Log: Talking Menus and Flights With Weyrlings
Who: P'draig, Nyssa, Vyshani | Jekzith, Laonyth
When: It is a summer afternoon, day 25, month 6, turn 23 of Interval 10.
Where: Waterfall Pool, Ista Weyr
What: Nyssa and Vyshani crash Paddy's peaceful menu planning and wind up with an earful about flights. It's a theme this week.
Waterfall Pool, Ista Weyr
From high above a majestic waterfall thunders, dropping into a broad, shaded glade and its deep, stone-bottomed pool. The constant roar of the water plunging from the top of the plateau drowns out the sounds of the ocean. A curious stream runs from the pool to the sea through the jungle greenery that keeps the water constantly cool.
A few dozen paces from the stone ring of the pool is a flat, grassy area, spotted with occasional wildflowers and little clovers and removed just enough from the splashing water that voices are more easily heard. Behind the pool, the cliff wall is rocky; ancient-carved steps meander up the wall, just far enough from the waterfall to be passable though moss and dampness make the path exciting. Another, less dangerous path seems to lead back to a tight squeeze and a certain shower if one chooses to pass behind the waterfall.
It's the tail end of lunch and Paddy's not on duty at the restaurant today, seems in fact to've taken a little break to have lunch by himself by the pool as the remnants of a picnic on a blanket attest. Currently, the brownrider sits cross-legged on that blanket, flipping through a sheaf of hides: probably menu planning as summer winds its way to its peak in just a few days and then starts sliding down the other side into autumn.
Nyssa has taken to spending more and more of those precious moments of free time haunting the gardens, and at a guess, it would be that way she's heading now, out in the bright glare of the summer sun without even a hat - or without a hat on, she's got one held in her hand, and she uses that to wave at P'draig.
The flapping of Nyssa's hat catches P'draig's attention from the corner of his eye and he looks up, focuses on the weyrling and smiles brightly, sticks the pencil he was holding into his mouth and lifts a hand to wave in return. He starts to say 'hello' eyes the pencil, spits lets it drop back into his hand and laughingly greets: "Hey there, Nyssa. How's things?"
Typically when not required for a drill or lesson or what-have-you, Vyshani's either swimming in the ocean or holed up in her weyr. So for her to be pattering barefoot through the garden is actually an unusual sight. Coming around a corner, twirling a large tropical flower in one hand, she smiles brightly when she spots friend and clutchmate up ahead. "Hiya Paddy, Nyssa!"
"Hey." Nyssa lights up for a second with a smile, and then shakes her head, taking a few steps out of her path and towards P'draig and his blanket. "Oh, you know, they're - things, really." Drills and lessons and what-have-yous. "How're things with you?" She looks up at the second salutation and greets her clutchmate with a barely discernible pained look. "You didn't pick that, did you?"
"Weyrlinghood getting all routine and everything? You're close to done with the main lessons, aren't you?" P'draig queries further with a chuckle and tidies up that sheaf of hides, sets the pencil down on top of them as he puts them aside and collects the used plates that lie in front of him, dumps them into the picnic basket alongside the blanket. Vyshani's greeting lifts his head again and he smiles at the other weyrling, gestures her over. "Hey there. Flop for a bit?" he invites with a gesture to the blanket for both of them. "It's a good day today," Paddy answers Nyssa's earlier question. "Not too busy, so I've got time to think about menus for next season at the restaurant."
Confusion dampens Vyshani's expression as she looks at Nyssa, then at the flower. "Kind of? The stem was already half broke when I found it." She even provides visuals, lifting her other arm, bent at the elbow and hand hanging limply, tilting her head to the side and poking the tip of her tongue out the side of her mouth. Gack! Dying! Returning to normal posture with a bounce, a cheery "Thanks!" is given in reply to the invitation to flop. "I'm guessin' the 'how are yas' have already been said, and no one's scowlin' so y'must be good." Her slur is a bit on the thick side today.
"I don't know," Nyssa admits. "I suppose we must be, although I'm not sure I feel like I know enough. But I think I've always felt that way. So maybe I won't, ever." She looks mollified enough with Vyshani's explanation, enough even to grin. "That's all right, then. It's pretty." She less flops than descends carefully, tucking herself up on one corner of the blanket, asking Paddy, "Do you always plan so far ahead?" Not that next season can be called far ahead, but apparently for Nyssa, it is.
The back and forth about the flower earns a brief lift of brows, but P'draig doesn't remark on it, he just leans back and smiles at both weyrlings as they settle on his blanket. "Mm, yeah, I think we settled on 'everything is mostly good'," Paddy answers Vyshani with a brief wink. "And I start the planning this far ahead, yes, then tweak it as it gets closer and I can see what's coming in for crops and so on, so the food is always really fresh, best of the best and all that," P'draig explains about the restaurant. "As for weyrlinghood training, yeah, I think I felt the same way about some things when we were done and others that I thought I got, I wound up with questions about after I'd been tapped." He looks between the two weyrlings again. "How about you Vyshani?"
