Sunday, March 16, 2003
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Waterfall's Basin
The weyr's fresh-water pool flows clean and clear, almost undisturbed by the river that rests here after crashing down from the heights above. This small bay is neatly surrounded by a series of smooth stone steps and hidden beaches, a haven from the wider lake beyond before the water drops further to the sea below.
One gnarled, ancient tree has survived the ravages of time and Thread, reaching up towards the cliff above and the water below. A set of cruide boards makes the climb an easy one. The beach stretches, wide and warm, the waterfall quite a swim distant.
It is a summer before dawn. The air is balmy, and the sky is a velvety black color, dark now that the moons have set. The stars wink high above in the cloudless night sky.
Gliding above are two firelizards.
Green Elbareth and brown Rilskiath are here.
Kaefe is here.
Rilskiath lolls about by the side of the basin, his tail flicking around in the water. Lyri, however, is nowhere to be seen. Oh, but it seems thata faint humming can be heard from that big ol' tree and little wood shavings fluttering down in a consistent shower from a branch.
Some of those little wood shavings just happen to find their way onto an already-ticked off Kaefe's head, causing the boy to look above him immediately with a scowl. Lyria's shape is -- just barely -- made out amongst the branches and leaves, and Kaef's frown deepens in recognition.
Lyria just continues to hum away, whittling at a some piece of wood. A particularly large chunk of the driftwood that she's whittling at is lopped off and sent down with the other scraps, right towards Kaefe's head. Of course, Lyri happens to be blissfully unaware of anyone else around.
Kaefe automatically swipes at his hair and intensifies his glare, as if willing his eyes to shoot blue lightning right through Lyria. First venture unsuccessful, Kaefe opts for Plan B. "So dragons don't make people any less dimglows," he remarks loudly in the general direction of tree.
Lyria narrows her eyes and leans over the side of the branch. Oh. It's Sapha's little brother. She slices off another piece of the branch and chucks it toward's Kaefe's head. She doesn't seem to be the only one in on the assault, however, as Rilskiath edges a bit closer towards the water and with his tail sends a sizeable wave of water towards Kaefe. "At least they give us extra ways to get rid of mean little boys." Okay, well maybe Kaefe's not so little, and probably older than Lyri herself, but, oh well...
Kaefe gets wet. Or drenched, considering the vast difference in size between himself and Rilskiath. He doesn't shout or anything though, thereby confirming the rumour that Kaefe is /practically/ emotionless. "Shardin' riders. Shardin' dragons," he mumbles, clicking finger and thumb together. At that, a brown 'lizard appears, conveniently bearing a towel for the boy. Kainan earns himself a good scritch and a wet towel once Kaefe is dry again, and promptly disappears, leaving Kaefe gazing challengingly at the dragon-rider pair.
Lyria stretches out belly-down on the branch, tilting her head down towards they boy on the ground. "So, how've you been, Kaefe?" she asks conversationally, figuring that she shouldn't take his comments personally, since it's rumored that 'that's just the way Kaefe is'.
"Dry," is the monotonous reply, Kaefe averting his gaze waterfall-wards. Eyes fixed on the pouring waters, the 'brother of a rider' somehow locates a flattish rock, on which he perches himself, making sure it's not wet and not littered with shavings first, of course.
Lyria smirks as she lazily carves her name into the tree. Finishing off the 'a' with a flourish, her knife is flipped shut and tucked into a pocket. "Dry, hm?" A good few sarcastic comments run through her head to choose from as a response, but she settles on a simple,"Interesting."
Kaefe's eyes flick upwards again, and he scowls at Lyria. "What." He hates being scoffed at, -- as if that weren't obvious enough already -- and that's certainly the sort of vibes he's getting from Lyria right now. "And that tree is hurting."
Lyria blinks at Kaefe,"The tree...?" She runs a finger over her name embedded in the bark now. "Trees don't hurt." She swings her leg over the branch and nimbly drops the few feet to the ground. "Must you scowl? Your face might get stuck like that," advises the brownrider sagely.
