Logs:Monsters
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| RL Date: 10 January, 2014 |
| Who: A'rist, Ulyana |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: These dragons are strange. Maybe so are the riders. |
| Where: Lake Shore, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 2, Month 10, Turn 36 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: R'sig/Mentions |
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| Lake Shore, Fort Weyr They have survived - if only for another day. As a treat for suffering through yet another round of flight lessons, Qhyluth has been permitted a visit to the lake and the blue is taking full advantage of it. For the moment, the only thing visible of him are his 'ridges and the faint glow of his eyes behind the protective set of lids shut over them. Ulyana, for her part, is some distance from the shore, pale in the way that only the recently sick can properly pull off. She has her mouth buried in a cloth that's held there, while her other hand is loosely curled around another cloth parcel of some sort. She might seem to be watching the dragon beneath the surface - and the glassy quality of her eyes is unlikely to dissuade from that presumption. The same might be said of A'rist and Lythronath; they too are rather alive and kicking. Or more, gouging, as the bronze feels the sound between his toes the moment he lands, swinging his tail, bobbing his head, and then, all at once, pausing, scenting the air. A'rist is still in full leathers atop Lythronath's neck. From this vantage point, he begins a keen-squinting inspection of the shore. For something. Someone. Either way, he's focused. The waters stir. Ripples shudder around the oddly formed neckridges that jut skyward. Qhyluth lifts his head, eyes glowing a sickly hue of green - pleased, sure, but the color does him no favors. His greeting is a thick, wet gurgle of a sound that's akin to a rumble. His weyrling rider, on the other hand, makes no such effort to turn and face the visitors - Fortian or otherwise - who have made their way to the shore. Ulyana will leave that task to the blue, even if he's not about to get out of the water to make a proper introduction. Even his mind is watery - a primordial ocean that laps wordlessly at the shared shoreline between minds. Lythronath offers no imagery back, though he does look. He looks, straight out onto the water, narrow nose pointed at the blue. « Blue. » That one. A'rist tongues at a tooth toward the back of his mouth, and leans to unbuckle the blood-hued riding straps. Lythronath looks a little longer, then looks away, and sniffs again. Just as 'Reachian boots hit Fortian soil. The only response Qhyluth has is a faint one - the distant tolling of an ancient, bronze bell that sends ripples over his mental waters. He submerges again, this time taking his betraying neckridges with him. Ulyana's nose wrinkles under the protection of the cloth and she, ultimately, is forced to lower that hand and put the fabric away in a pocket. She pivots on a heel in a single, economical movement and lifts a hand in a salute that's well-practiced - but listless, owing to her sickly seeming. Her greeting is on some sort of internal delay; three heartbeats later will find her finally saying, "Fort's duties." A'rist takes a deep breath of the air around the lake, surely not learning from it whatever it is his dragon seems to be, and yet paying it a particular attention. Ulyana's salute is caught; A'rist's attention has yet to focus on any one thing, and movement tends to catch the roving eye. He doesn't actually say 'uh', but it's in the way his mouth hangs open a moment, while his eyes search out a knot. "Weyrling. High Reaches', to you and," now he's looking back out to the lake, to the- well, lake. Presumably the dragon's still in there. "-yours," is finished at last, with the slightest hint of a question on it. "Ulyana," is uttered without inflection - correction or addition being entirely up to him. The girl, short and generally diminutive as she is, must tip her head back just so in order to properly study both visitors in her inscrutable way. Another beat. Two. A third passes without a blink. There is no movement in the lake and she is forced to concede in her queer, flat voice, "Qhyluth." The slight tip of her head offers clarification, indicating the lake and the beast within it. "What are you looking for?" "A'rist." A thumb indicates himself, jutting at his chest. "Lythronath," with a nod of his head to the bronze, who is sniffing again, and gouging a little more at the sand. He even makes a low clicking noise in his throat. "Someone," answers her question, and there, at the corner of his mouth, a little tug of uncertainty. "Supposed to know them when I see them." The girl's chin dips once, then twice, as if physically cementing those names in her memory. Ulyana offers nothing at first, the intensity of her scrutiny remaining steady all the while. Some distance away, the water shudders and gives birth to the nightmare that is Qhyluth. He shambles onto the shore, water sluicing from his dark hide, while his head swings toward where the bronze is scratching the sand. For only a moment, the weyrling rider's attention is pulled away - but it is only for a moment, gaze returned sharply to A'rist at his explanation. "I see," says she. Blandly observed: "That is a very peculiar reason to visit. Are you sure you are supposed to find this person here?" "It's not really a visit," A'rist says with a shrug. Lythronath has started to move, those big talons leaving big prints in their wake. A few steps, and he's balancing up on his hind legs, staring