Xanadu Weyr - Beach
The unerring range of subdued white rises and falls in a multitude of sandy dunes, creating an endless amount of tiny valleys constantly demolished and rebuilt by the frequent arrival or departure of a dragon. Smoothing out as it slopes gently to the edge of the deep blue water, the sand darkens and a shell here and there stands out for children to collect. The beach itself is set along a low cliff - the height lessoning as one heads eastwards, blocking a portion of the beach from direct access.
The wide wide stretch of water opens up to the east, the far distant shore way beyond the horizon and the beach curves ever so slowly round to east and west, distant arms of land embracing the wind-ruffled Caspian Lake. East leads up to the mouth of the Rubicon River, where the protecting cliff is merely an arms length higher then the sand, and beyond that, a winding road leading out of Xanadu's territory. Westwards, the beach narrows as the cliff swings out, leaving a path wide enough for dragons in single file before cutting in to the sheltered cove designated the Weyrling Beach. However, cut in the cliff face to the north are a variety of rough, wide staircases, providing access to the clearing and to the meadow.
Bright sunny skies, dotted by the occasional cloud drifting lazily by, are a great start to Xanadu this late morning. Kera managed to get a few free candlemarks to herself today, that's why the greenling is stretched across a small blanket. Taking advantage of the freetime to get a little sun while working on some tedius paperwork attached to a clipboard. Moncerath is curled up nearby, her well oiled hide gleaming brightly as it reflect the suns rays, not because she's proddy. Holding down a corner of Kera's blanket against the gentle breeze is a large satchel, the adjacent corner held down by a damp rumpled towel that Minimur is trying to burrow under. Waving off something that buzzed her ear, Kera eyes the paperwork with a frown and pushes her damp hair back from her eyes.
The day certainly does seem to be shaping up into the sort harpers dream about… weather-wise. Which is kind of weird - really, why should harpers be dreaming about the weather? They spend most of it indoors. It's the sailors and farmers who'd have the more interesting dreams. Soriana… well, she's probably not dreaming about the weather, but she is out in it. She's coming from… the weyrling barracks, apparently, or at least that general direction, and she's got a small folder under one arm. There's no missing the pregnant curve of her belly, though at least she's started wearing clothes that actually fit again. They're just… made to fit that bulge.
Kera considers the line on the form she's looking at, then flips through some of the pages on the clipboard til she finds the information needed. After jotting down the specifics the form request, a glance is sent around the beach while she shifts her position on the blanket. Spotting Soriana approaching, after shielding her eyes from the glare, a wave is sent to her friend. "G'morning Soriana." Already the greenling is tugging at the things she has scattered, making room for the young weyrwoman to rest if she likes. "Glad to see you're not stuck in a stuffy office. Would be a sad thing to happen on such a nice morning." Moncerath lifts her dainty head from where it was resting on stretched out paws to warble a soft greeting to the queenrider, her head canting to follow her path across the sand.
Soriana smiles and waves back to Kera, then laughs. "I figure it's sort of a trade," she says. "I have to work inside on some of the nice days, I get to work inside on some of the nasty ones." Y'know, the ones with rain and sleet and freezing winds and all the rest - which, fortunately, Xanadu won't be seeing again for a few months. Soriana steals a glance at Kera's paperwork - it's probably instinct, at this point - then smiles and wiggles the fingers of her free hand to Moncerath before taking a careful seat on the edge of that blanket. "So is this free time for you, or just a change of scenery?"
Kera grins, nodding to her friend's logic as she finishes clearing blanket space, and jabbing here or there in order to level out the sand under it. "Get comfortable, well, as well as you can anyway." A little grin given as she gestures a few fingers towards Soriana's growing curve. Sitting up and crossing legs under her, Kera glances down to the paperwork with a smirk "Aye. Duties later in the evening, but for now, didn't see why I couldn't do these forms out here." Gently tugging some of the bottom pages free from the clip, she holds them out for Soriana if she wishes to glance them over. A couple of sketches from different angles, each matching the cobblestonework of the old cottage. Blueprints with dimisions and other needed numbers clearing noted. "Filling out the forms for Moncerath's addition to the cottage. And I keep having to refer to the estimates from the miners, and the builders specifications…all sorts of things I never considered having to do before." Kera gives a weak little chuckle "I'm wading through it slowly." Moncerath watches the two woman as she lowers her head back down go resumes being lazy in the midday sun. "But I know you aren't here to talk about paperwork." The greenling gives a goodnatured wink to her friend as goes on. "Have your mornings been getting easier lately? Drinking the tea herbs as needed?" Soriana probably didn't come to the beach to be grilled by a little healer either, but here we are. You know she had to ask.
