Like Night and Day *Reky*

[aikastarr]

Krysthanine had just finished chatting with her new bud, Zies, as she waltzed to a nearby table. The Kitchens were relatively empty, save a couple of small groups talking quietly amongst themselves. As she took her seat, she gazed about her, trying to identify anybody she knew. She brushed her hair away from her face so that it didn’t get eaten along with the small pastry she held between her small hands. Looking back and forth between two particular groups, she gave a slight giggle; older people are quite the entertainment when they’re slightly tipsy!

I wonder what Rethalt’s doing, she wondered as she nibbled at her pastry. It was warm and soft, just the way that she likes! Grinning, the girl cast her gaze to the door to idly watch people enter and exit. For some reason, people-watching became a new habit of hers that got added to her very extensive list. Shrugging, Krysthanine began to let her mind slip away from the current time and lapse into a slight daydream of when she was Searched. That was a foolish time, but she was smarter now, more mature. Shaking her head, she bit her goody and began to feel an unnerving emotion roil in her stomach.

Was it indigestion? Probably not, since she’s eaten this food before. No, it was more of loneliness, a loneliness that couldn’t be satiated by people-watching. Abruptly, she got up and began to pace about, trying to dull the upset. Only then did she realize a key factor in her distress. ”I need more friends.”

[Reky]

Hunger had driven her out of her comfy, warm hidey-hole of a bunk. She had very little drive to make herself known to the world. Doing your chores, going to lessons, and being ready for a hatching, whenever one might come, was all a candidate had to do. Schmoozing wasn't part of the deal. It didn't matter who you knew. Dragons didn't take that into account. So, Kesviry was glad. People weren't her thing. She was perfectly allowed to keep to herself, quiet and in her own little world.

She was eating in the dining hall, by herself. Her fist clenched and unclenched on the table as she chewed, as a way to entertain herself, examining her fingers and fingernails. Which chores did she have tomorrow? She ran through them in her mind. Then, she went of imagining again - wordless but whimsical adventures of shipfish and dragons and rolling waves, and the sky of blue far above. To anyone else, she'd just appear a girl barely paying attention to her food, eyes glazed over and head ducked. Inside her head, though, she was somewhere else entirely.

There was a bit of a crash of a dropped glass and it drew her from her Kes-world. The next thing she heard, then, was a girl not far from her, standing straight up and talking to herself. "I need more friends," she'd said, or something like that. Kesviry looked up at her pacing. She blinked a few times, wondering why someone would pace like that in the middle of a trafficway between tables, and then realized she'd probably been staring a little too long. Hurriedly, she went back to her food.

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[aikastarr]

Krysthanine didn’t really bother to look about, and that immediately caused her to bump into a couple of men trying to get by. Mumbling apologies, she reoccupied her previous seating arrangement. The girls sighed, wishing that something interesting happened. Lucky for her, Whiting made himself known by chirping in her ear, suddenly reminding her that he was, in fact, with her at the current time. She flinched, causing her Blue to screech, hence causing a big commotion. She calmed the flitter down after a few minutes of stroking his head and crooning. Looking about, she caught the eye of another girl that looked about her age. Haven’t I seen her somewhere? she wondered, and proceeded to walk towards the girl.

Although she wasn’t much of a talkative person, she did enjoy small talk here and there. As she got closer, Krysthanine realized that the other girl was the girl that had been wary near others. Whiting creeled in agreement, eyes whirling blues and greens. She took a seat across from Kes and began to think about what to say, if anything. The girl looked absorbed in her food. To her curiosity, even though the food was practically untouched, the other girl seemed to want it to seem as if she was eating. Krysthanine decided to not speak, and returned her attention to Whiting, who was currently trying to get his claws on her russet hair.

[Reky]

Kesviry cringed. Noise. She didn't like noise. She liked peace and quiet, calm and relaxed surroundings as opposed to chaos. She supposed that chaos was her greatest fear - everything happening at once, people getting hurt, things going wrong, and all without reason or sanity. She was infinitely relieved when the flitter calmed down, and she took a small nibble of the food on her plate. Her head was still ducked.

Had Whiting not creeled in her direction, she probably would have missed Krysthanine sitting down opposite her. She'd ended up looking up with mild irritation at the noises, only to have her features soften into a mix of surprise, apology, and confusion when she saw the other girl sit down. She looked down at her plate almost immediately. The girl didn't say anything and put her attention back to her firelizard. It was a little uncomfortable, the silence between the two candidates. Kesviry swallowed the small bit of food in her mouth and racked up some courage in her stomach.

