Dish Duty [Ezra]

[nineofswords]

Dish duty. Not one of Scara's favorite tasks, but an important one nonetheless. It helped the riders, which certainly made it bearable. And she was assigned to the task with a newer transfer to Semaca, Anphiel. It was a good excuse to make the girl feel welcome.

"So, how are you settling into Semaca?" she asked, soaping up a plate. "Oh, I'm also Scara, by the way. I know there's a lot of new faces when transferring to a new Weyr and it can be hard to keep all their names straight. Where are you from originally? I came here from Fort, myself. Semaca's quite a change, isn't it?" Scara was internally patting herself on the back for doing such an excellent job of making so many new candidates feel welcome at Semaca.

[Ezra]

Anphiel was already annoyed. She was here to be a candidate, not a kitchen drudge! While she got that sometimes you had to do irritating things to help the weyr, washing dishes like this was beneath her. She was made for better things and this was better suited to others. She had been making a point to ignore everyone around her, angerly scrubbing a pot and grumbling under her breath about how this was a valuable waste of her time.

But then.. someone.. another candidate she noted with disdain had addressed her. Where did this girl get off thinking she wanted to talk to her? Hissing in irritation as she loudly placed the clean dish aside for another drudge to dry and grabbing a plate, she responded, her tone scathing. " Oh this is fantastic! I just love slaving away in a kitchen instead of out there doing something actually useful." She replied, sarcasm dripping from her words. A scowl crossed her face again as the girl KEPT TALKING. Why... why was this girl even bothering with her? Did she have a sign on her back that said she wanted to be bothered? " Anphiel, from Telgar and its sticky and hot here.. but at least there are not as many annoying crybabies here.. so far." She responded, placing the plate aside before grabbing another pot, her anger channeled into scrubbing it. Maybe this was enough to sate the other girl, if she was lucky.

[nineofswords]

Scara stopped for a moment, her pleasant expression disappearing and instead raising a disapproving eyebrow. "Oh, this isn't useful enough for you?" she asked. "Well, by all means, eat off dirty plates at your next meal time. No one's stopping you, after all." Honestly. Some people just had no sense.

Scara did not roll her eyes, but she did press her lips together a little tighter and started scrubbing harder at her own set of plates. Fantastic. This girl was a complainer. "Hot and sticky it may be, but I'll take it over getting snowed in on the mountains in winter any day." Faranth. If she hated the heat this much, why transfer here? High Reaches and Benden would've been much better options.

Scara gave Anphiel a side-eyed look when she said there weren't as many annoying crybabies. "Well we didn't until we got some new faces..." She wondered how long it'd take Anphiel to realize she was talking about her. Scara wasn't exactly trying to make it subtle.

[Ezra]

Anphiel sighed internally, clearly the other girl was not getting it. " We are candidates is my point. Shouldn't we be out there aiding in tasks that we actually would as riders or handlers? I don't recall ever seeing a rider or handler inside doing dishes? Personally I would sooner change infant nappies than scrub pots. But regardless, we are here and it has to be done so.. so be it I guess." She grumbled with a shrug of her shoulders, rinsing off the pot she had been scrubbing. She was also ignoring the fact that her hands were starting to itch from.. something in the water.. fantastic.

" At least the weather seems consistent I suppose. Was it snowy and cold where you came from?" She asked, forcing herself to at least pretend to be civil. Last thing she wanted was another punishment duty for starting an altercation and have to do something else useless to her potential future career. She raised a brow at the latter comment, picking up on the subtle dig. She then laughed dryly at it. This girl had a spine, praise Farenth!

" That was cute. You got a backbone on you.. about time someone did." She added, pulling her hands from the water and scratching at them, still not sure why they were itching. Was it something on the pot she cleaned? Or was this just growing pains of adjusting to a new location, and some weird allergy to a spice? She had no idea, it was just annoying and she did not like it.

[nineofswords]

"As candidates, our tasks are assist riders in whatever ways are needed," Scara said, her words coming out tight and clipped. She made a face. "You'd rather handle poop than wash a few dishes?" she asked, incredulous. "I've seen riders wash the odd plate. But riders don't change diapers. You're being absurd." There was a reason there were creches, and it was because a rider wasn't meant to be involved in their child's life. Surely everyone knew that!

Scara recognized the attempt at small talk for what it was and tried to stamp down the worst of her annoyance. "Sometimes," she said. "I'm from Fort, originally. Winters got cold and snowy, but summers could get pretty hot."

Scara smothered a smile at Anphiel's laugh, as well as her acknowledgement of Scara's backbone. Though having her jibe be called 'cute' rankled, she decided to let it slide. "Riders need to have backbone if they're to face thread," she said. "Since I want to be a threadfighter, it stands to reason I should have some. You certainly take an insult better than I was expecting, I'll grant you that," she added, almost begrudgingly.

Seeing Anphiel scratching at her hands, Scara couldn't help but offer some advice. "I've got some lotion one of the weyrfolk makes," she said, nodding at Anphiel's hands. "Makes it with this plant that grows around here. Looks prickly, but it produces this thick sap that smells good and feels good on the skin. Good for burns, too." Semaca had some truly strange plants, with bizarre properties. She even thought she'd seen someone eating the sap before, but she didn't think she wanted to try that anytime soon.