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 Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 8:23 am
L'thor grinned and shook his head. "Ah, well, perhaps you're right. I'm still sure there are important details that have slipped my mind though, or little things that were an issue back then but that I've forgotten because..." More crabs? Veyes was already off, and it took L'thor a few moments to shake himself out of his musing and charge after the candidate. He didn't actually spot the crabs in question for a few moments more, but when he did he narrowed his eyes; that was his supper and he was sharding well going to get hold of it!
Veyes' lead allowed the young man to get there a few moments before he did, so L'thor went after the furthest crustacean. It was a quick little thing, but no match for a full length dive; the rider grabbed it firmly from behind even as he made an 'oof' noise as the air was driven from his lungs on impact with the sand. Momentarily unable to breathe, he spent a few moments grinning like a fool and waving his prize triumphantly before managing to gasp; "Got it!"
"Tch, humans," Raith grinned as she looked down on them, "you really are awful hunters."
"Hush!" her rider responded as he sat up and held the crab out to Veyes, "I got it didn't I? Dignified doesn't matter too much when you're looking at a nice dinner for once."
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Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 9:53 am
Veyes had just leaned forward to snatch up the first one when suddenly the speedly L'thor whizzed by and dove for the other crab. Sand flew everywhere hitting Veyes all the chest and his mouth as he rolled to the ground laughing. The crab still in his hand and pinching, "Owie!!" he yelped tossing the large crab into the air and then grasping at it again as it fell and finally shoving it into the bag.
He spit sand out of his mouth over and over even as he continued to laugh, "L'thor that was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time!!" He reached over and took the crab from L'thor's hand and tucked it into the bag. "Oh man, I'm starting to get hungry! You think we have enough?"
His bag was starting to get a little weighted from all the delicious crabs roaming inside as he moved it to the other shoulder. "Mm..." Eyes scanned around realizing that the water had moved in just a bit closer than before. "Tide is starting to come in too. I'm guessing the flit wouldn't have her eggs this close to the water. Hey, there's a nice dry area over there and its flat. Do you think that would be a good choice for our feast?"
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Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 6:44 am
L'thor laughed and got to his feet, brushing himself free of sand as he did so. "Well, I'm glad I amuse! I think we should have plenty, the crabs along with what I brought in the first place. We'll need that klah pot then." On cue, his miniature fair appeared, wondering what it was he wanted now. Directing his thoughts mostly to Rust, the brightest and most reliable of them, L'thor thought about the pot; it hung on a hook in an alcove near the fireplace, it was rather blackened with soot on the bottom, but clean inside.
After a moment or two, Rust's eyes swirled a slightly brighter blue; he knew the thing, it was a heavy thing, he needed the others to help him. Pot? Pot? Shiny pot? L'thor grinned; yes River, shiny pot, shiny pot here please. The four of them vanished again, and L'thor turned back to Veyes with a grin. "Well, that should be on its way. Heading up the beach sounds like a good plan, for a meal and for flitt hunting. Oh, we'll need firewood, won't we?" he added as he spotted and grabbed a twisted piece of driftwood. They would of course need a way to start the fire as well, but that wasn't an issue; one trick he had managed to teach River to do was flame one cue. He didn't think the blue had chewed any firestone recently, but that was easily fixed.
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Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2009 4:39 pm
Veyes turned and started doing exactly what L'thor was - picking up firewood. If they could get the pot to a nice rolling boil then the crabs would cook up nice and tasty. "You know this is going to be the best dinner I've had in awhile, L'thor. Fresh crabs...good company." He grinned put the wood he found in a pile then walked further off up towards another spot where he saw some old driftwood. "Ill get the wood over there. Be right back."
He trucked on over and leaned down to move some dried seaweed so he could pick up the wood. It looked like from this pile they'd have plenty to get the fire boiling and enough to keep it going as the night cooled the sands. It was then his eyes saw a slight gleam as he pushed aside another bit of seaweed. As he moved it away, his bright eyes widened and he gasped at what he saw!
Tucked in the sand and just under the seaweed all on its own was a lone little....EGG! His jaw dropped with the sudden bit of unexpected luck. "L...L....L'thor!!!!!!!!! Look!!!" All he could do was point at the lovely little green frosted egg. "It's an EGG!!" He almost couldn't contain himself for the giddy joy he was feeling but he didn't jump. Heck, he didn't do anything because at the moment he didn't know what to do. But...surely L'thor would!
