Deep-hued brown Udath sweeps in from the direction of the bowls and lands long enough for his rider, small (and almost comically so in comparison to the brown) to slide off before launching himself for a pen of designated dragon snacks. Ivy flubs the dismount, not quite as good at sticking landings as her dragon is. She gets to her feet and with a sort of half-caring glance around to see if anyone saw that, dusts the back of her pants off.

Why is a guard out here? Who knows, ask Ladivos. Rhiex isn't of the general nature to question his orders, but … man the pens smell bad. He stands at general attention, surveying the landscape when in swoops Udath to drop his burden off. The guardsman is entirely too mannerful to smile at such a thing, but does meander a bit closer. "Are you all right, miss? He seemed a little over-eager for the take off." Rhiex, making graceful excuses for things that could otherwise be embarassing, since the 11th Interval.

Herdbeasts are notorious ruffians, everyone knows that. Udath starts to create a ruckus in his chosen pen, though it's far enough away that it probably won't be too gory to witness from where Ivy's been dumped. The girl blushes a little when she realizes that oh yeah, someone actually did see. She shakes it off gamefully though. "He's hungry. And…well, we're both a bit new to it. Especially me."

Notorious. Rhiex glances over at Udath's chaos-mongering, his eyes lingering perhaps a moment too long in his efforts to try to figure out what in Faranth's name is going on over there. "He looks young," the young man offers, smiling briefly down at Ivy. "I'm sure you'll get the hang of it soon before long." He changes his stance a bit, the better to keep an eye on the gore going down in Udath's corner.

Alas for Rhiex, Udath is a pretty neat eater as far as dragons go. Most of the fuss is in the stampeding and panic-pooping of the herdbeasts. Once Udath's brought down his snack (which is accompanied by some nice crunching sounds if one likes that sort of thing), he's quite fastidious about ripping off the hunks of meat. There's blood and all, but not the paint-with-it style that some dragons have. Ivy rubs idly at an elbow, too used to it to care much one way or the other. "He's a turn and change. We're in the last weyrling class. About finished now." Recalling manners, she discovers with some relief that the man is not on the must-salute list (sorry!) but smiles and offers a hand in greeting instead. "I'm Ivy, by the way. That's Udath."

That's even BETTER. Rhiex is much more avid a people-watcher than dragon-watcher, unlike some of the landed weyrfolk hereabouts, but Udath's precision is enough to semi-fascinate the guardsman. "Growing boy," he reflects aloud about the turn-and-change, and then turns to focus wholly upon Ivy as she introduces herself. His teeth flash in a smile and he trades a grip with her — his is strong, not overbearing but not the limp-fingered thing some big men give little girls. "They call me Rhiex. Well-met, Ivy, and my regards to your Udath. He's seem to be very … tidy, in his eating."

Ivy smiles too, a little bit shyly, though her own handshake is firm. No one likes limp fish hands. "Nice to meet you too." She nods a little at the 'growing boy' remark. "I think he's about as long as he's going to get, but he's starting to get-" and instead of using her words, she sort of makes a 'wider' gesture with her arms. The brown, oblivious, nips at his prize. "He's always been finicky like that. So why'd they stick you out here? Punishment?" A faintly teasing grin.

Limp fish hands suck. "Filling out, is he?" Rhiex's inquiry is polite, of course, in the way that people without kids talk about other people's kids' growth patterns. "Well, I'm sure the groundskeepers appreciate it." His voice, accented oldtimer and with the smart clip of High Reaches Hold, grows wry in that particular statement. "Not having to pick brainspatters off the posts." He shakes his head at the latter; "I think a few weyrbrats let the gate open a couple of times. Herdbeasts milling around in the caravan grounds, it was a bit of chaos." Since the caravanners wanted to claim those were their animals, of course…

Doesn't everyone want to talk dragon growth? No? "He'll probably always be lanky, but yeah." Udath pauses for a moment, a leg or something hanging out of the side of his mouth, to check on Ivy, who muses, "Picking brainspatters. I never really thought about it. That's a job someone else can have, though I used to help with the fishing and that could get pretty nasty." She looks distinctly unenthused about the caravan grounds. "Oh…there are an awful lot of those around. Weyrbrats, I mean."

Rhiex gives a little shudder at the mention of fishing. "I hate fish guts," the man states with a low passion to his voice. What? He really really does. A shiver faintly wracks his shoulders - amusing to see on a man so large - and he sweeps his eyes back over to Udath. "It surprises me that any of them found a moment when there wasn't a dragon eating. There have been five or six since I've been here, and I'm hardly a half-'mark into my patrol."

Ivy tilts her head and gives Rhiex the wide-eyed-surprised look at the shudder, really? But her only comment is, "My family's all fishermen. You get used to it." She crosses her arms and shifts her weight idly from one foot to the other. "Not sure if having a dragon around would stop 'em. The dragons don't really care, and those kids…the ones I've met are pretty scrappy. I guess you've seen a lot of herdbeast insides today then."

