Egg Theft

[nozomi]

It's the time we've all been waiting for, kiddies, and I hope you're as excited as I am to get some eggs in the outlaw camp! This will be a bit different from the breakout that while it is an IC event, it will not be played to the same degree as the breakout itself.

Instead, we have this thread. Yes, this very one! The one you are reading. I will be posting a summary, rules, and what one should expect. In return, the thieves (hopefully) will reply with a single post with what the character did.

Why should I? some may ask. Good question! I have an answer!

By writing the post, you will be informed of what egg your character stole, and what the egg thought of them.

If you roleplay it out in that post rather than just summarizing, you will not only get the mini-Touching, but a PRIZE! It won't be a firelizard, as flit eggs aren't exactly kept in the open, but a RPable thing to make living somewhat easier in the wilds. Pretty sweet, amiright? It totally is.

So here we go!

Rules and Regulations

[/u]

1. You do not pick which egg your character steals. Do not discuss color, shape, or if it glitters. That is godmoding, naughty, and I will delete your post.

2. You may kill guards if they get in the way. Going out of ones way to murder will likely end up with a recapture and Very Bad Things.

3. All dragons protecting the eggs have been drugged. Assume the same of the riders.

4. One egg per person, as they are large and cumbersome.

5. Your character is allowed to be wounded. It happens and we like a good mauling as much as anyone! Feel free to hurt them, and if you want to hurt them and be told how bad it is, feel free to ask me to do it.

6. I cannot stress this enough: You do not choose the egg your character takes.

7. This thread will go from NOW to June 14th at 11.59PM.

8. If the number of outlaws stealing surpasses the amount of eggs we planned for them to have, too bad - you posted too late. It's first come, first serve.

9. This is a theft. If they are caught, and someone escapes being slaughtered by whers/prisoners/PO'd outlaws, you are free to state either your character wasn't seen or got their egg/past the initial guards before it sounded. Someone will probably eff it all up and get seen no matter what.[/center]

[nozomi]

How it goes down. Ish

Time: Near dawn.
Weather: Severe thunderstorm
Planned Route: Along the outside of the river, through an area the wher patrol is being bribed to leave unguarded.
Probably trouble points: Guards at the sands, though not with whers.
Visibility: Extremely low. We're talking black-out rain.

Each outlaw will have: A bag in which to put the egg to carry at their chest, or at their back.

[nozomi]

Pissing. Rain.

Utterly pouring rain. Jessan could not see in front of her nose, let alone the river they were supposed to be walking alongside. She'd managed to convince herself once they left that the rain would mean there would be less guards out to take out or avoid, that only one or two dragons could possibly even be around because that tent could only cover so much. She knew it came as an advantage.

It didn't mean she wouldn't inwardly swear at the rain as if it had taken her first born child. (She did not have a child, but Jessan imagined that if she liked it enough not to take a ride between, that she'd be attached to it somehow.) Her clothes stuck to every inch of skin they could possibly muster, unpleasant, distracting, and it made the sack at her side feel even heavier. Ugh. Not only that, but no weapons. Those, she left with Machi - what did Jessan know about weapons, and killing guards, and all of that craziness?

Nothing, that's what. Let people like Arkady and Machi and those other outlaws go about and kill people. Why not.

So she trudged through the rain and the gross, slipping past any and all she could find to see that there were - two clutches. What? Two - alright, awesome. Fabulous. Jessan, at least, found herself pleased. Dragon - dragons? - asleep, no riders in sight, Jessan crept to the nearest clutched and lashed out.

Dragon eggs were heavy. She shoved it into that pre-made pack, grumbling when she snorted some rainwater into her nose. She took the few seconds to bind her hair up, coughing before she turned back and booked it the hells out of there.

Jessan ran, and ran, and ran, and ignored the egg at her chest and how it felt because if she didn't get up along the river and to her camp out, capture would be coming for her.

[Admin note: This is a fairly simply, uneventful theft on Jessan's part - she sneaked in, grabbed an egg, and booked it. No guards harassed her, no whers saw, the dragon(s) are out of it. This is the part where I'd PM the player with the egg stolen and what the egg thought of the thief, along with her 'prize'! Hurrah!]

