Sticks and Stones [M] (All welcome)

Kerrin hadn't wanted to attend the lashing. It wasn't really his scene, reveling in the abuse of others, and unlike some of the other Candidates and weyrfolk he wasn't so close to B'jin that he could claim his presence amongst the crowd would provide any comfort or sense of support at all for the greenrider. And yet, for reasons that remained completely beyond the weyrbrat's understanding, his father had insisted he go. For B'jin to serve as an example to him, perhaps? Kerrin snorted softly to himself as he stood beside the stony-faced brownrider who had brought him there. He'd endured enough punishments in his childhood that he hardly needed to watch another man be whipped to imagine what the sting of a lash felt like. Just the news alone that Katila was reinstating this outrageous practice (for he had heard from the older riders that this sort of thing had been common in the old Weyrs) was enough for him. He could contemplate how frequently that lash would be destined for him just as well in the Candidate Barracks where he belonged.

Sensing his son's attention wandering, perhaps, B'ker had placed a steady hand on the boy's shoulder. Kerrin looked up at him in utter bewilderment at the gesture - just in time to spot from the corner of his upturned gaze the ocean-blue hide of Ayyonth as he glided in to deposit his rider on the outskirts of the crowd. Of course R'nd had come. Amber eyes followed the young man's trek to the front of the crowd, and Kerrin felt a pang of emotion he couldn't quite identify at the thought that the bluerider had obviously come in support of his... infatuation, he'd called it? The weyrbrat wondered what was going through his friend's mind; he had heard whispers that R'nd had been involved somehow in D'ren's decision to punish B'jin so severely. Not that the young dragonrider had told him anything about it. Wisely, because Kerrin wouldn't have listened.

Now, though, something compelled him to break free of his father's grip and push through the throng of people to join the bluerider at his side. Some of the brownriders and bronzeriders gathered around his father were smirking far too widely for his comfort, anyhow - not entirely unlike the creepy lash-holder himself. Was everyone possessed or something, today? Whatever. Kerrin's main concern was not with them and their freaky, misplaced joy at seeing a greenrider 'getting his dues,' or even for B'jin, though some part of him did feel the man was being unfairly made an example of with such a public display of humiliation. Kerrin shuddered to think that it could have been him, which he imagined was exactly the point D'ren was trying to make.

But, no. The boy's main concern today was R'nd, for if those rumors were true... he knew anything about his long-time friend, then he knew the bluerider was already beating himself up for playing a role in it somehow. Whether Kerrin liked it or not, R'nd cared for B'jin, which meant that the bluerider had likely already spent the better part of the morning agonizing over his failure to prevent what was about to happen right there in front of the entire Weyr at Gather Square.

"Orwind..." Kerrin breathed once he'd reached his goal, dropping the honorific and appealing to R'nd not as a dragonrider who outranked him, but at his friend whom he had known and been close with since they were boys. He opened his mouth to say something further, only to close it again in silence. What else could he say? 'Sorry'? For what? Besides, pointing out that R'nd might need the support of his friends right then just as much as the greenrider did seemed disrespectful to B'jin. And so Kerrin remained quiet, trusting R'nd would know why he had come, as he turned a solemn gaze back to B'jin and the cruelly smirking brownrider who stood before him.