Reky
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Post by Reky on Jun 28, 2011 15:44:57 GMT -5
The runners were kept in their stalls that morning. Rot from spring rains was taking its toll on the old fences; one particular section was so unstable that it threatened to fall apart at the slightest touch. Some of the nails had been reduced to nothing but hollows full of rust. Moss made a home in the splitting timber. Osine eyed the sight with disinterested determination. She and a few other candidates were on a tight schedule. The runners had to graze today and the fence had to be fixed before then.
Her social interactions, to be honest, had been few and far between. Her head was constantly in a state of focus on work. It left little room for introductions, save for quick ones among other chore-doing candidates. She wanted to make a good impression on the candidatemasters, not because she had something to prove, but simply because she was capable of hard work. Doing otherwise would be a waste of skill and time. Most of the time she was helping the tanners procure fitted riding clothes for the two weyrling classes, and she would rather have been there, but the fence needed fixing and Osine had volunteered to spearhead the project.
Her yellow-green firelizard was draped about her neck at usual. She spared little attention for Snakey, who seemed content to be an unwelcome scarf in the summer heat. Snakey gurgled, looking blank and happy. Osine looked behind her at the pile of cut wood, bucket of long nails, bundle of hammers, and other candidates. Then, she looked back at the rotting fence. She'd fixed fences before. It would have to go.
"Let's get this over with," she said, largely to herself, put Snakey crooned as if it had been a compliment towards her sickly green self. Osine went over to the fence and gave it a good kick, feeling it become looser and looser with each push and tug. She pried a beam free, potato bugs dropping from it, and tossed it into the beginning of a new pile.
"Well, come on," she said curtly over her shoulder. What, were the others just going to stand around? [/blockquote] |
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Cathaline
Lady Holder
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Post by Cathaline on Jun 28, 2011 15:56:53 GMT -5
Yes. Yes, the others were just going to stand around. At least, Daymar was, because he surveyed the entire project with an expression of dismayed shock. In the time he'd spent at the Weyr, he'd done many distasteful chores because it was required of him as a Candidate, but surely this was a bit much?
To anyone who was listening he said, his voice slightly high-pitched, "We'll get splinters and they will become infected and we will die. Are those bugs? Those are bugs, aren't they? We might smash our fingers with the hammer." Not to mention that the girl had a firelizard, and that meant he was extremely loath to come too close.
A pair of leather gloves flew out of nowhere and hit him in the chest, and he caught them automatically even though he was practically having a heart attack. Atenna strode up, grinning; she wasn't precisely here to supervise, merely to pick around the area a bit to make sure nothing had been left around that might injure the runners. A bit of preemptive healing, if you would. But what did she find? Candidates. More than one, apparently.
It was all Tasa's fault that she had become a stalker of Candidates, she decided.
"There," she told Daymar. "Now you won't get splinters."
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Post by purnip on Jun 28, 2011 16:12:18 GMT -5
"So um...how do we begin?" Ridley gave a low drawn yawn with a stretch to complete the whole ruse as one of the Candidates broke from the ranks and began to take action. Breaking mid stretch, he was alarmed by the sound of a kick--the crunch of old mossy wood against a determined boot. Hah! Well, that looked simple enough. At Tillek, he was kept away from anything that could potentially cause harm. He was hardly ever the victim in cases past, and that was the greatest problem of them all. Ridley was an accident waiting to happen. Unfortunately for the other Candidates, no one passed that memo on to the rider that Searched him.
He wanted to help, whether or not he knew what he was doing. The other Candidates were just beginning to come around when Osine beckoned them to take some kind of action. Ridley started moving right away towards the fence, barely taking a look at it before he followed the girl's lead and gave one of the planks a good kick. The force rattled the fence a little, but it sent the young Candidate reeling back and landing square on his behind. "Ow! Right! Just give us a second, I'll have it down in no time!" He sprang back up and began to yank at the post with all his might, but he was having a real tough time of it. Ridley was not all that strong to begin with, and the part of the fence he was actively attempting to destroy was less rotten than the first to have been removed. Once potato bugs fell away and began to sprinkle on to his legs, the boy jumped back with a start, shaking them off vigorously. "Getthemoff! Off! Off!" He spun about and gave the post one last kick, which finally wedged it free, but once again the force brought him to the ground again. "Woooo! One down, dozen more to go! More or less."
