Who

Th'bek, Moanna, Tavuqth, Maeveth

What

Tavuqth and Th'bek check in on some weyrlings. Well, one.

When

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

Where

Weyrling Training Grounds

OOC Date 24 Oct 2016 04:00

 

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"I'm more concerned by her general lack of fear, and lack of knowledge when it comes to her own limits."


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Weyrling Training Grounds

Here, a wide and spacious field, devoid of all but more of the glare of ubiquitous, fine white sand of Igen: not even a blade of grass dares lift its head against centuries of clumsy draconic antics. To one side, ever-present firestone bins are set, kept supplied by many a hand, while agenothree tanks line the curving angle just outside the barracks, primed and ready for use. Very often, a glimpse of classes in session or dragonets at play may be caught under the open sky under the watchful eye of diligent Weyrlingmasters and older dragons.


Thunder rolls above the occasional flash of lightning arcing across the afternoon sky. A young green splashes in the drizzle, chasing one of the large balls left out to help the young ones hone their coordination skills. Maeveth's mottled green is splashed with washes of mud from where she's flopped over in the mud puddles present on the training ground. Her rider watches under a dry outcropping of rock while the green plays, watching as the ball goes bouncing across the training yard.

A brown, tall, and vertically slender, imposes into the training grounds, no straps augmenting the dark and orange-red splatters one might swear to be blood. But it isn't, not in a day of rain like this. Tavuqth takes an interest in the young of his kind though he's not fathered any of his own. Rain sluices over the peaks of his ridges and down a jagged brow and his jaw hangs open as if awaiting something to jump in. He comes up, not hiding himself from Maeveth, and lifts his nose. He, too, is a son of Rhiscorath by a different male also hatched in High Reaches. This kinship he's aware of only through his rider, and it seems Th'bek is not very distant.

Oh, big guy. At least comparatively big, not that the young green hasn't become accustomed to the weyrlingmaster dragons. But the brown has her chase stop, and she pads over tail trailing in the mud behind her, she arches her neck to study him, her path winding her around the length of the brown before a vibrant splatter of blue gold squishes mentally. « You are not one of the bossy ones. » Her tail flicks « Do you like the rain? »

Oh look, Tavuqth is going to snip Maeveth's head off— except the brown pulls up on his attempted pruning, and his second try is lower, near her limbs. « What makes you think that? » His wings have a slack look, not an aggressive stance to the trained eye. Th'bek finally, on his two small legs, catches up, riding goggles neglected on top of his head, but they sort of help brim out the direction the rain's coming from. "Moanna, where are ya!" May as well see your green being harried.

Tavuqth's pretend nip is taken as an invitation to play. Not that the young green could do much damage to him, or that she is even trying but the pretend nip gets returned in kind, but Mae hasn't quite mastered coordination yet, so it is possible the Brown might get a little bite if he doesn't move fast enough. It's enough for her to take off bounding away only to come barreling back to attack the brown's forepaw in play, though careful not to inflict any real harm. « Because it's wonderful. » Maeveth's broad strokes of crimson and purple spread happily. Moanna just facepalms, and shakes her head, "Over here Th'bek, sir." She snaps a crisp salute and gestures over to the dry spot. "She needed to burn off some energy, and loves the rain."

Tavuqth is bitten by a few baby teeth somewhere at the back of his foreleg, and he responds in kind by smothering the small green with his wing. Tout finis. "That's one way to keep 'er dry, Tav, but go easy, they're scarcely out of the shell." « I pay little attention to the rain. » Maeveth's captor finally offers an opinion on their weather. "Good to see you. Energy is what she should have, and I hope she keeps it. Any setbacks so far?" He maneuvers under some weathered rock that more or less blunts the rain.

The smothering of her lifemate, doesn't seem to worry Moanna much, "Well she needs to learn sometime. It was cute when they were all close to the same size but now that the boys are getting bigger the difference is more pronounced." Maeveth seems delighted by this turn of events squirming around under the brown's wing futilely. « Why not? You don't like the lights that dance in the sky? Or the cool mud. It feels great to get all covered in the stuff. » Moanna grins to the wingleader, "I don't know if I would call them setbacks, more like things to watch out for; she's overly affectionate with everyone. Likes to play fight with the boys, though the other greens don't seem as appreciative of this habit of hers. I'm more concerned by her general lack of fear, and lack of knowledge when it comes to her own limits."

