Logs:Lucky To Be Caught
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| RL Date: 24 June, 2012 |
| Who: Hattie, E'ten, M'wen, Elaruth, Adiulth, Isyath, Vhaeryth, Bijedth |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: A child is caught trying to cut a bluerider's straps. |
| Where: Southern Bowl, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 18, Month 1, Turn 29 (Interval 10) |
| The snow that has been falling all night and all day has well and truly set about making its presence known in the bowl, already forming low dunes perfect for children to hide behind and annoying for anyone to have to wade through or struggle over. Towards the south of the bowl, Elaruth is settled before one of the snowy dunes and has found employment as a fortress of sorts, the younger of the kids out and about less intimidated by her being a gold than their elders, though even they are careful as they scramble over her limbs and tail to lob snowballs at the far more 'dignified' teenagers. Hattie is stood not far off, hood drawn up, the goldrider trying to dust a liberal coating of snow from a sniffling child who is clearly not hers. The advent of snow doesn't mean a snow day in the true sense of the world. Not when it comes to E'ten and Adiulth's training and wing shadow, the latter finally ending and allowing him the chance to devote some time to other duties. He still has that eye set on a particular knot once weyrling training is done. The bronze, however, is careful about his arrival into the edges of the snow play and those already engrossed. What mischief already abounds and what he can in theory get into with the younger children remains to be seen. Even if it means being a snow covered dragon with all the fun that entails. Hands stuffed deep into pockets, M'wen appears from the caverns. His progress is slowed greatly by the trudging pace dictated by the think, fresh snow, but his comparatively brisk pace doesn't falter. His path brings him to within a few dozen paces of the laughing and yelling children, the sight of which causes a halt to his movements, an unseen conspiratorial smirk spreading across his face. Leaning over quickly to not alert the children of his intentions, the brownrider grabs and handful of snow and tosses it at a small knot of kids, with his body adopting a pose of innocence the moment the snow left his grip. To the delight of 'her' group of kids, Elaruth drops a shadow-brushed wing down over them to protect them from the latest barrage from 'the other side' of the battle, then tips her head back to clatter a soft greeting for Adiulth, E'ten and even for M'wen. Hattie makes much of checking the snow-dusted child over, getting the little girl to flap her arms and hop about (even in the snow) and all sorts, before she pats her on the head and sends her back into war. The weyrwoman slowly turns to watch her scamper off, laughing at the group who get caught by M'wen's handful of snow. "Such a child!" she brightly calls over to him, inadvertently giving the game away. Behind the nearest dune, a passing bluerider drops her straps to the ground in her haste to return the deluge of snow and ice thrown at following an ambush. E'ten falls short of greeting M'wen even though a hand lifts in obvious greeting to the rider, lips poised to call out until another idea catches hold as he kneels next to a nearby snowdrift to fashion a quick, small, circular snowball. Lobbing it provided that his back is still turned to the weyrling, he takes a moment to quickly dust off his hands between trousers and jacket before continuing closer to the gathering group. Nothing to see here. Nope! Not at all. Adiulth, for his part, follows before settling just at the edge of the war with a look of evaluation. He's available, but if the children are already involved, he'll be backup should Elaurth tire. But it's to her that he warbles a greeting before turning his head towards the blue nearby and back. Both rider and dragon seem to mirror the same cheerful personality, even after class. Opening his mouth to call back a greeting to the goldrider, M'wen's words are cut short when a well directed throw from behind hits him straight and true. The brownrider spins around quickly, a hand reflexively raised to his back to check the point of impact. With his assailant recognized, M'wen raises a hand in both greeting and truce, "Good day to you E'ten, let's call this even and not let it devolve into a battle of our own." He leans over to grab a handful of snow before walking closer to talking distance with the weyrling, "However, those children look like they need an enemy that fights back." An invitation drifts wordlessly out towards Adiulth, tendrils of mist gently tugging and encourage, shimmering in the light of a pale dawn: come and play fortress! Elaruth lifts her wing once the children have had time to scramble away, regroup and reload, while Hattie's attention drifts to the other battle unfolding. She laces her arms across her chest and glances between M'wen and E'ten, trying to weigh up who is likely to be the victor, should war break out. Those dropped straps aren't going to be looking pretty after they've spent all that time in the slush, but it doesn't look like that's really going to be an issue. The cry - curse - of alarm rises from