Xanadu Weyr - Observation Level
Dark blue seats form a semi-circle around the sands below, the lowest row separating from the sands themselves by merely a railing. The seats climb upwards, each row a bit higher then the previous, and they are broken up into sections by 3 sets of staircases. Lights are evenly spaced along the outer wall, lighting the seats and the sands easily, though they tend to be dimmed unless a major event is taking place. A large balcony looms overhead, darkening some of the seats, providing a place for observers of the draconic kind to watch without obstructing the view for others.
When one looks over the railing, the oddly hued sand below can be seen easily, the circle-shaped area of the sands spread out to the far walls, the sand itself a unique mixture of red and white grains.
When there's a clutch on the sands it's not unusual to find one or other of the clutchparent's riders in the galleries keeping an eye the eggs, and more importantly the dragons. What is unusual is when one of those riders appears to have taken up residence, and has his splinted right leg propped up on a chair. To one side of R'sul is the remains of his dinner, on the other is a stack of reports. Both are currently being ignored in favour of a firelizard in need of an oiling.
Orla makes her way up into the observation level of the hatching arena, a spare few moments on her time by the looks of it. She's looking a bit more comfortable in her newer clothes and she has a satchel slung over her shoulder as she wanders along the gallery to offer up a salute to R'sul. "Hi there sir. Do you mind if I sit and do a bit of work up here?" She asks him.
R'sul startles, looking around guiltily. Orla's given a quick once over, her knot noted, and a look of relief comes onto his face. "So long as your work doesn't involved me having to do anything, then you're welcome." For a moment it looks like he's not going to say anything more, then his manners get the better of him. "Congratulations, by the way. Who brought you in?"
Orla slings her bag off her shoulder and sets it down on one of the seats before she sits herself down next to it. "Thanks and no it won't involve you doing anything, though I may need to clean up a bit after myself. I don't think that'll quite count." She tells him with a slight grin as she opens the satchel and pulls out a largish sheet of hide that she lays on the floor at her feet. "A pregnant brownrider, I think her name was Senkyou. Her dragon looked like it wanted to eat me." She shakes her head and pulls out a block of wood and a small knife. "A delivery gone wrong perhaps, but either way here I am?"
"They do that a lot." R'sul replies with a clight chuckle, "Looking like they want to eat you. never been a recorded case of it, though. Well unless you count hatchings, but even then they don't actually do much eating. There was one clutch, Fort I think, where a candidate did get slightly nibbled on but nothing lasting…." He trails off as it sinks in that he's been babbling. "Well… um… welcome anyway. Settling in okay?" Oiling over, Hanama doesn't even give Orla a glance, she simply jumps from R'sul's lap and flits down to sit on Hesketh.
Orla nods her head a touch as she listens to the weyrleader babble on. "I'd rather hope there wasn't any cases, it'd make the offer to stand a little bit more of a lottery and much less of an honour I would have thought." She teases him ever so slightly, testing the waters perhaps to see how much she can get away with. "I'm getting there, I’m more used to working in the Lemos valley, it's normally pretty warm there being so close to the Igen desert but it's a much drier heat there as opposed to the wet heat here if that makes any sense at all?" She looks over at him and grins. "If it doesn't make sense then I’m probably suffering from heat stroke or something." She explains as she shifts the block of wood about in her hands.
R'sul grins back, though it takes him a moment to catch on to the fact that she's teasing. "You'd be surprised the cases of oddness you can find if you look hard enough, there's even been cases of Impressees having to be… never mind that, not something to be talking about to a new candidate, you'll get enough of that from the others. if any of them start in on the tale of the candidate eating eggs, then it's not true." He pauses to cork the pot of oil, shifting awkwardly to half-drop half-place it on the ground under his leg. "I've never really spent much time at Igen, I find it gives me a headache. Probably the heat." His attempt at joking back is rather lame, rather like the weyrleader himself currently, but at least he makes an attempt.
Orla shakes her head with a laugh rising from her throat, it's definitely a hearty laugh. "I think you'd probably have a dead candidate and a very … annoyed gold if someone tried to eat any of the eggs." She was definitely about to say something else there but it was changed to 'Annoyed' after a brief pause, manners she does have them. "It's a strange place, they sleep through lunchtime, it's not natural, but again it's too sharding hot to do anything then as well." She adds before a quick glance down at the wood and she starts to pare little strips away from the block. "How about you, It must be stifling in here all the time, the hot sands as well as the way this area is anyway?"
R'sul chuckles. "Other way round, the eggs eating the candidates. When I was collecting stories a couple of turns back I think I found the origin of it, but then who knows with these things." He nods, moving slightly so that he can turn and look at her properly now that his lap is no longer full, "It's not as bad as you might think, though I do seem to fall asleep a lot. Though that might just be because they bring me only the boring reports now they know I can't run away from them." A quick pause then he adds, "What're you making?"
Orla gives a gusty roar at that one, startling a pair of small firelizards into appearing nearby. The little blue quite obviously scolding her with his chittering, the green on the other hand is eerily silent showing her agitation at being disturbed. With a soothing gesture from Orla the pair of them calm down quickly enough before she turns an apologetic smile on R'sul. "Sorry about that, my pair often get startled like that with loud noises, I guess I laugh louder in my mind than I do out loud." And that is quite an achievement given the volume that she laughed at. She lifts the block of wood and shows it to R'sul in all it's blocky glory with some slices missing from a corner. "It will eventually be a dragon carving, based on Kilaueth wrapped protectively round a small clutch of eggs."
