Azhdarchid
Jr. Weyrwoman 
azhct[M:-1490]
Totes.
Posts: 1,627
|
Post by Azhdarchid on Oct 4, 2012 20:35:25 GMT -5
"Let's see how they're doing today."
The Master Miner could be found down a hole. Granted it was not the sort of rickety shaft hewn by hand and tool that he had grown accustomed to over thirty Turns' experience; he could make it down the gentle access tunnel easily enough. And of course he had never had a watchwher with him before. He had not disdained the creatures so much as he had been wary of them as obstacles to the branch of the Craft he most wanted to excel in. Tussbuul of the past did not suffer obstacles.
Funny how things came around sometimes.
A small, spade-like green head pushed up under the palm of his left hand. Tusk touched back down on her forepaws after a moment, flapping her wings shut. Tussbuul smiled down at her, stroking his silvery stubble. "How about you go first?" Tusk's eyes whirled with all the fidelity of fresh glow-lanterns, and she turned them on the narrow fissure she and her Handler would have to squeeze through to reach the lowest chamber of the tunnel. As always she took a few high steps up to the crack, then zipped through like a ribbon. After a moment the quadrangle of her nose reappeared in the gap, pressing through at him. Her incredible eyes had not spotted anything, nor had her sensitive olfaction picked up anything rating an instinctive response. Tuss and the other Wherethandlers were still working on teaching reactions to human blood and "bad air."
He bopped her nose-point with his finger and she shimmied backwards, out of his way. Eyeing the crack, Tussbuul turned his left side forward and wedged his leg through, then his shoulder, ducking his head. He felt small jaws close around his ankle and hold on, and didn't even think about the crushing-in of the rock around him as he slowly tugged his stiff leg through. His cane caught briefly, but he jerked it free and stumbled into the pit. Tusk let go of his ankle.
The first thing Tussbuul did was look up. In the distance, the ceiling twisted and perforated, exposing the crescent of Timor at just this hour. He would have never known the chamber was open to the outside if there hadn't been a full moon the first night he and Tusk explored it. The shadow of starlight was enough for Tusk, but Tussbuul unscrewed the small green glow on his belt.
A few other tunnels bored into the sides of the chamber, bigger entrances even. But he had always come at it from the wherets' dwelling. He had never seen anyone else here, and liked to think it an adventure just for him and Tusk. Tusk was not too reactive tonight, though. She just stood there, staring at him, inscrutable. When he raised his glow toward the upper wall, nothing dove at his hand. Odd. Every adventure bore its treasures at the end, and this chamber had, in the sevenday past, housed something very special.
Nothing happened now though, not even when he rattled the glow at an inconspicuous hole in the wall. Rocking his weight onto his left leg, he raised his cane and probed the rim of the nook. Tusk lifted her head and tilted it at the spot, soft chirrup bobbing in her wrinkly neck. "Bring me the rock, please," Tussbuul said. His wheret sprang over to a boulder almost as big as her and nosed it to him without so much as a grunt of effort. Tuss stepped up on it and peeked into the hole. "Eugh."
He grabbed the thick gloves off his belt and began pulling them on. Tusk perked at this, scrabbling over to the wall just beside him. Putting her front paws up on the rock, she strained her head toward the hole, eventually twisting her serpentine neck over backwards at the futility of her stretch. After letting her jaws hang down a few seconds, she produced a sharp, plaintive mewl. When Tussbuul only chuckled, she fell back to all fours and began circling him, mewling every few seconds and sometimes springing her forebody up against the wall again.
Tussbuul reached into the hole with his gloved hand, rummaging slowly and finally extracting the tip of a thick brown tail. The rest of the invader was removed easily. It was dozing up till the moment Tuss began dangling its head toward the floor, and Tusk. The tunnelsnake got in one good writhe before Tusk leaped up and caught its head in her jaws. Tussbuul let go of the other hand in unison, and the wheret landed with the snake already halfway down her throat. Her mouth gawped a few times as she swallowed the wriggling tail-end, and when she was done Tuss could still see the body sliding slowly down her lower neck. Her forked tongue flicked.
He waited till the snake was contained in her stomach area before giving her an arm up. She scooted into the hole, not much bigger than the tunnelsnake she had just consumed, and began searching for evidence of others. It had just been the one, though. Instead of a glittering copper firelizard and her purple mate whirling around the the chamber and harrying their adoring visitors, there was one fat snake and a few flecks of yolk around the edges of the hole.
