Restless {Akira}

[Rii]

Dawn had already crept over the Weyr, but the sun was shrouded in the clouds of the night's brief thunderstorm and the air was still chill. Most of the humidity had faded with the storm, but the ground was still wet and splashed with every step. Keluute was soaked from the knees down, but then he moved between nearly every shot to keep himself from falling into the trap of relying on one position to repeat his previous result.

He lifted his blunt-edged shortbow, a barbless practice arrow knocked against string and wood. There was no point in dulling his hunting arrows; there was still no sign that he would be able to go anywhere anytime soon. If, for some reason, the cats did come to the Weyr, he probably wouldn't get a chance to go for them anyway. No doubt the dragons were all getting as restless as he was. Yes, that was why he was out this early in the morning. He suffered the insects as he always did, and came out now because it was cooler and he was less likely to have to deal with people.

He loosed the arrow. It vanished into the shadow in the lee of one of the little hills, but the dull and hollow thunk told him he hadn't missed. He touched his quiver, and then sighed. Might as well go restock. He worked his way across the wet ground, avoiding the odd rock that his bare feet would undoubtedly hate to meet, and crouched next to his practice target. It was just a misshapen chunk of wood, with a heavy grain showing through the dark shadow and dark wood. The moisture was starting to eat away at some of the softer sections, and one of his earlier arrows had gone clear through one of them. He patiently worked each of the six arrows lodged in the wood back out, and then tucked them into the leather tube at his back with the one that had hit the rot. He returned to his previous spot, or thereabouts, and was just knocking an arrow again when a sound caught his ear. He turned smoothly and marked the source of the sound for his target. It wasn't likely to be a feline, so he held his shot, and waited for the source to move again. If it was a cat, it was still far enough away that he would have time to loose the arrow.

[Akira]

Shenzi sighed as she walked through the mud that made up most of the ground in the Weyrbowl. It was early, and normally she would already be working on her chores. Though, now that she was a candidate, her chores didn't start till later in the day. Rex chirped playfully from his perch on Shenzi's shoulder. The thirteen turn old girl smiled, and reached up to pet her firelizard. I wonder what our next lesson will be Rex. She had learned how to clean a dragon, only, they didn't actually use a real dragon for their lesson. The candidates used their firelizards.

Shenzi smiled, and started humming a song that she had learned from her mother. It was a gentle, soft, yet, happy song. She moved a think strand of hair that had fallen in front of her shoulder, and placed it back behind her. That's when she sliped in small puddle. She squeeked a little in suprise, but regained her balance, and had to calm a supriesed Rex. She placed the firelizard in her arms, where he wrapped his spotted blue tail around her forearm. He crooned as she started humming to him again.

Shenzi shook her head when she looked at the mud that was now on her pants. Great, just great. She shook her head, and came around a corner. She almost squeeked again when she saw a boy with an arrow pointed strait at her. PLEASE DON'T! She didn't raise her voice, or move as she spoke. Instead her words were a whispered plea. Rex chirped when he felt the fear that His felt. He turned his blue head around and hissed at the person that was causing His to be afraid.

Shenzi held her blue firelizard close, her wide eyes staring at the arrow. Rex squirmed against His grip, he wanted to protect her. She couldn't let him go, there was no telling what would happen to him if she did. She had to keep him close so that he would be safe. She was actually starting to wonder if someone would find her, and save her. Or if she was destined to die right there, right then.

[Rii]

He waited. Sooner or later, whatever was there would move again, and he had no doubt that there was actually something there. So he held his aim and stayed where he was. He searched the shadows with his eyes and left his ears open in case there were more. Habits die hard.

Keluute swallowed a sigh and lowered his bow. It was just some kid. "I'm not going to shoot you," he said flatly. If he did, someone would probably decided that that meant that he was the poisoner, and then life would just go downhill from there. Too many people, too much anger, and no privacy or quiet. And the end of his candidacy, he supposed. He also supposed that the girl, who honestly looked about to wet herself if she hadn't already, wasn't hairy enough to provide a half decent pelt. It wouldn't be worth his time at all. "You might want to not go sneaking about in the future, though," he said flatly. "I'm sure I'm not the only one who practices in the Weyr, and I doubt they're all patient enough to outwait their nerves." A lot of new would-be hunters were loose-happy and jittery. They wizened up, quit, or died.

