Much of a dragon (open)

[ShadowReine]

B'can was in a position in which dragonriders find themselves in with a certain regularity.

Waist deep in the water scrubbing his mount. Apolloth was giving a soft croon of pleasure as his stocky rider found a particularly itchy spot. "Must remember to put some extra oil there."

Guess and Flirt did their best to help with the awkward spots, but by far the lion's share of the work had to be done by the human of the grouping. He was stuck unless a bored Candidate or weyrbrat showed up.

Still, there were far worse tasks than this, one of which every moment reminded him of how fortunate he was to have this beautiful, almost cream beast as a partner. There was no finer dragon at Nyocia...of that he had been sure since the moment Apolloth hatched.

Jorindath came a close second...

[Sparrow]

((...I'm sorry, for some reason I'm posting again. Also, since it just occurred to me as I sat here staring at your sig debating whether or not to post, isn't B'can's Green Stare, not Flirt? xP))

Nayarath wasn't here for a bath, she just liked water. Dragging Kora along with her made it even better, but the presence of a dragon getting a bath had the potential to be an issue. Nayarath lumbered into the water anyway, Kora on her back, Soot flitting overhead. Lilac, deciding that her developing eggs were more important than bossing Soot around underwater, had stayed behind with Squeak.

Happily away from Lilac's overbearing presence, Soot soon spun towards Apolloth and the two fire-lizards with him. She slid off Nayarath’s back and into the water.

Just where do you think you’re going?

I can’t let a fire-lizard outdo me, can I? Of course not. "Hey B'can. Apolloth looks like he's enjoying himself."

I'm not! Nayarath sloshed through the water after her rider. Apolloth had always been an irritating beast, no question about it.

Kora turned to cock an eyebrow at the Gold. "You can act as eager as you want, but I really don't think you'd be any good at bathing a dragon." She faced B'can again. "I could help if you wanted though; we aren't doing anything."

Apolloth was smaller than Nayarath, but he was still a big dragon. There was plenty of work to do, and she doubted B'can would enjoy doing it all alone. If anything, Kora could reach a lot higher than the much shorter Tanrider.

[ShadowReine]

OOC: Yeah...where the heck did FLirt come from. I have one named Flirt...somewhere.

B'can laughed. "I wouldn't mind the help, but I also wouldn't want to keep the Weyrwoman from her duties." He was short...something which had caused him issues with the ladies in the past. But he made up for it with stockiness and solid muscle.

"Nayarath is looking well," he added. The gold could not be that far from her next flight, but B'can's practiced (at this point) eye saw no sign of extra shimmer on the queen's hide. Well, probably a good thing...he did not want Apolloth getting a head start.

As much as Apolloth wanted to catch the senior...not out of any interest in Nayarath as much as a desire to prove that tan was as good as bronze any day of the week.

Silly dragon. B'can sometimes wondered if he had got a bronze mind instead of a tan one...

[Sparrow]

OOC: Yeah... I can't remember where either. xP

Kora shook her head. "At the moment it's playing with Nayarath, which is a duty I'd rather avoid." No one could argue that a little work wasn't better than getting dunked underwater by a massive dragon.

I don't do that. Nayarath lowered her head into the water and blew indignant bubbles at her rider. Perhaps her hide wasn't glowing yet, but she was easing up in her behavior. Her public behavior, anyways. Nayarath was always weird in private.

Nayarath was looking well? "Like an overgrown shiny Green, I think." Kora shook her head and laughed. The Gold sent a spray of water her rider's way.

Less like a Green than Apolloth's mate, the Gold replied tartly. She glanced at the Tan. I hope you're nearly done.

"A particularly rude overgrown Green," Kora corrected herself. B'can was lucky Apolloth had Jorindath as a mate instead of Nayarath, although she didn't doubt the Tan would try again to catch the senior queen. Dealing with both of their attitudes constantly aimed at each other would be tiresome. On the other hand, Jorindath and Apolloth- and B'can and Inolyn- were very compatible.

[ShadowReine]

B'can shook his head. "She's close, isn't she."

He already knew that the sillier Nayarath was in public, the brighter her hide was likely to get. "I won't even ask what she said."

Apolloth shifted his weight a little, then ducked his nose underwater and actually blew bubbles at the Senior Queen.

"Apolloth, that won't make her more inclined to choose you." Even if he thought Apolloth was better off sticking to JOrindath, the tan would be annoyed if his rider showed so little faith in him as to actively discourage him...or not advise him right. "Eh. Of course, the female ridden bronze is probably *your* fault," he added, teasing his dragon about the unusual hatchling.

