new faces on the dance floor.

[cy]

[/size][/ul]tag; Kes!

[Reky]

For winter, it was a surprisingly nice day. Kesviry had been at Dalibor a while now. She knew her way around, she knew which places to go to avoid large amounts of people, she knew a lot of faces but few names, and she was feeling more or less comfortable with the whole ordeal. Being searched was still a bit of a surprise, though. The responsibility looming around the corner made her giddy, though. A dragonrider! She never bothered to wonder at who her dragon might be. Whoever they were, along with them came all the responsibilities of being a dragonrider, all the importance, and her insides churned with that yearning to be free. All her years, she'd been cooped up in her quiet little self, because who was she to try and be important? Soon... Soon, she'd be able to be that leader, that role model, that she felt she could be.

Hopefully.

It wasn't that she doubted her ability to Impress. She doubted her ability to be more than her current quiet self. It was to be expected - fifteen turns and she still didn't say much. She was returning, now, silent with her head bowed, to her room in the candidate barracks. Kesviry had been outside, getting a small amount of fresh nippy air, but it was due time she got back inside again, with walls around her and her nice, comfy furs. The problem was, she seemed to be off imagining. Usually, she was quite good at navigating around without looking up, but not today. Today, the tall beanpole of a girl wasn't quite collision free.

She let out a yelp of surprise, and the boy fell down. Kes managed to gather up her balance in the nick of time, but she felt horrible. Absolutely horrible. She looked down at him, brown eyes wide and worried and startled.

"Oh, Faranth," she muttered, fists clenched lightly as they were wont to do. Then she held out a hand to help him with. Hopefully, her minimal strength would at least be a kind gesture. "I'm so... so sorry. So sorry. You... Are you alright?" She swallowed, hoping her voice would sound a little less weak and disused the next time it came out.

[/blockquote]

[cy]

[/b] he replied, looking up to her and taking in what he'd been able to guess at from the start - she was a good bit taller than him. Not so much of a surprise, majority of individuals were. With a light exhale of a laugh, he brought a hand up to hold near his forehead and then move it outwards, palm facing the ground, emphasizing his considerable lack of height. "You'd think with a shorter way to fall, it wouldn't hurt so much," he joked, poking fun at himself easily and casually. With a small glance down to where he'd been sitting moments before, he abruptly looked back to her, his expression slipping just as swiftly into one of concern and curiosity, eyes widened by another upward tilt of his brows. "What about you, are you okay? I wasn't even looking where I was going, like at all." His words came quickly, spouted off and energetic, still drenched in the worry that his face displayed and the panick that had been plaguing him previously sitting forgotten in the back of his head for the moment.[/size][/ul]

[Reky]

She could see he was in pain. To herself, she was thanking the first Egg that she had managed to gain her balance before she did, as well. Kesviry tended to go on a 'path of least resistance' sort of road. Pain? That was resistance. It wasn't her idea of how she'd like to spend her time. Thankfully, she'd avoided a rather nasty blow to her rump, and since her rump was so nonexistent, it was even better. There wasn't any cushioning there to soften the fall. Mostly skin and bones, like the rest of her. If she'd been shorter, maybe she would have had more shape. If she'd fallen on her chest, she thought bitterly, there'd definitely be cushioning there. (She didn't enjoy it.)

The normal Kesviry part of her told her to get this over with quick. It was an accident, they didn't know each other, the end - they could get on with her lives. But as the boy stood, it became apparent that he was quite intent on a conversation of some sort. He poked at his height, and she thought of hers. It was odd, having to look down on so many people when she normally felt so small and insignificant herself. It didn't suit her. Her mother hadn't been a tall woman. She supposed, then, the genes had come from her redhandler father, Svenr. Thanks, man who broke my mother's heart, you've caused me a life of inconvenience. She put her attention back to the boy.

He reminded her of her stepsister. She was like this, too. Talking lots, big eyes, energetic... short. Unbelievably short, even for her age. The boy asked if she was okay, though, and she was. He said it was his fault, but she hadn't been looking, either. She wasn't a knight in shining armor to force the blame upon her self, though. They were both the causes of the run-in.

