Xanadu Weyr - Observatory
At some distance through the fields and hills, up atop a steep ridge there's a rather distinctive looking building - nearing three stories tall, circular grey walls have carefully been erected, and a large dome is settled upon this solid foundation. Sitting adjacent to the tower is a long, low building, meant to serve as offices, record rooms and dorms for those who man the observatory. The flat roof also provides a handy platform for those who seek to use smaller, hand-held 'scopes. The view of Xanadu Weyr is a good one; the view of the night sky is an amazing, a view that reaches from horizon to horizon,unaffected by the light pollution of the more heavily traveled regions.
At dusk, the dome over the central telescope parts and scrolls back to allow the scope to extend towards the heavens. The computer console with all the knobs and buttons controls focus and position as well as projecting onto the extra large screen placed high enough for all to clearly see it. Around the perimeter are seats for onlookers to join the nightly sessions.
Off to one side is a short corridor leading to several offices for the masters and journeymen Starsmiths and one main workroom for scribes, full of star charts and tomes of astronomical knowledge and orbital physics.
Heaving a sigh, "Uuuuuugh I'm bored." Valerian flops himself down in the middle of the observatory floor, staring upwards at the brightly lit sky beyond the head of the telescope poking up from between massive doors. He ignores whatever looks he gets for just laying down exactly where he did, rolling grey eyes, and just existing in that spot. Arms and legs stretched out in all directions, even his dark blonde hair is fluffed out to take up as much space as possible. "Why couldn't they have sent me closer to dusk?" he asks the thin air around him, sounding annoyed with the whole situation. Pouting, Vale looks back at the patch of pale green above. "I'm definitely being punished for something…got to be…." Yes, he is absolutely talking to himself, out loud.
Cue Risali, who has gone beyond simply bundling up against Xanadu's winter in a warm jacket, and brought a blanket to boot. The blanket is wrapped around her shoulders like a particularly thick shawl, and the candidate is nursing a steaming mug of klah - hot enough to indicate that she's probably come straight from the living caverns to here, and also isn't ready to be awake yet. What Risali isn't doing is paying very much attention to her footing and - OOF! THERE SHE GOES! One booted foot gets caught against the side of He-Who-Lays-In-The-Middle-Of-Public-Places-Talking-To-Himself and down Risali goes. There's a strangled sound in her throat as Klah flees from her hands in a forward arc, landing a foot or so away from Harper and Starcrafter to start pooling its way back towards them. Risali's knee comes down hard on the other side of Vale's body, one elbow finding the young man's gut as she falls in an awkwardly-sideways kind of way and then - "WHAT. ARE YOU. DOING. ON THE FLOOR?" Risali's not even sorry if she's winded him, hissing as she shifts to sit up and pushes hair from her face, checking scrapped hands - though she doesn't move. "Faranth. What if - my KLAH." Because this is the worst of the tragedy, isn't it?
The complaining floor lump falls in silence with another deeply exhaled sigh, fingers twitching and still oh so very pouty. So determined to consciously turn day into night by will alone, Valerian pays no mind to the approaching footsteps of the bundled figure, until it is far too late. When Risali's foot catches on his side, the prone apprentice begins to automatically roll away, but it doesn't keep the woman's elbow from planting itself into his solar plexus or the air from whooshing out of his lungs as her diminutive form goes down. Far too busy gasping for air, an arm protectively goes over the offended area of his body, pushing himself up from the floor with his other hand as he wheezes and chokes out a croaked laugh that's abruptly cut short from lack of wind to fuel it. Doesn't stop his shoulders from shaking though. "Just…" he tries to inhale while rubbing at his new and very real physical pain, "…give me a…" Wheeze. Groan. Yeah, he needs a minute. At mention of klah though, his attention quickly wanders around until he finds the cup and its pooled contents. TRAGEDY! Another attempt to inhale and he pushes himself with some effort into a seated position, head bowed, before whipping all that dark blonde out of his face and grey eyes finally come to rest upon Risali herself. There is a pause in which he just stares at her, before a wide and embarrassed grin spreads over his face. All pretty white teeth and handsome charm, except he seems more amused than apologetic. "Sorry." Wheeze. Wheeze.
