Like Cats and Dogs (Tag: Shannara/Stormy!)

[redwerecat]

((I figure if they need to they can just move? I couldn't think of anywhere else to put the thread!))

Time: Evening, just near Sundown

A'gar was actually in a pretty good mood. He didn't have anything to do, didn't have anywhere to be, and for once, he was content just to lie back on the couch and let things be. Einherjath was relaxing on the ledge outside the common room, one of the big open ones that lots of the dragonkin tended to gather on whilst their bonded humans were within, simply relaxing and enjoying the night air as it slowly got cooler with the setting sun. The big brown boy was thinking of something in that way only dragons could, and though every so often A'gar would check in on the big guy, trying to decipher whatever he was contemplating made his head hurt, so he didn't try.

Yeah, it was a pretty nice day. He was currently stretched out on a couch in the common room just...existing. The TV was off- A'gar found it just TOO noisy- and there wasn't really anyone else around, and it seemed like a good enough time to take a nap...peaceful and quiet.

Hang on.

Quiet?

Quiet was never good. Why the shards was it so quiet and what the shells was L'iyr doing if he wasn't making a fuss in the back of A'gar's mind.

A'gar almost shot up off the couch like an arrow before a hand on his chest stopped him cold. He glanced up, a dark look crossing his face in answer to the equally smug-looking one on the face of the man very delicately pinning him back to the sofa with one finger.

"Oh, stop looking at me like that, A'gar." L'iyr said, looking, of all things, bored. "I'm not up to anything. You should know that..." He said, tapping his forehead with his other hand in irritation. He meant thanks to their preternatural connection to one another. "Surprised I even managed to sneak up on you- even Ein noticed me coming. Are you losing your touch, or are you just ignoring me?" L'iyr almost sounded sad, but no, that ounce of 'extremely irritating' also managed to sneak in here...

A'gar frowned, and smacked his partner's hand away. "The second one." He clarified, and sat up anyway, pushing L'iyr off the back of the couch where the thinner man had been perching.

L'iyr just rolled his eyes, caught himself, and ducked his head in a sarcastic little bow (YES ITS A THING- a thing that still manages to deeply irritate A'gar) and he flicks his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Of course." He says in that way that means he believes anything but. "I'[m not here for you, anyway, I had something I wished to discuss with Einherjath..." Now that A'gar is paying attention, he can feel the mentally -tacked-on thought that he refuses to call Ein 'Their' dragon, because it still ties them to closely to one another- he catches L'iyr glowering at him and realizes the man has caught him 'eavesdropping'. A'gar shrugs.

"Whatever you like, L'iyr. He's outside..." He points, half considering accompanying them, but L'iyr waves him off and sweeps out of the common room.

"No, thank you. Stay where you are. I'll return in a moment if you're so desperate for my company..." L'iyr calls behind him.

A'gar sighs, frustrated. "That's not what I -" But his words go unheeded. "Bastard." He swears after his partner anyway, just because it makes him feel a little better. Then he flops back on the sofa and stares at the ceiling wondering at how easily the peaceful feeling went away... drat. And Einherjath wondered why his rider had taken to wandering the weyrbowl at night...

((Yeah, no idea.))

[Stormy]

((No, it's fine!))

Shannara had just woken up, and Shannask was grumbling about it still being a little light out. She let the green complain, knowing it wouldn't be long before the sun fully went down.

A a trip down to the feeding grounds would be necessary, because Shannask realized she was hungry, and left no room for argument from Shannara. Besides, she was hungry herself, and something like a sandwich sounded good. Two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches later for Shannara, and a goat for Shannask, they were meandering back up to the common room, where it was usually empty at this time of night.

After her run-in with A'gar at the turn of the fall and winter seasons, she had made an effort to at least try and interact with the other inhabitants of the Weyr. She wasn't always successful, though, and often retreated to the Hatching Sands when she felt out of place or intrusive. Or excluded.

Nibbling on a third sandwich, Shannara wasn't expecting to see someone there when she walked in. However, taking a glance around, she realized someone was draped across the couch, and she almost backed out of the common room before they realized she was there.

"Bastard."

Hearing his voice, she took a second glance at the man sprawled on the couch and blinked.

"A'gar?" she asked, realizing it was the blonde who had let her borrow his jacket. "Who...were you swearing at?"

She certainly didn't see anyone else he could be talking to, though the heavy curtain leading to a ledge outside was swaying like someone had pushed past them.

