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Thighbones...!


Date:  February 6, 2004
Place:  Telgar Weyr's Lake Shore
Game:  PernMUSH
Copyright Info:  The World of Pern is copyright(c) to Anne McCaffrey 
l967. The Dragonriders of Pern(r) is a registered copyright.

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Kassi's Note:  They'll make it into legend yet!  A snow-war breaks
out between the Weyrlingmaster team and the Weyrlings, and Kassima
decides to side with the latter and attempt the decimation of I'sai
and Yselle's heathen forces.  Unfortunately, she doesn't end up 
with a single thighbone from a conquered enemy to turn into 
jewelry. ;)

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The Log:


Telgar Weyr> I'sai says, "Weyrlings enjoying the nice freezing cold
lake...'s surroundings, by the way, for a loose definition of 'enjoy'.
Anyone who wants to stop by is welcome."

You fly downwards toward the lake shore.

<*> And the lake's iced over, no less, for the most part. Taralyth lands
just shy of it with a delighted trumpet, pleased simply to race regardless
of result - this time - and there comes his rider, further extending his
head start on Yselle and the gang... and then he has to dodge
rocket-Aldenth and skids, falls, going _splat_ on the snow and sliding a
good distance before slowing to a stop, laughing all the while.

<*> Yselle is laughing too, even whilst trying to slow /herself/ down, she
skids past I'sai, yelling "I WON!" before yelling up on her own backside in
the sludge. Still, close enough to I'sai, to, giggling, offer him a hand in
assistance, and ask, "Are you all right?"

<*> Isawen stops farther away from the lake than Aldenth, shaking her head
after him as she catches her own breath. The whole racing bit has gone
largely unnoticed, at least until I'sai's and Yselle's snow dives. A hand
is raised to hold back her chuckles, but this is a bit too much of a task
when she's gasping for breath as well.

<*> Lysseth's trumpet of greeting to Weyrling pairs and Dianneth--shading
into a warble for Taralyth--breaks into something else entirely at a
certain skid-and-splat: draconic laughter, a more audible companion to her
rider's own none-too-discreet mirth. "Bury him! Bury him!" she encourages
the 'Lings on hand, grinning broadly and swinging down from on high;
perhaps she fancies joining in the melee herself? In either event, she does
remember manners enough to greet more generally, "And g'day and whatnay
t'you lot, besides!"

You slide off of Lysseth's neck to land beside her easily. She rumbles,
cocking her head down at you, and you rub her eyeridges gratefully.

Kassima adds cheerfully as Yselle goes tumbling, "And bury her, too! We can
have a set of matched snow-graves, with snow-epitaphs. 'Twill be very
moving and poignant."

"'m all right," I'sai says, taking Yselle's hand - and _tugs_. "Hostage! My
hostage! No burying!" although if the weyrlings - and wingleader - start
with the snowballs, he hardly seems in the mood to protest. Taralyth
warbles lavishly to Lysseth right back, wings flung wide, and doesn't
bother to check on his rider; no, Aldenth and the others claim the
reaminder of his attention: there is much to learn!

"Hey! You rotten..." Yselle had /just/ got her balance too; much to the
amusement of her lifemate who is flickering icy cold water to increase the
commotion. Tugging by I'sai lands /her/ back in the slush. "Oh this is
/cold/," she's laughing too though. "Oh no burying!" although she's
laughing so hard, and well, not likely to let go of the weyrlingmaster soon
to allow /his/ escape.

Aldenth heads over from the central bowl.

Aldenth turns aside from his path to the lake to study the weyrling staff.
Surely if -they- get to play in the snow, he does too? When Isawen finally
makes it over, the blue has his head stuck into a pile of snow. The rest of
his body might being in plain view, but since his head is hidden, nobody
can see him, right? His lifemate goes along with it blithely, pretending to
search for him while shooting I'sai and Yselle sidelong glances. "I'll
never understand this whole playing in the snow thing..."

Dianneth's reacton to all of this is to note in an amused way to all the
dragons around her << If your rider messes her hair, Taralyth, he will have
to fix it. It was just right. >>

Indeed there is, and once Lysseth's finished flicking snow from her
wingsails with just *that* much flourish, and giving the familiar bronze
sails a shameless lookover, she turns her attention to studies: in her
case, regarding each young Weyrling dragon with interested and alert blue
eyes. "We can take them!" Kassi suggests, turning to the Weyrlings
hopefully. "Position is on our side! They'll never escape our peril...
a'course, this is easy for me t'say; neither of 'em can assign *me* muck
duty for kicking their behinds." And so in that spirit she scoops up a
snowball and meanders on over to drop it--ploof!--onto the tangle of
Weyrlingmasters, should they not dodge. "The first blow struck! C'mon,
Isawen, 'tis fun. Especially if'n you can get snow down the backs of their
shirts, or their pants."

