Bathing Pools, High Reaches Weyr
Omnipresent clouds of steam slink across the tops of three naturally warm pools, set into the floor of this kidney-shaped cavern. Near the entrance the ceiling is high and polished, gleaming with little mineral specks as it sweeps downward into increasingly ragged, uneven steps. The foremost of the pools is squared off with wide steps leading down into the water and has faucets for bringing in cooler water from a rain-catching cistern. Primarily used for laundry, there's an almost constant film of suds along its surface until the circulating current clears it at the end of the day. Four sinks line the nearest wall and various tubs stored beneath allow for the washing of delicates. Laundry bags can be dropped off in the bins near the door and clean, folded laundry is stacked in rows of tall cubbies for easy pickup.
The bend in the cavern leads to a rougher-hewn part of the chamber where the two circular bathing pools welcome those in need of a wash. Towels and washcloths are kept in neat stacks on shelves along the wall, along with sacks of sweetsand and a few bars of precious soap. Stone benches provide a place for sitting to remove shoes and clothing, while a row of gleaming brass hooks stand above, ready to hold clothes and robes.
Night has fallen and while the bathing pools aren't *empty*, per se, they are only sparsely populated. Ceawlin is one of those inhabitants, entering with confidence straightening his spine (which also, incidentally, gives him the fullest of slight height) and directing his steps. Expression is cool, closed, and assessing as blue gaze sweeps the baths for who might the others be, but clothing is stripped off rather mechanically. The fine materials are neatly folded, despite being soiled with the day's wear. Steps are light, nimble, as the harper boy paces towards the nearest pool reserved for bathing, clothing carefully placed on the brass hooks. Slowly, the boy begins to inchworm his way into the water, one toe dip at a time.
Into the stillness of the bathing caverns enters one Ainslee, finally ready to scrub the worries of the day away. She's sans-wingmates, for a change, and there are no bronzeriders in sight! It must be a miracle. The short, curvaceous greenrider carries a tote in with her, overflowing with feminine implements of beauty and cleanliness, and a change of clothes and strappy sandals dangling from her non-tote-toting hand. She deposits all of this near the pool that Ceawlin's initiating foreplay with, and strips her own clothes with a practiced hand and natural shamelessness. Only after she slides into the pool does she seem to notice the lad, offering a belated smile in greeting, and a murmured, "Evening," in her naturally throaty alto.
The dance of the bathing pool does not preclude the ability of the younger man to notice an arriving woman. /Especially/ not an arriving woman for all his denials of interest in the fairer sex. Ceawlin's expression doesn't change other than the cool blue gaze watching Ainslee from the corners of his eyes. "Evening." By contrast, his voice is smoother, and more tenor in pitch. Only once the heated water has risen to his chest, physique slender and sleek versus muscular -- as befitting a young harper -- does he turn to focus the fullest weight of his attention on the woman. "That's a lot of stuff to cart around," adjustment to the weyr has settled Ceawlin enough that a dry teasing infiltrates the crisp perfection of enunciation. "For a bath." Deadpan humor is only evident in the eyes.
Implements are procured: first a loofa, a dangerous-looking natural sponge to scrape off the worst of the grime that encircles wrists, limns the lower line of belly, and tacks around ankles -- all the natural joins of clothing, vulnerable areas where dirt can penetrate linen defenses. It's only after Ainslee has contorted enough to lift the heel of one foot clear out of the water - the better to scrub at the half-moon of naturally calloused skin lining the back of her heel - that she hears Ceawlin's commentary. "Well, do you think that looking like this just comes /naturally/?" Her smile, megawatt as it is and directed to the boy, could be said to be teasing.
"Naturally, it must," Ceawlin answers smoothly. His motions are rough, on the surface seemingly careless. However, upon closer inspection, every inch of skin is getting an old-fashioned scrubbing. Water encroaches ever higher up to the boy's neckline as the bathing continues. Water dampens the hair at the natural border of his scalp, turning it a darker blond, but still pale. Which only serves to emphasize the pale, golden hue of his hair. "At least, that's what all the females would have us believe, right?" Her smile meets the subtle shift of expression in the slight turn of the corner of his mouth, and the minute upward tick of pale brows. "That sponge, looks like an implement of torture." Just sayin', tenor implies.
