It's Joust For Fun
Posted on Fri May 26th, 2023 @ 10:57am by Delaney O'Callaghan & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein & Chief Helmsman Kalahaeia t'Leiya & Leiddem Kea (*) & Richard Hale & Liha t'Ehhelih & Nollel Livaam (*) & Curtis Vaan
Edited on on Wed Jun 28th, 2023 @ 10:21am
Mission:
Mission 16: Hysperia
Location: Jousting Arena, Hysperia
4010 words - 8 OF Standard Post Measure
As it happened, when it came to opportunities for pagentry, pomp and ceremony, Hysperians were rarely in a hurry to skip to the point. It took a further half hour once the crew had found out their pairings for the rest of the divisions to receive their drafts. By this stage, it had become overwhelmingly apparent that the locals took this particular sport very seriously. Current champions deigned to rise from the smothered attention of their respective retinues just long enough to hold their lance aloft and the tiers of hopefuls ranked just below the elite competition clamored for their slice of the adulation in much the same was as anyone who knew they weren't quite worthy of the cut had an inclination to over-compensate. The jousts would go on all day and into the night, with the beginner's registry seeming more and more by the minute relegated to the realms of pre-show entertainment. Dressing like a rodeo clown might actually have been appropriate.
And yet, the stories still did the rounds about the unknowns who had stepped from obscurity to claim the Champion's sash. Ostensibly, they also won the Queen's favour, which was typically translated into priority seating at all ensuing feasts and, possibly, a pick of the Ladies' Court. Hysperian women had far too many opinions regarding their own preferences when it came to courtship these days and a married champion typically favoured self-preservation over enactment of historically-redudant privileges, but there was a slight buzz of speculation around the ramifications of having an Orion front and centre of official edicts. As with all good tournaments, there were a dozen different betting pools running in the background and currently the most dynamic involved the capacity of the royal bed to withstand the tournament's outcomes. Not only were racial stereotypes prone to strongly swaying the odds, Tomas himself had a far more tangible and annecdotally-relevant reputation to add to the mix.
Eventually, a fanfare caught the attention and managed the seemingly-impossible of subduing the crowd's anticipation to a brittle silence. As the novice entrants had just been informed, by a dreary steward who seemed half-asleep as he regaled the rules to the motley group, each pair would mount their allocated steed within the arena, where they would be lead in a procession around the ring before being taken by the handlers towards the lists. Each pair would have as many passes as it took for one of them to be dismounted, with a caveat that a draw could be announced at the Queen's discretion should it be deemed warranted.
(This had been a lesson learned the hard way several years back when it had taken over two hours for a pair of Romulans to eventually resolve their joust by draw in any case, taking all that time only to knock each other out of the saddle eventually. Another betting pool was having a great deal of fun with the fact that the novice lineup included two more of the infamous race.)
Victory was determined on time taken, with only the top-seated earning the right to contest the next level. It was generally considered unwise to allow novices too much opportunity to accidentally elevate beyond their capabilities though the competition would always retain a sliver of hope for the romanticism of an unsung hero. Every phoenix deserved its opportunity to rise from the ashes.
Once the fanfare had receded, the novices were herded into the pit that would serve as their waiting area and those accompanying them were unceremoniously shooed into the crowd. Two snorting, stamping steeds snapped at each other, saddled and ready for the first contenders.
"Riders, take your mount!"
The engineer took a moment to look over his mount. Jousting dragons were impressive, particularly from an aerodynamics perspective. A body heavy enough to carry an adult humanoid, but compact, more like an elongated racehorse than a destrier, but then the wingspan just to lift that body was truly awesome. Easily six times the dragon's length. Sadly, jousting dragons were constrained from flaming, but riding one should still be amazing. Burnie patted the dragon's side, before swinging into the saddle and settling a lance across his lap. 'Okay, boy, let's see what we can do here."
Leiddem was regretting many time choices right then and there as he shifted from standing staring at the dragon to sitting in a saddle on the said dragon. It was not something he was meant to be doing and if anyone sent a photo to his mother, he was going to be in a world of conversation over his life choices. It was most likely why Jeassaho was not there, she did not want to be involved if word got back to Kea matriarch that members of the family were dragon jousting. "Well I guess this is something to tell the grandkids one day," he said glancing to Burnie. Of all the people involved it was at least best that it was him or Curtis. Neither would take it to seriously.
Bustled away to the area designated for competitor's families, Delaney slipped her good arm through Nollel's and watched as the men, now mounted on the feisty dragons, were lead on their preliminary circle of the ring. It was part and parcel of the showmanship but also served as a way to weed out any rider who couldn't stay in the saddle long enough to avoid extreme safety risks. Despite only having eyes for her boyfriend, Delaney spared a glance for the beaming engineer and immediately laughed. "You know you may have to look into retirement plans here. Look at that happy face."
