Sticks and Stones [M] (All welcome)

"Twenty?!" Kerrin had hissed when D'ren had made the announcement, adding his voice to the sudden uproar of astonishment from the crowd that had gathered there to watch the lashings. Even for him, a boy intimately familiar with how punishments were dealt out at Katila Weyr, the number sounded outrageous. He heard R'nd's protest join his own, tensing visibly when the bluerider took a step forward - though whether it was in preparation to stop his friend from doing anything rash, or else to spring after him and join in on the chain reaction of foolish martyrdom, the weyrbrat fortunately never had to decide. In the next moment R'nd had fallen back in place beside him, evidently having resolved to keep his cool. Kerrin breathed a sigh of relief, unaware that he had been holding his breath until the moment he'd exhaled. Still, he remained tense. It was hard to relax, with the emotions of everyone around him running so high.

Kerrin flinched at the first crack of knotted leather against bare skin, and for the first time in his young life the teen learned that for all the carefree bravado he attempted to feign in front of his peers, he was just not the sort of person who could stand and watch another human being be publicly brutalized. The second strike proved too much for him; his head dropped, eyes squeezed tightly shut against both the awful vision of B'jin's suffering and the cruel sneer of pleasure that twisted on the face of the man charged with inflicting it. Each subsequent crack, seemingly louder than the last, brought another twitch of the boy's shoulders. Nothing he did could tune that horrible noise out, and even when it was over it still took most of what he had to open his eyes and take a look at the damage that had been done.

Unfortunately, it was just in time to see S'kef's heavy gaze lingering on him, and that was impetus enough for the nausea that had been roiling gently in his stomach until then to be replaced with a sudden surge of hatred and anger towards the brownrider. Kerrin met that gaze with amber eyes burning with contempt, his lips curling in a mirthless smirk. Let that jerk fondle his whip all he wanted; Kerrin, for one, refused to be cowed by him, and his refusal to wilt or tremble beneath the Weyrsecond's meaningful stare conveyed as much. Fortunately, R'nd stepped in with his warning before the weyrbrat had mind to shout anything unwise. The boy scoffed, but relaxed his stance just enough to let the older man know that he'd been heard, and Kerrin knew that what he said was absolutely right. "I doubt even a bronze dragon would stop him. He enjoyed it. He's sick."

As caught up in his own mini-confrontation with S'kef as he had been, Kerrin hadn't quite followed all of the events that led up to B'jin unexpectedly rising to shove the brownrider away from Talian, who for that matter seemed to suddenly have half the weyr rising up to his defense against the brownrider's threats. As it should have been, too, because what the heck had Talian ever done to anyone?! He nodded to R'nd when the bluerider thanked him, knowing it to be the dismissal it was when B'jin's eyes rolled back into his head and R'nd valiantly rushed forward to catch the swaying greenrider. Kerrin bit the corner of his lip, eyeing the fainted dragonrider in his friend's arms for a moment... and then, seeming to think better of something, shook his head. Now just wasn't the time. He stepped forward, placing a hand on R'nd's shoulder and giving it a firm squeeze. "Catch you later, okay?"

It was the most Kerrin could say, without outright wishing R'nd luck.

Talian turned on his heels and took off in one direction, and the weyrbrat did the same in another. There was nothing more he could do there to help, and Faranth knew how little he cared to stick around to chat with the likes of S'kef.