Xanadu Weyr - Candidate Barracks
A long, low ceiling room opens off the entrance hall to the arena, one wall slightly curved as it is set against the outer wall of the arena itself. Cots are set evenly the length of the room, in two rows, each with its own small press at the foot, for personal belongings. Wide windows are spaced along the outside wall, letting sunlight in, while other lights are available for the night time hours.
The day is coming to an end, chores are done and free time is near over as candidates are shuffled towards the barracks with calls that curfew will be coming up faster than they know. Kiley is among the few already in the barracks, papers upon her cot and a journal being written in as she goes through the papers. Silence isn't exactly filling the barracks as people use this time to chit-chatter away while the lights are still on and while they still have the time to do so rather than doing it when they have the potential of getting in trouble from the barrack's nanny or with Werlingmaster's staff. It is no different from any night, so far.
Pyriel comes strolling on in about a quarter of a candlemark after the warning call for the end of curfew, side by side with Iessrien. The blond has his hands shoved into the deepest recesses of his front pockets, murmuring softly to the Breakwater Holder. Whatever they are talking about, is said so low that only the amused tone of it carries over anywhere else. Then golden eyes come away from the other lad, and chin lifts a bit as he scans the rooms occupants, then back to Iessrien they go. There's a smirk and a rolling of eyes before one hand gets pulled out to curl into a fist that he holds out towards the older boy. "That's awesome, man. I'll totally be there."
Karona is sitting cross-legged on her cot, eyes wide. Something seems exciting. There's a fair-sized pile of marks in her lap, and a huge grin on her face. She's practically bouncing up and down. Her cot is apparently now the one she fell asleep on, the night she spent muttering at Iessrien. Seems she's decided to move cots a second time. She certainly seems full of energy now, so perhaps it was the right call. "I can't believe it, I just can't believe it." she's saying, staring at her marks. "eeeee!" she lets out, then claps her hand over her mouth, face suddenly red. She didn't just squeal like an excited schoolgirl, no. Ahem.
Fistbump. A slight grin twitching at his features as he knuckle-taps the other boy, Iessrien walks in with Pyriel, the holder's shoulders relaxed back, posture for once not slouching lazily, though his hand returns to jacket pocket. Letting his gaze drift across the barracks, pondwater-blue eyes flick briefly to Aqueepoli's cot, grin faltering for an instant, before attention settles on Karona. That squealing earns an arched brow and a, "Shells, woman. What did you do? Rob a trader caravan?" He says it jokingly though, slight trace of amusement in his face as he heads for his cot, giving the girl's new sleeping location only the mildest of looks, before he turns to offer Kiley a nod, and a, "Hi," as he passes her. It's his own bed he's soon focused on though, because it totally has his missing satchel perches at the foot of it, right atop his clothes press. Steps suddenly hurrying, the holder boy attempts /not/ to sprint over there the moment he spots the thing.
Kiley looks up at the arrival of Pyriel and Iessrien, saying nothing as she watches the pair for a moment. Her eyes are drawn away to her papers and there's a shuffling of a few before she pulls out a nice small little stack of some with a slight smile coming to her lips. However, it is Karona that draws her attention next rather than the harper and holder, her eyes falling upon the woman with an upward lift of her brows. "Something good happen, Karona?" The computer crafter questions with a light-hearted tone for the other woman before her gaze slowly returns to the two boys. More specifically: Iessrien for his greeting. "Hi." Her eyes follow him for a brief moment before returning to the harper. "Pyriel." There's a gesture beckoning the harper over and then the papers in her hands are outstretched towards him in offering.
After the broly exchange of manliness, Pyriel returns his hand to the pocket he'd gotten it from, shoulder length hair drawn away from his face with an elastic at the sides and top. Though some of his bangs seems to have escaped. He tosses his head to get the section free from his field of vision before his gaze slides to follow Iessrien's, and his smiles fades to a slight frown. The squealing Karona though, that easily draws his attention over to the woman, brows lifting. He looks between pile and owner of pile back and forth several times before he smirks at her, head coming up and haughty look in place. "Two from the looks of it, Iess." he says, and walks around the back of his buddy to seek out the chore board. Though he's drawn back from it when he hears his name. "Ya?" he says, gaze settling on Kiley after a moment. "Oh hey." Chin lifted in greeting, and then a curious expression blossoms over his features, wandering over towards the woman and lingers at the end of her bed. "What's up?" He is distracted by the sprinting holder, but not long before Kiley once more is getting an expectant look.
"Mfmfmmfr" …right. It might help if Karona removed her hand from her mouth first. The smith candidate does so, looking mildly irritated for her own lapse, then answers again: "I finished my commission!" she squeals, apparently unable to keep her voice in the normal register. "And the rider loved it, and it was for someone else I think, so he's not interested in me, and he /paid me/!" Apparently every one of those things is the best thing ever, moreso than the previous thing, the way she's carrying on. Sometimes she acts like she's 70, but today she's acting closer to 7. Apparently it's all very exciting. It takes her a moment to process that she's actually being asked by actual other people, and that it might be polite to enquire in return. "So, uh… how bout you guys? How were your days?" she asks, awkwardly. she never claimed to be good at this 'social' thing.
