| Who | Br'er, Hannah, K'ane, Lendai, Teyaschianniarina, Tilla, Sara |
|---|---|
| What | The one time Br'er has a pretty legitimate excuse to be skulking shadily around, he gets in trouble for it. Turns out Comets can't kill irony. |
| When | During Aevryscienth's flight, and then immediately after. |
| Where | HRW - Stores and Wine Cellar |
HRW - Stores and Wine Cellar
Redolent with the smells of oak and spirits, fresh linens and drying stores, these caverns offer a certain cool serenity. Swept clean and kept neat, the stores area is well-lit and carefully arranged to offer efficient access to the weyr-tithe. A few small stools and narrow wooden tables offer a quiet moments peace.
Deeper into the weyr, the cool dampness of the cellars stores large casks of wine and spirits. A large stone table and some worn rock-benches fill one branch of the caves, while the Storemaster's office is angled such that any unauthorized visitors might be apprehended.
Most of the hallways are barred and locked.. most of them. But perhaps a few are open?
Gold flights are not, as a general rule, silent affairs. Especially not when there's a comet looming too-bright in the sky, and hot fear rising in many hearts, and just general - things are a little tense, at the moment. But not in here. Here, deep in the depths of the stores, it is quiet. Too quiet, perhaps. In one of these sidetunnels, hidden behind a curtain of innocuous barrels, the treasures of High Reaches lurk: valuable tapestries, rare records, a hefty sum of marks in locked boxes. And ten feet away from that side tunnel, dust-covered and furtive: Br'er. For perhaps the first time in his shady, silvertongued existence, the greenrider is genuinely just in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Though in the dim light of these deep caverns, the clue to his innocent reason to be down here - the miserable look on his face, as he paces restlessly back and forth, stirring eddies of dust in his wake - is hard to see.
Padding on silent feet, Hannah seeks refuge from the flight as well. For different reasons than Br'er's, though Br'er himself would have more of a clue as to why she would seek sanctuary than she would have to find him here. Alone. A stone's throw from the collection of valuables. Dhiammarath's presence here, in this moment, is the smallest it will ever be as Aevryscienth takes the stage, so Hannah is without armor. "I'd better just check…" 'Rounding the corner, the junior carries with her a silver'd vase, very likely a piece accidentally left behind, and finds — "BR'ER! YOU NO GOOD SCOUNDREL." Silver torpedo, ho.
On the plus side: Hannah can't throw worth a hill of beans. On the con side: Br'er is too busy feeling sorry for himself to be paying overmuch attention to his surroundings. Leaning against cold stone walls while staring up at the ceiling and making a sad little face (it is always when Br'er is at his most depressed that the subtle similarities between himself and his seemingly ill-suited dragon are most evident) is not a good defensive position, is what I'm getting at here. Only the goldrider's shout shifts him, with a prey animal's instinctive panic, enough that the vase doesn't hit him in the delicates. So it hits him in the thigh, instead. "FARANTH," comes the yelp. It is a SUPER good thing that pretty much everyone's left the kitchens above, by now, to spectate the flight. Instinctively, Br'er ducks behind the boxes and seizes the nearest thing that might pass for a weapon - some Farmer's abandoned rake - before his startled gaze settles on the source of the pain in his hip. At seeing Hannah, his pale eyes first grow comically large. Then, narrow. "What the fuck was that for, you crazy bitch?"
Charging like a small, small, dangerously angry woman, Hannah does not notice the subtleties of Br'er and his cute and little baby lifemate. She only sees robber. So she hefts that silver vase up from where it plopped and rolled back towards her to lob it again at the greenrider. "YOU ARE STEALING FROM US YOU WORTHLESS SCUM." Her first throw was badly aimed, her second comes from tired muscles hefting a rather heavy silver vase. "I KNEW IT. I WAS RIGHT ABOUT YOU. ALL ALONG!!" The flight, no doubt, has also attributed to this uncharacteristically Angry Bird Hannah. The silver vase crashes against the wall this time, but hey, it was maybe a little too close for comfort. At least this time, it is well /past/ where Br'er stands with his rusty rake. "You — you — you." Judgemental finger points, trembling. Green eyes wide. Chest heaving.
