Log: Lullabye
Who: Aeriste, Dekelvai, P'draig, Palia (NPC)
When: 11/31/16
Where: Infirmary, Fort Weyr
What: Palia's fallen and hurt herself a little. Aeriste and Dekelvai offer comfort around chores.
Infirmary(#935RJ$)
This large cavern, used for healing both humans and dragons, is large enough to hold several dragons comfortably. Now, however, a number of the stone couches have been converted into partioned cubicles in which human patients can recuperate from illnesses or wounds, if they're too weak to return to their weyr, hold or crafthall. One end of the room, nearest the door to the living cavern, is lined with additional cots. A large, white circle, with a purple caduceus in the center has been painted on one wall. Another wall has been painted white. The rest have been left their natural cavern color. A sink with hot and cold running taps is mounted on the wall next to the doorway to the south. Covering half of the eastern wall are several cabinets with glass fronts and storage drawers. Looking in the cabinets you can see a vast collection of herbs and medicines used by the Healers.
Just after dinner, P'draig's sitting perched in the infirmary with Palia on his lap. The little girl is getting checked out, not her father. There's a big growing bruise in the middle of her forehead and her knees are scraped up. Seems she was crying not that long ago too, but now she's just doing what the Healer says as the Journeyman checks her over to make sure she's not concussed or has any other hidden damage.
"Play anything? Please. I can barely manage my own limbs, much less-" Deke breaks off as he and Aeriste enter the infirmaries, and bobs his head towards a nearby Journeywoman, explains, "I'm here for your rugs." Jerks a thumb towards Aeriste. "He's here to soothe the patients with his sweet voice. Oh-" And he catches sight of P'draig, with his daughter - hmm, Palia? The dragon who chooses dragons as her lifemate at Hatchings? "Sir...?" It's one word, lifted in question along with eyebrows: nothing serious, I hope? Not his business, really, but...
"I could teach you, if you wanted-" Aeriste breaks off, though, at the sight of Palia. He turns to the Journeywoman and exclaims in utmost dismay (and with a face that's gone even paler than it usually is), "I hope that's not my assignment. I can't fix up a child, oh, no, I'd break it, and he'd kill me. I might drop her on her head and then he'd really kill me. Twice. Is she bleeding? I hope she's not bleeding. All I can do is numbweed a scrape."
The healer finishes walking his fingers around Palia's skull and nods once at P'draig. "All good, just keep an eye on her tonight, sir." The man's head swivels towards the entering boys. "Rugs? Ah yes." He points here and there. "I'll just get some arnica for those scrapes," he notes to P'draig. Paddy looks over at the Candidates and waves a little. Palia just curls back in against him and closes her eyes, clinging to the Weyrlingmaster's shirt a little. "Just a bad tumble. Everything's fine," he explains. "You two?"
Dekelvai collects, here and there, the stacked mats, though he doesn't move to leave - not quite yet. "Good to hear, sir," and he spares two fingers to wiggle at Palia with a small grin for the girl. "Hey there, I'm Dekelvai. What's your name?" He even bends lower, quite aware of his height. He looks up at P'draig from his crouch on the floor; "Beating rugs out in the Bowl. You'd be shocked, just shocked, at what comes out of some of them." Then, speculatively, "Well, maybe not."
"Reporting for infirmary duty," Aeriste says to P'draig, as if explaining his own doom. He stares after Dekelvai, too. "You're good with kids, too?" But the Journeywoman says, interrupting his self-pitying bemusement, "You get to sweep the floor. Then, you get to change the sheets on the dirty cots. If you're slow, it's bedpans for you, or maybe numbweed. And keep the squealing down. I'm not going to subject our patients to that." Said harper opens his mouth to retort, realises just who holds the power here and what horrible tasks she might yet set upon him, and meekly looks for a broom.
Palia's eyes are still closed and she cuddles in closer to P'draig's arms. "Ahh, running out of daylight," the Weyrlingmaster notes to Dekelvai with a crooked grin and gives Aeriste a sympathetic look. "Bedpans. Worse than latrines."
