Logs:Zezkaith's Maiden Flight
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| RL Date: 1 March, 2015 |
| Who: Euphemia, C'stian, J'ayn, R'oan, Zezkaith, Liesanth, Haiith, Etrevth |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Zezkaith's maiden flight. |
| Where: Feeding Grounds/Flight Weyr, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 21, Month 2, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| For a while now, both Euphemia and Zezkaith have been keeping themselves to themselves, requiring each other's company and little else, their attendance at drills and duties impeccable without being enthusiastic. However, a little over forty-eight hours ago, the young green began to seek out company beyond her rider; specifically male company, predominantly bronzes and browns that she's met during time spent shadowing the Weyr's fighting wings. Her clutchmates have been, for the most part, disregarded, particularly the young blues, yet now even they number among the minds that she reaches out to as she elegantly drifts her way across the bowl and lands with a neat crunch on one of the bigger herdbeasts in the feeding pens, claws puncturing hide. « Don't you think the skies need brightening? » Given that he 'Searched' her rider, it may not be unusual that Etrevth has paid careful attention to Zezkaith's changes, to her flirtations and now to her in the feeding pens far below his own remote ledge. « Do you not think they are bright enough? » is a smokey question, filled with soft humor that is directed at the young green, not notably with. His rider is nowhere to be found, at the moment-- At least, nowhere they can see him, but deep within the resident quarters, R'oan is rolling out of an occupied bed and scrubbing fingers through messy blonde hair. Haiith is a dark shadow watching the Bowl with passive interest from the edge of a ledge not far up from the infirmary. There is a bandage on one hand that he favours, curling it in closer to his body protectively - evidence of J'ayn's misconduct outside of the Weyr. The young brown has been taking an interest in greens lately but hasn't yet begun pursuing, his interest having brought him close enough to take down a herdbeast in the past but it seems once a herdbeast is down, Haiith can't leave a perfectly good meal to waste and abandons the chase. So today, like in the past, Haiith joins the green - his sister - in the Feeding Grounds, making a lazy circle overhead before descending gruffly on his chosen herdbeast. But today is different. Today, he lifts his bloodied muzzle, watching Zezkaith with sharp interest. J'ayn himself stalks moodily out into the Bowl from the Dragon Infirmary, his hand's bandages having just been changed and requiring J'ayn to stubbornly test their limits with an experimental curl of his fingers. Apparently closing his fist hurts for he winces and lets his attention slide out across the Bowl, blue eyes scraping the sight of Zezkaith and her followers with passing interest. « They don't have me, » Zezkaith tells Etrevth with a glimmer of summer sunshine and something else brighter, the silver-white sparkle and shimmer opening up to the other nearby males as she adds, « None of you have me. » She's not so sweet and neat in how she drains the carcass pinned beneath her paws, too eager to get to the blood and too inexperienced to really know when is the right time to conclude that she's had enough, and she abruptly swipes a paw to fell another beast and begin to empty it too, without any visible interest in doing anything but drinking, the meat disregarded. The why - if the choice is not entirely her own - appears from the direction of the grove, Euphemia's gaze fixed and staring with an intensity that seems to have overtaken her completely. There's no softness to her, nor any interest in anything beyond her green, as she approaches the pens with an awkward, stiff gait, entranced. « What if none of us want you? » challenges Etrevth, his thoughts full of intoxicating smoke that hide any of his true intentions, only a hint of hazy interest there. And in the way his swirling gaze watches only Zezkaith intently in the pens below, not bothering to even drop into the pens to blood himself like the younger brown. Haiith takes his time drinking down the blood of his chosen victim and studying Zezkaith, the whole affair much like swigging from a good wine while contemplating her condition. Catching sight of Euphemia, J'ayn veers his path to follow after her. "Hey, wait," he calls after her. "I need to talk to you." His pale brows knit in confusion. "What's wrong with you?" « You are not none of you, » Zezkaith declares as brightly as before, turning about in the pen to drag her second kill off towards