Difference between revisions of "Logs:A Nice Long Drink Of Water"

Afternoon a few days after the weyrlings' first trip into stores to get things for their weyrs finds Milani back down in that area of the warren of caverns, waiting for a particular weyrling. She's got her clipboard and is busily checking back through what look like inventories and also keeps flipping back to a particular sheet where she keeps on re-outlining K'del's name and looking down the corridor expectantly.

When K'del finally does appear - late - he's literally jogging, coming around the corner at some speed, and instantly repentant. "Sorry, Milani," he says, as he comes to a complete halt not far from her, barely managing to keep himself from toppling over in the process. "Had to ask F'der something, after class, and-- he had a lot to say."

Milani blinks as K'del comes hoofing around the corner so and as he nearly topples, holds out a hand to steady him. "Whoa there," she says laughingly and tips a smile up at the tall weyrling. "Oh I get that, he sure can talk that F'der," Millie says without batting an eyelash about her own talkative tendencies. "All ready to dive back into Stores though? Find those bits and bobs you need?" She jingles her keys fetchingly at him, grin wide.

A hand that K'del accepts graciously, grinning ruefully as he straightens, composes herself. It's then that he actually notices her hair, eyes going wide: "/Hair/," he says, indicating. "It looks good. Just. /Different/." Shock abating, he adds, his hands slinking into his pockets in a low loop, "You'd know nothing about that, of course. Mm, ready, yes. Thanks for this. My place just... came with nothing. Just a rug."

There's a little pat for K'del's arm and another warm smile and then a blink at the shift in expression and Milani lifts a hand sheepishly to the back of her head. "Oh, right. Well, you know. Same for you," she says cheerily enough, reaches up towards that shaven pate. "Different." And she winks at the weyrling then gives her clipboard a little wave. "I know, unlike others, no secret stashes of mating forks and spoons. So I thought furniture would sort of be a priority for you today and I can holler for some handymen to help you carry things out."

There's a little pat for K'del's arm and another warm smile and then a blink at the shift in expression and Milani lifts a hand sheepishly to the back of her head. "Oh, right. Well, you know. Same for you," she says cheerily enough, reaches up towards that shaven pate of his. "Different." And she winks at the weyrling then gives her clipboard a little wave. "I know, unlike others, no secret stashes of mating forks and spoons. So I thought furniture would sort of be a priority for you today and I can holler for some handymen to help you carry things out."

K'del lowers his head to allow a better inspection, something he appears to have gotten quite used to, recently. It's gone fuzzy, now, with regrowth. "Was the easiest way to get Rascela to kiss me again," he grins, though he's watching Milani carefully. "Hope you don't mind yours too, much. Or was it something you'd been thinking about?" His lips positively twitch for the mating forks and spoons - "Damn strange, those things" - and he nods. "Furniture, yes. What can you show me?"

Milani laughs a little as K'del bends and lets her fingers take a little walk along his scalp. "And louse-free," she quips, then laughs all the more. "Oh so you did this to get a kiss ... or a few of them, eh?" Her lips purse thoughtfully, then she leans in to drop a brief peck to his cheek. "Toll paid," she announces blithely and tips her head towards the storage caverns. "Just this way for a bed, sir, if you're planning on more than just smoochies from Rascela." Teasing that and she tucks her clipboard under her arm. "I -- no. I wasn't planning on cutting my hair. But I'm ... getting used to it." There's a hint of regret in her voice though for the shorn locks. "Like I said, bed, for sure, table or desk, maybe both, yours isn't huge, but you might be able to have both. Maybe a comfortable chair to sit in. You're a boy so you probably don't need an armoire, but maybe an extra press?"

