Th'bek had put the entreaty in sevendays ago knowing it would take some time to align the request to accompany Linny to one of the far flung cotholds under Igen sovereignty. With F'in's permission and Jaelynn's ability to cover his absence, he met the goldrider in the center point of the bowl swathed not in leathers but a dun robe and head wrap. Tavuqth: slick, rangy, and hell bent on flying AWAY was reminded more than once to wait for Kaelidyth's lead. How his claws curl into the powdery ground. Th'bek pays appropriate homage to the goldrider when she arrives and quite frankly he's excited and nervous at the same time, a usual hybrid of emotions for a weyrling.

Linny, too, is all covered up, with the only telltale signs of her identity being that large gold that trails behind her as she walks, though when she's close enough to Th'bek, she pulls her veil down to smile at him for a moment in greeting before getting down to business. "So, what is it you hope to see?" Obviously she read his request when looking for a spot in her schedule to fit him, but it's always best to hear it directly from the runner's mouth. "There are obviously a number of places I could take you, but it just depends on what you want out of the trip. Some places are worse than others." A fair warning, leaving Th'bek the option of seeing the hardest hit areas or those still doing okay.

Th'bek is and always will be a Weyrbrat, where his loyalties crystallized, where he Impressed a dragon, and most telling of all where he was sheltered. The many months of being sequestered and the plight of the regions outside the protective egg shell of the Weyr have crippled his outlook. He, too, slides a sheet of cloth down where he can move his mouth, precautions taken for the spring sun and to generify their identities. "Take us where the worst of it is," hazel eyes centered perfectly under fabric without pattern. They have intent in them. "Everyone talks about how bad it is out there and I know how you've been part liaison to it all and know about what I'm hoping have been figures of speech." No one dies of hunger in Igen. "We'll follow, weyrwoman." The cloth returns to shield his mouth and Tavuqth rattles his harnesses. « Why don't the people eat each other to live. » For the concept of hunger is as alien to the brown.

Linny's pins a look upon the brownrider, a long studying look, to make sure that he really wants what he's asking for, and finally, she gives a sharp bob of her head. "We'll take you to Dry River, then. There's a clearing where we can land and leave the dragons. The Hold is in a little valley, so there's a good spot where we can overlook the Hold, and you can decide if you want to get closer." And see the suffering up close. That decided, the weyrwoman turns to get up on Kaelidyth, assuming that Th'bek will follow and do the same. « Don't be silly, » Kaelidyth chides the the brown, her laugh as light as a feather's touch. « Would you eat me to live? » Once properly mounted and secured in, Linny wastes no time in getting the gold off of the ground, hovering to allow Th'bek and Tavuqth to catch up.

Th'bek lies still under Linny's scrutiny to prove he's worthy of this information, macabre though it is. As the route is explained he nods his understanding, discharges a last salute and allows his hands to be swallowed by the natural drape of the robe. Tavuqth rotates the axis of his body to spearhead a lead into the day's faint headwind, wings falling from his shoulders. « Not today. Ask me under worse circumstances. » Under a crush of conifers, his mindvoice gradually fades in spurts as he gains altitude. Th'bek's robes come alive from the rush of moving air but makes no effort to calm them.

The trip to the Hold takes some time, obviously significantly more time than between, but it also gives the brownriding pair the chance to look down at the Holds they pass over on their trip to Dry River. Kaelidyth more than once needs to be reminded that Tavuqth is smaller than she, which means she needs to hold back a little bit to allow him to keep up with them, but finally, the gold starts to descend into the clearing. Once landed, Linny wastes no time in getting off of her, securing her veil back in place as she waits for Th'bek, and when he's on the ground, there are more instructions for him. "I brought you here as a favor. I would rather the details of our trip not get spread too far around the Weyr. People certainly don't need to find out that I'm giving tours of Holds where people are starving to death." Though her eyes are the only part of her able to be seen, they are narrowed seriously in on him to make sure he understands the gravity of her words, and without waiting for a response, she starts walking towards the overlook.

Don't tell him but beside Kaelidyth Tavuqth is tiny! At a little more than half her size and without the turns of flight experience, the young brown not only competes to keep pace but every time he secures a slight advantage over the queen, he's quick, there are mental slabs of youthful triumph. He's also tiring, and isn't telling anyone. Th'bek's straight-backed and always looking over each shoulder at the composition of dunes occupying space past dried up chaparral. Tavuqth's transition from sky to land has unsteady elements but the weyrlingmasters aren't here to pinpoint faults. Th'bek untangles a portion of robe knotted around flight tethers, thank Faranth they don't fly in this get up every day, and climbs down, enduring the wake of dust driven around them from landing. "Thank you again for the opportunity, weyrwoman," still not Linny, "you won't be mentioned by me." He follows, shoulders sliding under the thin weight of fabric.

There's a brief glance back at him over her shoulder for his response and what looks like a little inclination of her head to acknowledge his words, but Linny stays silent. Not that they are necessarily close enough to be overheard, but it's better to be safe than sorry. She finds a suitable watching spot and slowly, carefully, and quietly lowers herself into a sitting position, without a gesture for Th'bek to do the same. The Hold looks and is quiet, without the usual hustle and bustle, and those who are out and about are doing so with effort. As if on cue with their arrival, a door bursts open with a man holding a small, sheet-wrapped bundle in his arms, shape liked a child, and behind it, a woman sobs loudly, held back by older-looking children. The goldrider glances over at Th'bek at to check his reaction to this, definitely not about to say 'I told you so'. Not in this moment.