[S'yal]

Iris had equipped her pack to her back, aiming to leave her arms free and unobstructed. She wasn't aiming to get into a fight- this was more important, far more important, but she wanted her hands free in case a guard did go after her. If a wher did, she was tripping another criminal and getting the hell out of there as fast as possible.

She moved more silently then another outlaw in her position might, turns of experience weighing down on her. But there was so much more to lose here then any job. Her lifemate might be in one of those eggs, though Iris seriously doubted it. She was not arrogant enough to think that a traditional color would choose one such as her.

She was relieved to see that the guards did not have the whers- so Jessan really did bribe them. Good woman.- but that still led to another problem. Iris walked around the edge of the clutches, aiming to grab an egg that wasn't in the direct line of sight of any guards. She didn't pay attention to what she grabbed, merely sliding it into her pack and staggering underneath the weight.

She was a small woman, and this thing was heavy.

She darted off into the rain in the same direction Jessan had gone, although moving at a slow and steady pace. The rain made things slippery, and while Iris may have been used to bad weather, it didn't mean that she could walk perfectly in it. She didn't want to risk falling and crushing the precious egg on her back.

[Spiffy]

Rain. Bella didn't like rain, it made her hair stick to her head. Bella's hair should stick out; it was one of her distinctive features, shardit!

Bellatrisk and Bellask, scouting ahead of their handler, had no such dislike of the skywater. The two were loving it, Bellask in particular: she didn't have such trouble with the thick vegetation as the gold, and her camouflage was far better. That was why Bella was leaving her in the jungle and bringing Bellatrisk with her out onto the beach sand. You stay here, Sweetling, keep watch for me. Bellask grumbled, but stayed where she was.

At the edge of the forest, Bella and the gold slipped out into the open, stalking their way toward the clutches, Bella staying on the offside of the where so she was less likely to be seen. In this low visibility, Bellatrisk would be almost invisible against the san, ghost-like as she appeared and disappeared into the dark. The two stayed close, keeping a keen eye out in either direction, in front and behind, in case someone else appeared out of the gloom.

As it turned out, the only figure to appear out of the gloom was Jessan, in the distance (or not so distant, but enough so that she was only visible for a second or two) and a dragon, looming and still and completely, hopelessly drugged. Sweet Faranth, Jessan, how did you manage it?

The theft itself was also surprisingly simple. The two slipped up to the clutches, picked an egg (it looked like a good one. She didn't know why, it just did), and backed off. Once they were no longer within sight of the clutch, Bella tucked the egg into the carrying pack. She'd rigged it somewhat differently to the rest of the outlaws, adding some rather sturdy vines to the shoulder straps so that they would reach around Bellatrisk's neck. That was where it hung: around her neck, between her chest and her chin, where it was less likely to get swept off by any stray branches on their way back.

That done, they slunk back to the forest. They hardly got 100 paces before a voice floated uncertainly out of the rain.

"Stop right there! You... You'll put that egg back now. And call that wher off," he said, sounding more uncertain of himself by the second.

Bella dutifully stopped dead. Shit, she thought. Gently, she touched Bellask's mind. Then she smiled to herself. This could be fun. Slowly she raised her hands above her head and began to turn toward the voice. "No funny business. And I said call the wher off!" The figure, when she saw him, was pointing and arrow dead at her chest. For all the shaking his voice was doing, his hands were rock steady. She had to admire him for that; not many would be so when faced with a gold wher who saw an arrow as little more than an annoyance. Bellatrisk, for her part, was stalking toward the guy and looking her most menacing, head lowered to cover the egg, teeth bared and eyes red.

"Well ya got me red handed. Leave the man alone, Princess, he's only doing his job." Not very well, but the guy's got guts. Bellatrisk stopped her stalking, though her expression changed little. "You're a brave guy, you know, going up against a gold wher and her handler. Good hands though, rock steady," she said, buying herself a little time.

"I said nothing funny. Now get the egg. Now!" the guard said, gesturing with his head, the arrow staying trained on her heart.

"What's so funny about that? I'm giving you a complement," she said, flashing him a smile, which he returned with an uncertain frown. She took a step toward the gold, laying her hands on Bellatrisk's shoulders before pausing and looking back at the man. "You know, the Weyr could do with more people like you. Brave, courageous, stupid. Shame they're about to loose one."

It took the guard a second to work out what she meant by that, and then to connect that with the fact that Bella was now not looking at him, but over his shoulder, smiling...

