Difference between revisions of "Logs:The Men Are Men"

Stables, High Reaches Weyr

Taking advantage of a natural overhang in the side of the mountain for its roof, this building boasts sturdy stone construction braced by beams of tough-as-nails skybroom. Just inside a pair of broad doors, the ceiling rises a full two stories high for the full length and half the width of the building. Beneath the overhang, wide windows admit light and more fresh air, while opposite is the second-story hayloft.

The stables' main focus, however, is the double rows of stalls that line the walls below: one large stall serving as tack room, the rest housing a remarkable variety of beasts. (+views)

The slog to the stables is a particularly nasty one today, with cold sleet sluicing down from a steely sky to soak the world in freezing half-rain, half-ice. Luckily enough, the stables themselves are actually quite warm and provide the perfect haven from the elements; the scent of hay, straw and runners is especially strong, but not altogether unpleasant. Nicky's chores have taken him there today, and he's currently in the middle of mucking out a stall - a task he seemingly enjoys, given that he's whistling a lively Harper tune while shovelling muck and nudging the quadruped occupant out of the way of his shovel ith a gentle nudge of his bony elbow.

Is this place... the stables? Sabella enters the building looking wary and definitely nervous. Her nose wrinkles when the scent of runners and their stalls reaches her. She's lost her usual clothes for garments that a person wouldn't care about getting destroyed and her long hair is pulled back out of the way. Approaching the line of tools that hang on the wall, she picks up a shovel and gives it a long appraisal. Then her eyes drift along the length of the room until they settle onto the other candidate. She steps to him with the instrument in hand, "Ah, Nicky?" Is that his name? "Sorry to interrupt, but... where do I begin?" That comes with a quiet start of laughter and she gestures to the place with a comical wave of one hand.

That is his name! The curly-haired candidate looks up, and gives Sabella a warm, if surprised smile. "N-Nicky," he confirms with a nod of his head. Despite the seemingly obvious, he asks, "Um... a-are you on stables d-duty, too?" The runner in the stall with him, a relatively small chestnut mare, who looks even smaller given the height of the beanpole teen himself, stretches out her neck to try and wuffle warm breath against Sabella's chest. "Be g-good now, Sunny," he softly soothes the mare, stroking his hand over her shoulder. Then, to Sabella, "I'm a-almost done in here... um... h-how about we s-start on the next one over?"

"Yes, I think so. I told the woman writing the choreboard up that it must be some sort of mistake. But she laughed at me..." Sabs smiles at the other candidate impishly and shrugs her slender shoulders. She twists the handle of the shovel around in her hand and laughs when the mare bumps her nose against her chest. "Oh! You're a friendly thing." It's a bit of a girly gush indeed. Tentatively she reaches out to stroke the animal's snout before answering. "On the next one? Sure, of course. Do we just shovel it... out? Where does it all go?" There's some 'I have no idea how this works' wonderment in her voice as she glances around again, pointedly looking at the floor.

The grin Nicky has for Sabella is meant to be reassuring; it's lopsided, showing just a hint of a dimple. The teen edges out of the stall past both girl and runner muzzle, giving the latter a gentle stroke of farewell. "S-Sunny's very f-friendly. She'll r-roll over for s-something sweet... she s-stole my bubbly f-from me, one day." And the look the mare gets says she's not yet been forgiven for it, either. He then tilts his head for Sabella to follow him to the next stall, which is empty of a runner, but has plenty of muck to remove. "Um, y-you just scoop up the p-poo, then, um, d-drop it on this sack, out h-here." Said sack, laid flat just outside of the stall door, is pointed to. "Th-then later, we'll bring the wheelb-barrows by to pick it all up." With a sweep of his hand, he gestures for the female candidate to lead the way. "So, um, S-Sabella? Wh-where did you say you were, um, f-from?"

"She did? Oh, you're a bad friendly thing then." Sabella informs the runner in a mock-stern voice, tapping one finger on the edge of the animal's nose. But then Nicky is gesturing for them to go to the next stall and she steps ahead as indicated, quick to reach their destination. Her eyebrows lift when she stares at all the muck that's in the stall and she can't help but sigh a little and wrinkle her nose again. "I was living at Greenfields when I was searched." The teen answers, flickering a glance over to him before she enters the stall. "What were you doing before you became a candidate?" She asks, turning her head to look at him more fully.

