Dares you shouldn't have taken (Cait/Dalonia)

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

3074.02.06 | WeyrBowl/Jungle | Very Early Morning

In K’tar’s defense, it must be pointed out that at the time he’d agreed to try this, he’d been more than just a little exhausted, and had thus not been thinking to terribly clearly. Having agreed of course, there was nothing for it, he was going to have to try. As to what he was going to have to try, what task he’d agreed to perform, well, quite simply, he was to remove an item, any item, from the pocket of the newest WherHandler. Not necessarily a good idea, as anyone who’d seen the woman’s temper and suspicion in action could attest. He’d been telling stories about Stormy Plains, and the subject of pocket picking had come up, and so now here he was, intending to pick the pocket of Dalonia, grumpy, suspicious WherHandler of Crimson Dalosk.

Casually, K’tar leaned up against the wall. There was a slight breeze, blowing toward him, and the false light of the dawn was just barely starting to touch the sky. It was light enough to see by, barely, but K’tar knew the ground. At least he could say that much. He took another couple steps forward and then leaned against the wall again, his head down as though he were sleeping, positioned so that he could look up through his bangs.

His target was right at the edge of the jungle, her black hair hanging down and her attention, seemingly, taken up by something that she was starting to unwrap. Waiting until the watchwher turned his Crimson head away, K’tar darted across the open space and into the trees, freezing right next to the trunk of a particularly large one, all but holding his breath in a quest for silence, so that he could hear any sounds.

There was a moment of perfect silence, then the WherHandler finished unwrapping the cloth from around whatever it was that she was holding. Immediately, her two firelizards started trying to get some for themselves, swooping about and diving at the whatever had been wrapped up, meaning it was likely food.

Now or never, K’tar thought, before forcing his mind to think of between; a time-honored trick for ensuring that firelizards did not report one’s presence. Smoothly, he started forward, moving with the shadows of the trees.

[Cait]

Guard duty on the Southern Continent was…well it was strange; especially because no more than two months ago, she’d had to wear a fur trimmed cloak and woolen undergarments in order to do her duties without freezing. Now; wearing a pair of cropped, fabric pants and a sleeveless shirt she still felt like she would melt and it was even full dark. Like everything else around Rainbow Mists Weyr, the heat and humidity was just two more things on the infinite list of things that made the Wherhandler cranky and out of sorts. The top of the list? That was held equally by two things.

Thief and Klutz.

No matter how hard she had tried in the beginning, she couldn’t get the Brown and DarkBlue firelizards to leave her be and now she was well and truly stuck with them. They followed her everywhere, jockeying for a perch on her shoulder—not that they retained it for long—or just for her attention in general. However, their favorite thing to do now, it seemed, was to try and snatch her food whenever she tried to eat.

Her shift was perhaps two thirds of the way done and it was about time for her early morning meal. She’d brought some cold meat, bread and a piece of fruit and the second she had the light fare unwrapped, Thief and Klutz were at it. The Brown dove at the woman’s lap only to be swatted away and the DarkBlue didn’t waste any time stooping into his airspace, still wobbly in the air despite two months of practice. With a snarl, Dalonia swatted and growled at the firelizards, muttering obscenities under her breath as she tried to keep her meal to herself.

Defending against one firelizard might have been easier, but against two? It was almost pointless to try. Though they never intentionally worked together, invariably, Thief would distract Dalonia and Klutz would be able to swoop in and vice versa until all that the woman had left was a scrap of bread and her fruit.

While this was happening, Dalosk was “patrolling”. Basically it consisted of him scanning the area for things he could kill and or eat. Already tonight he’d somehow managed to catch a bat, using his stubby wings to launch himself at the spastic thing and swallow it whole. Because all of the draconic critters were distracted, and Dalonia was busy scolding the young firelizards, none noticed the slow, creeping approach of a Weyrling…initially. They weren’t transferred to RMW because they were a mediocre guard pair after all.

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

K’tar crept closer the whole time the firelizards were swooping and diving at the WherHandler’s food. He kept a piece of his attention on the wher, but the creature did not appear to have noticed him yet. Cautiously, he edged a little closer, using the trees and underbrush for cover. Normally he would have preferred to have an excuse to walk past his target and brush against them, relieving them of a desired object in the process. Not to say he was bad at sneaking up and helping himself to a target’s pockets while out of sight, it was just a somewhat more nerve-wracking way to do this.

