Logs:First Kills
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| RL Date: 20 November, 2013 |
| Who: Ghena, L'sha, Quinlys, Rh'mis, Telavi |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Some of the weyrlings make their first kills. |
| Where: Feeding Grounds, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 23, Month 4, Turn 33 (Interval 10) |
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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. Fog begins to coalesce in the very early morning hours and lingers throughout the day, soft and still and clammy. Breakfast for the rider half of each weyrling pair has just finished when Olveraeth's peculiarly nasal voice - and his expansive star-scape - reach out to a handful of young dragons. « Come and meet us at the feeding grounds, » he tells them, Rillaeth included. « It's time to eat. » There's a frisson of excitement amidst those so called: this is the first time, after two months of eating pre-killed meals. When they arrive, Quinlys is sitting atop the fencerail, watching a collection of old and injured beasts that have been corralled separately from the others. Olveraeth stands right in front of the opened gate, keeping the beasts from escaping. L'sha leads Rillaeth to the feeding grounds along with a few other weyrlings, grinning down at the slender green by his side. "Isn't this exciting, sweetie? Your first time catching your own food! No more hand-feeding for you." He scritches Rillaeth's eyeridges lovingly as she stares hungrily at the beasts in the pen. Her eyes whirl orange in hunger, but they suddenly phase to blue as she's distracted by Olveraeth's stars. Her voice emanates from the black emptiness of the interstellar void, « Ooh, pretty! » For Rillaeth, Olveraeth adds a shooting star to his heavens; he's pleased, clearly, by her reaction. As the last of the group arrives, however, he dims those stars, reminding them all to, « Concentrate. Focus upon the task at hand. It is not a race: you will all eat. » "Weyrlings! Gather round. As of today, they'll be killing for themselves. No flying. No flapping. Keep them on the ground, or you'll go back to eating the dead stuff. For the moment, we'll stick to these beasts, the corralled ones. They're easier to kill and less likely to cause accidents. But you will always feed them with a weyrlingmaster present, until we say otherwise. Any questions?" Rillaeth squeals in delight at the shooting star, but a gentle hand from her lifemate guides her to the Weyrlingmaster. "Pay attention now, love," he whispers, then straightens up to listen himself. He looks down at Rillaeth as Quinlys speaks. "Hear that? Keep those wings folded, little lady." Louder, he replies, "No, ma'am." Rillaeth snorts. « Why do I even have 'em if I can't use 'em? » « Patience, » advises Olveraeth. « You'll use them soon enough. But if you use them now... well, it would be no fun to never be able to fly ever again, would it? Just for the sake of flying now? » His words may be directed towards Rillaeth, but he extends his reach onto all of them: mind him. Pay attention. "In that case..." Quinlys trails off, glancing at her blue, who carefully shifts himself out of the way of the gate, allowing the little dragons to step inside. He'll shut off access again afterwards, though for now he follows his movement with: « Eat well, little ones. Go for the throat. Kill cleanly, if you can. » "It may take them some time to get it right," warns the weyrlingmaster. "They may miss. A lot. Most of them will. But they'll get there." L'sha crouches down next to Rillaeth so that his head is at her eye level, silently giving her words of encouragement. He gives her eyeridges another scratch, then stands and leads her over to the entrance of the pen. Rillaeth kicks a rock morosely with her foreclaw at Olveraeth's words. « I guess so... » L'sha chuckles and watches his lifemate through the gate, then finds himself a place to stand behind the fence so he can watch. He calls out, "You can do it, sweetie!" Rillaeth remembers that she's really hungry and fans out to make some space between herself and the other weyrlings. She gazes over at the animals in the pen, carefully looking for a likely one to try and take down. Saliva drools from her jaws and drips on the hard-packed ground. « It won't be long, » promises Olveraeth, sympathetically. « You're all getting so big. » And then he quiets, leaving each dragon to their concentration, their kills. Their... attempted kills. One of the little blues falls flat on his face the instant he tries to leap at his chosen kill; another green ends up scraping her talon along the flank of her beast, doing no damage at all. Quinlys smirks at these efforts, amusement clearly visible in her expression, though her words remain encouraging: "Get them to try again. It'll get easier. If