one corner, playing more than eating or blooding, though she does give the fatal wound she's inflicted a broad lick, lapping at blood. « One of you will want me, even if I don't know who they are. » Sitting back on her haunches, she looks up at the sky, now licking blood from her muzzle as she contemplates. Euphemia hardly looks away from Zezkaith when she hears J'ayn's voice, her focus veering for a fraction of a second. "You made your choice," she tells him a low, monotone voice, like forming words is a struggle. "It's time, for her. It's time." « You can't be sure of that. You have never done this before, » is a laughing reply of Etrevth's, his laugh like whiskey inside of his mind. But on his remote ledge, the brown stretches to his feet casually like a cat, shaking out wings and licking a paw as if that is just what he wants to do at the moment. His appearance, at least, is much more regal than R'oan's, who appears shirtless from the tunnel to the inner caverns. He is in the process of pulling a white tunic over his head, however, though he must have walked through the tunnels without it. He casts a look to the weyrlings at the feeding pens, but his path moves for the flight weyr instead. « We all want to Win. » This from Liesanth, who -- as usual -- has shown up to make another attempt at showing he is the Strongest and the Fastest; he's already prepared, shifting his weight back and forth like a fidgeting toddler as he prepares to head skywards. As is frequently the case, the bronze has shown up without his rider, and it's only now that C'stian makes his way into the area. Wherever the Hematite wingsecond was today, it was apparently less convenient to the feeding grounds than the dragon infirmary has been in the past; he looks both slightly flushed from the pace he had to take to get here quickly, and annoyed with Liesanth at the interruption. Haiith experimentally reflects Zezkaith's glimmering sunshine, like holding a mirror up to show the sun its own beauty. But the sun is in the sky and Zezkaith is not, and Haiith's mirror flickers with uncertain inexperience. J'ayn tries to put himself in front of Ephie, reaching to grab at her shoulders. "No," he insists firmly, voice dropping to a whisper. "It is not her time. Stop being weird, Ephie." J'ayn catches C'stian out of the corner of his eye and narrows a dark look at the bronzerider. « Why would I bother if I did not know that? » Zezkaith curves her head back to observe the glow dancing along and across her yellow-green hide, as if taking note of symptoms for next time. « He knows, » she declares, her lavender gaze landing momentarily on Liesanth, before she shifts her weight and unfurls her wings, launching herself skyward with a snap and a flurry that somehow remains smooth despite the sudden nature of her escape from the ground that she cares so little for. Ephie lets herself be halted as much by J'ayn as her green's departure, her eyes wide and glassy, but when Zezkaith is all but out of sight for her, she stares hard at C'stian, then at J'ayn, and snaps, "What do you care?" at him. "If I'm being weird?" She moves, trying to back away from him, her gaze running along the bowl wall. Where now? Etrevth does not launch himself into the air immediately; no, he bides his time for a moment so that when he does, Zezkaith is not quite to the height of his ledge when he joins her in the air. His path is angled towards her, smooth and fast. That R'oan steps inside an empty flight weyr is-- well, unusual. But he doesn't seem to mind. Instead, he tosses himself down on the empty bed, throwing the crook of his arm over his eyes as if he might be intending to sleep. Normally, C'stian takes a fairly laid-back or even welcoming attitude towards newcomers. After all, it wasn't that long ago he was a weyrling himself. Lately, however, the bronzerider's mood has been darker, and apparently the thought of a flight -- and the nigh-inevitable aftermath -- doesn't improve that mood, for some reason. So J'ayn's dark look is met with a challenging one. You want to start something, kid? But then he takes a deep breath, trying to stem his own dark mood. Liesanth, ignoring his rider's moodiness, launches himself skywards with almost palpable glee; he loves to Race and to Chase and to test himself against others, and this is no exception. Haiith watches Zezkaith and her followers aim themselves skyward. It seems this might just be another flight for him to observe from the ground below, his angular head tipped back and swivelling back and forth as blue and brown and bronze seek after their glowing green target. J'ayn tries to hold onto her, staring at her with a troubled, tortured expression that pleads where words won't or can't. She breaks