A Quiet Cup of Klah [Fel]

[FirebrandPhlox]

Raev scowled into her steaming mug of Klah, eyelids weighing more than a pair of bronze dragons. It had been another day of terrible sleep, the sort where one woke up feeling less rested than when they went to bed. She was sipping at her Klah and nibbling at some bread, hoping the warm beverage and food would help wake her up before she had to go attend to her duties for the night.

She was sitting at the end of a table, alone, as she preferred it on these tired evenings. Trying to make conversation when she was fully awake was trouble enough, doing so while sleep deprived was nothing less of a hassle. She only hoped that the dining hall wouldn't get too crowded, and someone would need to sit near her out of necessity so she could continue her quiet breakfast.

[Fel]

Korinda yawned as she headed down to supper. It had been a long day, mostly because someone had insisted he needed to practice dropping rocks on target after drills. This was despite her protests that in almost fifteen Turns, this obsession of Ragaruth's had never once been necessary. Or even marginally useful. He had wheedled and cajoled and in truth it hadn't taken much convincing. It was difficult to deny him whatever he wanted.

She picked up a tray and a cup of still-steaming herbal tea to ward off the autumn's growing chill, and looked for an empty space to sit. It didn't take long to spot someone eating alone at the end of a table, plenty of space to share. She sat across from Raev with a quick grin.

"Good evening! Or morning," she amended as she saw the woman's knots. A wherhandler. She did very much hope it wasn't one she'd met and promptly forgotten the face of. That always made for a spot of awkwardness. "How's the klah? As good as it is for us at dawn? Or...better, perhaps, since they make less of it now?" In all honesty, Korinda didn't actually know how to make klah. Did it benefit from being made in greater quantities, or less?

[FirebrandPhlox]

Ah forsk, Raev thought to herself as an alarmingly chipper child sat across from her. So much for her quiet breakfast alone. She merely grunted as a greeting as she took a long drink from her mug. Any energy that could be mustered from the warm beverage was going to be needed to deal with the amount of cheerfulness now radiating from across the table.

"Dunno," she responded to the question of the quality of the klah. "I think it's about the same, I don't drink the morning batch. I prefer not going to bed fully caffeinated. I find that it affects my sleep too much. You'll understand that when you're older." Her tone was dry and curt, as usual.

She gave the girl a once over, trying to determine exactly how young she was. She certainly looked like a kid, even shorter than Raev and twig thin. Raev finally spotted her knots, which showed she was at least old enough to be a rider, and not even a weyrling, she was in a wing. Must be one of the lucky ones who impressed right away, she thought to herself, feeling a slight pang of jealousy. "Is there something you need from me? Or do you just enjoy sitting in on strangers' meals?"

[Fel]

Korinda just waved a dismissive hand at the presumption about her age. She didn't think she'd ever like the mistakes, but at least she was accustomed to it. "I think fifteen Turns as a rider is plenty long enough to have learned that lesson. Even if I did have to learn it the hard way. On several occasions before I realized why I was having so much trouble sleeping. Hopefully you were a faster learner than me."

She ate a bit of bread and took a sip of her very much not energizing tea. So she was a stranger. That was a relief. "For the most part, yes," she said, grinning and completely in earnest. "There's so many different people at the Weyr. Even after so long, I don't think it's something you just get used to. I mean, there's people from as far away as Igen here. At least I think that's the farthest Weyr. Maps aren't my strong suit."

[FirebrandPhlox]

"Ah shards, sorry about that," Raev grunted in a tone that only had the slightest twinge of apology in it. "You barely look old enough to be a weyrling, but I bet you hear that all the time. Must be annoying." She took another deep sip from her klah to keep herself from further shoving her foot in her mouth.

Raev raised an eyebrow at her fully admitting she enjoyed bothering strangers. Cheery extroverts who loved to insert themselves into other people's business were as incomprehensible as the depths of the ocean to her. Her sister had always been that chipper sort, but none of that had ever rubbed off on Raev. She did know well enough that she was going to be stuck with this woman for the rest of her meal. These sorts didn't like taking no for an answer, especially when it came to needless conversation.

"Benden's further," she replied matter-of-factly. "And there's Semaca, on the southern continent, but I don't think anyone's bothered to transfer there just to come back to the frigid mountains here."

She leaned back slightly to stretch out her back. The caffeine was slowly working its way through her system, but she was still tired and not at all ready for the long night ahead. If she was stuck at the table with someone else, she might as well make the most of it until Rask woke up and it was time to attend to her duties. "I'm Raev of Rask. Do you have a name, or am I just going to be calling you Sunshine with that unbridled cheerfulness?"

[Fel]

Korinda just shrugged at Raev's apology, which she took at face value. "It's not too bad, really. It's just a mistake people make sometimes. Or.... a lot of the time. But it's still not bad. Better people think I'm half my age than twice it, right?" She smiled again, this time a bit crookedly. Self-deprecation always seemed to work well at defusing awkwardness when people mistook her age.

