Logs:The Green Comet
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| RL Date: 29 December, 2013 |
| Who: H'kon, K'zin, Leova, Sh'dor |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Vrianth's mating flight interrupts K'zin's evening and Rasavyth isn't the only dragon surrendering to the chase. |
| Where: High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 2, Month 9, Turn 33 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: It's a warm, sunny summer evening. |
| Mentions: Anvori/Mentions, Rhonda/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Backdated. Posted as part of the series. - When posed the question, what would make for the most awkward morning-after-first-flight-win experience, K'zin-player decided Leova was it. She kindly sacrificed-- er... allowed her dragon to be caught in a predetermined flight so K'zin could freak out in the morning after scene. Thanks, Leova! And many thanks to H'kon for joining in the predestined fun. |
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| No farming for Leova today. No sweeps. Not even a stint in the dragon infirmary. Definitely no child-tending, not after the noisy breakfast they shared. She had rejoined Anvori for a quick lunch, then a preoccupied dinner, and all the while she had had to wait. Vrianth made her wait. Vrianth makes her wait, still. The green's rider has been to the lake, has removed her sandals and tucked up her skirt and walked in the shallows. She could have sat in the shade and carved, but that would have meant a knife, and besides she hadn't the patience. She still isn't patient. But now she sits barefoot on the guest weyr's steps, talking with Sh'dor whose Idriloth waits for Vrianth too, waits with patience enough for all three of them. At least they were talking. They aren't talking anymore. Savannah's still not back. And still Vrianth doesn't rise. Arekoth has been one of those males (and arguably also the unwanted) who has been intermittently swooping too near Vrianth's ledge all throughout the day, ever since morning drills. It's not a constant attention; he has other things to do, and sparks of static are better than a steady buzz. But those visits are getting more frequent now, and aren't lacking in occasional comments. Mostly to Idriloth. Mostly misinformation about the weather and ideal flight plans. You know. Tonight, Vrianth is playing into Rasavyth's master plan. Well, she's a little late make an entrance for when he needs an excuse to interrupt his rider, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Not that any of his desperation can be sensed beyond the strictly enforced confines of his private mind. No, on the exterior, Rasavyth is simply enthralled. Enthralled by the prospect of chasing Vrianth, his need for her so great as to motivate him to the feeding grounds before most of the rest. Perhaps his show of ardor will coax the coquette (ha) down from her present perch. If he broadcasts a little louder than strictly necessary how amazing the blood is tonight... well. He's just a young bronze, who can blame him? Vrianth could easily blame Rasavyth for certain things, though not so much those blood-sendings as how they summon more males to trouble her. Arekoth gets another spark sent his way, just because, her long tail's tip flicking this way and that where she's draped it off the edge of the ledge, and Idriloth? She's not overtly attending to him, especially with how he's shooting the breeze right back at the brown... but then the tilt of her headknobs suggests she might be tracking. Finally, though, whether it's too much or just plain time, she casts a long look at Ishawith and she's off. It's a long stretch of a glide, dark-sparred wings wide until at the last moment they furl. The trick, Leova's about to find, is not convincing her green just to blood, though it's so much less crucial than for the queens. It's convincing her not to blood and blood and blood. It won't be much longer. She's expedient about her killing, is Vrianth. And even her olive-heathered hide has begun to glow. Off is what Arekoth was waiting for. The brown drops down from the rim, where he'd stationed himself, one quick shot for the feeding pens. Idriloth gets some wry remark as Arekoth dives after a beast, as much for sport as any extra energy from the blood. Mostly, he's watching Vrianth. And also shooting out to that young bronze who's been staking out the pens, « Keener. » More males don't concern Rasavyth. It's not their attention he was trying to get, nor secretly was it Vrianth's. There's a subtly victorious flex of his slender muscles and a roll of his shoulders as he lifts his head from his most recent kill long enough to observe the lithe verdant form of Solith touching down in the bowl, K'zin dismounting and throwing him one dirty look before starting his jog toward the guest weyr already drawing the crowd so helpfully created by his bronze's bloody broadcasting. Perhaps Rasavyth wouldn't normally deign to notice Arekoth's barb, but given his 'win,' the bronze is feeling particularly cheeky. His bright tenor chimes back all oozy with charm, « Tch. Feeling threatened already, old dragon? Perhaps you ought to consider sitting this one out. » The edge of amusement is particularly strong, though mingled with what might be mistaken for genuine sympathy, nevermind that the green who is quickly becoming the young bronze's focus has turns on even the brown. As ever, there's also that feeling of wrongness that snakes along the borders of Rasavyth's touch, like an itch you can't quite scratch away. Those interchanges, those challenges, they