Who

Theidith, Wrayth, Myrraith

What

A trio of dragons try to trek out into the Jungle, with varying results.

When

It is noon of the twenty-fifth day of the fourth month of the seventeenth turn of the 12th pass.

Where

Feline Territory, Southern Weyr

OOC Date 20 Jun 2019 04:00

 

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« I won't get stuck, »


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Feline Territory

The heart of the rainforest is more than the weight of so many trees, the impossibly thick fines that fall from the tops of the canopy, nor the jungle floor littered with detritus from the centuries the rainforest has made a home on the Southern Continent. The silence is eerie here, where not even the call of birds filters through the densely packed trees. The presence of something malevolent watching is easily felt here as anything that finds their way into these far reaches of the jungle would feel it necessary to 'run' from whatever it is that hunts these depths. Even Rukbat's light barely filters through, adding shadows and green-filtered light to further trick the eyes. Something deadly hunts here.
The area is thickly forested with many banyan, ficus and sandlewood trees.

It is the eighty-fifth day of Autumn and 96 degrees. It is sunny and bright. In the distance clouds gather on the horizon.


It's hot and a bit muggy with an impending storm on the horizon, but Theidith doesn't seem to notice - or care, in truth. The small queen has managed, somehow, to slink and snake and squirm her way into the thickest parts of the jungle, where the world has gone quiet. Avians and other animals are silent as the gilded predator makes her way along. But why is she here? It's no mystery that she's been fascinated with the jungle since her birth, but her adventures have rarely taken her this far. She tries to manage it as delicately as possible, weaving her way through areas where the trees are less thick, where the undergrowth is more pliable, but destruction inevitably follows, regardless. And her mind is open, as always, receptive and listening - but, now, it comes with a faint ghost of something else, an odor not unlike the perfume of certain rare flowers. Enticing and intoxicating; the scent of trouble on the horizon.

If any dragon would be drawn by the scent of trouble, it would certainly be Wrayth. Having failed at getting Ryott to drop her duties and come exploring, the young queen is left to her own devices, her need for adventure sending her out over the jungle, keen senses scanning the folliage below. A flash of gold hide among the leaves catches her attention, and a curious pulse of crimson light reaches out to the other's receptive mind. « You're going to get stuck down there. » Wrayth predicts as she tips one wing and begins lazy circles over the area that Theidith is exploring, perhaps a touch envious since her own size seriously restricts where she can go. Idly, she keeps an eye out for a clearing that might work for a landing.

There are some advantages to being (relatively speaking, and for a dragon) small. One of them is that, when you want to explore a dense trackless forest, if it so happens that one of your largest classmates has already been there, there's much less of that uncomfortable thrashing and squirming and breaking down of bushy stuff to do. You can just follow her trail, and it's much quicker too. So it is that Myrraith pops out of the undergrowth shortly behind her gold not-actually-a-sibling. She greets Theidith with sprays of leafy foliage, both mental and, as there's still some pushing through to be done, actual. « Hello, hello! Well, this is fun. I can't think why mine didn't want me coming in here. He was sitting in a nice clearing with some boring old hide he's reading, though, and it sent him to sleep in the heat. Sooooo boring! »

The air in Theidith's mental jungle is somewhat thick, a vaguely sticky haze clinging to everything and making it shimmer. Wrayth's crimson light reflects brilliantly, highlighting that alien pearlescence. « I won't get stuck, » is her reply, confident as ever, but cast with just a taste of something else that's hard to define. A faith, perhaps, in either her skills or in the foliage itself that she will not be in trouble. She presses onward, save when she has to backtrack to find another angle to move forward. « Come, Wrayth. There is so much to see here. » Imploring, even as vines shift and writhe. Myrraith's shadowing of her is noted with satisfaction and Theidith cranes her head after a moment to look back, one wing shifting slightly to flatten further to her back. « Ours do not always know what is best for us, » she asserts, while Myrraith's mental greeting of leaves gets stuck against some nectar-sticky surface. « They are only human, after all. We should have come here more in our youth. » When they were smaller, of course. « Perhaps there will be prey here… »

Intrigued by that element of something else in her sand sister's mental tone, Wrayth's mind sparks with curious flares as she finds an old, dry river bed that leaves a clearing in the brush not far from where Theidith is roaming. « Fine, but I'm totally blaming you if I get stuck. » the larger of the young gold replies as she very carefully lands, quickly furling her pyrite veined wings to her back tightly as she starts to pick her way through the jungle very carefully. Good thing she never quite filled out, her lanky form useful to slip through the larger gaps, crushing anything small underfoot. Myrraith's inclusion is met with another pulse of red as she extends a greeting to her green clutchsister. « I'm not surprised. That hide work can't be good for them at all, mine's always complaining about it. I help by making her take breaks. » Like shirking duties to explore every inch of the Southern Continent. Crunch! Crack! The sounds of things snapping underfoot, « If there is prey, we've probably scared them off by now, » she points out the obvious.

