[RUMOR] Mapping Territories

[Arcane]

After learning of the recent attack on Fort's candidates by wild whers, High Reaches' scribes have gathered a group of former holdless, wherhandlers and others familiar with the area and are trying to prepare a map of local wher packs, with some information on past confrontations and known propensities.

[EW-NA]

Daedra of Brown Drask
---

While Daedra wouldn't say she was the best at dealing with maps, atleast following them to get where she was going, she could atleast say she had good enough memory. Plus, her having been raised Holdless and being very sociable with a once-wild wher, the redhead thought she crossed off too many of the per-requisites for this meeting. It just seemed like it would be rude and unhelpful -not- to come.

Drask, of course, was far less enthused on the prospect of being 'helpful' in this instance. Though, it was hard to actually tell since he gave no outside indication. He'd been dragged along by his handler, like in most instances, and while he normally was indifferent to the usual tomfoolery Daedra partook in, in this instance – the old Brown felt more inclined to lean to the 'other' side of this matter.

Upon hearing the stories of Fort's run-in with the wild wher pack, Drask felt his fellow whers were a bit in the 'right'. While his wild and untamed days were long behind him, he knew better than to inflict harm on unthreatening weyr-people or dragonkin. That aside, he would still be a staunch supporter that much of 'wilds' should be left to those that actually were part of it: that were born to it and lived free in it. Dragons had the entirety of the skies to call their own, and the people had their Weyrs and smaller settlements.... Let the whers have theirs, lest it be unfairly taken right from under them.

Which Drask would commit to: he'd offer nothing unless he was sure it wasn't to chase any whers from what should be their own.

“Drask, was it here …. or further north from this road that we'd sometimes see other whers around? I thought it had lots of rocks.” Daedra, a bit oblivious in her per-occuppied task, humed as she looked over familiar traveled scribblings. “It's been quite a bit, goodness—maybe we have gotten to used to weyr-living!”

Drask gave no immediate reply.

[nineofswords]

Haron

To say that Haron wanted to be in this cramped room was a gross oversimplification of the facts. What he wanted was for the Weyr to leave him and his family alone, but as all three of them were living in the Weyr, that wasn't very realistic. So when they'd put out a call for help identifying the territories of local wher packs, he volunteered.

He was squinting at maps in frustration. This was so stupid. How was he supposed to line up these squiggles with the rocks and trees and caves that had been his life since it started. He was getting a headache from even trying.

There was a bubbly redheaded handler pouring over the maps too. She'd decided to bring her wher with her into the room, which he thought was kind of a weird choice. No one else seemed to have the creatures trailing around behind them the way that she did, and given why they had been asked to do this, it seemed a weird choice to have her wher so very visible, but as long as she was between Haron and the brown, he'd deal. But she was talking to her wher out loud, which was making it hard to concentrate, so he just shoved the map aside.

"I don't know how you can read those things," he said, gesturing at the map and pulling a blank notepad towards him. He started sketching out the areas he'd seen whers from an on-the-ground perspective. He wasn't much of an artist - lack of supplies would do that to a person's drawing skills - but he was doing what he could. "They make less sense to me than the damn written records."

[EW-NA]

Daedra of Brown Drask

---

Drask was taking an unusually long time to reply, the redhead realized. That seemed a bit strange... Just as Daedra turned her head to question the wher, another voice interjected, seemingly commenting in her direction. The handler was unfamiliar with the young man grumbling over a spread of maps, but Daedra never saw that as reason to not reply.

"I suppose they can be a bit overwhelming, but they get easier to understand, once you learn what each symbol means," she chirped good-naturedly. "I also found it helps to imagine this is what everything looks like if you were flying so high upward~ Not that I've gotten to ride on the backs of many dragons to really compare. Though, reading a map without a direction to go, compared to following it on the actual trail is quite harder than it looks," she added with a chuckle.

It was especially more difficult for someone who tended to lose their way often, like herself.

Drask whuffed a reply in response to that comment, at least.

