3 AM (Osnat/WL month 5)

[Zephyr]

Swim?

“ Yes. Swim, Oth.” Gus sighed, putting his hand to his forehead. Oth and Gus were standing near the weyrbowl. The brown’s tail was thrashing back and forth in his uncertainty as he stared into the water, wariness coloring his eyes. Au’st had brought the dragon down to learn to swim. The boy had tried to get away doing the bare minimum with his dragon, but there were some things he just couldn’t get away with not doing. In fact, he had to drag the brown to the water. If it were possible, he was stupider than he was. Rumbling lightly, Oth looked up at his rider. Why? Sighing heavily, Gus shrugged, voice raised slightly. “ I don’t know why. I imagine they want you to be able to swim in case you fall in the water or something. I don’t make the rules.”

Obviously. Oth said, growling lightly and staring into the water again. Gus sighed heavily. Amelia was sitting in his shoulder, watching the dragon with curious eyes. Normally she would be sleeping around now, waiting for the night, but she couldn’t resist watching this. Oth hadn’t been pleased with his rider’s impression of the green, but she had grown on him, mostly because of the dragon’s love of all thing female. Amelia herself was endlessly pleased with the idea of a brown less intelligent than she, and she loved teasing the slow dragon…not that he would ever really retaliate. Maybe if she upset him too much…not that she would. Despite her teasing, she liked him, but knew that Gus would always protect her, even if she did cross the line. She hung from their bonded’s neck, tiny claws gripped into the fabric of his shirt, eyeing the brown with amusement. Stupid baby. Swim. Not that Amelia knew much about swimming, since she had just hatched, but she could still tease him.

Gus was at a loss at how he was going to teach the baby dragon to swim. Hm. Well, he’d been told once the best way to learn is just to jump in. “ Just get in the water, Oth.” When the brown didn’t move, the frustrated weyrling got on the ground, back to the brown and started pushing against him using his feet. “ Come on! Just get in. Sink or swim Oth!” Unfortunately, Oth was a very large dragon, even not fully grown, and Gus wasn’t having much luck in doing anything other than ruin his boots and cause Amelia to chirrup in amusement.

This was going to be harder than he thought.

[Lotty]

As Au'st was busy struggling with his dragon woes, Osnat was finding that she was having very little trouble at all getting hers into the water - which was good, because the girl herself was very much a swimmer. She was by necessity after all, and having lived a lifetime at seaholds, it should have been no surprise that she had a way of cutting through the waves like a fish. Sure Perienmoth might not be so smooth as she was, but he definitely had no qualms with taking a shot at it, and as Oth made his last great stand on the edge of the water, the blue dragon made sure to shoot past him, well within sight, bugling merrily the whole time, before his body hit the lake and he made a great splash that was sure to drop some spray onto both the weyrling and his brown dragon.

Osnat wasn't too far behind. She had been coming at a sprint too in an attempt to merely keep up, but upon seeing her friend down in the weyrbowl, she put on some speed so that she could catch Gus by surprise just as well. If her solidly built blue didn't already cause enough trouble, she was in for some horse play of her own, running up along the brown pair on the opposite side, and with a quick grab attempted to pull and drag Gus out from behind Oth's big butt, to go in with her as she dove straight into the lake. Successful or not, she herself was enveloped with the water fast, and after a moment of sitting down on the lake's floor with the moss and weeds, she popped back up to continue some jabs at her only real friend in the entire weyrling class, "Gus! What's up bro? Havin troubles?"

Perienmoth then tried to paddle his way over to his rider, all the while craning his neck to look over at Oth. How curious. A dragon that didn't want to be in water? However was he supposed to be clean? His brothers were just always filled with the strangest of quirks now weren't they? Sliding over so that Osnat could grab around his neck, Perienmoth in his fraternal matter and good nature jested a bit, mentioning to Oth out loud, Brothermine, why do you resist so much? Afraid that it's going to bite? He then whipped up his tail a few times to throw droplets and waves around some more, specifically in the brown's direction, See, it really isn't so bad... He was trying to be helpful. Honestly.

