Lane runs his hands over the runner's side, checking it one more time (after all of the OTHER times he's probably gone through the same process) to make sure everything really is okay. It's obvious that Lane actually likes runners more than he likes most people. The runner responds, turning around to nuzzle at Lane's arm. "We'll be together for a few days, aye? I'm sure you'll miss Ryuan, but we'll do well." Moving away from the runner's head Lane heads out of the stable to see to the last few details of the trip… and explain to Zavyr again why it's important that he go. Again. That's the important word.

She was on her way in. Zavyr. This time she’s wearing the heavy cloak that Lane bought them, and she carries her staff. And her bag. And she is determined. “Hi Lane.” Zavyr intones brightly, for once not stopping for a kiss, but brushing nimbly right by him. “I can probably use that black runner there, right? I’ll saddle him.” And the staff is put to the side, the cloak shrugged out of, and Zavyr settles the bag on the ground. She’s reaching for a halter and some grain, showing she has a good sense of how to catch a strange runner.

Lane is totally going to try to be gentle about this, but no. Instead he's going to go after her and unless she is completely intent on evading him he'll try to capture her hand. Bracelet hand in bracelet hand. Honeymoon time is still hard on. "As much as I don't want to leave you, the other runners aren't for riding." They're work animals, and not even meant to be ridden. "I won't be gone more than three days." There's a promise in his words as he goes to wrap his arms around her - provided she lets him. "It took me this long for them to even consider trusting me with a runner, and Ryuan had to talk fast after he broke his leg to make it happen." Lane apparently has made SOME friends here.

Three days? Zavyr shakes her head. “It’s too cold out there, Lane. Three days? What if there’s Threadfall?” Nevermind that every single other messenger has to deal with the same situation. “I’m a good rider - they’d carry me fine. Three days?” Maybe he really means two? One? Zavyr settles against him and reaches to draw her fingers over his cheeks and jaw. “First, you don’t ever leave and you hang around and I can’t get rid of you, Lane. Then you leave me and my friend has to beat you up, to get you to come back. And THEN you hitch me to you forever and ever and now you’re LEAVING? For three/ days? Damn you.” Gently spoken, though every aspect of the woman is reluctance to let him go.

Leaning forward Lane brushes a kiss against her lips before pulling away. "I've got a good coat, and where Ryuan stays over in the event of threadfall. This isn't the Igen desert, caves are normal here. Trees mean wood, wood means fire…" Lane lets the words trail off as he brushes a finger along her jawline. "Besides. Absence makes the heart grow fonder?" That's totally still a Pern thing gdi. "You're safe here." Despite the accident on the road Lane has settled into a strange domestic tranquility here at this High Reaches hold, possibly because it reminds him so much of where he grew up. No expectations are finally allowing the man to carve his own identity.

“You are getting a firelizard.” Zavyr decides. Her lizards can’t find him when he sleeps. But they might be able to find his lizard. “And if there is any issue, you leave word somehow. Three days?” The lizards don’t like the cold, the wind or the weather, but they will be checking in, no doubt. Zavyr leans in for another embrace, another kiss, and only reluctantly will step back and over to the runner. “You take care of him, you runner, you. Or you and I shall have words.” Her regard will remain on Lane, though. “If you’re longer than three days, I’ll go look for some long-haired trader and… Flirt with him.” Allusion to past events…

Lane rolls his eyes skyward, Zavyr's going to have to be MORE than her charming self to get him to accept one of the little annoyances hanging around and needing care. Better to get him a dog or something. Lane would probably take a smart big ol' dog to take care of him. "I promise I'll be back within three days. Have I ever broken a promise to you yet?"

