Ice Monster [Req]

[Lotty]

Osnat was bundled up like a sherpa. That was no exaggeration. She was a daughter of sunny shores. Even the harshest of coastline and the hardest seas were nothing compared to this winter wonderland she was stuck in. So she dressed accordingly. No cut off sleeves and sheer shirts for her, instead it was all about the furlined trapper hats, parkas, and big leather boots that she'd likely wouldn't be caught dead in any other time. Shards, she wasn't even sure why she had decided to come to this event, after all, she could be using this free time to take a trip to a warmer climate that she might actually enjoy. The only problem was that she also generally liked people - believe it or not - and it seemed that most of Pern was here in Fort. The bluerider then was left to make the best of it, and was encouraged by her dragon to wander away from Au'st to go on a bit of a solo adventure around the stalls of the gather.

I am quite amused by this all…mostly… Perienmoth was flourishing in this weather, and he was humming along so happily in his spot on the outskirts of the hold. Osnat and Leviathan were for the most part oblivious to the dragon's shenanigans, as the woman was busy plodding around the stalls eating Icewherry Wings with one hand as she kept check on the gold and regal salamander trying out different wares. She had gotten pretty good over the Turns at juggling both her dragon's and her pet's constant demands for attention, but she was only human. Perry was the less boisterous and dangerous of her mindmates and thus his current predicament was going primarily ignored as she snickered at Levi's heckling with a merchant, Listen you! 'Spect terrible and great Leviathan. Honor with tithings to mandyr queen!

Mouth half full Osnat explained to the confused worked, "Don't listen to her. She is just…" Osnat! "given' you a hard time, if you throw a pebble she will probably try'n…" Osnat! "chase…" OSNAT! "WHAT!?"

She probably looked half crazed, cutting off her conversation to yell over her shoulder as the disembodied voice that was floating around in her head, but such was the risks one ran when you were bonded to a dragon. Leviathan sensing something much more exciting that shinies and little baubles jumped down from the counter she was terrorizing to bound to Osnat's shoulder as she spun around in place and subconsciously started towards where she left Perienmoth. The whole way she listened as he continued to urge her on, You should come see. I told you I matched the surroundings here, and strangle littles here apparently agree. They are calling me Ice Monster. Whatever does this mean? I am no monster… but they are collecting rope, how shall I ward them off? It is not my station to battle with the littles.

"Oh, shit," Osnat picked up the pace, and ditched the remnants of her snack to sprint as best she could in her bundled state back towards her glacial bonded. It hadn't occurred to her once that the icy hues of her ride would cast him as some kind of living snow creature in the over active imaginations of some naive hold children, but there he was, slipping into her view with kids hanging on his tail and others attempting to slide down his nose or bury him deeper into the snow. Not quite annoyed the dragon had a certain wide eyed bewildered expression that stopped the woman in her tracks and forced out a wide smile and laugh. A small audience had even began to gather as the confused blue made for an easy punching bag, one or two snowballs having been packed and launched at Perienmoth's side. His rider looked up and urged him, Buck up man! You gotta GROWL at them!

But then they'll cry. How unbecoming to make the littles cry.

[Requiem]

It was hard to recognize anyone bundled up as they were. Turned out that even coming with a person and knowing in a general sense what they were wearing was not going to be enough to actually identify them. There were only so many variations of cold weather gear, particularly in this type of crowd. The bluerider was leaning back against a stall, an earthenware mug of spiced klah warming his hands, as he attempted to will someone who could be recognized through multiple layers of clothing into his line of sight. Of course, he could have always just asked Xinatenth to break his customary silence (with other dragons, anyway) long enough to get back in touch with the crowd he'd come with but...well, Xina's long commentary on a snowflake sitting on his snout was too amusing to interrupt. What A'nd wondered was just how Xinatenth had isolated only the one snowflake.

