Log: Fire and Water Don't Mix?
Who: Jekzith, P'draig, Verel, NPC: Palia
When: It is a winter afternoon, 12:43 of day 22, month 13, turn 19 of Interval 10.
Where: Corrals, Ista Weyr
What: P'draig and Palia meet scruffy girl Verel.
The dry winter season relieves Ista Island of its humidity, replacing it with light, buoyant air. At the height of mid-day, clouds interrupt the sky and a turbulent wind gusts violently, howling around the peaks of the Weyr.
Lunchtime for both rider and dragon it seems, P'draig leanins against the corral fence munching blithely on a meatpie while Jekzith cruises the sky just above looking for his next beastie. An emptied, crumpled carcass, mostly skin and bones at this point lies off to one side of the corral. It's warm, dry and windy today, with clouds scudding by high above and the wind tosses Paddy's hair about though the brownrider doesn't seem bothered by it. Huddled a little more against it, is the little girl perched on the fence rail. "Can we go down to the beach after he's done, Papa?" she's just asking as P'draig draws a wrapped bubbly pie out of his pocket for her.
In swaggers Verel, a too-small brown leather jacket thrown over her too-large tunic; her hands tucked into the pockets. She looks preoccupied as she walks, boots kicking up dirt behind her, but as she gets closer, she notices the dragon, rider, and child, which brings a scowl to her already harsh countenance. "G'day," she mumbles under her breath as she passes by, stopping along the fence a few feet away, to hunch her shoulders as she watches the melee in the pens.
P'draig shoots a look over his shoulder briefly and nods once, polite. "Hello there." It's Palia who focuses on Verel more even as she pulls back the wrapping on her pie to take a bite. "Your face is all wrunkled up," the five year old pronounces all of a sudden and she mimics that scowl. "Why are you all face-scrunchy?" Paddy, blinks once, twice, looks between the two and gives his daughter a little nudge. "Palia, that's not polite." Meanwhile Jekzith's chosen a target, dropped and dispatched the prey quickly and is tugging the beast over to the same corner to enjoy the rest of his meal.
That greeting would have probably sufficed for the scrawny Verel, but the added accounting doesn't pass her by. She looks down from the dragon, blinking away her mystification at the hunt, and frowns at Palia. "Wrinkled? Where? I ain't noticed any wrinkles yet. Too young for that." Her gaze slips from the little girl to the brownrider and her mouth tightens. "Ain't nothing but the truth I guess, as ya see it. Right?" this to the daughter again, her hands slipping out of her jacket pockets to examine her face, smoothing over the contours and lines.
Frowning next and Palia mimics. "Like that. You know. Scrunchy." Grr. Paddy gives Palia another gentle nudge. "Sorry about that," he tells the girl. "Though you're right it is just ... how you see it. Just you know, everyone's allowed a bad mood now and then." Paddy: friendly. "I'm P'draig by the way and this is Palia. And .. you don't have any wrinkles that I can see."
Scrunchy, ah-hah! "Like this?" Verel does an imitation of herself, scowling quite darkly with one finger pointed to the center of her face. "Don't apologize none. She's just speaking her mind. It's a right good kind of thing to do," she says, and instead of holding out a hand to the brownrider, she positions hers lower down for Palia. "Nice to meet ya. Name's Verel, stablehand, just checking up over here." To that, she jerks her heads towards the pens.
"Yeah," Palia says, nodding solemnly and eyeing that scowl like a professional, mimics it then smiles a little and shakes Verel's hand. "Time and a place for that," P'draig says mildly, "always good to know manners," he points out further, which makes Palia giggle and she ducks her head, bumps her forehead against his shoulder fondly. "Nice to meet you Verel," he does say though with a smile and Palia nods a couple of times. "Me too."
"Well met, ya two." Manners, bleck; but luckily, Verel doesn't speak her mind, just drops her hand and turns to watch the pens. "That your big guy?" she manages to ask P'draig as she leans forward against the railing, folding her arms on the top slat and crossing one foot over the other. "Sure is first-rate at catching 'em good and fast. Can't say I'd be any good at that - great at fishing though."
