Xanadu Weyr - Dragons' 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.
Not quite three weeks, but more than two, the level of exhaustion in the barracks includes for some people, exhausted fits of hysterical laughter or tears, falling asleep standing up or in the midst of important tasks like feeding and oiling, or really anything at all. F'yr is no exception to the trend, especially since Glorioth RUNS everywhere. If he is in motion, it is with great momentum and surprising grace for a hatchling larger than a wagon. They have been here, there, everywhere that they're allowed to go and F'yr is beginning into that phase where the places Glorioth falls asleep are really a problem because he goes so far and needs to eat immediately upon waking. It results in a lot of back and forth hurrying when he could/should/would otherwise be sleeping. With his bronze's head upside down on the edge of the pool while his body more or less floats near the edge, it's no wonder that F'yr is standing at the same edge of the pool with his arms folded and his head down on them. He's probably not asleep, since his body is submerged in the water, wearing his bloodied shorts and tight-wrapped bandages, but he's resting his eyes at this moment of the mid-morning. If only Glorioth had done his hard crash (because he has no other kind) somewhere near an actual bed. At least he's not crying. (And he has. In the barracks. And he just is too tired to care.)
Somehow with all of the tired hysterics, Evi has made it through the last two sevendays only getting QUIETER. At times she cries, but something in the sharp-tongued cyan striped piece of work she has for a lifemate stalls her from her usual hysterics. EVEN when Neifeth is in a full fit, screeching, stomping, flaring her wings and accusing anyone near her of attempting to DESTROY what MINUTE happiness she has. Of all the hatchlings, Nei is the most dramatic, and to outsiders, it would appear the acridest. Any and everything sets the green on a tear, Evi, in turn, has become a master at calming, redirecting, soothing the beast. Weyrlingstaff has begun to provide live prey for Neifeth, the young hatchling being allowed to kill her own food much earlier than is typically deemed safe, this seems to have allowed Evi enough rest to string together a single sentence, her first full three hours of sleep was just yesterday. Today is no different; wandering into the dragon pools, the young weaver is moving differently, smoothly, head up eyes searching in front of her. Hours and hours, every day Neifeth manipulating her movement, mastery is far away. Still, whoever this person is walking into the pools with fast, ground covering, and efficient movement, it's not the same person F'yr met in the caverns prior to search. She's changed. There's an abrupt yet smooth halt, that brings Neifeth stumbling slightly on oversized forelimbs, too large wings teetering her from side to side, off-balance. Evi is wearing a blue skirt, and white shirt blood stains are in, and she wears them without thought now. Nei slithers her body into the water, and Evi slowly takes off her clothes and slides in beside her. Silent. Sinking below the surface until only her eyes and nostrils are above water, the green swims adjacent but not near Glorioth unsettling. "Hello" Is all that is said to F'yr, quiet enough that he may not hear it, before Evi goes about scrubbing Nei.
In a clutch with so many colorful personalities, every dragonet has their moments for drama. Thankfully, they also each have their own outwardly dull moments, such as this one for Glorioth. No one but F'yr can say what might be going on inside that big bronze wedged head already longer than his torso and at least as wide, but there's no movement from the pair when the green weyrlings enter the cavern. The nuances of entrance are missed, and it isn't until she's speaks that he shifts at all. His shoulders move first, then his head, turning to the side, an eye squinting open followed by another. He makes a grunt into a completely unintelligible question even as his eyes blink what wasn't sleep, but was some sort of stupor not entirely unlike it. He rolls himself just slightly, bumping into the bronze and leaning on him like he's a convenient piece of furniture. The big dragonet slumbers on. Blue eyes blink and blink and eventually his hands come out of the water to splash water on his face. It's only after that that F'yr really is with it enough to offer actual words. "Evi, Neith." The words aren't unfriendly, and really F'yr hasn't been unfriendly since they all swapped barracks and gained such large responsibilities in hide-bound packages. What he has been, largely, is preoccupied. Like many weyrlings, his is a demanding lifemate and he's spent much of his time attending to feedings, oilings, and running everywhere in the meantime. "Alright there?" is probably meant to be some kind of general inquiry into the health and welfare of the girl and her lifemate, but it's not terribly descriptive.