Oh so casually, he let his gaze flick over the woman’s clothes, locating the closest pocket that was likely to hold something. He noted its location, then, keeping his thought’s focused on between, reached out and dipped his fingers in. His fingers closed together on something, and he started to draw it back out, silently praising long fingers.

[Cait]

Dalonia had been distracted but she had grown up on the streets, standing as watch to her brothers as they pilfered the citizens of Icy Caverns Hold. She'd also tried her hand at pick pocketing a few times--and was by no means proficient--but it was surveillance that she excelled at. It was not Dalosk, or even the pesky firelizards that alerted her to the presence of another, but her own keen senses. She tensed slightly as the back of her neck tingled. All at once, her ire at the firelizards was replaced by the unease of knowing that there was someone behind her, someone who was lurking like a thief.

When she felt the faintest stirring near her pocket--the one she kept her purse in--she spun, her tense and nervous energy unleashed. Like a striking tunnlesnake, her hand shot out, latching onto the boy's wrist with vice-like strength and even as she grabbed it she surged towards him, twist around and dragging his arm along with her and wrenching it around behind his back even as she slide a knife from her belt with her left hand and reached around, holding the blade not to the boy's throat but so that the point of the blade hovered in front of the lad's eye. "And what do you think you're doing? Thought you could just sneak up on the new girl and what? Get away with it?"

She tugged on his arm again then used it to try and push him toward Dalosk who was now no longer stalking random critters in the dark. What was this? A stray human-thing? And what do you know, he'd pissed off his cranky handler. With a rumbling purr, the Crimson lashed his tail, the whip-like end dancing. Fuuuuuuuuuuu![/b]

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

No sooner had his fingers touched on what he was sure must be the woman’s purse, K’tar’s morning immediately went downhill. Out of nowhere, a hand latched onto his wrist. He started to pull back, his eyes widening, but then somehow his arm was twisted up behind his back and a knife was hovering in front of his face, the point directed at his eye. He heard her demands, but couldn’t truly register how he should respond, he’d been caught by Hold guards before, but having his target catch him was decidedly a new experience.

He tried to backpedal away from the knife, but with his arm twisted behind him, he couldn’t move enough to force the woman to let go. He stopped twisting with a quiet growl, more for the situation than for his captor. Having been caught before, he knew, or thought he did anyway, what was coming next.

Get smacked, then lectured, then out of here, he thought, resigning himself to the idea of a long lecture and already working out what he was going to say in all the pauses left for his answers. However, instead of playing along, his captor started trying to muscle him towards the watchwher.

The watchwher started into a rumbling purr, its attention locked on K’tar, and the boy immediately started twisting around, his movements again to small herdbeast in a dragon’s jaws. He tried raking the heel of his boot down the woman’s leg, then tried it again, this time synchronizing it with a rapid jerk of his body to right and back, towards the arm that the woman held against his back. His entire being, every thought in his mind, was focused on escape.

A sudden bellow split the pre-dawn air.

K’tarMine! What is happening? Why is the ugly-thing-smelly-Wher attacking?

Viarth was standing up in his weyr, his wings half-spread, intending to glide down and drive away this creature that was attacking K’tarHis.

“No! Viarth, stay where you’re at!” K’tar shouted, not even realizing that he’d yelled aloud instead of silently.

Viarth came to a halt at the exit of the weyr, his legs having already gathered to spring. Only he couldn’t, he’d lost his momentum and couldn’t leap without it. He bellowed again, crying out his desperation and fear to any listening.

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

T’kar paused, his sword half-way to the pell. The watchwher is attacking a Weyrling? he repeated, sheathing the sword and striding out into the hall.

Apparently K’tar has done something and the watchwher is now attacking him. Viarth isn’t being particularly clear. Viarth, be silent! It is going to be taken care of!

T’kar winced slightly, for the last words had far more volume than the first, being as they were directed to a probably panicked young weyrling dragon. Running out into the Bowl, he spotted a commotion near the edge of the jungle. It was still too dark to identify the people, but the new watchwher’s Crimson body was clearly visible.

“What is going on here?” he demanded, slowing to a fast stride as he neared the combatants.