As per usual, all it took was a semi-curious half-formed thought to direct the blue's monologue. Like hearths above, begun with single core, each to burst in patterns sharp and bright, but not alike. Not identical. Unique as the mind signature of dragons, of people, a different prism of color dancing within. Mhm. Who told you that? You can't see your own snout. With but the faith of a- Snowflake? Seed. Do seeds have faith? From seeds spring great- Watermelons. Mine, Xinatenth breathed in exasperation. The size. The size of a seed. So you're guessing. Believing. Listening too much to the stories you have me read you. Have you found your friends yet? A'nd laughed, not caring that it drew some odd glances from people who could not figure out why a young man standing alone was laughing at what appeared to be nothing. At least until they noticed his knots. Fair enough. I'll let you return to your discourse on the snowflake that you can't see. The blue's irritation was infused heavily with fondness.

Unlike the majority of the people here, A'nd was quite easily recognizable. Being from the north and stationed at Inverness Weyr, the teenager's flight leathers were well-insulated and furred. He'd worn fingerless gloves since he first Impressed Xina just under two turns ago. His only true concessions to the cold that departed from the norm were a scarf wrapped loosely about his neck and a leather cap pulled down over his head to cover his ears. He displayed his knots as proudly as he wore the riding leathers. Some liked to dress up in gather finery - or as eskimos - but the young bluerider was proud of Xinatenth and his rather late addition to the ranks of Inverness dragonriders. Whether it earned him wariness from Holders or not.

Speaking of eskimos...Monster? The cooing, half-growl of a question came from the tiger-striped green peering out from beneath a loose loop of the scarf. Her attention was focused curiously on the ice-like blue that a bunch of little eskimos were currently trying to take down by jumping on. A'nd couldn't help but smile his amusement at them. Yes, because we all jump on real monsters. In the back of his mind he heard Xinatenth's topic change to what made something a monster, waxing philosophical (and considerably more interesting than discussions of snowflakes). But he was distracted by an overly curious Cootie who felt that now was the perfect time to run off and investigate. A'nd heaved a sigh and left the half-finished klah on the counter of the stall. Really, normally he trusted Cootie just fine, but around so many stomping feet churning the snow into slush...

Striding quickly after her, he indeed ended up bending down and capturing an ankle of one of the eskimos while snatching the green up with his other hand. "Really? You think it's a good idea to be scurrying around in this?" he questioned Cootie, who crooned to him and licked at his fingers. Then he set the foot down and glanced up at yet another eskimo, though this one wasn't quite child-sized. A flash of a smile that was part apologetic, part polite. Clearly he didn't recognize her. "Which one of these little heroes is yours?" he questioned, figuring that if she was after one of the tykes the least he could do was help out for invading her personal space as he had.

[Lotty]

There was a kid on him. Literally, one had managed to climb up and amble up onto his back like it was just no thing. He might as well have been a tree, with the way the brownhaired little tyke just plucked at the dragon's angles and swung his arms towards hanging harnesses and leathers. Obviously the child of dragonriders, he showed much too much familiarity with the creatures to be any of the many holder children that were gathered around below, tossing snow balls Perienmoth's way. Osnat actually felt a pang of legitimate concern. How was the tenacious little brat going to get back down? She'd be damned if she was the one left liable for the kid falling and breaking his neck, but before she could jog off and try and fetch the child she found herself distracted by the voice that broke beside her.

"Ah... yeah...." she started, pulling her thoughts together in that moment. Her brain had been spinning. Too quickly in fact, and she couldn't quite add A'nd's words immediately to the mix. It wasn't until she heard a child's name yelled in the background, echoing demands that he get down right now! that she calmed enough to think. The girl was not exactly the best at accommodating multiple tasks in her brain at the time, "Sadly 'nough the kid I claim is the biggest one there...." she pointed right at the blue dragon and in turn he waved a greeting, wiggling his tail out in front of him in polite recognition. "Big blue, Perienmoth. My one 'n only...." she said it rather dryly before Leviathan popped her head out to protest, No. Levi one an only. Fool.

"Hmmm yes... and Leviathan. Demanding snot."

