Flutes, Klah, and Friends. (Open)

Yvonnaei was not the only soul put to storage work. Hearts went out to the destruction of the kitchens and the dining hall, but far more mundane Weyr tasks still needed to be accomplished each and every day. Eager volunteers that arrived at the devastation might find themselves reassigned to equally heroic but less visually stimulating tasks such as mucking the stables or clearing the roads from dock to Weyr. Lexony never required such reassignment. He only checked the schedule at the barracks that morning and headed to his assigned post in the stores, making no detours for drama.

In the dim, warm lower caverns he worked through many hours shifting boxes, then opening them and sorting their innards. His middling literacy thankfully suited him for tallying. Having an ex-harper for a mother had its blessings. In fact it had been Lexony's observation that any sort of Craft presence in a family tended to send reading and speaking proficiency skyrocketing. His coworkers at old Fort who had never seen their heritage rise much past drudgery or guarding could not say a single word without a drawl, though their Harper-corrected singing was normal. Strange memory to start bothering him, so far from all that he knew.

At the lunch hour he tried to seek out the other Candidate who had been working nearby. But he could not find her, so he went on alone. It was in coming back Lexony spied a figure of rich red-brown hair with a flute at her side. Harpers again? Or maybe just flute-players, he thought with a smile. He came striding up to her, his plain gray clothing overlaid by wherhide boots and a patched jacket for warmth. A bread roll flashed its tan color against his white mitten.

"Yvonnaei," he said to catch her attention before he was right upon her. He knew her name from lessons, but he could only hope she grasped his as he had not talked to her before besides that. Lexony thought to sit down at the opposite arch of the entryway, but just that moment a drudge barked at him and drove a cart through the very spot, almost catching the girl Candidate's feet as well.

Lexony blinked, features working over an uncertain grin that warmed right back up when he returned his eyes to Yvonnaei. "Guess I'll stand then," he proposed, and bit off a piece of his bread roll. It tasted a little old, but it was food rather than an empty stomach, so he had no right to complain. He noticed Yva's klah cup was neither empty nor steaming hot. "You look like you're excited. About Coui?" Excited being a very liberal interpretation of tense. Personally Lex had been a bit confused by the Flight, with its paltry show of attendees. Perhaps Couineth was disliked for some reason, though he could not fathom that. She was a queen. "What sorts of songs do you play?" He pointed his free mitten at the flute. A kitten's face had been embroidered on the palm of the mitten, visible as he gestured.

Had none of the other Candidates taken notice of the Flight as it happened? Lexony bit into his bread roll on that notion and chewed sluggishly to keep any of his thoughts from coming to words. Couineth's maiden voyage had not been the horrific travesty against all decency and sensibility holder stories predicted, but he had definitely felt his guts twist a few times over.

"If that's what you want," he appended to her self-degradation. Lex was no enemy of the shortened title, but of shyness surely. His face lit with a smile, even with that narrow hooked nose cruel and rigid at the center of it. "You have accomplished much then," he insisted, holding his hands out to either side, illustrating Yva's great quantity of worth. "Most people are not Harpers, but most can be good players. At my home, my original home, we could only whistle or hum, but for all our practice we became quite excellent at it." Picking off the last crumbs of his bread roll, he extended his clean mitten to the girl to aid her onto her feet.

He brushed his hair back with the other hand. "My wife." The ex-guard's cheeks pinked as he looked at the black and white feline face peeking out at him from his palm. "She says it is my sigil. I had to inform her that is not appropriate by tradition. Only holds get sigils. I am sure there is a holder somewhere very upset that I have stolen his noble identity." The Candidate laughed softly. "The kit is Piero. He came up to us at Western. Couldn't keep his head more than a half-inch off the ground, and it tended to hang sideways. Naturally Eywren had to keep him. Her official excuse is that he will keep tunnelsnakes away from the baby. She's terrified of the creatures."

Lexony shrugged, not quite smiling anymore. He had not entirely appreciated having another mouth to feed, let alone that of a sickly kitten. "She started stitching him into everything before I forced her to stop. She saw sense, but she still gave me these last Turnover. So, I have become Lexony of the Wobbleheaded Kitten."