[Cait]

True, your average Wherhandler or guard—providing they even realized they were being picked—probably would’ve slapped the boy upside the head and unleashed some righteous lecture on the lad. A woman with Dalonia’s background however, subjected to surprise attacks to “keep her on her toes” by her brothers and their friends, was an entirely different monster. There was always something to be said about choosing your targets wisely and unfortunately for K’tar, his target had been poorly—or perhaps perfectly—chosen by his friends.

“Your first mistake,” Dalonia said, leaning into the boy so she could speak lowly into his ear, letting out a husky chuckle. “Never pick a target without first observing them.” Another step closer to Dalosk whose eyes were a whirling mixture of blue, orange and yellow with a hint of red. He rumbled again and his mouth parted to show glistening fangs that dripped saliva.

As the boy began to struggle, Dalonia hissed and hooked the his leg with hers, the knife in her left hand lowering to hover over his throat, brushing his flesh as he thrashed though there was hardly enough pressure to break skin. Instead, Dalonia bore forward and bore the young man to the ground, going with him and pinning him there with a knee to the small of his back all the while still retaining possession of his arm..

When a draconic bellow of rage split the air, the woman’s eyes flicked to the boy’s shoulder and she fairly snarled, her teeth bore in a fashion eerily similar to her Crimson. With a growl in her voice she tightened her grip on the boy’s wrist. Leaning down, more weight applied to his back she growled into his ear. “A bit lost, aren’t we little Dragonrider.” The curl of her lip was almost audible.

Dalosk moved forward then, practically drooling at the violent thoughts that were flitting through his handler’s mind. Some of them even involved utilizing the Crimson and his teeth. Stomping forward, Dalosk lowered his wide head and snuffled the Weyrling’s head, leaving a slick of drool behind when Dalonia reached up with her left hand and slammed the butt of her knife against the wher’s nose. The Crimson didn’t so much as blink but he did move back the tiniest bit.

By now, Thief and Klutz were in a frenzy, never having experienced such strong violent emotions from their feeder-human-thing in their short little lives. Sure, she was hostile towards them more often than not, but this was different. The little DarkBlue began to screech while the Brown circled above the scene, silent, his keen eyes watching.

“Like I said; one must choose their targets wisely…you did not.” Dalonia pulled back just slightly, taking some but not all of the weight off of her knee. As she did so, Klutz stooped into a dive, intent on raking the back of K’tar’s head but she missed and would’ve broken her neck crashing into the ground had she not bounced off the side of the Crimson’s head. Surprisingly enough, Dalosk was so focused on the Weyrling that he didn’t so much as snap at the DarkBlue. He did growl when the boy shouted and Dalonia mimicked the sound.

“Gonna have your giant lizard fight your battles for you?” Face down in the dirt as he was, the Weyrling couldn’t see the barest traces of fear in the woman’s eye before they were snuffed out by anger and blind hatred. And things might have gotten much worse had the young Purple not called for someone to mediate.

It was Thief that noticed the dragonrider’s approach first and he hissed, dipping in the sky to buzz by the man’s head. Other than that he remained out of the fray. Dalosk let out a gurgling sound, his mouth parted to expose his teeth as the man approach and he moved to place his considerable bulk in T’kar’s path, clearly not willing to share.

Dalonia however, not bothering to look up was the one that replied. “An attempted pick-pocketing is what we have here; not a very good one either.” Though the boy had managed to get close enough to touch her, which only made Dalonia more irritated. Quickly slipping her knife back into the belt while she was blocked from view, knowing that it wouldn’t go over well if she used a weapon on a Weyrling, the woman finally removed her knee from the boy’s back and standing, took a step back, hissing at Dalosk and mentally ordering him to back away. For a moment he almost ignored her command before she applied more force—akin to a hammer really—and he took two shuffling steps back, giving K’tar some room.

“And here I thought you taught your children honor and integrity.” The disdain she felt was impossible to keep from her voice though it was tempered slightly by annoyance and sarcasm if not entirely disguised. Letting out a distraught creel, Klutz attempted to land on the woman’s shoulder, slipped down her back a ways before her little claws hooked in then climbed back up. Dalonia, too on guard to shoo the thing away, merely twitched when the DarkBlue took advantage of the situation and settled in on the guard’s shoulder. “How exactly am I supposed to guard this Sharded place if I have to worry about sneak attacks from within; tell me that Dragonrider.”

