I fought the law, and... the law won (Kaya/Holt)

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

((The lyrics don't totally apply all the way through, but the first few parts and the chorus make great listening for this story. www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBeT4ptY9sY))

3073.10.14 | Evening, after dinner.

Looking over at the stack of dirty dishes beside him, K’tar repressed the urge to knock them over onto the floor. It wasn’t easy, because he knew that if he broke them, it stood to reason that he wouldn’t have to clean them. Of course, if he broke them, he just might find himself on the receiving end of a set of stripes, young and frightened dragonet or not. Of that one thing, the head cook, head guard and Lord Ser Ralt Stell had been perfectly clear. Any slip ups, anything at all going wrong, and he, K’tar, would be getting beaten, if the dragonet had to be dragged away screaming. He wasn’t completely sure they meant it, but he also didn’t want to put Viarth through that.

Speaking of Viarth… K’tar looked over his shoulder, towards the exit. Viarth’s head was just visible through the steam of hot water; the purple lids having finally closed over the dragonet’s eyes. There was less than ten feet between the boy and the dragonet, and that was the absolute most that the exhausted little purple, possessing no physical or emotional reserves after all the stress he’d been subject to, would allow there to be.

To tell the truth, K’tar was more than a little jealous of Viarth right then. After all, if he could just stop and rest for a second too… his eyes were gritty from exhaustion, and his nose was running because of the steam from the water, and he couldn’t wipe either, because the last time he’d taken his hands out of the water the closest cook (whom K’tar already wanted a way to get back at) had boxed his ears, and then K’tar had had to stop Viarth from biting the man; something Viarth normally never would have considered, but the little dragonet had been through far more than normal that day, and after the manner of all stressed young creatures, was reacting to any further stress with violence.

At least he’s getting some sleep now, K’tar thought, a slight smile flickering across his face. No matter if he were jealous, he cared too much about Viarth to take it out on the poor little dragonet. Therefore, it was with great displeasure that K’tar turned to face the doorway upon hearing Viarth’s startled squeal. From the general shape, it appeared that someone was approaching the sink.

[Kaya]

It had been a long day and Holt was thoroughly worn out. Never mind that they still had to get back to the Weyr somehow. The Blue had crashed out hours ago and was asleep just outside the Hold, curled up tight in the warmest place he could find. It wasn't an ideal spot, but what else could they do?

Pretty soon they'd need to go back, but Holt hadn't seen hide nor hair of K'tar that day and a little listening had gotten him the answer. He had started out hoping to find the other weyrling so that they could walk back together. Perhaps Viarth would help Korith stay awake enough to walk. Yet as H'rarn listened on, quietly, to the many stories he heard floating about the Hold, he learned quickly of the PurpleRider's fate. It started with one story about him, he had asked a helpful looking man who was working to clean up dinner if he had seen a weyrling and Purple dragon about. With a shout the man had replied "I hope you don't mean that trouble making dimglow who wrecked my uncle's stall!" That had gotten people talking. Tens of versions of the same story were launched into the air and it took Holt a long time of listening to figure out where his friend was. Still, he wondered just what parts of what he heard were true, and which were not. He didn't hold out much hope for clarification from K'tar.

So after waiting to hear the end of one woman's tale of how she narrowly escaped death at the hands of a wild boy who tried to run her over, surely on purpose, Holt quietly dropped back in the crowd that was having far too much fun at his friend's expense, and headed in the direction of one server who had some used wine glasses, hoping they belonged to the Hold and not a stall. Unfortunately, they were a stall's property, and his following had been for not. Another man walked by with plates, and hope renewed, Holt took up following him until he was lost in a crowd filled with music and tipsy dancing. He edged to the side and found himself in an alleyway of sorts, two men in dark clothes off in the distance. Something about them made him feel very uneasy, and he pressed up against the wall behind a something-or-other that was quite totally covered in trash.

"Can you believe that offer?" the one mad said, wobbling just a tad as he spoke. The glass in his hand was indicative of his behavior that evening. His shady friend looked even worse off.