« Snacks, maybe? » Myrraith pictures some vague and unspecified small creature in a tree. « Hard to catch anything that runs, though, with all these trees around. Or climbs, » is her doubtful verdict on that idea. « Shame. I could just fancy something. » She turns her attention to examining the trees, and picks at an exposed root with her talons as she lets Theidith open up a little more room between them. « Mine doesn't do hidework. He does studying. Or is that the same? He wants to know things, and then he gets frustrated when the hides don't tell him. He's quite obsessed with it. I'm sure it can't be healthy. He needs something to take his mind off it. Oooh, what's that? » She pictures the large beetle that has just scuttled across her path, but adds sadly, « Not even big enough for a snack. Where are both of yours? »

« You are making this choice, » Theidith points out with a low mental laugh that sets sticky leaves to trembling in Wrayth's direction. « Blame me if you like, but it will not stick. » Unlike everything else in her mindscape. A mindscape that, now, seems much more vibrant and alive than it's ever been. But, perhaps, it's just being in the jungle that does it. She pauses in her forward progress and settles back on her haunches, a forepaw extending to press experimentally on a tree. It groans in protest and her displeasure is a distinctly sour note among the lushness and sweet. « It is different, » is her assessment. « It is not just reading and learning, it is doing. Even if what it does seems to be precious little. » Her mindscape warms slightly, skewing slightly into oppressive territory. « Mine is working, or so she claims. I think she just enjoys talking with the guards. Yours should find a hobby, Myrraith. Exploring, like Wrayth's. Or perhaps punching things, like mine does. » The beetle's passage is regarded obliquely and the idea of prey is one that rises only briefly again, « Prey will come if we are still. » Maybe.

« I had a couple herdbeasts yesterday, » Wrayth shares, prey being the furthest from her mind at the moment. Theidith's more vibrant mindscape is notes, her sticky leaves scorched by brief bursts of flame that are willed into existant, a mildly irritated gust rustles the leaves warningly. « I always do what I like, » she answers defensively with a flick of her forked tail against a bush noisily. « See? Nothing good comes of hidework of any kind! » The rose-masked queen reaches out to the green. « Sounds like you need to make yours take a break. He might protest at first, but they don't always know what's good for them. Mine is going her work, whatever that means. Mostly she just lurks about the lower caverns. » When the other gold mentions being still Wrayth just snorts about to make a smart ass comment surely, if she hadn't just inhaled something that immediately tickles the inside of her nostils and she starts a sneezing fit that bounces off the trees around them.

« Exploring? What does yours explore, Wrayth? Mine wants to know what's inside of us. But he can hardly explore my innards! He does go to the Infirmary sometimes. Doing this sort of thing. » She pictures a bandage-wrapped figure in a bed. « But I think he sees that as work, even though it's not with me. Or doesn't it count as work if he enjoys it? But I like flaming Thread, and that's work. » She follows in Theidith's wake. A long vine drops across her back, and she flicks her wings in a reflexive reaction. « That tickles! I must find him a proper hobby. Swimming, or sitting in the sun. I don't think he'd like punching things, though. Why does yours do that? » She pauses motionless as something moves in the trees above. « Prey? » But whatever it is is too high and too far away.

« I want something different. » Theidith whuffs and starts to move again, only to stop when she realizes there's no getting past without toppling a tree - or attempting to climb, which is a laughable notion. But, where the smaller gold might simply allow the loss of a few mental leaves to equally mental fire, her thoughts twist and defenses are born, needles and thorns swift to rise. « Yes. You do. But be careful where you tread. » Theidith's tone descends into a purr, not quite threatening precisely, but edged all the same. She angles a look to her masked-sands-sister, tension coiling through her lean frame. But the moment passes as something crosses her sight - the same thing that Myrraith spots, possibly - and she contorts, angling to try to squeeze between two trees on the other side. « Possible prey, » she muses, her tongue snaking out briefly. But, it's too far and she's, well, semi-stuck. « What is enjoyable to him is work to another, perhaps. That might be what he's stuck on. If it's enjoyable, it's not really work. » She wriggles experimentally, tail lashing a little. « Mine punches things because she is angry and it is better than punching other people, even if they deserve it. »

