach Ruvoth his plan. He waits-- still streaming his horrific and delighted intents, all talons and tangling in his thundering mind-- for one of her wingspread coasting episodes, and during that picks out the invisible point toward which she's been, overall, rising. Toward /that/ point, not the queen herself, the Weyrlingmaster's bronze sets out. He strokes the air easily away with well-rested wings, the wind coasting along his glossy neck making pretty ripples in his ugly hide. He flies not to overtake, but to gain on her likely path, soaring lazy on the sky.
R'vain has command of language, and even of his hands-- the one with the wrap around the palm tucks a thumb into the unused belt-loop of his trousers and drags heavy toward on the band. But D'ven's growl echoes in his ears and, not quite able to resist, he squints an angry look sidelong at the 3C wingsecond. He shows teeth, and in something nothing like a grin, then jerks his chin back forward, defiant, and swaggers after Roa toward the 'inside' of her choice.
The growl gets R'stan's attention, too, snapping it away from Roa and onto D'ven. His lips curl up into a slow smile, the thin mustache moving up to echo them, but the headshake he gives is almost rueful and at odds with the clear menace on his mouth: oh, kids. He spins neatly away from the fence, the blanket flaring up behind him, and strides after the weyrwoman with chin raised, eyes sparking. He's been watching the two top contenders for this flight, and he has a good feeling about today.
Trioth continues along on his calm joy ride, enjoying the sights - of Tialith - and the sounds - of Tialith's thoughts - and the smells - of his approaching victory over Tialith. The back of the pack forms a buffer for him, allowing him plenty of time to see where the gold's going and how best to follow her before he puts his plan into action; thus he does not swerve with her turns but cuts a straight path through them. It buys him no time, as his wingbeats remain paced and steady, but it preserves energy.
Teraneth continues to chase after Tialith with the rest of the pack, making good ground despite the exhaustion from threadfall. His wings beat determinedly, propelling him forward even as they ache slightly from so much use. The huge bronze is currently mostly silent, highly focused on the prize ahead. On the ground, R'stan largely goes ignored since he's not doing anything too threatening. R'vain, however, is showing teeth and that gets the majority of D'ven's attention as he follows Roa towards indoors. In response to the Weyrlingmaster's chin jerking, the Wingsecond lets out a low snarl and attempts to show more teeth than R'vain is currently managing.
Two anticipating, two gaining, Tialith snarls as she twists and then tucks her sails and simply drops like a stone for one...two...three...seconds, sinking beneath them all before her wide wings snap open again, jolting her hard but allowing her to swoop upwards and to the right, her angle changed in response to Ruvoth's clever planning and Trioth's patient gaining. How dare they, after all, try tactics.
Roa makes it inside, leaving a trail of wet footprints to mark her passage, as if any of the riders dally behind long enough to need footprints to show them the way. She is halfway in the room when Tialith drops and jolts, and her rider jerks forward and sinks to her knees, grunting faintly in response to the shared aerial halt.
Unlike his dragon, R'stan has been keeping pace with the female he pursues, just a step behind Roa and the self-appointed leader of the pack of bronzeriding followers she has gained. When she drops, suddenly, in front of him, the older man has to come up short, raised on his tiptoes to check the forward motion before he trips over her. The blanket sweeps up to his ankles and he has to yank it back out of the way before he can set his heels down, lest he add to the mess snow has made of it with his own dirty boots.
Unfortunately for Tialith, Trioth has seen it all, both from his own flight experience and her own flying habits. Both have been a careful study for him. When the young gold dips down to escape her bronze pursuers, he predicts that and drops like a stone after her, cutting into the space beneath his opponents as he drops rapidly for the catch. He's even accounted for the little upswing at the end, knowing she must halt before she falls, and he gets it spot on. Unfortunately for Trioth, Tialith's unpredictability is something he can't study, and that swerve to the right throws him off. His wingtip zips past hers by mere inches, his teeth already clacking with frustration as he gets to the spot she /should/ be in and finds it empty. Yanking his wings up as sharply as she did, and lashing his tail in irritation, he loops back after the gold.
R'vain certainly does no dallying. If his teeth are his badge, he's not going to bother showing them off for D'ven's benefit-- let the showing-off wait for the weyrwoman who's leading them. He stomps after her, his footfalls as heavy as ever, but his expression settles into something more like grim determination than lustful slavering.
Ruvoth's mind is nowhere near the coherence of his rider's. The passionate certainty that led him to streaming out wishes for the gold's soaring body-- and the awful things he's inclined to do with it-- collapse in a sheer, blazing pyre of fury. It's sharp, almost painful in its rage, and with that rage to fuel him the Weyrlingmaster's bronze arches his back in a tight twist, muscles straining, tendons pulling, forepaws reaching as his wings angle to drop him in a turn around toward Tialith's drop-and-turn. Again he cuts off the corners, smoothing her path and gaining on her by doing so. But now, he's mad.
Grastanth does not expect Tialith's dive by any measure. Adding to this difficulty is the fact that, from his angle on the outside, he sees more of his opponents than he does of the gold, so it takes him a while to figure out why those in front of him have started dropping away. Have his wishes all been granted, and they're moving out of the way to let him win? Such is not the case. When he finds the space empty, no Tialith ahead of him that he can see, the bronze has no choice but to drop after the pack, following their motions blindly until he finds the gold. He wastes energy doing so, darting around on the edges while he seeks out a glance, and then more catching her up: he will not risk losing sight of her, and knowledge of what's going on, again.
L'sten pauses to take a quick look around the guest weyr, checking for furnishings. By the time he's done scanning it, the weyrwoman has fallen to her knees and he's getting frantic thoughts through his link, thoughts that make him sink to the side with one hand on the door and the other on his forehead to hold him up and together all at once. He blocks the entrance, yes, but most of the riders have already entered by the time he does, and those who haven't can still find room enough to go around him.
Ruvoth> To Tialith: The rage is almost-- almost, but not quite-- without identity in its piercing, burning flare. It is worse than that cry of pain that welcomed her to his ledge the day his rider tried to die. It is fury in all its forms, nostrils flaring, throat rumbling, talons clacking. And it makes promises, wordless ones, fleeting glimpses of his intended revenge. His success. Her struggle. His fangs in her shoulder. Her wings ineffectively buffeting his ribs. His lower limbs closing around her hips, his talons tearing her hide. The lashing, furious captive; the lashing, furious captor-- conjoining, to burn out in glory.
