Scattered to the Four Winds [Raven]

If Nara had not stopped when she saw him, Qosis might have passed her right by. The visible shoots of her black hair were not as vibrant a calling card as Tasia or Damali's redheadedness, and she was short besides. But when she simply jolted to stillness his eye, and ear, were drawn to her. At first the content of her words fell disregarded, and the trader instead attempted to discern who she was talking to. A little tinge of worry had begun to creep up his cheek when he heard a responding peep from somewhere on the girl's person. The trader exhaled soft relief for his fellow Candidate's sanity, then transitioned smoothly to a irritated furrowing of his brow. The firelizard was not worth complaining about-- he had about exhausted himself on that score the day after the latest hatching --but he would not let it pass without note.

"I thought maybe you had only been a shadow given the ability to speak," he said by way of greeting. "You appeared and disappeared so quickly, Nara." Not only had the trader contrived to discover her name, but he saw fit to shorten it. Friends already! "But here you are. And it is daylight." He glanced skyward. "Such as it is." Qosis weighed the option of leaving her then, for greener pastures, but a few more minutes to rectify any misconceptions she might be holding could not hurt. "You were saying something about herdbeasts? I reckon I am a fair expert on them now." He lifted his shoulders, then noticed the onlooking blue and leveled at a glare at him. "By the way, if Tasia has said anything to you, it's not true..."

Qosis planned to wait out the firelizard's tantrum with an unaffected smile. But when Naraevhyn began wrestling the creature back into her coat, and he detected Ranulf's thin squeals of protest, he at last took his eyes off the scene and seemed to fix his focus somewhere on the Bowl wall. He turned his face back to the other Candidate's in time to meet her gaze. The trader was frowning, an expression that deepened appreciably as Nara laid out her issue.

"They must be shorthanded after that storm, to give you such an inappropriate task." Qosis glanced to the distant smithy entrance, lamenting already the loss of his initial destination. This problem of Naraevhyn's demanded action desperately enough to eclipse his personal objectives. "I cannot imagine it would be more than two or three though. ...I can do it." And on the exact second of his decision he stepped around Nara and headed straight for the stables. Some levity returned to him once the decision of the new course had been made, and it was not long before sly olive eyes were peering back at Naraevhyn. His step remained brutally long and fast compared to the maximum the girl could manage without running.

And by his smirk, Qosis knew that. He slowed only when he decided he wanted to talk to her again. "Asking for help does not seem to become you. Bad trait in a woman. But I will indulge it this way: we are now in trade. I will help you with this, and you...will sing for me again." He wet the corner of his lips with the tip of his tongue as he considered the particulars. "Not now, but when I call on you. And it does not have to be about me. But it must be a song you have created. No teaching ballads..." He grit his teeth around the words. "...are necessary here." The stables loomed ahead, and Qosis stopped upon reaching them. "Tasia had occasion to be bossy. You do not. This is your chore, and your success in it is dependent on your agreement to my terms. So, I will let you contemplate that while I locate the largest runner around here. Get one for yourself too. I will need you to help spot the beasts."

"Well, as long as you've accepted it," Qosis answered lightly. "But it would be best you left those greens and pinks to the boys. They'll have a hard time of it." He had an impulse to declare her unworthy of queenriding too, but he canceled it before he spoke. People could be trained into such things sometimes, and he really did not know Nara past his gut impression. He glanced back at her. "A dragon will never ignore you though." The trader smiled at her protests regarding payment. Despite all the noise, she would comply. He said nothing right then, and went to fetch his beast.

He proceeded directly to the end of the first stall row, where the largest and highest-held equine heads were peering out at him. A gray draybeast was observing him dolefully from the very last stall; perhaps it did not see much use here. He reached over and patted its soft nose, but for this excursion chose the mare in the stall to its right. She might have been a cross-blood. He was not educated enough in breeds to know, but from her looks he concluded she would not plod like a true dray. Qosis kept up his evaluation as he piled on her tack and led her down the stable hall. He would mount outside, where he had less chance of banging his head in the process.

As he led the powdery white mare out, he noticed Nara's fumbling with her own runnerbeast. The trader continued to eye her as he stopped the mare beside her animal. "I'm no harper looking to score you on it," he grumbled indignantly as he tied his mare to a post and prowled around Nara's beast. Really, an Apprentice trying to match a song note-for-note because a Journeyman might lash them otherwise soured the melody enough. Someone who could not make Apprentice shouldn't have been worrying at all! "Unless that sort of pressure makes you sing better," he murmured in revelation. "In that case, my name is Robinton and I have returned from the dead to listen very, very closely."

