Logs:Eating Habits
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| RL Date: 23 February, 2014 |
| Who: A'rist, Esther |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Lythronath eats. So does Esther. |
| Where: Feeding Grounds, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 10, Month 1, Turn 34 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: A blanket of cold, dense fog fills the bowl with its oppressive presence and obscures vision. |
| OOC Notes: Took us a while to finish this one... so vaguely backdated-ish. |
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| 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. Plump and short, her figure veers closer to that of an overindulged child than a budding woman with not a muscle in sight and more than a little spare skin to pinch her cheeks. Within an awkwardly lumpy face, her nose downturns bashfully, perhaps shamed by the oversize of boring brown eyes and the wide mouth. Dimples poke out of her hidden bone structure and her cheeks redden with alternating oil and irritation. Mostly flat eyebrows are much too thick, lending no favor to her eyes' roundness. Parted straight up the top of her head, dirty blond hair tumbles in unruly frizzes, unmistakeably tangled and left to fend for itself past her shoulders. She dresses in fevered layers, shapeless, and as if chosen by someone blind to color. The herdbeasts know he's there. They can sense it even through the dense cover of fog. They shift, warily, one this way, one that. After a few nervous moments, some begin to settle. That's when Lythronath drops, all teeth and talons and horror coming down from the fog, an echoing roar coming the same time as the strike, too late for warning. Blood spurts from torn neck. Blood splatters and pools when the bronze flings the carcass in the direction of the retreating herd. And somewhere, down along the fence, A'rist smiles. "Ahhhhhhhhhh---rrrgggggghhhh!" Someone did not know he was there. Nor planning to be there, nor with such rampant ferocity. What at first sounds like a troubled young man evens out into a vaguely girly tone in less than a scream as rather a loud insistence of disapproval. From what was a leisurely pose drifting into thought against the fence, Esther rockets back, hands shoving her brusquely off at a pace belied by her chubby stature. Not seeing A'rist and his completely inappropriate by the way smile, she directs a rather loud and snorted, "Well, good morning!" at the offending dragon. That offensive (come on, we know he is) dragon doesn't answer the girl at all. He's busy, going to his kill, and flinging it again, this time successfully hitting one of its herd members. That downed and panicked beast gets its blood let out in many and interesting patterns as well. Lythronath roars again, a much deeper sound than Esther's cry (probably scarier, too), if not in direct competition with it. A'rist is far more cognisant of her after her yell. He's squinting through the fog, down along the fence, bits of the thrill of his dragon's hunt still evident on his face, around the eyes, in the forming smirk he's probably not quite aware of. He starts toward the person-noise. A whole range of noises escape Esther in varying intervals, timed with her rather contrary behavior regarding the feeding going on. As one beast downs the other, she writhes forward to squint through the fog with a morbid curiosity that turns into another sputter and shake of her wide shoulders when death comes. Her chin wobbles when Lythronath roars, and she mutters, "Bleh," but she's still mincing into a slight lean forward while he chomps away. A glance shoots over at the sound of misty approaching footsteps, then A'rist is ignored, then she glances again and finds the fog person to be closer. "What?" She demands in a voice too high-pitched to be actually demanding, "What? What do you want?!" Lythronath munches, crunches, tears, eating while keeping an eye on the herd (which, of course, is giving him as wide a berth as possible). There are strips of flesh hanging out of those massive jaws. There are talons scraping the ground and mixing blood into the dirt. There's squishing of skulls just for the fun of it. So, there's Lythronath. And then, A'rist, erasing that subconscious smirk with a defensive sort of look. "You're the one who screamed." "You're the one who looked as if to eat a maiden." A little squint and squirm, then Esther's good reason escapes her and she looks over the fence-post at the munching dragon with a dizzying combination of unease and fascination. The way her mouth hangs open when she stares is especially not flattering. It barely closes when she gulps, angling a look back at A'rist. "It's just... making such a muckety-muck out there. I always was told they were graceful as ass." In maybe not so many words. After a pause, she makes a kind of hiccuping noise and adds, "Pardon." A'rist's eyebrows jump up, and he backs, just a bit. "Well I wasn't even near you when you screamed." He doesn't look to his dragon; he's got plenty of senses dedicated to Lythronath's hunt already, if not of his own accord. "And it's a him." A him, who is already turning from the scraps he's left to the herd. A few stomps of his hind legs, a wiggle of his tail and hips as he settles... and then he's up, airborne, disappearing into the fog. After that last hunk of meat drops from above, the bronze is again hidden. "Whoever told you they were graceful probably only ever saw them flying." With a flutter of her lips, and the accompanying flub sound, Esther releases some of her nerves, grabbing either opposite arm with a desperate hand and giving a soft rock. "There's songs, and readings." A soft hitch in her speaking focuses on an emotion she manages to conceal. At least her voice isn't shouting anymore. The look she shoots the air where Lythronath disappeared is nearly angry in its pondering. "So, it's--- it's yours then?" Her half-scowl of misplaced frustration turns on A'rist. "You didn't even introduce yourself." "Yeah, he's... not really in any of those songs and readings. Besides, I think most of the were written so that people