away from him and he curls his arms inward, cradling his bandaged hand and trying not to show a wince of pain. C'stian's look is met in full return, challenge set against challenge. Haiith then, takes one last look up at the green and her blue, brown, and bronze followers... and launches himself skyward, trailing after. Zezkaith is inexperienced enough in this to be surprised when she finds company joins her from ledge and not ground height, and it makes her swerve a little, unbalancing whether he's anywhere near her or not, leaving her to struggle for a few moments to straighten out and keep on gaining altitude. « Not yet, » she snaps, lightning darting through a mental landscape suddenly gone dark, save for the faint outline of twisty trees stripped completely of their leaves. However, even once she's steady again, her path is not a logical one, unpredictable in what could be an unnerving fashion, whether she's diving or soaring almost impossible to predict. Ephie, on the other hand, manages a pretty direct route once she's figured out which weyr she wants, though finding R'oan on the bed makes her skittishly skirt the room. "...M-Move," she tries to demand, voice trembling. "No," R'oan drawls, though his arm falls from his eyes to allow him to peer at Ephie as she speaks, all the grey-green intensity of them focused on her and her alone, regardless of who follows her in. And it is to her alone that he adds with dry amusement, "But you're welcome to join me." Etrevth seems to be amused by her dragon as much as his rider is amused at her, finding some delight in the swirling smoke of his mind at unbalancing the young dragon. « Always, » he counters, croons practically, as he darts after her. He is small enough that the unpredictability doesn't slow him as much as it would a larger dragon. Liesanth hurls himself upwards, his usual opening gambit in green flights: gain height, and use gravity to assist him where his greater size and weight would otherwise put him at a disadvantage. But Etrevth's presence earns a surge of annoyance -- this flight is his to win! -- and the bronze angles himself downwards, trying to interpose himself between the two. Still, the exhilaration the bronze feels must bleed over to his rider, because C'stian's tension loosens, the dark mood lessening, as he stops glaring at J'ayn and turns to make his way over towards the flight weyr. Haiith is tugged along, lured by the distant glow of green hide far beyond his reach. His progress is slow at first, unsure, but whatever drives Zezkaith to rise spreads to Haiith and spurns him onward - faster, higher - so that with each beat of his red-polished wings, he draws closer. The mirror that flickered the reflection of her sunlight comes it's own light - a fire - and it burns hot as it beckons after her in a whisper of voices that are not any one voice but many: « Zezkaith. » J'ayn turns and stares after Haiith, lingering out in the Bowl after the others have found their way to the flight weyr. But eventually he turns, and finding himself alone, hurried steps bring him to the mouth of the flight weyr, not quite able to bring himself to step inside. "No," Ephie insists right back, though her response is not so much drawled as snapped, half agitated and half horrified by this turn of events. She keeps skirting the small cavern until she winds up at its back, away from that bed and R'oan, her attention both in the room and not. "No," she says again, trying to keep her voice steady, and when she might let herself be drawn into the sudden snap of her dragon's temper, she finds herself at the other end of the spectrum and trying to conceal hands that shake. "Please move," she rasps. "She's-- and I-- I don't know what--." What she doesn't know will have to wait, as she just slides down the wall and sits there dejectedly. « Liesanth. Etrevth. Haiith. » And all those other names, all jumbled together to pull Zezkaith in half a dozen different directions - nearly literally. What is she doing? Abruptly, her wobbly path pitches upwards, just aiming higher and higher and higher, darkness dimming as she lifts and finds the sunshine again, ready to fall down, down... "She's rising, darling. It will get better next time," suggests R'oan with a hint of sympathy there on his words, yet not enough to apparently propel him from the bed. Instead, his arm returns to shading his eyes, only a sliver left to watch the greenrider from as she sinks to the floor. Etrevth, sensing something in the moment, lurches forward with a burst of speed, as if to put an end to the flight now as he reaches for the glowing green. Liesanth will Win this time, he's Determined; seeing Etrevth's lunge, the bronze pours on as much speed as he himself can