Xanadu Weyr - DragonHealer's Annex
An entrance way which would allow admittance to even the greatest of Queen Dragons leads into a chamber which would house half-a-dozen of the same size. To one side is a shallow pool which constantly clears itself of grime and is used is washing wounds. Nearby is a shelf with a generous supply of clean bandages and clean sheets upon stone shelves. The other side of the chamber is taken up by an alcove with multiple banks of computers to house medical records and help to diagnose illness and injury in the Dragons who come for aid. Within this alcove is a small medical laboratory where medicines and herbs can be prepared and experiments can take place. The far wall houses two dozen Dragon couches, each separated above by a rail which supports a thick curtain allowing the patients an option of privacy as they rest and recover.
It is going to be a good day! ka-el has gotten out of many things in his life, though always with some effort behind it. Today? Today was like .. effortless. He's not even sure why Sorrin did it, but he's not going to question his good fortune. Goodbye shoveling snow! Goodbye mucking personal stables! Goodbye snide looks from that irritating new Journeyman! And hello Ista with Soriana! He's already gone to the smiths and feigned ignorance of the note's contents. And now all he has left to do is get Sori on board. Looking uncharacteristically clean (he is a smith, after all), he enters the dragonhealer's annex with the note and letter slide carefully in the pocket of his jacket. After pausing to ask, he's pointed in the direction in which Soriana can be found.
The spot where Kale's been pointed is a back corner, where (if you squint) it almost seems like you're in the kitchens instead. There's a pair of electric burners, and a big pot on one of them, boiling away and sending up clouds of steam. Next to it is a counter, where Soriana wields a knife to chop reddish stalks into chunks and toss them in a bowl sitting next to the cutting board. Also, there's a kept-warm airpot of klah next to a rack of mugs.
Kale nods his thanks as he spies Soriana over there, doing something that must be super important to the advancement of dragon healing. He smirks a little, though the look is wiped away as he approaches her, eyeing the steaming pot with a note of curiosity. Soriana, cooking? He looks doubtful the closer he gets, tentatively sniffing to see if he can get a whiff of anything good. Soriana with a knife. He'd better keep a wide berth. He slows when reaching her and raises his brows. "I hadn't realized that with dragonhealing training came the skill of cooking. What is that you're making? Stew for dragons?"
There's, uh… a lingering smell of klah and antiseptic. And for the information of any shell-crunching smiths who might be acting smug, Soriana has taken entire lessons in cooking! Entire… ones of lessons, but it still counts. The pot itself seems to have nothing but water, to judge by the smell. Actually peering inside will reveal, well, water, but at the bottom of the water are bits of glass and metal, boiling merrily away. Sori looks up from her chopping (watchit, she's got a knife) at the sound of a voice, and grins when she sees it's Kale before rolling her eyes. "You want to eat it, be my guest," she says with a wave of her knife at the stalks. "Redwort. Chop it, soak it, boil it, strain it, add vinegar, bottle it, use it just about any time you touch anything if it's got the slightest chance of infection, oh wait, if there wasn't a chance of infection they wouldn't be your patient, so just use it on everything."
Oh, well that doesn't smell like stew at all. Or soup. Or any kind of boiling foodstuffs. Kale does look inside the pot at the unorganic contents within, brow lifting a bit. Well that's disappointing! Good thing he already had his breakfast this morning, eventually. "I'll pass.." he says, leaning away from the pot with a wrinkled nose. He eyes the redwort. Also not foodstuff, so equally as uninteresting as the boiling glass and metal bits, even if it is useful information she's bestowing upon him. "I'll keep that in mind. I'm glad I found you." He pauses, thinking the phrase over. "Ah, at least I'd say that if I came bearing exciting and good news. You've a moment to talk?" he asks as he leans against the counter a bit, wearing a solemn expression.
"Could be worse," says Soriana. "Could be numbweed. Now that's a horrible extraction process. Fortunately, they usually do it in the field… though dragonhealing sends along a few supervisors." She frowns the frown of being one of the most junior of the dragonhealers here, and thus the one picked for low-skill high-unpleasant tasks. Kersnick, kersnick goes her knife, cutting more chunks of redwort - her hands are faintly marked with red already - and then she pauses, lifting her eyebrows. "Ye-e-es?"
