The Tiger of Pern (Nicole's CHALLENGE)

[Jay Kitten]

"No, no, you must do it with more VIGOR," came a voice, and then a vicious roar, and a slash of talons, before a palm toppled, the thin trunk shattered by the angry slash of dragon claws. A massive, orange-and-black dragon was the reason, his response to his Rider's pushing to attack another innocent trunk and cut it along the base easily with his massive claws, dragging them through wood to sever the base and cause a collapse. Two side-by-side trees now lay along the ground, their fronds brushing the river that they had fallen nearby.

R'nos coughed at the latest display of his dragon's power, his eyes more serious than they had been in Turns.

"What if they arise again, Regganith? What if Dark Mists returns?" he questioned, and in response the Tiger let out a massive roar, the likes of which hadn't been heard on Pern since his Weyrlinghood. It reverberated across the treetops for so long that even those in the nearby Rainbow Mists Weyr barracks could hear it, the building near the edge of the jungle meant to house Candidates.

But the response from his Rider was only a large frown. They were deep into the jungle, and that roar couldn't be heard across Pern yet. Why? Why had his dragon, whom, in the prime of his life, died down in voice?

Whilst he was old and frail, his dragon was middle-aged, and strong. He should have been able to rend tens of dozens of Death Wings' lives from their hearts, draining them of any semblance of hope simply with his appearance from between. But for some reason, Regganith was slacking. What was it? What had caused his dragon to hold back?

That's enough for today, the old man commanded, and the dragon, huffing and puffing, ceased clearing trees at the edges of the clearing they currently inhabited.

But that wasn't enough for the man... Why was it that, after all the death they had suffered, why was it that Regganith seemed to slow a pace? Why was it that, instead of retribution he felt remorse? It was as though he almost regretted becoming a Rider. He needed K'cin, that's what he needed, the cryptic and horribly confusing Dreamrider usually would give him a word or two to confound him for a few sevendays before he gave up on the meaning of the words... Why did he not have that now?

He knew why, the Tigerrider of Pern wasn't stupid in the slightest. He knew what had happened at Ice Stone, the Hatching of Death as he called it. R'nos had known a few candlemarks after it had happened. Death was the main cause of his unsettled emotions, he could almost feel the death in the air. It was similar to the War, but nowhere near the scale. The death at ISW would haunt many a Rider, but never would it come close to the scale of what haunted him. The Tigerrider's face wrinkled with a frown, and he sighed heavily.

The Tiger of Pern looked to his Rider, and brought his nose close, pushing it under his chin, despite how massive his nose actually was. R'nos was, of course, used to this, and he simply set a hand on one of the nostril ridges. Poor thing, his Tiger, stuck with his petty human emotions. The dragons, of course, if their mate died they simply chose another. But R'nos? He dwelled on his mates every day. They were all gone, every single one...

[Nicole]

Elora had not meant to get lost in the jungle. But when she was frustrated and stressed, she needed to move, needed to flex and sweat and - and - and do other things that she no longer did at the Weyr, because that wasn't what she was anymore.

But not everybody thought that.

The contents of the letter in her pocket flew back into her head, and she let out a small shriek, turning to punch the tree nearest her. The bark scraped her knuckles, ripping off the first layer of flesh to reveal bloody beads underneath. Elora wiped them off on her pants and turned back towards the path, stalking forward.

Saphireth followed her, ducking her head underneath the branches as they walked. The DarkBlue knew better than to try to calm her Rider - and she wouldn't have even if she could, because Elora had every right to be angry. She had left her former life behind. She was a Rider now, Saphireth's Rider! How dare that man-

The dragon snorted angrily, tail lashing back and forth behind her. Though she wasn't the biggest dragon by far, the trees still trembled when her tail smashed against them.

Saphireth's anger didn't add to Elora's - it was so uncharacteristic of the DarkBlue that it was the only thing keeping Elora from exploding entirely, from climbing onto her back and storming straight to Cliffside. The idea that that man and N'kio were even sharing the same space...

With a hiss, the bronze-haired women stalked into open space and stared at the Oldtimer and the wrinkling Tiger already there. Great. Company. More men, more arrogant, stupid, ridiculous, petulant-

She balled her hands into a fist, drop of blood rolling down her knuckles and hitting the dirt below. She'd hold her tongue. He was an Oldtimer, and she knew who he was - R'nos, the first Tigerrider, legend of the Weyr. She didn't want to fight with him. Didn't want to blame him for the problems of the rest of the world.

But Shards, she wanted to keep punching trees.

