Relaxing [Jack]

[Nia]

Engrye entered her room and immediately collapsed on to her cot, feeling exhausted. She'd just finished helping clean the Infirmary as part of her chores, and shards, she didn't know sick people could make that much of a mess! But it'd been a pretty good way to waste most of the morning, and now she was ready to curl up and take a nap. As soon as she laid down and pulled the furs over herself, she suddenly found herself wide awake. Shard it. That was so inconvenient, she'd been ready for a nice nap, but of course she wasn't tired anymore. The red-haired girl sat up and rubbed her eyes, feeling wide awake.

That was annoying. Engrye scowled at her own reflection in the mirror across her cot and began to adjust her long twintails. If she'd known that she wouldn't be able to fall asleep (even though it was the middle of the day) she would have procrastinated in her cleaning. How bothersome. As she finished asjusting her hair, Engrye noticed one of her records lying on the table. Oh, she'd finished that one, hadn't she? She might as well go return it, now was as good a time as ever. And besides, maybe while she was down there she could pick up something else to read.

It didn't take long for Engrye to walk down to the records room and then walk back up the Barracks, as she'd memorized the way there early on. With new records to read in hand, and some blank extras to sketch on, Engrye once again found herself wandering the Candidate Barracks, searching for a quiet place she could sit and be alone. Her room was boring, and she liked finding new places, even if those places were only in the Barracks. Most of the other Candidates were in their rooms, not that Engrye cared. She liked the silence. It was nice.

Deciding not to read the new records she'd grabbed, Engrye instead sat down in one of the random hallways in the Barracks and pulled out her blanks, beginning to sketch on them. She wasn't an amazing artist, but she wasn't terrible either. At first she sketched the wall in front of her, then added in some dragons and firelizards flying around. Drawing was rather relaxing, she decided. She'd have to go around and sketch some of the other places she'd found in the Weyr, because really, it was a very pretty place. Engrye didn't seem to notice or care about people walking by, not that there were a lot of them, anyway.

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[jack]

Clink. Clink. Clink. C-Clin--BASH! Tuptuptuptuptuuuush.

The sound of metal moving from being carried to falling to bouncing away echoed loudly in the hallway, in time with the light squeal of a distraught young man. The gear itself bounced into a roll and slithered around the corner, attacking Engrye's foot with a voracious tackle...before falling flat to the ground. The owner of said gear, however, was just getting started.

"Ohnoohnoohno..! Where is it, Cogs?! I can't finish without it!" Frantic, and unable to see around his pile of shiny metal bits, Sprocket bit his lip until it bled, his eyes wide and distraught as he scurried around the corner, looking left and right with barely seeing eyes. At his shoulder, the small Bronze gave a chastising chirp, nipping the man's ear sternly before--with a glance towards Engrye and a pump of his great wings--he soared down and landed with a bounce at the girl's side.

Eyes whirling with the patience of an old man, he stared at the redhead for a good minute, ignoring the flailing panicking of his Mine in favor for her. But that minute passed and--with a soft, disinterested snort--he tapped right over to her leg, crawled up it, grabbed the bronze gear in his tiny mouth, crawled right back over her leg, and headed back to Sprocket. The boy crouched down at the whip-like strike from tail to leg, and with exuberant thanks, dropped his pile to pull the shining flit into a soft hug.

"Thank Faranth, Cogs! What would I do without you?!"

[Nia]

Engrye had been rather focused on her sketch and jumped nearly a foot in the air when the sudden, metally noises came clunking through. She didn't scream, but her eyes widdened and her heart began to pound in panic and surprise. If there was one thing (well, there were actually many things) she didn't like, it was being surprised, especially when she was extremely focused on something. Lately it had been her two Green firelizards bursting out of no where and starting to dance around in front of her that made her jump, but this was something entirely different. It was a metally noise, and Engrye was fairly sure that firelizards did not make metallic noises.

With her heartbeat still racing, Twee and Dee popped out from between, chattering noisily around her, sending her multiple feelings of questions and confusion. What was making Theirs so surprised? Her heart was very fast! What was going on? Was it something fun? Danger? Was Theirs in trouble!? Engrye quickly sent soothing emotions to the firelizards, letting them know she was alright, and while Dee began to settle down, Twee was still fluttering wildly around. Gently, Dee nudged at her sister to calm her down, and the other Green spun and fell into Engrye's lap rather dramatically, it was a wonder she hadn't accidently hit the wall.

Dee settled on Her's shoulder and watched the strange, metally boy and the strange, metally colored firelizard climb over Her's leg and grab something, then climb back over again. While she was amused, Engrye was still getting rather annoyed, and stood up, paying no mind to Twee, who tumbled off her lap and betweened right before she hit the floor, fluttering around the girl happily, not seeming angry at having been ignored. Because she loved Hers! But Engrye was still somewhat annoyed with the intrusion. "What in Faranth's name are you doing?" she asked, perhaps sounding quite a bit harsher than she meant to. Dealing with Twee and Dee was starting to get to her, they were just so... energetic.