D'ven seems to calm down when R'vain does nothing to further antagonize him. Something seems to have caused the bronzerider to mostly give himself up to Teraneth, and where R'vain is grim and determined D'ven is wild and furious as he follows Roa into the guest weyr, finding a wall to back up against as he scowls at the others gathered here. Teraneth, for his part, is completely taken aback by Tialith's sudden change of flight and while he does manage to wheel around and down to follow it's clear the strain on exhausted wings is growing from such maneuvers as this one.
Her maw opens, sides filling as the queen sucks in deep breaths of air to fuel her frenetic pace. She is not fool enough to look behind her, though the snatching talons that grab and miss tilt her off her course a little. She would like to bellow a challenge, perhaps, or a rebuttal to the rage that is pushed towards her thoughts, but this too would require energy better used for flying and dodging. Less of the dodging, just now. Her long tail lashes, her head lowers, and it is suddenly clear why a smaller and longer dragon can be effective in these situations. Her pace increases, her breath like pale smoke trailing behind her.
In the guest weyr, Roa squeezes her eyes shut and bites her lower lip, hard, before pushing herself up into a stand. Maybe she is finally aware of the cold, as her hands wrap around herself, each one grabbing the opposite arm. She suddenly jerks forward again and for a moment, R'vain is shot a glare that is nearly accusatory, but her eyes cannot stay on him for long. They must move to each of the other riders in turn.
R'stan steps back from Roa as soon as he's recovered her balance, meeting the gaze she turns around the room with a sudden flash of dislike, one inspired less by her than by the frustrations sent through the link with his dragon. His focus fades out as he moves away from her, finding his way to a chair and pulling it under him while he sits, closing his eyes so he won't have to choose between sights and can concentrate wholly on his dragon.
Trioth lost a lot of time in his failed maneuver, and the old bronze knows it. After he's done with the tail lashing and teeth snapping, the lean dragon evens out for a relentless pursuit of the gold, energy conservation forgotten - that jig is up, and he needs to make good time if he's to stand any chance of still catching that queen. Breath steams from him like puffs from a train, mechanically paced and surprisingly fast. Soon he's pulling up with the back of the pack, his error compensated for but not truly fixed, not till he has Tialith in his talons.
R'vain watches Roa's eyes-shut, arms-wrapped posture with that same grim expression, though the determination leaches out of him as he sinks a shoulder against the wall and-- hangs his head. Her glare sends his gaze for the floor, and turns his face the same color as the freckles spread across it. At his sides his fists curl and relax compulsively, and a strangled growl skitters around in his jaw-sprung mouth.
If his rider's some bizarre blend of denial and shame, Ruvoth, at least, is completely healthy in his self-acceptance. She ticked him off. So now, quite simply, he's going to eat her alive. But first, he has to catch her. He shrugs out an enormous beat of wings and rudders furiously with his tail, slinging his sails back along his sides to sleeken himself and gain speed. The muscles that were fresh when they began have reached their peak and heat pours off of his molten hide, flakes of snow turning to steam on contact as he slices through the sky.
D'ven stays with his back against the wall, though Roa is gifted with a snarl when she looks to him. It seems to be a blend of frustration and some strange sort of hurt, which quickly fades. In the skies, Teraneth is continuing to chase Tialith with everything he has even as that everything continues to ebb away. Despite his tired and aching wings, the bronze is still performing quite well but unlikely some of his rivals he clearly doesn’t have it in him to really pull off any more fancy moves or unexpected turns.
Riders trickle and push past L'sten as befits their dragon's impulse, but the tired wingrider doesn't seem affected by any of it. When they push his shoulder, his shoulder moves; when they leave it falls back into place. Once they're all gone, and he's waited long enough to ensure this is the case, he just drops to cross-legged where he is, hands pressing his temples and eyes darting back and forth across the floor, tracking the shadows of a draconic vision that's materializing alongside his own.
Tracking indeed. Grastanth had his sights on the queen for a little while there, but at the front he could not hold his ground. Other bronzes swept up alongside him and then cut in front, pushing him steadily towards the middle with no room in front to advance. He tries his best, swerving this way and that at holes that open up and then close before he can seize them, and bellows his cry of protest when he gets too eager for one and a tail snaps him in the nose. He's stuck, and he's not liking it.
Let them tumble over each other. Let them tangle and fight and strain. It is none of Tialith's concern. She propels herself upwards and away, snarling as she banks to the left and her wings spread wide. She is far enough ahead, she believes, that she might coast for a moment, regain a bit of breath, before continuing on. But just because Tialith would like it to be so, does not necessarily mean that it is the case.
Roa is shivering, still, toes curling and uncurling against the cold stone floor. There are rugs, but she isn't standing on any of them. She is not quite coherent enough to figure that one out, and the girl only stands and breathes as if it was she that's been charging through the sky at full tilt. And really, in a way, it has been.
The game is up, for Grastanth. The middle of the pack is slow going, warm from the passage of all those bodies but the air currents choppy from the same. When one of those currents makes him tilt, wobble a little to the side, he cannot but feel the ache of his joints and the cold that's settled over his hide. He draws up sharply, forcing those behind him to catch themselves and swing around, and lets himself drop out of the race, turning slowly on a wingtip to head back to the weyr.
L'sten sinks into his hands, palms pressing over his eyes, when he feels his bronze's exhaustion as though it were seeping into his own bones. The silence in his corner of the room is broken by incoherent mumbles, private things meant for his dragon that he doesn't currently have control enough to keep to himself.
Teraneth seems to be continuing because he's too stubborn to quit, rather than because he believes he can catch the queen. With every beat, his tired wings lose a little more of their speed and power. He's currently managing to hold his position, but unless he can find some last reserve it won't be long before he starts to drop backward. On the ground, D'ven watches Roa with a baleful glare, filled with furious intensity.
From the outside of the pack, as he swings around, Trioth sees his chance. He sees it being many dragonlengths ahead of him, and his wings already starting to ache from that sharp dive he fell into when she tricked him. Good, then. This will be a challenge. He flies so fast the wind starts pulling his lips back, a snarl forced upon him by circumstance. Maybe he'd have gotten it, even, had Grastanth not dropped out when he did; the confusion he causes mid-pack forces other dragons to move outward, breaking into the clean line of attack Trioth has laid out for himself. The old bronze wrings himself sideways and angles around them without moving off his line, but he loses speed all the same, and he knows he can't count on that queen being quiet for long. He pulls ahead of the pack with a burst of sudden speed, talons stretched out in anticipation of a catch he can't ... quite ... make ...
R'stan is silent, just silent. His hands have balled into fists and his fingernails dig into the palm, leaving deep crescent markings in the flesh. A twitch from him, echoing Trioth's dash, sends the blanket of his shoulders, but he's too wrapped up in his dragon to notice.
