Difference between revisions of "Logs:Kind Of... Young"

Lake Shore, High Reaches Weyr

The rest of the bowl may be barren, grass barely surviving at best, but here by the lake, it's brilliantly green in the warmer months: thickening and thriving in the silty, boulder-dotted soil just before it transitions to soft sand and thence to the cool, clear water itself.

A large freshwater lake fed by a low waterfall, it not only provides warm-weather bathing space for humans and dragons, but has one end fenced off as a watering hole for the livestock in the feeding grounds. The water there is often muddier than the rest of the clear lake, whose shallows drop off abruptly several yards out into deep water, and whose edge undulates against the coarse-hewn bowl wall: here close enough to just be bramble-covered rocks, there far enough away that a narrow land bridge divides the main lake from a smallish pond. Between are several rocky outcroppings that form excellent makeshift diving points, though only one -- across the bridge -- has a set of narrow, slippery, quite possibly tempting stairs.

Afternoon is slowly but surely fading out towards evening, though what is left of the sunlight is still warm, so it's no wonder that the High Reaches lakeshore is still busy with people. Out in the lake, a group of weyr children are using a pale bronze dragon as a climbing structure and diving board, much to the bronze's apparent amusement. Over by the shore, K'del is minus shirt and shoes, and sitting on a boulder with his legs dangling down into the water, keeping a vague eye on the dragon and his playmates, and not much at all on the couples, families and groups of friends enjoying themselves closer to where he sits.

Qhiyet meanders down the beach along a rather straight path with very little other than the occasional person or activity in progress to throw him off his path. What obstacles he does encounter he swings far off to the side of, ensuring more than ample room is available around him. At one point on the beach he comes across a pair of teenaged girls playing catch and he stops entirely to debate his course with awkward tension written across his features. It's not something that requires much concentration for the average person but such is not the case for Qhiyet. Finally after much deliberation, he hurries briskly across their path and finds not only to be still in one piece but that there is an addition of something squishy underfoot. He's trampled on someone's old, discarded meatroll in his bare feet. Crestfallen, he hobbles over to the boulders where K'del is sitting and sits down to gingerly splashing his foot in the water and pick soggy pieces of roll out from between his toes. "Stupid..." is about the only audible word he mumbles.

It's only when Qhiyet actually mumbles that K'del seems to notice anyone in his vicinity; certainly, the splashing doesn't get him to glance up, but the word does. Shifting around, his gaze lowering towards the sandy shore and the water lapping against it, he gives Qhiyet and his accidental meatroll a moment of consideration before, "You'd think people'd clean up that stuff, rather than abandon it, wouldn't you? Yuck." There's no verbal greeting, as such, to go with all of that, but his - admittedly slightly rueful - smile is relatively warm.

Qhiyet looks up with blank brown eyes on a face too innocent for someone his age. There's a reserved smile that flickers on the edges of his thin-lipped mouth. "Yeah, well... stuff happens, right?" His voice, though meek, tries to convey optimism and nearly hits its target except for the slight edge of frustration. There's another few blundering splashes of his foot in the water, having to sprawl his toes as he wiggles with the effort of it all. "This is just sort of the way these last few months have been going. If it isn't wardrobe malfunctions it's near-death experiences." And then a defeated gesture at his still-gunkified toes. "Or this. But whatever, right?" There's a glance at the bronze out in the lake with the children. "We can't all be so lucky, hey?"

K'del's brows raise, and then raise some more, during the course of what Qhiyet has to say, until by the end, he looks inordinately curious, though that gets interrupted by the glance out to the bronze, which K'del follows. "What, so lucky as to play in the lake with the kids? Imagine no one there'd object to another." He leaves that hanging only for a moment, though, leaving no time for a response before, "Though - near-death experiences? Wardrobe malfunctions? Sounds all rather more serious and complicated than, you know, some muck on your toes. Which is at least easily cleaned, right?" The rider's gaze shifts back towards Qhiyet as he says this, and that smile has gotten bigger. His toes splash lazily in the water.

Qhiyet almost looks like he might plod through the water and hop in all the fun that seems to surround the bronze dragon but he opts to just sit on the rocks, foot idly peddling in the water. "I'm a little big to be doing that kind of stuff anymore. Maybe if it were a bunch of kids my age, then..." Probably not. The boy doesn't look like the sort who would be found laughing and fooling around with anyone, really. He looks more like the sort who would be left standing by himself on the fringes of everything, shuffling his feet. "It's really not at all serious. Very complicated though, and not as exciting as it sounds," he admits with a hint of an uncomfortable laugh. "This is kind of just as bad. It happened on the beach with all these people around - and those girls there, I bet they saw. I'd almost rather fall out of a wagon again. Much fewer people noticed." A considering glance is given to K'del. "Stuff like this ever happen to you?"

