Tall Tales or Short Lies? [Phlox]

[nineofswords]

Dunsmith had worn many different kinds of knots in his life. His Semaca knots were not especially strange, but he'd never really been a guard before. He supposed he'd be alright at it - he knew the sorts of things to look out for as far as suspicious behavior went, and Dunsk was fairly keen on this kind of work. He'd be doing all of the truly dangerous stuff anyway, so Dunsmith had thought it seemed like a fair compromise.

However, since it was very different from his usual line of work, it had taken some time for him to get used to it, not to mention the fact that guards apparently weren't supposed to chat while they worked? Something about being "distracting"? Dunsmith didn't see how anyone was supposed to stay awake - let alone alert - during their shifts if they weren't allowed to wander and chat with their fellow guards.

Once he felt like he was starting to get the hang of it, though, he decided that it was well past time for him to check in on Quentin, the young now candidate he'd come here with. He'd even stayed up 'late' to go have breakfast with them (dinner for him, of course, Faranth, but the Weyrs really were sticklers for having their handlers be as nocturnal as the whers weren't they?).

He grabbed some kind of dubious-looking omelet type thing (the cooks here certainly were creative, he'd give them that) as well as a sausage roll and some fruit and a glass of wine before finding Quentin and sitting down across from him. "Quentin, my dear friend," he said by way of greeting. "How are they treating you in the candidate barracks? You getting along alright with everyone? No one giving you a hard time? Keeping up with your new lessons alright?" If it looked like Quentin wanted to answer verbally or sign, he'd give them the space to do so, but he was used to their quietness by now and would be equally content with headnods.

"You know, I'd heard Semaca was rugged, but Faranth! I'm only a guard and it's already quite backbreaking stuff, let me tell you! Those gates are heavy, and I'm expected to hold them open all on my lonesome! With these weak little arms!" He held up the wiry limbs as limply as he could. "And do not even get me started on the local fauna! The other day, I had to wrestle a bird that was trying to carry off Dunsk! The size of this thing would be enough to get a notable reaction even out of you, my statue-faced friend. And as if that weren't bad enough, the very next day I nearly got eaten by a plant. A plant! You expect that sort of thing of spotties or whers, fo course, but a plant? I fear I won't last the week if even the plants decide they have a hankering for my flesh." He relayed all this with as much drama and enthusiasm as he could.

Dunsk, lingering near the entrance of the dining hall so as not to crowd it with his bulk, let out a huff of fond annoyance. Is embellishing again, he informed Quentin, not wanting the young person to take the old man too seriously. Bird was hawk, just landed on my back. And plant had thistles. Was barely big enough to cut thumb. Was trying to pick it.

Dunsmith put an arm to his forehead dramatically. "That brute is always ruining all my very delightful stories. He's turning me into a liar rather than a lovably eccentric old man!"

YOU make YOURSELF liar, Dunsk grumbled at him.

[FirebrandPhlox]

Quentin sat in the dining hall eating by themselves. Though the hall was busting with people coming to breakfast and leaving from dinner, Quentin was able to find a space near the side of the hall that had empty table space for them to sit. They had just started to eat when Dunsmith came and sat across from them. Quentin hadn't had a chance to talk to the older man much since the two had arrived in Semaca, and they were happy to see him. Quentin nodded approvingly as the man sat down across from them.

As Dunsmith asked how candidate life was going, Quentin nodded in response to his questions, continuing to eat their meal. That was something they appreciated about Dunsmith, he was fine to carry a conversation without Quentin having to say much. After the barrage of questions, Quentin put down their utensils and signed, candidate training is fine. The others are fine. The lessons with letters are hard, but the rest are going alright. Truthfully, Quentin hadn't made much effort to get to know the other candidates yet, but no one had been particularly mean to them so far. They had mostly been left alone, which suited them just fine.

