Logs:Who Were You Before?
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| RL Date: 23 April, 2015 |
| Who: Lycinea, O'nahi |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Lya and O'nahi meet. Poor O'nahi. |
| Where: Bathing Pools, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 10, Month 8, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Farideh/Mentions, Irianke/Mentions, Keysi/Mentions, T'mic/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Back-dated. |
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| Ever since the cave-in Lycinea has spent large parts of her arguably limited free time in the bathes. When she can indulge in Irianke's bath, she does so. Now, just as dinner is starting and most people have come and gone for a quick post-duties wash, she sits as far out in the waters of one of the pools in the hazy cavern as she can get. It's almost private. Almost. She's just sitting, letting her eyes wander and occasionally sluicing water up over her face and neck and hair. She's nearly wrinkly, so she might nearly be clean. Nearly. So far, the weyrlings haven't been afforded a lot of free time, but apparently O'nahi is free right now, or else he wouldn't be making his way into the bathing cavern to tear off his clothes like he's in a hurry. It's not that big of a hurry, though, because once the clothes are off, there's another weyrling making her way out that stops to talk to him. He's all smiles for her, a little awkward, and once she continues on her way, he watches after her for a handful of moments. Fortunately all without any part of him getting overly interested. Once he's free again, though, he can move to slide into the pool with a very relieved sigh. Lycinea's eyes roam. It's not that she intends to ogle anyone unsuspecting, just that it's easier to focus on things outside of her own head than in it. Her eyes as a result linger on the weyrling pair, her brow wrinkling slightly. One hand lifts and tugs a little on her lower lip and then to bite at nails that are bitten down to the beds. Probably, she doesn't realize that she's staring vacantly at the blonde boy as he enters the water. Or still now. Probably. O'nahi was probably intending on settling in to close his eyes and enjoy the few dragon-free minutes of relaxation he can get. But no. There's a girl staring at him. His brow furrows, then one arches. "Hey," he prompts uncertainly, lifting a hand to wave like it might make her focus from that vacancy, "You... okay?" Either his voice or the movement of his hand does make Lya focus, more on his face and less on the space somewhere in front of it. "Fine," she answers, a moment delayed, looking away, cheeks touched with a blush. Not fine, nope. Fine. That's one of those answers. The ones that usually mean someone isn't, in fact, fine. As such, O'nahi looks unconvinced but says, "Okay." And then a moment later changes his mind and asks, "Are you sure? I mean, can I help? Did someone steal your clothes?" The serious problems of a teenager, man. Lycinea was probably fine with unconvinced. She only looks back to him when he speaks again. She looks from the boy over to the cubbies. "I hope not," she sighs with far less alarm than she probably should display. "The laundresses always lend me something when that happens. And anyway, my horrible roommates are down to just one and the rest of them talk about me in hushed voices when they don't think I'm paying any mind, so." As if this somehow explains everything. "What were you even going to do if someone had?" She wonders now, half-curious and half-suspicious. "Oh." The weyrling looks over at the cubbies himself, brow furrowed like he hadn't really expected it to be a thing that happened a lot. "That's good. The laundresses, I mean, not people stealing your clothes. That's shitty." O'nahi doesn't understand everything she says but he seems confident when he tells her, "I would've gotten you something so you could go get clothes from your quarters or whatever." "Well," Lycinea blows away a ready bluster of self-righteousness with a heavy exhale instead, "that's much less ridiculously and unnecessarily chivalrous than you might have thought to be." It seems like a positive thing though. "Are you new?" She asks. That... mostly just confuses O'nahi. But he seems uncertain about asking for an explanation, though, because then he'll just look much less smart on top of it. "Uh. Yeah!" He knows this answer! "But here to stay, what with the baby dragon and all. You weren't... were you a candidate?" He didn't have a good chance to meet all of them-- any of them before he was on the Sands. "I thought you looked