View source for Logs:Amareth's Maiden Flight

{{Log
| who = Rhaelyn, Riorde, Taikrin
| where = Storage Caverns, HRW
| what = Amareth is rising unexpectedly in her maiden flight, and Taikrin and Riorde are drawn helplessly into the chase.
| when = Mid-day, day 11, month 3, turn 28 of Interval 10
|day=11
|month=3
|turn=28
|IP=Interval
|IP2=10
| gamedate = 2012.03.10
| quote = No... that's not the way of it... I don't chase -you-.
| weather = Cool, clear
| categories = 
| mentions = 
| icons = rhaelyn.jpg, riorde.jpg, taikrin.jpg
| log = '''Western Bowl, High Reaches Weyr

''The bowl's vast dirt floor extends in a rough oval from west to east, only sparse clumps of grass surviving between the crisscrossed pathways of daily traffic. To the northwest stand massive gates to the world beyond, allowing people, livestock, and tithes to pass beneath some of the seven jagged spires that stand sentinel over that area of the bowl. In late afternoons, their spindly, fingerlike shadows stretch over that end of the bowl all the way to the living cavern's hulking brass doors in the far north.

''Eastward, the bowl sprawls on toward the lake, sloping slightly downward to allow runoff from rain and snowmelt, but to the south it's caged by more cliffs of dark, rough-cut granite. Rocks poke up from the ground here, a few large boulders and many smaller outcroppings worn smooth in spots by time and use. A few ground weyr entrances dot the wall, the most frequented ledge set up like a patio while the largest ledge services the Weyrleaders' complex, directly beside the huge entrance to the hatching sands. A more human-sized entrance, left of that, leads to the galleries.
----


Perhaps it's a good thing that it's in the middle of the day when Rhaelyn finds that her Amareth is lounging out in a patch of sun. Alone, which isn't typical for the usually social little dragon. "Everyone leave you? Well, it's just as well, we should get going to Crom." Crossing over to the green who doesn't even lift her head, Rhae squints at her lifemate. "Well...? C'mon, get up."

It's late enough in the day that Glacier has been released from wing duties, but early enough that Taikrin hasn't yet started on her daily dose of booze. She appears perfectly (sadly) sober as she swings down off Szadath's back to squint at the sky. "Y'reckon the weather's alright down at Southern, too?" she asks of the brown, who doesn't appear to acknowledge her. Rather, Szadath is focused with razor-sharp intensity on where Amareth lounges a couple dragon-lengths away. The fact that his eyes are whirling red-green-yellow doesn't seem at all alarming to Taikrin, who perhaps has gotten used to the brown's unsettled state after so long. Rather than call him on it, she elbows him in the neck and asks, again, "Did you /ask/ someone down there?"

As the brown arrives, Amareth makes her first movement so far, a little ripple through her neck as it arches and then a delicate stretch from her forelegs. She's keen on watching Szadath while coiling her tail up around her haunches, making a corkscrew of her tail as though to protect her backside from prying eyes. She's all but ignored her rider until Rhae slaps the green's shoulder with her gloves. Amareth's whirling amber gaze shifts from her wary watch of the landing dragon onto her rider and she hisses darkly at Rhae. "Oh, that's un.called.for." Rhaelyn breaths, putting hands on her hips. "You can just get your ass up." A thick gasp for whatever retort is given, "Oh, you little -bitch-."

"Well, did you ask /Sforzath/ if Riorde is getting her ass... down... here?" Taikrin's demand all of a sudden trails off into uncertainty; she's finally noticed where Szadath's attention has gone, and doesn't seem all to pleased with it. "Yeah, I reckon Amareth looks okay, but you can't--" Her lips clamp together, and she scowls across the bowl at the green and her rider. "You stay here!" she demands sharply over her shoulder as she strides over towards Rhaelyn to ask abruptly, "Are you two leaving?"

