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Post by Admin on May 14, 2011 4:41:56 GMT -5
Catch me if I fall, I'm losing hold,
I can't just carry on this way,
And every time, I turn away,
Lose another blind game.
Bagging firestone was an important but monotonous job that, despite its repetitive nature, required all of one's attention due to the small chance of causing an explosion and setting oneself on fire. While Traepsie was sure that death by fire would be a most interesting way to leave the world of the living, she kept her eyes and attention on the task at hand while she bagged because of that. It was also the perfect job for her. She tended to focus on what she was doing, even when it was the most mindless or labor intensive of chores. She liked such things. She didn't love them, but she liked them as she liked most things in life. Besides that, the important nature of bagging firestone wasn't lost of her. Sure, pretty much everyone in the Weyr was capable of doing it, but she was doing something that would help all of Pern, even if only in the smallest of ways!
Another individual was supposed to be joining her soon. She hadn't checked who it was. One of the weyrlingmasters had simply told her what to do, where to go, and that she would have a partner. She hadn't questioned him. She hadn't even questioned why the weyrlingmasters had suddenly multiplied. Of course, she'd heard talk and she kept her ears open, but she refrained from getting invested in it too much. She wasn't too invested in her partner arriving either. She was sure that he or she would show up eventually. In the meantime, she was picking stones from large, carefully stacked containers and sticking them in large, carefully woven sacks. Each bag had to hold a certain amount, according to its size and intended weight, and she preoccupied her mind with that. She was a good judge of how much was needed and how much each stone weighed.
Completing another bag, Traepsie stood up. She hefted the full sack and ambled over to deposit it with the several others she had done in the past minutes. She thought she had likely been early, though she wasn't sure. When she completed one thing, she tended to just move onto the next. She didn't linger long in the room where the bags were kept, awaiting a wing. She didn't like its dark, narrow confines. Stepping out of the storage cavern to return to the oblong of gravel where the boxes had been stacked for bagging, she spotted an approaching figure. She squinted at him, as it turned out to be a male, and shielded her blue eyes with her hand. It wasn't that hot of a day, but Rukbat was shining brightly, telling the world that he still existed. As soon as she saw the boy's face, she recognized him, recalling a name if nothing else. "Hello Qosis!"
Say the right words,
Or cry like the stone white clown,
And stand forever,
Lost forever in a happy crowd. |
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Azhdarchid
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Post by Azhdarchid on May 15, 2011 1:52:23 GMT -5
His green-eyed gaze descended from the weyrs pockmarking the Bowl wall to the stalky but insignificant figure of his fellow Candidate. To be fair, neither of them figured much in comparison to a monolith full of dragons. He blinked and focused on the sharp contrast of her skin and hair. His eyes were shaded by the pointing brim of a blue-and-white hat, so no mimicked gesture of a guarding hand to his forehead was necessary. It still took him a second to get his arm in the air for a return greeting, right hand posed stiffly against the sky before returning to his side.
The lack of a proper wave had nothing to do with the bandages finally stripped three days prior. Qosis had already fallen back to his usual unconscious cycles of exercise, and had determined the flexibility of the whole arm from fingertips to shoulder. It was more a matter of custom: wild waves of greeting from the back of a runner or even while seated on a wagon had never been condoned. Momentary confusion also played a role, spurned by the still unlikely juxtaposition of his name and a friendly greeting.
"Hey," he answered in his deep conversational tone when he came in close. Her name... "Traepsie." The corners of his mouth twitched up in faint apology for the momentary memory block. He thought he might have only remembered because it was the kind of name that flowed intermittently, graceful but unique. Not like his name, which sounded like a sack of rocks someone was smashing against a wall. He plucked the first empty bag he found in an absent twitch of his arm as he circled around the firestone boxes.
Qosis readily identified which one had already been partially emptied, and took a station at the next one down. He rolled up the sleeves of his dull brown jacket and the underlying tunic. The jacket did not quite fit him, constricting around the upper arms and hanging only to his hip rather than mid-thigh or knee. It was the best he had on short notice. The clothing underneath was in his usual color: a green wine shade for the tunic, a belt studded over the hips with chips of turquoise, and a rich blue-grey cloth in his pantlegs that flowed into the turned-over tops of his boots.
