This'll Do! (Shanza's Clutching; Nia, Jack?)

[4horseshowgirl4]

It had been several sevendays since she had been caught by Bronze Phareon in her Flight, and Shanza was now quite egg-heavy and ready to clutch. Of course, this now posed the question of where to clutch. If it had been summer, she would have laid them in the infirmary, but the infirmary's cold, sterile, stony environment was hardly suitable for her eggs in the middle of winter! The kitchens were too busy, and she wasn't sure if she could trust them in B'nyur's weyr, with how depressed and secluded from everything he'd been. She growled in frustration-- he'd always taken care of her eggs with a Dragonhealer's skill, and she wasn't happy about losing that security! She'd have to find someone else to help her care for them. How did wild Queens do it? People and the things they built were so useful for clutches!

She paced around B'nyur's weyr, uncertain of what to do. Then, it dawned on her. Phareon had a person! If both she and her mate were around the eggs all the time, surely Phareon's could help care for them! He might never have done it before, but Shanza had, and she was quite willing to boss him around so she got it right. His weyr would be the perfect place! Luckily, she knew where it was located, as she'd seen Phareon and R'ori and R'ori's Green dragon fly in and out of it often enough. Shanza climbed to the top of B'nyur's bedpost and launched herself off of it, so eggheavy that she nearly crashed into the floor before managing to pull herself back into the air.

Still, she only managed to get halfway to R'ori's weyr before her wings gave out, and, first making sure there was no one around to see her, she waddled the rest of the way, swollen belly swinging below her almost ludicrously. Exhausted, she finally slunk into his weyr, and it did not take her long to decide where to clutch. The Weyrling didn't have much furniture, but the soft, warm furs on his bed would be perfect. Shanza pulled herself up there, circling multiple times to find the best spots. Then, she clutched. She was quiet and tried to be quick about it so she could finish up before R'ori and Phareon returned because she simply hated anyone watching the uncomfortable process.

She managed to, chirping happily about her good-sized clutch of twenty-one eggs, before taking a short fly around the room, despite her fatigue, to enjoy her new lightness in weight. Then, she set to arranging them. The first thing she did was tuck the edges of the furs underneath themselves to create a shallow rim around her eggs, so none would accidentally roll off. She lumped four eggs together in a heap in the middle, and while the biggest egg was among them, the other three seemed fairly nondescript.

Two eggs, leaning against each other, were placed next to the four. Five eggs were lined against R'ori's pillow, evenly spaced, like sentries, and five others, echoing them, were half-buried in the furs at the foot of his bed. The last five were spaced rather erratically in the softest pockets of fur. The clutch as a whole did quite a good job of taking up the entire bed, leaving R'ori no possible place to sleep (in the unlikely event that he managed to convince Shanza to let him anywhere near her eggs), and from the way Shanza was pacing among them, adjusting their positions slightly as she went, obsessively making sure they were all warm and safe, it was obvious that she was not going to allow them to be moved.

When she was done, she curled up on R'ori's pillow and fell into a light doze, badly needing the rest but keeping one ear cocked for the weyr's inhabitants' return. She was awfully proud of herself, and while it was strange and uncomfortable for her to allow a clumsy Weyrling to see her eggs before B'nyur did, there was no helping Hers's situation. Maybe Oveth and B'rak could, but Shanza was not going to try with her eggs at stake. She hoped R'ori would be competent, but if her lovely Phareon had chosen him as His, he couldn't be so bad, could he? She waited in her sleepy trance to see how the boy would measure up.

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[Nia]

Today was just not R'ori's day. He'd woken up too late again and had nothing to eat but stale meatrolls, and there was no where to sit so he had to eat outside. R'ori disliked eating outside, it was just uncomfortable and a weird pet peeve of his. It's okay, Mine. We can just sit together outside, won't that be nice?

[/i] Vediameth mused dreamily, enjoying the weather. R'ori just grumbled, but didn't bother complaining. He sat down next to the light colored Green and began to eat, staring angerly up at the sky.