R'vain steals a glance up at the weyrwoman. Whatever he sees seems not to encourage him much. He half-turns, unleaning his shoulder from the wall, and turns his emerald gaze out toward the entrance through which these riders all came. Even with his wounded paw and his reduced bulk, a couple of the men sidestep this way or that, too accustomed to the Weyrlingmaster's tendency to incite brawls-- either drunken or, more dangerously, sober-- in the guest weyrs. But R'vain just stands there, his paws finding his pockets, and stares out into the gray, snowing sky.
Ruvoth is by turns pure fury and pure ardor. These twin engines burn a speedy fuel but a hot one, and as the queen before him starts to coast, the Weyrlingmaster's bronze flattens out his wings and spears them through the air in a single, thunder-booming beat. With this single move he separates himself from the peers nearest him, sliding a few inches higher in the sky than they. After that it's a simple thing. He's fresh. Most of them are not. He dives with bared fangs clacking, and reaches with splayed talons sharp-grasping, and croons a narrow, wicked song meant just for her.
It seems for a moment as if Tialith's bet will pay off. She is allowed several heaving breaths, her coasting glide taking her just out of reach of the older Trioth, and both Teraneth and Grastanth are no threat just now. Her wings shift as if she would launch into another burst of speed, but suddenly there is weight and want and fury all slamming into her at once, and Tialith is reeling. Only, she is not. Because someone has her. A moment before, she would have fought. The instant before he touched her, she would have met rage with rage, but Ruvoth -has- caught and the touch is transforming. The queen growls low, but it is no warning. Her wings tuck to her sides as her neck and tail already begin to twine around the victor.
Roa seems about to breathe a sigh of relief as her gold relaxes momentarily. But the moment hardly lasts and for a third time the little weyrwoman (Weyrwoman) staggers forward, eyes wide, breath pushed out from between her lips as if something has slammed her in the belly. But this time she's tripping towards the slightly-thinner-than-usual weyrlingmaster, and her blue eyes find his green. And there they stay.
As Tialith is caught, Teraneth lets out a sound of frustrated rage. But while his voice says one thing, his posture speaks of relief as he peels away and descends lazily to leave the sky to the victor and his prize. Wings move slowly now, looking forward to being folded and allowed rest. On the ground, as his dragon's emotions ebb somewhat, D'ven flops forward as though released at least a little from whatever was holding him up against that wall. And there he stays for a moment, before slowly making for the exit without a backward glance. His movements are slower than before, but more controlled and deliberate now.
Trioth's way is clear and through it he can see everything that happens. For example, the big bronze Ruvoth that looms in front of him, stretches his talons out and catches the queen in her idling. Trioth knows a loss when it comes, and doesn't have to wait for the low growl from Tialith to know the other bronze aimed right and saw it through. He banks sharply, a soft hiss of wingbeats following him through the air, and breaks around the pack to return home. Back in the weyr, his rider stands up sharply, the blanket left behind him on the chair, and leaves the room with stiff if quiet dignity. No doubt there are plenty of girls for him to find solace in.
Grastanth knows the catch happened when he feels the waves of emotion radiating off Tialith and Ruvoth. His frustration takes a different tone than that of most of the failed chasers: not that he lost, but that he was so close and didn't even make it to the end. At least he has a head start on them in returning, though it's not much of one with his tired wings taking him so slowly. His rider has already vanished from the guest weyr, slipping out after a few consoling words to Grastanth and now finding himself with the first choice of girls and the perfect time to choose one. Well, there are some benefits, even if he'll be wearing a sad, wistful smile for the next couple months or so.
Ruvoth, unfortunately, is not so completely transformed. Part, at least, of his wicked wishes he makes good on. His talons sink in, his legs clutching his prize close to him. But he does not bite, not yet anyway, and as her tail twines his the Weyrlingmaster's (Weyrleader's) bronze's song turns sweet. He spans wide his wings, and carries her.
R'vain, for his part, just turns around to meet Roa's eyes. There's one young fellow, a weyrling from four clutches back now riding in the first flight's second wing, who dares to grin up at the big red man on his way past toward the exit. But R'vain has no mind for congratulations. He just has that grim, again-determined expression, and that expression gives no ground as he prowls forward, putting out (palm up) the unwrapped hand.
There is a hiss from the queen as claws sink into her skin. -Into-. Nothing has scarred her hide. Not thread, not bad flying or poor landing, nothing. Save him. So, though she is carried and though she will, in a moment, respond to Ruvoth's gentling, it is she who bites, where his neck and shoulder meet.
For one beat, Roa is stiff and still, her own expression schooling into something blank and wary. She has that much control. But not for very long. It is, interestingly enough, the same moment that Tialith bites that Roa moves forward, her hand not only slipping into R'vain's larger paw, but curling around it much as her fingers can manage to give that paw a frantic squeeze. There is no longer any question of what will happen next.
Time: Day 2, Month 1, Turn 3
Players: R'vain, D'ven, Roa, Ruvoth, Tialith, Teraneth, and two NPCs by Reyce: L'sten (with Grastanth) and R'stan (with Trioth).
Scene: Tialith screams back home just in time to blood and run. The boys give chase.
The snow spills downward in one of those unusual afternoons where the sun is out despite the whiteness pouring from the sky. There is a quiet calm to the air. Perhaps it is the lull and exhaustion felt after a morning threadfall. Perhaps it is simply the way the snow mutes and blankets the world. Things are silent, peaceful, and white.
The pale monotony is interrupted with an icy burst of air that is likely lost in the overall cold of High Reaches in winter. A queen is gliding swiftly downward from the sky, and the sunlight illuminates off of a golden hide that reflects it back with a sheen so bright than some might say she was glowing. She wears no straps, but as the gold lands in the feeding grounds, a small figure tumbles off from between her neckridges and lands with a muffled thud in the snow.
The little rider is not dressed for the weather. In nothing but a sleeveless shirt and a sari, Roa is tearing through the trampled snow in bare feet to swing over the fence and land on the bottom slat, toes curling around the wood. Her fingers cling to the top rail and wind whips her long, dark hair behind her, unusual in that it is unbound. Her eyes, wide and blue, peer out of a darkly tanned face as she watches her Tialith fell one of the larger herdbeasts. The queen's pale and gleaming muzzle lowers to the bovine's throat, teeth sinking into the artery that still pulses as she begins to drink. Roa shivers, but she seems unaware of it. Both rider and dragon are utterly and eerily silent.