"I'm fine," she said, quietly, shortly and decisively, and those were the only words she said. They were the only ones she needed, after all. There was no point in explaining why she was fine, why it was both of their faults, or any nonsense like that. Hopefully she could get to her reading now. She wasn't in the best of moods, despite the pleasant weather outside. She couldn't explain why, exactly, she wasn't feeling particularly patient, but that was just the way it was.

[/blockquote]

[cy]

[/b] he assured eagerly, glancing off to the side a bit. "I wouldn't want you to get hurt, that would be bad." It didn't phase him in the slightest to rattle it off, afterthoughts blurted out without much consideration at all for censorship.

Quickly, he looked back to her, his lips sitting crooked in a lopsided smile as he tilted his head a bit. "I'm new here. Like, really new. Sort of just-arrived-and-still-unpacking kind of new," he offered rapidly, as if emphasizing the degree of his general newness would somehow provide better and proper explanation for his clumsiness. It had all occured because he was distracted, and he'd been distracted because he was new - so it made a small bit of sense, perhaps. Just a bit.

Once more, his features shifted to transparently betray his feelings before anything else. The corners of his mouth stretched and swayed down a bit in a concentrated frown. His brow knit together, soon creased with worry, and his right eye narrowed just a touch more than his left. He raised a hand up to scratch at the back of his head, just along his hairline where it touched his nape. "I'm sort of lost, I was looking for how to get outside." He explained, a note of bashfulness and what could have been vague apology in his tone. One hand still in his hair, self-concious and with nothing better to do with it for the moment, he lifted the other to point down the hall behind her in the direction he'd been going before the collision. "Is it this way, or..." he trailed off as he moved his hand aside to sweep over a general other unseen direction that was apparently in the overall way of his left at least.[/size][/ul]

[Reky]

Well. So far, he wasn't as bad as some people she'd met, and he definitely wasn't overly talkative and energetic. He rambled a bit, but it wasn't the headache-causing sort of chattiness. And, at least, he wasn't some important dragonrider she'd bumped into, or someone who would have gotten mad at her for the accident. Path of least resistance lesson one: don't get people mad. Kes put a little too much into avoiding people getting mad and upset and violent. She hated those kinds of people. Doesn't matter who you are, if you can't control your anger, Kes isn't going to warm up to you. She can deal with you, quite capably, and talk you down if she's feeling brave enough, but don't expect her to treat you kindly. Angry people were a plague on Pern. They made things go wrong. In Kes' perfect world, everything went right.

She found it a little odd why he pointed out it would be bad if she got hurt. He didn't know her. He shouldn't care too much. Was it because she was a girl? Probably...

Then he smiled - he seemed very nice, at least - and proclaimed how new he was, and she could sympathize. She remembered when she had first come to the Weyr, after being Searched. Coupled with the surprise of having a chance at being a dragonrider, the effort of figuring out how the Weyr was laid out and where everything was and who was who was a bit of a dizzy trip. A few sevedays and she'd got the hang of it, though, and a couple seasons and she was very much at home here, with her hidey-hole room of furs and silence.

"I just came from outside," Kes said, her voice considerably more present than before. "It's back that way, then take a left." She looked in the direction she meant, then back at the boy. Hopefully that would help him.

[/blockquote]

[cy]

[/b] he repeated, exhaling sharply as he laughed at himself, shaking his head and looking beyond her once more.

Thoughtfully, he knit his brows together loosely and nibbled at the pink flesh of his lower lip. She'd given him directions to the outside, where he'd been going, and she was returning from the outside. They were nicely sorted out, apologies were out of the way and other such pleasantries as they checked on the health status of the other, and now it was time to part ways. He'd go that way and to the left, and she'd go this way and to the right probably. He didn't even know her name or how long it'd be before he managed to bump into another face - though hopefully not literally on the second go. For some reason, that worried him and maybe he'd place the blame on lingering spastic tendencies from a panick attack that had never been allowed to rise.

