Azhdarchid
Jr. Weyrwoman 
azhct[M:-1490]
Totes.
Posts: 1,627
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Post by Azhdarchid on Jan 28, 2012 18:40:24 GMT -5
He ran his stunted fingertip over the fuzzy swell of a peach, then reached for the golden hilt of his belt-knife. Only then did he notice the smaller, duller dinner knives offered in a plate beside the peach basket. Right. He lived in a stone hut called Dalibor now, and he was subject to the rare luxury of being tithed everything he needed. It wasn't necessary to use the same tool for every job. Reluctantly Q'sis unwrapped his fingers from the jeweled shaft of the old weapon, and picked up one of the tiny silver bits from the plate, its handle swallowed up by his enormous hand. He picked up the peach and began shaving off its skin.
Oh! Unath exclaimed immediately, as if it was her speckled hide getting shorn. Q'sis paused, a quarter of the rind hanging off his pastel orange victim. Unath had been having a good day: lucid, not sharp, but focused. A string of good days, really, preceded by the most unlikely trigger. So when he told her to keep watch for something he needed in the dying sun, she remembered. And she saw it now. Her eyes shared the vision along with the exclamation, and Q'sis finished peeling the peach as he watched a couple figures prowl down the Bowl, shadows long and purple along the cold red stone.
He had arrived to the dining hall early, before dinner, to see if he could catch his quarry as she was taken in by hunger. But she was skipping the bells and whistles, and he did not know if she simply forewent food or had partaken quietly before. He mummified his peach in a napkin and dropped it in one of the wherryhide bags drooping off the side of his belt. A second, still-clothed peach went in too before he cinched the bag's neck up and left the hall.
Unath came down and pranced along at his side for the stretch of the Bowl between the kitchens and the feed lots, then took off again to much bellowing of the herdbeasts nearest the fence. Even without his dragon's eyes Q'sis had a respectable vantage, and he saw his target coming in along the stables from the east. He vaulted a couple fences to get in-between the stable buildings, the silhouette of his head crossing that of several runnerbeasts before he emerged almost in step with a woman and her own runner-high companion. He was at the other end of the stable's width, but he veered down half that distance before stopping. And bowing.
"Kalesk," he said to the golden queen. "Good evening." Q'sis straightened and regarded the other fine woman before him. "I know you have to keep going." His olive eyes fixed on hers for an acknowledging half-second before he looked out to the imperfect cliffs straining for each other's kiss over the southern Weyr exit. "I'll come with you." He took a suggestive step toward that stream-lined natural gateway. "...if Kalesk is alright with that. I've a request."
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Cathaline
Lady Holder
cathct[M:50]
Posts: 3,279
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Post by Cathaline on Feb 7, 2012 22:51:51 GMT -5
It was Kalenna's habit to break her daytime fast long before sunset, so that she could be at Kalesk's side when the worthy wher awoke; today, they had a dusk patrol, and thus both would hold off on eating again until they had finished. Apart from the usual quick check-in with Audren, there was thus nothing to engage their interest here, and they could proceed directly to the west shore, a stretch of land they knew quite well.
On some nights they would stick close to the line of the cliffs, but today they cut closer to the middle of the Bowl; Kalesk wanted to examine the stables, being in a suspicious mood. She paused outside the feeding pens and rose up on her hind legs, paws curling around the fence and making it creak alarmingly, and stared out at the uneasy herdbeasts. Marking her prey for later, Kalenna knew. Her eyes strayed over to a runner paddock, and Kalenna forced the gold's mind away. Not food.
Kalesk huffed and dropped back to all fours, wings fluttering a bit. She knew perfectly well what was food and what was not, and she ranged along beside her handler in a bit of a strop. Sometimes it would be nice to eat a runner. One of the old ones that nobody could use anymore. Nobody used them as it was, they were perfectly useless in a Weyr, so far as she could tell, and it set her teeth on edge. Everything must have its place, and if it didn't, then it belonged in her belly.
Kalesk only focused so strenuously on her hunger when she hadn't partaken in a few nights, as it was tonight; however, all such distraction left her at the sight of a shadow, the sound of footsteps. Her head snapped up, and she prowled in front of her handler, eyes shifting toward the crimson. Oh. It was the rider of the brightglow tan dragon. Tonight she trotted right up to him and whuffed at him. Apparently pleased with the response this achieved, she backed away again, head proudly held up.