Quentin went back to eating as Dunsmith started to tell his stories of guard duty. Being a guard was much more dangerous and interesting than Quentin had thought! This southern continent had so many more strange wonders than the farm back home had. A bird big enough to carry a wher? A man-eating plant? Such bizarre creatures lived in this jungle, a part of Quentin wanted to see them for themselves. The faintest hint of a smile played on Quentin's lips as the old man spoke.

Then Dunsk cut in, revealing the fantastical stories were just that, stories. Quentin shook their head, lips still hinting at a grin. They signed Dunsk seems well for nearly being flown away. What else has happened on guard duty? I find it had to believe those are the only stories you've made so far. Quentin quite enjoyed Dunsmith's tales, even if not all of them were true.

[nineofswords]

"Well, I'm glad things are mostly going well," Dunsmith said, nodding approvingly. Quentin wasn't the sort to complain, but they could probably take care of themselves if things were getting truly bad. "Don't forget, I'm here for you, and more than happy to have a stern word with anyone on your behalf." Stern word, absolutely ruthless verbal lashing, whichever. He'd do worse than that, if he thought he could get away with it, or if Quentin was really having issues with anyone.

"Ah, yes, letters are almost always the hardest lessons to get a handle on, but by far the most useful in the long run. You mustn't get discouraged, as they're quite useful. Repetition is the key, as with every skill." Without thinking, he'd pulled out the bead he kept in his pocket, rolling it around in his hand. "Would you perhaps like to send any letters home? That would be an excellent means of practice. Or perhaps you could strike up a correspondence with one of the pirates - that is, very honest and trustworthy sailors - who brought us here on their ship. Surely there's a lad or lass or otherwise you'd like to keep in contact with, eh? Sailors are an attractive bunch, after all." He gave a little chuckle. There had definitely been a few on the boat that had caught his eye, after all. "I suppose if none of that appeals, you could always write to me. It'd give me something to do on guard duty, after all." Clearly this was a man who took his role very seriously.

Dunsmith gave an offended little sniff. "Dunsk is far too dense to be carried off by a bird," he said. "Much to my reputation's detriment." Damnable wher, ruining his perfectly good stories... We like Quentin, Dunsk reminded Dunsmith privately. Is not good to lie to people we like. Dunsmith didn't bother to correct Dunsk. They were stories, not lies but whatever. That was an old argument, not worth re-hashing.

Not only stories, Dunsk told Quentin. Dunsmith also get food poisoning.

"But that particular tale is colorful in all the wrong ways," Dunsmith quickly told Quentin. The...unique cuisine of Semaca, as well as the ingredients he was unaccustomed to had not been kind on his stomach in those early days. He'd since recovered, but it had been memorable to be sure. "But of course I have more stories. The life of a guard is all excitement, after all. There's simply so many things that happened, give me a moment to consider which is most entertaining." In reality, guard duty was terribly dull. Candlemarks and candlemarks of absolutely nothing happening. But that didn't make for good stories, now did it?

"Well, I suppose there was the time, I was escorting a trader through the jungle at night. We were walking along, the trader and I making small talk, Dunsk on the lookout for problems, when we heard a woman's voice out in the jungle. There was a flicker of light through the foliage, like someone holding a torch, so Dunsk and I went to investigate. Whoever was in the jungle seemed to be walking farther and farther away from us no matter how much we called out to them. Finally, we came to the edge of a lake that glowed like the moons, and the ghostly image of a woman was standing in the middle of the lake. She held out a hand to us. I felt compelled to take it, but Dunsk dragged me away from there. When we got back to the road, the trader was nowhere to be seen. We searched the area for as long as we could, but eventually finished the journey to Lominsa Hold since we'd been halfway there by the time we'd left the road. We were shocked to discover that the trader had made it there all on his own. He told us a fierce-looking woman had guided him there, that she seemed to dissolve into thin air just when Lominsa came into sight. I've never seen either woman since then, but it seems that there are many kinds of ghosts out in the jungles of this land, benevolent and malevolent. I'm sure the woman at the lake would've drowned me if not for Dunsk."

