Difference between revisions of "Logs:One Big Dragonrider Family"

The weather-- of course-- is lovely: one of those beautiful summer days High Reaches is so well known for. The lake, while still cold, is at least not freezing cold; especially if you're a High Reaches native. Quinlys is, thus, stripped down to the very basics, and sits atop Olveraeth's forelimb, scrubbing away at a spot of dry skin at the knee-joint. Her expression is a harried one-- not grief-stricken, not over-emotional, but stressed-- although it's clear, too, that there's something soothing about this action. The blue stares out towards the weyrbowl, eyelids flickering open and closed as his view meanders this way and that.

Tomic, too, meanders, though he does seem to have some path in mind. Now, there are no weyrbrats or candidates around him. Now, alone, the young man is quiet, face uncharacteristically thoughtful, hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts, big shoulders hunched, eyes more or less on the ground before him. He's not dressed for swimming; likely, this is just a walk, around somewhere with water, because that's important now. He chews at a bit of dry skin on his lip. And walks more.

It's Olveraeth who notices-- watches-- Tomic; Olveraeth whose attention fastens itself to the candidate and follows his every step. Quinlys is too engrossed in her task, and in whatever thoughts are so intensely being run behind that pretty face of hers. The blue shifts, sending a shallow wave the few feet towards the shoreline. He's still watching Tomic - and now, he lets out a low, shallow rumble.

Tomic is near the shore, but not near enough for him - for Tomic, specifically - to notice that shallow wave. The rumble, though, that he hears. The big candidate stops, and looks up. He must have known there was a dragon there, if not looked at him properly. There's no surprise on his face. But he looks at him now, that blue, more than his rider. And the lip that was drawn up between his teeth falls back as that bit of dried skin comes off it.

Olveraeth looks back, shoulders drawn back in a way that requires his rider to hold on-- and to glance up for the first time. The redhead pauses, studying Tomic in a way that is rather less intense than her lifemate's stare; expression still solemn, she gives him a short nod, and an idle, sloppy salute that is presumably intended as greeting.

The movement of that salute draws his eyes again, perhaps with relief, away from that blue's look. "Oh, right." And he returns the salute. That it still feels strange shows on his face, a break from that pensiveness. But soon enough, his eyes are drawn back to Olveraeth. His feet, too, a short ways, enough that his shoes get a little wet.

"He says 'hello,'" says Quinlys, calling the words out from her perch; a twitch of something in her expression might well suggest that that is a very curtailed version of what the blue in question says. "Y'all right there?" Olveraeth steps closer-- all the better to continue this conversation, even if it means his rider-- yet again-- must hold on as he moves.

"Oh," says Tomic, interest starting to take over a bit more than simple entrancement. Simple. "Hello," he calls back, with enough of an upward lilt that it's not quite a statement, though not so much as it clearly being a question. Uncertainty. "Yeah, I guess." Those shoulders come up and shrug. "Are you?" Brown eyes move from rider to dragon to rider again.

"We're fine," Quinlys promises. "Good, even." Such as it goes, perhaps, but clearly the bluerider is aiming for positive. Between her blue's interest, though, and perhaps her own distractedness, Tomic has clearly caught her attention-- she swings down, now, splashing as she lands in the water, and idly taps her scrubbing brush against her leg. "Candidate, right?"

Tomic watches Quinlys a beat even after she's given her second answer, nodding slowly, but shifting his weight, not fully settled. The shifting happens again, as that bluerider approaches him. "Tomic," has the sound of a correction. A moment later, "Yes, I mean. Candidate." Oh right. "Ma'am."

That makes Quinlys' mouth twitch, ever so slightly. "Thought so," she says, though doesn't specify whether it's because she recognises him from classes, or otherwise. "Olly says you were looking thoughtful. But as long as you're okay...?" Beat. "I'm excellent at answering questions, you know, if it were something like that."

"Oh," says Tomic, again. "Well I guess I was thinking." He shifts again, and then, takes a step forward. Now, water does get noticeably in his shoes. Now, he looks down at them, and makes a bit of a face, but stays put in the end. "How so many people aren't okay?"

"You ought to take your shoes off," suggests the bluerider, gesturing towards Tomic's now-wet feet. "Sand feels good between your toes, this time of turn." One hand-- the one not holding her scrubbing brush-- lifts to run through the dark red curls that frame her face. "Mmm. It's hard when someone dies. Like that, too. And a Weyrwoman. We've lost so many of them." Her tone aims for light, though it's clear she's not unaffected by the incident. "And for dragonriders... you feel it, when a dragon goes between like that."

Tomic's face goes a little bit red; but he lifts one foot and removes his shoe. Then, the other. The pair is tossed to the shore. He even wiggles his toes, obligingly, all this while listening, and getting that 'thinking' look on his face one more. "You feel it, like what?" He's looking at his toes in the water, in the sand.

Quinlys' nod is approving; he takes direction, good! "Like... well. Our dragons feel it. A mental cry. And it's pretty rare that the rider then doesn't feel the reverberations of it, I guess. It's hard to explain, but for some it can be not far off... like feeilng someone die. The anguish of it." The concept is an uncomfortable one; she purses her lips together, and hesitates.