To Myrraith, with a sly note to her voice, Wrayth replies, « Everything. She doesn't like her work, as you say yours does. So we go off and see what there is to see. » She won't mention that it's really her that is the explorer and she just drags Ryott along. « Different? » she repeats curiously, the other gold's newly developed defensiveness causing her to pull back a bit from that now pokey jungle folliage. « Noted. » she replies simply even as she shoots a look at Myrraith, eyeridges lifting in an almost speculative, dragon-equivalent of the "What's up with her?" look that humans sometimes use with each other. From the red glow, the sound of the sea slowly, the tanginess of salt clinging to one's lips, the lazy cry of some sea avian. Perhaps a soothing response, what Wrayth considers soothing anyway, in light of Theidith's brief tenseness. Things just get more interesting when it comes to her smaller counterpart. She'll watch as Theidith gets herself semi-stuck, smartly refusing to go further into the jungle herself, knowing her own fate is sealed if she does.

« Oh. Mine is angry with the hides. » Myrraith's words are accompanied by some half-formed images relating to hides and punching, but she can't quite work it out. « But going places could be fun. He does keep thinking about us going somewhere he calls 'home', but that's silly. The Weyr is home. Besides, we never actually go there, I don't think. » Not within a dragon's distinctly short memory-span, anyway! She continues to peer into the trees in the hope of edibles, and contemplates the gold's predicament. « Theidith, that gap is smaller than you are. Hunting is so much harder when you can't fly, isn't it? » She tries to sidle up alongside one of the offending trees, perhaps intending to push it out of Theidith's way, but there isn't really room and she has to back out again. « Maybe you shouldn't go any further that way… » Her thoughts are full of sunlit clearings where no trees grab at wings and limbs.

« Different, » is echoed in a serpentine sigh, but no elaboration is offered and the thought is allowed to fade, drifting along on the cry of the sea avian and the lap of seawater on distant shores. But Theidith's interest in it is subdued, distant; observing, but distracted. She doesn't scatter leaves or flowers to the water or winds; her defenses remain secure. There's a huff of breath when Myrraith attempts to help, and the gold lashes her tail again - though it's hard to tell if it's in warning or just because she's working at prying herself free. « I need to, » she replies to Myrraith once the green is back and away again. « I am almost through! » With the focused effort of getting a hindpaw up in there, somehow, Theidith is able to bend one of the trees enough - or maybe just move herself up enough - to push out of her stuck-spot and into another area. She continues on, the normally wide open rainforests of her mind abruptly walling themselves off behind braided vines and thick trees birthed of soil that's rich enough to be tasted on the air. There is only a thin trickle of thought, a dripping of sickly-sweet nectar, that provides, « I have found what I seek, sands-sisters. I wish to be alone now. » While she will not make an active effort to shove them away, her presence is muted and she presses onward, moving as quietly and carefully as her bulk will allow.

« Mine has a home too, but it's dry and full of sand but not ocean. » Wrayth replies distastefully, with a faint rustle of her wings. « Yeah, what Myrraith said. » she adds her support for the going the smart route, but she can quickly see that's fruitless. The change in Theidith is noticeable, enough that she sends a quick note to her bonded on a private channel, not trusting her own memory with this juicy a tidbit of information. Once the other queen has shut herself off, in all senses of the word to them, she tilts her head in her green sister's direction once more. « Well that was…. informative. » she says, still puzzling over Theidith's behavior. « But I think I am going to do what you said, and head off where I don't feel like I'm one step away from being trapped. Wanna come? There's a dry riverbed over there that's pretty clear, I wanna see where it leads. » And whether the green follows her or not, Wrayth carefully extracts herself from the jungle for a bit less risky exploring.

« Right. You enjoy sitting in your hole, then. » Myrraith isn't exactly huffy at the rebuff from Theidith, but there's a thread of discontent there, and she withdraws from communication with the nearer gold. Instead, she tells Wrayth, « A river bed sounds good. Then I can get back to mine quickly if he wakes up and gets in another panic. » Drawing her wings and tail in close, she turns on the spot, trampling a few low-lying creepers and branches in the process, and retraces her steps towards the point where she entered the thick vegetation, and presumably also towards Wrayth. As she goes, she chatters happily on. « Honestly, such a fuss he can make, sometimes. All I said was, « Ishevhaeth's a nice looking bronze. » You'd think I'd said I was going to eat him for breakfast with a wherry for dessert… » And so on, until she's clear of the forest and flying free.

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