Xanadu Weyr - Garden
An arch woven from the tendrils of a willow tree stretches overhead lightly creeping with ivy as one steps in from the meadow into this sanctuary of green. Cool gray flagstone carefully spaced enables a soft velvety moss to thrive within the cracks, and creates a single wide pathway that fluidly breaks off into two paths of stone once free of the natural arbor. It is a wonder this place, and meticulously tended from the way it seems not a single leaf is out of place.
On either side of the main path expansive grassy patches are trimmed short and edged behind with natural tan colored stone selectively chosen to stack just right. Beyond these are a line of fine puffed shrubberies in vibrant green intermingled with flowering bushes of brilliant pinks varying in hue from the very light to the very dark, which causes the occasional snowy white blossoms of other scattered here and there without worry to simply pop out of the scenery.
Directly in the center of the garden is another wall of intricately stacked stone, this of muted grays, creating what from the air would prove to be a perfect circle. It's been set high for safety, but not so much as one would not be able to lean over it to admire what lies beyond, either standing or sitting at the smattering of benches whose backs are set every four feet along it. Flush to the ground inside it's protective stone outcropping, is an enormous twenty foot wide fish pond. Within one can glean the metallic glint of playful goldfish, the unhurried cruise of fat koi, and even a frog or three among pale yellow and white flowering water lilies and their thick green pads.
The trees surrounding the entire garden were planted to give the impression that they had always been here, not only lending to a rustic look, but also alluding to the beauty that can be found among the wilds if only one might just look for it. Species vary from the ordinary Birch and Pine, but the flaming red capsules of the Indian Shot to the robust orange spokes of the Firewheel tree suggest the spice of the exotic.
It’s late and the barracks are completely dead, if dead counts as rows and rows and rows of people asleep. Well, mostly all but one. Valerian laying wide awake on his own little sleeping spot, one that was randomly selected from the start, a ways a bit from the door. He was still completely dressed in and staring up at the ceiling. This whole being awake during the day and sleeping at night was new to the starcrafter apprentice, his grey eyes much more accustomed to glow light and darkness than they were to the bright barrage of the daystar called Rukbat. Regardless that he’d been a candidate for a while now, and many attempts had been made to do as was required of him, Valerian found himself restless at night and dozing off during the day. Suffice to say, he was not very productive in the hours of waking that were required of him, leaving him mildly frustrated and his body rigid. The last bed check hadn’t been that long ago and Vale had them down to a science. The next would be in a few hours, right before dawn and that would give him plenty of time to show up after that one wet from a bath. In the time between, the stars. They made his blood sing and brought him to roll from his bed and quietly to the floor, picking up his boots and making his escape. Wisely, he’d tucked his candidate knot away where no one could see it, leaving only his apprentice knot in plain view. No one would think twice about a starcrafter creeping around at night, at least that’s what he told himself, slipping around a corner and pulling on his boots. Luckily, the time was late, and the corridors empty. Making quick work of them, he finally feels the coolness of night upon his face as he clears out into the bowl. A pause to just breathe it all in and he’s off at a dead run, just an apprentice, probably late for something, nothing to see here. Faster, faster, his legs carry him to a place to climb up high, as high as he can. The garden, the wall and there he flops back against the stone and breathlessly pants as he fills his gaze with the stunning array of stars above.
One of the hardest things that Tys has had to get used to when becoming a candidate was the array of noises that a whole host of people make when sleeping in a communal area. While he was raised a decent chunk of his life as a weyrbrat; those days are long past. It has been turns since he had his own secluded little place to call his own where only the deep rumbling of his Aunt’s dragon provided him with his nightly lullaby. It isn’t to say he is a light sleeper exactly, but he just does not do well with snoring and there are a few candidates that Tys has definitely found himself looming above their cots in the middle of the night, pillow in hand arm at the ready. Thankfully he never actually smothered anyone—yet at least. But when Valerian makes his sudden escape, there is one candidate who just can’t help but be curious about where exactly his fellow is up to. Only he didn’t bargain on a run being in the cards. Sadly running, and even sometimes walking, just isn’t something that the teen finds he is good at. It takes him several extra minutes just to kind of follow (and we use the term loosely) Vale, and then several more before he finally located exactly where he went due to him faking being in the pursuit. By the time Tyssarian has actually made it into the garden he is huffing and puffing like a prized runner that has just won a race. He’s bowed over, hands on his thighs as he gasps for that essential air for several more moments before he pulls up his head and glances around to see where exactly his fellow candidates has gotten off to.
