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.
Fall has genuinely arrived, no more green leaves, no more sunshine, the rainy, cold wetness means cleaning a dragon is POINTLESS for some, due to mud and rain. Large amounts of dirt have been tracked throughout the barracks, and ill-humored dragonettes like Neifeth have found no shortage of things to complain about. Cabin fever is real, especially when going outside recreationally could result in excess work. Over the last two seven days, with her dragon in a routine any downtime Evi has had, she's spent reading. This evening is no different, but for the last half hour of her reading, she would tilt her head over at F'yr wrinkle her eyebrows and stare at Nei. This results in nothing. Turn a page, wrinkle an eyebrow, stare. Finally, after a few moments, she rises from the bed, swaying side to side. This is more attention then she's given anyone in months, the excessive staring alone as if somehow she might be trying to send messages to F'yr and not Neifeth. There's a childish glimmer to this; if you've ever watched a ten-year-old try and ask his mother for something, this is similar.
Though some dragons may be deterred by wet weather or mud, Glorioth (predictably) is bothered by neither. These are simply the conditions for his next epic adventure and he will meet them, greet them and best them with his best booming, « AHAHAHAHA HAHAH! » and « ONWAAAAAAaaaaAAAaaaaaAAARD! »s. And lucky F'yr gets to do these things with him. Lucky, lucky F'yr. Of course, the bronze weyrling doesn't actually seem to mind, seen more often with a grin than a grimace now that his ribs are actually healing and never being one to mind mud, wet or muck to begin with. Glorioth is definitely guilty of providing a large portion of the mud that gets tracked in, though certainly not all of it. He did it again not long ago, weaving with his protests of not being tired and being lured by his rider with promises of a deadly foe in his very wallow if only the bronze could root it out. And sure, that meant some destroyed cushions, but it got the bronze sleeping where he's supposed to sleep when his hard crash finally came. The weyrling man in question has recently finished with the extra work in cleaning and oiling that this has resulted in, and is just padding back toward his wallow, kneeling by his press to root around when Evi makes her approach. He, of course, is wholly oblivious to all the eying he's gotten, subsumed as he has been for so much of these first two months in the extensive needs of his own self-absorbed lifemate. At least it doesn't look like he plans to put these moments alone to immediate use as sleep even if that must be in his plans. The sole advantage to Glorioth's erratic sleep schedule with long crashes is that although they're not predictable, F'yr is probably getting longer chunks of sleep than many others are, even now as sleep schedules are starting to be less future fable and more proof in the pudding.
All of Glorioth's antics are not missed by Neifeth, who rumbles her discontent about half the time. Many a day is filled with the sharp, sarcastic, biting feminine tongue of Neifeth demanding ANSWERs in a trickle of purple trees and crimson grasses, «Twigs for brains.» This phrase has been uttered with such frequency Evi does not respond anymore, not a twitch or a sigh, not a look. Fully accepting that «Twigs for brains» is Glori's nickname. All things considered, Evi still gets less sleep then the average, the demands of feeding a young hunter prolongs the feeding process by at least two hours every day "NOW. Ask now. Speak. Talk ?" She says over towards Nei, hissing it at her in a mock whisper. Being attached to the mercurial green has subtly changed Evi's tone of voice, sharpening it, and the innocent lost sound of Candidacy has become demanding, occasionally even pushy. After a solid minute staring at her lifemate, frowning and glowering, a deep breath is taken, and her attention is all on F'yr. "Um." Her eyes travel the room, slowly looking over everything, "Would you um. Be willing to." Nei huffs,«Mine wishes to know if you will hit her with a book.» The words coming with the faintest trickle of pine and sparkle of green. The young weaver girl turns back from F'yr and exhales loudly with her mouth open at her lifemate, an over-exaggerated sigh. "Um." There's a blankness to her expression now, lips pursing as she simply stares at F'yr totally unprepared for this talk."She got book right, at least." A wry smile when speaking of her lifemate as her eyes drift to the ceiling, and she stands a hands length from the bronze weyrling's bunk.
If Neifeth were hoping for more than twigs, she hit the wrong target. At least the blond head whips around at not the first 'um,' or the couple of words that could be directed to anyone, but the dragon's interjection. F'yr looks to the mercurial green first and her rider second, brows dipping down. "I don't hit people with books." See? It runs in the pair, Neifeth. Granted, not always this half. He does hit people, but not with books, generally, and not even hitting people since impression given his cracked ribs. The perplexed expression goes from dragon to lifemate again before those brows go up in silent inquiry. What is going on here? If necessary, he'll add a, "What's up?" in invitation for Evi to enlighten him. Thankfully, Twigs For Brains (Dragon Edition) stays deeply asleep in that wallow, probably dreaming of things far more ferocious and less fraught than this conversation may yet prove.
