It's a hot, late afternoon, sunny and clear. Spring has brought back the garden with new greenery, and flowers cover almost everything. Given the hour of dinner approaching, many people have left for the Weyr's inner caverns, and the garden terrace is mostly empty of passers-by for now. On a bench near a tree blooming with fragrant spring blossoms, M'noq lounges. A wide-brimmed hat hides his face, so it isn't obvious whether he is sleeping or awake. A book he had apparently been reading is nearby, though the cover is face-down, so the title isn't visible.

There's a rapid scuffing of footfalls, carefully placed to minimize the ringing of boot heels as a man bounds up the stairs to the terraces and rounds the corner making a beeline for the one occupied table he can see. This man? T'ral. He skids to a stop, hair askew and eyes alight, folding himself rapidly into the chair opposite M'noq and snatching up the book the brownrider was reading, eyes cutting to the stairwell, head tilted to listen. Feet pound up the stairs, voices raised in angry muller along with them. T'ral's eyes widen marginally and he smoothes his coat, settles his hair and tips back to read… What book is this? "Evening, M'noq. We've been here for an hour." He gives the young man a significant nod. RIGHT?

M'noq tilts his hat back with a fingertip, his eyes awake and apparently unsurprised at his wingleader's sudden appearance. Perhaps he wasn't sleeping at all, just waiting and listening. "Of course we have," he says quietly, then gestures to the book. He pitches his voice a little louder. "As I was saying, it's interesting enough as a travelogue, and I'd love to try to find some of the places he visited. Though some of his experiences seem so improbable, I wonder if it's just a collection of tall tales he told around Pern to get people to buy him drinks." The title of the book is A Thousand Coves of the Southern Continent and Beyond.

T'ral blinks and glances at the book's cover. Oh. OH. Goooood. His grin at M'noq is pleased, slipping lopsided, "Oh, yeah, he's totally full of legumes. For sure." Not that that's significant or anything. AHEM. The group of angry folk hit the top of the stairs and fan out. It's small wonder that they don't have pitchforks and torches. T'ral swallows, "That one where folk were chasing him demanding money and he didn't know what they were talking about." T'ral coughs, eyes roving to the crew of roughs fanning out and snapping back to M'noq when attention starts to swing their way. T'ral asides to M'noq as he lifts his head in feigned and polite interest at the band of searching men, "That one was particularly," relevant, "enjoyable."

His alarm isn't obvious, but M'noq definitely starts to pay more attention as the angry group approaches. Is that an eyebrow arched in query? Subtle. He leans in a little, continuing the conversation. "Sure, and I thought for certain it was going to turn out that he had tricked a holder out of something, but he claimed it was entirely a case of mistaken identity. Mind you, the man was 6-foot tall and built with a chest like a barrel, so I don't know how many other rogues are wandering about that look like him. And then he managed to talk his way out of it just by telling them an interesting enough story that they forgot why they were hunting him down. Interesting skill, eh?"

"Oh, yeah. Well," T'ral sits forward, marking his place in the book he's reading, attention turning towards the surly looking crew as they prowl closer, "When he got tipped off by the barkeep and slipped out. I thought he'd get away for sure." He shakes his head, "Not his lucky day." The men stalk forward and one, a wiry fellow, "Hey, that's the guy!" He points at T'ral. T'ral, for his part affects innocence, polite and interested, "Pardon?" He folds his hands over the book, now resting on the tabletop. "Can I be of some assistance?" The wiry man presses forward, scowling, recognition flickering in his eyes, "Yer T'ral. Cheated my buddy outta half a month's wage, ya did." T'ral blinks, mouth opening slightly. He looks genuinely shocked. Is it totally an affectation? Or is it genuine.

