Dragon Pool
Light filters in through a jagged crack in the wall, but while it's dark in here, it's certainly not cold. Water seeps through the walls, forming trickles and rivulets that run down to an enormous pool only to rise again as steam. There's enough room for a full-grown gold dragon - though she'd be curled nose over tail and likely displace half the water. Smaller dragons will find ample chance to bathe and play - which may splash just as much, all things considered. Glowbaskets hang from hooks drilled into the rock, casting their dim phosphorescence over stone shattered and blackened by smoke.
Early morning at Xanadu Weyr, 3 days have passed since eggs decided to shatter into dazzling baby dragons. LOUD baby dragons. The idea that two NOISE dragons should make MORE dragons means the chaos level is real. Today the sun has just seen fit to come up, the chilly autumn morning adding a nip of cold and bite of frost. The weather alone makes the dragon pools far preferable to the beach for bathing, and that's where Evi has settled. Every line on her face reads exhausted, the pale young weaver is soaking in the water with her arms out beside her presumably to keep her above the surface. Dark circled eyes are closed. Blood drenched skirt and shirt sits a hand length away. A grizzly reminder that her lifemate has been demanding she fresh kill anything going into the green personally.
Isn't blood in vogue now? The spooky season certainly isn't over as a very grungy, dirty and gory young gold comes trotting around the corner towards the pool, pride radiating with ever decisive step. Rhodelia is less perky as she drags behind, giving a sigh. "Did you really have to roll around right after?" Inasyth's head swivels around immediately as she draws up slightly at the question, chest ruffling out in OFFENSE. « IS THAT EVEN A QUESTION?? » of course she had to, and sorry, Evi. There's still been no volume control learned unless LOUDER is your volume of choice. Rhody rolls her eyes and then pauses as she eyes the pool is already occupied. Then back to her very messy dragon. Soaking weaver. Potentially clumsy dragon. #Conundrums. Luckily, Inasyth seems as frozen in place as Rhody is while any internal debating might be going on.
Blood is definitely in vogue. Only Ru'ien isn't sporting that of butchered meat or even his own (his leg has long since scabbed over) this morning; the stains on his clothing are ominously green-tinted. No copious amounts, but enough and whatever happened has long since been smoothed over. He now just looks like death warmed over instead, emotionally tapped out, while Kihatsuth looms a step ahead of him, her pace overly slow and cautious — the reason being that she is the one who caught herself with her overlong talons and now has bruised pride learned a lesson. They click against the ground as she nears the pool, while Ru'ien eyes her warily. "Remember what we discussed?" he says out loud, while the green merely flips the edge of one of her massive wings in a dismissive 'yes yes' manner.
Once Insayth and Rhodelia arrive, the noise of the gold mind startles Evi into a minor panic. Pale white arms push her up out of the water for a moment, too tired to be embarrassed about her nudity, she looks over at Rhodelia. She quietly asks, "Can she get in with me here, or Um. Do you need me to leave?" There's no move to leave, body held half aloft out of the pool while a reply is waited for. As her fellow greenrider meanders in, she sags back down into the water, "I guess it's a party?" The dry, lackluster tone betrays how honestly spent she is, though there's a smile to Ru'ien. "Did she lose a fight?" The green substance eyed with one eyebrow flicking up and head tilting to the side. "Rhody I'd say I'm-." That word, she daren't use, "S-o-r-r-y." Spelling it out loud and grimacing. "But honestly." A flourish of one hand to indicate more than the two dragons, more than words, everything. All of it.
No worries, Evi! Inasyth's freeze is only temporary and the little gold is more decisive than sleep deprived weyrlings can be, the gold slipping quickly into the pool a safe distance away from the weaver. « Rub a dub dub, three weyrlings in a tub! Or uhhh… five! Get on in here, everybody! » She bugles, loudly, with no consideration to how low the cave's roof is, flapping her wings happily. Rhodelia gives a lazy shrug. "I think she's got it, but watch out for tidal waves?" It's certainly no longer a relaxing pool, but Rhody is going to jump straight in. Her clothes are messy enough she might as well wash them a bit while she scrubs her lifemate. There's a sympathetic wince when she gets a closer look at the mess of Kihatsuth and Ru'ien. "She'll get the hang of it. Eventually." It might be a long eventually though. She nods at Evi's apology, but before she can say anything, she glances around quickly, counting an odd number and raising an eyebrow as 2+2+1 means someone seems to be missing. "Where is….?"