Taralyth glances to Lysseth, then Dianneth, with his own eyes brightly
a-glint - and then quietly seeks to extend his neck over, over, until he
can -trumpet!- right behind young Aldenth if he still has his head in the
snow. Meanwhile, I'sai's -trying- to scramble up from Yselle, -trying- to
dodge the snowball, but. Well. It -is- awfully slick ground, and the
snowball lands smack dab on his hooded head, sending bits of fluffy white
onto his brows and lashes. "Hey!" And, as one of the other weyrlings joins
in, "Remember to salu-ute!"

It's hard being a weyrlingmaster, particularly one who just dragged his
assistant, one who has had /turns/ of practice at this. In other words,
right now I'sai's not getting free from Yselle if she has her way "Oh no
you don't!" she yells. I'm not having you run off on me and leaving me the
brunt of this?" Would he do that? Apparently she thinks so. "Kassi! Ow ow
that's /cold/!" But since it was mostly an I'sai-bomb, she hisses "Right,
we're a team here, weyrlingmaster sir. Can't let them get away with it, can
we?" Her free hand salutes as she says. "We've got the curly knots you
know. It's our responsibility to .... get them!"

Isawen just watches the whole thing for a moment, making no movement to
join in. Until a startled Aldenth, face still covered with snow, comes
running right into her. Sitting in a pile of snow, with more shaken onto
her from the blue, she protests "Hey! You're supposed to -help- me." Well,
she's already all snowy right now, and the -others- seem to be having
success. She makes an experimental snowball, packing it carefully before
lobbing at the weyrlingmasters. The snow-covered Aldenth goes chasing after
the snowball to see what will happen to it, while Isawen starts on another
snowball/

Lysseth's high spirits are borne out by her renewed laughter at this audial
assault. At the same, time, though, she uses stealthy sweeps of her tail
and nonchalant movements of claw to gather snow in close, where it will be
Right There should she need it. When play is afoot one just cannot be too
careful. "Direct hit!" Kassima carols, and evidently decides the
appropriate reaction to such a victory is to dance an impromptu jig around
the not-quite-dead (they're getting better!) bodies of bronzerider and
greenrider. "Sally forth, O stalwart companion!" she cries to the Weyrling
who's joined the fray. "We shall yet wear their bones as jewelry! I fancy
hair-ties, m'self, how about you?" As she speaks she stops jigging long
enough to acquire another snowball, and this one she aims for Yselle
specifically. "Teamed or singly, we'll wipe the floor with you--the
*Barracks* floor; so your leathers will never smell right again! Oh,
Isawen, good throw! Good throw! We'll make it into legend yet!"

Bronwynn heads over from the central bowl.

With Aldenth looking as if he recovered all right - at least, after being
spooked! - Taralyth deigns to settle back a little until some similar easy
target should come up, easing over to tap the ice with a claw to see just
-how- solid it is. Meanwhile, his rider sputters snow from his face, "Bones
as - hair? What? Team, _barracks_ floor?" and is having ill luck freeing
himself from his onetime hostage. "No, not you salute, -them- salute,
you're not a - hey!" as another snowball smacks right into his chest.
"Aaaaaaaaagh!"

It's certainly becoming something of a free-for-all. Dianneth now is nosing
in the snow, doing her best to make a ball, and when /that/ doesn't work,
why she digs a wing into it and /flicks/ -- right towards Kassima. The
greenrider boys have taken up positions behind the boulder; Nameless
forming the balls, passing them to healer boy who whap whap whaps them out.
Gotta work on that aim. Yselle is just getting up and even dares to let go
of I'sai's hand, although she's giving him a steady stay-here-you glare,
when Kassima's missile hits her right in the face. "Euch," she says. "Ugh,
tastes /dirty/ who's been walking in this stuff?" she wipes it off,
although laughing again. "Can't have too many salutes, valiant wingleader,
right, let's /get/ them." Now she's crouching, balling up snow. "C'mon, use
those /muscles/," and she offers the snowball to him.

Aldenth tries to come to a stop when he realizes he's entered the snowball
zone, but of course it's more slippery than he planned on. Trying to keep
track of four sliding legs, none of which can seem to agree on a direction,
he gives a pitiful creel and flops onto his belly. Which is where he gets
hit with a stray snowball. Who's hitting -him-? The blue starts digging
into the snow, sending it flying every which way but the one the snowball
came from. Isawen grins at Kassima's dancing and encouragement and throws
another snowball into the vicinity.

