Diving Cliff, High Reaches Weyr
Thrusting out from the shadow of the mountain, this long and narrow clifftop might once have been a ledge, but a pile of bramble-strewn, graffiti-chiseled boulders where a weyr's mouth would have been suggests a reason for its abandonment long ago. Though its views of the eastern bowl are grand, particularly the lake itself and the yawning air entrance to the hatching sands, its location makes the diving cliff unique: jutting some ten or twelve feet above the deepest part of the cool, clear lake.
Especially in summertime, many climb up the narrow stairs to seek the thrill of a swift fall into the water, but those who just want to enjoy the view can take those same stairs back down: carved directly into the bowl wall, worn and crumbling and slick from use, but enough for the careful to get the job done.
With night falling and the temperature dropping, the fog that lingered throughout the day is growing thick again, a cloud descended from the sky to shroud the Weyr in a blanket of gray moisture. From the diving ledge, there is no lake, no bowl, just the glimmering hint of lights far away, wavering dimly from the Weyr's walls and the caverns held within. Everything is hidden and foreign and that is, very likely, the exact reason why Oswinth and Vienne have chosen to linger outside tonight. Together, they're staring at the otherworldliness of familiar surroundings, the small woman moderately bundled and leaning against her lifemate's blue shoulder.
In foggy night air, Arekoth is « Invisible! », broad wings tilting one way to send him veering left, the other way, veering right, fanning wide and slowing his descent. Arekoth wants that cliff, there's no doubt in it, the focus of his eyes, the circling that sets that point squarely in its middle. And whatever argument there is, the brown is headstrong enough to swoop low, to barely miss, « Oswinth! » and to grab scramble for the edge with talons. H'kon... is just holding on at this point, and looking more than exasperated. Maybe one can't see that in the fog though.
Nearly invisible, at least, though there's definitely a swirling shape in the fog, the wind of great dragon wings blowing clear currents into the vaporous air. And even without the nebulous movement, Oswinth knows Arekoth is there. « Careful, » he warns rather quietly, lest he interrupt the brown's good time. However, when it becomes more likely that the landing is not going to go well, the blue wraps himself suddenly around Vienne to sheild her as best he can from impending doom. « Careful! » this time with more insistence, particularly with all the scrabbling talons. Vienne is thus very hidden, but her yelp of surprise makes it perfectly clear that she's there.
Arekoth manages grip, manages some form of balance after much attempting, and hops back until he's got three feet firmly planted. The lifting of that fourth, front leg might just be habit, and not actual hurt. H'kon's response is low, but sharp enough that at least, "incorrigible!" might drift even through the protection of Oswinth to Vienne's ears. H'kon does not dismount thereafter. No, he stays brooding on his dragon, gripping his straps tightly as Arekoth sorts his wings out. « You guys were fine all that time. »
Oswinth is very slow to uncoil from around his lifemate and there's definitely something chilly in his silence. It's all fun and games until his Vienne is in some kind of danger, real or imagined. The bluerider, however, is quicker to fight her way past limb and wing. "I'm fine," she reassures her dragon, stepping free to peek around Oswinth's chest toward their new ledgemates. "H'kon? Are you both okay?" she asks with eyes blinking wide in the fog and noting the way Arekoth favors his leg.
« We were fine all that time as well, » Arekoth assures Oswinth, far too much placation in his voice. H'kon stays on his dragon. Stays frowning. "Quite fine," is a curt reassurance for the bluerider. Finally, the brownrider begins to unclamp his hands from around those straps, one hand at a time, finger by finger. Arekoth settles the more, even takes up an indolent sort of stance, and finally settles that twisted front leg to the ground.