With his food finished, R'ori decided not to take his chances with today and climbed on Vediameth. Do you want to fly around for a bit? It really is a nice day,[/i] Vediameth suggested, but R'ori just shook his head. No way. With my luck today I'll end up falling off you or something, he muttered, frowning. Vediameth chuckled lightly but didn't say anything more. Hers wanted to sleep, so she would let him sleep. Besides, she felt he was at least half right... though if he did end up falling she would catch him. It would just probably not be the most pleasant thing in the world.

Vediameth landed softly in their Weyr, and R'ori flopped off her and almost lost his balance, nearly falling face-first into the ground. Luckily, he managed to stop himself from falling and walked over to his bed, eager to sleep. However, before he could flop down on his (really lumpy looking) bed, Phareon popped out from between and started chattering nonsense, sending R'ori pictures of eggs and fire-lizards and Shanza. "Yes you stupid idiot, I know you caught Shanza and I know she's egg-heavy. Are you trying to say she clutched? I don't care. Tell me later," he rambled back at the Bronze, who kept running head-first into R'ori, pushing him away from the bed.

"Oh.... shards, Phareon! You didn't let her clutch in here, did you?! My weyr isn't big enough!" It finally dawned on R'ori just what Phareon was trying to tell him, and he sighed in exasperation. His weyr was tiny, and it was way too small for a bunch of people to come in here and try to Impress firelizards. ... wait... the eggs were on his sharding bed! Where was he supposed to sleep?! He hesitantly approached the Copper, facepalming at the sigh of his bed covered in eggs. "Um... hey... Shanza? Could I at least... sleep... next to them?" he offered. Vediameth chuckled again, finding this rather amusing. R'ori sighed, why did these kind of things always happen to him?[/blockquote][/size]

[jack]

"R'ori! R'ori!" Eyes wide with excitement, face lit up with a broad grin, F'let looked the part of a toddler at Christmas as he barreled around the corner and into the boy's Weyr. Not even seeming to notice the chaos, he outright tackled the teen, his arms wrapped around his neck and his face pressed cheek-to-cheek with him. "I finally did it! You remember that series of steps I couldn't get? I got it! I finally di--oh hey. There're eggs on your bed."

At last noticing the...situation at hand, the blackette struggled to lean over R'ori, his chest pressed against the boy's back and his arms attempting to use the broader teen as a wall for leaping over. But he stopped his squirming after a moment, mostly draped on the other boy with his chin on his shoulder and his legs limp behind him. Curiously, he peered at the piles of eggs, until--with perfect timing--he was swarmed with his own army of flits. Squeaking and chattering like roused parrots, Brown Run and Ram arrived, soaring in from between to circle around the room for several loud moments, at last perching on F'let to stare with the same intensity as Theirs at the eggs and--as they noticed her--the Copper. Queen arrived a moment after the Browns, but while they interrupted the silence, she shushed them both, beating Run upside the head with one green wing before gliding over to the bed, perching on a nearby table. She chirped softly to Shanza, her eyes whirling gently as she sent peaceful images to the other flit, clearly telling that she'd do her best to keep the peace in the room.

F'let cracked a grin at his flit's sudden assertiveness, and tilted his head to the side, kissing R'ori's jawling fondly. "Aw, you're a daddy!"

[4horseshowgirl4]

Oh, they were back! She perked up instantly, flaring her wings and crooning proudly, but this was not the ideal welcoming procession that she had expected. R'ori was grumpy and seemed half-asleep and Phareon was not even there! She began to reach out to his mind to demand that he get his lazy Bronze butt here pronto, but she was distracted by her mate's bonded's lazier flesh-colored butt heading towards her precious eggs! She leapt into the air, screeching, aiming her sharp little talons at R'ori's head, clearly intending to sink them into his scalp and drag him away from her eggs. He would not hurt them! She would hurt him if he tried! But she wasn't even going to let him try!