[FirebrandPhlox]

Quentin nodded as they ate, listening to Dunsmith. They knew that they needed to keep practicing their letters, and frowned at the thought. It was frustrating how many letters looked almost the same as others. Or were almost the same, but flipped in a different direction. Quentin would write home, but no one in their family would be able to read the letters either. There were a few of the sailors that had caught their eye, but none that Quentin would feel comfortable enough with to send a message out of the blue, especially with the frequency they made mistakes with their letters. Maybe they would send notes to Dunsmith, and they nodded at the suggestion to write to the older man.

Quentin smirked at Dunsk's comment. The food here at Semaca was certainly a departure from the basic homegrown food at the farm, at it did take getting used to. Quentin wasn't one to be picky though, and was just happy food was readily available for every meal.

As Dunsmith spun his tale about the ghosts, Quentin continued to eat and nodded intently as they listened. Gradually their pace slowed, then came to a complete stop. They stared wide-eyed at Dunsmith, mouth agape in horror. Were there really ghosts stalking the jungles outside the weyr? Quentin was confident in their ability to overpower a bandit or even hold their own against the wildlife, but a ghost? You couldn't punch something that could disappear into thin air. Quentin had never enjoyed eerie stories like this, they had been terrified of them as a child.

There was really a ghost? Quentin signed, needing to confirm if their fears were true. She tried to drown you? Have you seen her since? They stared nervously waiting for a response, clearly upset by this development.

[nineofswords]

Dunsmith pointed accusingly at Quentin. "I saw that smirk," he said. "You laugh at your elders' misfortunes? For shame, child. For shame!" He was grinning himself. He was over the whole incident and wasn't too proud to laugh about it now.

No ghosts, Dunsk quickly assured Quentin, seeing their fearful expression through his bond with Dunsmith. They not real, and story at lake just that. Story. Never happened. Dunsmith, you tell another scary story, I tell food poisoning story. In detail.

"Perish the thought," Dunsmith said, laughing a little self-consciously. "But no, he's right, tragically, that never did happen. The most dangerous things in the jungle are the spotties, and they're no joke. I saw one taking on a fully grown bronze dragon and winning, after all!" He let out a melancholy sigh. "Perhaps I shouldn't have started with a scary story. Now Dunsk has ruined all of my credibility. How is a man meant to tell a good story when he keeps being undermined by his wher?"

Apologize for scaring them, Dunsk told Dunsmith privately.

They're fine, Dunsmith retorted. I just won't tell anymore scary stories. With how burly they are and all those scars, I wouldn't have thought they'd be frightened by anything as silly as a ghost.

[FirebrandPhlox]

Quentin took some deep breaths as Dunsk reassured them the ghost story was entirely a work of fiction. Still, part of them worried that something otherworldly was lurking in the jungles outside of the weyr. They'd have to be careful when the time came for them to venture past the stone safety of the weyr into the dense growth.

Quentin nervously tucked a strand of hair behind their ear and began picking at their food again, eating it with much less enthusiasm than at the beginning of the meal. They frowned into their breakfast. Life in the weyr was so different from the farm, it really was quite difficult to tell what was the truth or an elaborate fantasy. The world was a complicated place.

They gave Dunsmith a weak attempt at a grin, but didn't say or sign anything. They didn't know what to say after embarrassingly revealing their ignorance like that. They continued to poke at their plate and avoided eye contact, hoping Dunsmith would be able to fill the silence or change the subject.

[nineofswords]

Well, the young one's body language seemed to show they were shutting down a little, so Dunsmith sighed to himself. Perhaps Dunsk had a point - not about apologizing - but that he had gone a bit too far with that ghost story. And here he'd though he'd toned it down somewhat!