Some of the weyrlings had their first turn on home ground crew as riders this morning. Some of them had the morning off. But all of them have the afternoon to themselves, to recover from what was, for some, a stressful event, a rude awakening to the realities of Threadfall-- or to relax and work on their straps, their letters home, their mending. So their master, too, has had a quiet afternoon. Time to bathe and scrub down his hair, to wash off the smoke and stains he acquired tending to the dragons returning from 'fall-- and the weyrlings too. Time to retreat with Ruvoth to their ledge, to begin the bronze's caretaking, since his rider's own is complete.
R'vain's broad palms are therefore stroking thick oil into a sleek, stretched neck when Tialith's arrival and the waves of visceral attraction that accompany it wash over the lazing, half-drowsy bronze. "Oh, no y'don't," growls R'vain, first to understand even if he's second to feel. "Y'take me down first." He unhooks his oil-pail from his hip and drops it unceremoniously on the stone, then starts up the beast's shoulder.
Silence personified is R'stan's bronze Trioth. He drops off his ledge just moments after Tialith reappears, taking a leisurely swing around the bowl on his way to the feeding grounds. His rider clings to his neck, huddled close and wrapped in a blanket that was the best he could do on such short notice - not that he isn't clothed, just not for going outside in the snow. The two are an old pair, Trioth gray at the muzzle and R'stan in his thin brush of a mustache, but age has made this bronze wily, not slow. With the confidence of a dragon who's won more green flights than anyone can count, Trioth eyes the blooding gold as he lands and waits for his blanket-wrapped rider to slip off his shoulder and go crunching away through the snow. No Threadfall tired his wings today.
Teraneth and D'ven are out in the bowl, the Wingsecond leaning against the huge beast's side to protect himself somewhat from the cold. It's a lesiurely way to relax after a hard threadfall, just watching the world go by. When Tialith appears in the skies above, Teraneth's head snaps upward and his rider almost falls before he staggers away from the bronze to look for himself. His face is a mask of confusion, fear, and expectation as he stands in the snow, Teraneth quick to make his way to the feeding grounds.
Grastanth has just settled into a bath when the gold and her rider return, so it takes his tired mind a moment or two extra to process their arrival. His rider, L'sten, goes about bathing him in peaceful innocence, whistling a cheerful little tune he picked up at the Turn's End celebration. It's a complete surprise to the young wingrider when his bronze hefts himself up and makes for the door, allowing the water to just drain off him as he goes, ignoring the char marks that still blur his pale hide. His rider, he leaves behind: L'sten would freeze if he went outside, wet and near naked, but Grastanth must go /now/.
It is only after the first herdbeast is drained that the long and lean gold lifts her head, eyes a turbulent mixture of red and violet. She takes in those who have already landed and then her neck stretches high and her narrow chest fills. Tialith unleashes a single roar, long and pointed. She is here! She bloods! It is a summons and no mistake. The announcement made, the whipcord gold lunges for another panicked beast, dropping it with a practiced snap of her jaws. Again, she goes for the throat. Again she drinks instead of bites.
Roa does little other than stand and stare and shiver. Her hands hold white-knuckled tight to the top rail, toes cling to the bottom, and good luck to any who would try to remove her. She is barely blinking, her focus narrowed to the glowing figure claiming the feeding grounds. Her breath comes in sharp gasps and plumes outwards into the frigid air.
Trioth doesn't respond to the roar, just keeps his eyes (literally) on the gold. He watches her move, watches her hunt. From a distance he's been doing so for months, ever since R'stan realized they had a shot at Weyrleader. His name has not turned up in the betting pools only because he is so old - no one thinks he can fly a young queen - but Trioth has confidence. You can see that confidence in the way he launches himself at a passing herdbeast, slamming it to the ground so quickly and neatly the thing barely knows it's dead by the time he rips its throat out. He drinks.
R'stan climbs over the fence, not seeming to care that his long blanket (and a nice one, by the look of it) is getting snow all over it from this little sojourn outside. The loud thud of his feet announces him when he lands on the other side, glances at Roa, and then moves to a spot about three feet from her. Wordless, he stretches the blanket out towards the young weyrwoman and just holds it there, watching his bronze.
Ruvoth sails off of his ledge, his rider curled astride without straps, uttering a low litany of a single syllable repeated. He cants a wing toward ground early on and swings around tight, careening along the curve of the bowl wall toward the feeding grounds. He has no patience to allow his rider an easy dismount. Thick talons splay out, tail lashing to steady his landing in the snow. He slides a few feet and digs in, forepaws delving through the bitter white to find purchase on frozen soil beneath. R'vain slides down, boots landing with snowy thuds, and leaps clear in a hurry, setting out an urgent run toward the gate nearby. He knows better than to bother fighting the drifts to open it-- up and over he climbs, while Ruvoth undulates on slinking feet toward a beast panicked by Tialith, cowering. It does not cower for long-- that fresh-oiled neck, glossy and sleek, whips out furiously. Jaws snap. And fear is ended by the relief of bloody, thirsty death.
The problem with water is that it freezes when it gets cold, as Grastanth now finds. There's no ice on him, and surely he'll shake it all off before ice can form, but the cold doesn't help joints that are already swelled and sore from a day of hard flying. He eschews flight for the trip to the feeding grounds, shaking himself from time to time as he lumbers through the snow on foot. A single bound takes him over the fence when he gets there, but it takes him two tries to catch a herdbeast and blood it.
L'sten is still staring after his bronze, but he's starting to get the idea. A bluerider, sharing the baths with him at this time, waits to catch his eye and then lifts an eyebrow. Well, would-be Weyrleader? Got a plan? L'sten clears his throat awkwardly and drops away from the gaze almost as soon as he catches it, wading back through the water to fetch himself a towel. He dries with his back to the other man.
Teraneth is quick to act when he gets going, though it's clear threadfall has left him in less than optimal condition. A herdbeast is brought down, jaws fixing deep in the thing's neck before his head swings back upward to drain the blood as his rider has often done with a bottle. D'ven is slightly slower, making his way over the fence toward Roa and the gathering riders. As he approaches he's moving faster, losing more of himself to the emotions rolling through the link.
The second beast is drained and a third is taken. Tialith hunches over this kill, suddenly possessive, and her wings open half way, curling forward in an attempt to shield her meal from view. This time her head rears back and bloodied jaws part as if she'd sink her teeth into the flesh and eat properly. Only, the little figure perched on the fence intervenes.