"Apparently not," Dekelvai chuckles in response to Aeriste's question as Palia simply ignores him, and he straightens. He gazes out the door, wrinkles his nose. "Suppose I am, sir. I will run these out, but seeing as I've been working /all day/, I'll see if I can come back to make sure Aeriste doesn't completely pass out," and with that, the boy strides out.
"I did latrines yesterday," Aeriste moans, but he keeps it down. He picks up the broom and begins to sweep very industriously, since even he can't botch something that simple. "I don't know if anything's worse. I almost died. Expired on the spot. Or at least almost passed out. I thought I would. The smell, sweet Faranth, the smell. It's worse than slow-drying varnish." And then Deke leaves him before he can even utter more than an 'ack!' of protest.
P'draig just smiles at Dekelvai a little apologetically. "She's still kind of rattled and in a sort of no strangers phase. Nothing personal," he notes to the Candidate and nods as Dekelvai steps out for a few. "Almost died. Hm. Well that'd pretty much nix your chances of Impressing," he notes with dry humor and peeks downward to check on Palia. The healer returns and hunkers down, gently encouraging the little girl to turn her face back towards him and daubs her goose egg with gentle fingers.
Aeriste stops short, dismayed. "What would? Being overpowered by the smell of latrines, or being dead?" He doesn't get too close to the rider and his child, especially not after she's said to be in no mood for strangers... though he then seems to reconsider something. After a hesitation, he offers much more calmly, "Would being sung to calm her down?"
"Being dead," Paddy deadpans and runs a calming hand over Palia's hair as the healer finishes up. "All set, sir," he notes to the Weyrlingmaster and gives Palia herself an encouraging smile. "You're going to be fine." P'draig nods as the healer retreats and looks over at Aeriste. "Might - do you know the "Littlest Wherry" song?"
It seems Dekelvai's managed to sweet talk /someone/, because he's back momentarily, empty-handed. But rather than loaf around and chat - which it seemed he was wholly inclined to do - he's quickly put to work. Waste of spare hands, otherwise, isn't it? As a nearby Journeyman presses him a broom, Dekelvai pouts a little but follows Aeriste's suit. He's soon sweeping on his own, however, as the Harper pauses, and as Deke brushes by, he mutters, "Cop out," though he grins, nodding towards Palia. "Go ahead, if you like. I'll pick up your dust."
"I don't, but..." Aeriste glances back at Dekelvai, though, as the other candidate gets roped into helping, and frowns, and then nods. "Thank you." Indecisively, he nonetheless moves toward P'draig and Palia, and sinks down to one knee so that his head's safely beneath the toddler's eye level. When he speaks next, his voice is soft and soothing, and his smile is warm, friendly, and though she might not see it with her eyes still closed it can still be heard. "A brave little girl deserves at least one song, and you were *very* brave. Would you like one? I promise I'm not scary, in fact, I'm scared of most things, especially fierce women like that healer over there. I bet you could scare me if you just made a funny face. You can try if you want."
There's a nod from P'draig Dekelvai's way as he scoops Palia closer so she can lean back against him. She chews on her finger a little and peeks an eye open at Aeriste, then bobs her head once. "I think that's a safe bet on 'yes'," P'draig tells the Candidate-harper.
Sweep, sweep, sweep goes the broom but Dekelvai keeps near enough to the trio that he can hear Aeriste's low voice. Even though it means he's standing in place and pushing the dust back and forth. But, hey - no one's watching, right? And the Harper /does/ have a lovely voice...
"Is the 'Littlest Wherry' your favorite song?" Aeriste continues, his head turned attentively up at her. "I don't know it yet, so your father'll have to teach me. We can sing it together.
Maybe even Dekelvai here, who's very tall but very kind, could try. Though he's not as tall as a dragon, which aren't scary at all, but I bet you he could still carry you around on his shoulders. Then you'd be the tallest person in the whole Weyr. Look, you're even taller than I am now."
