-------------------------------------------------------------------------- She Slices! She Dices! She Juliennes Brownriders! Date: May 8, 1998 Place: Telgar Weyr's Living Cavern Game: PernMUSH Copyright Info: The World of Pern is copyright(c) to Anne McCaffrey l967. The Dragonriders of Pern(r) is a registered copyright. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kassi's Note: Over time, it's possible to develop a resistance to anything... up to and including Kassi's proddiness. Cav's had enough time that he now dares to trade her harsh word for harsh word and insult for insult. What will the result be? Will Kassi ever forgive him for his cracks about her ability to lead her Wing? Will Cav ever forgive her for claiming that Jh'rin is more of a man than he is? Will they ever realize what a profit they could've made if they'd only sold tickets to the event? Tune in next week for another exciting episode of 'Days Of Our Knives'! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Log: You walk past the lintel and into the wide living cavern. Pierron humphs thoughtfully as the wingleader of Thunderbolt arrives. Dragon> Dulath bespoke Lysseth with << Greetings, Lovely One. >> Lysseth> Dulath senses that Lysseth's words hiss like drops of black acid as she replies curtly, << Evening. I would say good evening, but there is nothing in the least good about it. >> From the kitchen, 'Lani doesn't appear to mind the brown rider's presence. She merely quietly gets to work, a silent addition to the young workers -- and the Candidates assigned to help them today. She's without any fire lizards at the moment, looking incongruous, notable really only by her ever-present battered brown hat. Kassima makes a point of silently stalking over to where Pierron stands first. Bracing her hands against the counter behind which he works, she proclaims to him in a low voice, "The next time you snort at me, you imbecilic twit, I shall rip your throat out through your nose t'ensure that you shan't be capable of doing so again. Understand me?" Without waiting for a response, Madame Proddiness hefts her long stick with a knife tied to its end--a spear of some sort?--onto her shoulder and marches over to the kitchen. "Hey!" she yells in. "Any of you going t'come and take these dead fish, or should I leave 'em here for rotting?" From the kitchen, C'vadan glances towards the living cavern and just sighs. He mentally admonishes his lifemate for not warning him about Lysseth's color. His dark eyes dart to the back exit. From the kitchen, Mehlani blinkblinks at Kassima's call, then swallows a little. A couple of Candidates near her, who'd been surreptitiously eying the girl's hat and muttering to themselves -- something involving "looks just like the one that handsome brown rider wears!" -- squeal softly and somehow manage to vanish, leaving 'Lani alone. And with trepidation, she pauses in her work to call out tentatively, "Um... I can get 'em for you, if you want, Kassima....?" Kassima stands in the doorway of the Cavern, one black-booted toe tapping away with impatience. "Don't even think about it, Cav," she advises without even having to glance the brownrider's way. Untying the bundle of cleaned and decidedly dead fish from the end of her makeshift spear, she says, "Just catching 'em'd be sufficient. 'Tis only I who am forbidden the kitchen, nay these fish." From the kitchen, Mehlani bobs her head, glancing from Cav to Kassi and back again, before reaching for a towel to dry her hands. She then steps closer to the green rider, away from the tub full of dishes she'd been working on. From the kitchen, C'vadan sighs yet again. May as well see what evil, twisted machinations Kassima has in store for him. C'vadan walks in from the kitchen. C'vadan says softly, "Hello, Wingleader." Kassima lobs the bundle o' dead things to 'Lani with ease, the poor remains flopping about terribly as they wibble through the air. Only the thong tied around their tails keeps them from sailing every which way. "Catch!" she calls, nevermind that the task is bound to be difficult. Stepping back, she removes an oilcloth from her belt-pouch and sets to work on her spear's end. "Wingsecond," she greets brusquely. "What d'you know about the giant tunnelsnakes currently lairing in the Weyr?" C'vadan doesn't. But he'll play along with the deranged greenrider. Sanity will return soon enough. He hopes. "I think they smell the Candidates," he comments. "New blood always brings