[nineofswords]

Haron didn't react to the chipper redhead's assurances that these things got easier to understand, despite the fact that he wanted to snarl and snap about it. That's what everyone said about reading, too. But by "learning" to understand symbols, what people really meant was "just memorize them", and that wasn't as easy as everyone made it out to be. They acted like it all came so naturally to them, but for him, it was still a bit of a struggle to bully his brain into retaining brand-new information.

"I've been on a dragon once," Haron told her. "And it was in the middle of a snowstorm. I couldn't exactly see a lot of the ground." Not to mention that it had been while still reeling from the death of his mother and was grappling with the fact that he thought a lot of other people he cared about might die, especially the kids who'd wandered off and gotten lost and his dad who'd run at the first whiff of dragons.

"I don't think they'll ever make any damn sense," he grumbled about the maps. After all, how was he supposed to know how long it took to walk a distance from the top down? How was he supposed to know what was a cave versus an animal's den and thus not safe to go near.

As the brown let out a noise, he scooted a little farther away from the large creature and continued drawing the area he'd seen a wher pack's nest.

[EW-NA]

Daedra of Brown Drask

--

Daedra, keeping to her usual obliviousness, failed to pick up on any of minor frustrations in Haron’s mannerisms. Instead, she only hummed in thought over the matter, perhaps trying to rethink her view. “I suppose it is easy to claim, once you already know how to do it,” Daedra mused aloud. “I guess if it was so easy and simple, than everyone would know how to do it without trying much!”

She supposed that could apply to anything, really.

However, when Haron rebutted her ‘helpful’ suggestion, the redhead could only blink in surprise. When she recovered enough to reply, the handler turned her head as she tried to think of something that might serve him better.

“Oh…. I suppose that would difficult. Hmm, well--- what about being up in a high tree? Or maybe climbing to the top of some high ridge rocks? It always seems easier to find out where you are from a high vantage point! Plus, I always found the symbols on maps pretty easy to figure out compared to other things. They look very close to what they’re meant to represent--- like the trees and hills~ I could try and help you, if you’d like.”

Seemingly distracted with a new task, Drask thought he’d enjoy being ‘forgotten’ for the time being. However, the old wher couldn’t help but huff at Daedra’s explanation. She could say she understood maps all she liked, but when it came down to it, she eventually turned to him for his ‘expertise’. Frankly, it was the same with all the humans, as far as he was concerned.

Maybe if they developed some PROPER senses, like better smell and night vision, they’d know where they were going, at any given time! It was no wonder there was problems with running into wild whers and all that. Drask let out another loud snort just thinking about it.

[nineofswords]

Haron was a teenager. A very serious teenager, one who'd never had much in the way of childhood, but nevertheless a teenager. So when an adult was cheerfully helpful, he did what every teenager since the dawn of time had ever done: He rolled his eyes. He at least had the decency to be looking away when he did it, though.

Haron let out a frustrated sigh when Daedra tried to think of other vantage points that were high up that could be a good point of reference for him. "I didn't really climb trees all that often," he said. Yes, he'd been on rocks, or turned and looked down a slope as he was climbing, but that was a completely different angle than the one shown on the maps. And it still didn't fix his problem of not being able to judge distance on the map itself. He looked at the maps. "I guess the symbols do kinda make sense," he said begrudgingly. He decided he probably shouldn't antagonize her, and a good way to do that would be to let her help him, since she seemed so keen on that.

He slid the picture he'd drawn across the table to her. "This was the clearing I remember seeing whers in," he told her. "I don't really know how it translates to the maps, but I know it was about five days walk as the sun rises from a rocky cliff. You could see the Hold from the cliff, if I'm remembering it right."

[EW-NA]

Daedra of Brown Drask

---

Daedra reached across the large table surface to pick up the offered picture. Lifting it between her pinched fingers of both hands for a look, the handler did her best to try and decipher the new bit of information before her. Well, it wasn't like any of the maps offered from the archives, but she could certainly tell when Haron was going for! A distinctively shaped open area, surrounded with trees and distant rock formations; certainly how one might describe much of the outside world, but of course it was the particular differences that set everything part from the rest~

Though, despite how hard she looked at the young man's doodle, Daedra was struck with the distinct feeling of -knowing- where this area was but.....well, she wasn't sure she remembered 'where', exactly. She had covered a great deal of territory in her youth, and she didn't do much traveling anymore since coming to High Reaches. So, Daedra did what she always did in a tough spot. Ask Drask.