Nicky scoops up a shovelful of muck, using a practiced wrist-flick to have it land neatly on the sack, where it should. He's an old hand at this, and the way he moves around the stall should give ample opportunity for Sabella to step back, watch, talk, do as she will; he doesn't seem bothered whether she pitches in or not. "U-um, I was here. I'm t-training to be a f-farrier, when I'm not, um, w-wearing a white knot, though I h-hadn't been here long." Scoop, scoot, flick, repeat. "I'm f-from Far Reach. Wh-where's Greenfields?"

Sabella stares at the shovel and then stares down at the muck, a few long seconds going by before she actually puts her back to it. The first shovelful she takes is way too heavy for her and there's no way she's flicking it lik Nicky does. "Oh. So you worked in here to begin with?" She asks, laborously swinging her arms to aim at the sack that's over there. So much effort. She's not a girl built for this sort of work and it shows. "It's by Crom." The answer comes simply with no further words for it and soon she's flashing a bright smile onto Nicky. "So what's Far Reach like? Not exciting enough to keep and train you there, yeah?"

"Um, h-half here, half in the f-forge, and, um, sometimes with the B-beastcrafters, too." Which makes more than a whole for anyone counting, but Nicky doesn't seem to realise that. He watches Sabella's efforts with a slight wince, holding up a finger to try and stop her as he demonstrates the movement for her. "T-try going s-smaller. You don't h-have to scoop it a-all at once." He does as he says, flicking the runnerpoo onto the sack. "F-Far Reach is, um... i-it's where m-men are m-men and the w-woollies are n-nervous." Snorting a geeky sort of laugh at his own attempted joke, the teen winks playfully at his peer. "Um... n-not much there, r-really. Just the f-family wool b-business, o-ovines, llamas, c-caprines... my uncle was p-posted here, and I followed."

Half. Half. Plus something that's not quite half equals... More than one whole. Sabella seems to recognize this but doesn't portray anything other than friendly interest in the story of Nicky's life. "You worked at the forge? Where are your incredibly buff arm muscles?" She asks, her lips curving into a tease as she makes a show of looking his arms over. Her eyebrows draw together, furrowing at his instruction. There's another sigh and she digs the shovel in again, maybe half this time. It's still a lot for her, at least from what anyone would be able to tell. It doesn't look like she quite gets the joke but she laughs at something in it, lifting her chin. "The men are men? What else would they be?" He winks playfully at her and she returns the favor, exaggerated as she goes for another load of muck.

Incredibly buff arm muscles? Nicky looks down at his slender upper arm, flexing the muscles there - there's really not much to show. "Y-you don't have to be h-huge to work with m-metal. A l-lot of girls do it, a-and they're v-very girly. I'm strong enough, p-promise." Is he trying to show as much, as he flicks one of the bigger piles of runnermuck out of the stall? Maybe! The way his joke falls flat has his expression sinking, and he bites his bottom lip as he tries to think of how to explain what he meant, without getting too flustered. "Um... i-it means they, er, th-they... i-it's k-kinda crude." And he's blushing furiously, turning a pretty pink from his neck to his ears.

He flicks that next shovelful out of the stall and she laughs. "Oh, I'm just teasing you, Nicky. I'm sure that you're more than strong enough. Stronger even than some of the girls who work the forge." Sabella says it all in good fun, really. By the way she reaches over and pushes playfully at one of those slender arms. Concentrating she digs that shovel in and tries to manage the weight more gracefully than the last couple of attempts. When she looks at him again he's blushing furiously and she's pausing to lean on the handle. Her eyebrows raise and she's regarding him with pursed lips, trying to keep that smile back but eventually she just giggles and smiles brightly. "I'm sure that it is."