That he had arrived to a chore second did not escape him, but did not bother him as much as he expected. He had nothing to say for Traepsie's work prior to his arrival till he carried his first two sacks of firestone over to the shrunken room where the others were kept. He added his to the pile, turned back toward the entrance, then stopped and twisted 'round to scrutinize the bags already loaded. The trader prowled the side of the formation till the wall curved in so deep he would have to bend over to keep edging along. He reached for the neck of one sack, but stopped himself from disrupting the cord choked tight around it. He could tell the condition from the outside.
Dark brows knitting once or twice on his walk back, Qosis studied the tall girl-- woman --working at the boxes till he got back up next to her, at which point he made a pointed return of his focus to his next bag and the stone just as important to Pern as the dragons that chewed it. "You bagged all that's in there already?" he asked with an unmuzzled accusation riding the edge of his voice. The tone resolved into reserved praise: "You have a good eye for it."
Qosis barely allowed the friendly offering to digest before he launched into his own interest. "Where are you from?"
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Post by Admin on May 17, 2011 20:12:53 GMT -5
There's no one left in the world,
That I can hold onto,
There is really no one left at all,
There is only you.
Traepsie continued with her life, unbothered by Qosis's rough greeting or momentary forgetfulness. She smiled away in his general direction and picked up a bag, falling back into work as he joined in their little assembly line. While she remained well aware of Qosis, she kept quiet. There was something nice about the comfortable silence of shared work. She continued with her packing while he began his packing and the cycle of life continued. Her life, at least, if only for the time being. While not incapable of some ingenuity on her own, she was a worker first and foremost. She glanced over at Qosis when he got up to deposit two sacks, watching him leave his place, but she continued to put firestone in her bag, hands working even when her eyes briefly wandered away from what was in front of her and then wandered absently back from its journey away.
All of her actions flowed together, quick but connected, until Qosis spoke upon his swift return and she heard accusation in his tone. She looked up at him, blinking her large eyes. "Yes." She was sorry he was upset. She hoped to fix that, but what she supposed to do? Bagging firestone was their job. She'd simply been doing it to the best of her ability. She didn't understand how that could be upsetting, though she would try to rectify it. However, it seems he was merely being cross for no reasoning. She wasn't sure how that sat with her, though he seemed to have complimented her. She was glad she was doing a good job; that was nice to hear, even if she wasn't sure of his prickliness. Normally, it wouldn't bother her, but when it was directed at her, prickliness made her feel uneasy and she hated that. Still, when he moved forward, she moved forward too.
"I'm from the south. Parents are traders;" Traepsie answered, smiling at him as if everything was fine. Her hands were still moving. Work never stopped, not for talk. She wasn't sure why where she was from was important, but she was proud of heritage, so she shared it, even if only in the briefest of words. Her childhood had been a happy time; she loved her family. Her old home, wide and dispersed as it was, was full of fond memories. "Where are you from?" She didn't like prying into the lives of others, but she figured it couldn't hurt. A little talk would make the work go faster. She was beginning to build a little fort of bags around herself, filling each one with the perfect amount of stones and neatly stacking them where she could reach each one. Efficiency pleased and soothed her, though she was happy to do a task as slowly and for as long as was necessary.
And still the hardest part for you,
To put your trust in me,
I love you more than I can say,
Why won't you just believe? |
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Azhdarchid
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Post by Azhdarchid on May 17, 2011 23:10:03 GMT -5
"Why didn't you say so before?" Qosis demanded instead of answering Traepsie. He hesitated around the time of the question, then spotted her arms still moving seamlessly through the process of collecting stone and with considerable consternation written into his posture continued his own work. He did not readily return to the storage area, instead piling his bags as Traepsie did: in an orderly and accessible fashion. His stacks did not rise much broader or higher than hers despite his greater reach. There was no reason to tempt a collapse.