He ground his teeth. The Weyr's lockdown must be getting to him. He turned away from the kid and her silly little firelizard and, within a few steps, found a new place to shoot from. So long as she left him alone, he'd just ignore her and go on with his practice. He brought his bow up again, the arrow still knocked, sighted along its smooth length, and let it slide. It vanished through the air and found its target, the same block of wood, with yet another hollow thunk.

[Akira]

Shenzi was ready to wet herself when he finally lowered his bow. She realized that she hadn't taken a breath since she saw the boy, and finally let her lungs fill with air. Thanks... She wasn't sure if he had heard her whispered word, but was more thankful when she found a place to sit down, and regain her composure. She sat down on what seemed like the only dry bench around, but it was good enough for her. Rex crooned as he climbed up to His' shoulder, and wrapped his tail around her neck protectively.

Shenzi sighed, and looked up when she heard him speaking again. I wasn't trying to sneak around. I'm just used to being quiet because you have to be quiet when you wake up before everyone else in a Harper Hall. Though, I do thank you for not killing me. I'm Shenzi by the way. Her voice trailed off as she introduced herself. She wasn't sure he was even listing to her. She watched him as he prepaird himself to shoot his bow. That's when she got the urge to draw. She wasn't sure why she wanted to draw this strange boy and his bow, but she did.

Shenzi always had her notebook, and pencils. So it didn't take her long to prepair herself to start drawing. She already had the outline of the boy and his boy by the time she heard the sound of an arrow hitting it's target. She jumped a little, but didn't turn her eyes away from her work. This is what she liked doing, and this was one of the talents that had gotten her accepted into the Harper Hall that her entire family was part of. Rex chirped curiously from his perch, and watched His with great intrest as she made lines on the paper. He didn't understand what she was doing, but he liked it.

[Rii]

Keluute grimaced as the wind gusted, his arrow only just loosed, and sent it flying past the arm of the target he was aiming for. It hissed along the ground for a moment before skidding to a stop, two-thirds of its length buried in the wet ground. It wasn't worth the effort of replacing, so he trudged over. Less than half an inch to the side had resulted in nearly a full dragonlength past. A result was only rarely of the same magnitude as the cause. This was a case in point, he mused drily as he retrieved it, wiped it cleaner on his already soaked and muddy pants, and trudged back.

He found a new place to shoot from and settled his feet into the mud. "You should give lessons to my sister, then," he muttered, recalling a few of the times Kenra had blundered about, usually in one of the mornings right after he returned from a hunt late in the evening. "Keluute," he replied more loudly when she introduced herself. "Most people have somewhere to be if they're out and about this early in the morning," he commented, as if to himself, when she showed no signs of leaving. Oh well. He let the wind settle into the next gust, loosed his arrow, heard the thunk.

He shifted a few paces to the side to change his angle, lowering the bow as he moved and giving his free arm a flick. He was reaching back for a new arrow when he caught sight of Shenzi again. What was she doing? He was about to dismiss it and continue with his archery in growing irritation when he realized that she was drawing. And she kept looking up at him.

That was it. He forcibly let the arrow between his fingers slide back into the quiver, and then bent the bow against the arch of his foot to lift the string free. That he flipped over his neck, and the bow itself he left on a convenient rock. Then, unconsciously prowling rather like the cats he hunted, Keluute strode over to the girl. He didn't have to get very close to see the shape of the figure she was drawing, and there wasn't exactly anyone else around with a bow. Normally he would have just collected his things and left, but then there wasn't much normal in a Weyr locked down against a poisoner.

"You have the bow curve wrong," he said icily, "and I would appreciate it if you didn't draw me. If I wanted attention, I'd set up in front of the dining hall at midday and charge to shoot apples off of people's heads. I don't want attention and I don't shoot apples of of people's heads. Understand?" He might be slight, but when his nerves were stretched it showed, and anyway he was larger than the kid in front of him. And the firelizard? Hah. Its head was the size of a feline's fang.

