Who

Th'bek, Khulan, Tavuqth

What

Th'bek and his brown check in on an exploring Khulan.

When

It is midmorning of the tenth day of the fifth month of the seventeenth turn of the 12th pass.

Where

Star Stones

OOC Date 25 Jun 2019 04:00

 

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"Friend, it is a funny word."


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Star Stones

The climb up here on foot is steep, narrow stone steps carved high into the sandstone, and from the top the precipice-drop to the jagged-craggy stones far, far below is treacherous. It's a wide sweep of ledge, a dragonlength and a half jutting out from a rough cliff wall. The wind here is ceaseless, dusty-dry during daytimes and biting at night. But for those who brave the climb to this lookout perched high above the Weyr's bowl, the view from these sandy-red rocks is breathtaking. Igen stretches wide-wide-wide around, a vast expanse of deep blue lake and lush green swamp and the myriad rust-rich colours of desert and rock. The real purpose of this spot, though, is highlighted not in its view of what is below but its view of what is above. Three tall rocks stand, one balanced across the tops of the other two, at the focal point of the ledge, perpetually framing one slice of the desert sky beyond.


Despite the relatively early hour, it's already warm; just right for a trek out into the open air to have a breakfast outdoors - or maybe just an adventure! It's not an easy climb up to the Star Stones, but it's one that Khulan seems intent on making. Barefoot, even, but that's nothing so unusual for the girl who would rather be out among the plants. Her footing is sure and light and caprine-like, skirts gathered in a hand to keep herself from tripping on them. There's also a satchel over her shoulder, the bag deliberately trapped under her skirt-carrying arm. Despite the headscarf and veil, her expression is one of naked awe for the sight of Igen laid out as it is. She pauses just to a side of the stairs up, pressing herself into unobtrusiveness while she surveys the skies, lands, and waters on display.

Tavuqth noticed her first, the degree of dragon vision superior to the humans' forward-facing limits. He throws the picture to his rider who leans to his left and sees Khulan over the stretch of his brown's leading edge. Coming from the direction of the Oasis Inn, the pair lower their place in the sky and Tavuqth draws his limbs up to land on the Star Stones. The brown angles his approach so that the air he stirs up doesn't rampage too much over the young woman. With no helmet to hide his face, Th'bek leans forward. She doesn't appear lost or in a damaged frame of mind but doesn't exactly fit the panorama. "Quite a view isn't it!" He doesn't so much shout as just buoy his volume enough to cross the space between them. Tavuqth, teeth exposed through a closed mouth, sends out a questing hum.

There's always some anxiety in her where it comes to dragons, though that's lessened considerably these past few months. Still, Khulan startles a bit at the dragon's arrival, try though he might to make it less abrupt. It's a brief moment of tension that coils through her shoulders and sets her eyes a little wide, but it's gone in the blink of an eye. She dips into a shallow bow to both man and brown, skirts allowed to pool at her feet. "Yes, sha; it is greater than anything I have ever seen," she replies, a faint smile implied in her tone. Dark eyes flick from man to dragon, then back again, curious - but guarded by nature. A soft click of tongue answers that hum and a half-step forward is taken. Her exotically tilted Igenite accent lends a lilt to her voice: "You are also here to see, sha?"

Tavuqth indulges in two or three steps forward but falls short of popping Khulan's personal bubble. Th'bek contracts his eyebrows as Tavuqth seems to ask something of him. "No she's not going to jump." He says with quiet conviction to his dragon, trying not to suspect any inkling of that outcome. "I see a lot of great views," pushing some hair out of his face, voice jaunty. "We were just curious as to— we didn't know why you were up here. Barefoot and all. You look like you had a purpose in mind." Assessing he may as well quit speaking over the wind force this high, Th'bek comes down, thumping the dull point of his brown's elbow. "He's Tavuqth and I'm Th'bek, sorry if we spooked you."

