Logs:Snapping
| |
|---|
| |
| RL Date: 9 June, 2015 |
| Who: Dee, Eadgyd, Kaelige, Rasaid |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Sometimes pushing makes people push back. Sometimes threats are idle, and other times... well. |
| Where: Candidate Barracks, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 13, Month 13, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Like it's trying to prove a point about winter bitterness, the weather is horrible today. Starting before daybreak, the wind piles up the clouds, which unleash a fury of driving snow and ice. The day is long and dark, and the night is hardly better as wind and snow combine in a blinding blizzard. |
    |
>---< Candidate Barracks, Fort Weyr >----------------------------------------<
The Candidates' Barracks is longer than it is wide, with the head of each
cot head against one of the two side walls. Alongside each cot, there is a
hook affixed to the wall where a Candidate's robe may be hung, while
clothes and personal effects are usually kept in the trunks at the foot of
each. Designed to house about a hundred young men and women at any given
time, the place alternates between feeling cramped when dragons go out on
Search and very empty when there is no clutch on the Sands.
The beds are neatly made when Candidates are imminent and expected to be
kept that way by each young person who claims them. Between clutches, they
are stripped bare, with linens kept in cabinets along the walls nearest
the entrance. Candidate robes are stored in a large nook off to the side
for Candidates to pick and choose from; especially old or filthy robes are
discarded regularly, with new ones made by the seamstresses or apprentice
weavers in their spare time. It's early; it's the sort of hour only morning people truly appreciate, even if some others are required to appear at this hour to start a day of chores and so on. Already there's movement in the barracks of candidates dragging themselves out of their beds to hop to (read: mostly stumble in the vague direction of) bathing or breakfast. It means there's a cluster around the chore listing as bleary eyed people check, or double-check before exiting the barracks or going back to their cots for a change of clothes. It's Dee's turn to look at the list and her lips purse and then wiggle back and forth as if not wholly pleased by what she sees next to her name: Rest Day. Early isn't a concept that brings a smile to Eadgyd's lips, but it is unfortunately one that she's very familiar with. So while other candidates may groan and stumble their way up to the chore roster, the short-haired girl is already fully dressed and just arriving back in the barracks post-breakfast. She shoves the more bleary to the side with a grunt. "What's mine, then?" is muttered to a taller candidate as she makes a show of standing on her toes to try to see the list. A look of frustration causes her to purse her lips together when her duties for the day are read out: groundskeeping. "S'not much point in shoveling snow when it's all coming down, is there?" Arms cross, and she scowls at the list. Dee shifts obligingly without needing to think about the attempt to ease Eadgyd's time of it. "On the bright side," the taller girl offers, finding the silver lining for the short haired candidate, "shoveling is probably better than if they have you collecting frozen, bloodied carcasses from the feeding grounds?" An ever delightful and ever necessary groundskeeping task. "It's not so bad, is it?" seems a genuine inquiry as if she hasn't met this particular chore devil yet. "I never said it was bad," Eadgyd replies, that frustrated gaze now fixed on Dee and her attempts to be helpful. "Collecting carcasses doesn't sound so bad either. What is it with you lot and assuming no one wants to work?" She elbows a nearby candidate who gets too close, giving him a pointedly innocent look when he turns to glare in her direction. That innocence fades as she looks back to Dee. "But there's no point in shoveling when it's coming down. I'm guessing you haven't been outside yet." "Not yet today," though judging from Dee's bright eyed, bathed and dressed state (in a pair of work-worthy trousers and plain shirt), not having been outside isn't a matter of not having been awake long enough. "Is it bad? They looked wet coming in for breakfast," probably before dawn. "I wasn't assuming you didn't want to work, just that those things get heavy when they freeze. Like the difference between trying to shovel frozen ground and not. Better when it's not frozen." She turns a little toward the older girl, looking at her askance, "I'd assume you want to work since you took the knot and work comes with it." It only makes sense, her tone implies. It