"What. Are you even. TALKING ABOUT." Either Br'er is too weirded out to put up a serious defense, or he is genuinely reluctant to put those dragonrider muscles to work in actually stopping her assault: he just stands there, half-hidden behind the crates, rake held out in a miserable shield… staring at her. Confused. Miserable. … A little distracted. (There is, after all, a GOLDFLIGHT going on out there - and if sweet, sensitive Inlayraith is doing her best to shield her awareness of what flies in the skies above from her rider, there's… only so much, really, that she can spare him.) He gawks, fishlike, as she stops throwing and starts shaking: it takes him a beat to begin to move. The rake is, ever-so-carefully, leaned up against the wall. He steps around the crates, and approaches: hands up, placating. (Unarmed! With nothing stolen in them, even!) One comes down, very tentatively, on her shoulder. "Goldrider," he says, carefully, so carefully, before repeating himself: "What are you talking about?"
Hannah could totally knee him in the groin — and don't think she doesn't think about it — but she doesn't. Her own dragon shields her as best she can while also shielding her own presence lest things get really ugly. "You…" she glances behind Br'er, jumping when the hand lands on her shoulder, green eyes fleeting back upwards to the greenrider. "… are under arrest." Arrest? Her voice, though, is shaky, and not at all filled with the confidence of a woman quite in her right faculties. Aevryscienth's rise, Ysvarth's VERY LEAKY DESIRE, is all giving her a headache, evidenced by the fingers put to the bridge of her nose. "You can't be down here. You — are stealing from us." Round two of gumption struggles to surface. Perhaps she wasn't /quite/ expecting him to be so /placating/.
"Why would I -" Br'er doesn't lift the hand (maybe he's afraid of sudden movements?), but does take a moment to stare, blankly, at the corridor around them. Farmcraft supplies, mostly: for some reason someone's got a big old rack of boxes up against the coldest part of the wall, with a sign marked 'GRUBS' hanging from one, written in a bold hand. Who knows what that is about. When he speaks again, he sounds genuinely confused. "I'm not a Farmer. Why would I steal their things? I just - I wanted to be alone, and this was the best spot -" You know, since it seemed unlikely to have flight-stressed riders around, adding to his misery. The other thing she mentioned seems not to have sunk in yet - "What do you mean, ARREST?" Ah. There we go.
"You…" Hannah's eyes widen, staring at Br'er. Lips thin, and the goldrider pushes into him, her finger poking at his chest. "ARREST." Volume isn't carried in decibels, but rather intensity of anger. "For trying to steal the weyr's valuables." Her own eyes skip over the grubs, who cares about grubs, and towards the darker end of the corridor, to the shadowed nook that leads to the treasure vault of the weyr's most expensive artifacts. "You," she snaps her attention back, but is caught. Caught by the desire to sound the alarm, unfortunately by the desire of the flight, and by the hamstring of being unable to get her lifemate to rouse. "Are under arrest, you thieving, liar." Poke, poke? She needs more torpedoes.
This is pretty much the WORST time for Hannah to be getting all up in Br'er's personal space, and the deep-rooted, frustrated distraction in the man's face attests to it - and a flickering second passes as he does nothing about her too-close presence but, well - hold her there. Awkward. And then 'arrest' sinks in, and the greenrider gets a GRIP. And lets go, then steps back. Back far enough that his heels are bumping up against those crates. "But I haven't done anything," the man protests: the scowl on his face is a little forced, like he's reminding himself he should let his anger cancel out the whole whirl of emotions coursing through his strained mind. "I'm just - I didn't do anything!" His pale gaze darts towards the tunnel she's scowling at, then back at her, a little angry but mostly baffled.
Stalk, stalk, stalk; Hannah walks forward with purpose, anger flaring as the flight culminates. The destruction, the sounds of the flight are dimmed down here, with rock to succor and cocoon. "THIEF." Assertion returns, carriage straightens. "Do not," she hisses, "play innocent with me. You're at the very doorstep of where you should not be. Why would you even be DOWN here, anyway? Why? If not to steal." The weyr shudders, groans, when the rock face of one of the spires of High Reaches falls to the ground. Hannah catches her step with a hand braced against the wall. The grubs, they tip over, spilling across the floor. Oh hey, that box really contained grubs.