She might have settled into a smile then, but she made the mistake of trying to actually think about what it is that A'nd said, and her mouth sunk into a concerned frown. He had thought her the parents of one of these kids, and the concept shook her. She didn't look like a breeder did she? Perhaps her layers and layers of clothes betrayed her, and suggested some sort of holder woman lingering underneath. So it was that she slid her eyes over asked in a lighter tone, "Do I look too terribly motherly?" Oh she hoped to Faranth she didn't. Still too young she was for that nonsense with the babies and the crying and the lost sleep. Ugh.

Shaking the thought off she conceded instead her name, "Osnat. Recognize you a bit from places round Inverness. Can't place a name..." she knocked her hand lightly against her head, as if it would make some hollow empty sound. At least she had no delusions of grandeur.

[Requiem]

With Cootie safely - if not entirely contently - off the ground and away from the churning feet, the young man returned the blue's wave. A handsome creature, he thought to himself, and he suited the season rather perfectly, didn't he? Such a thought could not help but draw the attention of the poetic mind whispering to him in that ceaseless way Xinatenth had. A pause even was given as the young blue stirred himself from his perch on one of the walls of Fort Hold, taking to the air. If there were winter spirits embodied in dragons around, the youthful male wanted to see for himself.

The bluerider couldn't really help the teasing smile when he noticed her discomfiture. A great many things tended to amuse him, but for some reason or other his humor often wasn't shared by those around him. A'nd had yet to learn that treating everyone as a familiar tended to provoke misunderstandings. "A'nd," he supplied. Normally he would have qualified that so that she'd be sure to understand that the syllable wasn't the more common conjuction and actually represented his name, but he was in too playful a mood for that presently. Perhaps it was the sound of all the kids that provoked it. "Though considering I didn't recognize you at all, I can hardly complain if all you forgot of me is my name."

The dark brown eyes were expressive in his youthful face, laughing even if the teenager himself had more firm control over his reactions. "In all honesty, you're so well-bundled I can barely make out if you're female or not, yet alone the motherly type," he teased, laughter shivering just beneath the surface of the words. "Your concern and the fact that you were paying attention to the dragon and all the kids throwing snowballs was what made me think one of them might be yours. Now I see that I was right. Yours just happens to be the biggest troublemaker of the bunch." His nose wrinkled playfully at her, before his attention was stolen by a murmured reaction of excitement that went through the gathering of kids.

Xinatenth had arrived. His coloring was a rich, dull blue-gray that while nice enough in its hue and adding to the elegance of the male's graceful form, wasn't particularly interesting after a moment's study.But the sunlight had filtered through his expansive wings and dappled the snow with a variety of colors in the pattern of a peacock's proud and vibrant plumage, and naturally had drawn many eyes of the gathered younglings. From the very breath of Frost formed, a dragon of frozen glass, Xinatenth greeted Perienmoth with open admiration.

"And there's mine. If you'll excuse me for just a moment..." The kid who had climbed Perienmoth was now leaning out toward the second blue settling into the clearing - and temporarily putting a stop to the snowball attack by proxy - and looked as if he might slip off at any mo- And yes, there he went. A'nd reached the dragon in just enough time to catch the kid, who looked altogether stunned, then managed to look quite lost himself as he glanced around. So, um, now what was he supposed to do with the monkey?

[Lotty]

Distracted only momentarily by the sight of another blue swinging around in the air towards them, Osnat turned to face the fellow rider. Her mouth was twisting even then in subtle amusement, as she considered her next action. Shards it would be cold for her, but then at least she had the benefit of that thick, longish hair to cover up her ears. Pulling at her hood, she peeled back the fuzzy fur lined head covering to reveal her face just a tad bit better. She didn't particularly think that this would ring any further bells as to her identity, but it did seem a little bit more... polite maybe... to show that there was in fact a human being there underneath the layers of clothes and not just a voice amongst all of the fluff. The girl was getting a little bit better at the whole manners thing. It had taken turns and turns, and she still didn't have it all down, but this was her hard at work at making some kind of progress.