Fuuuuu!!! Fffffuuuu!!!

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

T’kar didn’t react when the flitt buzzed past his head, though Star, who’d settled on T’kar’s shoulder as soon as the rider slowed down, responded with an aggressive hiss of his own. T’kar ignored it. He knew that Star wouldn’t attack unless the other flitt did first, which meant that the situation, hopefully, wouldn’t escalate further. He opened his mouth to tell the handler to order her beast to let him past, but she apparently beat him to it, for the massive bulk of the Crimson wher retreated slightly, giving both himself and the K’tar kid some room.

T’kar stepped forward, towards both the Wherhandler and the Weyrling, who had scrambled to his feet and was eyeing both T’kar and the Wherhandler with a combination of defiance and apprehension, though it was tinged with fear for the Handler, and relief for the Wingleader.

T’kar, she had a knife in this fight. The voice was calm, Ancalanath had perfect confidence in his rider’s combat ability. However, surprise was a dangerous tool, so the RR Flame had decided to pass on the most important pieces of what Viarth was jibbering.

Naturally, it couldn’t be clean-cut. To beat it all, it was much too early to consult with anyone else, even given that Viarth’s bellowing had probably wakened everyone in the Weyr. Ah well, first things first.

“K’tar, go back to the Weyrling barracks and stay there. Your dragon is upset enough without you adding anything further to it,” he ordered. He didn’t bother to add that further things were going to be added; frankly he wasn’t sure that there was a way to keep K’tar under control. As soon as the boy was the least bit bored, he just started breaking rules for no apparent reason.

T’kar waited for a couple seconds, his eyes narrowing slightly. K’tar tried to match him stare for stare, but the boy wasn’t as good at it as the Wingleader, and after those couple seconds, K’tar retreated. T’kar watched him go, then returned his full attention to Dalonia.

“While it might be hard to guard against both direction,” he began, “I’d really think you would know better than to rouse every dragon in the place by drawing steel on a Weyrling boy.” He paused. “Besides, it’s hardly like he was any threat to you. At least, not going off the way things looked when I arrived.” He could admit the kid was infuriating sometimes, but K'tar wasn't a menace, well, not in the sense of menace as evil, though the kid could cause enough trouble to merit the definition.

[Cait]

Dalonia fell silent though her eyes remained hard and her posture tense as she watched the Weyrling get to his feet. When the boy looked at her, she pursed her lips slightly and raised a brow and Dalosk rumbled. Has she heard the little tattle-dragon been near and had she heard he, there likely would’ve been a venomous glare involved but the massive Flame’s words were barred to the woman, thank Farnath. If she’d felt anymore cornered than she already did, things would’ve gotten much, much worse.

Some animals when cornered cowered down and piddled all over themselves…and some lashed out and became dangerous. Dalonia Jindarex was of the second variety of cornered beasts, and picking up on the buried strand of fear, Dalosk drew up to his full height, squaring his muscular haunches and letting out a rattling hiss.

Dalonia breathed slowly through her nose and out her mouth as she watched the Dragonrider order the Weyrling away and a hint of amusement rose in her when the boy stared belligerently back at the older man. If the boy hadn’t tried to steal from her she might’ve even liked him in that very moment. Inevitably the Dragonrider won the battle of wills and the boy scampered back to whatever cushy dragonhole he’d crawled out of. Then the man turned his attention fully onto Dalonia and her face went completely blank but for her eyes which echoed a bit of what she was feeling; anger, annoyance and over-all grouchiness.

The second he opened his mouth, Dalonia was in defense mode and a small muscle beneath her left eye twitched. He was lecturing her and she was fairly certain she was older than him, though it was a bit hard to tell in this light. She wasn’t some errant Weyrbrat for him to scold. Squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin, Dalonia narrowed her eyes slightly. He might be several inches taller than her and technically outrank her; he might even be older than her –though she doubted it—but she wasn’t about to let him bully her when she hadn’t been in the wrong.

“Pardon me Dragonrider, but last I checked, I don’t have eyes on the back of my head. Would you have me treat all those who sneak up on the entrances to the Weyrbowl with calfskin gloves then?” Her lip curled and she was unable to stop it; her voice was low and contained a hint of a snarl in its tone. “I treat all who sneak up on me or accost me as dangerous until it is proven otherwise; perhaps if you and yours adopted the same philosophy I wouldn’t have had to be dragged down to this putrid sauna in the first place. So don’t try and lecture me Dragonrider for doing the job I was brought here to do.”

