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.
OOC Note: Sometime during the first month of weyrlinghood, the weyrling dragons, not yet adept at keeping their thoughts to themselves (and let's face it, maybe never adept at that), occasionally bleed dreams into the general consciousness. Lucky communally living weyrlings. This was done as a 1-pose-per-person scene.
The Good Dreams
WHAT HO, SIBLINGS. GLORIOTH DID NOT EXPECT TO SEE ANY OF YOU FRIENDS OR FOE-VILLAINS HERE, if he even sees you at all, if you're even here, he cares not how you participate or don't in his dream, maybe you're even treated to the INESTIMABLE PLEASURE of BEING HIM, if but for a few moments. He's pretty busy being HEROIC here. Where is here you might well wonder? Stone walls rise high on either side of the path, limiting the view and the choices. Forward or back? The view rushes in a sudden charge and there's the echo of annoyingly familiar booming laughter. Maybe other consciousnesses realize that Glorioth has missed several possible turn offs, but the dreaming bronze certainly doesn't. AND IT'S FINE, really because where he wanted to go, where his quest needs him to end up is in that LAST CHAMBER. The stone walls here are laced with lattices of vines and strange, glittering chains of starlight. Yes, starlight. He pauses as the walls open into this rounded space, as though he might actually be moved by the beauty, the majesty, but no. He's really just shifting his footing to CHAAAAAAAARGE, « ONWAAAAAaaaaAAAAaaaaRD!! », into the coiled beast with the head of a bull, the wooly coat of a sheep, the coiled body of an enormous tunnelsnake, the wings of a dragon, and the ARMS OF A SPIDERCLAW. Pinch pinch. Laughter booms, joy pervades every part of this touch, he takes two mighty strides, leaps, feels the air under his wings, lifting him and — … he wakes, chewing F'yr's wool blanket to pieces. At least he does the weyrling the courtesy of cough-hack-throwing up the bits he consumed on the floor instead of on the suddenly no longer sleeping man. What wakes a person faster than the sound of a cat summoning the powers of the hairball? A dragonrider with a stomach-sick dragon. This life takes a whole other kind of bravery.
The Nightmares
Innocent was the start of it all, for what fear came of change? Sometimes, metamorphosis can lead to a beautiful outcome! It certainly begins that way, in the threads of the dream Kihatsuth weaves. Her creation is seeping from the edges though, her canvas a little too small for all the hidden meaning behind the brush strokes. Ru'ien is the focus, of course, her choice inspiration for this piece. Placed, for now, in a mirrored cocoon, reflecting and refracting a variety of emotions that flick and flutter away under shifting light. Satisfied by her work, it will fall apart under her will and from it steps a revised form of Ru'ien; a dark form, a corrupted one, of every emotion and negative quality he usually represses. Mirrored, a shadow reflection, that grins like the true one does but all so wrong. Pleased with her 'creation', she will puppet it, echoing familiar gestures but putting them under different light. Testing a second skin, while the shards littering the ground reflect back the real Ru'ien's emotions. Isn't this one SO MUCH better though? Ignore the darkness surrounding it, that's of no consequence. The REAL question is — which is the truth? This shadow puppet certainly smirks like Ru'ien should, even going as far as to pass his hand over his face; light and dark morph over his features. Two of the same and yet so utterly different but she delights in both, no matter how wrong this nightmare is to her human counterpart — or maybe she IS aware, in the way that this dark-Ru'ien begins to laugh, sinister like, as the edges of the dream crumble apart. Ah, looks like her 'work' is receiving some poor reviews and such a shame really! Ah well, a true artist accepts all criticism!
Something was not right. That feeling only grows as the wood panel of the desk in front of her extends as well, both putting distance between her and her classmates and also screaming LOOK AT ME. All eyes turn and stare at her as if she was a foreign creature, a creature that doesn't belong.
What was she doing here anyways? How did she get here? Dragons don't belong in desks! But was she a dragon? Or was she a girl? Talons fade away into nails and very human fingers. Try as she might, she can't disappear from view behind the desk, no matter how large the desk might be.
Finally, the door the classroom opens and an older man walks in with all the air of authority only a master might possess. Any hope of salvation is quickly dashed as he turns his disapproving stare on her and the rest of the class follows suit. "Rhodelia, you're up."
SHE WAS NOT READY FOR THIS. The panic rises up, threatening to drown her as she's placed in the spotlight. Why couldn't he have called on Hathal first, with his smug, almost always right face? Or Kistia who was always the first one to have her hand up when any question was answered? Rhody could practically feel the other girl staring daggers into her back as her feet carried her forward to the front of the classroom, even as she begged them not to.
By now, the tools of their trade that had replaced where a table should be, but even the names of the instruments have fled her head as they seem to contort into alien shapes before her very eyes. She knew she should be able to start listing off steps in production process, but the words wouldn't come. Eventually, she could only muster up the tiniest of voices as she stared at her feet, unwilling to chance meeting anybody in the eyes.
"I… I don't know…"
The collective hiss of disapproval is all she remembers as she's woken up to a very different sort of hiss while her head is gently batted as Inasyth attempts to wrap a wing around her as a comfort blanket.
« What does it matter if you don't know? We can both find out together! » As sure as the young gold is in anything, she's sure this too will work out, even as Rhodelia takes deep breaths, trying to collect herself.
The weyrling reaches out to pat at her lifemate's side, both for her own comfort and the dragon's. "It mattered, but not any more." Not knowing might matter again in the future, but now is not the time to discuss it. That's a problem for a future Rhody.
The beating heat of the sun seeps into the communal consciousness for those tuned in for tonight's dream courtesy of Glorioth. It's not his usual heat, nor is it the kind of heat that is usually just so good for baby dragons. It's a stifling heat, a heat without relief, without end, without purpose but to annoy. UGH. The vista has no water save for the bucket that can't be used to cool a hot and thirsty dragon whose work is not yet done. Work? This isn't what Glorioth likes, not at all. He tries to charge, only to press into some kind of contraption that binds around his neck, that keeps him tethered to a — WHAT IN THE NAME OF VALOR IS THAT? IS THAT A SHELLING PLOUGH?? AND… WHERE IS HIS THEME SONG? IS THAT A BANJO FROM THE RED STAR? DO THEY EVEN HAVE TWANGY BANJOS ON PERN? IT DOESN'T MATTER. IT'S HERE IN THE DRAGON'S NIGHTMARE. Glorioth is a farmer. WHAT WORSE FATE IS THERE? With racing heart, and a FEARSOME ROAR, the dragon leaps from his bed. « ONWAAAAAaaaaaAAAAARD! » to fight the EVILEST LOOKING THING HE CAN CONVENIENTLY FIND FOR A DEMONSTRATION OF HIS VIRILITY. (It's the chair Ila'den literally just vacated because one vacates the EVIL FOE'S VICINITY when one sees an enraged baby bronze charging; even when one is Ila. He might've sighed, and he might've moved, but he didn't get excited about it; DON'T WORRY, ILA IS NOT POSSESSED, he's just his regular shifty-eye self.)