the bluerider herself, and not to protest the snowball that hits the back of her head as she turns, alerted by her lifemate, to see a small, slender figure crouched beside her straps, blade in hand. A child. A boy, no more than twelve. It /can't/ be a child, surely? "Hello, sir. You might have a point there. Are you sure we're not getting ourselves in for more trouble than we bartered for?" Spoken without repentance, E'ten offers some measure of a salute - he's still bound by that rule and if anything, he does follow those pretty good. Usually. Most of the time. At the mention of a truce and the young children nearby, he can't help but to laugh with a thumb jerking towards the bronze behind him. Adiulth welcomes the invitation, the cold chill of winter during a sunrise tagging his advancement until pausing with a turn of his head towards the blue and his rider. The alarm is enough for the dragon to pass along the same hint of warning. Of something being wrong. A child? And that's enough to bring the young man up short, eyes and head turning in the rider's direction. "What the--?" The salute is met with a half-hearted one in return, little effort offered for formalities on this peaceful winter scene. A grin springs up on M'wen's face at the question, "I've been flying over 20 turns and fought thread when it fell. I am pretty sure we can give these little ones a battle they won't forget." His hands work the snow he had just picked up, forming it into a well shaped sphere. The alarm comes as a surprise, the ball falling from his hands as the brownrider whips his head in the direction of the bluerider, unsure how true his words may end up, with a macabre turn. Elaruth makes sure that her reaction to the blue's alarm is kept to a purely mental level only, for fear of accidentally hurting the children clustered around her if she moves too quickly. « There must be a mistake, » she shares with Adiulth, unwilling to believe the facts that are presenting themselves. « There /must/ be. » Meanwhile, Hattie is not bound by the proximity of little kids and starts off towards the bluerider without much thought involved in the move, barking, "Get the children out of here," over her shoulder to the nannies and nursery staff watching their charges from a distance. The knife does not go slicing through leather, but the child's intent cannot be mistaken for anything else. The boy blinks wide blue eyes up at the rider and turns to make a run for it, hampered by the snow lining the floor of the bowl, knife tumbling from his grip to slip from his fingers and fall without a sound. He bolts, path carrying him towards the caverns. The last thing that E'ten wants is to be neglecting those salutes. Still, the casualness of the gesture does well for all of the moments that last before things are turning bleak. On one hand, there should be no alarm given to the children. On the other? The child in question is making a run for the caverns. On some level, he hears the shout to move the other children away from the scene as he looks to M'wen while Adiulth leaps from the ground once all small and large bodies are away. But it's to Elauruth that he answers. « Maybe. Probably, mine says. I can glide down to make the young one's fleeing a little less fast. But I do not want to make him afraid. » The same thought is being echoed by the weyrling to M'wen. "Can we?" Do they dare? Between the two of them, as he's not even thinking about Hattie's involvement in this, they might be able to make it. Maybe. The barking orders of the Goldrider quickly alert M'wen onto the seriousness of the situation. With his many years of training, the question asked by the bronze weyrling comes to the back of M'wen, the brownrider already starting the awkward running trudge through the thick snow to cut of the path of the fleeing boy. His head turns for only a moment to issue a curt command to E'ten, "Do not ask. Just do." His running is greatly hampered by the snow, each step almost tripping him to the ground. The boy is howling even before he's caught, struggling again any attempts to restrain and capture him, kicking up snow and trying to claw himself free. "She said I had to!" he screams, voice hoarse. "I had to, I had to, I /had to/!" His cries rise as hysteria sets in and drags him down into panicked temper tantrum territory. Were he a turn or two older, he might be capable of considerable damage, but the snow robs him of his balance and his terror and fear look set to burn out and leave him defeated more effectively than anything else. Across the dune, Hattie watches all from the bluerider's side, the undamaged straps held between them like some giant cat's cradle. With his quite response and lucky position, M'wen gains quickly on the boy. The brownrider's long strides covering far more ground than possible for a young boy who would need to scramble across the snow to get anywhere in a hurry. A fierce determination is on his face, though being ahead of anyone else, the only one who may see it is the frightened glances shot back by the running boy. With a last burst of speed, the brownrider enacts a move that could only be called a tackle, bringing his arms in to prevent escape and any undue harm from the flailings of a pinned child. With his turns of training, it would be unlikely