Nei is quiet enough from her watching place, whatever is going on in her head seems to be seeping out only slightly with a few trees in the foreground and the smell of roses. Stealth mode might still need work, she's at least respectfully quiet of a sleeping Glorioth. Evi giggles a bit, hand going over her mouth as she laughs at something said between the two of them. In recent days it would seem they do that a lot; there's almost no outward conversation from Evi except when her dragon is being a petulant child. Otherwise, things have begun to appear on her bunk. Books. Fabric. Archive records, ROMANCE NOVELS. Never a reader, now it seems if she's not preening over her green, she is reading, taking notes. If there ever were a weird secret girls club, it's this pair. F'yr gets the slightest of nods, it's evident that she's not fairing any better. Even with help from family members in eating and braiding her hair for her every other day, she's working on fumes. Shifting lower in the water, her ear lobes dabbing the surface with her treading efforts. The hand not scrubbing her partner undoes her braids, pulling the hair free and dipping it back in the water. Both her hands go out in a T-shape, feet forward wrapping one foot around the back of Nei’s elbow crease where the limb meets the body, and the other around the front. Anchor secured she allows herself to float out like a giant starfish, it's classic Evi. "I can't tell." The honest answer seeping out before she can catch it. "Are you happy?" The question comes out of nowhere, and it seems like it does not ruffle the easy to disturb plumage of whatever her name is. "Am I still me?" There's a lilt to her voice, disconnected from the place and situation as she is. "Does he make you happy?" Too existential for tired people, all those deep tired thoughts. Wrinkling her nose upside down at F’yr, observing him from this angle with a bit of play.
The first response to Evi's question is a sound that is too rough to be a snort. It's a sound trying not to be a giggle. But then it is one. Giggles do look awfully funny on F'yr - it's no wonder they got him caught for stepping too far over the line from tipsy to drunk at Turnover. The giggle turns into the start of a guffaw, into a chuckle and eventually ending in rueful laughter. As he does all this, he moves, taking the time to get to a ledge he can use to climb out onto the edge of the pool, his shorts and bandages streaming water down onto the stones. Normally, he would have just pushed himself up and out, but cracked rib(s) don't much care for that kind of abuse and they're already being so abused anyway by dint of the unavoidable necessities of this new life. The laughter goes on long enough that maybe it seems like he's laughing at her, or maybe it seems he's just LOST HIS MIND (it's that one, almost definitely), or so long that it seems maybe he's not going to even try to answer such complex questions. In the end, he manages to settle that uncontrollable laugh by the time he returns to the edge of the pool with a bucket of oil. Even if most of Glorioth is submerged, the big blond can get a start on the skin of his jaw and face and neck that will otherwise get doubly itchy for having fallen asleep in the pool, pre-oiling. Only once his hands are in a motion that is already familiar and will only become more so in the lifetime of this service that he has ahead of him does F'yr look over to the younger girl, and swiftly away, eyes coming to linger briefly on Neith before he looks back to his own lifemate. "I'm tired. Feeling almost anything else is beyond me. I knew babies are exhausting, but I don't recall any of the ones I've known before to run everywhere," like Glorioth does, "and with human babies, you get that great first turn where they mostly stay where you put them. He brought me a firelizard egg the first time I overslept, did you know?" The story probably made the rounds of the barracks, but it's not like F'yr has been spending a lot of time being social outside of his lifemate in these early weeks. "I'm too tired to really think about things like that." It will come sometime, surely. "I'm still me. Just tired. And with new dimensions and a whole lot of new responsibilities that aren't all bad. The manure scooping I could stand to do less of. I got spoiled working with paperwork these last few months." That's wry from the former farmer who definitely has a lifetime of experience with this particular, unpleasant aspect of young dragon life. "Glorioth is… amazing. He's an amazing dragon. An amazing lifemate. An amazing idiot." AT LEAST HE'S CONSISTENTLY AMAZING AND FOR THAT F'YR CAN HAVE GLORIOTH'S HEARTFELT THANKS WHEN HE NEXT AWAKES. "None of that means it's not hard or that there isn't a lot of work to do. He doesn't listen to me," ALMOST EVER at this point. "And he's… so… loud…" That's little breathy shudders. Who gets the brunt of that always TOO LARGE voice? That'd be lucky F'yr. He squints over at the green and again so briefly to the rider that he might look at more if she were in soggy clothes like he is; some parts of Weyr life just aren't in his bones yet. "Do you think you're still you? I can't really imagine her not making you happy, but…?" He frames that in the best possible light; Neith may be quiescent, but she is still awake after all and she can have a little smile from the big blond whether she wants one or not.