"We are working on that, you have a book and um." Evi babbles everything out much too fast, halting abruptly with her Um and widening her eyes with eyebrows up, chin pulling down and to the right giving her head a slight cock. "You know Nei is green, right?" Moving around to the side of the cot and settling down on the floor with only a momentary sigh for the mud that she is sitting on. Weyrlinghood has changed her, that much is easy to see. In a whisper, now looking up at F'yr from her odd position on the floor. "Nei is green, and that means she is going to…" Both hands go together, thumbs twisting around to make a hand puppet dragon, fingers flap, like makeshift wings, and she flutters them up above her head. Leaning forward on her knees, she tilts her head to the right and perches her chin near the bottom edge of the bunk. Neifeth cuts in «Can't you just say Penis? PENIS PENIS PENIS.» A golden flash of citrus, tiny lights dancing around her words and showing that she finds this all the height of funny. Evi closes her eyes tightly, "I. Um. I." Yep, Nei has broken her.
F'yr shifts on his knees where he lingers by the press at the foot of his cot, a towel still resting on its inside edge keeping the lid from closing entirely. He tracks the younger weyrling's movements with his eyes, although her first two sentences this time are met with successive slight narrowing of his eyes until he's sort of squinting at her, obviously both unsure of where this is going and just how concerned he ought to be about wherever that is. He grows still as Evi engages in her gesticulating explanations and for once, he's there before Neifeth cuts in. His eyes are closed and his cheeks are changing color. It's probably one of those 'I'm not having this conversation' moments that denies the surreal. He opens his eyes and Evi is still there and Neifeth is very articulately ensuring that everyone knows just what is being talked about. He looks up and toward where there's usually a staff member around in case the weyrling's need something, because maybe just this minute, F'yr needs an adult. But the staff member is otherwise engaged in a quiet discussion with Ri'tah, the youngest weyrling by turns and that causes a different crease in his brow to appear. So while there isn't a real adult to deal with this younger-but-not-youngest weyrling, he'll have to fake it. He draws a deep and steadying breath before looking at the other weyrling. Maybe he tries to channel Ajral. Maybe it works because he manages to keep his voice even. "She's not entirely wrong. Being able to say the words helps. Both with talking about it when you need to talk about it and to make it less scary." He swallows hard because none of that makes this conversation any less hard or less awkward. His hands shift to the edge of his press and fingers drum there, letting some of the nervous energy escape. "So…" He tries for casual, for normal, he even manages, largely, as he says, "You're concerned about flights? I don't think we have to learn about all that for months yet." Thankfully.
"I don't WANT to say the words, I don't want to think about *ANY* of it." Evi responds with passion, eyes squinting open, and voice impassioned. "I've um-." Quiet, her eyes going to F'yr and following his gaze to where the weyrlingstaff is, "Nei is not concerned about flights, at all. She can't grasp the concept like I tried to explain it once and she was pretty sure no one would ever catch her," «They won't.», she interjects with a sharp burnt smell, her mind smug and superior. "But. I've not even. No one's ever." Brown-green eyes focus on F'yrs face with intensity, grimacing at his current color but continuing. "No ones kissed me, I mean, not really. Nei um, she wants that to happen… soon? She doesn't like the idea of anyone touching me, but she thinks I should start… kissing." Opening her mouth and mock gagging, but making no sound, not that the sound of Evi gagging would be new to anyone in the weyrling barracks. The first month of Neifeth's life was spent near puking every feeding, as the young green was an aggressive feeder on the best of days and a vicious predator on the worst. "I um- well, I've tried to tell her it's against the rules, but. She spends most of her time telling me that rules weren't really meant for us." That being an entirely different issue. Obviously, Evi says it so easily as if it's not even a problem that her lifemate has no sense of justice. Maybe Glori got all the justice in the womb. Leaving none for poor Neifeth. So we settled on maybe getting you to loan me um… you had some um. Well, you know, you had like, those um." Unable to say it out loud, she spells it in sign language, S-e-x C-a-r-d-s. "Borrow?" Somehow fingerspelling is far more comfortable than actual words, but she winces, "I um… the other day, someone." Her inability to form coherent sentences seems to stop her, too young, too embarrassed.