anyone needs to vomit, do it tidily, please, okay?" She adjusts her position upon the fence-post, supporting herself with a hand on either side. L'sha oohs as the blue falls, wincing. He glances down at one of the Nabolese weyrlings next to him, who looks a bit green already, and inches away from him surreptitiously. He grins as he watches his lifemate plan her attack, nothing he hasn't seen a thousand times before, though not as close. Rillaeth seems to have picked out a porcine, eyes tracking it as it races around the pen in terror. « That one's fast. If I catch it, I'll be the fastest! » As she displayed on the hatching sands, she is fast. She darts after the squealing pig like a racing lizard, arms and legs flailing. She ends up running in circles, snapping her jaws at the porcine that's just out of reach. Fast, just not fast enough. Quinlys, who, according to rumor, was one of the green ones when Olveraeth made his first kill, never mind that she's weyr born and bred, gives the Nabolese weyrling a sympathetic smile. « It may be necessary to keep practicing, » says Olveraeth, with his own brand of sympathy and encouragement. « I am quite sure you can do it. We are built to kill. Watch it carefully. Choose your moment. YOu can do this. » The first kill happens a moment later, and purely by accident: the bronze in the group trips over his wing and ends up landing on top of an aged herdbeast. In the ensuring mayhem, as blood goes everywhere, the poor creature finally dies. Rillaeth lets the porcine go and bugles her frustration loudly, but is encouraged at the sight of blood spurting as the bronze gets the first kill. L'sha calls out from his place at the fence, "I know you're fast, but try for something just a bit slower! Try to get that wherry over there!" He points to a bird not far from Rillaeth, pecking at the ground in a spot separated from the herd. Rillaeth's eyes whirl deep orange as she locks onto the wherry, crouching low and stalking closer to it. She crouches back on her hind legs like a coiled spring, then suddenly shoots forward in a straight line at the bird. Unfortunately, she forgets to turn as the bird squawks and leaps out of the way, and Rillaeth's momentum carries her in a straight line. She puts on the brakes and skids to a halt just before she crashes into a fencepost. Quinlys' sweeping gaze, which keeps track of all of the dragons, catches on Rillaeth right as the green misses her catch; the result is a bitten lip and a held breath, the latter of which is released with what rather seems like relief, when the green avoids the fencepost. "She's all right?" she asks of L'sha, turning her head towards him. "She's getting there, though. That time was better. Bad luck, more than anything." « Next time, » swears Olveraeth, firmly. « You'll get it next time. » L'sha gasps as Rillaeth nearly crashes and a hand raises to his chest, then he exhales in relief as she stops herself in time. He smiles and nods to Quinlys. "Yes, she's fine, thanks!" Louder, he calls out to Rillaeth, "Try again, love, you can do it!" Rillaeth's head swivels toward Olveraeth and nods once, then looks back at the wherry again. She studies the bird's movements for a few minutes and makes a wide circle so that she's downwind, then crouches again, readying herself for another attack. At the most opportune moment, she launches herself again, barreling for the wherry at top speed. Again, the wherry squawks in terror and tries to leap out of the way, clipped wings flapping wildly in an attempt to escape. The attempt is futile, however, as Rillaeth darts upward after the bird at the last moment. The lithe green just barely manages to clamp her jaws on one of the wherry's stick-thin legs before it can get away, and with a clawed forepaw, she brings the bird down to the ground. The bird struggles mightily and its shrieks of pain pierce the ears of the weyrlings, but they are cut short as Rillaeth's jaws clamp on its throat and with a shake of her head, ends its life. This time, Quinlys is watching throughout Rillaeth's attempt, leaning forward as though she's waiting eagerly for the results. Certainly, as the green makes her kill, she seems triumphant: "Oh, well done, Rillaeth!" she calls, letting the words spread to both green and rider. "Eat up, now. Taskaeth, don't eat those feathers. M'yel, watch him." She drops from the railing, now, though that seems to be because one of the Nabolese weyrlings is in some kind of nausea-related distress; he hacks up his breakfast, and the bluerider, briefly softer and less smirky, squeezes his shoulder. « You did well, Rillaeth, » says Olveraeth. « All of you have. Eat! » Those weyrlings have a new wave moving up in anticipation, ready to crash over the fence-- or at least over it, given an opportunity; Telavi doesn't so much herd them as keep them from practicing