[PLOT] Breakthrough

[Fel]

At last, a breakthrough. It's been announced that the Healer's wingsecond, Morticia, has made a discovery that narrowed down the search for the culprit or culprits behind the poisonings considerably. Maddeningly, lips seem to be sealed on exactly what that discovery was, but that doesn't stop the rumors from flying.

[Arcane]

"Fort Weyr, I suspect," F'nir said confidently. He had thought and he had pondered and his intuition told him this was the one, "They have the most recent history of antagonism, with our weyr, as well as a long history of overreach and dirty tricks. Their lies about my native Benden caused us no end of trouble."

He ought to be excited. He had been too young to fight- the last time the weyrs warred amongst themselves. Now he could prove himself, against an enemy more cunning and deliberate than thread.

The slight queasiness in his stomach at the thought of taking another rider's life?

That was simply a degree of anticipation he was unaccustomed to feeling, surely.

He was a bronzerider, made to fight and if needed to kill on behalf of his weyr and his people.

[Windra]

"Come, darling, and have some wine," Adair purred as she stalked her way through the hallway. She had a half bottle of red wine tucked under one arm and balanced a filled glass between her fingers, whereupon she took several dainty sips. The greenrider gave pause to look the individual up and down. Young. Quite handsome. Very spicy. "A toast? High Reaches may well be on its way to remedying this horrid experience."

She shuddered. So many dragons and whers fallen ill around them. People dying. That poor kitchen wretch had seized before death, Adair heard. What a wretched way to go. Somehow they'd gotten lucky enough to avoid it.

"It's unsightly to thirst for the blood of others," she preened. Adair glanced away, interested more in swirling the crimson liquid at her mercy. "Why not relish in small victories?"

[Fel]

"How can you want a toast when they haven't even told us anything? This isn't a victory. Surely you must see that if the council is keeping silent, that must mean it's an inside job. They're protecting the culprit from retribution."

E'nai gave F'nir a withering look at his speculation. Fort, really? He had to have known that nobody from Fort would be allowed to simply wander around and poison people unsupervised. Those people couldn't be trusted, after all.

"Personally, I suspect it was a bronzerider," he said with narrowed eyes that lingered on F'nir's knots. The man couldn't be trusted. The woman, with a greenrider's knots, was at least potentially trustworthy... if she wasn't already drunk. How full had that bottle been? "Or maybe a goldrider, but there's fewer of those. Either way, if it's not one of the Council themselves, those are the only people they'd see fit to protect above the needs of the Weyr. We deserve to know what happened."

Especially those of them who had been victims. They deserved it most of all. Hazeth, his wonderful Hazeth, had suffered another breathing attack the night before. He'd thought it was over, but then the blue had started wheezing and... and would it ever be over? What if this was forever?

[Arcane]

F'nir smiled at the greenrider. He didn't know her- but she was comely enough- and clearly recognized that he was a bronzerider to be admired. He was enough of a man of the weyr to appreciate it, without reading more into it than it was.

"A toast. To our victories, small and large and yet-to-come," he agreed amiably, pouring himself a glass, of what was truly a very fine red, "You have excellent tastes, greenrider. While a bronzerider ought not thirst for bloodshed, he cannot flinch from it either, when he is the vanguard of his weyr. Do not fear- we will see you have another victory to relish and no more horrors to flinch from."

Fighting his fellow riders was a duty F'nir had never yet been called on to fulfill. But surely a bronze would not have picked him were he not capable? His inability to picture himself taking a life was...mere inexperience, not cowardice!

F'nir raised an eyebrow at the bluerider, "Finding an answer is a victory in and of itself and you must have faith in the riders of our weyr to triumph, bluerider. We are strong and trained."

F'nir shrugged at the rest of the bluerider's words, "If it is an insider, then they're a traitor, no less an enemy for wearing our colors. I agree that a bronze or goldrider is the likely culprit- or at least the mastermind, if not the direct instigator. This was a sophisticated plot- requiring intelligence and ambition. A bluerider would never conceive of such a scheme."