All of the laughing gives Neifeth pause, Evi floating out with only her feet keeping her in physical contact with her lifemate. Neifeth's eyes go from bright green and blue to a tinge of yellow, she cocks her head up and to the side. It's the first real sign that while she is rubbing off on Evi, the innocent young weaver girl is also rubbing off on HER. Once the laughter continues, Evi giggles too, frenzied laughter contagious when you're weary beyond any sense of time. After he stops, she persists for a moment, shaking her head. Neifeth saying with a small glimmer of water, her mind suddenly a tiny ocean, but the sea is neon, and so is the sky. Most of her thoughts to the uninitiated would seem chaotic at best. «Why is everyone laughing. Did I miss a JOKE.» There's the touch of rudeness to her voice, the tone is a tad milder than is typical though and carries a hint of bewilderment that is foreign in the confident green. That hidden spill of something that very few have seen. As he speaks of his lifemate, she nods, listening quietly and smiling a bit. "I do not envy the running. Do the ribs hurt?." Wincing, though it's obvious her arms and face have fresh scratches healing from numerous scraps with the plethora of animals, Nei requires her to bring still alive. "Um, I have… No idea how I'm doing it. I just am." The honesty of her own response makes her blush, and Nei rumbles protest quietly. «Stop doubting.» It's a gentle prod, and a command, and a commentary on Evi's current color all in one with a slight roll of the neon green sea. "Don't tell him, but he's charming. They're all so cute, I can hardly enjoy it with… all the murdering." Grimacing and shaking her head, it's clear that part of her new partnership seems to overshadow everything else about the green and brings slightly louder rebuttal «Evi, do we need to do the food safety chant?» Evi gets redder, shaking her head. "No, no more food safety chant, we can do it later, my love. Um. Like maybe, somewhere with people who will APPRECIATE your chant. Not here." «Fine. But I want to make two new chants, so don't prattle on.» Despite the sharp tongue, Evi giggles, somehow the whole exchange which on the outside can seem harsh is.. Funny. There's the undertone that maybe something between the two is not communicated outwardly; it might be that she's tired too. "I feel more me than ever, but I can't tell. Maybe I am more her. Some days it feels like I am all her, and I struggle to think through it all. I go to say something, and it's not me, it's her." There's a slightly frantic whisper to her voice as if this concerns her more than she lets anyone know. Nei splashes Evi with her muzzle, eyes whirling a bit redder, and the green sea is now black, rocky, turbulent. "Shh, shh, love noo… Let me speak, let me. Yes, we can comb over it later." Calmness enters, and the green ocean is back; instead of neon, it's hunter green. "She's.. More than what you see. She… the best parts of her are mine. The way you feel about Glorioth, she feels about me." A brilliant smile fills her face, and she sits up, curling herself into her dragon's neck and peaking over so that she is less naked. "I don't think any of them really listen." Nei snorts, « I am listening RIGHT NOW.» "Thank you, love." It's clear that Evi is rising to this challenge.