Qosis flicked his own ear and grinned toothily at Naraevhyn as he passed in front of her again. At last he slipped a couple fingers under the saddlestraps in a few different spots, then patted her runner's neck. "It's fine," he informed her before heading back to his own steed. Qosis' seventeen-hand mount had mostly ignored Nara's save for an introductory sniff at its neck.

The trader blinked at her for the gratitude, then shrugged, and edged his runner down to the path out of the Bowl. Almost immediately outside the cusp of the stone he stopped again, tilting his head at the rocky shores to the west, then the broader expanses east. He turned the beast eastward and nudged her forward. "I gather they've taken to the woods?" he inquired of his spotter. She alone would have heard the tale from the stablemaster, and the relevant details.

The mare was working out just as he had hoped: an even gait, a plucky arch in her neck. She was spirited, but he moreso. He had been worried the Weyr might need and use only ponies, especially some of the light, distantly Ruathan creatures that flinched when any but the tiniest of teenagers crossed their backs. Even Nara would have been a torment to one of those.

Rather than paying perfect attention to Naraevhyn's constant exhibitions of contrariness, Qosis let his focus drift across the treeline ahead. By this time the dead leaves of the previous season had been buried under fitful mounds of snow, and while he still detected the occasional crunch of plant matter, it was more often muffled by the newer ground cover. The trees offered no canopy against the weak pulses of Rukbat, only shadows that wove around their runnerbeasts like lengths of black thread.

"But you were displaying it proudly the other night," he murmured absently to Naraevhyn, looking down past his mare's long legs to the featureless inches of snow. Any hoofprints they might find to mark their quarry's location would have to have been made recently. The windstorm had covered up everything else. He glanced at Nara as she detailed the situation; he had not realized when she said missing driver, she had really meant missing, and not just wandering off-task. After a storm like the previous night's, there were not many good reasons for a driver to have failed to return, with or without his beasts.

The trader's mare balked as he tried to crest her over an incline and down the shallow ravine on the other side. The woods here were strange, hilly. And he did not know what the snows were hiding besides leaves and hoofprints, so he allowed the runner to walk along the incline till she felt confident in descending the slope herself. Even so, she skidded the last couple feet and pushed off the hill into an empty streambed with such force as to mimic a dragon's take-off. Qosis patted her neck and muttered reassurances till she slowed out of her nervous trot, then turned her around and returned to Naraevhyn. Really, most of his "riding experience" involved him sprawling on the back of an ox in its yoke.

But he noticed he felt more comfortable in his saddle than Nara looked in hers. "I really doubt that would be useful for anything more than spooking the beasts," he snorted. "Keep him in check. If not for this task, than for the sake of his adult manners. He will respond in kind if you treat him like a baby." He raised a brow at the obstinate firelizard.

He looked around, then waved at the other Candidate. "Come on down the hill. Use the same route I took-- it's safe. I think I see a hoofprint."

"Nara, your right foot," Qosis warned as he watched her take on the slope. "Your right!" He actually meant the runnerbeast's right front hoof, but it rapidly became clear that Nara was in no state to follow instructions, nevermind watch where she was riding. He grimaced as runner and girl descended in the less traditional fashion, his own mare dancing sideways in distaste as puffs of snow marked each bodily impact. And the fools four-legged and two were lucky the snow was there. Otherwise it would have been broken legs and broken backs all around.

He eyed Naraevhyn's mare as it automatically rose and pranced off a few feet, its belated alarm serving to show all its legs still operational. Then he shifted his runner closer to Nara, watching her struggle up onto her feet with similar skepticism. He glanced off in the direction she pointed, then returned his sharp regard to her. When she started to lurch after the objective, he marshaled his mount straight into her path, close enough that she could bump off its fuzzy side if she was not paying attention. "No," the trader said flatly.

Qosis turned his mare so that her powerful chest and forelegs were facing Nara, like he was planning to run his fellow Candidate down. "Go back and tend your runner. It is your responsibility. When you're done, lead it to me." He turned his beast around, looking back before he gunned his heels to her ribs. "You look for heat and swelling," he snorted, then his runnerbeast cantered off from standstill, dusting the girl in snow. "And check her pacing!"

He checked on Nara from afar when he reached the furs, to see if she was showing any more serious signs of injury. Then he dropped from the saddle, bending down to the furs and turning them over. Beneath lay a man he could only assume was the driver, and as soon as Qosis turned him he exhaled a puff of white breath into the chilled air. His eyes opened momentarily, turned glassy blues on the Candidate, then closed again. The furs had been arranged in a protective bundle around his body. Qosis did not see any blood, but the arm and leg on one side were twisted unnaturally.