Frowning, as nothing still seemed to come to mind, the redhead turned her head to her ever constant companion. “Drask, do you recognize this place?” she asked, flipping the picture and holding it before the large wher's old and grey speckled muzzle. “I'm sure we've been here a few time-- but I can't recall it specifically.”

Drask stared at the flat bit of fiber before him, only for a moment before slightly turning his head up at his handler. The Brown looked... exceptionally unimpressed, perhaps even disappointedly skeptical. Why would he know what he was looking at? Splotch marks and scratches, as if he would know. He really disliked when she did such things....

Daedra soon lowered the bit of paper with a frown, sensing that Drask couldn't tell from a picture. Well, she supposed that would have been too simple, plus it was a bit out of his league. Drask knew of lots of places and things of the wild--- but maps and paper and writing were 'people things'.... She wasn't dissuaded though.

“Ah, well--- I'm sure we can pinpoint it from the directions you gave,” the petite woman declared optimistically. Laying Haron's picture down, Daedra turned her attention back to the map she'd previously been looking over.

“So--- if you say it's reasonably near a Hold, we can try and find which one you mean, if you're unsure,” she went on, quite happily and very invested in her new task. She always enjoyed when she could have a bit of a brain puzzle like this!

“And, if we're moving backwards, that would make the direction opposite of the sunrise-- so sunset, which is west.” Despite the confidence in which she stated that, the redhead paused for a moment, standing up straight as if to mentally double-check that fact for herself. Eyes turned upwards, Daedra shifted her hands, as if recalling visually where the sun rose and therefore where it would go down after. Once assured, she smiled to herself and went back to the map before to verify.

“A 'five day's walk' though...hmmm, I suppose we'll have to just take a guess on that! Everyone walks a bit differently, but I suppose 15 or 20 miles a day isn't too unreasonable. It should make it easy enough to guess the general vicinity of the clearing~”

Once again it was unclear if Daedra was directing her babbles to Haron, specifically, or just speaking aloud in that usual way of hers. Either way, it was sounding all like garble to Drask, who let out a wide-mouth yawn from where he sat, letting his large tongue slide over his collection of bottom teeth.

[nineofswords]

Haron watched as Daedra picked up his drawing, because there was no way he was going to keep staring at the maps and trying to decipher what the forsk any of them meant. When she frowned, he assumed she had no idea where his scribblings were depicting, and he scowled himself. Yeah, this was gonna be impossible.

His scowl turned to one of confusion when she turned to show it to the brown wher. He had no idea how to read wher expressions, so when the wher was looking at her, he assumed it must be talking to her. "So uh...what did they say?" He hadn't spent any time around whers, really. They were too dangerous out in the wilds to approach, so he hadn't met any tame ones. And his parents hadn't really thought they'd ever need to teach their kids about dragonkind, so he sometimes struggled to remember which colors were which sex. He opted to call the beast a they rather than an it, because he didn't want to piss its handler off.

His shoulders slowly hiked up to his ears defensively when Daedra said they could probably figure out where it was based on his directions. He knew his drawing wasn't the best, but now he was feeling self-conscious about it; apparently it was so bad that neither of them could make heads nor tails of it.

He watched her try to figure out where east and west were and decided maybe this was a hopeless cause. He sighed and propped his elbows on the table. Oh well. At least he could say he tried. Not his fault that he had no idea how to read a map. "We tended to walk pretty slow," Haron said, still making a token attempt to be helpful. "We'd keep an eye out for useful supplies as we walked. You know, berries, firewood, the odd lapin or bird. So if people can walk that far in a day, we were probably going slower than that." He had no way of knowing how much slower, so he added, "It's not like we were in any kind of rush, either. We kinda just took our time."

He leaned back warily when Drask let out a yawn. Those were big teeth.

[EW-NA]

“Hm?” Daedra paused in her searching to offer Haron her attention again. When she realized what he was asking of, the redhead turned to glance at Drask for a moment, before shifting her eyes back.

