Rider Prestige

Syringă was always a handful, bouncing from place to place and topic to topic madly. Tsillah shook her head and ducked instinctively as, for the hundredth time, the dragoness swooped across the room and within an inch of concussing her. The girl was accustomed to the same by now and barely paused in her work. Grinding the herbs a bit finer and simply asked the hybrid to pass her some of the berries before she made her next pass. Catching the offering deftly and adding it to her mortar as the dragon spotted a large moth and began 'hunting' it with Mike, which somehow turned into the familliar and dragoness batting at each other and tussling about the floor. Shaking her head the girl stepped over them with a smirk, "Don't get too engrossed, you two." she warned, aware how easily the play could get carried away with the pair. It was like looking after the twins, some days, but she wouldn't have it any other way...

Spărtură curled through the water, peering at the refractions on the surface. Only a slight denser than the river he called home near his rider's den he slid easily past the rocks and into a deeper portion. Peeking above the surface and burbling softly at Pesca as the cormorant blinked at them. The bubbles filtered through his tassels and fractured into foam, the sound drawing Tsillah's attention as she worked.
Pausing in her weeding and moving to the water's edge with a smile. **"What're y'all talking about then?"** she asked, taking another step without hesitation and finding the water solid as she moved toward the dark shadow. Settling herself atop the vast head of her dragon and rubbing circles into his skin. Leaning back and peering at the sky between the trees as Spărtură's mind filtered freely through her own. Swimming through her just as he did the water around them, and bringing the vast, abyssal calm of deep waters and softly drifting kelp beds with him as the blued glow of twilight slid through the trees. Bringing cool and the soft rustlings of 'shift change's, diurnal denizens of the forest retiring and their nocturnal counterparts rising to fill the void. A rare quiet moment between the two, and one of her most cherished routines...

Tesseract plodded along as his rider...  well... rode him. His steps chosen with care to keep her comfortable atop his broad shoulders, all hidden beneath the waddling locomotion. The elf leaned forward and scritched his neck, perking as he selected a crop of berries and dropped them into her outstretched hands. The girl absorbing his assessment of the fruit and filing it away dutifully.
"They would be good for burns then." she offered aloud, humming at the silent additions of the deceptively clever dragon and nodding. She shook her head occasionally however, offering counterpoints to his suggestions. Something too strong or too bitter, and the burn of those herbs would make them rather unpalatable for that... wouldn't it? With each she listened to his return and so the discussion went, until they reached a suitable solution for the conundrums.
Tess enjoyed the challenge too much, discerning solutions where none was obvious, almost more so than even Uri. Perhaps, depending what angle one looked at it from, more so in some ways. Some days he would crop up with a topic at random, confusing the others, but Tsillah understood. The pleasure, and the abrupt spurring, of a challenge suddenly reaching fruition after circling his mind for days, sometimes weeks on end. Plodding along steadily, endlessly. as the waddling steps the dragon took beneath her.

Uraşi hissed as a spritz of water hit him, but begrudgingly apologised for the <s>accurate</s> harsh assessment of the unfortunate messenger. He was late and had no manners, but the serpentine dragon only coiled into a moody ball, tail flicking like a rattlesnake, but rather than such an impressive sound there was only the furious swish swish swish-ing of fur as his tuft whipped about. Tsillah bit a laugh back, and hid her smirk away. Uri was the cutest pouter she knew - excepting her lith of course. The girl moved over after shutting the door, with more boxes than the dragon remembered her ordering, but he refused to focus on that presently. He was ignoring her, dammit.
"It wasn't that bad, you grump," she asserted, almost earning a glare but no, no, he was ignoring her. His rider didn't even exist presently. "Come on, Uri, it was just one. You gotta learn to be nicer, its not exactly easy for folks to get out here if they've never been and you're getting rather good at ensuring we never get the same folks twice, Mister." she pointed out, earning a little huff as his anger began to bubble off. The negligent itch to slip to the lab and begin working with their new reagents swelling to replace it instead.
"Besiiiides," his elf purred, and his antennae perked at the drawn tone he recognized too well. The dhampir smirked as she caught the twitch, aware she had won by that alone, "I got a sur~prise for you~" she sang, slipping past him and down the hall before he could react. A little grin as she heard the rasp of scales on carpet and knew he was scrambling to follow her now, the tease irresistable for the endlessly curious thunder drake.
The girl hopped up on her bench as the drake slid in, setting the boxes on her desk and waiting for him to come closer. Laughing at the light in his eyes when he saw the shine of metal from one. Quickest way to the drake's heart right there, new parts. Upgrades to make him better, more perfect as he said. The girl shook her head, but obligingly began working as Uriaşi positioned himself. He was already perfect, a few spooked mailfolk nonwithstanding. She still remembered the tiny little snake that had slipped from his egg so long ago, delicate wings drenched and useless for hours. One day he would realize the same, until then she worked on him, body certainly, as was the domain of all thunder riders, but mind and heart as well. Because a chassis was nothing without the soul inside, and she wasn't about to leave her Uri like that...

