Rukbat's Revenge (Open/For Nia)

[4horseshowgirl4]

Luven was miserable.

He knew that idling around never got anyone anywhere, and here was the result.

His chest still bore the red streaks that had been inflicted by Grescan's crazed Orange firelizard, but now the rest of his body, from the waist up, at least, was covered in a similar, if not quite so fierce, red hue.

Luven was badly sunburned. He had wandered out in the Rukbat sun for too long while fooling around in the Weyrbowl lake with Grescan and Meta. That was yesterday, and Luven had gone to bed, tired and content, and he had waken to a strange, painful sensation in the early hours in the morning. In his grogginess, it had taken him a few seconds to realize what the sharp, burning pain was every time he moved a joint. It was sunburn. Luven wasn't deathly pale, but his lighter skin wasn't exactly suited to long hours outside in the heat of summer, especially during the afternoon.

Luven had spent an agonizing morning moving around as slowly as possible. Getting dressed was torture. Walking all the way to the kitchens to get breakfast was, if anything, worse, because he also had to content with the weyrbrats' curious stares at this strange, oddly colored young man. In some places, such as his nose and shoulders, the color of Luven's skin almost rivaled that of Waroth's red hide.

The thought of going to the infirmary didn't come upon Luven until he was already back in the Candidates' barracks, slowly and deliberatively sewing a patch into one of his tunics. The shade of the barracks was an immense relief, though every small movement of his arm brought a now-too-familiar, throbbing pain.

He just guessed that Rukbat was reaffirming his belief that idleness was pointless and against everything happy or good in this world. Rukbat was getting revenge on him for lazing around.

Stupid sunburn.

[Nia]

There really wasn't too much to do at a Weyr, was there? Walk around, watch the dragons, do chores-- the third of which Riori would never be caught doing. Weyrs were made for dragons, naturally, and people who didn't have dragons were forced to sit around and stare. But that was okay, Riori was a Candidate. He could be studying for the Candidate Lessons (yeah right) or he could be doing chores (again, yeah right) but he had chosen to wander around the barracks aimlessly. It was hot and Rukbat's rays were fierce; Riori felt extremely lucky that his awfully pale skin hadn't gotten burned yet.

It was times like these that he wished he at least had a fire-lizard or something to keep him company, just walking around the barracks all lonely-like was so... well, lonely. It made him feel like people were staring. But he'd only transfered here a few days ago, he hadn't really had much time to make friends. Naturally, he'd talked to some girls, but he hadn't actually attempted to make friends with anyone. It's not that he was shy... he was just, well, lazy. And wanted to get used to life at this Weyr first, and to be honest it wasn't all that different from Ista.

He'd been up for a while now and couldn't think of much else to do. The black-haired Candidate was almost tempted to go back to his room and nap, but decided against it. He could sleep tonight, he didn't want to waste a day he could be... walking around and doing nothing. Maybe he could find some girls doing the same thing he was and ask to join them. Yeah, that'd be nice. Too bad the barracks seemed pretty empty.

Well, except for that one kid over there.

Wait, what kid?

Riori did a bit of a double take, and wondered why he had passed this spot so many times and hadn't actually noticed anyone over there. He could really be quite oblivious at times. Anyway, he wasn't a girl, but he would be company, and that was good enough. Besides, it was easier to keep up relationships with guys. As friends. Friends were always easier.

Anyway, he dismissed those thoughts and smiled, walking towards Luven and waving as he approached. "Hey! Uh..." he paused, trying to think of a reason for why he'd walked over there, "I'm Riori and I'm new here! So I uh, thought I'd...." he trailed off, "Introduce myself...?" he finished with a weak laugh, realizing just how completely random he was being by approaching this stranger out of the blue. ... this very red stranger, he noticed after looking at the boy closer. Poor guy probably had an awful case of sunburn, Riori could relate. He used to get them all the time. He held his tongue from commenting though, it definitely wasn't the right time to exclaim something like, 'wow that looks really painful!' Stating the obvious wasn't the way to make friends!

[wirevix]

The greatly-bored Riori had only just had time to say hello to the greatly-burned Luven when a loud trill interrupted them. In through the opened door flitted a bright Purple firelizard, and clutched in his mouth was a few blades of long grass. He landed on the floor near Riori's feet, hopping rapidly about him, chirping muffledly through his mouthful of grasses. He jumped into the air again after a moment, flipping through the air once just for the amusement of it, and landed on the top of Riori's head. From there he leaned over, attempting to tickle the Candidate's nose with his grass.

"Shobie!" Alalbar admonished, sighing as he peeked into the room where his rather troublesome pet had gone. He shook his head and frowned. Figured, Shobie had gone straight for someone he thought might be in need of some entertainment.

