Are We There Yet? [Sakky]

Unath's unchanging blue eye reflected the lighter blot of incoming Cyan, and though Q'sis was busied over her shoulder he did not react with any surprise to Xiro'el's call. He stayed where he was, back to the other trader as he checked and rechecked.

"No," he answered, like Xiro'el modulating his volume so that the word was clear, but not making himself loud. Or overbearing. He dropped back down and looked at Unath's chest, unmarked despite the various sizes of riding straps he had been fitting on her as she grew. Her latest set was piled on the ground by the other Tideturner, the dull brown leather undyed and unembroidered. Q'sis did not have the Marks nor time these days to outfit Unath extravagantly when she was only going to grow out of her current wear after another month.

Unath raised her nose till it pointed at Tigreath like an attracted compass needle, and Q'sis glanced upwards at her before turning around and striding toward Xiro. His brown hair had lost its Summer shine, his features forcefully relaxed as he passed the Cyanrider and hauled up the straps. On his way back he stopped next to his fellow Weyrling, turning his drab green eyes from Unath to Tigreath. He followed the line of the Cyan's wing. Though no sign appeared from him, Unath got up and hop-walked to a specific point just beside Tigreath, far enough away that both of them could extend their wings without grazing each other. Less than a foot would exist between the dragons' spreads.

Satisfied, Q'sis moved forward and strapped the riding leathers around Unath's neck. He returned to Xiro'el with a similar allowance for the lengths of their arms as the dragons had for their wings, though the traders certainly wouldn't be doing any flapping. Q'sis folded his arms. Unath dropped her neck till it ran horizontal, her snout matching Tigreath's on some invisible starting line while the excess length the subqueen had over the fighter was drawn out behind. She opened her wings, the leading edge trembling as if she sought to defy Q'sis and brush wingclaws with her sister.

Q'sis' attention wavered briefly toward the firelizard Xiro'el had acquired. "She hasn't been off the ground yet either," he said, tone thoroughly neutral. Unath shook out her neck and grunted a hello at Tigreath before baring her fine fangs in a dragon grin at the Cyan. Her eyes took briefly to whirling in extra crescents of lime and-- yes, cyan --before Q'sis looked back at her and she stilled again. "She likes Tigreath," he added, in the dewy tone of appreciation for his beast that no rider could avoid. It might have been the only reason he agreed to joint maneuvers. But Unath's judgements never passed anyone without caveat, and Q'sis' eyes went half-lidded as he continued: "She is more discriminating than you might expect."

He waved his hand at the dragons. "If they can keep their noses in the same spots relative to each other, that's good." The intricacies of fighting an enemy that had not shown itself for two-hundred Turns had not been shared with the Weyrlings yet. Right now they were just supposed to drill in order, like so many Lord Holder's sons lined up at a succession Conclave. "Unath will have to go short hops, Tigreath long." His earlier description of Unath's experience was not entirely accurate: she did have to get a little height in order to complete her downstroke. To Q'sis, that was not flying. It was just less of a joke than watching the Tan try to walk. "They have to start at the same time."

He held up his hand, the one with the short forefinger. Silently he began curling in one finger at a time toward his palm, with the common knowledge that once his fist pumped skyward, the dragons could begin.

Unath's wing steadied at Tigreath's touch, a small sigh drifting from her jaws. Q'sis did not reply to the notion of flying the Tan before lessons dictated they should. He need not bend to Chelo's specific directive; the take-off timeline had been established long before the woman took her stint as so-called Weyrlingmaster. Surprised at Xiro's pliant response, Q'sis nonetheless kept his expression impassive, and thrust his fist high.

His Tan's longer rear legs, full of light bone and launch muscle, tightened and contracted at a modulated rhythm slower than the Cyan's. Her exercise hop still sent her higher, but not further forward. With that crucial first vault she completed her downsweep and landed a few feet ahead of the other dragon. Q'sis ignored the flawed beginnings and worked to keep her on the same steady rhythm. He knew Tigreath would have more trouble. His control of Unath had been refined by necessity, while he presumed Xiro'el allowed his dragon's brainpower and decision-making abilities to occupy some of the process. Discrepancies fell into place between rider and beast.