Though Ridley stirred up a bit of commotion with his loud and careless antics, he didn't seem to notice. Breaking things is easy. He had no clue what to do with those nails and fresh boards brought along for the job, so sticking to what he knew really brought the spirit out of him. He looked up to Osine, a big grin plastered on his face as he sat up straighter. "Just point, and I'll pulverize. I could do this all day, you know. Strong legs. Just what I needed to wake up, innit? Great exercise, and you know what? It's good for the weyr. That means it's good for us too."
Though sensitive to things that might offend others, Ridley had a hard time realizing when someone was willing to deal with his personality in general. The other Candidates probably thought him silly at the moment, and maybe even obnoxious. But through his own eyes, he was taking far more action and with greater success than the lot of them. They just couldn't begin to understand that yet.
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Reky
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Post by Reky on Jun 28, 2011 16:37:37 GMT -5
Osine frowned at Daymar's whining. She didn't turn to face him, nor did she reply, but she was listening and wasn't impressed with what she heard. Splinters? You pull them out. Infection? Go to a healer. Bugs? Shells, bugs didn't hurt people. Not these ones. They just crawled around and were easily squished. In fact, where the pillbugs fell on the ground, they curled up into balls and looked no different that clumps of dirt. She tugged at the next beam, kicked it, and cracked it off of the crossing beam it had formed an 'x' with. Then she saw the flying gloves. Snakey gurgled, happy to see the new person.
She looked at Atenna and, surprisingly, smiled. "Those'll do him good," she said, and got back to work. Much to her dismay, however, her second teammate was as much a chatterbox as the other. He wasn't as wimpy as Daymar, but that only made it slightly more tolerable. People were allowed to talk, but that didn't mean Osine had to approved of it. She shook the rotting fence again; this section was tougher to get apart.
Ridley was rambling off again, something that started out as a question and quickly got unnecessarily long and pointless. Osine leaned against the fence, putting weight on its failing posts, and looked him square in the eyes. She started talking before he even finished. "Do you really need to talk that much? Everything inside the marked section has to go," she said. Indeed, two posts had white paint splashed down them. It made for about a fifteen meter stretch of doomed fencing. "Faster we work, the faster the runners get to graze." She turned back to the post she was leaning on and kicked it. Getting looser.
She gazed briefly at Atenna. The herder would probably be glad when the candidates were gone and her equines could eat. [/blockquote] |
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Cathaline
Lady Holder
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Post by Cathaline on Jun 28, 2011 16:45:40 GMT -5
"Ridley always talks that much," Atenna said, winking at the Candidate she'd previously met. She hopped over a stronger section of fence, one that would not collapse at her touch, and bent low to examine the grass. Ah, already she found a sharp rock that could drive into a runner's hoof, splitting it; she picked it up and tucked it in her pocket for later disposal. "And yes, they would very much appreciate grazing, but I'm not here to be your taskmaster."
It was quite easy to win Atenna's friendship, honestly; she liked Ridley even though he'd stabbed a pillie, she liked Daymar already even though he was a whiner, and she liked Osine's commitment to the work. A lot, really, as she was the only one here who might be able to get the runners into the paddock sometime this sevenday. "I'm Atenna," she said.
"Daymar," the boy said automatically, inspecting the gloves minutely. They appeared clean, so in the end, he put them on. Ridley's antics terrified him; hyper people were upsetting, and was he expected to do that too? It looked painful! And it got bugs all over him! "Aren't there...better...ways to exercise?"
Sidling up to a fence post, he poked it. Hard, okay? But it didn't fall over. Shards.
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Post by purnip on Jun 28, 2011 23:07:01 GMT -5
Ignoring the tell-tale signs of pure, unadulterated annoyance that practically dripped from Osine's pores, Ridley's head swiveled in Daymar's direction as a result of the boy's concerns. "You can die from a splinter? Now that's a load of rubbish. I knew a man--not the brightest glow in the basket--had to get his foot lopped off because of an infection." Ridley went a shade paler, if that was even possible. "Come to think of it, I was rather careless. Would you mind tossing a pair of gloves this way?"
But he had to admit, even he thought the story had more to it than a simple infection from something as insignificant as a rusty nail. If Pern knew dick about tetanus, then what made Ridley any more of a moron for thinking such a thing? Still, he wanted to keep all his limbs if that was possible. Picking himself up from the ground, he shot Osine a sorry glance when she interrupted his ramblings. Sometimes he did get carried away, but that didn't warrant such a rude comment. "Sheesh, you don't have to be so testy. Cheer up! We're all here to help!"
