Of course, it would be near the end of their shift when the wagon's discovered: stalled out right in the middle of the lane, out in the middle of the Cromese countryside, a not particularly healthy-smelling draybeast sagging in the traces while a couple of human specks crawl over the wagon itself. And it had otherwise been such a smooth-sailing sweep, too, with the prospect of a Gather on the horizon. Rukbat reddens the few clouds they fly amongst, the air is clean and crisp. It would be easy to overlook those down below. Vrianth wheels, half into Tacuseth's path, counting on her wingmate to see.
Tacuseth is used to this. He's in his element, keeping up with Vrianth like they have been two peas in the same pod while his rider looks on down over the scene below with open distaste. Indeed, it just had to happen. On their sweep. Perfect. When Vrianth's path veers a bit into his, Tacuseth's nudges into Vrianth's mind with the grit of falling stone: « Mine wants to know if we will be landin' » he sends, his voice heavy and rumbling. He veers to try and fall in line with her then giving his rider a chance to watch the commotion down below.
Her characteristic gravelly reply keeps the blue on her mind's outskirts, but there: « We suppose so. » Heavy on the supposition. As Vrianth flies towards the wagon, as she shapes a long arc about it without in the least descending, she shares a relished sense of how they could land. Atop. That could be entertaining. Her rider's expression may be difficult to discern through her goggles when Leova looks Jo's way, but her confirming wave isn't: downward, yes. Away from the wagon, several dragonlengths behind it, where perhaps they'll spook the draybeast a little less. It's procedure. Doesn't mean Vrianth's thrilled: someone's crankier than usual, and no, she just rose a few sevendays back. The people are stirring, too, one of the first two racing towards the beast's head, another one emerging from the verge at the side of the road. Vrianth waits: Tacuseth can land first. His rider could even, just maybe, talk.
Vrianth gets the gravel of rough amusement. Tacuseth likes that. He even shares a sense of them chasing down the beasts - and it's a bloody mess. He lost her to Idriloth, another blue when she had went up a few sevendays ago, and yet he's doing the dragon equivalent of cracking jokes with her. As for his usually taciturn rider, Jo catches the signal and her confirming grunt gets lost in the wind. She circles the blue before she leads him away from scaring the beasts, away from the wagon, only to finally land on a grassy plain. If her blue's disappointed otherwise, it doesn't show. Once landed, Jo immediately wrench the goggles off so she could take a better look around. Narrowed eyes and all. There could be something in the air, for the convict rider seems to actually want to say something.
The people back there are scuttling around some, like they're not used to dragons, or maybe they are and they don't like it. Still, Leova waits, staying astride her dragon for all that she tugs down her own goggles to match Jo's, the breeze riffling through her short-cropped hair. Vrianth can keep half an eye on the wagon, shifting though she is, with the taste of blood in the air not helping matters. Leova's watching Jo, and now she says outright, "What is it."
With her wild black hair trying to cover her face, Jo runs both hands back through it to smooth it over her head. The goggles hang carelessly in one hand as she eyes the scene before her with barely contained irritation. Then, Leova speaks. Dark eyes cut over to her, as if a little shocked. Tacuseth shifts, and she sniffs. Looking back at the wagon, her words are: "This bites." Some might take it as a miracle that she could speak at all. She shakes her head, just a little, before she steals a look Leova's way and adds, "Guess we're doin' gruntwork this time, darlin'." It's dry, and irritation bleeds through her low, husky voice, but at least she's not grunting this time as she then goes to dismount.
"Aye." Could be part of why they get assigned to ride sweeps together, sometimes: not much time wasted talking. Or maybe it's what passes for F'rint's sense of humor. And then, "Might not be as much as all that." Down drops Leova, easy as her decade-younger wingmate, and Vrianth half-furls her wings with a certain restlessness as she watches the woman walk steadily toward the wagon. Once there, she engages the older man in conversation, something about the axle of course, but it's the younger man who attempts to intercept Jo: she's younger, she's got the long hair, she's got a male dragon and he gives her a quick smile while fingering the mustache that hasn't quite matched his father's. "How de do, miss. Nice to see a rider up this way, a time like this."
