To anger a cook, one must... (Open/Phantom)

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

73.12.19

K’tar held his breath, listening for any indication that he had been spotted. The footsteps inside the kitchen came to a halt and K’tar slowly pressed himself against the wall. From his post behind the door, he could see the head cook just inside the hallway, peering up it. He also had a good view of the woman’s heavy, muscular arms. He swallowed.

“Shard that Thread-bait brat,” the head cook muttered under her breath. “Yo, Morek!” she bellowed, without turning around.

“Yes ma'am?” a youth’s alto answered.

“Did you get a good blink at our latest raider?” the head cook asked.

K’tar sincerely hoped that no one had gotten a good look at him. He didn’t think that anyone had, but he still breathed a quiet sigh when the youth’s voice sounded again, this time in the negative. The head cook’s response wasn’t really something that could be safely repeated, but under the circumstances, K’tar considered the demonstration of curses to be rather amusing. Certainly, he couldn’t stop himself from grinning as he listened to it.

Finally, after muttering several more choice words to herself, the head cook turned and strode back into the kitchen. She immediately saw something that displeased her further, and started bellowing about that.

K’tar waited until the woman was in mid-rant, and hence highly unlikely to look over her shoulder, and then eased out from behind the door and strode down the side of the hall. He ducked around the first turn that presented itself and found himself in the large meeting hall. Two turns, and a decent amount of sprinting, later and he was safely outside. He stuffed the sweetrolls into a knapsack (left against the wall for that exact purpose) and then, still carrying the slabs of meat that he’d cut off the carcass that had been in the final stages of preparation on one of the counters, crossed the Bowl at a quick jog, joining up with Viarth partway across.

Altahyr keeps scratching me. Viarth said. You have provisions, then? Let us be off! Viarth arched his neck and matched his pace to K’tar’s, though by now the weyrling could run much faster than his rider.

K’tar laughed. Perhaps we should let him run, then, he replied. Still jogging, he reached up and over and untied the rope that held the three month old-already nearly waist-high canine on Viarth’s back. The canine, his tongue lolling out of his mouth, looked around, assessing the situation, then jumped from Viarth’s back to land (already running) in between the Purple weyrling and K’tar.

Within moments, they were out in the jungle and no longer on the paths. However, the main path was still in sight, which, according to both K’tar and Viarth, meant that they were not actually disobeying the Weyrlingmaster’s directive not to leave the paths. After all, they hadn’t left it completely behind. They could still see it, if only barely.

[Nihla]

Her first trip through the jungle went without a hitch. It was an encouraging experience. Since the kitchens could always use more of the jungle’s wild fruits, Nihla had volunteered for another venture outside. The jungle was annoying and unpleasant, but there was something to be said for not spending your entire day surrounded by cut stone. She had tied a knot in her skirts to keep them permanently hiked up, as it was hard enough walking through the forest without an ankle-length bit of flowing cloth getting caught on every stray twig. The basket on her back was only, perhaps, a quarter of the way full. She still had much work to do, but a long time to do it. She would not dawdle, but for once, she wouldn’t rush herself, either. She would take her time to enjoy the experience as much as humanly possible. (It turned out that it wasn’t that much, at least not for her.) As she was cutting her way beyond a particularly stubborn vine-like plant, she suddenly heard loud crashing behind her. She likely would have heard it sooner, but the lush vegetation dampened sound. She turned towards the sound, her machete ready to defend herself. Hacking blades worked on more than just vegetation, after all, and she had too much left to do to submit to whatever threat this was.

However, she did not remain convinced that this was a threat long. The first thing she saw was not, in fact, a human, or even a canine, but a large streak of a quite unnatural color. The violet streaking through the blue undergrowth was definitely not a feline or some strange attacker. However, it was on a crash-collision course with her. What was a dragon even doing running through the jungle? This situation was silly enough to almost have her convinced that she was hallucinating. She did not know if the creature saw her, however, and she did not enjoy the prospect of being bowled over by a mass of purple. She lowered her machete, crossed her arms, frowned a bit, and shouted “Halt!” She hadn’t much reason to in the past, but she could fair project her voice. She was no performer or dragonrider, but it should at least have cut through the vegetation, if, perhaps, not the loud sound of the dragon and whoever else was with it crunching vegetation underfoot at high speeds. Or, well, at least as high of a speed as one could manage in the dense subshrub region. She could have just gotten out of the way, but that thought did not occur to her. After all, she was a woman who always stood her ground.

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

Fortunately for Nihla, Viarth was better able to control his body and its momentum and movement now, at over three and a half months, then he had been at about two months. He hadn’t seen her yet, but at the sound of her voice, the Purple weyrling shifted his weight backwards and started skidding to a halt, tints of yellow and red in his eyes in reflection of his confusion. There were never other two-legs-like-Mine-humans this far into the jungle. Or, at least not very often.

K’tar heard the voice too, and quickly came to a stop. Unfortunately for him, Altahyr was not yet very good at stopping quickly, and slammed into his legs from behind. The puppy whined, nudging K’tar with his nose, then wagged his tail, its white tip flashing back and forth, creating a contrast with the rest of his black fur.

K’tar stood up. They had come to a halt in front of a young woman. She was about K’tar’s own height, with dark tan skin and frizzy black hair. It looked there was something on the back of her right hand, but it was hard to tell with the way that the shadows of the trees played across everything.

“K’tar Damoyen, Weyrling of Purple Viarth,” he said, habitually offering his hand in formal greeting.

[Nihla]

That was... an entirely bizarre experience. Nihla breathed a brief sigh of relief as the violet dragon (why was it running in the first place, what is even going on?) came to a complete stop. Then there was what Nihla assumed to be his rider. But why was his rider running with his dragon? The Purple did seem a bit undersized- young, perhaps? Still, to be running through the rainforest... Riders were an odd lot. Best not to ask questions. She arched an eyebrow delicately as the dog ran into the rider's leg. The rider wasted no time with introductions, boldly striding up to her and offering a hand. She took it and gave it a firm shake. "It is... very nice to meet you, K'tar. I don't mean to pry, but why are you and your dragon running through the jungle? At all?" The situation had Nihla slightly off-kilter, but that never stopped her before. Well, that was likely because it had not happened before. She was not one who often experienced situations that could not be immediately explained away.

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

K’tar hesitated, his mind momentarily blank. For a couple seconds, the only thought in his head was the realization that what he had taken to be something on the back of the woman’s left hand was in fact a birthmark. He couldn’t think of what to say, since commenting on the birthmark was hardly appropriate and it wasn’t like he could give his real reason for running through the forest to someone that he didn’t really know at all. He could hear Farnaj in his head, telling him that the single best way to avoid getting caught doing something was to have an excuse, a good excuse, ready from the start.

“Well, Viarth’s still strengthening his legs for takeoff,” K’tar said, forcing more enthusiasm into his voice so that he sounded, in his opinion, younger and harmless. “The Weyrling Master said to start now, even though we’re not going to be really flying for another month at least.” He was enthusiastic about that; when he’d first bonded to Viarth flight had seemed like a lifetime away still. Now there was only a month or so before they started learning how.

K’tarMine, why doesn’t she provide her name? Viarth asked. All the others that do the handshake thing with you do.

Probably just distracted by us appearing out of nowhere at full speed, K’tar replied. He shifted slightly towards Viarth as he did so, masking the slices of meat from view. After all, no since taking a risk that this young woman could report him to the cook.