<All> Inlayraith senses that Dhiammarath thinks « is a whisper of an echo of destruction; a small voice of strength woven through dim, dim stone lanterns of light. « Thief. Thief. » Danger echoes. Fueled by the fear of escape, this single call mingles with that last moment of destruction. The pinnacle of Aevryscienth's flight. But as the flight ends, the clarion call is made. « GUARDS. We have a thief using the flight's distraction to rob the weyr of it's valuables. » Images of darkness, Br'er and Hannah. To those in the know, the greenrider's shifty countenance is near the entrance to the secret holding room of everything of value to the weyr. As the flight culminates to the end, the crash of light and dark expose even further shenanigans. »
In the dark, two figures lurk. One nearest the door where the valuables vault lies (that'd be Br'er) and the other is Hannah, breathing hard and pointing a judgmental finger at the thief. A silver vase lies dented further down the hallway, and grubs litter the floor, from the box that lies broken between the two figures.
Above, the flight culminates: Br'er pales, sheer misery spiking across his face, a wave of resignation nipping at its heels. Someone is having MANPAIN. "I'm down here -" the greenrider's raspy voice comes out a harsh snap "- because I didn't want to be up THERE." Where, you know, that chick he's got a massive thing for is re-consummating a happy relationship with someone who isn't him? Oh, wait. HE HASN'T MENTIONED THAT PART. "Not while -" The same quake of the ground that sends Hannah into the grub boxes sends him into the crates, with… rather less grace. He knocks one onto the ground, with a confused grunt. Question: why is there a feline skin hidden away in the Farmer supplies? Even in the dim lighting, Br'er's momentary, puzzled distraction at this (WTF?) is evident.
There's a ghastly sight thundering down the stairs: ichor-stained K'ane. A raw need lies unassuaged, but Dhioth's drive of justice sends him downstairs to assist Dhiammarath's lifemate. "What in Faranth's name is going on down here?" His face is twisted into a gritted grimace: he feels what's going on upstairs. His eyes track from Br'er to Hannah with clench-jawed, glittering intensity: maybe he's trying to decide which one he'd rather throw over that feline skin and have at.
No one here is unaffected by Aevryscienth's flight that still filters through the weyr, especially the culmination of the moment. Hannah's eyes are glazed over, glance up at K'ane. "He's a thief. I caught him just about to go into our vault." Eyes swing back 'round to Br'er. "Thief." She steps forward, then back, eyes glancing down at the feline skin. "Our valuables are right there, and he is behaving oddly. WHY be down here, by himself, while the weyr is distracted by the flight?!" She whirls around, confronting any who come to the aid of Dhiammarath's call.
May I have your attention please? Will the real Senior Weyrwoman please stand up? I repeat, will the real Senior Weyrwoman please stand up? Lendai stood up, alright, and ran her ass into the cellars as fast as her feet would fly. She had been laying low (under a table, with her hands covering her head) while Aevryscienth had taken to the sky and doom rained down on all of Pern. With heaving bosoms (bitch be out of breath, yo, plus like, she's horny. Goldflight, gooo.), Lendai makes in into the cellars in record time. In her hands is a brightly lit glow basket, illuminating any lingering darkness. Arriving just in time to hear Hannah's explanation, Lendai takes no time backing her Junior up. "You have no reason to be in this area of the Weyr, greenrider." No matter how damned cute his dragon is. "There is supposed to be a guard here, at all times." Her eyes blaze with anger. "This is how you repay High Reaches Weyr's kindness? By trying to steal from us?" GASP.