"Like fiery shards between, I can." his companion retorted, obviously upset. "A flitt egg would sell for more!"

"Arrogant, spoiled brat. If he's asking for what we got he knows it costs a fortune!"

"Shells right, 'til we get a few more smart as wherries saps under our control. Then we got us even more wares, more customers! The syndi-"

"Shhh! Dimglow," his companion smacked his face to cut him off. "Don't you be talking 'bout it in a Gather."

"Fall and Fire, 'Ves! Not like I said we got shardin' dragon eggs for saleee-" the word slurred as the other man grabbed him and the two got into a tussle.

Distracted, Holt slipped back the way he came and into the crowd, heart racing. What had that been about? The crazy ramblings of drunken men? The one seemed too aware to be all crackdust and nonsense. Best to get far away from them.

Holt followed five more servers before he found K'tar. He was exhausted, mind worn out from thinking too hard and his muscles ached to boot. He must have looked something awful by the time he shuffled into the dish washing space that he upset Viarth.

"Aw, Viarth did I step on something? It's just me," Holt tried to console the young dragon. Maybe after everything he'd been through today another person around was just too much. He looked to see K'tar up to his elbows and then some in dishes. "Sounds like some of the things I heard were true, then," Holt commented, looking to see if there were any kitchen staff around. He was beat, and dead tired, but likely K'tar was too. They were weyrlings, and no matter how impossible this all was, they were friends and it looked like K'tar would need help. "So what really happened?"

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

K’tar had to stare at the sight of his friend standing in the doorway. For a few seconds he remained completely still, his exhausted mind unable to comprehend what his eyes and ears told it. Holt looked nearly as exhausted as he felt, which was definitely saying something.

“What happened when?” K’tar asked, as Viarth nosed Holt before curling up once more and droping back into exhausted slumber. He really didn’t know why he asked; he had a fair idea that he knew exactly what his friend meant, since there was no way that Holt would have known where to look for him unless Holt also had heard why it was that K’tar was scrubbing dishes.

“Well,” K’tar started, dumping a bunch of dishes into the sink, “it started out I’d just seen this awesome looking pinto runner, and I ducked under the fence to give it a treat. It was really friendly, and it’s been forever since I rode, so I was just sitting on its back when some dimglow came out and yelled at me. He spooked the runners, and all I could do was hold on. Then a dragon landed, and the runners ran down the middle of the road,” he paused for a second, then continued. “I really don’t see why everyone was so upset, if they’d just calmly gotten out of the way, the runners wouldn’t have nearly hit them.”

“The guards were chasing me, so I tried to get away, only I had to run past these two people, and there wasn’t a lot of room and… Thread take it all, it’s not like I knew they were the Lord and Lady Holder!”

K’tar’s voice rose perceptively on the last sentence, and he sucked in a couple deep breaths, his chest heaving with the inhalations. Swallowing a couple times, he forced himself to continue more calmly.

“Anyway, Metanath landed and stopped Viarth, who was chasing the runners. Only the runner finally had enough and threw me. The guards caught up. I got read the riot act by Tera of all people. I got healed by a Lifewing, and then the Weyrwoman showed up and, well… the rest is history.”

He glanced over his shoulder as he finished speaking, but it appeared that the cooks were absent. Certainly, none of them were within sight, and he hadn’t heard any bellows for him to resume working. Deciding Holt wouldn’t mind, he quickly wiped his nose on the cuff of his shirt, then his eyes on its shoulder.

“What about you?” he asked, leaning against the sink. “What have you been up to all day?”

[Kaya]

Holt said nothing as his friend spoke. He was glad Viarth was sleepy, and hopefully asleep. The Purple didn't need to relive K'tar's anxiety over it all. The presence of particular people sounded about right but H'rarn was dubious of K'tar's...explanation of the whole runner incident. Still, when the other weyrling had finished H'rarn said nothing because as was evident of K'tar's predicament, he had been chided, scorned, physically and verbally thrashed, and punished already. He had not come to make his friend's plight any worse. So he said nothing and seeing that no cooks were about, the Blue Rider weyrling picked up a dish, a rag, and started cleaning.

