Thaw [Baili, Serah]

Winter was really Ghris' season. For months he'd be happily bundled up, plodding through sleet and ice and snow to do his chores. The many layers made him look altogether husky but they made him feel secure, hidden. The more that stood between him and other people, even if it was a subconcious dressing choice, the better.

That and the chores! Oh the chores! He would look out for extra chores occassionally, even, when he was feeling particularly homesick. An avoidance of his feelings...of his social anxiety, of his alien surroundings and the change of everything he knew and everything that was comforting. He often enjoyed the worst chores because they always took the longest and there were less of his fellow Candidates electing to do them. Or, if by punishment, they tended to be sullen and quiet, which meant Ghris was hardly interacting with them. If his roommate Hakotep saw him during the day it was either scrubbing or shovelling or carrying or hanging.

The chores also reminded him of Western Weyr, of his herd that required constant maintanence, especially in the wintertime. Up at dawn and early to bed, feeding, mulching, mucking, herding. His animals were his livelihood and he missed that desperately. His independence, too.

But things weren't all bad. The chores helped and the presence of his roommate, floating in and out of his existence at the Weyr, was helping him slowly get by. On the very rare occassion he would wake up to his companion propped against his bed, fast asleep - and he would slide something under his head or re-tuck his blanket before falling back into his own ponderous slumber. But he was never sure how often Hakotep took up this activity - the shy Herder usually simply exhausted himself and slept very hard indeed.


The concept that one of these days he was supposed to Impress lurked in the very back of his mind, but he tried to put it out of his thoughts more often than not. He had many things to work on before this occurred, anyway, and there was no guarentee.

And then there was Spring...oh...Spring. His precious Winter, dissolving day by day under a warmer, cheerier sun.

With reluctance, he had taken his layers down to just a few. Away went the scarf that hid his face, away went the gloves, away went the bulky fur-lined coat. The boots were lighter, too. And the chores were slightly less intense. With the change of seasons, shoveling snow and de-icing turned to weeding, pruning and debris removal. Candidates were more likely to interact, be bustling about, hanging around outside looking for friends and others as if coming out of hibernation.

It made Ghris' stomach twist in knots. It was with this feeling that he went about his day. So wrapped up in simply getting from place to place and chore to chore without talking to his fellows he nearly breezed right by Hakotep in the Barracks doorway with a girl he doesn't recognize. But he stopped and turned, brows furrowed in curious puzzlement.

Lyna was caught a little off guard. Hakotep had not wanted to shake hands, something she didn't really mind. She knew that there were those people that were born hand shakers and those that did so either grudgingly or not at all. That is when she noticed him looking at something behind her. She turned around to see what Hakotep was looking at, and it turned out to be another candidate. Lyna waved at the boy and smiled. "Hi there!" She called. "I'm Lyna, what's your name?"

Lyna then moved to where she could look both at Hakotep and at the new arrival. However, admittedly she did not know if he was new or not. She probably just had not met this boy before. Looking back at Hakotep, she smiled. "Well, I was born in Fort Hold but I didn't stay there for very long. My family was moved to Benden Hold when I was about five. We have been there ever since. Well, they have. I was Searched to my little brothers' discontent." She giggled. The look her brother had on his face when the dragon and his rider came was priceless, even more so when Lyna was the one chosen to be a candidate.

Fort and Benden. It made sense. Lands of healers, harpers, and wine, all very respectable places. He couldn't rightly imagine growing up in a major Hold, though. There were just so many people and it was a wonder that they all got fed and all played a role. Probably a lot more freeloaders in a Hold like Fort, though. They could live there and pretend to be busy. At Kirrok, everyone had to be doing something, or the women who cooked would refuse to feed them. They had threatened Hakotep with no dinner many, many times as a child. 'You have to do your chores,' they said, because his distant mother would never have enforced it. 'I'm still not doing them,' Hakotep would reply. He always got dinner one way or another.

He was thoroughly entertained when Lyna had latched onto Ghris from all the way over where they were. Her energy seemed to leap out of her like and like an enthusiastic fishing line, and Ghris was caught. Hakotep leaned back in his chair, quite satisfied. A breeze whisked through the door.

"He's shy," Hakotep smiled to Lyna. "I think he probably needs more friends. Maybe then he'll leave me alone sometimes." But Ghris already left him too alone because of chores. Hakotep never minded Ghris' company. Never. "Oh, don't just stand way over there, Ghris." He held out a slender hand and languidly beckoned his roommate over.

He felt very bold with the spring air all around him. Teasing Ghris in public seemed a wonderful pasttime. He afforded the boy a sly wink, though, because he hoped Ghris wouldn't get too mad at him for it. He wouldn't apologize, of course, but he would find something to ease Ghris' discomfort later if he had to (key word being later).

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Ghris wrinkled his nose in something akin to annoyance at Hakotep's assertion that if he had more friends he'd leave his roommate alone, his cheeks still flushed with color and only coloring more. He did, however, meander closer to the pair. He couldn't stay mad at Hakotep, if only because he knew his friend meant well. Besides, he also knew he'd hardly been in the barracks overall - and earlier that morning, too early for Hakotep to get up, he'd been fussed at as to where he was going.

As he settled closer to the pair and gave Lyna a curious glance over, he appeared to respond better to her enthusiasm. And then all her questions, which left the boy rubbing at his head softly with a quirked smile at the bombardment.

"Oh, uhm. Yeah - well, I was Searched from Western. But I'm from Ista." he paused. Had anything interesting happened to him? As far as he was concerned it was all interesting to him. And frightening, most of the time. "I've been seeing a lot of new things...sometimes a lot of it is overwhelming so I forget---" he replied with an apologetic smile, hand moving to cup the back of his head awkwardly. "Errmmm....where are you from? Were both your parents dragonriders?"

He then added, to Hakotep, "What have you been up to today?" the Igen boy looked altogether too pleased with himself, and beyond teasing Ghris he imagined the boy had something up his sleeve. Like getting right out of chores somehow.