"It is," Vyshani agrees perkily about pretty, offering the flower out to Nyssa -- for sniffing or to take is unclear -- once she's happily sprawled. Propping her chin on her other hand, she asks with unrepentant curiosity, "Can I take a peek?" At the menu plans. Brown eyes glance between Paddy and Nyss as she keeps playing catch up, listening. "Too much stuff all getting poured inside your head, I think, it all starts spilling into each other," is her thirty-second mark's worth. She blinks a bit, casting a glance over at Nyssa before back to Paddy. "So long as no one asks me to work out a trajectory factoring in wind or something, I think I'm good. Mostly. Still rather get my visuals from someone more experienced though. Are we allowed to carry picture books?"
Nyssa leans forward to sniff at the flower only, makes a quiet "Mmm," sound, and then leans back again, trying to curl into a ball without ending up too sticky in the heat. "There is too much," she's sure about that, "But we do need to know it all, don't we?" She tends to be a wallflower in classes; she certainly doesn't volunteer anything else specific even now. "I didn't know food took so much planning," she says, switching subjects, and sounding perfectly earnest. "I suppose I was always used to 'we've got this, so we're eating this. But restaurants must be different."
"Sure," P'draig picks up the hides and passes them over to Vyshani. "If you can read my writing okay." With the hides passed to Vyshani he leans back again and nods. "You do need to know it all, but you can always ask wingmates for help when you're first starting out. Don't be afraid to ask questions," is the brownrider's advice. "And you do have a little while to go yet. They're just touching on nine months old, right? So there's time to practice things and get ready for when you're tapped, though some of your clutchmates with males might find themselves caught up in a flight soon enough." He grins over at Nyssa, nodding. "Yeah, for a restaurant it does. You have to balance out what you have on hand, what you need to buy and how to put it all together to make the dishes good and consistent every time." Vyshani's question earns a laugh. "Well you know, I don't know if Indra allows them, but if you needed one for support it's not a bad idea to have one. You just have to learn not to rely on it all the time," beat, "and I'm falling into bad old habits and lecturing," he concludes with a self-deprecating chuckle.
"If I can read--" Vyshani starts, stops, shakes her head with a little grin. "I'm sure yours won't be any trouble. Thanks." Wriggling a little, she crosses her ankles and bends her knees, feet swinging idly through the air as she nibbles on the ragged end of the flower stem while reading. Slowly. With lots of glances up while listening. "Just eight months. I think. Nyss?" Hoping her clutchmate has a better grasp on passing time than she does. "Uh, yeah, Indra kinda... sounded like a Healer's book. The restaurant is nice, with the menu and all. It's sorta the same at the Waystation, 'we have this, so that's what we're having.' I mean, Pa'd usually write out on a slate what was on for a given day, but like as not the folks comin' through couldn't even read, so. The menu thing, it's nice." Like she said. Babbling much? "Aww it's nice though. I mean, telling us stuff. 'Least you're not telling us to go ask someone else!"
"Eight," Nyssa confirms; as a person accustomed to measuring time out in short periods of months, she weights the counting a little differently: "As many as eight. And it's high summer again already. Your restaurant planning," she observes just a little too solemnly, "sounds like our weyrling training, is that what you mean by being lecturing? Measuring out what we've got and what more we need and being consistent... it's hard," Nyssa ponders that. "Being consistent, when every day still feels so different." A grimace is given Vyshani's way, and not only for her flower-stalk chewing. "That was an awful lecture, wasn't it, when she was talking like that? I wanted the floor to swallow me up. Or maybe her. I couldn't decide." She confirms the final part almost in a whisper.
"Eight - a little more time left before some of those boys start perking up then," P'draig muses thoughtfully. "Like a healer's book?" he prompts Vyshani casually and then shoots Nyssa a sympathetic grin. "It's not the easiest thing for a lot of people to talk about," he admits. "Unless you're very very weyrbred. Or a little bit older as a weyrling. And even then it can be awkward." He shakes his head though at the question in there. "No, the bit about the pictures. Sometimes I have a bad habit of falling back into 'weyrlingmaster mode'," Paddy confesses with a slightly rueful smile. "Glad you like the restaurant though and well, if you do have questions, please do ask them. I don't mind trying to clear things up a bit. Jekzith just went up after a green the other day and lost, so it's kind of fresh in my mind," the brownrider jokes a little.
Vyshani's head starts to bob, the flower bouncing as she still has the stem wedged firmly between her teeth, as Nyssa begins talking about consistency. Nod nod nod, yup! Finally removing the flower and laying it down the on blanket near her elbow, she seems to have forgotten the hides in her hand as she grimaces back at her clutchsib. "I know! I don't even think it was really that long but I just wanted it to end. It was just so... so... heartless. Or, no. But there wasn't any...." She flails her hand, making the hide flap, as if that will provide the information she's verbally incapable of supplying. "Oh, you know," she says to Paddy, redirected. "All symptoms and methods and sort of like your mother's -- or, my mother's, anyway -- 'when two people are attracted to each other they start to feel things, physical things' talk when you start ble--" And her teeth click shut as her cheeks suddenly become suffused with colour. Oh look! Menu!
