Xanadu Weyr - Weyrling Barracks
A long and roughly oblong cavern. About a third of the space is open, used for classes or chores as required. The rest of the space is filled with couches of varying sizes, all with plenty of space between them. Some couches are obviously intended for the very young weyrlings while the largest ones at the back are for the older weyrlings.
There are supplies for the care of dragons tucked back against the walls. A barrel of oil sits with scrub brushes and soft clothes, and a thick hardwood table is used to prepare meat in bite-sized pieces for the young dragons. There's also a few supplies for the weyrling humans, like bedding for cots or extra pillows for those sleeping on their lifemate's couch.
It's easy to lose sight of one's own body needs with so many new shared ones, but that doesn't keep certain ones from presenting themselves in a way that rouses even the most exhausted man from the senselessness of unconsciousness. Having such a need doesn't keep a person on their feet very long, and in this case, not even long enough to actually make it back (BACK) from the bathroom. This is why there's that muffled whump near Rhody and Inasyth's chosen bower followed by a shallow groan, all of which proves to be one lump of brand-new-bronzerider struggling to push himself back up off the floor where F'yr stumbled and collapsed. GOOD MORNING, WEYRLINGHOOD.
Sleepy is clearly for the weak or maybe Rhodelia and Inasyth passed out early enough that the former assistant has already dealt with her own call of nature. Either way, she's currently sitting on her new cot, wrapped in a massive blanket, giving an owlish blink as she stares at the mostly dark barracks. The thump gets a stirring of movement from Inasyth before the gold just flops over onto her other side with a sleepy whuffle. Watchout, F'yr! One of those soon to be massive tawny paws blindly reaches out in attempt to scoop whatever up like a teddy bear. Blanket or fallen weyrling, she's content regardless with whatever she gathers. Rhody ghosts off the couch, still draped in her blanket-cloak as she peers down to the floor. "Are you alright?" ARE ANY OF THEM?
Laughter. That question prompts laughter. The tired, hysterical kind. A kind that he immediately seeks to muffle in the crook of his arm, even as the movement of his chest with its cracked rib(s) makes him wince and flinch and eventually stop laughing, his other arm wrapping around his chest as though holding it could stop the laughter from vibration coming from within. F'yr struggles, struggles and ends up on his knees there. It was probably only his laughter that saved him from becoming Inasyth's snuggle buddy. The blanket goes in his stead, a noble selfless sacrifice, blanket. RIP We hardly knew ye. He looks up at Rhody as if getting up might be too much for him, "Do I really have to answer that?" It's tired, so tired. Can't she tell? Can't she read his mind just this once? If she doesn't come down to him, he'll struggle his way up to stand to match her. (Okay, exceed her, but he can’t control his height.)
Insayth is only borrowing that blanket. She'll give it back, much slobber covered, but still mostly in tact. After the few steps to close the gap between them, Rhodelia just folds her legs under and slinks down to the floor with an oooofh. "You're talking, so I'm assuming you're good enough?" Sitting is hard when you're SO SLEEPY and so she slips even further down to this floor spot, head resting on her arm as she stares at the giant. She can definitely get down on his level so those poor ribs can rest easy-ish. "I'd almost think this is a dream but I don't think I could come up with this." She'd wave an arm at the barracks in general, but she's too tired for that so take a lazy eye-roll instead.
F'yr looks like he rrreally wants to gather Rhodelia up in his arms and just sit together. He doesn't because he just doesn't have that energy or healed ribs to make that motion either advisable or possible. He settles for reaching for her hand as a point of connection, maybe a tactile reassurance that this isn't a dream. "I know," He finally speaks, so softly it's little more than breath through his lips. "Even now," with Glorioth sprawled on his back in a wallow not that far away, really, with his tongue lolled out of an open maw and legs twitching in some SUITABLY HEROIC DREAM ADVENTURE, "I can… feel him. Here," he touches probably about where that rib crack is, just under his heart. Maybe Stefyr needed to break into F'yr and make a physical space for Glorioth to slip in through. Maybe such thoughts are really only for the truly, utterly exhausted. And oops? Did he say all that aloud? Oh yeah, yeah he did. Add some quotation marks at your leisure.