"Mmhm, Jekzith," P'draig says about the motley brown in the pens. "He's pretty speedy for a big brown, yeah. Though he's on the slender side, mobile, you know?" Palia tilts a look over her shoulder at the dragon and gives her father's shoulder a pat. "I like Jek. He takes care of me."
"Jekzith," Verel repeats, testing the name on her tongue, making sure she gets it right from the get-go. "I gotcha. Seen a lot of big, fumbling dragons, ya know? Takes them a while to find the right one and even longer to catch it. Gotta wonder what makes one good at hunting and another, just, sucks at it." She rubs her nose with a forefinger and glances down at Palia. "Does he? Like what?" And that's real curiosity.
"Sometimes it's not skill, it's personality," P'draig says with a grin. "Jekzith doesn't like them to suffer and he enjoys making a good clean catch. Doesn't like to play with his food." Palia takes another bite from her pie, chews and swallows before answering Verel. "He's always watched over me." Proud. "We go swimming!"
"Huh." Clearly confused by this new information, Verel sags forward a little, biting the side of her lip as she considers the dragon within the pens. "Ain't ever heard anything like that. Ain't ever asked, I guess. Just always assumed." She looks down at Palia again, a frown tugging down the corners of her mouth. "Swimming, ya say? Really? I wouldn't think something that big would be too good a swimmer. Seen a lot of agile greens though," is mentioned as she looks up, as if expecting one to fly by at that moment.
"Mm. Some dragons ... aren't necessarily /nice/," P'draig says with a chuckle. "And you know, they are hunters, so --" he shrugs a little nods towards the pens. "Some of them make a huge mess out there, but I bet you do know that. And well, some are just clumsy." Palia's head bobs up and down. "He watches to make sure I don't float away." Paddy also nods. "You'd think they wouldn't be, but out in the ocean especially, they kind of treat the water like air."
"I ain't squeamish." But that would seem primary, especially for a stablehand, until she continues, "Unlike some of those other schmucks I work with. Can't go without gagging at the smell of cr-" Hey, there's a kid present; Verel frowns, looks down, and shrugs. "Seems funny, doesn't it, that something that can make fire wouldn't be bothered by going in the water. It doesn't seem natural - ya know, how felines don't really like the water. They'll tear ya right up if ya even try getting them close."
"Manure, sure," P'draig fills in with an amused grin for the rapidly cut off word. The rest of what she says cocks his head to the side and he shakes his head. "Really? Though felines don't breathe fire. I think they just don't like having wet faces." Palia giggles and ducks her head. "They run away going 'mow'."
"Nah, they don't, but they don't like water for who knows why." Verel scratches her chin, squinting as she thinks; it's hard to do! "But dragons, they'd have a good reason to, I'd think." Again, she shrugs and slouches against the fence, idly watching the nearby beasts that are busy eyeballing Jekzith anxiously. "Can't say for sure, I guess."
"And instead, a lot of them, barring a few, really like water. There was a green here, from the last clutch, Leisath. She didn't like water. Her rider had a really hard time getting her to take a bath." Jekzith is busy eating his beastie and does not look up to even say 'boo' to the rest of the herd. Palia kicks her legs a little and eats the rest of her pie. "Jek likes to blow bubbles."
"Can't say I blame her." There's oh-so many things that can be taken from that statement, and no, Verel is not going to explain any of it. She picks her leg up to scratch her knee and shoots Palia a bemused look that appears more angry than confused. "Bubbles? How does a dragon blow bubbles?"
"Heh. I like baths. Nice long, hot baths. I miss having one in my weyr, though you know, trading off a bathroom for a weyrmate isn't a bad exchange either." P'draig grins and fishes a bubbly out of his /other/ pocket and starts to eat that, while Palia beams at Verel and explains: "Oh! Well he sticks his head under the water and blows through his nose holes, like this." ANd she squinches up her face and blows. Unfortunate consequence: snot. "Whoa!" Paddy exclaims laughingly and produces a hanky for the kid.
Verel eyes the brownrider like he just said he eats trundlebugs for breakfast. "Doesn't seem like a bad exchange at all, more's the good one." She folds her arms purposefully over her chest and sniffs loudly, but then Palia is doing that impression. Normal people might be revolted by the end result, and yet, this stablehand just points, saying, "Ya got something there.. ah." P'draig's got the hanky. "I bet those're large bubbles too - probably scares all the fish away."
