Difference between revisions of "Logs:You'll Be Fine"

Warm sunshine-y mornings and baby dragons. Some of those baby dragons want to go exploring, and while a weyrlingmaster keeps strict watch on those right outside the weyrling barracks, Sforzath has decided to wander a little farther. Riorde, not knowing any better, let him. Now he's clonked out on the ground, while Riorde helplessly stands watch so bigger dragons don't step on him. He's too big for her to carry-- she tried that.

Far up above, Szadath circles like a carrion bird hunting for prey. He spirals around and around, loosely, until at once he switches from vulture to hawk and stoops into a break-neck dive. At least it seems well-controlled: he threatens to squish neither weyrling, though it might look as though he's on that trajectory at first. Rather, he just subjects them to the wind and dust stirred up by his passage, rumbling his pleasure at his own maneuvers while Taikrin swings down in hasty movements. "/Riorde/!"

Riorde's slow to react, half-asleep in that struggle to differentiate between herself and Sforzath. She tilts her face up, watching the progress of the brown overhead without recognition until he's close enough for her to distinguish what rider it is, one of the few she recognises on sight. "Don't--" she starts up, blinking against the dust. She doesn't really think either she or her sprawled-out little brown are going to be squished, though, and as Szadath settles she drops her hand and calls back more moderately, "Morning."

Alarm, at first: "Is he al--" before Taikrin gets that glazed-eye look then glares at Szadath. "Y'could'a told me he ain't even awake to see." Szadath, unrepentent, rumbles forward to peer curiously down at his new little brother, leaving Taikrin to scramble along at his shoulder. Where there might have been a kiss or a hug or -- Faranth forbid, groping! -- there's no only an awkward smile. "'Mornin'. How's--" She struggles for the proper word, then comes up lamely with, "-- life?"

"He fell asleep," Riorde says unnecessarily, in a weaker way than she normally has. "I didn't know what to do. They said to just stay and wait." She beats back a yawn and raises her hand first to shield it, then to comb through messy hair. She hasn't bathed recently. Riorde takes her cues more from Taikrin than from warnings and lessons she's heard repeated but may have tuned out, and stands guard over Sforzath, unsure of how to address Taikrin, whether to approach her. Her answer is a bit slow in coming; Riorde doesn't know what to say. "Um. Different."

"Y'can't just... pick him up and take him inside?" Looking at Sforzath is easier than looking at Riorde, so that's what Taikrin will do. She crouches down by the little dragon, though she refrains from touching. "Little thing like him can't weigh too much. Cute, though." She turns to glance up at Szadath, a more genuine smile twisting her lips, before she returns her attention to Riorde. "Impossible to explain, ain't it? Havin' him with you all of a sudden, like that? You adjustin' okay?"

"I tried. He's hard to pick up, with those wings..." Riorde looks down, gaze sliding off Taikrin, and considers the dragon at her feet instead. "I didn't want to hurt them. And he's heavier than he looks." Sforzath isn't even stirring, deep in a slumber that makes Riorde's own eyelids droop. She discreetly pinches herself, arms crossed over her chest. "I'm okay," she says, a stock answer that thinly covers the fact that she hasn't really thought about what happened a few days past or what it means.

"And he's tougher than he looks, I reckon." Taikrin rocks back on her heels, arms resting on her knees, to consider the little brown. "I think I managed to carry Szadath around for... a coupl'a sevens, at least. Until he got too shardin' long to manage, anyways. Don't ever be afraid of hurtin' him. You won't. They're strong." The bigger brown, disgruntled that his mere presence hasn't inspired his little brother into awakening, sits back with a flump. "You sleepin' okay? Eating? It's important, you know." She's trying, very hard, to be friendly without being distant -- and it mostly comes across as mothering, which is something she's quite bad it. "Gotta be strong, so he can be strong."

