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 Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 10:58 am
Fighting down the urge to glower holes into J'aro's skull, the greenrider settled on his side of the jail cell, watching the whiterider in silence as he experienced a sudden mood swing. Maybe there was something wrong with his head. You never knew, his dragon was white, after all. Maybe they only Impressed to those that normal dragons wouldn't dare take. (You know, F'sey rather fancied that idea.)
"Ah, no reason. I forget, you never function with a purpose," he drawled, rolling his eyes and folding his arms behind his head. F'sey absolutely refused to rise to the bait; he would not ask J'aro what he meant. He wasn't three turns old, he had a sense of patience. (In theory, anyways.)
He had he sneaking suspicion, however, he was about to meet the Queen of Nowhere Islands. Not that the title really meant much (in theory); the islands were run by the Gaurdmaster and 'no one cared about the color bias'. (F'sey still had a very hard time buying that.)
"Who will be training all your weyrlings, then? Your goldrider?" A soft snort.
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 11:17 am
J'aro's chuckle was just icing on the cake. Leave it to him to make a theoretical cake that had a bitter taste with little of the sweetness. It was just wrong, but this was the same guy who used tea for evil purposes. Nothing was sacred in the realm of food stuffs. "She's not going to burst in here and attack us."He leaned forward as much as he could. With bars right in front of him, it wasn't far. "Let me ask you something... Without knowing anything about her, what do you think our goldrider is like?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 11:47 am
Feigning he had absolutely no opinion on the woman, F'sey tossed his hair, blowing his fringe away from his eyes. "Who am I to judge without meeting her?" he replied, but even the mighty poker master could not keep the sarcasm out of his voice. Of course he had judged her! People said things, and while said things needed to be taken with a grain of salt, but. He heard things.
"Why do you care what I think of her?" Ah, that sounded a little bitchy. The greenrider cleared his throat, straightened himself out. "It's unlikely to matter. I doubt I'll ever come across your goldrider, I've no reason to meet her." Unless J'aro got him into some more trouble, that was.
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 12:17 pm
J'aro raised his head, rested his chin on the top of his arm rather than behind it. "Maybe, maybe not," he said, "but I didn't ask if you thought you'd ever meet her. I didn't see much of goldriders when I was younger. Didn't have a lot of interest in a dragon I couldn't get--" His words paused long enough for him to give F'sey another one of those grins. "And I wasn't all that interested in their riders, either, but I did think goldriders were some beautiful symbol of perfection. I once thought they only Impressed to those pretty girls that were perfect one way or perfect another. The perfect kindness or the perfect mix of aggressiveness and passiveness.
"But, I did meet one once. Had a nice little conversation with her. Not any from here, but the one in Ghenza, Nalina. She's a tart of a girl. Sour personality and kind of a big nose. She's a thin little thing, but it's less like a drop-dead gorgeous feminine figure and more of... a stick. Of course, this wasn't too long ago and by then I had realized my mistake."
There had to be a reason for this story.
"They're funny things, those goldriders."
Or maybe not.
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 12:30 pm
"I grew up in a Weyr. I can promise you, that figment of your imagination is entirely that. I've never come across a kind one, though I suppose Favan could have...no. Favan wasn't pretty." The goldrider transferred to the desert was tall, awkwardly so, with a thin body and thicker limbs. Her face was...well, passable. "Helirra was no catch, either, come to think." And not very pleasant, either of them. It was like the bronzeriders, he supposed. "If you give a girl a gold..." Suddenly, she owned the entire Weyr.
Wait. What? Ghenza? What was that? "Ghenza?" F'sey asked as much. "Another one of your hidden islands? Do they keep strange colors holed up there as well? Should I be worried about their prison?" Shards, if B'lin had any intention of going to that mysterious place next, F'sey was going to stake the idiot out for Thread himself.
"Where are you trying to lead me, J'aro? Cut to the chase."
F'sey was getting lost in the trees again.
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 12:46 pm
And J'aro was letting him.
"I'm not leading you anywhere." Except maybe down the path to salvation when it came to the white and black dragons, but J'aro was secretly guiding everyone down that same road, step by step. They were all walking slow, taking their time; stopping to smell the roses. Nerve-wrecking, but he could wait. He'd waited this long. "I just thought that with your little investigation you'd have dug up more about our riders, and especially about Ghenza."
Somewhere outside, they heard footsteps, but those came and went.
"I was just thinking about what you said. About how shut-ins don't get what they want. And then I was thinking, how odd it is that I'm standing here trying to have a perfectly normal conversation with someone who has supposedly taken quite an interest in the going-ons of this island, only to find myself mistaken. It seems to that the interest hasn't been in politics, but rather in people. I mean, to not even know about Ghenza yet.. "
Those dull yellow teeth flashed. J'aro innocently inquired, "So was I the only target for your little information scavenger hunt? Have you taken a liking to me already?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 1:12 pm
"You are leading me on, J'aro. If you're going to be a b*****d, at least be an honest one." However, even if the greenrider knew exactly what was happening, it didn't mean the man had any power over what was going on as it was happening. It was like being paralyzed and wide awake, completely subjected to the flow of the universe as the world continued to turn without his say so. (Funny how that happened, really.)
"If you're implying that I want you, whiterider-" And he was, F'sey was no idiot (though he was a bit vain). "-you are mistaken. You might be my first target, but not my only one." Which may or may not be true, but how was J'aro to know what the greenrider spent his time doing, unless he was asking as well?
Shifting again (uneasily?), the former Weyrlingmaster continued to try and stare the Whitemaster into submission, no matter how foolish the endeavor might be. "I don't really care where your riders are from or where they go, I don't particularly care who founded you or for whom you house your prisoners. That has no effect on the way I live my life. You and your brigade of mutants, however." F'sey snorted. "Trying to lose you is like trying to lose my own shadow."