The look on Nyssa's face after Paddy's little joke is something of a picture. "But," she says helplessly, that word not quite encapsulating her general thought of 'But we can't possibly ask you questions, you're a man, and on top of that, you're old enough to be my father, how embarrassing can you get?' - although that message may be written plain as day upon her face. "We're greenriders," Nyssa has to blurt something, something to cover up for both of their blushes and Vyshani's sudden and out of place full stop, and falls back on an old trope that even she has internalised by now. "We don't have to worry about losing."
"Heartless," P'draig echoes, one hand lifting to rub at his chin, but if he has further opinions about that, he keeps them to himself. "Mm. That's a conversation I'll need to have with Palia in a few turns, probably as few as two," he notes conversationally for the little tidbit that Vyshani bit off there. "I don't think her mother would handle it too well, though I could always ask my mother to help. Of course, with my luck, Palia's already read everything there is to read about it and will be telling me how it all works." Nyssa's remarks earn a faint smile and then he asks quietly: "So let's back up a little bit. What /do/ you know about flights other than the facts you got in class? Have you noticed the ones that have happened here in the months since you got here, for instance?"
"No, we just gotta worry about winning," Vyshani tells the newly fascinating menu in a mumble, her face still red as a beet. As she's got something to 'hide' behind, she not very discreetly nudges that big fat flower over towards Nyssa. Just in case she has a sudden urge to inhale its perfume again, or something. "Well, they make the riders... you know. The ones who are involved. I've always only paid enough attention so I know when to avoid certain places. Same at Reaches. There's always an hour or so after when goin' to the bar or something is a bad idea if you ain't... that kind of girl."
Partly inspired by Vyshani's offer of the flower - which she waves away - Nyssa stops fidgeting with the hat she's holding in her hands and jams it on her head instead, the brim wide enough that direct eye contact becomes less easy. This helps. "You don't have to have that conversation," she more or less mutters at P'draig. "I never got one, I'm okay." Allegedly. "I've noticed that they happen," Nyssa admits, sounding just a little reluctant. "Honestly, when you're used to holds it's kind of... hard not to notice them. They're /everywhere/ at first." Until she, too, learnt that lesson about avoiding said certain places. "But then we Impressed and since then, not so much really."
"Too busy to really notice probably," P'draig says agreeably to Nyssa and folds his legs up beneath him, settles his elbows on his knees comfortably. "They make the riders ... you know," he echoes Vyshani with a slight quirk to his grin. "I'm going to assume you meant 'horny' there," Paddy supplies a possible word there. "And that means that you've noticed the effects on a rider from the outside," the brownrider continues. "So, if you think it through, think about what it felt like the day you impressed, and the early days when you maybe didn't know if it was Eilath or Laonyth who was hungry or you were. What do you think that adds up to when you're actually in a flight? For the rider of any color dragon."
Nodding, with a peek over the top of the hide, Vyshani confirms, "Yeah that." Horny. Eyes disappear again, and her feet suddenly hit the ground with a thud. "She did kind cover that we're gonna want to, too." A pause before, plaintively, "Do we really have to? I mean, isn't there a ways we can.... What's the point of all those exercises in separation if we can't when it's important?"
"So you mean we can't tell? But, I thought it'd all be Eilath!" Which apparently Nyssa could just about get her head around. She clears her throat determinedly. "I think," she starts, sounding prim, "it's probably like betweening. It's worse when we haven't done it. I mean, betweening's still not quite okay, it's just... it's not so bad now we know what it is. Flights, I think... I think they're sort of the same. You can't know what it's like 'til you've done it, that's the scary part." She seems more or less resigned to the fact that she's going to want to, too. "And Ind - she - really didn't make it sound like it was any fu-" No, not that. "Like it's even going to be bearable."
"Technically, you don't have to," P'draig answers, still in that comfortably casual posture, attentive while the girls ask their questions. "But again, it's kind of like that first moment of impression, or the early days of being a weyrling, you will most likely, unless you're really unique, really, really, really want to. Different riders have different reactions to it, but it's very common for a rider to really sink into his or her dragon for the whole thing. It's not that you become your dragon, or that you don't remember it, but it really is both of you very close together," Paddy continues. He nods though as Nyssa theorizes. "Generally? Yeah, once you get through it a few times, it gets, not necessarily easier, but you get more used to it. You can prepare yourself for it and figure out how you want to deal." Breath out. "I'd have to disagree about it not being any fun. It can be strange afterward, when you come back to yourself and realize what you just did, probably with a person you barely know. But it /can/ be fun."
"Technically?" Vyshani repeats suspiciously, finally reappearing fully from behind Paddy's menu musings as she lets the hide drop down to the blanket. "If it's that... powerful, like you say...." Her mouth pulls down into a frown, troubled and unhappy. "Don't seem like we get any choice, and /technical/ s'just a way to say stop bein' silly." She looks over at Nyssa, her clutchsib's musings not doing much in way of reassuring her. Especially when they're confirmed. "No." Suddenly, firmly, as she abruptly scrambles to her feet. "It /won't/ be. It'll be awful and it's not fair! She-- they're just babies still!" Rather like a sulky child than the young woman she actually is, Vy stamps her foot hard on the ground, don't want! and turns to flee the garden.