"I heard the other one," Tomic says, now bringing his hands from his pockets to wrap around his abdomen. "The one that was out loud." It has him looking up, though of course, there's nothing out of the ordinary up in that sky. "I only met her once. The weyrwoman."

This time, Quinlys' nod is tighter: there were two cries, of course. "She was a good person," is her comment on Azaylia. "We trained her, Olly and I. In part, anyway. She was too young to go, and... a weyrwoman is a symbol, in a Weyr. More than a figurehead, but still... they represent something. And it changes everything, for dragons, because they all obey, instinctively. The 'feel' of things changes. No more drums." Olveraeth, behind her, blows out a gust of warm breath.

"She seemed nice. I don't know, we talked about-" his face goes a bit red, and those big shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. Tomic looks up to Olveraeth, with that dragon-gust, leaning back a bit, though not stepping back. His toes are still in the sand. "There are drums?"

Quinlys watches, silent for a moment. So does Olveraeth (but he just stays silent). "Hraedhyth's mind... there were always drums, there. From the very start. Every dragon's different."

One of Tomic's arms comes up, so that he can pass a hand over his head, along the side, where it can rub his ear too. "... Did she hear them to? Or just everyone else?"

"She heard them. She made them." Quinlys' voice is quiet as she answers this, though she's not, at least, lost in melancholy. "My Olly, he just tends to have a mind full of stars, and... shells, I'm not even sure of the rest. Endless stars, forever. They haunt my dreams, sometimes."

Tomic shifts again, and that arm goes right back to where it was, wrapped tightly. "Whoa," comes at last, once he's had time to think about it, imagine it, with eyes almost closing. The candidate is looking at the dragon again. "If you feel it when one of you dies," and he himself doesn't seem sure which of the blue pair he's addressing at just now, "do you feel everyone when they're just... alive?" A wince. That came out wrong.

Quinlys opens her mouth to answer, then stops, glancing over her shoulder at her blue, who is still watching them both with steadily whirling eyes. "Not-- well, sort of. Not in the active sense, I mean. Not... not like you're constantly aware of everything and everyone. But they're connected in a way that, say, you and I are not. And he pretty much always knows what I'm thinking."

Tomic eyes that blue again, and then starts to bend at the knees, almost as if he's going to sit down - though he stops himself, one arm extended behind him, looking over his shoulder. His whole stance changes, then, legs farther apart, hands going into his pockets again. There. Better. "Does it make you guys closer though?" This is for Quinlys, certainly. "The people?"

"What, riders in general?" Quinlys' blue eyes consider Tomic again as she considers his question, her brush finally dropped towards the ground (she's still in the shallows, though, so it threatens to bob away; she corrals it with one bare foot). "In a way. There's a... we understand, better, what it's like. So we understand each other. But it's not like it makes us all automatically friends, or inclined to agree with each other or anything."

Tomic nods a little bit, eyes drifting back to Olveraeth again. Only recently having got there, already ahand is coming out of his pocket again, this time to cross his belly and scratch at his opposite elbow."Does it make you all like family, though?"

Quinlys hesitates, this time, but only for a moment. "Yeah," she agrees. "It does. The weyrleaders are sort of like parents-- half the time you can't stand them, but they're there for a reason. And then you have smaller families within the big family. People who Impress together. Different wings. For me... after I've trained a person, they're always part of me, in a way. It's hard for them not to be; weyrlinghood's intense."

There's something almost like familiarity on the young man's face, when she gets to talking about her trainees. Tomic doesn't elaborate; he doesn't have time. It's suddenly awareness, and the nanny- candidate looks mortified. "So everyone's mom just died. Sort of."

This time, Quinlys' cheeks go pink. "Sort of," she says, after a very deliberate pause. "It's a little more remote, because... well, it has to be. There's too many dragonriders. But... yeah. It's more than just a boss. More personal."

Tomic nods a little bit, though, again, he's not fully settled on the concept. He bites at his lip, even though that bit of dry skin is gone. "Lots of people are feeling it," he decides at last, scrunching and unscrunching his toes as if just remembering that sand. He shakes his head. "I get it when I'm with them. I just don't when I'm not. Is that bad?"

"No," says Quinlys, firmly, and surprisingly quickly. "No, it's not. It's a complicated thing. And it's not... immediate, for you. Not yet. Not unless you Impress, when those eggs hatch." Olveraeth lets out another low rumble, wings swishing as he draws them closer to his sides; Quinlys glances at him, smiles, then looks back at Tomic.

"Yeah." It's no longer scratching that elbow. It's a sort of distracted rubbing, and it makes him look, probably, like a massive five-turn-old. Massive. "Yeah. I guess that would make it different." A final look from Quinlys to Olveraeth, holding longer on the blue, and he steps out of the water, finally. "Thanks for letting me ask things." A beat. "You guys are okay, though?"

Quinlys crosses her arms, and gives Tomic, now, a somewhat wry smile. "We're okay. We're managing. Anyway-- you're welcome. Not just 'cause this is our job, pretty much, but because... it's useful for you to know. Questions are important. Come find me if you have any other questions, okay?"

"Okay," agrees Tomic. And Quinlys gets one of those broad smiles, earnest, if short, before he turns and gets his shoes. Maybe not so much because he's got somewhere to be as because he feels like it's right to leave.