Maybe it's Szadath, or maybe intuition, or maybe just timing. Sforzath wings down to the bowl, presumably from his ledge, and Riorde, all freshly bathed, swings down calling a sing-songy, "Oh Taiii-krin!"

There's a long moment of crackling silence as woman and dragon lock eyes. One can only imagine that volumes being screamed back and forth from the way Rhae's shoulders slowly inch towards her ears and the redder her face becomes. It's only when Taikrin voices her question that Rhae whirls on the brownrider, "I -would- be flying off to Crom for a very important date, but this cow won't get her fat ass off the ground. I don't know what's gotten into her." And the green doesn't exactly look glowy, that dark hide apparently masks things real good. Rhae's mood doesn't improve as Szadath lands. Amarethh though, she trills brightly and suddenly scoots to her feet all gracefully. "We're out of here..." But even as Rhae goes to reach for the straps to pull herself up, the green springs into the air.

As Riorde arrives, Taikrin glances over her shoulder and waves a hand, but then she's glaring back at Rhaelyn and insisting, "Well you better-- oh. Fuck." No sooner does Amareth take off into the air than Szadath, who had been growling bloody murder at the arriving brown, leaps up into the air right after her with a furious bellow. Pale and strident, Taikrin demands of Rhaelyn, "What the flaming shells d'you think you're doing? You can't be here!" Anger -- and something else -- thickens Taikrin's Cromian accent perceptibly. "Riorde!"

That playful cheer of Riorde's disappears abruptly, gaze hardening and sharpening as she looks beyond Taikrin to Rhaelyn and her now departing green. When she speaks again, it's wary. "Taikrin?" Sforzath, behind his rider, is caught in the eerie sort of still suspense that gathers in the moment right before something /happens/ -- and then suddenly there he goes too, exploding into the air.

Rhaelyn stumbles back as she just barely avoids getting knocked by the green's swift departure. Screaming out a shrill volley of vulgarities after the green, Rhaelyn glares in the direction her lifemate is taking. "Tell him to stop bothering her Taikrin! This is your fault!" But Riorde isn't spared from the daggers in the greenrider's eyes when Sforzath joins in the chase, "You make them stop! I have plans!" Amareth slows once she's in the air, letting both browns match her speed, angling towards one and then the other. Then she drops from the sky. Her landing in the feeding pens is sudden, the landing hard but sure, taking a beast down with a tangle of claws, limbs and wings. The scream from the green as she tears into the beast's belly gives Rhae a shudder. "...a...." The greenrider's expression is suddenly void, mouth falling open, eyes vacant.

"Riorde." There's a world of meaning in the way Taikrin says the brownrider's name, made all the more urgent by how she's reaching out to grip Riorde's forearm. Fear, resignation, helplessness, and a bleedover of excitement from Szadath make a heady combination, one that has sweat beading on her forehead despite the chill in the air. "I can't make him stop." There's little that could stop Szadath at this point in the game, at any case. He's hot on Amareth's heels, bellowing challenges both vocally and in the blizzard-swirled fury of his mind. Blooding is an afterthought, something that happens automatically: not once does his gaze leave the dark green's form.

"You can't go anywhere," Riorde tells Rhaelyn, a rather disgusted, condescending snap at odds with the way that she's started to stare at her clutchmate. "Didn't you pay attention to /anything/ in weyrlinghood? You can't go anywhere when she's like this." Riorde finally pulls her attention off then greenrider, helped by the pressure on her arm. "It's okay," she tells Taikrin, trying to make it sound like it really is, except it's /Rhaelyn/, and this mostly makes her sound pissy. Sforzath simmers with energy too of another sort as he settles in a crouch, watching. And encouraging, with that incense-and-smoke tone of his thick and heavy: << Yes, like /that./ >>