One more look to the staff member on duty shows there's no end of discussion in sight so F'yr clears his throat and resigns himself. This is happening. Here it goes. Sure, his face is red, but that can't be helped. "Well, you don't have to say the words. As far as I know, flights are what they are. I'd rather be prepared. The last thing I'd want is to hurt someone or get hurt myself because I didn't learn what I should ahead of time. Some of that's the words, whether you say them or not." He glances toward the green and then back to Evi, a slight frown pulling his lips down at the edges. "I think you need to do things when you're ready, but there is a finite amount of time before Neith would… will fly." He shrugs his shoulders slightly at that undeniable truth. Drum drum go his big fingers on the wood of the press. He doesn't get into Glorioth's peculiar interpretation for justice or how it's already been witnessed (repeatedly, frequently) that he doesn't care about the rules at all either, like that time he literally tried to break into the Caverns by trying to break down the doors. If there was true justice to be divided among the eggs, it went to someone else, not Glorioth for all of his claims and certainty of the contrary. That is a barrel of issues that isn't immediately relevant. What is relevant is, his glance down at the press and his shake of his heads. "I don't have the cards anymore." He doesn't explain that the deck is scattered through many files in the Weyrleaders' office, because that also is not relevant here and now. He presses his lips together briefly. "The healers suggested to me that the best way to learn was to do it. They did give me a book to borrow, but some of the terms are in healer-ese which is much more complicated than sign language and the pictures are explicit." He might be red in the face but at least he's candid about the contents so there's no misunderstanding if he ends up loaning it to the younger candidate. He furrows his brows, "Is there anyone you know and trust who would know what they're doing with all of this?"
Neifeth seems to be rousing further, her mind pressing into the conversation but not actually SAYING anything, the only sign of her mental presence is the background of cerulean forest floor, that endless abyss of golden sky and bright orange grasses. For all of Evi's outward brightness, in her clothes, in her personality, Nei's harmony to her is the overwhelming presence of color. Instead of using words, she seems to be more, overseeing this talk from her place on the couch. "The thought of having," A hand waves in small circles in front of her face, somehow indicating a word unsaid, "With… anyone? Like. ANYONE? I have several hundred cousins." The real chance of ending up with one of her relatives has passed through her mind, she probably would not be the first. "I think technical is ok; I… Have to start somewhere." Neifeth decides to share something with F'yr alone, the task is hard enough to do for her as she's been avoiding sending anyone ANYTHING at all. Literally, any message sent to Nei is never passed on, she's the worst. That lack of practice shows, as she probes forward, SHOCKINGLY softly towards F'yr. The smell is vanilla, spicey, and musky. The first picture sent of a huge bronze dragon, but not the whole dragon, only his giant leg blocking most of Nei from view. You can only see her tail, the image is a still picture. A snapshot of a single moment. It's obvious she's pulling images from Evi's mind, things Evi is thinking about while she speaks of this subject. The next picture is of a boy, blue eyes, tall and gangly, sandy brown hair, and he is in sharp living color. As if somehow, Nei possibly being crushed by a bronze was not memorable, but this man was. Evi's hand is next to his, sitting on a bright blue scarf. "No one, I've… never liked anyone. At least, not really. My family would laugh, I um. If you have the book, we can never speak of this again. I'll take good care of it."Wiggling a little and scooting herself back so she might be able to stand and flee at a moment's notice.
It requires clarification. That's why F'yr carefully says, "The words are technical. The illustrations are explicit, and really more than you need if your concern is flights. I don't think it's the right thing to start with, Evi, really." Pernese Kama Sutra would probably be a skosh overwhelming when Evi's interest in sex sounds like it is nonexistent. "Maybe you should wait to think about it all if your interest isn't there. I know your lifemate has concerns," she said as much, "but you have months and months yet before it becomes relevant and learning enough not to get hurt is the work of hours, I think." His eyes flick briefly in Neifeth's direction. There's nothing apparent in his mind for the green to pick up in return; maybe it's just twigs in there, or maybe he just would speak aloud if he had anything to say. "My mum always said interest in people, that way comes to everyone at different ages. Maybe you just don't have it yet." His mum clearly doesn't live in a world where interest like that might never come, but she certainly has the spread of ages and genders to garner quite the insight from as one of the chief matrons in the clan of farmers back home. "A couple of months, that might change. I went from not noticing anyone like that to noticing in the difference of four months, one turn. I think I was about your age, so maybe it will come if you don't rush yourself. Making yourself think about something that's gross to you now isn't going to endear the process to you later." He raises his hands in helpless supplication. "I can see if there's something simpler. A better book for beginners." He suggests after a moment. "Aja said she had a contact back at the hall who teaches anatomy and could get me a basics book that I asked for, general anatomy that is. But maybe he could track down something more basic. I think there's a few of us that could use the weyrling-friendly version of things." Surely such books exist somewhere.
