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.
The Weyr's stores are lean, and Kiri's the new guy, but not all items of worth have been claimed. Though then again, worth is somewhat a subjective thing, isn't it? And for how chuffed the young man is looking with the threadbare, stained-on-the-corner, definitely-faded, green-and-purple striped blanket about his shoulders to keep off the humid chill, this was possibly one of the biggest scores ever. Except maybe for getting the night off to get up close and personal with the Weyr's dragons. Or, up closer. And when that green swoops to strike, his head jerks back of its own accord, and he laughs, and even applauds.
Kazavoth lands a short distance from the pens and waits long enough for D'kan to dismount and begin removing the brown's riding straps. These straps are then looped over the rider's shoulders in a neat but heavy burden while the dragon steps toward the pens, delicately stepping over the fence. There he waits, until the green has settled down, eventually taking to the skies to spy out a meal of his own. In the meantime, the rider has made his way to the edge of the fence, where he loops the riding straps over a post and begins to watch and wait. Aukiri is glanced at briefly, then Kaz, then back to the teen. "Is she yours?" he asks, only mildly puzzled as he does the usual shoulder-check for knots.
Whatever knots might have been there, maybe even are, are or would certainly be obscured by that horrific blanket. Schrodinger's knots. "She?" His nose is barely wrinkled before he puts two and two together. The green gets a glance, and Kiri shakes his head with an, "Oh! Oh, no. Don't even know her name," is a bit sly. D'kan's shoulder gets attention too, but for an altogether different reason. "Dragon straps?"
D'kan nods quickly in answer to the question about straps, then goes about leaning on the fence, arms draped loosely over the top rail while a boot is hitched onto the bottom. "That's Kazavoth up there," he says by way of introduction. "Not sure about the green. I don't want to distract him to ask, or he'll never get around to eating." He leans back enough to hold out a hand, then. "I'm D'kan."
"Kiri," answers in time to the seizing and shaking of the brownrider's hand. Then, Aukiri is shaking his hand free, but leaving it extended, with green-purple drapery and all. "Can I see those?" A shoulder-check, but this one over his own, to the brown. "Kazavoth," back to D'kan, "like that," and still expectantly reaching. Hoping. Smiling.
"See the... straps?" D'kan asks, clarifying. He hefts the looped leather to the next post over and gestures for the young man to have at it. "These are still the last set from weyrlinghood. Getting a little worn in places, but still sound enough to get me from our weyr down the ground. Wouldn't want any weight on the carrying straps, though." He looks up again, where Kazavoth seems to have picked out some likely quarry. His circling takes on a definite curve, then he begins the dive. Sure enough, one of the mid-sized herdbeasts ends up in his dark talons, and with a twist and a crunch, the animal goes limp while the brown glides to an unoccupied section of the pens.
Aukiri almost does a bow, the way his nod of gratitude and lunge for the straps come at once. While he sets to examining them, fingers running long across the leather, and then fiddling with the buckle bits, he carries on conversing. "So you guys have to be from that last clutch - clutches? - do you count them together or separate?" He barely catches Kazavoth's movement in time to look up, but sees enough to warrant another wince, and then another laugh, mostly delighted, slightly uncomfortable.
At first, D'kan frowns, puzzled at the question about clutches. Then he laughs, shortly after Aukiri's uncomfortable delight. "You know, I haven't even thought about that since... well, maybe since they hatched. The dragons don't entirely seem to pay attention to lineage, so I guess I stopped, too. Felt like all the same clutch." He goes back to leaning, watching while Kazavoth admires his kill, slowly hunching over it to eat in relative private, wings spreading slightly, lifting. "You're new to the Weyr?"
Aukiri seems almost to have run out of words, simply offering D'kan a satisfied nod, and testing at buckling and unbuckling the straps on the fence, a time or two. Eventually, he even stops watching the brown, and goes back to those straps. "Yeah. Making it that obvious, huh?" A smile is sped along with a sidelong look. When his green-and-purple blanket slips, he takes his hand from Kazavoth's straps, in order to catch it and re-adjust it. "They're just impressive." The shrug might have dislodged the blanket anew, if not for the fact that Kiri's still holding onto it.
D'kan grins, if a little crookedly, following Aukiri's last comment. "The dragons or the strap?" he asks, possibly teasing, possibly just clarifying again. He gives the brown a long look, though all that's visible from here is his back, wings, and tail. After a pause, he adds, "Naivanth. That's the green." He turns back to Aukiri, grinning more. "Now you know her name. So! Kiri. What brings you here? Got a thing for leather? Certainly enough of it around a Weyr," D'kan states, gaze falling to the riding straps a moment, then back to the teen.
"Oh, the dragons," Kiri responds quite promptly, dismissing the straps with a wave of his hand. And if he thinks better of it, he makes no apology but to shrug, adjust his blanket, and find a lean on the fence, the bundle of leather between him and the rider. "Trader caravan," he corrects. "I was the leather guy, sort of. Did some tanning before. Guess any of those could've brought me here, depending how you look at it." That shared, he muses, "Naivanth," idly and under his breath.
D'kan nods a few times to acknowledge the new information. "Pretty good reasons, all around." He crosses his arm over the top rail and watches Kazavoth for a long moment. The brown has moved on enough that he's walking slowly around the carcass, nipping here, tearing there. From this distance at least, it's all rather silent. For Aukiri's sake, D'kan doesn't share what it's like in his head. "Looking to stay, or moving on with the traders?" The rider turns back, his level of curiosity mild in both tone and expression. "All sorts of work around here, that's for sure. Especially now."
