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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 4:47 pm
At sunrise the morning Brakiheth died, the Candidates were pulled from bed or Craft. Any protests were ignored on direct orders from the warden and squirmers bodily dragged by stone faced guards. They were herded towards the Sands, down the large stone corridor that would turn to face the expansive impromptu attempt at actual hatching Sands. The eggs and rider were hidden from view, though an observant candidate may have glimpsed a green tail. Other than the haunting keens of dragons that faded a candlemark prior, the morning sparkled, the heat not yet oppressive. M'onk blocked the turn to the entrance, his hands behind him and that pleasant smile on his face. He did not look like a man fresh from bed but alert, completely at ease. Beside him stood Secondary Warden V'tyai since he, after all, would be taking responsibility for these children. His flat, square face had lost some of its color to a sickly gray sheen, his mouth set into a grim line that made the forming wrinkles deepen. He crossed his arms over his chest. He looked more ill than angry. A low keening came from the hidden Sands, a womans voice. It grew louder before breaking into wretched sobs, another voice saying soft words. V'tyai flinched. "Welcome, Candidates!" M'onk smiled very wide. "I am sure you heard the dragons cry this morning. Some of you may have already heard the news. In a rather tragic turn of events, dear Brakiheth has passed on from us. Very sad, especially since she left her rider behind." He glanced to V'tyai, expectant. The bluerider's jaw flexed, his gazed fixed on no set Candidate. "We do not believe some of you understand the bond of a human and a dragon. Kaelyandra has not yet suicided. Warden has called you here in order to witness what can happen to you, should you be careless." "Now mind you, we wouldn't kill your dragon." M'onk spread his hands out, ever the kind one to V'tyai's wrath. "Simply culled from the group. It's important never the less." He shifted back, away, to glance towards the sands. "M'ska, we're coming in." When M'onk's back was turned, V'tyai mouthed 'I'm sorry' to the Candidates. He gestured them to follow the bronzerider. "In the lot of you. Don't touch the eggs." Inside the sands were the eggs as they had been before. Kaelyandra, once a raging spitting terror, sat on the ground as a sobbing wreck of a woman, her hair mussed and blind to the candidates. A sleek piebald green was there as well, along with a rider - M'ska. She clung. ***** [OOC Note: All Candidates are present. They don't have to be roleplayed in this thread but anyone who will be Standing is considered to be in this thread.
There will be no on-screen suicide or what have you. M'onk won't be forcing your kids to watch something like that. Gah. I apologize for how the initial post is worded!
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 5:29 pm
Hiemal was not comfortable in this emotional setting. He had heard the dragon cries from his cell, but he had not counted them as relevant to his life. Yet here he stood, as tall as a small man could draw himself, neat as a man in a terrible red jumpsuit could be, and behind his frosty mask... unsettled. His poker face was too perfect to be seen through but the unease squirmed behind it like a maggot in an apple, or a corpse. Those noises.
Pale eyes swung to M'onk and by dramatic rights should have connected with a clang, or maybe with whisper of a blade drawn from its sheath. "Cull, Warden? Merely killing in a specific circumstance, in the general usage of the word. The term often pertains to livestock... please explain further? To kill, or merely prevent from breeding?" He would rather deal with this than the tears he could hear from the sands. It seemed he had no choice however; they were being herded in. Herded. An unfortunate term given what he had just voiced.
-------------------------
A large shape loomed behind the candidates. Shadowed dark eyes watched the Warden carefully, cynically. As the candidates moved off he stepped up beside V'tyai and showed his teeth in a rather unpleasant smile that flashed with gold. "Well what are you doing here, you upstart blue rider?" he murmured so that it would only be audible to the other Secondary; a standard greeting for the other blue rider.
Malcarreth said privately to Ogbanuth. So far as dark blue and dark eyed rider saw it there was no question of this. M'onk was up to something. M'onk was always up to something.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 5:36 pm
Jaykkial had not heard the keening of the dragons early that morning. She had only just passed out in her cot still in uniform after a very long shift. Even Handsome Boy's keening and short lived panic fit didn't wake her, though the brown had left a nice little scratch on her forehead that had crusted over.
The scene before her didn't make sense in her sleep deprived state. Were the eggs hatching? Were they not wearing robes...? She couldn't hear thrumming, just an awful screaming coming from the woman... Handsome was hunched low on the padded perch of her jacket, eyes whirling yellow and head tucked under her ear.