Evi sighs dramatically, pushing herself off the floor and brushing as much dried mud off of her skirt as she can easily reach. "Nei… is Nei. She doesn't want me interested but prepared. I um- I need to 'get over it." In a fantastic mimic of her lifemates snappy rude tones, the voice smarmy and higher-pitched then Evi's typically is. "Get over it Evi, why worry so much." Again mimicking Nei, scrunching her nose and whining quietly from her throat, the sad, lost puppy sound that F'yr has heard a few times before. "If um, you actually do get in contact with Ajral. I um, I could use her." Biting down on her bottom lip and staring at the floor, Neifeth rumbles unhappily, the sound close to a hiss. At the prompting from her lifemate, she stands up straighter, fake it until you make it, looks him dead in the face. Every line in her body is stiff, almost formal. "Thank you for this talk F'yr, if you get a book that might be of use, let me know. " Eyes glaze over and then close, eyebrows knitting together almost in pain, straining to hear something. "My current interest in- Nei. Nooo." Shaking her head, it's almost as if the green is attempting to guide her partner through the rest of this talk. "Any book would be great, maybe a guide to kissing? Or? Meeting someone to kiss?" Throwing her hands up, she slides herself into the aisle, "Everything about how Nei eats disgusts me, she knows this. So if " DEEP BREATH, the smallest whisper, "sex also does, then it's the same, in Nei-land." There's a tone to this to indicate that is all the counts, Nei-land might still be superseding any of Evi's feelings or thoughts. "I have to kiss someone by the end of next month. She's very goal-oriented." Speaking of kissing as if it was that easy to plan.
"Neith is your lifemate and I'm not going to presume to tell you anything about how your relationship should be with her or what's right for you." But. "It's okay to not be ready for things. That's part of learning, the not knowing. It's not always comfortable, but it's not a bad thing." He looks toward the green who can ignore him if she wishes, but that's as much for Neifeth as it is for her rider. "It's also normal to worry. They're not going to fail us though. Our teachers. They'll make sure we have what we need to know by the time that it matters. I trust them." The 'don't you?' is loudly implicit. "I'll pass the word to Ajral when I see her next," which may not be for a while, but F'yr doesn't need to add to the greenrider's worries. His lips press together as if there might be more he'd say, more that he'd explain, but he doesn't say or explain more on the topic of kissing or books. There is a nod for the matter of books so there's some assurance that he'll try to look into it, anyway. "You can talk to me again if you need to." Although a glance toward that yes-still-busy-but-definitely-more-adult-than-him staff member might also indicate that she has other resources at her disposal. At least he offered to be the adultiest adult if the need arises again.
"She is, she's the best." Evi's tone about her lifemate offers no room for argument, the sweet maternal smile she gives the dark, yet the bright monster child that she's bound too reaches her eyes, fills her whole body with more confidence and joy then F'yr has seen before. True happiness and the smallest, humm of unalloyed pleasure. Even if that wasn't what he meant, at least she gives a solemn nod. "Nei does not have much (any) faith in anyone but us, so. I might have to trust them because she's… well, she is not going to." It's that simple, she pauses to think over her words, and the side of her mouth tilts up in a grimace. Her tone is soft and kind, but there's a hardness beneath born of total conviction. Whatever Neifeth has sold her, she's bought all of it. "I um, I am going to see if Nei and I can work it out. Thank you, F'yr, that will be all." A formal nod to the bronzerider, the stiffness back as she walks upright and smooth with none of the wigglings that depicted her typical gait only two months prior. All of that practice with Nei holding her up is showing through. Bending down the girl's hand goes to her lifemates head, oblivious of the secrets shared. Neifeth gazes long at F'yr «You may ride bronze, but she is your better.» So sure, absolute conviction carried on the slight tang of mint. Also rude. She's nasty.
F'yr's eyes follow Evi briefly after the formal dismissal, his expression blank beyond any clue as to what goes on in that twiggy mind. He returns to his rummaging in his press and that might have been all save for Neifeth's last interjection. He speaks softly, but dragons do have good hearing, don't they? Glorioth does. He'd have heard it so maybe Neifeth will as well. "I hear her." Is that a judgment? A suggestion? An observation? A denial? It's really impossible to say because there's nothing there for Neifeth to pick out of the brain of the man who was right for another dragon just as Evi was somehow right for Neifeth herself. But F'yr never speaks pointless words if he can help them, so they must mean something, if she's smart enough to figure it out.