Alive, at least. He had tried to come down the ravine at a different spot, or been thrown from his runner. That meant there was a sixth beast to collect in addition to this baggage. Qosis rose to his feet and checked the supplies laced on his saddle. He had lead rope; it would have to do. He just had no idea where to tack on the injured man. Or how to get on himself once the cargo was in place. The trader took a deep breath, like an exasperated sigh, as he considered the issue, facing his runner's saddle and able to see Naraevhyn beyond. He could use some assistance...

Seconds later Qosis was gripping under the driver's chest with one arm and hauling himself into the saddle with the other. The mare teetered dangerously and the driver moaned, but with one final yank Qosis balanced the load over each side of the saddle, scarcely leaving any room for himself behind. He could survive the inconvenience for a few minutes. After adjusting the furs around the driver's body, he collected the reins in one hand and turned the mare around. She felt unwieldy beneath him. He would not be able to ride quickly. "Here's your driver!" his voice boomed through the thin Winter air to Nara, he testing his mare forward to the other Candidate. "I have to take him back to the Weyr. See if you can find his runner. I will track you when I return."

The trader's return was forestalled by the necessity of changing horses. Even after he dropped off the driver at the infirmary, his crossblood mare was weaving as if the water troughs he had put her to were filled with Benden red. He noticed the pained twinges of the muscles in her neck and her newfound irritation with the bit in her mouth, and slipped himself off her back to walk her from the infirmary to the stables.

It was only as he strode at her side, listening indifferently to her complaints, that he realized she showed no aversion at all to the dragons constantly scaling the skies above. She only walked a very wide path around the feeding grounds. He had heard all runners were terrified of dragons, but it seemed they could be trained into sensibility. All people and animals could be educated into usefulness.

Except Naraevhyn.

He thought he might have wrenched the mare's back with his maneuvers, for she continued to twitch even after unsaddling. Far better that than the driver catching infection, Qosis thought. Only one of them could be recycled into dragonfood after outliving their usefulness. He came back in the saddle of the dray gelding. The deep blue-grey animal flicked its ears and whicked its tail in delight as it plodded out of the Weyr. Qosis decided he had been right to guess the dray was not used often.

It was only a half-hand taller than the mare, but far stockier. Cooperative, friendly, and solid in its step, it was a reassuring if unusual mount till Qosis began to bring it to speed in the forest. Then he discovered the dray could not be encouraged to more than a grumpy trundle, and it was far too dull to navigate the hilly woodlands with confidence. When they reached the lip of the ravine the gelding folded its ears back and made its first vocal protests. Qosis could see Nara's mare tied to a tree below, but not Nara.

Resigned to the draybeast's anxiety, he dismounted and led it far down the ravine where the walls diminished to a weak dip in the earth. Then he got back on and kicked the horse back to its dismal top speed, vengeful for the lost time. Now trotting the flat riverbed, the dray giddily accelerated, hardly noticing the grinding assist of Qosis' heel. Qosis planned to ride all the way back to the tied mare, but noticed the girl-sized footprints beside the imprint of the furs and followed those instead.

Spotting the herdbeast before Nara, he nonetheless noticed her in time to slow his gelding to a stop at her side.

"That is not the driver's runner, Nara," Qosis chided as he spied two more herdbeasts beyond the first thanks to his better vantage. "But it will do." He looked down at his fellow Candidate. "Get on. You'll ride with me till we find that other beast." And he extended his arm toward her, fingers making a grab for her shoulder. If she did not get on with all haste, he could always drag her into position.

Once Naraevhyn was in place, Qosis switched his attention off any further commentary from the girl. He nudged the gelding forward to the first herdbeast, which raised its chocolate-colored head and chuffed dull inquiry. When the gelding did not slow its approach, the herdbeast turned around with a groan and began shuffling toward its fellows. Qosis took stock of how it avoided anything more than the slightest crag on the snowy ground, and when possible walked on shallow downward gradients to minimize its efforts. Herdbeasts were easy enough to coax along a road, but the forest would apparently be a different matter. The longest, most relaxing routes would have to be taken-- he did not know the means of a faster transfer.

Simultaneously he detected the plaintive chirps of Nara's firelizard and picked out the word sick from her various natterings. He paid more attention to the former sound than the latter, and pulled up the draybeast with an unkind jerk of the reins before twisting in the saddle to look back at the other passenger. It was a futile effort: between his height and Nara's drooping against his back, he could only see the dark crown of her hair. And he had to flinch his face away when she sent up Ranulf like a stray spark from a flame. Catching himself, Qosis tracked the firelizard's skyward spiral.

"He has lost color." A sigh rippled through the muscles of his abdomen and up along his chest before it escaped his lips in a steamy plume. Of course there was a greyish cast to everything in the wintry woods. Perhaps he was not as longsighted as he believed, and it was already hard to pinpoint the hue of the flit's eye facets. He watched the herdbeasts mill nervously ahead of him.