Jekzith touches minds gently, a bubble brushing against thoughts, light. Is her rider okay? << Paddy's sorry she got upset and hopes that if she still needs an ear, she can still come talk to him or to someone else when she's ready. >>
A gentle, warm rain meets that touch, Laonyth's sigh like a soft wind over dampened grasses. << There is nothing to be sorry for, >> she assures, as calm as her rider isn't. << It is a truth she must accept. She will, in time. When she's ready. >> Gratitude is offered wordlessly, a small break in the clouds allowing for a ray of sunlight to sparkle in the distance.
Jekzith conveys a sense of Paddy's relief along with his own. << When she's ready, >> he agrees though it's doubled up: his rider's opinion too. That sparkle of sunlight is answered with a scattering of water droplets and a flutter of cool breeze and then Jekzith retreats back to his own business, though with the unspoken offer of perhaps flying again over the ocean soon conveyed in a brief visual left behind.
Nyssa sinks slowly back down to her knees, and picks aimlessly at the corner of the blanket, staring down. "D'you think it's better to be drunk, then? For flight - any flight stuff, really. Because that sounds like we really wouldn't be in control, then. 'Cause we are in control, sort of. I mean, Eilath will be, won't she? Or Laonyth, or, or..." Either Vyshani's mood is catching, or Nyssa's just been hiding behind a veil of rationality this entire time; she now just sounds upset. "Greens don't even lay eggs!" she complains at last: small, quiet, brittle.
"Not really," P'draig says with a shake of his head. "But again it's one of those things that's different from person to person. Personally, I like to keep as much control as I can. Getting drunk takes that away so that I'm even /less/ aware and able to keep a cool head." He looks down at Nyssa as she settles and then folds back down to a seat himself. "That depends entirely on Eilath. Rising is an instinctive act for them. Depending on her personality, she could be very controlled about it, or very wild. Most greens it falls somewhere in between. "Yeah you know, I always wondered about that," Paddy says with a laugh. "I mean, it really is for eggs with golds and green firelizards lay eggs, but green dragons don't. It's kind of strange. Then again, people have sex for the pure enjoyment of it, not just to have kids, so why shouldn't some dragons?"
Nyssa stops playing with the blanket and clasps her hands tightly together in her lap, instead. "So that brings us back to not knowing until it happens. Or just guessing, and guessing's just as likely to be wrong or right, just now." She keeps her head ducked down, hat hiding her expression while she works through sounding more than a little wobbly. Being theoretical about it helps. "Okay, perhaps, perhaps some people do, but /all/ the greens do, not just some. And regularly. I suppose it's just another thing about dragons." There are so very many of those things.
"Pretty much, yes. And you can drive yourself nuts with the guessing, so it's a good idea to understand how it works so you can be ready for the idea that it's going to be powerful, that there'll be a point when you won't be in control anymore, but that there are things you can control up to a certain point. And afterward, other than being polite, you have no obligation to the other dragon's rider," Paddy says gently. "All greens rise, yes. So do all golds. Not all males are as into chasing as Jekzith is and some greens and golds rise less often than others. Jekzith chases roughly once a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. So I've gotten very used to what flights do to me and very used to what it's like for him to /lose/ too. It doesn't change the fact that it's intense every time, but I've learned to know what to expect and what works for the two of us. Winning can be overwhelming but it's also pretty incredible. It's just dealing with what comes after that can get awkward and uncomfortable, in my opinion."
"I think I'll worry about it when we get to it," Nyssa decides, which is easier said than done, however firm she tries to sound. "I suppose it helps knowing that time and practice will make it all better, but that just makes the first time sound like it's going to be worse. Or the worst. But if it's going to happen, it's better to - well, there's no point fighting it." She unfolds her hands and rubs her palms on her trousers, stubbornly. "Sorry," she adds, suddenly, as if in realisation. "We've probably spoilt your lunch here, and, oh, you were working." She starts to scramble to her feet again. "I'll leave you in peace."
"No, that's one of the lessons I learned," P'draig admits. "It's better not to fight it and figure out how you can roll with it and deal with it within the moment. Because fighting it just makes both you and your dragon miserable in the end." He shakes his head though about his lunch. "It's all good. I was done eating and just ... thinking things through with the menu. It's really not a problem. And Nyssa, if you have other questions, if you feel comfortable asking me, please do come ask them," he says sincerely. "If you take nothing else away from this, just remember that the intensity can be as high as it was when you impressed and that one of the things to watch for when she gets old enough, is a change in mood, either in her or in you. That might be your only hint that she's about to go up, though sometimes some of the male dragons will pick up on a proddy green or gold before the rider even realizes."
Nyssa tugs her hat off her head now, even though her expression is not all that put-together. "It'll be a little while yet," she says awkwardly, although every slight change in mood that Eilath goes through in the next sevenday is unlikely to be well-received on her part. "It'll be all right," she adds distantly, since saying it so obviously makes it true. "And I will. If I do. Thank you." She sounds a little overly formal at the end. "It's very... helpful of you. Bye!" She doesn't flee much slower than Vyshani did.
"It will," P'draig reassures and offers a smile that aims for reassurance, but might fall short of the mark given the nerves on both of the weyrlings. "Have a good afternoon, Nyssa," the brownrider wishes sincerely and after she's fled, starts collecting his things. "Nervous weyrlings, shells. Some things never change," he remarks humorously and eventually wanders off homeward.