for the boy to escape, only the most slippery of moves able to escape. Whatever E'ten would have come back to say remains unspoken, but the aloft Adiulth might be all that's needed to at least confirm that catching the child was a shared idea between the two. It was all a matter of 'how' as the rider turns to stride, perhaps sprint depending on the speed of the young lad and the delay initially puts him behind the older rider. Until catching up by just mere seconds and clearly enough distance to hear the shouts and the panic of the now captured as he hunkers down to both as he asks with a deep breath, not winded but getting his balance to sound fairly calm as if the weyrling rider wasn't just chasing him. "Had to? Who said that?" To all Fort dragons, Elaruth is uneasy, her mind dark and clogged with fog. « Make sure your riders have your straps with them or in your weyrs, » she insists, which makes it no more clear just /why/ she is so troubled. « ...They have caught one trying to cut straps. » Bad, yes, but not terrible or... surprising? « ...A child... » Oh. To Elaruth, Vhaeryth seeks out the senior queen, his metal an uneasy compass navigating through the fog: « A /child/? » With the words comes an afterimage, floating on the marshy mists: a girl, dark hair. Surely not this one. To all Fort dragons, Isyath seems, not uneasy like her dam, but puzzled, as she considers that. « A child? » It is not that she doubts, but.. /her/ rider thinks it so unlikely that there's a questioning thread in the response. An image of a newly hatched dragon blindly lashing out, without understanding the consequences. Yes, that fits better. The queen continues to circle above the Fortian skies, watchful. That fall /hurt/. The boy doesn't cease his struggling until it becomes absolutely clear that he's not going anywhere, eventually going still in M'wen's hold. He continues to sob and snivel and outright ignores E'ten until he decides he's ready to say anything at all to him, and even that's only when he realises that crying isn't going to help him. "I won't tell. I /won't/!" he half-growls at the weyrling. "You don't get it! None of you will! I didn't do anything! Let me go!" Defeated, almost, by this, of all things, as if it's torn away the last of her faith, Elaruth elaborates, « A boy, » in a mere murmur. The image she shares is of a fair-haired child, not quite a teenager, prevented from escape by a man with a brownrider's knots. « Not that one. » The girl, that is. Small mercies. Some comfort. (Elaruth to Vhaeryth) From the distant east comes the familiar, gentle wind of Bijedth's stormy skies, smelling faintly of rain; he's too far off for the rest of his scents of nature to find their way to his queen but he pushes as much of himself to her side as he can. Threads of concern weave their way through his voice: « Do you need us home, my beloved? » (Bijedth to Elaruth) However much it could have hurt, the snow saves the child from any lasting harm. M'wen doesn't let his grip slacken, despite the stillness of the boy in his hands. Shifting his hold so that his right arm takes the main weight of preventing escape, he wipes off his left arm on his shoulder, the boys tears and runnings from his nose leaving a faint mark on the brownrider's jacket. "Help me here," M'wen asks of the weyrling, less command than when he took off running, but still in a tone expecting to be obeyed, "I'm going to stand up and I don't want him getting away." All he offers the boy is a look of sadness, words unlikely to have much effect with the boy's hysterical state. To all Fort dragons, Elaruth agrees with her daughter, amplifying the image of the young dragon, stressing the lack of understanding as an image of her own sneaks in beneath it: a fair-haired boy struggling against the rider who holds him, the child in tears and lashing out in any way he can. « A child. A boy. Not yet a man. » For all that she's distraught, there's a breath of cool, clean air that is Vhaeryth's relief. « Thank you, » he answers gravely, that fresh breeze lingering longer than he does: perhaps a little more comfort for the queen, however small this also is. (Vhaeryth to Elaruth) To Bijedth, Elaruth is hesitant, defeat and confusion rising with the mist that prevents a clear view of the marshes and threatens to overwhelm everything. « She does not know what to do. They cannot lock up a child. » They can't. They /can't/. Bad enough that she has conveyed her own distress and uncertainty, but having confessed Hattie's reduces her to silence, her plea wordless. Come home. "They're the ones in trouble for asking you," E'ten remarks with more conviction than he feels, eyes looking to M'wen before he approaches with every intent of duplicating, modifying or adding to the hold so that the boy doesn't go running off. Or being there just in case he gets the idea to do so. Worse would be, kicking him and /then/ running. Verbal confirmation to M'wen is far and few, but he does understand and doesn't fail to follow this pseudo-order as it were. But is it an order if he's more than willing to comply? "I didn't do anything!" is the last, bleated statement from the boy before he falls silent, lips pressed firmly together as he juts his jaw out to make it clear that he's not going to talk. However, he /is/ going