[Sparrow]

Close to a Green or close to rising? Probably the latter. "Yes." That would work for either. Nayarath's Flights weren't a thing she liked to dwell on, important as they were. It left her worrying about Weyrleaders- would Kayth catch again? Possibly. D'mas was a good Weyrleader, steady.

Nayarath, however, was not a steady queen. She wasn't picky about mates, as much as she acted like she was. She would take who caught her, the strongest and fastest dragon, rather than leaning towards anyone.

With that in mind... no, Apolloth's bubbles definitely wouldn't help him. Nayarath snorted lightly while Kora laughed. It was funnier when I did it.

Kora ignored her dragon. "You trying to make sure he doesn't catch her?" She wouldn't be surprised if B'can didn't want Apolloth to win. Not to mention the rude interruption it would make in his current relationship, a massive title came with winning Nayarath's Flight.

Kora wouldn't blame the sire of a clutch for a hatchling Impressing oddly though. Impression was a specific dragon thing, not genetics. She could rest assured of that. "Nayarath thinks Razuth was very bold," Kora said with an unsettled laugh. It was hard to tell if the Gold was joking about that or not.

Kora could only hope she was.

[ShadowReine]

B'can laughed. "No, because if I really tried to do that he'd strand me on the fireheights or something." He grinned at the Weyrwoman.

"He has to give it a good try, its in his nature, and I'm not going to interfere." Even if he was much happier with Inolyn than he had thought he could be with a woman...well. He would not let any flights mess it up, and he would not...

They were both riders. They had to accept that kind of thing happened. He would *not* be the next rider to mope around after his weyrmate's dragon was claimed by another.

Weyrmate. He hadn't really used that word yet.

[Sparrow]

Kora laughed. "Good point."

Nayarath lay down in the water as B'can spoke and watched both riders with a whirling eye. No Tan is ever going to catch me.

I know. No, she didn't really, but it was the only answer she could give. Kora didn't exactly have any Tans she would like to have catch anyways... although there was only one Tanrider she actually knew at all well. It was all this not knowing people that was really her problem.

"Best not to, I guess." Kora had a hard time saying that dragon's always made the best choice- everyone had seen firsthand a bad one. But that had been a while ago now. Flights, any Flights, were really not her subject of choice though. But what else to say? She wasn't sure.

[ShadowReine]

OOC: Remind me of the bad choice?

B'can changed the subject. "So...you know. I've never really had any chance to talk to you as a person."

That was not surprising...who worked harder than the Weyrwoman? The gold hide was a burden as much as a perk...Inolyn likely would never be senior, at least he hoped not, but even she worked pretty hard. Kora delegated as much as she could, after all.

"I guess you're busy and I'm fairly busy some days too." He glanced archly at the bulk of his dragon. "Keeping this clean, for starters. He shows the dirt almost as much as Tyrth."

And was, if anything, even vainer. They seemed to have a run of vain dragons....some of the greens were pretty bad too.

[Sparrow]

OOC: Alduth, which is really something Jenth prefers to mention and kind of irrelevant and sort of rude to Nick maybe but... I don't know. xP Kora dwells on things way too much.

Kora smiled weakly. "No." She had been making an effort to get to know people at the Weyr better, but it was slow going. She had a lot to do, which everyone was too well aware of. It felt sometimes like that kept them from talking to her just as much as it kept her.

"He is light," Kora agreed. Nayarath required a surprisingly small amount of effort when it came to cleaning. She was fairly clean by nature, and had less work to do than most of the other dragons. Feeding time was her problem.

It is not a problem.

Kora shook her head. "At least Apolloth can get in and out of the feeding pens relatively quickly. But I suppose that hardly makes up for the baths." It wasn't like a rider had to work for their dragon to eat.

[ShadowReine]

"I've seen Nayarath's...tendencies." He glanced archly at the gold. "She does like to play with her food."

He *was* glad Apolloth didn't do that. "Apolloth rather takes pride in doing everything neatly...but he also likes to be spotless."

He ran a hand over the tan hand. "I think he may be the lightest of the tans," B'can mused. "What do you reckon, Kora?"

Not that it mattered, but he had often felt that way about Apolloth...that he was an unusually pale dragon. Almost buttermilk colored.

[Sparrow]

Nayarath looked just as archly back at B'can. I don't like this conversation one bit, she said sourly to Kora.

"Well, she is neat once she actually gets around to eating." She wasn't surprised Apolloth was a neat dragon either- he definitely didn't seem like the messy type. "But she sure makes a mess beforehand. At least she doesn't worry so much about being totally clean." For all her vanity...

Kora nodded. "Definitely." Nearly as light as Tyrth, but for the black stripes all Tans had. "I don't think there are any even close." Most Tans, she had noticed, seemed to tend towards the darker side of their color range.