"I think they do a little more than stories and songs," Lexony offered, but was unable to elaborate. He did not know what Harpers did exactly, yet they had always appeared hurried and harried. Why would Pern need a Craft just for music? Anyone with a left foot and guitar could play a Gather. Teaching and education was part of their esteemed role too, but as far as he knew it did not entail the sort of running through the night and short-worded urgency he had seen at Fort. When Yvonnaei persisted in avoiding her own talents, he let her be.

He could always try for a bit of music when they were no longer on chores. "Waiting? For what?" he asked, puzzled at the notion. His shoulders rose at the Weyr's lack of a properly joined population. "It is the way of dragonriders." Discomfort entered the Fort-born's voice, and he was sluggish to speak again afterwards. He did not address, to confirm or deny, the statement of how much he missed Eywren, and how proud she was of him. "In a few months he'll be three. Maybe I don't get to call him a baby anymore then," he said, relaxing as the subject turned over.

It was impossible to miss her drinking her cold klah. Lexony grinned. "He won't be smart enough yet to get upset about it though, I think." Inwards from the entrance the tunnels rapidly warmed, and he stuffed the mittens in his pockets, opening his coat. "Eywren was the right woman for me," he praised in a rote, unethused fashion when the talk eventually turned back to his wife. His deep brown eyes turned on Yvonnaei as she began to issue a lecture on the subject of other women-- well, women besides Eywren. And herself. "I..." he started at one point, but she seemed to have other things she needed to get out, so he went silent again.

When she slipped into cursing, Lexony dropped the tally slate he had just picked up from one hand and flinched as it clattered on the floor. It had a protective frame, so the fall did not shatter it. "Sorry," he said as he recovered the slate, swallowing as he tucked it against his chest like it was a wriggling child. His fingers were white around the top of the slate as he walked back to the other Candidate's side. For a few moments he stared at her, a polite smile plastered over his features.

He had to respond somehow, so he blinked and looked to some interesting spot off to the right of her head, then back at her with a furrowed brow. "I worked as a guard before now. Don't meet a lot of women that way...I guess I don't have as much experience with them as you do. I am glad you value kindness though. I do too." Lexony hunched his shoulders in a humored half-shrug. "I'm pretty sure Piero would not know bad from good. He recognizes two kinds of people: those with food, and those without."

Yvonnaei talked a great deal about her brother. And her father. Her missing, likely dead father. It was perhaps not the first thing the dad of a three-Turn-old wanted to hear about. Then she was apologizing, fussing, and doing it all while keeping up that steady stream of words Lexony had no capacity to respond to. When she finally showed herself away, he looked down at the slate in his hands and checked it for damage. The frame had sheltered it.

"I was just surprised," he replied at last. "I hope Lexen will know I am there for him for many Turns to come." Lexony dared not say anything more lest he risk another verbal torrent from his fellow Candidate. He looked down his list of supplies, then began moving along the shelves and ticking off the presence of each item. Where he found things in disarray, he paused to straighten them. Where he did not find what he needed at all, he circled the tally box. Yvonnaei settled quietly into the rhythm of the work too, and for that Lexony was glad.

It was not that he disliked talking to her, not exactly, but chatting during chores was not his priority. When she did speak after some time, he was much happier to answer now that he felt like he was still accomplishing his duties in the meantime. "Not the whole Hold. Fort Hold is enormous. There are many guards. Western is a similar situation. We were rotated to guarding different places each day. There are also patrols, but the most active and lengthy of those are conducted by Wherhandlers."

He decided to leave the animal-related subjects unacknowledged. Animals were tools, unless said animals were related to Piero, in which case they were merely leeches on supplies and time. "At a major hold like Fort or Western there is never much trouble with organized groups, but drunkards and young men, sure." Lexony chuckled, though in the course of his job he had never found confronting the errant holders with his sword and armor very funny. "Large predators stay away, but small ones will naturally try to slither in and get at chickens. They're not very bright."

Hanging the tally slate back on the appropriate hook by its rope, he turned to her. "It is more a career of observation. We have to fill out long reports when our shifts are over, writing down everything we saw. Something that may not look important to one of us may be better understood by the Guard Captain or Steward."