When: It is a summer afternoon, day 25, month 6, turn 23 of Interval 10.
Where: Waterfall Pool, Ista Weyr
What: Nyssa and Vyshani crash Paddy's peaceful menu planning and wind up with an earful about flights. It's a theme this week.
Waterfall Pool, Ista Weyr
From high above a majestic waterfall thunders, dropping into a broad, shaded glade and its deep, stone-bottomed pool. The constant roar of the water plunging from the top of the plateau drowns out the sounds of the ocean. A curious stream runs from the pool to the sea through the jungle greenery that keeps the water constantly cool.
A few dozen paces from the stone ring of the pool is a flat, grassy area, spotted with occasional wildflowers and little clovers and removed just enough from the splashing water that voices are more easily heard. Behind the pool, the cliff wall is rocky; ancient-carved steps meander up the wall, just far enough from the waterfall to be passable though moss and dampness make the path exciting. Another, less dangerous path seems to lead back to a tight squeeze and a certain shower if one chooses to pass behind the waterfall.
It's the tail end of lunch and Paddy's not on duty at the restaurant today, seems in fact to've taken a little break to have lunch by himself by the pool as the remnants of a picnic on a blanket attest. Currently, the brownrider sits cross-legged on that blanket, flipping through a sheaf of hides: probably menu planning as summer winds its way to its peak in just a few days and then starts sliding down the other side into autumn.
Nyssa has taken to spending more and more of those precious moments of free time haunting the gardens, and at a guess, it would be that way she's heading now, out in the bright glare of the summer sun without even a hat - or without a hat on, she's got one held in her hand, and she uses that to wave at P'draig.
The flapping of Nyssa's hat catches P'draig's attention from the corner of his eye and he looks up, focuses on the weyrling and smiles brightly, sticks the pencil he was holding into his mouth and lifts a hand to wave in return. He starts to say 'hello' eyes the pencil, spits lets it drop back into his hand and laughingly greets: "Hey there, Nyssa. How's things?"
Typically when not required for a drill or lesson or what-have-you, Vyshani's either swimming in the ocean or holed up in her weyr. So for her to be pattering barefoot through the garden is actually an unusual sight. Coming around a corner, twirling a large tropical flower in one hand, she smiles brightly when she spots friend and clutchmate up ahead. "Hiya Paddy, Nyssa!"
"Hey." Nyssa lights up for a second with a smile, and then shakes her head, taking a few steps out of her path and towards P'draig and his blanket. "Oh, you know, they're - things, really." Drills and lessons and what-have-yous. "How're things with you?" She looks up at the second salutation and greets her clutchmate with a barely discernible pained look. "You didn't pick that, did you?"
"Weyrlinghood getting all routine and everything? You're close to done with the main lessons, aren't you?" P'draig queries further with a chuckle and tidies up that sheaf of hides, sets the pencil down on top of them as he puts them aside and collects the used plates that lie in front of him, dumps them into the picnic basket alongside the blanket. Vyshani's greeting lifts his head again and he smiles at the other weyrling, gestures her over. "Hey there. Flop for a bit?" he invites with a gesture to the blanket for both of them. "It's a good day today," Paddy answers Nyssa's earlier question. "Not too busy, so I've got time to think about menus for next season at the restaurant."
Confusion dampens Vyshani's expression as she looks at Nyssa, then at the flower. "Kind of? The stem was already half broke when I found it." She even provides visuals, lifting her other arm, bent at the elbow and hand hanging limply, tilting her head to the side and poking the tip of her tongue out the side of her mouth. Gack! Dying! Returning to normal posture with a bounce, a cheery "Thanks!" is given in reply to the invitation to flop. "I'm guessin' the 'how are yas' have already been said, and no one's scowlin' so y'must be good." Her slur is a bit on the thick side today.
"I don't know," Nyssa admits. "I suppose we must be, although I'm not sure I feel like I know enough. But I think I've always felt that way. So maybe I won't, ever." She looks mollified enough with Vyshani's explanation, enough even to grin. "That's all right, then. It's pretty." She less flops than descends carefully, tucking herself up on one corner of the blanket, asking Paddy, "Do you always plan so far ahead?" Not that next season can be called far ahead, but apparently for Nyssa, it is.
The back and forth about the flower earns a brief lift of brows, but P'draig doesn't remark on it, he just leans back and smiles at both weyrlings as they settle on his blanket. "Mm, yeah, I think we settled on 'everything is mostly good'," Paddy answers Vyshani with a brief wink. "And I start the planning this far ahead, yes, then tweak it as it gets closer and I can see what's coming in for crops and so on, so the food is always really fresh, best of the best and all that," P'draig explains about the restaurant. "As for weyrlinghood training, yeah, I think I felt the same way about some things when we were done and others that I thought I got, I wound up with questions about after I'd been tapped." He looks between the two weyrlings again. "How about you Vyshani?"
