Who

Sa'id, Tasna, Tseylath, Vojeth

What

Rider and weyrling converge at the pens with their respective lifemates. Sharing happens. Along with smiling, grinning, and thought-provoking.

When

It is afternoon of the twenty-fifth day of the third month of the third turn of the 12th pass.

Where

Pens, Igen Weyr

OOC Date 03 Nov 2014 07:00

 

safid3.jpg Tas15.jpg tseylath_default.jpg

igenpens.jpg

Pens

Here thar be pens, in a variety of shapes and sizes fit for all manner of beastie. The largest pens are those housing plump herdbeast for human or draconic consumption. A few of the smaller pens are unoccupied, though there are remnants of their former occupants still evident on ground and fence. The actual pens themselves are made of wood, stick, nail and twine. It's a slap-shod sort of place, kept together by dreams and good luck to hold fast against the winds. In each pen there are troughs for feed and water, and they appear again by the stableside.

It is the twenty-fifth day of Spring and 73 degrees. It is a bright, sunny day.


There might be a looming shortage elsewhere but here, in the pens stocked to feed the Weyr's dragons, there's no pinch to be felt. Here the herders have made certain that plump, grain-fed beasts mill about like to like- caprines to caprines, ovines to ovines, et cetera to et cetera- until they catch the eye of a predatory winged stomach. Vojeth is one such stomach. The larger males of his weyrling clutch are growing with obscene speed and they need an incredible amount of fuel to maintain that pace. To that end, the bronze can be found here every other day and though he has yet to take down one of the larger beef bulls, he has made inroads on the native sheep population. It is these that the bronze has targeted now, and the little wooly herd seems to know it. They mill about in restless array in the pen's corner while the youth makes circling pass after circling pass, head tucked beneath wing as he sizes up his choices. From the scowl on Sa'id's face, where he leans forearms and booted foot against fence, he is not impressed with this whole 'taking your time' aspect of their daily routine. They could be elsewhere. Oiling. Or something.

There might be a temporary disruption to the bronze weyrling's hunting as a larger (for now) brown glides in from beyond the Weyr. He lands in a clearing just long enough to allow his rider to dismount, and to let that rider quickly remove his straps. Then up he goes, climbing higher than really necessary, circling his own prey among the herdbeasts. His rider is still looping the last length of leather over her shoulder when she draws nearer to Sa'id, Tasna's attention split between brown and bronze for a while before she looks down at Sa'id. Or… still up, technically. "Still developing a taste for it?" she ventures, nodding her head toward Vojeth while Tseylath continues to circle. With the riding straps neatly gathered, she hangs them from one of the fence posts, then takes up a similar stance a pace down from the other rider.

A glance is sent sidelong at Tasna, and Sa'id is none too subtle about letting it rake the woman from crown to toes. Not in any lascivious fashion but if she should feel as if she'd been weighed and judged afterward, that would not be an unfair reaction. Still, the proper salute for a wingrider comes at a short remove, requiring that he straighten his posture and lower his foot- only to resume the lean once that signal of respect is given. "Still dumb and young enough to think there's any big difference between one beast and the next," is his unabashedly grumpy answer. It is possible that the roar that Vojeth looses a beat after is in response to being referred to in such a fashion. It is also possible that he's simply greeting the arriving brown, or calling his attention to the turn, tuck and dive he pulls into with a victim chosen. It's all over rather quickly: a panicked dash, a bleat, and horrible, horrible sounds after while the bronze fans his wings out and looks all too proud with himself.

Tasna has to have noticed the look from Sa'id, since she's looking right at him the whole time, but she only returns the favour, if with a slightly crooked grin. Just then, however, there is a broadcast from Tseylath just broad enough to be caught by the nearby dragon of « Weyrling. » It has the clinical tone of a reminder, with a sterile lack of taste or scent, washed over with a haze of gunmetal grey. The brown also sounds distracted, however, and the image of one of the heifers is shared just before he closes the link again. Without a sound, the brown furls his wings and begins to drop toward the herdbeast pen, while the young animal with a stunted leg catches on too late to avoid her fate. He is efficient in the death, then carries the carcass toward the northernmost part of the pens, away from the other animals. During this, Tasna also returns Sa'id's salute, though her own is awfully informal. "In those? Yeah, not much difference," the brownrider replies, watching Vojeth with his kill. No weak stomach on her. "It's good for them to not be wasteful, though. Too big a beast, and meat goes to waste. Too small, and they have to eat again too soon, or kill another animal."

« Tseylath. » Vojeth also favors steel but his is alive and alight in shades of crackling fire, of rustling pine and a hum of satisfied conversation over chow. The name comes in the slippery hiss of a whetstone moving over blade's edge, and is followed by the bronze launched skywards again with sheep in talons, to trail his senior to a more distant corner- good policy, that, he appreciates the example. Sa'id might sigh for this additional delay were it not for Tasna distracting him from such displeasure. Instead, he casts a narrow and searching glance at her, as if to see if she meant any criticism with such a remark. "He'd swallow them whole if he could. Hide, hoof and horns too. They can't seem to get enough, these males." A pause ensues, and then (with some small attempt at playing civil), he adds, "Must have been the same. With yours."

