Logs:Gone Away - Galleries
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| RL Date: 31 March, 2013 |
| Who: Hattie, Ali, Yalzurth, Adiulth, Khiabeth, Nazguwynth |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Elaruth reacts to Yalzurth's attempt to jump into the hatching caverns where her eggs harden. |
| Where: Hatching Galleries, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 21, Month 5, Turn 31 (Interval 10) |
| It's getting on for evening when the faintest stab of worry drifts from the mind of Fort's senior queen and touches those of the dragons of her Weyr. Elaruth struggles to contain it, determined not to let it get out of hand, but /something/ or /someone/ has her tensed and on her guard, the sound of scattering sand grains and the snap of wingsails flared to cover her precious clutch edging in against a wash of... blue? /Blue/? (Elaruth to all Fort dragons) From high above, Isyath's presence is likewise felt across the Weyr as she senses her dam's distress, although /she/ is uncertain of the cause of it. (Isyath to all Fort dragons) Crowded, crowded; too close. A rocky roof so near as to brush against wings; the lash of pain as fibre /bumps/ and /scrapes/. Need space. Only meant to-- And falling, diving, down, down towards a golden sea. (Yalzurth to all Fort dragons) To all Fort dragons, Adiulth reacts to the distress, the fringes of the emotion at the very least prompting him to ask, « What is wrong? » Blood-red spatter, a muck of putrid scent beneath a mist-- the relevance is in the tinker of investigative bones, notably chiming in from the brown only at the notion of the /clutch/. Eggs. Unprotected life. It's to Yalzurth that Nazguwynth reaches privately, possessively, a wall of steel and tribal chant. (Nazguwynth to all Fort dragons) On the heels of Nazguwynth's stretch rides a wave of pressure, Khiabeth likewise reaching for their clutchsibling. Buzzing series of lightning sweeps off of her touch, seeking to defend him from- what /is/ that? Alarmed, and confused, the green's mental voice is /loud/. (Khiabeth to all Fort dragons) « They-- » is as far as Elaruth gets before fear and anger both blaze white-hot in an agonising rush of atmosphere so uncharacteristic of the little queen, tugging at the minds of her queen-daughters and yet pushing at one particular presence at the same time, as the shadow of twisting and twirling wings brushes through the too-near dawn starscape. « No! /Away/! » she shrieks, bracing for impact or a fight. (Elaruth to all Fort dragons) When Isyath senses Yalzurth, her tone changes, and while not /protective/ as such, the sense of familarity eases her thoughts for a beat, before Elaruth's distress reels her in. With a /snap/ she is drawn in, downwards, towards the hatching grounds, the coldness of her thoughts blanketing the Weyr. (Isyath to all Fort dragons) To Nazguwynth, anger is intoxicating-- fear doubly so. His mind's oppressive, narrowing in on the prey of confusion, when he launches from the grounds, arrowing for one thing and one thing only-- his flock-mate. (Nazguwynth to all Fort dragons) Falling too fast. Too fast, too near, too-- They can't even see them now anyway. Red eyes. The glint of pale gold. He reaches, clawing desperately, painfully, at the minds of Khiabeth and Nazguwynth, as if he could haul himself closer or them nearer. Maldoranth too. But then there's that other voice, that frightens away any plans he or his might have had. /Away/. And so, fall angled into a low swoop, they are there and then they /aren't/, gone blindly. (Yalzurth to all Fort dragons) To all Fort dragons, Adiulth is not too far behind Isyath, having just taken off from the ground with strong beats of air propelling him towards the hatching cavern. Focused on what is happening to such a degree - one moment he senses something. The next? Where? Where? Where? Likewise does Khiabeth stretch towards her clutchmates. Here. /Here/. And then a moment of silence, a beat of nothing. Then: the noise that comes from Khiabeth is just that- pure noise, distress and loss. Lightning arcs painfully off the small green, racing everywhere. (Khiabeth to all Fort dragons) Sharp: Nazguwynth's bank upward, furious, fury red like the blood of battle on his cheek paved on him like streaks from Yalzurth's claws. A guttural noise reverberates