them to the surface." He manages to keep a straight face, too. From the kitchen, Mehlani is glommed, more or less right in the chest, with flopping, dead fish. Her nose crinkles up at the smell, not to mention the wet and generally slimy state of the things, and she inwardly thanks herself for not having put on E'rian's black vest today. And hopes that this'll suffice for Kassi's attentions directed her way. She slips off, to relay the fish to the matron in charge of the kitchen today, and to make sure they get properly into cold storage. Sandar walks here from the Inner Cavern. "Probably," Kassi unsurprisingly agrees. She's crazy enough to buy that. "I've been hunting the slime-spawn, y'know. For days. And days. And days. I've nay seen a bloody trace of his effing hide. What I want t'know is whether *you*," and here she pokes one index finger sharply at the Wingsecond for emphasis, "have. Furthermore, 'Lani, I'd like t'hear your answer to the question as well." She sounds almost accusing, as though suspecting that there's some sort of evil conspiracy to keep the 'snake out of her clutches. Sandar wanders in, still wet from his afternoon's duty of scrubbing pots. It seems that the lad can't constrict the water to the pots - it gets all over himself, the floor, the wall, and... the ceiling? Yup, that too. He gives a friendly wave to C'vadan and Kassima. From the kitchen, Mehlani starts. Kassi's voice carries over well enough, even into the kitchen where the girl had started trying to resume her work with the dishes. "I only saw the one that hurt Arki," she calls back after a moment, tentatively. C'vadan doesn't answer. Best to just blend in. He does give Sandar a nod, though. Saskia walks here from the Inner Cavern. Ro walks here from the Inner Cavern. Sandar wanders over to the klah pot, a trail of dishwater dripping behind him as he goes, and pours himself a steaming mugful. Saskia gets splished with a cheerful wave. Ro follows Saskia in, apparently continuing a conversation. She sighs "I got errand duty, for the third day in a row! I think my legs are goin' to fall off." Kassima's mouth thins with displeasure. "Aye. The one that got away from me," she spits, plainly none-too-happy about this fact. "The one *Asrai* killed. But that doesn't do me a chicken dropping's worth of good." Turning around, she gestures to Sandar with her spear, which is slowly starting to dry under the ministrations of her oil cloth. "And you! Where were you when the beast was last seen, *Candidate*? Or you?" She points to Saskia and Ro next. It's a good thing that spear isn't quite long enough for her to really reach out and touch someone with. Spinning back to Cav, she points out without even a hint of patience, "I'm *waiting.*" Saskia strolls in and waves cheerily, "Hi folks." then eeps a bit, "Have dish washing duty today, Sandar?" Saskia smiles, "Hi Kassi. I still haven't seen you eat raw meat yet." Ro asks Kassi "What beast?" C'vadan decides Kassima can wait a little longer. Eventually, the line in the sand must be drawn. He continues to be silent and heads for the Dawnslight table to take a seat. Soon, his journal is out and he is writing something down. Sandar waves to Ro, "heya!" and nods to Saskia. Kassima, on the other hand, gets a gaping mouth. "The... the beast?" he asks, looking guilty already although it's obvious he doesn't know what the greenrider is talking about. "I uh..." as Kassi's attention is diverted, he takes a moment to pretend he was never spoken to, hoping she'll forget she was questioning him. Ro slips quickly and stealthily over toward Sandar, to give him a kiss on the cheek, before approching the riders and asking "Um, do you have any errands you need run?" "Keep your eyes open instead of stumbling about like a dimglow, and you will," Kassi promises Saskia somewhat icily. "The beast! Slithereth's son! The creature I've been hunting down all *sevenday*? Remember him? Wingsecond!" Now her voice is a whipcrack, and she steps right over said line to follow after him and actually sit on the table. Being ignored is not something she's prepared to tolerate right now. "I asked you a very simple question, Wingsecond. Whether you'd seen the 'snake. Now, I know you're a brownrider, but please *try* t'marshal up enough wit t'be answering?" Saskia arcs an eyebrow, but falls silent as she walks over to the hearth and pours herself a mug of klah. C'vadan closes his journal and fixes Kassima a steely gaze. "No, Wingsecond, I