Though the blond has a kind smile for the baby dragon lost in the not-joke, he'll leave those sensitive explanations to her own lifemate. "The ribs only hurt when I breathe. Or move." So literally every moment of his day, waking or sleeping. "Healers are starting to get concerned because it should be getting better." But it's not. SPOILER ALERT: running everywhere does not help heal cracked ribs. It's doing wonders for his pain tolerance though. If he notices the scratches on Evi's arms (which arguably, he probably hasn't since he's not really looking at her), he doesn't comment. "Why not tell him? He'll just say thank you. I don't think it's possible for his ego to get any bigger than it already is." Seriously, it would buckle the world; F'yr's spot on with that observation. "Maybe don't use the word 'cute,'" it's just a suggestion. He looks over his own lifemate and gets a sweet and dopey smile that says he agrees with the term even if he wouldn't recommend saying it aloud. His strokes along bronze skin become softer, his eyes following the already endless-seeming lengths of hide with the kind of love usually reserved for a man's offspring. THEY'RE BOTH CUTE, TOGETHER, IF ANYONE CARES TO NOTICE AND THINK SO. He doesn't ignore the green pair, but the bronzerider does keep his eyes on his own task to let them have a more private interlude. "I never feel like I'm him. Half the time I can't even tell where he is," which is a problem since anytime the bronze is left unattended or escapes F'yr's boring oversight, it spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E. "I wish I had a little of that. Maybe I will, in time," that closeness of bond that Evi shares with her mercurial lifemate. "N'on… might be able to help, to talk with about the… closeness, the separation. It sounds like something he told me about once," that not actually long time ago when he was still wearing a white knot and waiting to see what might happen. "It's good that she feels that about you." That's for Evi, but to Neith, he rumbles an assurance, "I won't tell." He's good like that, compartmentalizing his business. Their business. Anyone's business.
"Does.. he not know? Surely if he.. knew?" Evi gestures to Glorioth and back to the ribs, her head tilting from left to right and settling right. The bulk of a floating Neifeth is hiding her rider's body, beyond her head and arms, which are crossed on top of the dragon's dark neck, where stripes have ended in foreboding deep green. "Why not cute?" A giant yawn, her eyes falling shut for a moment. "Would he wear a bell?" Evi, still thinking cats seem to want to drive everyone in the barracks INSANE by having the most active dragon in the class, wear a bell. "I haven't seen N'on since the hatching, I.. sometimes it's hard to remember others. You can have some of mine.." Offering up some of her lifemates proclivity to be in every minute aspect of her mental and physical business, her voice is getting more tired by the moment. One hand half-heartedly scrubs at a spot where the jaw meets the throat, autopilot effort at best. Nei seems to be shadowing her riders level of consciousness, inner lids closing, and outer lids sliding minutely shut. «Who would even believe you.» Is commented to F'yr, her words abrupt and faint, as if it's traveling on the wind with the small wash of mint. There's the slightest upturn to Evi's lips watching him and the bronze, but she seems to be remembering something and pulls her head up. Sitting up straighter with arms stiffening to lend support to her fatigued frame. "Have you seen Katailea? Since impression?" The subject change is random at best; as her dragon gets closer to sleeping, some of her concerns come to the forefront. "I think… I mean. I um. You, know my family…" Quiet, meek tone, every word is whispy the sounds people make the moment before sleep. "They deliver mail and such." Yawning ginormously, her eyes all squinted and head and neck stretching upwards before crumpling back down on her perch. Nei's head, having found a convenient rock to perch on, head tilted in a way that shows off her exposed teeth. A few hard blinks and unfocused brown-green eyes close, body limp for several moments before they are willed back open to squint at the bronze weyrling. "I got a letter, meant for her, and it's not very.." Another yawn, "kind, she might need marks. I think they might marry her off." Neifeth rumbles, one eye opening.