The work resolved that ugly flare of frustration faster than kind words. "I am from the Northern Continent," he said, as if extending the wording gave it greater importance. "I am a trader." His narrow olive eyes sought her significantly blue ones, scanning for any impact the news might hold. She was so thin. And his skin was browner than hers, as if he was the one from the savage underbelly of Pern.
That he was also a Dragon Candidate and shortly his trader pedigree would mean very little as he was absorbed unto life a-dragonback-- and all the cultural whimsy that entailed --went without saying. But Qosis had, in his active seeking of other holdless, somehow missed this woman. And for a traitor like Xirofel to have occupied so much of his thoughts and this perfectly agreeable Traepsie to take up next to nothing was criminal. So he would make the connection now, while he still counted as something besides a dragonman.
And while she did too, he forced himself to admit. Traepsie with the crafted pleasantness and easy hand for physical labor would also Stand, like all the other skinny Candidate girls that had been hauled in. Nothing to be done about it save goading them all to lurk by the queen egg, if there was one. Let the Hatchling sort them out-- though he was loathe to put forward a few of the girls at all. Traepsie...Traepsie was a hard worker. That was all he saw, all he knew so far. Even though this kind of work should not have suited her.
Qosis stopped his hand before its automatic deposition of the next stone in the current bag. He turned the phosphorous black block around in his hand, but whatever imperfection he thought he saw must have been a trick of light. He lowered the stone into the bag till it knocked gently upon the others. "I have never been where you have lived your entire life," he observed aloud. "I thought about going to Point Hold once." More accurately he had thought about sending a caravan scout all the way down to a ferry from Southern Boll to see what could be exploited.
But the Western Continent had proven the bigger attraction. Traders had already scattered well over the Southern coasts, and Qosis had not been in the mood to fight an established train in an unfamiliar land. Besides, a move South would have corresponded with a loss of prestige for his people. Moving West simply made the caravan sound more adventurous. "What does it look like?"
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Post by Admin on May 19, 2011 18:42:46 GMT -5
All around me are familiar faces,
Worn out places, worn out faces,
Bright and early for their daily races,
Going nowhere, going nowhere.
Traepsie blinked at his demand. Was she supposed to have said what her heritage was before she was asked? Was explaining one's family the customary way of greeting other candidates? That seemed a little strange. She certainly wasn't aware of any such practice. His manner irked her, but pleasantness prevailed. It always did with her. Even if she had been royally ticked off by Qosis, she wouldn't have said anything. Besides that, work soothed all of her ruffled feathers, letting his harsh tone wash over her and disappear with the wind. She didn't know why she hadn't mentioned it before and not knowing hardly bothered her, so she merely shrugged, the gesture mostly for her own benefit, rather than his. Shrugging wasn't a gesture designed to work well with her bony shoulders and lanky limbs. With her hands still sorting stones, it wasn't very noticeable.
When he mentioned that he was a trader, Traepsie smiled, the expression so natural to her face having dimmed under her minor irritation with him. However, the irritation gone, her smile made a triumphant return. Another trader! It was nice to know that there were others, even if he was from the Northern Continent and not from her family. The assumption that all traders were the same, jovial folk or a lot of criminals or whatever one wanted to think of them, was folly, because each caravan was different. The first dedication, the first loyalty, of a trader was to their family, however extended or strange, but Qosis would at least understand more than the holdfolk and weybrats. Every trader knew how to bargain. No holder knew what it meant to travel. It was nice to know that she had something in common with Qosis, even if he was grumpy as an aging draftbeast.
"I don't know what Point Hold looks like. We stayed around Eastern Weyr. Cove, Paradise, Barrier, Hope, Eastern, those holds. Getting to Barrier was enough of a journey for us." Traepsie laughed, although it wasn't truly that funny. It was funny enough to her, because laughing was easier than crying or sighing about things that were long passed. It had been a hard journey when they'd decided to make it. Every trip was hard. Their life was rarely that easy. Of course, he'd know that, wouldn't he? "The jungle isn't easy to traverse. The roads aren't well maintained. Eastern to Point, either way, is like Nerat to Tillek." She couldn't attest to whether the journey was similar or not, but she knew the distances to be similar. Distances and locations were something one learned as a trader, even if her time learning under a harper had been limited and narrow in scope.
