
Xanadu Weyr - Observation Level
Dark blue seats form a semi-circle around the sands below, the lowest row separated from the multicolored red and white sands by merely a railing. The seats climb upwards, each row a bit higher than the previous, and they are broken up into sections by three sets of staircases. Between the first and second section, a glass wall descends to separate the observers from the heat of the sands. Air is kept in motion through a set of fans, and so these seats are quieter and cooler than the rest… though the noise and heat of the sands is still present.
Lights are evenly spaced along the outer wall, lighting the seats and the sands easily, though they tend to be dimmed unless a major event is taking place. A large balcony overhead connects to the glass wall. Vents for cooling run along the bottom of it, and the ledge provides a place for observers of the draconic kind to watch without obstructing the view for others.
The sand below is variegated in hue, individual grains of red and white that have a pinkish hue when seen from across the circle of the hatching grounds but - up close over that railing - are clearly two varieties mingled.
Awoken before dawn by the firelizard belonging to his Journeyman hissing nastily in his ear, Mathis drug himself out of bed and shulunted himself off to bathe and dress for the day. Most of the morning entailed learning basic table assembly after measurement and cut, riveting stuff, and then it was lunch and his chore. Darning. What? Having a sewing kit and a whole basket of repairs shoved at you when you don't have the slightest idea what to do with it is always fun. No really. A blast. In which Mathis had successfully stick himself in various digits repeatedly and added blood stains to tears. It adds character to one's ensemble doncha know? When he hadn't done these things, he'd either crookedly stitched haphazardly what was meant to be mended (those there were his triumphs and represented maybe 0.1% of his work in the last hour or so), or ended up stitching together one side of the garment to the other. Presently it was afternoon, Mathis seated in one of the back rows, having just pulled out fifteen minutes worth of work and attempting to rethread his needle. Tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth, very concentrated, squinting.
A tousled head appears at the observation level stairs, then quickly resolves into one Teinon, a man who somehow manages to look permanently apologetic for being wherever he happens to be at the moment. Probably because someone, somewhere, thinks he hasn't hauled quite /enough/ feed to the animals in the feeding grounds, today. Or scooped enough poop. Or any of the dozens of other tasks required to keep the weyr's dragons fed and happy. But even a lowly poop-scooper gets to take a dinner break sometimes, so here he is. As he appears, he glances around the seats and smiles self-consciously when he sees Mathis. When it's clear that he's not intruding on anything, he kind of slinks over to one of the seats, where he can look down at the sands with rapt attention. Watching the eggs do… well, nothing much at all. After a moment, he reaches into a pocket and pulls out a small packet of some sort of sweets, and mindlessly starts nibbling on them.
It must be close to time for Nessalyn to lose that pesky crutch she's sporting, but for now she's still making her way around with its aid. The bruises along one side of her face have at least faded to something less severe, with mottled colors still marking where she's healing. The mark of a slice along her neck is still faintly visible, as is the memory of that split lip, but overall she looks far more normal than she did several days ago. She's looking for some form of solitude when she makes her way to the observation level again, hoping for more success than she achieved while dealing with the Meion-D'lei-Risali pile. It's no true surprise that the place isn't empty, but her face still falls a little to find another candidate among the seats, and worse, one of the young ones. The last time she stumbled across one of the more youthful candidates, the girl attached herself to Nessalyn's side for the night. NO THANK YOU. Still, she can't resist the observation, "The further you stick your tongue out, the easier that is." Teinon is noted as well, faintly familiar in face but not someone whose name she has bothered to learn - not that she bothers to learn many names. "If you drop anything on the sands, you're going to be sorry."
<Sands> Leirith SEES YOU CANDIDOOTS AND STRANGERBOOPS, BUT PROBABLY CANNOT HEAR YOU. THERE IS NO MINION THERE TO HEAR THROUGH, AFTER ALL. BUT! « HELLO, MY BADASSES. » YOU CAN STILL HEAR HER, SO HA! SUFFER.
It's a fact of life that not everybody is a morning person. Unfortunately for Rhodelia, she's one of those not-morning people and candidacy is requiring the whole 'getting up and doing things before noon'. Right now, the bartending candidate is sprawled face down on one of the benches not too far behind Mathis. The sound of Nessa and more likely LEirith's announcement of badassery has her stirring a bit. "Stick yer tongue out and a feline will get it!" And with that grumbled phrase of wisdom, she swats out with one hand at… something… and then tries to cover her head with a riding jacket.
