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Oh. Shards. No. Where. Was. His. RED. FRUIT.

Lorrox stomped angrily down the cavernous hallway, shooting accusatory glares at all passerbys. This was a pile of wherry s**t, that's what this was. After a long -- too long -- day of scooping up runnerbeast s**t, Lorrox had gone to hit up one of his favorite kitchen women, a fine 30-turn-old redhead with only one kid and plenty of free time. Even if she insisted on keeping their contact to a little touchy-flirting, she would usually nab some kind of snack for him: a steamed tuber, a handful of nuts, a glossy fruit of some kind.

Today, she had managed to be particularly useful and nabbed his favorite. It was shiny. It was red. It was fruit. It was delicious. And most importantly, it was his. He had been so happy that he slipped into a closet with the charming older woman for a proper thank-you-very-much (which unfortunately was limited to some kissing and a few corset touches) before hightailing it out of there. He paused at the entranceway, reaching to grab his fruit from where it had been placed -- but it wasn't there. HIS. FRUIT. He had only been gone for a minute, maybe, and he knew that whatever sorry dimglow had pilfered his prize couldn't have gone far.

"Sharding shells, I swear to Faranth," he muttered, anger rolling off his broad shoulders in thick waves. No one was in the hallway, to the left, but in the direction of the Bowl, he could see a few warm bodies. Taking off at a bit of a run, he headed for the nearest warm body to demand answer -- a shortish guy with blond hair. "HEY. YOU--" he began, but found his words cut short by a flapping creature.

He took a swat at the dark blur out of habit before realizing it was a flit. Oh well, it was its own fault for flapping about and coming out of nowhere like that. If he had a flit, it would never do annoying s**t like that -- no way.

Lorrox pretty much ignored everything -- even the arrival of a big a** dragon (though he did aim a wary glare in its direction) -- and shot straight toward the rider, gripping the neck of his shirt. He was too angry to be swayed from his course of action. Knotting the man's shirt in his fist, he wrenched him forward, bringing his face inches from his own. "Where is my fruit, you sharding shitstick!" he shouted, teeth clenched and neck vein pulsing. "I know you took it, you saggy sack of wherry balls! GIVE IT BACK." Lorrox almost always operated on the 'snap decisions are accurate' mentality, and so, without E'rik saying a word, he had already decided that the blond boy was clearly the culprit.

He made no move to strike, just held his grip, not even flickering his gaze over to the dragon. It might do a lot of things, but it would not kill him -- not if he wasn't trying to end its rider's life, which he wasn't... yet.

No reason, no logic -- Lorrox was pissed, and E'rik was clearly skirting the issue at hand. He OBVIOUSLY had taken it. This wherry's a** did not even answer the question! Not that it mattered. Lorrox knew what was going on. He thought that a threat was going to make Lorrox just GIVE him his shiny fruit? He thought that he could scare him?

"Give me back my fruit!" he shouted again, glancing around for it. The guy had pockets -- and he had a dragon. They had to be hiding it somewhere!

Tightening his grip on E'rik's collar, he snarled out a few more curses. A threat? Hah! There was no way Lorrox could back down now. "I don't care how many times you've polished the knob of the Candidatemaster," he said, smirking. Judging by his knots, Lorrox at least knew that that this guy was not one of the head honchos -- not someone who could bring down the full mercy of the punishment system on him. Besides, this kid was a thief and theives deserved punishment. Not that any of this mattered... even if all signs pointed to BAD IDEA, Lorrox was hell-bent on charging forward.

"NOW. Give me my fruit." He made no move to strike, didn't lift a fist, but he kept his free hand in a fist at his side, not relinquishing his grip on the boy's collar even an inch.

E'rik did not appear threatening at all. He was shorter than Lorrox. He was blond. He had a precious little blue thing that flitted about him at times. So, when he told Lorrox that he had made a mistake, the boy almost laughed. Of course, he was way too pissed at this point to actually laugh -- especially because E'rik had once again failed to answer the most basic question. WHERE WAS HIS FRUIT? Lorrox had asked it several times already, and E'rik's many failures to respond to the young Candidate had only served to further annoy him, making it clear that E'rik was the thief.

For some reason, the big brown dragon felt the need to get involved in the little human squabble. Who understood dragons anyway? Certainly not Lorrox. He'd never had one talking inside his head, and as far as he was concerned, they were really only cool when you had your own. Other people's dragons? Totally lame. If he knew that the dragon was attempting to cause a stampede, he probably would have been a little more nervous -- as would the many innocent bystanders who might stumble into the well-traveled hallway only to be crushed by an errant stampede. In the dragon's position, of course, Lorrox would have probably tried to do the same unethical thing. Whatever it took to get his way!

Of course, what Lorrox hadn't expected was that E'rik would fight like a total girl. "Answe---" he had begun to shout, only to feel nails digging into the softer side of his wrist. He had felt that sensation many times before, but it had always been from one of his seven older sisters when they hoped to teach him a lesson. Lorrox yanked E'rik forward and then, seeing the leg headed his way, shoved him violently backward toward the cavern wall. Many a woman had tried to nail him in the nads before -- and a fair share had succeeded. But over the years, he had developed a kind of sixth sense for when something was threatening his family jewels.

Staggering backwards, he missed the brunt of the blow, taking a kick to his thigh instead. He winced out of surprise, but immediately resumed his aggressive stance. "You sharding flit fart! No real man goes straight for the d**k of another. Guess you're just that kind of skirt, eh, you fruit thief?" Without thinking, he lunged forward, aiming to wrap his arms around E'rik's middle and tackle him to the floor. He had the weight and height advantage, even if E'rik had a dragon and a flit on his side.