"Thank shards," agrees K'del, fervently, for being louse free. His expression turns falsely innocent for her comment about kisses, and pleased, for the peck. "Man's got to do what-- well. Mm, a bed, that'd be the main of it." Beat. "Though Rascela's got one already..." His lips purse, as she talks about her hair, his arm reaching out to rest on her shoulder, if she'll let him. "Sorry, Milani. It'll-- grow? Oh, I don't need much. Bed, table, desk, chair. Don't have much to /put/ in a press, really."

"I know, they're horribly itchy, aren't they?" Milani makes a face but she's not dodging that arm of his, rather reaches up to give his hand a little pat of reassurance. "I just keep telling myself it'll grow back," she says with firm confidence and grins up at him. "All right then, let's go. You need to the big pieces, so a lot of that is in a locked room."

K'del gives her shoulder a squeeze, nodding emphatically. "Awful things. Never had them before. Never again, either. Wish I knew where they came from. And it will. But in the meantime: you look pretty good, anyway." He returns her grin, and winks. "Gotta keep it safe from all of us just waltzing in and picking up what we want in our own two hands?" he asks, laughing. "But yeah: let's."

"Dirty sheets, people tracking things in, sometimes from the tunnelsnake felines," Milani ticks off possible sources. "At any rate, they're gone now. We poured enough lye to kill a bajillion of them all over the Weyr so, there you go." There's a winning smile up at him for the compliment. "Thank you, K'del. It's not a bad hair cut after all, my head feels ten times lighter, it's just weird without the braid there." And she's patting at that phantom braid again as she leads the way deeper into stores, flips through keys to get the right one. "Yes. Furniture we keep pretty close tabs on, the bigger pieces anyway. It's more expensive to replace and sometimes harder to repair." It doesn't take long to walk to the right door and then Millie's handing K'del her clipboard. "HOld that for a moment, while I open the door? And you're nice and tall so getting down that glow basket there to take in with us ought not to be hard for you."

K'del's nose wrinkles at the list of possible sources, but nods, relieved, for the rest of it. "You're quite welcome," he tells her, running his hands over his own, shaven head. "Know the feeling. Mine wasn't long, but it still feels lighter." He lopes after her through the caverns, remarking, as she hunts through her keys, "But also, surely, harder to steal. But I take your point." He accepts the clipboard with a solemn nod, and reaches up for the aforementioned glow lamp - which, unsurprisingly, is not much of a stretch for him. "Sure thing."

Click. Creak. And there's the door opening. Milani tips a look upward at K'del's stubbly head. "I miss your curls a little, they were awfully cute. But this makes you look a little older, more mature." Straightening, Millie pushes the door well open and gestures inward. "Welcome to the hoard," she quips merrily and waits for K'del to walk inside. "And that stuff from my mother seems to be working pretty well too. Do you need more?"

Milani's comment pauses K'del's progress towards the storeroom, and he laughs. "My mother is quietly traumatised," he tells her, looking pleased for the compliment. "But: good. Maybe I can have curls again when I'm older, and it's less of an... issue. To look young, I mean." Still grinning, he ducks into the storeroom, looking around with great anticipation. "It is, yeah. Made a big difference. I'm good for now, though. Still got a bit left. You could outfit dozens of weyrs," he adds, letting his hand brush over a desk standing not far from the door. "With all of this."

Swinging the door shut, Milani stands and looks down the aisles of neatly stacked furniture. "Ohhh yes. Got lots of stuff in here, most of it in good repair too. Hayda was and is a stickler for quality and I'm trying to uphold that," the Headwoman claims as she takes a few steps inward, reaches over to re-claim her clipboard. "And yes, curls, you know, they're good for winding your fingers into," Millie says quite bluntly as she walks a little further along. "There's that desk there and a couple of others that might work in your space. Can't go /too/ big," she notes with an upraised finger. "Bed frames are back here, and there's a mattress on order, brand new. Should be coming in any day now, but if you'd like a spare until then, those are down that way." Pointing.

