Sticks and Stones and Bones [Open]

[toby-du-coeur]

Kirin wobbled slightly as he made his way into his new quarters.

He hadn't yet gotten his land legs back. Also, the man who had directed him here had squinted at his fiercely sunburnt face and said... something about dehy-something and the sun, that Kirin hadn't caught. (There were dragons. Right forsking there.) But he felt fine! Slightly dizzy. Awake since the previous night with excitement (and with actually finishing the chores he'd promised to do in exchange for his passage). And absolutely fine!

Kirin set his bag onto the bed with a faint rattle. It was stiff with seawater and landed with a heavy thump. He wasn't thrilled about being cooped up in a cave again so soon, but he had to stow his collections somewhere before getting back out into all that sun.

"I'm heere!" he shouted to the world at large.

[Dragon]

"And just in time," Ren said from the doorway. Renkestuous had been a candidate for nearly seven turns now, first at Ista and now at Semaca; it was always fun to see new young candidates arrive. The boy was so short, a foot shorter than Ren himself, and rather sunburned looking. "I'm Renkestuous! Nebulaeth just rose."

It was, of course, all half the Weyr could talk about. A gold rising ... well, that was always a big deal. Renkestuous himself was always extremely excited about any clutching dragon rising; that meant eggs, which meant another chance to Impress, and any clutch could include his coveted blue.

"So - from the look of you, this is probably going to be your first clutch? It's so exciting, especially for something that just involves putting on a robe and standing and watching." All right, sometimes people got mauled and things, but mostly when you didn't Impress you just stood there.

[toby-du-coeur]

Kirin spun around to face the voice from the doorway. To his eyes, the man appeared as a blur of gaudy colour that instantly made him self-conscious of his own drab mining-hold clothing. A very tall and grinning blur.

"Wow, super cool that Neb..leth rose," Kirin said, with the air of somebody who definitely knew what rising meant. "Yes! It's my first clutch."

He cleared his throat and folded his arms. "I'm Kirin." So strange, having to introduce himself to people who had never met him, much less known him since he was in diapers. This was his chance to make a new impression (well, quite literally).

Which impression was beginning by Renkestuous, with his brilliant outfit and his nonchalant attitude about dragons, literally looking down on him.

Kirin subtly rose up on his tiptoes. This immediately unbalanced him even further, and he went sprawling back onto his bed, where he caught himself on his elbows, crossed one knee over the other, and grinned. Yeah, that definitely looked intentional.

[Dragon]

Still smiling in welcome, Renkestuous ran a hand through his dark curls. He wanted to know everything, obviously, more out of rampant curiosity about someone new and shiny than anything else. His smile turned into a grin when Kirin tumbled gracelessly onto his bed, but he was tactful enough not to tease about it.

Leaning casually against the doorframe, Renkestuous asked, "So, where are you from? I'm from Ista Hold, myself, and spent five turns at Ista Weyr before coming down here. My pa brought me down; actually, it was Oraneth who Searched me in the first place. That's Pa's blue."

He'd happily have spilled his whole life story, but the desire to know more about the new candidate outweighed his desire to chatter. He tilted his head slightly, ready to listen.

[toby-du-coeur]

"Wow, so you've lived with dragons and actual shit happening since forever. What's the craziest thing that ever happened there?"

Not waiting for a response, Kirin went on. "I'm from --" he jabbed a thumb up to indicate north -- "The Mines," waving his fingers dramatically in front of his face. "Let's see. We had cold.. a forskload of coal.. some cool rocks, but the best of 'em are here." He opened his pack, and a clutter of geodes and rocks, weyrie bones, carvings, and other objects spilled out onto the bed. Along with an even more tattered change of clothes, and a considerable amount of sand.

Kirin gazed proudly at his collection, glancing at Renkestuous to gauge his measure of awe. "I'm for sure the most interesting thing that was up there. And now I'm gone. Sweet Faranth, I can't even imagine living there without me! Thank forsk that could never happen.. you know, to me." He laughed immoderately at his own quip.

"And thank forsk I'm stuck here now." Kirin tilted a pearly shell in front of him, and added, "I stay stuck because I don't think the pirates I rode with would take me back the other way." He threw in that mention of pirates very casually, because he was cool like that. "They were always going on about my work ethic. Work ethic!" He rolled his eyes. "Pirates these days."