Roa is trembling violently now, her hair is dappled with gathered snowflakes, her lips and toes are faintly blue, and goose bumps cover her arms and legs. R'stan and his offer of a blanket remain unnoticed. The little rider doesn't seem to see anything other than the happenings in the pen. The single word she speaks is quiet and calm; disconnected from the cold and, perhaps, from herself. "No." The gold snarls but for a third time, she bites only the throat and does no more than drink.
No, no blanket? If R'stan is surprised or offended to find his offer ignored, he doesn't seem so, and he doesn't maintain his generosity for long. After all, while he and Trioth are still in fine fettle, they are old at the root of it, and an old man has just as much need to stay warm as a young woman. He wraps the blanket around his shoulders like a cape and hunches over the fence, leaving Roa alone.
Trioth lingers by his meal, flicking his tongue out over that gray muzzle and picking up the stray drops of blood. His whirling eyes reflect all there is to be seen, all the other bronzes gathering in this pen and all the motions of the gold who brought them there. The first beast sated him and there's no need to go for another, no need to anything but watch, and wait. Wiry old muscles tense and his lips tremble with pent up excitement, all of him ready to go and just waiting for the excuse.
Grastanth hunches over the warmth of his kill, his eyes half-lidded as the steam rises up from it and heats his jaw. Shifting a heavy step forward, he settles his shoulders over the animal and crouches low, letting its heat warm his wing joints as best as he can. He flexes them while he waits, extending and retracting them to get the ichor flowing again and wear out the stiffness that his bath was supposed to ease. Most of the water has slicked off his hide, dragging the char marks into long, dark blurs like some kind of draconic camo.
L'sten is taking his time preparing for the outdoors, ruffling up every hair on his head till he's sure they're all dry. And then ruffling them again because he needs the time. The bluerider leaves him alone while he prepares, sitting down to pull on warm socks first and after that every layer of clothes he brought with him. He won't be suffering as his dragon does.
R'vain, safe on the non-horrified-herdbeast side of the fence, crouches, ostensibly to tuck the cuffs of his leathers into his boots as guard against the snow. But he's faced toward Roa, by happenstance no doubt, and with an elbow on his knee steals a moment to glance up at her, eyes narrow. What thoughts might stew behind that keen gaze remain his alone. A paw sweeps up the top of his thigh and tugs at the leather bunched there while he starts to straighten, head shaking, a rumble latent and soft in the back of his throat.
Ruvoth is not so gentle. His sides, so often sunken with misery, tremble with delight. His head cants toward Tialith, a drop of blood swinging off of his moving muzzle to land red in the snow spoiled beneath him. A rumble escapes him, more telling than his rider's, dragon-laughing. He sees her. And he bows his head again, and drags his fangs across the neck of the calf in his claws, thrilling to the flesh splayed open against his moving maw.
Teraneth is quick to discard his empty beast, and go for more. Fall has left him drained, and in need of the energy the hot, thick, blood provides. As he bloods he keeps one eye always on Tialith, ready to go when she does. Meanwhile, his rider finds himself drawing closer and closer to Roa. D'ven seems to be fighting it, but as every second passes the fight ebbs and he loses himself a little more.
Once more the queen's head lifts, her tongue flicking out to lap away the blood smeared along the edges of her mouth. Whirling eyes take in the space around her and the other dragons that are waiting. There is no flirtation in her study, and a low growl rumbles along her throat as muscles bunch and gather. Even Ruvoth is not exempt from this calculated assessment, not just now. Her wings snap open, the mosaic sails beating down as her legs push upwards. In a moment, she is airborne and tearing higher on a steep incline.
Roa pushes up onto her toes, legs and back straining as Tialith makes for the sky. She cannot, for a long moment, tear her gaze away, and then her eyes close and she sucks in a shuddering gasp that matches the vanishing gold's first aerial swerve. Eyes open again slowly, and the girl makes an attempt at speaking as her attention slides to the riders. "We have to...should..." but that's all she manages before her eyes close again and her head lowers until her forehead rests against a fence post.
Trioth's coiled muscles spring up and throw him into the air after Tialith, his broad wings snapping out and beating with level intensity to bring him up. He is one of the first to launch, but the first few moments will find him behind, patiently measuring his efforts so his energy can last till the end. Breath steams pale from his nostrils, blurring the line between his gray muzzle and the sky he's pointing it into. Up up, as though this were a mere joy ride, except he is always too intently watching Tialith.
Down below, his rider echoes his intensity with a stare that snaps towards Roa as soon as the first ripple of haunches announces her dragon's launch into the air. Watchful and withdrawn, he makes no effort to guess at her intended sentence or help move things along, but he waits to see what she will do.
Ruvoth, unwilling, rips his muzzle from the beast he's bathing it in, teeth clacking and sending a fine spray of bloody droplets out into the frosty air on a hissing cone of steam. She leaps, so he must leap as well. The calf falls from his paws and he leans back into his haunches, then bolts skyward in a heady, furied launch. His wings beat maybe twice before his mind begins to leak, and in a few wingbeats more that substance leaking begins to take form. Every wicked thing that could ever have been attributed to his rider's appetites rolls into one long, rich betrayal of intent. Speed. Sky. And success-- violent, self-certain success.
"G'inside," suggests the Weyrlingmaster, voice low, ragged. "Pick an inside." He jerks his chin toward the low ledges that belong to the queens. Jerks it again, his breath steaming through flared nostrils, at the guest weyrs. Another time toward the main caverns, even. And then R'vain, ever the furnace, never cold, wraps his arms around himself and shudders in the chill.
Slow. If Grastanth searched his soul at this moment, he might have difficulty determining whether it preferred to chase the gold or stay by the warm meat. Absent the soul searching, however, instinct takes over and pushes the bronze out of his crouch and into a delayed launch, his wings laboring heavily over the first few motions while they get the motion back into them. He compensates by throwing a little extra speed into his movements once the muscles have warmed up enough, and soon catches up with the pack. He gets no further than the middle of it, keeping to the outside as he swings around them.
L'sten only hoped to be fully dressed by the time he went out there. He's putting a coat on when the link with Grastanth suddenly shocks him out of it and sends him barreling outside, his coat hanging by one arm. Just outside the baths he stops and cranes his neck up, a hand going to shield his eyes as he finds the gold-tipped mass of bronzes rising through the winter air. Then he's off again, leaping through the impediments of snow on his way to catch up the other riders, before they disappear into whatever inside place Roa might select.
There's a sickening thud as Teraneth drops his latest drinking vessel, discarding it without a thought as Tialith rises. With a speed one might think impossible of his build, the bronze is off the ground and heading upward with the pack as they all chase the golden prize. D'ven, on hearing R'vain and Roa's words, turns to say something but no words come. Just a strange, half-growling, sound that was once a coherent reply.