"I'm sure you're right about Benden, and I guess I didn't actually think about Semaca. Is anyone actually from there though? It hasn't really been around all that long. Though I guess people have probably been born there, but they'd all be children still. But I guess if their parents transferred from there back here they could live here now."

Or even just one parent. Korinda had never quite gotten used to the idea that people with two living parents might not really have much to do with one or even both of them.

"Anyway, it doesn't really matter what you call me, I won't mind. But my name is Korinda, of Ragaruth."

[FirebrandPhlox]

Raev let out a short snort of laughter. "Well I guess looking young will come in handy in another 15 turns. Maybe by then you won't get mistaken for a weyrling, but I bet you'll still have a cute wrinkle-free face. I'll be looking plenty old and decrepit by then." Raev didn't have any illusions about her appearance. She knew that all the good looks went to her sister, and the scars didn't help with the uphill genetic battle she had. Better to make a joke of it than dwell on it to much and make her feel worse about herself than she already did.

"Yeah, you're right on that. Anyone actually from Semaca is just a weyrbrat at this point. None of them would even be old to be candidates, I think. So, I don't think any of them have made it up here yet." Not that she could be entirely sure. Raev made a point of not being friendly to random strangers if she could help it.

"Korinda, eh? Well you better be sure you're fine with whatever, otherwise I will just call you Sunshine." Names could be hard to remember, but an asinine nickname would stick in Raev's head easily. If it would actually upset the other woman, she wouldn't use it though.

[Fel]

"Depends," Korinda said with a shrug. She had an absolutely terrible memory for faces, but she didn't think she'd ever found anyone particularly decrepit, even those she identified mostly by their sparse white hair. "I think some people age quite gracefully. So long as they don't try to act as though they're much younger. I've met a few older riders who I think were... trying to recapture their lost youth?" They had seemed to have plenty of admirers though, so perhaps it was only her own personal preference that people try to act their own age.

"And of course I'm fine with anything! It's just a name. What you call a person doesn't change who they are. Even if someone tried to call me, say, Gloweater, it wouldn't mean that I eat glows. Or, well..." she turned slightly pink. "Not habitually. I ate one once as a child. On a dare. I didn't want to repeat the experience."

Korinda was fairly certain that every child had tried to taste a glow at some point. They were mushrooms, and mushrooms could be food! They were just really terrible, bitter mushrooms that left one with a stomachache to remember them by.

[FirebrandPhlox]

"Hah, you'll never catch me acting that way," Raev said with a rueful chuckle. "I was an idiot as a kid, you wouldn't catch me dead trying to act like one again." An argument could be made that Raev was ornery enough to pass as someone twice her age, which suited her just fine.

"You did that too, huh?" Raev laughed, but not in a mean manner. "My sister tried a glow once, the stomachache she got lasted a few days and was more than enough to convince me to steer clear. I once licked a piece of firestone on a dare, and let me tell you, bad idea. I do not recommend that. Tasted like rotten eggs and dirt." She shook her head at the memory. That was exactly the sort of behavior she wouldn't be caught dead pulling off now. She wanted to be a handler worthy of respect from her peers, not a flighty fool who got roped into stupid stunts.

"Oh, and don't worry, I won't call you Gloweater and let the word get out, Sunshine. So long as you don't mention the firestone thing to anyone." She had gotten ahead of herself a bit, sharing that story. She absolutely did not want anyone in her squad to catch wind of that particular story.

[Fel]

"You know, I don't think I ever even considered trying to taste firestone," Korinda mused, a faint smile on her face. "I guess I had grown out of that sort of thing by the time I got to the Weyr. You uh... you were a Weyrbrat and did that as a child... right? Though even if you weren't, I swear I won't tell a soul."

Not that she saw anything wrong with having done so. Curiosity was never a bad thing in her book, she had simply grown out of constantly indulging her own. There had been too many instances in which doing so had been patently unwise. And then of course she had been fairly young when she Impressed, and looking back... she had given up a part of her childhood for it. Not that she would trade Ragaruth for anything.

"Though... I am a little curious about one thing. How do you know what rotten eggs taste like?"

[FirebrandPhlox]

Raev scowled into her klah. Admittedly, she had been nearly twenty when she had pulled the firestone stunt, but she didn't want to actually tell that to someone she had just met. "I was old enough to know better," was all she admitted to as she took a pointed sip from her mug. "Let's just say I used to have a hard time backing down from a challenge and a certain classmate of mine bet that I wouldn't do it. I was early in my candidacy." It was technically a true statement, as it was during the first half of her years as a candidate. She didn't need to say it was much closer to the halfway mark than the starting point, Korinda could fill in the blanks as she liked.

At the question about the eggs, Raev groaned and put her hand to her face, rubbing her eyes. "You had to ask about the eggs, ugh." She moaned, the memory coming back and souring the taste of her breakfast.