"It feels like I have two hearts?" Just wait until someone tells Rhody more about dragon anatomy and then she'll know it's actually a shared THREE HEARTS between her and her lifemate. Cuddles might be ill-advisable, but as soon as he grabs her hand, Rhodelia scooches on a little closer so it's almost like a snuggle if you squint really hard. There is a glance back to the tongue lolling bronze. "Maybe he had to do that…" There's a light finger poke towards one of those bandages. "So that you wouldn't forget. Wouldn't doubt."
"Is there time to doubt? Energy?" F'yr is a VERY BUSY MAN now. There's that laughing-despair in the tone of his voice even if he's not actually doing either of those things right now. "The proof is right in front of us." There's wonder and the possibility of a future wail in his next hushed words: "They're ours. We're theirs." He squeezes her hand, shifting a little nearer so one doesn't have to squint quite so hard. "She's beautiful," he murmurs as his eyes linger on Inasyth. "I knew she'd find you as soon as I saw her." And he means it. Were you ready for that feelz punch, Rhody? That absolute confidence that is so, so, so, so (okay, we could scroll the screen with reiterations of that word and it still wouldn't be enough) much quieter than his lifemate's absurd self-assurance, but is otherwise a perfect echo.
Rhodelia can always find time to doubt, at least while Inasyth is still slumbering. As soon as the boisterous gold awakes, she'd probably try to physically tackle any metaphorical concepts like doubt away. GET OUT OF HERE, THEY DON'T NEED YOU, DOUBT! But for now, she squeezes his hand and tilts her head so it touches the big man's hopefully unbruised shoulder, smiling as she nods. "They are ours." It's comforting, for a moment. Until that feelz punch and her eyes go wide, she struggles out of the blanket pile, sitting up but not relinquishing that hand. Her eyes are as wide as human eyes can probably physically go as she looks at her new lifemate. It's with a tiny, tiny voice that she repeats. "They're real… but that means…." There's a gulp as she realizes just how much DIFFERENT her would might be. Pretty much lost any option of running away into obscurity even if she ever wanted to now.
The way F'yr looks at Rhody is with so much empathy. There's so much compassion there, because even if she's just starting to think through this, he's already begun down that road far enough to begin to grasp it. It's good though, because it lets him be here for her, instead of panicking completely along with her. It lets his face grow so serious, for him to lean forward, for him to look at her gravely and whisper, "It means… you're going to have to learn to file." And grin one of his incandescent grins because he thinks he's hilarious, another way in which he and his lifemate do, in fact overlap.
If Rhodelia had a trademark, it'd probably be not thinking things through completely before jumping, but she's thinking plenty right now as sleepy deprived brain cells rapidly try and calculate all the possibilities this could go HORRIBLY WRONG. F'yr's jest at least is just what she needed to break free of potential panic cycle. That's not a full smile, but it's a start as she reaches out to gently swat at his shoulder. "Or make sure you're in Quasar with me to do the filing…." There's a glance back to the still sleeping bronze. She knows he's sleeping even without looking since there haven't been any cries of ONWARD for minutes. "Diplomacy may be the most dangerous task in the Weyr, after all. For only the bravest." Have you seen an angry Lord Holder? Next haunted house could be stocked solely with them!
"Oh, shell. Do you really think they'd put me somewhere else?" There's a brief bit of panic in turn for the bronzerider with the bad jokes. F'yr does actually look concerned in a real way, his lips pressing together and then shaking his head. "I can't imagine another job," but maybe he'll have to? "Later." He decides, assigning that particular concern to Future F'yr (YOU'RE WELCOME~~). "But at least you'll be home," which is the offices, for this idiot. "And Inasyth will be with you the whole way. And I will, too. Even if I'm not in the office." He glances back toward the twitch twitch twitching bronze, his leg specifically, and then gets a briefly dopey smile. "He's dreaming," AND IT'S CUTE, OKAY? When he's still, Glorioth is sharding Treasure of Xanadu.