He hardly had time to turn and look before Bellask was on him. He probably never even knew what hit him.

When the green was done she raised her bloody muzzle to her handler, who gave her a pet and a "well done Sweetling. I told you you weren't missing out." Bella looked at the guard. There really wasn't much left of him to speak about, let alone recognise. He'd be a nice surprise for the riders when they found him, or what was left of him. "Come. We're done here," she said, laying a hand on each of her whers' shoulders and leading them back into the forest, and back to the rest of the outlaws.

[tuathade]

The plan was simple. Too simple, which meant that something was bound to go wrong. Not that that would stop Arkady, just that he was preparing for the worst. He had the pack into which he would sling his purloined egg, he had his wits about him, and he had his fellow outlaws… well, not with him, not precisely. He couldn’t see a sharding thing in this rain, and they’d all more-or-less split up and staggered their raids to reduce the likelihood of being seen. But they were out there. Somewhere. Hopefully with eggs.

And oh, how inviting those eggs were. The Harper hadn’t been expecting to find himself a sentimentalist, but he did always have a soft spot for dragons. Never hurt a rider, if he could help it – it was one thing to kill a man, another thing entirely to kill the big telepathic beastie attached to him just because it was unlucky. Dragons weren’t like men.

Arkady didn’t really care which egg he picked up, he just grabbed the nearest one without even paying attention to its markings. Handling it with care, he managed to wrangle his new potential lifemate into the sack, sling it onto his back, and position it more-or-less comfortably. The straps were a little long, and now that the sack was full of egg he realized it sat uncomfortably low on his back. Well, too late to do anything about that now. Shouldering his heavy burden, he set off back in the direction he’d come, moving as quickly and as quietly as he dared.

***

It was unlucky for G’rus, but unluckier for the outlaws in general, that the brownrider was suffering from a bout of restlessness on this particular night. The drastic adjustment in his sleeping schedule since arriving at Warden’s, combined with a lingering sense of unease, woke him unusually early that morning. Before dawn, and well before his shift, the man was up and pacing his weyr before at last deciding to step outside. The pounding rain might be miserable to someone else, but the cool water on his skin was refreshing… that, and he was hoping to swing by the two clutches lying on the sands. Not to peek at them (one Rheth was more than enough for him, thanks) but to reassure himself that they were safe.

He didn’t make it that far. As he walked by the bank of the river, faint noises reached his ears – a voice barely audible and completely unintelligible over the pounding rainfall. It took him a while, and a few false starts, to determine direction. Longer still to come across the grisly remains of Bellask’s successful kill.

Rheth?

Mm? What’s… G’rus, what’s wrong. The voice in his head went from sleepy to red-alert in half a second flat.

We’ve got trouble. Alert the rest of the squad. Do it now and do it quiet – at least until I give you the signal. G’rus was painfully aware that whatever had mauled his fellow guardsman (and he was almost sure it was a wher) couldn’t be far off – in this rain, he might not even see the culprit a dragonlength away. The poor bastard’s remains were still unpleasantly fresh, blood mingling with the rain in a puddle of diluted red. Sounding the alarm now would tip the murderer off and likely bring trouble right down on his head. G’rus had no intention for his last words to be “guards, guaaaaaargh,” thanks.

Got it. Ladies, gentlemen, and G’rus felt the curious change in mental timbre that indicated Rheth was now addressing the other dragons of the squad, we’ve got trouble down by the Hatching Sands.

Tracks. There were tracks, nearly obscured by the falling water until he couldn't tell if they were human or wher, but the muddy ground held them well enough. G’rus followed them – not in the direction that the Bellas had gone, not towards the outlaw camp, but the other direction. Back towards the Hatching Sands – oh no. Oh Faranth no. G’rus picked up his pace from a walk to an urgent jog, reaching for his crossbow and a bolt just in case. And it was right at that moment that he almost literally ran right into Arkady.

***

It was honestly difficult to tell who was more startled: Arkady or G’rus. They both recovered at around the same time, the brownrider nocking a bolt to his weapon at the same time that Arkady ran like a little bitch.