It's hard for Vienne's ears to tell if that clipped reply is a symptom of adreneline recovery or just H'kon's usual warm, sunny disposition, and so she says nothing more, but rather turns to gather Oswinth's head toward her, attempting to sooth his worry with murmurs and strokes, his snout bumped against her chest. He's still not talking to Arekoth either, though his silence is much less pointed now as Vienne's gentle reassurances seem to do the trick. Finally he admits, « I'm glad you're all right. »
The 'of course you are' is conveyed more in that look, the tone of that look, that Arekoth gives to Oswinth. There aren't any actual words, though. H'kon's relaxation, such as it is, seems to end with the unclenching of his hands. He's still sat up on Arekoth's neck, and it's from there that he peers through the fog toward Vienne. "We're disturbing you," will have its sound redirected halfway through, said almost apologetically at first while he's looking to Vienne, and taking on an accusing tone when he turns to his dragon.
H'kon's voice makes Vienne look up again with a start, "What? Oh, no. No, you're not," she says, the tone of soft comforting still lingering in her tone from whatever nearly-silent conversation she's just had with Oswinth. The blue turns his head now to watch the brown pair, uneasy but unobtrusive as he waits. "You can... come down. If you want." Her lips press hard together for a beat and she glances out toward the cloudy nothing with its ghostly shapes and hints of refracted light. "We were just enjoying the view," she explains without irony.
"Down was the original intent," H'kon states flatly, again more to Arekoth than anything. The brown ruffles his wings, settles them down once more, and makes a point of turning his attention to the non-view afforded by the fog in the air. "Being a father has made him willful," comes without any of the hesitation that might be expected. It's the tone of public shaming. (As if that'd ever work on Arekoth.)
"He wasn't willful before?" Vienne wonders with brows lifted high. The wave of a hand through the air attempts fruitlessly to clear some of the mist from in front of her face. "You described him as being, well... indescribably himself. I thought it might be implied." And lest he feel like he's being talked about as though he isn't present, she smiles to the Arekoth rather encouragingly, as if he needs that. Meanwhile, Oswinth lowers his head behind Vienne's shoulder and whatever he communicates, she feels the need to shush him with quick reprimand of a look.
H'kon simply snorts, and takes a (much lighter) hold of his riding straps again. This time, there is a degree of hesitation before the brownrider is willing to explain, "He's trying to prove a point." « Proven, » is provided for Oswinth, as if they were old drinking buddies, as if that blue had the same stake in Arekoth's being (so obviously) right as the brown himself. As if.
"What point is that?" Vienne has to wonder, especially given how nearly-not-well the landing went. She backs up against Oswinth's shoulder, to lean with her feet together in front of her, hands tucked behind against the blue hide. And the blue, for his rather more full understanding of the conversation, lets his buzzing static hitch and blink, like maybe he's amused by this old-drinking-buddy commentary. Uncertain, but amused.
"A wrong one," H'kon answers, voice almost flat, but for that one little ripple... the amusement of a returned jibe? The verge of a burp? There's no elaboration, at any rate, and H'kon sets to staring forward, much as Arekoth is still insisting upon doing. « See how he protests. » "There is nothing but fog tonight," is offered up as some sort of dismissal, likely of the most recent topic.
Vienne smiles rather awkwardly, likely because there's that possible-burp sound from the man still astride his dragon. « I do see, » comes Oswinth's agreement, even if it's largely just to be polite. But the small woman is glancing off again, back toward said fog. "I like it. I feel like I don't quite know where I am. Like I could be anywhere. It's so thick." Oswinth probably means to wuffle affectionately at his lifemate's otherworldly musing, but in actually it just blows her hair into her face and Vienne's hand comes up to try to smooth it back down again.
H'kon takes some time to chew that over, to chew his lip as well, looking out into the fog. "High Reaches in the fog is still High Reaches," he decides at length. And it's there, on that solemn, almost despondent tone that Arekoth's stance changes, weight balanced forward, wings prepping.
"Yes, but, it could be somewhere else. Or it could be what it looks like in dreams only instead of faintly remembering it, you can stare and study." But Vienne is roused from her quiet reverie by Arekoth's body language, the suggestion that the pair will be moving on. She draws a long breath and sinks her teeth into her lip as she looks back to them. "Would you like to have dinner sometime?" she asks rather suddenly. "With me." Those kinds of specific seems to be required.