Still sucking on her finger, the knuckle turned towards her teeth, Palia nods solemnly at Aeriste. She still hasn't spoken. As Aeriste goes on she pulls that digit out of her mouth and notes for his benefit. "Jekzith taller." P'draig chuckles softly. "She likes to climb on his head. Jekzith's. Palia's not afraid of heights." He clears his throat though. "We'll all sing together Pali-girl, okay?" And she nods again, face still solemn. "Okay, goes like this:" and Paddy sings. Not too badly either, though no one's going to be rushing out to make him sign up to sing an aria. It's a simple tune, simple words, definitely a children's song.
Aeriste listens intently, committing the song to mind. He still smiles, the sparkle in his eyes never dimming: this is a performance for Palia's benefit, and children can be a brutal audience. When it's done, he nods. "I think I have it. Like this?" And he sings it back, sweet and light and cheerful and with a few embellishments here and there. This is no punishing solo, so his voice doesn't even wobble.
Palia smiles when her father sings, not caring apparently about quality. Paddy's been singing to her since she was a teeny tiny baby and even the occasional slightly off-key note doesn't spoil the comfort she finds from listening to him. Aeriste's rendition though draws out another one of those solemn nods and she pats on P'draig's arm. "One more time, I think Aeriste and then she'll be happy." Paddy smiles over at the harper and clears his throat to start again. What he probably wasn't counting on is that Palia, exhausted from all the turmoil falls asleep in his arms while the singing goes on.
But is there a better way to fall asleep, for a tired little girl, than to be sung into slumber by those singers whose efforts she's approved? He joins his voice to P'draig's, subtly shifting his tone so that they harmonise properly and the flaws in the brownrider's own voice recede, and they both acquit themselves quite admirably! He doesn't seem inclined to stop until she's well asleep and their work is definitively done, and when the last notes die away, he stays still and quiet so that what can be heard most loudly is Palia's soft, sleepy breathing.
"Well, would you look at that." Dekelvai murmurs softly, smiling at the sight. He's long ago paused in his so-diligent sweeping, and is now leaning on the long wooden handle, hands laced together, head tilted as he listens to the impromptu duet. The broom's bristles are mashing into the flagstone floor, but he doesn't seem to notice. Instead, he sighs a little, "You're even putting me to sleep," with an approving nod to the pair - though it may've just been a tired dip of his head.
P'draig rubs his hand gently along Palia's back and smiles over at the harper. "Thank you," he says softly then grins over Dekelvai's way. "With such a sweet voice, be hard not to drift off." He takes a deep breath, lets it out. "Poor kid. She tripped and went right down the steps between the living cavern and the inner caverns. Maybe next time she'll listen to me though about not running indoors."
"I'll gladly sing *you* a lullaby," Aeriste remarks appreciatively to Dekelvai, still very quiet. "For sweeping for me when you could be resting." P'draig's words make his cheeks go slightly red. "Maybe we-" Oh, wait, he's a candidate now. "Ah, a teaching song about running and falling and bumping one's head could be added to the curriculum?"
"Not that I did much," Deke grins sheepishly, and gives the broom a few more experimental swishes. It's quite properly squashed, though, and he manages only to attract the frown of a Journeywoman who noticed the wanton destruction. "Though I would appreciate it later, yeah? Hey, good idea. I could've used that one, when I was younger," the fisher boy nods to the idea, rubbing at imaginary lumps on his skull.
"There you go, good idea," P'draig says encouragingly about the teaching song. He dips his head down to deposit a kiss atop Palia's curly pate and peeks up at Aeriste, one brow cocked questioningly for that blush. "Were you klutzy or just not paying attention?" Paddy inquires of the fisher lad with another easy grin.
Aeriste's answer is to scrambles to his feet, and reach for his own broom, and go back to sweeping. Sweep, sweep, sweep. "I'll mention it to Llany, then. I should talk to her anyway so I can keep up with my lessons while I'm here. In between chores." But he looks to Dekelvai for the other lad's own answer.
"Oh, come on," Dekelvai laughs, breezily waving away the question. "As though neither of you fell all over the place when you were children." But his voice lifts, a little hesitantly at the end, and he glances questioning back and forth between P'draig and Aeriste. "No?" He ducks his head, mutters, "Well, slippery docks and all. You know. Fish guts all over the place."