Nollel laughed and nodded. “We have both commented on how easy it would be to make a life here.” Nollel admitted watching the man in his element. “They value artists and engineers so it’s a win for us both but that is long time off.” Nollel was not sure she was going to be able to pry the man away from a connie class just yet.
Having made their lap with riders still seated, the two handlers moved beyond the arena through the gates that lead to the lists and the technological prowess that existed beneath the ancient veneer saw a siren sound and the internal mechanism of the spectator stands activate to turn attention towards the action. The rotation was slow and smooth, in keeping with the grandeur of the event, and when the two sides clicked into their new position, it placed the royal box central to proceedings. The handlers broke off, each leading their rider towards opposite ends to the starting posts.
“Whoa.” Leiddem said watching the stands move as the hackers held onto the dragons tightly as they snorted out smoke from their noses.
"We might have to keep this form the grandkids until they're older," Burnie called over, face lit with a huge grin. "I would have runaway from home to try this if I'd known it was option back when I was a kid."
“Who are trying to kid here, Burnie, you are going to live here when you retire your kids and grandkids will be riding them before they can walk.” Leiddem teased glancing to a worried looking Nollel.
There came a point where the pair were finally lead their separate ways, where the pathway deviated and the freshly-tended grass squelched a little underfoot. There was a preparation zone at the end of each lists, a circular fenced area to corral the mounts in preparation for positioning them into the starting gates. Several officials stood primly to the side, their only task to make sure that the contests were conducted according to the rules without any last-minute interference from corrupt handlers. Several famous incidents of sabotage and joust-fixing had necessitated the layer of formality, which included a very dull and drawn-out examination of both rider and steed before they were cleared for a start. It was at this point that the crowd seemed to hold its breath, always somewhat anticipating the thrill of a fool's attempt to swing favour in their direction, only to rise in full cheer as progress forward indicated a scandal was not going to interrupt this time. Two flags, one from either end, were held aloft to signal the contestants' readiness and then, for a moment, Beya held the concentrated expectation of an entire stadium in the palm of her hand. On her signal, the first pass would commence.
A long and sturdy wooden pole with a dull metal tip, was put into his right hand as his left hand would be holding the reins of the dragon. Leiddem could feel the impatient on the dragon now to do what it had been trained to do which was gallop straight and true towards their opponent. He shook his head as the final preparations were done and the helmet put on his head to protect their head and face in an attempt to clear it and looked up again to wait for the signal.
Burnie was grinning ear to ear as the helmet went on. This was a boyhood fantasy come true, and even if he wound up flat on his back - which he fully expected; he was a engineer, not trained security like Leiddem, after all - it would still be glorious.
The second the signal was given the dragon knew exactly what it was meant to do. The goal of the joust was to strike the opponent with the tip of the lance, ideally knocking them off their dragon. The jouster would need to be skilled and precise to achieve this goal, while also being prepared to absorb the impact of their opponent's lance if they were not successful in knocking them off - Leiddem was none of that as Burnie came towards him.
The dragons did most of the work, really. They knew what was supposed to happen here in ways that neither rider possibly could. Burnie's leapt to the attack, soaring upward and then circling as Leiddem's matched its rise. Holding on to both dragon and lance, Burnie tried to keep the tip pointed toward Leiddem and the shield on his shoulder oriented to take the strike from the tip pointed at him. Other than that, it was kind of like being on a roller coaster as his dragon rose and fell while circling the other (probably wondering why his lump of a rider wasn't directing a dive at any moment of advantage). But at what could only be interpreted as a frustrated huff from his mount, Burnie calculated angles and took a 10 degree elevation with 5 degree yaw relative to Leiddem and twisted the reigns to pitch his dragon to come in without tangling wings.
With a roar that was probably dragon for 'Finally!' his beast screamed toward the opponent and Burnie held on for all he was worth, bracing the lance tight against his side as it struck!
Leiddem was sure if he died that day he would die with a smile on his lips and a cry of laughter being the last thing from his lungs as the dragon he was clinging on to took the scream from the other dragon as a challenge and beat its wings moved faster. As the lance stuck him, his own lance stuck the other man, Leiddem had no idea what happened to Burnie as Leiddem flew backwards from the force and freefell for a moment before he stopped with a thud as the net stopped it. The lance fell luckily a few feet away. The dragon looked back at him with disgust as much to say you were a fat load of good.