"Bones in m'hair," Kassima sweetly confirms, packing more snow as she
speaks but otherwise stopping--foolish woman--to taunt her adversaries. She
really should've paid more attention to that Evil Overlord list.
"Handbones, mayhaps, so they'd be thin and light and clatter--a'course I'd
have t'*boil* you both first, and that could be a messy and odiferous
affair. But all's worth it in the name of *style*. Aye! We're going t'bury
you alive and then use you as mops! Mark us! For we are deadly, and we are
valiant, and we are courageous in the face of your curly knots; yea, we are
the Weyrlings!" Pause. "Well, and me. I suppose I don't count. But I can
*pretend*." This is a sentiment she toasts with another lobbed snowball.
Hah! And, "Ack!" as she gets hit by the flying snow, and she makes a show
of staggering back under the assault, all white-spotted. "I have been
woun-ded!" she announces, clutching theatrically at her heart. "Avenge me,
Isawen, snow-sister! Avenge meeee!" Lysseth's no help at all. She's curled
up in draconic convulsions, heedless even of the snow Aldenth's splattered
against her hide.

I'sai yelps - he's being handed the snowballs? - and although he takes one,
he holds it until he can see the whites of their... no, actually, forget
it. He lobs it right away, right towards a half-seen weyrling - Isawen? -
and yells, "Thighbones! Thighbones in your hair!" before making free with
tossing another, overhand, yet another snowball smacking into his shoulder.

Yselle has taken it upon herself to be the I'sai-loader. Making snowballs
faster than a speeding firelizard, she balls, pats, and hands them over, or
at least places them in an easy-to-reach pyramid, should he not take them.
"Faster! Harder! Wetter!" she's yelling. "Thighbones forever!" She wipes
cold-wet hair back from her forehead, "Yeuch," she mutters again. "Yes!
Dianneth! Yes yes!" Dianneth's victory is the perfect excuse for the
butt-waggle victory-dance, which of course, puts her in perfect view for
some of those snowballs. "One down!" Dianneth meanwhile is reaching in for
another wing-load, and warbling in a bossy manner at Taralyth.

Laughing hard enough that forming snowballs is a challenge, Isawen gestures
dramatically to Aldenth until he gets the snow he's spraying to go in the
right direction. That being towards I'sai and Yselle. She seems satisfied
with the job he's doing until she herself gets pelted with a snowball.
After gasping at the cold and quickly pushing snow back out of her jacket
collar, she gets down to business. With a few snowballs carried in her
arms, she breaks into a run and dives down behind Aldenth for a closer
shot. Unfortunately she's landed right on her snowballs, but she's making
more in no time at all, hurling them blinding over Aldenth as she shouts
"For Kassima!"

Kassima completes her death scene by falling dramatically backwards into
the snow, where she can twitch and spasm and generally be a horrific ham.
"Alas! Sweet Pern! I must say farewell to thee, for I have met my *end*, at
the snow from a green's wing; oh, irony of ironies... remember me, fellow
warriors... build a memorial t'my honor or something... be sure t'make it
tasteful... black marble would be nice...." Twitch, convulse. Finally she
does go mostly still, but not before stage-whispering, "Thighbones...!" Is
that the name of her sled? Lysseth, for her part, uncurls enough to offer
Taralyth an entreating croon instead: oh, don't help kill her rider and her
rider's allies, oh, please? Because if she ever has to see another such
'death,' so help her--and speaking of the dead, Kassi's piteous corpse
stirs long enough to raise an arm with a thumb's up gesture for Isawen.
Amazing the tricks rigor mortis will play, isn't it?

I'sai, for his part, just shouts, "Cold! Cold!" and lobs those snowballs -
till one of the weyrling dragons gets snow _up_ his nose and is startled
into repeated coughing fits; he shouts, "Be right there!" and escorts the
pair first away from the game and past alleged deaths, into stability, and
thence into the barracks.

Dianneth is obviously of the same mind as Lysseth, with regards to the
melodramatics, and it's at this point that Kassima's rigor mortis had
better do a lot more than just push her thumb up. If she doesn't move, and
/fast/, that next wingload of snow is going to be dumped right /on/ her.
Unfortunately, Yselle's butt-waggling is met with one of Isawen's
snowballs. "Euch!" she yells ducking out of the way. "Ew ew ew," she shakes
her leg, some snow has got /in/ her pants, and slips out down the bottom.
"This is... what? Better make sure Is doesn't need any help," and she
scoots after them. After all, there's other assistants who can supervise
the weyrlings here.