« Oh, now isn't this divine! » Kihatsuth croons, her voice a tilting cadence of dark sweetness, as she takes Inasyth's invitation and calmly slips into the waters. There's plenty of room, for baby dragons and tired, grimy weyrlings too, if the pool can fit a full grown gold! Ru'ien doesn't appear as enthusiastic as his green, though relief causes his shoulders to visibly sag. With much dragging of his feet, he'll remove his boots but, much like Rhody, keeps his pants and shirt on. Laundry and a bath! Good thinking. "Nah," he replies distractedly to Evi. "It's her talons. She's gotta learn how to move with them… she tagged me the night of the Hatching. Now she tagged herself. Just," Cue some stage whispering from him, as he summons the energy to drum up his usual goofy self. It kind of works! "Don't suggest she files them." « I heard that! » Kiha sniffs, promptly dismissing them all as she floats on over there because there can't be possibly anything over there for her to get into trouble with. Right? Right. "Thanks, Rhody. It's what they told me this morning… Dunno how I kept her from raging so all Xanadu heard, but…" His head is definitely still echoing, okay? Owwie.
Evi tightly closes her lips and a noise that is somewhere between a laugh and a hiccup comes from her throat, cheeks rising towards her eyes in appreciation of the golds song. The loud bugling gets a headshake, pulling at one ear and rolling her eyes to the ceiling as if her patience might be up there SOMEWHERE. All of Rhodelia's confused looking about triggers Evi too as well, but she shakes her head. "No, no, she's asleep. She um, did not want to go out in the cold. But according to her, the barracks are also cold; if she could file complaints, formally, Risali's desk would be buried." There's dripping sarcasm in her voice, but a soft bright grin takes over, and she giggles a bit at herself. A concerned 'awwwwww' of pity is directed at Ru'ien and Kihatsuth. "Oh, poor pretty love, maybe some talon covers?" Is offered helpfully, the mention of raging gets a small half-laugh, he-he-he, "Yours too? Does she complain?" There's not been a ton of time to ask any of these questions, and for now, curiosity has overwhelmed fatigue.
"Oh, she probably did, but we were all just too dead to the world to notice," Rhodelia is oh so helpful as she wades on in, turning to scrubbing the hide already for probably the fifth time today alone. One thing she has definitely learned, baby dragons are LOUD, even compared to someone that has spent a great deal of time around Leirith. As the green gets in the water and starts to float, the bugling turns into a delighted trill. « Kiha! Kiha! Kihatsuth! You're a boat! We should get you a hat! » Rhody gives a headshake. "Nothing but excitement from this one." She's lucked out regarding the lifemate complaints department. "But if your dragon is really cold, I know there are some dragon sized quilts in the stores…" Those are probably half patched up, but serviceable to most if the picky Neifeth would ever concede to hand-me-downs.
Kihatsuth chuckles, at least mentally, to Inasyth's suggestions. « What kind of hat, darling? Be specific now. I've very particular tastes! » Teasing aside, balanced between genuine amusement and sarcasm, the green is content to be on her own; her distance from Ru'ien does not appear to upset her. Before he can open his mouth to answer Evi, however, it's Kiha who does the honor. « Are you suggesting to harness my greatest power? I would see you try, child! » "… oh no…" is groaned midway through it, while the green's head swivels to match the change of masks within her — demonic grimace to neutral happy. « Besides! They're too pretty to hide. » Beam. Ru'ien just waves a lone hand in apology and 'see what I have to deal with' to Evi and Rhody. "Not… really? She's… um," Brows furrow, as he wills his sleep deprived brain to function. Words, what are they? "Emotions." « Chaos. I am chaos. » Shaking his head ruefully, he shrugs. "Still trying to suss that out, really. A lot of them seem excited," he adds to Rhody, with a vague lopsided half-smile. "Guess the world is new and fresh to them. Wish I could have half the enthusiasm some of them have right now." Glancing down at his stained clothing, he exhales heavily and sets to scrubbing at some of the worst spots. "You two holding up okay?"