"It is," Vyshani agrees perkily about pretty, offering the flower out to Nyssa -- for sniffing or to take is unclear -- once she's happily sprawled. Propping her chin on her other hand, she asks with unrepentant curiosity, "Can I take a peek?" At the menu plans. Brown eyes glance between Paddy and Nyss as she keeps playing catch up, listening. "Too much stuff all getting poured inside your head, I think, it all starts spilling into each other," is her thirty-second mark's worth. She blinks a bit, casting a glance over at Nyssa before back to Paddy. "So long as no one asks me to work out a trajectory factoring in wind or something, I think I'm good. Mostly. Still rather get my visuals from someone more experienced though. Are we allowed to carry picture books?"
Nyssa leans forward to sniff at the flower only, makes a quiet "Mmm," sound, and then leans back again, trying to curl into a ball without ending up too sticky in the heat. "There is too much," she's sure about that, "But we do need to know it all, don't we?" She tends to be a wallflower in classes; she certainly doesn't volunteer anything else specific even now. "I didn't know food took so much planning," she says, switching subjects, and sounding perfectly earnest. "I suppose I was always used to 'we've got this, so we're eating this. But restaurants must be different."
"Sure," P'draig picks up the hides and passes them over to Vyshani. "If you can read my writing okay." With the hides passed to Vyshani he leans back again and nods. "You do need to know it all, but you can always ask wingmates for help when you're first starting out. Don't be afraid to ask questions," is the brownrider's advice. "And you do have a little while to go yet. They're just touching on nine months old, right? So there's time to practice things and get ready for when you're tapped, though some of your clutchmates with males might find themselves caught up in a flight soon enough." He grins over at Nyssa, nodding. "Yeah, for a restaurant it does. You have to balance out what you have on hand, what you need to buy and how to put it all together to make the dishes good and consistent every time." Vyshani's question earns a laugh. "Well you know, I don't know if Indra allows them, but if you needed one for support it's not a bad idea to have one. You just have to learn not to rely on it all the time," beat, "and I'm falling into bad old habits and lecturing," he concludes with a self-deprecating chuckle.
"If I can read--" Vyshani starts, stops, shakes her head with a little grin. "I'm sure yours won't be any trouble. Thanks." Wriggling a little, she crosses her ankles and bends her knees, feet swinging idly through the air as she nibbles on the ragged end of the flower stem while reading. Slowly. With lots of glances up while listening. "Just eight months. I think. Nyss?" Hoping her clutchmate has a better grasp on passing time than she does. "Uh, yeah, Indra kinda... sounded like a Healer's book. The restaurant is nice, with the menu and all. It's sorta the same at the Waystation, 'we have this, so that's what we're having.' I mean, Pa'd usually write out on a slate what was on for a given day, but like as not the folks comin' through couldn't even read, so. The menu thing, it's nice." Like she said. Babbling much? "Aww it's nice though. I mean, telling us stuff. 'Least you're not telling us to go ask someone else!"
"Eight," Nyssa confirms; as a person accustomed to measuring time out in short periods of months, she weights the counting a little differently: "As many as eight. And it's high summer again already. Your restaurant planning," she observes just a little too solemnly, "sounds like our weyrling training, is that what you mean by being lecturing? Measuring out what we've got and what more we need and being consistent... it's hard," Nyssa ponders that. "Being consistent, when every day still feels so different." A grimace is given Vyshani's way, and not only for her flower-stalk chewing. "That was an awful lecture, wasn't it, when she was talking like that? I wanted the floor to swallow me up. Or maybe her. I couldn't decide." She confirms the final part almost in a whisper.
"Eight - a little more time left before some of those boys start perking up then," P'draig muses thoughtfully. "Like a healer's book?" he prompts Vyshani casually and then shoots Nyssa a sympathetic grin. "It's not the easiest thing for a lot of people to talk about," he admits. "Unless you're very very weyrbred. Or a little bit older as a weyrling. And even then it can be awkward." He shakes his head though at the question in there. "No, the bit about the pictures. Sometimes I have a bad habit of falling back into 'weyrlingmaster mode'," Paddy confesses with a slightly rueful smile. "Glad you like the restaurant though and well, if you do have questions, please do ask them. I don't mind trying to clear things up a bit. Jekzith just went up after a green the other day and lost, so it's kind of fresh in my mind," the brownrider jokes a little.
Vyshani's head starts to bob, the flower bouncing as she still has the stem wedged firmly between her teeth, as Nyssa begins talking about consistency. Nod nod nod, yup! Finally removing the flower and laying it down the on blanket near her elbow, she seems to have forgotten the hides in her hand as she grimaces back at her clutchsib. "I know! I don't even think it was really that long but I just wanted it to end. It was just so... so... heartless. Or, no. But there wasn't any...." She flails her hand, making the hide flap, as if that will provide the information she's verbally incapable of supplying. "Oh, you know," she says to Paddy, redirected. "All symptoms and methods and sort of like your mother's -- or, my mother's, anyway -- 'when two people are attracted to each other they start to feel things, physical things' talk when you start ble--" And her teeth click shut as her cheeks suddenly become suffused with colour. Oh look! Menu!
The look on Nyssa's face after Paddy's little joke is something of a picture. "But," she says helplessly, that word not quite encapsulating her general thought of 'But we can't possibly ask you questions, you're a man, and on top of that, you're old enough to be my father, how embarrassing can you get?' - although that message may be written plain as day upon her face. "We're greenriders," Nyssa has to blurt something, something to cover up for both of their blushes and Vyshani's sudden and out of place full stop, and falls back on an old trope that even she has internalised by now. "We don't have to worry about losing."
