Errant Wherry [OPEN]

[nineofswords]

"Oh, I'll move to Fort Weyr," Garrett muttered to himself, his tone mocking. "It'll be great! It'll be a fresh start, I'll be around dragons, it'll be a barrel of laughs!" He snorted derisively, taking another tentative step towards the sound of the clucking. The damned escaped wherry was somewhere around here, and had been leading him on a merry chase (merry for it, anyway) around the Weyrbowl. Garrett knew he was close to one of the walls, and if he could just get the damn bird cornered, he could get his hands on it and haul it back to the pens.

Normally, Garrett wouldn't have bothered with a single wherry. After all, a dragon or wher would surely catch it to eat. But someone important had apparently stepped in herdbeast dung on a walk through the Weyrbowl and had thrown a fit, and so now the master of the herdbeasts was on everyone's case about keeping all of the animals contained. Why Garrett had been chosen to chase this particular creature was beyond him, but what did he know? He was just the blind guy running all over the Weyrbowl after a deranged bird.

The wherry let out a series of clucks and Garrett launched himself in its direction. The bird raised its wings, though, just as he leapt at it, and the wing smacked him in the face. He reeled back, eyes watering, holding his nose. "Faranth take you between!" he yelled after it. "Stupid forsking bird." Ugh. This day could not get any worse. Did he need to go to the healers? He gently started touching his nose and the area around it, trying to figure out if it was broken or bleeding.

[Dragon]

Briolette was trying not to laugh, really she was, but the candidate that was chasing after the wherry was just so obviously out of his depth. The way the wherry was getting the best of him ... well, it was funny, okay? Well, probably not for him, and she could certainly sympathize with trying to catch something that kept pulling off seeming acts of brilliance, but hey, you had to have a sense of humor about these things!

Besides, Brio was at a bit of a loss at the moment; Briosk was quite busy helping to mind the clutch he'd fathered (he was pleased as punch over that). It was strange; he'd been at her side near constantly for nineteen turns now.

When the wherry made its best attempt to break the candidate's nose, though, Briolette stopped watching in amusement and decided it was time to offer help. "Are you all right?" she asked as she moved closer. "It looks like he gave you quite the whack."

[nineofswords]

Garrett gritted his teeth when someone approached him. Of course. Of course someone had witnessed that utterly embarrassing encounter. He wasn't actually surprised, the Weyrbowl was a relatively busy place after all, but he didn't love it.

"I lost a fistfight with a wherry, do you think I'm alright?" he snapped. His eyes were watering, and the tears were streaking down his face, making it hard to tell if he was bleeding or if the warm wet on his face was just his tears. It was probably his tears, right? Bloody noses gushed more than this, didn't they? Forsk, he couldn't remember, and he never really got them.

The healers were all the way across the Weyrbowl he was fairly certain - he'd been so focused on the wherry that he might have gotten turned around a bit, no way to tell for sure - and if his nose wasn't broken, he'd basically be there by the time it stopped smarting. The stranger could tell him a lot faster if his nose was broken. But that would require asking for help. And worse, trusting their answer. Ugh.

A broken nose wouldn't kill him. He should probably figure out where the wherry went and wring its stupid neck before bothering with the healers. "You see where the damn bird ran off to?" He asked. "I still gotta catch it, and I'll be damned if I let it have the last laugh."

[Dragon]

"I don't give a forsking shard about the wherry," Briolette said briskly, coming over to try to inspect the lad's nose. He was certainly quite a bit older than any of her children - twenty, she'd guess, give or take a turn or two - but not old enough for her to think of as properly an adult that might be her equal. Especially not with a candidate's knots. Briogine could enter candidacy soon!

It was only when she got a good look at his face that she saw his eyes and realized he was blind.

"Let me have a look at you," Briolette ordered matter-of-factly, only missing a beat at the realization that he couldn't see properly. He must have lost his sight long enough ago that he'd adapted, or he wouldn't have been accepted as a candidate. "There's blood, and one of the dragonets from last winter's clutch can chase down the wherry. It'll make a nice snack for one of the littler ones." Never mind that she had no real intention of alerting anyone to the escaped bird; it didn't actually matter whether or not one wherry was in the pen. "Somebody needs to see whether or not the sharding bird broke your nose."

[nineofswords]

"Well I give a forsk about the wherry!" Garrett snapped. "It's my job to give a forsk about it in fact, so tell me where it went!"

He jerked away from her, covering his face when she said she wanted to get a look at him. "I can handle the damn wherry," he spat back. "There's no reason to bother the dragonets about it." There was no way he was going to be accused of shirking his duty if anyone found out he'd foisted this asinine task off on a weyrling.

"Look, lady," Garrett said, trying to move farther away from her, "unless you're a healer, I don't really think your opinion on whether or not I have a broken nose matters much. And if I wait to get it set after I catch a bird, the worst that happens is it heals crooked. Frankly, I think I'll live." Wasn't like he could see his face enough to be bothered by something like a crooked nose.

[Dragon]

Briolette pursed her lips, annoyed. It was one wherry, and far less important than a potentially broken nose. "Crooked, sure - and it could make it harder for you to breathe. This isn't about aesthetics."

Of course, the only reason Briolette knew about that was because one of her brothers had broken his. He could barely breathe through his nose as a result.

"If you're so determined to catch the wherry, though, by all means, do so." She didn't bother to gesture; it wasn't like he'd be able to see her.