Logs:Taikrin is Dangerous
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| RL Date: 20 July, 2011 |
| Who: F'reln, Rhaelyn |
| Type: [[Concept:{{{type}}}|{{{type}}}]] |
| What: F'reln is more than happy to regale Rhaelyn with stories of exactly how awful and dangerous Taikrin is. Taikrin should be flattered! |
| Where: Diving Cliff, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day {{{day}}}, Month {{{month}}}, Turn {{{turn}}} ({{{IP}}} {{{IP2}}}) |
| Weather: The sky is clear today. The air remains cool and damp, but the weather is overall pleasant today. |
| Mentions: Riorde/Mentions, Taikrin/Mentions, Teris/Mentions |
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| 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. F'reln's response to Rhaelyn's request was short and to the point: he told her to meet him at the diving cliff, just before sunset, on the seventeenth day of month four. It's now just about that time, and the brownrider can be found just where he said he would be, sitting atop one of the boulders that is just far enough back from the cliff-face that he's probably not visible below. He's not tall, not handsome: a stocky young man in his mid-twenties with brown hair and brown eyes. His expression is-- intense. The woman who climbs her way up the cliffs does so with the balanced steps of someone used to rougher landscapes. She wears a leather jacket, a simple leather cap and a crisp white scarf tied at her throat in a rather fashionable knot. Rhaelyn keeps her hands deep in her pockets and the jacket pulled in tight around her against the cold that comes with the setting sun. Since this man, this F'reln isn't familiar to her, she takes a guess that this man is who she needs. "F'reln?" "Rhaelyn." It would be hard for him to assume her to be anyone else, though his dark gaze flicks over her in a roughly thoughtful manner before he says anything else. He has the kind of voice that is best suited to talking loudly; he's having to work to keep it low, though for now, there's no one else around to hear them. "Why do you want to know about the convicts?" His eyebrows raise, his arms crossing in front of him; he seems cautious with her, as though he doesn't entirely trust her motives. Rhaelyn bobs her head in the affirmatitve, Rhaelyn she is. In turn, she's measuring him up, and it's not disapointment, as though she'd pictured his apperance and voice to match what is before her now. "Thank you for taking your time to speak with me." As for his question? Now she cracks a little smile, head shaking at the tone of distrust. "I am trying to get to the bottom of it. That is....if it's true that the weyr has criminals on dragons. Forgive me, I'm not familiar with these sorts of things. I heard you might be willing to share information with me." "It depends," says F'reln, not coolly, but with a certain amount of detachment, "on why you want to know. What use could that information possibly be to you?" There's something about his tone that suggests he's not yet sure if exiles are any better than convicts - though at least 'not being sure' doesn't mean he's written her off completely. Rhaelyn looks away, the smile melting away, "To be honest with you F'reln, I want to know who I have to be wary of and not turn a back to. Lots of candidates talk that dragonriders are rule-keepers and noble but then that's not exactly true if dragons pick out crooks." Another little shrug, a movement of shoulders under the thick leather jacket, "I have no 'use' for anything. But if I cross one of these people, am I going to be...gutted like a fish?" Yes, she allows the little shudder. There's more that she's not saying, but she's still testing F'reln out, as though she doesn't fully trust him either. Silence for a moment, presumably as F'reln digests this answer and weighs it up accordingly. And then he nods: short, sharp and firm, just like that. "Dragons pick who they pick," he says, finally. "If we knew how to make them pick the 'right' person, well, things would be different around here. It's our job to help upload law, true -- but that doesn't mean we're all noble." There's a sense, in that, that he certainly considers /himself/ to be noble. Dark eyes consider Rhaelyn for another moment, before he adds, "Two convicts, both of them former charges of mine, Impressed when I did. X'en is harmless; you can ignore him. Taikrin--" His gaze narrows. Rhaelyn's sharp eyes slowly trail back to F'reln, the gaze holds her own intensity, green with youth and inexperence but there. "That is a shame. A...disapointment." It's an honest feeling behind the words, even if her idea of noble might not fall into the same box as the dragonrider before her. She gives a nod of her head but the movement stops sharply when he mentions the name. "Taikrin--?" Her eyebrows lift as she tries to coax out more with the name in echo but turned into a question. "It is, isn't it," agrees F'reln, his smile a thin line unwavering. "We like to think of dragonriders as people we ought to live up to, and it's just not like that." Of Taikrin, he seems, at first, almost reluctant to speak. And yet, once he starts? "Taikrin is dangerous. She's violent, she has a temper, and if it were up to me, she'd be locked up for the rest of her life. She puts people at risk. If I were you? I'd stay well away from her. You wouldn't stand a chance." "When they brought us here," Rhaelyn begins quietly, "From our home, they made sure to tell us that dragonriders were good folks. People we could trust." And yes, she's not hiding that her trust has been violated, at least in tone if nothing else. At the news about the brownrider, her eyes widen, it's like opening a box with something horrible and terrifying wrapped up. "And you....you know this because you were in charge of her before she impressed?" She pushes hands deeper into her pockets, "What did she....did she do?" "I am sorry for that," says F'reln, a certain formality slipping in to his tone. "Most of us can be trusted; most of us want the best for you. But there are always those who don't uphold what they ought to." It doesn't really match the rest of his words, which are inclined towards the informal, the less