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 1:20 pm
When F'sey stared him down, J'aro stared back until he decided winking would be more amusing. So he did that instead. And, when F'sey went on and on (and on and on), J'aro decided he had think about the next white candidate lesson planning. Now was as good a time as any.
"I'm sorry, I didn't catch a word after saying I was your target."
Target practice was more like it.
"But thank you, F'sey. I feel in much better spirits now. I'll be sure to remind them to feed you tonight once they let me out. I have a feeling they were going to forget." J'aro shifted away from their shared wall. He ended up favoring the front set of bars -- the one with the door he expected to be unlocked any moment now. "That's adorable, by the way. How you say 'whiterider' or 'greenrider'. All full of contempt and ruffled feathers, aren't we?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 1:42 pm
"I hate you."
Every time he got ahead, J'aro got another toehold and yanked him back down to the ground, faster than gravity ever could. It was getting old. Fast.
"I'm glad I was of some use," F'sey all but snarled, lips curling back in an old, feral display. "But if you call me adorable again, I have no problem with punching you for a second time. A night in this little cell will be worth giving you a black eye, knocking out a tooth." He did not turn away from the teasing rider, ignored his comment about feathers and contempt. Whether or not F'sey resented his dragon's color was his business, and his business only.
"Going to call your friends to spring you, now? Can't take the punishment dealt to you?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 1:48 pm
"I hate you."
Ouch! It was probably inappropriate to laugh over it, but J'aro was never that politically correct. At least, the real one wasn't.
"Going to call your friends to spring you, now? Can't take the punishment dealt to you?"
The whiterider grinned at him again. "That's really cute," he cooed, making sure to draw out the last word -- really linger on it as long as possible. "I've got snakes to kill, you see."
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 1:50 pm
F'sey growled. Yes, growled. He turned his back, tossed his chin as he gave J'aro the quintessential cold shoulder.
Notworthhistimenotworthhistimenotworthhistime.
"I hope you get bitten."
Forty-three turns, going on five.
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 1:59 pm
Any minute now.
"Oh?" J'aro snorted. His eyes found the grown child in the corner and he bit his tongue. They were going to be here soon, and if was caught laughing hysterically... Worse things could happen to the reputation he'd painstakingly worked to build, but not many of them. "Ialluth is a fine dragon, F'sey. You shouldn't regret anything."
Damn him and his random bouts of sincerity. (Although, to him it wasn't random at all; ever since he'd mentioned the way F'sey said his title he'd been thinking about it. He really, really needed to get out of here. Way too much thinking. Way, way too much.)
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:07 pm
"Shut up, J'aro. You don't know anything. Whether your dragon is revered or feared, at least it entitles you to more than being the butt of every joke," F'sey snapped, tired of the younger man's play at sympathy. The Whitemaster was a politician; just because he sounded like he was being deep and meaningful didn't mean he wasn't privately having a laugh at F'sey's expense. "I won't pretend to know anything about your dragon, but stop pretending you know a sharding thing about mine."
Ialluth was a fine dragon. But she was just that. Fine. The green was practically his mother, but it wasn't going to get F'sey anywhere in life. For Faranth's sake, she flirted with the weyrlings while he was still the master. Ialluth was indeed a fine dragon, but nothing spectacular. She didn't warrant a second look, she wasn't anything anyone would remember.
Mine... The voice was soft. Hurt.
F'sey did not apologize. He deserved more than a green. (But really, he knew, he didn't. This was his sentence, wasn't it? He was being punished for something. He must be. There wasn't any other reason for being condemned to a life of filler roles when bronzes and golds ran the entire world.)
Staring hard at the bars, F'sey said nothing else. What was there to say, after an outburst like that?
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:18 pm
J'aro was still, letting the words sink in like a ship plummeting into the sea. It took time for that vessel to fall, but when it did, it fell deep. The emotion he felt, brought on by those words, was so very deep. "Does it? I've told you--" No. No, forget about that. Nevermind his political standing or the differences between ranks from one place to then ext.
"You don't know anything about Rajath," he agreed, clearly unhappy with the turn this conversation had taken. "You couldn't know because no one knows. Have you ever tried to talk to a white? It's like someone is bashing a rock against your head if you dig deep enough. And when you do get something -- just a small, small piece of something... It's hate. Spite. My dragon hates me.
"What bad things do you have to say about yours, exactly? That she's green? That she makes you look bad? From where I'm standing, all I see is an ungrateful man who I can already tell is a better man than his behavior leads one to assume, but just can't get over his bronze complex enough to act like it and appreciate what he does have."
J'aro ended his rant by facing forward and informing F'sey in a very matter-of-fact way, "You should be ashamed of yourself as a rider and I hope that you never told your greenrider Weyrlings their dragons aren't as good as ones like Xanthoth."
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:28 pm
"I can't do anything with her." He was meant for so much. He was not a born leader, he had to fight and claw and scratch for every ounce of respect he'd ever gained. And what did it get him? A sharding green. And every last shred of dignity was lost, just as soon as that green hatched. After all, how could you have any sort of self-wortj when you were bent over by any sharding rider who's dragon was fast enough to catch yours?
You're being needlessly cruel!
The truth hurts.
I am not useless!
F'sey didn't have a smart remark for that one.
So maybe he'd never outgrown his bronze complex, but when you were raised in a Weyr were bronzes mattered the most, it was hard to stop caring. Even the browns got rank sometimes, and blues, if they were really lucky. But not greens, no. Never greens. They were too flighty, unpredictable, they had no stamina, no real desire to lead. Excellent followers, foot soldiers. But that was all.
"I can't help anyone if I can't even make myself heard. But why listen to a greenrider? He's just a tramp."
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