Qosis turned the gelding. "You are a fool," he informed Nara as the shared steed padded back down to the riverbed, then climbed the same inclines it had shied away from descending earlier. "If you are going to be sick, aim off the side of the dray," the trader instructed absently, before getting to the crux of his accusation. "Why did you not say you knew nothing of riding? Why did you not ask for help?" The answer he already knew, and it was infuriating. His hand closed on one of the small arms clutched around him, gripping it tight to keep Naraevhyn from tumbling off while they headed back to Dalibor.

How did the Weyr manage to Search such girls? "I will return for the beasts," he assured her coldly. "Call your firelizard back to you, now."

The draybeast hobbled over a hidden rock as it marched toward the Weyr. It tried to slow up in response and Qosis gunned it back to speed for what seemed to be the third or fourth time. The trader tipped his ear toward Nara's current ramble, if only because it might give him more insight into her condition. In fact the girl gave it a name, and that she had suffered from it before. Not a surprise. Qosis was not well-versed in the same ailment though, and not about to trust Nara's opinion on the matter. The simple fact was that she had struck her head, and only a healer could sort out the rest. He quickly turned his attention back toward the route when he had heard what he needed to.

Naraevhyn actually went quiet on her own after a time, which he should have taken as more than a relief. When her arm suddenly unlatched from him, his reflexive clench on the limb could not restrain it from sliding out of reach. Concussion or no, the girl was slippery as a tunnelsnake! The dray gelding grunted in alarm and kicked forward a few feet when the slight weight plummeted off his back, and Qosis fought to turn him around. She had jumped!

And against the law of death quickly visiting such idiocy, Naraevhyn was rising back to her feet. And running away. Wide-eyed as his dull draybeast, Qosis watched her. His teeth grit, lips dragging back into a snarl. First he stripped his mittens, to give his fingers a better grip. He tied the articles off to one side of the saddle. Then he aligned the draybeast with a path running just apart from Nara's, and eyed the flat, treeless range of her escape. Finally he gave the dray a sharp enough reason to move that the animal bellowed in surprise and he leaned himself low to its withers to keep from being tossed at its launch.

Ears tucked flat against the top of its skull, the draybeast charged down the girl at its true speed: a lumpy gallop that had its white fetlock feathers streaming and starbursts of snow exploding in the air behind each hoofbeat. Qosis carefully shifted his weight to the beast's right side, then leaned off with his arm fully extended. His hand caught the back of Nara's coat, and the force of the passing dray lifted the girl off the ground. From there the trader dispensed her over the saddle in front of himself, and immediately hauled the reins up to slow the dray. He donned his mittens and then flattened one hand against the girl's back to keep her in place, her legs dangling off one side of the saddle and her upper body off the other.

The dray whinnied further complaint, but did not show any immediate signs of injury. There was no agonized weaving as there had been in the mare that preceded it. It was more the shifting of the weights than their addition and subtraction that bothered it. Qosis turned the animal and set it back towards the Weyr.

"You can--" Ranulf slapped into his face and cut Qosis off, his head utterly unprotected with both hands occupied. The firelizard managed to evoke one hiss of pain from his prey before Naraevhyn forced him to behave. The draybeast cautiously lifted its own leaf-shaped ears, whinnying for reassurance. "Pat its neck," Qosis commanded, for his hands remained full of girl and reins. Something dribbled down his brow and against the side of his nose. Qosis preferred to believe it was only a trace of sweat from under the band of his heavy cap.

For a drudge, Naraevhyn had proven herself more than insolent. Qosis thought he had heard a harper's tale of this nature somewhere, wherein a lowly peon rose to prominence for a time at her Hold...or in a Weyr, maybe. Harpers sometimes spread insidious little imaginings like that, apparently to unpin the minds of otherwise decent workers. With Ranulf buzzing around, the dray kept a decent pace on its own. With Nara seemingly subsided from screaming for a time Qosis was at ease leading the animal back onto the path up to the Weyr, then through the entryway toward the infirmary. Like the runner before it, the dray took the long way around the feeding grounds, but was otherwise showing no further signs of tossing its passengers.

The gelding trotted up to the massive infirmary entrance and, with some prodding from Qosis, moved under the stone archway as a couple healers squirmed out of nearby tunnels to attend them. "She fell from her runner and has been raving since then. I believe she hit her head."

He finally let his hand off Nara's back, helping descend her from the dray feet-first into the arms of the nearer healer. "If you could see she gets some numbweed, at least..." He shrugged. The experts could figure it out, and he would happily cede custody if it meant he could abandon the girl and get back to work.