Meeting an Artistic theif...

[Tashe]

A silver glint shone brightly off a blade as it was angled into the sunlight, while its wielder sat back against an ancient pine. The candidate barracks had recently been growing more and more noisy as the date of the hatching grew nearer, forcing Saraina to seek out solitude from the eagerness of the others. It was annoying how the candidates who were sought out for this hatching only just recently couldn't stop talking about how excited they were or arguing about which dragon color they wanted. Being an honorary Weyrbrat, Saraina knew that you had to believe that you might in all likely hood, not get a dragon at all.

Growling slightly, the veteran candidate drove the knife into the ground before turning on her flit.
"And YOU don't help me at all! Going after all the Greens and all!" Tugging on the Royal Blue male's wing, Sara teased her little friend.

A squawk of protest erupted from the male as his mine accused him of being a trouble maker. Raising his wings as one of them was tugged at, Zor sent little images to Sara.

[neeuqtar]

Saraina wasn't the only one who was sick and tired of the eager, bouncy, bubbly, and above all else, annoying Candidates in the Barracks. Another had been doing his best to evade the hubbub in the Barracks since the very early morning--and the branches of an old evergreen tree were strong and many. Amber eyes peered down at the female Candidate and her little blue, set in a face of angles, the pale skin only barely starting to bronze, the silver-blond hair cropped short and combed carefully, the waves catching the light, making his hair grey here, silver there, gold elsewhere.

Taking care that he was well hidden by the needles, Uuvaenan picked a green pinecone out of a treehopper's nest. Yes, yes... a sly grin flashed across his face, a very wicked expression on the Candidate. Almost nonchalantly, he let the 'cone slip from his fingers. Oops, he thought to himself, as the 'cone fell without hardly rustling the needles through a convenient hole in the foliage, which remarkably happened to be situated just over the girl's head, though the 'cone was a little off, aiming more for her shoulder, sticky with fresh sap.

Those naughty little treehoppers, gnawing off pinecones and leaving them where innocent people could accidentally drop them ontop of hapless passer-bys! Wicked, wicked treehoppers. Uuvee felt another wicked smile on his face, and bit back a laugh, waiting for an outraged shriek, or perhaps an outraged blue flitter.

[Tashe]

A slight jerk on her shoulder and an outraged trill alerted her to what had happened to her little blue flit. As her eyes caught hold of Zor's sticky sap covered back and then the pine cone that now lay on the needle covered floor, Saraina pointed at her flit before erupting into laughter.

"Thats karma for you Zor. Maybe now you'll try an be less of a Shardin' flirt!"

Still chuckling over the Royal Blue's plight the female candidate rocked up onto her booted soles before striding over to her pack, while an annoyed flit threw a ruckus next to her ear. Rummaging around in the traveling pack for a moment, Sara withdrew a small canister of oil and a rag. Forcefully shifting the flit to her lap, the young woman tried to calm the male down before gently rubbing his back free of sap.

How dare the tree drop a sticky sap covered pine cone on him! It made him look less hansom! What would have happened if a green, or dare say it a gold came by and saw him all grossed up in grime?! Though as soon as his Mine started to wipe down his back, Zor cooed slightly before settling down his angry chatter.

[neeuqtar]

It was a flitt's shriek that greeted his ears, but it was music nonetheless. Oh, how he had missed playing his tricks on Yaaleh--but that last rockfall had put an end to that, and now Yaaleh was with his stone lover until Rukbat kissed Pern with his eternal fire, and the world roiled in the ectasy born of fire. Uuvee found himself smiling again, an expression that had not graced his saturnine features for a long time.

With grace born of perfectly attuned muscles, Uuvaenan walked down one of the large, drooping branches, only enough to make it sway. Perhaps the girl would see, maybe not--maybe her oily flitter would. Dead needles and a few twigs showered down, an odd sort of rain, but no stranger than the slow rain of black dust that Uuvee was no stranger to. He swallowed a chuckle, as he got higher in the old tree, high enough that he couldn't see the girl and her flit through the foliage.

Oops! Another pinecone just somehow dislodged from the branch, this one freshly plucked, the sap welling like clear honey from a comb, the pale wood under the bark oozing the sticky substance. Curious, Uuvaenan touched the sap with the tip of his tongue, and pale eyebrows flew up in surprise. It tasted good! Scratching another bit of bark off, he slipped, crashing down through the tree with a gasp of surprise, to end, legs hooked on a branch and both arms clutching narrow branches which drooped under his weight, directly above Sara.

