When Littles Attack
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Xanadu Weyr - Candidate Barracks
A long, low ceilinged room opens off the entrance hall to the arena. One wall is slightly curved, set against the outer wall of the arena itself. Cots are set in two rows along the length of the room, each with its own small press at the foot for personal belongings. Wide windows are spaced along the outside wall, letting sunlight in, while other lights are available for the night time hours. It's always warm here when there are eggs on the sands, and candidates seldom need more than a light blanket.


Rinian is sitting crosslegged on her cot, a cloth spread across her lap to contain the mess she is making. Mr Duck is getting a makeover! She's just finishing up with the lightest grit of sand to smooth out the finish. He is now a nekkid Duck, or at least a nekkid Duck form.

Meion sits, propped up against the wall at the head of her cot, watching. After a long silence: "What is it going to be, when you're done?"

Rinian stops and eyes a spot critically before giving it a little more attention. "Well..I had thought about that. I was kind of torn between keeping him a duck or turning him into a swan. So I tried to think about why a duck might want to be a swan. Or at least..why someone would try to make him into one." She uses a clean corner of the cloth to brush away some of the resulting dust.

Shlupping himself in through the barracks door, is quite the haggard sight. Mathis hair it sticking straight up in places, something in there responsible considering how unnatural it looked, splotches of paint (some in little hand prints) all over him randomly including his face in a multitude of bright vibrant colors. A little glitter here and a feather there, and it appears as if the boy had reached his limit. With not even enough effort to carry his overloaded bag, he drags it behind him as he goes, hazel eyes set upon his cot with a longing expression. Yes. Yes please. A soft yet long groan starting at the entry and continued until he flops over onto his mattress in a belly-flop sort of fashion.

Meion sits still, watching as you buff and clean, turning that question over in her mind. "Mm. Why would someone want to be something that they aren't." It isn't exactly a question. Just something to consider.

Rinian shrugs to Meion's question. "I haven't the foggiest of an idea why. I have the sneaking suspicion it is likely some private joke for someone, or maybe between a couple of people. But I felt bad for Mr Duck to be forced into something he wasn't." She looks up at the movement and watches Mathis belly-flop. "Are you ok? What happened?"

In response to the question of if he was okay, a muffled, "Leave me alone to die." rises up from the boy's cot. Other than a slight wiggle to his head when he spoke, Mathis doesn't move. He doesn't want to, ever again. As for what happened, "Nanny duty…again. The nannies said it was because they…like me. This is what they do to people they like…" The faintest of whispers comes next, barely audible. "…the like is a lie…"

Meion looks across at the exhausted Mathis, and can't resist chiming in. "Oh, they like you. If they didn't like you, you wouldn't have survived."

Rinian really does try to be sympathetic to poor Matty, but Meion's comment gets her to giggle softly. "I'd say they like you too, since it seems they want to play with you. Just think of the old Aunties you are saving. They couldn't keep up with the kids like you can." She pulls out a different cloth and starts to wipe the figurine down to remove the last of the dust.

Mathis had not signed up to the virgin sacrifice okay? OKAY?! "You guuuuyyyysssss…." he whines after Meion makes her comment and Rinian giggles, tapering off into a pathetic sounding groan. A little compassion for the dead boy talking over there, please! "I don't know how to get the stuff out of my hair and now I need new clothes and I think my arms are going to fall off and my head is killing me from all the screaming." Again, his voice drops down to a whisper, "Make the littles stop screaming…" That he might have saved an ancient Auntie or two is hardly a consolation it seems. "I'm never having kids. Never. Ever. EVER!

Meion laughs. "I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise." For one thing, she's assuredly old enough to have kids, and she emphatically does not. She looks over with an appraising expression. "What's in your hair, anyway?"

Rinian rests Mr Duck in her lap to take a closer look at her friend. She offers, "Would you like some help getting cleaned up? We can even find you some other clothes in the storage caverns."

"Good, because it wouldn't work!" Mighty is the protest and surety, one arm struggling to emphasize his determination, yielding only a flip of his wrist with curled fingers. The question as to what it was that Mathis had in his hair brings stunned silence, and then after a time, "I have no idea. It was sticky, now it isn't." Whatever it was, it'd gone hard. He wanted to curl up in a ball and disappear, but his body wasn't cooperating, leaving him exactly where it was that he'd dropped himself. Another long and drawn out silence, till finally he says oh so very quietly, "Yes please."


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