Straightening up his collar, which was completely askew after a couple of spill, he looked about to assess the extent of the work he completed on his lonesome compared to what they had left. Shoulders sagged when it all sank in. They had a lot more work ahead of them and contrary to what he just said, that barrage took a lot of energy out of him. Determined to prove his worth, however, he toughened right up and gave a nod. "Alright. Here we go."
Ridley was already beginning to kick at the center of another plank as people began giving names. He wasn't one to miss introductions, so he quickly put his foot down again to catch his breath and chime in. "I'm Ridley! Just flew in from Tillek." He gave a short laugh and focused his attention on Daymar briefly from there. "There sure are, mate. Tons of em. Got stretches um...got running, swimming, ah...skiing...kicking! That's right. Got kicking, but ah--that's right--not a favorite." He finally went quiet when his bright blue eyes found focus on Osine again. "I'm rambling again, aren't I?" He couldn't help but smile nervously, as he always did when embarrassed by his own actions. "I'm sorry, I can't help it. I'll try to shut up now." He grinned, trying to play if off like he really could. It'd only be a matter of seconds until he disappointed her.
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Reky
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Post by Reky on Jul 3, 2011 21:11:46 GMT -5
At least Osine had her work and Atenna to keep her sane. The other two candidates did not help on that front, but she would just have to suffer through them. It was just for today. Then she realized that they were in the same candidate lessons, would live in the same barracks, Stand for the same hatchings and possibly be in the same weyrling class, and calmed down a little. She couldn't get that worked up over something that was going to plague her for Turns. That just wasn't smart.
She settled for mildly ignoring Ridley's banter and focused more on the fence and on Atenna. The herder introduced herself, as did the other candidates, and Osine frowned to herself. Ridley was his name... like 'riddles.' She hated riddles. Not only was she awful at them, but they took a long time to say. The name suited the owner, she mused, and then turned to Atenna.
"I'm Osine," she said to the herder, smiling. The other two would hear the name anyways, even if it wasn't directed at them. Ridley spoke again, and she replied, but didn't bother looking back at him. "Psh. You can talk, you just have to work at the same time." Speaking of working, she looked at Daymar's pitiful attempt to help. "You could always dig around the bottoms of the posts. We'll need those out, too, and you have the gloves now."
Meanwhile, she was busy dismantling the weakened upper parts of the fence herself. She wasn't too terribly strong, but years of stretching and sewing hide had given her a mean grip. Snakey cooed as she watched Hers work. She had not clue what was going on, but the green was registering Osine's feelings as good ones, so it must have been good! [/blockquote] |
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Cathaline
Lady Holder
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Post by Cathaline on Jul 3, 2011 21:50:11 GMT -5
"I think I've got a second pair," Atenna told Ridley, swinging her bag around from its usual resting place at the small of her back. She dug through it, then shrugged and tossed him one quite nice leather glove. "Sorry, the other must've fallen out in my quarters - but one is better than none, right?"
Committing the names to memory, Atenna focused on Osine; she hadn't met Daymar yet and needed to get to know him too, but the poor, hardworking girl seemed to need someone to talk to who wasn't...well...those two, frankly. "Some people have trouble with multitasking," she said with a grin. "I like your firelizard! What's her name?" And did she always drape around the girl's neck like that? She couldn't imagine the firelizard's hide did much to help keep Osine cool in the summer heat, but at least the back of her neck wouldn't burn...
Despite the fact that Daymar had been the one to mention death by splinter, he still shuddered when Ridley repeated it, and went on to provide horrific anecdotal evidence. Still, at least the other boy was now properly...well, half...protected from such an occurrence. He gathered all his courage and wrapped his begloved hands around the top of a post, and gently started to shift it from side to side, wiggling it loose from the ground. At this rate, he might yet manage it before Thread fell!
"Skiing?" he demanded. "Kicking? Those aren't exercise, they're just things crazy people do." His judgment of Ridley was well-formed now: the boy was a lunatic, and Daymar intended to keep his distance. Of course, he also had to keep his distance from Osine, because of the firelizard; and from Atenna, because...well, because. Because she was a Herder, and Herders worked with animals, and at any moment a stampede might begin. Yes. That made perfect sense. He did give Osine a shocked look at her suggestion. "Dig. In the dirt. Where the bugs are." Was every Candidate but him completely mad?