His bare chest was scratched from the branches, but no blood, and the pale skin was smooth over powerful muscles. Rippled scars, silvery and from nothing too terribly deep, marked his shoulders in ridges, and his pants were caught on something and coming dangerously close to ripping in half or just getting pulled off, for he wore only a hempen belt. The young man smiled, almost bashfully, but didn't blush, no matter how embarrassed. And at last his chuckle welled up, and he laughed.

[Tashe]

The shower of pine needles had been the clue that alerted the woman to what ever had been lurking in the shadowed branches of the large pine. But only when the man fell out of the tree did she realize it was a person, though the connection to the dropped pine cone had fluttered into her mind before hand.
Blinking slightly as the young man dangled above her, Saraina raised an eyebrow as he began to laugh heartily about it.

"Ya' need some help there? Looks like your a small bit caught... but then again... you dropped a pine cone on my Flit... even though he deserved it."

Leaning back against her pack and resting her hands behind her head, the candidate shifted a small bit to the left so if the male unlodged himself and fell he wouldn't fall on her.

[neeuqtar]

"Ah... I'm-a good," he commented wryly, unhooking his legs with a wince and flipping over, before releasing the two branches he held the whip back up into the evergreen. Grimacing, Uuvaenan looked at his red and sticky palms, and tried to wipe the sap off on his pants, only managing to spread the stuff around and make his pants sappy. He sat down next to Saraina with a huff, stretching out one battered leg, then the next. There would be bruises tomorrow... big ones, probably purple and puffy, by the feel of it. Fantastic.

"I meant t'hitcha, not he," Uuvaenan informed her, stretching langorously. "Yahs never look'ich up." He shook his head at such folly, plucking the knife from the ground and twirling it around one finger before sending it flying back into the earth, point first. "Y'know knivins?" he asked curiously, lacing his fingers behind his head and leaning against the tree, apparently completely relaxed.

[Tashe]

"Oh well if you meant to hit me..." A roll of her eyes and a hint of sarcasm in her voice, was the way Saraina responded to the boy who had dislodged himself from the tree's grasp. Eying the strange male as he stretched out beside her looking as relaxed as if the two had been acquaintances for a long time, the female candidate shut her chattering Flit's mouth with a forefinger and thumb. "Normally I'm the only one who does look up... But my thoughts had gone somewhere else... and yes. I do know my knives, I couldn't easily be a good thief if I didn't."

But the way the boy had lain had sparked a sudden inspiration in Saraina, so with a sudden flurry of movement the girl produced a small square canvas and a pack of burlap covered pastels and charcoal. Carefully selecting a unused piece of black charcoal, the female began to draw swift but delicate strokes which would eventually be the outline of the boy and the tree.

[neeuqtar]

Uuvaenan had to smile at that. A thief, huh? Reformed one, probably, if she was saying it like it was nothing. He, too, had been a thief of sorts, though certainly not a very good one most of his life. Food, water, he could sneak with a little sleight of hand, but anything larger? Well, most of the time his thieveries were the extension of his justice. Dead men had no need baubles, and often they could sell for a decent scrap of money. All he had ever kept was his fine steel dirk--no one like him could ever afford something like that--and an uncut firegem, one he had stolen from in the mine.

He opened one eye to peer at what Saraina was doing. Drawing. Strange pursuit for a thief, though not for a lady. Uuvaenan decided it wasn't worth it to move, and besides, he's be in a picture. It was kind of interesting. "Thief, huh? Didja work th'liftin'-lay or were yahs a roof-walker?"

[Tashe]

"Lil' of both if you must know, the nobles didn' need all the money they had. The gang and I often gave the marks to the visitin' poor... like that old Robin Hood myth." Changing the charcoal she had for one of a finer quality, Saraina paused to stroke her Royal blue's head before returning to her work. "Nere got caught, till I made the mistake of trying to 'nick a Dragonrider's bag. My surprise when he wheeled me off to meh folks and told 'em I was to be a candidate stead of him pressin' charges. Another surpise when I found out it was the Weyrlingmaster... But... his bag was to finely made to not try and steal it." Crafting details into the boy's shirt and pants, the female candidate continued to draw with a straight face, as if everything she spoke about was as normal as Klah.

"Been here for five years I have, and I was forced to take up somethin' other than theiving. Though I tend to take a shine to some objects... no matter hiding the fact. I've been the source of Candidate misery from the time I got here. High standings in the eyes of the kids, low ones in the eyes of the adults... really don' matter to me." Pausing to look up from the almost complete sketch, Saraina continued. "Neretheless. Where you be ahailing from? Never seen you 'round before."