Kalenna approached, setting a hand on the gold's side. "Good evening, Q'sis," she said. "You may accompany us as far as the Bowl exit, but I am afraid that if you set foot on the west shore during my patrol time, I shall have to put it in my report." This was stated with good humour, truthful but not a warning. "A request, when you have not even collected on the last favour I owe you?" By which she meant, of course, the promise of a date after he graduated. That time rapidly approached, but it wasn't quite here yet.
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Azhdarchid
Jr. Weyrwoman
azhct[M:-1490]
Totes.
Posts: 1,627
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Post by Azhdarchid on Feb 8, 2012 21:03:58 GMT -5
"Was that a favor?" Q'sis inquired, watching her from the corner of his eye as he took the first step toward the end of the Bowl. "Strange. I thought it some sort of mutually beneficial arrangement." His lips lit up with a black-framed smile, his beard having been allowed to grow out early to account for the cold snap. "Do you have any dresses, Kalenna? Igen fashion is...not very good for Dalibor's winters." A pause as he considered his own conclusion. "But that wouldn't matter very much inside. And it does look good."
A quick glance to Kalesk's enormous faceted eyes, then he continued: "Lots of blue, where the women could afford it. Blue is what's precious in Igen." The knife at his belt got a thought but not a touch; the largest of the gems in its hilt was a deep navy-violet stone. "Then white being the common elegance. Either would suffice. If you have something like that, wear it."
That had clearly not been his request. It was an order. And Q'sis had left himself plenty of steps yet to the exit. "For the first sevenday of this coming Winter, I need the Threadfall charts for the settled parts of the West, and the entire Northern Continent." His previous smile loosened to faint upward curve as he turned his head toward her. "I only need them for a Restday, long enough to copy over the information to a slate or three."
He took his next breath slow, hanging the request out to dry for a few seconds. "Look- some of those insects are on the ground ahead of us." Indeed there was a circle of pillie-bugs, well out of their path, conferencing on the edge of the stream emptying southward. "Wouldn't want to step on someone's disgusting choice of a pet. Let's go east and walk along the wall to the exit instead." He knew better than to obfuscate Kalesk's path, but he held out his arm toward the eastern wall as if it were a diamond on the sale block.
Only now did he make a show of reconsidering his request, but not for the better: "Actually, make it the entire first month of Winter. Considering the season there will be a lot of empty air, but I still need to know the days, the 'marks when and where my enemy will show itself." He untied the frontmost bag from his belt and loosened the neck, then offered it to Kalenna. Inside was the cold, cloth-wrapped, skinless peach, and the second untouched specimen. "Hand me back the one I didn't trim yet. I'll take care of it now."
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Cathaline
Lady Holder
cathct[M:50]
Posts: 3,279
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Post by Cathaline on Mar 12, 2012 23:13:41 GMT -5
"It is a favour," Kalenna teased, one eyebrow arching at his words. "As far as I can tell, the arrangement is all to your benefit - so that I may lend a certain sense of dignity to your being able to partake in alcohol for the first time in two turns. Was that not the agreement?" It was obvious that she was jesting - or perhaps jousting. One could generally count on something approaching wit from Q'sis, even if some of his views were outdated and reprehensible.
Her lips curled into a slightly dangerous smile at his dictation of her dress. As it happened, she was unable to comply with his orders. "I'm afraid that, expecting to become handler to a wher and require working clothes, I brought no dresses or skirts when I transferred, and my duties prevent me from leaving the island to purchase such an item. Perhaps if a Trader were to come to Dalibor, or if I were to borrow such a dress from a friend..." But she left this possibility up in the air. If she chose to dress as he wanted her to for their alleged date, it would be in a spirit of irony, not obedience.
Kalenna cocked her head at his request, mulling it over. There was no reason why a weyrling should not have that information, despite their generally not being allowed into the records room where they could get it. She wondered why he didn't ask his weyrlingmaster, and thought in amusement that it rather suited him to use Dalibor's newer goldhandler like this. "I could remove such charts from the records room," she said. "But they could not leave my sight, you understand. I could always copy the information over for you, or else we would have to sit together while you did so." As if he were a child, a boy at Harper's knee.
Kalesk snorted at Q'sis's words. Pillie-bugs were easy to step on, and they scattered before her, as was only right; she outsized them significantly. But if the brightglow's rider wanted to evade them, then let him be a coward. She veered toward the wall, but she kept to the outside of the two humans, faux-protecting them from the danger of the pillies. Kalesk had a wicked hunter's mind sometimes, and Kalenna grinned at it. "Thank you," she said at the offer of the peach, accepting it, and waited for his response to her compromise.