out, challenging, primal. Banking towards the Hatching Cavern becomes circling above, a vulture seeking straight for the remaining flock, gathering them to him with a hard, thunderous drumbeat. Khiabeth's lightning, pain he accepts, uses for strength to return to her. (Nazguwynth to all Fort dragons) Awful, crippling fear turns to grief so, so quickly. Elaruth's keen rings high-pitched through the dragons of Fort, the physical noise of it reverberating through the hatching cavern one of the few real sounds still-forming minds protected by mere shells have heard from their mother. Hunched over her clutch, wings drooping more than shielding now, she trembles, the glimmer of gold washed from her hide, eyes a sea of grey. (Elaruth to all Fort dragons) Nothing. No more. Nothing, nothing, nothing... (Yalzurth to all Fort dragons) Too late, the pieces come together. Isyath can be seen alighting on the upper ledges of the hatching caverns, /pressing/ other dragons away from her dam and her eggs. Moments before the younger queen throws her head back, keen riding out across the Weyr on the heels of the other dragons. (Isyath to all Fort dragons) Mindful of nothing except the nearness of her clutchmates, Khiabeth cleaves towards them, though the level of her distress doesn't abate in the slightest. /Yalzurth/- the stretch for him is met with cold silence, and it is beneath the safety of Nazguwynth and Maldoranth's presences that she continues to keen. (Khiabeth to all Fort dragons) To all Fort dragons, Adiulth backwings along the higher levels of the hatching cavern, his earlier angle changed as his head lifts higher to join those other draconic voices lifted aloft. Too late. Not fast enough. It's at a breathless, shaking state that Ali arrives at the hatching caverns; her eyes immediately going to Elaruth, to the clutch. The exhale that she gives is one of momentary relief, but relief all the same, and then she's casting about for Hattie's whereabouts. Is it possible that Ali has reached the cavern before Hattie? It certainly looks that way. The Weyrwoman is nowhere to be seen, few spectators in the stands, but mere seconds after Isyath's rider arrives, so too does Elaruth's. "/Elaruth/!" Her voice first, echoing ahead of her, twisted high with panic and desperation. "Elaruth!" Hattie slows to only a brief halt a few heavy footsteps into the galleries, pause taken only to try and force breath into her lungs. Only a moment later, she's pushing on ahead, racing down to the Sands, demanding those spectators, "Get out!" She must have clocked Ali on her way past, for she calls back to her, "Keep Isyath up on that ledge. /Please/." And very rarely does she beg for anything. Shrieking air tells of Nazguwynth's wicked descent, straight down towards the hatching cavern-- then, with a hard, wing-straining twist, he sacrifices the attack, cawing, tail hissing as he streaks for the lake, //bodily// coming up against Khiabeth, throwing himself into her to move her-- to get her to go where he needs, far, further away. Get off the ground, out of the Weyr. (Nazguwynth to all Fort dragons) More shocked than anything by Hattie's appearance- or her lack of presence?- Ali silent for a moment before tear-streaked expression tightens. "Everyone, please. Tend to your dragons- Leiona," she addresses the assistant headwoman, "Have some hot drinks and... something stronger put on in the caverns." When there's little enough response to her begging, she takes a leaf from Hattie's book, "/Go/!" That seems to get some movement. Above, Isyath remains, rearing back, her presence /felt/ strongly in support of her dam. There's no immediate reaction- Khiabeth continues to radiate distress, and it's only Nazguwynth's insistance that finally gets the dragon moving. /Away/? Her keening fades, though her mental distress doesn't abate as she launches into the sky, urged on by her brown sibling. (Khiabeth to all Fort dragons) Isyath remains a stalwart- if unlikely and unexpected- guard on the ledges. Even Adiulth's approach is met with /pressure/ and /urging/ to leave. Elaruth... the stars of Isyath's thoughts stretch towards her dam, though they lack their usual vibrant sparkle. (Isyath to all dragons) To Isyath and Elaruth, Adiulth's mental voice is entirely silent. One could drop a stone and it would be