who has to know? [dmitri]

[Avu]

“Stop. Stop. Stop. Hyperactive little freak!”

Tekivisk eyed the little Salamandyr in bemusement, pausing to brush against Vix’s mind – that hadn’t been very nice, after all. Rook was cute, and it wasn’t like he was really bothering anybody, so…surely he could bounce? She didn’t mind it at all. It wasn’t distracting her from her Dmisk-search, after all. And it was not his fault he got high on sugar. The green gave a little bounce for emphasis, tail practically wagging behind her like a canine. Her tongue lolled out, playfully, as Rook managed to twist himself around her ankle and then shot off again, nearly managing to trip Tekivisk in the green’s efforts not to squash the Salamandyr. She squeaked apologetically, eyeing Vix, but he merely snorted, staying very far back from green wher and blue Salamandyr both. They were not his.

Blueblueblue whereaaaaare bluuuuue – Vix cringed at Rook’s babbling as the Salamandyr slid straight down Tekivisk’s spine and came to plop onto his foot, and promptly kicked his foot outwards. The Salamandyr went soaring away, still chattering at impossible speeds – Forlooking whereeeee blueblue freakfreakfreaaaaak aaaaaaeeeee… He bounced onto Tekivisk’s back, earning a loud snort of surprise from the green before her tail started wagging again, scrambled up her neck, flopped onto her face – and still received, not irritation, but a low croon of happy amusement.

Yeah, definitely not his.

Opting to ignore Rook’s continuing babble, Vix asked (loudly, in order to drown out the Salamandyr), “Have we been to, you know, his room? Did it occur to you that he might be inside like a sane person in this weather?”

Oh, right!

Tekivisk spun around, Vix automatically jumping back three feet out of the way, and paraded back inside with Rook still scrambling all over her like she was his personal jungle-gym. Which left Vix to shuffle back inside, grinding his teeth together to keep his teeth from chattering, arms wrapped around himself as tightly as they would go. At least Tekivisk waited for him inside before she scampered down the hallway. And listened to his instructions when Vix paused to check the room listings before she raised one paw at the door in question and scraped her claws against it. Because, yeah, the whole knocking thing – it was hard.

“You don’t knock like that,” Vix huffed, more or less in the mood to huff at everything. He stalked over to the green, trying to ignore the little violet-blue blur still flailing all over her, and rapped on the door. “That’s how you knock. I hope you didn’t leave claw marks, nobody wants claw marks on their door. Seriously, do I need to tie a bell to our door so you and Darmosk can poke the bells when you wanna be let in or out? Because I will. No scratching up our door.” Because it was totally okay to lecture your wher on how to knock properly right before you met your mentor, right? Right. Of course.

[Requiem]

A surprisingly more interesting challenge than he would have expected. Dmisk was almost...excited. For him. Which meant his calm, cold blues were whirling just a touch faster. Maybe enough to actually notice movement in them. Said blues were slitted and covered by one set of eyelids, and then a second to dim the glow as much as possible. Stalking the baby green and her handler would likely have been entirely too easy, if not for the overactive salamandyr zooming all over the place. Fortunately, if he was quiet enough and didn't move too swiftly, the little creature could zip within mere feet of him and not notice. It just required a little extra...care...than would otherwise have been necessary. He didn't see that what he was doing might be considered wrong, either. They'd summoned him, and he'd come. They hadn't specified how they wanted him to arrive.

Ever so convenient, too, the way the handler held back from the others. Dmisk slunk carefully after them into the barracks, keeping to the shadows and using furniture and bends in the hallway to block him from sight wherever possible. The knocking on the door and distraction of the trio was his cue. He sprung from his hiding place, reaching them in two strides and pinning the man to the door between his forelegs. Sniffing at the back of his neck, he huffed softly, the hair lifting on the back of the kid's neck in response to the warm air. Without glancing at Tekivisk, his cold mind touched hers. Good evening, baby green. She'd called?

