A Maze of Letters (Kaegan/Open)

[Rowana]

This was not a fisherman's natural habitat. G'tor coughed as a wave of dust rolled off a shelve of hide scrolls. Maybe he aught to see who was in charge of cleaning this place. Some candidate no doubt. Not that he could blame them. Siblings and friends alight had been separated in the events of the last month. They were all bound to be a bit off their game.

He wouldn't be here at all except recent events had placed him in a rather tense position. He usually liked to learn things by watching and doing, but a maybe looking into some history would help too. At least maybe he could find some tips on wing drills and exercises beyond what they did now. Anything to give them an edge once they were thrust into the war. It seem inevitable at this point.

G'tor pulled down a scroll and sat at one of the tables to read. You know, Tor-mine, Ruskeath commented reasonably. We dragons do not need to read. G'tor rolled his eyes. Oh yes, because you're so superior, right? he answered with a chuckle. No, Ruskeath's eyes sparkled from his ledge. We have humans to read for us! G'tor snorted, then laughed out loud. Maybe it was how stress he was, but it was good enough for Ruskeath. His really needed to relax now and then.

[dragon]

It was the hardest thing, to keep from sneezing and getting boogers all over the old scrolls. Which would decidedly be a bad thing. Could permanently ruin them, or worse, erase parts of them. Dorava rubbed her nose as she tried to read one of the old scrolls, searching for the pertinent information she wanted. Ach, but this trying to not sneeze was starting to hurt. Her throat was scratchy, her sinuses were absolutely miserable and demanding a sneeze. Worse, her eyes were starting to itch from the dust. Dorava blinked a few times, and rolled the scroll back up before stuffing it back into its slot. Pulling out the next few, she decided to go find some clear air to look at them in. She was pretty confident in being able to find the right place to put them back in.

In taking steps to head out to clear air, Dorava hesitated at the sound of resounding laughter. Within the archives. Now that ... was a sound very odd. Not only for the given location, but for the given time, too. She couldn't recall the last time she'd heard laughter like that. It had been a long time. Changing direction with her piqued curiosity, she rounded a shelving unit to see not only what was so funny, but who was laughing.

Much to her surprise, she found G'tor sitting all by himself. Which only made her more curious, indeed. Pacing over, she circled around to in front of him, peering at his face. Either he was drunk, delirious, sleep deprived, psychotropic, or he was talking to his dragon. She was willing to bet it was his dragon, but she wasn't going to put her marks down just yet. "G'tor?" She asked, one corner of her mouth ooching upward.

Laughter was addictive and contagious after all. And this was pretty funny, all by itself.

[Rowana]

It was hard to stop laughing once G'tor started. He tried to stifle his chuckles as he turned to see who had caught him. "Oh, it's you, Dorova." He took a few deep breaths so he could talk easier, then grinned. It was so good to just laugh again like everything was normal, even when it wasn't. "I hope you don't think I was laughing at you." He snorted, covering his mouth, then shook his head vigorously. "Really, it's Rusk, you see." He ran a hand through his hair. How would he explain that? "He, um, tells jokes sometimes." Was it a joke? It was sometimes hard to tell.

I never said it was a joke, Ruskeath purred, as if reading his unsent thoughts. It could be true. That only made it even harder for poor G'tor to keep a straight face. Great, now Dorova probably thought he was drunk or something.

[dragon]

A grin cracked on Dorava's face as she listened to what G'tor had to say ... that and all that laughter. Faranth, that sounded good. Food for the soul, it was. Very good food. Kept a body sane, and all that good stuff. "He tells jokes, huh?" She asked, with interest. "Delightful! Aonith sometimes does that too, but they're not usually so good as all that." She laughed a bit herself, reaching over to grab a chair and drag it over. Turning it about she sat down in it looking at him expectantly. "Do tell!" Did she want to know what the joke was? Of course she did!

He did look like he was about to bust at the seams with more laughter though, and it was certainly infectious. She leaned her elbows on the edge of the table, and waited with bated breath. It never once occurred to her that she might be intruding on something he might have been doing. But this was just too good to pass up!

[Lotty]

They weren't alone. There was a peeping tom of sorts, lingering in the doorway and looking quite perplexed by the sight before him. Were the rumor mills wrong? More importantly had Tenlie been wrong this whole time? Because to him this seemed more like the behavior of a couple....dare he say it? "You're f-flirting. Stop it," it wasn't said with malice, no, there was certainly plenty of amusement there in the words, and really the bronzerider was not very gifted in dolling out accusations anyway, but the fact remained that he had heard of his wingsecond's affinity towards the Weyrwoman. The fact also remained that he had promised not to tell anyone, but he had the moniker of 'silly old man' to fall back onto.