Kaefe rolls his eyes at Lyria, standing up to make his way back to said tree, where he places one pale palm against the bark. "You hurt it," he tells her, tone dully matter-of-fact. In response to Lyria's information on face-sticking, Kaefe frowns all the more at the 'rider.
A young man trots down the path to the basin with a foolish sort of grin on his face, with Nadine close behind him murmuring flattering things. Spotting Kaefe and Rilskiath, he seems reluctant to end his task, but Nadine also sees him and quickly moves around to get in front of him, beaming. "Thanks so much! You're such a wonderful guide! Now you'd best get back to your chores, and maybe I'll see you again later!" She gives him a quick peck on the cheek, turns him around, and pushes. "Go on!" The moment he's out of hearing range, she drops the cutesy-flirty act and turns to Kaefe with only one uncertain glance towards the dragon. "You 'gain? Huh. The dimglow there said you and a..." She pauses, trying to remember. "A 'Lyria' were down here." She frowns thoughtfully. "Name sounds kinda...eh." Seeing's how it's been three years or so, it's not /too/ surprising that Nadine has forgotten Lyria. And then the unseen and somehow unheard Lyria hops down. "Oh. You Lyria?"
Lyria, however, does not forget a face so easily. Whatever reply she was about to give to Kaefe is forgotten and she nods to the messenger,"Yeah, that'd be me, how may I-" Her sentence just trails off and she leans a bit closer towards the woman squinting, then backs up, a smile breaking onto her face,"Nadine! You /are/ Nadine, right! It's /me/! Lyria!" Pause. "Lyrianna!" There, that may sound a bit more familiar.
Meh. Candidate reunion, or something. Something that Kaefe isn't interested in being part of, at least. Backing silently away from the exclaming pair -- or just Lyria, the boy relocates his rock and resumes his watch on the waterfall, gazing especially at the occasional flyer overhead.
Nadine immediately nods once Lyria confirms her Lyria-ness. "Yes, yes, I-" She, too, breaks off when she notices the rider peering at her. "Um...yeah, Nadine, how...?" The messenger is uncharacteristically perturbed. "Lyria--Lyrianna? Lyri!" A wide beam breaks across her face. "I remember you!" Hurrah for Nadine's memory. Kaefe is also forgotten by Nadine, poor him. "How're you?" she asks, enthusiastic to have found a long-lost friend and temporarily failing to recollect that 'Lyrianna' is no longer 'Lyrianna'.
Lyria beams and looks around for something to sit on. Well the closest thing seems to be Kaefe's rock, so she drops down next to Kaefe. Oh. Did he want to not be included? Too bad. "I'm great! How are you? Ohhh it's been so /long/." All this excitement causes the brown dragon to curiously creep over. Who is this person that has his rider all exclaim-y?
A mutter of discontent, but Kaefe keeps his eyes glued to the scenery, mentally blocking out all sights and sounds of the two females. Or at least, he tries. The dragon gets slightly more attention, as 'Fe actually makes the effort of turning his head to glance briefly at Rilskiath. Of course, that could have more to do with Ryonan's sudden excited chirping, but at least he acknowledged the dragon this time, right?
Nadine isn't quite as picky as Lyria at the moment since she's wearing her riding clothes, which tend to get dirty all on their own, so she just plops down onto a dirt-encrusted rock embedded into the ground with only a few inches showing, forcing her to look up to continue watching her friend. "Good! I've got a job, see!" She throws out her chest proudly and pats her messenger tube. "How come I haven't seen you? I went back to the Hold, you know, and..." She trails off as she tries to follow the train of thought. Surely she's forgotten something important here. Like maybe where Lyria lives and why.
Lyria nods proudly to Nadine,"A messenger, huh? That's great!" A pause at Nadine. Why hasn't she seen her? Well it's not like she lives across the street. "Well, I've been a /tad/ busy, Nadi..." says Lyria amusedly as Rilskiath finally joins the trio, resting his head next to Lyri and blinking towards Nadine. Maybe that will give the ex-candi-mate a hint...