Where once solitude was his only companion, soon there are many, each filtering in of their own accord with motives that are there their own. The first garner Mathis's attention is Teinon, glancing upwards in time to see self-conscious smiles that quickly see to the dropping of his gaze and a hunch put to his too-thin-shoulders. The man doesn't linger but rather wanders away, which is good, with only a peek past his brow his direction again before there's more hunching. It's Nessalyn's comment on his tongue that alerts Mathis to her presence, sneaky on crutches was skillful, the offending organ disappearing back inside his mouth. "No it's not," he mutters, mostly to himself, doing well in making himself even smaller than he already was there for a spell before Leirith's booming voice in his head has him sitting up as tall and straight as his diminutive height would allow and then some with a pronounced startled expression, worsened by the roused utterance a few row back. And there goes the nettle. Out of his hand, to the floor, and rolling away never to be seen again. At least, until someone decides to go barefoot. Sighing, he gives up the ghost as it were, tossing the blood speckled garment into the pile of rejects. Abandoning his seat, he climbs over as many rows as necessary in order to peer over the one that will allow him to see who it was sleeping back there. Man, if only he had a stick right now.
Teinon glances up at Nessalyn's words, with round eyes. He looks for all the world like a startled ovine, with his clumpy hair half falling over his eyes. He shakes his head quickly and pulls the packet closer to his chest, as though to demonstrate that he's being /very/ careful. Then, on second thought, he gives a tentative, almost wary smile and holds it out, just in case Nessalyn might like a sweet. That is, he does until Leirith decides to drop words into his head. He startles, with a noise halfway between a squeak and a squawk, and a half-handful of sweets go flying out of the packet. A couple of them most definitely go rolling off into the sands. Teinon watches them go with a look of utter horror. Oh no! What to do!
As Leirith booms, Ness flinches slightly but doesn't otherwise react, too used to such things to be truly surprised. Her brow lifts as Rhodelia's voice appears from somewhere back there, even if she doesn't see the body that accompanies it. "I can't figure out why you'd pick somewhere near Leirith to try to nap," she comments, raising her voice so Rhodelia can hopefully still hear her in spite of that jacket. For Mathis, she has a challenging smirk, one which only grows when the boy drops something and then seems to give up. A glance of inspection is given to his work, which draws a laugh. "Who'd you murder?" Because clearly this is crime scene evidence, and not just incompetent handiwork. She makes her way down to the rail where Teinon stands, leaning over to stare down at those dropped sweets below. "Well, now you're in for it." Absolutely deadpan.
"I'm not napping…" Comes the rather muffled protest from underneath the riding jacket over Rhodelia's head. And no poking stick will be needed as she does stir and eventually sit up with a stretch and the jacket over her head like some kind of weird hat. "Was just resting." She yawns and tries to cover it with her hand and manages to catch sight of the blood on those mending. "Are you the worst weaver? Or are you?" The pointing towards first Mathis and then Teinon.
Teinon's lost sweets were the last of Mathis' worries, finding that with Rhodelia's head covered by her jacket, he had no idea who that was. Of the newer and younger candidates, he had yet to meet many who shared the barracks with him. Well, at least there was Rinian. Making a soft sound as the lump of human flesh begins to speak and move, the boy scoots back with a clambering flail of limbs back to his original seat. Nothing to see here, this isn't the kid you're looking for. No comment is made on sleeping verses resting, nope, just eager searches out the sewing kit again in an effort to look busy. Sure, there were loads of needles in there but did he really want to try his hand at mending again at risk of losing it? Just how many times does one have to stick themselves before there was a risk of infection. Inquiring minds needed to know. "Myself," he answers Nessalyn, holding up his many-times-picked hand for her viewing pleasure. "I'm a woodcrafter." This was for Rhodelia, seconds before he hunkered down in his seat and fishes out yet another thin metal implement of digitory doom, with a post-traumatic twitch to one eye.
The poor man's expression is twisted with concern as he looks at Ness, then shoves the packet into his pocket and rises so he can lean over the railing and peer down toward the sands, searching for some sign of where the sweets landed. He glances up, momentarily distracted by Rhodelia's question. Confusion, a glance to the bloody mending, and then he makes a sour face and a kind of negating gesture with his hand, before he looks back at the sands, intent on finding where those sweets landed. It's anyone's guess what he thinks he will do if he spots them.