Shannara certainly hoped it wasn't her he had sworn at, but then, she didn't think he had known she was there until she had said something.

[redwerecat]

A'gar once again jerked upright with a sort of startled gasp- no, gasping wasn't quite right, more...an extremely irritated exhale that preceded him swearing again because seriously, L'iyr, stop DOING that-

"Iauuughoh." He said, losing steam quickly as he saw it was not his tall, lanky companion at all, but instead a much more pleasant sight in the form of a very white-haired wherhandler he was much more pleased to see. He glanced around a bit, trying to make absolutely sure he was in fact alone before he sighed, relaxed, and grinned at her broadly.

"No one important." He answered as he sprang off the couch and half-bowed, half-saluted to her. Yes, in fact, he was going to ignore answering that question properly for the moment, he thought as he swept by the query entirely and moved on to something else. "What are you doing here?" He felt Einherjath's wry little chuckle at that, and knew he'd pay for that later, but the hasty little plea he sent to the brown was enough to convince the dragon to keep L'iyr occupied a bit longer. Outside the curtain, the dragon shifted, wrapped his forelegs around his rider, and began to wax poetic about nothing in particular in a way that only L'iyr ever seemed to respond to.

A'gar laughed, and abruptly halted that before Shannara thought he was going crazy. "Oh- sorry, I just..." He hesitated. "No, no, you should be familiar with people talking to themselves. You must talk to your little green, right?" Another broad grin, and he gestured to the room at large, mostly for something to do with himself. "Oh, nevermind. How are you? How's Shannask?

[Stormy]

Shannara laughed quietly at A'gar's seemingly disjointed actions, then nodded. "Of course I talk with Shannask. I think she'd be rather put out if I didn't," she said with a smile. "As for what I'm doing here, it's usually empty at this time of day, so I've taken to coming up here to relax a little bit before my duties call me elsewhere. As much as I enjoy the heat of the Sands, sometimes it's nice to find somewhere with more...traffic. I had forgotten how lonely this Weyr gets from time to time..."

Her golden eyes trailed off for a moment, but quickly came back to A'gar. "As for how Shannask and I have been, we've been...we've been, I guess. Circumstances could certainly be better than what they are now, with the threat from the black hole looming over Earth. But, we've tried to keep as upbeat about things as we can," she said with a small, delicate shrug.

"How have you been, A'gar? You seemed...grumpy, I suppose, before you realized who I was," she said.

Shannask blinked once at A'gar in greeting, then stared over at the curtain, which was barely swaying now. Not really paying attention to the conversation ShyOneHers was having with the dragonrider, she padded over to the curtain. She had heard something shifting on the other side, and was curious. It was likely it was just the dragonman's dragon, but she wanted to investigate regardless. She nosed past the curtain, seeing a brown and a lanky man between the dragon's forelegs. There was something about the man that she didn't like, though...

[redwerecat]

A'gar laughed. "Would she really? I find I like her more and more." He replied. True, too. He didn't really have any particular feelings against whers to begin with, and he'd rather liked the protective little green. He watched Shannara a moment, smiling in that way he tended to (without noticing) when he was particularly happy. "Well it's nice to know. I can't say I'd mind seeing your face around more often, you know."

His face fell for a moment, dragged back to thoughts of the present. There was a moment of silence, and he sighed. "I suppose so. I hadn't thought about it too much, but there you go. It is what it is..." He shook his head. "Positivity, yes. Let's...not dwell." Maybe there was a bit of ...tension in his expression before he forcibly switched it to cheer, maybe there wasn't. He wasn't thinking on it any longer...

He laughed at her question. "No, not really grumpy. Just irritated by someone who was talking to me a moment before you came in. I though he was coming back to keep arguing with me, but it turned out to be you." He rested his chin on one hand and grinned. "A much better prospect, if you ask me."

Outside, there was a bit of a stir as Einherjath looked up from his conversation with L'iyr to regard the green wher for a moment. I was not expecting company... The brown remarked, giving the strangest look- a draconic equivalent of raising his eyebrow at the wher.

L'iyr had his back to her, but he turned just enough to regard the wher, unimpressed. "...Can I help you?" He asked the wher rather icily. "Don't you have something to be doing, wher? Go back to your handler. Leave us be..." It was dismissive, and somewhat rude, but not altogether unpleasant. L'iyr liked whers, actually, he just wanted to be alone. Then again... where there's a wher, there's a wherhandler. Meaning- He looked up at his dragon sharply, fitting the pieces together.

