Xanadu Weyr - Infirmary
The infirmary here is intended for human care. It is regularly scrubbed spotless and smells of disinfectant, redwort and other herbs that are - if sometimes strong - preferable to the scents of sickness. Cots are lined up against one wall, with a set of curtains that can be pulled to give some privacy to the occupants of the cots if they so desire. They're mostly used for examinations of patients and the treatment of mild injuries that won't require long term care; near the back are some more private areas with folding dividers.
There's a number of cabinets that stand off against another wall, instruments and medications stored against when they will be needed, and a back room holds those supplies seldom required.
A desk with chair is set just off of the doorway to the caverns, meant for the healer to sit and catch up on record keeping after a long day's work or await patients. If things get too busy, the patients can do the waiting on a set of uncomfortable chairs set nearby. The other doorway comes directly from the clearing, wide enough for a team to carry a stretcher through.
There's no rhyme or reason as to when Kyszarin chooses to ignore the chore board and end up in the Infirmary for the day - sometimes he skips out on the hard chores, sometimes the easy, and sometimes he's even here on his day off. Today, at least, there seems to be no real reason for the Candidate to come slipping in from the Caverns as the sun begins to sink towards the horizon. No one's waiting to be seen, and the Journeyman on duty is tucked into the desk catching up on some record-keeping while the Candidates assigned to Infirmary duty have been assigned to wind lengths of cloth into bandages and scrub down the counters and floor. And yet, here comes Kyszarin, hands tucked in pockets and an off-tune whistle on his lips as he wanders in.
Maybe Kyszarin is secretly psychic or something? Because it sure seems like every time he's in the infirmary, Ligeia's there. Only, this time she's here before him, which might be a bit of a shocker to anyone that didn't look at the chore boards. The bigger surprise? That she's not also injured, somehow. She's on bandage-rolling duty, which she takes to well enough; it's a mind-numbing activity of the type that she can do while her thoughts wander and it shows in the dull, daydreamy expression that drifts across her face. So, hopefully she can be forgiven for not spotting Kyszarin's arrival right away - she's pretty lost in thought!
Hey, it suits him just fine. Kyszarin might just have been peeking at that chore board - it's fairly obvious he has a madness to his method when his eyes immediately find Ligeia and his steps alter to take him in that direction. Noting that she's either really engaged in her work or really daydreaming, he says nothing, merely picks one of the baskets of unwound cloth and slides bonelessly to sit weaver-style at her side, beginning his own roll. The journeyman at the desk glances up and frowns in confusion for a moment at the sight of his compeer doing grunt-work - then his eyes slide towards the other Candidate and he rolls his eyes, shaking his head before returning to his hidework. A handful of moments pass in companionable silence before he simply can't take it any more. "Plot, character, or a scene you can't describe in polite company?"
The gauze on the hands goes roll, roll, roll- and it might well be that Ligeia's well and truly lost in the throes of passion for her work until the other Candidate joins her, just so. It's not until he speaks that she's pulled out of her reverie, with a sharp intake of breath and a slght shake of her head as if to shake her thoughts loose. "You know me too well," comes with a laugh and a sly sidelong look with a matching grin gone lopsided. An elbow's aimed to nudge at his side and, yes, she's absolutely and shamelessly scooting a little closer to nudge knee to knee with him. "A little of all three, I guess. The plot's at a standstill, the character's too dry for words, and-" her voice dips lower, grazing conspiratorial whisper territory "-it's just not sensational enough to get a rise out of anyone, really. It's just the worst." Her grin straightens out into a real smile. "What brings you here? I didn't see your name on the roster for the day." Not that she's complaining, oh no.
"To be fair, my chore is 'optional'," Kyszarin replies as he rolls, canting his head to the side to watch her out of the corner of his eye. "But I was told that Candidates who are also Weyr crafters are expected to make themselves available for their crafts first. So I'm here roughly half the time, except when it's particularly slow and/or there's nothing interesting going on." It's particularly slow, but something must be quite interesting, because here he is. Wonder what that could be. "Well, I can't claim to be a harper," he muses, "but I've been told I have a fairly good imagination in some ways," cough, "so maybe you could bounce thoughts off of me?"
"Uh huh." Ligeia finishes up her roll and moves on to the next without skipping a beat, but she's been doing this all day. "I wouldn't think rolling bandages would be interesting enough for you, buuut…" The word's drawn out with a teased grin and the implication that she gets it, lest he be concerned that she doesn't. Somehow. "Oh yeah? And here I was going to make a comment about your talented hands here in the Infirmary," never mind the double entendre. Ahem. "I dunno. It's kind of-" her nose scrunches "-do you really want me to tell you?" Not that he has much opportunity to say no, because she blows out a breath. "I'm trying to branch out into writing about people from other Crafts and things like that. So, it's about this Smith gal who's off to find love, but she's not the kind of woman that a lot of guys want, so- it's a lot of her going here and there and getting a guy for a night, but it's never The One. And it's just- it's not going anywhere." Cue a sheepish look askance. "I have the notes back in the barracks, but- that's about the size of it."
"Well, what makes her so… undesirable?" Kyszarin frowns at his bandage roll, holding it up and studying it before tucking it onto the 'done' pile and beginning another one. "It can't just be that she's a Smith - different strokes and all of that, and I've met some really… interesting… smithcrafters." Not that any of them have ever appeared to be the One, considering how he's not exactly sporting himself a Smith on the arm. Or anyone. Or is he? "I mean, she's able to find plenty of hook-ups, you said? So why can't she find one to stick? Is the fault in her, or is it in them?"