Honestly the only reason she had even begun to try was because she was rather sick of the odd looks and strange foreign feeling of guilt that had started to wash over her every single time she made some social gaff. At first when she had arrived as a candidate to Selenitas she was thoroughly oblivious to most of her wrongdoings. Then she didn't even consider the idea she was at fault - clearly everyone else was just weird - but now, thanks largely to her dragon's keen sense of right and wrong, she knew very well that she was not infallible and that furthermore, she was the fish out of water in mainstream society. Loud mouth sailor girls with thick accents and male mannerisms were not exactly the norm, and while a part of her wanted to cherish this "unique" status, she also wasn't one completely opposed to some sort of compromise.

"And....?" She drawled at first hanging on his words for a moment as she waited for more to be supplied to her, but when nothing followed, Perienmoth filled in the gaps, Xinatenth's rider. That is his name I believe. It is not a trick. Or rather it is, but a clever and mostly harmless one. Don't hurt your head over it. Nod and smile mine... It might have been a little condescending of the dragon, but then he had a certain manner sometimes that made that tone hard to avoid. He was arrogant in the most charming ways, all shining and knight like with a preference for formalities when he could. Osnat had long grown used the stark contrast between herself and her dragon, and the thought of it alone cracked her expression if nothing else.

"To be fair... there are some who confuse me, parka ar not. From behind I am sometimes considered a scrappy looking boy... with a great arse," she nodded in good humor thinking back on the times she had been thought to be something or somebody that she wasn't.

But then A'nd was running off after the dragon and the kid, and Osnat felt compelled to follow, albeit at a slightly slower pace. She was trying to rationalize at the moment. If the kid fell off of her dragon how was that in any way her fault? It wasn't like she could carry around a sign with her that said "do not climb" to steak out in front of her bonded. As the tyke landed into A'nd's arms with an impish oof, the woman decided to relieve the other rider of some of his bewilderment by plucking the kid up from underneath his arms. She pulled the urchin up to her face, handling him as easily as any sack of firestone despite his struggles to wiggle free, "Hey, I heard yer ma callin you. Climb on yer own dragons ok? Until then," she twisted the kid around to face A'nd, "Say a thanks to the guy who saved ya a trip to the healers and a grounding by yer folks." She was hardly harsh with the kid, but she didn't want him off free, and really the bluerider did deserve a thank you really.

Perienmoth had been a little... preoccupied. If a dragon had the ability to go cross eyed, he would have as the kid traveled over his snout and perched there momentarily. The blue found himself so stilled that he was almost scared to even mindspeak and properly greet his fellow dragon. As the kid dropped off and fell into the rider's arms, Perry found a sigh of relief rush through him and craning his neck back up replied to Xinatenth happily, though with a distinctly less poetic flair, You flatter me with such beautiful words. You leave me at a disadvantage, for I am no artist with speech, the dragon's eyes whirled in pleasant contentment, all signs of worried yellow quickly draining from the hide matching blues. He noted now how the children seemed to calm, entranced clearly by the prismatic quality of his company's wings and the effects it had on the snow below, You are certainly impressive yourself, oh he of glasswork wings, tamer of the wild littles.

[Requiem]

He couldn't help the cheeky grin at the bluerider as she pulled back her hood. "Well, I hope it doesn't offend you, but I don't think I could make that mistake...from behind or buried beneath several layers of clothes." Perhaps it was odd to mention it offending Osnat, but there was a stereotype that followed female blueriders and something in how the woman said it hinted at something almost like pride or pleasure. Also, her muted dismay when he'd asked which of the 'kids' was hers...all made him wonder if maybe she didn't just like being mistaken for a guy. The young man didn't really know why he'd seen her as a woman from the start...maybe it was how she walked, which, well, a woman can't really imitate a man exactly when she walks even if she's swaggering, just because her center of gravity is different. Not that A'nd could tell you what the difference was or anything. Whatever the reason, though, he'd never thought she was a man even before the hood came down.