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Post by purnip on Jul 3, 2011 23:24:36 GMT -5
It wasn't going to start getting complicated until there was nothing left to dismantle. Leveling the older portion of this pen was a task that required nothing but brute strength and obedience; brains were not necessary. Ridley could handle a task like this without close supervision, as long as he wasn't flailing about with something dangerous. Whether or not Osine liked it, and just as Atenna had pointed out, the boy was not going to stay shut up forever. He couldn't even keep his thoughts to himself while others were speaking. "I suppose a little risk is necessary now and then," Ridley injected with a forced smile as he caught the lone glove. He hadn't even allowed the herder to finish explaining. He just couldn't help it--when the words wanted out, out they went. There was no end to the trouble it got him in.
Multitasking wasn't all that hard. Ridley had all sorts of difficulty with it before, only because it's hard enough to plan one task through, let alone another. As he talked he kept staring at the one glove and shifting it from one hand to the other, trying to decide which hand to protect. "The problem is, you can never truly decide which hand to put the glove on. It's almost unfair--choosing which hand stays safe and which hand risks it all. I mean, who am I to choose? Besides well...being the owner of both." After a few more seconds of mulling it over, he finally slipped it on his right, which was not his dominant hand. He wanted more range out of the left since it was more dexterous. It fit well, mainly due to Ridley's undergrown stature and thin structure. It might have been a little too big, but he was going to try to make it work either way.
He had a feeling Osine was trying to challenge him, Daymar was trying to complicate things, and Atenna was trying to baby him. What was it with this group and how'd he end up stuck with 'em? This could have been just a little more pleasant if everyone got along to some extent. Instead, Ridley kept worrying about how much the others thought ill of him. It was stressful and unsettling! As frustrated as he felt however, he knew it'd do him little good to be passive about it. It was best to let everyone know! To get it off his chest and have everyone realize and understand the conditions they're creating.
"What is wrong with you?" Ridley directed this to Daymar first, who was already touching upon him as some sort of uptight, silver-spoon fed son of a Holder who was raised in a bubble for the first ten turns of his life. "Skiing's fantastic. And if anyone's crazy, it sure isn't me, mate. I'm not afraid of my own shadow." He looked to Osine next, still visibly irritated. "And did I say something to offend you? I didn't, did I? Because I could have sworn I said I was willing to work. Didn't I say that, Atenna?" he glanced back at the herder for just a second before looking to Osine again. "I thought so. Right. So maybe we can shake hands, make friendship, have ourselves a laugh, and finish up this bloody chore before Rukbat starts to bake us alive. Sounds good? I think it does."
He didn't seem to have a hold on the gravity of his outburst, because he simply swept with his arm across his forehead to remove the accumulating sweat before returning to his work. Then he did. It kind of hit him after a few seconds of sinking in. He stopped and looked back at the lot of them with a very apologetic expression. "Wow, um...I'm so sorry about all that. Honestly--um. Has to be the heat. That's it. The heat's getting to me. You know what it's like." He glanced to each one of them, hoping one would agree. He wanted to diffuse what he just finished ranting about before they had a chance to attack him. He wasn't the confrontational sort; he simply had trouble thinking before he acted.
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Reky
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Post by Reky on Jul 4, 2011 12:04:51 GMT -5
The pile of discarded fence pieces was growing, largely Osine's work. She had dismantled two segments of the fence by now and was starting in the third. Admittedly, she wasn't paying much attention to the progress Ridley and Daymar were making, but she doubted it was anything impressive. She was content to work by herself, even, but she knew that it would take far too long and she would need extra pairs of hands when it came to building the new fence. Hopefully, the other two would prove useful then.
Atenna's question made it to her loud and clear, though, unlike Ridley's and Daymar's banter which she was still mostly ignoring. "She's Snakey," Osine said, blushing furiously and frowning at the childish name. "I got her when I was eight." The disclaimer came every time she introduced her flit. Snakey, having heard her name, emitted a sound halfway between a gurgle and a trill. She wiggled her little feet uselessly and looked so daft that her eyes might have been pointing in different directions. She did look happy, though, if that covered up for her lack of brain cells.
"She's cute, at least," Osine added and tossed another beam of rotted wood aside. Then, Ridley lashed out. Osine was very much taken aback, flashing him a startled glance. She refused to look straight at him, though. She had work to do. Even if he was going to be a baby about it, she was going to get this fence done without exploding - hopefully. In fact, she was offended by his outburst. She hadn't told him he wasn't working. She had just told him to make sure he wasn't standing around doing nothing but yapping. And she definitely did not want to 'shake hands' or 'make friendship,' and it did not sound nice.