Lorrox didn't even bother to pay any attention to E'rik's acknowledgment of the fruit in question. He'd missed that golden window of opportunity the moment he decided to aim for Lorrox's prized possession. "GIVE IT BACK!" he screamed, ready to wrestle the fruit away from this crotch-kicking, question-avoiding tart.

A vibrating ping of joy swept through Lorrox's clenched muscles as he took E'rik to the ground. No matter what was said, Lorrox loved to shut people up with a little physical violence. His joy was short-lived. E'rik managed to wedge his knee between the pair, pushing hard on the young Candidate's sternum. He fell back on his haunches, and with a cry of, "Wherry balls!" he launched forward again, aiming a punch right for E'rik's pretty little girl face. Granted, E'rik was not feminine-looking much at all, but it gave the boy a feeling of superiority to think it so.

Oblivious to the actions of the brown dragon in the Bowl, Lorrox continued to scramble, intent on landing punches and keeping E'rik on the ground. His well-aimed punch swerved violently to the side, unfortunately, as the blue flit launched its attack. "Sharding tunnel-shits!" he snarled, staggering to his feet. The small flit's talons sunk deep into Lorrox's ear, coming away bloody. Awesome. Another scar for the collection. Letting out something akin to a roar, Lorrox shot a hand out toward its tail and then swung his arm, aiming to send the flit flying in the opposite direction.

"Can't handle me yourself, eh, you sharding herdbeast! Had to send your winged tunnelsnake twit after me?" E'rik clearly didn't understand the meaning of a fair fight. It had to be one-on-one, and there could be no crotch-area action. These were rules that Lorrox lived with, and rules that he would beat into the brownrider's skull -- with his fists, if necessary.

Reaching forward, he dove for E'rik again, this time working to pin him to the ground so that he could properly search him for the stolen fruit. Further down the hallway, two girls -- maybe from the kitchen -- came strolling out. The older of the two gasped, pointing at the scuffle. She disappeared around a corner, perhaps to go get someone, leaving the other girl to watch the fight go down.

Fighting was the best way to solve a disagreement. Whoever could defeat the other person always won. It didn't matter who was right or wrong; it only mattered who could throw the right blows to the right places. Talking was useless. Talkers could never beat fighters because fighters can just break talkers' jaws... rendering them useless. This was something that Lorrox believed in fully and so he had none of the issues of morality or control that E'rik might.

"I didn't start s**t, you fat-titted heardbeast," he said, catching himself from where he had missed his mark on the tackle. Lorrox threw himself on top of E'rik, throwing a punch near his side and struggling to pin the boy's hands to the ground so he could really let him have it. "Your lardy a** took MY fruit, numbweed! And then you took a swing at my goods!" He said the last bit louder, as if to highlight the sheer unacceptability of this.

As the flit came in for another approach, Lorrox ducked, shooting his hand up to slap it away. He already had one bleeding cut from the little monster; he didn't need another. "If I were less of a man, I might take that low blow too -- but I think you'd like it too much!" Attempting to free one hand, he gave E'rik a quick pat down, checking for where he might be stashing the fruit in question.

But he found nothing. Nothing? Well, hm, that certainly was odd. "Where is it?" he hissed, frustration seeping in his voice. He hadn't quite accepted that he might be wrong about E'rik being the fruit bandit... and probably wouldn't.

The little flit was quickly becoming more annoying than its thief of a keeper. Lorrox had no desire to kill the thing, but he also had very little self control. When the flit moved in toward his hand, he balled his slapping hand into a fist and took a swing. Not the nicest thing in the world, but he wasn't the nicest guy. Of course, it did distract him long enough to allow E'rik to get a handful of his hair. Oh, great. Now it was hair-pulling? This sorry excuse for a man was the most pathetic fighter Lorrox had ever met. His sisters used more honorable tactics.

"Thief and a coward -- you're a real waste of stank air, aren't you?" he said, voice tense from the pain of having his hair pulled. Gripping the smaller boy's wrist with both hands, Lorrox gave it a sharp twist, not enough to break it, but certainly enough to prove that he was capable of it. Lorrox didn't like to do any kind of bone-breaking in his skirmishes, but this dragonrider clearly had no concept of a fair-fight. He could bend his own rules -- as well as E'rik wrist. The dragonrider's half-answer to the question Lorrox had been posing all along made the young Candidate stop to form sentences. He didn't trust the kid, but he'd at least take the time to tell him so. "You want me to shatter your wrist, wherrybrain? Save yourself a trip to the infirmary and tell me where my fruit is! No one else is around to have nabbed it!"

He was a bit too busy to notice the small crowd (maybe 5 or 9 warm bodies) that was gathering a dragonlength down the hallway, people watching the fight -- mostly girls, though Lorrox picked out a familiar Candidate face. If Lorrox knew what Daramulath was planning, he'd actually be happy. Sending a stampede into a hallway was both dangerous and strictly against the rules. It was one of the things that the herders worked to prevent while the dragons fed. No doubt, if a rush of herdbeasts entered the hallway, a lot more than E'rik or Lorrox would be injured, a lot of property damaged. Which was great news for Lorrox! It meant that E'rik would be in considerably more trouble than he would.

Still gripping E'rik's wrist, Lorrox gave it another tight squeeze, pushing it at an unnatural angle. E'rik would need to be careful; any jerking movement might cause a break. And having your wrist broken was certainly a deal more painful than having a chunk of hair ripped out. "Call off your attack tunnelsnake and ANSWER ME," he said, vein pulsating with each punctuated word.