Xanadu Weyr - Training Grounds
This wide, grassy expanse is nestled into a vaguely bowl-shaped curve, granite walls jagged and misshapen as though something's taken a bite out of the mountain. It's high above the level of the beach, with a lovely easterly view of the sea and a long path leading down to sandy shores. Cliffs surround the training grounds on all other sides, excepting a small archway leading towards the hatching arena.
While much of the grounds are left in their natural state, one area has been trampled and trodden by enough feet that the grass struggles to grow. A running track circles a set of equipment - straw dummies with wooden frames, obstacles of various sizes and shapes, and targets for flaming, archery, and whatever else might be needed to train human and dragon bodies alike.
Candidate access to the combined barracks can obtained by way of a simple door embedded into the wooden half of the structure. Weyrlings are encouraged to make use of a short but massive tunnel that slopes gently upwards into the half of the barracks meant for dragon use. To the right of this opening, a jagged crack in the stone leads to a dim cave, alive with the sound of water.
Training accidents are a part of life. If one is fortunate, they're little things, like the accidental, possible concussion. One of the weyrlings from the latest batch of eggs, advanced enough to be doing hand to hand self-defense at a rather advanced level has taken to partnering up with brawny bronzerider F'yr who is chained hostage proud clutchsire's lifemate and needed at the nearby hatching arena all. the. time. He has, for the moment, escaped, but things went slightly sideways in the bout leaving the weyrling with the need to get checked out by an actual healer (though he's fine, just as he's been saying this whole time, thanks much). He might be limping slightly, but that's another story. F'yr is not without traces of injury himself, though no longer spitting a little blood from being dumb enough to go into this without a mouth guard. (MOUTH GUARDS SAVE LIVES.) He's sitting on a hay bale in the training area meant for this kind of of thing, unwrapping his hands, blue gaze still tracking the former sparring partner and attending healer. "He'll be alright?" Nevermind that probably he heard everything about how, sure, yeah, he will be, but. A man like F'yr has enough of a ripple to his brow to be apparently concerned.
"It would have been better if you hadn't tried to completely take his head off his shoulders," Hexik replies to F'yr, a half-smile twisting his lips, though he doesn't look up from what he's doing. "Is it frequent that you weyr types try to kill one another?" He's still attending to the weyrling, going through the standard medic's kit of concussion checks: mostly a series of sight tests, but then a few questions of who's the weyrleader, what turn is it, et cetera. Hex may look half-assed — he was pulled from the beach nearby and is, APPROPRIATELY, half-dressed though he does have shoes on his feet which is progress thank you very much — but despite not having a shirt to pin a Healer's knot on, he seems to be handling this BRIEF EMERGENCY in stride. "You'll be fine, but I want you to check into the infirmary tonight to sleep. They'll put you in one of the… whatsits… ground weyrs, but you need to be observed in case there's something I've missed." For a dude younger than both people involved in this incident, Hex's voice is practiced steel in an offhand way, as if he anticipates no other reaction than compliance.
"I—" don't have a defense for that. F'yr breaks off the thought before it even becomes something like digging a hole for himself and just looks back to his work of unwrapping his hands. He doesn't seem fazed by the healer's attire, but then, F'yr's only in tank top and shorts himself. It might have been all well and good to let the weyrling go off to reassure his lifemate watching from enough of a remove to not be immediately in the way after Hexik's instructions, except the weyrling, for whatever reason, looks past the shirtless healer (maybe it's the shirt that's creating a hiccup in the sense of authority here?) to F'yr. He pauses, his breathing still settling from combined bout effort and the adrenaline of accidental injury, and he looks from the healer to the weyrling. It's probably that Hexik called it a 'whatsit' that has F'yr adding, "Check in with the Weyrlingmaster, and see if he wants you to find out about being at the Dragonhealer's Annex," conveniently attached to the nearby hatching grounds and equipped to deal with all variety of dragon injury, as well as all the fancy high tech hatching facility stuff that is still just stuff to F'yr even after this many weeks on the sands, "if your lifemate's worried," perhaps justifies the reason for the look and the reason for F'yr almost but not quite countermanding the healer's instructions without any actual authority to do so. It's fine, right? It's not you, Hexik. It might be because when F'yr stands up, which he does, he cuts an impressive figure with his height and honed musculature. "Thank you for coming so promptly, Healer…?" At least he has good manners now?