"A'gar has company and he asked you to distract me." He accused the brown sharply. Einherjath looked...surprisingly guilty.
That's not true... He lied ungracefully.

"And now you're lying to me." L'iyr snapped back. "What exactly are you hiding from me?"

[Stormy]

Shannara gave a little laugh herself, then said, "Well, maybe I should turn up more often, then. Some company is better than others, and I really enjoy yours. I don't feel so out of place." Then she looked toward where Shannask was, half on their side of the curtain and half on the other side. With a smile and a shake of her head, she looked back over to A'gar. "And though it might not seem like it right now, I think Shannask likes you as well."

She understood the underlying tension that crept into his voice for a moment before he pushed the thoughts of their looming problems and moved the conversation past the dark shadows of the future. "And I'm sorry to hear that someone was annoying you. Though you seem like a very difficult person to annoy. You always seem so...cheerful. It's hard to imagine you otherwise," she said.

Shannask snorted at L'iyr, unimpressed with his rude dismissal. She merely wanted to see what was happening on the other side of the curtain, to see why the curtain had been swaying and what the shifting noises were. And instead of appeasing her curiosity and being allowed poke around more, she was told to go back to Hers. The brown dragon was more pleasant, simply expressing confusion and maybe some interest.

But the tall, thin dragonman was barely civil. She gave him another snort, and perhaps the start of a growl before slinking back through the curtain into the common room. Conveying her distaste for the man on the other side to Hers, she sat next to Shannara and stared at the curtain. She showed her white-haired handler an image of the man and the brown, stating, No like. He rude.[/color]

Shannara blinked, looking down at the grumbling green, then back over to Shannara. "Is the person who was arguing with you tall and pale, with dark hair? He was rather rude to Shannask either way..."

((Sorry for the long delay. x.x My muse has been avoiding me.))

[redwerecat]

A'gar seemed to positively glow under the faint praise, and he just beamed at her. "Does she? That's wonderful!"

And he laughed. because her comment on him being difficult to irritate was spot on. Was she really that good at reading people, or was it just him? "I'm normally quite a nice fellow." He said, not at all self-consciously. "But you haven't met my partner yet." A sigh, at the mere thought of L'iyr, who (the slender man being this close and Einherjath just outside) he could already feel getting irritated.

L'iyr just watched the wher go, and gave Einherjath another dirty look. "And now A'gar is actively thinking about getting rid of me." The dark haired man called Einherjath out, because the dragon had been receiving that exact message from his blonde rider. Ah. He normally thought it was a good thing for his two riders to be so connected, but he realized it was something of a complication when he was trying to keep them separated.

Er...

L'iyr jerked back, faintly hurt. (Though he'd never admit that.) "How rude."

A'gar, inside, just let his expression melt from cheerful into vaguely stressed. "Ah...I am afraid to ask how you know that." He said, as he glanced over at the curtain. He had a bad feeling...

And the curtain was already swinging back wide as L'iyr stalked back in giving his partner in dragonriding an acidic look. "A'gar, really, you stoop to the level of forcibly distracting me with our dragon to keep me away? I'm insulted you couldn't think of anything better." He had made it halfway to A'gar (with some intention of smacking him, maybe, he hadn't gotten that far in his plan) before he noticed Shannara. "Ah. The white-haired freak must belong to the green creature." He sneered coldly.

[Stormy]

Shannara laughed a little herself, glad she had encountered A'gar. Like she had told him, she enjoyed his company, and he was probably one of the first people she could actually consider a friend to her and Shannask. Sure, she had only come across him a few times now, but he was just so friendly and seemed to wear his heart on a sleeve. It was rather endearing.

She had opened her mouth to answer A'gar's last statement, which could have been taken as a question, when the curtain was swinging as someone pushed their way through. And there was the man who apparently stressed A'gar out so much and who had been rude to her precious green. For a moment, she was unnoticed as he glared and hissed at A'gar, but before she could retreat, she watched as his eyes locked on to her. The next words out of her mouth had her flinching slightly, the warmth in her honey-colored eyes shutting right off.

"I see no reason for you to be so rude. Either to me or my wher. And yes, Shannask is my wher, but the only freak I see here is perhaps you," she replied, ice and distrust in her voice.

The growl that Shannask had started to get out at L'iyr when he had so rudely dismissed her came out now in its full potential. How dare this scrawny human insult Hers? She started to advance toward the dark-haired man, but a silent command from Hers made her pause in her approach. There was truly something about the man that the wher didn't like.