Though braced for the impact from his own lance, Burnie wasn't prepared to for a simultaneous hit from Leiddem's and went flying from his seat. Wind knocked out of him, he didn't even yell on the way down, though he did have the presence of mind to toss the lance aside so it wouldn't smack him he hit the net below. That didn't mean he was unhappy; when the net bounced him up, he threw both fists in the air. "Whoo-hoo!!" With the second, smaller bounce he rolled over, and pushed up, grinning ear-to-ear. Seeing Leiddem, he realized they must have unhorsed - undragoned? - each other and came over, offering a hand. "That was Awesome! Thanks."
“Me too, my friend.” Leiddem slowly took the offered hand hurting from head to toe but the crowd was loving the scene set out before them of fairness and friendship. Once Leiddem was on his feet he bounced along the net and flipped off of it with a grunt. “Let’s bow and get back to the ladies? You hurt?”
"I'm okay...." Burnie rotated his shoulder, "...though I'll probably feel this tomorrow. Worth it though," he said, flashing a smile. "Let's get back to our ladies," he added, but winced slightly as he bowed. "And get some ale."
Not too far ahead, pushing through the crowd, a flash of red hair, rather more sedately followed by a far blonder woman, wove its way forward in breathless exuberance. Amidst the cheers, a distinctive voice called out, "If you're hurt, I'm going to kill you!"
"Riders, take your mount!"
Kali clambered up onto 'her' dragon, glad she'd taken the time to watch a few old tourist vids she'd been able to dig up of some of the prior year's fights; it gave her at least somewhat of an idea how the dragons might move, or be moved, besides her all-too-short flight on the local tourist trap ride the other week. The lance itself seemed decently balanced, albeit she wasn't being done any favors by her shorter stature in terms of handling it. Still, most of her focus at the moment was on her opponent and his dragon: No man who'd lasted weeks - let alone it had sounded like potentially several years - inside the Syndicate would be anything even close to an easy match.
Mounting a dragon in the first place was an odd experience. Rick had seen all manner of creatures and beasts in his time, but none as unique as this one. As assured as he could be that they were tame creatures and he wasn't so much in danger, there was always that element of doubt.
Fired up now from the first event, there was a titter of expectation from the crowd as one of the two Romulans registered sat poised to either dispel or perpetuate her people's reputation. Unlike Kali, the betting pool had possibly underestimated what Rick brought to this fight but he sat with authority that renewed expectation. As the pair were lead from the ring and the siren rang out again, the crowd's attention twisted and locked into place to the swell of expectant chanting.
"Just think," Rick called over to Kali over the noise. "If one of us dies, it'll give the other a hell of a story to tell people in a few years."
"Just as long as we don't kill either of the dragons." Kali joked back. "I don't think Burnie would forgive that."
"Of course you're more worried about the dragon than you are me..." he responded with an eye-roll.
"Damn right! - pretty sure you can take care of yourself better than it can - probably was hand-raised on some farm or something." Kali yelled back, with an abortive hand wave to her mount (who she suspected had indeed been hand-raised, as docile as it seemed to be vs its wild cousins), then quickly returned it to its former position as the starting signal was given.
The potential time limit - either going too long to advance, or having Beya declare a draw - added an additional constraint to the contest: As Kali had expected, both of their moves for awhile had been cautious, carefully chosen; attempts to suss out what the other's style and skills and tendencies were while trying to avoid giving away their own; with genuine attempts to unmount the other rider but calculated ones; or at least as cautious and calculated as one can get with winged creatures in play. Kali's past life back during the war (and continued flight qualifications) was providing her with a bit of an edge, perhaps; but it was a lot less of one than most of the betting crowd had probably thought it would be, and while things ramped up a bit after awhile, it was only now that both Kali and Rick seemed to have gone in their moves not only to and past 'fully committed' but perhaps adding on also: 'and slightly insane': As Rick's lance made to sweep Kali off her saddle with their latest pass bringing his dragon close in to hers; she tilted hers to avoid wingtip contact, leaving the great beast partially inverted and Kali herself hanging upside down nearly as she lunged to one side and stretched down and sideways alike, holding a grip on the with nothing more than her feet, legs, and harness, then popped up again as the dragon righted itself: She seemed to know exactly where she was in space still, even with the abrupt position change, and wasted no time before swinging her dragon back around in an abrupt up-then-down vertical dive to try to lunge in turn with her own lance at the blur that was Rick's form.
The turn from caution to abrupt aggression was the transition Rick had been waiting for. But despite waiting for it, he wasn't as ready as he would have liked to be. Her dive was angled in such a way as to mean that he wasn't positioned to defend it. With the near-certain outcome that he was going to be unseated, he figured that the old adage 'taking you out with me' was the last option available. The target was small, but one he thought he could make.