Th'bek tastes the rainwater on his mouth though much more is being absorbed by his flight leathers. They'll need proper drying so they don't wind up stiffer than cardboard. "She sounds as she should be. This early on we shelter 'em from negative repercussions, not wanting to hinder them, so to speak. That's where you'll come in, in time, to not just offer boundaries, but consequences. For right now it's enough they're innocent things. Faranth knows it doesn't last long." Tavuqth rescinds his wing, collapsing it back to his side, and sits, his eyes burning a swamp shade of gaseous blue. Of mud, « I itch when it dries in place. » "None of the assistants are being mean to you, right?" Side glance, "'specially that Kyara." His own former assistant!

"Perhaps," Moanna notes running a hand through rain-slicked curls. "I'm more worried that she will try something before they say we are ready to. She's fascinated with hunting and flying. She complains about what she calls 'cold' food." Moanna shakes her head. "She's already more than twice the size she started at when she hatched." It is hard to say if the weyrling is pleased or bothered by this fact. « This is what baths and oiling are for, to soothe the itch. » Deep gold brush strokes of pleasure tinting her smoky alto. The wing gone, Mae winds herself around the brown's limbs like a feline. Treating his legs like a kind of obstacle course.

"Again, that's where you'll come in because you know better." His smile says 'isn't that right?' He peeks into the barracks, having not been in there since the latest clutch moved in. He's solicited observed weyrlings only in the training grounds. "She's growing all right, hard to say what her true attributes will be in the end, but she's looking right on track." Seeing how Maeveth's winding a path around Tavuqth, "just like a feline, huh?" Meanwhile, inciting things, « Th'bek doesn't oil me enough. »

Moanna laughs, "We hope. I think we are due to mounting up for the first time soon. From there, who knows." Nerves edging in her voice, "It will be different than riding with anyone else - if she gets hurt it is going to be my fault." Moanna sighs. Maeveth halts her winding for a moment utterly dismayed. « How awful! You want to borrow mine for a little while? We can trade if you promise to teach me how to catch my own food. » Bribery? Thy name is Maeveth. "Too much like a feline, you should come around when the sun is shining and someone has borrowed one of the metal serving platters."

"None of," he waits to bypass a residual thrum of thunder, "the assistants will let her get hurt. What I mean is, they'll instruct you on what to do and not to do, trust me, they'd been at it for Turns and look how I turned out. They trust me with a wing." « She doesn't look like her reach is very far. But I can teach you to hunt and kill. » Tavuqth's mind voice is a menace of decaying carbon. Th'bek sports a laugh at the weyrling's description of Maeveth truly at play. "I would pay good marks to see that. But not tonight or tomorrow, I've got these to recure and next month's sweep routes to plan. Oh, and if Tavuqth is insinuating I'm neglecting him, you tell him to grind ash."

At the word kill, that tail swishes back and forth in the mud and Maeveth's winding halts. « I like you, you will visit again sometimes yes? To teach me how to kill? » Bright red paint spatters gleefully punctuate the thought. Moanna must not be aware of her lifemate's volunteering her services as an oiling assistant. Still, the statement makes her laugh, "I think I'll leave that to Maeveth if she decides to divulge such things. I should let you dry out, though, and get her cleaned up… again. As pretty as her coloring is you'd never know from the way she is always covered in mud."

Tavuqth's giant maw flexes at the dragonet in another halfhearted attempt at striking, but this one comes the closest, overlapping fangs and hot breath redolent of yesterday's firestone and meat residuals. He will visit again, many times and will keep his word to Maeveth. The hunt is too primal to forget. "They're all beasts, Moanna! But we wouldn't have them any other way. Be good." He departs just barely ahead of his life-mate but in two of his steps Tavuqth overtakes his rider.

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