skyward. Until - oh, wait, no. Back down. "This is the lake at Fort." The bronzerider manages certainty in those words, and lifts his chin, confident. For a moment. "We might be early." "Or you might be late." One shoulder rises and falls in a lopsided shrug. Ulyana shifts her posture slightly, better to face the visitors; better, too, to keep the looming blue in view. "Regardless, you are only here temporarily. That qualifies as a visit." With those notes made, there is a slight furrowing of her brow for A'rist's words. It's a momentary cracking of her indifferent mask and one that she remedies swifly enough. "How do you know you will know them?" A'rist shakes his head, a bit of a wry smirk turning at his mouth. "We're not late." His head tilts, slightly. "Visit sounds so social, though, you know?" His feet shift, the new stance finding him leaning a little nearer this strange blueling. "I'll know them because they'll know us." There's almost pride in the twitch of his eyebrow and tone of his voice when he explains, "Tough to miss." She is unmoved by his movement; her head is already tipped back enough to permit continued study of his face. Ulyana intones: "Then, perhaps, appointment is more appropriate." There's a pause, silence unspooling on her behalf with complete disregard for comfort. Then: "Are you certain they are supposed to know you?" Her head tilts to one side subtly, the motion mechanical in nature. "Or that they will even approach if they find you engaged in conversation with someone else? What is the nature of this appointment you are so keen to keep?" The pride, audible and otherwise, is evidently missed. Qhyluth, satisfied that his lake is not being violated, slithers back into the waters as before. Unseen. Lurking. "Unless R'sig was lying, yeah," confirms the bronzerider. His head tilts, the other way this time. Lythronath has carried on moving, stalking, really, along the shore, that big head of his swinging to watch Qhyluth's re-entry. There's another click in his throat, for that. Blues. It distracts A'rist, has him nodding over to that water dragon. "What's up with the lake?" The lake that, suddenly, Lythronath is slowly turning toward. "I see." What Ulyana chooses not to see, however, is the activity in and around the lake. The girl's jaw tightens just a little against something or another, only to release shortly thereafter. Her answer is far from immediate - there is, in fact, time enough for Qhyluth to partially surface and submerge again, 'ridges cutting like teeth through the surface of the water. "Qhyluth prefers the water," is the most accurate response. "Our weyr is just there," and a lift of her chin indicates a ledge a scant thirty feet from the surface of the water. "If we were not given that one, he would have done something unspeakable." That water has become interesting. That water of Qhyluth's. Lythronath takes a few steps closer, and swings his tail, and bobs his head, and dips his chin, opening his mouth just enough that some of the lakewater can get in for a taste. All of this with both eyes directly on Qhylyth, whirling blue for now... "Okay." More interesting than preference is, with sudden piqued interest, the question of, "How unspeakable?" The bell tolls across minds again. Low and ancient. Terrible. Qhyluth shifts in the water with serpentine ease, squaring up against the semi-intrusion of the bronze. He lurks beneath the surface until the moment water touches the bronze's maw; only then does he lift his head and clamp his jaw down, sending a spray of water at the older dragon. The thick sound - a watery rumble at best - emerges again, but the meaning is as ambiguous as the play of sickly moonlight on mental waters. Ulyana slides a look askance, blinks once, and returns her cool gaze to A'rist. "It would not be unspeakable if I could speak of it, would it." The quasi-question, rhetorical as it is, is flattened at the end. "He is a monster. I suspect he would do almost anything." « Hahaha! » rights right back against that bell. Lythronath seems unworried by the splash. He's more concerned with dipping his tongue into the water, next, and doing as little to hide this motion as possible. "You must have some idea, though," prompts A'rist, though his head has turned, to watch Lythronath. His voice becomes more distracted as he continues, "Some feeling, in your gut... You must know somehow." Strange sycophants sigh in that shared space; the fractured pieces of an alien voice brought together in a singular sound. The bell rings once more, mental waters stirring and shattering the moonlight lacework spread upon it. In the flesh, the blue's head drops down again and he submerges. Perhaps the bronze's intrusion will be permitted. Ulyana's jaw tenses again, though at what and why will likely remain a mystery. Instead: "I only see the reflections in his mind." She sucks her teeth and her brow furrows. "I do not have words for what I see." The timing is sharp enough, at least; no sooner than she's done speaking than the blue's tail pushes toward the surface - and, with it, sends a wave of water to better warn (or greet?) the visitor. Lythronath snorts at that splash, and lifts his head, water streaming down from between his teeth, and off his muzzle. There's the slightest clouding of red, of dried blood or gore, where he'd dipped. It seems set on dissipating into the rest of the lake. "But you feel it?" A'rist darts a look back toward the girl... and then again to the bronze, who is lowering his head once more this time to get both rows of teeth into the lake. « Blue. » Calling. "He is the one who feels." Matter-of-fact. Flat. Ulyana's head tilts as