Logs:Fifteen-Odd Turns
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| RL Date: 16 March, 2015 |
| Who: K'del, Leova |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Vrianth rises. Cadejoth chases. K'del's not there. |
| Where: High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 11, Month 4, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
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| So many greens, so little time. Vrianth's not ordinarily one to be one of a crowd, but this time her electric energy's spiked. She prowls, eyes brilliant and intense, and watches others take to the skies. For days. Twice as many as usual, some times. Lucky for the riders that the headwoman's assistants keep changing the sheets, but the day that there were five, they ran out of rooms. Leova's been left to haunt the caverns, away from her children at these times, though for two hours she threw darts at a tapestry in her weyr. She gets to hear Vrianth tallying the ones who are coy, those who demand attention, the nervous and the oddly calm. Their chasers, too. All of that. It's hard to think. It's not often that Cadejoth is captured by greens, these days, not when Hraedhyth's so very present, so very much his mate. But there's a restlessness to this early spring air, and perhaps it's that he hasn't chased in turns, now, or perhaps it's simply that an electric current has travelled up his spine; he is, quietly and without fanfare, entranced. « Vrianth. » He's been watching, resting high above the bowl, one green after another, and now, most importantly, her. It's a pity his rider's not noticed, too wrapped up in this and that-- hiding away, now, well outside the weyr, as if he simply needs to escape. To jog; to run; to be free. Perhaps he, too, has been animated by the current. Her head turns, those eyes lit with awareness, her presence suddenly there. She doesn't say his name, but that energy winds a teasing-slow slide along his bones. Will they rattle? That's the question. She has time to look at him, does Vrianth. She's surveyed others before. Some watch her now. Some watch her watch him, and wonder. They rattle. They rattle for thee, Vrianth, and they clatter, too, bone upon metal; metal upon bone. Cadejoth stretches, now, drawing out his wings - so pale against the stone of the rim, the pale blue of the sky - and elongating his tail. He sparks with activity, static playing in the cool air. Does he pass muster? For starters. There's distinctly wicked humor in how Vrianth keeps looking up at him, her wings shaping a slow stretch that alludes rather than silhouettes... even as, one by one, others drop to blood. Not masses of others. But enough, forewarned, forearmed. Her tail curves, serpentine, and only then does she, too, leap. It may be deliberate, then, the way Cadejoth does not move - does not move - even as the others do. Perhaps they know things he doesn't; perhaps he's guessed the things he doesn't know. It allows him to be all the more deliberate in the way he throws himself from the rim, wings catching him just before he begins to fall, to circle down and down and down, and join them all. « Vrianth, » he repeats, with an enthusiastic clattering. And somewhere, out in the open beyond the weyr walls, K'del draws to a sweat-covered halt-- and his eyes go wide. There's pumping blood and ichor enough to go 'round. « Mmm. » It has a rattle-rattle for good measure. She's blooded by now, has Vrianth, and bloody-minded even as the wherry's ichor lingers on her tongue. There aren't as many beasts as there used to be. There's not as much choice, and Vrianth is choosy. She takes her time with her second, enough time that Leova can stop dallying in the caverns and go to the... 'No,' the assistant headwoman says nervously, the more so for how the greenrider's eyeing her as though she were a wherry, too. Turns out, they have to go somewhere else, one of the other back caverns. Vrianth hisses: even now, she wants her near. Near enough. Any moment now, she's going to take flight. It's easy (easier, maybe) for some of the other riders, riders who're already close and can be directed towards the appropriate place. Less easy for K'del, who has turned around to begin running back... but running has nothing on flying, and it's flying, now, that those dragons are doing: one after another, into the air, after the rising green. Cadejoth's to the last of him, blood-splattered but enthusiastic. Wings pound; below, feet pound, too, but it's the bronze that draws steadily faster and higher. It's not Vrianth, or her rider, who hasn't had a flight in Turns. Vrianth excels at this, at giving them