Twee, however, had other plans, and when she finally noticed that Sprocket wasn't just a walking pile of metal, she began to between in and out around him, eventually dragging Dee off of Engrye's shoulder and along with her, doing some sort of strange, flickery dance. "Hey! Both of you! Stop that! You'll freak him out!" Engrye scolded the firelizards, who backed up so they were just dancing around the hallway instead of right in front of Sprocket, but didn't stop. Engrye sighed and resisted the urge to hit her head with her hands. Faranth... today was turning out to be less relaxing than she'd thought.

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[jack]

What in Faranth's Name are you doing?

"What's it look like I'm doing, I'm car--" All grump and pout, the boy was quick to reply, the threat of losing that most important piece seeming to have startled him into a mild phase of annoyance. But the moment he turned to look at who he was speaking to--having not tried to mark her voice to a gender--he froze, his eyes widening as he immediately shrunk into himself, clutching Cogs tight to his chest.

It was a girl! The angry yelling person was a girl! And she was angry...and yelling...and shards! With a pitiful squeak he ducked down at the arrival of the flits, releasing the Bronze in favor to hide his head beneath his arms as he chattered in a panic below. "Greens! Gre-Greens are girls! Greens are g-girls, th-the-the-they're girls I kn-know they're gir-r-rls!"
Cogs--released to roll to the ground in a tangle of shimmery things and his own wings--gave an annoyed huff and shook himself, getting to his feet even as the Greens began to turn their attention to the rest of the hall. Angrily, he gave a short loud bark, chastising them with a small wave of irritated and shameful emotions and images as he glided up to Sprocket's shoulder. Wings spread and neck arched he looked as angry as he sounded, although with a loud huff and a short glare at Engrye, he settled down and set instead to soothing his Bonded.

Sprocket would have none of his Bronze's confident-boosting imagery, however, and with a quick peek to make sure the devil-greens were nowhere to be seen, he shuffled over to his dumped box of metal and set to returning the gears and pieces to them. With even the lost piece in place he carefully got to his feet, lifting the box and hiding behind it as he gave Engrye a panicked-runner stare before slowly beginning to edge himself away. "S-Sorry, sorry to..uhm...uhm..b-bother you! I'll leave, I'm go-going. See? N-Not a thr-threat. Leav-v-ing! Pleasedon'teatme...!"

[Nia]

Engrye had been prepared to snap a sharp retort back at whatever this boy carrying useless things had decided to say, but she was caught rather off guard when he did, as she predicted, start freaking out. But she didn't think it was because of her two annoying Greens, because he was stuttering about how they were girls. So what? Everyone knew Greens were girls, it wasn't that big of a deal. Engrye watched with an eyebrow raised as the boy hid his head under his arms and screamed about girls. "Um...?" but she didn't really say anything, she only grabbed Dee out of the air and informed the now-disgruntled firelizard to stop Twee from spinning around too.

But the firelizards had already gotten emotions of shame and irritation from the Bronze, though it was the shame that really got them to stop and for Twee to land on Her's shoulder, though not very gently. They both sent the confusing images to Theirs, and huddled together behind her long, red hair, scared of the angry Bronze. Engrye was just confused. What was wrong with this guy? Why was he so scared of her? Of all the reactions Engrye had gotten at the Weyr, this had to be the worse. Sure, she'd gotten into a few verbal fights and she noticed more than a few people shied away from her cold gaze, but nothing like this. She almost felt... bad. It wasn't like she'd meant to scare him like this, and she couldn't understand what she'd done wrong!

Twee and Dee made sure to stay out of sight, hiding themselves in a curtain of hair, cooing softly in fear and even a bit of shame. They had only wanted to make him laugh! They hadn't meant to scare him like that! They were sorry, sorry, so sorry! Engrye attempted to soothe the Greens with a comforting thought, but quickly gave up, instead she gently began to approach Sprocket, her brows furrowed in confusion and frustration. She hadn't even done anything yet! He had no right to be afraid of her when she hadn't done anything!

"Hey.... hey! Come on, it's okay. They didn't mean to scare you, they're just kind of stupid," if either Twee or Dee took offense to that, they didn't react, "I don't see why you're so scared! Come on, they're just Greens...." did this boy have a fear of Greens or.... shard it! She was so stupid! He was afraid of girls! That was bizarre in itself, but now she could at least see why he'd reacted so strangely. "Hey... uh... I'm sorry about... that...." she attempted a failure of an apology, though something told her that trying to reason with this boy wasn't going to help.

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