Faranth, but her knee is just throbbing, and suddenly Vale is laughing through his wheezing, and sitting up (WITH HER STILL ON HIM, WHICH EARNS ANOTHER SHRIEK), and Risali's catching at the younger man's shoulders as she glares daggers and — oh. For a moment, Valerian (I need you to know that I sing the GOT theme song EVERY TIME) stares at Risali, and Risali stares back at him, and tiny hands go out to cup the star apprentice's face before she has enough cognitive awareness to prevent it. The harper leans closer, her anger gone in a moment of focal fixation as she takes in Vale's eyes, and his smile, and something she can't quite place her finger on with something that might be muted wonder, but is definitely disbelief. It's curbed by the sudden furrowing of her brows, as if homesickness settles somewhere in her chest when she reaches out to touch a tentative finger to Valerian's brow, and then Risali is drawing back as if stung. "You have got to be kidding me," she breathes - and it's something that comes with thoroughly complicated implications. "Who is your father?" The last comes as a demand, preceding Risali slowly gaining her feet and rubbing the pain out of the knee she'd caught most of her weight with. That is definitely going to bruise.
There are certainly more attempts to chuckle after Valerian's very poor apology, each and every time he groans or wheezes holding his middle, but eventually he's able to get some much needed oxygen into his body and breathing becomes easier. Risali's shriek just makes his grin even wider for some reason, pained laughter bubbling up from him as she glares her daggers. "Careful, you'll mess up your pretty face if it gets stuck like that. Ow." A grimace only partially covers his smile, half returning before he's suddenly got all of the candidate woman's attention. His brows drift upwards as he leans back and away from her tiny hands, grey eyes to grey eyes, and he snorts covering up his discomfort with a grin. "I'm not that handsome, Faranth." He startles though as she pushes a fingertip into forehead, blinking at her a few times, and then looking at her briefly like she'd just lost her damn mind. Touching the fingers of one hand to the spot on his head that had been violated so oddly, he simply watches Risa as she rises following her very personal question. A heartbeat later, Vale rolls his eyes skyward and his amusement returns in full force. "That is the question now isn't it?" Wincing, he took finds his way to his feet, straightening out his clothing. "Don't know myself, to be honest. Thought my parents were my parents till…I got old enough to realize I look nothing like them." Cocking his head to the side, he narrows his gaze and leans forward, peering now at her too as he folds his hands behind his back. He was certainly taller than she was, Risali had black hair, and he was blonde. Though, "Huh…weird. We got the same eyes." He stares at her again, then shrugs, seeming to lose interest as he turns and goes to fetch the lost mug that once held klah. Scooping it off the ground, he examines it for residual deliciousness, but finds very little. "Your old man a rider by any chance?"
"HANDSOME?!" Oh, and that might also be part of the reason why Risali withdraws with such a viciousness. "You are — I do not - who even said - SHUT UP." Rendered speechless, and scramble, hobble, up the candidate goes. She's shoving wild, curling hair back over her shoulders, readjusting her blanket-shawl, and hissing, "You are too young for me," at the devilish little shit. Give Risali a moment, staring, chest heaving, evident clear as the star craft just goes on speaking. And laughing. And BEING A NUISANCE. Is her father a dragonrider? "Yes," Risali says in clipped tones, reaching out to jerk the recovered mug to her chest, "and you're reminding me an awful lot of him and my youngest brother, so knock it off." The harper is looking at the mess of spilled klah now, as if trying to figure a cleaning method out that doesn't involve her sacrificing her blanket around words that sound suspiciously like, 'Wherry-looking,' and, 'Idiot child,' and, 'Who even sits in the MIDDLE OF THE FLOOR?' until - finally - Risali gives up the ghost, pulls the blanket from her shoulders, and tosses it over the mess to soak up. See, Risali's bundled up in enough layers to keep the cold at bay — if she were not so tiny, and skinny, and used to the constant, balmy heat of Half Moon Bay's weather. 'Sharding kids,' also sounds to be coming from her, possibly confirmed with the look she shoots over her shoulder at the harper before lowering herself to her knees and trying to contain as much liquid as she can. "And don't ever call me pretty again," she says suddenly, with conviction. "Ever." But, notice she doesn't offer up a name, either.