[ShadowReine]

"I don't think Nayarath likes me much," B'can noted, ducking around to the far side of the buttermilk tan. "It makes the black stripes more visible," he mused.

There was no mistaking Apolloth for a brown. Fortunately. He'd likely be highly insulted, especially given he secretly wished his hide was bronze. Which was surprising...he was pretty sure tans were a mutation of brown, not bronze...teals and skies of blue, perhaps?

Or perhaps it did not work that way and thinking of it like that would only give the young tanrider a headache.

[Sparrow]

"I don't know, they say imitation is the best form of flattery." Kora smiled weakly.

Not what I had in mind. Nayarath snorted. That Kora was taunting her in front of Jorindath's mate didn't help.

Then quit complaining. She really wasn't in the mood, and was supposed to be listening to B'can... "Yes, it makes him quite striking."

Most of the mutations seemed to come with striking designs or simply odd colors. Why was that? But Kora knew next to nothing about genetics; it wouldn't do her any good to waste time wondering about it.

[ShadowReine]

"Not that Nayarath isn't quite gorgeous herself."

Quite the attractive gold, really, although B'can would rather the other dragon in the lake was of violet hue. He wasn't done yet, though. Even if things got awkward, he couldn't leave until he was finished with Apolloth's bath.

Which was, of course, taking longer than it needed to, with the conversation. At least she wasn't glowing yet. The last thing he wanted...

Okay. Well, no, there were things he wanted less and definitely dragons he wanted Apolloth to chase less...Freyjath came to mind. Or Amirinth. For, well, obvious reasons. Nothing wrong with male greenriders...he just never wanted to wake up next to one.

[Sparrow]

"Quite." Kora smiled, and Nayarath's eyes whirled happily as well. That was more like it.

Nayarath was a bit of an odd Gold as well, but maybe that wasn't strange considering she had hatched among the first of the new colors. People didn't seem to pay nearly as much attention to the splotches of red along her belly as they did a dragon entirely violet.

"But we're getting distracted, aren't we? Sorry." So much for helping B'can with bathing Apolloth. So far, Soot was outdoing her.

[ShadowReine]

"She has interesting markings," B'can noted as he moved to start scrubbing along the considerable length of Apolloth's tail. "That's a cute tan firelizard too. I forgot that one was yours." Guess stopped what he was doing to chirple to Soot, as if his human's noticing of the flit had reminded him of his presence.

"Did you see, talking of firelizards, where my green went?"

From where he was, he could not see that Stare had decided that Apolloth's head was no longer a good perch. The little green had taken off and was flying towards a more interesting location. Nayarath's snout was her obvious goal...maybe somebody should stop her...

[Sparrow]

"Yeah. I'm not really sure that caused them." What was it that made the red? A little hide simply pigmented too dark? Something more like the birthmarks some humans had? B'can wasn't likely to know any better than she, and Nayarath paid them no interest. Even among the original colors, some dragons had curious markings, but they were rarely an entirely different color.

Kora glanced up at Soot and nodded. "Yes, Soot's a sweet little thing. A little unlucky though." For now, the Tan didn't mind. He chirped brightly back to Guess. While the Brown was Lilac's mate, he surely wasn't as kind, but that was in the past now. They could be friends.

At the question about B'can's green, Kora looked around. A flitter could go anywhere, but with this company, likely not far...

Found her. And Nayarath had no interest in the little fire-lizard having anything more to do with her. She snorted at Stare, figuring that a good gust of air from nostrils the Green could easily nest inside would be enough to get rid of her.

[ShadowReine]

Stare was actually thrown backwards by the gust. She chitterscolded the gold, then betweened to B'can's shoulder. His bare shoulder.

"Stare, gerroff."

She chittered angrily at him, then clearly decided that if nobody was going to let her perch on them, she was going to sulk and vanished with a pop.

"Silly green...sorry about that. What is it about greens? Even some of the dragons seem a little dim, don't they."

B'can was glad he had not Impressed a green, although he felt he had never been in significant 'danger' of that. To think, though, he had thought he might Impress blue. Clearly, that had been an underestimation of his own ability. Not that there weren't some great blueriders in the Weyr, but tans, like bronzes, chose 'leader' types.

"Guess is much more sensible."

[Sparrow]

Nayarath rumbled softly as Stare scolded her. Angry fire-lizards- especially of the Green variety- were so silly.

"They're designed for comic relief, I'm quite sure of it." Kora laughed. Most were silly and nonsensical, something that seemed to occur in no other dragon color. But they were also troublesome, so for all the entertainment they provided Kora was glad she didn't have one. Her 'more behaved' flitters were enough.

"I'm not surprised." Kora glanced up at the Brown. "Probably more sensible than Lilac too." Maybe it was just a female thing.

Nayarath snorted. No, it was a flitter thing.