would think great things about dragons." But something sounds wrong in that, and makes the young bronzerider screw up his face in a grimace. "I mean, there are great things about dragons. And it's good, if people think so. But sometimes it's like... they get all romantic when really they aren't." A beat later, and he's shoving his hands deep into his pockets. "Him. Lythronath." Another beat, "And A'rist," faintly apologetic. "Esther." So named, the girl, still clutching herself tight, bobs up and down in a very inelegant version of perhaps a bow or courtesy. All ruined when, a second later, Esther lets out a rip-roar of a snort like nothing that should come out of a person, much less a young girl. "Yeah! Romance! It's kind of the plague on a lot of things." Realizing what she's done seconds too late, Esther attempts to scrounge up a sheepish look and then points somewhat distractedly off to where Lythronath disappeared. "And, like, what's even the point of a dragon nowadays anyway-- ?" "I don't know if it's a plague. It's just... not him." And then, the weyrling is stiffening, just as Lythronath bellows and drops down onto another beast. Bits fly toward the water hole, splash or slide along the iced edge. It takes A'rist a moment to come back to himself, first with, "What?" and then, once he's replayed what his ears must have heard sometime, "Well, more dragons. It's not gonna stay clear-skied forever. And search and rescue. And transportation. And protection. And guardianship. Lots of reasons." The last borders on defensive. But maybe that's just added edge from the beast and what he's up to. Or rather, eyeridge-deep in. Esther's slightly wide eyes and pressed lips speak of the panic of one who said something to get off one embarrassing point and has now face-planted in another instead. They look especially large when rolling over towards the feeding pens then back to A'rist. "Are-- protection and guardianship the same thing?" A couple of fingers dismiss it. Nevermind. "That's not-- I mean." Breath escapes her, but not a full sentence. Squirming, she looks over at Lythronath like he might take sudden offense. One hand detaches from her body to drive straight into a pocket, pulling out what appears to be a soggy pasty half-crammed inside a handkerchief. She takes a bit gnawing chunk and, mid-chew, finds her words. "That's lots of things they can do. But there's guards that can provide protection and we don't tithe to them." "No, they aren't," A'rist denies quickly, and without elaboration. He's pulled his hands from his pockets so that he can cross his arms over his chest, and takes advantage of the height difference between them to look down at the girl, just a little bit imperious. "And the guards don't guard for free. And there's places for you to put them up, in holds. What, you think it's not better to just tithe, and leave the dragons and their hunting and their flights and weyrling dragon poops and," running out of appropriate examples, he substitutes, "all that out of the holds? Besides, a man'll think twice as hard about doing something dumb if there's someone like Lythronath staring him down." Lythronath, demonstrating, with half a leg swinging from red-splattered jaws. Quite effectively looked down upon, Esther firms up her chin but it does nothing to stop the slight wobbling of uncertainty in her eyes. It's taking her too long to summon words, as if they were not her own. "I'm only saying it's a little-- " crap, crap, forgot the word, crap-- "unfortunate," crap, that wasn't it! "Or something-- " Smoooth. "To send hard-earned supplies to a Weyr for services others are also capable of." A meant-to-be haughty little shrug is mostly just aimless, as she lacks the facial behavior to properly have the attitude. "But, let us not talk of this anymore." She waggles her handkerchief at him and then stuffs the rest of the pastry into her mouth, looking aside in time to be twinsies with Lythronath and his leg. A'rist has been a dragonrider long enough now to know that this is the part where he's supposed to glower, a little bit. "Yeah, let's see others go from one side of the planet to the other in the blink of an eye to save a bunch of drowning people, or stop an army of upstart holders from invading someone's territory, or even, you know... fly at all. I'm sure that's a waste of hold resources, having all that at your disposal." He turns and lets his back rest on the fence, slouching a bit. "Yeah, maybe we shouldn't." Lythronath goes on digging through meat and blood. Etiquette might suggest Esther politely excuse herself from A'rist's presence, but that's not just her strong suit, is it. Instead, she lingers, sucking on a lip, scraping her teeth, plunging her tongue into her cheek and kind of letting her eyes roam around awkwardly as her toe pokes at the ground then becomes a bit disturbed when it gets dirty. Since she's run out of pastry, she takes to loudly sucking on each and every one of her fingers to make sure she gets everything off that she can. A'rist relaxes quickly enough, once the talking has stopped. Soon, he's turning to lean over the fence, forward, watching Lythronath enjoying the spoils of his hunt. There's no overt smile now, except in the change around his eyes. It's once the girl starts sucking on her fingers that he asks, "Do you always carry pastries with you?" "No," murmurs Esther defensively around her thumb, then quickly relenting in explanation, "It's not always pastries and it's just that you made me anxious and I eat when I'm anxious." Sniffing, she reaches a hand down to scratch at a belly that may then be evidence of her severe anxiety issues. "So..." and A'rist turns a long look over to Esther, his look following her hand to her belly, and then moving back up. "So you don't have any more, then." And he's pushing himself off the fence, and leaving Lythronath to his terrorizing of the herd. The bronze can, surely, put at least one more beast away before he's done. "Guess I better go try grab some before they're gone." A crooked smile, a little tip of his head, and off he wanders. |
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