Turning those sparkling eyes of his upon Risali as she sputters and scrambles for the right words, the boy merely waits, encouraging her with the lift of his brows and a slightly open mouth forming silent words meant to guide. When it all results in being told to shut up, Valearian's toothy split where his mouth used to be never wavers. "You think I'm handsome." he says with a devious nose crinkle, but leaves it at that, or would have until the she-candidate gets all presumptuous. Ashen lashes fluttering as he puts a hand over his heart, leaning over and peering at the clearly annoyed woman. "Who said I was interested? A man can appreciate beauty without wanting to defile it." He gasps and straightens his spine, looking her up and down as if he was now truly and deeply offended. Who does she think she is?! Though, that sparkle about him doesn't wane, suggesting he was having far too much fun at Risali's expense. Who wouldn't? She flustered so easily! He allows her to rip the mug out of his hands, splaying them outward palm up in a gesture of resignation, taking a step back from the tiny ball of fury. So scary! "Really?" he asks, looking her over again as he works his bottom lip between his teeth. So her father was a rider and he reminded her of him as well as a younger sibling did he? That's what his face said anyway, but the mischievousness that hung about him like a well worn cloak made it difficult to discern whether or not he took anything seriously at all. Inhaling, "I refuse." he grins, plucking the mug back out of her hands and drops down to sit onto the floor again a ways from the spilt beverage and the cursing candidate. "Oh that was a good one!" he calls over, when she calls him an idiot child. "But I think we can go meaner! Don't you?" More chuckling, merely sitting and watch her fuss over the klah likely staining the carpet as she raved. Who even sits in the middle of the floor? "Bored people without a chair!" Then he's closely examining the mug in his hands, turning it over and undoubtedly spilling what was left in it, only looking up again as she barks her next command. He considers her venom, tapping his chin with the tip of one finger. "How about…lovely? A vision. A feast for the eyes…"
Faranth, he just keeps going. "I do NOT think you are — NO!" Risali holds up one hand as if to silence the teenager, spitting, "You are not a man, and WHO EVEN SAYS 'DEFILE'?" You would think that Risali would be more than capable of handling herself in a situation like this, where her anger only seems to further amuse THOSE THAT ARE UNAMUSING — nope. Risali is done. Valerian eggs her on, takes the mug from her hands, tipping out what's left, and the harper is looking wordless, and furious, and any attempt at words to express this ends with a prolonged string of incoherent, half-formed syllables. One, two, three, and that wet blanket is flung at the star crafter. "Shut. Up." STOMP, STOMP, STOMP Risa goes, off to get away from STUPID YOUNG IDIOT CHILDS THAT STEAL MUGS AND GIVE UNWANTED COMPLIMENTS.
Was Risali able to even see Valerian counting down with his fingers over there with how angry she was? The moment he gets to zero though she explodes, and the Starcraft apprentice is chuckling to himself. "Harpers don't use big words like that? Huh." he says, clearly unperturbed by the candidate's ire. "Here I thought I was speaking the language of your people." He probably wasn't as baffled as he his words suggested, not with that Cheshire grin plastered to his face the way it was. Patiently he waits for the words she had planned for him, but they never come. Instead, "Oh! Careful there," Vale easily sidesteps the blanket as its hurled in his direction, tsking at it softly. "You almost hit me with that." Helpfully, he points the blanket, because obviously she needed help in defining what almost hit him. Head cocked, he watches with a few owlish blinks as Risa instead storms off with tiny fists balled into whitened knuckles, cursing him throughout. "Hey! You forgot your…" But the door was being slammed and Valerian tuts holding the mug uselessly in his hand into the empty space that the woman once occupied. "…mug. Great. What on Pern am I supposed to do with this?" While he contemplates this, another apprentice appears on the scene, flushed of cheek, as he runs his chubby body as quickly as his feet with carry him. "Vale! You can't do that kind of stuff here! Do you even know who that was?" All that huffing and puffing earns a roll his eyes and wink, "Eh, probably my sister. Wasn't she cute?" Grinning, he tosses the mug into the air, the chubby apprentice scrambling to collect it before it hits the ground. "Probably? Cute? I thought she was going to murder you on the spot! Don't you have any sense of self-preservation?" Valerian laughs, turning on his heel and heading towads the wings, "Life's too short not to live it! Do me a favor and return that mug for me will you? I need a nap before lessons." So off he goes, leaving his dumbfounded fellow apprentice literally holding the mug as he disappears from sight.