Alright, so she’d probably just jumped out of the boiling pot of water and into the fire, but she would not be treated like some mindless Wher simply because she had the misfortune of being paired with one. Refusing to look away, she kept her green eyes locked with the Dragonrider’s amber. “And for the record, I didn’t so much as knick the brat’s skin, so back off!” Dalosk punctuated her words with a rumbling hiss.

Fuuuuuuu![/color]

Yeah, she was probably in trouble now.

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

T’kar’s eyes narrowed further, seeming to glint gold-orange in the dim light. It wasn’t the woman’s response that bothered him, she had a point and a perfectly valid one, but her tone could have probably infuriated a rock. T’kar might be many things, but he wasn’t a rock, and he did have a temper, maybe not an extreme temper, but interrupting his practice time to deal with an idiot Weyrling and a disrespectful and aggressive WherHandler was a good way to activate that temper.

“Be that as it may,” T’kar said, “and while you were certainly within your rights to attack, a simple glance at the boy’s shoulder would have been more than enough to ascertain that he was not an intruder.” T’kar kept to himself his opinion that the K’tar kid might well sometimes cause more trouble than an intruder; it had nothing to do with the topic at hand, for troublemaker or no, there was no reason that the WherHandler shouldn’t have released the boy long before.

“Besides which, the volume that the boy’s dragon was bellowing at ought to have been more than indication enough,” T’kar added. “Not to mention the fact that he couldn’t even begin to hold his own in a fight with you, so there was absolutely no reason to even pretend to feed him to your Wher.” T’kar’s voice was flat, and there was an edge to it that said very clearly that he had better never find out if shoving the boy at the watchwher had been anything other than an empty threat.

Pivoting smoothly on his back foot, T’kat started to walk away, back towards the Weyr and his aborted combat practice. He had gone no more than a couple strides when he glanced back over his shoulder. “There’s also the fact that getting distracted by one person for as long as you were fighting with K’tar would allow anyone else to take advantage of the lax security,” he pointed out, before turning back around and resuming his walk across the Bowl.

[Cait]

Was the Dragonrider so thick headed that he couldn’t see her response coming from miles away while perched on his lofty heights? A shoulder knot! All she had to do was fiddle with her own and she would be the rider of a Crimson dragon! Anyone who was observant enough and had the right resources or the determination to appropriate the right resources could become a Wingleader or a Weyrling. Her lip curled in distain. “You say you’re chasing ghosts around here, what’s to say those ghosts don’t know a thing or two about disguising themselves? Tell me,” She glanced at his shoulder knot pointedly. “Wingleader; would you let a tunnelsnake into your bed if it had the proper shoulderknots?”

Okay, she was probably pushing it, but she didn’t give a Wher fart in space! She would not back down when she had done nothing wrong and she certainly wouldn’t cower because some high and might Dragonrider questioned her methods. The man’s point about the dragon was neither here nor there as she hadn’t really heard the bellowing over the pounding of blood in her ears. However, his follow-up comment elicited a spark of amusement in Dalonia’s pale green eyes. Her lips twitched but a smile was not forthcoming—it rarely ever was—but if he knew what to look for he’d find her amusement dancing there in her eyes as he turned to walk away. Let him think that she’d only been pretending; the Weyrling knew otherwise. Dalosk wasn’t very good at jokes after all and he certainly wasn’t tolerant of people that snuck up on his handler.

Of course that amusement was short lived as the Dragonrider stopped and looked back over his shoulder. At his accusation that she was no better at her job than a junior handler, her eyes went wide, flashing with her sudden rage. With a snarl that was echoed by Dalsok—he often lent voice to her temper as it seemed to suit him well enough when it wasn’t directed at him—and with a snarled, barely understandable command she forced the Crimson to return to their post and leave off the little scurrying creatures of the night even as she stormed after the Dragonrider. Ahead of her flew Thief, the loyal brown dropping down out of the air and twisting, buffeting his wings in the man’s face as he screeched, his eyes a mess of yellow and orange. Klutz unfurled her own wings and took flight though she remained mostly behind Dalonia as the woman marched up to the infuriating Wingleader.