swallowed by the lake of silence as he asks « Yalzurth's rider. Was he with him? /They/ want to know. Mine /needs/ to know. » On the Sands, Elaruth shudders from nose to tail, her frame locked in its hunched posture even as Hattie races to meet her, mindful only of the eggs hidden beneath the thin membranes of wingsail. The Weyrwoman ducks in beneath one of her queen's arched wings, hands - whole body, even - pressed to hide in an effort to calm her somehow, as Elaruth emits a thread of a thin, squalling noise more befitting a distressed weyrling. But Isyath is there, her rider and /her/ rider: surely, surely it must be safe to move. Soon. « Gone, » Elaruth confirms in a hushed whisper, her sunlight gone and the tang of salt fierce and bitter in the air. « ...All gone. » (Elaruth to Adiulth and Isyath) After a hesitant, heart-broken moment of waiting the Weyrwoman and her dragon- Ali quickly catches one of the departing riders and adds an extra request. She makes her way slowly, uncertainly down to the bottom of the galleries, hands pressing against the railing for balance. All she can do is watch, but both she and Isyath are there. To Elaruth and Adiulth, Isyath projects, « « Gone, » Isyath adds in a soft echo of Elaruth's, cold and distant. » « Gone, » Isyath adds in a soft echo of Elaruth's, cold and distant. (Isyath to Elaruth and Adiulth) It may seem like an eternity before Elaruth begins to relax, though she doesn't step away from her clutch so much as an inch, rearranging herself around her eggs to drop a wing over them and lie curled muzzle to tail, an unbreakable wall of gold around shells. Her eyes remain grey as she stares off into some distant world that only she knows, and Hattie reluctantly leaves her side to take unsteady steps back towards the galleries, red-eyed and pale, her hair even wilder than usual after her mad dash. "T-Thank you," she murmurs to Ali once she's within earshot. Hoarsely, she adds: "...She says they Betweened in here. Almost on the ceiling." To all Fort dragons, Adiulth doesn't fight the pressure that he feels in Isyath's touch, backwinging a bit with only a stretching look towards the caverns. It's a brief thing before a wide arch is made which turns his direction towards Khiabeth and Nazguwynth - both seeming to go somewhere. « You should be with your riders during this time. » It's a reasonable tone that the bronze has, even though there's a lack of sound or anything tagging his usual voice. The moment Hattie steps off the sands, Ali's there with a supporting hand- not that she's that much steadier herself, but it's the thought that counts. "Here, sit. I've got-" she glances up, as the rider she spoke to earlier comes down, leaving behind a glass and nodding to the pair of them. "Drink this," the junior insists, holding out the glass to Hattie, "Then tell me." It's wine, crisp and cold- and a sensitive tongue might well taste a faint trace of fellis there, just enough to take the edge off, but not to send to sleep. Hattie nods mutely and just... does as she's told. Sitting down, she takes the glass with both hands, both needed to keep it steady and lift it to her lips, and if she notes at all the taste of the fellis, she carries right on drinking it down anyway, as quickly as if she could down it all in one gulp. Hands drop back to her lap, fingers still clasped around the glass, and looks up at Ali through wide eyes, the dry tracks of tears visible running in uneven paths down her cheeks. "She says," she tries again, "that they Betweened in here and started down towards the clutch. She told Yalzurth to get away and... and then they were gone." Her gaze drops to her lap, then almost immediately jumps right back to her junior. "I'm /sorry/," she utters in a hushed whisper. Is that Hattie or /Elaruth/? Ali's hands fold over Hattie's, gently taking the glass from her once she's done with it, setting it on her other side. Her hands return to press over the Weyrwoman's, though. She swallows, heavily, trying to fight back tears of her own unsuccessfully. "You didn't- she couldn't have known. She just wanted to protect them. If-" a shuddering breath, "-if they'd been trained first by /us/, this wouldn't have happened. Hattie," there's a heaviness to her words. "It's not your fault." Every touch that nears Khiabeth earns painful zaps