[Jay Kitten]

R'nos had seen plenty in his days as a Rider, and he had seen even more since he retired, but this... This just wasn't fair. Never once had anybody stumbled onto him when he was like this, and it didn't bode well for either of the two Riders involved. Just as Regganith's huge nose pulled away, a girl, her blood running, came out of the jungle, and behind her, a Dark dragon. It was too difficult not to feel it coming, to see it. A flash of that dragon, that man with the blood all over his hands...

His mind was momentarily possessed by apparitions of the War he fought, of fallen trees, of blood and anger and the one-eyed Rider with his one-eyed dragon. But that wasn't the important part, the important piece here was it's effects on the Tiger next to him. The only thing he saw in his Rider's mind was that man, that Dark dragon, and he turned, his absolutely huge body suddenly all aggression as he roared again, the rolling echo falling away from them as it rippled outward.

He lunged at that dragon.

"NO!" the man screamed, and just before his jaws could clench around the Darkblue, his head pulled back, and he fell, instead barreling over the much smaller dragon, almost tripping over her, slamming into the trees beyond and toppling six or seven of them by weight of cracking them at the base. One even had it's roots pulled from the ground.

The man was old, but he knew when he had done wrong.

In exhaustion he scrambled over toward the pair, shaking his head and letting his white braid whip back and forth along his shoulderblades. "No, nonono, this wasn't supposed to happen. Are you okay?" In that moment, his eccentricity was lost, and he was once again the man from the War, all serious and no lost energy on petty things like jokes. They could have been killed! And easily, at that, the Darkblue wasn't even fully grown! He payed no attention to his own dragon, who currently was injured by his fall, because he knew that the Tiger would be all right in a couple minutes, but his focus lay solely on the pair whom had breached the jungle only a few seconds ago. To see it go badly so quickly, now that was something he was used to.

"Girl, can you hear me?" he questioned again, knowing she was likely in shock, if not completely phased. To have one of the most ferocious dragons on the planet actually attack you was not something he would imagine being easily shrugged off.

"How many fingers?" he asked, holding up three.

Another flashback, it was impossible to stop it right now. His mind was weak, Regganith was getting older and could no longer protect him from it. This time he saw a boy, about her age, in a similar situation during the War. One whom he had saved, barely out of weyrling training, he had been attacked by a vicious Chrome and only due to Regganith's intervention had come out unscathed, but heavily shellshocked just like the girl. But he had died only a few minutes later in a ground assault, by way of arrow, his young Green lost forever.

He shook his head to clear it, and reached into his bag, searching for his small medical kit that he had always carried since the War. It could come in handy if she had been injured by a stray claw or the like. If they were lucky, it wouldn't be needed but he found it necessary to at least take out.

[Nicole]

Elora slapped him.

She didn't mean to do it, not really. If she had paused to act on anything other than instinct, her hand certainly wouldn't have swung up to catch the Oldtimer in the face as he waved fingers in her face.

But she slapped, because Saphireth lay flat on the ground, her tail quivering as his massive Tiger knocked down the trees behind her. She slapped him because his dragon had just bloody tried to kill hers, even if he had managed to pull it back at the last second. She slapped him because he might be a respected Oldtimer, but he couldn't control his dragon and was now in her personal space. She slapped him because her body quivered with fear and fury.

It dawned on her as she caught him on his cheek, his hands too busy waving in her face to catch the motion, that most women would faint. But what kind of response was that when your dragon was in danger? You get angry, you fight back; that's how it should be.

And Elora had already been angry enough as it is.

She pulled her hand back from the slap as quickly as it had come, whirling away from him and stalking over to where Saphireth lay on the ground, eyes whirling faster than Elora had ever seen them. The DarkBlue's entire body trembled, wings clamoring against the hide of her back, claws dug into the ground. Elora threw her arms around her neck, burying her face in her hide and murmuring calming words. She didn't expect the tiny dragon to be soothed by them - it would take time for her to come back to herself. Saphireth may be fighting sized, but the dragon was far from a fighter!

A few seconds later, her arms still firmly around Saphireth's neck, Elora turned to look back at R'nos. She ignored the Tiger dragon behind her - if he had a problem with her actions towards his Rider, he was stupider than she thought.

There were many things that could have come out of her mouth, but instead she spat out the first venomous thing she could think of. "Some hero you are."

Because that was R'nos, and that was Regganith, and all Weyrlings were trained on stories about them. Elora, with her love of texts and a desire to travel and teach others about dragons, knew them more than most.

But she certainly didn't want to teach them now. What use were stories about old war heroes when they turned out to be nothing more than crazed and vicious?

He is not all there in the head anymore. Time and wars do that to you. Saphireth's voice floated lightly into her mind, quiet and quivering, and Elora snapped her head back to the DarkBlue dragon. Try not to hate them. I am okay.

Elora buried her face into her hide, relief shaking her shoulders.

