#wrathfulthunder

[luminousrider]

[HAT] - sender puts a large floppy hat on the receiver’s head

She places it gently on the woman's head. "There you go, Altena. Now you're safe from the sun!"

She doesn't know exactly how she feels about Tine. There is certainly bad blood between herself and Tine's family but, Altena knows more than most, a person is more than who their family is.

So she tries to relax as the other approaches her beach towel and leans down to set a big hat on her head. It surprises her that Tine would even notice that she was even lacking any shade but she offers a small smile in return.

"Oh...thanks. You be careful too."

[fangedjustice]

An overnight outage to the stables’ heating system results in the deaths of several wyverns, personal mounts and beloved lesson drakes alike. In their grief, passionate students vowed to sleep overnight in the wyvern stables to help them keep warm through the night. [Grants Flying +1]

It was a heavy sort of silence in the wyverns' stables, only occasionally broken by the discordant mourning cries of the beasts that had not perished from the cold.

Wyverns lived in family units, though some people thought of them as little more than uncaring, cold-hearted things. They often lived in clusters -- parents and younglings, elders and fledging adults never too far off. It took many years of care for hatchlings to reach a stage of independence, and even when bulls and cows came of an age to be on their own, they often remained in close by pockets of their group's territory.

They were highly intelligent creatures, and as such, formed intensely deep bonds among those they considered family -- be they dragon or human.

Grief was hardly a human only experience. And though Lloyd knew it well, and he'd not been overly familiar with many of the wyverns at the academy as of yet, it was palpable as soon as he entered the stables. Surviving wyverns curled around each other in tight knots, extra bedding and even blankets having been brought in to help keep them warm. There were some young wyverns tucked in close to adults that were not their sires. Here and there, the idle and comforting chatter of some of the students and staff that were doing their best to help in this unfortunate situation.

A long, wailing cry comes from further in the stables, Lloyd quickly spotting the tottering youngster wandering down the aisle of stalls as if looking for one in particular.

From the lack of responding calls, Lloyd grimly assumed that its mother must have been one of the fatalities from the outage.

Approaching the little thing slowly but with an assuredness that would hopefully treat him better than his last encounter with a wyvern so young, Lloyd hummed out an idle tune to the wyvern and extended a hand towards it. The wyvern is almost hard to pick out against the cave-like walls, dark gray scales letting it blend into the background. It snorts at his hand, cautious at first but craving warmth; nuzzling into his palm with its stiff snout.

"Excuse me, lass, mind lending me a hand with this one?" Lloyd called out to one of the students -- wild, pale lavender hair tied up and out of the way in truly incredible twin pony tails. Lloyd's fairly certain he's never seen so much hair to go with such a slight girl. "Any open stalls? This one...seems to be on its own, and with how young it is, it'll need some warm bodies to help it through the night."

@wrathfulthunder

Keep The Flame Alive

[fangedjustice]

Lloyd is relieved to have another pair of hands in this endeavor. While the wyvern is young and clearly out of sorts, it was still capable of inflicting some nasty wounds if they weren't careful about handling it. With the two of them there, it's a bit easier to herd the little beast into one of the stalls. Now, it was a matter of figuring out the best way of keeping it warm and content.

"Thank you for your aid," Lloyd speaks back up once they'd shuffled into the stall, the wyvern sniffing about the newly hauled in bedding -- an attempt to help the dragons maintain their body heat while the heating system was being looked at. "I don't work with them much, so it's good to have you here. Are you very familiar with wyverns?"

The wyvern quickly lost interest in the bedding, its nostril's flaring as it waddled closer to Lloyd's boots, butting its hard head into his shins.

"Ah...," he winced slightly, glancing down at their charge with a wearily amused expression. Children, even if they were of the scaly kind, were quite similar across the board. "Hungry, little one? I'm afraid I don't have too much on me that's dragon approved, but...the stable masters won't need to know, hm?" His gaze slid over to the girl as he spoke, gauging her reaction, before returning to the begging wyvern at his feet.

He's brought a couple of sandwiches with the forethought that it would be a long night, but he could certainly spare one for the hungry hatchling.

Keep The Flame Alive