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 Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 12:46 pm
"You're my pretty girl," Kaelyandra crooned the words like a mother dragon to her clutch. She rubbed at Brakiheth's visible hide with oil, the cloth soft and gentle, her other hand stroking along the dulling golden hide in the dimming light. "Such a good Brakiheth."
I am not a dog. Brakiheth preened under the compliments anyway, her voice nothing but sweetness and light. She hummed contentedly, her tail flicking this way and that. Her face had just been washed clean of blood from her feed, her eyes blue and green with only a touch of gray to the edges. Have you been nice to people yet?
"Don't be silly, darling. You know we're better then they are." She laughed, her words lacking poison. "Besides they leave us be. Such scurrying little rodents. And I can't believe they would let criminals Stand."
You're just saying that outloud in case M'onk is listening, aren't you?
The goldriders lips curled up slightly, and she dunked her hand into the oil once again. "You know it."
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Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 9:16 pm
Malta's fragile confidence waned as she neared the clutching area.
She had wanted to go see the eggs again.
And if anyone gives you trouble, you come right to the eggs and they'll let their mother know, how's that?
She believed the little egg.
Shards knew why.
The touching had been so nice. She had felt so understood.
And... ah...
Well...
It was nice that the little egg was so concerned.
It hadn't been a bad couple of days, though. She hadn't had much trouble. Nobody had bothered her, and someone actually said hi to her!
And she was so happy to see her brother after all these years!
She had just wanted to come and visit. Let the little egg know that she was okay for now.
She could talk to the eggs, right?
But now, as she approached and saw the gold dragon and the woman at the sands again...
She felt suddenly very silly.
She was walking out here.
In the middle of the night.
To tell an egg everything was okay.
What the shards was she doing... She'd get in trouble...
PUT YOUR SHOULDERS BACK.
CHIN IN THE AIR.
She winced at the intense memory of the other egg telling her to grow up.
Well.
She'd tried to do a bit of that since the touching. It hadn't worked out too badly, right? Right?
She felt like jelly and she slouched as she approached.
Shards, the gold was big... And sad...
And between her and the sanctuary of the nice, kind eggs.
Malta was sort of hoping she wouldn't be noticed...
For a moment, she really considered, again, turning back now.
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Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 8:28 am
Brakiheth lifted her head, drawn from her quiet contemplation of the world and how her rider liked to be more ruthless then she really was. There was a noise on the edge of the Sands in the darkening light and she had not the sight of a wher in order to tell if it were human, tunnelsnake, or... or whatever other sorts of fierce beasts the continent may have. Mine...
Kaelyandra dropped her oiling cloth faster than you could say 'boo'. She grabbed for the long knife on her belt and spun on her heels, the tip of the blade pointing to the noise Brakiheth had indicated. "Reveal yourself at once, you sneak-thief, or I will cut you from throat to tail." Then, she raised her voice as Brakiheth mantled her fragile wings over her eggs. "Guards!"
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Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 2:35 pm
If Malta had any confidence left after overthinking everything at every step, it dribbled pathetically away at the rider's snarl, leaving her basically a walking pile of quivering terified jelly.
And the walking part was debatable, as she let out a sharp yelp of fear and possibly surprise- though she had no idea why she would be surprised- and fell flat on her a**.
"I'm s-s-s-ssorry! I j... I jus..."
She didn't want to get hurt and... and that knife looked really long and she had seen people who had been in knife fights and... and...
She didn't want to get hurt!
Reveal herself? She didn't... She didn't know what the rider meant...
Right now she just wanted to run away and hide under her bed and cry. She didn't want to get hurt!
This was a bad idea! Such a bad idea! She had only wanted to talk to the eggs!
She wasn't worried about the guards. Dino would help her. Not all the guards were as nice as him, but Dino and Disk would help her... even if she wasn't supposed to be out here at night.
"P... p.. please..." she couldn't even get the rest of 'please dont huuuuurt me' out, because by this point she had started crying.
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Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 2:47 pm
Kaelyandra hated many things: salads, greenriders, M'onk. They all had a special place in her heart of hate. What hit right up at the top were people who cried and people invading her nest of eggs. True, Kaelyandra never had eggs to defend before. This would be her first and so help her if those guards didn't show up soon.She heard footsteps but until then she had the girl on the sands and her oiled hand clutching the sword. It slipped some but she gripped the ridges with her nails, a snarl marring her too pretty face.
"Your name and rank, you crying little brat!" She took a step closer, sword still pointing down towards Malta and her tiny face. "If I don't get a name and a reason why you are on my Sands this late at night, along with who gave you the shaffing permission, I will slice your nose off before those guards get here!"