Or maybe not. After a few minutes, Tussbuul detected a faint crunching from the hole. He did not sense any alarm from Tusk, so- the miner stiffened, aghast. "Tusk! Are you eating those eggs?" The crunching stopped.
No.
"Young lady," Tuss began at his gravest, but the strength in his voice disintegrated all too quick. "...can you find any that are still intact?"
|
|
Chek
Weyrlingmaster 
chekct[M:-15]
I'm so magical I vomit rainbows
Posts: 1,091
|
Post by Chek on Oct 5, 2012 15:27:40 GMT -5
Normally, Dizzy wasn’t inclined to stalk wherhandlers into the depths of the weyr. Tonight, though, a combination of restlessness and a great deal of boredom had her cheerfully accepting the offer of a distraction when one of the newest handlers walked by the side tunnel she was lurking in, accompanied by a little green slinky wher.
The wher being little was really what decided her – one that size couldn’t effectively eat her, not yet.
She ghosted after them, keeping a safe distance from them and not bothering with glows, following them mostly by sound as she crept through the dark tunnels behind them.
When they stopped, Dizzy had needed to hide down a side tunnel, so though she knew they were doing something, she didn’t know exactly what – and when she popped her head out to look for them, they had disappeared.
It took longer than it should have to find the way, illuminated oh-so-faintly from the inside, but Dizzy could be excused with how excited she got over the mysterious wherhandler and his disappearing act. When she did find it, though, she hesitated – there was no knowing if she’d be able to get through and hide without the much older (and presumably wiser, according to her father) wherhandler noticing her – and that didn’t even take into consideration his wher.
Curiosity, however, was far too strong a motivation; if she got turned in for stalking people again, she got turned in. Turning sideways in an unknowing echo of Tussbuul’s own entry to the crack, she slipped thorough with relative ease, fairly used to similar antics.
She dropped low as soon as she made it though – the wherhandler was distracted on the other side of the little chamber, thankfully, giving her a chance to admire the little room Tuss had found, craning her neck to stare up at Timor through the skylight and wondering where that hole was located in the outside world.
Turning her attention back to Tuss and Tusk, Dizzy gave up the questionable cover of her rock just as he turned away from…feeding his wher a tunnelsnake? She quietly pulled herself up on her previous cover to watch, thankfully mostly hidden in the shadows cast by the dim glow carried by the greenhandler.
Her confusion just increased as she listened in, though - Eggs? He was looking for eggs? Tunnelsnake eggs?
|
|
Azhdarchid
Jr. Weyrwoman
azhct[M:-1490]
Totes.
Posts: 1,627
|
Post by Azhdarchid on Oct 7, 2012 21:16:09 GMT -5
Tusk began chucking flecks of shell out of the hole with such velocity that Tussbuul found himself leaning backward to avoid getting hit. Tawny and mottled pieces fell end-over-end, flashing their pearlescent inner surfaces before they broke on the ground. Despite Tussbuul's caution, one large, flat eggshell was whipped out of the opening at the right angle to give it wings. It smacked into his cheek and he had the impression of a chunk of misplaced leather, and then it dropped to the ground with the others. Tusk squawked inside the hole, a rare note for her.
"Are you okay?" Tuss asked. Tusk replied in a high gurgle, and then her head popped out of the hole with the intact bead of a firelizard egg trapped between the points of her jaws. She used her forked tongue to push it out into Tussbuul's hand, then ducked back inside. Tuss obligingly began packing the eggs into a sand-filled belt pouch. None of the eggs were quivering too much, so if he delivered them to Audren there would probably be a day or two in which they could be bartered before they hatched. He turned each one over to check for the deadly pinholes of a tunnelsnake's vampiric bite, to be sure he wasn't turning over any duds.
Tusk delivered seven eggs before she reappeared at the entrance with an utterly empty mouth. Tussbuul tied the bag and rubbed her face with his hands, tickling her nose. "Good girl."
Good man. If not here... Tusk displayed her teeth, which were small but many. Then she gnashed them together on an imaginary egg. She waved her head around, snapping and tearing at the invisible husk, then abruptly stilled and peered into Tussbuul's eyes. Like that. Tussbuul grinned. Tusk issued out of the crag like a stream of water, lowering herself to the ground and coiling up to await Tuss' less agile dismount without disturbing a single fallen shell.