"No chance. I would have thought the 'onwaaard's would be enough to track him, but they're really not enough." SO HE ALREADY THOUGHT OF A BELL, you see. It was a no-go, but his impression, less loud, but full voiced, of his lifemate's much-too-frequent cry is spot on, if on-key. "He knows. Pain isn't a reason to stop. He doesn't really see a point to healing." That comes with a grimace and a slight shrug of his shoulder, which only makes him wince. Maybe if his dragon had the same propensity as some (Kihatsuth*coughcough*) to accidentally injure themselves, he would feel differently, but his bronze hide remains practically pristine. The blond man shifts a little on the stone to get better access to the neck lolling out of the water to where the head rests on rock so ridiculously. "You'll see N'on again. We'll see them all again. We're just… where we need to be right now, doing what we need to do. They," the friends who aren't part of the weyrling class, "will understand that. Or they won't," COMFORTING, F'YR, "but we can't be anywhere but where we need to be right now. His eyes slide to the dragon and the smile he offers is wan, "Then you have nothing to worry about, do you." Nevermind that there's something unreadable in his tone; who would believe F'yr? He has built good credit with a lot of people since the incident of the many-storied black eye incident with Keruthien those months ago, so maybe, in fact, a great deal of people. BUT DON'T WORRY, LITTLE NEITH, F'yr is just not that way. Is he? The words that come next do seem to be some kind of confirmation that the young man keeps his own counsel, by and large. "Yeah, I saw her," because that could be far more descriptive, and just isn't. Maybe he isn't following quite, but he does make one of those generic conversational sounds that indicates he's still listening when Evi speaks of her family. And then there's a s i l e n c e, until, suddenly an avalanche of water as the dragon who was so peacefully asleep under the man's hand is in motion. « WHERE IS THE FOE, F'YRLESS ONE? » HE WILL BITE THEM IN HALF. HE WILL REND THEM. HE WILL TEAR THEM. There is more than anger, there is hot rage that makes the scents of the battlefield always a backdrop in the bronze's mind into something of acrid smoke, choking and foul. F'yr's breathing hard, but he has to put aside whatever feelings, he himself is feeling in this moment. It gets tucked into a mental box, locked and shoved ruthlessly into a compartment where he can deal with it later. Who know how many demons like that linger in locked boxes in the young man's mind? Glorioth will surely find out one day, intentionally or by blunder. "They're not here," is his fast response to his lifemate, his body already in motion to jump back into the pool and get close to the big dragon, much too tall as he stands on his hind limbs to be that much bigger, that much fiercer and Glorioth in battle mode is a fearsome sight in earnest. The whirl of his eyes is still too fast. "Glori," F'yr starts and stops, maybe some panic edging into his tone, "Glori, let's run. We'll go run, come on. We'll hit things." That's another good way to let rage go pouring out. "C'mon. We'll go to the training grounds." And though it takes a moment for the enraged baby to do anything at all, he shouts with a hard, biting edge, « ONWARD! » and charrrges out of the pool, sorry Neith and Evi, to go scrabbling across stone, dripping a deluge as he goes out toward the training yard and the straw enemies beyond. F'yr is on his heels, wheezing with tears leaking from his eyes that probably have more to do with either pain or relief than anything else, but there you have it. This is exactly why weyrlings are advised to keep their emotions in check, but at least it looks like F'yr is learning to manage things just like the rest of them.
Half asleep, Evi relays information about Katailea as if she's reading a weather report. The pair had both nearly gotten to sleep; that is before there's water being splashed everywhere, and Evi is sliding down off Neifeth as she sets back, neck arched eyes whirling red back at Glorioth. «WHAT the SHELL are you DOING.» All of the work Evi had put into making her more pleasant gone in a flash, every inch of fae bitchiness, the demanding shriekish tone in her voice back. «WHERE ARE YOUR MANNERS.» Listen, Neifeth isn't known for her smarts all the time, and it's with absolute certainty she only uses the word manners when speaking of others. Evi seems to in shock to maintain the control she would need to quiet her lifemate. "F'yr, what's wrong?" Voice so quiet from sleep, it probably has no chance of reaching the man through the chaos of water and raging bronze dragons. Whatever is being said in private notches Nei down, though she slinks out of the water, and if a dragon could glare, she is «WHERS. The lot of them WHERS, THE OUTSIDE OF THE POOL IS SLIPPERY. YOU COULD SLIP.» On one of her tirades, it's probably best F'yr leaves, but Evi takes a few steps towards him and says. "Wait.. wait I. Don't understand." They both are dangerously tired, and as they rush off to the training ground, Evi starts to cry. Settling herself next to her dragon on the outside of the pool, «WHY are YOU CRYING? YOU SHOULD NEVER CRY OVER SUCH SIMPLETON NONSENSE.» At least until she sleeps, Nei will be plotting Glori's doom, her mind all thorns and rocks. Thank the first egg for the dragons' lack of memory.