He turned to the side enough to look behind him, in the direction that the girl had been heading in, before looking curiously back to her. "Where are you going now?" He questioned bluntly, though the blatantly obvious answer smacked him in the face a moment later as it occured to him where they still stood. In the barracks, so it was pretty safe to assume. "You're probably going back to your room..." he answered himself quietly as he drifted his gaze off elsewhere, over the wall beside them thoughtfully, before snapping his attentions right back to her, raising his eyebrows. "Right? There's not, like, some other stuff in here that I don't know about yet?" Which was a possibility, he'd yet to explore it and it was always possible that his impression of it being full of just candidates and their quarters was wrong. He didn't think so, but it was possible.[/size][/ul]

[Reky]

Things were sorted out, he knew the way now, and now he wasn't lost anymore. Kesviry was eager to say goodbye and get going, even if he was a nice (if a little... spastic) boy. The idea of curling up in her furs again, and reading the faded records she'd found and borrowed, was very much an enticing idea. She moved to go, but then the boy spoke again. She felt a pang of guilt, for wanting to let her impatience out and just go. Politely, though, she waited it out.

"This only goes to the barracks," she explained. "And eventually, the Hatching Sands, but there aren't any eggs on it yet. So yes, that's where I'm going." Her voice was quiet, as usual. Quiet and soft, but sure with her words. She looked down at him, with her big, girlish eyes. Her bangs fell in them; she brushed them out. She wasn't good at conversations, but he seemed to be - who was he, even? New, he said. A candidate? - or at least made an effort at it, so Kes didn't add more.

[/blockquote]

(ooc: sorrrryyyyyy, shortish. ;; )

[cy]

( ooc || it's all good, short is splendid! )

[/b] The question was wary, yet hopeful. Quickly, he brought his hands up, palms facing outwards, as if to pause her answering before she could even open her mouth and he rushed to shove his explanation between them. "I mean, I know you just came in and all, but... just, I'm new and I'm sort of really nervous and I don't want to be alone. And I haven't really met anybody else yet, so I thought maybe we could get to know each other? Hang out or something. I mean, you don't have to for long or anything, but maybe just a little bit?" Again, his mouth pulled back into an wincing grin before he pinched his bottom lip between his teeth, moving his palms to face upward as he kept his hands up, as if to ask 'why not'. For once, saying something without actually saying it.[/size][/ul]

[Reky]

She was put between a rock and a hard place. She had two options. Go with him, get to know someone for once and stop being such a hermit, but that could turn out to be a less-than-desirable trip. He was talkative, no doubt about. Still, she'd met worse. Or, she could decline and head back to her room, but then he'd be disappointed and she'd be rude. But... his pleading face swayed her. She wasn't a mean person, she just... didn't talk much. Didn't like to talk much. She forced forward a half-smile - it was brief.

"Well, I could manage a bit," she said. After all, she didn't have to stay out there long. The small friendly act of kindness made her feel a bit warm inside. It made her feel nice. She liked that. She didn't like feeling like a judging, stuck-up son of a wher. Maybe this would get her nerves to relax a little. She still didn't get why she was so tense and impatient. Hormones, probably.

She took initiative and lead the way, drawing her threadbare jacket around her. It had been a little nippy outside, she remembered, and after getting warm from being inside again, it would probably bite a small bit. Still, though, it was a nice day, season considered.

[/blockquote]

[cy]

[/b] His gratitude was transparently sincere, in his voice and in his grin.

She turned to lead the way out and he was quick to follow, a momentary skip in his step allowing him to move to her side and keep up with her long stride. He felt giddy, the panick completely vanished with the distraction provided by excitement and company. Energy thrummed through him, whistled through his veins alongside the anxiety that had been near overwhelming just moments before. It was bearable now, a trace of irrationality along his insides and in his memory. This was everything he could have hoped for and more, freaking out was not an option. It didn't even make sense, he was sure.