Tasna nods once, both answer and acknowledgement. With the dragons off to do their eating, however, she hops onto the fence and twists so she can sit, feet dangling as she faces the stables in the distance instead of the milling herds. "It will pass once they're about a Turn or so," she tells Sa'id, giving the tall man another of her grins. She squints up at the sunny sky, then off toward the direction where the bazaar meets the Weyr. "Pretty soon he should be big enough for the bigger animals, I'd guess. It all gets a lot easier after that." There's a beat, while she hitches her boot heels onto the lower fence railing. "Relatively easier. Still beats cutting it up for them, right?" She then leans over, holding out a hand. "Tasna, by the way. We're with Arroyo. You look wicked familiar, so I apologize if we've met already."

Tasna nods once, both answer and acknowledgement. With the dragons off to do their eating, however, she hops onto the fence and twists so she can sit, feet dangling as she faces the stables in the distance instead of the milling herds. "It will pass once they're about a Turn or so," she tells Sa'id, giving the tall man another of her grins. She squints up at the sunny sky, then off toward the direction where the bazaar meets the Weyr. "Pretty soon he should be big enough for the bigger animals, I'd guess. It all gets a lot easier after that." There's a beat, while she hitches her boot heels onto the lower fence railing. "Relatively easier. Still beats cutting it up for them, right?" She then leans over, holding out a hand. "Tasna, by the way. We're with Arroyo. You look wicked familiar, so I apologize if we've met already."

It's as if grins are a challenge to the man, to make him sink his scowl a little deeper in response. Not that Sa'id isn't listening closely- this is useful information and he judges Tasna young enough to be speaking from recent experience. Not like those instructors Turns removed from youth, and potentially dodgy on accuracy. "Didn't mind the cutting," he grunts, "but could do without the mucking." To each their own most hated! The offered hand is eyeballed before he reaches up to slap palm to palm. There is…less consideration than there might ought be for Tasna's smaller fingers, in the grip that follows. "Sa'id. Don't remember you but could be. If you'd been around the Bazaar," though he lets some doubt trace through his tone, saying that. She just seems too easy-going to be a Bazaar-friendly woman.

There might be some surreptitious hand flexing after the handshake, but Tasna doesn't squeal or anything. Instead, she glances over toward the feasting dragons, then back at Sa'id, toward whom she leans slightly, "Share a secret?" she asks, though her tone implies she's offering, not asking. In any case, she continue after just a couple seconds of silence. "If you can get him to do his business out here, the Herders and drudges will muck it for you. I mean, maybe it doesn't look or smell the same, but when they're that deep in shit, what's another shovelful or two? Beats scraping it off the training grounds." She sits upright again, just continuing with her challenging grins. "Careful of any canyons and the like, though. Tseylath once dropped a load right into the wagon of some Smiths making their way along the path below. It was not good."

That…is a secret. That is a good secret, and may well have been the one thing Tasna could have said to jar Sa'id out of his state of perpetual grouchiness. Those brilliant green eyes blink once at the woman before casting towards the dragons, engaged in their distant feast. He blinks again then- and then slowly claps the heel of his palm to his forehead, as if he could punish the brains kept safe inside his skull by dealing them a slap. "That's fucking brilliant," he says, and in that Tasna wins herself the first official compliment he's given a female rider since joining their ranks. Possibly the first since before Impressing, too. And what does he care about the herders, the drudges? It saves him time and hassle and he soon gives over facepalming to level a pointing finger out at Vojeth. "You heard me," he intones, though nothing was actually said. "When you're done."

Tasna just about glows at the compliment. After all, it's likely in these parts that someone of her sex and rank doesn't exactly earn them on a daily basis, right? "I felt bad about it at first, but it's only for a matter of months, and… well. In the long scheme of things, it's not adding that much to their workload… right?" There might still be a shred of justifying going on, but not enough to stop her from continuing. "Weyrlinghood is hard enough, no need to take on more than necessary, especially once they've earned their wings." She glances toward her lifemate, then, who's still snout-deep in beef, though he's an awfully tidy eater, if with quite a few glances toward Vojeth. After a while, he raises his head, tongue snaking out to clean some of the blood off his maw before he asks in a mental brush of sand dervish, « Fancy some of this instead? Never hurts to ask, right? » With the hunt now done, there is a far warmer, more colourful tint to his mindvoice, though it hasn't taken on full form just yet. The thrilling, coppery scents and tastes of the cow blood are also shared. So tantalizing. To some audiences, at least.

It doesn't take too long before the beetled eyebrows and grimly set jaw roll back in but for that brief moment, Tasna can be certain she earned that compliment. Soon enough he's back to grunting mode, with a terse, "Yeah." He'd be content to leave at that- the stinker- but eventually, after long minutes spent observing Vojeth tearing into that unfortunate ex-sheep, he asks, "You go to Arroyo by choice?" Seeing as her lifemate is brown…but she is a she. He's still working out wing politics, poor boy. Vojeth is less concerned with such things. He was reduced his prey to wool and slurry sifted in with talon-raked mud, so when the brown extends that tempting thread of 'more food', the blood-streaked bronze responds by ambling as best his bruin-shaped body allows. Which is to say, sidling doesn't go so well but he does move closer to nose at an upturned hoof. « You don't want all of it? » he is bound by enforced manners to ask, though the ache that sifts up from belly to brain speaks of a young dragon more than willing.