Once on the ground, though, her head began to drift from side to side, tongue flitting in and out of view. Her immense eyes panned across the field of shells, though some were out of sight behind the boulder. As her handler stepped down, Tusk flinched at the crunch of eggshells beneath his boot. She slipped out of her waiting spot and curled beneath the landing zone for his other leg, leaving him balanced half-up on his cane and lame appendage.
"Tusk!" he cried, wobbling.
Stay, she ordered. Grimacing with the effort, Tussbuul complied. Tusk backed up in order to root through the eggshells around his feet, turning some over and sniffing deeply at others, the swinging tracks of her head narrowing rapidly to a single path toward his landed foot.
Then her head jerked up toward a peripheral anomaly, and she stared across the room at the fleck of a girl, Basilidisi. The wheret bobbed at her a couple times, then turned back to Tussbuul and wrapped between his weak leg and his cane, steadying both so he could put his other foot down. Tussbuul sighed, hand making a fist over his cane pommel. His glow illuminated a dark, patchy trail coiling around from where he had first stepped down to the back of the boulder. But neither he nor Tusk were looking that way anymore. Watcher here.
"Who's there?" Tussbuul replied immediately, more to the darkness than to Tusk. "It's alright. Just me and Tusk." Maybe not the ideal first offering to an intruder, but he was still in training.
|
|
Ondine
Jr. Weyrleader
ondct[M:-155]
Posts: 436
|
Post by Ondine on Oct 18, 2012 21:11:30 GMT -5
Sneaking stealthily behind the other sneaky stalker, Shino watched both her fellow apprentice and the Wherling. She'd gone to find Dizzy in the first place, who had abruptly disappeared just when Atenna had an idea, mostly in the middle of the night. Since she herself was...familiar with abruptly vanishing from sight and being unable to be found, she'd been asked to go find her fellow apprentice and bring her back, mostly since she was still awake. Which was exactly what she had planned to do! Well, had, until she found out that Dizzy was following and stalking a Wher. At which point, all bets were off.
So she had double-shadowed both Dizzy and Tussbuul and Tusk, and admired the Wher the whole way. Really, how could she not? But she also had to remain silent and hidden from Dizzy, the least of which was because she still had to bring the other girl back, a duty that she didn't really want to do. Especially since she completely commiserated. Why would one ever want to walk away from a Wher? Especially when you didn't have one? Oh, maybe because it was attacking you. She hadn't thought of that. She considered for a moment, brow furrowed in thought. Maybe...maybe that was a good reason to walk away from a Wher. No, no, a good reason to run from a Wher, but they were faster than humans, so the point was kind of moot, right?
She was still pondering this question, brow furrowed in furious thought, as she watched Dizzy slip through a crack in the rock that she had never realized was there. Now, where had that come from?! Really now, cracks shouldn't just pop up like that unannounced! That was rude. Oh...well...maybe she just hadn't noticed it before? That was probably it. After all, she wasn't ever supposed to be down here, so it wasn't like she could truly explore like she wanted to. She'd get in trouble, and yelled at, and made to feel guilty...
All of which was terrible. And one of the reasons why she tried really hard not to stalk Wherlings and Wherlets anymore. Oh, sure, it didn't actually work, but she tried! She really did. She tried ever so hard, and then she would see Yusk, or one of the babies, and then she just couldn't help herself. If she were being honest, she'd also admit that she did the same thing whenever she saw an adult Wher as well. But she wasn't being honest right now. Why would she be honest right now?! After all, there was a Wher here, and she'd do whatever it took to follow it.
Which, right now, meant not getting caught by Tusk and Tussbuul, as they clearly had either spotted or scented Dizzy. She crouched down farther behind her rock, a little smile on her face as she listened and watched her favorite creature. Maybe...maybe this time she wouldn't get caught?
|
|
Chek
Weyrlingmaster
chekct[M:-15]
I'm so magical I vomit rainbows
Posts: 1,091
|
Post by Chek on Oct 19, 2012 16:27:32 GMT -5
Found out! The wher had looked right at her, and alerted her handler – she was as good as caught. Regardless, she looked around, seeking any possible escape – and spotted something in the darkness, the faintest hint of movement too large to be a tunnelsnake, too small to be much else other than a human. Dizzy didn’t question – she just slid off her rock, moving slowly and carefully to try and minimize the sound she was making until she was behind her won rock – then she darted over to join her fellow stalker.