familiar," Lya's frowning at him, like that might not be a good thing. "No, I wasn't allowed to Stand." This is delivered matter of factly and without impact on her frown. "Oh." O'nahi isn't sure what he's supposed to say to that. Probably not, "Why weren't you allowed to Stand? I thought anyone that lived here could ask to do that. I think there's some weyrlings that did that?" "I was buried alive for two sevens and I don't cope well," Lycinea tells him matter-of-factly. "The mindhealer wouldn't clear me. Didn't want to endanger the hatchlings and all that and there wasn't a hatchling for me anyway, or I expect he or she would've found me in the Stands. I hear they can be determined that way." She doesn't look at him as she explains. She just looks at the water. It's nice water, after all. Who can blame her? His mouth is open throughout her entire explanation. And for a little while after she's finished. If she looks at him, O'nahi is some combination of disturbed, fascinated and concerned. If she doesn't, he'll eventually find his voice, though it cracks slightly when he says, "Shit. That's awful. I'd heard about it, but-- fuck. Sorry." His apology seems to be for his language rather than anything that could be considered pity, though. "So, then... you're not fine?" "You should be," Lya answers his apology, finally looking at him with imperiously raised eyebrows. "Next thing you know your lifemate is going to be going around swearing and then the one will learn from the other and then they'll all be doing it willy nilly. I've seen it with the littles. You can ask Tomic, er, T'mic." She looks at him a moment, "You weren't here when it happened? The cave-in?" Her manner in asking this question is downright mild in comparison to the scolding of moments before. He is sorry, but he still defends himself with a mild, "He's asleep, can't hear me anyway." O'nahi shakes his head for the rest, though. "I was Searched just outside the Weyr. Said they needed the candidates." Just, you know, not enough to let this blonde girl onto the sands. "So I said yes and they hatched the next day." The blonde girl considers him. "Great." She doesn't sound thrilled. "How do they even know you haven't been recently traumatized? Did the rider even ask you if you'd been feeling depressed lately?" Lycinea makes a disgusted noise, not needing the answer. "They let Keysi Stand and Impress and she was buried alive too." Life is so unfair! Nevermind Keysi and Lya are Very Different People. O'nahi seems to realize, finally, that he's not saying the right sorts of things. So observant, this one! Not that it seems to help him say the right sorts of things. "No... but a dragon would be able to pick up on that, wouldn't they? I mean, it's not like I asked." He'll answer her anyway! "Maybe you'll be able to Stand next time? You should be better in two-ish turns, right?" "If a dragon were able to pick up on that, then there would have been no harm in letting me try on the Sands," Lycinea counters, dismissive of the point she considers won. "Your whole class is probably a bunch of loonies and you won't know it until one of them has their dragon flame the barracks to the ground." She's got such a cheery outlook. "And I maybe could Stand, if I haven't died in another cave in or some other horrible way to go. Like in a fire, or a storm, or murdered in the Weyrleader's Weyr, for example. Though I suppose those are only goldriders." She pauses to consider and wonder aloud, "I wonder if any non-goldriders die in horrible ways and we just don't notice." So cheery. Since there's not much he can offer at first, O'nahi assures her resolutely once she's finished her cheerful rant, "They do. Trust me." And he leaves it at that, finally moving to get his hair wet and maybe actually bathe himself. Shockingly, she doesn't. She does roll her eyes at O'nahi. "What kind of rider are you, anyway?" Lya asks as she observes him with thoughtfully narrowed gaze. "A weyrling?" Didn't they already cover that? Lycinea rolls her eyes at the blonde. "You must be a greenrider," she decides, eyeing him. It would be easiest, for her, certainly if he was. Well, that wasn't what O'nahi expected her to respond with and the open-mouthed surprise on his face makes that pretty obvious. How does he even respond to that? "No? What does that even mean? I'm a bluerider now, anyway." He's not even sure if he should be defensive or not. "I see," Lycinea answers, continuing to eye him, now with this new information to color her appraisal. "Aren't you a bit too pretty to be a bluerider?" She doesn't sound certain, but it's worth asking since they're already having this awkward