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+---- Thread: A Changed Opinion [Solo] (/showthread.php?tid=2111)
A Changed Opinion [Solo] - C'dhin - 09.Dec.13
Unlike most of the residents of Katila, C’dhin didn’t overly mind the nonstop drizzle that occasionally turned into a torrent of rain. His poor fair skin was returning to exactly that; losing its red tones from a burn he had suffered a month before that faded into a lingering tan. He had grown used to sporting the tanned skin but it always felt odd to him, as if he was dirty. Scrubbing naturally never helped but it eased the mild distress his mind would slip into once in a while when it was convinced he was covered in dirt or grime when he was about to play in the kitchens. Coroth always found it funny to watch him bathe in those times since, as she put it, he was scrubbing his skin as roughly as he sometimes did her hide.
Even with the enjoyment of a muted and sometimes altogether hidden sun, C’dhin never wanted, nor did he think it would ever happen, a flooded river that reached almost to his safe haven of a kitchen and made for a mucky walk to his little hut that was close to the river’s edge. Sandbags and stones were placed like a fence a bit away from his hut in an attempt to keep everything dry and safe, but every day he wondered if it was enough.
None of it mattered in the end.
There had been many drinks, dances, and laughs during the celebration of a fully successful Hatching and C’dhin enjoyed himself until he was queasy. Somehow, he made his way home and even more impressive was the fact he had done so alone. Not one assisted him – that he could remember – and no one had stayed as company or to use him as entertainment. The amount of drinking everyone was doing and the slightly early hour he had left at likely had something to do with that. As it was, he had passed out as soon as he hit the bed, with only one boot managed to come off.
It wasn’t the keening that woke him a few hours before sunrise; it was the rocks and muck slamming into his hut that had his attention just before the dragons started their songs of death.
As he stood there gawking, the levels of mud and debris spread in his direction, clearly finding the damage from the river lacking in his area of the Weyr. C’dhin stumbled away from the window seconds before it shattered and the mountain made itself at home within his hut. The mud was almost too his knees before the shocked greenrider fumbled his way through the bedroom for the door into the living room. The mud followed him but C’dhin gave it all he had to keep ahead of what poured through the doorway. The creaking his hut made from the strain it was under was far scarier than the fact he no longer had a floor and C’dhin knew he had to obey his shrieking dragon and get out.
He wasn’t going before he grabbed something first though. He clamoured up the couch and pulled down the large parchment that he had tacked up turns earlier. A drawing of Coroth as a tiny dragonet sitting beside him was one of his favourite things he owned and C'dhin wasn’t going to lose it! It was rolled up and tucked into his tunic to help keep it safe as he aimed for safety.
The bedroom collapsed as he was almost to the living room door and C’dhin didn’t need to look back to know the remainder of the hut was following suit. He barely made it out and suspected he wouldn’t have done so without injury if it wasn’t for Coroth sticking her head in the door for him to grab onto her neck. She heaved him along as she jumped back, pausing only long enough for C’dhin to once more gawk as he watched his hut completely fall into more pieces than he was certain it had started in on the first day of building. It was upsetting but the keening reminded him it wasn’t nearly as tragic as it could have been. He had been inside there seconds ago! He could be why the dragons were mourning right then.
Not wanting to ponder life and death any longer with rocks starting to slide along with the mud that seemed to be slowing down some, C’dhin climbed up his dragon and Coroth didn’t wait for directions but simply took off to get them airborne and to a presumably safer location. “We should help, shouldn’t we? I’m not hurt. I don’t think I am.” C’dhin glanced down at himself. He was muddy and apparently missing a boot but he didn’t think he had sustained even a bruise. It would have been so simple to stay in the air or perhaps go to the lake and wait until they were called to reunite but C’dhin couldn’t be that selfish and he knew Coroth wouldn’t stand for it either.
“Let’s check the damage first. We’ll go from there.” C’dhin grew somber as they circled low and he saw the destruction and just how lucky he had been. The landslide had clearly been slowed from the destruction it had caused before reaching the inner ring of huts that were closer to the Square than the mountain and he had lucked out by having time to wake and leave. A few huts, or where it looked like some had once stood, were given a longer inspection but C’dhin didn’t need to actually put his feet on the ground to know there wouldn’t have been survivors in the mess.
When Coroth landed on a larger pile of rubble so they could try listening for cries of help, C’dhin ended up nearly falling off her back in his efforts to get down to vomit. A tail, a dragon’s tail, was seen coming out from another pile of what was once a hut. A dragon had been caught up in the landslide and had a hut or more fall on him – it seemed blue from his distance – and it was too much for his stomach that hadn’t fully settled after a fair consumption of Katilan wine.
“We’re helping everyone we can.” It was a statement of fact and even if Coroth wanted to argue, C’dhin wouldn’t allow it. He gave his normally chipper green a moment to mourn the fallen dragon as he adjusted his tunic and made sure the painting within would stay where it was as he moved. Once that was done, C’dhin called out that he was there to help and started following the muffled voices he heard, intent on saving every last one of them.
He suddenly understood his dragon’s hatred of rain and changed his opinion of the weather pattern.