A Room for Two (Qosis)

The door swung open, light lancing from the corridor toward Cysrel like an accusing finger. A misshapen shadow crossed from hall to room; Qosis was fighting to slide his tunic over his head with one arm, and aiming his jacket at the lower bunk with the other. Also sharing his arm space were a couple of fresh glowbaskets for the room proper, already open and drawing their own wild scrit over the walls. Qosis' head jerked in recognition of the additional presence in his room, the movement muted under his partially removed tunic. He stopped, lashing his jacket-bearing arm back to his side before its burden flew free.

Despite the seemingly sluggish disarray of his arrival, Qosis dropped the glows and stripped the offending shirt free mere seconds after the invader was spotted. He draped the cloth over his scarred arm beside his jacket, green-brown eyes glistening wearily as they absorbed the scene. One abandoned basket was lolling on its side, casting a rocking blue sheen across the bunkbeds till Qosis stopped it with his foot.

"You're right that the bottom bed is mine," he declared, and draped his clothes over a corner chair that appeared to have been borrowed from elsewhere. Then he turned around and left again, the door gaping wide to await his return. Qosis did not go far, only to the boarding slate in the commons. One easy glance confirmed the problem, and so he went back to the room, and Cysrel. He performed another sudden stop just inside the entryway as if surprised anew, but this time twisted to shut the door behind him.

The top bunk Qosis had allotted to the newcomer was stripped of all furs, blankets and pillows. Clearly some experimentation had also been done to see if the rush bundles forming the mattress could be moved, for a couple had been picked open. Qosis' eyes were on the bunk as he walked directly to the bedside, but at the last step they flicked back down to Cysrel. The trader's scowl of greeting was tempered by exhaustion and just a little curiosity. He reached past the other young man to his own bed, which had a rather conspicuous surfeit of furs, blankets and pillows.

Qosis nabbed one small pillow and a single ratty fur, flicking both up onto the top bunk. Then his hand moved possessively toward the clothing Cysrel was attempting to relocate. "And where are your things? I see the gitar. Anything else? Or did the dragon just swoop down and snatch you out of the herd with only the clothes on your back?" The smile in Qosis' words did not replicate itself on his stony countenance. "Welcome to the Weyr," he added, voice almost shrill with the acidity of the afterthought.

A smirk curled Qosis' mouth at the gratitude, and with Cysrel out of the way he sat down on the lower bunk beside his assembled things. He ran his hand over the clothing: his warmer weather layers, some belts and the wide golden show-rings he had not worn since arriving at Dalibor. None were missing despite his absence during their transfer. Qosis picked up a handful of these lesser accessories and thrust them into the drawer of a bedside table, which like the chair seemed to have been appropriated from elsewhere. The material was darker, the construction more hazardous than that on their fine beds and chests.

Rocking back onto his feet, he made back for the jacket left by the door. His tunic he dispensed in a laundry pile, but the wherhide jacket he set to the table aside his bunk. Qosis pulled a towel from amidst his moved property and laid it out on the floor, then arranged his things atop it and moved it under the bunk. Then he unlaced the short run of ties along the calf of each boot and kicked the footwear off. He kept his trousers on; the barracks were cold enough for it.

Qosis shook his head at the question, thumping down in the bed with his legs eclipsing the end by several uncomfortable inches. He kept his feet up by propping them on a chest-- his chest, not its twin that Cysrel had claimed. He adjusted several of his excess furs down to cover his toes.

"Sleeping now," he growled with all the wordiness of a watchwher. Then he rolled onto his side to face the wall and turned his prophecy true. Whatever Cysrel hoped to learn would have to wait for Rukbat.

Not that Qosis had missed his conveniently adjusted schedule on the boards earlier. A Rest Day, just as Cysrel showed up. How convenient. But truly, of his dark pre-sleep musings, the offense of a new roommate figured very little at all.