Size, the faint stables smell that she herself had hovering about her most of the time anymore gave her a good idea as to the identity of her newfound companion – a hand grazing over the other girl’s shoulder knots confirmed it, “Shino!” Dizzy hissed in the younger girl’s ear, “I’m glad you’re here – we’re caught. They know we’re here!”
Regardless of the fact that Dizzy really was the only one caught, Shino was definitely upgraded to accomplice at this point, no matter original intent. “I don’t know if we should just go out in the open or try to run – they were getting firelizard eggs, so I don’t know if this is a secret place or not. What if we get fed to Ausk for seeing something we shouldn’t?” she finished filling in her fellow apprentice in a low whisper – and filling her head with paranoia, presumably.
She poked her head back around the edge of the rock to see if Tuss and Tusk had moved or not.
|
|
Rappu
Pridesecond 
rapct[M:55]
Sailor Melty Rainbow Death
Posts: 496
|
Post by Rappu on Oct 20, 2012 10:12:53 GMT -5
Play. Dangerous. Not play here, a level tone announced further behind the two apprentices. Lauriesk had caught their scent in the room, but she wasn't sure which way the two had hidden. Besides, stupid hamslices weren't important when she had to keep an eye on Laury and tunnelsnakes. Laury was important. They could do as they wished for all she cared, but if Laury asked her to say something, she would. Some of the day people had asked Laury to find some kids or something, maybe pillies or lost sheep or something, she didn't really care.
Laurierd herself walked towards Tussbuul and Tusk, carrying a little lantern and looking nervous. She really preferred being outside instead of dark caves and small tunnels. Big caves were okay, but this area...
"Hey? Tussbuul? Tusky?" She threw a nervous glance at the open ceiling and walked onwards. Lauriesk whisked surrpetitiously a rock from the woman's path and turned her unblinking eyes towards Tussbuul and his wher.
"You seen some apprentices come this way? Some herder kids, I think, uh, Lauriesk honey, what were their names again?
Not remember. Not important. Only carry food food low people. The green made a shrugging motion.
"Lauriesk! That wasn't very nice of you!"
Lauriesk nuzzled her nose at Laurierd's stomach.
"Apology accepted, darling. I know you'd much rather be outside, wouldn't you?" Laurierd petted her wher's head and smiled. To Laurierd, the green was basically like a cuddly kitten.
"Well anyway, I was asked to look for those kids because they can get seriously hurt if they, like, play around here 'cause, like, what if they fall into a hole or something? There are dangerous people in Dalibor's mines and stuff, right?" Laurierd's both hands went to her cheeks. "And y'know, like, imagine if they come across that ancient wher, right? I heard it's got these huge teeth, like this big," she showed with her hands, "and it's learned to move, like, totally silent, too..."
Lauriesk nodded vigorously. Very smart. Very old. Big teeth, move quiet. Eat children. She looked around, only her eyes moving.
|
|
Azhdarchid
Jr. Weyrwoman
azhct[M:-1490]
Totes.
Posts: 1,627
|
Post by Azhdarchid on Oct 20, 2012 22:04:37 GMT -5
As Basilidisi's head inched back out from behind the rock, a mirror face on the opposing side leaned out with her. It was not a precise resemblance: the mirror image boasted enormous globular eyes, a wedge-shaped head, and a forked tongue that dashed out to catch Dizzy on the nose. Tusk clutched the rock to achieve the appropriate height, coiling up till she was spring-loaded for a launch on the other side. She moved her jaws around her withdrawn tongue. Salty.
"Aren't they just children, Tusk?" Tussbuul asked after the notion made gaudy flower in his heart. Though Tusk said nothing, and craned her head further around the rock to account Shino too, the Master began stumping up behind her with even greater confidence in the interlopers' identities. "It's alright girls. Come on in. Plenty of cave." Tusk dropped off the rock and landed on all-fours, peering up at the relative youngsters.
Who hurt? the wher asked of her handler, but there was an offness to her question. Tusk was less easy to confuse the older she got, but right now two of her senses did not agree with the arrow-like ferocity they were supposed to.
"What do you mean?" Tuss returned, looking at her so that the girls marked his conversation to someone other than himself. Tusk's eyeballs pulsed to sickly lemons.
Tired, she sighed. Hurt. Hurt-hurt-hurt. Cold. The green tensed, an impressive contortion that looped up the midsection of her body. Then her eyes surged to orange and she wound around between Tussbuul's legs, charging the boulder he had been using to stand.