"That was when I was a weyrbrat. My little sister had nabbed an egg from the kitchens and made a little nest where she was caring for it. She thought that if she kept it warm enough, it would eventually hatch. She was real little at the time, and didn't understand that some eggs are for eating, and just won't hatch. It didn't help that she had grabbed a boiled egg, not a fresh one. She kept this nest hidden and cared for it for weeks. As time went on, she was getting more and more upset that the egg wasn't hatching, and she refused to toss the thing, thinking it would hatch any day. Finally, one night after she was asleep, I decided to get rid of the egg for her, but I didn't want her to think it was me. I peeled the egg, and left the shell sitting in the nest so it looked like it had hatched. But the egg stunk worse than the herdbeast pens before a good cleaning. I was afraid Krista would smell it and wake up, and me, being a dumb kid without a contingency plan, shoved it in my mouth. Just imagine how bad a rotten egg smells, and I can guarantee you, it tastes one hundred times worse. I couldn't eat eggs for a few turns after that. I still can't eat boiled ones." She shuddered at the ghost of the taste on her tongue.

"It was worth it to see her smile when I told her the bird hatched in the middle of the night and flew away though," she said with a soft hint of a smile at her lips. It was easier to think about her sister as she was as a child. Innocent and imperfect. Her expression quickly turned hard again. "I made her promise to never try that again though."

[Fel]

"Old enough to know better but not wise enough to use that knowledge?" Korinda asked with a grin. She knew the feeling very well. Better than she particularly cared to admit. "I think younger Candidates are basically obligated to regress to early childhood anyway. There's something about just being Searched that makes everyone lose their minds."

That something was definitely the prospect of dragons. She had never had any younger siblings, but she suspected it was rather the same as the way children might anticipate the arrival of a baby sibling. She'd seen it in other children, at least.

She laughed at the story of the unhatchable egg though. It was something she could easily imagine her older brother doing for her. "I think I'm better off not imagining that taste after all. I've only smelled one once, but that was quite enough." She took a bite of her dinner, as though to drown out even the possibility of imagining. "She never questioned a bird's ability to fly just after hatching? She must have had a lot of faith in you, to believe that."

[FirebrandPhlox]

"Consider yourself lucky if you never have to taste it. It's miserable." She sipped at her Klah, trying to wash away the memory of the taste that was threatening to ruin her meal.

Her face darkened as Korinda asked about Krista. "She was really little at the time, and didn't know any better. I guess she did have a lot of faith in me." She picked at her food in front of her. Krista probably still had faith in her, she was still trusting and naive enough to not notice the sheer amount of jealousy Raev felt towards her. At least as far as Raev could tell.

"Do you have any siblings?" Raev asked Korinda, eager to change the subject. She didn't want to get into the messy details of her relationship with her sister with a stranger, and had just enough social ability to turn the subject away from herself.

[Fel]

"I... No, I don't have any siblings," Korinda said, her smile slipping for a moment. Not any more, at least. But her brother was the last person she wanted to talk about just then. Explaining that he hadn't even died in Threadfall, that it had been some sharding illness that had deprived her of the older brother who'd been her best friend most of her life...

She'd always thought that outside of Threadfall, riders were functionally immortal. Apparently not.

"But I've always wondered what it would be like to be part of a big family with lots of siblings," she added with cheer that only seemed slightly forced. "Some Holder families are like that, huge with kids running everywhere. Mine just wasn't. I always wanted a little sister. Or a little brother, but mostly a sister. Or kids of my—" On second thought, that was also a topic best avoided. "Of my family in general. I didn't have any aunts or uncles either. At least not ones I ever met. I think I have a couple on my mother's side, but since she left home when she married my father, I never got to see them. And I think it would be strange if I showed up now, a niece they'd never seen, going 'Surprise, I'm a rider, I don't know if you even know my name but we're related!' Not that I'd mind meeting them, but... Well, I think they'd find it strange and I don't want to make them uncomfortable."

[FirebrandPhlox]

Raev noticed the smile slip for a moment as Korinda spoke, but didn't think much of it. People without siblings who wanted them didn't understand how frustrating it was to actually have them. Someone to constantly bicker and fight with. Someone who you had to take care of when they were sick. Someone who you were constantly compared to even though you were completely different people with your own distinct personalities and lives. It was downright aggravating.

"You of all people are worried about making people uncomfortable?" Raev asked with a snort. "You waltzed on over to this table with a complete stranger and struck up a conversation. How bad would it be to go introduce yourself to some extended family? I bet they would just love to know there's a rider in the family." The last sentence had a sting of venom to it. That was every family's dream, wasn't it? Have a rider in the family that they could brag about and celebrate. It was an honor to have someone impress to a dragon and go fight thread, with such slim chances for that to become reality. Anyone could go buy a wher egg.

She glowered at her mug, which was now empty. She was going to need more klah, or maybe something stronger, to get her through her thoughts today.