doesn't stop her curious follow up, "Why did you take it, Eadgyd?" A name she must have gotten from the list given that she doesn't pronounce it quite right. When another candidate comes too close and takes another elbow (oops?), Eadgyd finally seems to decide that standing amidst the commotion isn't the best of ideas. She turns around and wends her way out of the group, assuming that Dee will follow without being asked. Even as she walks, she's saying, "It's bad enough. Doesn't look like it's going to stop, either." Not that she's a weather expert, of course. One brow arches at the assumption that taking the knot goes hand in hand with a desire to work. "Where'd you get that idea from?" she asks with a bark of a laugh. "Haven't you met Lord Hood?" She seems to think the nickname ought to require no explanation. "He certainly didn't take the knot because he wanted to work." A glance goes toward the doorway as her thoughts stray to what she's meant to be doing today, calculating what they'll have her do instead. "What?" Her eyes dart back toward Dee. "Oh, because I was told I could return it." "Wanting to work and willingness to work are much the same thing when it's a means to an end. Either you want the work itself, which is best," Dee opines as she follows the other girl as if there were never a thought she might do otherwise, "or you want what the work gets you, be it food, shelter, the prettiest flower or a dragon." For all her youth, this much she says with the dangerous certainty of belief. "Kaelige," she names him, "wants a dragon, so he's willing to do what he needs so he doesn't get kicked out. I don't think he really understands how much work a dragon is," she has a genuine look of concern for that, even a brief lip worry on his behalf. In the next moment, her wealth of concern for things not her business returns to Eadgyd. "So you delayed deciding if you might want a dragon by taking the knot? But you're open to it?" This seems important given the way she reaches a hand to try to touch the other girl's arm, to stall her progress away and to make a bid for getting her attention on the question that has Dee's hazel eyes looking so intently on the older girl's face. Eadgyd arches a brow at Dee's certainty, listening to the other girl with a healthy sense of skepticism. The further mention of Kaelige does earn a perk of attention as her straying gaze snaps back to Dee. "Kaelige wants a dragon?" The question trails off in a way that's meant to lead toward further explanation. There's something calculating in her curiosity, as though it's all being catalogued and filed for a later date. She has to fight the urge to roll her eyes as the other girl goes on, and she's not entirely successful in the endeavor. "I don't know if I'm open to it," she answers in a somewhat patronizing tone, "If I knew that, I wouldn't be unsure about the knot, would I?" At the brush of Dee's hand she snatches her arm away, glaring at the other girl. Dee settles for folding her arms across her chest, looking at once frustrated and awkward. She's probably not used to being annoyed with other girls. "Why can't you just figure it out?" is exasperated, and as if it didn't take an entire candidacy and a green going between for her to do so herself. "Yes, he does," isn't really telling more than confirmation and she lapses into silent staring at the other girl, as if by staring Eadgyd's mental pot might boil into an answer for her. "I'm sorry, am I not doing this fast enough for your imaginary schedule?" Eadgyd snaps in a tone that has a razor edge to it. Something is boiling, but it's not that answer Dee was hoping for. "I'll decide in my own time, on my own schedule. You keep this up and I'll turn in my knot that much faster, and it'll be on your conscience if another dragon doesn't make it." The last is practically spit at the younger girl in challenge, daring her to continue in this line of questioning. Any inquiries about Kael's interest in riding a dragon are put on hold for a moment, with her temper flaring too hot to focus on anything but glaring at the other girl. Dee isn't normally the type of person to snap, and certainly not at another person, and yet, here she is returning tone in kind, "I already have one dragon on my conscience, and I don't need another." She actually does glare (though it's about as ferocious as a kitten) first at Eadgyd and then in the direction of Lord Hood's cot, as if this were somehow all his fault. "No, Eadgyd, if your lifemate dies because you didn't want her," or him, "that's on you." For all that she's always seemed willing enough to be a sheep, there's more than bleating coming from the brunette. "And if you'd do that, throw it away just because I, or anyone else, pushed