"Heartless," P'draig echoes, one hand lifting to rub at his chin, but if he has further opinions about that, he keeps them to himself. "Mm. That's a conversation I'll need to have with Palia in a few turns, probably as few as two," he notes conversationally for the little tidbit that Vyshani bit off there. "I don't think her mother would handle it too well, though I could always ask my mother to help. Of course, with my luck, Palia's already read everything there is to read about it and will be telling me how it all works." Nyssa's remarks earn a faint smile and then he asks quietly: "So let's back up a little bit. What /do/ you know about flights other than the facts you got in class? Have you noticed the ones that have happened here in the months since you got here, for instance?"
"No, we just gotta worry about winning," Vyshani tells the newly fascinating menu in a mumble, her face still red as a beet. As she's got something to 'hide' behind, she not very discreetly nudges that big fat flower over towards Nyssa. Just in case she has a sudden urge to inhale its perfume again, or something. "Well, they make the riders... you know. The ones who are involved. I've always only paid enough attention so I know when to avoid certain places. Same at Reaches. There's always an hour or so after when goin' to the bar or something is a bad idea if you ain't... that kind of girl."
Partly inspired by Vyshani's offer of the flower - which she waves away - Nyssa stops fidgeting with the hat she's holding in her hands and jams it on her head instead, the brim wide enough that direct eye contact becomes less easy. This helps. "You don't have to have that conversation," she more or less mutters at P'draig. "I never got one, I'm okay." Allegedly. "I've noticed that they happen," Nyssa admits, sounding just a little reluctant. "Honestly, when you're used to holds it's kind of... hard not to notice them. They're /everywhere/ at first." Until she, too, learnt that lesson about avoiding said certain places. "But then we Impressed and since then, not so much really."
"Too busy to really notice probably," P'draig says agreeably to Nyssa and folds his legs up beneath him, settles his elbows on his knees comfortably. "They make the riders ... you know," he echoes Vyshani with a slight quirk to his grin. "I'm going to assume you meant 'horny' there," Paddy supplies a possible word there. "And that means that you've noticed the effects on a rider from the outside," the brownrider continues. "So, if you think it through, think about what it felt like the day you impressed, and the early days when you maybe didn't know if it was Eilath or Laonyth who was hungry or you were. What do you think that adds up to when you're actually in a flight? For the rider of any color dragon."
Nodding, with a peek over the top of the hide, Vyshani confirms, "Yeah that." Horny. Eyes disappear again, and her feet suddenly hit the ground with a thud. "She did kind cover that we're gonna want to, too." A pause before, plaintively, "Do we really have to? I mean, isn't there a ways we can.... What's the point of all those exercises in separation if we can't when it's important?"
"So you mean we can't tell? But, I thought it'd all be Eilath!" Which apparently Nyssa could just about get her head around. She clears her throat determinedly. "I think," she starts, sounding prim, "it's probably like betweening. It's worse when we haven't done it. I mean, betweening's still not quite okay, it's just... it's not so bad now we know what it is. Flights, I think... I think they're sort of the same. You can't know what it's like 'til you've done it, that's the scary part." She seems more or less resigned to the fact that she's going to want to, too. "And Ind - she - really didn't make it sound like it was any fu-" No, not that. "Like it's even going to be bearable."
"Technically, you don't have to," P'draig answers, still in that comfortably casual posture, attentive while the girls ask their questions. "But again, it's kind of like that first moment of impression, or the early days of being a weyrling, you will most likely, unless you're really unique, really, really, really want to. Different riders have different reactions to it, but it's very common for a rider to really sink into his or her dragon for the whole thing. It's not that you become your dragon, or that you don't remember it, but it really is both of you very close together," Paddy continues. He nods though as Nyssa theorizes. "Generally? Yeah, once you get through it a few times, it gets, not necessarily easier, but you get more used to it. You can prepare yourself for it and figure out how you want to deal." Breath out. "I'd have to disagree about it not being any fun. It can be strange afterward, when you come back to yourself and realize what you just did, probably with a person you barely know. But it /can/ be fun."
"Technically?" Vyshani repeats suspiciously, finally reappearing fully from behind Paddy's menu musings as she lets the hide drop down to the blanket. "If it's that... powerful, like you say...." Her mouth pulls down into a frown, troubled and unhappy. "Don't seem like we get any choice, and /technical/ s'just a way to say stop bein' silly." She looks over at Nyssa, her clutchsib's musings not doing much in way of reassuring her. Especially when they're confirmed. "No." Suddenly, firmly, as she abruptly scrambles to her feet. "It /won't/ be. It'll be awful and it's not fair! She-- they're just babies still!" Rather like a sulky child than the young woman she actually is, Vy stamps her foot hard on the ground, don't want! and turns to flee the garden.