Telgar Weyr> Yselle notes idly there's no 'out' exit in the lake shore room
and runs away for RL. Woe. That was fun. Kassima, you are evil. Guys,
you're /all/ too much fun.

Yselle heads in the direction of the central bowl, leaving the shimmering
lake.

Telgar Weyr> Kassima is flattered. ;) Zhai, Ys! Thanks for the snowy death!

Telgar Weyr> Yselle mwah. Any time.

Isawen winks at the corpse of Kassima, then her eyes widen as she sees
Dianneth coming towards the greenrider. But Isawen has more urgent matters
to attend to, as Aldenth has apparently gotten bored with being her
protection and wandered off to investigate the lake. "Hey! Wait!" she
calls, trying to run low to the ground to catch up with the blue, who's
walking along oblivious to the snow. Isawen isn't so oblivious, and lets
out muffled 'eeps' every time she gets hit.

Unfortunately, while Kassima can be fast when she chooses--and might be
fast enough even now, did Lysseth warn her of Dianneth's approach--this
isn't one of her speedier moments, and so she soon has a snow-grave of her
very own. *Foomph.* "Mrrrrrph!" comes the yell from inside, and her hands
claw their way through the snow, reaching for the sky; it's a zombie
slasher film gone horribly wrong! "I am arisen!" Kassima howls as she sits
up in her makeshift tomb, caked in white. "And I... shall... have... my...
*revenge*!" There's a pause, then an indignant, "Hey! Where'd they go? Oh,
nay *fair*! I'm going t'have t'wait 'til revenge until *later*!" From
snow-zombie to snow-pouter in one step, at least until she clambers to her
feet and starts brushing the stuff off herself. "Truce! Truce!" she yells
to those still fighting. "Save your energy for the True Enemy! Now's the
time for stockpiling our weapons and setting spies t'let us know when they
return. Also, for getting this *snow* out of m'*shirt*." Some wriggling
ensues while she tries to do just that, walking away from her snow-crypt
all the while. "I'm going t'have frostbite in the most unfortunate places,"
she confides woefully to Isawen. "--Hey, what's Aldenth up to?"

Bronwynn has apparently passed a very snowy I'sai and weyrling as she seems
ready for the scene before her. She just stands on the fringes of the war,
arm crossed, watching and snickering.

Isawen rises from her awkward crouching run at the call of ceasefire, but a
little too quickly as one last snowball hits her from behind. She grins
crookedly as she takes in Kassima's condition. "How does it manage to
wriggle down the collar like that?" she asks, shuddering as she tries to
dig it out. "Oh, Aldenth is..." She frowns as her gaze sweeps over to take
in the blue in question. "No, we do -not walk on the ice!"

"By being pernicious and *evil*," is Kassi's reply, accompanied by some
collar-tugging of her own. "I should have worn m'cape. Though I'm glad I
didn't, really; 'tis too fine for rolling around in the snow in, but I'd be
*warm*... ach, Aldenth, listen t'her! Walking on the ice is best saved for
winter! Right now y'might break it and fall straight in. Sploosh. Frigid
cold water everywhere." She shudders too. But then she turns towards where
Bronwynn's standing to lift an arm and hail her, "Brynn! You've missed the
war! Look at me, I'm a bloody *casuality*."

Bronwynn tsks playfully, "Kassima! And all this time I thought you were
indomitable." Her gaze moves off to Aldenth and Isawen, looking them over.
"I'sai and Yselle didn't look much better than you," she tells the
wingleader. "Though without my superior snowball skills it's no
surprise..." Her bright smile promises a jest.

After Aldenth has backed away from the ice, probably with some threats from
Isawen, the girl turns to nod at Kassima seriously. "And if you'd worn your
cape, you could've flourished before you died." Not that the death needed
any extras. Certainly not that. When Aldenth comes scooting over to see
what Isawen is doing, she absently brushes bits of snow off of him.
Bronwynn's comment brings a chuckle. "Hmm, they were somewhat outnumbered..."

"I *am* indomitable," Kassi protests. "I'm just nay insnowable. Anyway,
every good snow war calls for one terribly melodramatic death. There's a
*rule* about it. I looked it up. Ach, now! Don't be encouraging a rematch
right here and now, all our legions versus you!" She's grinning, though...
at least until a stray bit of snow-slush drips down her back. Then she's
yelping, and excusing herself to go do the Frantic Dance of Snow Removal.
"'Twill remember that next time, Isawen!" she calls over her shoulder.
"Because cape-flourishing is *always* good!"

[Editor's Note:  RL called right about here, more's the definite
pity. :P :)  Log ends. ]