[RUMOR] Great Ieyak

[Arcane]

Who is Ieyak and what is the source of her grudge against the Golden Ghost and Fort Weyr? Fort's scribes and harpers are searching the archives for any hints and welcome any extra hands.

[Windra]

Retsuko felt a bit useless, perusing about with one hand numbed to sensation and wearing too bulky a bandage to be of any real benefit to the scramble through scrolls. Yet she unrolled the faded hides out on tables to the best of her ability, scouring the words with a well-trained eye. She'd been in this room several times throughout her childhood. She should know the transcriptions from the back of her brain. So why was Ieyak not popping up from her recollections?

"Surely there must be something," she uttered softly. FoxFire was assisting by sitting on the scrolls' opposing sides as she read them, keeping them from rolling back up while her gaze roved. "There was mention of a .... a vengeful gold at some point, wasn't there? Didn't it attack ... Fort Hold some odd ... uh ... 14 or so turns ago?"

Whers could live a long time. Was it the same one?

[MothyCake]

While Aoi was a dragonrider now, he was also a harper journeyman. Though his days were spent flying and fighting Thread, he felt obligated to help against this new threat to Fort Weyr. He was looking through scrolls, Poppy sitting on his shoulder when he heard the candidate speak. He turned to Retsuko and nodded a bit, moving to walked over to her.

"Oh, I remember hearing about that. I was twelve turns old." Aoi remarked, moving to sit down near her, "There are stories of a large golden wher who roams the holdless lands. They called her the Golden Ghost." Though he had lived his entire life in Fort Weyr, he remembered the stories that were told after the incident.

"However, what we need to figure out is the reason behind the grudge." Aoi looked at Retsuko with a soft, warm smile, "I believe you're on the right track, but we would need to find a list of causalities from the attack for us to possibly learn the truth. However, even then, they may only list the number of causalities and not who died from the attack." He informed Retsuko, Poppy continuing to rest on his shoulder. She felt calm around her owner and, plus, the other flit and the dragon weren't around. She didn't have to share him!

[Windra]

Retsuko's brow furrowed on her patchwork face. A trace of doubt eked its way into her brain as she combed over words decades old. Fort Hold had dealt with so much trouble over the turns. But the Golden Ghost?

"I always heard she was benevolent?" she voiced aloud without quite looking in Aoi's direction. She was far too entranced with what legends unfurled before her own gaze, confusing though they might be. "The one I'm thinking of - I don't actually know that it killed anybody though ... More like stirred the pot, you know? Maybe ... maybe it was the Ghost?"

Retsuko gestured to FoxFire and rolled the scroll upwards to view more of what was trapped within the curls by her hands. The little green worked in tandem, stepping over, using her feet to lessen the mess of sprawled hide.

"And there was Evander's whole - " she shook her head, unwilling to raise her bad hand for a rude gesture "-thing. Sharding jacka - " She stopped, seeming to realize the distastefulness of her slur, and refocused. "Maybe it was a gold that got affected by the fallout somehow."

[MothyCake]

"That is true, Retsuko, but you also need to consider that the Golden Ghost is still a wild wher. Even with how benevolent she is, she will still prioritize her own survival instead of anything else. That's simply what it means to survive in the land of the holdless."

Of course, that was just Aoi's opinion. From what he heard, the holdless and the land they lived in was very hostile. Even with how nice and friendly he could be, he wasn't exactly sure he could trust a holdless. Perhaps if they had been a child born in the holdless, maybe. However, he was certain he would be unable to trust an adult from the holdless.

It just seemed like too big of a risk, Aoi thought to himself quietly.

"It could very well also be another gold wher, Retsuko. Just because the Golden Ghost is the one we know the most about, it doesn't mean that she could be the only one. Gold whers are much more common than we might expect. Surely, there could be more than just one in the holdless lands." He did his best to stiffle his chuckle at her attempt to not slur before smiling.

"I do believe you're on the right track. Let's see if we can find some more scrolls that could tell us more." He offered his hand to Retsuko, to help her stand up.