Evi says, "Please, please do not tell Nei dragons can wear hats." Evi shaking her head sharply from side to side, voice soft enough that she may not be audible over the noises of happy dragons in the cavern. Sliding up on the edge of the pool, pale body pockmarked with bruises and scratch marks covering her arms from struggling with live animals before ending their tiny lives. A mustard-colored, kitten embroidered, towel is grabbed up and wrapped around her body. As Kihatsuth seems offended, her pink lips make a wide O to Ru'ien. "I am- s." Nope, her mouth is not allowed to form that word anymore, head dropping. "You do what you like a little one. Far be it for me to stop you." At this moment, there's spillover, her voice drips sarcasm, and there's a tight bite to each word. The tone used is so far from her normal, sweet one that it might catch the others off guard. Recognition seeps into the girl and she whimpers slightly, brows furrowed. "I am holding up, sometimes words come out of my mouth and I don't know if it's me. They don't sound like me." All of her innocence is back, for the moment she's the confused young person she was during candidacy. "Rhody, who do I ask for one of them? I might be able to convince her." Unlikely, very unlikely, but as always, the hope spring is eternal."
The details might be sketchy, but that doesn't stop Inasyth from sharing a child-like drawing of a boat bobbing along on some high ocean waves, except the figurehead isn't a mermaid, but rather Kihatsuth's bust and a jaunty little captain's hat is perched on top of her headknobs. « Like that!!! » She thinks it's perfect even as she ducks her head under the water to try and mirror an avian's bath. Rhodelia is steadily scrubbing away on her ever growing dragon, but she can still listen, and comment as well. "Chaos is a good word for it." It being more than just the green that mentioned the word. "I feel like time is moving so quickly and we have no hope of keeping up, but eventually it'll just seem normal?" She shrugs. That's at least a hope. As for the blanket acquiring she blinks. "Normally I'd say the headwoman's staff but in this case… maybe the weyrlingmasters?" There's only a fairly short rope the young weyrlings have to leave the training complex after all.
« How marvellous! Inasyth, dear, you've captured my likeness so well! » Kihatsuth positively beams in exuberant delight towards the young gold, as the image is carefully lasso'ed, copied and pasted, into her budding gallery of 'artwork' locked deep in the recesses of her mind. It may be featured again, once she starts displaying HER talents (no one will be safe, NO ONE). Ru'ien gives a lingering sidelong look to Evi for the change in tone, but luckily Kiha doesn't seem the least bit ruffled. If anything, she is too busy smugly floating about. Having made her rounds, she'll climb out of the pool and drip all over the place. Her wings spread and she turns her head expectantly to her bonded. Well? Ru'ien sighs, "Speaking of time… looks like bath time is over and we're back to oiling," he says with so much tiredness. "That's what I've heard too, Rhody. That eventually it won't seem so… muddled, time wise. We're just — yes, Kihatsuth, give me a moment!" With a helpless shrug, he'll pull his legs from the warm waters and tip his hand in a farewell gesture. "See you guys back in the barracks." Short leash, indeed! Off they go, with the green waiting until they're outside to shake off, which probably explains the yelp of cursing from Ruthien. WHY!?
The drawing of the boat gets a small giggle from Evi, "She seems fun, in her own way." Is given to Rhodelia, headshaking again and standing up. "I will ask whoever I can find, I might see if I can get a sewing machine or at least some yarn and knitting needles." Yawning and sighing deeply, tired seeping into ever line on her young face aging her several turns instantly. Bloodstained clothes are gathered up in her arms, a small whine that begins in the throat and trembles her lips slightly as it escapes is given to the mess in her arms. "See you…" Head bobbed in acknowledgment of the man and his green. All of that tiredness seems to fade. There's a field of crimson grass slowly growing in the minds of those occupying this space and possibly any space within the Weyrling Compound, a voice full OF demand, every word offensive «EVI.». The girl who avoided running her whole life boggles, fingers waggling to the gold pair as she scoots towards the barracks before there's a REAL problem.