She has to laugh, does Zavyr, and grin up at Lane for that eyeroll. “No. You will be getting a firelizard. And when you get back, I’ll tell you about how lizards affect their people, when they have their flights. Kind of like dragonflights but I don’t think so intense. So you want a bronze. And a gold.” Because Zav has a gold, and a bronze. “And you will think of me constantly and you will miss me and take care of yourself and hurry back and MAYBE take a day off to spend with your wife.” She’ll step over to pluck at the braided Harper cord that wraps around his wrist, before stepping into another kiss and finally, exhaling a sigh, release access to the saddle. “And you will NOT chase my lizards off when they come to check on you. I saw that, you know.” But Zavyr grins at the remembered images of Lane’s casting snowballs at her little spies. “And I’ll teach you better aim. And juggling. And you’ll take a day off. Am I being a nagging wife yet?” But the grin is genuine.

"Very nagging." But in this post marriage glow, Lane can't fault her for the nagging. He also makes no promises about the stupid creatures she lets hang about her. Eventually he is sure his stubbornness will win out and they will even stop sleeping around them. A kiss and he pulls away to bend down and pick up a bag from the ground and sling it over his shoulder. "I need to get out if I'm to make it to the first shelter by nightfall. I promise we will take a few days, just us, when I get back?"

“Deal. I love you.” Zavyr steps back fully, though sliding a hand down his arm and reaching to steady the runner while Lane gets on. Nevermind her lewd whisper, intended to embarrass Lane, “I’m jealous. He’s riding you for three days.” But the quick wink up at Lane, and the goofy grin should underscore that she is teasing him and his hold-bred sensibilities, again.

Perhaps Zavyr should have asked about the circumstances of Ryuan’s having broken his leg. And maybe she will in the next day or two that she will pass in mindless labor in the Hold’s kitchen: Washing dishes. But as the forest closes around Lane, and only the divots in the snow and the markers on the trees show the road’s path, so also will the stillness fall. The mare knows the way, but her hoofbeats are muffled on the snow, though now and again her hooves hit a slick section of the road, and beast and rider are hard-pressed to keep their balance. Hours pass, as Rukbat eases steadily toward the horizon and the runner’s ears prick forward more often than not; she knows that her stall and some fodder and grain await just a few more thousand dragonlengths. Twice, Zavyr’s firelizards burst into the air nearby, hearkening to some odd psychic imprint made by Lane, that they can track through *between*, and both times they will loop through the nearby forest and then disappear again, no doubt bombarding Zavyr with triplet images of Lane’s riding through the snow on Ryuan’s runner.

"Aye, I know it's a little cold. But that's what you're bred for, huh?" Lane reaches out to pet the neck of the runner, Jillin. It's been months since he was last in the saddle, that ill-fated journey to Kurkar hold being the last time he'd been on a runner. It felt a little bit like freedom, riding out again. He'd spent more than a few days working with the runners and proving himself to the stablemaster to get back into the saddle.

He'd almost forgotten how good it felt to be moving, and the thrill that came from being able to go somewhere new. Even if it was a controlled newness, with the route planned out for him and every stop accounted for. The guilt that comes from the joy reaches up to gnaw at him; guilt planted by years of hearing his father grumble about how often Lane was away from the hold even if it WAS on Holder approved business.

Zavyr wouldn't object to the traveling. The thought works its way idling into his mind as a snow finally begins to fall from the gray threatening clouds above. Glancing upwards the desert rat pulls his hood up tighter, doing up the straps to keep the frozen water from sneaking down his neck and causing a chill not easily solved. That done thoughts turn back to his wife.

Wife. Unexpected, unplanned, but far, far, far from unpleasant. No, she wouldn't mind if he wanted to travel, especially if he let her come along. The thought brings a faint smile to his lips, she'd probably encourage it and next thing he knew they'd be in Ista or some other far flung place. But traveling was dangerous. He knew that, better than most, and with a wife and… maybe even kids some day… that wasn't the way to raise a family. Even the caravaneers had a place where their eldest stayed more or less put.

He's only half paying attention as the snow begins to fall harder, until visibility is only a few feet in front. Nonchalance begins to turn to worry and Lane fixes his attention back on the task at hand. The road. Right in front of him. Slowing he turns the runner to one side so they don't lose the edge of the road in the thickening weather.