"In my case I wasn't paying attention," P'draig specifies, grin inching up across his face. He shrugs loosely. "Could just write it yourself too Aeriste. You're a senior right?" He shifts Palia a little so she's not drooling right /onto/ his shirt.
Aeriste shudders at that description. "That's just dis*gus*ting, Dekelvai. Did it smell as bad as it sounds?" P'draig makes him look back, though, and he nods, gathering up a little dusty pile all the while. "I could. I am. Or would that be 'I was'? Composition's not what I planned on doing, but I'm not *terrible* at it."
"That, too," Dekelvai nods towards P'draig. "Still don't pay attention, actually." A beat as he smiles devilishly towards Aeriste, answers: "Probably worse. Got used to it pretty quickly, mind you. And hey, yeah - I could help, Aeriste! You know," and the boy pauses in thought, then chants, tapping a booted foot on the floor softly, "'Don't go 'round too fast,/ or your little brains won't last.' Yeah? Pretty good? I missed out on my calling. Should've been a Harper." He nods, firmly, though his wide grin belies the words.
"Mm. Worth a whirl," Paddy notes and shifts to his feet, arms careful around Palia. The fish gut talk doesn't seem to faze him any either. "Harper in the making maybe," he jokes and winks at Dekelvai. "Thanks again Aeriste - I'm going to go get Palia settled in bed. Good night fellows, since I probably won't see you agian before your curfew." And the Weyrlingmaster starts to shift of towards the exit.
Aeriste begins to laugh, and claps a hand over his mouth before it can wake up Palia. Only when it passes does he chuckle, "That's *brilliant*. Maybe you should write it after all. Or we can both. Come up with all sorts of horrible things... Good night, P'draig. Good luck with Palia."
"Good night, sir," Dekelvai carefully balances the broom handle against an empty bed to lift his hand to P'draig and Palia, and then crosses his arms in front of his chest, skeptically, at Aeriste's sudden laughter. "Is it? I meant it to horrify you. I think the Weyr is rubbing off on you, after all. Mention of brains, and all." Suddenly, a beaming smile. "But if it really is good, if you're serious, I'd be happy to help."
When: 11/31/16
Where: Infirmary, Fort Weyr
What: Palia's fallen and hurt herself a little. Aeriste and Dekelvai offer comfort around chores.
Infirmary(#935RJ$)
This large cavern, used for healing both humans and dragons, is large enough to hold several dragons comfortably. Now, however, a number of the stone couches have been converted into partioned cubicles in which human patients can recuperate from illnesses or wounds, if they're too weak to return to their weyr, hold or crafthall. One end of the room, nearest the door to the living cavern, is lined with additional cots. A large, white circle, with a purple caduceus in the center has been painted on one wall. Another wall has been painted white. The rest have been left their natural cavern color. A sink with hot and cold running taps is mounted on the wall next to the doorway to the south. Covering half of the eastern wall are several cabinets with glass fronts and storage drawers. Looking in the cabinets you can see a vast collection of herbs and medicines used by the Healers.
Just after dinner, P'draig's sitting perched in the infirmary with Palia on his lap. The little girl is getting checked out, not her father. There's a big growing bruise in the middle of her forehead and her knees are scraped up. Seems she was crying not that long ago too, but now she's just doing what the Healer says as the Journeyman checks her over to make sure she's not concussed or has any other hidden damage.
"Play anything? Please. I can barely manage my own limbs, much less-" Deke breaks off as he and Aeriste enter the infirmaries, and bobs his head towards a nearby Journeywoman, explains, "I'm here for your rugs." Jerks a thumb towards Aeriste. "He's here to soothe the patients with his sweet voice. Oh-" And he catches sight of P'draig, with his daughter - hmm, Palia? The dragon who chooses dragons as her lifemate at Hatchings? "Sir...?" It's one word, lifted in question along with eyebrows: nothing serious, I hope? Not his business, really, but...
"I could teach you, if you wanted-" Aeriste breaks off, though, at the sight of Palia. He turns to the Journeywoman and exclaims in utmost dismay (and with a face that's gone even paler than it usually is), "I hope that's not my assignment. I can't fix up a child, oh, no, I'd break it, and he'd kill me. I might drop her on her head and then he'd really kill me. Twice. Is she bleeding? I hope she's not bleeding. All I can do is numbweed a scrape."