Hex lifts a single articulate eyebrow at the weyrling who looks to F'yr. "You must have really hit your head," he says upward at the kid, a not-too-oblique critique of double-thinking a healer's orders. His sense of subtlety is likely lost on the dragonman, and he seems resigned to it by the shake of his own head. "I'm not sure what the local master's opinion is, but if you fail to show up tonight, it's your ass on the line, not mine." If only he had more gravitas! … but honestly, Hex says the whole thing with an airily on-brand i-don't-give-a-fuck aura, cementing it with a pat to the weyrling's shoulder that is very no-skin-off-my-teeth before turning toward F'yr. "Are you hurt?" It's entirely professional, the — THOROUGH — once-over that Hexik gives F'yr. Entirely professional. For science. Bitches. "Hex," he absentmindedly responds.
The response of, "Nothing that a little numbweed won't fix," sounds like he knows what he's talking about, fully prepared to do away with that line of inquiry as he stretches his hands, perhaps a little stiff from impacts. "He's a good guy. He'll report," he assures the healer. "The dragons…" He shrugs, sometimes they need things. "I'm F'yr," he introduces himself (F'ier or F'ihr, not quite fear, but close) succinctly in turn. If he even notices the thoroughness which is highly debatable, there's no obvious acknowledgment. No, that goes right over head, despite the height. "Sorry to have interrupted you," he gestures toward the trail that leads where the healer had come from. "I-" still doesn't really have a good excuse, but tries anyway for an explanation, "-got careless." His jaw tightens, expression twitches in a way that suggests having made the mistake has an impact. He turns to where he was sitting, bending to pick up a canteen and unscrew the top as he asks, "New here, Hex?"
Let it be known that Hexik comes from Cornhusk Cothold, he is as familiar with men like F'yr — is intimately too assuming of a word to use? It probably is. He'd still use it. Nothing's taboo. "Well, considering that it would appear that you were fighting without a mouthguard," and yes, sorry F'yr, Hex has no goddamned boundaries, because he reaches up with a knuckle to tag F'yr's lower lip: it's a slow enough movement that the bronzerider is well within standard to reflexively jerk back from such a thing, but hey, the temerity. "Quite. Only been here a sevenday." It seems like almost a trademark, how Hex shifts out his arms, wrists forward, not-quite-a-shrug: "Is it that obvious? Black Rock's stench still lingering?" He even takes a none-too-discreet sniff at one armpit to seal the joke.
SOME OF US ARE VERY SORRY, but there is that reflexive jerk back as the healer reaches for him, a flinch. His Adam's apple bobs and his self-control asserts itself over instinct. "Sorry," is not really regret so much as manners because this is a healer, and not, say, some handsy greenrider postflight. The big bronzerider reaches up to touch his own lip, pausing as tongue explores whatever bite happened. A heavy sigh agrees with Hex's assessment, "I should've gone back for it, but I left my things back at my homestead and Glori's—" You know what, F'yr? It's time to wave one hand that kind of dismisses the rest of the apparently lengthy story. "It was dumb." He sums up the obvious and mutual opinion. Moving on. A smile appears for the self-sniff, not quite showing teeth, but appreciation of the humor warming his features. "You called the ground weyr it a 'whatsit,' which is about what I called it when I got here from the farm." Perhaps not quite, but close enough. "Settling in alright?" It's not quite his job to know, but here's open amicability from the blond as he falls silent to take a drink.
"Good reflexes," Hex says with a slender smile, more an impression of the thing rather than anything that shows teeth. The healer settles back on his heels, crossing his arms over his chest as he focuses his attention onto the bronzerider. "I'm not telling you your business, other than to ask that you don't kill anyone out there. You were about twice the size of that kid." lbr here, F'yr's twice the size of Hex, but he doesn't say that, either. "Farm," reflected on the last, his attention momentarily flicking down and then back upward: "Yeah, it's just… big. Black Rock could fit twice over with room to spare." A brief flicker of something self-depreciative: "As soon as I stop getting lost I'm sure I'll be better." And, y'know, when he stops calling common weyr areas whatsits.