Leaving the pair of orange-pinged blue eyes behind and the dragon attached, Th'bek mimics the crouch two seconds behind Linny's decision. Tavuqth doesn't mind misery when it isn't visiting him, the brown instigating the forward steps necessary to consolidate the hold within his span of vision. His height allows him to hang back and still bear witness to what the desert and ill economy bring to human beings. Th'bek's hand hangs on the face wrap, pulling it past his chin as the household scene unfolds. He doesn't need it to see better but this is worth bearing to. One knee makes a crater in the ground, leaning forward as silent as the natural process that took the child. The survivors, if one can call the living dead that, are gaunt under ill-fitting robes, some of the children wear nothing but their hunger. The weyrling's head falls, chin folded to his chest before he owes it to them to see more and those eyes again lift. "How common is… this?" Manner of death.

"Every day," Linny replies immediately and simply, turning her eyes from the scene, something she's seen all too often lately, to look at the weyrling, though she keeps her veil in place. Her face is very obviously more recognizable, so it's best to keep it hidden while they are there. "It's easy to think we have it bad at the Weyr, but no one thinks about the people we are taking the food from. Sadly enough, it's mostly children and the elderly who are the most affected, but it's only a matter of time." The man carries the child away, and the woman is pulled back inside, the door shut to silence her sobs and screams from reaching their ears.

Th'bek doesn't know what fate awaits the child, internment in a local cave perhaps or a simple pyre when ceremonies take too much energy. Tavuqth's eyes lose their initial orange alarm, turning the facets to teal as he reminds his rider they aren't of his clan. "We don't have it bad at the Weyr, not like this." Rev opines with emphasis unchecked. "With as much as I eat my shares could feed them for days." This is something like a turning point. "Can they be relocated? The coastal Holds, they must be straight still from all the fish…" And substances less tied to rain and plant growth.

"That's tricky. We could move them to other places, but the sheer amount of people we'd have to move…I'm afraid we would overwhelm the other food sources, and then we'd be back in this same situation." Finally, Linny feels like someone else understands the tricky spot she's in, trying to get the Weyr's tithes from the different Holds, when this is the end result. "Especially since we have no idea how long this is going to last. A month, a few, a Turn, more?" The weyrwoman is left shaking her head as she turns her attention back to the Hold, even if there isn't much to see. "Were you expecting to see something different?"

The only surplus export of his cothold is dust and despair and neither are edible. Th'bek takes in a little more but most people are in shelters to seclude their suffering with those most dear to them. So the young man capable of talking about nothing has surprising little to say. "Not exactly, but I had every hope to be wrong." He gets to his feet and buries his face up to his nose with his hand. "There's got to be a way." A way to stop the deaths, bring rain, make people love the Weyr again, eat second helpings, something like that. Rev isn't elaborating and might not know how. Elsewhere, Tavuqth cuts down trees in his mind. Felling.

Linny pushes herself up into a standing position after he does the same, hands brushing the cloth free of anything that clings to her before her veiled face is lifted up towards the weyrling. "If you can come up with a way, we'd be more than happy to listen to it." Between Linny and W'rin and the rest of the Leadership, they're left pretty clueless how to fix their current predicament. "I'm guessing you don't want to head down there," comes with a thumbing over her shoulder down to where there is endless amounts of suffering and sadness, and it's easy to assume that Th'bek does not.

Th'bek regards Linny as she asks then runs a look parallel with his shoulder to the settlement. "I have nothing to offer them." Making that his last committment Th'bek takes strides to Tavuqth and fits between the ridge of dull spines. The cloth is wound back in place over his head so even his eyes are hardly glimpses into the soul. The brown is gliding before Kaelidyth's airborne though the pair do wait at large for them.

Linny falls silent after his words, happy to head back towards the dragons, then, for even the sight is a grim reminder of what she feels responsible for. Kaelidyth, once in the air, is better about letting them keep up, for her heart is somber, too, in conjunction with Linny's, even if they should be flying back to the Weyr as quickly as possible to get away from the suffering. Though it takes longer, they are eventually back in the Weyr proper, landing once more in the bowl, and after she's dismounted, Linny lingers to speak with Th'bek once he's done the same. "Are you going to be okay?" She would have to be blind to not see how affected he's been by their trip.

The wind is with them on the return trip to the Weyr, Tavuqth practicing voluntary turbulence so he can know it. Th'bek is not in the state of mind to correct him, if correction is what the brown needs when exploring the wrong ways to fly efficiently. Seeing how not to do something has its place, but so help him if his rider pukes. When they again land and Th'bek disengages the fabric from his head, hair damp from sweat, "I will be," committing a nod, "Believe it or not I'm grateful to know of suffering— not that it happens but to keep humble." He's a little too clingy to Tavuqth, never stepping from the brown's shadow. "Thank you, weyrwoman Linny." His salute rests on par with his eyebrows as if they hold up his hand. "We'd best get back to Khamsin." The wing of home.

Linny pulls the veil from her face before she returns the salute back to him, even as her eyes are filled with concern for the weyrling. Certainly doubting whether or not fulfilling his request was such a good idea. "You're welcome," she replies regardless, giving him a little nod for his gratitude and his departure excuse. "Of course. Clear skies, brownrider." A final nod, and then Linny's turning, cloth spinning out around her, as she and Kaelidyth head back in the direction of their weyr. Obviously to get out of those clothes, so suffocating.