on each other, too much, anyway. She angles for Quinlys' railing, not the one replaced not long enough ago, and murmurs with an eye for the been-here-longer dragonets, "Don't know if it's better to do this before or after eating." Not that she's skipped a meal. Ghena trots alongside her life mate, the brightly shining blue moving at an easy pace. The pair are getting the handle on this running thing. The lanky girl brushes the loose hair from her face, as they approach the pens being with Telavi's group. « Feathers? » Suddenly the not so little blue is apprehensive, his coat gleaming from a fresh oiling. Suddenly, the air is full of feathers as Rillaeth gleefully tears them from the dead wherry. The feeding pen now resembles the weyrling barracks from a few weeks ago after a certain bronze decimated a pillow. L'sha lets out a loud whoop! and stands up on the middle rung of the fence. "Atta girl! Way to go, sweetie!" Rillaeth barely pays attention to her rider and once the feathers have been plucked, she sinks her teeth into the meat of the wherry's wing. Blood fountains from torn arteries as Rillaeth pulls the wing from its body, bones and tendons ripping apart with sickening ease. The wherry's dead body continues to convulse and its legs feebly kick at the ground, despite having its head torn off. That does it for the queasy Nabolese boy, who turns away from the pen as his breakfast bolts up and out. L'sha gives him a sympathetic look, "Oh, poor dear." He grins at his lifemate, though, seeming to relish in the kill as much as his lifemate. Quinlys is sympathetic to the vomitous weyrlings - she was one, once upon a time - but... Telavi's comment comes at an opportune moment, and the bluerider turns her head to glance at her assistant, eyes rolling. "Either way," she says. "It doesn't bother me on that level, anymore, except I'm still glad Olly doesn't feel like he needs an audience. All right-- you lot," she's addressing the new arrivals, which include a recalcitrant-looking Rhey and an eager Rosvelth. "Olly's going to let you into the pens. Chances are, they won't make their first catch, and that's fine. No wings. Talons and teeth; that's all they should need. These are older, slower beasts, so it shouldn't be dangerous, but keep an eye on things. Any questions?" Telavi neatly steeples her hands in front of her nose, guarding them from any ichor-smeared feathers, or perhaps guarding everyone else from her smile. "An audience. An applauding audience?" She drops her hands so she can clap a few times for the weyrlings who're incoming, brows lifted at them and their possible questions, though after another look at Ghena calls a soft, bright, "He'll do fine!" Even if there's no supporting evidence for it whatsoever. Ghena watches Rillaeth with a scrunch of her nose. Messy business. At the call for questions, Ghena's hand goes up "is there any danger to the talons if they latch into a beast wrong?" She elbows her life mate who was wiggling his wings in anticipation « No wings? » crestfallen poor Knioth folds his wings. She doesn't exactly look green but it's probably just the smell of the ichor getting to her. At the assurance Ghena looks doubtful. Rillaeth picks up what remains of the wherry carcass in her ichor-stained jaws and trots proudly over to L'sha, who bends over the fence to kiss the top of her head. "You were spectacular! I'm so proud of you." Rillaeth warbles happily and returns to her meal, tearing huge chunks of meat from the bird and splattering ichor and intestines everywhere. L'sha giggles and turns to see his friends, waving cheerily. "Hi, Rhey, hi Ghena! Did you see her? Wasn't she great?" Rillaeth makes quick work of the bird, dispatching most of it in a few gulps, then heads over to the gate and out of the pen. She belches loudly and joins her lifemate, a stringy scrap of skin still dangling from her teeth. « Oh, man, that was good! » « No wings. Patience! You'll be in the air soon enough. » It's not the first time Olveraeth has had to repeat that line, this morning, and it's likely not the last. He steps aside from the fence so as to allow the new lot of dragons through the open gate, and then adds: « You'll be fine. » "I shouldn't think so," says Quinlys, answering Ghena's question promptly and firmly. "Talons are strong." She's hopping back up onto the fence, now, her feet safely secured on the lower rung. "Feel free to go and get her cleaned up, L'sha. When you're ready." Rhey's expression remains dubious, even under the weight of L'sha's enthusiasm; he crosses his arms, rather ignoring Rosvelth as the brown bounds into the pens. He's rather deliberately not looking. At Ghena's question, Telavi says even more brightly-- though she does wait for her weyrlingmaster, at least, with a sidelong peek at her-- "They are! I've only heard of a few talons breaking