There's a slight tip of her head as Tavuqth nears, a secret smile sneaking under the veil. While the brown doesn't pop the bubble, Khulan's willing to extend it; a long-fingered hand, smooth and smelling of something faintly sweet and floral, is offered to press to - well, whatever part of the brown is nearest. The conversation between man and dragon is overheard, but not commented on, her attention shifting back up to Th'bek when he addresses her. "Ah, I imagine you do, sha. All the way up there," her chin lifts, indicating the sky, "it must be incredible." There's a slight shake of her head, though, tiny but vehement. "I just wanted to see, that is all. To see if I could put it to parchment or canvas." Her expression falters, nose wrinkling. "I do not think I can." She takes a step back when the man dismounts, head dipping into another nod-slash-bow. "Rukbat's graces to you sha-Th'bek, sha-Tavuqth. I am called Khulan. Ah! You do not need to apologize!"

Tavuqth extends his head to the female human seeking a touch. Creased to low points, his neck ridges get even further onto a serrated brow as a throw back to more primitive draconic types. His chin be presents to her, one not barbed but warm and somewhat soft. Th'bek, always a willing audience when others other than himself interact with his dragon, wears a private smile, genuine and just enough to leave small creases. "Khulan… the Weyrleader's friend?" Aware of whispers and hearsay, the inflection in his own native accent yields no pause or preemptive judgments. If he subscribes to scandal, he is not a contagion for its spread. "It must be nice to have dexterity in your fingers and eyes, there was someone at the hatching sketching the eggs and new pairs. She got you onto the parchment after Cas… la Impressed." Almost gnarling the weyrling's name but recovering. Should being left Standing be a tender subject, the brownrider asks, "have you gotten a ride from a dragon before?"

Fingers splay a bit to feel out the curve of chin, going as far down his jaw as she can reach, before those explorations wind their way upward slightly, with an eye toward rubbing his nose. Khulan's touch is gentle and somehow fearless, Tavuqth's responses noted in a peripheral sense. Her hand pauses at that inquiry, though more as a reaction to the lack of judgement. "Yes, sha." A half-smile distorts the veil in some kind of betrayal. "Friend, it is a funny word." It's a thought that's allowed to fade in favor of the other: "Ah! I would like to see that. And I am certain saa-Casla would, too. It is a blessing, yes, but it is also work to be able to do such a thing." A soft huff of a breath, a near-laugh, is offered. "Though not so much work as you must do. Ah! Yes. Twice- no. Three times, yes. But it was all with purpose," as if that invalidates part of the dragon ride concept. Fortunately, she doesn't seem terribly put off by being left Standing - if at all.

Th'bek cannot see any persons outside the Weyr landscape, just their hallmark roads and side paths, and the small geometry above the sands that's the Oasis Inn. Behind them, the Weyr hive is a nest of people undeterred by a sunny, but not excruciating, day. Broadening out his gaze to include D'riss and Echeth stationed as watchrider, Th'bek turns his body slightly toward the veiled young woman, going mostly by rumor of her age. "Friend is a funny word in what way?" Philosophy is sort of above the Weyrsecond, he is a humble doer more than a thinker. "I'm not even sure if I've ever treated him with that fondness," watching the delicate skin around Tavuqth's visible eye half-lid as if basking. "Eleven turns ago, if you weren't a child, I think he could'a been yours." « Second best is better than last, Th'bek. » Feather fern spores help stick his words into his rider's head. The Weyrsecond laughs out loud, three or four good compressions. If it were anyone else but a young woman and a young woman linked to the Weyrleader, Th'bek would have volunteered a ride either with him or another loyal rider but he back tracks to highlight his earlier laugh. "He didn't dispute me either, the fiend. You just may have charmed him. I would be so bold as to ask if you have rider blood in your family lines but think maybe not." The veil is a dead giveaway.