"It was very relaxing not having to fly anywhere to get clean," P'draig notes. "Hot water anytime for coming in out of the cold, but you don't really have to worry about cold, here." Palia takes the hanky and swabs at her nose, folds he fabric over carefully and hands it back to her father. Present! "Pretty big. You should go to the beach or to the pool sometime and ask any dragons that are there to do it."
"Right." Baths aren't Verel's favorite, and that might register in her less-than-stoked expression. "I could. I just might. But not even I'm fishing. Don't want to scare them away with all kinds of bubbles. Can't imagine that the sailors get too happy if that happens." She squints out and up, whistling low as she considers the position of the sun. "High noon, yeah?"
There's amusement on Paddy's face and he munches on pie while Palia deals with this particular conversation. "Well sure, but it's a big pool and the ocean is really big. So you know, you can fish over /there/," she directs, "and they can blow over /here/." SHe looks very proud of this distinction too. "Sailors fish out deep," she points out further and waves a little hand in that direction off the edge of the plateau. Paddy looks up, nods. "Mm. Got to get back to work?"
"Sure, but what happens when the dragon swims too close to the ships? Could happen, ya know." Verel has now sunk to debating with five turn olds. Does she look concerned? Not really. "Lunchtime," she says, flicking a sideways look at that pie he's munching on; her stomach chooses this moment to announce its hunger, which prompts a sigh from the stablehand. "Was nice meeting ya, though." She steps away from the fence to face father and daughter, dipping her head forward in a curt nod.
"Why would they do that?" is Palia's question, head tilting to the side and regarding Verel curiously. P'draig lifts the pie and grins. "We've had ours, only fair you should go get yours before they run out," the brownrider says cheerily. "Nice meeting you too, Verel." Palia lets out a little raspberry then wiggles her fingers at the stablehand. "See you, scowly."
"That's why I was asking you!" Well, that turned out nicely. Verel gives a little indulgent wave before clomping away, her hands returned to their hiding places in her jacket and her scowl once more in place. Scowly indeed.
When: It is a winter afternoon, 12:43 of day 22, month 13, turn 19 of Interval 10.
Where: Corrals, Ista Weyr
What: P'draig and Palia meet scruffy girl Verel.
The dry winter season relieves Ista Island of its humidity, replacing it with light, buoyant air. At the height of mid-day, clouds interrupt the sky and a turbulent wind gusts violently, howling around the peaks of the Weyr.
Lunchtime for both rider and dragon it seems, P'draig leanins against the corral fence munching blithely on a meatpie while Jekzith cruises the sky just above looking for his next beastie. An emptied, crumpled carcass, mostly skin and bones at this point lies off to one side of the corral. It's warm, dry and windy today, with clouds scudding by high above and the wind tosses Paddy's hair about though the brownrider doesn't seem bothered by it. Huddled a little more against it, is the little girl perched on the fence rail. "Can we go down to the beach after he's done, Papa?" she's just asking as P'draig draws a wrapped bubbly pie out of his pocket for her.
In swaggers Verel, a too-small brown leather jacket thrown over her too-large tunic; her hands tucked into the pockets. She looks preoccupied as she walks, boots kicking up dirt behind her, but as she gets closer, she notices the dragon, rider, and child, which brings a scowl to her already harsh countenance. "G'day," she mumbles under her breath as she passes by, stopping along the fence a few feet away, to hunch her shoulders as she watches the melee in the pens.
P'draig shoots a look over his shoulder briefly and nods once, polite. "Hello there." It's Palia who focuses on Verel more even as she pulls back the wrapping on her pie to take a bite. "Your face is all wrunkled up," the five year old pronounces all of a sudden and she mimics that scowl. "Why are you all face-scrunchy?" Paddy, blinks once, twice, looks between the two and gives his daughter a little nudge. "Palia, that's not polite." Meanwhile Jekzith's chosen a target, dropped and dispatched the prey quickly and is tugging the beast over to the same corner to enjoy the rest of his meal.