But she veered as a lamplight and a voice called from one of the other crawlerline tunnels. Tusk was happy to be the first responder: skittering out and butting into Lauriesk's broad, low chest. She gaped her jaws at the adult green, more to pump the other's scent better across her tongue than in blunt aggression. Then, building on her earlier uncertainty, she ran back to Tusk and planted in front of him. When the other greenpair actually entered the cavern, she oozed back behind Tussbuul and kept only her head coiled around to the front of his legs.
Tusk's binding incidentally negated Tussbuul's capacity to walk. He wedged his cane between his leg and Tusk's neck, prying her off a few inches before he pulled a scrap of wet jerky from his belt-pouch.
"You have done so well, finding all these people," he told her. Tusk looked up, spotted the jerky, and danced away to one side where she could properly perform a begging undulation for it. Tussbuul headed over to Laurierd before he dropped the tidbit. Tusk snatched it from the air, throwing back her head to gargle it down, one red fleck escaping the carnage and hitting the floor.
Tussbuul bowed his head and hunched his chest over at the fully-fledged Handler. He paid for his respects with the sudden development of a dry cough that wracked him as he waved Dizzy and Shino over. "I found them," he explained in muted, between-cough seconds. Tusk was pressing close to his legs again, peering up at him with a gaze of shifting turquoise. Tussbuul rubbed the flat of her head, between the eyeridges, and her inner lids waxed up like smoky screens. "But I think they may have already been hurt."
He looked at the girls. Neither of them seemed too bad off. But Tusk had a good nose for the mood of the crowd. Maybe too good. Maybe she was overreacting to a scraped knee or a scratched fingertip. Rather than extending Laurierd's friendly reprimand, or proceeding down his own avenue of concern, Tussbuul suddenly cleared his throat and said, "I didn't realize you were both Apprentices!"
One of the eggshells Tusk had discarded earlier inched just off its previous grave and settled over the peck of meat the feeding wher had dropped. The shell fragment was pale, pearly, surface rippled, and in total no larger than the nail of Tussbuul's little finger.
|
|
Ondine
Jr. Weyrleader
ondct[M:-155]
Posts: 436
|
Post by Ondine on Oct 25, 2012 13:53:40 GMT -5
Well, her hope for not getting caught just went to the pillies, because Dizzy had spotted her and suddenly decided to hide with her. This was a terrible state of affairs. With double the people, and whispering!, they would surely be caught in short order. In fact, she was just opening her mouth to protest that she hadn't been caught at all when Tusk peeked around the rock, and she squeaked. Now she was definitely caught! Oh no, oh no, what to do.
She knew that sneaking around and spying on Whers and their handlers was bad of her, but really, she just couldn't help herself! But now she was going to get a barrage of questions and made to feel terrible and, and...and she still had to get Dizzy and take her back! Although she supposed that maybe Atenna wouldn't know how long it had actually taken it to find the other apprentice, and just thought it had taken a while...
That Dizzy was telling her about how maybe they were seeing something they shouldn't just made everything worse, and within moments the girl was miserable. Especially seeing as how she had already gotten in enough trouble before becoming an apprentice with sneaking around! Maybe...maybe this time it really would go all the way up to Audren and Ausk. Everyone knew that Ausk was scary! She didn't want to get fed to Ausk!
But part of her fright was wonder, because she got to see another Wher up close! Oh, sure, Wherlet, but still. She'd stayed up before to try watching some of the Wherling lessons that Tusk was in, but she always fell asleep before they came out, and when she woke up a few hours later, they weren't out there anymore. Or maybe they'd never come out at all. She wasn't so sure of what else was going on right now with Tusk, but maybe the Wher had an upset tummy? Sure looked like it!
Then light flashed out of a tunnel. Another person! Oh no, this was just going from bad to worse. She looked totally miserable, with big eyes, a slight tremble to her lower lip...oh yes. So when Tussbuul was surprised they were both apprentices, she took that to mean that they were somewhere they shouldn't be. If only they were Journeywomen this would have been okay. And the tremble became full on shaking as she whimpered out, “I'm sorry! I don't w-wanna get f-fed to A-ausk! I just wanted to w-watch and f-find Dizzy.”
|
|
Chek
Weyrlingmaster
chekct[M:-15]
I'm so magical I vomit rainbows
Posts: 1,091
|
Post by Chek on Nov 7, 2012 15:49:23 GMT -5
After slowly dipping back down behind the rock after getting a slinky wher tongue right to the face, Dizzy blinked and wiped the residue off her face. Slimy.