Even if the dragons are sleeping, Rhodelia will still lean in to whisper. "I don't know… just wait until he finds out about Search and Rescue?" Because what is more glorious then RESCUE (and possibly murdering every herdbeast on the way)? Panic done, she'll slip back down towards the blanket nest. First twenty four hours of dragonriding is EXHAUSTING and even sitting up is hard. "We have a turn or so." TIME TO AVOID THINKING OF THE FUTURE back to babies. There's a smile at the twitching sleeping bronze's direction. "What's he thinking about? Inasyth is…" She narrows her eyes as she looks towards the gold who is moving her head a bit, chasing something in her sleep. "Chasing down champagne bubbles." BECAUSE ITS A PARTY CAUSE SHE WAS BOOOOOOORN. And all her siblings too.
OHSHIT. That's that face. F'yr looks gobsmacked as if he hadn't even considered the possibility of Glorioth's reaction to the word rescue. "Shells," he manages to mutter as he closes his mouth. YES, DEFINITELY A PROBLEM FOR FUTURE F'YR, Now F'yr wants nothing to do with it. He glances to the bronze again before looking back to Rhody as he struggles to his feet. "Champagne bubbbles sounds nice." His lips are pressed together though, holding back laughter. It might be for Inasyth, it might be because he's not crying, okay? It might be because he has no recourse but to say: "Glory and honor." WHAT ELSE IS THERE, RHODY?
"Do you know how much champagne it would take to get a bubble the size of a dragon?" Rhodelia's fights back the grin to at least pretend to be somber for a minute. "Pretty sure it'd wipe out the entire Weyr. Maybe over to Monaco as well…" CONTINENT WIDE DESTRUCTION PARTY. She tilts her head a bit towards Stefyr now F'yr. "Glory and honor? So you are going to turn out to be like one of those guys from the novels?" You know the ones! "Farm boy turned Weyr-saving Bronzerider?"
He can manage to be wry here, now, even if there is a brief flicker of doubt in the big blond's face. F'yr would strike a pose, but he's just too tired to even straighten up all the way. "We look the part, anyway." But looks can be so deceiving. And right now whether or not slightly broken F'yr and baby Glorioth really look the part would be debatable, with anyone but baby Glori, with whom nothing is debatable. LISTEN, KILLING EQUALS HONOR, and maybe that's not how the novels go, but there's plenty of time to realize that later, too. OR NOW. It's gonna be pretty apparent now. « -WAaaaRD— huh? » Glorioth rolls onto his belly in one really smooth motion for a newborn dragonet. « F'YRLESS, WHERE DID IT GO? » Sorry, did anyone hope for a lie in? What is volume? Glorioth DOES NOT KNOW. « MY QUARRY. IT WAS RIGHT HERE MOMENTS AGO. » The dragon immediately has all the man's attention and he turns to hurry to his side. "You were dreaming, Glorioth." « … I don't follow. »
Rhodelia shrugs. "Look like you belong and most won't argue." How do you think she's managed to wing her way through all those forgotten appointments and misfilings for the past couple turns? The wake up alarm that is her brother has Inasyth cracking one of her eyelids open as she peers out at an upside down world. She might be awake now, but nobody said anything about getting up. « Oooooh, a hunt! How exciting! » But then her own stomach begins to rumble. Loudly. And she's suddenly got more important concerns. «< RHOOOOODY-RHO-RHO-RHO!!! CAN YOU BRING ME BREAKFAST IN BED??? » Right here. All the pampering, round two. Or three. They blend together. Rhodelia blinks at her new lifemate and then over at F'yr. "Do we have to feed them in a certain area???" What are the rules aside from the obvious of feed, oil, sleep, repeat?