"Uh… yeah," Soriana says, with an awkward little laugh. Comfortable. What's that again? She's sure to discover it someday! For now, she glances at the forms - though she doesn't let her fingers get anywhere near them, otherwise someone might try to claim that she should be responsible for them. Which, no. "Aha," she says at Kera's explanation, glancing over to green before looking back to rider. "At least if it takes half the summer you'll still have the other half to build it in?" she suggests with a teasing smile, then laughs brightly at those questions. "I'm doing fine. Things are right on schedule and following the estimates." She grins. "At least there's less paperwork. Though I don't know, those healers do take a lot of notes sometimes…"
Kera shuffles through the pages for Soriana to scan, and looking at the sketch herself before fixing them back to the clipboard. Smirking with a shake of her head as she sets the board aside for now "If it takes me that long to fill out a couple of forms, I'm definately having problems. No, I should have them finished in the morning, early evening at the lastest." Leaning back on her hands, Kera nods, smile growing at Soriana's news. "Glad to hear things are running along as they should, even if the healers have to take notes and observations for numerous reasons." A sudden thought causes a soft chuckle to slip out "And your little one probably already has it's own file in an infirmary cabinet." Leaning over, she snags the strap of her satchel and pulls it to her, then sets to rummaging in it. "Oh, speaking of little ones, how are the kits?"
It's almost nice to see paperwork that's definitely not Soriana's problem. …almost. It's still paperwork, and so she's also glad when Kera takes it back. She nods at the timetable given. "So things are going well with that, sounds like." Another glance to Moncerath, the dragon for whose benefit earth will be moved, and a smile. Soriana laughs a little as she looks back to Kera. "Numerous reasons, huh? What exactly are those reasons, besides… numerous?" She has a teasing smile and an arched brow as she questions those healerly motivations, and then… she sighs. "Poor kid. Everyone's got expectations, and it's not even born yet." Soriana gives the side of her belly a light pat, which presumably can (somehow) transfer all the way to the kid inside. Speaking of little ones? Soriana tilts her head, then… ohhhh. Those babies! "They're doing well. Dusty and Joy." They have names! It's a start. "I keep thinking they've found every corner it's possible to wriggle though, and then they prove me wrong." Soriana smiles with wry fondness, shaking her head. At least the tunnelcats are doing their part to help with babyproofing?
Kera's hand is clutching a nice sized orange fruit when she pulls it from the satchel. Tossing the roomy bag aside, she proceeds to peel the thick-skinned fruit. Shrugging at the 'numerous' questions "Things like the growth rate, weight, results from bloodtests and other things that are kept track of." Her gaze flicks over to Soriana as she works to free the fruity slices from the skin, grinning as the little kits' antics are relayed. "So they are keeping you and Ka'el on your toes then?" Soon she's tugging slices apart and offering a handful "Snack?" Taking a moment to chew on a slice herself, she goes on after a few seconds "At least by the time your little one is big enough to be mobil, you'll have secured any nook big enough for /her/ to wiggle into." And yes, Kera is still convinced of a mini Sori.
Soriana gives her head a shake. "That's information, not reasons why," she says, though her tone's amused rather than concerned. Healers presumably have their reasons, and she's not going to worry too much about them! She glances at Kera's snack, then laughs. "On toes, peering under couches, and all the rest of it." She grins, then shakes her head at the offer. "No thanks." Soriana looks out over the lake for a moment as Kera eats, her mouth tugging sidewise. Everyone's got expectations. "Oh, I'm sure there'll be more to discover. Things are never actually simple."
Kera tears open one of the slices and gives it to Minimur to eat, or investigate however he wants. As the little brown snuffles at the citris smelling snack, Kera glances up the the bright sky, before blinking against the glare. Kera chews another slice while chuckling over the tunnelcats' cute little tricks. "They were so adorable when I put them in that basket. Even if the bigger one was trying to attack my fingers the whole time. Is that one Dusty of Joy?" Scraping a stubborn section of the fruit where the fruit skin didn't come off completely, she glances up to her friend frequently. Brow lifting curiously, she can't help but sniff in amusement "Oh? What sorta discoveries might be found? Hopefully not a new lifeform evolving from from evil dustbunnies. If you don't deal with them when they are small, they will grow and grow til they can take on a full sized tunnelcat." Kera snickers a little and tears another slice in half, chewing it with a grin.