.........................................
To say she was alarmed might have been an understatement. Luka's skin was crawling and even a day of solitary confinement was starting to sound like a more pleasant experience than this. Was he going to kill that woman?! Riders lived without their dragons sometimes. She'd heard stories as a kid. Was she just to be an example then... show them how sad it was to lose their dragon? Either way Luka did NOT want to be there. M'onk's alert smile was terrifying enough. She didn't want to see what made him smile so wide.
As for the bit about culling their dragons... Wasn't that the same thing? Luka didn't know much about beastcraft, or any craft for that matter. She was pretty sure to cull something was to kill it though. Her confusion was settled by the words of another prisoner. Noooo she didn't like this one bit.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 5:42 pm
The glue was barely set on the new book cover when the guards came for him. Joscelin frowned, taking two steps back, uncomfortable with guards invading the work room. What had he done to warrant this? That was delicate! What, no, get out, get out, he was coming! Just stop trekking who knows what in the work room! Joscelin grumbled, trying to right his work smock so he wouldn't look quite so much like a maid. It was one thing to ward off unnecessary dirt and grime in the archives, it was another to be marched about in it.
The sands? Joscelin frowned uncomfortable, pale face turning to the shade of milk. This was not a happy occasion. No matter how pleased M'onk seemed to be about it. Voids... was the man pleased that the gold had passed on? What of the eggs? Of Kae... No, they... M'onk was planning to make a spectacle of the poor woman's suicide?
He hated his sisters; but no matter how horrible they had made his life, Joscelin would never wish them ill. Let alone have anyone but family peek in at them like some sort of pervert. His lips pressed in a tight line, stomach dropping at the very idea. An idea that was even more horrible when he was herded in and she didn't even see them.
He couldn't just stand there like an dimglow. M'onk hadn't said they couldn't attempt to comfort Kaelyandra. Joscelin took a deep breath and started towards the gold rider, pulling off his work smock, at the very least he could give her something to hide into, so she didn't have to see them.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 5:44 pm
Descanth keened mournfully, her eyes grey and dark. The crippled green had been an obvious choice: someone needed to take over looking out for the eggs, and there was no junior gold to do the job. So instead it would fall to a rotation of greens, who would hopefully keep the eggs safe until they hatched. It was a strange reversal of the usual tragedy: when a goldrider died, their dragon lingered until the clutch was hatched. But when a gold died, and their rider lingered…
Well. Kaelyandra might not be lingering long. That remained to be seen.
Regardless, Descanth was grounded, and thus assigning her to egg watching duty would not disrupt any of the existing squads. And she was reliable, which meant she could be trusted with the important task of watching over Brakiheth’s last clutch. She regarded the Candidates with only a faintest flicker of warm blue in greeting, before returning to shield the little clutch with her solitary wing. Today was not a Touching. It was no celebration of life. It was M’onk, displaying the consequences of losing a dragon.
And it wasn’t exactly a secret that M’ska did not approve. The older greenrider sat with Kaelyandra, arms wrapped around her, murmuring some meaningless words of comfort to her. There was no comfort to be had for her, with her dragon gone, but he at least would not see her put up on display like this alone. She had no Weyrleader, no partner to cling to. So she would have M’ska. He smoothed her rumpled hair down with a soothing hand, shooting a briefly murderous look at M’onk’s back when the man spoke of culling dragons.
And then M’onk turned his direction and called his name, and M’ska’s attention was carefully back on Kaelyandra, displaying no outward hostility. He couldn’t help but feel that in some way they were both on display as consequences: the crippled and the culled. "Yes, Warden."
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 5:51 pm
“Meh!” Lucky bleated insistently before headbutting his human once more. The lamb was quite insistent. He didn't care if the sun hadn't yet risen, he had. That meant it was playtime and foodtime and, maybe, if Meera was lucky, sleeptime. As Lucky prepared for another headbutt, he found himself faced with an insurmountable obstacle: Meera stuck her leg out of her bed to press her foot against the lamb's face.
“Merrreeh!” the lamb bleated, headbutting anyway. If he couldn't eat something, he figured it could be headbutted.