K'del admits, with another glance out at the dragon and children in question, "Not exactly my scene these days either, but it makes him pretty happy. Doubt that the kids would care, though: another playmate is another playmate, you know?" He wriggles forward, so that his feet can dip further into the water, tilting his head back towards Qhiyet. "Not-- usually." Beat. "No, that's a lie, probably. Embarrassing stuff has happened to me plenty of times. More often than I care to think about. Reckon the girls'll forget... Well. Eventually, anyway. Maybe. Some of 'em take pride in reminding me of some of the dumb things I've done, turns ago."

Qhiyet sags further into the curve of his back and the hunch of his shoulders, giving K'del a frown of disappointment. "That was pretty much the total opposite of helpful right now," he confesses though there's very little in the way of bitterness in his soft voice. "But I guess honesty is the best policy." Backtracking, Qhiyet gives K'del a questioning eye, one brow furrowing in. "/You/ are a bronzerider? Aren't you kind of... young?"

"Sorry!" says K'del, though he doesn't sound especially repentant. Except; "There's plenty more girls around, so even if you've struck out with /these/ ones, you're not exactly out of options. As I discovered myself." Of his status as a bronzerider, K'del looks briefly awkward, glancing out at the bronze in the lake, then at his feet, then, finally, at Qhiyet. "If you think I'm young for a bronzerider, you're going to laugh stupidly hard when I tell you what my actual position is. But yes, I'm a bronzerider. That's Cadejoth, out there."

"I forgive you," Qhiyet automatically responds, lacking any genuine emotion behind his words and whether or not K'del's apology is sincere. He turns away from the conversation at hand, possibly on the receiving end of such conversations hundreds of times. "Right. Plenty of fish in the sea." And while K'del is like a minnow, with a billion possibilities and good looks as far as minnows go, Qhiyet is more like a barreleye fish. And you don't hear of too many barreleye fish around. Particularly for a less-attractive barreleye fish. Qhiyet drops the topic of his embarrassment and possible future love interests in lieu of K'del's bait. "I might not laugh - remember, I just stepped on a meatroll. I don't have much room to be making fun of others. What's your position?"

K'del keeps his gaze on Qhiyet, and something in his expression as he watches and listens suggests he understands something of it. What he says is simply, "Actually believe that one, you know. Plenty of fish. Anyway," and as he continues, he sounds more jovial, though not without a definite note of self-deprecation, "Reckon you will laugh. Stepping in a meatroll-- well. Let's just say my embarrassment is continual, on this one." Beat. "I'm the Weyrleader."

Qhiyet's features hardly change, chocolate eyes regarding the bronzerider and supposed Weyrleader of High Reaches Weyr calmly albeit with some obvious amount of doubt and possible concern. "You know, I might look like an easy mark or something but it's not really nice to poke fun of others - and dragonriders are supposed to be chalk-full of charity for others, aren't they?"

/That/ makes K'del laugh outright. "Only wish I /was/ poking fun, believe me," he tells Qhiyet, though it's hard to really know if he's being serious, since he's still laughing. He slides himself off of his boulder perch with a splash, the cuffs of his light trousers getting drenched in the process. "Not so sure about the charity, though, anyway. Tend to be out for ourselves a good bit." As he says this, he begins to wade back around towards the shore, noting, "If you'll excuse me? Meeting with Lord High Reaches in the morning, and I still have some background stuff to look over."

Qhiyet stares after K'del without so much as a peep uttered. About the only sign of life in the boy other than the worrisome droop in one brow is his breathing and the fact that his attention follows K'del as he slips off the boulder. Remembering himself, Qhiyet clears his throat and nods hurriedly. "Uh right. A Weyrleader would have things like that to think about, wouldn't he?" He'll continue to sit on a boulder looking puzzled.

K'del turns his head back to look at Qhiyet, just before he actually steps out of the water. "Sure. All kinds of things like that. Plus the crafts, and the tithes, and the wings themselves." Beat. "Anyway. Pleasure to have met you-- whoever you are. Name's K'del." Then he's back onto the sand, reaching down for his previously abandoned shirt and shoes, and then off on his way through the bowl, abandoning the bronze in the water to his child companions. If, indeed, he was telling the truth to begin with.

Qhiyet bobs his head up and down again. "You too," he returns quietly, a few heartbeats later adding, "Uh it's Qhiyet." And as the self-proclaimed Weyrleader takes his leave, a very unsettled Qhiyet takes over the collection of boulders in quiet contemplation.