[PLOT] [Investigation] Probably Those No-Good Holdless

[Fel]

Come on. We let Holdless in, suddenly people are getting poisoned? It's obviously one of them. Let's search their rooms while they're out!

[Fel]

F'ola had little doubt that this was the fault of the Holdless. There simply wasn't enough "coincidence" to go around; there was no chance that a bunch of hoodlums and miscreants came into the Weyr and mysteriously people happened to start getting poisoned. Maybe the first few they'd let in had finally let their true colors show, maybe those who had arrived later were stirring up trouble just because they were here now and they could. Either way, F'ola wasn't about to stand for it.

Shamelessly, she shuffled through the things in the clothing chest, searching. There would be evidence here, she knew it. "I'm telling you, it was just a matter of time. Letting these people in was obviously a mistake. If we had a proper goldrider instead of this insane failed Council experiment, this never would have happened."

[nineofswords]

Maritza hadn't been hit as hard as most by the poisonings, but she still couldn't help but feel she'd been targeted deliberately as someone on the council, and not just someone on the council, but as the only outwardly outspoken council member against the holdless. So of course she was going to be searching their rooms while they were out. This was personal, and they'd made it that way.

As she sifted among this person's belongings alongside the greenrider, she shot them a sharp glance. "Believe me, not everyone on the council thinks that letting those criminals in was a good idea," she said. "But goldriders can't be trusted anymore than these people can. You of all people should understand, being a greenrider, that you can't trust the metallics. They corrupt people's minds, make them subjugate everyone with a dragon smaller than theirs. They're menaces."

[Fel]

There's quite a bit of food stored among the person's effects; proof that they're hoarding food that they know is safe to eat?

[Fel]

F'ola snorted softly. "One bad goldrider shouldn't condemn every one who comes after. Besides, even Golre and her most favored bronzeriders didn't do anything that they weren't fully within their rights to do. I was only here for the very end of their time, but..." She shrugged. Even if they'd committed what some might see as atrocities, even if she hated them for looking down on her, she'd deserved it, hadn't she? She was only a greenrider.

She continued pawing through the Holdless person's things. There was a lot of food in here. That was weird, but then Holdless people were all either criminals or the child of one--and therefore had learned everything they knew from criminals. It stood to reason that they'd all be weird.

"Anyway, my mind hasn't been corrupted. Don't belittle me by assuming my opinions aren't something I arrived at on my--" F'ola suddenly went silent, holding up a stale bit of bread. What if the hoarding wasn't just some irrational Holdless thing.

"What if... this person knew something we didn't ahead of time?" she asked slowly, turning the bread over in her hand.

[Dragon]

"What if... this person knew something we didn't ahead of time?"

The words caught Hai'ku's ear, and he peeked into a room being occupied by some of the ex-holdless. He hadn't intended to snoop, he really hadn't, but when he saw that F'ola had found a stockpile of food ...

"That does look suspicious," he said warily. He wasn't one to speak up very often, but the poisonings around the Weyr had him worried enough to push past his reticence. "Why would they ... this doesn't seem right."

[Arcane]

Aragon had thought the weyr was safe. He had risked his life, lingering in the shadows of dragons, because it was supposed to be safe.

His sons were supposed to thrive here. To never again have to be afraid.

But Ealar had come closer to death in the weyr's hallowed halls than he ever had, in their lives before, even when the cold came and the food was scarce.

Had Aragon made a mistake in demanding they stay?

Lost in his thoughts, he found his footsteps naturally tracing their way towards the family's old rooms, where they had stayed before Ragosk.

He froze, at the sight of riders, in the hallway where many of the holdless had been allowed to stay. Outside of a room not far from the one he'd once occupied.

He cleared his throat and demanded, "What the forsk are you doing?"

[Fel]

Whoever's bed this is apparently also has a knife under the pillow. And another under the mattress.

[nineofswords]

"One bad apple can poison the whole barrel," Maritza countered. "And when that apple is the biggest of the bunch and has the power to command all the other apples, you get a barrelful of rot a whole lot faster. Golds are thankfully extremely rare, but one person - or dragon - having all that power is dangerous for everyone." It went to their heads, and they always found a way to make that everyone's problem. Maritza didn't trust them, and she had no desire to start.