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Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 7:16 am
An egg? He hardly had the presence of mind to thank his flitts as they returned struggling under the weight of the pot; just drop it in the sand! They did so, and quickly set off after their master as he hurried over to Veyes. "Well there you go!" L'thor grinned as he crouched to inspect the little egg, "just as we stopped looking, here's your egg!" reaching out carefully, L'thor laid two fingers on the shell. "Warm," he confirmed, grin broadening, "no other eggs in sight though. I wonder what happened to the rest of the clutch... well, no matter, pick it up and keep hold of it while I lay a fire, it's quite hard so don't worry about damaging it. Once I've got the fire going going, you can partly bury it in the sand close by to make sure it stays warm."
What a stroke of luck, and only the one so he wasn't tempted to take on yet another little pest! Speaking of pests, his own had all landed on him to get a good look. Dusk had one shoulder, Dancer the other, Rust clung to his belt, and River had alighted on his head. Laughing at the four of them, and at how silly he probably looked, L'thor straightened and picked up the wood that Veyes had come over to get. Right, now some more things. He needed two strong sticks with forks at the top, forks like they had in their tails, and then one straight stick too. Three could go looking around, and River could go and find stone to chew so they could make fire and cook good food for all of them! The quartet acknowledged him and vanished as he turned to walk back over to where the pot and bags had been left. Kneeling down, L'thor began to lay the fire; the egg had felt quite warm to him but there was no harm in getting it warmer swiftly. Given there was only one, chances were some mishap had claimed the others, best to make sure the egg was well cared for, it would be awful if anything bad happened to it.
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Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:02 am
If Veyes grin could have been any wider it might have stretched off of his face. He still couldn't believe what a great stroke of luck he just had without even trying. After all the long search, it had been right here just steps away! He nodded slowly as L'thor gave instructions because he'd be damned if he were going to mess this up. "Alright...I'll bring it over." he said with a slightly nervous voice taking a deep breath as he looked down towards the small egg.
Carefully, he set his fingers down beside the egg letting them slip into the sands and carefully started to bring his fingers up around the egg. As he pulled them out, he saw bits of other shells drawn out of the sand as he lifted the egg in his hands. It was then he realized why there were no more eggs: something had been eating them. Looking up he came face to face with a large snake that just edged over a rock. It stared at him as his fingers clutched around the small egg.
"L...L'thor...L'thor..." he said slowly with a gasp realizing that snake and he were too dang close for him to turn and run. " I think I know what happened to the other eggs....help."
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Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:15 am
Of course. Tunnel snakes loved flitt eggs, or any kind of egg come to that, and this one was going to be none to happy about losing part of its meal. While the pest could do no serious harm to Veyes, it could quite easily break the egg before he had a chance to pull it away to safety. At the moment, candidate and tunnel snake were eying one another up but the stalemate wouldn't last long. Setting down all but one piece of the driftwood, L'thor began to move around behind the tunnel snake. It seemed to be utterly fixated by that one surviving egg, he might just be able to get close enough. Biting his lip in concentration, L'thor crept closer, not daring to reply to Veyes in case he startled the little beast into striking at the precious egg. He was damned if he was going to see his friend lose something he had wanted for so long.
Closer he crept, closer still, closer again... L'thor raised the chunk of driftwood and, scowling in concentration, brought it down on the tunnel snake's head with great prejudice. The creature's skull gave a satisfying crack as the large piece of wood flattened it, and L'thor raised his makeshift weapon again to inspect the bloody mark with his nose wrinkled fastidiously. "I think we might not use these piece," he said, tossing it aside and grinning at Veyes, "looks like I save the day again!" ...He hadn't meant to remind his young friend of the day they'd met. He had been such an unbearable arse, and he never had explained himself. He wasn't sure he could now either. Besides, even if he could it would be unkind to put a damper on Veyes' joy; the candidate wouldn't want to hear about his dead weyrmate. "The flitts will clean that nasty beast up when they return," he went on hurridly, "better get that egg over here in case there are any more tunnel snakes lurking around the place."
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Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:06 am
Veyes eyes never left the tunnel snake while their stand off continued. He treated it much like any other animal and knew better than to back down even if he so badly wanted to. Some of this was posturing and although he was larger, the snake's fangs would hurt if it bit him even if it couldn't kill him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the movement of what he guessed was L'thor. Since L'thor had gotten quiet he knew the man had to have heard him thankfully... Suddenly, he saw the green rider pounce with a swift thwack of drift wood and repeated pounding.
As soon as L'thor was whacking at the snake, Veyes dragged his hand the rest of the way out of the sand with the egg somewhere in the middle of it. He backed off as his other hand came quickly around the bottom of the hand holding the egg; sand falling out between his fingers until just the egg sat firmly within. His feet almost stumbled but he managed to catch himself and bring his hands close to his chest while his heart pounded from the adrenalin.