"Looking to look," Kiri decides after almost no consideration. The blanket is shrugged up so that a fold turns into a collar, sitting high enough to brush right at the back of his head where it's roundest. "I saw the tanner, the other day. Well, found him, more like. Skilled hands, right?" His left palm is shown to D'kan, helpfully, as evidence. Clearly much can be told from such an inspection. "I've gone with the Razzies for a full loop. Weird how things can be so the same when you're moving all the time, sometimes."
D'kan makes a "hmmmm" sort of sound after Aukiri's last, contemplating the statement as he watches Kazavoth start the "clean-up" phase of his meal. Eventually, only the bones, what's left of the hide, and some of the least savory parts of the carcass will be left behind for someone else to clear away. "I've... never really moved around much, so I'll have to take your word for it. Lived at High Reaches Hold. Came here for a time. Found him," with a chin jut toward Kazavoth. "Been here ever since." He picks at a loose bit of something on the railing, then flings it into the pen wit ha flick of a finger. "You want to study with the tanner? Or just like the work?"
"Razzies go through the Hold," Kiri offers. "Buy things, sell things, trade things, same as anywhere I guess." There's a bit of a grin playing at his face when he looks over to Kazavoth again. "How hard to do you have to look for something that big, huh? Even when they're little, sure they can't be that little." He rubs his head against his blanket-collar, to scratch, to test it's still there, either way. "I did some study with tanners a few turns back. How I got to be the leather guy. And here."
"Stick around long enough, you'll see how little they are in the beginning," D'kan offers with another grin. In the pen, Kazavoth is almost delicately licking any trace remains of the herdbeast from his muzzle, then inspecting the talons of each paw, one by one. When he's satisfied, he begins to approach his rider and Aukiri, the recently living herdbeast nothing but a pile of skin and bones now. Kaz doesn't give it another glance, his interest piqued instead by the new face. D'kan just watches him approach, then gives the trader/tanner guy a side glance. "Uh... if he... speaks to you?" the rider says, dropping his voice while nodding his head toward the brown, "just let me know if it's... too... weird, loud... whatever. He likes to talk to everyone. Not everyone likes to hear it, that's all."
Aukiri lifts up a hand to rough up some of his hair, giving an easy smile for that prospect, too. "Now that's something worth it too. Never seen that." Kazavoth gets eyed up, first appreciatively, then with wider eyes. "I thought they didn't speak to strangers." Squaring up his shoulders this time doesn't manage to overly disrupt his blanket-cloak. He waits. "All the other ones seem quiet enough."
D'kan can only laugh after the bit about strangers. He gives the brown a wry smile, then shakes his head. "Kazavoth is anything but quiet." This is followed by the dragon stopping just far enough away so when he lowers his head to peer at the boy, he's close enough to breathe warm air toward him. Warm air tinted by recently consumed raw herdbeast. For several seconds, the dragon studies Aukiri, first from one eye, then the other, then both as he draws his head back slightly. At least, he looks to D'kan briefly, then begins moving to a space where he can step over the fence. "Then again, maybe today is a quiet day." It seems the brown is headed toward the lake, which means D'kan can turn around to lean back against the fence. He reaches for the riding straps but doesn't pick them up just yet.
Nearly whisper quiet, and hollow as if by distance, a stray though filters toward your consciousness, not invading so much as passing by. There might be a tickling sensation somewhere along your scalp, a cool touch, then a sense of spiced liquor that is nowhere within sight. « The blanket, » speaks the voice, dry and muted. « You wear it well. » Just as gently as the thought arrived, it also leaves, extracting itself tendril by tendril until the only aroma left is the lingering memory. (To Aukiri from Kazavoth)
Relief turns, in very short order, to disappointment - but then, the two probably aren't all that distantly related. From holding cautiously still and forcing himself not to blink under dragon inspection, Aukiri goes to easing against the fence once more. And scooches back a step when it seems D'kan is getting ready to take those straps. "Maybe. Think I'll stay here a bit long-" the 'er' is naturally drowned out, and elaboration on 'here' never comes. There's a short delay, and then, "Is the Snowasis place really the best spot to go for a drink?"
With narrowed eyes, D'kan shifts his attention from Aukiri to Kazavoth, then back again, suspicion evident when he looks to the dragon, curiosity when it's back to the teen. "Uh... Snowasis. Yeah, pretty much. I mean--." He breaks off briefly to heave the leather to his shoulder. "You can usually get a glass of wine or something in the main living cavern at meal times, but if it's something specific..." He gestures with his head, indication he'll be heading toward the bowl rather than angling toward the lake like the brown. "Food's pretty good, too. Kinda peckish myself, after what Kaz just put me through." He laughs, then, and shakes his head. "Weird, probably, but there you have it. My treat?" Regardless of whether Aukiri follows, D'kan begins walking toward that section of the bowl that holds the local tavern, while in the distance, Kazavoth is already sliding into the Weyr's chilly lake.
"I don't know," Kiri shrugs, acceptance of the offer in his leaving of the fence, "a guy can get hungry even dunking the hides of dead things in piss." So he heads along with the rider, fidgetting with the blanket as he goes, until he's once again acquired a collar, and some sort of sleeves out of it. Kazavoth gets one last look, and Kiri makes a face, thinking hard at the dragon, but even going a little cross-eyed won't always make first contact work. No, D'kan's much easier to talk to.
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