« Not a matter of want exactly, » Tseylath replies as his mindvoice takes on better shape, forming red-tinted sand dunes into Technicolor bright shapes of hills and rocks. He tears off some of the flank, then makes more room for the growing bronze. « You need it more right now. » Plus… Tseylath just likes kids of all shapes. "Someone's choice," Tasna answers in the meantime, turning away from the mess of carcasses. "I'd imagine we can offer up our hopes and dreams, but it's the wingleaders and up who decide. I like it, though. Suits Tseylath, too." She gives Sa'id another measuring look, though this time it's a little more serious. "May as I ask why you're asking?"

Vojeth is not entirely sure of what to make of such generosity. Though he is not so suspicious or as inclined to narrow looks at Sa'id, he does swing a gently whirling study at the brown before deciding…yeah, okay, more food is grand and he'll take it. Hunkering in beside the larger Tseylath, he dips head to fasten brute jaws around that dangling limb, to rip a portion from the carcass. Or…to worry it free, because he's not quite old enough yet to give over on playing with his food. « Sometimes I think I can feel my bones creaking like mountains as they grow so fast, » he confides his new friend. To demonstrate how a mountain might grow, he even grooooans around his mouthful of cow-flesh, managing a sound somewhere between enraged grizzly and pensive whale. It is fortunate the human partners are some distance, to better protect their ears. And Tasna may ask but Sa'id, helpful Sa'id, provides no answer other than an, "Enh," and a shrug and a low, "Just thinking ahead. Don't figure they'd much want me in Arroyo though."

By both body language and whirling eyes, Tseylath seems pretty pleased the weyrling dragon took him up on his offer. Sure, maybe the bronze isn't his progeny, but that doesn't change the brown's outlook on the littler dragons. However, he has no remaining memories that might compare, so he remains quiet while he continues to pick, if more sparingly, at the shared meal. "Well, don't think so far ahead that you're bogged down by it," Tasna advises as she lets her feet dangle free of the fence again, leaning back as she balances on the top rung with legs outstretched. "Life will likely be shorter than it should have been, what with Thread and all. No need to shorten it with more worry." She pauses there, frowning slightly as she goes back to studying Sa'id. "Why don't you think Arroyo would want you?"

For that question, Sa'id deigns to let a smile twitch at his lips and to speak bald truth. "I don't much care for most women on dragons." The use of 'most' might be heartening, in that slim chance sense, but he doesn't linger on the possibility that there's room for acceptable women with wings. "Doesn't hurt to look ahead, anyway. Keeps you moving forward. Keeps you from getting stuck in the sand, left with whatever no one else has snapped up or trampled over by those with more momentum," he opines in a tone that brooks no argument- nevermind that she's the senior rider and he the stripling. In his world? Sa'id will no more die of Threadscore than Igen will fall into the sea.

Tasna makes a small "ah" sound, grinning in reaction to what might be considered an offence by some. "You like the dainty bitty things on the glittering dragons instead? Holders' daughters all in satin and lace, just begging for some strong man to save them from their frailties?" Putting words in his mouth? She doesn't seem to mind! She also doesn't seem to be terribly serious. "Don't know how much Mayte takes to dresses. Sadaiya, though, she likes to get all dolled up, I bet. No idea about Linny, though." She pauses to let her thoughts wander for a moment, then she turns her attention back to Sa'id. "Anyway, Arroyo's hardly the only wing with women on dragons. And hey, if you don't want 'em, more for me."

Well, when she puts it like that… Sa'id snorts. And when he snorts, with a nose like that, it is impressive. She'd be able to see him winding himself up for some dour and grim-faced reply. Something scathing. Something meant to cut. Then, for some unspoken reason, he goes very, very still and an odd look comes over his pretty face. It isn't the unfocused look of a rider in draconic conversation, but the look worn by someone who's just realized something. And he doesn't like what that thing is. It leads to scowling and straightening up and a bellow of, "VOJETH! Time to GO!" A demand that makes the feeding bronze so very sad and leads to him stealing a rack of ribs to drag along with him- and forgetting to void himself, along the way. He's in a hurry! On Sa'id's head be it! "Ma'am," the weyrling does offer, snapping another salute.

Tasna is braced to be scathed! But instead, she jumps a little when Sa'id suddenly bellows toward his dragon. She hops to the ground, perhaps the better to avoid falling from any further surprises, then frowns from Sa'id to his dragon, then back again. Tseylath settles into more of a lounge as Vojeth leaves with the side o' beef, wings lifting slightly as if to wave, then he sets to finishing his meal. "Weyrling," Tas says, not bothering to hide her confusion as she vaguely salutes back to him. Mouth opens for one last comment, but then she closes it, hoists her brown's leathers to her shoulder, and begins walking along the fence toward her 'mate.

Add a New Comment