"It could be," Ainslee replies ambiguously, switching feet in a quick hop-swish of movement. "I suppose." The greenrider focuses on the other foot a moment, lips quirking. "So what brings a young boy like you to a place like this?" Her voice, again, teases: soft glance of aquamarine framed by soot-colored lashes, assessing the trick of color that turns pale gold that faintest, lightest waterlogged bronze. Loofa is switched out for a poofy-poof (do they really have a real name?) which is lathered with a scented soapsand suspended in liquid. Now arms receive a scrubbing, careful to catch every square inch with pretty-scented soap.
"A young man like myself," Ceawlin murmurs, reiterating her question to himself before cool blue eyes meet the warmth of aquamarine. "Why wouldn't I be in a," a pause before emphasis is given to, "'place like this'?" Pale brows rise further this time, though expression holds a certain sharp aloofness. Potential distraction in the intensity of attention are the accoutrements of beauty, such as the loofa and the poofy-poof thing that the girl now wields. In contrast, his own implement for cleaning is a rough rag, and by the strange and wary glances he gives to the things she's using, he's glad of it. They look dangerous, man. "What sort of place /is/ this?" a second question is lobbied back to the rider, dry humor once again infiltrating his tone.
Poofy-poof is lowered in momentary exasperation. "Child," Ainslee states in a tone of reproof, as if it should somehow be obvious what her exasperation is focused upon. She finishes with her second arm and starts in on her collarbone and shoulders, distracted from the conversation momentarily. The woman hardly looks a day over twenty-five, an achievement for her age - but it's obvious /why/, with such effort. "This is a weyr," she replies to the last. "With dragons," her response is amused, not exasperated as it was a moment before, "And dragonriders."
For a quick moment, Ceawlin seems about to reply with something else, hand frozen above the bend of his elbow. Calculating a more appropriate response seems to be the better point of valor as the boy merely says, "Surely a weyr has need of a harper senior apprentice who's mere turns from walking the tables." His voice is steady, lacking the dry humor of before, and though eyes are held down, the tenseness in the set of his shoulders, the flare of tendons as muscles involuntarily contract, give hint that he might be a little high strung. "Or does your weyr only allow," pause, "dragons," pause, "and dragonriders." Finally expression lifts, showing the poker face of a diplomatic focused Harper, turning her emphasis back upon her. As a final punctuating moment, one eyebrow lifts.
"It isn't my weyr," Ainslee is more than happy to report, though she seems to be taking an entirely undue amount of amusement out of poking at the Harper. "You're entirely unnatural, anyhow," she announces, dipping herself underwater to wet red hair fully, now deep-red and clinging to her face. She pushes it back, rummages for a canister of incredibly sweet-smelling soap to start kneading through her locks. "And," after the thought and reflective, "I'm not sure what a weyr would have need of a Harper. Do you teach children?" she politely inquires, though a gleam that bespeaks an inner streak of mischief still remains within green-tinted gaze.
In contrast, short hair is easily wetted, turning all of that pale golden hue into the pale bronze color of wet blond hair. A quick squeeze of his rag over the top of his head does the job, giving Ceawlin minutes to spare in coming up with a response. "Unnatural," the word is spoken slowly, each syllable almost an entire word in and of itself. "I suppose a Harper is good for a great many things. Like record keeping, and holding with diplomatic relations with the Hall. Small entertainments," cool blue eyes raise to Ainslee, "such as playing an instrument." Water still drips down his face, clumping on pale lashes. "My name is Ceawlin, and I'm eighteen." Challenge flares hot, finally, in an otherwise cool countenance.
