Feeding Grounds, High Reaches Weyr
Wedged between the lake and the rest of the vast bowl are the dusty feeding grounds. Here, the well-trampled ground is contained by a sturdy wooden fence, cutting right through one end of the lake to section it off into a muddy watering hole for the animals. Several gates allow people in and out, while at the back, large overhangs of rock provide the herd -- a mixed bag of herdbeasts, wing-clipped wherries, and fat porcines -- shelter from storms or the hot sun. What grass survives is usually bloodstained, but feeding troughs are stationed around the edges of the pen.
Much of the herd is beneath the rock overhang in the bright sun. Lythronath is not. The fresh oiling on his hide makes him glisten, makes muscles seem greased in the smooth way they move as he stalks slowly along the perimeter, tail swinging for slow balance, wings held down, but not lying against his back. His prey is aware of his approach. He likes it that way. He likes watching the animals on the edge of the herd start to shy toward the middle. And he really likes getting so close and then roaring, and springing aloft. From the look on the face of the young man waiting by the fence, A'rist likes this too, and in just as visceral a way.
Edyis watches with intent fascination, or terror. Her char stick scratching over the page with fervent intensity. She sits perched on the edge of the corral, observing rider and beast equally, capturing the lines and expressions as best she can. It's the expression on A'rist's face perhaps which seems to unsettle her most as the bronze roars. It's clear that some part of her is rethinking the whole exercise. "I'm not so sure this was a good idea on my part." She admits sheepishly, though on some level there is a sense of awe mixed in with the terror.
The grin that has split A'rist's face (gruesomely), half-closes when Edyis' words remind him of her presence. The boy forces himself away from the beast a bit more, the result: set teeth and wide eyes as he watches the resident. "I warned you," is lacking in sympathy. A'rist looks back to his dragon, though now he holds himself a bit straighter. Even as Lythronath chases the herd, flying a low arc just to make them run. Even as the dragon roars his enjoyment and triumph while some of the weaker ones start to fall behind. Those aren't the ones he's interested in, though.
Edyis shivers a little at that smile. That probably shouldn't make it into the sketches. "Part of weyr life I am told. Besides, I may as well see all sides of the impression question." Jaw tightening as she watches, his words remind her that she is the intruder here. "You warned me." She agrees eyes fixed on the dragon. "He's all brute power isn't he?" The charcoal stick starts moving again.
"I don't see what the 'question' part is," A'rist states with a bluntness that's probably brought on by the part of his mind that's watching terrified herdbeasts flee before his awesomeness. "And anyway the only answer Lythronath has is that he's not like any of the other dragons." The few herdbeasts left before the bronze are the strongest, darting, dodging, evading, and those are the ones Lythronath wants. His first swoop comes up short. But wings are faster than hooves, and more importantly, Lythronath is faster than herdbeasts. The second swoop sees claws near cutting one of the strongest beasts in half. So A'rist's, "Yes," is more than a little unsettling. And that grin is back.
There's no need to respond to that, and so she doesn't. The fact that she finds the link between the two, and the scene playing out before her eyes unsettling is something she tries to keep to herself. Black and white, charcoal and paper, that's safer than the gruesome scene. Without the red, it seems safer to focus on. "You feel him, his thoughts, everything?" She asks, only glancing up from the paper to verify her strokes are placed accurately.
That gaping wound that was once a herdbeast? Lythronath shoves his narrow face right into it, and comes up red rather than bronze, and roaring his defiance to all the herd and dragons and onlookers. A'rist grips the fence a bit tighter, and the deep breath he takes expands his chest. "Everything," the bronzerider agrees, voice sweetly malicious as he watches - no, shares - his dragon's kill. After a few bites of dripping flesh on Lythronath's part, A'rist forces himself away enough to look to Edyis. "He feels things pretty strongly," the sound of one still half-drunk on adrenaline and prey drive.
The scratch of coal against paper, the flip of a page as the next blank sheet is turned to. Jaw clenched tightly, Dark eyes taking the grisly appearance and breaking it into light and shadow, line and shape, lest the whole experience threaten to overtake her and send what bit of breakfast she had earlier up without the least bit of dignity or grace. "How pleasant." She studies A'rist now more intently, as though breaking him down into line and shade, or components she can understand at least. The sketch more perfect than her understanding could hope to be at the moment. "You enjoy it?"
A'rist licks at his lips, swallows some of the spit that's started welling up in his mouth while his dragon eats, and looks long and hard at the girl in front of him. It's quiet enough, for a second, that they might even be able to hear Lythronath's slurping, tearing, squelching feast. "This is one of the things he was made to do," sounds as if that very fact should make enjoyment self-evident. For A'rist, it probably does.
The char stick ceases movement, maybe it's the slurping noises that does it. "I think that should be enough." She studies the sketches before shaking her head. "Thank you for allowing me to observe, I don't think I'll be able to use any of these for my studies though. Would you like to keep them?" Sliding off the fence back turned to the scene purposefully. Ladies do not hurl, they just don't. As for scribes well, she may look just a little bit green. "He's impressive." She fits the word in, looking over to the rider.
Lythronath is clearly not ready for this to be enough. Front talons go to work spreading and snapping rib cages, and used bits of bone are flung away as he's done with them. A'rist seems immune, at least. The question of wanting sketches is significantly more troubling. Weyrling sidles a step over and peers at the page, shrugging. "It's... not really about looks," he decides, attempting a smile to lessen any possible perceived criticism. "You keep them, that's fine." A glance over to the bronze, who's lifted his bloodied muzzle to the sun, licking at something between his teeth. "Yeah, he is."
Edyis lifts a brow, offering all them for his perusal even the ones of A'rist himself. "Didn't quite capture him correctly?" She asks, genuinely concerned. Accuracy is one of her pet peeves. There's a determined grimace, looks like she'll have to repeat the exercise from the way she has her back to the scene, not something she necessarily looks forward to. "Maybe If I just tried sketching him flying..." More to herself than anyone else, "You sure you don't want them?"
"No, they're fine. I mean, they're good, he looks like he looks." A'rist is even enthusiastic at the end of that, nodding, and then looking back out to the feeding grounds, and the utter disaster going on there. "It's just... I mean, they'll just get covered with blood and guts or ripped up anyway. It's- memory's not how we work. I don't know. Thanks, though. For the offer. Really." He is, at least, sincere. And Lythronath... is done eating. He must be saving that hind leg that he's picked up in his mouth for something special.
Edyis wraps them up shrugging, "If you say so." Though there may be visible relief when he states they are accurate. "I have to respect you for it, I don't think I could handle that if I had impressed." She gestures to the mess, and it's not disrespectful, or a slight against lythronath. He's just not as neat as say the kitchen butchers who don't slurp. "I'll see you both around."
"Honestly?" The beast is fading from the face of the boy, now, as A'rist looks at her, "even if you'd impressed, you wouldn't have to. Lythronath's not like any of the other dragons." It's getting to be a point of pride, even, and his, "Yeah, see you," comes with an upward nod of his head. Edyis doesn't really get another look; A'rist and his dragon are already focused on the next task, off to paint the barracks red.
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