to blubber some more, tears streaming down his face. It doesn't stop him from struggling at the slightest prospect of freedom, yet he soon sags against his captors and stares down at the floor, covered in snow as he is. Across the way, Hattie has relinquished the bluerider's straps and turns to march over to face the child herself, though it's difficult to look imposing when you're almost slipping over every other step. "Well?" she demands of M'wen and E'ten, perhaps having seen that stubborn look from the boy often enough from her own children. There are only two words, filled with the urgency of a heart longing to comfort. « We come. » (Bijedth to Elaruth) This is going nowhere fast, in terms of questioning. Yet, E'ten knows that they have to tread carefully here. It's a /child/. Not an adult accountable for their crimes but a child who does what he's told for fear or reward. Helping where he can, he looks to Hattie with a firm press of his lips and only a slight shake of his head. For all that he's stopped struggling, his own alertness remains high. "He says he did nothing, even though we found him with a knife and a pair of straps. Rather, he did nothing only because he was caught first and no one was hurt, yet." Purposeful phrasing there, it seems. At least for the lad's hearing. M'wen gives a nod of thanks to the bronzerider's efforts, the faint struggles of the boy easily contained by the pair of them as he stands with a grunt. "And a good thing he dropped it, too. I don't want a stabbed child on my conscience." A pointed look is given to the boy at this comment, thought whether it can be seen through his blubbering is unknown. His attention turns to the goldrider, his answer intoned with little inflection, "Well what? I heard her-" An arm points in the direction of the bluerider "-curse, you shout for the children to be looked after and saw this here lad run as if thread were chasing him." He gives a none too gentle squeeze to the captured boys shoulder. "Wasn't time for much else." "What's your name?" is met by silence. Hattie studies the boy, head tilted, as if she's trying desperately to read his mind. All she can manage in the end is to tell weyrling and brownrider: "Take him to the Infirmary and get him cleaned up. Find his parents, his foster mother, a nanny; I don't much care, but have Shevena find /someone/ to watch him." Any other arrangements are not mentioned in-front of the boy, whose crying has suddenly become more vocal once again. For reasons unclear, M'wen is given a quick once-over by the goldrider, her expression giving little away, for then her attention snaps back to the boy. "Whatever you think, you were /lucky/ to be caught, you understand?" she says to him as gently as she can possibly manage given the circumstances. "Gentlemen, if you could escort this young man to the Healers..." "Yes, ma'am." He can't use 'Weyrwoman', as he was scolded last time. "In order to find his parents, we'll need to know his name," E'ten remarks to Hattie, not releasing the young boy until M'wen's grip is reconfirmed on standing but quick to resume if needed. That tactic is almost and is deliberate as he regards the boy before looking to M'wen. He'll follow the other man's lead on progressing. He's not pleased, if the near constant frown that mars his features is any indication. It's better than the scowl that he's purposely not using. "Do you think that's wise?" M'wen asks, as innocently as possible, his grip still firm on the young boy. "I don't know what sort of nannys you have here, but this boy was nearly to a point where he could have killed a rider." A glance at the boy is given, and upon seeing his attenion is on the ground, an almost saddening sympathetic look of regret takes over M'wen's features before he masks them with another frown. "I hope your infirmiry has strong locks until we get to the bottom of this." A simple statement, though unlikely one to reassure the boy. What was a snowy-battle ground has been reduced to silence and stares, the children gathered up and herded inside, Hattie now in conversation with E'ten and M'wen, the latter preventing a fair-haired boy of perhaps ten or eleven from running off and escaping, the child sobbing and focus fixed on the floor. "I am assuming that a nanny will at least be able to /name/ him," the goldrider snaps. "Of course, if you'd rather throw him into the cells," maybe she's forgotten the poor kid is still there, "I'd be happy to let you take full responsibility for him." A shame sarcasm isn't more effective in these situations. "Until then - and until further arrangements have been made for him - the order stands." Over by the half-destroyed snow dune, Elaruth observes all, curled in on herself and obviously unhappy. E'ten isn't likely to counter those orders, much less say anything further on the matter of finding out who the boy belongs to. That, and the entire situation is still causing him some measure of growing silence. "I guess we better get him to the infirmary," he finally remarks, looking to M'wen to see if he's going to add anything else to Hattie's orders. Meanthile, Adiulth has settled down near the entrance to the infirmary with both wings pressed tightly to him and otherwise loosely curled up. |
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