of lightning, the small green clearly set on following Nazguwynth's path, seeking distance. (Khiabeth to all Fort dragons) Hattie clings to Ali's hands even as she tries to get it together and not adopt the same hunched posture as her lifemate had such a short time ago, the squaring of her shoulders about as far as she gets (and no more). "/Why/ were they in here?" she asks, like her fellow goldrider might have all the answers. "Everyone knows they're not allowed in. What were they hoping to achieve? Why--" Hang on. "...If they knew I wasn't here..." But no. "It /still/ doesn't make any sense!" A very unladylike sniff follows, the inside of her lip bitten down on, determined not to let fresh tears fall. "I don't know," Ali answers, miserably. "We- we may /never/ know. But I don't- surely you don't think they were trying to get at the eggs?" Her eyes widen, the thought obviously not having occurred to her yet, her grip on Hattie tightening somewhat. Swallowing sharply, she says, "Issy... she says their clutchsiblings are distressed. Elaruth should help them. She's- much better at it." Than Isyath, presumably, though that goes unspoken. There's an echo from Hattie: "I don't know." She shakes her head a little, the gesture not as sharp as it might be, fellis starting to take effect and blunt the edges of grief and the sharpness of the world. "I don't know why they would... We can't think that of the--of the dead," she tries to insist. Not /yet/ anyway. "Can't accuse--" Her focus collects itself together and intensifies upon Ali as she processes news of clutchsiblings, a hysteria-touched, "Oh, Faranth..." escaping her lips before she has control of herself. "Okay." Another breath. "Okay, she'll... try." Normally Ali might be oblivious to such things, but this time, she's looking for her, and the tension in her shoulders eases momentarily as she notes the fellis starting to take effect. She's silent, while Hattie concentrates, her gaze going towards Elaruth, chewing her lower lip. Isyath remains steady, none of the normal restlessness that normally mars the junior queen, watchful even as the echoes of keening fades away. Hattie releases the breath that she's been holding as she works with Elaruth to put aside grief and guilt to reach out to distant minds without letting any such things colour her voice, line of her shoulders slumping. "There," she says softly, giving the tiniest of nods. "I... don't know if it will work, but she's called them. If they blame her, maybe Isyath should too. She had no hand in Yalzurth's... going." Her grip on Ali's hands loosens slightly, yet she doesn't let go, either using the contact to keep herself grounded or just unwilling to draw her hands back. "Isyath won't," Ali says, perhaps a little sharper than she means, and the grimace that follows likely serves for an apology for the tone. She falls to silence, content to remain by Hattie's side, hands pressed reassuringly against the Weyrwoman's. She'll stay, at least until Bijedth and N'muir return from the duties that had them out of the Weyr. Slowly, the sense of Khiabeth's presence nears the Weyr again. Whether it's urged on by Elaruth's summons, or the silent, hulking shadow of her clutchmate is hard to say. The green's flight is subdued, none of her normal buoyant antics, making a beeline for where their riders are gathered in the bowl. (Khiabeth to all Fort dragons) What first goes unanswered's abruptly successful: Nazguwynth, following from a higher vantage point above Khiabeth's returning presence, winging towards the bowl. Only the shattering crash of bones smacking together is known of his voice, till he's seen his green flock-mate to her rider. Then a cool crisp breeze, smelling faintly of garbage and carcasses, pervades. (Nazguwynth to all Fort dragons) For once, Hattie is content to - or unable to do more than - sit and not leap back into action, the combination of fellis and drain of sky-high adrenaline doing much to keep her quiet and subdued. The twitch of her head negates the need for any apology, slow, steady breaths taken as she lets various chemicals do their work and tries to soothe the aches that Elaruth struggles not to share with the dragons of Fort. Ali and Isyath are with them. They're safe. They're safe. |
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