[Akira]

Shenzi tilted her head to the side as she glanced up at the boy once again before finally starting on the more intricate parts of her drawing. She had the boy's and his bows basic outline, the outline of an arrow, and the outline of a target. She couldn't help but smiling when he said that she should give his sister lessons. She didn't really think she was that good at sneaking around, it was just something that came naturally. It is a pleasure to meet you Keluute. Her voice sounded as though she wasn't really paying attention to what she said. Truth be told, she wasn't.

Shenzi heard him speak, but didn't register that he actually said anything, she was too engrossed in her drawing to pay attention. Shenzi snapped her notebook shut when she heard Keluute's voice, this time, closer than before. He had startled her, and she hadn't actually expected him to notice what she was doing. S..sorry. Her voice was a squeaky whisper. She turned her head away from him when she felt her cheeks starting to get warm. She hadn't wanted upset him, but she just couldn't help it. When she saw something interesting, she just had to draw it.

Rex hissed protectively when the other person made His upset. He flared his wings, and growled when Shenzi lifted him from her shoulder, and held him tightly to her chest. He didn't want to be held, he wanted to protect her from this person who had made her scared, and then upset. Rex really didn't like this stranger, and wondered why His was holding him back. Shenzi on the other hand didn't want her blue firelizard to cause anymore problems than she had already caused.

[Rii]

Keluute murmured something vague and indistinct and wordless. The wind was playing tricks now, flicking here and there. Patience. The whole Weyr needed patience right now. It felt like his was trying to run out on him.

He turned in a tight circle. His patience was definitely running out. Why now? Why not? He rounded on the kid again, rubbing the back of his neck with far more force than was really necessary. And, of course, dislodged his bowstring. As agitated as it was, he wasn't quite agile enough to catch it. And it landed in a puddle. Great. Just great. Not only did his brother have to go and die from some idiot's panicking dragon, and then someone else have to go and get him stuck in the bloody Weyr because of some grudge with someone that led them to poison pretty much everyone, and then this little kid and her firelizard had to come and bother him while he was trying to practice, trying to keep something relatively normal in all this insanity, and then he had to go and ruin his bowstring. Where was he supposed to be able to get another with the Weyr locked down? No sharding where.

All the while he was ranting in his head, his fingers were scrambling in the muddy puddle, brushing the string only to push in out away again in his angry clumsiness. He didn't care if he was down on his knees in front of the fool and her sharding lizard, although it was one bloody more thing he had to deal with. "Sorry isn't going to help anything now," he growled, not looking away from the mud. Everything looked the same. His bowstring was undoubtedly ruined by now; why not just leave it? He was about to do just that when he felt it against his palm. He seized it and wrenched it from the mud, flinging dirty droplets everywhere.

He rose to his feet again, a spray of mud across his cheeks and both hands brown past the wrist. "I suppose it's too much to ask for firelizards to be properly trained, isn't it?" he muttered darkly. "Of course, that's what you get when you give a kid a responsibility. They run with it." He was barely speaking audibly himself now. N'ran hadn't run with his responsibility, but what did he get for it? "And when they run, they aren't the ones who end up paying for it."

[Akira]

Shenzi hadn't meant any harm, and now it seemed like Keluute was extremely upset, especially since his bow string fell in the mud. She looked up at him when he spoke, and listened intently. She was thankful none of the mud he flung, had landed on her face, or her notebook. Though, her pants did take quite a splattering of it. Rex is trained...well...sorta. She wasn't sure how her firelizard would be of any help to the boy, but there might be some way she could repay him for drawing him, and upsetting him.

Shenzi wasn't sure what he was talking about when he spoke of someone paying for something. She wonderedd if he was talking about her upsetting him being the reason his bow string got muddy. Rex chirped up at His from where Shenzi was holding him against her chest. He looked from her to the boy, and chirped again. This strange boy talked about other firelizards, and His was thinking of a way he could help the boy, but what could he do? That's when he saw the muddy bow string. But what was he supposed to do with it? He didn't even know what it was for.