Iessrien grabs the satchel off his clothes press, tugging open the drawstrings that hold the top flap closed, and immediately rummaging, almost missing Kiley's return greeting there. A curious, brief look is sent the computercrafter's way, pondwater eyes flicking from those papers to Pyriel and back, but closing his hand around something in the bag has Iess settling it at the foot of his bed and leaning slightly while he peers inside to retrieve.. an envelope. It's one of those large, official-looking things made os stuff paper, that someone's actually bothered to seal flat, rather than roll up with a bit of string. It's gotten a bit crumpled in the time it's been in the satchel, but Iess very carefully smoothes it out, the boy dropping to his cot with one knee tucking under him, hands.. shaking very slightly before they settle the item in his lap, fingers slowly working the envelope open. Py's remark about two caravans goes apparently unheard, but Karona's at-first muffled answer is given a blink, and a slight browraise before he comments, "Hmh, we've had traders come to Breakwater with twice that. But it's a nice pile anyway," possibly attempting to be ..polite, given the woman's outright glee. "What did you make?" he might have missed or forgotten, really. "I'm fine," comes a shrug, a second later, gaze dropping back to the letter he's tugging oh so carefully from the envelope.
Kiley gives Pyriel a brief look for the greeting before nodding once in response to his chin lift. When he finally settles by her cot, the papers are wiggled out towards him. "Take it and read it." She insists with nothing more than a look. "You'll like it." Comes an easy promise as a smile spreads upon her lips, waiting for him to take it. While she waits, her gaze drifts over towards Karona as her excitement bubbles up again and both brows lift curiously. "Well, what'd I tell you?" She asks, her tone teasing. "Maybe you can continue to make more and make just as many marks, hm?" Her smile grows wider and her shoulders drop in a slight shrug. "My day was productive." Her gaze shifts oh so carefully over towards Iessrien, quirking a brow before allowing it to drop as her gaze returns to the harper.
Pyriel is drawn to the question that Karona asks, and the harper shrugs one shoulder, rather dissmissively. If he noticed the woman's awkwardness, he doesn't mention anything about it. "Just another day." After the harper responds, his interest wanders over to what is going on with Iessrien over there with a lowering of lashes, peering over at the other male candidate for quite a while. There is another show of curiosity and something else that's tucked away before any read of it could be defined. The papers being thrust at him by Kiley gets a distracted crease of brows, and several blinks before he reaches out absently and takes them perhaps without thinking. Glancing down at them, his eyes scan a few lines before his mouth slowly drops open a crack. Then he's moving and sitting on the end of the computer crafter's bed, before he lifts his head and gives the woman on of his devastatingly beautiful smiles. "Kiley I take it all back, yer just plain awesome. I can't believe ya got this stuff for me. Thanks a lot!" he says with eminence appreciation. "Where didja get all this?"
Karona peers over at Iessrien, perhaps his comment about traders with double the marks has deflated her excitement slightly, or perhaps she's just curious. "Letter from home?" she wonders, though her brow doesn't furrow like it usually would. "Right… the marks." she glances down, and grins. "I made a sculpture! Spirally thing, abstract, but loads of symbolism. Or so the rider thinks." she shrugs slightly, claiming to have bluffed the man, but that may in itself be a bluff. Kiley's productive day earns a beam, "Progress on the talking computer?" she asks, brightly. Pyriel's reaction to Kiley's offering has Karona's curiosity piqued, and she leans forward to peer, not that she can read a word from this distance. "Something good? What is it?" she asks, tilting her head at the papers.
"Mmh," comes the absent, affirmative sound in response to Karona, though there's only a vague nod at the woman's answer to his question about what she'd created. Iessrien manages to tug the letter out of the envelope, the latter left on the bed with the crest (or whatever Pernese equivalent) stamped on it. He doesn't read it however, leaving the paper with finely curling script in his lap while his attention is drawn, with a slight headtilt, over towards Kiley's cot, "..Talking computer?" That gets a blink and a blank look, though it's the papers the girl hands over to Pyriel that receive a more curious browraise, the holder having missed the other boy peering at him a moment ago.
Kiley watches as Pyriel takes the papers in his distraction, waiting until he reads and then when his mouth drops open the woman grins one of those Cheshire grins. "Thank you." Her tone is brighter for the approval from the harper and while cheeks flush, she inclines her head just so, "it wasn't that hard. I got it up from the Yokohama from the research room. You liked the books so I found a few other things for you while I was in there." She looks to Karona and nods, "I told you that weird shapes are normally what people are most drawn to, and it lets them get their own idea about the meanings." The woman chuckles before shaking her head, "not really. But Landers agreed to help with one of the accents, and he also offered me a place to stay in Landing when I make my stop there." Pause, her gaze drops to her notes. "I just need to pick out everywhere I'm going first.. Maybe I can try and get my sister to talk to me again so I can get some rides from her." Then she waves her hand idly in dismissal for that before she looks to Iessrien for his question. "It'll be my project after Candidacy. I'm going to make a voice activated computer and have it talk back so you can enter commands without having to touch it seeing as people complain about them so much."