That vacant, void look on Rhae's features stays there, not seeming to hear or see the pair of women as she slowly sways from side to side in the wake of her suddenly proody dragon's passion. Despite this, because of it perhaps, she's saying something to Amareth through their link because even as the green's narrow muzzle starts to angle towards the steaming insides of the kill, she's stopped. Or, she stops. A raw, furious scream of anger tears from the dragon's throat at being denied food and instead goes for the throat to partake of blood only. As the blood flows, Rhaelyn's eyes close and open, ever so slowly. Everything is different now. "You'll never catch us." Suddenly coy, with a sultry look through her lashes at the pair of brownriders. One shoulder lifts towards her chin as she purses her lips in a slutty pucker. "Never...catch...us...." Amareth screaming and weaving in the feeding pens, wings flicking open and closed, trying to trick the males to take to the air before her. She fakes a turn and suddenly leaps into the air going left when she'd been angled to the right for her takeoff. Trickery!

Taikrin wavers in and out of the pull of Szadath's focus, which only serves to make her look kind of sick. Her grip on Riorde's arm tightens, and the brownrider pulls in closer, possessive despite the way her glazed eyes are staring at Rhaelyn. "We should-- we should go," she manages to grind out in a voice made husky. She swallows convulsively, swiping her free hand across her forehead. "Need to be-- not here." Szadath false-starts, but only once; when Amareth finally does dart into the air he's ready for business. He shoulderchecks a blue would-be pursuer, bouncing off his slighter frame to correct his angle of pursuit. There are no words here within him, only a steady pulse through his mind of: mine, mine, mine.

At one of those feints, Riorde's brown takes the bait only to have to double back mid-air. It could be worse--he's nimble, for a brown--but still there's ground to be made up, and /Szadath/ up ahead. Riorde's mood does not improve. "Fuck it Sforzath, you're /smarter/ than that." Taikrin's hand on her arm keeps her grounded enough to voice this; Riorde hasn't entirely disappeared into her dragon, and as she's brought in close beside the other brownrider, Ri even drags her eyes off Rhaelyn for a split-second. "It's fine, you're fine, let's go somewhere--" And it's her turn to pull at Taikrin while hissing, "/Rhaelyn./ Move your ass."

Impishly, the green makes her way into the air at her own pace. Fast for certain, but playing at a sore wing, angling close to a big bronze and lashing his muzzle with the whip thin length of her tail and then barrel-rolling out of his clutches as he fumbles to tangle with her. The roll drops her through the air with a sigh of fluttering wings until she pulls up at the last moment, causing a puff of dust to swirl at the far end of the bowl. Now, of course, she has to angle up through a cloud of males all making their attempts at her dark, sleek form. With talons out and jaws agape, the green plows through the center mass, scratching, clawing and biting anything in her way. There's a pretty pout for the two women making their departure away from her, "No...that's not the way of it....I don't chase -you-." The greenrider's laugh is merry, her smile vapid as she turns and walks in the other direction, hips swish-swishing.

"/Shit/, Szadath, don't--" Whatever Taikrin had been imploring the brown is lost as her feet start moving of their own volition in pursuit of Rhaelyn. Never once does she let go of Riorde's arm, though she might well topple the other woman over when she stops halfway across the bowl to hunch over. "/Fuck/, I'm gonna be /sick/." Even so, pale and mouth pinched and half curled around herself, she can't fight the pull that's dragging her, step-by-step, after Rhaelyn. Szadath's flight falters, and suddenly he finds himself in the midst of the pack. There is advantage to be had even here, though: he gives voice to his rage with another bellow and lashes out at a pair of blues jostling too close -- violence to match Amareth's violence. And then he's /through/ and chasing again, heedless of the ichor on his talons and the long scratch down his own flank.