you to do it, then you probably don't have the will to make it onto the Sands when the dragons hum anyway." This is where she should whirl and make an exit, but Dee is simply not the whirling type, standing her ground, jaw set. Eadgyd laughs bitterly in the face of Dee's 'ferocious' glare, meeting the other girl's anger with a biting tongue of her own. "It's beyond stupid that you have any dragons on your conscience, since that green clearly didn't want you. Maybe she was defective. Maybe she wasn't meant to hatch because she wasn't made right. Maybe she would've died in a few sevens, and if she had impressed she'd have left some poor sap broken for the rest of his or her life." Her previous aversion to any kind of physical contact doesn't stop her from getting up in the other girl's space. What she lacks in height she makes up for in ferocity, and some of the other candidates nearby seem to have noticed that Eadgyd looks about ready to sock Dee on the jaw. "You're wrong," she growls back in a low tone, "If you keep pushing people, if you keep laying your guilt on other people and driving them away because of it, that's on you. Just you. We don't take any blame for wanting no part of that." Dee's arms go defiantly from folded at the chest to settled on her hips. (This is, for the record, a fantastic self-defense strategy. Note how it leaves her completely open to any attack.) "Oh, so it's my fault if you're a coward who can't know what she wants enough to stand against someone encouraging you to a particular end? If I encouraged you to be careful on one of the viewing ledges high up in the hatching cavern, I expect you'd toddle off the edge just to spite me then and call it my fault?" She even has an eyeroll of her own for the shorter girl. It's possible Dee's mood might be fueled by the comments on the green and her own feelings about it, but she doesn't address that like any mature person might. With no warning, there's a gloved hand on Eadgyd's shoulder. Where he came from, how much he'd heard, and how he got behind her as she tenses in the moments before an impending punch, it's anyone's guess. Kaelige's grip tightens just enough to ensure she knows he's there, and his proximity to her back is frighteningly close. There's a quiet chuckle, a breath really, that can be felt more than heard. There's a grin beneath the hood, mischief in eyes unseen beneath the hood at first. When Dee speaks again, despite the impending violence before her, his bluegreens become evident, dangerous in and of themselves, but give her only a charming- and perhaps warning- wink. "I'm no coward," Eadgyd growls, spitting the last word at Dee. "Don't lie to yourself and pretend you're just 'encouraging'. You're pestering. You're trying to manipulate everyone else here with your own guilt. That's what makes it your fault, girl." The fingers of her left hand curl, forming themselves into a tight fist. And oh, she's itching to land a punch somewhere. It's there in the tense lines of her body and the slow windup. But before Dee's face can become better acquainted with her fist, there's a hand on her shoulder. That near-silent chuckle confirms what she knew without having to be told: it's Kaelige who has dared to lay a hand on her. Which makes it all the easier for her to whirl with arm cocked and attempt to slam her fist into his jaw with a battle cry of, "Get your hands off me!" "Oh, yes, manipulative, that's me!" Dee answers with a sampling of her own snide derision, her hands throwing up in the air, only to have the gesture hijacked by a sudden need to hide her nose and mouth and the look of horror as Eadgyd swings at Kaelige. Violence. Who knew it was really a thing? Not Dee, and she certainly didn't expect to see it here. The wink might even be missed in her moment of shock and immediate regret. It's not without experience that he stands so close, the ability for wind-up and extension minimal. Kaelige waits for her to turn, expects it. And when she does, a rapid, liquid motion of hand sweeps to block the swing from the inside and use her momentum- if it works, of course- to take that final step to be body-to-body close to Eadgyd. The block, if she doesn't wriggle away fast enough, would turn into a hold on her forearm that walks a fine line of cuddling and restraining. Should she yank away, however, she'd find the grip remarkably forgiving in releasing her. His expression never changes from that smugness as he looks down at the shorter girl. Though, the term smoldering would also be appropriate here. "And if I don't want to?" Comes something akin to a purr. What, is he going to kiss her? Any rejoinder Eadgyd might have for Dee is rather swiftly forgotten in the wake of a punch gone horribly, horribly wrong. At