It wasn't long before A'nd was down a wriggling child, the young man looking hardly less lost now that he didn't have the boy than he'd looked a moment ago. That only became more true as the kid -suspended in midair- was turned about. It was pretty clear that the little one shared his impression of the whole thing, his face all screwed up in confusion and unease with being held like this. "It's okay, Osnat. Can we just..." A'nd made a gesture as if to take the boy back, or at least encourage her to set him down, when the concerned mother was suddenly upon them in a flurry of mother bear anger that frankly left A'nd feeling a bit at a loss. He stared at her blankly as she snatched the young one from Osnat's arms and snugged him close, glaring at the female dragonrider with something that looked suspiciously like accusation.

"Keep your hands off my boy," she snapped, eyes flashing. A'nd was rather rooted to the spot, torn between stepping back and half-hiding behind Osnat and stepping in front of her instead. The woman continued, "I don't know who you people think you are, but you have no right." Before A'nd could find his tongue, at least, she'd whirled on a heel and flounced off, with the kid grinning like a little devil back over her shoulder at them. Glancing sidelong at Osnat, a few seconds passed, then the young bluerider broke out into laughter."You'd think we'd just tried to feed him to your Perienmoth." Speaking of which, he glanced at the two dragons now fairly near each other, an amused look stealing over his face. It seemed that the snowball war was now back on, and even though Xinatenth was not the primary target, he was still getting caught in the crossfire.

A lukewarm tamer; the assault renews. My brave frost impersonater who is more an artist than he perceives, shall we not encourage these wildlings to find targets more their diminuitive size? Your help I would greatly value. So saying, he swept his tail over the snow, half-burying their wily little rowdy hunters underneath a rather thick layer of the frothy precipitation.

[Lotty]

Osnat smirked, out from behind the squirming child she was holding. She found the other bluerider to be thoroughly... interesting. Good conversation if nothing else, and despite the young rider's claims he wasn't coming off nearly as abrasive as he seemed to think. Not offensive really, his comment... well it was almost a compliment. Almost. She wasn't going to push any further in case he added some cheeky comment about her clearly being an ugly girl, but a girl all the same. She didn't assume herself all that attractive anyway, but hell, nobody wanted to hear that from another person.

She was mid-giggle, and working on the starts of some kind of retort when the woman stormed over to reclaim her child. Oblivious as she was, the sudden jerking caused her to clamp down on her fingers for a second before the presence of the mother overwhelmed her, and she relinquished control quickly and without any further protest. In fact, as the tirade spilled out from the angry mother, Osnat did a class A job of zoning it out. She rather wouldn't address the woman in any way, and instead decided to share incredulous looks with A'nd. The widening of her eyes and the slant of her brows said it all, was this lady really serious right now?

It was to Osnat's credit that she didn't say anything at all, and bit her tongue through the long, dragging, moment. In the past she would have done any number of classless things, perhaps even thrown a punch right at the woman's nose, but over the Turns she had learned some sense of reserve. She wasn't a teenager anymore, and definitely didn't get to bask in the anonymity that came with being just another resident of the hold. She had a big ass dragon that left her with a virtual target on her back every time she stepped into the public. It was quite troublesome if she could say so herself, though she wasn't willing to trade Perienmoth for the world.

As the woman departed with the kid, Osnat shrugged and blurted for A'nd's benefit, "Faranth. Whatta bitch..." but then she was mostly an afterthought at this point, "I think she just needs ta get laid. She'd probably be a bit calmer... whatever.... our dragons seem to be hittin it off..." Though she didn't expect that they wouldn't. Perienmoth had some of the most difficult and - in her opinion - unlikable dragons on all of Pern in his clutch, yet somehow he had gotten through weyrlinghood without even a scratch. Surely there was little that would brush the blue dragon's hide the wrong way.

Which was true, though Perienmoth was slightly confused nonetheless.... which was somewhat bothersome he supposed. It wasn't usual for the dragon to be so perplexed by the words of others, even with the fancy verbal acrobatics that some in their weyr liked to use, but lukewarm tamer was most definitely lost on him, even if the last bit he could at least latch onto and run with, I do concur that something must be done about these... these wildings. If only we could split them, and have them throw these snowballs at each other instead of us... And just as he finished the though a wad of snow exploded onto his face. He rumbled slightly, almost dejectedly, before ducking his nose under his wing joint and wiping the offending stuff off of him.