“Oh~ Well, Drask didn't really have a good idea either,” she replied with the tiniest shrug of her shoulders. “I suppose I should have figured that before hand! He isn't very good with pictures and maps, either, but I thought maybe he could have recognized it by chance. He knows the wilds better than I could ever hope to learn, but I suppose it's hard for him to show it while in the Weyr,” she added with a small giggle.

Now that they were in the thick of the task, Daedra was starting to realize that the Brown might have been better suited for a more 'hands on' type of job. That, or she had to up her game of remembering where they'd been over the turns and applying it to the maps better. It was strange now, realizing how far she and her mother and Drask had traveled in her youth, but she barely noted where they tended to be. Afterall, they very rarely had an actual destination.

Ah, but she couldn't get distracted with wistful thought now.

Daedra took to looking over the broad area of the map again, when Haron's motion caught her peripheral gaze. Curious, the redhead glanced up again, seeing him looking almost bored or despondent, propped up on his thin arms. She frowned worriedly, hoping he wasn't too discouraged from the setback.

“I know we'll figure it out,” she encouraged, putting on a more confidant expression for the younger teen. “Even if it takes a few tries! Now – if there's less miles, then it should be higher--” Daedra hummed as she dragged a delicate finger across the map from where she'd initially figured, to her new assumption. “-- maybe here? There's not so many trees it looks like, so I could see a clearing being here!”

If she had to guess, it seemed roughly where Haron described. There was a Hold not too far in one direction, as well as rocks and floral covering. It seemed viable, in her opinion. However, she wasn't a wher---

Daedra's thoughts were interrupted when she recognized the sound of Drask giving one of his usual yawns, with the patter of drool hitting the floor coupled with his big teeth clicking together as he shut his jowls. He was looking exceptionally unimpressed, so much so that the handler couldn't help but comment when she turned to him.

“You could help a bit too, you know,” she chirped, reaching out to poke a lone finger into the girthy flabs of his big neck. The thick mass of flesh churned back and forth from the repeated gesture. “You'd know all the places wild whers would like to go.”

Daedra was only lightly teasing him, so all she got was a hot snort of air in her direction.

[nineofswords]

Haron frowned a little when Daedra said that Drask wasn't good with pictures and maps. He considered that. Whers couldn't read maps either. "So...if whers can't read maps, do you have to, like...tell them where to go if you're going somewhere neither of you have been before?" he asked. He'd once seen someone riding on a runnerbeast while hiding in the underbrush. He'd seen how they'd directed the beast with straps of tanned leather in its mouth. That was sort of what he was picturing a wherhandler doing, or maybe shouting directions at it. Whers were supposedly more intelligent than the average runnerbeast, right?

He looked curiously at Drask, now. "Yeah, I know the feeling," Haron said in reference to not being able to show off survival skills while in the Weyr. "Do you know if he ever, uh...misses being out in the wilds?" he asked. He was sort of curious, now. The wher sounded like Haron had a lot in common with it...him. Daedra had called Drask him.

Haron watched Daedra pouring over the map out of the sides of his eyes. "Ain't any 'we' about it," he said. "You're doing all the work. I'm just over here drawing bad pictures." He had no doubts about who'd get the credit for this particular bit of work. Not that it bothered him, but there was no point in pretending anyone was going to believe he'd contributed in any meaningful way to this.

He looked at Drask when Daedra told him he could help. "Aren't whers supposed to be able to talk, or something?" he asked. He'd yet to see any evidence of that.

[EW-NA]

“I bet some whers might be able to read maps, in some capacity,” Daedra chimed in, after taking a moment to think on it. “They would have probably needed a lot of practice with their handlers, but I bet some could do it!” Now, Daedra really had no idea if there were any whers of that caliber in High Reaches, but she would never doubt the abilities of whers. They may not have had the ability for flight or to breathe flame, but their memory was far better than any dragon’s!

“As for Drask and myself,” Daedra began, getting back to his initial curiosity. “-it’s usually a joint effort to get somewhere where we’ve never been,” she explained. “If I had one to use, I would look over a map to determine the direction and noticeable landmarks, so when we went out, Drask could have an easier time figuring out where to go. He may not be very good with maps, but he can smell all the different plants and things carried on the breeze, plus his eyes are made to see in the dark! Drask can always find his way through even the thickest brush, which I can’t say the same for myself,” she added with a laugh.