But he still had to experiment with Unath. Her motions, although adequate, were rigid at their extremes. The upward flicks of her wing-arms did not go quite as far as they could. And of course the required monitoring took him away from his own place, and his ability to observe the faults from afar. When her wing-fingers tensed to cup the atmosphere beneath her sails, he felt the stretch of the venous membrane. When her tail bumped the ground he could feel it dragging behind him.

When Tigreath finally cleaned up her parallel leaps, Q'sis reduced Unath's distancing to ensure she did not over-challenge the fighter's abilities. Tigreath would of course meet any problem put to her simply to prove she could-- the Tanrider smiled faintly --but this was about achieving the baseline performance, the precision of the average.

"Good," he decided of the joint exercise thus far. The dragons were getting distant. "Turning right on three. Tigreath--" There was a pause as the trader's mind absently sought a means of shortening the dragon's three-syllable title, but did not immediately locate an appropriate nickname. "--has the inside corner. Next turn after we'll put Unath inside." He did not hold up his hand this time. Visual signals meant little once Threadfall had started, and were ascribed similar uselessness during drills. Vocal commands, mostly dragon-born, filled the communicative gap. "Three, two, one, turn."

For once it would be Unath who had to compensate due to the longer turning distance of the outside track, while Tigreath could shorten the Tan's needed leap if she managed a hairpin turnaround. Q'sis had his dragon glance at the orientation of Tigreath's legs and feet, and based on that split-second judgment of the fighter's chosen angle, she sprung into a complementary turn of her own...

In the air, the dragons would not be bound by the mechanics of hop length. But getting themselves in order regardless of that handicap would make the business of airborne drilling even easier, or so the wisdom of their lessons predicted. Unath's downsweep carried her the additional few feet required to keep even with the agile Cyan, and she landed first on her back feet before dropping her weaker forelimbs to the ground. Light for their size, the dragons had little trouble springing out of the turn and into another straightaway leap.

And they were matching well. Tigreath was doing well. Q'sis rubbed the back of his head, practiced enough in the current exercise that he could keep Unath at the proper pace while he considered the fighter beside her. When the winged pair came up on their own riders, he ordered another turn, this one with Unath on the inside as promised. The Tan did not have the small bulk needed to fashion a whiplashing on-tail turn like Tigreath, and the Cyan had to manage a much larger distance in a single jump than had been required of Unath earlier.

Q'sis counted down, Unath leaped and landed, but this time the Tanrider only permitted another two scurrying catch-up hops before he demanded another turn. Unath was still on the inside. And as they landed again, he barked for another just one hop later, Tigreath on the inside. From there he kept up his regime of quick pivots, showing a distinct preference to put Unath on the inside and force Tigreath all the way around the outside track. The dragon bodies dashed S's across the Bowl, like jittery tunnelsnakes, till they at last breached the shallows of the lake.

The Tanrider said nothing then, allowing the dragons to move back to pace as sky-colored showers of water sprang up around their feet. Q'sis could not risk one of them slipping on the wet stone, or plunging their feet into holes at the wrong moment and twisting an ankle. When he did turn them last it was with Unath cutting across Tigreath's path, forcing both of them east into deeper water. The Tan bugled and snapped her wings in, diving under the surface only to pop her nose, headknobs and ridges back up a moment later, coasting along on nothing but momentum.

Though his direct puppetry of Unath had been abandoned, it took Q'sis a moment to disentangle all of his senses from the subqueen. To some degree he never left her, sharing the comfort of the water against her skin, the cool air blowing in off the center of the lake. It was akin to inheriting the sensations of a Run, but without the overwhelming need that had always enjoined. There had never been thorough discussion of their bond in lessons. He thought it might be peculiar to Unath...

I can do anything I want to, Unath supplied in response, a riddle for a riddle. Q'sis glanced at Xiro, then advanced to the lakeside and crouched to get his fingertips in the water. Warmer than the air, the lake nonetheless stung his fingers with its chilly surface waters. Even his callused skin had nothing on the insulating power of dragonhide, and it was too close to Winter to count on the lake being merciful. Relinquishing the hope of joining his beast in the cooldown, Q'sis sat himself on a boulder to watch the dragons instead.