"You know, I've talked to a number of people from Mazurka squad, the squad that does most of the exploring work? They come back through the gates and we get to chatting sometimes. You can't trust a thing those people say, of course, they're all the sorts to exaggerate what they see - " Dunsk gave an audible, mental snort of derision, "but they make for some wonderful images. Such as the butterflies bigger than a grown man's hand, some of which have eyes on their wings that actually blink. Or lizards who escape predation by breaking into pieces and then re-attaching and escaping. There was one fellow who told me of a small lake with a waterfall that fed it where the entire air around it was filled with the rainbows of draconic impression, not the single arc like you see over most waterfalls." He shook his head. "Such fantastical tales, but one does wonder if there's a hint of truth to any of them. Any interest in joining the exploratory squads, Quentin? Or will you fight thread, do you think? Ah, Semaca. The only Weyr where a dragonrider has options to do something other than fight thread or be a Healer. What a time and place to be in, eh?"

[FirebrandPhlox]

As Dunsmith picked up the conversation, Quentin began to perk up. The man was reliable when it came to carrying the conversation.

As Dunsmith joked about the Mazurka squad embellishing tales, Quentin gave a single, short laugh. It was hard to believe anyone could possibly have more outlandish stories than Dunsmith. As Dunsmith recounted the sights of the jungle though, Quentin leaned in, more intrigued with each magnificent sight. Those sounded like wonders that would be impressive to see with their own eyes.

Quentin pondered Dunsmith's questions. They honestly had not put much thought into joining an exploratory squad instead of fighting thread. "I'm not sure," they said carefully. As a child, Quentin had imagined themselves riding a dragon valiantly fighting thread. It had never occurred to them they could have a different job as a rider. If those giant butterflies and rainbow waterfalls really existed, Quentin would like to see them, even at the risk of encountering a jungle ghost.

"I do like Semaca," Quentin responded. It was different from home, and learning the ins and outs of the weyr and candidatehood were frustrating at times, but it was a welcome change from the drudgery of farm work. They had yet to make friends here, other than Dunsmith, but there were dragons here! And whers and firelizards! The creatures Quentin had only dreamed of being able to see, they now saw on a daily basis. That alone more than made up for all the letters practice.

[nineofswords]

Dunsmith grinned when Quentin laughed about Marzuka embellishing stories. That one was always a guaranteed crowd-pleaser, especially when the person (or people) he was talking to knew he wasn't the most reliable storyteller. And then when he was talking about cool things rather than scary, he saw Quentin seem to relax a little. Good. He liked the kid and didn't actually want to scare them.

"Ah, to be young enough to not be certain on which path is the right one for you," Dunsmith sighed wistfully. "You have all the time in the world to figure it out. Heck, I still haven't figured it out. Here I am, at my age, and relocating my whole life all the way down to some uncharted jungle. And before that, well, I've been all sorts of things, if you can believe it. Average Holder, trader, Harper, father...and beyond those things, a trader has to be a jack of all trades, so I've moonlighted as a tailor and a carpenter as well, though I'd never claim any real experience in such fields you understand." He nodded. "Yes, life is your oyster. You have a whole world to choose from. It's exciting."

"Semaca is a marvelous place," he agreed. "Always something new and exciting happening. The food alone is something of an adventure, even," he added, carefully picking a spicy pepper out of his meal with a dour expression, no doubt the cause of his earlier round of food poisoning. He placed it on a napkin and slowly, distastefully scooted it away from him.

[FirebrandPhlox]

It was a bit reassuring to hear Dunsmith tell Quentin that they had time to figure their path out. Granted, they didn't want to be Dunsmith's age and switching careers. Quentin wasn't sure that uncertainty was exciting. The prospect of being a rider, that was exciting. They nodded along with Dunsmith's sentiment, not wanting to disagree. That was a lot to explain for thoughts they were still trying to sort out mentally, there was no chance they'd have words to explain it.

Quentin pointed to the pepper Dunsmith had placed aside, then pointed to themselves, indicating they'd take the pepper. Quentin grew up in a household where no food was wasted, so they'd rather it get eaten than discarded. They had yet to try these peppers, but it was produce. It couldn't be that different from what they grew on the farm.