[Windra]

Adair swished the glass again and again, feigning sloppy sloshiness and content obliviousness over what was really going on in her mind. Briefly her mind touched upon Alsetth's and found no balm in the words that traversed between brains. The green was tense. Her unfettered devotion to her home left a deep strain upon the green's heart. It was a small miracle the dragon hadn't suffered some form of heart attack.

Her smile took on a sly note as F'nir embellished his own glass with a bit of red. Nevermind that it was of old Benden stock before all the nasty travesties of past-times, pilfered by her own deft hands and poured into a bottle belonging to a lesser brewer. None would know. And that was how she liked it.

She waited until he emptied his chalice and quietly poured him another.

"Let's entertain that ... perhaps what caused the illness wasn't glorious enough to warrant all the finger pointing?" she hummed nonchalantly. "I highly doubt somebody like F'nir - " she insisted on using the name as opposed to the color he rode " - would orchestrate a mass killing of the weyrfolk and their dragons for a temporary gain. Can you imagine the mutiny if something as horrible like that came to light?"

She didn't really have an angle on this - yet - but was prying for the sake of her bonded. Glitz came flying down the hall in all her dazzling glory and settled on Adair's shoulder, chittering softly in the maiden's ear. She sipped the red, swirled it in her mouth - the proper mouthfeel, nothing tasted off. Sharp blue eyes jerked from blue to bronze. E'nai was right to distrust the others, but who was he? A cutey. Too young for her tastes ... but only slightly. She'd seen Hazeth though. That was a stunning blue.

"Mystery unsolved. But no more death - that's victory enough for now."

[Fel]

E'nai snorted derisively at the bronzerider's platitudes. As though he was supposed to have faith in this Weyr given everything that had ever happened here. He had absolutely zero confidence in leadership, and even less in that of some random bronzerider he knew almost nothing about save for the color of his asshole of a dragon. Not that E'nai had met him either, but it was just a given with a bronze.

He rolled his eyes at the comment about blueriders. One of those bronzeriders, apparently. Even more reason to dismiss just about every word he said. "Oh, sure, no bluerider has ever been ambitious. That's why no bluerider has ever run for Cou--oh, wait, no, not only have they run for it, they've been on it. Like the current Weyrleader. And the Junior Flightleader. How could I ever have been so stupid as to think for an instant that they weren't on the Council. Right now."

He didn't agree with Adair in the slightest either. Somebody like F'nir would absolutely orchestrate something like that just because he though himself above consequence. Rightfully so, apparently. "Oh, please. The fact that people would mutiny if it came to light is probably exactly why information is being withheld."

[Arcane]

"I was trained to be an honorable bronzerider, Adair. I would never resort to such tricks. Not all bronzeriders are like me," F'nir told her solemnly, following her lead in dropping the formal titles. Someone like Adair was no threat to him- if she wished more comfortable manners, he could provide one. She was clearly a sweet woman- if a bit naive in matters of war. As a greenrider should be.

In the game of weyr politics, bronzeriders and goldriders were the true players. Some were good, some were evil, but all were by their very nature the levers that moved their weyrs forward.

F'nir had never even have conceived of the idea of poisoning an entire weyr, not even in the darkest corners of his mind. But it was the nature of Pern and of his own kind.

"As I said, I highly doubt it was one of us. Any bronzerider clever enough to concoct a scheme like this'd be smart enough to see it's counterproductive, to poison your own people, which is why I think it was an outsider," he explained, "You're right that one should hardly call such dirty tactics glorious. But they are a danger to the weyr, that must be eliminated at all costs."

He took another sip of his wine and met Adair's eyes, with a nod, "Very well. Let us toast to an end of the deaths, for today. And do not fear- you do not need to trouble yourself with such matters. The weyr's bronzeriders will see the threat extinguished."

That was, of course, the natural order of things.

Which E'nai didn't seem to realize. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It wasn't E'nai's fault he followed the tone his weyr had set. Blueriders, unlikely bronzeriders, were not naturally inclined to challenge the status quo, "Blueriders wish to be on the Council because Fortian bronzeriders put into their head it was a good idea. Because your weyr attacked theirs and they wanted to make you less of a threat. Blueriders lack the drive to lead their weyr to war to advance its power."