Turning back to the matter at hand. Dizzy squeezed Shino to her side, whispering, “We can get out of this. We were never told that we couldn’t be down here, so don’t worry. Just keep looking sad.” A total reversal of her earlier panic reaction to the thought – and reality – of being caught, but Dizzy was firmly falling into her get-out-of-trouble mindset now, and since she wasn’t alone, it was doubly important.
So when the younger girl stood, revealing herself to the pair of handlers and their whers, Dizzy followed, looking sad and artfully contrite. Shino’s tearful explanation of her presence tied in with Dizzy’s own blooming plan – the whole mess solidified in an instant.
She squeezed little Shino a little tighter to her side, attempting to silently reassure her; the best part of the story she was about to tell was that is was, almost entirely, the truth. “Shino really was jus’ looking for me; I was down in the lower caverns lookin’ at stuff, and saw some light through a crack in the wall, and came through – Shino just followed. Are we in trouble?”
Better to leave out the bits about stalking him, of course. For safety’s sake.
It’s not like they actually would feed Apprentices to Ausk, right?
|
|
Rappu
Pridesecond
rapct[M:55]
Sailor Melty Rainbow Death
Posts: 496
|
Post by Rappu on Nov 11, 2012 18:34:17 GMT -5
Tusk's greeting to Lauriesk earned a low little growl. A friendly little warning to stay respectful towards the older green, nothing more; the bumbling little wherlet wasn't her problem. Her current problem were the shivering little slips that Laury needed. The other had started whining something about Ausk; whatever, Lauriesk respected the queen and stayed on her good side. Mostly this meant staying out of her way, but whatever. She slithered quickly behind the two apprentices in a half-circle, her long tail trailing behind and nearly touching the girls' feet.
Go Laury. No play here, she said in her calm voice and poked both girls with her head.
"Oh Faranth, are you hurt? You know, it's like, dangerous to play in here! You could've gotten lost," Laurierd said in response to the girls explanations. "Ausk? Oh no no no, like, don't cry! 'Tho you should be gettin' off from there before Lauriesk gives you a nip, y'know? But naw, we don't feed Ausk kids. We feed 'em to Waroth." She gave the crying Shino a wink. "At your age I'd play in caves like this too. Course, I'd get a spanking and extra chores." Those had been the days, running around Southern Weyr and once even climbing into a well on a bet with her cousin. That stunt had cost her a month of extra chores, but it had been worth it. Definitely. She'd gotten everyone's sweetrolls and respect for a long time afterwards.
"Well, these must be pretty fun caves for kids to run about," she said finally. "What d'you say - you do a couple chores for me and, like, I'll talk to to your boss so you're off the hook." As a Pridesecond, she figured she could act as an authority figure, and besides, she had some gear that needed fixing anyway. The girls could help her with that, and they'd have learned a valuable lesson about hard work. Right?
"You've done a good job," Laurierd said, turning to Tussbuul. She gave him a playfully flirty smile and extended her hand to shake his. "Aren't you the Master Miner wherling? Just wanted to, like, remind myself. That's really useful for a handler, isn't it? To be honest, I'm better patrolling outside myself, cause all those mineral things are so confusing." She sighed and gave a little self-depreciating laugh. Yes, she definitely preferred the outside to stuffy, dark caves these days.
|
|
Azhdarchid
Jr. Weyrwoman
azhct[M:-1490]
Totes.
Posts: 1,627
|
Post by Azhdarchid on Nov 12, 2012 22:22:21 GMT -5
Tuss' shoulders drew up and he smiled sheepishly as Laurierd corrected Shino on who ate the children around Dalibor. Though he thought even mild jests might be too harsh on the younger girl, he could also distinctly remember the exact same sorts of threats being made in the Smith and Minerhalls to their Apprentices. Usually the eater in those organizations was whoever happened to stand tallest and stoutest. The fact that Ausk and Waroth could actually snap up little girls in a bite or two breezed past the Master.
"Sounds like she's got a fair deal for the two of you," he heard himself mumbling, growing distracted in the space between conversations. He looked down at Tusk, who was sniffing the air with delicate flares of her slitted nostrils. Though the wher no longer sent express notes of distress at him, he felt a lingering doubt turning over in his stomach. But the girls were fine. So what...?