polished, the rough and ready. "I was one of her guards, yeah. She got two turns hard labour in the mines for theft, and causing property damage in the brawl she caused trying to get away after she was caught. The turns since haven't exactly /softened/ her." Rhaelyn chews over her lower lip and then lifts a gloved hand to her lips to still the nervous action, not wanting to seem the child in the face of this news. "Thank you. For the apology I mean, even if you had no part in it." There's a small smile that peeks out from the hand still lingering at her mouth and she nods her head, understanding. "But she didn't harm anyone? Hasn't done that? Has she?" F'reln accepts Rhaelyn's thanks with nothing more than a nod of his head, and a distracted one at that. His fingers work their way between his arm and chest, worming into the warm place where leather meets leather. "Oh, she's harmed people. Has, and will again, I've no doubt of it." He pauses, taking a deep breath, before he explains, "When we were still weyrlings, Crom Hold held a skating party for turnover. We all went. There was a race-- a challenge. The ice cracked, and a bunch of us nearly got killed, but not /her/. She knew where it was thin, knew where to avoid. I /know/ she was behind it; I just /know/." Rhaelyn's eyes widen at this bit of trickery, "No." She gasps quietly, hand cupping over her mouth as she stares at the man and then past him, into the growing darkness. "She made it look....an accident." Slowly the hand is returned to the pocket, her expression troubled. "Another of the exiles. A childhood friend of mine....Taikrin has been at her.... her I think. I don't know that this girl aware of the trouble...the danger that she could be in." Her brows lower over her fierce eyes as she returns the gaze to the dragonrider. "I have caught Taikrin's attention. Her bad side. I don't know who to trust, or what...to do." There's some sense of satisfaction in F'reln's gaze, his expression, at the reaction his story gains - people believe him! "She'll do anything she needs to, to get what she wants. To get ahead. She's got Junior Weyrwoman Teris in her pocket; she's probably got half the weyr in there, somehow. At least our Weyrleader isn't blind." His face turns bitter as he adds, "I worry for your friend, then. I do." Beat. "If nothing else, Rhaelyn, you can trust /me/. If you run in to problems, I will be happy to help-- and I know others will be, too." "Teris too?" Rhaelyn sounds ever so disapointed about that. "So, they are all....tricked by her? Blinded? Or does she have some other control over them?" Rhaelyn probes at this angle a little. If she's reasured by the dragonrider's support, it's by small degrees. And why shouldn't she believe ever letter? With the short, hostile history with herself and the brownrider it's very easy. "Thank you, it gives me some comfort." He might not notice the depth of cofort right? "Although, who's going to notice one more dead exile if she does decide to silence me? Will the weyr do -nothing- to stop her? Control her?" "They're blind to her," says F'reln, shrugging. "I don't know how she does it. I've been trying to work it out for turns." He's not smiling anymore, not even in that thin-line kind of way he was earlier. "I wish I had more to tell you." He stands, stretching his short, stocky legs as he paces back and forth upon the outcropping. "The Weyrleader will. He's wise to her; more than he used to be, anyway, thank Faranth. A violent death would-- no. I don't think you're in danger of that, not yet. But been wary. And we'll be watchful for you, too. I'm glad to know that there might be trouble. We'll be on alert." Rhaelyn isn't smiling either. Knowing is one thing, but finding out that the brownrider is overall 'untouchable' is a gloomy future indeed. There's a little resurance that the Weyrleader knows, her answering nod but no change in expression. Something he says does catch her attention though, "We? Other people like you then?" A puff of breath escapes in a white whisp of breath, "Maybe if I can get to the right ears, I can open some. Make them see her true color. There must be -something-. Some...more information that would put a...a hold on her." F'reln is careful when he says, "We're not /all/ blind to her, I assure you. A few others from our weyrling class are well aware; others, since." He's not naming names, but it wouldn't be too hard to pick up the circle that the brownrider tends to move in. "Keep an eye on her. See what you can find. Faranth knows we've tried, but she's wiley - hard to catch. If you come up with anything solid... we'll listen. We'll help. But be /careful/. I don't want to see you get hurt." Rhaelyn ducks her head, "I think I'm already in her sights. Might not be much to do but hunker down and let the pieces fall. If I get information while it happens? It'll be yours. Don't think she's going to flap her lips around me though." The exile girl flashes a small, bitter smile about her current situation. This isn't worth lingering on though, she watches the rider, marking his words, the unnamed others, the ones who might be able to help. Carefully, slowly, F'reln nods. "Better to be safe than sorry," he agrees. His expression is sympathetic, even though much of his attention seems to be on some distant prize - it's not hard to guess what it might be. "You probably shouldn't stay out here with me too long. I don't want anyone to be suspicious. Besides, it's cold. Go inside, Rhaelyn. Stay safe." He's a man: he can stay out here in the cold and be suspicious and conspiracy-theorist on his own. Rhaelyn's eyes narrow a little at the concern and she opens her mouth to ask something more, only to save it. There will be other times. "I guess so." She fusses with her scarf as she stands there, watching him, as though expecting that he'll join her on the walk down. When he stays, she gives a nod and starts to turn away. "Thank you again F'reln." Head full of information, she makes her way neatly back down the path. "My pleasure," says the one-time guard. He stands near the edge, watching her go; he'll stay up here for a while longer, though. Just in case. |
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