[Requiem]

"She must have gotten laid at one point, at least," A'nd pointed out, amused. A person does not acquire kids by being celibate, after all. Didn't necessarily mean that her man didn't decide that putting up with that overprotectiveness was just more effort than it was worth, however. The bluerider knew that she'd noticed her son's escapades, so ignoring the obvious and berating the people who helped the kid out was rather...well, bitchy, as Osnat had said. Certainly ungrateful.

Glancing at the pair of dragons himself, A'nd hid a smile. "I think sometimes dragons don't really know what to do with Xinatenth. He either doesn't say anything at all or he talks like a harper who is too impressed with his own wordcraft...it can be off-putting. Xina doesn't do it on purpose. He's not really full of himself or anything. It's just one of his quirks." A'nd shrugged a shoulder mildly, dismissing the topic.

Rumbling his agreement, Xinatenth couldn't help but be amused at the timing of the snowball that burst apart on Perienmoth's face. The peacock blue swept his tail slowly through the snow (not wanting to actually upend any of the human littles) in an effort to half-herd some of them to the other side of him. There were giggles and shrieks of mock-fear that sounded a good deal more like delight as the younglings tried to evade the 'monster's' tail.

"Think they'll be all right left to their own devices?" he questioned of his companion. A'nd was curious to see more of the Gather, and he didn't really see how they could be of much help in this snow war between the dragons and children. It wasn't like Perienmoth and Xinatenth couldn't easily extricate themselves by simply flying away, and they weren't weyrlings to lose control and accidentally hurt one of the small ones. "I haven't really had much of a chance to explore yet," A'nd added wistfully.

[Lotty]

Perienmoth watched as Xinatenth used his tail so proficiently with an easy movement before he himself tried a similar feat to heard those closer to him to his own side. Curling his tail around he tapped a couple of children on the shoulder for their attention before jerking his head in a clear direction. A content blue rolling around in his eyes, he tried to funnel the majority of the snowy projectiles in a direction away from him. While certainly he would still be a target for the kidlets over in Xina-land, a glass half full in this case was for the better. Hopefully they would be aiming around him to get to their true adversaries anyway.

"Aye," Osnat simply replied at first as she contemplated his words. It certainly was a curious matter to her - that the other rider had so easily grown accustomed to Xinatenth's apparent prowess with frilly words and such. She didn't know that she would so gracefully be able to be the receptor of such language, but perhaps there was some science behind it all that she didn't understand. She thought perhaps that she could ask him about it some day... try and figure out if he was just gifted enough to know all those heady words to begin with or if it was something that came to him over time.

It just wasn't a very important topic at the moment. There were things you share over klah, and then other things you talk about in the very public sphere that was the gather.

So she amiably agreed to A'nd's question, nodding a good bit before saying, "Oh yeah, yeah... they'll be fine. A dragon tis a hard thing to loose track of..." although, considering the next thing that the younger rider said, "and even if they can cause trouble on their own, they seem to keep busy when in pairs." So hopefully this time she wouldn't have to interrupt her own explorations to answer Perry's sudden calls, "My exploring got interrupted by all these shenanigans. So uh... yeah, it would good times for sure if we get away now while we still have a chance." She looked at the tracks she made running out to the field, and though they have been long criss crossed by fresher ones, she still considered following at least one set of prints back towards the various stalls. Personally she kinda wanted to see what was up with the ice sculptures that she had heard so much about.

NO! Purchassse crown for Queen Levi. You forgets majesty. "Don't mind her," though Osnat was surprised that the gold mandyr kept her mouth closed as long as she did. To ensure continued silence however, the bluerider pushed the mandyr back down again under her fur-lined collar where the gold was free to struggle and cry her frustrations, creating a comical wiggling underneath the thick coat even as the woman turned to head back towards the main gather.

[Sorry I took so long, first I missed your response and then it took me a while to get my brain functioning again.]