Kaefe starts to get just a /little/ bit sick of this conversation now. Carefully, brown 'lizard is lifted from a shoulder to settle comfortably in Kaefe's lap, the boy absently favouring Ryonan with affectionate scritches. One hand reaches into a pocket to procure a somewhat flattened, but no less edible pastry-type thing, which 'Fe proceeds to slowly feed to the flitter.
Nadine smiles again. "Yeah, me too, it's just...what, three years and we haven't seen each other? Seems kind of weird..." And then she notices Rilskiath. "Yah-eek!" she yelps, a sound that's similar to that a small girl makes when a gossamer spinner is dropped down her shirt, as she leaps off her rock. Kaefe gets an accusatory glare. "It's /hers/! You didn't tell me!" she shrieks, as if it's Kaefe's job to remind her of things she already knew and tried very hard to forget. A second later she realizes that doesn't really sound polite or flattering to Lyria or, as Nadine now remembers, her dragon. "Uh. Right. Um...hi. Sir." She bobs a bow to Rilskiath nervously. "No, uh, offense intended."
Rilskiath, and Lyria for that matter, just sort of stare at the yelping and bowing nervousness and stuff. "None taken," lilt's Lyri, her, and her dragon, cocking their heads amusedly. "Sit down, sit down, Nadine." The rider's hand automatically goes to rest on one of her dragon's headknobs. "I guess if you barely remembered me, you wouldn't remember Rilskiath..." Obviously that would be the large brown dragon whuffling in Nadine's direction.
"What, you expected it to be mine," is shot back at Nadine, with a familiar roll of cobalt eyes. That sure said something for feminine stupidity. Fingers continue to feed his brown, till the pastry has disappeared into the vastness of a flit-stomach. Abruptly, Kaefe stands up, the dislodged Ryonan protesting with a high-pitched squeak. "C'mon, we're going." Once the brown is firmly settled on a broad shoulder, Sapha's brother makes his way silently back to the Weyr, leaving her candi-mates to their chatter.
Nadine forces herself to take the needed step back to her rock and sit down again. "No," she agrees, "I, uh, heard about it, but I left pretty quick...I mean, you Impressed near the end, didn't you?" Nadine was probably half-way out the door at that point in happy anticipation of escape. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Rilskiath," she adds in the direction of the dragon, though the word 'pleasure' isn't as smooth as it could be. "So...how's Weyr life when you don't have Candidate-chores? Things going easier? It's going better for me now with my job, my parents are talking to me again." She grins, evidence that she's beginning to relax again.
Lyria nods slightly. Yeah, somewhere near the end. Something like that. "That's good. Is being a messenger fun? Oh, hey, why were you lookin' for me anyways? The weyr? Oh, it's great..." A trail off to a slight akward silence,"My weyr's really nice. I got a weaver to help me decorate it. Wine red and cream." Pretty colors.
"Ooh, yeah, I'm doing less stair-running and more trail-riding now that I've been doing it a few Turns...it's a lot more fun to go on longer trips than to take messages from cooks to stewards and that, even though I have to coordinate the longer runs with Threadfall and all of that." Nadine nods. "I might like to see your weyr someday. I'm still stuck in the dorms, but it's not so bad anymore.
"Ooh, yeah, I'm doing less stair-running and more trail-riding now that I've been doing it a few Turns...it's a lot more fun to go on longer trips than to take messages from cooks to stewards and that, even though I have to coordinate the longer runs with Threadfall and all of that." Nadine nods. "I might like to see your weyr someday. I'm still stuck in the dorms, but it's not so bad anymore with being out more often, and I don't get drunk as much either, even though I have the marks to actually afford it and have something left over now." She blinks. "Came here for? Uh...oh, yes! I have a message from your..." Her brow furrows as she thinks, simultaneously tugging her tube out of her belt. "Your brother, I think." She opens the tube, takes out the short letter, and holds it out for Lyria. "He's staying at Ista Hold for a bit. He travel a lot?"