"My name's Ezra, by the way," he chirped, piping up with another hop in his step as he turned himself enough to face his companion a little more even while continuing to move forward. He introduced with his formal name, not thinking at the moment to bring up the nickname he'd had since childhood. 'Ezra' was for beginnings, it was polite and the name that his parents had chosen for him no matter how they'd distorted it afterwards. He didn't prompt her for her name, it seemed natural and fair to assume that she'd give her name in return of his own.[/size][/ul]

[Reky]

She simply gave a little nod in return for his enthusiastic thanks. Her hands were shoved far into her pockets as she made her way through the hallways to the outside, and she was working on calming her hormonal self down. Following her lead, the boy was obviously very energetic, quite the opposite to Kesviry's lackluster, calm appearance. She didn't hold too much against energy-filled people. That was who they were, that was fine. The problem was, her demeanor didn't exactly mesh with people like that. The only sorts of people she really held things against were cruel, insensitive and angry people. This boy wasn't that.

Then, he introduced himself out of the blue. Ezra was his name. As was proper, she offered up her name as well, "I'm Kesviry. You can call me Kes." It was very much a matter-of-fact statement. Her voice didn't leave much option to what he should call her. She wanted him to call her Kes, and it definitely sounded like that. She'd always maintained that 'Kes' fit her better than 'Kesviry,' and silly nicknames like Kessie or Kes-Kes were only for when her mother felt like bothering her.

Then, they were outside, in the chill of the winter air. She took a deep breath - it bit at her lungs at first, but soon it was simply cool and refreshing. A small smile touched her face, barely noticeable.

[/blockquote]

[cy]

[/i] A matter of fact observation, but one he enjoyed beyond measure. It made him feel like he was already on some personal level at which he could refer to her by a nickname, one of those with permission to call her Kes. "Kes," he stated under his breath, feeling the syllable snap off his tongue with a sharp 'k' and a lingering hiss. "I like that," he blurted with a smile, as if she'd really needed his approval at all. But compliments were nice.

Quickly, he looked back to her, tipping his chin up. "You can call me Ezzy," he offered brightly, perhaps hoping to provoke the same feeling in her that she'd created in him in merely being allowed access to a nickname. It was unlikely, he could possibly acknowledge, but Ezra was a hopeful boy.

Once the sound of his footsteps shifted from the tap of hard floor to the gristle of the outside, he drew in a deep breath of biting cold and puffed his chest up as he held it in his lungs. Even stuck in the Winter, it was a beautiful place. Trapped in gray skies and dead grass and empty trees, it was still the present embodiment of his dreams and that made it easily more attractive than any other place on Pern. "It's real nice here," he muttered quietly as he exhaled, sounding almost breathless in his statement. Biting at his lip, he looked over the horizon and then blinked, quickly looking over to Kes. "How long have you been here?" He questioned, brow furrowing with his curiosity as he moved to copy her posture, digging his hands down into his pockets and savouring the mild warmth found there.[/size][/ul]

[Reky]

A bit of a backward glance at the boy, and she saw he was still as much as a pot of sunshine as he was before, grinning like a child. She got from him a sort of air that he was very giddy inside, fearing he might burst into dance or something odd like that. It would definitely make her feel out of place if he did. Kesviry never acted so excited or cheerful. Usually, she was just sort of... there. Detached from the rest of the world, everything else just background noise as she imagined herself in her own little dimension. She was just Kes, just by herself, just alone, as unattached to the world as she possibly could be. She didn't like the world - it wasn't perfect enough for her. So, instead, she conjured up a place in her mind where no one was cruel to anyone, where nothing went wrong and no one got hurt.

The compliment Ezra gave her was taken with a small shrug. Well, it was nice he liked it. She did, too. It was pretty in its own respect, but plain enough not to make her feel like something too big for her had been tacked on as her label. He offered up his nickname, too, and Kesviry made a silent mental note of it. Chances are, she wouldn't call him that - it was a little too personal, a little too childish. He'd just be Ezra to her, she figured.

