Weyrling Training Cavern, High Reaches Weyr
All the furniture here has been pushed to one side of the room to allow a large pathway opposite: room enough to let weyrling dragons pass from the bowl's archway to the cavernous barracks at the back. None of the furniture matches, either: it varies from big cushioned, claw-footed chairs to those of plain wood, while the most seating is at the two stone tables ringed by low and equally hard stone benches. Without the tapestries that decorate many of the Weyr's other interior spaces, the room always echoes with noise, no matter how few are there.
What it does have, however, are several colorful murals: on one wall, a detailed diagram of a dragon's anatomy; opposite, next to a creaky wooden door, a number of painted and labeled wing formations. Near the entrance is a large-scale version of the Weyr's badge, while the back wall, by the barracks, features a detailed map of the continent. The latter area's also home to one big, beat-up couch, black or maybe blue -- the thing's so old and filthy it's hard to tell, though it's certainly comfortable.
At the table, A'rist, two sheets spread out before him, and a pen of sorts in hand. Next to the bench, a big bronze roadblock, with rounded belly, bloodied muzzle, and content snoring. Sometimes, there is quiet. A'rist has learned to make the best use he can of it.
It's not that Telavi tiptoes, exactly, but there is quiet and... then there's a voice over the teenager's shoulder, quiet in everything except comparison. "Boo." Brightly.
A'rist starts, despite himself, gripping the pen tight, making a line where an 's' was supposed to be. "Mhm," as he relaxes from the shoulder down the rest of his arm, and lays the pen flat on the table. Looking behind him, "Hi."
And with that, Tela's answering smile turns brilliant before she sideslips around the corner: not Lythronath's side but the other one, and in the next moment she's in a seat of her own. "How's that coming along?" There's some sympathy because those grammatical exercises, boring.
The little dragon twitches for the nearby motion, and then holds very still. Only if she's watching him might Telavi see his eye open, and then close, really quick. Shh. "It's..." A'rist shrugs, picking up the pen again, the better to tap its end against the table. "I think good?"
And she's not watching, or rather, she's not watching the dragon. The project, yes. Telavi gives it a longer look and decides, "It's better," in the sort of hopeful tone that implies distance to go. "It looks like you're being very careful writing the letters."
"Oh." That brings his attention to a whole other aspect, and the pen is put down again, for a chance to stretch out a hand that is stiff, it turns out. "Just thinking, I guess." The bronze's eye opens again, whirls as he tracks, closes. Still very quiet.
"Oh?" Hers is two beats after he guesses. She's still not looking at either weyrling with those bright eyes, not once she's identified the stretches for what they are; rather, she looks more closely at the writing, as though it might hold some secrets between the lines.
Any secrets there are about subject and verb agreement. And possibly that A'rist prefers straight 'y' tails to curvy ones. Said bronze weyrling shifts uncomfortably, then makes a conscious effort to lean back so that Telavi can have her inspection. "What time is it now anyway?"
Some might read into that a general predilection. Telavi, though, just leans her elbows on the table and rests her chin in her hands. "Not too long before dinner." But, "How hard is it to just write down what I say? Say."
"It's not," A'rist says, his cheeks going faintly pinker than their usual. "Not what you say. I mean, except maybe writing the words right." He shrugs. Lythronath's tail twitches, and then he's holding all still again. It's tough, being stalky.
"So what happens," Telavi wonders out loud, eminently stalkable what with the whole sitting still thing, except isn't that more boring than a target who moves, "if you say it out loud and then sort of," she shrugs. "Listen to yourself and write it down?"
Maybe that's why Lythronath has yet to leap into action. He does at least remember to make a few snoring noises, just now. "I... it works until you get lost." That makes A'rist frown, deeply, and look down to the page before him. His non-writing hand rests fingertips on it, wiggles it on the table. "It's okay. I get this, I do."
'Until you get lost.' Now Telavi's lost. "Until you get lost? I get lost? 'Lost'?" Lythronath did get a glance, what should be an amused glance but is more of a distracted one because, "I just want to help you get it-- more. Easier." It's sort of like it's her job or something.
That blush is getting worse. "Because you have to think about how to write everything out, and then you try to go back to what you were saying, but sometimes it works out different if you try and do it fast- I'm doing those word lists too. Writing them out over and over so you remember? That should help." So he says, with all the authority of one who's been told this by a trusted someone. Lythronath sleeps, no really.
Everyone's sleeping here, folks. "Oh." Telavi looks at A'rist quizzically, blush and all. Quizzically, and possibly also speculatively. "They should. Have you been doing where you write the letters and linkages, o-o-o d-d-d-d e-e-e-e? And if you lift your pen less, too, maybe. So it doesn't break the flow. What did you do again? Before you wound up here?" She pats the table right after that last word. Presumably she's been briefed, and there aren't so many weyrlings, and yet.
A'rist is having a wonderful time; it's written all over his face, as he fidgets around a bit more in his seat. "I've... just been writing them out." He takes his fingers from the page to scratch at his head, using it as an excuse to lean back, to get a look at the not-as-little 'sleeping' bronze. "Worked with the herd. And in the stables, some. Beast stuff."
Of course he has, says Tela's returning smile. "And the tracing too," she more suggests than wonders, reaching for the pen, the better to check and see if the nib has any inadequacies that could explain everything. "DId you have any favorite animals, back there? At least," her dimple shows briefly, "among the ones that weren't going to get eaten?"
"I even liked some of the ones that were going to get eaten," A'rist offers. "Even named some of them." The shrug shows a general lack of sentimentality - for food beasts, anyway. There are reasons the gore-loving bronze picked this one. (He again remembers a few fake snores.) Watching the greenrider eyeing the pen: "It's not that bad is it? I thought it was getting better."
Her blonde head bobs up from all that considering, blue-today eyes wide on the human weyrling. "It is better! Definitely better. I just wanted to make sure the nib didn't wear down." Tela even lets the pen roll away from her as 'proof' before she can add more than a doodle or two in the margins, though it gets its own glance of something like regret. "But you named them? What sorts of names? And..." there's the sound of footsteps, many footsteps, the beginnings of a very different herd. Someone's told someone who's told someone's dragon who's told-- suffice it to say, across the Bowl, dinner's been served.
A'rist shrugs, looking skeptically at his page - and then slightly indignant at the doodles on his hard work. "I don't know," is lower. "Whatever stuck. Brownie. Fluffy. Loo. Del. Ian. Aylia. It was just mostly to keep track of some of them." And those footsteps have Lythronath up like a shot, his tail smacking into the table, moving it. Crowds! And that means that A'rist is up, grabbing that hide, whether Telavi is done with it or not, and going after his dragon. There's controlling to be done here. Telavi doesn't even get a 'goodbye'.
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