manage, trying to use his greater size to block the others. C'stian, meanwhile, turns to J'ayn at the entrance to the flight weyr. "You don't have to go in," he offers, with a little more consideration than his earlier glare suggested. Perhaps there's even a little sympathy there. "But eventually people start looking at you oddly if you don't." While Haiith uses every ounce of effort with him to push higher, faster, twisting out of the way of claws and wings from his fellow chasers. He veers out of the way of one chaser and nearly collides with another, bringing him out to the edge of the writhing, airborne crowd of wings and claws and tails and he calls to her again in that haunting whisper of her name that softly brushes the senses. J'ayn gives C'stian a look that is still full of challenge to cover up the quiet edge of anxiety that ripples just beneath his moody exterior, his head shaking hurriedly at whatever offer might have been extended. Instead, he remains lingering awkwardly outside of the flight weyr, arms knotting themselves tightly in front of his chest. From her curled up position on the floor, Ephie presses her forehead into her knees, her arms and her clenched fists knotted over her head as she tries to exert some control over the situation or simply endure what her lifemate is putting her through and dragging her along for. She gasps out a despairing, involuntary, "Next time...!" in answer to R'oan, as if to refute that she is ever (EVER) going to let Zezkaith do all of this again, but of course it's not enough to do anything about the situation now. She falls silent then, concentrating, and who knows who will take credit for the fact that Zezkaith latches onto Haiith's voice to try and make some sense of all the confusion and indecision? The young green lets herself tumble into a loop that permits her to escape diving forms and blocking bodies, the manoeuvre one that has her plummeting quicker than she'd like as she knocks against her brown clutchmate and unintentionally scrabbles claws across hide to try and hang on. « Haiith! » Fix it. Make it go away. R'oan's murmur is only a pointed, low, "You're the one who was so desperate to be a dragonrider. This is all part of it." Where she falls silent, he doesn't press that point. Especially not as Zezkaith ends up in Haiith's grasp, a frustrating beat of wings against the air pulling Etrevth up short. That is the only seeming reaction to his losing, before he curves his path away from the pair. Slowly, in the weyr below, his rider rolls from the bed and moves to leave before he's caught in the middle of something else. Liesanth's burst of frustration -- a loss again! Someday, he will Win! -- and unfulfilled need causes C'stian to grit his teeth, that earlier tension promptly returning and bringing more to keep it company. For a moment, he watches his lifemate peel off in another direction, seeking some other form of release. The bronzerider steps aside from the flight weyr's entrance as he remarks to the brownrider, a little sharply, "Guess you're going in now, whether you like it or not. Careful about the consequences." Zezkaith's impact sends both her and Haiith spiraling wildly out of control as the instinct to mate wars with the instinct to fend off would-be attackers, and in this precise moment, Zezkaith is both. Claws draw ichor - hers first, then perhaps his too as he digs in to catch her, and wings gape wide to stop them from spiralling long enough for lust to drown pain. J'ayn staggers into the weyr, likely stumbling into either R'oan or C'stian or both in his urgency to be next to Euphemia, the bronzerider's words probably falling on deaf, youthful ears. For J'ayn, there's only one goal and it is Haiith's goal - not his own - that has J'ayn crouching next to Ephie and seeking her wrist just as brown twines with green. The only response Euphemia has for R'oan's reminder is a funny, off-key noise that isn't actually any word at all, but could be acknowledgement or frustration, or even a threat that she can't exactly carry out right now. She lifts her head in time to see him roll from the bed, yet she doesn't move to hurry him along or herd him out, perhaps incapable of finding her way back to her feet as she stares after him, and then at J'ayn as he approaches and crouches next to her. The staring carries right on as Zezkaith leaves fear and the unknown behind to embrace instinct and Haiith, and while Ephie just breathes, she eventually finds herself capable of movement and lets the touch at her wrist register. Does she know what she's doing? Probably not, but it doesn't stop her lurching to her feet, or launching herself at J'ayn to figure it all out. |
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