Fuck if he was going to tangle with a guard! He hadn’t brought his weapon! Ark had figured he’d need both hands free to wrangle the egg into the pack (which was true) and anyway, stealth over violence, at least on this particular mission. And of course, right when he sharding needed it, he wouldn’t have the machete. Scorch his life, scorch it all. Even if he had brought the blade, the heavy weight of the egg on his back made him slower than usual, clumsier. Not good for close combat. Even running full-tilt into the rain, he didn’t feel fast enough… forget dodging and weaving, the object was to get out of visibility range as quickly as possi-

ssssssthunk.

He felt it first as an impact, a sudden jolting blow in his right shoulder that knocked the wind from him but was curiously devoid of pain. Arkady stumbled, one knee hit the mud, he dragged himself back upright on sheer willpower and momentum and kept running. Keep running, that was the thing. Don’t let the next one be in the back of your skull. His shirt and the pack were both already soaked through with rain, but the dampness was warmer now around where the bolt must have struck. Probably pinned the egg pack right to him, ha. The irony would have made him laugh if he had breath to spare on laughing – and oh, okay, there was the pain. Goodbye, shock, Arkady would miss you. Faranth shit fardles fuck.

Somehow, miraculously, he must have made it out of range, because a second killing shot did not come. He would run until his legs gave out, and hope that was enough.

***

Shards! He’d been hoping to drop the man. Well, G’rus had been aiming to miss the egg, and it was a rainy night. Not every shot could be perfect. But one outlaw with a wher, and one outlaw with an egg, meant more criminals were likely out there as well.

Now.

A booming bugle sounded loud across the weyr. The alarm was raised. Let havoc ensue.

[Zen]

Rynn had been asked to go to make sure everything was in order. She could see nothing in this dratted heavy rain, but the whers were having the time of their life. They were finally going back to the Weyr, if only to go steal some eggs. ‘Pretties,’ Rysk called them, and while she was okay with watching them, she wasn’t so much okay with taking them. That’s why she’d made sure that Rynn was nowhere close to the eggs. She didn’t want to harm one of them, and she knew Rynn probably would do just what she didn’t want. Wenrynsk, on the other hand, was certainly overjoyed about being able to help with something so mischevious.

Bellatrix and her whers strode past Rynn with little glances being cast either way. The two weren’t the best of friends. In fact, the two weren’t friends at all, and the only reason why Rynn stuck around her was because she was one of the only other wher handlers in the outlaw camp. It’s better to keep together, right? Like bodies go with like bodies. But Rynn disliked Bellatrix with all of her heart. Wenrynsk trudged with the woman and her whers, though a couple paces behind them, before stopping at a bend in the path.

“Sorry, Wenny.” Rynn called softly to her blue, who was just raring to go with them. But the blue said nothing. Rynn strode forward, looking critically at the ground. Ugh, the outlaws were leaving too many tracks. If the rain got any worse, the puddles of their footprints might not go away. The rain was strange like that. It always found a way to muss up their plans. “Rysk, Wenny, grab some leafy twigs. We’re going to muss up our tracks.”

Not a moment too soon had Rynn and her whers began to cover up their (meaning Bellatrix, her whers, and Rynn and her whers as well as other random tracks) tracks, for even through the haze of rain, she could see a man striding away, staring at the tracks the outlaws had made. They stilled, Rynn’s heart beating as quickly as a wherry’s wings beat to keep it aloft, and waited until he was gone before continuing. “I want these tracks completely decimated. We were almost found out; we can’t have that happen.”

Wenny growled low in his throat, the sound seemingly restricted by the branch in his mouth and he quickly went back to covering the tracks. Rynn watched as outlaws trekked back, all taking various different routes. None of them thought to cover their tracks partly because of the pouring rain. No one thought that rain could actually help the tracks be seen, but when one’s sloshing through mud, one doesn’t really think about anything other than making sure his or her boot wasn’t left behind. Besides, rain was supposed to wash away tracks, right? That’s what everyone thought, but people were wrong.

Alarm! Rysk cried in her mind, her green head shooting up and looking toward the Weyr. Rynn gritted her teeth as she wiped water from her eyes, forgetting there was mud on her hand. She could feel the mud slither down her face with the rainfall. “Faranth. Alright, we’ve covered up enough tracks. We’ll come back later to check and see if any more tracks lead deliberately to the outlaw camp. Come on, my babies.”

Wenny and Rysk both dropped the sticks they held and they took a haphazard route back to the camp—as to make sure people following their own tracks (if they made any, of course) would become confused. But Wenny and Rysk had been taught to track like Rynn, so they made sure little went amiss in the storm.