That greeting would have probably sufficed for the scrawny Verel, but the added accounting doesn't pass her by. She looks down from the dragon, blinking away her mystification at the hunt, and frowns at Palia. "Wrinkled? Where? I ain't noticed any wrinkles yet. Too young for that." Her gaze slips from the little girl to the brownrider and her mouth tightens. "Ain't nothing but the truth I guess, as ya see it. Right?" this to the daughter again, her hands slipping out of her jacket pockets to examine her face, smoothing over the contours and lines.
Frowning next and Palia mimics. "Like that. You know. Scrunchy." Grr. Paddy gives Palia another gentle nudge. "Sorry about that," he tells the girl. "Though you're right it is just ... how you see it. Just you know, everyone's allowed a bad mood now and then." Paddy: friendly. "I'm P'draig by the way and this is Palia. And .. you don't have any wrinkles that I can see."
Scrunchy, ah-hah! "Like this?" Verel does an imitation of herself, scowling quite darkly with one finger pointed to the center of her face. "Don't apologize none. She's just speaking her mind. It's a right good kind of thing to do," she says, and instead of holding out a hand to the brownrider, she positions hers lower down for Palia. "Nice to meet ya. Name's Verel, stablehand, just checking up over here." To that, she jerks her heads towards the pens.
"Yeah," Palia says, nodding solemnly and eyeing that scowl like a professional, mimics it then smiles a little and shakes Verel's hand. "Time and a place for that," P'draig says mildly, "always good to know manners," he points out further, which makes Palia giggle and she ducks her head, bumps her forehead against his shoulder fondly. "Nice to meet you Verel," he does say though with a smile and Palia nods a couple of times. "Me too."
"Well met, ya two." Manners, bleck; but luckily, Verel doesn't speak her mind, just drops her hand and turns to watch the pens. "That your big guy?" she manages to ask P'draig as she leans forward against the railing, folding her arms on the top slat and crossing one foot over the other. "Sure is first-rate at catching 'em good and fast. Can't say I'd be any good at that - great at fishing though."
"Mmhm, Jekzith," P'draig says about the motley brown in the pens. "He's pretty speedy for a big brown, yeah. Though he's on the slender side, mobile, you know?" Palia tilts a look over her shoulder at the dragon and gives her father's shoulder a pat. "I like Jek. He takes care of me."
"Jekzith," Verel repeats, testing the name on her tongue, making sure she gets it right from the get-go. "I gotcha. Seen a lot of big, fumbling dragons, ya know? Takes them a while to find the right one and even longer to catch it. Gotta wonder what makes one good at hunting and another, just, sucks at it." She rubs her nose with a forefinger and glances down at Palia. "Does he? Like what?" And that's real curiosity.
"Sometimes it's not skill, it's personality," P'draig says with a grin. "Jekzith doesn't like them to suffer and he enjoys making a good clean catch. Doesn't like to play with his food." Palia takes another bite from her pie, chews and swallows before answering Verel. "He's always watched over me." Proud. "We go swimming!"
"Huh." Clearly confused by this new information, Verel sags forward a little, biting the side of her lip as she considers the dragon within the pens. "Ain't ever heard anything like that. Ain't ever asked, I guess. Just always assumed." She looks down at Palia again, a frown tugging down the corners of her mouth. "Swimming, ya say? Really? I wouldn't think something that big would be too good a swimmer. Seen a lot of agile greens though," is mentioned as she looks up, as if expecting one to fly by at that moment.
"Mm. Some dragons ... aren't necessarily /nice/," P'draig says with a chuckle. "And you know, they are hunters, so --" he shrugs a little nods towards the pens. "Some of them make a huge mess out there, but I bet you do know that. And well, some are just clumsy." Palia's head bobs up and down. "He watches to make sure I don't float away." Paddy also nods. "You'd think they wouldn't be, but out in the ocean especially, they kind of treat the water like air."
"I ain't squeamish." But that would seem primary, especially for a stablehand, until she continues, "Unlike some of those other schmucks I work with. Can't go without gagging at the smell of cr-" Hey, there's a kid present; Verel frowns, looks down, and shrugs. "Seems funny, doesn't it, that something that can make fire wouldn't be bothered by going in the water. It doesn't seem natural - ya know, how felines don't really like the water. They'll tear ya right up if ya even try getting them close."