Jekzith touches minds gently, a bubble brushing against thoughts, light. Is her rider okay? << Paddy's sorry she got upset and hopes that if she still needs an ear, she can still come talk to him or to someone else when she's ready. >>
A gentle, warm rain meets that touch, Laonyth's sigh like a soft wind over dampened grasses. << There is nothing to be sorry for, >> she assures, as calm as her rider isn't. << It is a truth she must accept. She will, in time. When she's ready. >> Gratitude is offered wordlessly, a small break in the clouds allowing for a ray of sunlight to sparkle in the distance.
Jekzith conveys a sense of Paddy's relief along with his own. << When she's ready, >> he agrees though it's doubled up: his rider's opinion too. That sparkle of sunlight is answered with a scattering of water droplets and a flutter of cool breeze and then Jekzith retreats back to his own business, though with the unspoken offer of perhaps flying again over the ocean soon conveyed in a brief visual left behind.
Nyssa sinks slowly back down to her knees, and picks aimlessly at the corner of the blanket, staring down. "D'you think it's better to be drunk, then? For flight - any flight stuff, really. Because that sounds like we really wouldn't be in control, then. 'Cause we are in control, sort of. I mean, Eilath will be, won't she? Or Laonyth, or, or..." Either Vyshani's mood is catching, or Nyssa's just been hiding behind a veil of rationality this entire time; she now just sounds upset. "Greens don't even lay eggs!" she complains at last: small, quiet, brittle.
"Not really," P'draig says with a shake of his head. "But again it's one of those things that's different from person to person. Personally, I like to keep as much control as I can. Getting drunk takes that away so that I'm even /less/ aware and able to keep a cool head." He looks down at Nyssa as she settles and then folds back down to a seat himself. "That depends entirely on Eilath. Rising is an instinctive act for them. Depending on her personality, she could be very controlled about it, or very wild. Most greens it falls somewhere in between. "Yeah you know, I always wondered about that," Paddy says with a laugh. "I mean, it really is for eggs with golds and green firelizards lay eggs, but green dragons don't. It's kind of strange. Then again, people have sex for the pure enjoyment of it, not just to have kids, so why shouldn't some dragons?"
Nyssa stops playing with the blanket and clasps her hands tightly together in her lap, instead. "So that brings us back to not knowing until it happens. Or just guessing, and guessing's just as likely to be wrong or right, just now." She keeps her head ducked down, hat hiding her expression while she works through sounding more than a little wobbly. Being theoretical about it helps. "Okay, perhaps, perhaps some people do, but /all/ the greens do, not just some. And regularly. I suppose it's just another thing about dragons." There are so very many of those things.
"Pretty much, yes. And you can drive yourself nuts with the guessing, so it's a good idea to understand how it works so you can be ready for the idea that it's going to be powerful, that there'll be a point when you won't be in control anymore, but that there are things you can control up to a certain point. And afterward, other than being polite, you have no obligation to the other dragon's rider," Paddy says gently. "All greens rise, yes. So do all golds. Not all males are as into chasing as Jekzith is and some greens and golds rise less often than others. Jekzith chases roughly once a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. So I've gotten very used to what flights do to me and very used to what it's like for him to /lose/ too. It doesn't change the fact that it's intense every time, but I've learned to know what to expect and what works for the two of us. Winning can be overwhelming but it's also pretty incredible. It's just dealing with what comes after that can get awkward and uncomfortable, in my opinion."
"I think I'll worry about it when we get to it," Nyssa decides, which is easier said than done, however firm she tries to sound. "I suppose it helps knowing that time and practice will make it all better, but that just makes the first time sound like it's going to be worse. Or the worst. But if it's going to happen, it's better to - well, there's no point fighting it." She unfolds her hands and rubs her palms on her trousers, stubbornly. "Sorry," she adds, suddenly, as if in realisation. "We've probably spoilt your lunch here, and, oh, you were working." She starts to scramble to her feet again. "I'll leave you in peace."
"No, that's one of the lessons I learned," P'draig admits. "It's better not to fight it and figure out how you can roll with it and deal with it within the moment. Because fighting it just makes both you and your dragon miserable in the end." He shakes his head though about his lunch. "It's all good. I was done eating and just ... thinking things through with the menu. It's really not a problem. And Nyssa, if you have other questions, if you feel comfortable asking me, please do come ask them," he says sincerely. "If you take nothing else away from this, just remember that the intensity can be as high as it was when you impressed and that one of the things to watch for when she gets old enough, is a change in mood, either in her or in you. That might be your only hint that she's about to go up, though sometimes some of the male dragons will pick up on a proddy green or gold before the rider even realizes."
Nyssa tugs her hat off her head now, even though her expression is not all that put-together. "It'll be a little while yet," she says awkwardly, although every slight change in mood that Eilath goes through in the next sevenday is unlikely to be well-received on her part. "It'll be all right," she adds distantly, since saying it so obviously makes it true. "And I will. If I do. Thank you." She sounds a little overly formal at the end. "It's very... helpful of you. Bye!" She doesn't flee much slower than Vyshani did.
"It will," P'draig reassures and offers a smile that aims for reassurance, but might fall short of the mark given the nerves on both of the weyrlings. "Have a good afternoon, Nyssa," the brownrider wishes sincerely and after she's fled, starts collecting his things. "Nervous weyrlings, shells. Some things never change," he remarks humorously and eventually wanders off homeward.