Logs:New Weyrlings, Old Headaches
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| RL Date: 25 August, 2014 |
| Who: K'zin, Quielle, Quinlys, Telavi |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: K'zin gets his comeuppance for bad behavior at the hatching feast and a job audition. Shirtless and shoveling dragon-- messes. |
| Where: Weyrling Barracks, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 15, Month 8, Turn 35 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: A'ban/Mentions, J'vain/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Quinlys cameos! Back-dated. |
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| It's the same old song and dance. The dragons hum, the eggs hatch. This time the thirteen new dragonets find their lifemates without incident and the weyrling staff goes to work. This time, it happened to be before dawn. So by the time Rukbat has risen fully, many of the newest are asleep with their human counterparts escaped to the feast or doing likewise in their own cots or even in the couches along with their dragons. Of course, the new babies with their mess of meaty bits and oil left to be cleaned by anyone other than their lifemates isn't the only familiar part of tonight's performance. There's drinking at a hatching feast, and inevitably, someone does something stupid. Among the others that surely did, the fact that K'zin is being escorted into the training cavern, still in his fine feast attire, by a big Taiga rider and the much littler Quielle marks him as one of them. It's Quielle who tells them to wait while she fetches Telavi and explains the situation: K'zin was going to get into a fight. Because he's stupid. And he smells like alcohol. Certainly, the bluerider hates to bother Telavi when she's so busy but K'zin isn't consenting to be sent back up to his weyr while there's a party going on, even if he has promised not to offer to beat anyone else up for pretty girls. Can Telavi see why Quielle brought this particular situation to her directly? Maybe he just needs to sober up! Telavi is tired, and she didn't even get her toss dance yet. Not only that, she had to do her hair a boring way and there's a stain on her sleeve that she still hasn't been able to deal with. She's not hard to find, though, her tools set aside long enough for her to fend off one of the larger dragonets who's dying to sniff and maybe nibble on the young ones; her expression brightens for Quielle, but that doesn't last once-- out of earshot of the weyrlings if at all possible-- she's heard what's going on. Ugh, she says, wearily; and, that she really appreciates it, what Quie did, and she'll see what she can do. There might even have been a hug, if she hadn't double-checked her less-than-clean attire; as it is, she walks Quie out and thanks the other Taiga rider, too, before giving K'zin's back another unhappy look and heading towards where he's relatively harmlessly picking at the clouds and smoke on the game table. Standing next to him now, she watches his hands. Then she says, "How's it looking?" "Still not right." K'zin relates with a sigh. He never thinks so. It was only because someone else declared Dragonlord playable that the bronzerider grudgingly allwed or to be so. That doesn't stop him from trying to fix it anytime he's at loose ends in the cavern. When he finally turns to look at her, he looks guiltier than the pup that missed the training pad. But what he says is, "Do you ever stop to think about it?" One of his hands shifts to indicate the cavern at large. "About how we all have this in common? Every rider whose dragon has hatched here for who know how long has trained here. And it's more than just training," he goes on, heedless of his surroundings and who might be approaching to hear his philosophical waxing. "You become the you you will be here. The you you could never have become without those eggs and without these lessons and even these people," he turns again, from the few paces he's wandered to look at the cavern bowlward, to gesture at Telavi. Her, "You always say that," reminisces despite herself. The audible fondness doesn't so much recede as become overlaid with moody layers; when K'zin looks at Telavi so guiltily, she looks back, and she knows. She doesn't follow him, but makes to touch a bit of smoke herself. Except, she doesn't. "It's hard for me to think about that right now," Tela says to the table. "I'm tired and I'm hungry but it all smells like blood and worse and," if she weren't tired she might stop there, but she can't stand to make herself now, "and my stomach's all snarled thanks to what happened while I wasn't there and. And I didn't get to dance and I didn't get to drink and there's, there's all this shit to clean up." All her words... They just have K'zin looking guiltier and