The gold is wasting no time in gaining elevation, and it might be argued that she is pushing too hard, too soon. A common mistake for a virgin flight. She twists in the air, cutting a sharp turn and then another, in an attempt to slow up those who pursue her. For the barrage of leaking thoughts that Ruvoth telegraphs to her, he receives only this in return: disbelief. He cannot. No one can. Not her. Wings beat, beat, and then spread wide to coast for a moment before the movement is repeated. Higher, higher, always higher, even as her direction changes, her aim remains constant.
The rider still perched on the fence swallows convulsively and offers a faint nod for the helpful suggestion. Or maybe for the growl. Roa steps down, bare feet sinking into snow as she begins to move at a pace that is not quite running. She moves not towards her own weyr and (thank Faranth) not towards the living caverns. The guest weyr seems to be the destination of choice.
Fall into step, L'sten, like you were here all along. This is precisely what the bronzerider does when he sees the detachment of riders move away towards the fence and, following Roa, towards the guest weyr. With a casual skill that his tired dragon currently lacks, the man sidesteps into the thick of things, hands shoved in his pockets and eyes on the many imprints of boots (and one lighter, barefoot tread dancing awkwardly through the cold) that precede him.
The weariness leaks out of Grastanth when he takes to the air, feeling the air rush past and sweep him cold, but dry, and shock life back into him. Maybe it's the trickle of confidence from Ruvoth that infects him, but any way the bronze is more alert now, moving with more energy. He swings after both of Tialith's turns, banking them easily and allowing some of his own contentment with his good flying to seep out.
It is Tialith's constant aim that, after the first few jogs back and forth, teach Ruvoth his plan. He waits-- still streaming his horrific and delighted intents, all talons and tangling in his thundering mind-- for one of her wingspread coasting episodes, and during that picks out the invisible point toward which she's been, overall, rising. Toward /that/ point, not the queen herself, the Weyrlingmaster's bronze sets out. He strokes the air easily away with well-rested wings, the wind coasting along his glossy neck making pretty ripples in his ugly hide. He flies not to overtake, but to gain on her likely path, soaring lazy on the sky.
R'vain has command of language, and even of his hands-- the one with the wrap around the palm tucks a thumb into the unused belt-loop of his trousers and drags heavy toward on the band. But D'ven's growl echoes in his ears and, not quite able to resist, he squints an angry look sidelong at the 3C wingsecond. He shows teeth, and in something nothing like a grin, then jerks his chin back forward, defiant, and swaggers after Roa toward the 'inside' of her choice.
The growl gets R'stan's attention, too, snapping it away from Roa and onto D'ven. His lips curl up into a slow smile, the thin mustache moving up to echo them, but the headshake he gives is almost rueful and at odds with the clear menace on his mouth: oh, kids. He spins neatly away from the fence, the blanket flaring up behind him, and strides after the weyrwoman with chin raised, eyes sparking. He's been watching the two top contenders for this flight, and he has a good feeling about today.
Trioth continues along on his calm joy ride, enjoying the sights - of Tialith - and the sounds - of Tialith's thoughts - and the smells - of his approaching victory over Tialith. The back of the pack forms a buffer for him, allowing him plenty of time to see where the gold's going and how best to follow her before he puts his plan into action; thus he does not swerve with her turns but cuts a straight path through them. It buys him no time, as his wingbeats remain paced and steady, but it preserves energy.
Teraneth continues to chase after Tialith with the rest of the pack, making good ground despite the exhaustion from threadfall. His wings beat determinedly, propelling him forward even as they ache slightly from so much use. The huge bronze is currently mostly silent, highly focused on the prize ahead. On the ground, R'stan largely goes ignored since he's not doing anything too threatening. R'vain, however, is showing teeth and that gets the majority of D'ven's attention as he follows Roa towards indoors. In response to the Weyrlingmaster's chin jerking, the Wingsecond lets out a low snarl and attempts to show more teeth than R'vain is currently managing.
Two anticipating, two gaining, Tialith snarls as she twists and then tucks her sails and simply drops like a stone for one...two...three...seconds, sinking beneath them all before her wide wings snap open again, jolting her hard but allowing her to swoop upwards and to the right, her angle changed in response to Ruvoth's clever planning and Trioth's patient gaining. How dare they, after all, try tactics.
Roa makes it inside, leaving a trail of wet footprints to mark her passage, as if any of the riders dally behind long enough to need footprints to show them the way. She is halfway in the room when Tialith drops and jolts, and her rider jerks forward and sinks to her knees, grunting faintly in response to the shared aerial halt.
Unlike his dragon, R'stan has been keeping pace with the female he pursues, just a step behind Roa and the self-appointed leader of the pack of bronzeriding followers she has gained. When she drops, suddenly, in front of him, the older man has to come up short, raised on his tiptoes to check the forward motion before he trips over her. The blanket sweeps up to his ankles and he has to yank it back out of the way before he can set his heels down, lest he add to the mess snow has made of it with his own dirty boots.
Unfortunately for Tialith, Trioth has seen it all, both from his own flight experience and her own flying habits. Both have been a careful study for him. When the young gold dips down to escape her bronze pursuers, he predicts that and drops like a stone after her, cutting into the space beneath his opponents as he drops rapidly for the catch. He's even accounted for the little upswing at the end, knowing she must halt before she falls, and he gets it spot on. Unfortunately for Trioth, Tialith's unpredictability is something he can't study, and that swerve to the right throws him off. His wingtip zips past hers by mere inches, his teeth already clacking with frustration as he gets to the spot she /should/ be in and finds it empty. Yanking his wings up as sharply as she did, and lashing his tail in irritation, he loops back after the gold.
R'vain certainly does no dallying. If his teeth are his badge, he's not going to bother showing them off for D'ven's benefit-- let the showing-off wait for the weyrwoman who's leading them. He stomps after her, his footfalls as heavy as ever, but his expression settles into something more like grim determination than lustful slavering.
Ruvoth's mind is nowhere near the coherence of his rider's. The passionate certainty that led him to streaming out wishes for the gold's soaring body-- and the awful things he's inclined to do with it-- collapse in a sheer, blazing pyre of fury. It's sharp, almost painful in its rage, and with that rage to fuel him the Weyrlingmaster's bronze arches his back in a tight twist, muscles straining, tendons pulling, forepaws reaching as his wings angle to drop him in a turn around toward Tialith's drop-and-turn. Again he cuts off the corners, smoothing her path and gaining on her by doing so. But now, he's mad.