Their tears are filling up their glasses,
No expression, no expression,
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow,
No tomorrow, no tomorrow. |
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Azhdarchid
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Post by Azhdarchid on May 22, 2011 16:58:23 GMT -5
Qosis offered a sympathetic scowl for the condition of the roads. He wanted to think the holders were entirely responsible, but at the same time the Northern Continent paths were so worn-smooth they actually sank into the earth. Wayfarers had always used them, and aside from bridge repairs and the paths directly through the holdings he had thought the roads maintained purely by those that traveled their lengths. And the caravan would certainly rebuild a bridge on its own if it interrupted them-- really, it was just a cost of doing business. But to have to clear an entire route on every trip...
"In distance, yes," he agreed, qualifier tentatively addressing the fact that where the roads differed, everything else about the journey changed too. But Qosis did not elaborate on what he was certain was the relatively simplicity of the Northern routes. The biggest blockages there tended to be a product of Winter, not wilderness. He had thought Point, Southern, Moon and Inland Holds all had well-traveled, well-maintained roads by now, and maybe they did.
But his natural assumption of laziness in the pale Southerner did not contend well with these further-off locations. The names she mentioned seemed distant as the places themselves, made-up even. He had never heard much of Eastern Weyr and its satellites. He sometimes doubted the accuracy of the maps he had received of the continent too, though he remembered all the locations well enough even without the hide stretched before him. It was more of a frontier, like the Western Continent, and thinking about it gave his blood a little charge that he clamped down upon as quickly as he could. But a smile crossed him nonetheless. "Is it true the honorable denizens of the Eastern Ring sometimes wash up on those shores?" His voice spoke to a bettering temperament, and a tease.
But his expression diminished as his thoughts turned to Thread and the very stony point that dreams were the produce of children, not men. There was no reason to believe even the sparsely populated stretches of Southern were any better than any route in the North. It certainly did not have the culture, nor the rich foundation of principle. Like Traepsie said, it was hard to traverse. People barely scraping along to survive had no room to grow as human beings. Traepsie was the continent's only valid representative, and she was-- he scrutinized her while he moved his next bag onto the stack, as if he could find an appropriate fault to condemn her over if he squinted at her hard enough.
He inhaled and exhaled slowly around his failure in that regard. Qosis was still working, for all his rumination, and now dismantled another wall of sacks and brought them to the interior storage nearby. "Dalibor Searched you straight from your kin, I expect," he said upon his return, and I expect sounded more like I hope. "You didn't leave the caravan before that?"
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Post by Admin on May 27, 2011 1:37:29 GMT -5
Dreams, I have dreams,
When I'm awake when I'm asleep,
And you, you are in my dreams,
You're underneath my skin, how am I so weak?
Traepsie blinked at him. Dead bodies washing up on beaches? He sounded like he was joking. What an interesting, interesting joke. "No, I've never heard of anything like that." She laughed lightly and smiled, but it didn't seem to be out of anything but her usual good humor. Her answer was serious. She was not a person to tended to understand jokes or why they needed to be said. When she did hear them or tell them, she was more amused by the knock-knock kind than the morbid or dirty sort. Perhaps she was still just an innocent soul, despite all that she had seen. She knew she had hardly seen a sliver of what the world had to offer in her short life; there was so much more she had to experience. At the same time, she doubted that she was innocent, though she did still have dreams, small as they were. When she thought of it, she found herself oddly confused and mildly pained by the knowledge she'd never marry some nice boy or girl.
Or not concretely never, in truth, but possibly never. If she Impressed, she would not get to raise her children in the caravan, same as she had been raised. Was that what she had wanted before? She didn't know. She couldn't remember. She knew that she had always wanted to stay with her family, go back to the caravan even if she left for a few turns. But what now? If a dragon chose her in the next turn, she would be a rider, not a trader. No gathering around the fire. No babies to watch laugh. No animals to tend. Only a dragon and Thread. Was that what she wanted? It wasn't an easy question to answer, yet she knew the answer. In her heart, no, it wasn't exactly what she wanted. She was too sensible to view it like a dream. It was an honor, yes, but not a dream. At the same time, yes, it was what she wanted. She'd protect her family. That was important.