"Either way," Q'sis replied, tracing the hints of Cyan glimmering beneath the lake's surface. "It doesn't matter." The Tanrider took deep, slow breaths as he reclined on his own rocky seat, as if he was the one wearied by all that hard work of Unath's. Unath herself showed no signs of tiring at all. Her legs kicked her along the surface, following Tigreath below till she could no longer be easily sighted. She bobbed her head at the uncooperative waters, then got the idea to poke her head below them and immediately spotted the dipping figure of the fighter. She remained treading and keeping watch, eyes at their most brilliant green, rumbles of encouragement rocking through the lake whenever Tigreath moved particularly fast or displayed aquatic agility.

Q'sis narrowed his eyes, absorbing his Tan's perspective. "If Tigreath keeps going like she is, she will meet the Fall with little trouble." He knew no one alive on Pern could say definitively what Thread was like. But they could all estimate, and it was easy to see what the dragonriders traditionally prized in their fighters. The way was less clear for Unath, but he would accept her as not differing too much from the similarly bulky, high-powered Browns and Bronzes. "She will last longer by then too."

He sat up, pulling his hip-flask from his belt. The little container held only water. Q'sis drank all of it at once. "You have been paying attention in lessons," he began with posed thoughtfulness, swirling the flask around and watching the last few drops caught around the bottom swing in sluggish circles. "Tigreath's form was precisely as taught. And you corrected her when she strayed." He fastened the empty flask back to his belt. "...I hear they might actually grace us with a Gather in a few months. Prime time to get yourself measured for some fancy riding gear, if you've the Marks. Or will you be sticking to the patterning and sewing of your own things, like the common rider?" An unsteady but visible grin lashed across Q'sis' lips.

"Anyone who flies Thread will be risking their dragon," Q'sis amended, with the a low brush of warning sweeping through his voice. Because Xiro'el would be staying long enough to meet Thread, would he not? He would have little choice. Even Weyrlings had duties in Threadfall, and they would be getting into the thick of the Pass before graduation. They could be extinguished just as easily whilst bearing firestone as they could taking on the enemy with their own flames. The only means of avoiding Death's scrutiny was desertion. But the Tanrider's suspicion had softened in the face of Xiro's commitment to training; why would he train if he planned on fleeing?

So the boy only received one very narrow glance before Q'sis brought his focus back to his view of the lake. Unath growled acknowledgment of the nose tap, then opened her mouth and set the halves of her jaws around Tigreath's snout. She did not push her fangs in, and after a moment released the Cyan and licked her muzzle right between the nostrils. Extending her powerful neck, the larger dragon tapped at the other's striped throat and shoulder too, then ducked under the water and fashioned her bulky body into a Tigreath-like somersault. It took her some time to recall she had to swim too, to keep at the top of the lake, but once she remembered she paddled back up and poked her nose out inquiringly at the fighter.

Unath snorted, and a crystalline shower blew off the water. "I have no intention of playing the commoner after spending so much time being uncommon," Q'sis said, with a roll of his eyes for some of the noxiously public drama between Dalibor and Fort. With any luck, Thread would shut out both Weyrs' tempers. "I'll be shelled if I'm going to measure out all the leather it takes for my own jacket again, nevermind the rest. Too sharding tall. No, I will bid a very fond farewell to the benefits of my livelihood for the tanners and weavers to accomplish my things."

His dragon pulled her head up further from the water, liquid rolling in interconnected beads off her lower jaw. She looked right at him. "But Unath's straps are mine to make," he said, watching the distant flashes of blue and jade in her eyes. "I'll have a pretty good figure on how big she'll get by then. Just buy the lengths in excess, have them do the embroidery, then I'll trim and fasten it all myself. You should have been practicing that too," Q'sis added with a flicker of his sharp green eyes toward the other trader. "Where are Tigreath's?"

"Yeah. It was destroyed just before you showed up here though." Q'sis did not have to elaborate; Xiro only needed think of his condition the very first time they met. "As it so happens, when I was of the age to start requiring the extraordinary, I had also just attained the ability to fund it. But even were I small as you, commissions would have been necessary once I had to represent more than myself. Not looking like dirt is the first step in making the holders forget you were born in a ditch." Q'sis grinned, fully appreciative of the holdless circumstance of his birth, and knowing it was one similarity Xiro held to him.