<Sands> Leirith PERKS UP. WHAT IS THIS? « MY GAROUTH, THEY BRING US TREATS. OR DO YOU THINK IT IS A THREAT? » Is that massive gold body rising from her pillow-of-Garouth to sneak closer to those DROPPED SWEETS? Yes, yes she is, pushing her nose RIGHT INTO THEM TO SMUSH. « MAYBE IT IS AN ASSAULT, MINE OF MINE OF MINE. YOU SHOULD EAT THEM. » But at least she's laughing, bass and drums ricocheting off of every mind and echoing right back to her. BOOP. That's one massive, whirling blue eye on you… and then she's retreating back across the sands, to paint Garouth in deliciousness and maybe squish him before he can be bothered to get up and actually be a scary dragon at somebody. Maybe. Possibly.
"The same question would still apply whether you were resting or napping," Nessalyn retorts with a roll of her eyes. "Leirith and restful don't really belong in the same sentence." She glances out toward the dragon in question, expectation in her gaze. If the gold knows they're there, what are the chances of being left alone? "Oh good," she murmurs in a voice that might not be entirely audible when Mathis admits to the source of the blood. Then, louder, "Another Riri?" Sorry, Mathis, that's the only name she's going to bother to learn for you now. 'Other Riri.' Her expectations come to fruition when Leirith gets up, the techcrafter's blue eyes immediately fixating on Teinon to see what he'll do. "Don't worry, she only eats the people 50% of the time. The rest of the time she gets Garouth to do it." Helpful! Faux Friendly! Incredibly Traumatizing! Get yourself a Nessalyn today.
<Sands> They'll rot your teeth, you know. Candies are terrible like that. Which is why it's only fitting that they adorn Garouth, since dangerous things go well together. And lie there, which probably means those sweets are going to melt and stick to hide… times two. Garouth and Leirith, stuck together by sweets!
Rhodelia simply shrugs as she removes her jacket-hat. The small case of bedhead hair she has going on is ignored for the moment. "It's not like any place is safe from Leirith noise. At least there are the eggs around so she'll probably be on better behavior?" Totally a question, but it's the biggest theory she has at the moment. And eyebrow is raises as Teinon leans over gesturing to the sands. "You probably shouldn't be dropping things on the sands…" But Rhodelia's just going to sit back and watch as the gold goes on the move, but the show is surprisingly short. So short, that Rhody doesn't even get to finish fishing out those cookies from her own pocket.
Keep this up and Mathis will be desensitized in no time at all! For now though, he shudders quietly to himself for the loudness of the voice that was not his emblazed across his brain and finds that even as it subsides a deep aching throb remains in its wake. A slightly pained expression washes over the boy's features, sewing kit set down against his knee so that he could rub at his temple a bit. A glance is spared Rhodelia over one shoulder and then towards Nessalyn for their experienced wisdom in these matters. Get used to it, it's not likely to stop anytime soon. Got it. Sigh. He reserves judgment on the candy dropped onto the sands by poor Teinon, but there is some sympathy, that is until he's getting called a Riri. "A what?" Because he half suspected that nickname was not meant in kindness, although at mention of eating people hazel eyes do widen considerably despite knowing that was not something any dragon in their right mind would do. A flash to Zanda and he sinks lower in his chair, attention darting over those that he can see from his vantage point over edge of the row ahead of him.
Teinon freezes when the gold moves. You know. Like a rabbit. He watches, round-eyed, as she comes near, meets that whirling blue eye for the moment it's on him, then watches in equal frozen fascination as she moves away again. Slowly, his gaze swings around to Ness, expression stunned… And then, slowly, his lips split into a smile. Then a grin. Then he's laughing, silently at first, and then with a hoarse, frog-like noise. His expression flickers with just a touch of pain as the noise emerges, but he is still grinning when he touches Ness's shoulder, then points toward the gold dragon. SO AMAZING! RIGHT?
Nessalyn flinches away when Teinon touches her shoulder, batting at his hand like it's a particularly pesky bug she's aiming to squash. "Don't touch me," is uttered in a low, snappish tone, before she feigns a smile and turns away as though nothing happened. "A Riri. The bartender knows what I mean." She gestures toward Rhodelia, whose name is apparently 'the bartender'. "I don't think Leirith is ever on better behavior. At least she's not trying to trap us up here." Yet. A shrug, before she finally deigns to look back at Teinon to see if that amazement has faded yet. "Haven't you seen Leirith before?"
Rhodelia raises an eyebrow at Nessalyn. "What's a sharding Riri?" Just waking up from naptime isn't the best time for trying to pick up on cryptic clues. One of those cookies is stuffed in her mouth and while she can't really talk around the chipmunk cheeks she's got going on, but she does hold our the cookies to the other candidates and Teinon.