guiltier and guiltier. "You look beautiful." He tries after he can convince his unwilling gaze away from the floor. "I'll go back to my weyr and stay there." He volunteers to ground himself. He must feel bad! But apparently not bad enough to offer to help. Even though he was defending some other girl's honor... He says that and Telavi pivots to visibly look herself over, and then look back at him: really? And when K'zin continues-- "So," she says and turns away. Her hands go to the table's edge. "You're saying that you will go to your weyr, drink some water maybe and get some sleep so you feel better..." Her voice doesn't rise, particularly, in pitch or volume beyond what it takes for him to hear. "While I get back to changing out the vats and cleaning up more messes just in time for them to make new ones." Beat. "I'll just go do that then." She turns to do that very thing. It is, after all, her job. The Guilt Trip is very strong with this one. "Wait," which doesn't mean K'zin doesn't sigh before saying, "I'll go get changed and come back to help." It might be an einsy weansy bit grumbly. And really, who knows if he won't just accidentally pass out in his bed and say he's sorry in the morning if she lets him leave her sight. He sighs and she looks away, biting her lip, but pauses anyway with one hand going up to the side of her face-- like the pillow she doesn't have yet, or making it so she can't look... which would also serve to hide her eyes should she roll them. She doesn't say many of the things she could say, yet. Instead, "Okay." It's followed by a moment of hesitation, which turns into, "You could just take off your nice shirt, if you wanted." A buzzed K'zin is inarguably often a suggestible K'zin. So he's already undoing the buttons on the doublet and untucking the shirt beneath. See? He wants to help! "What about my pants?" Can't risk half the nice goes-together ensemble. "Those I leave up to you," Telavi says, glancing over her shoulder with what turns into a reluctant smile. "Just don't scare the weyrlings, okay?" Some might be aware of assistants keeping a spare set of clothes in the barracks for emergencies; only thing is, he's got a handful of inches on J'vain and a sturdier build. She stretches away from the table then, on her way to getting back to work, which won't mean she won't peek. Well, it speaks to K'zin's level of sobriety that he doesn't strip off his pants before finding a spare set. It's not J'vain's in the end, but ones from the communal lost and found, with a few holes here and there and, yes, these too, are stretched a little tight in places when he squats and bends as he's bound to do with the work at hand. So shirtlessly he appears a short time later, the fine clothes tucked carefully away where they won't wander off while he works. He's even brought something to drink. It's only water, but it's a thoughtful gesture, isn't it? Since he offers it to Tela first. "What first?" He willingly seeks direction though brown eyes do distractedly search across the newly inhabited couches and their sleeping occupants. By the time he gets back, Tela's crouched by a sleeping blue, very carefully extricating a chunk of meat from his paws that he's been holding onto as though for comfort; there's a pail next to her with similarly large chunks, some dusted with grit from having been picked up off the floor. Deeper in the cavern, tiny dragonets-- no, Mimi and Biter, for once making themselves useful-- hunt smaller scraps, now and again drawn toward the remaining mostly-empty meat buckets until Tela gives them a dirty look. Once the greenrider's carried off her 'prize' with the blue doing no more than gassily burp, she wipes a hand on the already-smeared cloth on her belt and gratefully takes the water, draining it two-thirds before handing it back. More quietly now that they're in with the dragonets, she spares her own passing glance for the rest of the cavern and says, "They managed to spill oil by that couch there, it isn't salvageable. Go ahead and sand it up and shovel it out," he knows the drill. The bronzerider downs the remaining water, frowning once the cup is away from his lips. He's looking to where she's indicated. "Well, it could be worse than oil," K'zin says in a way that's only half rueful, because maybe secretly it doesn't really want to be here. Such secrets! Despite whatever inner feelings he might be so-well-hiding, the man goes to work without further hesitation, after setting the cup on the press of an unoccupied space. He'll remember that later, right? Telavi doesn't really want to be here, but since they covered that... "What do you want to bet, will it be worse before lunchtime?" she asks as she gets the joyful task of crouching by a nearby oil vat and skimming gobbets of gristle and bone out of it, courtesy