One day soon, Soriana will have her moment in the sun! But for now … yes. It's redwort chopping for her. Kale knows the feeling. Even now, two and some months turns into his apprenticeship, he still finds himself doing mind-numbing work! But at least there are some rewards sprinkled in here and there. "So…" he says, voice sounding cautious. "I..ran into your mother today. Not literally. But she.." he pauses, brows furrowing, "she has this look about her, you know? A sort of, glared sort of… angry look? Have you seen it? It's frightening, really." He squares his shoulders. "She wanted to talk. Y'know in the turns I've known you, I don't think I've ever really spoken to your mother before?"
Someone's gotta do it, and today, that someone's gotta be Soriana. Sigh. She remains where she is, listening for Kale's report of such importance that it has brought him here. The mention of her mother gets a nod. She is, on the face of it, unconcerned by her mother and her boy meeting. That's probably a good sign. As this look is described, she tilts her head. "The one where she frowns, or the one where she just looks at you like her eyes have turned into thread and if you don't watch out they'll get you?" She still doesn't sound worried. After all, she's had turns and turns and turns (almost sixteen of them) to learn her mother's looks and what they mean. The next bit, though, makes her huh. "You hadn't?" she says, and her expression gets thoughtful, then turns to a sigh. "I guess she's still busy a lot. We used to have a lot more time, back at the cothold." The distant past is considered wistfully, and then she drags herself back to the present. "So what'd you talk about?"
"The thread one," confirms Kale with a nod. "And she ensnared me with it. It's a miracle I didn't die on the spot." He pauses and shudders, apparently at the memory of the lethal look he endured! "We talked about … well, you." He exhales and turns so that his back presses against the edge of the countertop, elbows soon leaning after. "I've never spoken to a mother before. Not about like…dating or whatever. Even my own ma .. well, we didn't really speak about things like that. I don't think she likes thinkin' of me with a girl. You know. Little boy forever. My dad though.." He snerks, but then waves his hand dismissively. "Anyway. We talked about you, and I don't think she likes me much. In fact, she made it pretty clear that if I were to be seen around you and bothering you, Yumeth would have the honor of tasting the fleshmeat of a smith."
"Oh, it's like… obstacle courses for the will," says Soriana of that look. "And you seem to still be in one piece." Though she does look him up and down, just to make sure there's no limbs falling off or anything. As he reveals the topic of conversation, she blinks. "Me?" she says, then ahs a moment later as she realizes that, yes, that does actually make sense. Quite a bit of sense, actually. It's full of sensibleness, so she nods, then sets the knife on the edge of the board so she doesn't have to keep holding it. "Well, I mean, it was bound to happen eventually. Y'know, unless you dated entirely girls whose mothers were halfway across Pern. Really, even then." She gives that idea a more serious consideration than it really merits, then smirks about Kale's description of his own parents before going on to tilt her head at the rest of the conversation report. "Yumeth," says Soriana, "-would get indigestion." Way to defend the boyfriend there! And then, entirely serious, Sori adds, "She'll come around. I mean, if she actually hated you, she would have gotten you reassigned to High Reaches or something."
"Yumeth wouldn't know she'd get indigestion until I'm already digested. Lesson learned a little too late," remarks Kale with lifted brows. "She may listen to you though. You could tell her that before the threat happens because there's no way I'm keeping away from you, even if your mother is a junior weyrwoman." He pauses there, eyes momentarily shifting from her. "And I think she knew that," he adds as he slides his hand into the pocket of his jacket, pulling out a slip of folded paper to hold up between two fingers. His alleged reassignment "I don't know how far High Reaches is from here exactly. Never had much reason to study maps, but it isn't Xanadu," says with a growing frown. "I'm to be gone by morning. Word's already been sent to the smiths there, else I'd stall. I wanted to…I guess.. just say goodbye."
Soriana starts with a smirk, and then her eyebrows rise… and then a little further. Kale's pretty good as an actor. The Harper Hall missed a good leading man when he chose the smithcraft instead. Unfortunately for the success of his act this time, Soriana knows her mother. Would Sorrin pull those sorts of strings? Yes. Would she do it without talking to her daughter first? No. Therefore, Soriana smirks again as she reaches out for the paper. "Better be quick about it," she says. "Fallian isn't going to be amused if the pot boils dry and the redwort's still chunky."
She doesn't even care! Kale is leaving, leaving Xanadu for what is certain to be turns! TURNS! And what does she do? She smirks. Oh, he should totally leave. That will teach her to show proper woe and heartbrokenness! But really leaving would mean really not being here, which would result in him really missing her, and.. meh. He allows the paper to be plucked from his fingers, and he heaves a low sigh once it's out of his grasp. "Fallian will have to get over it, for this is my final goodbye. I shouldn't have to rush it. This is destined to be my last memoy of Xanadu. My last memory … of you." Oh yes, the harpers should've snagged this one. "Redwort and water can be replaced. But we'll only have this last moment once." A hand is lifed to touch the back of his fingers to her hair.