bath time conversation. Yeah, O'nahi doesn't know how to respond to that, either. There's a slight flush in his cheeks that can't entirely be the heat of the water since it's brand new. "What? No. I'm not-- No! Looks don't have anything to do with dragons." He doesn't know a ton about them, but he knows that! "Don't they?" Lycinea asks with raised brows. "How many ugly dragonriders have you ever seen?" Well, that might be an unfair question since people by and large are fairly pretty. She advances toward him. Did he want that personal space she's not planning on leaving him with? She stops a body-width from him to study his face closer, blue-green eyes intent. "Goldriders are almost always lovely," she tells him, from her vast and limited experience of High Reaches goldriders within recent history. "And most bronzeriders are good-looking but idiots are assholes." Did he know? "I don't-- I haven't really paid much attention to what they look like," admits O'nahi, backing up in the small amount of space between himself and the edge of the pool when the smaller blonde advances on him. He looks at her as she studies him, obviously a little intimidated by her. "I... I guess Farideh is pretty? But, I mean, you're just as pretty." Lya's eyeroll is dismissive. "I'm nobody. Farideh is somebody. She's always been somebody and I've always been nobody. Except to Irianke." There's a pause and then she's leaning closer with a stern look. "You and your lifemate had better be good to her. Irianke. Kind and thoughtful and all the things you should be of your clutchmother and Weyrwoman, or I will find you when I get back and you won't like it." Perhaps Lycinea's going to make this threat to every weyrling, or perhaps O'nahi's just special! O'nahi glances away from the girl, looking for someone to help him or maybe just an easy escape route, but he glances back when he finds neither. "Why wouldn't I-- I don't even know her. I don't know anyone." Why is this happening to him! "But you will," Lya seems confident of that. "And a lot of people didn't like her because of what she represented. Igen. Foreign." She frowns. "You can know me, if you like," she adds offhandedly as she straightens, threatening demeanor proven obviously lacking in follow through by the ease with which it evaporates, like the steam off the water around them. "Sure... I guess I will?" O'nahi probably doesn't have much of a choice as far as getting to know some of the other weyrlings is concerned. "I don't have anything against, uh, Irianke, though. I'm not really from here, either, and I don't really care where anyone is from." He shrugs, as if to emphasize his apathy on the matter. "Who are you, anyway? I'm O'nahi." "Lya." There's a beat and then with the slightest tilt of her head and curious look, "Who were you before?" "Orenahi. Oren, sometimes. I was a trader. We were passing close to the Weyr when I was Searched." Because Lya wanted his life story again. "What kind of things did you trade?" Lycinea asks, evidently actually wanting more of his life story as she lingers near, if not intimately so. Considering the way their interactions have gone since they started, interest doesn't seem to be what O'nahi was expecting from Lya. "Different things. Some leather. Furs. My uncle makes little stone carvings. Stuff like that." He doesn't really make any of it sound very interesting. "Did you trade things? Or just take care of runners or whatever?" Lya asks with continued interest, if mild interest. "I didn't-- I should probably, you know, get back to Kuviath soon. He's going to wake up and they get all... weird if I'm not there." Is it really obviously an excuse? O'nahi starts to shift further away from the girl with the polite, "It was really nice meeting you, Lya." "Uh-huh," Lya clearly doesn't believe him whether or not it was an excuse - or maybe she just doesn't believe he thinks it was nice to meet her. But rather than wait for him to exit, she moves to climb out of the pool herself and walk to the cubbies to get her towel and change back into her clothes. Apparently she has places to be, too, though she offers the weyrling no explanation. She doesn't even look back at him once as she dresses and exits the cavern. O'nahi watches as she moves to get out of the pool, but his eyes shift away from staring when he realizes that he is. If he looks back once or twice, he really can't be blamed. And if Lya isn't going to notice his embarrassed flush, it doesn't really matter if anyone else does. He'll finish his bathing, that he almost abandoned, and then hurry on his way back to the barracks. |
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