Welcome to Gaia! ::

Tanya wished she didn't have so many hours off during a sevenday. Unless the week had been particularly stressful, she always felt at loose ends when she didn't have work to do. There were only so many times you could clean your room or mend your clothes or check to see if the kitchens really didn't need you.

The afternoon was balmy-- almost unbearably warm, actually-- and Tanya found herself taking refuge in the shade of one of the new Craft buildings, steadily fanning herself to generate some kind of breeze. It was quiet here, except when groups moved from one building to another or a pack of apprentices left for lunch. The buzz of some kind of bug was the only sound interrupting an otherwise muted afternoon.

She would get up eventually and go find something to do back at her 'weyr,' but for now she was content to let a lazy eye roam over any small activities taking place around her, a faint smile coming to her lips for anyone who walked by.

There were a few riders around, moving about on personal business from the Weavers or the Tanners, and Tanya tried to see if she recognized anyone. She still knew so few, and it wasn't as if she'd even had time to learn more than a fraction of the Malvren riders before they were forced to relocate here.

She shifted her gaze to a man making his steady way along the buildings across the court from her. From this distance, Tanya couldn't tell what knots he wore, but he was carrying two bags tied off with rope. He rolled his shoulders as if they were heavy and shook the bags a bit as if to get feeling bag into his muscles. Tanya tilted her head as she watched him glance at some journeymen laughing outside the Tannercraft building and then turn down the alley between buildings to stop at the waste disposal area. The angle he was at effectively blocked him from the journeymen, but he was still visible to Tanya. Without releasing either of his bags, he used two fingers to lift the lid from the bin and set it aside.

Tanya frowned and rose from her place in the shelter of the building, shading her eyes with her hand to see across the way. The man dropped his burden into the waste can, glanced around once casually as he replaced the lid, and then readjusted his grip on the second bag and disappeared around the corner of the building. Clearly, her place in the shadows had escaped his notice, what with the way the sun was beating down on the dirt of the courtyard. Tanya furrowed her brow and slowly lowered her hand.

It would be silly to go over. People would want to know why she was rooting around in the trash outside the Crafter buildings. She might even get in trouble for being a spy or something.

She walked down the way to the building anyway. There was little reason for this action to have stuck out to her, but now that it had she couldn't shake the feeling that it was something to investigate. And-- well, speaking of spies, what if it was some kind of Wherfolk plot, like the tunnelsnake? She nearly tripped over her own feet as the idea occurred to her, but her face took on a cast of determination and she almost stomped the rest of the way to the cans, ignoring the weird looks she got from the journeymen.

Tanya jerked the lid off of the can when she reached it and peered inside. She set the lid on the second bin beside her and reached in to hesitantly grab the top of the bag. Her determination was leaving her now that it fully hit her what she was doing. She didn't know what was in the bag she was picking up; it could just be the man's rotting lunch from the last sevenday, even.

And then the bag wriggled.

Tanya dropped it and immediately made an apologetic-sounding exclamation, reaching fully in with both hands to carefully lift the bag out of the bin. It was fairly heavy, as she had expected, but now she had a good guess to why it was so heavy.

Her concern for what was inside drove out thoughts of caution. Her nails dug into the knot of the rope without avail and she looked up desperately for something to use to pry it apart or cut the bag open. A rider who seemed to have arrived since she got to the cans was standing relatively nearby, and her eyes lighted on the knife at his waist.

"Rider! Please, help. I need to cut the rope off. It's too tight for me to get on my own."

Tanya did step back as instructed, but the moment that the rope was sawed away she stepped forward again to see what was in the bag. Her movements were hesitant, but she wasn't about to be forced away from helping whatever creature was in need. And that.. that... horrible man was going to have to be brought to justice!

Faint sounds, like whines or tiny cries, came from the bag. Tanya reached out and pulled the bag open, since the movements of the wiggling creatures inside weren't going to be enough. She let out a cry of her own as the first canine puppy thrust its head into her hand, its wet nose banging into her palm.

"Puppies!" she exclaimed, though for whose benefit she wasn't certain. By now, she and the rider aiding her had drawn the attention of the journeymen Tanners and they came over at her cry. While they got a good look, Tanya pulled the bag open more to reveal four squirming puppies in varying mixes of brown, black, and white.

"In the trash?" one of the Tanners asked, aghast.

"That man!" Tanya looked up at R'oe, then at the Tanners. Even with her attention on them, her hands instinctively reached out to keep the now-free puppies from stumbling off of the waste bin top. "He put them in here. He had a second bag."