Kes looked up. Questioningly, letting her confusion be known, she said, "Hello?"

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[aikastarr]

Krysthanine was paying more attention to her surroundings than Whiting was, so she immediately smothered Whiting’s face with her hand before he could yelp, and cradled him into the crook of her arm. ”Hello,” she mumbled, trying to avoid eye contact. She withdrew a bit, uncomfortable with the awkward small talk. Sure, she liked small talk, but this small was too small. What do I say? Should I talk about the weather? No, that would seem weird. She had no idea what to do. Instead, she just offered her hand. ”Name’s Krysthanine, and this is Whiting,” she added, slowly revealing the afternoon-blue flitter to be examined. He gave a quiet chirp of hello, his eyes whirling with uneasiness.

Looking up, she saw that Kesviry had returned to nibbling on the food she had. She looked down to see that Whiting had thankfully left her pastry alone, and she bit into it to calm her nerves. Why was she being so quiet? What happened to her bubbliness from before? It was as if her confidence changed with the seasons, or the days. Shrugging slightly, she rubbed her eyes. She hadn’t gotten much sleep the previous night, and that probably contributed to her shyness.

Turning her attention to Kesviry again, she waited for a reply or some other form of acknowledgment.

[Reky]

The rest of her food remained untouched after that. She'd eaten quite a lot before this girl had shown up, anyways, and her intense hunger had subsided. She could easily go back to her room now. That would be rude, though. She just wanted to hide away within herself again, go and read, go be in silence, go be Kes, but she'd already said hello. She'd got herself into this.

Hesistantly and awkardly, she shook Krysthanine's hand, as was the polite thing to do. Quiet as Kesviry might have been, she still had manners. "I'm Kesviry." Hopefully, the absence of a 'nice to meet you' or a comment on the firelizard wouldn't be noticed or, if it was, wouldn't be taken hard. Actually, she started feeling a little bad about how she was acting, and looked down, a blush spreading across her porcelain cheeks. She wasn't good with people. She knew that. She didn't like people, but... was that mean? Judging? If they hadn't done anything wrong except have a loud firelizard? It probably was.

Kesviry heaved a silent sigh.

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[aikastarr]

Krysthanine cocked her head to the side slightly then let a soft grin spread across her features. She didn’t blame the girl for being shy; if a random stranger came over to her and started talking to her, she would be pretty shaken up as well. Releasing her grip on Kesviry’s hand, she withdrew it to stroke Whiting. ”Kesviry… That’s a nice name,” she mused, not exactly paying attention. Her mind began to wander, as it always did, and took her around the world in less than a candlemark. Well, this is getting awkward, she thought decisively. Shifting her weight uncomfortably, she looked around and spotted the previous men, now completely drunk and, well, being drunk.

She decided to focus some small talk on that. ”What do you think of alcohol?”she asked bluntly, trying to sound indifferent, but not too indifferent. Wow, Krys. Really? Was that all you could think of? she silently chided herself for the stupid question. She hoped that she didn’t come off as an alcoholic or anything. In fact, if somebody offered her some wine, she would smoothly decline. Or, if they persisted, take the wine and pour it all over their head. That would teach them to try and get her drunk!

Turning her gaze back to Kes, she tried to do what her twin always did and read her emotions. Unfortunately, she didn’t develop that talent as acutely as Rethalt. If only she had. Then, she wouldn’t be in the dark so much. Today was going to be weird and full of awkward silences. That much she was sure of.

[Reky]

A nice name? Sure. She got it a lot. Personally, she preferred to be called Kes - Kesviry was a bit too much for her. In her opinion, the 'v' was a little to hard to make the name truly pretty. Kes was nice, short, and sweet. More fitting of someone as nondescript as she was. Well... nondescript wasn't quite the word. Tall probably was. Still, she wasn't anything terribly special. A special name didn't seem to fit. So, she was Kes.

She saw that Krysthanine had spaced out. Well... that was awkward. Trying to make something of the silence, she took a sizeable bite of her food and chewed. Her gag reflex didn't feel exactly cooperative, though. She had eaten a lot already. Krysthanine spoke again, and Kes swallowed with difficulty. She was silent for a bit, formulating a good answer.

"Alcohol is alright," she said, decisively. "People can drink what they like. I don't enjoy it much, personally." Her brown doe eyes glanced at the drunk men laughing at the table a little ways away. Drunks had the ability to be amusing. Kesviry hadn't ever drank much in her life. Perhaps once, at a Turn End party, but the resulting effect didn't sit well with her. She'd rather spend the rest of her life without that warm, fuzzy, buzzing sensation, and the ensuing headache. It was entirely unnecessary.