"Could it," is not the sound of a man convinced, but the look H'kon gives Vienne - even as he, too, is beginning to make preparations, an unconscious synchronisation from so many years of riding - is not outright contrary. Any speculation is short-lived, if nothing else cut off by her comment, which brings a widening of the brownrider's eyes. He releases those straps again, this time to tug at the cuffs of either glove, securing his hands' place in them. "Dinner?"
"Yeah," Vienne says, sounding a bit more hesitant now that the initial invitation is out. "You know, where people sit together and eat." And usually those people talk, but she's not going to use that as a means to sell the idea. She presses back against Oswinth, hands flat against his side as she blinks up at H'kon. "Dinner." Just in case that wasn't clear.
H'kon's brow takes on a crease for her explanation, his gaze just so sharp and hawkish as his dragon's now, watching that bluerider. There's a hint of glow, more light than any particular colour, that spills off of Arekoth at about the same time as H'kon gives a wary frown. "And would that be all?"
"What... else..." Vienne's own brow creases, though her is more in flustered confusion than that sharp, stern gaze that's resting on her while her eyes dart off to one side. "I mean, we could talk, if you wanted." Because surely that's the prospect that has him looking so wary. "But we wouldn't have to." She presses a wry smile onto the edge of her lips when she looks back at him, but it doesn't last long and she steadies herself to wait again without saying any more.
Gloves neatly adjusted, H'kon reaches again to trace along those riding straps. Arekoth's wings surely move by way of restlessness, and not commentary. Although the brown seems quite content to sit and watch all this unfold. "I only would not have you misjudge any intentions." His forehead gets another one of those lines. "Nor do I mean to misread yours." That stare is getting more pointed.
Vienne pauses in such a way that it's possible she has to take a moment to understand how dinner has intentions. But... she's not all that daft, and the result is a little laugh, even if she's not quite able to meet that hard, hard gaze. "No, just... dinner. I don't have any intentions," she says, finally managing to look up at him again. It's all just a bit unfair that he should not only look at her like that, but from such an advantage of height. "I just mean dinner." Apparently she also means have a new habit of repeating herself. Oswinth, behind her, hangs his head a little sheepishly for whatever reason.
An easing of posture and demeanour might be expected, maybe. But H'kon just stays sat as he is, giving his head one, quick nod. "I do not always eat with Avalanche," is sort of like agreement. « Maybe we should go hunting together sometime too, » is made too bright by dancing colours to be fully earnest. Arekoth's teasing is enough to bring a redness creeping up H'kon's neck, and it's a grimace that is offered in Vienne's general direction next, if not rightly to her - or, even, to poor Oswinth.
Poor Oswinth, indeed, since he doesn't get the joke and answers with confused acceptance. « If... you like? » Though the hiccups in his buzz are plenty of reason to believe he considers his dining to be a solitary experience. It's another beat before he can explain his uneasiness to Vienne, and then she stares up at H'kon's grimace, at Arekoth, and back up again. "He's making fun of me," she figures out, a touch more astute about such things than her lifemate. And now, whether he wears a blushing grimace or not, she looks up at H'kon like he's an accomplice. Her brow furrows, she swallows, and she turns back toward Oswinth to climb up to his shoulder as the blue makes preparations to leave that are a good deal more swift than his brown counterpart's have been.
The flush manages to move from his neck up to his ears. "He is," is agreed through clenched teeth. Louder, when their preparations begin, is a fast, "My dragon is an ass," harsh in its honesty at least. "I am sorry," is more quiet, if not less vehement. And that brown... makes no sign of echoing H'kon's apologies.
"It's okay," Vienne says without looking at either of them as she settles onto Oswinth's neck. "Please forget I asked. I'm sure you have an endless number of friends who would like to have dinner with you." That's when she does look at him, the cool sideways glance that does not at all match the lightness of her voice. Oswinth jerks himself into a take off before she even has a chance to look forward again. « Proven, » he finishes without any humor.
And with the fog to swallow up that blue pair so soon after they've lifted off, H'kon and Arekoth are all too quickly left alone, the brown terribly pleased with himself, the brown's rider bearing at least three forehead lines of consternation. Even when they do take off, their argument will seem isolated and immobile, as much for the weather as anything else.
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