---

Rheth tells us that we are needed! The eggs are being stolen! Cazveth’s terror-filled mind voice shot through E’mor’s veins like ice. The man shot upright, his skin a-crawl with horrors. Outside his nice, comfy weyr the wind howled and raged. He bunched the covers around him like a frightened toddler. What shall we do?

“What to do? What can we do? I can’t fight. I’ll probably be squashed! Squashed! Dead! And you’ll be gone. It’s better to stay here, away from everything. It’s easier to do that. Yes, easier. It’s too dark outside. That’s it. Tell him it’s too stormy and I’ll get blown away.” E’mor said as he huddled in his covers.

Cazveth rounded on him not only physically but in his mind. They are stealing the eggs. Mine, we cannot let them steal what is not yours! I will not stand for it. Get out of your covers and go help! Her bugle was almost as loud as the alarm bugle and her eyes swarmed with red. E’mor jumped, literally jumped, out of the bed. But he went nowhere near the entrance of his weyr.

“I simply can’t do it. I can’t. Too many statistics against us. You’ll have to tell him, you’ll have to tell him I can’t go out there. I won’t be going out there.” E’mor was shaking his head too hard and he swore with the next peal of thunder he’d get a headache. Cazveth pushed her head out of her weyr. He heard her sigh mentally. Oh, no? Fine. Then you’ll be part of the cleanup crew. I’m making you. You’ll work with the prisoners when the sky clears up. Or perhaps we will search for the outlaw camp again.

E’mor cringed. But he nodded as he crawled back into his nice, warm bed. “That’s… uh, that’s fine by me. As long as you don’t kill me in my sleep.” He curled into a fetal position and shook as another crack of lightning hit closer to home than he cared to think.

[Inkwell]

Astor's world was a blur of color and muck lit only by the near-dawn light and occasional lightning flash in the distance. He was soaked through and covered in mud up to his knees and elbows because he had long ago given up walking properly in favor of loping along on all fours. It was far more stable in the slippery mud of the river. If he had been any other man, perhaps he would have worried that the other outlaws might find this stupid, even childish, but he wasn't any other man and he frankly didn't care. As far as he was concerned, they didn't even exist. The only thing that existed was the eggs that were waiting for him, one of which would be his, all his.

As a man who loved fire, Astor had always, deep down, loved dragons. Not in the way one might think, the fanboy admiration that many young Pernese felt, but rather with a fierce feeling of possessive want. Dragons were the only other beasts worthy to master fire, and that made them heavily desirable. Things were different now -- dragons could hurt humans, he'd heard so himself -- and so what would stop him, once he had a dragon, from using its strength and firepower to rain down his own particular brand of fun on the people of Pern? It would be a game with larger stakes than any he'd ever played in, and he was eager to get started.

He had to find the sharding things first, of course. He followed the blurry outlines of the other outlaws, not quite 'with' the group so much as moving in its wake. His plan was simple: one of the fools was bound to be noticed. While they were busy being noticed, he would slip in and grab an egg. It was a simple and perhaps slightly flawed plan, but it seemed perfectly logical to him.

And it worked, to a point. The is, he made it to the eggs simply by barreling his way straight through, ignoring any guards that may have seen him or any outlaws that may have been in his way. They were inessential. All that mattered was getting this wondrous new set piece for his latest game. The problem was, the alarm already being risen meant that the guards were already on-edge.

He selected the first egg he came to -- any egg would do, he knew he could always 'acquire' a more suitable egg from another outlaw later if this one proved to be a dud. Barely halting to look at it -- he wouldn't have been able to see it past a vaguely egg-shaped blur anyway -- he began to stuff it into his sack.

Astor was thrown sideways halfway through the task, finding himself with a guard atop him and a dagger bearing down on him. Shards and shells, he didn't have time for this! He brought up a hand in an attempt to knock the dagger away, grabbing at the other man's wrist when that proved more difficult than he'd expected. Unsure of what else to do, he took his other hand, full of sand and covered in gritty mud, and rubbed it in the man's eyes. If nothing else, it would hurt enough and possibly blind him long enough for Astor to escape. Banking on that, he turned over and wriggled out from beneath the other man, ignoring his cry of pain and surprise and the knife that, hand that held it now released, lanced down and cut a gash in his side.