"Manure, sure," P'draig fills in with an amused grin for the rapidly cut off word. The rest of what she says cocks his head to the side and he shakes his head. "Really? Though felines don't breathe fire. I think they just don't like having wet faces." Palia giggles and ducks her head. "They run away going 'mow'."
"Nah, they don't, but they don't like water for who knows why." Verel scratches her chin, squinting as she thinks; it's hard to do! "But dragons, they'd have a good reason to, I'd think." Again, she shrugs and slouches against the fence, idly watching the nearby beasts that are busy eyeballing Jekzith anxiously. "Can't say for sure, I guess."
"And instead, a lot of them, barring a few, really like water. There was a green here, from the last clutch, Leisath. She didn't like water. Her rider had a really hard time getting her to take a bath." Jekzith is busy eating his beastie and does not look up to even say 'boo' to the rest of the herd. Palia kicks her legs a little and eats the rest of her pie. "Jek likes to blow bubbles."
"Can't say I blame her." There's oh-so many things that can be taken from that statement, and no, Verel is not going to explain any of it. She picks her leg up to scratch her knee and shoots Palia a bemused look that appears more angry than confused. "Bubbles? How does a dragon blow bubbles?"
"Heh. I like baths. Nice long, hot baths. I miss having one in my weyr, though you know, trading off a bathroom for a weyrmate isn't a bad exchange either." P'draig grins and fishes a bubbly out of his /other/ pocket and starts to eat that, while Palia beams at Verel and explains: "Oh! Well he sticks his head under the water and blows through his nose holes, like this." ANd she squinches up her face and blows. Unfortunate consequence: snot. "Whoa!" Paddy exclaims laughingly and produces a hanky for the kid.
Verel eyes the brownrider like he just said he eats trundlebugs for breakfast. "Doesn't seem like a bad exchange at all, more's the good one." She folds her arms purposefully over her chest and sniffs loudly, but then Palia is doing that impression. Normal people might be revolted by the end result, and yet, this stablehand just points, saying, "Ya got something there.. ah." P'draig's got the hanky. "I bet those're large bubbles too - probably scares all the fish away."
"It was very relaxing not having to fly anywhere to get clean," P'draig notes. "Hot water anytime for coming in out of the cold, but you don't really have to worry about cold, here." Palia takes the hanky and swabs at her nose, folds he fabric over carefully and hands it back to her father. Present! "Pretty big. You should go to the beach or to the pool sometime and ask any dragons that are there to do it."
"Right." Baths aren't Verel's favorite, and that might register in her less-than-stoked expression. "I could. I just might. But not even I'm fishing. Don't want to scare them away with all kinds of bubbles. Can't imagine that the sailors get too happy if that happens." She squints out and up, whistling low as she considers the position of the sun. "High noon, yeah?"
There's amusement on Paddy's face and he munches on pie while Palia deals with this particular conversation. "Well sure, but it's a big pool and the ocean is really big. So you know, you can fish over /there/," she directs, "and they can blow over /here/." SHe looks very proud of this distinction too. "Sailors fish out deep," she points out further and waves a little hand in that direction off the edge of the plateau. Paddy looks up, nods. "Mm. Got to get back to work?"
"Sure, but what happens when the dragon swims too close to the ships? Could happen, ya know." Verel has now sunk to debating with five turn olds. Does she look concerned? Not really. "Lunchtime," she says, flicking a sideways look at that pie he's munching on; her stomach chooses this moment to announce its hunger, which prompts a sigh from the stablehand. "Was nice meeting ya, though." She steps away from the fence to face father and daughter, dipping her head forward in a curt nod.
"Why would they do that?" is Palia's question, head tilting to the side and regarding Verel curiously. P'draig lifts the pie and grins. "We've had ours, only fair you should go get yours before they run out," the brownrider says cheerily. "Nice meeting you too, Verel." Palia lets out a little raspberry then wiggles her fingers at the stablehand. "See you, scowly."
"That's why I was asking you!" Well, that turned out nicely. Verel gives a little indulgent wave before clomping away, her hands returned to their hiding places in her jacket and her scowl once more in place. Scowly indeed.