"Man that was close! I didn't even see it until it had risen over the rock. It must have been searching for the last of the eggs." he sighed in relief and moved toward their fire pit. "Thanks L'thor." Sitting down he peered down at the egg and waited for L'thor to prepare the fire. "This egg is green. I wonder if there's a green inside." he grinned a little at the thought especially as the 4 male flits started to return.
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Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:21 am
L'thor chuckled, glad that his comment had been passed over so easily, and set about gathering up the wood he had cast aside. "It could be," he said with a nod as he began to set the wood up. "Rust and Dancer's eggs were both brown. River's was bright yellow though, and Dusk's was a sort of mottled purple."
As if on cue, Dusk reappeared. He did indeed have a forked stick, but it was about the size of the blue's tail. L'thor took it with a sigh; maybe he shouldn't have used that analogy. The piece Rust came back with on the other hand was too large, and Dancer just showed up with one long stick. "Well, fine," the rider grinned ruefully and took the long stick, "I can work with this." He had a knife on his belt, a blade was useful for this and that so he was seldom without one. In this case, it was used to mark the stick into three. L'thor snapped the stick at the lines before setting about the end of one of them with the knife. After a few moments he had managed to make a cut a few inches long, and he repeated this process with a second piece as he hummed to himself. He then rammed the cut sticks into the sand either side of his fire-to-be.
"Right," he nodded in a satisfied manner, "I'm going to fill our pot with water, hopefully salty will be alright because I'm not going to hunt for streams. With a bit of luck, I'll be able to bend open those cuts I made and wedge the other bit of stick in once I've got the pot on it. If not... well we'll just have to find some better sticks!" Hopping back to his feet, L'thor jogged down the beach to the water's edge and waded into until he was up to his knees and the water was clear. Using salty water was one thing, but sandy salty water was quite another. Pot filled, he moved back up the beach to their mini camp and hung the pot from the third piece of stick, which seemed happy enough to sit in the grooves on the others. Good stick, when he was finished cooking he would leave it to live out its little stick existence in peace... and in no more pieces than it was currently in!
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Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 8:04 pm
He might have caught those words had he not been so enchanted by the small green frosted egg in his hand. But instead his mind was quite distracted and he wasn't even sure what to say except, "Wow." It took another few minutes before words found their way to the boy's lips as he got used to the idea that the egg was really in his hands and just beyond the shell a small flitt was...slowly being created.
"So theres a good chance that any color could be inside this egg." he finally said as he noticed L'thor trying to figure out the sticks that the flitts had shown up with. He tried not to laugh but it was surely hard not to; especially when they had brought the intended even though...not exactly in the right shapes or sizes. "Well, I hope mine is a smart one...that doesn't bite me ever time I turn around. His thoughts drifted to Mal's flit and he cringed just a little because his toes had suffered many times from the little monster's mouth.
Eventually, as L'thor got the pot going, Veyes tucked the egg back into the sand in a very obvious spot so it wouldn't get stepped on but would be close enough to the fire. From there he grabbed the bag of crabs and pulled them over closer to the pot. "I don't mind a bit of salt. " he said as his stomach growled a little; obviously not caring about the salt either. Veyes' eye kept glancing at the egg but with the other flits around he felt relatively safe that no snakes or other creature would get close enough to steal it. " So...what will I need to do with it once I get it back to the Weyr?"
He started opening up the bag and grabbing the first crab as the water started to boil, "Looks like we are in for some good eating tonight!" As soon as the water peaked he put the first crab in.
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Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 5:12 am
"That's right," L'thor said with a nod, "You can make a vague guess from the size of the egg, but that's a little difficult without any other eggs to compare to. As to how bright it will come out" he chuckled and glanced up to where Raith was still circling, "greens are rather stupid." The spiraling dragon gave a roar of mock affront, and L'thor grinned mischievously. "Green flitts that is," he continued, "gold flitts are quite intelligent, they can master quite a lot of tricks and tasks, but the smaller ones aren't so brilliant. Still, it's only taken me about ten turns to train River to do a few useful things! To be fair to him though he was always quite good at taking messages to and from my family, knew where his clutch mates were I suppose." The little blue probably still did. He really should send them a note some time... but they hadn't sent anything to him either. Maybe he'd wait for them to send something to him. Were they waiting on the same?