Kesviry was quite an unreadable person. She was quiet, but inside she was some strong, opinionated, intelligent girl. On the outside, though, she just looked quiet. The strength and though-out words of her voice before was a little contradictory, though.

Krysthanine was looking at her, and Kesviry brushed a glance against her, too. She was familiar. Where had she seen her before? "You're a candidate," Kesviry pointed out, having figured out where the girl was from. Hopefully, that would be enough to spur a conversation of dragons or hatchings. Not that Kes really wanted to talk, but she wanted to dispel the awkward silence, and didn't want to be rude by leaving.

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[aikastarr]

When Kes had decided to speak again, Krysthanine had just come back to reality. She nodded, letting stray threads of hair fall into her face, and she lazily smoothed them behind her ear. ”I’ve never had alcohol. By what I’ve seen, though, I’m pretty sure I’d not want a lick of it near me,” she agreed, taking yet another bite out of her pastry. For some reason, she wasn’t eating it as fast as she normally would. Was it because she was talking to somebody? Was she not as hungry as she normally is? The fact that she hadn’t shoved the entire thing in her mouth yet still baffled her.

She watched as Kes turned to watch the drunks laugh and hit each other. She suppressed a giggle as one of them head butt another and nearly crashed to the floor. Looking back to Kes, she realized that she had spoken. She had stated that she was a Candidate, correct? ”Yes, that is quite true,” she confirmed, then inspected Kes’s face to find any recognition. ”You’re a Candidate as well, I’m guessing? I mean, I did see you at the Barracks when Zeis was handing out the pastries,” she tacked on for good measure. Now that she looked at the girl, she was familiar. But from where?

[Reky]

There was some sort of feeling of accomplishment when Krysthanine confirmed her statement. That was good - her memory wasn't playing any tricks on her. Then, the girl mentioned the day the pastries came, and all that kerfuffle. There had been a lot of hellos, a lot of talking, a lot of people flocking towards the pastries, and after having been introduced to that one girl - Talouse, was it? - Kes had ran off herself. The pastries had been good, though. Very good.

"Yeah, I was there," Kesviry shrugged. Still, though, her voice was quiet - just barely heard over the noise of the rest of the dining hall. She didn't feel the need to be any louder. The awkward silence swooped back in on them. Looking down, Kesviry pushed the remainder of her food around her plate idly, definitely not about to fight with her gag reflex to get the rest of it down. She sighed.

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[aikastarr]

Whiting couldn’t take the silence for much longer; with a decisive snort, he leaped out of Krysthanine’s arm and started walking towards Kesviry, chirruping in greeting. Since his Mine was talking to her, why not him? He puffed himself up and flared his wings a bit, trying to put on a regal appearance. If Whiting was going to get attention, he had to look bigger and bolder than he really was! Even though, on the inside, he was shaking like a leaf. He walked halfway across the table, then plopped down onto his hindquarters, crooning for attention.

Krysthanine fidgeted in her seat, not quite sure what to say as the awkward silence blanketed the two. She decided to busy herself with watching the men she was watching earlier, frowning as they began cat-calling the women near them (which thankfully excluded them). Who would want to be wooed by somebody that was completely wasted, and not thinking straight? Certainly not her!

Returning her gaze back to Whiting, she made a slight motion to get up. ”If I was a bother, I could leave you to your food…” she offered, standing up and tapping Whiting on the head. The firelizard didn’t budge, though, whirling eyes trained on Kes. What was she going to do?

[Reky]

Kesviry had dipped into her own oblivious, detached world again. She'd made an effort at talking, it wasn't working. She'd done what she could. Now, the noise from the drunkards was being blocked out, and so was poor attention-hungry Whiting. Kesviry stared off into blank space. The rest of the world was a sort of fuzzy background noise to her, and she sighed occasionally. She was ready for a nap. The food was making her sleepy, and her uncomfortably full stomach was begging for her to just lay down and relax so it could sort things out.

She spared a bit of a blank look for Whiting, something almost like a 'sorry', and then Krysthanine spoke. Kesviry managed to listen. Then she looked down, embarrassment and apology on her face. Her next words were quiet.

"I'm sorry," said Kes. "I'm just... not good with people. Mostly. I... I was going to go, anyways, don't feel good..." The last bit was even quieter than the first, as her voice trailed off. She stood, giving a little, "Nice to meet you." to Krysthanine before heading off.

Naptime.

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(( OOC: Sorry, would have kept it going, but I have soooo many threads! X__O ))