Sunday, March 16, 2003
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Waterfall's Basin
The weyr's fresh-water pool flows clean and clear, almost undisturbed by the river that rests here after crashing down from the heights above. This small bay is neatly surrounded by a series of smooth stone steps and hidden beaches, a haven from the wider lake beyond before the water drops further to the sea below.
One gnarled, ancient tree has survived the ravages of time and Thread, reaching up towards the cliff above and the water below. A set of cruide boards makes the climb an easy one. The beach stretches, wide and warm, the waterfall quite a swim distant.
It is a summer before dawn. The air is balmy, and the sky is a velvety black color, dark now that the moons have set. The stars wink high above in the cloudless night sky.
Gliding above are two firelizards.
Green Elbareth and brown Rilskiath are here.
Kaefe is here.
Rilskiath lolls about by the side of the basin, his tail flicking around in the water. Lyri, however, is nowhere to be seen. Oh, but it seems thata faint humming can be heard from that big ol' tree and little wood shavings fluttering down in a consistent shower from a branch.
Some of those little wood shavings just happen to find their way onto an already-ticked off Kaefe's head, causing the boy to look above him immediately with a scowl. Lyria's shape is -- just barely -- made out amongst the branches and leaves, and Kaef's frown deepens in recognition.
Lyria just continues to hum away, whittling at a some piece of wood. A particularly large chunk of the driftwood that she's whittling at is lopped off and sent down with the other scraps, right towards Kaefe's head. Of course, Lyri happens to be blissfully unaware of anyone else around.
Kaefe automatically swipes at his hair and intensifies his glare, as if willing his eyes to shoot blue lightning right through Lyria. First venture unsuccessful, Kaefe opts for Plan B. "So dragons don't make people any less dimglows," he remarks loudly in the general direction of tree.
Lyria narrows her eyes and leans over the side of the branch. Oh. It's Sapha's little brother. She slices off another piece of the branch and chucks it toward's Kaefe's head. She doesn't seem to be the only one in on the assault, however, as Rilskiath edges a bit closer towards the water and with his tail sends a sizeable wave of water towards Kaefe. "At least they give us extra ways to get rid of mean little boys." Okay, well maybe Kaefe's not so little, and probably older than Lyri herself, but, oh well...
Kaefe gets wet. Or drenched, considering the vast difference in size between himself and Rilskiath. He doesn't shout or anything though, thereby confirming the rumour that Kaefe is /practically/ emotionless. "Shardin' riders. Shardin' dragons," he mumbles, clicking finger and thumb together. At that, a brown 'lizard appears, conveniently bearing a towel for the boy. Kainan earns himself a good scritch and a wet towel once Kaefe is dry again, and promptly disappears, leaving Kaefe gazing challengingly at the dragon-rider pair.
Lyria stretches out belly-down on the branch, tilting her head down towards they boy on the ground. "So, how've you been, Kaefe?" she asks conversationally, figuring that she shouldn't take his comments personally, since it's rumored that 'that's just the way Kaefe is'.
"Dry," is the monotonous reply, Kaefe averting his gaze waterfall-wards. Eyes fixed on the pouring waters, the 'brother of a rider' somehow locates a flattish rock, on which he perches himself, making sure it's not wet and not littered with shavings first, of course.
Lyria smirks as she lazily carves her name into the tree. Finishing off the 'a' with a flourish, her knife is flipped shut and tucked into a pocket. "Dry, hm?" A good few sarcastic comments run through her head to choose from as a response, but she settles on a simple,"Interesting."
Kaefe's eyes flick upwards again, and he scowls at Lyria. "What." He hates being scoffed at, -- as if that weren't obvious enough already -- and that's certainly the sort of vibes he's getting from Lyria right now. "And that tree is hurting."
Lyria blinks at Kaefe,"The tree...?" She runs a finger over her name embedded in the bark now. "Trees don't hurt." She swings her leg over the branch and nimbly drops the few feet to the ground. "Must you scowl? Your face might get stuck like that," advises the brownrider sagely.