Roars of approval were not always literal, but in Unath's case the sound made the lake water shudder, and even deep down where Tigreath swam its distorted phantom could be heard. Green spirals flashed through the Tan's eyes as her nose followed the Cyan's progress, nostrils flaring as if she could smell the excitement off the surface. Her current straps stuck to her hide, thoroughly waterlogged. Q'sis expected they would become unusable any day now, or he would have stripped them before he let her in the lake. Thrifty principles like not wasting good leather no matter what its form did not always hold when dragons liked to weaken what materials they did not destroy utterly. "I will have to lay out each one," the Tanrider admitted.

And pay many extra Marks for each set, which he estimated would be Xiro'el's next "cause for concern." Q'sis smirked. "I will discover the limits of requisition, and fill in the rest with the spoils of my own work. There can be more purpose in taking temporary leave of the Weyr than simply to escape its walls." But Q'sis' means of turning dragonflight into money would not be shared with the Cyanrider. Sharing methods tended to reduce profits, and with Unath at his side it was not as if he had to recruit scrawny, untrustworthy laborers. "I need to hunt Unath," he said, since Xiro'el did not appear to be doing anything important and having another dragon around tended to help. He slipped off the boulder. "If Tigreath is hungry, come with us now."

The Tan's eyes flashed their white inner lids as Tigreath resurfaced, answering warble fluttering from her throat. She bobbed in the water cast off by the Cyan's wingbeats, wagging the points of her tail back and forth above the surface. When Tigreath turned for shore, Unath leaned over and bumped her nose agreeably against the nearest part of the fighter before following.

"Supposedly they should be going a little while between feedings by now, but somehow I only remember the hungry days," Q'sis replied at his driest. He felt no urge to challenge Xiro and Tigreath's lead toward the pens, and was just starting the walk after them when Unath waddled out of the lake. Only Unath left him behind too, taking off in a leggy half-gallop and bugling at Tigreath. Q'sis jogged after her. Unath's velocity was entirely about pursuing the Cyan; there was no red in her eyes. She suspended her wings at her sides, partially unfolded, begging for a chance to flap that Q'sis did not allow her.

Unath vaulted over the pen fence, herdbeasts and wherries scattering to the other side-- as far from the young dragons as they could press themselves. Unath sniffed at some crushed remains already lying on the ground, but Q'sis steered her off the dissected carcass and toward the live beasts. The Tan bobbed her head as a bull wherry screamed at her from the front of his flock, facets fluxing pink before deepening to a rich burgundy.

Oh, I am hungry. Q'sis kept her alongside the fence opposite Tigreath's path, though soon the mixed herd started trying to escape between them for lack of better options. Unath made slow grabs at passing wherries with her jaws, but was unable to snare a single one. Her rider lightened his control and allowed her to follow the beasts at her leisure. Too long a pursuit and the stock would run off a significant portion of their weight by the 'morrow, but Q'sis would take over before the delay became too detrimental. He leaned on the fence; it was high enough that he did not have to bend over to do so.

"Unath," he called, and the Tan's head turned toward him promptly. "Get that one." Q'sis pointed at a shiny-eyed herdbeast bull that had been pinched off from the main herd and now stood behind the subqueen. The bull had the audacity to paw the dirt and lower his head at her backside. When Unath turned to get a look at him, her tail flicked through an arc that swept his hooves out. The bull fell on his side.

Oh,[/color] the dragon chirped uncertainly, tilting her head to try and get it even with the animal's again. As the bull started to right himself her eyes filled with yellow consternation. Um... Unath's pale blue tongue lolled out of her mouth, lips twitching back from her fangs. The bull got up, decided dragons were not his sort of challenge, and trotted away with his tail sported defiantly upwards. Unath's head swung after him, watching him go. Oh...[/color]

"You'll get better at it," Q'sis said, the assurance muffled as he rubbed at his face. "You want me to help?"

I can do it![/color] Unath answered sharply, though the point was equally made in how she whipped herself toward the herd, back to Q'sis. She crouched on the feeding ground dirt pack and scouted for her next victim.