Oh, Valerian is up there on top of that wall, all huffing and puffing himself, because that there had been a sharding good run! Maybe not as much or as heavy as his pursuer, in fact, he might very well just be breathing fractionally deeper only by the time that his fellow candidate catches up with him. The sound of all that breathing certainly catches the attention of those grey eyes of his, “Hmm?” and he pushes himself up and peers over through the moonlight at the other boy. Brows shoot up as he recognizes him and the starcrafter swings his legs over to that he is sitting on the ledge, leaning over his legs slightly, “You okay over there?” he asks, tilting his head to the side. A sweep of his gaze over Tyssarian, taking in everything about him from his state or lack of physical fitness down to the clothing that he wore. It was admittedly a little chilly it being autumn and all, so when the starcrafter speaks or exhales a brief wisp of white is expelled before his mouth. He would totally climb down if the other kid was in some sort of actual distress, but until that was determined he had every intention of remaining exactly where he had deposited himself. He wasn’t sure of the name, but he recognized the face at least, one among many Valerian had become accustomed to around the candidate barracks where those who were white-knotted gathered. In passing of course, never for long, as either one or the other was coming or going. Just another guy in a sea of guys and girls, and Vale is fairly certain that neither of them had said so much as a single word to the other in all that time. Well, maybe hello or goodnight or something before going about their perspective business.
One thing is for sure, Tyssarian would me an awful freaking spy, if you know, Pern had things called spies. Which of course they don’t. But that is besides the point. The teen extends an arm, waving off the other’s concern. “I’m… fine…” He manages to get the airy words out in between gasps. It is only after several painfully awkward minutes that he is able to finally catch his breath. “By Faranth, you don’t mess around when you sneak from the barracks do you?” It is then that minty eyes draw upwards at just where the other candidate is and there is all of a nanosecond where he considers getting up on that wall to join him before that thought is viciously shoved away. Yeah, let’s not see Tys try to break his neck. “You have issues sleeping too? Just trying to get some peace and quiet?” Although if that was really the case and something Tys has thought about, why exactly did he stalk Val down? Who is to say. “I don’t think we have formally been introduced, I’m Tys—Tyssarian if you absolutely must.” He extends his hand out as he stares up at Valerian before it dawns on him the absurdity of offering a hand to someone nowhere near him and his hand is instead not so smoothly pushed up so fingers can run through his hair. Let’s just ignore that shall we?
The starcrafter’s shoulders bobble with the silence of his laughter at the wave of dismissal and the huff n’ puffed fineness of him, brows launched upwards. “Yeah, I can see that.” He’s teasing, mostly. Valerian is patient though, waiting with continued interest in his personal stalker to catch his breath as he swings his legs lazily back and forth a bit over the lip of the wall upon which he was perched. Once that breath-catch is managed and rhetorical questions posed, he flashes Tyssarian a rather toothy and wolfish grin. The deviant. “Hmm…” he hums, head rocking back and forth upon the pivot of his head as he rolls those grey eyes of his upwards towards the starry sky, but they return quickly enough. Not an answer dude. That head is tilted again, but off to one rather than pitching it from side to side, chuckling all the while even as he points to the knot beside the plain whiteness of that candidate one. “Starcraft, we kinda do our thing at night…well….most of us do…there are some that are strictly interested in Rukbat…buuuut…” Eyes are rerolled. An eight and a four. Excellent initiative, but now wasn’t the time for that heated debate. Get it? Heated? Hahahahah, Valerian cracks himself up, his soft laughter heard as the thought crosses his mind. Considering he didn’t share the joke, the other candidate might just find him a bit odder than he likely already did. “Just can’t sleep at night and I don’t see the point of laying on my cot and staring at the ceiling.” A shrug for that, all teenagery dismissive, but shoulders are a little tight suggesting there might be something in that which the starcrafter was still on the fence about. “I’ve seen you aro…yeah…I can’t reach that…” The hand is eyed even as he continues to grin like some insane person. Run Tyssarian, just flee while you can, there was just something about all those teeth that speaks to something…not…unsettling…per say…but certainly not encouraging of proper and appropriate candidate behavior. Exhibit A, luring the unsuspecting out after curfew. “Valerian…you can call me Vale…”
(This log is ongoing, we're slow busy people. XD)