The tall wherhandler emerged from around the corner just at that moment, and the fact that he didn't react to Dmisk's pinning of the wherling made it all too clear that this wasn't unusual behavior for the blue wher. That or he already knew about it through their bond. Hard to say. The harper was busy finishing buttoning up his shirt, fumbling a touch awkwardly with his right hand. Having a dragonrider as a weyrmate made for an interesting schedule for the harper-turned-handler. "Dmisk." The blue obediently dropped back to the ground and returned to the bluehandler's side, pressing against his thigh briefly before falling into step. Still unperturbed, Dmitri set about pulling on the gloves that helped disguise the warping of his right arm below the elbow.

Dementia was, as ever, absent. Likely with Yoalla and her collection of greens, actually, ordering the Devil about. She refused to be in the same vicinity as Elysia, and that's where Dmitri had just come from. The jealousy would have been funny...if it hadn't lasted so long. "We don't usually use the apartments here," he commented off-handedly. "Sometimes Dmisk will stay." Not during this time of night, though. Neither wher nor handler had any trouble with the cold weather. "What's with the little purple streak? You give it sugar or something?" He watched the salamandyr zip around for a few long moments before giving up before he got dizzy.

[Avu]

“HOLY – ”

That was about as far as Vix got before his head bounced against the door and he froze that way, palms flat against the door, staring blankly at the grain of the wood. His mouth was still open slightly; he couldn’t see what was going on but that was definitely breath on the back of his neck and something in his stomach turned over nauseatingly because holy crap he was going to die here. Fortunately for everyone involved (himself included) Vix wasn’t a hysterical panicking type of person. No, when he was scared, his brain just stuttered to a stop, short-circuited completely. Not an exactly effective survival method, but it wasn’t something he could help. Had trouble directing his conscious mind when none of his mind was cooperating, after all.

The first thought that managed to cross his mind was – why isn’t ‘ki /doing something/!?

The answer to that thought came instantly, accompanied by Tekivisk nosing around his feet, peering anxiously up at Dmisk: Because it was their mentor, VixLove. Say hello? She chirped (softly, since Dmisk himself hadn’t made any noise. It seemed appropriate), and her tail wagged slightly, hopefully. Hello, hello, teacher. How nice of him to come. Even if he had startled Hers. Tekivisk drifted a little closer, wanting to be able to touch VixHers to reassure him. The tension in his body, at least, had thawed out at the recognition of who, exactly, had him pinned against the door.

Well, kind of. Not really. His heart rate was settling, at least, even though his teeth had clenched in anger, mostly an offshoot of humiliation. Vix dropped his hands, turning around, as soon as Dmisk was off of him, sniffing as he absently brushed imaginary dirt off of the front of his shirt. The other wherhandler’s words (this was his ‘mentor’?) made him tilt his head slightly. Oh, wow. How helpful. They weren’t in the rooms a lot. Great, one less place in the Weyr he had to look. Tekivisk twined around his legs at that, trying to be reassuring, and only allowing Rook an opportunity to climb all over him, still babbling (blueblueblue forlooking blue found seehim seeblue seeeeehim – ). The green offered a nudge to his thigh; calm, VixLove. Be polite.

“Good to know,” he muttered, not really polite, but not impolite, either. Judging by Tekivisk’s sigh, it was acceptable, if barely. The mention of Rook, though, had him tilting his head, trying to catch sight of the Salamandyr as he literally bounced off of the door back onto his shoulder and continued to race around. “Is it that obvious? Um. Thought it would’ve worn off by now.” He raised one hand, trying to poke where he thought Rook would be by the time he got his hand up, and then blinked as the Salamandyr, right on cue, froze, balanced precariously on his shoulder.

And fell.

Vix caught him on the way down, blinking in faint bemusement at the now-snoring Salamandyr. “Great. Right. So, uh. You're my mentor…?”

Because – well, he didn’t have the first idea about what a mentor was supposed to teach him.

[Requiem]

The blue hadn't responded to Tekivisk immediately. It was hard to say why, exactly, with Dmisk; he wasn't precisely rude or anything. Even as cold as he was. Perhaps the truth of it was simply that the male didn't feel the need to exchange useless pleasantries with a baby wher. (He'd never been much for needless communication, and if it made him seem abrupt at times, he didn't seem to care.) There was also the off-chance that she'd managed to offend him somehow. Dmisk did have a rather oddish way of viewing things at times, that he did.