Wyatt had told Crilan that escape was madness in winter. Wait until the spring thaw. But the former Kernooner had thin blood, Crilan reasoned, and the lazy-ass overseers and their guards would be less likely to give chase in this furious storm. Wyatt had likened the trip to a getting lost in a sandstorm, losing all points of reference, becoming yet another wherry-picked skeleton in the desert. But Crilan knew his way around High Reaches; he’d been born holdless, lived off the pickings of the cotholders here-abouts, and knew every cave and stump and tree in the area. And the ‘boys’ had helped, anyway, like he knew they would. Crilan would get loose and he’d come back in the spring for them. A raiding party to cut down the miners and free the lot of them. If their debt to society was to be paid back by their work, the lot of them figured they’d earned extra having to endure the treatment of the mine’s overseers.

But Crilan had chilled. Gotten damn cold. The white of the snow on the trees had blurred with the white of the snow on rocks and ground and he’d fallen a few times, and with no real clothing offering protection, except the scant thin and threadbare extras the lads had contributed, Crilan had felt nigh well like he was dying. Then. Then he discovered that if he took the clothes off, he became warmer. He felt warmer! Nevermind he couldn’t feel his fingertips as they struggled with button and tie. That there was a solid texture to those fingertips. That his ears - ah. No. Pain still, there. But he didn’t need the clothing! It was a construct, another form of control! The secret of warmth was in not having the clothing - that’s why he’d gotten warm, no HOT, and then had to start taking the clothing off - all except his trousers; the ties simply befuddled his cold-clumsy fingers. The sack of extra food, he’d lost dragonlengths ago, it just slipped off his belt. Or out of his hand. Or something. And Crilan could not, without a knife, remove the identifying bracelet the overseers had put on his arm. And the workers were not allowed knives, of course.

When the runner and rider come into view, Crilan’s mind seizes on possibilities. With a runner, he could escape that much quicker. With the guy’s clothing, he could pass as —

“Help!” Crilan calls, weakly, waving his hands, stepping out into a clearing visible from the road, “Help!”

A call for help isn't something Lane typically ignores. Pulling up Jillin he slows then stops, peering through the rapidly falling snow at the figure moving towards him. He doesn't get down - the road has been too unfriendly for that kind of trust. Instead he wraps his gloved hand around his belt knife and calls out, "Who's there?" Suspicion crawls in his voice as he peers. "Damned bad weather to be wandering about in." Which… is probably the reason for the help. "Where are you from?"

“Name’s Yelman,” Crilan manages, “From Langbar cothold, and I was - “ He’s down to trousers, dark-skinned and the cold has already taken its toll on the man’s fingers, his bare feet, his ears and his nose, “I was on my way to the Hold. Please help.” For a moment, Crilan doubts his ability to best this rider, take that runner. But his cards have been played. He reaches a tree, stumbling, and leans there, breath panting out in lurid curls of steam on the cold air.

"By the shell man," Lane looks down at the man completely unprepared for the cold yet still standing here and asking for his help. Caution still settles deep with Lane, and he doesn't release the belt knife as he allows himself to slip off the runner. "What happened?" Even the slightest hint of SOMETHING being off and Lane'll take the law into his own hands because there isn't much of a law here. Eyes search beyond the man to make sure that no one else is there and that this isn't an ambush.

“Fell off my beast,” Crilan tries, then strengthens into the tale: “I was thrown, and fell and,” he rubs his hand over his short-cropped, curly hair, so much like Lane’s. This man, as well, has beard and mustache, but thicker, disheveled. And his dark skin could be a match to his intended victim’s. “On my way. My kid, she’s sick. Needing medications, or a healer and I came to ….” Now he feels the chill again, and shivers, but leans weakly against the tree, “Help me, please?”