"No, no, it's not her Craft," because, look, Ligeia knows Crafters, "she just looks plain, that's all. She can hook up pretty easily because she can hit up a bar and buy the right guy some drinks-" she chews some on the inside of her cheek and her bandage roll? Promptly forgotten, because while she can think and roll, she can't quite think, talk, and roll at the same time. "So, maybe the issue is that it's partly her, for bar-hopping in the first place and partly them, because they're just shallow. She has a great personality, smart and witty and all of that." She thumbs at the edges of the bandage roll and sighs. "Or is that too overdone, do you think?"
Tucking in the end on his second roll, Kyszarin set it aside, but he did not pick up more cloth, instead folding his hands before him and frowning into the pile of finished bandage rolls. "Maybe she should stop looking in the shallow end of the pool," he replies dryly after a moment. "Though I'm not sure what you're going to get diving into bars. Looks ain't everything," says the pretty boy, "but a personality like that? She needs to find herself a pretty Baker boy, or some nice brownrider." Oddly specific. "Someone who doesn't need the cachet of a trophy girl, just a partner." He gives a soft laugh. "Listen to me, like I know anything about writing." He sways casually into her, his shoulder brushing hers - and maybe, just maybe, his head turns for a brief, almost unnoticible brush of lips on cheek. Would he do that? "Not overdone. Better than plain and boring and bagging the Lord Holder's heir. That makes no sense."
She finally focuses enough to get her last roll done, plopping it down with the rest and taking a moment to tidy the pile. Ligeia shifts her biting focus to her other cheek, with a soft, throaty kind of hum; contemplative, if muted. She's quiet for a good, long while, with a slow nod here and there to Kyszarin's words - and if his shoulder dares to brush hers, then she'll dare to lean back into it, with an easy slip and slide of her arm around his. Fingers rest lightly along the line of his forearm, with a slight turn of her head making an easier target of her cheek. "Or maybe she needs a best friend that goes along with her on all of her adventures, just waiting for the moment when she realizes that he's the only one that makes her laugh and enjoys late night chats about everything and anything? Maybe- oh, a baker-turned-brownrider?" A glance is tipped up to her fellow Candidate, hazel gaze veiled by lashes. "I think you know more about writing than you think you do," she teases with a flash of a grin. "If you knew how many people have stories about bland protagonists getting the person of their dreams…"
"Worse. I'm a reader." Kyszarin's voice is dry. "So I would say I have a fairly good idea of how many people have just those kinds of stories - and just how many of them manage to get them written down for others to suffer through." Despite the words, he chuckles, though the sound is wry, the humor limited. "I like the best friend angle. A wingman, who keeps helping her hook up while waiting for her to stop playing around and take a look at what she already has." Storm-blue eyes sparkle wickedly as he reaches over, curving his hand over the fingers resting upon his arm. "Just make sure he has a good personality too. And curls," he muses. "Not enough guys with curls out there - it's always long, flowing locks. But curls aren't half-bad."
"The worst," and if Ligeia had pearls, she would clutch them desperately. Lacking that, though, her fingers just curl comfortably around his arm instead. Ligeia's grin might well be perpetual, merely shifting through degrees of brightness until it lands on something impish. "It's amazing, isn't it? What people put out there? But, I guess I'm not much better. Yet." The curving of his hand over hers just prompts her other hand to stack on top in a hand-sandwich. "Yeah, I think I'll go with that angle," she decides after some thoughtful moments. "And definitely curls," is added with a soft laugh and an audacious stretch to touch a kiss to his cheek before she starts to disentangle herself from him lest they get the 'ahem' of warning from some interloper. "Curls are my favorite, you know?" But then she's getting to her feet with a quickness, the hasty slip of tongue over lips to wet them marking the spot where some other words might have gone. Instead: "Thank you. You're the best, you know that?" Even if she called him the worst a little while ago. The sheer capriciousness of it all! "But- um. I think this is all done, so maybe it's time to head back to the barracks?"
Still seated, Kyszarin lifts his chin, watching as Ligeia rises to her feet. "I'm rather fond of curls, myself," he replies, grey-blue eyes hooded beneath dark lids as he continues to gaze upwards, making no moves to join her. "I look forward to reading what you have writ; I do hope you'll allow me the honor of being one of the first." His eyes slide sidelong towards the journeyman behind the desk, who is rather pointedly not watching them. "You've done enough and more than for the day - go. Rest. Update your notes. I've a few hours to put in here yet, as I've been neglecting my compeers. But I'll be along before curfew, I promise. In time," he adds, "for a goodnight…" A word unspoken lingers in the air, his eyes twinkling gently before he flicks his fingers at her, shooing her off. "Write well, my dear."
And, somehow, despite all that's been said and done, Ligeia has the temerity to blush like some kind of ingenue. Fingers flex a bit, as if with half a thought to tweak one of Kyszarin's curls, but she refrains through a matter of sheer will that, frankly, should earn her an award of some sort. Instead, she sucks her lower lip in for a brief suck and chew, as if that might somehow center her or be appealing in some manner - and likely falling short of the mark on both scores. "You know you'll be the first," she replies, with a playful roll of eyes at the idea he'd think otherwise. But her eyes are impish-bright and delighted all the same, a wiggle of fingers offered for his flick of the same. "Don't be too late, yeah?" Lest she pass out in the midst of her work and, in turn, miss out on that goodnight-dot-dot-dot. Not to worry in the end, though; the narrator knows that he will get a nice bundle of pages bound and stashed under his pillow for review and a fitting goodnight, indeed, before sleep claims all.