"Me? Well, I spent a good lot of time listening to stories about you," Holt chuckled, thinking of some of the more...imaginative and colorful things people had said about his friend. "I got to dance with Mau, you know, that pretty Green Rider in our class? Nothing of it, but I would like to get to know her better. Friends first, of course. Korith tried his claws at dancing too," he chuckled, thinking of how he'd heard a bit of tell aside from K'tar's story of dancing dragonets.

"Oh, and-" It dawned on him then, as his exhausted mind remembered, "-there were some strange men in the alley when I was trying to find you. By Faranth, I thought they'd see me. I was able to slip back into the crowd, and it was dark enough and I'm enough of an unmemorable fellow in a crowd..." he didn't finish, not wanting to think of being dragged into something unthinkable. "They were talking about dragon eggs...and sales and...Shards, K'tar-" Holt broke off, sorry for his swearing. He could hear his mother telling him not to talk like that. "I didn't understand it and it doesn't sit with me well." A thin sheen of sweat was working its way back onto H'rarn's brow. He didn't like the memory. He frowned.

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

“Thanks man,” K’tar said, when Holt started helping him out with the dishes. It would still probably take a while, but not nearly so long as it would have if he’d had to finish the task alone. Starting on yet another dish, he scrubbed away, though if truth were told, most of his attention was on Holt’s words; he twice barely stopped himself from setting soapy dishes on top of the rinsed ones.

Holt wasn’t the only one with an exhausted mind slowing his thought process, though, and it took K’tar a little time to process his friend’s words, particularly the story about the men in the alley, but then the meaning of the words penetrated.

“Wait, dragon eggs and sales?” K’tar asked. He paused in his scrubbing, then resumed once more. “What were they selling, seats at the next Hatching?” he’d tried for a trace of humor, but there was something about the look on Holt’s face… K’tar slowly, carefully, set the dish he was scrubbing back down in the sink.

“Holt, were they talking about selling dragon eggs?” The idea was uncomfortable, to say the least, but at the same time it made a kind of horrible sense. After all, firelizard eggs could frequently be sold for large amounts of money, and those could be found by anyone, but a dragon’s egg, accessible only to those in the Weyr and whom the dragon trusted…

K’tar whistled. “That’d make a lot of money,” he said quietly, “but the risks involved…” he shuddered. It wasn’t just the punishments, and they’d be harsh ones, that would be meted out by the human authorities, but the reaction of the Clutching dragon...

“Did you see which way they went?” he asked, his eyes alight. “Could you recognize them if you saw them again?” He couldn’t imagine an action more appropriate for a pair of young dragonriders than to track down such criminals and expose them. Such an act, brave and daring, was just the sort of thing he’d always thought of dragonriders as doing. Surely, surely Holt would agree with him.

[Kaya]

Holt's head drooped as he scrubbed the plate. He felt none of K'tar's sudden excitement. He had told his story and learned K'tar's and now his brain was ready to be absolutely done with this day.

"What are you going to do if we did find them?" he queried, setting the plate down. "March up to them and, dish rag flapping, shout, 'Halt, criminal scum!'?" Speaking of scum, there was far too much of it in this kitchen and on these dishes. Ugg. "No, K'tar, we just need to get you out of here so we can go home. It'll be a forever walk unless you know a friendly Rider willing to take us home." the Blue Rider weyrling did not like the idea of walking home. It would take them hours, they were so tired as it was. He had started trying to clean another dish but it slipped out of his hands and back into the sink. "...see? Tired."

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

K’tar gazed at Holt in absolute confusion for a couple seconds. How, how could Holt not be moved to participate in this daring plan? Immediately thereafter he took stock of his own state of armament, nonexistent, and his and Holt’s physical states, exhausted, and he had to admit that his friend was probably right. Not to mention he would probably be fit for nothing but wher food if the kitchen staff caught up with him, and it wasn’t like he could beg for mercy; he’d tried negotiating his way out when he heard what he’d be doing, and all he’d gotten was a glare for Lord Ser Ralt that had silenced him half-way through a sentence, a feat that only Lord Famoran had managed to perform until that date.