[Dragon]

The craziest thing? Well, that was probably something he had done. In fact, his mind immediately went to the incident where he'd broken his nose, but no - part of the glory of being in Semaca was that no one here knew about that. And he didn't think Kirin was asking about pranks, anyway ...

"I mean, it's not really that exciting day-to-day," Renkestuous confessed. Hence the pranks. "Unless Thread is falling, it's just a whole lot of people going about their day."

Mines with cool rocks, though - that was something that interested Ren. He came closer, peering at the rocks and bones and carvings that were on the bed among Kirin's belongings. "Oh, wow, those rocks are hollow, with crystals inside!"

He grinned when Kirin claimed to be the most interesting thing from the mines he came from; Renkestuous liked a person who wasn't afraid to be interesting.

At the mention of pirates, Renkestuous pouted slightly. "So many people got to come with pirates; Pa just took me between and here we were. And yeah, work ethic is a thing; dragonriders work hard! But they have us doing homework when it doesn't have anything to do with riding." At least, not in Ren's opinion.

[toby-du-coeur]

"Aren't they cool?" He would offer one of his trinkets to Renkestuous, but he hadn't quite proved himself enough for that.

"Got caught during threadfall the time I found THIS one," he said, and picked up a small slab of red crystals embedded in rock. "Okay, technically I snuck out during threadfall. And hey. Supposedly deadly threadfall, supposedly treacherous section of the mines, and I got out with just," and he lifted the crystals in one hand, and tilted his other forearm to show the little silvery scar.

"There's red-coloured dragons, right? Maybe one of the hatchlings will want it. And then it'll impress to me.." Kirin had only the vaguest, third-hand ideas of what Impression entailed - dragons biting Candidates, Candidates possibly biting each other, glowing rainbow light, and now Ren had mentioned white robes.

Those ideas had definitely not included homework. "We have to do HOMEWORK? what, are the baby dragons gonna like, check our marks?"

[Dragon]

"Very cool," Renkestuous agreed. He peered at the red crystals, a little jealous that he didn't have anything like that. He loved colorful things, and rocks were no exception to that fact. "Yeah, there are garnets, they're red. Or purple, sometimes. But - uh, you can't really give one a gift to try to get it to Impress you. That's all up to the dragon."

He peered at the little threadscore on Kirin's arm, suitably impressed. "That's really neat, that you've survived Thread already! It's so cool that we get to be dragonriders during Threadfall. We'll be everything dragonriders are supposed to be!"

Homework, though - homework sucked. "Some of the lessons are important, or even fun - like flying lessons! Although they only let us go on one flight each during those." Ren pouted a little. "But lessons about the crafts and aging out - eugh! And we learn enough during the classes themselves; we don't need to do homework, too. At least we get to stop basic Harper lessons after we pass the tests for math and reading."

[toby-du-coeur]

Kirin nodded, taking everything in. Though he still wasn't quite convinced that a dragon wouldn't want him for his rock collection. He'd have to find out in more detail how Impression worked.

All in all, Kirin was immensely pleased with his first fellow Candidate. Colourful, at least as not-boring as Kirin, and seemed to know his way around, so Kirin could simply copy him rather than having to Go To Adults and Ask Things Like a Wherry-Brained Kid. Already a better acquaintance than most anybody at the mining hold.

He grimaced at the description of Candidate life. A lot less exciting than he'd imagined. Still, "I'm pretty good at getting out of lessons. Or, you know.. contributing to them. There was this one time with these moths I'd raised from coccoons..."

He got up off the bed, then trailed off as his dizziness redoubled. "Hold on. I know this feeling..." His gaze drifted for a moment. "Oh yeah. I'm going to pass out soon if I don't get some water. Where the forsk did I put my.." He fumbled for his empty waterskin. "You know where we get water around here?"

[Dragon]

The half-started story about raising moths had Renkestuous leaning in slightly in interest; then his eyes widened in alarm when Kirin said he might pass out. "Oh - definitely. Passing out is bad. We should get you some water. It's hot down here and you have to make sure you drink enough."

His anxiety about the younger boy's wellbeing had him rambling, and as soon as he realized it Renkestuous clamped his mouth shut and swallowed hard. "Come on. Let's go get you something to drink before you pass out. I'll come with you in case you fall."

Somewhere in the last few minutes, Ren realized, he'd decided he was going to look out for Kirin. The boy seemed pretty cool! But even if he hadn't, well, he was hardly the sort to let a fellow candidate pass out from dehydration.