In any other situation, he would have immediately rounded on the man, wrestled the dagger from him, and shown him exactly how well he liked one of his toys deigning to fight back. However, his first order of business was still the egg, mercifully still laying there, half-stuffed in the sack and undamaged. Or at least, he thought so. It was hard to tell, given that it was merely a lump of color and the only reason he could tell where it was was because the sack it was in was a familiar lump of color that set it apart from the sands. Still ignoring the pain in his side, he tied the sack securely, clutched it to his chest, and loped off before his guard could wipe his eyes clean or call for reinforcements. The return journey was going to be a lot slower, given that he'd have to work extra-hard not to trip on anything and fall and shatter his precious cargo, but it didn't matter.

He had an egg. He was going to have a dragon. Then he'd have it eat that guard and all of his little friends, and all would be right with the world.

[Evadne]

This was ridiculous.

Jadore had to admit, the thought of having a flight of dragons at her back wasn't unpleasant. But the beauty of that daydream had begun to pale in comparison to the conditions they must suffer in order to secure the eggs. They? There were others out there in this muck, she knew there had to be. But it was hard to hear over the roar of the rain falling and the hiss as it struck the already muddied ground. And as difficult as it was to hear, it was several times more difficult to see.

Her boots, already heavy with mud, caught something and she almost toppled over face-first. Was it a root?

No. A body. Or what was left of one.

Jadore stood over it, her head tilted and her hands buried in the sack she'd been clutching. The guard was a ruin and she grimaced to see the damage. Teeth, it looked like. Rather messily done, she thought.

A dragon's bellow above brought her out of her critical revery and she looked up, getting a fresh face full of rain for her efforts. The alarm had been raised. Good, in that it meant someone had succeeded. Bad, in that it meant the area was likely soon to be swarming with guards. Jadore's jaw tensed. She could run now, call it a wash and be relatively certain of her own safety.

But that would mean returning empty handed, faced with others who had succeeded.

"Oh no you don't," she murmured and set off again.

She presumed she was in the right spot when a stocky figure loped by, just a charcoal sketch in the pummeling rain. The tense crouch she fell into was simply a caution; her mind was already supplying her with a name to match the man's build. Astor. That sealed it. No madman with a penchant for fire was going to prove himself more capable. She'd get the egg and do so without a scratch.

But she'd do so cautiously. With her ears straining for any sound of approach, be it foot- or wingfall, Jadore crept forward into the clutch. She ran her hands over several of the eggs but none really stood out until...there. This one...yes.

It was stuffed without ceremony into the sack she'd brought along and bundled to her chest. She could feel her arms trembling with the weight of it, the awkward shape that seemed intent on slithering out of her grip, but she persevered. Turning tail, she began to lope and then trot back towards safety, intent on making good her escape.

"You! Stop there!"

It was a woman's voice, strong with authority. Against all reason, Jadore felt a laugh bubbling up in her throat. Amusement with a defiant note. Even when the air around her hissed with crossbow bolts, she laughed and laughed as she bolted back into the cover of darkness.

Now this was an adventure.

[tiamat]

Ragniel moved as quietly as she could through the muck and wet and cursed the rain for how difficult it was making it to move. And see, for that matter; no matter how much she squinted, she couldn't see more than a few feet, and that was being generous.

She was just glad that the guards hadn't been alerted yet; she didn't think she could move fast enough to escape again if she had an egg on her back (or even if she'd be able to get away at all; limping does not make for terribly swift movement, especially in slippery horrible wet mud). She swore again as she slipped, and awkwardly made her way to the Hatching Sands. She moved carefully through the sands, took off the pack on her back, and grabbed the first egg she could feel (stupid rain obscuring her vision; she wished she could tell if it was gold or not, so that she wouldn’t have to deal with this uncomfortable mess again). She hauled it into the pack, got it as comfortably on her back as should could, and began making her slow, awkward way back to the jungle.

She was a little over three quarters there, by her guess, when she heard the alarm. She started moving as quickly as she could without falling and possibly hurting the innocent egg, and cursed the idiot who had gotten them caught. She would need to have Words with them, and hopefully they would be the sort of Words that involved pointy objects and blood.

Faranth, she hated everything about this little trip that wasn’t eggs.