Riorde looks at Taikrin doubtfully, repeating, "I won't? He already got in a scrape with Elgin's brown-- I forget his name. There's too many to remember. I hit Elgin for it." She relates all of this almost as if it happened to another person, not her. "I'm okay," she repeats in much the same tone. Riorde looks at Sforzath for one long moment, then reaches out to try and touch Taikrin's shoulder. "Thanks. I didn't really know what it was-- I still don't-- but thanks. I'm glad."

"/A scrape/," the brownrider repeats doubtfully; from her angle, she either can't see or hasn't noticed the carnage. "And you-- you hit Elgin." Not that she entirely knows who Elgin is, but she must have gathered. "Faranth, Riorde." The new weyrling's hand is covered with her own, but then Taikrin is standing up and moving to wrap the slighter girl into a real, honest-to-goodness hug. "It'll be okay. But I think you're gonna give Meara more of a heartattack than I did."

"He's fine." Riorde is quick in her assurance; she's said it many times since it happened, to herself reassuringly and to others defensively, in case her dragon-parenting skills have been called into question. She sags inside of Taikrin's hug, shoulders caving with relief from some unexpressed anxiety. "I don't mean to give anyone any heartattacks," she protests weakly.

Taikrin's body shakes with quiet laughter, and when she pulls back her face is full of wry amusement. "Don't reckon I did, either, but there it was. Once she figured I probably wasn't gonna stab anyone or steal their shit, it got-- better. Ended up in the special knots, too." Because apparently that should mean something to Riorde. "You'll be okay. You got him, now. And you got me; y'can always ask us anything. And-- you can have him talk to Szadath, if you need me. Ain't that a thing? You'll never get trapped in my weyr again." Her excitement about this is obvious in her bright eyes and tight grip on Riorde's shoulders. "You'll be fine."

It means nothing to Riorde, but by now she's learned to hide her ignorance behind an inexpressive facade. Her questions give her away, though. "And he'll know who Szadath is, just like that? He doesn't have to meet him first?" Her gaze keeps returning unwittingly to that baby dragon. "I'll be fine," she repeats, clearly trying to convince herself, followed by a slow, steady intake of breath. She doesn't have any of Taikrin's excitement, but her tired smile is real. "I'll be fine."

That question is something Taikrin has clearly never thought of; she glances towards Szadath again, a question on her face, then shrugs at the answer that comes back. "Apparently not. Szad just says that he'll know. Their minds work-- different. You'll see. If a dragon says he can, then... he can." Beat. "Well, a grown-up one, anyways." With a final squeeze, she releases Riorde's shoulders. "You want us to help you get him inside? Meara likely won't mind, if we're /helping/. Ain't nothing wrong with getting a little help."

"Yeah, they do," Riorde agrees, and this time it's shaded with real understanding. Not much -- there's still so much more to come -- but enough. "Would you? If you don't mind. I don't know how his wings go; I'm afraid I might rip one off or something." Taikrin's help is very welcome, and what Riorde doesn't put into words or is too out-of-it to express verbally, she incorporates into a smile.

"If you don't mind." It's apparently very important that Taikrin has Riorde's full permission on this, so much so that she emphasizes, "I can carry him, or help you get him wrapped around proper; he can't weigh any more'n a firestone sack. But-- they don't have you doing those, yet, do they?" She crouches back down to examine the brown, a hand hovering over his shoulder but not touching. "If he wakes up, you gotta keep him calm. He might be-- confused, okay? And he don't really know Szadath, yet."

"Of course it's fine." Riorde clearly doesn't understand the concept that it might not be. She nods, crouching down alongside Taikrin and trying to get her arms under Sforzath's front end, and directs Taikrin, "I don't know - if you can just take the back end and help me get him in my arms-- " With help, Riorde'll manage to get back. Sforzath's tired himself out to do much more than sleepily shift.

To a brownrider used to slinging around huge bags of rocks, the backend of one tiny little brown isn't such a hardship. "No problem. Ain't so bad, see?" And she's happy to help carry, with Szadath looming along after them -- just in case, you know.