Cookie? Darned right! Mathis will totally take one once he realizes it's being offered, probably around the time that Rhodelia is boldly proclaiming that she in fact does not know any better than he what a Riri is, "I think she's being mean, but I'm not sure." he whispers across the two rows back to the cookie smuggler, retracting his hand with the pilfered confection and promptly wrapping his lips around it. Nibble. Nibble. The scene unfolding at the front of the gallery, Teinon's boyish excitement for his close encounter of the third kind and Nessalyn's subsequent reaction to being touched was better than sticking himself over and over with a needle. So, he'll go ahead and watch the drama unfold in real time.
Teinon snatches his hand back as fast as if Ness had burned it. For a brief moment, he looks wounded, but then something approaching understanding passes across his features. He cautiously lifts his hands in a gesture of surrender, to show he's learned /that/ rule, at least, and goes to lean on the railing instead. By the time Ness looks back toward him, he's back to watching the dragons and the eggs. He flicks a quick glance back to acknowledge her question, then shrugs, nods, and smiles self-consciously. Dragon-besotted, for sure, this one. He manages to catch the offer of cookies, and with a pleased smile, he departs from the railing long enough to snag a single one. Some people never do learn. There's going to be crumbs on the sands this time, for sure. He pauses before eating the cookie to take out the packet of sweets and offer Rhodelia one as tradesies. And while he's at it, Mathis, just to be polite.
Being mean certainly isn't outside of the realm of possibility with Nessalyn, but a Riri isn't an insult. Not unless the techcrafter's lack of concern when it comes to learning the names of others is an insult. She appears satisfied that Teinon has learned his lesson, even though there remains a tension in her body which wasn't there before. Cookies, however, are the magic offering. "You're my favorite bartender," she comments as she crutch-walks her way closer to the younger woman to retrieve one of those cookies. "And Riri's the other one of him. You know. Woodcrafters." Does Rhodelia know who Rinian is? The dismissive attitude Nessalyn brings to the entire situation probably doesn't help, nor does her assumption that Rhody knows exactly what she's talking about.
"You never know with Nessa… watch out for your hair. She might set it on fire," Hopefully nobody minds a little bit of see-food because Rhodelia is totally talking despite having mouthful of cookie. Rhody shrugs as the techcrafter continues to go on about woodcrafters, but she does pass over a couple of cookies. "It'd probably be easier if you just learned people's own names. And I think…" She scrunches her face up real hard as she looks at the silent man. "He's Tei-something. At least, that's what folks hollared in his direction a lot in the Wherry." She shrugs and hops up. "See you all later." And just like that, she's out of there, but not without tossing the remaining cookie bag to Mathis.
Munch. Munch. Munch. Mathis cares not for crumbs, eyes darting to Teinon and secretly he roots for him. For the underdog, somehow resisting the urge to pump a fist in the air and cheer him on. That's right buddy, you can persevere! Chew. Chew. And swallow. Wiping away the bits that cling around his mouth with an idle swipe of his sleeve, looking then to Nessalyn to gauge her reaction, "This is better than that play I saw at Benden two turns ago," he murmurs quietly to himself, following her with a hazeled gaze as she crutches her way towards Rhodelia for some scrummy goodness. "Their really good!" This said louder around another bite of cookie, but is polite enough to not introduce them all to what see food is like, cookie holding hand poised to hover over his mouth. "Why, Riri?" comes the next question, just curious really. "My name's Mathis." Infamous among woodcrafters, little more than a thirteen turn old to anyone else. A white-knotted one, but young all the same. Teinon comes over and offers up sweets, of which he gladly takes, but with a particularly ginger quickness followed by a shy word of thanks. Yoink. And cookie bags? Whole cookie bags? Don't mind if he does! Yes, let's give the child sugar in concentrated amounts, this is always a good idea. Faranth bless the barracks tonight. "Thank you!" he chirps back to Rhodelia, hording his stockpile with a greedy sort of glint about him.
Teinon smiles brightly and salutes Rhodelia with the cookie. He opens his mouth, like he might offer a correction, and then he just shrugs and bites into the cookie instead. Apparently 'Tei-something' is good enough for him. He tosses a thoughtful look toward Ness as he munches, watching her. Probably for some reason, but he's not sharing right at this moment.
