Bathing Pools, High Reaches Weyr
Omnipresent clouds of steam slink across the tops of three naturally warm pools, set into the floor of this kidney-shaped cavern. Near the entrance the ceiling is high and polished, gleaming with little mineral specks as it sweeps downward into increasingly ragged, uneven steps. The foremost of the pools is squared off with wide steps leading down into the water and has faucets for bringing in cooler water from a rain-catching cistern. Primarily used for laundry, there's an almost constant film of suds along its surface until the circulating current clears it at the end of the day. Four sinks line the nearest wall and various tubs stored beneath allow for the washing of delicates. Laundry bags can be dropped off in the bins near the door and clean, folded laundry is stacked in rows of tall cubbies for easy pickup.
The bend in the cavern leads to a rougher-hewn part of the chamber where the two circular bathing pools welcome those in need of a wash. Towels and washcloths are kept in neat stacks on shelves along the wall, along with sacks of sweetsand and a few bars of precious soap. Stone benches provide a place for sitting to remove shoes and clothing, while a row of gleaming brass hooks stand above, ready to hold clothes and robes.
It's a human condition: on a long enough time line, everyone begins to smell. Even H'kons. The small man isn't too obvious, though he isn't hidden. He's just one of a few of the Weyr's residents in the pools, taking a breath, gathering hand-cups of water up and over his head until he's sure his face is well-rinsed, and only then ducking underneath to resurface promptly. The rinse is done. The repeat is unnecessary. After a quick pressing to the swollen flesh around one eye, the brownrider moves on, reaching for the soapsand he's got on the edge of the pool, and setting to his shoulders.
Indeed, one does inevitably begin to stink, and as one of the Weyr's more cleanly residents, Alida can be found padding into the bathing cavern to scrub such stench from her too-fair hide after a bout of clearing accumulated sleet and sloppy snow-leftovers from around the Crafter's area. Thankfully, everyone in here has left the a-social woman alone on former jaunts, so the guard enters without her near-habitual stare or readiness to flee, ready to enjoy a nice, warming soak hwile getting clean. A bag of soapsand is nabbed up by long fingers, and soon the palest blonde is disrobing amongst the thick, moving clouds of mist and steam, and stepping gingerly down into eveloping, liquid warmth.
H'kon is hardly one to look much at others in the baths. If Alida is near him, chances are he notices her only by virtue of peripheral vision, and that only leads to his turning a shoulder in her direction, and focusing on the task at hand. Or maybe that's not Alida at all. His left arm lifts, as if to stretch out the back of it, but it's not stretching H'kon has in mind. He splashes a bit of water, mixed with soapsand, up into his armpit, and sets to scrubbing fiercely.
The scent of clean and smelly bodies alike wafts upon the air, though thankfully the latter is only temporary. Alida is one of such, and *as* such, leaves a trail of acridity and pheremones behind her...perhaps to assault the semi-nearby H'kon with. Her long hair unbound and quickly sucking up water as she wades into a pool, Alida soon enough finds herself engaged in the ritual of cleanliness, Act One: self-saturation. A quick, deep breath allows the blonde to duck beneath the surface of the piping warm waters while she drags fingers though her locks to completely wet them. After about ten seconds, a sudden loud SPLASH! up to the surface presages her quick and delighted intake of air as she feels the invigorating effects of the warm water on her body and mind.
The irritated turn of his head in Alida's direction is not early enough to be on account of any bodily smells - besides, aren't those common enough in a Weyr, in the baths? - nor is it late enough to be for that breath. It's right in between, at that splash of hers, that he turns. Those eyebrows, the one eye that can be opened, closed, made expressive, are undoubtedly disparaging. But he doesn't dwell; the social censure is kept brief, and then he's after the other armpit.
The feeling of being watched overcomes Alida when the unseen H'kon glares at her through the thick mists, the young woman's hairs on her wet nape prickling some. Disliking such an alert from her instincts while she's vulnerable, the palest-blonde lifts her left hand to the hilt of a small, sheathed knife dangling from a cord at her neck, while stalking slowly around in a concentric, death-spiral circle towards the heart of the pool. The bag od sweetsand lies clenched in her right palm. Slosh-slosh.
While Alida makes her way toward the centre, H'kon ducks up to his chin, rinses the soapsand, with some effort, from the hair beneath his arms, and, once satisfied, reaches for his bag of sand at the pool's edge once more. The girl's trek is more or less ignored, so much as any other movements within the pool are ignored. He's scrubbing at his chest now, keeping his eyes studiously on the surface of what little water is between him and the edge, when a woman walks by, still dripping, in search of a towel.