Chilliness was seeping into her, making her feel a little numb. It was almost dreamlike, really. She was coming to enjoy it. Though, any colder, and she'd probably start hating it. As a passing thought, she entertained the idea of writing something about it - the cold - but she didn't expect she'd get anything amazing out of it. Still, she'd try, perhaps. Another slight smile came at Ezra's comment on the nice scenery. The fresh air, for once, was doing wonders for her. She was calming down, at least a little.

"I came here in the fall," Kesviry said. "I've been here maybe... six sevendays? Seven?" She'd been here a while now, was her point, and she knew the place well. She still couldn't believe she'd been Searched. It had sunk in, yes, but she still wondered how it had happened. It was only by chance she'd been passing outside when the searchdragon was at her hold. Otherwise, she would have never had the chance to even be considered.

[/blockquote]

[cy]

[/b] He questioned, knowing on some level that it was probably a sore subject and yet he didn't think to simply bite his tongue against it, compromising by trying to keep his tone as gentle as possible.[/size][/ul]

[Reky]

She was ignoring how fidgety he was, rocking back and forth and all. She could still see him out of the corner of her eye, though, and it was a little distracting, but the beauty of the Weyr in winter held her full attention. She shivered a little, but otherwise remained still, like a statue of a tall, well-endowed, but gangly girl. There was some amusement in having to look down on Ezra, but mostly it just made her feel a lot older than him. Never mind being more mature and more composed and relaxed, she was taller, too. It wasn't exactly the nicest thing - for all she knew, he could be older - but it was just the feeling she got.

"Never have," she replied to his question. In the six or seven sevendays she'd been here, there had been no clutches on the sands. One had hatched not long before she arrived, though. A queen's clutch, with a lot of eggs, and a lot of resulting weyrlings. She'd missed it. She'd caught word of clutching dragons flying recently or soon, and there was a possibility of eggs. She figured, though, that the commotion would have been much greater if it were a Queen dragon, so she assumed it wasn't and that the clutch would be small.

"There might be one soon, though," she added aloud, based on the thoughts milling around in her head. Her voice didn't sound hopeful, though. Just factual. With all the candidates that had been arriving, she didn't have much driving hope for Impressing. It didn't bother her, though. If she'd Impress, it'd happen eventually. She wasn't in a hurry. The idea was amazing, of course, and something she'd die for, but she wasn't in a hurry. She could wait for her lifemate.

[/blockquote]

[cy]

[/b] He questioned with wonder, eager to believe. His grin could not have reached a higher wattage as it beamed across his features, his gaze turning away from her to look out over Dalibor again. "That's great, that'll be fun." He stated absently, feeling energy coursing through his veins in renewed paces, and he drew a shaky breath into his cold lungs before looking back to her. "Are you excited?" She didn't show much emotion. She was stoic and subdued, quite unlike himself. He'd have to ask how she was feeling at any given time if he wanted to know, he decided.[/size][/ul]

[Reky]

She imagined, then, as all candidates were wont to do, what it would be like to Impress a dragon. What did it feel like, to have another part of you? To have something worth fighting for besides yourself. To be, really, two people, connected... It was a baffling idea to entertain. She couldn't come up with a feasible imagined substitute for the sensation. And it was mostly this thought, about the feeling, that swam through her mind, as opposed to guesses at which colour she'd get or what their name would be or if she'd Impress first. Those didn't matter as much to her as the feeling.

Still, she stood motionless as she thought. Her eyes glazed over, looking blankly across the weyrbowl. Her mind's eye was subbing in other images, her wild imagination letting loose. Dragons. She could have a dragon. But, a little pinch of reality brought her back. It wasn't a Queen's clutch, unless everyone was surprisingly subdued about such a significant event. There wouldn't, as she recalled from what she'd read of clutching dragons, be a lot of eggs. She didn't have high hopes.