M'noq barks out a quick laugh. "I didn't take you for a high-stakes gambler, Wingleader. Especially not one who could be in two places at the same time. Or do you have a twin who swindles men out of their hard-earned wages, while we're here, at our book club meeting?" Truthfully, a book club might be more plausble if there were a few more people gathered around the table and there were a couple empty bottles of wine nearby. Then to the group of angry men: "Gentlemen, if you think the man you're chasing came this way, I did see someone pass not long ago, headed for the shops up ahead. Maybe to spend this loot you say he cheated you out of?"

T'ral's index finger pokes at his chest. Me? He winces at the 'two places at once' thing. He hadn't thought things through very well. Clearly he needs to spend more time on the pointy end of pitchforks to get more practice telling plausible tall tales off the cuff. Another man hustles up the stairs and heads towards the table. His angry scowl precedes him like a pressure wave. Oh boy. One of the men elbows his mate in the ribs and tosses a chin off in the direction M'noq indicated. But the wiry man won't leave off, "No, him." He gives M'noq a dirty squint and continues, insistent, talking to the heavily muscled, raw-knuckled slab the others defer to. "Dealer said 'e's T'ral." T'ral blinks, fishmouthing. "Hey," he raises his hands, forestalling. "I don't know what you all 're talking about." His ears are turning red at the tips. And as a fourth man draws closer, the bluerider's attention begins to sharpen. The slab looks at M'noq, dark eyes pinning the young rider with the lazy, uncaring augur of dark eyes. "Maybe this one's T'ral." Cue the hooting of chair legs as T'ral pushes to his feet. "He definitely doesn't have anything to do with this." Don't mess with his riders, yo. T'ral will have to apologize to M'noq later for being terrible at this whole off-the-cuff subterfuge thing.

M'noq perhaps underestimated T'ral's ability to get himself into trouble without a good alibi. The situation just gets stickier. Since everyone is standing, M'noq slowly gets to his feet too. No sudden movements. "Wait a minute, so what you're telling me is you don't even know what the man you're looking for looks like? Believe me, I don't frequent dark gambling halls, but if I did, I probably wouldn't go around telling people my real name. If I wanted people to trust me, sure, I'd tell people I was someone they already think is trustworthy. So sure, I could be T'ral. Or he could." He jerks a thumb at T'ral. "Or that guy, or him over there." He points at a couple other guys gathered around. "Do you even know who you're looking for?"

The slab's slow smile is an ugly thing, pleased at putting T'ral off balance, provoking a reaction. T'ral opens his mouth to agree or protest or something when M'noq chimes in. The wiry man squares up against the brownrider, "No, I'm sayin' I'm looking fer T'ral an' that's him." He jabs a finger at T'ral. He seems very certain of this. T'ral clears his throat and jabs a thumb at M'noq. "Just so. I'm T'ral," he confirms, "But," uh, "I don't think I'm the guy you're looking for." The wiry man squints, jostled as 'that guy over there who could also be T'ral but isn't' finally draws close, "Oi. We got yer guy," rumbles Slab. The new arrival is an unassuming looking fellow. Entirely forgettable. Which makes the hair on T'ral's neck stand on end. Something about him seems like Very Bad News. "Idiots. What did I tell you?" He gestures at his brow, "Man we're looking for has a scar 'n 'is brow." He gestures emphatically at his own face, a slashing gesture at his eyebrow. T'ral spreads his hands in a 'SEE' gesture. Slab grunts. Wiry gives M'noq AND T'ral the hairy eyeball. "Come on, y'damn mongrels." With that, the unassuming man turns on his heel and stalks away, the pack of unsavories following at his heels. T'ral takes a deep breath and blinks after their departure. "I… think you had the right of it, M'noq." He watches the departing ruffians with eyes cut to the side. "Who would do that? And why me?"