"Anyway," L'thor shook himself back to the task at hand, opening the bag of supplies he had originally brought and tossing Veyes a meat roll to keep him alive while the crabs cooked, "looking after it. You'll want to keep it in a pot of sand, and keep the pot in a fireplace... Given how things are in the candidate dorms at the minute it might be a good idea for you to keep it up in my weyr. It'll be safe there, and my pests can keep an eye on it. If it starts hatching while you're not around, they can fetch you; that technique worked well for me with Rust and Dancer." Just so long as he could train the little idiots to go to Veyes rather than him. Still, if they did he could always redirect them in a matter of moments.
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 7:35 am
Veyes peered down at his egg, "Mm...yeah...by itself it just looks...small." His finger rubbed over the top of the egg briefly before chuckling at the dragon's roar to L'thor's comment. "You're lucky that Raith's a tolerant soul. I daresay if she were human she's have your butt over her knee for that one." He giggled as L'thor continued, "Ok...well I hope that I get one that has some smarts then. Are greens the more common flit type like in Dragons? 10 turns? Wow. Ok...so it can take awhile with some to teach them." He looked thoughtfully at the other flits hanging about and had to wonder how long it might take to train the one in the egg. 10 turns was a long time in the boy's head.
Catching the meat roll, he then eased back and started relaxing. What a way to end the day - fun, friends, and flit egg. The three major 'F's all accomplished without any calamities except for maybe the snake which probably would be a nummy dinner for the flits. He listened to L'thor's instructions and nodded, "Good idea. The candidate dorms aren't the safety place for people let alone fragile flit eggs. And I can come see it while its...baking."
He grinned a little, because he wasn't sure how far along the egg was in regards to hatching although it was hard so at least it probably wasn't too fresh in the sands. Veyes knew that once this little one hatched he would definitely keep a bit of shell for his memory box. "So any guesses on how long before it might hatch? How long do they usually take?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 4:25 pm
"He is right Mine, you are lucky to have me!" Raith crooned. "Go on, say you love me more than anything else in the world, I know you do!"
L'thor chuckled and shook his head slightly; dragons! "Of course I do my dearest one. You are wonderful beyond measure, now why don't you go for a nice swim, eh?" The green sent him a feeling of agreement coupled with satisfied amusement, and a moment later her sleek form dropped out of the sky and skimmed along the surface of the water, throwing up a trail of spray in her wake. Once she judged herself to be deep enough, she folded her wings away and ducked below the surface, losing herself in the pleasurable feeling of cool water against her hide.
L'thor smiled at his lifemate's pleasure, and took a moment to look through her eyes at the underwater world before turning his attention back to Veyes. "I am most lucky to have her, a fact she reminds me of daily! Humm, the egg... Not long really I think," he said with a nod. "From soft they take several sevendays, but that one you have there can't be more than one away from hatching. I'd guess maybe between two and seven days, but I might be wrong." He hoped it was a green; even if he couldn't have one of his own, he could play with and make a fuss of Veyes'! He just hoped his four, who were now occupied with the tunnel snake, didn't get to jealous.
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 7:07 pm
His eyes drifted over to the water as Raith took the plunge, "We're lucky she didn't decide to scold you with a watery bath over here with that dive." He chuckled a bit and pulled the first crab out of the pot with some sticks. "Looks like their getting done!" He gingerly picked another one of the water and used the sticks like tongs to put it in front of L'thor. "Boy, I think this is going to be better and fresher than any Weyr made food!" he said as he gripped his crab with a small cloth tearing off a leg then snapping it open to reveal the meat inside. He blew on the meat before taking a bite. "Hmm...delicious!"
After a few bites, Veyes grinned broadly, "That soon eh?" The thought of the egg hatching left Veyes with a ton of other thoughts...care and feeding. "Hey L'thor, so how do you take care of them when they're little. Do they get oiled and such like dragons? I mean they are pretty small so I am guessing it doesn't take that long to oil a flit but beyond that; how much do you feed a little one?"
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Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 4:34 am
L'thor cracked open his crab with great prejudice - he thought this was the one he'd had to dive for, and his chest was beginning to sting from being skimmed along the sand - before shooting Veyes a grin. "I think were we not cooking she might have done! She knows the importance of getting a good feed though; I wouldn't be surprised if she tries to snap up any unwary fish that come her way." The crab was hot, almost painfully so, but just as delicious as he'd hoped. L'thor sucked the meat out of the leg he was working on and then fished in his bag for drinks; the water he tossed to Veyes, the wine he opened and took a swig of.
"Yes though," he nodded, "they need oiling but like you say that's a pretty quick job. When they first hatch, I've always fed mine as much as they would eat. After that, for the first few days I guess about this much meat," he scooped a small amount of sand into his hand, "gradually more as they grow. How much they need as adults, of course depends on how big they are."
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