While K'ane has the market cornered on ghastly, Teya's got grimy; rather than take part in the flight she and her lifemate flew far and away, but now they have returned. Because of Dhiammarath's call, given that the guard-rider clatters down the stairs in the bronzerider's wake, scrubbing soot from cheeks and trying to ignore the flush that still rides high in them. Apparently not far enough, their fleeing. "Ma'am you called for —" her voice breaks, and she coughs, flushes harder and then straightens her shoulders. "For guards — you called for the guard." Her eyebrows make it a question, if only briefly; she focuses on who, exactly, is being accused … and her face falls for a tiny, broken moment. It doesn't last, though: she firms her jaw and lifts her chin and fixes her very best, very hardest On Duty expression on Br'er, and salutes Lendai sharply. "Ma'am." Other ma'am.
"What are you talking about," says Br'er - though it comes out a little high pitched, a little bit of a wail. No longer distracted by the goldflight, Inlayraith's mental presence must be reasserting itself. He sounds, just a little, like a certain sadfaced green. "This is just - it's just Farmer things!" The ever-present rasp in his voice has grown stronger - strain, perhaps. "I just wanted to be alone!" He holds his (empty) hands out in a gesture of confused placation. "I thought I'd be left alone down here! Then she showed up and attacked me -" Others are arriving: Br'er lifts a frustrated hand up to his head, eyes clenching in pain-confusion-aggravation. Outside, comet shrapnel streaks the sky. Worst. Timing for this. Ever.
K'ane has all but a glare for Lendai: "Way t' jump t' conclusions, /ma'am/," and could the sarcasm be any thicker? His voice is a little incredulous for Br'er, too: "She attacked you? And y'didn't take her clothes off?" What is WRONG with you man? His eyes are having a hard time focusing on the greenrider, however, because he'd rather be glaring at Lendai's heaving bosom: come ON, he is a MAN and he just wants to fuck someone into the floor. It was a /goldflight/. He /lost/ it and his dragon is /hurt/ and he still just wants to GET SOME. Even T'ii got a piece of palm. This is K'ane's sadface: :(
Somewhere in between the flight, falling rocks and soothing her panicked kids, Tilla decided that she needed something. Something stiff…and was halfway through a LARGE goblet of wine up the stairs when the call from Dhiammarath came. Shrinking near the corner of the room, she just watches, and waits, while sipping from her unorthodox sippy cup. She chews her lip as she tries to take evrything in.
Sara slips in behind the riders filling the room, her eyes still tear streaked, but her duty as harper to observe and report has overcome the sadness that is the knowledge that Crom is no more.
Hannah's cheeks are flushed, green eyes darting between K'ane, Lendai, and Br'er. "Yes. Skulking outside the vault door." She stalks over to the door nearest Br'er, though a little off from where this scene first started, and heaves it open. Inside, treasures glitter. "You are here to thief, even YOU didn't deny wanting to steal an EGG." Accusations are leveled from layer to another, as the young junior finally (feels) she has the proof to prove the now timers dastardly deeds. Lendai's arrival, Teya's arrival, and Tilla's arrival come during this explanation, so everyone gets to hear about the egg thieving plans. "YOU, you were going to steal from us!" Step stumbles towards K'ane — for him, a measure of a plea for belief — and Teya, the guard. "Arrest him." Everyone here wants to screw!
"Oh go jam your cock into a meat grinder, bronzerider." Lendai is in no mood. She hasn't been in a mood since Rhaeyn magically reappeared and screwed up Lendai's entire world. "Hannah wouldn't lie about something like this." A few steps are taken closer to Br'er, "You shouldn't have even known about this secret room, greenrider. Let alone be trolling about the cellars when destruction is raining from the skies!" This is not a time to be rational and diplomatic. Instead, it's all about quick justice as the world that Lendai once knew is no more. "You, wait… stealing an egg? A dragon's egg?" Is there any other type of egg that matters? Instincts born of over twenty years of being a goldrider, her dragon being a clutchmother, takes hold. Talicanitath's shared rage bubbling over into Lendai. "Arrest him at once, guard!" She snaps at Teya. "Throw his ass into the brig! Or better yet, stake his ass in a field and wait for comet debris to crush his skull!"