might ping Vrianth's radar: the words themselves if broadcast on her particular frequencies, but also the very physical language of wings. Of stares. Of weight. Of claws. The rangy green looks between them, one by one by two by three, as though she suspects. It's a keen, assessing look, if not a keener's. And once she's seen enough, she leaps, even Leova's sharp exclamation no warning at all. Right for an elderly brown who dodges for her. High. Fast. Straight for the Spindles, the better to force her followers to either part before the stone and risk running into each other, or waste time going over or around. But the only thing is, on the other side? She's not there. Or so it might seem, at least at first... for as soon as she'd made it out of sight, she'd dropped and swerved hard to the right, sprinting downwind around the outside of the caldera with its stone as her ally. It would be easy, so easy to overshoot. Arekoth might have managed a few mouthfuls of blood, somewhere around all the mantling and posturing and showing of that sharp and smart silhouette. Those things were priorities over drinking; chasing is priority even over that, though the posturing and things, those get to come along for the ride. He's up and in the air, then up, higher, letting out a piercing call as he banks wide over the spindles. Diving works well for him, and an approach from above is bett- oh, diving now? Sure, Arekoth can do that too, once he's tracked the green's change of course. « We'll take turns going down. » Oh what fun. Some of the males whose kills thud to the ground as they leap after the green are eager, too eager. They want it quick and dirty; the faster they fly, the faster they catch her. But Rasavyth? He's not in a hurry. If anything, as much as the lust hastens the pounding blood through his veins, he wants this flight to last. He's one of the last to launch, the pursuit almost lazy in appearance. But being at the back of the pack has advantages. He has a luxury that some others who do tangle with the wrong kind of tail or overshoot; he has time. Time to observe and make course adjustments. He's even able to gain some placement into the pack by cutting some turns that others followed too closely. Far behind her: a shriek, hide and bone hitting stone and the young dragon who cut it too close is falling, falling. A different dragonhealer will see to the dislocated spar, not Vrianth's rider, not tonight. There are meatier thuds, too, males who dodged into each other. This isn't a pretty flight, clumped here and there rather than spread out like beads on a string. There isn't an instant reply for Arekoth, either, not in words. There is the fleeting electricity of her notice, tinged not green but with the near-black violet of her eyes, the sort of thing that surely could short out a weaker dragon's spine. She swerves, again. This time, it's just slowly enough to entice a massive brown between her and the one who's flown her before, who dives for her now. This time, just in time, she evades her part-time partner's reach and puts on speed. She has time, surely, and knowhow that's as much intuition as calculation, too daring to truly play it safe. It's the danger that's the rush tonight, cutting it close again and again and again. Too close. Idriloth almost has her, but suddenly he's jerked away from her, his wingtip fouled by a larger dragon. Not falling, not he, but slowed. And through all this, her rider's been putting out the lights. She walks as though in some dream, shuttering one glowbasket, the next. She reaches for the last. Crackling purple answers, and then is cut short by a bulk of brown. Arekoth doesn't fall, nor does that bigger dragon, (« Size doesn't matter, does it? ») who now bears the mark of a talon on his shoulder. So Arekoth doesn't fall, but he does have to veer off, wings fighting the sky to correct his course, safety now paramount, even above the glowing Vrianth. He's too far gone now. Maybe he knows it, maybe that's why his attempts to get in at that tight chase, over the other failing suitors, looking for an instant that could reverse all that fortune... The shadow over H'kon's face might as much be the frustration of his shared lust as the closing lights. He presses crossed arms more tightly against each other, grunts once when that big brown's rider checks into his shoulder on his way out. H'kon is already near the exit, outside of the jostling and posturing of the main circle of riders from the start. He doesn't move yet; he will, soon, but only once his dragon as accepted the loss. Rasavyth has calculations too. He's not as lithe as some of the browns and certainly none of the blues, but for a bronze he's slenderly built and agile in the air (if less elegant on the ground). His calculated course weaves him through other suitors, passing Arekoth's previous position, keeping out of range of claw and wing; he's on his game tonight, but the stakes are higher. And when the stakes are high, there's a certain amount of caution he's willing to throw to the wind, a certain amount of daring he'll dare to be. This daring has him cutting close, dangerously so, to Idriloth and his tangle, the length of wing and power of stroke bringing him into range of the evening's prize. He doesn't make a move immediately, though, there's more calculation to do before his form shifts at just the right moment, making his first attempt to ensnare Vrianth in tail and talon. K'zin's form shows just as much relaxation as his dragon's manner suggests. He's not worried, if anything, his stance is a little saucy, and does his shirt really