As he releases the clipboard, K'del nods, clearly at least a little impressed by the contents of the cavern, though he doesn't make any comment on that; instead, his lips are quirkly and then he's laughing. "All the more reason to let them grow back. Eventually." With a wicked grin still in place, he follows her through the rows of furniture, adding, "I've never had to pick furniture like this. Never really had any that was /mine/. I've got pillows; I can wait for a mattress. Save the effort." He pauses, to inspect one of the desks, hand traipsing across the wood thoughtfully. "Like this one."

"Though that kind of fuzz feels interesting too," Milani says as she eyes one of the bed frames. "So, no ideas about what you like and don't like for a bed?" she questions next and sets the clipboard down atop a nearby side-table. That desk though, she looks over at thoughtfully and comes on over, takes note of the lines. "That's got a nice polish on it and it's not too big. Should fit on the um," she takes a moment to orient herself, "right hand wall, I think?" She beams at the weyrling then walks back over to the bed frames, all dismantled and leaning against the wall. "I assume you want a /double/, right?" she asks next, teasingly.

"People seem to like touching my head at the moment," grins K'del, clearly not at all displeased with this development. Her question about the beds goes unanswered, for the sake of the desk. "The-- mm, think it would. Haven't paid too much attention to where things'd fit, but I think so. It'll be nice to have somewhere proper to work." He abandons the desk, however, to join her over by the beds. "Silly question," he teases back, smug. "Other than that... doesn't make a difference to what you do in it, right? Something sturdy, that's all I need."

"Lucky you," Milani teases about his head and nudges at a frame. "This has similar lins to the desk and should go together quite sturdily," she tells him, slants a look sidelong at him. "Well, you'll want somewhere to /rest/ in between won't you and you're such a nice long drink of water, you'll need the space for your partner or ... partners. So. Double it is," the headwoman decides and pulls the headboard away from the wall. "What do you think?" The wood's a near match to the desk, the lines are simple and there's slats along the headboard for decoration. "And in your weyr, bed on the far well, desk to the right and chair, rug, maybe low table or an extra trunk to the left, I'd think. Makes for good room flow."

"Ah, Milani, how right you are," laughs K'del, clearly joking rather than being outright pompous. Or: mostly joking. "Double it is. Room for all of us. Oh - that looks pretty good." His head inclines towards it, then to the desk, the glow lamp in his hand lifted to make sure he gets a proper look. "You're right, they do sort of match. No, that'll be great. You're pretty good at all of this."

"All right then," Milani says briskly and returns to the clipboard to extract little taggies from beneath the clip and moves to affix these to both pieces of furniture. "This is the most fun part of my job, I swear, outfitting everyone," the headwoman says with a bright laugh. "Now there's a chair with similar wood in the frame over there, but it's nicely padded, so go have a look at that, and it occurs to me that you have no bath so you'll need a wash-stand and then you should be all set for starting out at least." She ties off the knot on the tag and straightens, returns to the weyrling and reaches up towards his cheek to give it a gentle pat. "And it'll be nice and cozy for all that company you'll be having."

"Bet it is," laughs K'del, watching as Milani tags the furniture. He doesn't even go over the chair in order to inspect it, simply bobbing his head: "That'll be fine. Just-- whatever. Not fussy, like I said." He looks amused for the pat on his cheek, though he flutters his eyelashes in response, saying, "It will be. Reckon people'll never want to leave - and fine by me. Weird, sleeping on my own, no one else around. Anyway: thanks, Milani. This'll be great." The rest is easily done - the chair, a washstand, and then, he's quite content, and heads off again, eagerly awaiting the arrival of his furniture.

"All right then," Milani says agreeably and then she's laughing merrily for those fluttered eyelashes. "Well you won't have to put up with that for much longer, will you?" she says kindly, lets her fingers linger for just a touch longer thans is strictly polite then turns to finish up the tagging and busies herself with writing up the work order on her way out towards the door. "It should all be in your weyr by afternoon's end," she says firmly and waits for him to exit, then locks up behind them both and heads back to other work.