"Faranth's fucking - THERE IS NO REAL PLAN TO STEAL AN EGG." Just like that, Br'er goes from :( to >:(, arms flying up in the air. Exasperated. "Talk to Rhaeyn, when she's not -" another spasm of misery (manpain) across his face, but he just plows straight on through, "- when she's able. She already KNOWS, I TOLD her, we DELIBERATELY SABOTAGED THE WHOLE FUCKING THING, they're waiting for a cue from Ri'enn he's NOT GOING TO GIVE -" His arm comes down, with a smash, into a crate. A poor choice: it splinters. Pain blossoms across the greenrider's face, even as the anger seeps abruptly out. "Put me in the fucking brig, if you want," the man rasps. He sounds exhausted. "But talk to Rhaeyn."
A spasm crosses K'ane's face. "Ye're all a bunch of women." He includes Br'er in that before turning on a heel and marching up the stairs, muttering something about Dhioth and Elicheritath and finding Tuli and — fire? Oh, right. Mr. Justice League is sending him on a higher priority mission. C'est la vie, guys. YOLO.
Orders are orders, and oh! Duty is Duty; whatever her personal feelings may be Teya steps up when called upon by not one but two goldriders. Reason struggles, though, fights its way into her voice as she says, "Greenrider Br'er, you are being taken into custody on suspicion of theft. Intent to thieve," follows a moment later, almost a mutter; she shakes her head to clear it, scrambles a scowl over at K'ane because, "Maybe not everyone wants there to be a goldflight going on —" But that's, that's Ryglinath talking, really, Ry who would much rather golds stay grounded, you know, forever. But back to the task at hand: she steps up, she Steps Up, flinching back only a little as Br'er brings his hand down onto the crate. "No-one's getting staked out for anything," doesn't quite have the heat for a snap, but it is firm. "But you're coming in, and we can figure this all out after —" Tempers (libidos) have cooled.
An audible *GASP* leaves Tilla's lips over the EGG THIEVERY plot/accusation/whatever, but she aims to stifle it, What in Faranth's name is going on here?! As K'ane leaves, the CRATESPLOSION and Br'er is arrested, the goblet that the greenrider had in her hand is EMPTIED.STRAIGHT UP. WITHOUT PAUSING FOR AIR. It's going to be a long night, isnt it?
"Sheesh," Sara mutters under her breath her eyes wide as she watches the strange rider be arrested for intent to steal. "and I thought our riders were insane."
It could be said a great many things cause the fracturing of Hannah's expression — that one moment of betrayal and confusion before she draws herself up. "On suspicion," she states, firmly grasping to the constraints of what Teya's stated, "of intent to steal from the weyr." Back straight, chin lifted, she deliberately avoids Br'er's eyes and turns to Lendai. Murmuring, "I wasn't lying," before she, too, exits the scene. If only to dive into the valuables room to start counting. TO MAKE SURE, maybe.
There will be no talking to Rhaeyn for Lendai. There will only be shanking. With a shank. It's shank or be shanked. "All it sounds like to me is Rhaeyn is in cahoots with you Igen riders! We'll get to the bottom of this, one way or another." She hisses out, stepping away to allow Teya to do her job. There is a frown marring her face when the idea of staking the greenrider is shot down. Awww. But Lendai lets it pass. "I know you aren't," Lendai assures the junior weyrwoman. "Throw his ass in the brig, we'll deal with him once all the fires," Literally. "have been put out and Rhaeyn and Eth'n are done." Y'know. Banging. "You did good, Hannah." Is murmured just for the younger goldrider to hear as she makes her way out. "We have a weyr to attend to. Teya, I trust you will ensure he makes it to the brig." Assuming it is still standing and not under a giant space rock or anything. With her chin thrusted upwards, Lendai spies Tilla and grabs ahold of the greenrider's hand and drags her along. "C'mon. Let's go get laid." RAWR.
Meanwhile, Hannah will bang the silver.
Somewhere W'rin is cursing green riders.
Br'er is pretty fortunate none of the Nowtimers were there to hear him blab that bit about Rhaeyn. He wouldn't want them to stop trusting him, after all!
(Getting tossed in the brig is going to be an awkward/hilarious enough thing to explain away, as it is.)