Lane is not known for empathy, and the man's ragged appearance is giving the former guard pause but… Zavyr rises to the fore in his mind. He hadn't given her a second look before judging her. Finally he will bend his judgement and jerk his head towards the runner. Roughly, "You won't help your kid without a coat." It is a calculated risk that Lane takes as he peels off the outermost layer to give to the man. "You won't get far tonight. You can stay where I intend to hole up- it shouldn't be far now, and I'll take you on to the next hold."

“My coat. My coat.” Crilan touches his bare chest with fingers whose tips are blackening with frostbite, even as he steps forward, shoving off from the tree. Then he reaches, awkwardly, for the proffered coat. Except not. His hand, with what strength is left in frozen, work-hardened fingers, reach to fasten around Lane’s wrist, to haul the man into his other fist, which, to be fair, does not quite harden into a fist. But this man has kept his position in the mines as the one MOST not to be messed with, by dint of fear backed by skill and strength. Even as compromised as he is, he is formidable.

It's wariness that saves Lane here, that belief that people aren't quite to be trusted without proof. He's caught up in trying to take off his coat and it slows his response time, the man landing that frozen fisted punch to his face before Lane can stop him. Reeling backwards there's really only one response to this betrayal of his burgeoning better side - hit back, and hit back hard. A leg comes out and slams down onto his attacker's knee, fully intent on doing whatever damage he can to that particular appendage as the rest of him slips out from the icy hold his attacker has upon him.

Crilan chokes back a yelp and lurches forward to try to bring Lane down with him, because certainly he cannot stand on that knee anymore. Fingers clutch at, scratch at, the other with a new desperation borne of the realization that Crilan cannot travel, crippled. He scrabbles at Lane’s belt-knife, but his aching hands cannot clutch so well now, and Crilan simply tries to bear Lane over with his bulk ,instead of skill that has been stolen by the day’s hike through the damn cold.

Lane is not kind when dealing out justice, and he stomps downwards as hard as he can against Crilan, even as the man's bulk bears him down to the ground with him. For a moment he's stunned as his body hits the frozen ground, and behind him the now-free Jillin shys away from the two fighting men only to pause several feet away. Losing the runner isn't an option so when Lane comes up it's to grab at the creature, not deal with the man behind him on the ground or pay attention to more attacks. That knee injury should be enough to keep him down, right?

Desperation and the prospect of a slower death impels Crilan to launch - even with only one good leg doing his bidding - toward Lane. He goes for a full tackle, hand reaching to slam Lane’s head down. No part of the man’s attack has the real edge of danger that it would if Crilan was at full capacity. But his desperation makes him dangerous.

Jillin shies away further as Lane falls short of his intended hold upon the runner's saddle. Falling to the ground the former guard's head slams against the ground, his head suddenly warm with the feeling of blood beginning to pour from newly made wounds upon his forehead. The world spins but it is instinct that has Lane continuing to move. Fighting he'll move till he gets an arm around his attacker's neck and begins to squeeze.

The battle will devolve to a desperate scrabbling on the ground, but Lane has the advantage, given that Crilan’s fingers won’t close properly around Lane’s throat. Instead - rather gruesomely - the man simply begins to try to pound Lane’s face with his hands, using them like hammers, and screaming with the pain that shoots up his own wrists and arms, with the assault. Screaming until Lane’s arm and weight settle across his neck. Then he’s choking. Then his entire body convulses, and fights, trying to buck the other man off, bare feet digging heels into the snow and ice, tearing skin and leaving tracks of blood, even as swollen fingers split and cooler blood splashes Lane, to mingle with his own.

It's an easy hold to keep, his arm twisted around the other's neck. Dangerous if kept too long, but easy to keep in place even as the feeling of his attacker's blood dripping down onto him. He'll hold there until the other man goes limp, and then keep holding until he is completely sure that the man is down and not able to attack him - again.