"Fucking Rhaelyn." Riorde, exasperated, doesn't keep her voice down. "She's such a fucking /bitch./ Wrong way!" she yells after the greenrider, stumbling when she's caught unawares and pulled in the opposite direction. "No, you're okay, you're okay--" Riorde keeps repeating this, voice lowered in the attempt to sound supportive. Mostly, though, she just sounds tense, unable to put her hand on Taikrin's back when the brownrider doubles over-- that's the arm Taikrin's got --and so crowding in against her side instead. "You're okay, come on." The lack of attention she's giving to the flight itself isn't helping Sforzath in the slightest. His focus, already off, has yet to recover. He tries to power ahead and into the pack, but misjudges a gap and is suddenly swinging wide to avoid a set of talons.

Rhaelyn's laugh is playful, even taunting as she flashes a wink over a shoulder, "Don't be such a fussy-butt. C'mooon." Then she's jogging across the bowl towards the inner caverns. "Never catch meeee'iiieee" Floats back towards the other riders as she ducks away from a slack-jawed bluerider in her way. In the sky, Amareth trumpets a challenge to her males as she spirals up and up and up away from the bulk of the chasers. Her thoughts are of the passion and desire and hunger for this flight and her escape.
----


'''Storerooms, High Reaches Weyr

''Massive in scale, the Weyr's main storage passage connects to the kitchen on one end and the outbound tunnel on the other. Large enough to admit a wagon laden with goods, the tunnel easily permits the unloading and organization of supplies into the various storerooms.

''Branching off from this corridor are multiple caverns, the nearer two being 'open' stores from which residents can readily help themselves, while the deeper stores are kept locked up tight with a posted sign and inventory hung on a hook outside of each. An alcove next to the public stores serves as a catch-all area for reshelving items whose destination is uncertain; two sets of stone shelving and several bins hold these items neatly until a stores assistant has a moment to deal with them.

''Though the storage caverns vary in size, shape, and the smoothness of their walls, all belong to the same system: whitewashed walls, swept floors, and most importantly, neatly labeled and inventoried shelves providing ample space to stow all the supplies a busy Weyr needs. Though there's no direct internal lighting, a glowbasket may be brought in from the niche outsde each cavern, the better to ward off pests and the inky dark of deep caves.
----


They must make quite a sight, passing through the living caverns: the taunting greenrider, and a pair of brownriders who look like they could be drunk -- or hung over, in Taikrin's case, with her grim expression and sweaty pale features. But she does manage to pull herself together enough to make it to the storage caverns, even if it doesn't really register that they're /in the storeroom/. Instinct demand she call after Rhaelyn, "Get your ass BACK HERE," just as instinct has her loosening her grip on Riorde's arm. Szadath, now with relatively clear airspace, pushes forward again with a sprinter's force; he's screaming his anger for all to hear, and so /help/ the other males who try to get in his way.

"What the hell is this," Riorde demands, lost somewhere in the caverns -- where those the /kitchens/ they went through? "What the hell, Rhaelyn?" Riorde, contained thus far to helping Taikrin along and making sure she doesn't keel over between here and there, lets loose with clear annoyance. Sforzath reflects it; he's desperately trying to get back in the game, swerving and veering and angling for advantage that he just can't seem to find.

Sure, this might come back to bite Rhae later on, but right now, she's just trying to lead her would-be-suitors on a merry chase, lost in Amareth's headspace. "MMmm..." She lounges back against one of the crates, smoothing hands along her sides and down her hips, "Oh dear...seems there's no way out for me." When she tries to focus on Riorde, it's almost comical, the way her head tips to one side and the slow, hungry look that she gives the other woman, "What?" Ever so innocent, utterly clueless that she might be doing something wrong. "Why don't you get your hands off'a her?" Poking out her lower lip in an honest pout, but her dragon's emotions are in the driver's seat. Up in the sky, Amareth's upward spiral is taking a toll on the young dragon's wings. As the air thins, so her speed dulls and every pull of wings is a struggle, but she's not done yet, not going to let that blue right on her tail get her. But others are closing in around her, giving her little room to escape as her strength fades.