A brow rose mildly at the older - yay for wherlings older than him, though it wasn't as if he'd been expecting anything different, really - teenager. "Tekivisk will have no trouble communicating with him. Dmisk has a range that goes beyond hearing as far as mind communication is concerned." Which was to say he could be contacted even when a howl couldn't normally reach him, and though another might not be able to receive his response...Dmisk would at least get the message. Probably had something to do with the extremely pronounced headknobs and the fact that Dmisk didn't bother communicating with sound or even body language. The male was odd. Even by wher standards. "Though feel free to complain anyway. If you want to know where to find me at any given time, I could write you up an itinerary and draw up a map, if it concerns you that much."

Of course, the harper failed to mention that attempting to read said itinerary and map would probably be impossible. His handwriting was still childlike at best. Mostly indecipherable. That's what Nautics were for.

The bluehandler squinted slightly at the odd salamandyr, but since Tekivix seemed to be treating it like a normal occurrence, he didn't comment. "Yes. Dmisk and I make up the Guard portion of the northern detail, because he eats wild whers during Runs. Theoretically, Eikask's wild ichor should be providing Tekivisk with the necessary insticts to be more than a glorified pet, but given the temprament of half the 'wild' whers here, it seems that if they're not cultivated the whers become useless for anything but Running and lying around looking pretty. So Dmisk is going to show Tekivisk how to hunt. Unless you, in all your wisdom, have a better idea?"

The blue was even more abrupt than His. He didn't wait for a response at all, instead turning and moving toward the passageway leading up to the cliffs above with a brisk, Come. It was becoming increasingly apparent that even the cool kindness he afforded his clutchsiblings would not be passed on to Eikask's offspring.

[Avu]

Vix inhaled, irritated, but he hadn’t even opened his mouth before Tekivisk intercepted his intentions, flicking her tail quietly against his leg. Her mind brushed against his in something that was half-warning and half-begging. Please, please don’t upset mentors. She wanted them to like her, like them. Please? Vix bit down on the inside of his lower lip, swallowed, and managed to keep a relatively neutral expression, even though his eyes probably gave everything away anyway. He wasn’t that good. But – well, whatever. If it weren’t for Tekivisk, he would’ve just snapped – he had a right to be upset, he thought, what with having a blue wher pounce on him and now this.

Well, to be fair, without Tekivisk, none of this would’ve happened anyway.

Silently, he slid Rook into his breast pocket, leaving it unbuttoned. Short of Vix doing flips, Rook wouldn’t be going anywhere: Once he was out, he was out for a while. Easier to think about that than about the kid that was intent on delivering his lecture. Of all the mentors he could’ve gotten…really? His eyes narrowed, sliding from Dmitri to Tekivisk, who had sat down next to him, head tilted up towards the other wherhandler attentively, and then back to Dmitri again. Yeah, not seeing Tekivisk ‘eating’ wild whers, Run or not. He decided not to point out that he had absolutely zero interest in guarding anything in favor of shrugging.

He may or may not have actually been sulking. That was so beside the point, though. He glanced at Dmisk, flicked his gaze back up to Dmitri, shrugged, and offered with as little sarcasm as he could, “Sounds like a brilliant idea. And meanwhile, we’re going to stand around and do nothing?”

Although, really, Vix wouldn’t complain if they did end up doing nothing. It was preferable to strenuous exercise or something, but it would still be…absolutely mind-numbing. And he seriously had better things to be doing, even if he’d probably be the only one who considered them ‘better’ things. But…yeah. Boredom factor. And he faintly suspected that the kid would make him stick around and stare at a wall just because he could if the idea struck him. Awesome. Just awesome. His day was going so great already. Maybe next a dragon could accidentally step on him.

Tekivisk licked his hand reassuringly, doing her best to project calm to him, before the green scrambled after Dmisk obediently, tail sliding against Vix’s leg in farewell as she wound around Dmitri. Scampering as quickly as she could to catch up, the green ended up a few feet behind Dmisk, doing her best to keep pace and look as coordinated as possible. Simultaneously, it was a bit more difficult than she had imagined, but…she managed. Kind of. No tripping over her feet, anyway. The green’s tail was wagging from her excitement, and although there were so many questions she wanted to ask, Tekivisk opted to stay silent. Seemed that was what her mentor preferred, after all.