Unath raised her head from her livestock survey to peer at Tigreath. Her facets went through a few rainbow spirals before relaxing to their blue default, and she bobbed her head encouragingly at the fighter. The intent of Tigreath's message had been lost; Unath just wanted more of the melodic mental voice to entertain her. Q'sis had heard it through her, so when Xiro'el took to giggling nearby he did not feel compelled to irritation by it. Unath waited a time to see if Tigreath was going to "sing" at her any more, then recalled her hunger and started hunting anew.

She thumped after one of the larger wherries, pulling herself in a series of weak hops and opening her wings for balance. The wherry, like the bull before him, did not seem to see the approaching dragon as anything threatening. He turned around and rattled his blunted wings at her, opening a brown beak-like jaw to reveal a pale green throat and tongue that was nearly white. Just when Unath got in range he trotted off, joining a cluster of five hens. The wherry squawked and batted them with his wings, and then the entire line turned to Unath-- who was still trying to approach them --and began a similar threat display.

Confused, but not necessarily scared, Unath stopped where she was and tilted her head at the screaming birds.

Did you see what Tigreath did? Q'sis asked, rubbing some of his Tan's bewilderment out just with the sound of his voice. He could feel her settling, even concentrating. She wanted to answer his question affirmatively, but it took time to try and sort her thoughts out to something so specific.

She jumped on it, Unath said, rumbling as Q'sis' appreciation for the response filled her wordlessly. I should jump, she confirmed. It was not a question. The dragon bent her forebody down, lifting her back as she stretched out each long hind leg daintily. Then quick as a cat she flung herself forward, wings hung low like moving barriers. Any wherry not immediately crushed under her descending paws was barreled down by the leading line of each wing. Unath stamped the heads of the fallen-but-not-dead wherries to ensure an utter victory. I jumped.

"When she has another dragon as an example, she hunts better," Q'sis offered with a distinct icing of gratitude. "Unless it's Mith. Mith makes everything take longer." The Tanrider did not sound upset with Unath's twin. He knew better than anyone her limitations. He and Valha had been right to keep them together where possible. Their collective brainpower might have been less than the sum of its parts, but Unath exuded a different kind of satisfaction when her twin was present than even when she was near dragons she liked very much, like Tigreath.

Unath ate determinedly. The wherries were lighter-boned and less meaty than herdbeasts, and the ones she had taken were all about as young and inexperienced as she was. She could get each one down in about two bites, and she was not as gleefully sloppy as she had been only a season ago. Make sure you break the bones if they're too big, Q'sis reminded her, and he only had to do it once to hear the rustling grind of bones between the big molars the dragon would eventually use for firestone chewing. When she had finished, she walked over to the fence and extended her forepaw over the side. Q'sis patted her five-fingered, almost-human appendage, then backed up so she could step across the barrier. "If only you could be trusted, Xiro'el."

The Tan looked at the black-haired trader beside her own when Q'sis spoke, but she did say anything. She got her front legs over the fence and glanced away from Xiro over her own shoulder. Teetering a bit, she folded up one back leg and balanced on the other three as she lifted it clear. Then she repeated the process on the other side before sitting down in front of her rider. Her attention returned to Xiro'el, identified more by the point of her snout towards him than the glitter of her blue eyes, which by their nature seemed to see many things at once. Q'sis stepped up her leg again so he could start tripping the soggy riding harness from around her neck and chest.

It was then that he noticed what she was paying so much attention to. He peered behind him at the other trader, eyebrows furrowed, then turned back to the straps and rubbed over Unath's hide where they had been pulling tightly. "I know he's about as pretty as a wherry, but you can't eat him woman."

Okay, Unath said, tone implying she was only humoring her lifemate, and she retracted her nose from its arrowing at the Cyanrider. She took in a peaceful view of the sky till Q'sis tapped her neck with his fingers, drawing her head back down to see what he wanted. He showed her a the completely shredded aft strap.

"What's this?" Asking a question in a non-literal way was always dangerous with a Tan, but Unath saw clearly on this occasion.

It broke.

"Tigreath seems contagious," Q'sis said as he stepped back off her arm, peeling the remains of the straps from Unath. He showed the broken one to Xiro before folding them up and throwing them over his shoulder. "Good of you to suggest they work together." The spreading of strap-snapping contagions notwithstanding.