That's a pretty good sense of humor, if F'rint did put the greenrider together on sweeps with a grunting, ghosting, questionable bluerider. She slaps Tacuseth on the side - their version of bonding, perhaps - before she stalks after Leova with her gaze sharply taking in everything. This could be the makings of engaging in conversation. The two are onto ten words shared right now. "Thank Faranth you came a'pon us, great skies to you and yours!" the old man was saying to Leova, his hands waving in the air as if the dragon pairs had floated down on clouds, just at their bidding. "I didn't know what to do! It's my wagon, see, my wagon...err, the axle, you see..." And he's gesturing for her to follow him around the side of the wagon, which, upon studying, would mean someone will be going back to the Weyr dirty. Once Jo gets onto the scene, the other man approaching is taking in like she was expecting to be bitten like a tunnelsnake. Smile meets hard-lined face. "Just doin' my job," is her reluctant response, not making a show of casing the wagon as she starts to look around. She moves to the other side of the wagon from Leova and the other man before she asks, "So. Where do you need me?" She's pulling off her gloves and rolling her shoulders. She was certainly going to look and play the part while she was going to figure out what happened to be inside that wagon.
Great skies. Leova doesn't exactly mouth the words outright, but she does have to roll her eyes up towards the heavens, holding there for a moment as though the man might see something she doesn't. Dissatisfied, she turns back, nodding. "Don't exactly carry spare axles 'round with us," she tells the man that much, and then waits until he winds down. Even if it takes a while, even if Jo's back around by then. "Simple repair, we got some tools, beyond that, it's up between you and the nearest Holder. Can send word on ahead, though. You got folks expecting you?" Meanwhile, no overt signs of anything wrong to the wagon, either, though there's a rustling, scratching sound every now and again as the bluerider gets close. The younger man gets a kind of relieved look to him even despite his getting shot down, and he trots after the bluerider. "I wanted ta be a rider, you know. Fellow next to me, he got Searched, she would've taken me if it weren't for him being there first."
"Yes, yes, I completely understand," the older man's rambling on and on. Letting him talk will get exhausting. "You see, the road looked perfectly smooth to us, and then this! You see this! And I have to get this, this stuff to my sister, you see. My sister is sick, and I promised her, I said, 'I will be there before, ah, nightfall', but then we broke down, and...ahh, but my boy here, he sent word up ahead..." On the other side, as Jo slowly circles to reach Leova and the other man, the sounds she's hearing is getting her to pause. She's not looking at the other man as he talks to her, her lips pressed together as she tries to listen before she breaks her silence and addresses him. "It's all a crapshoot, getting Searched," she says, a brow lifting. "Kind of like getting' yer purse of marks suddenly stolen when ya set it down next to ya." What? She then jerks a chin towards the wagon. "What's that I'm hearin' in there?" she then asks, finally looking him in the eye.
The greenrider does have a certain portion of patience, but she also inserts questions such as, "Which stuff would that be?" amid the single comment of, "Not far, then." Though her raised brows invite the man to contradict her: does the boy perhaps have a firelizard? She is keeping him where she can see him, and the others too as best she can, working off a habitual line of sight. Maybe this'll be nothing much, like last sevenday's cart full of overheated aunties headed for yet another Gather, where all they had to do was get them some water. Maybe that's it, and they can go. As for the younger man, he looks positively wilted at Jo's comment, and maybe that's why he can't quite look her in the face, muttering something about his aunt being sick, and a stew.
"You know, my things," the older man's just being dismissive about what he has in the wagon. "So, ahh, can you help us, here...? I have some tools, of course, but, ahh, you know my back hasn't been the same since..." And on her goes about breaking backs and chasing some runners down somewhere and mending fences, which somehow has nothing to do with his back getting broken. On the other side, Jo catches the wilted look on the young man's face and appears, for a moment, at a loss for words. There's an awkward silence, the convict bluerider searching for something to say that would save the moment. She lights on one. "Um. Shit. Hey. Ignore all that." There. Dragonrider Public Relations at its finest in Jo's eyes. That should solve it. It must to her, because she turns right back to the wagon and starts heading where Leova is. "So, there's stew, in here? Think me and my friend, there, could check it out real quick?"