haven't," he says slowly so she will hear each word clearly. "Maybe it heard that Lysseth was due to rise and it fled in terror." Sandar blushes a bit at the kiss on the cheek, patting his hand to it as Ro goes to talk to the riders. The redness quickly pales, however, at mention of Slithereth. "Sssslithereth?" he nearly squeaks. "Has a son? I remember helping hunt down the original... crafty as a two-headed tunnelsnake. And big." Sandar gives a glance towards the stores. From the kitchen, Mehlani blows out a breath in silent relief and returns her attention to the dishes. The two Candidates who'd been eying her hat stealthily slink back in to resume helping her, but at least one of the two girls peers uneasily out into the living cavern. Kassima corrects in a voice so chill that a corpse's would seem warm by comparison, "*Wingleader.* The title is Wingleader. And you are accrediting the Star-spawned scum-with-legs with more sense than it could possibly possess." Raising her head, she favors Sandar with a thin, bloodless smile. "Many sons. Many spawn. He's nigh as prolific as a bronzerider hopped up on five glasses of Water and a pot of Flirk's klah." Ro comments to Sandar "We killed a tunnelsnake in the living cavern the other day, Asrai and I did. Not so big as Slithereth, though." The, suddenly remembering something, she approches Kassi "I almost forgot, I made these for you...." Sandar's wince deepends as Kassi continues to talk. When she's done, he lets out a small sigh. "Well," he says with a slight grin, "I'm in for the hunt, like last time. Only this time, I'm gonna get the kill." A mischievous sort of look passes over his features. Ro offers the greenrider six finely stitched sheathes made of tunnelsnake hide, carefully dyed to match the lump's glowing green tones. C'vadan stands. "Pardon me for the mistake, /Wingleader/. I guess I was confused since you aren't exactly behaving as a /Wingleader/ should. But, then, I'm fortunate enough not to be in your wing now, aren't I?" He doesn't seem ready to back down. Kassima watches Ro approach warily from where she's perched on top of a table, indubitably annoying Cav's tablemates no end. She's good at that. "Made something for me?" she asks suspiciously. Sandar receives a dagger- glare in turn. "Like *shards* you are. I've been trailing that creature for the better part of a sevenday, and I *will* have m'kill. I'd like t'see you *try* and take him away from me." Her hissed threat breaks off as Ro presents her with the sheaths, and she blinks... taken aback. "For me?" she repeats, disbelieving. Sandar backs up at Kassima's hissed threat, the Thunderbolt Wingleader showing many signs of adapting her prey's primary racial traits in her thirst to hunt the tunnelsnake down. A determined look reaches his eyes, but he says nothing back. He does, however, start looking under counters and behind sacks stashed in the corners of the room. Ro nods tenatively "Yes, for you. I tried to dye them to match Lysseth. I was hopin' you might be able to use them, since you have so many knives." Saskia eeps softly and makes herself inconspicous by the hearth. Kassima starts to smile at Ro with a sort of weary pleasure at the gift, but then Cav's deathwish-inspired words reach her ears. "And what makes *you* one t'dictate how a Wingleader should act?" she snarls, staring the brownrider in the eye. "When your lifemate decides t'make your life a living nightmare, *off-schedule* nay less, and everyone in the bloody Weyr decides that 'twould be the perfect time t'pour oil on the fire, then *perhaps* you can tell me how a proddy greenrider should act. Until then, I'll thank you t'keep your mouth shut on the subject!" She takes a deep breath, apparently hearing the rising pitch of her own voice. In a lower, slightly grumbled note, she says, "Thankee," to Ro as she accepts the knife sheaths. Kassima grins, then, at Ro's latest words, a brief and fierce grin that's almost more like a baring of teeth. "I'll be able t'use them," she assures the girl. "Hold nay doubts on that score." Ro smiles, the tension ebbing from her stance. She comments "It took me a while to get them the right color. It seemed every time I went to check, Lysseth had gone and changed colors on me." Saskia smiles a bit, "it's beautiful, Ro." Kerlyn strides out from the inner caverns, through the living cavern nd out to the bowl with barely more than a cursory nod of greeting to the folks she passes. Kerlyn walks down