F'yr's hands come up in a gesture of peace, still holding the canteen in one hand, smile spreading a little, "Not going to kill anyone, promise." Really, if Hex only knew F'yr~ "He asked me to partner him because he wanted to work on advanced techniques focused on taking down a larger opponent." He makes a brief evidentiary gesture to - well, all of him. "Helps with that kind of thing to have a bigger person to practice with." But accidents happen and he's not going to try to excuse his mistakes. "I've seen it from the air," he admits of Black Rock. "But that sounds familiar. Landmarks are good," says Dragonrider Obvious as he seals up the canteen again. "People are friendly enough though. Mostly." But judging by the way his teeth briefly flash into a smile, the 'mostly,' implies a particularly friendly+ that has nothing to do with either intimacy or imitations of it. (PRANKSTERS, HEX. HE MEANS PRANKSTERS. WATCH YOURSELF.) "Is this your first posting?" And he squints a little, really looking at Hexik now (not that he wasn't before, but more in the 'oh, look a person' way). "Journeyman?" He guesses, probably because of all that authority Hex was displaying moments before.
From the way that Hexik's eyes almost glaze over when F'yr starts talking about advanced techniques and takedowns, one would think the man doesn't have both an advanced sense of masculinity and/or an impressive knowledge of anatomy. Apparently the combination does not, in any manner, create a fighter. "You sound like my older brother." Hex's light amusement is evident throughout the entire sentiment, his mouth quirked to one side. He doesn't offer to expound. "I've not had a problem with people not being friendly," literally his entire life, but it works for the weyr/short term discussion AS WELL. "No, I was posted to Black Hold for a while. This is my first transfer." First WEYR. He leaves that part out, but even Dragonrider Obvious should be able to do that logic, right? "Yes. Healer journeyman Hexik at your service." He does not make that an innuendo and everyone should be proud of him for it.
"I'm the youngest." F'yr replies to the observation, though surely not smallest, right? Maybe this is just because it's funny to F'yr to be compared to an older sibling, even if he has plenty of cousins and nieces and nephews who might think of him that way. He makes a gesture to the training area and seems to feel the need to add. "This is just an avocation." Take the boy of the farm, give him a damn dictionary and see what happens? "I work up with the paper pushing wing." He looks like a secretary administrative assistant, right? "I'm only out here because of the eggs." Another gesture comes and goes, this one to the hatching arena. "I'm unlikely to be someone you'll need to call on unless you happen to get a handful of people into your care and need reinforcements. I could give you a list, but you'll probably know if you ever have to care for them." When it doubt… who you gonna call? Bronzebusters~ F'yr. If F'yr knew that Hex resisted innuendo just for him, he probably would be proud; he seems that kind of guy.
"Are you." Hexik doesn't phrase it as a question, but the Healer does have that same half-hidden smile, like he can't quite not. "An avocation," he echoes, the laughter DEFINITELY audible in his voice. "Is that one of them things you spread on toast?" Hex deliberately thickens his cornfield drawl for the question, as much mocking of himself as the bronzerider. He starts to say something else and quiets, likely thinking of the weight of the invisible knot on his shoulder. "I'm sorry. That sounds like awful. Did you piss someone off?" That, now, that is genuine, and Hexik, touchy-feely kind of guy he is, starts to reach out as if to touch F'yr's shoulder but restrains himself by re-routing that hand up to card through his own hair. REAL SMOOTH, HEX, REAL SMOOTH. He grunts at the end, a surprisingly dude-code-compliant noise, in the way that men do when they are faced with words they don't really understand when pieced together but feel the need to acknowledge nonetheless.