And she cusses. The younger man sort of shuffles uneasily, but when Jo moves off, she sure hasn't stopped him from hastily following and saying, "Well, it's the makings of stew," more hastily yet. Leova gives him the sort of look not even her weyrlings got, or at least not most of them, but it's not like making him quail turns out to be any sort of victory. Too easy. Still, with him taken care of for now, she clears her throat, abruptly. "Might could take her a portion, see. Want her to get better real soon." So answer her wingmate, already.
"Define 'makings'." Jo's not buying it, but she isn't about to let on just yet. She's just her usual surly. She reaches Leova and then regards the older man with a look. As for him? "Ehhh...well fine, fine," and he's moving towards the back of the wagon, mumbling to himself. Jo looks Leova's way, a brow lifting in askance: 'you think this is legit?' And then she's approaching as the older man's opening one of the back doors to the wagon, his muttering heard still. To the younger of the pair, "What sort of stew 'bangs' around in a wagon?" she comes to that realization, sending the younger one a look. It's not a really nice look, either. "See for yourself, if you must," the older man's voice is then heard, even though he's not seen with the door flap blocking him from view.
There's a slight shake of Leova's head by way of reply. Vrianth, though, she adds for Tacuseth's rider's sake, « She thinks we should avoid 'playing the heavy.' Too much. » That hint of low-lying static, though, that's Vrianth implying that they certainly haven't gotten there yet. As for the young man, who's slunk lower in his boots, he wipes his nose with the back of his hand rather than saying anything. Surely he's not crying over only that? "Go for it," the greenrider encourages, though she steps back and to the side a few paces, the better to see if anything's going on, especially with that older man. Of course, when Jo opens the door... that's when a group of wing-clipped beak-bound avians burst out right at her, and they sure aren't happy.
It gets relayed, the message through dragons, for Jo's step actually falters, and she looks back, right into Leova's eyes. Her piercing gaze search those hazel ones for a moment, and then there's a hitch of one shoulder in an acknowledging shrug. Message well-received. She does catch the younger man with his appearing to be crying and is giving him the oddest of looks. Well. She's seen stranger. She approaches the back of the wagon and doesn't even hesitate. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but by the very unlady-like expletive that bursts from her mouth when there's a sudden clamor of commotion - all involving flapping feathers and crying caws - located at the back of the wagon.
At least they're muffled caws, and there's no actual biting involved... but the creatures still can peck, and after one look of horror, Leova shoves the younger man's shoulder to help and wades in, herself. The dragons can watch the older man and the woman who'd been by the side of the road, wherever she went. But Vrianth's looking mighty hungry... at least, until the younger man out-and-out sneezes.
This day has just gotten better and better. Jo had thrown her arm up against any potential beaks, and already she could feel the rip of her black leather sleeve. She jumps back, throwing a glare at anyone that she could lay her eyes on that had anything to do with the wagon and is sputtering. "What the-? What the-?" - "You let them loose!" the older man's wailing, looking like he was about to wade in and shove those avians right back into his wagon. Tacuseth rumbles, watching. Something must have passed between dragon and rider, and his rider's on the verge of a temper. She was about to lay in on them both, until...that cough. Uh-oh. It puts Jo on pause for a moment, and then, "Hey. You. How sick ya said yer aunt was, again?" And she's shooting a significant glance towards Leova as she starts backing away from him slowly.
Leova's slower to catch on, more focused on getting the creatures than otherwise, but even she leaves them to the old man when Tacuseth kicks in. And Jo's question. And the suddenly pale young man's quavering, "Real bad." Cue music!
Deadpan. Jo looks like she's paled at his voice, all the while there being free avians fluttering about her. It's a comedic scene, really. Even when Jo curses, again.
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