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Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 4:57 pm
Shoving a sword in her face did not stop Malta from crying. She was shaking so much she couldn't even sob.
"M-m-malta. App-apprentice healer..." she squeaked, trying to scurry back away from the sword. She managed a slide.
Her heart was racing faster than she had ever felt it go. It was (probably) clear that this girl was not an inmate. She wouldn't have survived long behind bars, not this timid girl.
"I jus... I just..."
She had just wanted to see the eggs...
Oh no! she... She'd forgotten to ask the masterhealer...
She'd get in trouble and... and...
Shards... That thing was sharp...
She fell silent, throat clogged by fear and probably allergies.
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Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 5:24 pm
“Guards!”
Even after a year of being out, it still sometimes hit Taavi that, hey, he was a guard now! He even had a huge murderbeast of his very own! Outside of the Hatching area, he paused, one foot still half-raised.
Gustav didn't pause. Moving far faster than a beast his size should have, he rumbled into the Sands, all flashing teeth and jaws. In the gloomy dusk, his eyes practically glowed when the light hit them just right. A wher's sight easily picked out the heat of a crying girl and he rushed over.
“Gus, stop,” Taavi commanded, holding up his lantern high to get a better look at things. Well, judging by the lack of screams, the wher had indeed stopped. That was probably good, considering that the girl looked to be more like a threat to herself than the eggs. It didn't exactly take a genius to figure out what was going on either. While he was technically new to Weyr life, the wherhandler had heard enough stories from Weyrfolk about how sneaking onto the Sands was practically a coming-of-age ceremony.
“Shards, what's going on here?” he asked anyway, just in case the girl was some sort of dangerous invader. “Gus, stop it.” Just in case the wher got any bright ideas, Taavi put his hand up to the wher's shoulder. It would have been about as effective as trying to stop a landslide with a clothesline, but it was a symbol.
The wher didn't so much growl as he did vibrate. Some ancient rumble came up from the beast's deep chest. Maybe it was just his teeth grinding together.
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Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 5:36 pm
"You're pathetic, Malta," Kaelyandra spat out, her voice rough and angry. Her snarl remained in place, muscles taunt. "Stop crying! If you're going to do something completely idiotic, you aren't supposed to sob like an infant about it."
She'd have said more, probably more horrible things, but Taavi showed up. Kaelyandra glanced at him and didn't lower her sword. She sent the wherhandler a nasty glare instead, charming as always. "About time! Apparently an apprentice Healer didn't know sneaking up in the middle of the night on a brooding dragon in a prison gets you dead. Eat her or whatever it is you moronic wherhandlers do."
She doesn't truly think those horrible things, Brakiheth murmured to Gus, trying to keep herself sounding calm and harmless. Her wings folded to cover the eggs, eyes yellowed and gray only. Honestly, she doesn't. Not all of them. I'm sure you and yours are very intelligent. The girl may be lacking in common sense, I fear.
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Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 6:08 pm
...
It was a little worrying to feel relieved when a snarling and murderous wher came snarling at her. She knew whers.
Oh shards she WAS pathetic. Honestly Malta didn't know what was wrong with her.
She'd stopped crying- not because she had wanted to or because she no longer was crying, she had just ran out of terrified tears and now her eyes felt puffy and strange.
She still shook, her throat was still clogged.
"I wa...wa...wasn't..." she managed to squeak out, swallowing down the clogging in her throat "s-s-sneaking..." she finished as her throat clogged up again.
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Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 6:26 pm
Gus' mind brushed up against Brakiheth's. It wasn't a mind that held a lot of truck with verbal communication or diplomacy. It preferred a more visceral connection. His mind wasn't simply red in tooth and claw, but steeped in blood. The only thing that stopped Gus from simply killing Malta was the fact that his handler told him not to.
Gustav hoped that his orders would change soon enough. Until then, the large brown lowered himself onto the warm blinding Sands and closed his eyes.
“Nobody is going to eat anyone else,” Taavi said firmly, holding his hands up in the universal sign for 'look, I am not holding a large dangerous weapon, unlike the Goldrider right over here'. The insult to his intelligence rolled right off his back. Pfff, he grew up with three sisters and dealt with V'tyai on a daily basis; there was nothing Kaelyandra could say to him that he hadn't heard three hundred times over. Speaking of sisters, the sight of Malta weeping openly did something to Taavi. Shards. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, offering it to the weeping girl.