However, before she could reach R'ori or finish sending for Phareon, the Bronze firelizard betweened out of nowhere, and Shanza had to pull up abruptly in the air. She was about to dart to Phareon's side and help him, but she decided he had the situation in control and slipped back to her eggs, crooning to them and peering at them, ensuring that none of them had been disturbed by all of this. They were fine, so she looked back up at R'ori, who was being pushed away by Phareon. Shanza chirped a short thanks to the Bronze before gesturing towards the eggs with her head, inviting him to come inspect their children. He had adequately proved himself to be a good protector for these eggs, so she trusted him enough not to harm any of them.

She just caught the tail end of R'ori's frustrations, and shrieked again in anger. He was complaining that Phareon had let her clutch in here?! What an insolent, ingrateful boy! He should be thrilled to get to tend for a wonderful clutch like this! Shards, he could make quite a bit of money off of it, if he wanted! B'nyur had! He approached her, and her eyes whirled bright, dangerous orange. When he asked if he could sleep next to her eggs, she darn near exploded. She sent him a series of the angriest images she could manage-- R'ori falling off of the rim of the Weyrbowl, R'ori being choked by a fair of firelizards, R'ori getting mauled by dragonets-- at the mere suggestion of him being so close to her eggs when he would have no control over his body. The answer was undeniably no.

Shanza was mercifully distracted by the appearance of F'let, but so far he had done nothing wrong and seemed... not so upset by the presence of her eggs, so she preened proudly. But what happened next made her even happier-- F'let began to kiss and cuddle R'ori. R'ori had a... B'rak! (That was how she thought of it, as B'nyur hadn't used the word 'weyrmate' around her, but she knew B'rak's name.) She chirped cheerfully, sending both of them images of R'ori sleeping in F'let's bed while her clutch hardened on R'ori's. Since she'd bonded to B'nyur far after the Dragonhealer's Weyrlinghood, she knew nothing about the constraints on relationships, so this was the perfect solution to her. She and Phareon could stay here and weyrsit while R'ori and F'let enjoyed each other's companies and stayed out of her hide!

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[Nia]

R'ori had known that Shanza was gonna be pretty pissed off at him, but he wasn't expecting the onslaught of mental images of himself... dying. That was just traumatizing. "Okay okay I get it! I'll find somewhere else to sleep!" he yelled, closing his eyes and trying to make the images go away. Sheesh, she was a violent fire-lizard! But then there was the question of where he was going to sleep. Sharding fire-lizards. Phareon chirped proudly when R'ori had successfully backed away, gliding over to Shanza after being given permission to look over their eggs. He sent her feelings of affections and how proud he was. He felt just like a father!

F'let came in shortly after R'ori had been traumatized by Shanza (he had only asked a simple question! She could have just... said... no..... oh nevermind) and caught the boy rather offguard. The other boy was ranting on about a dance move he finally got, which R'ori was also going to comment on, but then of course F'let got distracted by the eggs and attempted to climb over him. R'ori wasn't nearly as easily-embarrassed about his... sexuality.... as he used to be, but physical contact like this still made him turn a bit red. Phareon chirped a quick thanks to Queen for keeping Run and Ram under control.

"They aren't my eggs," he said with a pout, turning even redder at the kiss. He was still rather uncomfortable, but he was getting better. At least he wasn't trying to shove F'let off him, right? That was a start. But despite his "start", he waved his hands in a motion that clearly signaled "no" to the images that Shanza was putting in his (and hopefully not F'let, oh Faranth) head. "Hahah ha...... no, Shanza I can't do that! You're just..." he felt even more awkward talking to a fire-lizard with someone else in the room, and he quickly stopped himself before saying something that would piss off the Copper even more than before.

He sighed in resignation, tilting his head to look at F'let. "I... I don't think I'm going to have any other choice...." he muttered, though it was loud enough to hear.

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