The healer finishes walking his fingers around Palia's skull and nods once at P'draig. "All good, just keep an eye on her tonight, sir." The man's head swivels towards the entering boys. "Rugs? Ah yes." He points here and there. "I'll just get some arnica for those scrapes," he notes to P'draig. Paddy looks over at the Candidates and waves a little. Palia just curls back in against him and closes her eyes, clinging to the Weyrlingmaster's shirt a little. "Just a bad tumble. Everything's fine," he explains. "You two?"
Dekelvai collects, here and there, the stacked mats, though he doesn't move to leave - not quite yet. "Good to hear, sir," and he spares two fingers to wiggle at Palia with a small grin for the girl. "Hey there, I'm Dekelvai. What's your name?" He even bends lower, quite aware of his height. He looks up at P'draig from his crouch on the floor; "Beating rugs out in the Bowl. You'd be shocked, just shocked, at what comes out of some of them." Then, speculatively, "Well, maybe not."
"Reporting for infirmary duty," Aeriste says to P'draig, as if explaining his own doom. He stares after Dekelvai, too. "You're good with kids, too?" But the Journeywoman says, interrupting his self-pitying bemusement, "You get to sweep the floor. Then, you get to change the sheets on the dirty cots. If you're slow, it's bedpans for you, or maybe numbweed. And keep the squealing down. I'm not going to subject our patients to that." Said harper opens his mouth to retort, realises just who holds the power here and what horrible tasks she might yet set upon him, and meekly looks for a broom.
Palia's eyes are still closed and she cuddles in closer to P'draig's arms. "Ahh, running out of daylight," the Weyrlingmaster notes to Dekelvai with a crooked grin and gives Aeriste a sympathetic look. "Bedpans. Worse than latrines."
"Apparently not," Dekelvai chuckles in response to Aeriste's question as Palia simply ignores him, and he straightens. He gazes out the door, wrinkles his nose. "Suppose I am, sir. I will run these out, but seeing as I've been working /all day/, I'll see if I can come back to make sure Aeriste doesn't completely pass out," and with that, the boy strides out.
"I did latrines yesterday," Aeriste moans, but he keeps it down. He picks up the broom and begins to sweep very industriously, since even he can't botch something that simple. "I don't know if anything's worse. I almost died. Expired on the spot. Or at least almost passed out. I thought I would. The smell, sweet Faranth, the smell. It's worse than slow-drying varnish." And then Deke leaves him before he can even utter more than an 'ack!' of protest.
P'draig just smiles at Dekelvai a little apologetically. "She's still kind of rattled and in a sort of no strangers phase. Nothing personal," he notes to the Candidate and nods as Dekelvai steps out for a few. "Almost died. Hm. Well that'd pretty much nix your chances of Impressing," he notes with dry humor and peeks downward to check on Palia. The healer returns and hunkers down, gently encouraging the little girl to turn her face back towards him and daubs her goose egg with gentle fingers.
Aeriste stops short, dismayed. "What would? Being overpowered by the smell of latrines, or being dead?" He doesn't get too close to the rider and his child, especially not after she's said to be in no mood for strangers... though he then seems to reconsider something. After a hesitation, he offers much more calmly, "Would being sung to calm her down?"
"Being dead," Paddy deadpans and runs a calming hand over Palia's hair as the healer finishes up. "All set, sir," he notes to the Weyrlingmaster and gives Palia herself an encouraging smile. "You're going to be fine." P'draig nods as the healer retreats and looks over at Aeriste. "Might - do you know the "Littlest Wherry" song?"
It seems Dekelvai's managed to sweet talk /someone/, because he's back momentarily, empty-handed. But rather than loaf around and chat - which it seemed he was wholly inclined to do - he's quickly put to work. Waste of spare hands, otherwise, isn't it? As a nearby Journeyman presses him a broom, Dekelvai pouts a little but follows Aeriste's suit. He's soon sweeping on his own, however, as the Harper pauses, and as Deke brushes by, he mutters, "Cop out," though he grins, nodding towards Palia. "Go ahead, if you like. I'll pick up your dust."