Nicky takes that as the joke it is, reaching over to teasingly poke Sabella in the arm. Back atcha! "I-if you mean Waki, then sure I'm s-stronger than him... a-and I don't wear a d-dress." Thankfully, they can skip along from the failed joke he tried to make, and go right back to the serious business of shovelling. And it's time to move on to the next stall! He gently ushers Sabella out with a "C-c'mon, n-next one over," then pauses in front of the next occupied stall. "Th-this," he indicates the grey gelding inside, "i-is Thunder. D-do you want to st-stay out here, while I, um, f-finish up inside?" He's unhooking the stall door latch so he can slip inside, and Thunder takes an instant interest in the people coming in. He butts his head roughly off Nicky's chest, then rubs up and down along him, scrunching up his tunic and knocking the teen back a half-step, until he's steadied himself. It doesn't seem to faze him; in fact, he laughs as he tries to push the runner off him. "Wh-whoa, there!"

"Waki..." Sabella scrunches up her face as she tries to place a name to the other boy's face. "He's uh... I'm sorry. I don't know who that is, I don't think. The names are blending together." She lifts her shoulders helplessly and flashes him a rueful little grin. "But I'm sure if he's wearing a dress that you're much more manly than him by default." Nicky is poking her in the arm and she puts her hand to the spot, mock glaring at him for a brief moment before laughing once more. He's ushering them out of the stall and she's more than willing to move along to the next, taking the hint to stay out of this one. "Oh, well. Sure. I'll just stand here and make sure we don't get attacked by any flies. You know, important work." That and lean on the wooden fencing, reaching out to pet the runner on an available bit of hide.

So long as Sabella is out of the way when Nicky starts flinging poo, she'll be good; otherwise she may be in for a nasty surprise, as his quick, efficient way of working means he doesn't necessarily pay that much attention to whatever's in between his shovel and where he knows the muck's got to go. It's a well-practiced way of working, speaking of turns of practice. "H-he doesn't always w-wear a dress." The words may be muffled by the runnerbutt, behind which Nicky is working. "He's a g-good guy. My b-best friend, actually." Up his head peeks over Thunder's back, and then Nicky's ducking under the runner's neck to get out of the stall. There's no next one on this aisle, only a tack room. He gives his fellow candidate a wide grin as he props his shovel against the stall side, stretching out his arms until they - or is it his spine? - cracks. "Y-you did a g-good job with the, um, f-flies, Sabella. N-now we have to p-pick all the sacks up, and, um, p-pour them into a 'b-barrow. Which is, um..." Fingers indicate the tack room. "O-over in there." Will she go get it?

Sabella manages to not get hit with any crap rather effectively, a girl like her? She's paying attention to his shovel. "Your best friend likes to dress like a woman sometimes?" She asks, not sounding judgemental. It's more along the lines of curiosity as she skates along the outside of the stall, edging towards the tack room. "I bet he's interesting at the least." The smile that she delivers to Nicky is on the sly side, slow and even as she recieves his compliment. "Oh, thank you so much. It was really very tiring. I think I'm ready for a nap and- wheelbarrow?" She glances towards the other room, eyeballing it. Then she's flashing him a quick display of teeth and winks cheekily. "Sure, anything for you." Was that blushing she saw before? Hopping off the side of the stall, she quick-steps into the other room. Silence. Sound of movement. Crash. "...Whoops." That comes more quietly. Well, she tried to get it anyway.

"He's W-Weyrbred." Which, for Holderly types like Nicky, says it all, really. "Y-you'll know him when you, um, s-see him. T-tall," but the candidate's hand as he indicates height suggests that Waki's not quite as tall as himself, "brown h-hair, k-kinda long.... k-kinda, um, pret-- good looking, I guess? I dunno." He shrugs, brushing off the awkward that follows his last words. Maybe he's trying to win Sabella over, for his friend's sake? He nods in appreciation as she goes off to get the barrow, turning to stroke Thunder's soft muzzle as he waits... until crash. His eyes screw shut and he winces, giving the runner's nose a pat before he goes off to see the damage - and to help, of course. "'S-ok, 'bella! D-did you h-hurt yourself?" This, it would seem, is going to wind up being one of those chore days...