"Why just the hair?" is Nessalyn's perplexed query, spoken around a bite of cookie. It's as though the thought of stopping with just the hair never occurred to her. The mention of 'own names' is met with a derisive snort. That can't possibly be right. "I know who I'm talking about. It sounds like you're the one who needs to pay more attention." She might even go so far as to stick her tongue out, if she weren't more preoccupied with cookie-eating. Rhodelia is spared, at least this time. "Tei-something." There's a note of skepticism, whether for the accuracy of this information or for some other reason is unclear. A dark look is sent the bartender's way when she gives the cookie bag to someone else. Now she has to steal cookies from a kid. Rude. She doesn't bother with any farewell for the other woman, instead looking back toward Mathis with a faint furrow to her brow. "Because that's her name." Duh. It's the first two letters of Rinian's name, at least, which is sort of something. If you squint, maybe. "Why are you looking at me?" she demands of Teinon after a moment, that faint furrow now a full-on frown.
Looking upwards, Mathis looks between the two remaining adults, pushing the last of his first cookie into his face via the palm to gullet shove method. Far too much food to be in what wasn't that big of a place to start with, he successfully closes his mouth so he can chew it down to more manageable proportions. Oh good, the show was back on. Those commercials were killers. He almost doesn't want to interject that he thinks he figured out who Riri was, having connected the dots when everyone was busily collecting sweets, but "Oh! You mean Rinian…I call her Rin. She's kinda awesome, lots of talent. She's my friend." comes out anyway. He had of course noted the look on Nessalyn's face when Rhodelia handed him that bag of cookies, but it didn't look like he was going to share them with anyone. At least, not yet. First he had to count them, then calculate proportions as is related to the current alignment of the sun and moons, and what day of the week it was. Really, it could take all night, and if some just so happened to slip out of the bag and into his mouth during that time, well…accidents happen.
Teinon grins a little at Nessalyn's demand, as though he's figured something out. Instead of answering, he gives a silent, mildly apologetic (aside from the slight grin) shrug, and holds out the sweet bag for her to take one, if she wants. Just in case she'd prefer to take freely offered treats instead of stealing them from a child. He glances aside at Mathis, while waiting for Ness to take one, and winks.
"Riri," Nessalyn corrects with a stern tone. "She prefers Riri." The techcrafter has never asked, but that doesn't stop her from asserting this as absolute fact. Sorry, Rinian! That bag of sweets offered by Teinon is eyed with suspicion for a moment before she reaches out to take one. She'd still prefer the cookies, but this will do for the moment. "Kid," that's for Mathis, "share the cookies. Leirith is watching." Is she? WHO KNOWS. But that's the first threat that comes to mind, so Nessalyn holds out her hand expectantly.
A grin? Hazel eyes narrow even as the sweet that Tenion had given Mathis is popped into his mouth, looking back to Nessalyn with a lift of brows, "She likes Rin, she told me so." There was no stern tone, just that tone that children get when they clearly know better than an adult, complete with dismissive shrug. Then it was back to the show, one that Mathis was beginning not to like as much as he was when the two main characters were at odds. He mumbles something under his breath as Nessalyn decides to take a candy, sighing lightly. All this is interrupted before he can change the channel, by that wink. It was like the pause button, where Mathis freezes in place and stares at the man for far longer than would ever be considered polite, before the color red splashes across his cheeks and straight up to the tips of his ears. Obviously, someone was fiddling with the contrast. Annnnnnnd UNPAUSE, where it is a flurry of motion in which he collects everything he'd brought to the gallery with him before thrusting the bag of cookies at Nessa, "Here." With that, he is like the wind, scooting past Teion and the Techcrafter on a very straight path to escape with no small amount of tripping along the way.
The grin fades off Teinon's face as Mathis makes his sudden scrambling exit. Flustered and no small amount of embarrassed, he wraps up the bag of sweets. He tries to grab Ness's wrist to make sure she won't drop it as he pushes the sweets into her hand, without meeting her gaze. Either way, the sweets are left with her as he retreats with an unhappy smile and turns to go. He takes a roundabout way to make his exit, partly to avoid making the kid feel like he's being chased, and partly to give a last glance toward the sands and the eggs as he goes.
Nessalyn waves off Mathis' protest like it's nothing, simply ignoring what she doesn't want to hear. It's her right as an adult! And even if it isn't, Nessalyn is going to do what she wants. She does arch a brow in his direction, but his apparent shift in mood is none of her concern. SHE GOT THE COOKIES, and ultimately that's all that matters. As the bag is thrust at her she snatches it up, immediately taking a victory cookie. She won! And then Teinon is touching her again, and she gives him a death-glare in spite of the fact that he's offering sweets. "I told you." It's her only warning, but she doesn't seek to engage with him further as he makes his way out after Mathis. The techcrafter doesn't fully understand what just happened, but she does know she just got both the bag of candy and the cookies. Winning!