Black Streaks [Gen]

[Dragon]

Being at Fort Weyr was a little strange still, even after more than a turn. Keir was doing well, he supposed. He was used to the schedule, and he knew his way around the parts of the Weyr he regularly went. He did well in his lessons, and everybody seemed to understand that his lack of verbal communication wasn't something likely to just go away.

At the moment he was curled up in a corner of the common area of the candidate barracks under a glow with Leaf perched on his shoulder and a rough sheet of paper in front of him. The charcoal he was using to sketch with was all over his fingers and smeared across the tip of his nose as he concentrated on the image forming under his hands.

It was a soft picture, despite the stark black it was being drawn in, an image of flowers and grass and sky, the weyrbowl as summer turned to fall. The very tip of his tongue poked out from between his lips as he concentrated, brow slightly furrowed, on his drawing.

[Ignys]

Neidellah, truthfully, hadn't expected anyone to be in the common room at this hour. Most people used their free time to get away from the candidate barracks. That had been her plan too, until she spotted Keir in a far corner, looking an awful lot like he had been tasked with cleaning out a fire pit. She snorted softly to herself, weighing the option of leaving him to his sketching or letting him know he had gotten charcoal on his nose of all things. In the end, though the former idea was more amusing, she decided to approach.

Before she got the chance to speak, she caught a glimpse of what Keir was doing. The drawing was... pretty good, honestly. Neidellah's own artistic talent, what little she ever had, had probably worsened from disuse. She reached out to tap his shoulder gently while the charcoal was off the paper, not wanting to startle him too badly and risk ruining the artwork.

"You've got charcoal all over your face." She grinned a little, tapping her own nose. It was an exageration of course, but she wondered if Keir would squirm under scrutiny or not. "The drawing looks good, by the way."

[Dragon]

Keir jumped slightly when Neidellah tapped his shoulder, although thankfully she waited to do so until he had the charcoal off the page. He wrinkled his nose a little, trying to look down at it cross-eyed when she said he had charcoal everywhere and tapped her nose, but it wasn't like he could will himself to see his nose.

He smiled gratefully and signed thank you, wondering if it was worth it to try to clean the charcoal off right now. He wasn't quite done with his drawing - almost, but not quite - and chances were he'd just get himself all messy again.

It was nice that she liked his drawing; he worked hard on it. He wasn't sure how much sign language the other candidates knew, although it was fairly standard for them to have learned by the time they were full-fledged riders. It was handy for use in communicating during Threadfall. So even if not all of the candidates knew how to sign, he would be able to communicate properly with those around him if he ever Impressed.

Experimentally, hopefully, he asked, Do you sign?

[Ignys]

She couldn't help but snort in amusement at Keir trying (and probably failing) to see what she was pointing out. It took an embarrassingly long time to realize what Keir was trying to say. 'Thank you' was a common enough phrase that it had cemented itself in her long term memory, though the majority of the sign language she had learned had been forgotten from disuse.

'Do you sign?' A common question, a predictable one.

"I'm not very fluent. Never was, and it's been a long time since I learned." She shrugged, though she felt a little awkward amitting as much to someone who relied on sign to speak. Why hadn't she known Keir didn't talk 'till now? Perhaps she should pay more attention... "I remember some of the common stuff. 'Please', 'thank you', things like that... Simple phrases and questions."

[Dragon]

Ah. Well, it would have been better if Neidellah was fluent, but maybe they could have something like a conversation. Keir contemplated for a moment, trying to figure out what might fall under the heading of 'simple phrases and questions'.

His parents had always done their best to make sure that despite his inability to speak, Keir could still communicate as well as possible. He could write well and had clean handwriting. He signed fluently. He was capable of stating most of his needs through gestures.

He still wasn't good at casual conversation.

Hesitantly, Keir peered at his landscape. It was almost done, but it would be impolite to ignore Neidellah and finish it. He looked back up at the other candidate, tilting his head to the side slightly.

The slight, curly-haired boy turned his attention back to Neidellah ... and Leaf chose that moment to take interest in the older candidate. Leaping from her perch on Keir's shoulder, the green flit launched herself at Neidellah, aimed at landing on top of her head.

Keir squeaked, reaching after his firelizard, his charcoal hitting the ground with a soft tap tap tap as it settled.