Were it physically possible, steam would’ve poured from her ears. “Let’s get one thing positively crystalline Dragonrider” Dalonia began with a snarl as young Thief did his best to turn the man about to face his handler’s wrath. She might not like the things but she was a firm handler and the brown was eager enough that he followed her commands readily—provided he wasn’t hungry or in a horrid mood. “I was brought here because I am good at what I do and because you needed me. You don’t have to like my methods, you don’t have to like me; I sure as Shards don’t like you. But if you ever accuse me of being lax in my duties again…” Her voice had lowered to an ominous hiss that was echoed by the distraught and slightly confused Klutz that hovered over the woman’s shoulder as she jabbed a finger at the man. It was all she could do to keep herself from shoving the man and getting in his personal space.

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

T’kar had not missed the amusement in the Wherhandler’s eyes, but frankly, he was content to leave the situation alone, even going so far as to ignore the comments about ghosts and tunnelsnakes. He had nothing to point to that indicated that the Wherhandler had actually intended to allow her wher to savage the boy, and he didn’t think that it would likely happen again. The Wherhandler had a point in all the ridiculous remarks as well, namely that it wasn’t the hardest thing to mess with shoulder knots, at least the informal kind like K’tar had been wearing, so that they seemed like something they were not. Hence, no matter that some childish part of himself wanted to make the Wherhandler eat her words, he simply delivered his parting shot and left.

He ignored the double snarl from behind him, he’d dealt with predatory creatures as a boy, and knew better than to react in any way. A Brown flitt dropped out of the sky and came straight at his face then. T’kar brought up an arm to block it, swallowing his irritation at the attack.

Star had had enough. The Crimson flitt had been content to do as his human commanded and remain perched on the human’s shoulder throughout the argument with the other two humans and the issues with the ugly-Crimson-kin-creature, but to remain there while this barely Hatched upstart of a Brown attacked his human? That could not be done. With a bugle, Star leapt from his human’s shoulder and began his assault upon the interloping Brown. Shadow and Boot appeared next, popping out of between to come stooping down on the Brown.

Sighing internally, T’kar turned around, silently calling Boot, Shadow, and Star off. He felt Star’s weight settle on his shoulder as the Weyrhandler started snarling at him. The scene was so atypical that T’kar had to fight the urge to laugh. At any other time, this woman would have definitely been marked in his mind for being approached later, for she was rather good looking. Shards, even furious and glaring at him she was rather good looking.

T’kar raised an eyebrow, amusedly inviting the woman to continue when her voice trailed off. He remained silent, though he really did want to ask if she would turn into a tunnelsnake and try to get into his bed.

[Cait]

When the Crimson flitt came after Thief, he hissed and screeched but knew that as young as he was, he was no match for the King let alone the two other firelizards who came to his aide. With an indignant screech and a pained creel as a talon raked the base of his tail, the brown blinked between. Klutz, her eyes a mixture of orange and red let out another hiss but Dalonia flung up her hand and snatched the little fiend out of the air before she could attempt to get herself killed. It wasn’t that she was fond of the thing, because she wasn’t, but the last thing she wanted to do was clean firelizard blood off of her gear after her shift was over. Human blood on the other hand…

Klutz squirmed and wriggled her way out of Dalonia’s grasp and once again tentatively claimed the woman’s shoulder, eyes narrowed at Star. When the Dragonrider finally turned around Dalonia lifted her chin, the tick below her left eye rather noticeable now. If she had even an inkling about the thoughts in his head, his manbits would be in grave danger, as it was she picked up on the amusement quite readily and it was more than enough to egg her on. Taking a step forward, oblivious to the DarkBlue’s fluttering wings, or the fact that Thief had reappeared and was hovering in the air behind her, Dalonia clenched her fists at her sides, resisting the urge to pull her knife on the Dragonrider.

She might be immeasurably pissed and flustered and just all around annoyed but she wasn’t as stupid as he seemed to think she was. Drawing a blade on a Dragonrider, no matter how infuriatingly smug and condescending they were, was the biggest faux pas a persona could commit. Still…Dalonia wasn’t always the most level-headed of creatures when riled.