of dragonets who didn't wash up before they got oiled. A bit of egg membrane clings to the back of her hand; she shudders and wipes it away. Nor does she spare attention for the abandoned cup; perhaps it deserves its fate. Tending to one particularly awkward pair for the past quarter-of-an-hour, Quinlys emerges now only temporarily, her hair tangled into an uneasy knot, her clothes covered in dried blood, egg-goo and... well, probably worse. She isn't paying attention. Breezing past, Telavi gets a quick, serious nod... and K'zin, well. It's a double-take, but it only lasts a moment. "Glad you can help," she offers, on her way past. "Keep up the good work." Which... must surely count as approval, because she doesn't wait for a reply from either. Initially, K'zin doesn't notice Quinlys. But then she's talking to him, and he has to do a double-take. Albeit, the second take is at her backside - but he's probably not checking her out. Probably, even if he does look so manly and appealing with all that sweat he's working up doing the sanding and shoveling. (No, it had to be said.) His brow wrinkles, "Weird." That's to himself, but then he's looking to Telavi, uncertain. "That was weird, right? Or did I miss something?" He looks toward the Weyrlingmaster and then the assistant. He does sometimes miss things. The oil sloshes; Telavi checks with Quinlys, the lift of her gaze too late to really catch that nod, the greenrider too weary-- or too confident?-- to have worried about her weyrlingmaster's response but somehow eased by confirmation all the same. She has a second of the small vats to start on, now. Her stomach makes a small noise of complaint; she wrinkles her nose. But, "Weird? What?" Green eyes slide over to K'zin. "That she didn't throw you out?" "Yeah--no..." It might have first seemed to the bronzerider that that's what he'd meant, but it's not and so he's confused. It's the confused expression that Telavi loves to smooth out with her fingertips when it happens in less public settings. It lingers now, without her help and only fades a little as tipsy K'zin gets back to work. He meant something, surely, only now he doesn't seem to be able to put his finger on it. It's some time later-- after Tela's taken care of the vats in between soothing a weyrling whose hatchling has a bellyache, soothing a weyrling whose older dragonet complains about being unable to sleep because of the hatchlings, soothing a weyrling pair whose dragon component's wing accidentally smacked the human component in the eye, instructing a few weyrlings back from the hatching feast to shovel up after their dragonets or else, not warning one of them about how oil is going to stain his nice shirt, washing her hands and getting a drink of water, promptly getting her hands dirty again with the next thing that needs doing, and so on-- that they fully cross paths again, though she's been peeking in on him now and again. "Did you ever remember?" Telavi asks. "The weird." By now, K'zin is sober and tired, but he has been so helpful. It's mostly with the obvious things; the things he remembers from Rasavyth's younger days because certainly he wasn't helping Telgar weyrlings when they were this small. He's dirty and sweaty (glisteny?) and half dozing as he leans against the wall with the shovel still in his hands when Tela approaches, but his eyes flicker open before she arrives so technically, she didn't wake him. "Mm?" He asks, but then his brain catches up, "Oh, it's just-- she didn't seem as surprised as she should've been, I think." It takes tired Telavi a moment of her own to process, and then an automatic look over her shoulder towards the last place she'd seen Quinlys which, of course, is not where she is now. "Hm." She leans in towards the wall, towards him, bracing herself with one hand on that same wall. She also doesn't question Quinlys' powers. "Maybe Olly." Maybe not. Her eyes have lifted to his. "Go home?" Now they're tracing a strand of hair that's sticking to his forehead, one that she might ordinarily brush back to join the rest, but it's less a matter of public-or-not than of just lifting her hand. "He says J'vain's going to be down again in a few." It's with a tired discontented sort of sigh that hasn't fully let go of the weird and just what it was that leads to K'zin's nod and quiet, "Yeah." He leans to press a kiss to her forehead. "Sorry for being such an ass." Simple. Then, "Will you come when you can? To bed?" Presumably with him. Her eyes, having closed, lift once more to his. "Thank you," Tela says quietly-- for apologizing, for his help, the latter of which she'll have to reiterate in the... no, not in the morning, it's past that now. Later, then. Whenever she does get to come to bed, at last, with him. |
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