Maritza tensed up, ready for a fight, but then F'ola brought up a very good point. Maritza narrowed her eyes. "You're right..." she said. She knew it. This was just the proof she needed, too! "I'm going to bring this to the council's attention," she said. "You're my witness." She glanced over as someone else poked their head in. "You too. We need to make it clear that these people are the problem, that they're the ones doing this to us!"

She started tossing the room in earnest, just to make sure they hadn't missed something, and that's when she found the knives. "See? Even more proof!"

At Aragon's demand, she stuck her head out of the room and scowled. "Is this your room?" she demanded, her tone immediately hostile as she clocked his brand. "Because if not, you should move along, sir."

[Dragon]

Hai'ku jumped as someone - a branded someone - cleared his throat and demanded to know what they were doing. He was still in the doorway and really hadn't meant to snoop, but it was clear that the others didn't have any reservations about nosing through someone else's quarters. Especially not Maritza. The Junior Wherleader might even actually have the authority for this search ...

"I, ah - Junior Wherleader Maritza seems to be looking for evidence," he told the branded man weakly. That didn't sound like a very good explanation even to him.

It was the knives, though, that convinced Hai'ku that whoever was staying in this room wasn't poisoning anyone. "Junior Wherleader, ma'am - this person isn't attacking anyone. The knives, the food - they're scared about something. Maybe - maybe they're afraid we'll kick them out?"

[Arcane]

"You know damn well this isn't my room," Aragon snapped. He'd a wherhandler's knots. And was hardly a subtle presence in the barracks, with his brand.

"Evidence of what?" Aragon narrowed his eyes, even as he realized who he was speaking to.

He was smarter than this most days. Maritza was on the Council. A wherleader. He and his sons were allowed in the wherhandlers' barracks only by Raev's grace.

The other holdless weren't his friends. They were nothing to him- murderers and thieves, just like him, who he wouldn't trust as far as he could throw them.

Crossing her for some criminal strangers was a losing bet, if he'd ever heard one.

"The poisonings? As if we're not as afflicted as the rest of you. As if my son doesn't lie in a healer's bed, because I trusted the weyr to keep him safe," Aragon growled, his temper winning out over all good sense, "And now we're not even safe in our own homes? No privacy, in the drawers where we keep our damn underthings?"

[Fel]

"If one bad apple spoils the whole barrel, then goldriders are the least likely to be spoiled since they have the fewest apples in their barrel. It's the rest of us who have clearly gone bad," F'ola said as she rifled through the things on someone's dressing table. She didn't see anything suspicious here, but then why would they leave incriminating evidence on a tabletop where it could be seen?

"I will be your witness, of course. The sooner this is all handled..." Even if the woman had a garnet of all aberrant things, a garnet still outranked a green. Everything outranked a green. She checked under a hairbrush, but of course nothing was hidden there. Too small. She turned just in time to see Maritza pull a knife from under the mattress, another one already having been apparently uncovered. She narrowed her eyes, ignoring the bleeding-heart greenrider.

Then froze at the appearance of another wherhandler. His knots were brown, and therefore by rights he should have outranked them all. Only... he was branded. He was one of them. Holdless. It was possible he was familiar with the perpetrator of this vile act. Fury bubbled up within her, but she forced it down to a low simmer. This had to be reported properly. To the rest of the Council, even if that was a ridiculously useless institution. That would finally prove that this amnesty experiment was a failure.

"Your underthings?" she asked in a low voice. "Then you admit to knowledge of the things hidden here?" She ignored the comment about his son. How heartless, that he would allow his own flesh and blood to be poisoned in order to feed a narrative about his own innocence. He was probably a murderer or something equally vile. Well, had probably been exiled for that, at least; if he'd committed the poisonings or allowed them to happen, he was something even worse. "I suppose someone with something to hide would be overly concerned with privacy in the midst of an obvious crisis."