least the other girl can rest easy with the thought that no actual violence has been committed (for now). There's a hiss of air through clenched teeth as he pulls her in close. In a moment she'll undoubtedly regret later, she's too surprised to even struggle. While he may smolder, her expression remains unmoved with teeth bared in something very much like a snarl. "I'll slit your throat with that knife of yours," she threatens at a volume that might seem as though she were sharing a secret, were it not for the venom behind those words. A gasp is all the observable reaction that Dee can muster as she continues to stand, horror-struck, by the body-to-body pair. Perhaps, later, she'll earn some sort of points for not running off to tattle about death threats at this juncture. "Kael," is squeaked out after a breath, almost imploring, then, "Ead," as if she's got any right to encourage Eadgyd to anything else today, or use a familiar form of her name, for that matter. Can't we all just get along~? Kaelige holds that closeness, his eyes narrowing almost playfully at her threat and staring with a cold passion almost believable enough to not be mocking gesture. "If you wish to touch my legs, I won't deny you." He replies in indication of where he keeps the knife she's seen him use. His returned whisper is low, a romantic sort of suggestive, as if entwined in a lover's moment moreso than replying to malice. With her stillness, his face is almost flush with hers, almost nose to nose. But then he steps back, releasing her with a sudden flourish and without the impending suggestion of a kiss. Dee squeaking his name in the moment prior draws his attention, and subsequently mischievious small smirk, as he moves just enough to be beyond swinging range. To her credit (if you can call it that), Eadgyd doesn't flinch. No matter how uncomfortable she feels with the proximity, she stubbornly refuses to give way and allow Kaelige to win by squirming from his grip. But that flame of anger in her gaze only grows stronger with the suggestion in his tone. "It's the only reason worth touching you," is her rejoinder as her hand curls into a fist once more, preparing to swing again should that threatened kiss become reality. But it doesn't. She almost stumbles when he releases her, much to her chagrin, and she's quick to take up with ferociously scowling at the pair of them. Oh the tension. Rasaid is more or less immune to it. Lumbering in right on the tail end of Kaelige's comment the man snorts once. "You got lots of threats kid. Starting to think you're impotent by not following through." He makes no allowance for their personal space and will just walk between the two argument makers as he carries a book back to his particular cot. Dee, in contrast, is not immune, not even a little. As the tension breaks with Kaelige's release of Eadgyd and she stumbles, a couple tears sneak out of Dee's wide eyes. She stupidly, instinctively reaches to try to help steady the shorter girl before her eyes flick after the larger candidate and then back to Kaelige. The threat of more tears is real and present. Kaelige appears to drop his attention to his gloves, tugging at them briefly in turn, though the observant would note it's done in thought. Ead's reply to him has the edges of his lips upturned in that insensitive smirk of his, though his tone of voice remains gentle. "Allow me to help you change that opinion someday." He gives in what seems to be in earnest. Rasaid receives no retort; his offer to Eadgyd being his parting words as he's already in motion to move past them and out of the barracks. He didn't miss the sudden dampness of Dee's eyes and cheeks, and though he spares no word or time, he does pass by her close enough to brush against her shoulder. To be taken as either callous disregard for her feelings or a touch of kindness in acknowledgement of them is up to however they feel about him now. That death-stare is still largely fixed upon Kaelige, even more so when a quick glance catches those watery eyes of Dee's. "Just try it," Eadgyd replies, leveraging the words as a threat, even though what she's threatening isn't entirely clear. Rasaid? Well, he gets a glare as well merely for existing in that particular moment. As Kaelige suddenly makes his exit leaving Eadgyd alone with a teary-eyed girl, she does the only thing she can: she beats a hasty retreat. She throws her arms up in frustration, growling out all of that pent up anger that this encounter did nothing to relieve. "The snow is better than this," she declares with one last glare for all involved. "I hope you break at least one bone today!" That's hollered over her shoulder especially for Kael. Ah, the lasting friendships of candidacy. |
Leave A Comment