Traepsie worked tirelessly, listening to Qosis with one kind and attentive ear. "We were attending a gather when the searchrider came. I was on the edge of the crowd. Suppose I was convenient;" she laughed. She had no idea why she'd been searched. She didn't try to puzzle it out; there wasn't any point in wasting time on it. "This is my first time away from home." She knew most holders would have trouble understanding that home meant being with family and friends, even if you weren't stonebound to one place. However, Qosis wasn't any holder. Despite his prickliness, she did concede that, yes, it was definitely nice to talk to him. "I don't much like confined spaces. I prefer open air." She downplayed her claustrophobia, but that was merely her nature. Hands briefly pausing, she tipped her head back, basking in Rukbat's presence with a smile broad on her lips.
And now in my dreams,
I can feel the wait, I can just come clean,
I keep it to myself, I know what it means,
I can't have you, but I have dreams. |
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Azhdarchid
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Post by Azhdarchid on May 28, 2011 12:35:09 GMT -5
Qosis had not specifically indicated the quality of the human flotsam. The "innocent soul" had reasoned that much out for herself. The jesting Candidate squinted sidelong at her for that predictable light laugh, but did not follow up on it. When later she spoke, he too listened, perhaps with more care than he might have a similar tale from a holdbred.
More than that advantage of pedigree, however, Traepsie was fundamentally difficult to dislike. She had not started resisting, questioning, or snapping within moments of conversation, nor had some secret strain of stubbornness leaked out in the minutes that followed. Even when Qosis needled her for the bratty spirit that possessed male and female Candidates alike, nothing flowed. She was stunning for her familiar mannerisms, and the very existence of such humbleness in Dalibor. She was worth listening to. And talking to.
"It is difficult," he grunted, a pang circulating through his chest at the thought of separation. "If we keep telling ourselves the Weyr is where we belong now, eventually..." The trader made a leveling gesture with a momentarily free hand, smoothing over Dalibor's various blemishes. "...it will approximate our kin." Qosis manufactured a weary smile of understanding at his coworker. Integrating was far more backbreaking work than hefting any quantity of firestone. Making familial bonds with strangers was living a heresy, though he had certainly been trying. "Dragons," and he held the word without follow-up for longer than he meant to, brows furrowing. "And children Weyrborn. Those will seal us in. We cannot turn things bred in stone back out to the wind."
Not as infants anyway. Picking off the betters among minor hold-women for wives was established custom in his own train, but they were not taken in the same hand as those trailbred. "They took me off the beach at my arrival here. I had not even recovered my 'land-legs.'" Qosis accented the final word with distaste. A trader knew there was only one use for legs and that was on the earth. There was no need for a descriptor. "The dragon was alright," he snorted, indifferent. "But I have the same love of the sea that you do of walls. They'll never get me on a ship again, that's for sharding sure. A boat, fishing boat size, yes." He illustrated with his hands; apparently such boats were only a couple palmspans bow-to-stern. Then he extended both arms out. "But not a ship that can carry a pieced wagon or three."
He buried his arms back into his work. "Did you see the creche yet?" he asked, calmed back from his protest against all things nautical. He was trying to recall the earlier thrust of his reassurances. "The ceiling is not so squat as the other tunnels. It's warm all Turn. And the children can go out in the Bowl..." Here Qosis faltered, for he knew there was not much of an island wrapped around the Weyr. Not enough land to suit wandering. Xirofel had been an acute reminder of Dalibor's imprisoning qualities. "I expect the teachers can test for most all the crafts, and if a boy proves himself in any of them, he can travel for that. Or he can ride a dragon. Or colonize...not north. Too cold. They can send some fool miners to get whatever is there. But the islands, maybe. Our children may walk the sea where we do not."