So she ignored him and his stupid excuse and kept working. She sniffed, nose wrinkled. Ridley was crazy and Daymar was useless. At least the latter could be helped... she looked at him with something akin to sympathy. Wow, life would suck if you couldn't do anything without being scared.
"Well, yeah, there's bugs," she said, "But they won't get at your hands because of the gloves. Or..." She looked at Atenna. "They didn't leave us a trowel. Does the stable have one?" Daymar would probably appreciate having his hands on a clean little spade instead of in the dirt. [/blockquote] |
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Cathaline
Lady Holder
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Post by Cathaline on Jul 4, 2011 17:08:17 GMT -5
Daymar grumbled something about how risk was not necessary, and Atenna watched Ridley out of the corner of her eye as he fussed over which hand to put the glove on. Maybe she should head back to the stable and get him a decent pair...as much as Daymar seemed to need the protection afforded by two gloves emotionally, Ridley was the sort to need it physically. If anyone here was going to die of a splinter, it would be the great pillie hunter. "Snakey? That's cute," she told Osine with a smile. "She is cute, and at least she doesn't get in the way, right? We have quite a group of flitters at Dalibor who will steal anything shiny they can get their paws on."
Their conversation, and Daymar's moaning over the fence post, was cut short by Ridley's outburst. Atenna's eyebrows shot up, but the words struck right to Daymar's heart. What was wrong with him, indeed. He had to be the worst Candidate Dalibor had ever seen. And he wasn't afraid of shadows unless they were shadows of terrifying things, which his own shadow certainly was not. Ridley's words only reinforced his own self-hatred, though, and he shrank in on himself. Despite the following apology and Ridley's determination to make friends, Daymar kept his mouth shut. They thought he was crazy, just like everybody else did.
Atenna cleared her throat and eyed Ridley before she said, "Apology accepted. Heat does funny things to people, and this is hard work." The implication being that he was working hard, which to her, he was. At least he was doing a better job than Daymar. "Sure, I can get a couple of trowels, and some more gloves..."
No need to waste time; she walked through one of the already-dismantled sections of fence and headed for the stables, as quickly as she could. Leaving that group alone might well lead to murder.
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Post by purnip on Jul 6, 2011 22:16:06 GMT -5
Too late now, wasn't it? If they hadn't hated him before, they surely had now. Ridley hated the tension involved with working alongside those who didn't respond, aware of being silently judged and left to guess the worst. Luckily he had his hands full trying to get the fence to come down, but it was impossible for him to drag on in silence no matter what the conditions were. He wanted to diffuse the anxiety as soon as he could, but it was hard for him to focus on the 'how' when Osine stared at him with clear distaste and Daymar's attitude took a turn for the silent and seriously offended. If Atenna hadn't been there, he might have still talked to them in attempts to patch things up, but he wanted to cling to the first familiar he could find that actually stood in his corner for a change. She was even the one and only of the group who accepted his apology, even though she wasn't on the receiving end of the attack. He rather liked being defended. It was so rare and so precious that as he realized it all the more, he forgot all about the half of the group that obviously despised him.
"Oh! Bring us a trowel too, would you?" That was all he had time to say as Atenna was up and off to fetch them. Truth be told, he had no idea what a trowel really was. He imagined some sort of shovel, which would have really helped to dig some of these posts out. He was lucky he was able to pull one through; it was in a condition deplorable enough to be wedged out by a small, yet rapidly growing boy.
Oh, but that meant he was stuck with the two that hated him again. He threw glances their way, curious and quick as he started trying to push against a plank with his shoulder. He wasn't following any proper procedure or even succeeding to any degree. Hell, he wasn't even applying the right kind of force. He was highly distracted by what the others were thinking of him, because he had enough of being neglected over silly little mistakes. Time to start over! First impressions are a load of wherry-dung anyhow. With just the right 'second' impression...
"So the two of you--" he began, his tone suddenly bright and slightly exasperated. "Candidates, just like me. Searched, waiting for Hatchings, Impressing dragons, doing more chores; it hardly seems worth it in writing." He looked to one of them, Daymar in particular, because for some reason he felt the boy would be a little more inclined to answer. The question he was about to ask however was for the both of them. "What is really in it for us? A dragon? I mean, it hardly seems like enough, especially with Threadfall and all that. Always fighting it all the time, dragons dying, people dying...eugh," he gave a shiver as he leaned against the still-stuck plank, then he rose his head suddenly as it just occurred to him. "Wait. I didn't really think about that. I could die. I could really get killed out there."
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