Caught up in the game, /finally/, Taikrin smokily demands of Rhaelyn, "Why, where do /you/ want my hands?" Somehow she's managed not to be ill in that madcap dash, but she also hasn't quite managed to relinquish physical contact with Riorde, either. It keeps her grounded against the way she's being pulled into Szadath whether she likes it or not. Viciousness incarnate, each outgust of breath is accompanied by an abbreviated version of his bellow. He's reaching first not for Amareth but that blue who's so hot on her tail; claws sink into the bright blue hide, and with a tug Szadath is pushing past the startled dragon to make his own pass at Amareth. "I-- I-- /shit/." So much for that window of familiar flirtatiousness: Taikrin is looking /really/ out of sorts now.

In another moment with clearer heads, it might be funny the way Riorde unconsciously mimics Taikrin: "Why, do you want my hands on you?" Her annoyance cuts out immediately. Lacking any etiquette whatsoever, Riorde tries to shake loose of the other brownrider and step towards Rhaelyn with the intention of following through; as concerned as she may have been about Taikrin, now, with the question posed, the baser instincts shoved down surge to the fore. /Finally/ -- unrepressed, Sforzath finds his edge. The way he slides past another brown is all finesse, but the way he rakes him in the process, that's just underhanded.

There's no response to either women as they take the bait. Instead, she's struggling to catch her breath, much like the tired, flight-weary Amareth. The hands that had been slipping seductively over her body crawl up to her throat as the greenrider sees through her dragon. Trapped all around by brown and blue and a twinkle of bronze bellow. "....wait....it's not over yet...." the words are spoken in a whimper, trembling through the huff and gasp of her breath. Amareth's wing beats come slower, struggling now and her attention splintered as she looks around for a path of escape. Blue wings obscure the left suddenly and she cups her wings to her side to make a dive, only to find herself slamming into Sforzath. The impact is hard enough to make her bark out in pain as she avoids getting tangled, but the change of direction angles her directly into Szadath's airspace. Tired wings fail to respond quick enough and again her body is colliding into the older brown with little chance of slipping free this time.

If this was a romance story, Taikrin would cling to Riorde, would beg her not to leave, would declaim her undying love with the last ounce of willpower... but Taikrin is no romantic and this is no story. With Szadath twisting mid-air to greedily grasp at Amareth, Taikrin is lost to all sensibility. She shoulder-checks Riorde without seeming to have any idea of who it is she's blowing past, barking harshly, "MINE!" She still looks pale and sweaty, and maybe her arms are shaking, but she's also, for this moment, ninety percent Szadath and Szadath demands /now/ /now/ /now/ that she reach out and bend Rhaelyn against her body much like the brown is doing with her lifemate.

Almost, almost. The impact forces Sforzath out in the opposite direction rather than into Amareth, and while he tries to counterbalance and reach for the green, she's falling away before he can complete the maneuver and then gone. Riorde's stumble isn't entirely caused by the way Taikrin blows by her. "Aw, /fuck/," she gets out, catching herself on a storage carton, and glares at both of them for a moment, right hand forming into a fist with half an intent to send slamming into one of them (but which one?) before she controls herself, whirls around, and disappears.

Riorde has left.

The greenrider gasps and cries out in the shared pain of that too close bond with her lifemate ping-ponging between the males. "Noooo! Nooo...." Like Amareth, she struggles in Taikrin's hold, twisting and resisting. Up until Szadath /has/ her...truly has her caught and captured. Breathless and trembling, Rhae goes slack in the brownrider's hold, even going so far as to press and rub back against her thanks to the flood of desire and pleasure her dragon is enjoying.

There's pure instinct at operation here: Taikrin is merely an avatar for Szadath's needs at this point. Her hands, tearing at Rhaelyn's clothes, are /demanding/, and when she forces the slighter woman to bend for a kiss, it's /rough/. Perhaps it's not how Rhaelyn might have imagined her first flight -- being pressed up against a splintery crate while being ravished by an insensible older woman, an insensible /Taikrin/. But, when she's operating on instinct like this, without time to dwell on all the subconscious feelings that left her in such a state, Taikrin is very, very good at this post-flight business. Maybe it's not a total loss?