F'yr's explaining, of course he is, patiently, helpfully. But none of that matters because, « HARK, MY F'YRLESS COMPANION, A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS. » And he's up, and he's moving, his wings doing that chronically AWESOME pose that makes him every inch the HERO OF LEGEND (mini-size). « LET US BRAVELY CURE HER TUMMY WOBBLES. ONWAAAAaaaaaaAAAAaaaaAAAARD!! » He siiiings, off-key. WAKE UP CALL, INDEED. And if F'yr isn't fast, he's going to completely miss the bronze zooming in the direction of— "You're going the wrong way!" « AHA HA HAHAHAHAHA HAH HA HA! » WHO CARES. Not Glorioth.
Distress is a pretty loose term, but Inasyth is at least uncomfortable enough that she's shifting herself from back to feet, although it is a process seeing as she over-estimates the effort and ends up flopping onto her belly. « Oooofffh. Ohhh, it's getting louder!!! » If that her belly or Glorioth? Either way, Rhodelia shrugs. "You uhhh… stay there." She makes some hand gestures as if unsure if the dragon will actually follow those instructions. Luckily, Inasyth is more interested in providing a musical interlude for wherever her brother might be charging and Rhody is able to slip away and come back with not one but two buckets of meat. There will come a time when they have to butcher their own, but luckily the barracks was suitably stocked up for those first few hazy days. Sleep deprived new weyrlings and cleavers would probably be a recipe for amputation. "If you can get him back this way, I grabbed some extra!"
LISTEN, Inasyth. It doesn't matter whether YOU think you are in distress or not. Glorioth is SURE for both of you. And LOOK. It's going to get you breakfast in bed. Maybe. HE CHARGES BACK THE RIGHT WAY, AT LEAST, the beleagured F'yr jog-limping after him, one arm wrapped around his chest as though to keep it from jarring with every single step. The bronze stops suddenly in front of Rhodelia, drawing himself up even as his rider smacks right into him and doubles over as he bounces off, wheezing and moaning. « HOW DARE YOU. » The affronted hero booms, « THE GLORY OF THE HONOR IS MINE TO CLAIM. » And so is that meat cube, tyvm. At least he's agile enough to snatch the meat from Rhody without taking her hand or something equally awful, although frankly he's probably not trying to avoid such gruesome fates beyond what his hardwired dragon DNA programs him for. AND THEN, then, he will lay the STOLEN PRIZE at Inasyth's … feet? nose? whatever, it doesn't matter. WHAT MATTERS is the fanfare he gives him self BA-DUN-DUN-DAH~~ Tah dah~~ « There you are, my malnourished maiden. Have your fill. » ISN'T HE AMAZING? It doesn't matter if Inasyth thinks so because everyone (especially Glorioth) knows the answer is YES.
As long as there is breakfast in bed, Inasyth is NOT complaining. She may have been born hatched yesterday, but she's no dummy. The prize of meat chunk that is dropped at her feet earns the beginning of some tippy tappy happy feet shuffle. « OH, FOR ME??? You shouldn't have! » But that's just her attempting to be polite as she slurps it up and then gives a meaty tongued slurp of a kiss to the bronze's wedge shaped head. Rhodelia walks over, wiggling her fingers as if still counting that they're all there. Close call, but it works. "Welll, that was easy?" Since she still has both buckets with even more meat chunks in them, she holds one out towards F'yr. "Distract them before they get distracted again?"
F'yr's grab for the bucket offered is urgent with look to match because with this quest completed, Glorioth is already turning to find the next. BUT FORTUNATELY FOR ALL INVOLVED: « WHAT HO! My F'yrocious friend, the enemy within stirs. LET US SLAY IT WITH HONOR, » Or meat. Meat will work, and nevermind if they're not supposed to eat right there - if it will be a bloody mess to clean up later, it's time to FEAST in their shared (but still mostly his) GLORY.