a chance to show just what they can do. Only it's not a 'them,' it's a 'him' and 'him' and 'him,' Cadejoth. If she communicates this way with the others, and she might, it's not the same. It's not the same as fifteen-odd Turns of flying up in the heights when one's rider is busy on the ground yet again, of sharing a teasing shock-tingle or being startled by a rattle, of a name in the darkness and in the moonlight. If she leads an older bronze into his way, it's to see what he'll do. Nothing's ever the same. Fifteen-odd turns, and he's patient but only so patient. Now is not for patience; now, Cadejoth abruptly drops to avoid that bronze, roaring his disapproval as he does so. It leaves him adrift amidst the pack-- and for once, it's not his pack-- but only temporarily. There's time. Time to reach; time to recover. « Vrianth. » It's more urgent, now, and more sure. She laughs out of the sunlight, soft as darkness and as unbounded. The dark spars of her wings drink Rukbat in, but her silver wingsails glow and glow and glow. « Yes? » It isn't, yet, a yes. Another swerve, and an even older brown falls, one who's flown her before. It's also not a no and that, for now, is enough. There's no verbal reply; just a hum of satisfaction, a gleeful rattle and clatter. Cadejoth cannot swerve the way Vrianth does, but he can soar and glide and rise and chase. He dodges the brown; he dodges a blue, too, with a warning rattle. It's not that he's claiming Vrianth-- not now, not yet, not like that-- but his right to be here? Yes. His rider's still absent from that back cavern. Everyone has something to chase. It's a cavern that isn't the same, except for how more and more it is, as breath comes more quickly and the room darkens without anyone turning down the glows. The crowd, a small crowd, crowds her. Vrianth has more space than her rider, lengths upon lengths of it, and she measures her dragonlength against that all too agile blue... and is nearly snared for it, but nearly is what she wants. The closer the call, the better. Sparks fly in her wake. (K'del, in his haste, has found the usual guest weyr... and its occupants. Whoops. K'del has taken his leave again. K'del is... confused, and lost in his dragon, and desperate, now.) Cadejoth's challenge against that too agile blue is a loud one, not furious but close: no, not him. Him. Of course, that means proving himself, throwin himself all the more intensely into the remaining dragons in an attempt to slice off one length or another, one by one. Closer. Not close enough. Not close enough, until it is. Once he's all in. Once he's sliced off those lengths and then some. Once she's decided... whatever goes into Vrianth's metric, her calculations, her shake-rattle-roll to the side, avoiding a dragon who'd been closer yet with formidable accuracy. She's got to be weary by now, held together by sinew and bone and sheer will. She won't make it easy on him, it's a tight fit, but if he knows to get her timing right and reaches just so... Hasn't he known her all these turns for something? It may have been turns since he's chased her-- he may never have caught her-- but this time, bones and chains a metronome to count his way, he's there: there, right where he needs to be, right when he needs to be. His wings arch, his body extends; there. There. « Cadejoth. » It's exultation too intimate to be exclamation, the rangy green struggling not against but with the bones-bronze, those wings of hers sliding over his hide until at last they twine. Vrianth draws it out. It's taken this long. It can take longer, and never mind the frustration down below. And, « Vrianth. » Not smug, but oh, the gloriousness of it all; the sheer satisfaction. Together, entwined, they can fall; dusty olive and greened-bronze, matched against each other. He's got all day-- for this, definitely, he can be patient. And his rider, lost to the bustle of the Weyr? It's just not his win. So much satisfaction. And after, when they can't fly and physically touch, there's a different route to discover together: back to the Weyr, to circle above or land amongst its peaks, or out into the valleys and the mountains beyond, wherever the spirit moves them. Leova? There's another rider, her wingmate, who'll just have to do. Vrianth. Later, K'del might even be relieved. Will be relieved. For now... with lucky, someone in the caverns will take pity upon their lost, lonely weyrleader, before he expires. |
Comments
Alida (04:54, 17 March 2015 (EDT)) said...
I enjoy finally seeing a flight where the riders of the two mating dragons cannot reach one another. :)
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