As the dragons swept by in almost perpendicular paths, Rick felt the very sharp lurch as he was thrown clean out of his saddle. As he started to topple and fall away, he looked up to see that he had also struck true: the leather strapping forming the saddle Kali was riding upon had torn apart just enough so that it no longer allowed purchase, and the rider herself was now sliding sideways off the back of the dragon without any hope of clinging on. He satisfied himself with the knowledge that he had managed to somehow turn the engagement into a draw as he fell back towards the comforting antigravity field below to prevent serious harm.
A slightly lower terminal velocity saw Kali hit the field and net a few moments after Rick did, but it became apparent there was perhaps a bit of a showman in the little Romulan: She bounced up as quickly as possible, with a laughing grin despite - or perhaps in part because? - of the bit of mutually assured destruction that had just played out; then faced the crowd and gave a flourished bow of sorts. The dragons, meanwhile, were showing there were indeed quite tame and trained and far less impressed with all this than the crowd or the contestants; landing nearby back in the area reserved for such things, despite no longer having a rider in either case.
"Riders, take your mount!"
Liha leapt into the saddle with an almost feral grin and raised her lance, signaling her readiness. She'd paid for a couple dragon rides to get the feel of flying one and was eager to see how it felt to ride one in combat.
Curtis, a bag of nerves, was virtually as opposite to Liha as anyone could be. He almost missed the first rung to ascend onto the back of his dragon mount, sweat-soaked hands clinging on for dear life at the prospect of what was going to come next. He'd participated in numerous crazy stunts on a holodeck before. In fact, he'd written a dozen himself. But those were holograms, and he wasn't up against some sociopathic woman who he half suspected was going to mount his flame-crispy corpse in her quarters as a trophy.
By now, the crowd had come to anticipate what happened next, and a loud cheer rose up as the pair were paraded around the arena and then lead from it as the attention once more turned towards the lists. If the previous fight had stoked the embers of fascination regarding Romulan participation, then the arrival of the second had stirred up a frenzy of anticipation that erupted in a series of competing chants that eventually coalesced into one throbbing exaltation aimed primarily at Liha. From the midst of it all, there was a lone shout of, "You've got this, Curtis!" It was probably for the best that the volume of noise didn't permit the ensuing, "Probably", to carry far.
"No sweat..." Curtis muttered to himself. "Just got to keep hold of yourself, outmaneuver the highly skilled bloodthirsty Romulan, and not completely embarrass yourself and your ancestors." He swallowed, casting a terrified look over at his opponent. "Dear heavens, I'm gonna die."
Liha was thoroughly enjoying this. Being dragonback was exhilarating even before lift off. She could feel the creature breathing, puffing hot breath, tail lashing in eagerness for the fight. Her own heart quickened with it too until she felt as though they were almost at one - a conjoined predator waiting to soar and dive like a mogai upon a hlai'hwy.
Once more, the handlers retraced their steps until they reached their respective ends. Despite only being a handful of races in, the starting position was already a churned-up mess of mud and charred dung and the animals, anticipating the charge to come, took several attempts to step up to the gate. A signal from both left the business of starting the contest to the emerald-skinned beauty leaning towards her chosen consort in conversation and, after that brief delay, there came the unmistakable grind of the gates opening and the crowd lifted in unison to cheer as the dragons burst forward.
It would be over quickly. Liha urged her mount to leap for the sky, then power dive at their prey. Curtis was clearly trying to look brave and resolute, which almost made her feel badly for him. Almost. But he was in her way and about as much of threat as sofa cushion strapped to a dragon saddle. And the dive was exhilarating! Like coming in at max speed straight at a Cardie fighter! The only difference here was that instead of unleashing a barrage of disruptor fire and pulling up, she was going all the way to contact with a lance. The strike was true and centered squarely on the shield (which Curtis had helpfully thrown up in front of himself). She felt the impact translate through her grip and squeezed her legs to keep her own seat, even as she pulled back on the reigns, sending the dragon back into a soar, ready for another dive if Curtis somehow managed to hold on in the saddle.
Holding on was a little moot when a giant dragon was racing down from the skies like some sort of demonic entity ready to devour one's soul. At least, that was what it felt like to Curtis, seeing the ease with which Liha soared around on her mount. It would have been a sight to behold, had he not been clinging on for dear life. Who had even suggested this was a good idea anyway?
"Nope!" he yelped, as Liha and her dragon plummeted towards him. Rather than take the blow, he released his grip, disconnected his harness, and threw himself clean off the back of his mount, plummeting to the relative safety of the anti-gravity field below.
And so, the competition progressed.
