Fort Weyr

Fort Weyr - Southwest Bowl
The dominant feature of the southern end of the bowl is the blue lake that fills the entire southern tip and the rockslide that tumbles down into its far side. It has been many, many, turns since the slide took place, but it still stands uncleared to this day. Occasionally, smaller pebbles tumble down to splash into the waters of the lake below, but the mass seems mostly stable. Sturdy fences mark the feeding pens that the dragons may choose their meals from, located against the west face. The beasthold here is minor, small cramped buildings, used mostly to maintain the herds which feed the dragons. The major beasthold is located out in the forests, just outside the Weyr. There's a sign which warns "that beasts in this location are fair game to the dragons" and that any domestic pleasure stock should be kept in the major beasthold location.
The other feature that does not go unnoticed in this bowl is the large cavernous archway. There seems to be cobble stone laid down near the archway, which causes a clatter when the wagons and trading caravans arrive. Indeed, it seems that there's a tunnel out of the bowl here, wide enough for two trader caverns to fit through and possibly a small blue dragon. To the opposite end, the great bowl stretches away far, leading to some very interesting locations.

The air is mild, the ground muddy, and the few noises that break the silence announce that Fort proper is waking to greet the world. So, too, is Vossrik, his feet crunching and schlorping on the gravel and slop. He passes Akleteyth wordlessly, but his shoulders tense and he digs his hands deeply into his pockets. Finally, after a long stomp away, Voss stops, whirls on his heel, throws his arms in the air and faces the stunty dragon. "What! Whaaaaaaaat! You keep LOOKING at me! You're a DRAGON!"

The sound of beat-cop boots on a street — especially one with such distinctive features as Fort's cobblestone accents — is a reassuring sound in the early-morning patrols. It's especially reassuringwhen it's accompanied by the rumble-thud of this particular Sergeant's partner. It's — really, deeply unsettling, then, when the two are separated; when the ring of boots on stone is closer to the cadence of running feet, and the rumbling —well. That's just the short-stacked, muscle-packed, fugly-bug Akleteyth shuffle-stepping or extending the world's stubbiest, least flightworthy looking wing to keep Vossrik relatively corralled. There's a skittering clatter of A'ster coming to a halt, blond-headed riderguard leaning over to brace his arms on his thighs as he stares at his wayward lifemate. "Dawn patrols. Regular, ordinary, no more hunting people down, /dawn patrols/, you lump." Then he lifts his head, squints over at Vossrik, and out of nowhere says, "Wait, are you a dude?"

"Gah!" In his shock, Vossrik's arms totally do the noodly Kermit thing. Well okay not really but they may as well. "WHAT, are YOU?" Again, he whips about, but this time it's all reversed because he freezes secondly. "Shoot, uh, sir. I'm sorry, sir. Yes, sir, I'm a, um, a dude. Sir. Iiiis this youuur…?" He trails off, jerking a thumb and peering sidelong at Akleteyth.

"Stumpy the Fuckface pain in my side," A'ster introduces with the kind affection that burns through even his early=morning irritation. "Don't you look so smug," he tells his lifemate, with a finger jabbed right in Akleteyth's face, right up in his smushy snoot. "He must've run into you before, remembered when he caught wind of you again, shit if I know — I swore the last one was the last one, but — someone's gotta even the odds. Back me up in there." He jams his hand in his pocket — and pulls it out empty; surprise makes him look several turns younger, but it doesn't last long. Instead, Akleteyth, fatbird wherdragon bane of his weyrling class — goes hk hk hk hrk and somehow manages a great deal of delicacy in his aim. It isn't second lunch, revisited: it's a completely pilfered pile of balled together, single-looped white thread — and A'ster is going to have an apoplexy. "You ate all of them?" There's an unfocus-eyed moment, then a snort from the rider to the tune of, "Not my fault you don't have thumbs—" But the bown does have hammy-pawed front legs, one of which is being used to separate one white-knot lump from the others. "Faranth. Just. Just take it. Don't make any of us watch this any longer than we already have."

Vossrik's eyebrows knit. Then raise. Then form their own knots in a series of increasingly confused and inscrutable expressions. "Uh, yeah, he's been, y'know, watching me walk around in the morning. And occasionally when I'm doin' my stuff around. Just STARING. I thought it was 'cause I um… didn't notice him. The first morning. And I thought I was alone, and you know how it does first thing in the morning. Sir. I mean I'm guessing you still know how that is." Re-pocketing his hands, he ambles over to the pile and man and beast and squinches up his button nose. "It did not smell half so bad as THAT, though. Do dragons always eat… things? And what is all that s'posed to be, anyway?"

"That is my — entire supply of candidate's knots. Thanks, you couldn't have just - there," A'ster manages to toe one out that's relatively recognizable and only a little bit gicky. "Here. It's yours. Be a candidate. Save me from his last two picks. He used to do this with every. Single. Meal. Eat it like a normal growing dragonet, then huck-huck-hurk and chowback down. Then my dog did it, as a puppy, it's a plague. Do you have, like — stuff? That you need? I'm supposed to tell you you're not — there's no pressure, you don't have to say yes, but I'm pretty sure if you say no he's going to come watch you sleep until you do, so. Come on."

"DUDE I don't want to — well I mean, yes, I totally would do the thing with the candidacy, and my stuff's all in my room, and there's almost nothing but, like…" Vossrik strokes his chin, as if to evoke a beard he is in little danger of growing. "Pants? Extra pants? But do I gotta touch THAT ONE?" His lips pull back into his mouth some and, wincing thus, he scoots his coat arm over his hand and scrabbles at the least sad of the knots, whining all the while. "Maaan, this is like the cat my parents used to haaaaave. Are you SURE that his puking means he likes me and not that he just ain't mad I cropdusted your dragon — pardon me for that, sir."

A'ster will — concede this, sure, look, that was gross. That was double super extra gross. "There's probably one in the middle of the pile that's got less — gross — but no, look, he's doing this because I flat out told him I'm not chasing down another one of his terrorizing choice picks, he's on his own." He gestures at the sodden pile of puked-up candidate knots. "He thinks you got potential. I'll make sure you get pants. You can — probably ask someone whose lifemate hasn't just regurgitated their entire supply of knots for a clean one, just," he drops his voice like his lifemate isn't just right there in his head, "don't let him see you do it, he's sensitive." He isn't. But A'ster's had a weird couple of days.

For that is what 17 Turn old boys are made of. And Vossrik is so very used to gross things. A smile gets pulled across his face, almost gracious in its magnanimity towards the dragon. "Eh, I've had to pick up worse. Thank you, uh…you dragon, you." The jacket arm is still over his hand, but he dangles the knot in the air, examining it with an air of increasingly dopy giddiness. "Potential, huh? Me?" he murmurs to himself, turning the not terribly barf-laden bit of cord this way and that. "You sure about this? I'm… sorry I didn't catch your name. Names. I'm uh, I'm Vossrik."

"A'ster," the brownrider introduces himself, starts to open his mouth — gets shoulder-checked by his lifemate and says, just like it's on the birth certificate, "Akleteyth. Welcome to the circus. Follow me."

"Woohoo!" Vossrik quietly enthuses and, so, follows.