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Azhdarchid
Jr. Weyrwoman
azhct[M:-1490]
Totes.
Posts: 1,627
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Post by Azhdarchid on Mar 18, 2012 20:34:52 GMT -5
"Even if I was born in a ditch, I am not entirely without dignity," Q'sis said with a smirk. Kalenna's words were not direct enough to invoke displeasure, but the tanrider had clearly been stirred on some level. "In my caravan, I was the boss- that means the leader. One of them, anyway. A bronze." The smirk thickened to a grin. "Till such a time that they turned their backs to me for the crime of being Searched." He wagged his abbreviated finger at her. "What you lend to me is far more than your pedigree. But it's a well-known secret that no one enters arrangements like ours without some benefit to themselves."
If he caught the extra note in her next smile, he did not show it, responding with a similar flashing of teeth. "Whatever you need to do," he allowed, terminating her ambiguity for her. Her offers of the more professional nature appeared to take some consideration. Q'sis took back the one untrimmed peach and drew his knife to peel it, obsessed with getting the entire fuzzy shell off in one piece. The waste was tucked into another pouch for later disposal.
The ex-trader's lips parted on the beginning of a word, but the stalking bulk of Kalesk caught his eye. He studied the ever-present wher, then narrowed his eyes back at the woman. "I think I could handle sitting with my favorite Betahandler for a few candlemarks," he said, the corners of his lips positively coiled. "You can check my work." He held out an open hand with the peach resting in it, his jeweled knife underneath but restrained by his ring and little fingers so that Kalenna would not accidentally take it.
How could he know that grin was not for him? "Thought you might like that," he murmured of the fruit. He looked toward the immediate break in the Bowl wall ahead, following the stone up past a few secreted weyrs to where two prows of red-grey rock reached for each other. "Just curious," the Weyrling began, and the flicks of wind that accompanied dragon wingbeats ran down their backs as he continued. "If Unath were to wander out after you instead of me, do you still have to report it?" The very tan had just landed behind them, and though she started to mosey after them, she stopped when Q'sis did, at the midway point under the arches. Unath tilted her head at Kalesk, then demonstrated just enough initiative to peer at Kalenna too.
Q'sis went no further. Weyrlings were of course forbidden from leaving at random after the death of the fool's dragon, out on the island somewhere. Someplace along Kalenna's patrol route, maybe. There was something distinctly wrong about him having to stay cozied in the Weyr while Kalenna entered the long, wild night to protect him from its dangers. But she did have Kalesk, and it would be unforgivable not to exercise the gold's right to prowling her domain. Hers, for Risk could no longer be trusted with it.
Kalenna was only doing her duty. "Bye," Q'sis grunted, not exactly moping over the point but certainly not enthused. He started to take a step forward so he could see better past the cliffs, out to the western shore, but caught himself and retreated. "Good hunting. Have Kalesk bespeak Unath when you're ready for me. Otherwise, it's only a few sevendays now."
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Cathaline
Lady Holder
cathct[M:50]
Posts: 3,279
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Post by Cathaline on Mar 19, 2012 5:11:15 GMT -5
"A bit young for a boss," she noted, another dig. Among his peer group - the Candidates, and the weyrlings - Q'sis must be among the oldest. But to Kalenna, who had seen many more summers than he, the young man was still very young and largely untried. It suited her to remind him of that fact...just as it might suit her to wear something other than what he dictated. It largely depended on her mood that evening, despite his attempts to close off her avenues of argument.
"What do you imagine the benefit is to me?" she asked, genuinely wondering. Surely he did not imagine that he actually had her on the hook. This was not a friendship, nor a business relationship - she did not need him in any way, at least not now. If nothing else, she found him interesting and, on some level, amusing. She could file him away under "entertainment." Perhaps she was the same to him.
Not hard to be his favorite betahandler when there were only two, and to the best of her knowledge, Q'sis had never so much as seen Ridan. It also wasn't hard when she did know Ridan, and knew full well that Q'sis would hate him. "If Unath followed me, it would be even more vital that I report it," she said, her lips tugging into a frown. "The last time a dragon wandered out alone, he never returned alive, and you know that full well. But I think your control is too good for that."
With this acknowledgment of his skill as a dragonrider, she stepped past the invisible divide, turning to look back at him. "Have a good night," she said. "Kalesk will contact yours." And she would, no matter how she chafed. It was her duty. Even golds had their duties, distasteful as some might be. "I am aware of the timing, and I look forward to seeing your new knots, Q'sis."
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