[nineofswords]

"Please take that away from me, yes," Dunsmith told Quentin. "I will be eternally indebted to you. I will lay down my life for you at a moment's notice. I will give Dunsk's firsborn to you - "

Don't drag babies I no have into it, Dunsk butted in.

"Well, I'll be grateful is my point," Dunsmith said. "These...things were in the last meal I had before I got sick. I can barely stand to look at them, and smelling them is making me nauseous." He took a bite of the food, so clearly he wasn't feeling that nauseous. He did proceed to pick through the meal for more of the peppers. "Don't worry if you don't like them, I'll give them to Dunsk if you find that you don't want them," Dunsmith said. He'd noticed that Quentin hadn't liked wasting food on the journey over. "Or I'll toss them in one of the gardens to decompose and become fertilizer or something." That was a use. It was just a pepper, and it'd eventually become fertilizer anyway. Might as well get a head start if no one wanted to eat it.

[FirebrandPhlox]

Quentin reached over and took the pepper off the napkin. It was small and a dull red in color. Strange, Quentin thought that the soil down here was more fertile than the earth back home. With more nutrients, they expected the pepper would be larger.

Dunsmith went on about other uses for the pepper and Quentin nodded along as they took a bite of the pepper. They made a face at the bitterness, it was much more potent than they had expected. Then the heat hit. The burning sensation spread rapidly through Quentin's mouth, as if they had just ingested firestone. Quentin scrambled for their cup of water, and rapidly gulped it down. Their mouth continued to burn, unaffected by the liquid. Tears began to well up in their eyes as they desperately looked for something else to provide relief.

[nineofswords]

Once Quentin had taken a bite, Dunsmith waited, a mischievous grin spreading on his face, waiting for the reaction he knew was going to hit with open glee now that it was too late to go back. He didn't bother to hide his laughter when Quentin started gulping down water.

"Wait, wait, someone showed me a trick to cut the burning when I tried them," Dunsmith said, gesturing for Quentin to follow him back up to where the food was and handing them a glass of milk. "This should help. There's apparently also a fruit that cuts the heat when it's paired with the pepper, but no one's told me which one it is and I've been too much of a chicken to try out any combinations. It may well have been yet another of Mazurka squad's nefarious lies, after all."

He was still grinning as he ushered them back to their table so they wouldn't block the food line. "So, you feeling brave enough for the rest of those, or should I resign them to fertilizing the garden plots?"

[FirebrandPhlox]

Quentin rushed to follow Dunsmith back to the food and gratefully accepted the milk. They chugged it as Dunsmith guided them back to the table. It helped some, but the heat continued to simmer in their mouth and throat.

In response to Dunsmith's question, Quentin stopped in their tracks. Brave enough? It was just a food. An incredibly spicy and somewhat painful food, but food, nonetheless. If Quentin couldn't even face a handful of spicy peppers, how could they ever hope to one day strap themselves to the back of a dragon hundreds of feet in the air fighting an enemy above? These peppers were surely a walk in the park compared to that.

Quentin narrowed their eyes, steeling their already tempered expression. "I am going to need more milk. And some fruit."

[nineofswords]

Dunsmith turned, sensing in a way he couldn't quite explain that Quentin had stopped following him. Maybe he heard the footsteps stop or something. Who knew? Whatever it was, he turned and saw the change in Quentin's expression.

He let out a chuckle that was slightly nervous, slightly mischievous. "You sure?" he asked. "Cause I'll get that for you if you're really serious, but your face turned bright red and it still isn't quite back to normal. I'd feel pretty awful if you ended up in the infirmary because I let you eat all those peppers in one sitting. Speaking as someone who used to eat all manner of ill-advised things in his youth, spice does tend to compound, you know. You're not going to hit a point where it'll hurt so much it numbs, it will just get worse." Despite his words, he didn't look or sound like he'd feel awful about it. He looked like he'd enjoy the show, honestly, but he was trying to avoid a Dunsk lecture to be at least slightly responsible.