“I guess you’re right,” he said, grabbing another dish and scrubbing it violently, for all of a second until his arm got sore and he had to slow to a steady, defeated scrubbing. “I don’t know any riders here,” K’tar moaned, rinsing the plate. “Even if I did, I doubt they’d be willing to fly two Weyrling pairs home by the time we’re done with this.”

Sighing he picked up another plate and started scrubbing it. The stack naturally, looked as though it was getting no smaller.

[Kaya]

"Could Metanath arrange a ride for us?" Holt asked, having retrieved the plate. He had gotten himself into helping K'tar, and as much as he wanted to bail and go sleep, he just couldn't do that to the other weyrling. "I could ask Korith to ask him. Might be better coming from him anyway," Holt commented. He tried to come up with more to say, but he really was just too tired to put out much more of an effort.

Holt picked up another stack of plates and set them in the sink. He took the top one and wiped it over with tired strokes, dunked it again, and set it aside. It really didn't take too long if you didn't put too much effort into each individual plate. At least Korith had found somewhere to curl up. If only they could share sleep energy like they could thoughts...

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

K’tar cringed slightly when Holt mentioned asking Metanath to arrange a ride. He could imagine the results without even closing his eyes. It would start with “no” and get worse from there. He sighed and started on more dishes, trying to take his mind off how exhausted he was. He briefly tried to indulge in some self-pity, but his brain was too tired to play along.

“Huh?” he asked, as the rest of Holt’s words drifted into his conscious awareness. Suddenly, he realized that Holt was likely enough completely correct. Of course Metanath wouldn’t want two Weyrling pairs stranded at Cliffside! Surely, surely he would get them home.

“Could you?” K’tar asked. “That’d be awesome! He probably would do it for Korith.” Normally, he would have sounded excited, but he was so tired that the words just came out flat.

[Kaya]

"Just not practical to finish these now," Holt said to himself as much as K'tar as he sloppily stacked another pile of clean enough plates on the counter. "Just gunna do a sloppy job from here on out. Should do 'em tomorrow..." He lifted his drooping head up when K'tar finally responded to his previous thought.

"Yeah, I'll do that then," Holt said and then thought that Korith was asleep. But the Blue would probably rather be home. So he woke him up anyway.

Korith?

No answer.

Korith? he asked a bit louder. He had to repeat himself louder several times before he felt the dragon's mind stir.

...yes?

Ask Metanath if he can arrange a ride home for us. It's ages back to the Weyr.

Of course, Mine. The Blue reached out to find the Black, hoping he wasn't sleeping. Metanath, H'rarnMine and Viarth and his Mine need a way home. It's very late and Ours are already exhausted. Please help us.

[Moo]

Metanath, H’rarnMine and Viarth and his Mine need a way home. It’s very late and Ours are already exhausted. Please help us.

The unfamiliar voice touching his mind broke his concentration – he had been staring at the black sea below him, wanting to make certain that every ship that was expected had already been tied and docked properly. He hadn’t noticed any that had drifted away, but still…

“What is it now?” came the quiet, tired voice to his left.

Metanath turned and spied N’kio walking up the hill to see him, arms crossed against the cold, night air. It was clear that he was tired. They had another long day of work behind them, after all. He sighed and turned back to the seas, his eyes whirring a complacent blue-green. The two weyrlings and their dragons need a way to get back to Rainbow Mists, but they are tired and have no means of getting back.

It took N’kio a moment to process this. “We could give them a lift back. I’ve already been to the docks…We’re not expecting anyone else tonight, and everyone is aware of how to walk around at night.”

Seems as if your mind is already made up.

With a cough, N’kio nodded and rubbed his hands along the sides of his arms. “The sooner we do this, the faster we can get to sleep.”