"I don't, but..." Aeriste glances back at Dekelvai, though, as the other candidate gets roped into helping, and frowns, and then nods. "Thank you." Indecisively, he nonetheless moves toward P'draig and Palia, and sinks down to one knee so that his head's safely beneath the toddler's eye level. When he speaks next, his voice is soft and soothing, and his smile is warm, friendly, and though she might not see it with her eyes still closed it can still be heard. "A brave little girl deserves at least one song, and you were *very* brave. Would you like one? I promise I'm not scary, in fact, I'm scared of most things, especially fierce women like that healer over there. I bet you could scare me if you just made a funny face. You can try if you want."
There's a nod from P'draig Dekelvai's way as he scoops Palia closer so she can lean back against him. She chews on her finger a little and peeks an eye open at Aeriste, then bobs her head once. "I think that's a safe bet on 'yes'," P'draig tells the Candidate-harper.
Sweep, sweep, sweep goes the broom but Dekelvai keeps near enough to the trio that he can hear Aeriste's low voice. Even though it means he's standing in place and pushing the dust back and forth. But, hey - no one's watching, right? And the Harper /does/ have a lovely voice...
"Is the 'Littlest Wherry' your favorite song?" Aeriste continues, his head turned attentively up at her. "I don't know it yet, so your father'll have to teach me. We can sing it together.
Maybe even Dekelvai here, who's very tall but very kind, could try. Though he's not as tall as a dragon, which aren't scary at all, but I bet you he could still carry you around on his shoulders. Then you'd be the tallest person in the whole Weyr. Look, you're even taller than I am now."
Still sucking on her finger, the knuckle turned towards her teeth, Palia nods solemnly at Aeriste. She still hasn't spoken. As Aeriste goes on she pulls that digit out of her mouth and notes for his benefit. "Jekzith taller." P'draig chuckles softly. "She likes to climb on his head. Jekzith's. Palia's not afraid of heights." He clears his throat though. "We'll all sing together Pali-girl, okay?" And she nods again, face still solemn. "Okay, goes like this:" and Paddy sings. Not too badly either, though no one's going to be rushing out to make him sign up to sing an aria. It's a simple tune, simple words, definitely a children's song.
Aeriste listens intently, committing the song to mind. He still smiles, the sparkle in his eyes never dimming: this is a performance for Palia's benefit, and children can be a brutal audience. When it's done, he nods. "I think I have it. Like this?" And he sings it back, sweet and light and cheerful and with a few embellishments here and there. This is no punishing solo, so his voice doesn't even wobble.
Palia smiles when her father sings, not caring apparently about quality. Paddy's been singing to her since she was a teeny tiny baby and even the occasional slightly off-key note doesn't spoil the comfort she finds from listening to him. Aeriste's rendition though draws out another one of those solemn nods and she pats on P'draig's arm. "One more time, I think Aeriste and then she'll be happy." Paddy smiles over at the harper and clears his throat to start again. What he probably wasn't counting on is that Palia, exhausted from all the turmoil falls asleep in his arms while the singing goes on.
But is there a better way to fall asleep, for a tired little girl, than to be sung into slumber by those singers whose efforts she's approved? He joins his voice to P'draig's, subtly shifting his tone so that they harmonise properly and the flaws in the brownrider's own voice recede, and they both acquit themselves quite admirably! He doesn't seem inclined to stop until she's well asleep and their work is definitively done, and when the last notes die away, he stays still and quiet so that what can be heard most loudly is Palia's soft, sleepy breathing.
"Well, would you look at that." Dekelvai murmurs softly, smiling at the sight. He's long ago paused in his so-diligent sweeping, and is now leaning on the long wooden handle, hands laced together, head tilted as he listens to the impromptu duet. The broom's bristles are mashing into the flagstone floor, but he doesn't seem to notice. Instead, he sighs a little, "You're even putting me to sleep," with an approving nod to the pair - though it may've just been a tired dip of his head.