Kaefe rolls his eyes at Lyria, standing up to make his way back to said tree, where he places one pale palm against the bark. "You hurt it," he tells her, tone dully matter-of-fact. In response to Lyria's information on face-sticking, Kaefe frowns all the more at the 'rider.
A young man trots down the path to the basin with a foolish sort of grin on his face, with Nadine close behind him murmuring flattering things. Spotting Kaefe and Rilskiath, he seems reluctant to end his task, but Nadine also sees him and quickly moves around to get in front of him, beaming. "Thanks so much! You're such a wonderful guide! Now you'd best get back to your chores, and maybe I'll see you again later!" She gives him a quick peck on the cheek, turns him around, and pushes. "Go on!" The moment he's out of hearing range, she drops the cutesy-flirty act and turns to Kaefe with only one uncertain glance towards the dragon. "You 'gain? Huh. The dimglow there said you and a..." She pauses, trying to remember. "A 'Lyria' were down here." She frowns thoughtfully. "Name sounds kinda...eh." Seeing's how it's been three years or so, it's not /too/ surprising that Nadine has forgotten Lyria. And then the unseen and somehow unheard Lyria hops down. "Oh. You Lyria?"
Lyria, however, does not forget a face so easily. Whatever reply she was about to give to Kaefe is forgotten and she nods to the messenger,"Yeah, that'd be me, how may I-" Her sentence just trails off and she leans a bit closer towards the woman squinting, then backs up, a smile breaking onto her face,"Nadine! You /are/ Nadine, right! It's /me/! Lyria!" Pause. "Lyrianna!" There, that may sound a bit more familiar.
Meh. Candidate reunion, or something. Something that Kaefe isn't interested in being part of, at least. Backing silently away from the exclaming pair -- or just Lyria, the boy relocates his rock and resumes his watch on the waterfall, gazing especially at the occasional flyer overhead.
Nadine immediately nods once Lyria confirms her Lyria-ness. "Yes, yes, I-" She, too, breaks off when she notices the rider peering at her. "Um...yeah, Nadine, how...?" The messenger is uncharacteristically perturbed. "Lyria--Lyrianna? Lyri!" A wide beam breaks across her face. "I remember you!" Hurrah for Nadine's memory. Kaefe is also forgotten by Nadine, poor him. "How're you?" she asks, enthusiastic to have found a long-lost friend and temporarily failing to recollect that 'Lyrianna' is no longer 'Lyrianna'.
Lyria beams and looks around for something to sit on. Well the closest thing seems to be Kaefe's rock, so she drops down next to Kaefe. Oh. Did he want to not be included? Too bad. "I'm great! How are you? Ohhh it's been so /long/." All this excitement causes the brown dragon to curiously creep over. Who is this person that has his rider all exclaim-y?
A mutter of discontent, but Kaefe keeps his eyes glued to the scenery, mentally blocking out all sights and sounds of the two females. Or at least, he tries. The dragon gets slightly more attention, as 'Fe actually makes the effort of turning his head to glance briefly at Rilskiath. Of course, that could have more to do with Ryonan's sudden excited chirping, but at least he acknowledged the dragon this time, right?
Nadine isn't quite as picky as Lyria at the moment since she's wearing her riding clothes, which tend to get dirty all on their own, so she just plops down onto a dirt-encrusted rock embedded into the ground with only a few inches showing, forcing her to look up to continue watching her friend. "Good! I've got a job, see!" She throws out her chest proudly and pats her messenger tube. "How come I haven't seen you? I went back to the Hold, you know, and..." She trails off as she tries to follow the train of thought. Surely she's forgotten something important here. Like maybe where Lyria lives and why.
Lyria nods proudly to Nadine,"A messenger, huh? That's great!" A pause at Nadine. Why hasn't she seen her? Well it's not like she lives across the street. "Well, I've been a /tad/ busy, Nadi..." says Lyria amusedly as Rilskiath finally joins the trio, resting his head next to Lyri and blinking towards Nadine. Maybe that will give the ex-candi-mate a hint...