He hadn't meant to walk in on them. The rider was only walking past the archives with a cane in hand when between the clack of wood against stone he thought he had heard voices coming from the room. Most importantly though was the fact that these voices were happy. There was laughter, and for just a moment the man wished to live vicariously through the mirth of others. Instead he came upon these two practically making googily eyes at each other... and with hesitance - he was more accustomed to being the butt of a joke than doing any teasing himself - Mi'rah had opened his mouth and probably said too much.

Still there was the problem now that he had made an entrance and he couldn't easily turn around and leave without pretending that he had a darn good reason to actually be there. Thus the rider made his way past their table to pretend to thumb through the spines of the books that lined the shelves. Nothing to see here people, just a silly old man picking some reading material out to drag back with him to his fortress of solitude. He glanced at them briefly again, "You're lucky I am not a gossip..."

[Rowana]

Nice to know Dorova didn't think he was a complete idiot. G'tor took a few breathes, chuckling with mirth. It was so good to share something fun instead of something sad. Looked like he had a bigger audience too, and his Wingleader at that. Man, he was never going to be able to deny this now. "Hello, Mi'rah!" G'tor waved cheerfully. "Would you like to join us?" The flirting comment made the brownrider blush slightly. He wasn't doing that, was he? He hadn't meant anything like that. Hopefully no one would take offense. It could be so hard to figure how women would react sometimes.

He could let that bother him at the moment though. Laughter was just too good to let die. Jumping up, he trotted behind Mi'rah and put his arm around him. Glancing at Dorova so she was included to, he explained. "Rusk seems to think we humans are here to read books for dragons. What's your opinion on the matter?" His tone was serious, but his eyes and mouth danced with mirth. Maybe not as good as when Ruskeath told it, but maybe he would at least get a smile.

[dragon]

Dorava looked over her shoulder when Mi'rah spoke up, surprised to find that he was even in the area, much less walking into the Archives at just that very moment. "Hello Mi'rah!" She greeted with a wide grin. But the jab she couldn't pass up either. "Are you jealous?" she asked playfully. Which only played off of G'tor's answer, too. My my my, they were a cheerful bunch today!

With a silly grin and great anticipation, Dorava stayed where she was as G'tor scampered off to go harass Mi'rah at the same time that he answered her question by posing a question to their Wingleader. She giggled at the very notion of the question, and leaned her chin on her fists, elbows on the table that G'tor had been using as she watched the two and awaited Mi'rah's answer.

All at the same time she did vaguely wonder what it was that Mi'rah was there to look up, find, or otherwise swipe from the Archives. Much less in the section of bound books! Must be some important stuff, if it was logged in a real book!

[Lotty]

Awfully cheery these two were...and at least one of them was blushing, but he supposed that wasn't exactly an indicator of guilt. Mi'rah himself was quite guilty of blushing and blushing often. Regardless, he swore he knew what was up, they were caught goofing around and now they were deep in the dark, endless hole of denial. His eyes playfully narrowed on them, distracted only by the movement of his wingsecond sliding in behind him and draping an arm around him. The bronzerider was awfully amiable and took the contact as nothing more than the usual from the big hearted fisherman. Even if what he was about to say was going to completely betray this. He'd show Dorava, he could jab right back.

"Join you?" he pretended to think on the subject, as if he had gravely important things to do instead of be around of them, "I don't know... it would probably look bad to have the three of us... conspiring in a room together. Today its all fun and games, b-but tomorrow we are accused of high treason," he quirked an eyebrow at them, wondering how plausible of a fate that would actually be before carrying on and giving a special bit of focus on the greenrider among them, "Jealous? Only of you..."

He supposed he could get away with this amongst friends, and he would never try to be so jokey in public, but he turned his head and tried his best to bat his eyes and pat G'tor on the hand pretending that they were some sort of secret couple. It was funny if only for a moment. Mi'rah broke from his act to ponder on the question of reading dragons, "No, no. You see, we can't be here to read for dragons, because dragons do not write either. If we never came along to write the books then why ever would the dragons need us to read them out," and he shrugged as if this was the easiest concept in the world.

"What I want to know is what you two were doing together in here...."

[Rowana]

G'tor's face darkened slightly at the mention of treason. It hadn't occurred to him that their meeting might be taken like that. It had just be a spontaneous one after all. Some leader he made. Still, they were all in the same wing. It was a decent excuse, if not a great one. G'tor was reluctant to dwell on this thought, however, as far more amusing topics were at hand.

"Now, now, Mi'rah," he chuckled at his Wingleader's actions. "Who's making who jealous here?" The picture of them both flirting with him was delightfully ridiculous. He was glad no one else was watching, though, as it was also a touch embarrassing. "Such logic," he went in an amazed tone. "Glad you're here to set us straight. Rusk might be disappointed I'm not his personal reader, though."