"A little," she replied to Ezra. Who wouldn't be excited? She was, in her subdued Kesviry sort of way. She was excited to see the dragons, to congratulate the Impressors, but she wasn't overly so. She wasn't wiggling in anticipation or exuding waves upon waves of excitement, like Ezra was, but she was still a little excited. Then, voice quiet, she added more fact, "It would be a small one. Judging by when the last time the Weyrwoman's dragon clutched, before I arrived here, she still shouldn't be clutching again for some time. I don't know how old the Jr. Weyrwoman's dragon is, though, or when she last flew." There was a shrug added to this.

"Still," Kes said, "There should be a few eggs soon, at least."

[/blockquote]

[cy]

[/b] he uttered, perhaps unnecessarily as his own eagerness for a Hatching was quite clear, but perhaps he figured on some level that sharing an emotion between them would connect them just a little bit more than it did. Bind them in a friendship. He wanted that.

His gaze had briefly turned away to take in the horizon once more, but her quiet voice drew him right back to her. He listened, his expression dimming in concentration as he took in what she said and worked out what the words meant. There'd only be a few eggs, at the least. In comparison to all the Candidates, the chances of Impressing, for either himself or Kes or just about anybody else that would Stand, was slim. Extremely slim. As he let his gaze drift off into the lower corner of his peripheral, he nibbled at his bottom lip and tried to determine how he felt in response to such a revelation. He would Stand for a dragon hatching soon, but, more likely than not, he wouldn't Impress. More likely than not, she wouldn't either.

But he was a hopeful boy. He returned his gaze to her, the smile softly returning to his boyish features. "It'll still be fun though, I think. Like, at least we're sure to get the experience of Standing." It seemed like a nice compromise. Even if they didn't Impress, they'd get to be introduced and adapted to the sensation of Standing. They'd get to memorize the heat of the sands and feel the intensity of the moment. And he could think it fun because, for the moment, he was painfully naíve. He couldn't grasp the level of disappointment that could hit a Candidate when they'd failed to Impress. He knew that doubt and uncertainty from being overlooked by searchdragons time and time again, but it would be stronger than that and he didn't know. He was foolish enough to think he could go into that room grounded and practical, without letting the hope soar up in him. He was very new.[/ul][/size]

[Reky]

"True," she said, nodding once slowly. He had a very good point. Perhaps, standing multiple times before Impression would have its advantages. You'd get a feel for how they worked, beyond what the candidatemasters explained about it. You'd know, in better detail, what to do and what not to do. Kesviry surely hoped that she'd also learn what little she could do to keep people from getting hurt. The other candidates would also learn what sort of stupid things they shouldn't do. Eventually, maybe, they'd end up incident-free at future hatchings. She hoped so. She hated unexpected things like that... She hated people getting hurt. The uncomfortable lump in the bottom of her stomach whenever she thought of Standing was because of that - because of the idea of maulings.

She was feeling a little antsy on the inside. Physically, she was still stoic and unmoving, staring out across the weyrbowl, but she was still a little impatient. It was an odd feeling, though, because she was also tired and cold. She figured it was more accurately labeled as a longing to get back inside, where it was warm and cozy. After all, Ezra had said she could leave if she wanted... He was very nice. He was talkative, but he was clingy. He was happy and excitable, but he didn't force it on her. She hadn't expected it, but she did like that boy. It was good to have another candidate around that she could talk to, instead of hiding by herself all the time. It would be especially good when they were Standing. Just having someone there as support would make it better.

Arms still hugged around her for warmth, she looked at Ezra, and she smiled. It was a small, gentle smile, but still a smile. It faded when she spoke, though. "I'm going to go now," she said, voice habitually quiet. "It was nice to meet you, though, Ezra." She gave another fleeting smile, and shrugged a little, and then turned and headed back inside. She hoped he'd be fine on his own. He knew the way back to the barracks, at least.

Perhaps, she'd be able to write something. Maybe a song, that a harper could sing one day. (She couldn't, though. She'd never had the voice enough to sing.) Something about being a candidate... It was only fitting.

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[cy]

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/end of thread! xD