"The one with the silver fur. That's Dusty." Such creative names they've given these tunnelcats of theirs. "He's gotten better with the biting. If you let them get used to seeing hands as toys, they'll just keep at it, and that gets much less amusing the bigger they get." Soriana smiles wryly, then tilts her head. "Well, I don't know what they are. If I did, they wouldn't be discoveries, would they? More like… discovereds."
Kera finishes another slice before wrapping what's left in a little bit of cloth and shoving it into her satchel. "Well he may taken it as playing, I was just tryin to pet him a little before closing him up in the basket." Wiggling her fingers for inspection and chuckling "Still have all my digits though. I can't imagine it would be very pleasant if a full grown one decided to take a chunk out of ya." Her finger wiggling goes to flicking briskly when she notices some sand stuck to her citrus sticky fingers. Frowning at the offending sand trying to coat her hand, she sighs at it then glances back to Soriana. "Is the other one as snuggly and lovey dovey as it seemed? I didn't really handle them that much, but the smaller one just seemed the sweeter of the two." Her shoulders lift and drop quickly enough "That could easily be chalked up to her being younger though." The weyrling drags her hands back and forth along the sand next to the blanket, as if trying to scrape of the stickiness from the orange fruit. Grinning at Soriana's clarification, she concedes with a nod "I suppose you are right."
"Most things look like playing to a tunnelcat," Soriana admits with a bit of a laugh. "They're bundles of energy with four legs and fuzz." She nods about the ferocity of the full-scale version, then hehs and shakes her head. "I think that was her age. She's a bit quieter, I guess? But she's found just as many corners and hiding spots as Dusty has, and I'm pretty sure she's the one who chewed up that one toy and left the fluff spread evenly around the house…" Soriana shakes her head, amused now that she's not cleaning it up anymore, and watches as Kera puts sticky-wet hands to… "Doesn't that just make it worse?" she asks. "The way sand clumps onto wet things…"
Kera nods with an amused giggle, hearing of the mess Soriana is convinced Joy made. "They grow out of the 'destroy everything in sight' stage eventually, right?" A curious brow lifts and she glances down to her hand, smirking as Soriana points out that she's making her sticky problem worse. "Well I was tryin to rub it off." And it works so well that her hand is now clumped with sand. "Oh well, nothing another swim won't take care of." Gesturing towards the water "Up for a little dip? Might do good to take some pressure off your back." Tipping her head a bit, she gestures towards her friend's growing belly. "She's gotten quite a bit bigger since the last time I saw you." Granted, she's only gonna get bigger and bigger each day. Poor Soriana. Get a good look at your feet while you can. Muhahahaha.
"Mmm… not entirely," Soriana says, and laughs. "But they're fairly well behaved." Fairly. Note the fairly. Do not inquire too closely about the fairly, because it'll depend exactly who's been behaving how most recently. Soriana hehs. "Well, it did solve the orange problem," she admits. "It just replaced it with a sand problem." Details! Soriana glances to the water as Kera suggests it, then shakes her head. "Nah, I'm supposed to be meeting someone for lunch soon." She smiles. "Another time." Her belly gets a brief glance, and she shrugs. "Suppose that's how it works, isn't it?" A little laugh, and then Soriana levers herself (carefully) to her feet.
Kera 's forehead crinkles a bit as she has no choice but to agree with Soriana. "One problem for another I suppose." Shrugging it off, the greenling nods as her friend has to get going. Getting to her feet and offering a hand, the non sandsticky hand, to her friend to help her up. "Careful there, guess it's not as easy getting up as it used to be." After assisting Sori to her feet, if she accepted, Kera "Be sure to order extra steamed veggies with lunch, so that little one will be even bigger next time I see you." She starts brushing her hands together to get rid of the sand, but only succeeds in evenly distributing the sticky mess. "Gah, I definately think a swim is in my imediate future." Chuckling at herself, she wiggles sandy fingers towards the rounding queenrider "It's been nice catching up a bit. Hope we can do it again soon. Enjoy your lunch."