“Go fly yourself, Lucky,” Meera said, by which she probably meant 'I love you too, now ******** off and let me sleep, you little s**t'. Unfortunately, there was little hope of that. Sleep had eluded the guardswoman and there wasn't a real chance it would be coming back any time soon. With a groan, she had just enough time to sit up before the world screamed. It wasn't a sound that held any truck with subtlety or nuance. It went straight for the brain without ever really entering the ears; it dangled on the heart and she had no idea why. Lucky slunk under the bed, still bleating in terror and confusion.
It wasn't until, an hour later, that Meera realized what happened.
That was the sound of a dragon departing from the world. Not simply dying, but actually departing and leaving a void behind. The news wasn't ever spoken, as though saying the words in plain language would make them more real. It was whispered or hissed, so people could only catch the occasional word. It was a bit like putting together a particularly cruel puzzle, like a broken glass being pieced back together.
Brakiheth was dead. But Kaelyandra was still alive.
More confusingly for Meera, the sibilant speakers were ambivalent about that last bit, as though the rider still living was as tragic as the dragon's death.
It wasn't until she was herded (or possibly helping to herd), along with the other Candidates onto the Sands that she truly understood. Kaelyandra was not the same woman she had been. Before she had been strong, fierce. Now she was huddling in a puddle against the greenrider, unable to do anything but cry.
Well. Yeah. Meera shifted, uncomfortable with seeing this display of raw emotion. Of course she was sad. Who wouldn't be? She just lost her best friend an hour ago.
Not for the first time, the guard felt like she was missing some essential piece of the puzzle.
'Not yet suicided', M'onk said. Like it was a foregone deal. The realization was like a cold knife slipped into Meera's heart. All those icy whispers, the hints that it would be better if Kaelyandra had joined her dragon in between.
She didn't have the whole picture, but she certainly had enough to make an outline of a puzzle.
~.~
Some habits died hard. Others never truly died at all, but merely hibernated.
As soon as the first draconic cries broke the silent morning, Leevi jerked awake. He wasn't the sort of person who slid into wakefulness, but rather jumped into it with all four cylinders running, ready to go and ready to dodge anything the world had to throw at him. Possibly literally.
Oh. Oh Faranth no... it didn't take him long to identify the keening calls of the dragons. He'd heard them before in his childhood, occasionally. Growing up in a Weyr was... it was different. But realizing what was happening didn't make it any easier. The young mindhealer got dressed quickly, trying to figure out what had happened.
Maybe there had been a prisoner escape. Maybe one of them had stabbed a dragonrider. If so, his side ached in sympathy, an acute reminder of how opposite-of-fun it was to get stabbed.
But, as he asked questions and got answers, things slowly came together: Brakiheth's hearts had finally given out. She had never been healthy to begin with, never expected to clutch. Clearly, the stress had been simply too much for the Gold.
Kaelyandra was still alive though.
Leevi hurried to the Hatching Sands, caught up in the herd of Candidates.
If anyone needed a mindhealer, it was someone faced with the loss of their other half.
He managed to wriggle his way out of the herded bunch and tried not to listen to M'onk. What was the man up to anyway? Certainly he didn't... was he seriously planning on making people watch? And culling dragons? Just...Leevi shook his head. No, right now, he needed to focus on Kaelyandra. He approached M'ska and the goldrider slowly. Words felt completely inadequate. How could you approach someone on the worst day of their lives and possibly the last?
“Hey,” he said quietly, sidling closer to the pair. “How's she doing?” Again, it was a stupid question, he knew. He could only hope that the emotions in his voice spoke more than his words did.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:02 pm
Saain groaned, blinking blurry and grumbled as she was forced out of bed at the wee hours of the morning. She yawned, blinking but let them lead her off. Fighting or protesting the guards could ruin any change and it had to be too early for any sort of hatching. It felt off, dreary instead of joyful, well she doubted that any of the guards would be cheerful when the time came to gather her and her fellow prisoners for the hatching.
She glanced around and frowned, lips pressed tightly together. M'onk was smiling, that was likely bad considering V'tyai face was green. What was going... he did not just welcome them to a funeral. That was just obscene. Saain bit her lip, pressing against her fellow prisoners. How long were they going to be forced to be here for? Till Kaelyandra pulled herself together or died?