"Sorry," he mumbled, stepping in and holding a hand up. Shobie chirped at him plaintively, but Alalbar kept a stern expression and finally the Purple shuffled down onto his owner's arm, climbing over to his shoulder. Alalbar shook his head at him, but the little Purple only bobbed his head.

He glanced back and forth at the other two Candidates, frowning a little uncertainly, backing out of the room but not completely leaving yet. Shobie carefully tucked his blades of grass behind Alalbar's ear so that he could squeak loudly.

[4horseshowgirl4]

Luven cursed under his breath. His thread had broken. Luven reached over, each movement crinkling his skin and rejuvenating the pain anew, to grab the spool of thread he had stashed under his cot for the moment. While doing this, he noticed that he was no longer alone in the barracks. There was one other boy... no, two. Luven straightened up to greet them, sticking the needle through the collar of the tunic for safekeeping, folding the garment carefully, and placing it at the foot of his bed.

Luven carefully swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, doing his best to control the odd grimaces that were contorting his face at the moment. The proximity of Kalith's flight meant that, naturally, more Candidates were going to be arriving more often now than they had. Luven himself had just arrived a few days earlier. However, he had been one of the first. He was already well-settled in, as was evidenced by the wrinkles in his sheets and the papers littered on the nearby desk.

"Good to meet you, Riori. I'm Luven," Luven said as pleasantly as he could manage. Well, perhaps he wasn't exactly being the most friendly he could be (it was hard to do that when one was covered in ruthless sunburn!), but he was welcoming enough. Actually, Luven didn't understand why Riori was acting so awkward. There was always a period of nobody-knows-anyone-else-with-whom-they-have-to-share-a-room-for-the-next-several-sevendays before a clutch. Was this Riori's first Stand, then, perhaps? Was he just not used to this anonymity at the beginning? No, he seemed too old for that.

Luven was comfortable enough with these new people. Faranth knew he'd had enough practice introducing himself to and making new friends with the newly arrived Candidates after the last clutch. Which clutch was he on now, his eighth? "Do you need a tour of the Weyr or just some company?" Luven asked openly, desperately hoping that the answer would be the latter. Suffering from sunburn was bad enough when standing immobile in the cool shade of indoors, but it would be perfectly unbearable if he was forced to walk around outside through the entire Weyr.

Luven turned his attention to the other new arrival. "You can come in, you know," he said, gesturing to the inside of the barracks with an easy toss of his head. "We won't bite." Luven's blunt honesty was a bit blunt for some, but he'd found that most young men didn't mind it.

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[Nia]

Riori couldn't really remember the last time he'd had to completely start over and meet someone new. He was kind of used to just being known by people he'd grown up with. Was that why he was being, well, awkward? But the other boy didn't seem too put off by his greeting (he did seem rather put off by his sunburn, but that was understandable). Sure, there had always been people he didn't know back at Ista... but, he always had that little group of people he'd grown up with. Anyway, he laughed and shook his head at Luven's offer to show him around; actually it wasn't really an offer but that didn't matter.

"No, no," he waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, "I'm fine. Just some company would be nice," he responded with a more easy smile. After a rough start, he felt like he could do this. It wasn't as strange and the atmosphere didn't seem as awkward. He made a mental note not to stutter so much during introductions, first impressions were important. And it was really out of character for him... maybe he ought to spend more time with "the guys" rather than chasing girls around the Weyr....

He'd been about to bold up and inquire something about Luven's sunburn as perhaps a topic of conversation (or maybe stand as a bounding board as Luven ranted or something, Riori wouldn't mind just listening) when a fire-lizard landed at his feet. He blinked down at the Purple flitter, wondering why it had a bunch of grass in it's mouth. Didn't fire-lizards eat meat? Or at least, that's what he had always thought. The black-haired boy laughed lightly at the weird dance it seemed to be doing, wondering who it belonged to or if it was just wild.

Riori didn't have much time to wonder though, as then the Purple flitter hopped up on top of his head and began to... tickle his nose. "Ah.. ah... ahh... choo!" he sneezed, rubbing his nose. He wasn't too annoyed, well, he actually wasn't annoyed at all, and couldn't help but laugh. What a friendly fire-lizard! There was no way it could possibly be wild, it was far too easy around people. Almost as if on cue, the owner of the Purple 'lizard came over to remove the flitter from Riori's head. "Oh, don't be sorry, he's cute." The other boy seemed extremely embarassed. But who wouldn't be embarassed? His fire-lizard had just invaded the personal space (sort of) of a Candidate he didn't even know.

As the kid began to turn and leave, Riori nodded in agreement with what Luven had to say. "Yeah, we're nice. And you've got a really interesting fire-lizard there! What's his name?" Riori questioned, hoping that if the other boy had something to answer or talk about maybe he'd stay to talk for a little bit.