Yes, really. That stuff stinks. Especially when it starts fermenting. :( "I would… I don't even know what I would do. I get terribly seasick," Rhiex comments, squinting off in the distance, shameless at the admission of weakness. "They are a scrappy lot, here," Rhiex concurs with consternation folding his brow. "I'm not quite sure what to think of some of thim." He chooses his words carefully: "The children back home were… not quite made of the same mold."

"Seasick…" Ivy trails, bewildered but not that judgey. But then, a question. "Do you get airsick too? I would think they'd be related." Udath gnaws on some random herdbeast limb, careful to keep out of the puddle of 'beast bits he's created. His rider crinkles her nose a little. "They make me nervous, and they're always swarming around the bazaar. One time I was there I'm pretty sure I was about to get jumped on, but some other people showed up." She shoves her hands in her pants pockets and hunches her shoulders up a bit. "Where's home for you?"

"I don't fly often," Rhiex states — unsurprisingly. "It knocks the wind out of me, sometimes, but it doesn't make me want to throw up. I think it's something about.. the motion.." He gives a weebly rocking of his hand to DEMONSTRATE the kind of motion he's talking about, and then perchance turns a little green, too. He's such a lad. "Yes," he nods at Ivy, "They seem ruthless, here." Streetbrats. His smile goes a little reflective. "High Reaches Hold, of old."

Ivy offers a shrug and a smile. "I think it knocks the wind out of everybody. Even if you do it all the time." She rocks back on her boot-heels slightly and leaves off the topic of seasickness, seeing the fellow is looking peaky. "Ruthless is a good word. I try not to go in the little streets alone if I can help it. He's-" A chin-jerk towards the dragon, "-a good deterrent otherwise." She gives Rhiex another curious look as he reveals his origins. "Ohhhh. You're one of /those/ people." Not in a bad way.

"Perhaps." Rhiex's smile is rueful enough to probably show that he likely considers the statement a social nicety from the brownrider. "I swear I feel as though they'd chew the meat off a living person's legs if they thought they could do it." Rhiex doesn't have the most, ah, favorable view of the children of the bazaar, obviously. His dark eyebrows loft at the last statement, though. "One of those, yes," he concurs with a burr of amusement. "Does that make me somehow different than who I was a moment ago?" His voice is curious, not snippy or defensive.

Now it's Ivy's turn to shudder; fish guts and brainsplatter, good to go, but cannibalism, gross. She cants a mild look at Rhiex and shakes her head. "No. It just explains why you didn't act all weird about me showing up with him." Udath. "Some people around here are really tetchy about it, you know, girls riding the fighting dragons. Even my family. Even I was, at first, but I'm adjusting."

No chewing on Ivy? At all? Some poor streetbrat will cry himself to sleep tonight, or would if he only knew. Not that they'd get much from the weyrling's lean frame, surely. "Oh. Is it not done, here?" The question seems so INNOCENT, in reference to such a slip of a girl riding a brown, but the crinkles wrinkling about his eyes seem to indicate it may just be a joke. "You're a nowtimer, then," it's stated as clarification perhaps. He seems as though he would like to ask a question, but is reluctant to do so — curiosity is there, for sure, ill-veiled in his expression.

Strictly no chewing. Udath finishes his snack and glides low over the pen fences, landing nearby and neatly licking flecks of blood from his blunt muzzle. Then it's time for some sidling, because even though his rider has asked him to stay a polite distance away, she clearly requires supervision. Ivy opens her mouth to start to Explain Things to Rhiex, but catches on to the sally at the last minute and flashes him a cheerfully exasperated grin. "Yes, I'm from…here," unaccustomed to the proper lingo for time travellers vs. non. She picks up on the air of curiosity and arches both brows at the man in a nonverbal invitation to say what's on his mind.

For all of his apparent Hold-born propriety, Rhiex doesn't seem alarmed when Udath lands nearby. He doesn't mind the sidling, either, though it causes him to briefly smile - such subterfuge on a creature so large. "Well, you seem perfectly proper, even being from here." His eyes laugh again, and he waves off her nonverbal invitation, still smiling.

Udath is SO VERY sneaky, and insistent. It's not long before he's gotten all up in Ivy's space, no matter what she's been saying to him. She smiles apologetically, pushing uselessly at the great muzzle. "He worries," she explains. She offers a little offhand shrug at being called proper (perfectly, even) but is clearly pleased. "He wants oiling now. I should go. It was nice to meet you, Rhiex. You…you seem perfectly proper as well."

"He's right to," Rhiex replies simply, a slight smile for the brown's antics. The guard draws himself up, then, and inclines his chin in a canted nod that is accompanied by a shifting of shoulders; the very slightest of bows, clear-cut indication of his holder background. "It was nice to meet you as well, Ivy. I do hope you have a lovely day." Rhiex's day, however, will not be so lovely. Thanks to brats who let the herdbeasts out… well, he'll be watching a lot of carnage. (But not, thankfully, cannibalism.)