Yeah, she looked vaguely familiar. Not someone he knew, but someone he'd seen around the Infirmary during his frequent visits. “Besides, if I let Gus eat her, Bereck will get annoyed at me. I don't think I can bake that many klah cookies to make up for the loss of an apprentice.”
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Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 6:35 pm
"I'm sure all the girls you visit at night are used to hearing that." Kaelyandra sneered to the brown handler. The sword lowered slowly, her full lips pursed into a thin line of distaste. The goldrider stepped back, her eyes narrowed on Taavi and then to the small, squeaking girl. "Oh, shut up, girl."
Kaelyandra snatched up a dry rag and wiped at her sword hilt, snarl fading to a deep frown. "Prattle all you want, make sure Malta the Healer Apprentice knows she's banned from Standing before dragging her off my sands."
Brakiheth sighed and buried her nose into the warm sands, her eyes closed. She reached out to Malta this time with her mind, crooning mentally to her. Don't worry, little one. You are not a prisoner, she has no power to keep you from Standing. My rider is simply worried over my eggs. She is protective, this is my first you know. Please don't cry. Please.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 10:07 pm
She shut up.
Malta was beyond crying any more tears at this point. She was pretty sure her eyes were clogged like her nose and throat. Cloggy, wet, pathetic, miserable...
She felt like and probably looked like all these things.
She didn't get the innuendo, and she was more relieved to see the sword lowered away from her very soft and vulnerable neck. She took the handkerchief and wiped away her tears, backing up a little... but not too much.
She knew whers, and now that the queenrider was no longer pointing sharp objects at her face, Malta was less relieved by the whers presence. She didn't like this one very much.
Also the guard had joked about the wher eating her.
She didn't like those sorts of jokes.
She was giving the wher a nervous look, wondering what the guard would want her to do next. Should she stand up? Let him hold her up? Should she blow on the hanky?
Yes, her nose said, she should do that.
Her gaze whipped back to the goldrider in shock.
Banned... Banned?! Could she... No!
She wanted to stand! She wanted to see all of those nice eggs hatch into baby dragons...
The masterhealer would be upset with her if she got banned...
She felt more than miserable now... she had only wanted to say hi... and now... now...
She felt even more like blowing her nose. Not like crying, more like curling up into a little ball. Maybe... maybe if she curled up tightly enough she could become an egg herself?
She was about to just surrender, when the shock of another mind touched hers.
She had never had a dragon's voice enter her mind before. It was startling to have someone else's voice there, even briefly.
Even if she had been capable of responding (maybe she was allergic to the sand? Or to scary ladies?) she had a feeling that that would be a bad idea.
Did she mean that? She could still stand?
She wiped her reddened eyes again and gave the dragon a grateful (and pathetic) little nod.
She understood. She... Guessed she didn't blame her for waving sharp things at her. There were scary people after all. Here.
Now that she wasn't freaking out in terror, she kind of admired Kaelyandra. She was strong and tough, like Malta wasn't.
She wanted to be like that... but she wasn't sure if she could.
She was too... drained... to cry anymore. This had been a stupid idea... She wished she had never had it.
She looked to Taavi for cues.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 10:24 pm
“If anyone who visits me in the night is coherent enough to say anything, I'm clearly not doing it right,” Taavi said, ever so charmingly. But, there was no time for jokes at the moment, however light he wanted the mood to be. Kaelyandra was about ready to bite metal and s**t nails and, unfortunately, it looked like the girl----Faranth, how old was she? She looked about twelve; what was she even doing in Warden's?----would be the recipient.
The look she gave Taavi didn't just tug at his heart. It dangled on his heartstrings, playing with his emotions like a Faranth-scorched swing. Mostly, he was reminded of his sisters and poor Taara. She had dealt with bullies who mocked her for liking other girls. He knelt next to the girl and put a hand on her back, trying to be reassuring as he could. “It'll be alright,” he said, trying to sound like he knew this for an absolute fact. Shards, he had no idea how Hatchings went. Could Kaelyandra bar her from Standing? From what he vaguely knew, they needed every Candidate they could for the clutch.
Buuut he also decided not to mention that, because that would probably result in the Very Angry Goldrider pointing the sword at him. He wasn't worried about being stabbed.
He was more worried about Gus taking it all personally. As the thought went through Taavi's mind and into the wher's, the brown lifted his head to stare straight at the goldrider. Just in case.
Gus, no.
The wher grunted and lowered his head once more. Fine. He never got to have any fun.
“Feeling better?” he asked the girl gently. “Look, Weyrwoman, she's clearly no threat. You want to at least ask why she came down here? She must've felt like she had a very compelling reason.”
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