“We’ve been here for a few turns now, and I still get lost in the Weyr’s passageways sometimes,” she admitted, not shamed by that fact. It was the truth, why deny it?

All the while as Daedra babbled on happily, Drask kept as silent as ever. He wasn’t oblivious to it though, calmly paying heed to the things discussed between his handler and the younger human. It seemed his assumption had been right on this one; that he were like redhead. A person from the ‘outside’, and now seemingly made to stay and adjust to the ‘inside’. It didn’t matter though, the Brown knew. That despite changing where they slept, or how they changed the strange scraps of fabric they pulled over their heads – they would still be from ‘outside’. It would be an unchangeable mark to carry, even if they may not be aware. Like how Daedra would always smell of the flower blossoms from summer no matter how long she stayed within the cramped stone walls of High Reaches.

Drask would always be a wher of the wilds, even if he was in a Weyr now. So, despite Haron not directing his question specifically to the Brown, Drask gave a verbal whuff in response.

Daedra, as always, was more than happy to jump in as her bonded’s interpreter. “Well, I suppose he misses some things,” she began, turning to look over her shoulder to the Brown in question. “-but I know for a fact, there’s a number of things he likes about being in High Reaches Weyr,” the redhead added with confidence. Her lips pulled into an amused smile as she reached and poked at the wher’s chunky neck again.

Ah, but she wouldn’t let all the conversation distract her, especially when Daedra caught Haron’s comment concerning his contributions – or what he saw as a lack of it. No, that would not do--

“Now, don’t discredit yourself like that,” Daedra beamed, though there was a firmness in her normally gentle tone. She wouldn’t take sole credit here. “This is a joint effort! You might not think it much, but we wouldn’t have anywhere to start looking without your instructions and visual aid!” Haron might have wanted to weasel out of credit, but Daedra wouldn’t let him.

Taking a bit of writing stick, the redhead took a moment to jot a few removable marks on her map for later. Afterall, what was the point of pinpointing locations if they forgot them later. Daedra was just finishing when his newest question prompted her to look up.

“Oh, of course! Whers can talk in a similar fashion to dragons, though their wording is a bit different. Drask is a bit of an exception,” she explained. “He never really uses words, but he’s rather easy to understand~”

The Brown verbalized himself once more through forcing air passed his floppy jowls. Whuff.

[nineofswords]

Well, if there was a wher that could read maps, they were smarter than Haron. The squiggles made no sense to him at all, and he didn't see why he needed to be asked to understand them. He hadn't needed them before, he didn't need them now while he was living at the Weyr, and he very much doubted he'd need them in the future when the Weyr decided to kick him out. Which was inevitable.

"Huh," he said when Daedra explained the advantages whers had over humans. "Bet that's useful." They seemed like useful creatures. He wondered if he could figure out how to get one for him and his family. If they were smart, could see in the dark, and smell as good as a tracking canine, they'd all be way better off when they were inevitably kicked out of the Weyr.

"You get lost too?" Haron asked, startled into admitting that he had the same problem as Daedra. He would've thought everyone who lived at the Weyr must know it like the back of their hand, like he knew the wilds beyond its walls. "Er, I mean..." He sighed. Forsk it, she'd heard him admit he didn't know his way around. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. "I'm not used to trying to navigate in tunnels. I mean, there's no landmarks, and you can't even see the sun to orient yourself. How in the forsk does anyone do it?" He'd decided it was better to commiserate than to be embarrassed by it.

Haron looked at the wher when the brown made a noise at his question. It had almost sounded like an answer, but Haron didn't speak wher, so he couldn't begin to decipher it. Daedra answered for him, though, so he didn't have to try and figure it out on his own. Her answer was a bit longer than his single noise, but...they liked it here. He couldn't really relate to that feeling. He still felt so out of place. Must be nice, feeling at ease here.