Soriana flips open the paper. "Technically," she says, "Your last memory is going to be of the ground beneath you as you get on a dragon. At least, if you're to be there anytime before winter. Their winter, that is." A pause. "Though I suppose the slow journey would increase the pathos… and you might get shipwrecked or something and be gone for good. Okay then, your last memory is of the ship leaving harbour. I'll be sure to stand on the dock and wave a handkerchief… maybe use it to blot a few tears." She grins, not taking this anywhere near as seriously as it obviously deserves. If anything, she's getting less serious about it… probably because she knows Kale, too, and she knows he's not anywhere near this lucid about actual bad stuff. He'd be monosyllabic and looking away… well, that, or they'd already be in the middle of an epic final makeout. Either way, but she lets his fingers brush her hair as she lowers her eyes to that page and reads the dark, tragic, horrible news.
"There'd better be more than a few tears. I'm expecting rivers of them. A thunderstorm of grief. A flood of sadness." Puh. A few tears. But if Kale was really trying to keep up his act at this point, he'd be wholly failing due to the grin that's showing itself. It's obvious she's not believing him anyway, for if she was … ther'd be a flood of tears filling the annex by this time, and she'd be babbling uncontrollably! Or something like that. He glances to the paper as she begins to read, and his grin grows a little as he leans over to brush his lips to her cheek briefly. "Awful, isn't it?" he asks, lingering close. "Couldn't believe it when I read it myself. How could she do this to us? She's so heartless."
One of these days, Kale will actually get Soriana with one of these, and then… well, then neither Yumeth or Sorrin will be required, because Sori will kill him herself. (Or engage in epic makeouts. Those should always be an option, final or no.) She reads through the page, and then she's got a grin of her own. The kiss certainly doesn't hurt with that, either. "Oh, definitely," she agrees, and then tilts her head with a little kiss straight for the lips. "But, I mean, we've hardly got a choice. What can we do?" Her hand goes to her heart, stricken. "We'll just have to suffer through. Somehow. And someone else will have to chop this redwort." She grins wider as she adds, "…probably Deterik."
Yes, epic makeouts should always be an option. And they shall! So it has been decided. That kiss of hers has him grinning, and he leans in heavily, likely seeking more of that, but he soon remembers where he is. Even with a note exusing her from work today, sucking her face in front of everyone with a pair of eyes to see likely isn't the best of ideas. So he refrains. Barely. Besides, he has all the time in the world of that on Ista, where there's nobody hovering to tell them what not to do! The thought of that resparks excitement that's seen in his eyes. "You're right. We don't really have a choice, do we? Even if the redwort stays there, forgotten and unchopped, it's hardly our fault." He grabs for her free hand. "C'mon. Go show that to whoever you need to show that to so we can get out of here. I've got you all to myself today." Cue devilish look. "And I've only been to Ista once."
Freedom and open beaches! Ista has beaches, yes. And… freedom! Soriana grins, and adds another quick lip-brush, if perhaps not the all out full on… things they might get up to on those free and open beaches. Her fingers curl around Kale's, and she nods. "Oh, yes. We shouldn't make the mailrider wait." She is, at least, responsible enough to check on the water level of the pot (still good) before heading off to find a serious-looking woman making notes on a clipboard and present her the note of excuse along with saying, "The syringes are boiling, they've been in half an hour." Because, really, if those boil dry there won't be anyone happy around here for days… maybe even sevens… and she doesn't want to come back to that. The note of excuse gets a raised brow, a momentary stare at Soriana, and then a sigh. Fallian hands it back, and waves at them dismissively. Go on, you kids.
Kale is a model citizen as Soriana takes care of things that need to be taken care of. The water. Giving her report on the syringes. He doesn't release her hand even then, merely keeping himself near enough to her side that hand holding could possibly be overlooked. And when they're given the go ahead, the inner child in himself says 'Yipee!!' A grin is shared with Soriana before, after nodding to Fallian, he steps off with her, beaming as images already make themselves in his head. Lounging. Relaxing. Doing absolutely nothing together. Eating new foods. Finding new pla- .. ah, who is he kidding. He only has one thing on his mind, and it's not eating food. Does Sorrin really know just what she's done? "I know the mail's landed already. It's probably flying out pretty soon by now." He gives her a sidelong look followed by a smirk. "Vacation. Your mom shardin' loves me." Beam! And they're off.