"Well-met, eighteen-turn-old Ceawlin," Ainslee states with that lovely bemusement of hers, scrubbing hair and dunking and rescrubbing with careful consideration of every strand. "Do you play an instrument, then? Or have you gotten that far along in your training?" /Ainslee/ doesn't know the training track for the Harpercraft, obvsl. She picks up one of those little brushes and starts in on her fingers, now, taking care to clean the cuticles.
One must pause at this point, Ainslee's questions are put aside for the horror-stricken expression that now twists Ceawlin's features. It's the most dramatic display of /feeling/ the boy's shown since she encountered him -- and little does she know, since he's arrived at the weyr! "/What/ on /pern/ is that?" All else is put aside until that question is answered, the boy's mind momentarily emptied even of his own cleaning. Rag laden hand slowly drifts to plop into the water while one judgmental finger points at Ainslee's little finger-torture-device.
"This?" Ainslee freezes, mostly because that horror-stricken expression-- she slowly lifts the little brush. "My nail brush?" she replies, slowly, scooting a step forwards to extend it cautiously to Ceawlin to examine. "It's not going to like, eat your face. I promise." Now, it may eat /fingers/....
"No, no, no," Ceawlin backs away from the little brush after the most cursory of looks. "That looks painful. You girls are crazy. Beauty can't be worth /that/ kind of..." He gestures at her little brush and, well, /her/. "I can play stringed instruments. It's the reason why I was sent there in the first place." The words ring only slightly true. Cleaning resumes, before: "And your name, dear rider?" Dry humor surfaces again, though it has to work hard to quell the lingering horror at female beauty regimens. This is the biggest downfall of having public bathing chambers with adult females: the mystery of "beauty" is revealed, and it ain't pretty!
"Oh, I have one," Ainslee airily informs the Harper in regards to her name, mostly because she has to be the most annoying greenrider known to man. "You sure? I bet your cuticles could use the work," and here she waggles her little brush at him, oh-so-enticing. Right? A critical appraisal of his face requires her to tack on, "And we could clean up those eyebrows. You'd be /so/ surprised what a little tweezing would do..."
"Woman," the hint of the sort of man Ceawlin will become comes out in the sharp tones, and almost dangerous slant to sharp, almost-spoiled-like features. "You are not coming anywhere /near/ my eyebrows." Whatever threat might have existed were this Ceawlin-to-be is not quite there in the Ceawlin-of-now, still a boy on the precipice of manhood. The tendons that bind across the expanse of shoulders expose in the tightening of muscles, collar bone at sharp relief before the boy relaxes once again. "A name that I might have?" Though the words are sweetly asked, the cold gleam to blue eyes is not extinguished.
The fact that Ainslee is most certainly pleased by this showing of force in Ceawlin likely says more about her than other things. "I'm fairly sure that if I wanted to come close to your eyebrows I could," she placidly states, finishing with the remainder of her scrubbing in short work, rinsing her hair one last time and hefting herself out of the water in one smooth, athletic movement - probably exposing too much smooth, freckled skin, given that her poolmate is so obviously non-weyrbred. "Maybe later," she carelessly replies to his latter question, "Though it was so nice to meet you, young Ceawlin." She wraps herself in a fluffy towel and slides on strappy sandals, apparently ready to move to a different area of the baths to finish her daily beauty regimine (of course it's not done YET - that would be /way/ too easy!).
Her poolmate has a great poker face, and the expanse of all that smooth, freckled skin does nothing so much to Ceawlin's expression, which has darkened just a fraction more as control is not yet attained at such an age. But once it is, oh, will it be a force to contend with. The only hint to such exposure to skin is the slight pink at the tops of ears that curve in unwanted delicacy. "We'll see," the melodious flow of tenor'd voice is soured with an impending attack of the temper which is taken out on his skin and the rest of his bath. "Mmmmmmnnn, likewise." Such a lie, there. Oddly enough, the rest of his bath does take quite a bit longer than necessary. /Coincidentally/ ending once her routine horror show -- er, beauty regimen, is done!
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