Haosuri tilted her head, watching the activity below. People moved too much, but all of it was calculable, first here then there. They were funny little things, for a moment the storm imagined them as little bees or ants, marching along beneath them, mismatched eyes blinked as a hand touched her wing. wisps pooling off, but the world came back into focus for the contact. Her rider smiling and the touch became gently strokes, "What's on your mind, Sur?" she asked, despite them both knowing exactly what occupied the other's mind at any given time. Suri blinked again, and glanced at the little stockings below them. "People are strange. They move here, then there, predictable, but cannot see?" she whispered, aware her rider wished the words out loud. Refocusing her from the inner world and into the outer, Tsillah nodded, "Most have forgotten how body language works on a conscious plane." she explained for the youngster, "Some of us remember, but most are blind to it, and to the pheremones they secrete. There is little or no proper register for the same, it's all automatic. so no, they tend not to notice." she nodded faintly at the thought it could be used, half of her not wanting to encourage that. People were more than calculations and statistics, but she knew the storm perceived the world differently and it was indeed a useful piece of knowledge. "There are always variables, however." the elf warned, making the dragoness blink, then churr her acknowledgement of the same. Returning to her people watching as the elf resumed her sketching. Slowly wings unfurled and she crawled down the bell tower, settling against her rider instead and peering over the edge from a knee instead.

Sitting on the porch the elf sighed, scratching Mike's ears where the cat saw fit to claim her lap. A fresh tea and a few moments of quiet as the day wore down. Syringă was sprawled fantastically around one of the hedges, wings all akimbo and twitching like a puppy as she dreamed. Suri was tucked far more neatly in a patch of light, apparently enjoying the warmth as her wings and body whisped and smoked lazily, not unlike a heat blur around her. Tesseract had tucked himself beside her and was preening his feathers, enjoying the warmth himself.

Soft burbles sounded around the corner where a large head peeked around the manor, Spăr's tassels and form overall bubbling as they snored, mingling with the intermittent rustling if wind and leaves above into a familiar lull. Uriaşi had claimed the upper deck, one coil draping over the edge to mingle with her wisteria vines, she could see him easily in her mind's eye, wings out flat and loose ropes of frame and coils in his own spectacular droop of ragdoll-esque limpness. She took a swallow of her tea, keeping the same away from Pesca as the bird tried to steal her own gulp. Mac whistled a drowsy laugh from his constant perch on Uri's coils, the bugerie's glasses shining for his fellow avian's antics; she tossed a gust of wind at him with a thought, and hid a smirk for the resulting - all too happy - puffball. As if he had been through a blow drier. She liked this time of day, when it was quiet and she could reminisce for a while. Remembering each of the large frames around her as tiny things, popped fresh from their eggs and taking in the big wide world for the first time. They were a handful, the lot of them, each in their own way; but she loved them and she knew, for all their quirks and squabbles, the feeling was mutual and would remain so, no matter how large their eclectic little madhouse grew.