His offspring, fisherfolk? It was not an entirely pleasing idea, but better than living and dying in one place, as indolent as the dragons that had wings but never left their weyrs save for sex, hunger or command. "Someone here told me that the Searchdragon smells dragon-blood mixed with our own, and that is why they choose. No other reason, provided there's no deficiency of body or mind. The blood of someone who rode a dragon before...it always cycles back to the Weyr. I do not much understand that. I would hope the dragons do not bring the same riders back again and again, even if inbreeding seems to be a trait in the beasts themselves." Qosis only bore a little of his revulsion into his words. "They do not seem to suffer for it," he allowed, flatly as he could.
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Post by Admin on May 29, 2011 12:36:06 GMT -5
I've got to get home, there's a garden to tend,
There's fruit on the ground and the birds have all moved back,
Into my attic with whistling static,
When the young learn to fly, I will patch all the holes up again.
Traepsie lowered her chin and tilted her head at Qosis. It was the closest she would come to telling him that he was wrong. He wasn't a danger to anyone for believing what he did; she would continue to listen to him, but she knew he was wrong. The Weyr was where they belonged. It didn't matter what they told themselves. Call it fate. Destiny. Whatever insignificant word one wished to use, but the Weyr was where they had been brought to serve. However, no one would ever be family but their family. One didn't have to be near one's family to be with them. Heart. Mind. Soul. The world was more complicated than Traepsie ever felt the need to explore or discover, but she knew that everything was more beautiful than appeared. It was worth peace. Calmness. Acceptance. Effort. It was worth a great many things. It was worth making sure not to start an argument over it.
The rest of Qosis's words were less wrong and merely interesting. She had no particular love of the sea, so she nodded along at that, hands returning to work. It wasn't so much the ocean that bothered her as the boats themselves; they were cramped and tended to be full of things that smelled like salt rot. She enjoyed living or being near the ocean; she didn't enjoy being on it in something that seemed like it could collapse on her at any moment if she stood below the deck. She had little opinion on his talk of the creche. She wasn't sure why he'd brought it up or what she was supposed to think. Riders hardly raised their children. If she Impressed and somehow had one, they were going back to the caravan to live with their family if she couldn't be what her parents and aunts and uncles had been to her. However, Qosis's choices were his choices to make.
But perhaps she could offer some perspective. Or at least her opinion for herself, as she was hardly going to seem like she was forcing it upon him. She had nothing to say about inbreeding or searching, not when it came to dragons, but she had a little more on children, though not the most motherly of sorts. "They can always be traders too." The talks about the impending fall came to her mind, but she pushed them away. She had to have a little faith. A little hope. "Or they can at least go back to your family. Besides that, you're one Impression and a couple of turns away from being anywhere close to managing to have kids." She grinned at him, the smile a little cheekier than normal. However, she'd finished several bags, so her mild fun had to come to end as she stood up and grabbed two of them, stepping over her stacks to head to their storeroom.
In the back of house is trail that won't end,
We've been walking so far that it grew back in,
There's no trail at all only grass growing tall,
And I'll get out my machete and battle with time once again. |
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Azhdarchid
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Post by Azhdarchid on May 29, 2011 22:09:14 GMT -5
He kept waiting for something to sink his teeth into. Some word of rejection or litany against his beliefs. Most people were all too happy to offer an opportunity for him to crush them under the evidence for his way of thinking. It was not a delight, but a necessity. But Traepsie gave nothing still. She swam out of his path with little more than a look, though he could construe the silent response into objection if he really wanted to pursue the point. No...that was not what he desired. He relaxed, and when she finally ribbed the situation, he could only smile back in the good humor her observation commanded.
"I don't think you know my family very well..." he amended quietly as Traepsie hauled up her own bags of firestone, he not even paying attention to her easy assumption of further physical effort as he stuffed his own. It was only after the fact that he looked over his shoulder at her, hauling away without a visible care in the world. The trader returned to topping off his own remaining bags. He would not let his thoughts, far and wide as they ranged, see him to inefficient work.
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