Grastanth does not expect Tialith's dive by any measure. Adding to this difficulty is the fact that, from his angle on the outside, he sees more of his opponents than he does of the gold, so it takes him a while to figure out why those in front of him have started dropping away. Have his wishes all been granted, and they're moving out of the way to let him win? Such is not the case. When he finds the space empty, no Tialith ahead of him that he can see, the bronze has no choice but to drop after the pack, following their motions blindly until he finds the gold. He wastes energy doing so, darting around on the edges while he seeks out a glance, and then more catching her up: he will not risk losing sight of her, and knowledge of what's going on, again.
L'sten pauses to take a quick look around the guest weyr, checking for furnishings. By the time he's done scanning it, the weyrwoman has fallen to her knees and he's getting frantic thoughts through his link, thoughts that make him sink to the side with one hand on the door and the other on his forehead to hold him up and together all at once. He blocks the entrance, yes, but most of the riders have already entered by the time he does, and those who haven't can still find room enough to go around him.
Ruvoth> To Tialith: The rage is almost-- almost, but not quite-- without identity in its piercing, burning flare. It is worse than that cry of pain that welcomed her to his ledge the day his rider tried to die. It is fury in all its forms, nostrils flaring, throat rumbling, talons clacking. And it makes promises, wordless ones, fleeting glimpses of his intended revenge. His success. Her struggle. His fangs in her shoulder. Her wings ineffectively buffeting his ribs. His lower limbs closing around her hips, his talons tearing her hide. The lashing, furious captive; the lashing, furious captor-- conjoining, to burn out in glory.
D'ven seems to calm down when R'vain does nothing to further antagonize him. Something seems to have caused the bronzerider to mostly give himself up to Teraneth, and where R'vain is grim and determined D'ven is wild and furious as he follows Roa into the guest weyr, finding a wall to back up against as he scowls at the others gathered here. Teraneth, for his part, is completely taken aback by Tialith's sudden change of flight and while he does manage to wheel around and down to follow it's clear the strain on exhausted wings is growing from such maneuvers as this one.
Her maw opens, sides filling as the queen sucks in deep breaths of air to fuel her frenetic pace. She is not fool enough to look behind her, though the snatching talons that grab and miss tilt her off her course a little. She would like to bellow a challenge, perhaps, or a rebuttal to the rage that is pushed towards her thoughts, but this too would require energy better used for flying and dodging. Less of the dodging, just now. Her long tail lashes, her head lowers, and it is suddenly clear why a smaller and longer dragon can be effective in these situations. Her pace increases, her breath like pale smoke trailing behind her.
In the guest weyr, Roa squeezes her eyes shut and bites her lower lip, hard, before pushing herself up into a stand. Maybe she is finally aware of the cold, as her hands wrap around herself, each one grabbing the opposite arm. She suddenly jerks forward again and for a moment, R'vain is shot a glare that is nearly accusatory, but her eyes cannot stay on him for long. They must move to each of the other riders in turn.
R'stan steps back from Roa as soon as he's recovered her balance, meeting the gaze she turns around the room with a sudden flash of dislike, one inspired less by her than by the frustrations sent through the link with his dragon. His focus fades out as he moves away from her, finding his way to a chair and pulling it under him while he sits, closing his eyes so he won't have to choose between sights and can concentrate wholly on his dragon.
Trioth lost a lot of time in his failed maneuver, and the old bronze knows it. After he's done with the tail lashing and teeth snapping, the lean dragon evens out for a relentless pursuit of the gold, energy conservation forgotten - that jig is up, and he needs to make good time if he's to stand any chance of still catching that queen. Breath steams from him like puffs from a train, mechanically paced and surprisingly fast. Soon he's pulling up with the back of the pack, his error compensated for but not truly fixed, not till he has Tialith in his talons.
R'vain watches Roa's eyes-shut, arms-wrapped posture with that same grim expression, though the determination leaches out of him as he sinks a shoulder against the wall and-- hangs his head. Her glare sends his gaze for the floor, and turns his face the same color as the freckles spread across it. At his sides his fists curl and relax compulsively, and a strangled growl skitters around in his jaw-sprung mouth.
If his rider's some bizarre blend of denial and shame, Ruvoth, at least, is completely healthy in his self-acceptance. She ticked him off. So now, quite simply, he's going to eat her alive. But first, he has to catch her. He shrugs out an enormous beat of wings and rudders furiously with his tail, slinging his sails back along his sides to sleeken himself and gain speed. The muscles that were fresh when they began have reached their peak and heat pours off of his molten hide, flakes of snow turning to steam on contact as he slices through the sky.
D'ven stays with his back against the wall, though Roa is gifted with a snarl when she looks to him. It seems to be a blend of frustration and some strange sort of hurt, which quickly fades. In the skies, Teraneth is continuing to chase Tialith with everything he has even as that everything continues to ebb away. Despite his tired and aching wings, the bronze is still performing quite well but unlikely some of his rivals he clearly doesn’t have it in him to really pull off any more fancy moves or unexpected turns.
Riders trickle and push past L'sten as befits their dragon's impulse, but the tired wingrider doesn't seem affected by any of it. When they push his shoulder, his shoulder moves; when they leave it falls back into place. Once they're all gone, and he's waited long enough to ensure this is the case, he just drops to cross-legged where he is, hands pressing his temples and eyes darting back and forth across the floor, tracking the shadows of a draconic vision that's materializing alongside his own.
Tracking indeed. Grastanth had his sights on the queen for a little while there, but at the front he could not hold his ground. Other bronzes swept up alongside him and then cut in front, pushing him steadily towards the middle with no room in front to advance. He tries his best, swerving this way and that at holes that open up and then close before he can seize them, and bellows his cry of protest when he gets too eager for one and a tail snaps him in the nose. He's stuck, and he's not liking it.
Let them tumble over each other. Let them tangle and fight and strain. It is none of Tialith's concern. She propels herself upwards and away, snarling as she banks to the left and her wings spread wide. She is far enough ahead, she believes, that she might coast for a moment, regain a bit of breath, before continuing on. But just because Tialith would like it to be so, does not necessarily mean that it is the case.
Roa is shivering, still, toes curling and uncurling against the cold stone floor. There are rugs, but she isn't standing on any of them. She is not quite coherent enough to figure that one out, and the girl only stands and breathes as if it was she that's been charging through the sky at full tilt. And really, in a way, it has been.
The game is up, for Grastanth. The middle of the pack is slow going, warm from the passage of all those bodies but the air currents choppy from the same. When one of those currents makes him tilt, wobble a little to the side, he cannot but feel the ache of his joints and the cold that's settled over his hide. He draws up sharply, forcing those behind him to catch themselves and swing around, and lets himself drop out of the race, turning slowly on a wingtip to head back to the weyr.