"Actually," he went on, a bit sheepish. "I was trying to think up some new drills or something." He waved a hand vaguely at the scrolls with a heavy sigh. He was useless at research, and he knew it.

[dragon]

Dorava tilted her head to one side as she listened to Mi'rah's alarmingly realistic point of what might be taken of their more or less giggly, accidental meeting. How sad, that even a spare moment of fun could be so effectively squelched. "We could always fix that you know." She answered, with a grin and a wink. Of course, she wasn't being serious, but she wasn't about to let a bit of doldrums ruin the little spark that had appeared.

Watching the two of them pat at each other, though, she just chuckled a bit herself, adjusting how she was leaning on the table, dropping a chin in a palm, elbow on the tabletop. "Oh great and wise Mi'rah. Setting the story straight time and again! We should all worship you." She waved her free arm up and down slowly in mock worship, eyebrows following along even though she remained perched as she was, before giggling a little.

"Don't let anyone convince you otherwise, I was just feeling out G'tor's reaction to the concept of the possibility of a wild make-out session in the tome isle." She teased, plainly in a good mood and joking. "Though now I'm intrigued by the notion that Mi'rah is jealous of me!" She rattled her fingertips off her bottom lip, making like she was being very very thoughtful on that concept. "Are you jealous cause I was playing with G'tor, or were you jealous cause G'tor was talking to me?" she mused, staring at the ceiling without lifting her chin. Cause, really ... brainstorming new drills was borrrrrringggggg...

[Lotty]

Was he what they called a party pooper? He caught the expressions on G'tor and Dorava's faces and wryly smiled. He knew it. He was. No wonder people didn't like to hang out with him, he was always putting the kibosh on the fun and games, and he tried to morph somewhat seamlessly into normal conversation. Not that Wingleader - Wingsecond flirtations were a normal sort of topic either. Weren't they supposed to be some sort of bastions of all that was masculine and heterosexual? Mi'rah didn't care to worry about it, since after all he knew that G'tor had a horrible crush on Kaegan, "Well clearly I'm jealous of you Dorava... you have this ex... exquisite man here all to yourself..." he raised an eyebrow at the brownrider, "I thought we had something....special."

Waving them off he took a few steps further down the line of books and non chalantly mentioned, "I should know better, G'tor really has eyes fo..." he stopped. He promised Tenlie he wouldn't say, and though he didn't know at this point if he would ever see her again - he swore he felt his heart break at this self admission - he still gave her his word and if he had any shred of dignity then he'd hold true to it, "For a pretty girl I'm sure," and he twitched uneasily for a moment before gratefully taking the change of subject and running with it.

"Wise? Worship? I'm...." totally flattered? Despite the fact that he was sure they were exaggerating? Why yes of course! He took compliments on his intelligence when he could get them, but being the ever so humble creature that his parents had trained him to be, he couldn't help but just sort of shrug it off, "I'm a little dubious about your... ideas of me. I'm only a mere mortal..." even though he did have an unusually long lifespan for a bronzerider. He had now survived at least two major cullings in his life. Living relic was a more appropriate term for him than anything god-like.

"That being said..." his eyes drifted over to the scrolls G'tor was bothering with, "I've been alive enough to see the start of this war...and a rider at that and I'm not sure if even the oldest scroll will have any enlightening information... especially considering..." that Selenitas just now entered the war, "I am... discouraging you. I could be wrong. I have been before, and you're bright, there could jst as easily be something from threadfighting that applies to...f-fighting fighting." Dorava might have thought brainstorming was boring, but clearly the boys felt otherwise. Silly girls.

[Rowana]

G'tor let out a snort at Dorova's "worship" of his wingleader. It was hard not to simply burst into laughter again. The next few comments made him cough and turn pink with embarrassment. When had anyone mentioned making out? He could take humor as well as the next man, but he was actually fairly quiet about his relationships. If he ever had any relationships. "Now, now," he raised up his hands in defense. "No fighting over me." The idea did earn them a brief grin, even as he stepped back slightly.

He was about to offer a change of subject, when Mi'rah nearly let something slip. G'tor's eyes widened, but the other man thankfully kept it to himself. "Yes, well," G'tor scratched his head nervously. His feelings about Kaegan weren't something he really wanted to get out, especially since he wasn't really sure how serious they were. So good to escape that subject, he thought with relief. It was true, Mi'rah had been around longer than he had and probably knew more about any kind of drill than these scrolls did. G'tor sighed, poking at one of the scrolls he had out. "That's true," he admitted, a bit sad. "I can't say I'm the best person to do this either. Not like research was ever something I i did much of before now."