[wirevix]

Alalbar hesitated when the two seemed to think he should stay. Well... he supposed it was worth a shot. He didn't need to flee immediately. It wasn't like he was doing anything anyway. He got so sick of just cleaning stuff up all the time. He'd really not imagined that much cleaning when he'd agreed to come to the Weyr.

"I'm Alalbar," he introduced himself softly, stepping back inside the room. He'd caught the other two's names, thanks to Luven addressing the other boy as Riori, so he didn't need to ask after that.

Shobie looked pleased to be the starter of a conversation, peeping and puffing up his little chest, hopping into the air and flipping about a little, landing on Luven's bed with a bounce.

"He's Shobie," Alalbar said. Shobie squeaked his agreement, then flew over to retrieve his bunch of grass from his owner. "He's just a goof mostly. He likes to fool around all the time..."

He patted the 'lizard's head lightly as he studied the other two, still uncertain. Well, so far so good, right? He didn't want to offer up too much since he didn't have that much to say but well... it felt awkward to just be standing there.

"I didn't imagine bein' a Candidate would mean so much cleaning," he noted softly, quirking a little half-smile uncertainly.

[4horseshowgirl4]

Luven was trying to pay attention to these new people. He really was. He was trying to listen to their words and form intelligent-sounding comments in his head, but this all-over burning was a rather large distraction. The sunburn was almost itchy, but every time Luven touched it, it felt like he'd been singed with a red-hot poker. There wasn't much he could do but wait it out, but, in the meantime, he wasn't going to be useful for much. The first couple of days were the worst, and Luven, stoic as he would pretend to be, didn't exactly have a high physical pain tolerance.

Luven caught Alalbar's comment, and it seemed quite rude not to say something to continue the conversation now that he and Riori had all but forced him into the room with them. "This isn't anything," Luven said with what could have been an authoritative tone. He assume that he had been Standing longer than the other two, and while that wasn't exactly something about which to brag, Luven felt that it did make him somewhat of a senior amongst these other young men. "Wait until right before the Hatching, when they're practically dangling hopes of Impressing in front of your faces. Then, they use that as an excuse to practically turn us into drudges." Luven grinned wryly. "But, it's really not that bad. You get used to it fast enough, and it's more fun when the chores are more organized and we do them in a group."

"Alalbar?" Luven asked, fighting to keep desperation out of his voice, and rather pleased that he remembered the name. "Does Shobie know how to fetch things? If he does, would you please do me a favor of Queenly proportions? This sunburn is killing me, would you send Shobie to get aloe from the infirmary?" Luven, independent as he was, wasn't exactly thrilled with sending off someone else to retrieve a medication that would take him several hours to fetch by himself, but at least it was he who was dictating the actions and not someone else telling him that he needed to visit the Healers'.

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[Nia]

Riori didn't feel too awkward, even after forcing someone to stay and join a conversation they probably would have rather avoided. But talking was fun! Who didn't like to talk? Well, obviously this boy (boy?) hadn't wanted to, he'd kind of been forced to stay. Still, he seemed okay and slightly relaxed, and he did have an interesting fire-lizard, so.... Not that Riori wanted him to stay just for the fire-lizard! Oh no, he wanted the boy to stay because, well, uh. Friends were fun! Besides, he was bored and the sunburned boy seemed kind of unfocused. It might be better with more people around.

The black-haired boy burst out laughing at the comments on "cleaning" though, moving his hand in a dismissive nature. "You just need to know who to avoid, really! If they can't find you, they can't make you do work," or at least, this worked back at Ista. But then again, there hadn't been TOO many clutches. Sure, a bunch of disappointing ones... but nothing really big. So he'd always managed to avoid cleaning.

Either that or he was just such a terrible cleaner that they didn't want him doing chores anyway. Riori did have a tendancy to play around and mess up when he was cleaning or doing any other chore. He'd even played a few pranks (water bucket over a slightly open door, anyone?) and gotten in so much trouble he'd been banned from the kitchens at Ista. Hey, it wasn't HIS fault they'd left a bucket of water sitting out in the open for anyone to get to!

"But... that... probably won't work here," he speculated, with a small, slightly nervous laugh as he rubbed the back of his head. He really wasn't looking forward to chores here. Like, REALLY wasn't looking forward to it. He would really rather be bored and sitting around doing nothing than actually having to do something. Being bored could lead to fun, interesting things, while actually having a task to do lead to... well, not interesting things.

Anyway, all that aside, he seemed interested in Shobie going to fetch some lotion for Luven, just for the object of conversation. But it wasn't really his business, so he didn't butt in. A fire-lizard would be very nice though, he had to admit.