L'sten sinks into his hands, palms pressing over his eyes, when he feels his bronze's exhaustion as though it were seeping into his own bones. The silence in his corner of the room is broken by incoherent mumbles, private things meant for his dragon that he doesn't currently have control enough to keep to himself.
Teraneth seems to be continuing because he's too stubborn to quit, rather than because he believes he can catch the queen. With every beat, his tired wings lose a little more of their speed and power. He's currently managing to hold his position, but unless he can find some last reserve it won't be long before he starts to drop backward. On the ground, D'ven watches Roa with a baleful glare, filled with furious intensity.
From the outside of the pack, as he swings around, Trioth sees his chance. He sees it being many dragonlengths ahead of him, and his wings already starting to ache from that sharp dive he fell into when she tricked him. Good, then. This will be a challenge. He flies so fast the wind starts pulling his lips back, a snarl forced upon him by circumstance. Maybe he'd have gotten it, even, had Grastanth not dropped out when he did; the confusion he causes mid-pack forces other dragons to move outward, breaking into the clean line of attack Trioth has laid out for himself. The old bronze wrings himself sideways and angles around them without moving off his line, but he loses speed all the same, and he knows he can't count on that queen being quiet for long. He pulls ahead of the pack with a burst of sudden speed, talons stretched out in anticipation of a catch he can't ... quite ... make ...
R'stan is silent, just silent. His hands have balled into fists and his fingernails dig into the palm, leaving deep crescent markings in the flesh. A twitch from him, echoing Trioth's dash, sends the blanket of his shoulders, but he's too wrapped up in his dragon to notice.
R'vain steals a glance up at the weyrwoman. Whatever he sees seems not to encourage him much. He half-turns, unleaning his shoulder from the wall, and turns his emerald gaze out toward the entrance through which these riders all came. Even with his wounded paw and his reduced bulk, a couple of the men sidestep this way or that, too accustomed to the Weyrlingmaster's tendency to incite brawls-- either drunken or, more dangerously, sober-- in the guest weyrs. But R'vain just stands there, his paws finding his pockets, and stares out into the gray, snowing sky.
Ruvoth is by turns pure fury and pure ardor. These twin engines burn a speedy fuel but a hot one, and as the queen before him starts to coast, the Weyrlingmaster's bronze flattens out his wings and spears them through the air in a single, thunder-booming beat. With this single move he separates himself from the peers nearest him, sliding a few inches higher in the sky than they. After that it's a simple thing. He's fresh. Most of them are not. He dives with bared fangs clacking, and reaches with splayed talons sharp-grasping, and croons a narrow, wicked song meant just for her.
It seems for a moment as if Tialith's bet will pay off. She is allowed several heaving breaths, her coasting glide taking her just out of reach of the older Trioth, and both Teraneth and Grastanth are no threat just now. Her wings shift as if she would launch into another burst of speed, but suddenly there is weight and want and fury all slamming into her at once, and Tialith is reeling. Only, she is not. Because someone has her. A moment before, she would have fought. The instant before he touched her, she would have met rage with rage, but Ruvoth -has- caught and the touch is transforming. The queen growls low, but it is no warning. Her wings tuck to her sides as her neck and tail already begin to twine around the victor.
Roa seems about to breathe a sigh of relief as her gold relaxes momentarily. But the moment hardly lasts and for a third time the little weyrwoman (Weyrwoman) staggers forward, eyes wide, breath pushed out from between her lips as if something has slammed her in the belly. But this time she's tripping towards the slightly-thinner-than-usual weyrlingmaster, and her blue eyes find his green. And there they stay.
As Tialith is caught, Teraneth lets out a sound of frustrated rage. But while his voice says one thing, his posture speaks of relief as he peels away and descends lazily to leave the sky to the victor and his prize. Wings move slowly now, looking forward to being folded and allowed rest. On the ground, as his dragon's emotions ebb somewhat, D'ven flops forward as though released at least a little from whatever was holding him up against that wall. And there he stays for a moment, before slowly making for the exit without a backward glance. His movements are slower than before, but more controlled and deliberate now.
Trioth's way is clear and through it he can see everything that happens. For example, the big bronze Ruvoth that looms in front of him, stretches his talons out and catches the queen in her idling. Trioth knows a loss when it comes, and doesn't have to wait for the low growl from Tialith to know the other bronze aimed right and saw it through. He banks sharply, a soft hiss of wingbeats following him through the air, and breaks around the pack to return home. Back in the weyr, his rider stands up sharply, the blanket left behind him on the chair, and leaves the room with stiff if quiet dignity. No doubt there are plenty of girls for him to find solace in.
Grastanth knows the catch happened when he feels the waves of emotion radiating off Tialith and Ruvoth. His frustration takes a different tone than that of most of the failed chasers: not that he lost, but that he was so close and didn't even make it to the end. At least he has a head start on them in returning, though it's not much of one with his tired wings taking him so slowly. His rider has already vanished from the guest weyr, slipping out after a few consoling words to Grastanth and now finding himself with the first choice of girls and the perfect time to choose one. Well, there are some benefits, even if he'll be wearing a sad, wistful smile for the next couple months or so.
Ruvoth, unfortunately, is not so completely transformed. Part, at least, of his wicked wishes he makes good on. His talons sink in, his legs clutching his prize close to him. But he does not bite, not yet anyway, and as her tail twines his the Weyrlingmaster's (Weyrleader's) bronze's song turns sweet. He spans wide his wings, and carries her.
R'vain, for his part, just turns around to meet Roa's eyes. There's one young fellow, a weyrling from four clutches back now riding in the first flight's second wing, who dares to grin up at the big red man on his way past toward the exit. But R'vain has no mind for congratulations. He just has that grim, again-determined expression, and that expression gives no ground as he prowls forward, putting out (palm up) the unwrapped hand.
There is a hiss from the queen as claws sink into her skin. -Into-. Nothing has scarred her hide. Not thread, not bad flying or poor landing, nothing. Save him. So, though she is carried and though she will, in a moment, respond to Ruvoth's gentling, it is she who bites, where his neck and shoulder meet.
For one beat, Roa is stiff and still, her own expression schooling into something blank and wary. She has that much control. But not for very long. It is, interestingly enough, the same moment that Tialith bites that Roa moves forward, her hand not only slipping into R'vain's larger paw, but curling around it much as her fingers can manage to give that paw a frantic squeeze. There is no longer any question of what will happen next.