Down on the sands Hesketh lifts his head at the noise from the galleries, peering up at R'ul and Orla until he deems them not a threat and settles back down again. R'sul, in the meantime, searches his head for something to say about the block of wood. Anything to say. Eventually he settles on, "I'm sure it'll be lovely. You're not going to carve the candidates as well are you?"
Orla chuckles at that. "I'm glad you didn't say it was nice just now, I'd be wondering what I'd gotten myself into if you had." She's teasing again, all good naturedly though. "I'll stick to just this, I’m not likely to have much free time to indulge myself I’m sure, though who knows what'll happen with this survival camp thing that's being planned. It sounds wonderful, I’m sure my lovely northern flesh will prove a nice tasty treat for the bug life round here." She mutters. "I might get time to work on it there depending how busy they keep us." She replies as she goes back to paring down the block to the right size and a very rough shape.
R'sul dips his head slightly, and if that wasn't enough of a clue that he nearly had then the bright red tinge that his neck takes on would definitely give it away. "The… um… survival camp should be fun, just remember and take your knife with you. I'd expect you'll end up having to takeover the shelter building or something." His eyes keep straying to her hands as she works, curiosity fighting with manners, "I'll not be going to the camp this clutch, another two sevendays in this splint minimum. Besides, getting him to move just now is about as easy as teaching a tunnelsnake to talk."
Orla grins when she sees the red tinge but leaves the poor man alone, it wouldn't be a good plan to do that to the weyrleader just yet, instead she concentrates on her carving. "Quite possibly, my speciality at the hall is construction, I've been doing it officially for a good couple of turns under my own supervision. Lemos valley was my stomping ground for that though, I've heard a lot about the properties of the trees you have on the southern continent but I've not really had much of a chance yet to go exploring and see for myself. A lot of the newer structures down here seem to have been made out of that plastic stuff, we don't get an awful lot of that used for construction up my way so it's all pretty new." She looks up at Hesketh when he's mentioned, her knife still working away, the small curls of wood falling onto the hide she had laid at her feet. "Will he stay there until they hatch? other than hunting?" She checks of him. If she's seen him watching her hands then she doesn't comment.
R'sul nods slowly, "I suppose when your craft is wood then things like that tend to be put to one side, though for windows?" He pauses a moment to let her answer, then glances down towards the sands. "He's very protective, overly so really. He'll leave if we really have to but he claims it's his duty and there's no shifting that from his head. He's big on duty."
Orla nods her head. "We don't have the facilities for making it in the north, or at least not in the kind of size and quantities that'd make it useful for construction work." She replies while she continues to pare away at the block, which still devoid of any detail looks like a misshapen lump of wood. "Duty is a good thing, makes life easier in the long run I suppose."
"Well, that's debatable." R'sul replies quietly, "Sometimes it's the very thing you want to run away from. I don't know about Niva, but I could certainly do with getting away from the weyr now and then, especially just now. But duty calls and all that, and at least I get fed up here." He grins, trying to lighten the mood again.
Orla smiles and continues with her carving. "I suppose it could be at times, I've never encountered anything that's made me want to run away from yet. Though I hear you have big wild felines down here, anything smaller I'm pretty sure my little fair should be able to see off." She replies with a smile. "Problem is that you can't run away from it just now can you, or at least if you do it won't exactly be very fast will it." She says with a grin.
R'sul laughs, "Don't get any ideas about bringing a feline to see how fast I can move, he can move faster than I ever will." He glances down at his leg, scowling at it for a moment. "The timing could have been better for it, I'll give you that. Still it means the candidates have a built in excuse for lingering up here. They've just come to keep me company after all."
Orla grins, "I'll store that one away for another day I think." She says with a cheeky wink at him. "Though depending how long you're stuck here for, there is the possibility you'll end up getting pretty grumpy." She tells him with a smile. "Though you don't quite seem the type."
"Don't let the smile fool you, I can do grumpy." R'sul replies with a bit of a grin, "Though don't tell anyone or you might ruin my reputation." He shifts slightly, butt going to sleep from sitting in the one position for too long. "Hopefully it'll only be another sevenday or so. I managed to persuade them to let me out of my weyr after three instead of four, so… hopefully. Before the hatching for definite."
With a definite grin showing through Orla laughs at that. "I'll try and remember that." She tells him as she lays the block down on the seat next to her, tucking the knife away in its pouch within the satchel. "Are you wanting anything? I don't know about you, but the heat in this place is making me far too thirsty."
R'sul's blush returns for a moment, "I… um… I don't suppose you could maybe see about getting a cushion sent up? Or even just get one from the stores maybe? It's all very well sitting with one leg raised, but it's not the most comfortable of things."
Orla bobs her head as she gets up. "That should be doable, I know where the stores are by now, I had to get some new clothes when I got here. None of my stuff was suitable for this kind of heat other than my pretty summer dress, and that wasn't suitable for doing any kind of chores in." She shrugs at that and wanders off along the gallery and out to go fetch the stuff.