[firebird]

It was cold. It was wet. Yekemi had never felt so alive since his imprisonment. He could move freely as he wanted, without an armed guard and that ridiculous straitjacket. And he had a weapon now, even if the belt knife was a little on the small side. He kept himself low to the ground as he sloshed through the mud. Being seen would be a problem, and he didn't particularly like the idea of being captured or filled with crossbow bolts.

Then the alarm was raised, and Yekemi took off running for the sands. Grab the egg and get out. You do not want to be caught by the guards or -even worse- by a dragonrider. The sands would be covered in guards after that noise, but he could not return empty-handed. A loss of respect among the other outlaws was as good as a death sentence, especially since he hadn't had the time to properly cow any of them yet.

Yekemi nearly slipped in the wet sand as he darted over to the closest egg and knelt down so he could slip it into the pack on his back. Make sure it's secure. If the egg slips out and breaks you'll lose so much face that you might as well walk right back into the prison. Now go, run back to the caves as quickly as you can. Don't get caught.

As he slipped into the depths of the jungle, he decided that it didn't count as being caught if the guard was killed. He loved being armed again.

[Cansi]

Some folks had seemed to have a hard time sleeping through the night up until time to leave. Not Alezri. He was a pro at taking naps whenever allowed, and his subconscious had filtered out the wild storm outside. He couldn't ignore being kicked though, as someone hissed at him: "Get up, it's time to move!"

The young man grinned wickedly in the dark. Oh, this would put a knot in the tails of everyone not an inmate if it worked. He had no trouble psyching himself up, stretching with a yawn. He got in line and claimed a pack from the pile along with the others, and holding in his fist rather than putting it on, stepped into the rain. He soon realized that the torrent had turned the mud into little beguiling streams everywhere, dimly seen a pace before reaching them- and duly cursed as he slogged his way through. He sensed that several someones were ahead of him, and he growled in the back of his throat. Deftly, he shoved an arm through a strap, slinging the pack over his back to put the other strap on the opposite side. There; that was better. Should've done that from the beginning.

Alezri was pretty certain that this was going to go badly, but being among the first to get there and get out would increase the chance of survival- success in the mission would be tallied if any eggs made it back to the camp. For himself, he didn't much like the idea of anyone being left behind. More people meant more choices for the dragonlings. If there were any.

He slipped on a loose rock submerged in a puddle and tumbled forward, the noise of the splash easily exceeded by the continuous crash of thunder. The lightning wasn't as helpful as it could have been, serving only to ruin his night vision every time it lanced across the sky- or down from it. Not that it mattered. The lack of a weapon should have bothered him, but he didn't want to engage anyone. If they caught him, they caught him. He could always sell out the others to save his own skin, though the idea rankled. Alezri just wasn't the hero type, especially when the ones his actions could save happened to be fellow criminals.

He shoved the nagging thoughts away from him violently as lightning shot down a few paces in front of him, making him stumble.

Relief weakened his knees when he saw the open sand. Someone was just going across, and he followed them, head and shoulders ducked inward as they ran almost crouching toward their goal. It's the wrong time to be admiring an ass, he told himself fiercely, jerking his gaze away from the luscious round butt he was following. They slowed in tandem as they slipped out onto the sands, and then he lost track of the guy he'd followed.

Alezri's heart was thudding against his wet chest, eyes wild as he looked around for guards that could see them. Then the alarm was going off, and he moved as though possessed as the guards' attention was sharpened. Events slowed to a crawl in his mind. Egg, there. Must have! The pack rolled from his shoulder to the sand smoothly. Before it landed he was already spreading its mouth wide. As the sack collapsed onto the ground, the young man was feverishly lifting the unwieldy weight of the precious oval and settling it into the bag. He stood, pulling the pack up and around the egg, covered it with the flap, secured it. Put it on his back, already moving back the way he'd come.

It felt like he was running through jelly.

There he was, gasping and panting and cursing simultaneously as time seemed to resume its normal flow. He had to slow down. The egg was worth more than his freedom- maybe worth more than his own life- and he'd just die if he tripped and busted it. The horror of that thought had him moving more carefully. The longer he moved through the cold and wet, the more he felt like howling with glee. The emotion was hard to keep bottled up until he reminded himself that there were probably already guards and wher handlers swarming to the area to try and recover what had been lost before it was too late.