Only once the deed is done does Lane let go, allowing the body of the man to slump down into the frozen ground. He'll wipe at the blood on his forehead to clear his vision, scowling downwards. Summoning up spit he directs the bile at the man's feet. "Sharding remind me why I don't pick up trash from the side of the road."

Some measure of guard remains because he kneels next to the man, searching for some kind of identification, something to take to warn others that there is danger. Nothing in the man's pants, and only a single bracelet around his wrist. Cutting it free Lane shoves it into his pocket to look at later, and then checks the man's pulse. Damn it. Still alive. Without the anger of the moment there Lane curses, then drags the man into the scant protection under the trees. He leaves him with a coat. He was scum, but he wouldn't kill him in cold blood. Not for his own skin. He'll save that for when he hunts down those who hurt Zavyr in the past. If he dies in the cold well. That's a different killer altogether.

Jillin has settled a bit away, and she continues to shy as Lane tries to grab onto her. It takes more than a bit of stumbling to get her back, and then to get onto her back. By that point the chill has gotten into Lane well and good, his grip as he pulls himself onto her back numb.

Down the road they go, shelter isn't very far. Above the storm blossoms into its full fury, a deadly graupel searing through Lane's clothing. He's trusting Jillin now, too much, this desert brat in a snowstorm when lighting - who even knew lighting COULD happen in a snowstorm - splits the sky. It's too much for the runner and she panics, darting out of this open road into the forest. Too cold and tired to stop her Lane hangs on until a branch, unseen in the storm seems to reach out of nowhere and does what the stranger had failed, knocking Lane off the runner's back and into complete blackness on the forest floor.

Jillin:

Cold-white. White. GO! Bit - blood - *spit* Step -baaaaack-, GOOD JILLIN! Go! STOP. Baaack! //
*Snort*
Dark. Wolf! Dark. Step. Stop. Baaaack. Step. Wolf!
*Run*
Grain-Soon! Easy-girl-easy-girl-easy-girl!
*Whicker!*
People! GOOD JILLIN! Grain! Home-home-home.//
—-
Eodai:

Eodai was not a bright lad. Not so dimwitted though that he couldn’t be trusted with some duty around the stables. Shuffling about at nightfall was not bright. He knew that too but one of the runners was needing extra care.

Go home now. Ma will worry.

Hooves clattering over the courtyard. A lathered and panicked, worried runner.

Jillin? Ryuan said she was gone. Lent out? …but that’s Jillin, alright! What’s going on?

Eodai shuffles and ambles his way to intercept the animal, muttering low, calming words in his odd, slow speech. It works and his clumsy, large hands will grab the reins. He stares stupidly at them.

Broken? Ooh, Ryuan is not going to like that. Nope. Rude, bad manners, whoever did it.

It’s the blood though that gets his attention and the wheels finally turning in that thick head of his.

Oh no! No, no no! Blood. Bad, that! Gotta tell! Yes.

“Jillin, come on girl. Easy now.” Eodai mumbles almost chant like as he gets her settled in her stall and then hurries off to find the person in charge of the stables, who in turn tells the Guards…

—-
Parran:

I will *never* get to sleep. Parran stretches involuntarily before he slides his shirt on. “RIGHT. Coming.”

Smart, to sleep in my pants. Dammit. And why the hell did she have to be *married*. Never any new blood in this Hold, and *she* shows up, and she’s married. I need a transfer.

Parran hauls his boots on, wriggles his toes in them, and grins, ruefully.

At least I wasn’t that trader fellow. Lane likely as not broke his nose. But really. Ought to be a rule - you’re married, you WEAR RINGS.

And he follows the summoning lad to the stable, striding past Eodai. The brief conversation sums easily: They will go out at first dawn. To find Lane.

Let her sleep. No need to tell her now. And we’ll bring the hounds.

Geoffy:

*nose to ground*

*Wooooof!*

This way! This way! Man went this way!

*Woooooooo! Wooooooo! Wooooooooof!*

Here! He was here!