Daedra clearly thought she was giving Haron encouragement, but the teen's shoulders just hunched higher and higher the more she insisted he was helpful. He leaned over and started idly tracing a knot in the wood of the table with his finger. "Whatever you say..." He didn't see the point in trying to kid himself with fake positivity. The Weyr wanted specific answers, and no matter what he did, he wasn't going to be able to give those answers. That was all there was to it, as far as he was concerned.

As the redhead explained about how whers could talk (something he still hadn't seen evidence of) and that Drask was easy to understand, he looked at her for a long moment. Then he slowly turned to look at the brown. Finally, his eyes drifted back to Daedra. "Riiiight..." he said. Easy to understand. Sure. Right. He wasn't exactly sure how he was meant to understand this creature, just as he wasn't sure how he was meant to interpret the maps spread out on the table, but Daedra clearly didn't think either was much of a problem. So maybe he was just a dimglow, or maybe she was just a little bit deluded. Or maybe it was a mix of both. Who could say? Not him, that was for sure.

[EW-NA]

Daedra nodded her head in affirmation at his question. “On occasion--” Her statement was quickly cut off as Drask made a very noticeable sound, not quite a growl or anything aggressive. Just something to draw her attention to look at him a moment, but it served it's purpose. When Daedra turned her attention back to Haron, she looked noticeably more sheepish in her smile.

“Well, all right--- I do still get lost often enough in general,” she admitted true. “I've never been very good at picking the right direction, but it was much worse when Drask and I first came to High Reaches. I could never find wherever we were supposed to go! When I tried to go to our private weyr, I ended up in someone else's! The living quarters are very difficult; they all look the same, but you do get the hang of it!” Daedra was sure to emphasize that. If she could find her way about, then anyone else could - it just took time.

“You learn little tricks – of things you'll recognize to point you in the right direction. I guess my biggest 'trick' would be Drask – once he knew where to go it was impossible to get lost. However, there's always the tried and true method of simply asking someone you pass. I promise most people are more than happy to help, even if you get a grouch from time to time.”

That had always been her experience. Daedra hoped that offered some assurance to Haron in some way. It sounded as if he were a new arrival. Perhaps a candidate in some regard, as he seemed in the appropriate age range. The Weyr was quite a change, and rather intimidating when one first came, but it was always easier to do when you realized you weren't the only one. So, the redhead couldn't help but grow a little curious on what his initial plans were.

“If you don't mind me asking,” she began. “-you seem very interested in whers. I take it you're hoping for one as a candidate then?” Even though they were supposed to be working and figuring out potential locations, certainly that didn't bar them from basic conversation~

[nineofswords]

Haron tensed slightly at Drask's noise, but his attention seemed mostly focused on Daedra, thankfully. The pair really was inscrutable to him, because he didn't think the brown had conveyed all that much, but when Daedra looked back at him, her expression had changed and she admitted that she still got lost a lot more than she'd originally been letting on.

He nodded when she said that all living quarters looked the same. "They do," he said. "Rock is rock, it all looks the same." And of course if Haron walked into someone else's living quarters, it'd be a major problem, not just for him, but for his family. And that he couldn't abide.

He let out a little sigh of relief when Daedra assured him that it'd get easier, but his expression soured slightly when she shared her 'tips' with him. Great. So his options were to simply get a wher (which didn't sound nearly as simple as she seemed to be making it out to be) or talk to a stranger. He put his head on his arms on the table. "Ain't worth asking, most days," he mumbled into his arms. Most people wouldn't want to help him, a Holdless punk who was already nearly full grown, son of a branded man. And if they did, they'd either just give him bad directions on purpose, or he'd get lost again after the second turn he had to take. So basically, it would never get any easier. Maybe he should start drawing symbols on routes he had to take often to help him get back to his rooms...

"I do?" he asked when Daedra said he seemed interested in whers. "I dunno, just...thinkin' about them a lot, I guess? Cause we're, y'know, supposed to be remembering where we saw them so the wher can protect itself from packs." He stared at her blankly, blinking a few times at the second part of her question. "Uh...no?" he said. Was she teasing him, or something? "I'm...one of the Holdless," he said. "They wouldn't let me be a candidate for a firelizard, let alone something as dangerous as a wher. Especially not when I can barely read or write."