the short tunnel and out into the bowl. Kassima gives a short, humorless bark of laughter. "That's the lump for you, aye. Sadistic even when she doesn't mean t'be." C'vadan has been a rider here for many turns, enduring these little theatrical outrbursts of Kassima's the whole time. But it has taken that many turns to develop a tough enough skin to withstand her barbed words. "I have Ursa as my example," he says. Telgar Weyr> Ro soothes the savage Kassi-beast. @whee Ro nods and, having not been given any errands, heads toward the bowl to seek them elsewhere. Sandar quietly weaves his way behind Kassi to head out into the bowl, his eyes scanning the nooks and crannies of the room... just in case something lurks in their depths. Sandar walks down the short tunnel and out into the bowl. Ro walks down the short tunnel and out into the bowl. Saskia slips out with the other candidates. Saskia walks down the short tunnel and out into the bowl. Kassima gets to her feet, letting her hands drop to rest on the hilts of skewer and Emasculator respectively. Oddly, there's no outright threat in the action; it's more like that's just where they're supposed to go. "Ursa," she says slowly, as she would to one who was mentally challenged, "is a brownrider. She does nay have t'deal with proddiness. Or are you suggesting," she asks in a sweetly venomous tone, "that you have a problem with m'leadership even when Lysseth doesn't glow?" From the kitchen, Mehlani keeps half an eye and half an ear on the living cavern as she keeps working on the dishes, just in case somebody yells her name. At last, apparently satisfied that they're safe -- at least for now -- the older of the two girls who've been assigned to work with 'Lani on the dishes leans across the vat and whispers to her. Something to the effect of, "So, is there a reason your hat looks like the one that brown rider wears?" C'vadan shrugs. "You have a convientent excuse for these tiresome little tirades of yours, now don't you?" He crosses his arms before him. Harder to hit the heart that way. Kassima tilts her head, dark green eyes narrowed and seething. "So you think proddiness is just a convenient excuse, d'you?" she asks mildly. Too mildly. "Mayhaps you think I'm making all of this up? That I shirk m'responsibilities a-purpose because I *enjoy* this?" C'vadan might be daring, but he's not stupid. Kassima is *still* a Wingleader. "No, Wingleader. I would never dare accuse you of shirking your duties. I accuse you of chewing the scenery, as the Harpers call it." Kassima straightens and gives a slight nod of satisfaction. "Good," she says simply. "But what is this 'chewing the scenery'? If'n you mean that I'm in a bad mood, congratulations for finally noticing the tremendously obvious." "I'm a brownrider," says Cav drolly. "That's what we do best." Kassima laughs sardonically, unable to argue with that one. "You ever were a blind breed," she agrees with contempt. "Never could see aught coming. I'm amazed that so many brownriders live through Threadfall as do... at least, the male ones, since they're the worst of the lot." From the kitchen, Mehlani can still hear Kassima's words carrying clearly, and the girl chews her lower lip. _-I- like brown riders...._ She doesn't say this, though. Even when she allows herself to answer the question from the other two Candidates by informing them that her hat is like K'star's because he gave her his newer one. C'vadan is long to temper, especially when he knows the other person is prone to violence. "Perhaps that is why you live alone, Wingleader," he says coolly. "I will be glad to accept the brownriders under your Wing into Ursa's since they are such a problem." Kassima's normally long fuse is always replaced by a short one around this time of Turn, since Lysseth manages to burn it all up within the first few hours of glowing. As such, her reply is a lot less cool and a lot more heated, "I live alone because there's nary a man in this world that would be a match for me, Wingsecond. And since you are apparently far from current on m'Wing, I'll inform you that the majority of brownriders we have left--and those're few enough--are female. The rest are all tolerably intelligent. P'tran would nay have chosen them if'n they'd been as oblivious as certain... others." C'vadan laughs. Heartily. "I will make sure Ursa knows how much disdain you have for her riders. And K'tyn, too." He sobers up a bit. "I am sure now every brownrider on Pern will