M'noq mmphs softly as the group moves off, watching Mr. Very Bad News in particular. Then he gives a sidelong glance over at T'ral. "I wish I could say you've probably seen the last of those guys, but. That guy talking about the scar sounded like he was almost making a threat. You're sure you didn't do anything to them to piss them off? Or have you found a way to be in two places at the same time? Not that you need to tell me if you have," he adds. M'noq will keep his own suspicions. He gestures at the book on the table. "You want to borrow A Thousand Coves? Might have some useful pointers." He can't quite keep back a teasing smile.

T'ral grunts his own articulate rejoinder to seeing the last of those men. He shakes his head slowly, gaining speed with certainty. "I haven't seen even one of them ever." Thumbs hooking into his beltloops and he stands at his ease watching where the men disappeared. He laughs at M'noq's suggestion, "Not unless you count ::betweening::." That doesn't mean T'ral didn't piss them off some how. He just has no idea how he might have. He laughs a rueful bark at the loan of M'noq's book. His voice pitches into its lower registers, grin lopsided, "Would you mind?" He slides the book over and flips through it, glancing. A piece of paper flutters out and swoop, swoop, swoop skims lightly across the table to land face up between the two men. On it is what looks like verse. Much scribbled over and scratched out verse. T'ral cants his head to read the page.

M'noq knows at least one sort of ::betweening:: that lets someone be in two places at once. Not that it's common or advisable, but it's at least possible. When the book ejects out a page of verse, M'noq takes the chance to peer at it as well. Nope, he can't make heads or tails of it, though he doesn't make much of an effort, either. "Not my bad poetry," he says. "Do you know anyone who leaves poems in library books?" This particular book was borrowed, so just about anyone could have left it, though M'noq didn't run across it when he was reading the book earlier.

"Mmmhmm." T'ral is dubious. SUUUUURE IT'S NOT YOURS, M'NOQ. He tucks the book under his arm and reaches for the page and is about to read when he freezes, "Wait. This is a library book?" He shakes his head and fumbles it back out, "G'wan and turn that in." T'ral is a dragonrider. Living dangerously is simply the name of the game. Weyrmated to an archivist in the throes of pregnancy hormones… T'ral knows better than to risk any library shenanigans however minor the infraction. "I'll check it out properly." He pushes the book across the table and returns to the page, mouth moving as he scans, "'Roses are red, so is your hair…'" Yikes. He reads some more. "'Thine eyne, brown as klah, soft as,'" his brows pitch up, "'Straw' is crossed out." He mouths, 'straw.' Really? "Wow. Well, gotta start somewhere." T'ral tilts his head, "Wonder what redhead they're on about." Hmmm. "Brown eyes." He ponders, "Arianne?" K'lir better not find out about thi— T'ral blinks, looking closely at the penned phrases. Is this K'lir's handwriting?

M'noq shudders a little at the verse as he takes back the book. "Definitely not mine. I doodle maps, not bad poetry. You can't throw rock without hitting a redhead in this Weyr, though. Not that you'd want to go around hitting them with rocks." That would definitely be bad. "I'll mention to the librarian that you're wanting to take a look at it and see if they'll hold it for you." He pauses, glancing again at the paper. "Um… you can keep that page. Maybe that's what those guys were looking for, who knows?" Or T'ral can have to puzzle of trying to figure out who wrote it. "In any case, I'm off. See you at drills tomorrow, Wingleader."

"Maps?" Huh. Interesting. T'ral files this away for interesting things upon which to follow up upon. With. "UH. NO." T'ral agrees that none of the Weyr's redheads would take kindly to rock throwing. Southern has a large redhead population, this is true, so the target of this pitiful poetry might be any number of folk. He glances at the book and inclines his head for M'noq's offer. "Thank you." He laughs at the suggestion that the poetry was the target of the manhunt. "In that case, I'll keep it for blackmail." He folds the slip and tucks it into a breast pocket, patting his chest to snug it securely. SAFE AND SOUND, bad poetry. "Thanks for you help," he tosses a chin off after the men. "See you bright and early." The two head on about their evenings. T'ral, though, T'ral has a stop to make.