[Zephyr]

Oth was silent as Perienmoth bellowed, leaping into the water like some mad man. The water that rained down on his being didn't earn so much as a flick of his tail. He wasn't afraid of getting wet. He just didn't see the point in learning to swim. He was so much bigger than the others, Kallandrith aside. Why should he have to learn how to swim when his real task should be learning to fly? It really baffled him, and when Oth didn't see a point in something, Oth didn't want to do it.

Au'st, on the other hand, was a little less impressed with the water the blue dragon splashed them with. At the first sign of water, he pressed himself into Oth's hide, hopefully shielding himself from the worst of the water, but it still fell on him in copious quantities. " You sharding stupid dragon. Why don't you just get in the water?" He was a little preoccupied with Oth, so he didn't notice Osnat coming up behind him. It didn't even occur to him that she would be behind her dragon, and when she grabbed him, his eyes opened and he made a small sound of surprise as he felt himself falling into the water, Amelia was shrieking indignantly and her claws dug into Gus's skin before she jumped away from him at the last minute, wings spread wide. Soon, he was swamped with cold water.

He surfaced, gasping and treading water, only to see Osnat there, looking terribly pleased with herself. He splashed her heartily in retaliation, not that it would matter that much anyway, since she was already wet. " He won't get in the water." He said, turning to eye Oth suspiciously. Amelia was perched on Oth's head, glaring at Osnat, chattering obscenities.

Oth wasn't affected by any of this. If anything, his tail started to thump on the ground a little harder than it needed to as he eyes his brother in the water. He glared at Perienmoth, growling a little. Not afraid. He said resolutely. Why on earth would he be afraid of water. No point. He said at last. WHY wouldn't anyone tell him why he would want to be in the water in the first place? This was getting irritating.

[Lotty]

At the rebuttal splash that came her way, the weyrling couldn't help but stick out her tongue, and release her casual grip on Perienmoth's neck to put her hands up to the sides of her head like goofy antlers. She waggled her fingers there for a moment before deciding that enough was enough in the taunting department, and relaxed again to commiserate a bit with Gus' predicament. Not that she knew a whole lot about creatures that didn't like the water, but at least she could level with the general concept stubborn dragons. Every dragon seemed to have some point of contention that was not only illogical, but baffling and annoying. For Oth it was apparently swimming, for her blue it was his constant battles with Venideth.

Ignoring Amelia's chattering - she was frankly lucky that Levi hadn't been brought along, the gold would not have tolerated anything about this situation - the woman nodded her head and joked back at the brown weyrling, "Awwwh bummer bud..." she wondered why for a moment before she was filled in by her own dragon's conversation with Oth, "Peri tells me that it's because he don't see the point in it... or somethin," she waded another moment before slipping back to casually float on top of the water as she tried to think of a way to lure the brown dragon out to them, "have you tried just tellin' him its a good time? I mean, surely he likes to have fun doesn't he? Or at least maybe tell him that the point is that he has to for you guys to pass weyrlinghood.... that should be motivation if nothing else." Not having M'ta yelling at you was a good enough reason to do anything Osnat thought. She wasn't particularly intimidated by him, but the short bugger with all his pointy knives was simply the type of character that she had learned was better left unprovoked.

The blue was somewhat amused that his brother seemed so frustrated about this, and returned the brown's growls with a calming croon. Now, now, there was simply no reason for this kind of behavior, I see, I see my Oth. But how do you know there is no point until you try it yourself? I do propose you give it a go. If you see no benefit, I will never urge you to swim with me again... Wondering then how competitive his clutch brother could be, the blue swished a bit more in the water before edging closer to where the brown remained resolute on the shore, I do say... we could race. What do you think of that? His eyes whirled a happy blue for the moment, nearly getting lost in the similarly brilliant color of his hide.