Her attentions to the brown are levied with the same affection she'd give to her multicolored brood - though they, fortunately, are off doing what they were trained to do and that means there's more rubbing to go around! Khulan turns to better face Tavuqth and to better tilt an oblique look, veiled with lashes, to Th'bek in turn. "The word can be so easily twisted," says she of 'friend', her own mouth contorting some behind the veil. A blink brings her back to looking at the dragon-half, eyes half-lidded as if to mirror his expression. "Perhaps so, sha," she replies with another of those huffed exhalations in lieu of a laugh. "You are handsome," is directed to the brown, "But, I think he is a much better fit for you, yes?" A tip of her head indicates that the 'he' here is Th'bek, rather than the other way around. Her other hand joins the first, both starting to touch and feel wherever the brown allows or desires. There's a soft little hum, a side-to-side bob of her head, though she doesn't dispute charges of charming a dragon either. Instead: "No, sha. There is no dragonman blood in my line so far as I understand it." Being left Standing just seems to prove it in her eyes. "Is your line filled with it? It must be."

Th'bek has walked the opposite side of the Star Stones to where he can see Sirocco forming ranks in the bowl before presumably heading out to drill. It's kind of nice to be at this vantage and keep up to date. Look, there's even Cremla or a stout woodcrafter in pursuit of a lower caverns subordinate. It winds up being a crafter, no dress. "I guess it can," Th'bek expounding upon the definition of 'friend' as he evaluates a spot on his boot he thinks is a tear. "Some people use the title a bit too freely and even abuse it." Sort of wondering more about Khulan's position but not inclined to pull it out of her like a fresh sliver, his look over to her is about what he musters. Tavuqth's answer to the girl is a gust of breath through his nostrils he angles to the side and not an offensive blast on her. « I cannot take him back now. » Tavuqth speaks to his rider in a different tense and Th'bek makes sure the brown sees him blatantly roll his eyes. "My father was a rider here, though he started out in High Reaches. My mother was from a caravan and beyond them, I don't really know much of their histories. Someday, if I get to be old and Thread no longer falls, I'll devote myself to some research." Standing back up from his stoop, the man dusts off his hands whether they're sullied or not. "Well Khulan, you came all the way up here with a goal in mind and it wasn't to meet us, though I am happy you did." Tavuqth, recognizing the preamble to a departure, takes a few steps back. A back leg extends to stretch before Th'bek can mount. "Enjoy spending time up here and if you fancy a faster descent, the watchrider would willingly fly you down."

A thoughtful hum follows, followed by a ducking of her head. "They do, sha. Yes. But the number of people I would call 'friend' fit on a hand." She lifts one hand, fingers wiggling demonstratively; thumb conspicuously out of sight for emphasis. "I would call him friend, yes. But I do not know what he would call me, if asked." Narrow shoulders rise and fall, untroubled; her footing is secure, regardless. She can only speak to her own mind and she speaks true. Tavuqth's gusty breath is answered with another kind of laugh from her, a bubble of a thing that slips past the mask. A bright pop of sound that she's quick to try to contain. "Ah. I see, sha. Rukbat willing, you will have days long enough to do so." All signs point to the eventual parting of paths, a process that's plenty familiar to the young woman. A final, affectionate press is given to the brown before she, too, steps away, hands coming to fold demurely in front of her. "Next time," she replies, a smile hidden but still present, "perhaps I will come to seek you and yours, yes? I am sure our paths will cross again. May Rukbat light your way, sha."

Setting his starter foot on Tavuqth's elbow, Th'bek holds out one of his own hands palm up. "Then make a fist and keep them close." He demonstrates and a few seconds later is using that same hand to pull himself upward. "Maybe, if it uh, comes up in conversation, I can ask him." Not particularly a fanatic at getting 'the dirt' on personal lives, Th'bek won't promise what he can't achieve. Khulan's short peal of laughter with the effervescence of champagne bubbles makes his brows raise with fondness for the sound. She and Tavuqth are a true pair of aces. Expression relaxed and pleasantly ordinary, "our paths will very likely cross again, Igen's not a big Weyr." Seated and strapped, he watches Sirocco take off toward the east before vanishing between in concert. 'Well done, Wingleader' the shape of his mouth says. "Go easy on those stairs." As if he knows she won't seek out the watchrider. Tavuqth free falls with a lust for sensation and rattling his rider, a man now who is onto the brown's tricks but not quite immune.

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