Kaefe starts to get just a /little/ bit sick of this conversation now. Carefully, brown 'lizard is lifted from a shoulder to settle comfortably in Kaefe's lap, the boy absently favouring Ryonan with affectionate scritches. One hand reaches into a pocket to procure a somewhat flattened, but no less edible pastry-type thing, which 'Fe proceeds to slowly feed to the flitter.
Nadine smiles again. "Yeah, me too, it's just...what, three years and we haven't seen each other? Seems kind of weird..." And then she notices Rilskiath. "Yah-eek!" she yelps, a sound that's similar to that a small girl makes when a gossamer spinner is dropped down her shirt, as she leaps off her rock. Kaefe gets an accusatory glare. "It's /hers/! You didn't tell me!" she shrieks, as if it's Kaefe's job to remind her of things she already knew and tried very hard to forget. A second later she realizes that doesn't really sound polite or flattering to Lyria or, as Nadine now remembers, her dragon. "Uh. Right. Um...hi. Sir." She bobs a bow to Rilskiath nervously. "No, uh, offense intended."
Rilskiath, and Lyria for that matter, just sort of stare at the yelping and bowing nervousness and stuff. "None taken," lilt's Lyri, her, and her dragon, cocking their heads amusedly. "Sit down, sit down, Nadine." The rider's hand automatically goes to rest on one of her dragon's headknobs. "I guess if you barely remembered me, you wouldn't remember Rilskiath..." Obviously that would be the large brown dragon whuffling in Nadine's direction.
"What, you expected it to be mine," is shot back at Nadine, with a familiar roll of cobalt eyes. That sure said something for feminine stupidity. Fingers continue to feed his brown, till the pastry has disappeared into the vastness of a flit-stomach. Abruptly, Kaefe stands up, the dislodged Ryonan protesting with a high-pitched squeak. "C'mon, we're going." Once the brown is firmly settled on a broad shoulder, Sapha's brother makes his way silently back to the Weyr, leaving her candi-mates to their chatter.
Nadine forces herself to take the needed step back to her rock and sit down again. "No," she agrees, "I, uh, heard about it, but I left pretty quick...I mean, you Impressed near the end, didn't you?" Nadine was probably half-way out the door at that point in happy anticipation of escape. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Rilskiath," she adds in the direction of the dragon, though the word 'pleasure' isn't as smooth as it could be. "So...how's Weyr life when you don't have Candidate-chores? Things going easier? It's going better for me now with my job, my parents are talking to me again." She grins, evidence that she's beginning to relax again.
Lyria nods slightly. Yeah, somewhere near the end. Something like that. "That's good. Is being a messenger fun? Oh, hey, why were you lookin' for me anyways? The weyr? Oh, it's great..." A trail off to a slight akward silence,"My weyr's really nice. I got a weaver to help me decorate it. Wine red and cream." Pretty colors.
"Ooh, yeah, I'm doing less stair-running and more trail-riding now that I've been doing it a few Turns...it's a lot more fun to go on longer trips than to take messages from cooks to stewards and that, even though I have to coordinate the longer runs with Threadfall and all of that." Nadine nods. "I might like to see your weyr someday. I'm still stuck in the dorms, but it's not so bad anymore.
"Ooh, yeah, I'm doing less stair-running and more trail-riding now that I've been doing it a few Turns...it's a lot more fun to go on longer trips than to take messages from cooks to stewards and that, even though I have to coordinate the longer runs with Threadfall and all of that." Nadine nods. "I might like to see your weyr someday. I'm still stuck in the dorms, but it's not so bad anymore with being out more often, and I don't get drunk as much either, even though I have the marks to actually afford it and have something left over now." She blinks. "Came here for? Uh...oh, yes! I have a message from your..." Her brow furrows as she thinks, simultaneously tugging her tube out of her belt. "Your brother, I think." She opens the tube, takes out the short letter, and holds it out for Lyria. "He's staying at Ista Hold for a bit. He travel a lot?"