Blood. Other man. But *he* was Here!

This Way! This Way! Come! This Way!

*Woooo! Wo-*

No! This Way! This Way!

—-

Parran:

There is not enough klah in High Reaches Hold for this. And I am not paid enough.

The Hold’s work-beasts, now pressed into service as steeds carrying the eight men Parren leads, had been groomed and saddled during the night, stamping and waiting for the trading of Belior and Timor’s thin light for the stronger promise of Rukbat’s. But tracking was best done in the morning - shadows fall stark on the divots in the fresh snow, showing the path the runner took in returning to the Hold. The hound had been given his freedom, and the path to the body was insanely easy to find - spotted off the road by a sharp-eyed new recruit.

So why the hell did the hound want to stray off?

Lane’s clothes. All the guards recognized them. But the face, the man’s hands…

What happened to his boots? We need to send hunting parties out for those damn feral canines. End this. *She* shouldn’t have to see this. No one should have to see this.

But the identification had to be made.

—-

Harper Moakun:

I married him to his wife. Now I bury him. Their time should have been longer.

Harper Moakun had donned the same formal blues he’d worn when he’d performed the quick ceremony the previous month. His brown firelizard sits on his shoulder, opposite of his Master’s knot, his tail coiled around the Harper’s neck as the man awaits the last few shovelfuls of dirt to be cast out of the pit.

Lucky the ground had not completely frozen.

Even so, the watchdragon Jazoth had had to start the hole, clawing through the first few inches of frozen turf before the Hold’s guards had taken up shovels and finished the grave.

Parren has been attentive to her. Zavyr. Odd name. She tells a strange story. She has done so much, yet retains a certain innocence. And a wife, and a widow, within four sevens. But… She’ll make it. Or she’s insane.

He’d sat with the grieving woman for hours. Much had passed in silence. And then, sometimes, he was her conscience, and she poured out words, disjointed history. Unbelievable stories: Pirates and firehead, Raiders and murder. Flight and capture. ’And how did you meet Lane, Zavyr?’ - Helluva story, that.

Dirt continues to be excavated. Watchers shiver, wish this was over.

A performer? Pity she was not younger; she’d the makings of a Harper. He’d make inquiries. If she were willing to stay here…

The last guard hauls himself out of the hole. Expectant glances pinpoint the Harper. He clears his throat. There are words. Words meant for comfort. Words meant to honor. Just words.

Zavyr stands alone, though Parren is nearby. Her loose hair frames so-pale features, drapes over the collar of the dress that Lane bought her.

And the body is lowered, shrouded in cloth to hide the gruesome damage. No avoiding the audible thud as frozen flesh hits the bottom of a rocky hole. Harper Moakun is not alone in his shudder.

Then the woman steps forward, easing with an eerie grace into a kneel by the side of the hole. She opens her hand and something flutters in.

A hide. A letter, perhaps. Last words to her husband? This would make an excellent story. If it were not so horribly real.

The aunties have already grown the tragedy into so much more. Zavyr and Lane may be stuff of legend, before the end of the long winter.

Then the guards begin to shovel. All too soon, the hole is covered. The Harper steps forward to touch Zavyr’s elbow, to escort the slender, shaking woman inside.

He helps her pack. There’s no more words now. But she changes into clothes that befit a man. Or a boy. And with her hair pulled back, secured in that skullcap, and the very demeanor she adopts when she walks…

A performer - indeed. Harper material, to be sure. Perhaps all her stories *are* true? Southern is warm in the winter… Then again, compared to High Reaches, anywhere is warm in the winter. Perhaps the other stories bear investigating…

All too soon, Harper Moakun sends his brown lizard for the watchrider. And he carries the woman’s bag - her husband’s - out to the courtyard, before turning the silent woman over to L’let and Jazoth’s care. Only when the blue has gone *between*, does the Harper go inside, to sit by the fire with the old aunties.

I am getting too old for this.