Pyriel nods to Kiley, tongue apparently at work wriggling his two remaining piercings there on his bottom lip from inside his mouth, as he's returned to reading. Or from the looks of it, devouring the contents of those pages she handed him. In turn he misses the flushing of her cheeks, but not the cheerful uplift of her tone. "Ya got no idea how much I wanted to sneak that Atlas out. Kinda sorry I hadn't brung a bigger bag." he murmurs, only half paying attention to anyone else at this point. Iessrien and Karona's questions and looks are missed in the process. He does eventually look up at Kiley though, grinning ear to ear at her. "This is some seriously rockin' info, Kiley. I'd hug ya, but…." he says and shrugs just one shoulder and with that, he stands and walks back to his own cot, reading along the way. "No way, that's crazy." Is muttered at one point halfway to his destination, complete with a pause of his footwork, and then onwards he goes. "What the hell is pizza?" he ponders, now lowering himself to his cot. One hand holds the papers close to his face, now squinting for some reason, the other hand rubs at the back of his neck. "What exactly is the function of a rubber duck?" he asks in an utterly baffled way. Oh yeah, he's gone.
Karona peers at Iessrien, frowning slightly. "You're not usually this…" she hesitates, perhaps fumbling for a polite word, "…quiet. Something up?" she wonders. The marks are glanced at, and then she shakes her head, and pulls over a little chest from further down the bed, scooping up the marks and dropping them in. Play time is over, apparently. By the clattering they make as they fall, it would seem that the chest already contained a few marks. The little chest is locked up, then popped in the clothes press at the end of her cot. The key is on a string, and she pops it around her neck, tucking it inside her shirt. Paranoid much? "Mmm, suppose it's true, abstract shapes… People like to see /meaning/ in things. I don't get that. But, nice way to make a tidy profit." she has to admit. She raises an eyebrow slightly at Kiley. "Headed to Landing? I'd like to swing by there, see what I can learn. After the hatching, of course." Pyriel is eyed. "Pizza? Rubber duck? What is /in/ that text?" she wonders, though it's Kiley she asks, since Pyriel is evidently already lost to his reading.
"Computers can do that?" Iessrien can't help but sound slightly incredulous, though his gaze soon drops back to the letter in his lap, the rest of the conversation around the barracks either being missed or ignored entirely as a soft frown creases his features. Lips press together into a line, and there's a brief lowering of lashes, before eyes slide sideways to Karona. "What?" shoulders stiffen, the holder boy straightening and quite deliberately folding the letter and slipping it back into the envelope. Apparently, he's not going to read it /now/. "Nothing," is muttered to the woman with a slight shrug, pondwater blues flicking again to Pol's cot before briefly following Pyriel. There's a longer look given to the harper, though Iess says nothing to the boy, turning after a secont to his satchel with a vague frown, beginning to unpack clothing which he'd never even gotten a chance to wear during the trip.
Kiley laughs, "I figured from the way you looked at it. So I got you something that you could keep." The woman picks up her own papers and moves from her cot to settle them neatly into her press along with her journal before settling back into her cot. "You don't need to hug me." Comes a soft insistence before he's making his way back to his cot. There's only a brief glance in his direction before she's pulling her blankets over her legs and turning attention to Karona, no longer lingering on the harper. Her chin comes to rest on her knees, tilting thoughtfully before she grins widely at the woman. "Right. I'll be staying there for a little while for research before I begin my travel of Pern, but I don't know where exactly I will start outside of Landing. I guess I'll get to that after I head to Landing." As for the information, she shrugs. "Random stuff that was listed. Not too much, though, random facts." The woman drops back into her cot after that, spreading out and taking a deep breath. "I'm ready for sleep." Her head tilts to consider Iessrien briefly, "AIVAS did.. But who knows? It may be an attempt for nothing. But it is better to attempt it than to let it go to waste. It'd really help." But that is it before the blankets go over her head, effectively withdrawing herself from the conversation for sleep.
Karona snorts at Iessrien's answer. "You should probably read that." she advises, eyes drifting to the envelope, and then away. She shuffles a bit on the cot, wriggling in under the blanket. There's a flash, briefly, of bronze fabric under there. "Mmm, yeah. Not sure about travel, not really for me," not after the /last/ trip away from the Weyr, "but I may see you around Landing. I think… I'll see if I can find a rider who goes to Landing regularly, maybe I can hitch a lift." There's a furrowed brow, though when the blankets go over Kiley's head, the older woman calls out a "Night!"
Iessrien places the unworn clothes in his press and shoves the satchel under his cot, grabbing the letter and telling Karona pointedly, "Mind your own effing business," before turning and walking out of the barracks.