P'draig rubs his hand gently along Palia's back and smiles over at the harper. "Thank you," he says softly then grins over Dekelvai's way. "With such a sweet voice, be hard not to drift off." He takes a deep breath, lets it out. "Poor kid. She tripped and went right down the steps between the living cavern and the inner caverns. Maybe next time she'll listen to me though about not running indoors."
"I'll gladly sing *you* a lullaby," Aeriste remarks appreciatively to Dekelvai, still very quiet. "For sweeping for me when you could be resting." P'draig's words make his cheeks go slightly red. "Maybe we-" Oh, wait, he's a candidate now. "Ah, a teaching song about running and falling and bumping one's head could be added to the curriculum?"
"Not that I did much," Deke grins sheepishly, and gives the broom a few more experimental swishes. It's quite properly squashed, though, and he manages only to attract the frown of a Journeywoman who noticed the wanton destruction. "Though I would appreciate it later, yeah? Hey, good idea. I could've used that one, when I was younger," the fisher boy nods to the idea, rubbing at imaginary lumps on his skull.
"There you go, good idea," P'draig says encouragingly about the teaching song. He dips his head down to deposit a kiss atop Palia's curly pate and peeks up at Aeriste, one brow cocked questioningly for that blush. "Were you klutzy or just not paying attention?" Paddy inquires of the fisher lad with another easy grin.
Aeriste's answer is to scrambles to his feet, and reach for his own broom, and go back to sweeping. Sweep, sweep, sweep. "I'll mention it to Llany, then. I should talk to her anyway so I can keep up with my lessons while I'm here. In between chores." But he looks to Dekelvai for the other lad's own answer.
"Oh, come on," Dekelvai laughs, breezily waving away the question. "As though neither of you fell all over the place when you were children." But his voice lifts, a little hesitantly at the end, and he glances questioning back and forth between P'draig and Aeriste. "No?" He ducks his head, mutters, "Well, slippery docks and all. You know. Fish guts all over the place."
"In my case I wasn't paying attention," P'draig specifies, grin inching up across his face. He shrugs loosely. "Could just write it yourself too Aeriste. You're a senior right?" He shifts Palia a little so she's not drooling right /onto/ his shirt.
Aeriste shudders at that description. "That's just dis*gus*ting, Dekelvai. Did it smell as bad as it sounds?" P'draig makes him look back, though, and he nods, gathering up a little dusty pile all the while. "I could. I am. Or would that be 'I was'? Composition's not what I planned on doing, but I'm not *terrible* at it."
"That, too," Dekelvai nods towards P'draig. "Still don't pay attention, actually." A beat as he smiles devilishly towards Aeriste, answers: "Probably worse. Got used to it pretty quickly, mind you. And hey, yeah - I could help, Aeriste! You know," and the boy pauses in thought, then chants, tapping a booted foot on the floor softly, "'Don't go 'round too fast,/ or your little brains won't last.' Yeah? Pretty good? I missed out on my calling. Should've been a Harper." He nods, firmly, though his wide grin belies the words.
"Mm. Worth a whirl," Paddy notes and shifts to his feet, arms careful around Palia. The fish gut talk doesn't seem to faze him any either. "Harper in the making maybe," he jokes and winks at Dekelvai. "Thanks again Aeriste - I'm going to go get Palia settled in bed. Good night fellows, since I probably won't see you agian before your curfew." And the Weyrlingmaster starts to shift of towards the exit.
Aeriste begins to laugh, and claps a hand over his mouth before it can wake up Palia. Only when it passes does he chuckle, "That's *brilliant*. Maybe you should write it after all. Or we can both. Come up with all sorts of horrible things... Good night, P'draig. Good luck with Palia."
"Good night, sir," Dekelvai carefully balances the broom handle against an empty bed to lift his hand to P'draig and Palia, and then crosses his arms in front of his chest, skeptically, at Aeriste's sudden laughter. "Is it? I meant it to horrify you. I think the Weyr is rubbing off on you, after all. Mention of brains, and all." Suddenly, a beaming smile. "But if it really is good, if you're serious, I'd be happy to help."