before, a stiff motion that ends as abruptly as it starts. "That is why he is capable of terrible things." Shoulders rise and fall in a singular shrug. Thus far, however, the blue is far from being that kind of terrible. He lurks under the water again, dark against dark, with only the faint glow of his eyes betraying his presence. Beneath the water, he moves fluidly, gliding along on wings meant for water more than air. But he does not come to the call, not this time; instead, there is only a mental reflection of those strange waters, bubbling with the effort of keeping something under the surface. Lythronath swishes, back and forth, water through teeth, over his tongue (lap), and then closes his mouth and lifts his head. Again, droplets stream from that fierce narrow muzzle. "You're wrong," the bronzerider tells Ulyana, shaking his head, one side, other side, done. "It's not feeling that gets terrible things to happen." He tucks his hands up, crossing his arms against his chest, and watches the lake, the person who's supposed to know him more and more forgotten. « Blue. » Lythronath licks at his lips. « Water. » One shoulder rises. Falls. Ulyana intones, "Feeling without thought is far more dangerous." Her head tips stiffly and she half-turns away, though she keeps the visiting rider within her peripheral vision. "He destroys. He consumes. He does not consider the consequences of what he does. My thought processes are harmless in comparison to that." Water continues to lap at the shore - both mental and physical - while the blue sinks ever-deeper. The bell sounds. The voices murmur without words. The waters stir, but only just a little to mark the passage of the smaller beast as he glides from one deep place to another. Waiting. A'rist's eyes narrow out over the lake, where Lythronath has gone quiet, ignoring the bells, focusing out on the lake before him, his head slowly starting to sway from one side to the other, the rocking motion echoed in the tip of his tail as he looks. Lythronath waits, on the balls of his hind feet, big muscles ready, forelegs serving more for balance than weightbearing. "You're talking about gut-feeling, then. Not like... heart-feeling." The girl's indifference to the water is apparent; that half-turn away has her facing the rest of the Weyr, back turned to Qhyluth's antics. "You did not ask which form of feeling I was talking about," is her blandly issued reply. "Regardless, that is his nature. To feel." Her jaw tightens just a little. "Mine is to restrain." Which may or may not be at work, given just what the monster of the deep is doing - or not doing. There might be a moment where one could believe that restraint is what keeps the beast at bay - but that moment passes when Qhyluth pushes for the surface with a powerful kick of hindlegs and sweep of tail. Wings slicked back and body primed to pounce, the blueling bursts from the water to spring into the shallows, spraying water from his maw at both bronze and riders with complete disregard for their comfort. "So do you feel-" When the blue springs, Lythronath roars; it's loud, it echoes, it'll let everyone know that something's going on. There's a snap of his teeth, at the splash, at its cause. A'rist winces up a shoulder, ducking his head, and still getting wet. The sentence is left to hang. "Faranth," says the bronzerider, instead. "Lynner," comes next, meant for his dragon, even if he's still looking more or less at Ulyana's feet, position not much changed since his reaction. Perhaps it's best to let those words throttle themselves in the ensuing silence. Ulyana doesn't recoil - doing so, after all, will not save her from the rush of water. Her eyes narrow and her shoulders tense, but there is no withdrawing, no ducking and covering. "Qhyluth." The utterance is dull, her intonation flat. "Depart." The blue, for his part, matches roar with roar, though his is a curiously garbled sort of sound - suiting for a thing of the water as he seems to be. His wings mantle and his tail thrashes, at least until he hears his name. His motions stop almost immediately, eyes sliding through a slew of sickly hues to land on a distressed shade of ochre that fits poorly with his hide. His jaw snaps and he utters a serpentine hiss before canting his head toward the bronze. Mental waters wash apologetically against a shared mental shore, their churning ceased - and blocked by walls. Lythronath's teeth stay showing, but also still. One click comes from deep in his throat. « Blues. » The ground he's staked out at the edge of the lake is held. A'rist brushes water off his shoulders, as if this would have him dry, but the motion is distracted. "We should probably go." There's no apology in that, just a certain steeliness. "Of course." Ulyana continues the half-turn from before, putting her back fully to the lake. "I will hope your appointment goes as well as you anticipate it will." No glance is spared over her shoulder for that, however, and she starts to move with her usual, economical grace. Qhyluth is markedly more reluctant to depart, with a final, apologetic shudder of sensation shared - and then sharply retracted behind the icy wall lest it boil over into more. The dripping blue moves away with movements that are innately fluid; slithering more than striding in that sense. Lythronath watches him go, lets him get some ways away before he's willing to shift his stance. And then, still watches. A'rist, having bid Ulyana whatever farewell it is to simply give her a nod, slowly shifts his own feet, his own state of mind. And accords his dragon a strange look. Well then. |
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