clean off. Well, not exactly clean off, more like jagged... but I'm sure you'll do fi--" That, right there, would be noticing L'sha kiss his green's head and breaking off her possibly-tall tale. "How sweet." It's only sounding a little dubious. A bugle is sent into the air, presumably Knioth's praises of Rillaeth's kill. "She did very well," the lanky weyrling assents, "made herself quite a mess in the process." The last with a grin, or at least the attempt at a grin, the stringy skin is a little off putting for her. "Just think Rh'mis, we get to share their thoughts on the taste and everything." Mock enthusiasm. "Right then, well off you go." She tells Knioth rather unceremoniously. The blue wiggles his wings once more spreading them fully in a stretch before folding them tightly. He may be muttering, though what is indiscernible, but he trots after Rosvelth, into the pen, leaving his life mate to stare at Telavi in muted horror. L'sha bends down to pull the skin from Rillaeth's teeth, then tosses it back into her gaping maw. He quickly inspects the mess she's made of herself, all feathers and ichor. "Well, looks like someone needs a bath now! C'mon, let's go." He grins and waves again to his fellow weyrlings. "Good luck, guys! Have fun!" He heads off toward the lake. Rillaeth bugles back to Knioth and Rosvelth « Thanks! You guys gotta try it, it's sooo much fun! » She bounds off to the lake after L'sha. Rosvelth's battle cry has his rider wincing all over again, but the brown is very definitely into this. This? This is awesome. Of course, throwing himself wildly at a group of old herdbeasts doesn't get him very far, but who cares about that? "I'll pass," says his rider, clipped voice not far above a mutter. Quinlys, meanwhile, has to lift one hand to 'hide' her laughter, though it's clear enough in her snorted breath and the way her eyes gleam. "Tela." "A bath," Telavi murmurs, "is an entirely appropriate idea." She shakes her head, sighs-- and then slants a glance through her lashes at Quinlys. "Ma'am." Nothing to worry about here, Ghena, nothing at all. As Knioth bolts after a group of heart beasts, possibly the same ones Rosvelth has been running wildly at, Ghena's attention is actually on the two weyrling trainers. "I see." L'sha gets a farewell wave. « If we herd them at each other it might make this go easier. » Knioth sends as he tries to clamp his teeth down on a set of hindquarters and only nearly gets kicked for his trouble. « Thy efforts are futile herd beast. I shall smite thee and partake of thy sustenance. » Hopefully narration of his heroic deeds is a bad habit he will lose later in life. « We'll hunt them down and kill their families! » declares Rosvelth, abruptly, picking up on the thread of Knioth's narration and running away with it, even as he's running at the beasts again. Maybe he'll take one down by accident; that seems likely to be the only possibility, at this point. « You're all dead to us, beasts! Why, I could sit on you and take you in my sleep. I bet I could! And-- » "He'll be fine, Ghena, I swear it," says Quinlys, who is grinning cheerfully, and kicking her legs back and forth. To Solith, Olveraeth seeks Solith out, star-spangled and gleaming, with amusement as well as pride. « It is a little-known fact that the draconic young like to narrate their deeds... see how they do it now! It has long been suspected that it aids them in their learning, though to look at... Well. » « They do, » agrees Solith gladly, though her mental wiggle might have more to do with being recognized as not just the young, not anymore. « Isn't he, » she borrows a word from Telavi, it must be, « darling? And Rosvelth, charging. » Aren't they just adorable? Theirs. (To Olveraeth from Solith) Theirs. Someone else may have clutched them, but that's hardly the point, is it? Theirs. « Darling, » repeats Olveraeth, who is amused by this word, but not displeased. « Yes, perhaps. It is interesting, how they try to work together. Perhaps they will learn, in time. » (To Solith from Olveraeth) There's sunlight on the breeze, Solith, who's also the shadow that passes by from overhead but, mostly, skirts the pens: happy sunlight, charmed sunlight, because aren't they adorable, these little ones? Telavi's laughing softly under her breath, herself. "This should happen all the time." Not that she doesn't add with another smile for Ghena, "We do a lot of swearing around here. I think it's your turn soon." « Oh, certainly they will! » declares Solith with that much more warm, breezy delight for her onetime teacher, her onetime mate, forgotten but for the feeling of it all. « It might take a little while, but they are still so little. » Even the bronzes are only-- already!