Her earnest gaze turned to the rider, who was turning quickly into her hero for the day. "The other bag must have more puppies in it. We can't just let him toss them somewhere, too! They'll suffocate in this heat!"

Understanding what R'oe hadn't asked, the older of the tanners nodded. "We'll keep an eye on these little ones until you get back. Since it was the lady's find, we'll let her make the final decision on what becomes of them. Go on. Catch him before he does something worse with the other pups."

The tanners lifted the escaping pups, two a piece, and one slung the bag over his shoulder. Tanya felt a small sense of relief at having the puppies taken care of-- even if she had no idea what she would do with them when she got back-- and pointed down the alley. "That way and to the left. I lost him once he went around the corner, but maybe we'll get lucky and find him in the open."

Tanya was no leader by any means, but she was more than willing to keep step with the rider as they followed the criminal's path deeper into the Crafters' area.

"I'm Tanya, by the way," she introduced very belatedly. "Thank you for the help, rider."

Tanya looked around, standing on her tip-toes to make sure she wasn't missing anything due to her height. There were people around, more than before, but none of them looked like the man she remembered. When she was certain he wasn't lurking around in the shadow of a building, she regretfully shook her head and directed her gray eyes up to R'oe's. "No. I'm sorry. He isn't here."

She looked at the Crafthall buildings before them, each equipped with bins, and despair crossed her features briefly. There were so many, and if that monster hadn't tossed them into these bins then they were going to be wasting time and letting him escape-- or do worse things to dispose of the puppies. Tanya had a terrible moment envisioning him drowning the puppies in the lakes, and she shuddered.

"We have to check them all." She straightened her back. A little work wouldn't scare her away, not when the infants needed her. "They'll be on top, not hidden, so we can try to make each check quick by just seeing if there's another burlap sack inside."

She stepped into the open 'street' between buildings and looked around. "We can start on this side and work our way around, or... well, whatever order you think might be best."

Tanya nodded. Good thinking! "Yes. I can do that." And do that she did, immediately turning from R'oe to confront the first set of bins. They yielded nothing, but even though that shouldn't have been a surprise, Tanya felt disappointed. She moved up to the next alley, sorting through the trash and feeling disappointment alongside hope every time a trash can revealed no squirming sack.

It wasn't until she was on the fourth set of bins that she heard what sounded like a scuffle coming from somewhere distant. She turned her head in R'oe's direction, and then abandoned her search to pursue her new lead. Since the Brownrider was closer, she had no doubt he had likely heard it as well, but she spoke anyway. "Brownrider? The fight?"

Several men came partially into view down the end of the row, two struggling and a third apparently trying to help one of the parties restrain and injure the man. Tanya hated to have to slow their search to break up a scuffle, but surely it had to be a rider's duty to intervene in that sort of thing. Tanya's open face expressed her worry and torn sense of duty as she looked between the three men, her thoughts already turned to the puppies and their frantic pursuit-- for a moment.

"Him! R'oe, that man!" She pointed at the one the two Crafters were now noticeably trying to assail. Even without a bag or his casual attitude, Tanya recognized the puppies' former owner. Whatever other reason the Crafters had found for starting a fight with him, the animal abuse of which he was guilty was more than worthy of such a reaction. The lack of a bag was what worried Tanya now, and she could only hope he had dropped it around the corner to have his hands free to fend off his attackers, rather than he had completed whatever plan he'd come up with to get rid of the second set of puppies.

Tanya chased after R'oe, but the craftsmen heard R'oe's call. With them focused not so much on assaulting the man as restraining him, their concentrated efforts were more fruitful than before, though the man's struggles hadn't decreased any. She imagined that the man's startled realization that the shouting had been about him helped a bit with that, as R'oe's sudden presence clearly had an effect on his behavior. Tanya watched him turn from beset antagonist to defensive culprit in moments.

"What's this all about!" the supposed-criminal demanded, red in the face as he tried to get out of several strong grips. "Let me go, I haven't done anything!"

The blonde who had been the criminal's grappling partner spoke up. "I'm Irotar, rider, Journeyman Weaver. I saw him dump something into the bins, and him without any Craft knots. It seemed suspicious, so I told him to state his business." The Crafter's mouth twisted into a distasteful grimace as he looked at his captive. "I've never known an honest man to try to run and then fight his way out of it."

Tanya stared at the captive from just behind R'oe. He was older than Tanya, clearly, but still young. No knots of any kind, he might be a spy... but more likely he was just trying to hide his identity or was a general worker for the Weyr. She wanted to ask where he had dumped his second bag, but didn't dare interrupt before R'oe had the chance to try to interrogate the man. Time was ticking, though. Ticking away.