Laurierd was talking to him. More importantly, she was talking to him, with the line of her mouth and her extended hand. Tuss' silver-tipped eyebrows lifted and a smile took over his face. He stuck out his hand and wrapped his fingers around hers, firmly at first, then releasing a bit as if he hadn't realized his own strength. "Yes, I'm the Master..." he affirmed in a strong, smooth timbre, his cough having mysteriously dissipated. He left off the miner part of his title. His lips pressed together as she highlighted what little she knew about the "mineral things," then laughed along with her without comment. "I'll hazard that because your beautiful assistant there is Lauriesk, you are Lauri-"
Tusk announced the results of her sniffing with a stiff, greedy whine, and Tussbuul glanced down in time to see her snatch what looked like an eggshell off the floor by his boot. Tusk hissed at Lauriesk, then scuttled off to the far corner where she dropped the bit and began rubbing at it with her paw. Tuss saw shiny flashes of glowlight cascade off the object's sides as it tumbled, and the turning pressure in his stomach dropped and turned frigid.
His hand slipped out of Laurierd's and he began stumping toward his wher. "Wait, Tusk!" he called, a note of desperation immediately calling Tusk's big yellow eyes to his washed-out green ones. "Let me see," he exclaimed, oddly breathless as he reached her. Tusk picked up the tidbit with her mouth again, but only to drop it in Tussbuul's outstretched hand.
The Master stared at the little piece of the Hatching that never was, then turned around and brought it back to the others. He held his hand low, so even Shino's teary eyes could see.
In Tussbuul's hand was something that would pass as a fingernail-sized chunk of egg if one were not a vicious lamp-eyed predator like Tusk. But even human eyes could make out the differences at this distance and under the glowlight. The object was shaped like a walnut, or maybe a clam, with its two halves profoundly wrinkly and bright. Jamming his cane under his arm, Tuss freed up one finger to prise at the mouth of the unlikely bivalve. He almost dropped it when said mouth clamped around the tip of his finger.
He pulled his hand away. The saggy walnut reshuffled its halves and then went still again. "It's warm," he said, not in an experienced miner's voice but in that of a man on an adventure. "Maybe one of you has longer nails, you could-" he started, but it wasn't necessary. The walnut pulled back its own veils, retracting them into papery curtains at its sides.
Underneath the shell- the wings! -lay a tiny creature on its back, limbs scrunched up against its body. Tuss noticed two small paws stuffing a fleck of jerky up toward a head that tapered to a button snout at the bottom, and bulged at the top to accomodate two glassy silver eyes. Perhaps there was a mouth under the snout, because he could see the jerky steadily shrinking under there, but he could not quite make out the snipping of the animal's minuscule jaw. Just outside the well of each overgrown eye (by the head alone the creature could have been Pern's tiniest and smoothest wherlet), and a bit above, were a couple nubbins on an otherwise bald head.
The hindlegs were cramped in under the creature's belly, which looked abnormally large for its size. Not in the festively plump fashion either: the entire abdomen was puffed out, purple, and dried green ooze trailed from a couple prick-marks on the side. He realized there was a tail, shrunken, curly, and tucked up against the rump. Aside from the abnormality of its stomach, the entire animal had fine translucent skin. The longer he looked, the more he could see the vein-lines webbing over the dome of its skull and throughout its crumpled wings. It pulled its head up and he saw a flash of jerky going down its mouth, then saw the same piece drip red down its throat.
The entire iridescent body pulsed with each breath, in-out, and he could see a more rapid tempo in blue tapping in the center of the animal's chest. He glanced at the raging violet swell of the belly again, but it was painful to even look at, like a bruise that jut out. The walnut animal stared back at him, then laid its head back languidly on his palm to look at Shino, Basilidsi and Laurierd. It finished off the jerky bit while watching the others, then lay there placidly, red stamps on the undersides of its paws. "Some sort of crawler?" Tuss inquired lamely, not too sure what to make of the stumpy thing as he poked his finger toward its stomach.
"EEK![/i]" the crawler announced when Tuss' finger was a hair away from its bulging abdomen. The sound was enormous considering the size of the creature that made it, and so high it might very well crack glass. This time Tussbuul did drop it. It didn't manage any more than a haphazard opening of its wings and simply tumbled end over end till it smacked into the rock. "EEP!"
|
|