Where Taikrin is a good and thoughtful lover, Rhae is on the other side of the spectrum. Not only awkward and clumsy but not particularly generous with returning favors. Perhaps the haze of flight-lusts will mask some, or all of that for Taikrin. Perhaps the dragon's enjoyment of the event will bleed over into the pure awfulness that is Rhae-love'n. It's certainly short lived. The dragon's have hardly settled onto the bowl before Rhae is coming 'to' and reaching for her clothes. "You can go...." Trying to untangle from the body as well as from her dragon's mind.

Taikrin is far slower to come back to herself, and still pretty clearly dazed in the aftermath -- it must have been good /enough/, whatever the greenrider's talents. When Rhaelyn moves to leave, Taikrin reaches out blindly to pull her back down. "Hang on a minute, Ri, what's the rush?" It's entirely possible she doesn't even realize who she's talking to, because the way she's pressing up against the greenrider's back and kissing her neck has the feel of something... intimate. Personal, even.

The only protection against the offensive physical attention is the cloak herself in that Rhae-chill. Stomach flip-flopping in response to that forced intimacy. "Get -OFF- me." Giving a firm push to Taikrin's shoulder and wrenching away with a shudder, "Go run to Ri if you want to...finish up." Another attempt to free herself, more forceful this time. In the bowl, Amareth doesn't have the same interest in getting away, even as her connection with her rider returns to normal.

At first, there's confusion: "The 'shells?" and then, dawning realization and horror: "The /fuck/?!" It all seems to crash down on Taikrin in the moment when she's pushed into the crate by Rhaelyn: Szadath's smug assurances to Amareth of, << Hey, that was great. You're pretty good at that, hot stuff. We should do it again some time>>, the filthy storeroom, the lack of her girlfriend, /Rhaelyn/... the trembling returns, full-force, and suddenly Taikrin finds herself on her hands and knees on the stone floor, buck-naked and pale, sicking up the remainder of her lunch.

Getting dressed is more important than paying Taikrin any attention. Particularly at the sound of vomiting. Instead Rhae is up and pulling her clothes in prim, icy detachment. As the last few buttons of her tunic are fastened, she turns back to give Taikrin a haughty look. "You are disgusting. Pathetic. Just /wait/ until I tell your wingmates how you handled yourself." Amareth gives a nuzzle to the brown, << You should not have let the others get to close to me. Next time, you will do better. >> Because that's what the flight is all about right? Flying fast and the best.

Now that the heat of the moment has passed, Szadath has no compunctions against crowing of his superiority long and loud. << Had to make it more interesting for them. Next time I won't let them even dream of having a chance. >> Taikrin's moment of illness is mercifully short, though the cook has to clean up /this/ mess isn't going to be super pleased. "Fuck off," Taikrin growls harshly form around the hand she's swiping her mouth with. "I'm fine. Too much to drink. Wasn't expecting /you/." Too bad she doesn't smell like she has a breath of alcohol on her. "Where's Riorde?"

There's a smirk for Taikrin and Rhae tosses over an old rag for her to wipe up with. "Riorde ran off with her tail between her legs because she didn't want to watch you fucking me. I mean...you /did/ fuck me. Wow, how is that going to work out for the two of you? Just a flight right? Couldn't control things?" She gives a shrug of her shoulders and smiles before turning, making a stroll for the door.

Still disoriented, Taikrin's first attempt at putting her shirt on has it not only backwards but with her head coming out the arm sleeve of her tanktop; not her finest moment. "Fuck off," she repeats, a little more coherence in her voice. "Just a flight. We came /together/." As if they totally planned it that way. Uh-huh. Still, it'll be several more minutes at the least before Taikrin can put herself together enough to be seen in public.



}}