[Jay Kitten]

As soon as he could feel that hand against his loose cheek, he knew it was well deserved. She was a victim of circumstance, and his frail bones made him one as well, the slap doing more damage to an old man than it could to a young one. His head couldn't stop itself from moving sideways, and he felt a crack, it would be sore for the rest of the day at the very least. Sure enough as his head found it's way back to a standing position, the ache along his spine spelled volumes about his future suffering for his mistake.

He exercised his jaw for a moment, rubbing his cheek and letting her up as she went. Guess she had been less shocked than he'd thought, she kept a level head about her for her dragon's sake, he could tell. A smart girl, if that was her way of handling a full frontal assault from a dragon at least ten times the size of her own. Had he not done anything, however, that dragon would be dead in an instant, and they both knew it.

He leaned backwards as he stood and let his spine pop a few times before he could settle into a comfortable stance, supporting most of his weight on his cane, the tip of which sunk into the soft topsoil. R'nos said nothing of the slap, instead his veridian eyes regarded her calmly now as Regganith picked himself up behind her, and limped back to the other side of the clearing. He was waiting for her to speak, a tactful maneuver all things considered, for he knew the first thing she said she may not mean. He put away his medical kit, and watched.

The tenderness she displayed for her dragon was certainly something he could condone, it was utterly necessary for a working pair. Absolutely fabulous in fact, that she would act precisely how she should in that moment. His warrior's mind could only accredit her for her well-displayed training. No doubt, then, if she was trained, she knew who he was. His suspicions were confirmed as soon as those words hit, it was like he had turned the other cheek and now both stung with her ire.

His eyes grew saddened. For he knew he wasn't a hero, just a lucky survivor.

"No," he stated, his voice coming burdened by his emotions, "I am no hero. I am simply a man. Regganith and I, we are not heroes for killing. For that, we are worsened. No, I am no hero." He shook his head, his braid moving again like before.

"I suppose it does no good to apologize. But I am sorry. Do not blame Regganith, he was possessed by my vision of Syceth, a Darkblue who fought like a Copper." He drew in a shaky breath, his whole form quivering with the action. That dragon had been quite the menace, it had taken him Turns to hunt and finally kill his Rider. But the strangest part...

"The strangest part of that dragon was his Rider. A piece of work, he was, and as a Dark Rider goes, one of the most cruel." But he knew much about his enemy, his enemies were always closer than his friends. S'nire had been one such enemy, and her dragon could only remind him of that man. A curse of her color, he supposed.

"You would do well to watch that anger of your's, lest you become possessed by it as a Dark Rider would. I caution you not because you have fallen, but because you will always be at risk. It is your burden to ride a Dark Dragon." He moved to a nearby rock and took a slow seat, still leaning on his cane to keep himself upright. Old bones and all, he rubbed the back of his neck now.

"But that Rider... Even though he was cruel, would do just what you did there. His dragon was more important to him than an entire Weyr, and because of that, he survived the War, and killed many of our comrades, including one of my weyrmates." Ah, a disturbing memory indeed. Regganith was able to shield him from that one, and he didn't need to digress.

"But the strangest part of that old Rider, was the last thing he said to me as he died."

[Nicole]

Now he was lecturing her on her anger? It hadn't been her dragon that blindly attacked his! It hadn't been her that pictured the face of another dragon because of their color! She may have been stalking angrily through the woods, but she was positive that it wasn't she who would be possessed by her anger 'like a Dark Rider would.'

Even if she was, by technicality, a Dark Rider. Her DarkBlue was the farthest thing from dark.

And now he was rambling about times past, about the war he had fought. He might have claimed that he was no hero for killing, but the Weyr perceived him that way - and he certainly talked like he had done something fantastic. If R'nos wanted to make analogies to her and that Dark rider because she slapped him, he was welcome to. He could live in his delusions. Anybody with a spine would have slapped him after that, if only to bring him back to his senses.

She kept her face curled against Saphireth's hide, the DarkBlue still trembling underneath her. Neither bothered to respond to R'nos' comments, or his open ended statement inviting her to ask what he had said. Neither bothered to look and check on the Tiger and the broken trees behind him. They just took comfort in that the other was okay.

Elora stroked the DarkBlue's hide as the dragon picked her head up, glancing over to R'nos with still-whirling eyes. And Elora's eyes widened in surprise as she figured out what her dragon wanted to do.

But still, Elora didn't move from Saphireth's side. Her entire body curled around the dragon, bronze hair splayed over the blue hide, light fingers dancing lightly along her spine.

Saphireth stretched forward with her mind, touching R'nos' hesitantly. I accept your apology. And that was all she said. His mind, with his worries and his biases' and his eccentricities, was not one she wanted to touch for long. But maybe it would help him overcome his biases. And it was good practice for what she would be doing with Elora in the future, right?