A walk to the trees {Jarshan}

[Ise]

“If I get the chance to go to a flitter hatching I’ll try to get a bigger one. When we first landed on the south a few people found some eggs and managed to impress. Mostly greens though there were a couple of blues and browns. I think I was still getting over being sea sick when they found the clutch so I didn’t even see them hatch.”
At the time he had been a little disappointed by that but soon he, and everyone else on the Expedition had more important things to worry about. Still, it would be nice to have a useful little pet. Something that would be able to stick with him when he wandered around the Weyr, Horuth was getting big and sooner or later the dragon would be too large to stay in the Weyr.
“All Shield members of flitters right? Is yours around here or is it off doing some task?”

He shrugged a bit as Jarshan commented how boring flat land was. It wasn’t the most exciting thing but that’s what he had grown up with. He had never given his landscape much thought, it was at least green which was better then some places.
“It’s not so bad when you don’t know of anything better. And at least it was never too cold in the winter or too dry in the summer. All the trees here though just seem so… odd. We don’t have any that are anywhere near this big. Or this many in one place.”

D’ero followed after the Shield woman, again trying to stay quiet. He wasn’t too worried about having to make Jarshan toothpicks, after all how many could she really use in a day? So long as he had enough little twigs he would be able to pop one out for her in a matter of seconds.

[Marnark]

Jarshan shrugged slightly. "Flitter hatchings can be nice to witness. Sometimes. Sometimes they are utter mass mayhem and chaos." She mentioned. "But yes, I have a flitter. I also have a tunnelcat. The 'cat stays at the Weyr, and Torc only comes along when I tell him to. Otherwise he's probably busy oogling some Gold somewhere." Typical of males, always thinking with their other head. At least he was well trained enough to be able to focus on his job when she needed him to. "It is generally ensured that Shield members have a larger flitter, and that it is well trained. Mostly because we use them a lot when we are out and about." She shot a glance in his direction as she walked. "We coordinate through them. It is how we got the drop on your bunch ... both of them."

"It is very easy to excuse almost anything by the terminology of not knowing any different." Jarshan mused. "Some people can't stand the idea of eating a fish with it's head still on. Other people never even think about it, cause they grew up doing it." She shrugged slightly. "But yes ... this whole half of the planet is like this. You would be hard pressed to find a part of the South that's not rainforest." She gestured slightly at the trees around them. "Very fertile. Very warm. Very wet."

Coming to a halt now that they were beyond the edge of where most of the firewood scrounging went on, she took a moment to look around. Walking more slowly now, she kept her eyes more on the ground now, though her other senses stayed sharp for everything else. Just in case. "Should be some wood you can use somewhere around here."

[Ise]

"I'm sure some hatchings are boring but your first one has to be interesting. If one happens at the Weyr soon then I'll at least go to watch it. I don't know if I'll be allowed to to try and get a flitter since I just got a dragon but it'd be worth a shot to try and get one. Especially if they're smart enough to be used to help coordinate groups of people."

He looked a little surprised that she had a tunnel cat as well. He knew some people kept smaller felines but had never heard of anyone having any of the large wild felines as a pet.
"How did you manage to get one of those felines as a pet? I thought you guys killed most of them."
D'ero rubbed his chin a bit as he thought about the felines, they could be an interesting animal to try and breed, get something that was a little less... feral.

Jarshan's fish head comment was some what lost on the young man. Fish was fish, who cared if it had its head on or not? It was also something he had never really eaten before he had been sent on the Expedition. But it was still a little hard for him to picture the whole south being covered in forest like this. The sky being blocked by trees was an odd and slightly unsettling thing to him. He didn't mind the warmth or the wetness though, both of those were kind of a nice change.

D'ero stopped and slowed behind Jarshan as they got to the area where he would be able to find the best wood for carving. He stayed a few feet behind her, watching where he put his feet so he wouldn't make any loud sounds as she checked the area out. He continued to try and stay quiet as he started to look around for pieces of wood. He didn't want to be coming out here again too soon so he picked out smaller pieces of wood and fallen sticks. He tested out some of the sticks, making sure that the ones he kept weren't too brittle and wouldn't just snap apart in his hands once he started working on them. He took a couple of minutes to pick out what he wanted, trying to stay alert like Jarshan was. Once he had as much wood as he thought he would need, he went through one of the little pouches on his belt and pulled out some twine. He tied his sticks together, making one nice, neat little bundle to carry so he wouldn't have to try and juggle a dozen sticks around when they went back to the Weyr.

[Marnark]

Jarshan laughed so softly that she almost didn't make any sound at all. "Tunnelcats aren't felines, silly. They're more of a predatory rodent with a few too many legs. They're traditionally kept to chase tunnelsnakes down their own tunnels than anything else. I find they make a nice neck-warmer on cold mornings." She answered. "But I do have a wild feline, too. One of the big ones. Believe you me, if I were to have my way I wouldn't have it. But I don't have my way. Soft hearted wherry-heads insisted that we bring the kittens back and try to train the wild out of them." A clear snort showed what Jarshan thought of that idea. "I don't trust 'em as far as I can throw 'em."

How did she get one? Boy, that was a tale unto itself. "Well ... started out as an attack on a girl. The Shield set out to find the culprit and take it down. We found it in front of its den. Turned out there were kittens in the den." Jarshan shrugged, not ashamed to hand over the very abbreviated version of the story. She wasn't going to outline which people were the wherry-heads that insisted that the kittens be spared. That wasn't the Shield way. However, that queen's hide was sure making a very nice rug in her quarters. Silly kit loved to lay on it and suckle the edges when Jarshan didn't keep her kicked off of it. Sharding wherry-heads. "It's standard operating procedure to kill every feline we find, regardless of age or gender." she clarified. This was certainly not a typical decision by the Shield, no sir.

Jarshan's feet never moved as she looked around, watching as D'ero tried to sneak around while gathering wood. A faint smirk graced her face as she listened to him, but she didn't say anything. She did watch as he tied them together for traveling. Very good decision, in her opinion. He wasn't a total loss.

"We probably ought to get you back to your dragon." She commented, when he was done, gesturing in a whole other direction from the way they'd come as the way back. "Having a dragon will not hurt your chances at impressing a flitter, don't worry. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, it is preferred that Riders have them. It is certainly more common for any given Rider to have a flitter or ten, than it is for a Holder or Crafter to have one. Usually Masters have one, though." She explained.

[Ise]

D’ero listened to how Jarshan had gotten her wild feline. He had heard about the girl being attacked by the felines but after finding out that the child was ok, he had never heard anything else about the incident and hadn’t given it much thought.
“Well it’s an interesting idea to try and make them into pets, not a very smart one but with some careful breeding you might be able to get something a little less feral in a few generations.”
A fun little project to think about but that’s all he would do. Not only did he not know enough about the wild felines here to want to take on something like that, but he didn’t have the time either.

He let out a little snort at the idea of going back to the Weyr just for his dragon.
“Horuth is fine but it is starting to get a little late and I’m sure you have other things you need to do tonight.”
He gently tossed his small bundle of wood behind his shoulder as he came up behind Jarshan. A slight frown touched his lips as he looked at the direction she was pointing to, He was pretty sure they hadn’t come from that way but she knew these woods far better then he did.

“I’m more worried that being a weyrling will hurt my chances of getting a flitt right now. Or that I’ll be scolded for being greedy, I already have a dragon, why do I need a miniature dragon as well?”
He shrugged a bit, still not sure how the people in the Weyr did most things. He just kept to himself and tried to be quiet and polite about everything, it saved him from getting into fights or having arguments with others.