know how little you care for the 'breed'." Kassima suggests in a dangerous voice, "Just you wait until Lysseth stops glowing a'fore you do any such thing, brownrider, or I'll make you wish Dulath had never found you on the Sands that day. All maleriders are of equal worth." Her scathing intonation suggests this isn't meant as a compliment. "Nay as riders--those of you who survive do well enough there; I'll grant you that, though 'tis the last concession you're ever apt t'get from me. As people? Well, now. You yourself admitted that you're as blind and oblivious as a newborn... sufficient, I think, t'be resting m'case." The proddicution rests, Your Honor. C'vadan continues, since he's on a roll anyway. "I guess you would rather have more riders like that foppish Jh'rin in your Wing, since that's the only kind that could stomach your bed." Absolute shock is swiftly replaced by absolute fury on Kassima's face as she retorts harshly, "Jh'rin is more of a man than you'll *ever* be, Wingsecond!" C'vadan rolls his eyes and shakes his head. "You have it all wrong, Kassima. I never admitted to either. If anyone is blind and oblivious, it is *you*." C'vadan retorts, "Only if a man is gauged by his dresses and not his deeds." "And what am I so oblivious to, then?" Kassima demands hotly. "Oblivious to the fact that you, rather than answer one simple question, would rather make an arse of yourself in front of a whole Cavern of people? Oblivious to the fact that you're even *worse* than most maleriders, something I wouldn't have thought possible until this moment? Or mayhaps you think I'm oblivious to the fact that Jhor's your superior in *every* way imaginable?" Ouch. Low blow, Kassi. "Because if'n that's it, then you're wrong on all counts, and just as deluded as you've ever accused me of being! Speak of your pot calling the kettle, indeed!" Low blows only hurt if they connect, and that one missed the mark widely. Cav says, "I believe *you* are the one ranting right now, Kassima. I'm merely pointing out the obvious. Something you've yet to have a firm grasp on at the moment." Kassima sets her clenched fists on her hips. "When speaking of ranting, look to the one who's babbling utter nonsense--in otherwords, in a sharding *mirror*, C'vadan. May I ask what you think is so utterly fardling obvious that I'm missing? Though I'm certain 'tis just as illogical as the rest of your blatherings, it might at least afford me a moment's amusement." C'vadan sees his opportunity and seizes it. "Okay, let's just poll those assembled here and see how many of them understand anything you've just rambled." When he looks around, everyone suddenly gets very interested in the walls. Cav just shakes his head. "And let's ask in turn how many find more sense in what you've been saying," Kassima suggests far too sweetly, swiveling her smoldering gaze over those wall-staring people. They just back further away and begin mumbling conversations with the nearest piece of furniture. "Looks like we're at a stalemate, malerider. And since we can't both be right, that means I must be." Behold the power of Greenriderlogic! C'vadan throws up his hands. "Ah, just forget it," he relents. "Clear skies, Kassima. Though right now, I'd place a Bitran's bet that you could freeze Thread with your presence right now." Kassima retorts, "Put your marks where your mouth is, rider; there's nary a bet that I fear t'take with you. Clear skies," she finishes in a blatantly insincere drawl. C'vadan leaves, his head held high. He knows he won the arguement, even if Kassima's too bullheaded to admit it. C'vadan walks down the short tunnel and out into the bowl. From the kitchen, Mehlani blows out a breath and peeks out into the living cavern. Are they gone yet? Kassima turns on her heel and storms off towards the Inner Caverns in a whirl of black, her chin tilted ever-so-slightly upward with arrogance. She knows full well that *she* won the argument, and if anyone's inclined to disagree, she can always slice-and-dice them later. You walk towards the inner cavern. Telgar Weyr> Caitria says, "The amazing Kassima! She slices! Dices! Even makes julienne brownriders!" Telgar Weyr> Kassima snugs a Cav and thanks him muchly for that most memorable RP. ;) Yes, Tria--but wait! There's more! If you order now, you'll also get the Emasculator--normally a $19.99 value--absolutely *free*! Telgar Weyr> C'vadan says, "Hey! Who's side are you on, Cait???" Telgar Weyr> Caitria pleads the fifth. ;)