Bless him. F'yr stops to think about the question. His face tilts up a little toward the sky as if he might find some method of applying the word 'avocation' to toast written there. It's not so much that the bronzerider lacks smarts as that he takes that question seriously, when he probably shouldn't. "They say where there's a will there's a way," he offers, as blue eyes return to the healer, the slightly older man flashing a grin that says whatever answers he might have come up with, the humorous one was best anyway. That contemplation is the most obvious indication, but now having witnessed it, it's probably not difficult to pick up on the fact that there's habitually a brief pause between words said to him and whatever comes in return. He thinks before he speaks; he probably even does that before he acts. "Sadomasochist of the worst order," he replies to that genuine apology with another flash of that grin. "Volunteered." Yes, yes, he did. He relents a little in letting the words stand to explain, "I started as a gardener and ended up assisting the Weyrwoman and Weyrleader. Stood, Impressed, went back to what I loved. Can't beat the blanket forts, bonfires and explosions." THIS MAY NOT BE YOUR AVERAGE PAPER PUSHING DEPARTMENT, HEXIK. BRACE YOURSELF, because F'yr sounds entirely serious about all of that, and he's even smiling. He's clearly deranged. There is, however, a fraction of a moment after that in which the bronzerider seems to consider something and then in deference to the smoothness he was probably supposed to ignore, he adds. "You can touch me. Sorry about the-" flinch. "Xanadu tends to be a touchy place." And see? Look, F'yr will even reach a hand toward the healer to touch his bicep briefly, if the other man doesn't object, giving it a friendly sort of squeeze. "Forehead to forehead doesn't mean someone's about to kiss you." He offers the local custom with a brief touch to the side of his nose, indicating the mystical wisdom.
HEXIK'S FACE THO. THIS FACE. THIS BABY FACE RIGHT HERE. He can't help but show everything that he thinks on his face — it's just his lot in life — and when F'yr looks up at the sky as if to ask it what the fuck Hex just asked, well, Hex almost falls the fuck out. It's a very near call that he doesn't bust out into entirely inappropriate laughter at that point right there, and so it's with a choked, "Guess so," that Hex responds to the blonde giant's platitude humor. He coughs just after, looking down in an attempt to school his face into something that isn't — what it would be. WITH A LITTLE MORE ATTEMPT at civil discourse and the sobriety that such requires, Hex lifts his attention back to the bronzerider as he says his piece about volunteering and blanket forts. His mouth keeps doing strange things though, like it WANTS to smile and he keeps telling it DOWN BOY. It's weird because that's typically not the piece of physiology that Hex normally has that conversation with. Whatever. Hex obviously doesn't object when F'yr reaches out, but the bafflement of the last bit combines with everything and the healer's face contorts into a tortured okay-he-can't-hold-it-back-anymore and the journeyman half-pivots before helplessly laughing in a different direction. What? HAVE YOU NEVER HAD THE GIGGLES?! "Uh, thanks. Thanks," he makes an undignified snorting noise and then half-coughs, half-chokes, and straightens. "Thanks… rider F'yr. I appreciate your wisdom." The glint in his eye as well as M'aury both declare that to be a lie.
CONVENIENTLY, it's F'yr's lot in life to be able to laugh at himself, so Hexik's laughter prompts chuckles from the bronzerider in a way that holds nothing back. By the end, he's grinning widely at Hexik. In fact, he grins wider when Hexik is snorting-coughing-choking. "Alright there, Healer Hex?" That's asked with entirely too much innocence, a falsely wide-eyed look slotting onto his face. BUT LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN, he survived, right? It's fine. "But it's just F'yr. Titles aren't really-" he makes a vague hand gesture. "But I guess since you don't want any advice, you can just do what you like with that." He's not laughing at Hexik in his turn, but he is moving to pick up his wraps and his towels. "Don't say I didn't warn you." Just because some people think the outlandish stories of the awesomeness of Xanadu are only stories… Well, Hex'll learn, right? "I should get back." To the eggs, probably, even if he briefly looks pained to have to do so. That probably doesn't have to do anything with Hexik but rather more to do with the BOOMING MENTAL PRESENCE that surges into existence to just about everyone not mentally deaf in the vicinity with the CLARION CALL OF OFF-KEY TRUMPETS, the smell of acrid smoke and leather and all things DRAGONLY, and an all too heroically loud, « AHAHAHAHAHA!!! HALT, SHIFTY-EYED FOE-VILLAIN AND STATE YOUR PURPOSE! » Later, Hex may come to understand the reason why F'yr just presses his lips together, makes a face that says, 'YUP,' and goes, "That's my cue," before sprinting off in the direction of the arena. OFF TO SAVE THE DAMN DAY~
"What the fuck was that," seems fitting in really every context as Hex stares after the rider, does an Olympic-class facepalm, and then — as is Hexes are want to do — turns around to go back to the beach.