"This is so wrong. So, so wrong," she whispered, keeping close to her fellow prisoners in their red jumpsuits. Saain could do nothing for the woman. Any attempts at kindness would be used against her and she wanted to impress so badly. She wanted to go home to her child.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:32 pm
Hiemal shot a sharp-eyed look over at the woman beside him. "Many things are." he replied quietly. "Many do not have a purpose... but this does. Consider whether or not the purpose is the one that the Warden stated to us. This macabre show is not merely for our information. He seeks to gain something. I am not familiar enough with the nuances of his emotions to guess at what... but perhaps you are more intuitive. Think on it." And so he stood before the heartbroken woman. M'onk paraded her like a circus exhibit. What could he infer from that?... That M'onk had no respect or regard for her. He wasn't sure about anything beyond that.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:43 pm
"He's pleased," Saain stated softly, hands clasped solemnly in front of her as she looked over Hiemal from the corner of her eyes and then back to Kaelyandra. "If it was just to keep prisoners from the clutch, he wouldn't have dragged those in other crafts down to the sands to watch this obscene mockery of a lesson." She shut her eyes, fingers gripping the jumpsuit tightly. "He is also saying cull... not cripple. Perhaps, he is stating that any sickly dragons will be put down for their own good." She hated to think that, but what else could M'onk be thinking? Showcasing Kaelyandra's grief over the lost of her sickly queen who had died too soon. She kept her voice soft and low, not rising much above a whisper.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:54 pm
"Cull need not always mean kill... but it is the way the word is usually used. Perhaps he means to intimidate us," Hiemal suggested thoughtfully. "Intimidate, but not lie. Culling can mean removing from the breeding stock through castration or neutering... perhaps he is stretching the term further somehow? Or it is merely a lie, to frighten us into obedience. A rather ineffective method, to my mind." The gold rider's face... what was he to make of that? It was potent enough that even he recognised it as grief. Was it worth trying to Impress a dragon if this was what happened if you lost one? "I wonder if Kaelyandra would tell us that it is better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all."
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 7:01 pm
It was highly inappropriate but she couldn't help the soft snort and flicker of a smile at the thought of someone attempting to castrate a dragon. "I hope it is a stretch of the term. I don't know how you would even attempt to castrate a dragon." Saain shook her head, flushing slightly. It was inappropriate to joke of such a matter, during such a harrowing time. "I would not want to be the one to ask her. It is bad enough we are here are witnesses. She should be able to grieve in peace."
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 7:15 pm
"I'm going to vomit," V'tyai muttered to to the other bluerider, his eyes trained on the eggs and the Candidates. He kept his gaze from M'ska and Kaelyandra. His fingers tightened on the curves of his elbow. "I don't think this is him making us wait for her to take anything. I don't know what this is."
He'd be getting hammered later, that was for sure. The secondary warden shuddered. His chin tucked in, dark eyes hard. "What are you doing?"
We do not presume to understand the inner workings of that disgusting man. Ogbanuth did not stir from his wallow, large body relaxed and puddled. His words came slowly, contemplative, the low soft baritone pleasant despite the situation. My rider imagines he wishes to impress upon the young that should they find their own bondmate, they can be easily hurt.
-----
M'onk ignored Hiemal - a prisoner did not blip on his radar of important things and answering him seemed boring. He watched their faces instead, his sill firmly in place.
Kaelyandra wept against M'ska's shoulders though she had used up all her tears some time ago. Her small hands clutched at him, face close, whimpering apologies and asking, please could she have her girl back? She'd not be mean again, not to anyone, she was sorry... it continued, any attempted kindness of others not stopping her words.
She did not lash out, at the very least. She kept to M'ska, but did not try to hurt others.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 7:21 pm
When a guard hauled her from bed, Lin hardly put up a fight. She was used to not knowing what was going on, and just went along with it placidly. Several others were being herded along with her, and it only took Lin a moment to recognize them all as candidates as well. Then, this was something to do with the eggs? Ignorant of such matters, she wondered briefly if the eggs were hatching already.
They lined all the candidates up outside the Sands while M'onk turned to face them. He looked unusually pleased, and although Lin had never had never interacted with him personally, she knew enough about his character to take this as a bad sign. What surprised her more was that all the candidates were there, not just the prisoners. It seemed like he was about to do something cruel, but why should they be dragged into it as well?
Nervously, Lin scraped her fingers along the hairline around her ears, miming the movement of tucking hair behind her ears, although there was no such hair to speak of. She usually preferred to have it long- something to hide behind. But since her arrival at Warden's was only several months ago, it was still boyishly short. Still, somehow, the nervous habit remained.