-- half her length, for now. (To Olveraeth from Solith) To Solith, Olveraeth lets that breeze rustle his stars, as if they're hung from the skies, pleased and amused by Solith's optimism. « They are, » he agrees. « And yet, so much bigger than they were. » He draws back, content, now, to simply observe. He might as well have hung the moons, or borrowed them for his eyes or hers. « So tiny, » Solith agrees, though her memory is borrowed too, and contents herself to watch their growls and still-tiny-from-up-here fierceness. (To Olveraeth from Solith) Knioth, encouraged by his brown brother's jovial assistance, spreads his wings slightly to make himself seem bigger and scare the herd beasts in the brown's direction. « Kill them all and we shall feast like kings in the glory of our spoils! » and then it happens. The shadow distracts him and has the blue watching the sunny minded green overhead instead of where he's going, not the kind to slow down he's still barreling in the direction of the brown. Ghena obliges Telavi more quickly than either probably anticipated. "For fuck's sake Knioth pay attention to where you're going!" She shouts out loud and likely in thought as well, and the weyrling is almost climbing the fence to get at her dragon with worry. « Like kings! » Rosvelth may not know what a 'king' is, but he's pleased by the implications of the concept. Of course, he's then promptly distracted by Knioth's barrel-- and the way the beasts get between them, causing quite a squish (albeit a satisfied one). Oh, such fun! Rhey? He's still not watching. Nope. Not even now. And Quin? She's got one hand over her mouth again, but she'll step back and let Telavi deal with anything else that happens. Telavi deals, if it counts that she's laughing, hopping up onto one bar to lean over the top of the railing and clap. "So close! But you made it! Go get them-- the beasts, I mean, not each other! Isn't this great?" She's got a grin for Ghena, for Rhey, for whomever. "No more chopping! That was the best." Ghena looks absolutely horrified, but the blue also satisfied with the squish collects one of the injured (leaving another to his bigger brother of course) and starts to drag it, still twitching back to Ghena so she may praise his noble deed. « This method may not, perhaps work in the air. » He notes thoughtfully. « I have slain the beast and bring back my triumph for your approval my squire. » Of course he's thinking too loud again, and anyone in the area can probably hear him. "No chopping... but.. that's not how they are supposed to do it is it?" She asks peeking between fingers to look at Knoith, who is propperly spattered in herdbeast blood. Perhaps not exactly like that in the air, but, « You will find a way! » Solith chimes in with great confidence, accompanied by a waft of silver-blue swooping down to carry a poor, protesting bit of brown-- herdbeast? surely not Rosvelth-- off in its mental claws. "Right now," Telavi says happily, "Be glad that he got the job done. Yes, it's a mess, and it would be nicer if it were summer so he could wash in the lake, but he'll just get better and better. Don't let him rub up against you." She herself is eyeing Knioth, all set to hop back down should he look likely to poke a bloodied muzzle out through the bars. Teeth sink deep into the herdbeast, devouring bit by bit. Warm cheers and the happy chink of armor permeating his thoughts at such a response. « Fair Lady, your praise and assurances are a welcome'd balm to a dragon's pride. » Ghena stares at him, "I am going to have to oil him again after, the fourth time in so many hours." A shake of her head as she watches him eat. "The job done, I hate to think what would have happened if Lythronath were present. Knioth won't admit it, but since his first encounter with that bronze he's suspected that the beast might try to eat him." a laugh with this. There's a bright ripple of sunlight-through-air, a delighted accolade in its way. It distracts Telavi into glancing upward, then outright peering for a long moment before returning her gaze to Ghena, still smiling. "It happens. At least he won't get too large, in the end. Lythronath, though... eat him?" She has a bright peal of laughter to join the younger girl's. "That's adorable too." She teases, "Why yes, I did get more than four hours of sleep last night for once, can you tell? Listen, why don't we let him finish, and then I'll let him out through the gate," without letting the beasts out, "and you can do what you need to do. Just keep repeating, 'No more chopping, no more chopping,' and it'll all turn right in the end. Good?" Ghena laughs, "I suppose." Knioth has already finished save a forelimb which he trots over with between his teeth. « You really need to eat more my squire. » Crunching and munching away. "That would be wonderful thank you Telavi." And the girl takes her up on the offer, sprinting to the living cavern. |
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