The Black nodded. I can’t argue with that. I am tired as well. He set about reaching the Blue dragon once more, wondering how heavy he and Viarth were. There were no carts available tonight to pull them along on, so they would have to ride as well.

“You’ve lifted heavier men out of the seas, what’re you talking about,” commented N’kio, more out of habit than actually wanting an answer. It was common knowledge that Metanath was stronger than he looked, and had a knack for travelling Between.

Korith, I will be able to escort you, your Rider, and your friends to the Weyr. N’kio and I shall travel Between with them first, and then you and Viarth. Does this work for you?

[Kaya]

The tired Blue waited for a reply from the Black. He did not want to need to walk back and he didn't like the idea of spending the entire night in the Hold either. He wanted to be home. His tiredness receded just a bit when Metanath replied. They would be going home. He rejoiced silently and looked to wake Viarth.

Viarth, get up. We're going home. Korith announced happily. He hoped it would be enough to wake the Purple.

Metanath says yes, Korith told his Rider. He didn't want to take too long to reply to the older dragon.

Metanath, thank you. I do not understand your proposition though. We are waiting here-- he showed Metanath their outside location, not far from Holt and K'tar while our Riders wash dishes. Would it not be easiest to take us weyrlings one at a time, since we are largest? Or is that what you said? Korith replied. He was still very tired, but the prospect of going home gave him energy enough.

"Korith says Metanath is giving us a ride," Holt relayed, happy for the good news. They weren't done with the plates, but no one could have been. There were just too many.

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

His name, someone had just said his name. They wanted him to get up, but… Viarth slowly raised his head, his eyes whirly slowly as he took in the scene around him. For an instant the whirling stopped completely, when he saw Kortih-Blue-brother-friend, but then it got faster again, with tints of blue-green predominating.

Home? Viarth asked, looking at Blue-brother-friend-Korith and then at K’tarHis and Holt-H’rarn-of-Korith. He stood up and shook himself completely, then stretched. How? he asked Blue-brother-friend-Korith. Our wings are still small-too-weak-can’t-fly, and it is too-late-dark-can’t-see-bad to walk.

“He’s actually going to?” K’tar’s estimation of the Black and his rider rose several notches. After all, from the stories Farnaj had told, as well as a certain amount of personal experience, once the guards at Stormy Plains had decided one was a law-breaker, they were not inclined to help that individual out at all. “Did he mention when he’s arriving?” There was real hope under the question, as K’tar saw, at long last, an end to his endless task, a relief from his state of numbed exhaustion.

[Moo]

The projected image from Korith wasn’t too bad, but they knew Cliffside inside and out, and it wasn’t long before they arrived from their Watch post to the weyrling’s locations. Metanath appeared first and stalked out of the dark with alert, green eyes.

Yes, that is the general idea, Korith, he replied in a calm, if slightly tired, voice and walked over to the Purple and Blue. Apologies for not explaining that clearly. We will take H’rarn and K’tar through Between first, drop them off at your barracks, and then come back for you and Viarth, using the same process as that with your Riders. Does that make more sense?

N’kio appeared a moment later, gave a courteous nod to the small dragons, and then set about adjusting the buckles and length of the riding straps for the two weyrlings. He hoped those dragons of theirs would be alright on their own for a few minutes – a repeat incident of the Gather would not go over well with the Lord Holder – and particularly at night.

“Whenever they’re ready,” N’kio announced, standing by to help the weyrlings get situated for their trip back to the Weyr.

[Kaya]

Metanath is flying us home. Korith continued and then was quiet again as he looked up at the sky to see the Black dragon coming. He was very grateful.

"He's already almost here," Holt said to K'tar before setting out to stand with Korith.

Yes, that makes sense, Korith replied, having already alerted Holt to the watch dragon's nearness. The Blue watched tiredly as his Rider came from the building. He approved of the help H'rarn had given to his friend but he still wondered at the cost. They were so tired.

Metanath is taking you first, the Blue said to the two weyrling boys.

"Ready," Holt replied in his quiet, short tired-voice. He had been ready to go hours ago.