need to be that far open? He hasn't made a move toward Leova, though his eyes track her as much as playful brown gaze bounces among the other suitors. But when she moves past him to darken the last glow, he moves, too, reaching, as one with his dragon for the woman with a boldness that is surely not K'zin's own. He catches her. One of them does, one of her. Vrianth sacrifices her rider in favor of evasion, stealing Leova's freely given wits to swing her own tail out of the other's grasp and use that movement to both twist and roll within the air, before the next breath beating her wings to ascend. If a talon's marked that glowing hide, it doesn't yet show. She doesn't flinch. She does vocalize her exhilaration at that close call, dark and sharp with awareness, and if Rasavyth's still all too close... that's also a beacon for Arekoth and those cherished others who survive. There she is. If Vrianth can make it to even one or two in time, summon them close where before she'd danced and spun away, she might employ their own acquisitiveness and gain a few precious moments... and, who knows, even more. Sometimes fortunes can be reversed in an instant. Perhaps even this one. Humans, however, have to do it near-literally in the dark. The glowbasket's fallen in the moment after it was lidded, hitting the ground and knocking just barely ajar. It's a scant glow, enough only to outline boots and bare feet and the hem of Leova's dress, and not her captive wrist that pulls even as she looks back. All this, while Vrianth's trying to concentrate. Arekoth's piercing cry can't make concentration easier, seizing upon that beacon, all flashes of light leading toward it, wintry chill gone frigid, freezing, beneath all those purples and pinks that flare toward the green. Arekoth beats his wings for speed. Arekoth makes himself the streamlined predator his lines allow. Arekoth reaches. And on the ground, H'kon simply tilts his head down, staring up from under his brow, all the brown's want finally reaching the rider's face. Pity no one gets to see it. And his feet, what can be seen, still remain stationary, changing only insofar as to shift his weight off his heels. One out of two; Rasavyth will take it without wincing. The reach leaves him sinking behind more than he'd like, but brilliant bronze wings should help him make up the difference. Especially if his pawn on the ground can disturb the glowing green's concentration enough. Arekoth's cry is heard and echoed in a way that is clearly the draconic version of mocking. Yep, that's how relaxed the young bronze is; he has time to mock the old brown. After all, he's never won a green flight, or any flight, so why should this be so different. Having a hand on the greenrider is further than he's (they've) gotten before and he seeks to step to her as much as draw her against him, his front to her back. If get gets that far, his other arm will slide around her middle, head tilted to the side as much to whisper along her neck as to avoid an unpleasant headbutt. Greens: always so opposed to getting caught. Not easier in the least, not with the outcry that freezes the green's rider momentarily, Vrianth's eerie violet answering that flare and all but going up in sparks. That wanting, she can feel it. This late in her flight, it's distraction she can't afford. It's incentive to, after all, intercept. She's on the verge of some decision when there's that mockery. She hisses. Twists away from its source. Steals air anew with those dark-sparred wings. Arekoth in his commitment to speed might well catch her then, or that other Alpine dragon charging from a different angle, or wily Idriloth who'd refused to truly fall... if it weren't for how her rider's confined and then, no matter that she's not in a darkened weyr but high above rough and stony peaks, she is too. Opposed, and yet caught all the same. This time, it was enough. Arekoth's focus is all on Vrianth, none on the rest, talons reaching forward, wings drawn back, her name at the ready, weighing heavy on the edge of his mind, a call of triumph that - gets intercepted. Talons scrabble and push at another dragon's, body's contact, Arekoth's, and that blue's, who's come up from behind, come up just under him to steal that green away - and in that moment, control is lost. On the ground, two heads raise to high alert, the remaining Alpine riders, both with eyes blazing. It's a last-minute shift, some unspoken, instinctive communication. It's not pretty, the cluster of wings and claws and tails, the grunting warbles. By the time they're separated, it's over, anyway, with nothing but strains of muscle and scratches to show for the chase. Better than a body count. On the ground, it's come to nothing more than a rough clasping of arms and shirts between wingsecond and wingrider, nostrils flaring and teeth showing, but no punches - or otherwise - exchanged. My, my, what a pleasant surprise! Rasavyth's delightedness broadcasts as his second attempt that has him veering close enough to get a love scratch from one of the other suitors succeeds in thwarting Vrianth's efforts to stay free and clear of her would-be lovers. The pain from the scratch has K'zin's arms suddenly tightening around the greenrider, too distracted in his dragon's elation to notice the bared teeth or to egg it on. If they had the presence of mind as losses are accepted, some of the rider would be thanking Faranth that Leova had the foresight to extinguish the lights, because for this first-time winning pair, there is no such thing as polite restraint. |
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