As Lin listened to M'onk speak, it felt like something cold was growing from her stomach. Dead? How can he even say such news and still smile? she wondered. She thought he'd be sad for the dragon, at least. Weren't all dragon-riders supposed to mourn their own kind? But she kept her mouth closed and her eyes on the ground to hide the rage in them (again, she wished for her bangs back!) Clearly he had something to prove, and it'd be better if they just went along with it.
"He's much nicer." Lin muttered to herself, seeing V'tyai's mouthed apology as she and all the other candidates were ushered into the sands. Seeing the sobbing woman, Lin wanted desperately to go to her. Not that she particularly liked her, or wanted to help out of the kindness of her heart, but it was just that her pain was so loud, it hurt just watching her. Fortunately, Lin had many years of practise suppressing sympathy out of self-preservation. She pressed a hand into her ribs, her eyes burning holes into the sand.
She expected them all to suffer in silence for a few minutes while M'onk watched, and then be sent away. Instead, amazingly, a conversation began to brew about what exactly he meant by the term cull. M'onk was right about one thing; Lin truly didn't know anything about the bond between a dragon and a rider. But she did know that a mother had just died and now the fates of her babies were in the hands of these men. The possibilities didn't bear thinking about..
Lin lifted her teeth from her lip and sighed shakily. "Can we please not talk about this now?" she whispered.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 7:21 pm
M’ska looked up, glancing from Joscelin to Leevi and back. He hadn’t loosened his grip on Kaelyandra at all; the greenrider’s thin arms encircled her protectively, as if to keep M’onk at bay from her. She’d lost her dragon. This was just a sick mockery, tearing at what was left of her.
“She’s lost her dragon. How do you think she’s doing?” It was not in M’ska’s nature to speak sharply, and there was no real malice or hostility in his voice as he addressed Leevi. But he recognized the man as a mindhealer, and some part of him was angry that Leevi was even here participating in this farce. Likely M’onk had forced them all to come.
“…Weyrwoman,” and he was more or less addressing Kaelyandra now, although he still glanced up at Leevi and Joscelin on occasion, “would you like to go somewhere more private? Your weyr isn’t far. I can take you there.” He wasn’t sure yet if she would choose to go between to join her dragon, or if she would remain as she was. And M’ska wasn’t going to be the one to demand that decision from her now. If she wanted to die, she would let them know.
“If you two can help me…?” Perhaps one of them could help him support the broken woman, and the other could help shield her from gawking eyes.
Malcarreth. Descanth’s mindvoice was soft, and she gave no outward indication that she was speaking to the blue. M’ska is going to stay with her. If she wishes to join Brakiheth… I would take her, but I can’t. Can we find someone to do it? Someone kind?
++++++
There was a very faint hiccupy noise coming from the back of the assembled Candidates. Ralvyn was crying.
He was trying very hard not to. Seventeen-year-old boys did not cry. They certainly did not cry in public, in front of all their peers and the head of the entire Weyr. He scrubbed a hand across his face and hunched his shoulders and stared at his feet as if this would somehow hide the shaky way that his breath caught in his throat. And he stayed at the back, unable to look directly at the woman that Kaelyandra had become, with the loss of half her soul.
He didn’t want to be here – he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to be a Candidate! He was only here because this was the first clutch sired by a blue, and he wanted to be there to see it. But the more he saw of M’onk, and of Warden’s Weyr, the more he was convinced that something awful had happened to Mordanth… and now Brakiheth was gone, and this clutch was indelibly marked in tragedy.
He didn’t want to be here anymore. There was nothing here but brutality and despair.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 7:49 pm
Joscelin nodded to M'ska and moved to drape the work smock over the woman's shaking shoulders, offering her some small protection from the stares. She should not be subjected to so many stares, not now. He looked at Leevi, remembering the man faintly from the hatching and snorted softly at the question. Really? Kaelyandra was weeping like one of his sister when they lost a child. How did he think she felt?
"Do you think we could get some tea, a thing of water to make a cold compress as well?" Joscelin asked, the rider soft as he knelt down to gently touch Kaelyandra's back. "Lady, if you would let us move you somewhere more private?" He asked softly, rubbing slow, comforting circles. "Think of Brakiheth eggs. This can't be good for them," he cooed softly. It was a little underhanded but if it snapped Kaelyandra into thinking instead of sounding like a broken hymn, he would take it.
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