“Amused are you? Well let’s see if you’re still laughing when some murderous crook sneaks into your weyr and slits your dragon’s throat all because he was wearing the proper shoulder knots. All because you want me to give hugs and kisses to everyone lurking about the Weyr when they shouldn’t be.” Each absurd yet very apropos point was punctuated by Dalonia reaching out to shove at the Dragonrider’s chest with her finger tips. By now her eyes were snapping with righteous indignation and her inhibitions were gone. Sassing a Dragonrider—especially a Wingleader and Kingrider—was one thing, but manhandling him was an entirely different beast. But were she to be asked, Dalonia would simply growl.

“You think you’re special, sitting up there in your lofty weyr do you? Think you’re better than I am because I live in a smelly den with my hideous little mutt?” From the shadows somewhere behind her, Dalosk rumbled with indignation. He wasn’t that ugly, was he? Sure, Dalonia said it everyday but never to anyone else. The woman’s eyes flashed again, this time with a challenge, almost as though she dared the man to agree with her, to give her some reason to knock that look of smug amusement off his face.

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

Ok, what in Faranth’s name was wrong with this woman? He’d been willing to let the whole thing slide, even up to his suspicion that she had actually been trying to feed a Weyrling to her watchwher, but she was acting completely insane. Why, exactly, her attitude hadn’t come up somewhere was beyond him, certainly if he’d ever been her direct superior he would have notated it somewhere.

The whole situation was still somewhat amusing, actually, but the finger-tip poking his chest was getting a little annoying. Reaching out with reflexes honed from combat, T’kar caught the offending hand.

“I never said that you should offer hugs and kisses to anyone,” T’kar stated, all of the cold of between in his voice. “I did say that you should remember basic rules of combat and stay aware of your surroundings, which would have incidentally enabled you to realize that the boy was hardly an attacker, since no dragon would ever have been distressed over the capture of an invader.”

“I also haven’t implied anything about either of us being better or worse than the other, though I might have implied that I outrank you.” There was a little bit of a snap on those last words, but T’kar was in no mood to care. He was infuriated, not least of which by the fact that the stupid Wherhandler hadn’t had the sense to just let things lie.

A single bellow split the air, and Ancalanath swooped down out of the sky seconds later, landing at his rider’s back, his eyes whirling an angry orange-red. This had gone on long enough, and if the other human wasn’t willing to see sense, then he just might have to make her, and Thread take the consequences!

[Cait]

The reason that Dalonia’s little insubordination had never really been an issue before at Icy Caverns Hold was the fact that she very rarely had to come into contact with dragons and their riders. What’s more, she always had the threat of punitive action carried out by her brothers and Tiberax if she stirred up too much trouble. With an entire ocean and a continent between them, for the first time in her life she felt free and yet at the same time she felt cornered with so many dragons about. It made for a high stress situation for Dalonia who had never exactly been the most relaxed person in the world.

When T’kar caught her hand she tensed immediately and Dalosk voiced the mixture of emotions that surged in his handler though the most prominent was an all masking rage. The coolness of the man’s voice—a man whose name she still didn’t know—was lost on Dalonia. Not know her surroundings? She’d been a lookout almost her entire life; if she didn’t know her surroundings, she was dead; as for the boy…Dalonia hissed and twisted her hand, trying to free it even as the last shred of sanity prevented her from drawing a knife and sticking it somewhere soft and squishy on the man.

“Anyone with their hand in my pocket is attacking me.” Dalonia’s words were clipped and forced through clenched teeth and when he proceeded to point out that he outranked her—though she had set it up—she ground her teeth together. It wasn’t until an ear splitting bellow shattered the stillness of the early morning that she froze. The color drained from her already pale face. It wasn’t until the Flame landed behind its rider, buffeting them both with a gust of air that she reacted. Rather than pull back like most people would do when startled or scared, Dalonia—regardless of whether her had was still detained by T’kar—attempted to shove him away with her free hand. “So what, to teach me some grand lesson, you’re going to try and feed me to your pet lizard?”

Though the anger masked much of her fear, her pulse was racing and her hand shook slightly as she reached for her belt knife. No way was she going to be eaten by this big ugly thing without causing some damage. No way! Pulling the knife, the last shred of sanity finally gone, she narrowed her eyes and took a defensive stance. Klutz took flight and she and Thief hissed while Dalosk rocked back and forth in the background, still firmly held in place by both his handler’s command and the presence of a dragon.