Around and around we go... and after some long seconds peering, stalking, Alida finds nobody close enough to bother her. And so, off towards the edge of the pool the grumbly woman wades, letting her little knife drop to her chest while she opens the bag of sweetsand...until the damned thing gets bound into a small knot. Cursing silently to herself, the guard continues to stride-wade along while both sets of fingers attack that damned little bag. If Murphy's Law holds true, she should run into H'kon in 5...4...3...
2... "Watch yourself." Let it not be said that H'kon is not aware of his surroundings. The brownrider sends a sharp look, the look he's learned from his dragon, in the woman's direction as she approaches, pausing with a cupped hand in the water, and soaped sand still sticking to the trace of hair at the centre of his chest. The compact man has shifted his stance, legs wider apart, chin that much closer to the water, as he anticipates.
It never quite escapes her throat, but the 'Ack!' that Alida was about to give off at the sound of H'kon's warning is evident in the surprise on her face and the alacrity with which the guard jerks backward...and falls over into the water. "SHIT!" is called out roughly just as the blonde goes under for a moment, her re-wetted self quickly re-surfacing in a round of silent glares and a hint of reddened cheeks.
H'kon's chin draws in toward his chest, and he takes one step back for all Alida's falling. That Face, that disapproving Face, is set squarely on the girl's once she's back up. "These are a public baths," he specifies for her benefit, letting those eyebrows continue their condemnation a moment longer before he turns, so that his side is to Alida, his body pointed at the edge of the pool. And he resumes his rinsing.
"No shit..." is groused out to H'kon just above her breath, the sound carrying on the water-laden air. Alida catches a quick look at someone who manages to out-sourpuss herself, for once, and in that moment - when green eyes take in the nice shiner that the brownie sports - the rarely-smiling candidate cannot contain a low, shaggy giggle-snigger. Once again back in a semi-decent mood, the young woman pads off again towards the edge of the pool nearest her position, and begins to unknot her sweetsoap bag again while very softly humming to herself.
"And there would be sense in anticipating the presence of those other than yourself," H'kon states coolly to the girl, this time without too much eyebrow action directed her way. He continues his washing routine, otherwise, apparently expecting that statement to stand on its own.
A quick, small glare is cast over at H'kon, who fades in and out of the mists, Alida not letting things rest one bit as she opens her bag of sweetsand and starts scrubbing her sweaty form. Between soft huffs of effort and the sound of water and sand, the blonde murmurs glibly, "One time I don't notice somethin', and now I gotta pay for it by listening to whining." A 'crybaby' face is made, though whether H'kon notices it or not is debatable.
H'kon doesn't see the face she makes; he's not looking. With the same cool, even voice, he does offer, through the steam, "I believe you are a candidate. Before you speak further, better you know that I ride Arekoth, whose eggs you might stand before." And he's hunched over to work on a leg.
There comes a grunt from the mists surrounding all the bathers, and then Alida notes in a clipped, dead voice, "Always fun when people feel the need t' dick waggle their rank around, instead'a dealing with things person to person." A subdued wealth of old indignity lies beneath that cool alto.
"I give you my position only that you may be informed." H'kon is scrubbing the other leg now. "A dragonrider's life will never be divorced from rank. If you are so displeased at living in close quarters with others, and at chain of command, perhaps you should more carefully consider your choice to stand." Rinse. "Or perhaps your attempts to remain a candidate, when you had so upset our queens, were misguided." Here, he does peer through the mists at her. "Do not mistake me. I do not speak to this for my benefit."
Well well, one encounters...and learns new things every day. Including how uptight at least one rider is about rank, and appropriateness. Shaking her pale head, donning her most impassive professional mask, Alida shucks her bag of 'sand to the side of the pool, and tosses off a dead-silent salute to H'kon. There's *always* a least a handful of H'kon's type around, whether it be Weyr, Hold, or Hall. With nary a blink, nor tic of e
H'kon just has his feet left, at this point. They are scrubbed in silence, under the water, and rinsed easily. He wastes no time, thereafter, in hauling himself up from the pool. It's once he's wrapped a towel around his waist that he walks around, to be near that girl again. "The decision you make now is a lifelong commitment. It cannot be taken back. Better to reflect now on whether this is the place for you, then to learn it when nothing can be done." Not expecting anything from her, he's walking again just as soon as he's spoken.
It's a combination of leftover hormones from her recently-left behind adolescence and the experience of a rougher life that lead Alida to simply remain silent...in order to curb her irritable tongue and forestall the ugliness she knows would be inevitable between the uptight brownrider and herself. Nothing but sluicing waters and softest scrubbings sound out in the moisture-rich atmosphere. Apparently H'kon was right.
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