Shannara then turned from L'iyr, looking back at A'gar. "'Partner'?" she queried, choosing her words and expression carefully. "'Our dragon'? You...bonded to the same dragon?"

The other man seemed to be A'gar's opposite in many ways, if not every way. Where A'gar was warm and open and kind-hearted, this dark-haired man seemed to be cold and closed off and a bully. She instinctively didn't trust him, and was quickly coming to not liking him. Even if A'gar had tried to keep him away using his dragon, that didn't warrant that kind of response, surely?

[redwerecat]

L'iyr stared at the girl, then laughed sharply. it was not a sound with any humor in it, nor was the smile he flashed at A'gar at all mirthful. "See? Even the little wherhandler thinks we're freaks." He sneered, twisting her words to fit his own purposes. A'gar didn't so much as react to him as to seem to change personalities entirely, going tense and staring at the ground. L'iyr seemed to have expected this reaction, and simply sauntered over to him and half draped himself across A'gar's shoulders. "Oh, don;lt look so down, dear." He murmured. "See, she likes you, or she did. Wonder how she'll feel knowing that with you and your big strong dragon comes me?"

A'gar straightened, brushing L'iyr off him more violently than necessary. "Shut. Up." He growled, real anger in his voice again. He had to take a second to force his temper into something more tolerable. And then he answered the question. "...Yes. Einherjath... impressed to the both of us. L'iyr and I are... sort of... " He struggled to find a better way to explain.

L'iyr motioned for him to continue, mockingly. "Go on, you've almost got it, there's a good lad..." He said, like one would praise a particularly unintelligent dog.

A'gar very nearly punched him right there. He stopped himself, despite the fact that he was tensing up, despite the fact that it was so tempting, just because Shannara was there. L'iyr knew it, too, knew he wouldn't hurt him if he wanted to put on a better face for the girl.

Stop it! Einherjath's voice rang out, making both riders flinch and step back from one another; just a moment before they'd practically been at one another's throats.
Can't you behave yourselves? Apologies, One-who-Mine-A'gar-is-so-find-of. The brown apologized to Shannara and Shannask. They are terribly prideful men.

"Some more than others." A'gar snarled, and L'iyr shot him a look.

"At least I'm not a wherhandler." He spat back, directing that comment at the girl.

[Stormy]

Shannara stared dumbfounded for a moment at L'iyr, hardly believing that someone with so much spite shared a dragon with one who was so kind and considerate. She felt terribly for A'gar, stuck with sharing his mind with someone so...cruel and rude, especially once she noticed him shut down because of the other man's apparent hatred. She was going to stand up for him, even with the bad feeling the lanky rider gave her, but then L'iyr was shoved away and promptly snapped at.

She cocked her head to the side a little as A'gar tried explaining his predicament about the connection between him, the brown, and the dark haired rider. "You're sort of bondmates. I understand," she said, truthfully. She was pretty sure it may have happened at one point or another with whers or firelizards, but she couldn't remember exactly off the top of her head at the moment.

Then she stepped up to L'iyr, silently cursing her short stature as she glowered up at him. "If you think I like A'gar simply because he is a dragonrider, than I am trying to live vicariously through him because he bonded to a dragon and I did not, then you are wrong," she hissed. "It is because of people like you that I distrust dragonriders and men both. I am glad I have Shannask, because I spent years Standing, and the dragonets would barely even look me over before moving on." Here she paused to glance over to the curtain where the brown was, and added, "And that is of no fault of the dragons, of course, ser brown. I hold nothing against dragons." But then she turned back to the tall man that was also bonded to the brown. "And I have done nothing to you. Regardless of the fact that I have Impressed a wher, you have no reason to be so cruel to me or my wher, or to A'gar, for that matter. As for whether or not my approval of A'gar will change because of you, you can be avoided and that is all you need to know," she snapped.

She was mildly surprised she had such a backbone, because she usually avoided confrontations like this, but this time, it wasn't entirely just her that came under scrutiny. She was also defending her other half, and the only other person she really trusted.

But then she realized one of the reasons she dislike L'iyr so much, and it almost made her flinch and back down. Her mind kept flashing back to Fort Weyr and what had happened to her just before she asked to come to Earth, and she had to fight herself to keep tears from springing to her eyes.

Once Shannask noticed the increasing upset of Hers, she stepped up next to the white-haired girl, teeth bared with a low, threatening growl as the green's eyes whirled red. If this man continued to distress Hers, he'd be lucky to get off with only a bite.

[Stormy]

((Bump.))