Log: Can Persie Dragon-Dodge?
Who: P'draig, Persie
When: day 26, month 3, Turn 6 of the Tenth Interval.
Where: Bowl, Fort Weyr
What: Paddy and Persie have a chat in the Bowl about Candidacy and dodging dragons.
Fort Weyr Bowl, northeastern area
The Bowl of Fort Weyr, a large, featureless plain surrounded by steep mountain cliffs, stretches out before you. It is vaguely oval in shape, long from southwest to northeast; you're standing near the wall at its northern end.
Off to the northwest is the long path leading up to the Junior Queens' Weyrs, while steps to the north lead to the Weyrleader Complex. From here you can see in to the Hatching Grounds to the east, and the steps leading up to the gallery stands in the Grounds to the southeast. Stretching off to the southwest is the center of the bowl, where the Lower Caverns, Weyrling Barracks, lake and Feeding Grounds can be seen.
Aimless, might P'draig's steps seem as he ambles about this end of the Bowl. He doesn't seem to be coming from any particular direction and he curves away from the Bowl walls every time he nears them. Every now and then he casts a glance upward at the sky, speckled with stars and the moons hanging high above, casting just enough light for most to avoid accidental collisions. Of course, it might also help that he's whistling a tune, jaunty, with a dancing rhythm to it.
Persie doesn't seem to have really intended to step outside at all tonight. She's got her pajamas on and an old blanket wrapped around her shoulders, pale hair falling across it and gleaming in the moonlight. It makes it harder for her to evade notice, much like P'draig's whistling. As she nears her booted feet come to a stop and she looks at him wordlessly and waiting.
Oblivious is the brownrider, apparently fairly absorbed in his observations of the sky, so it takes one of those rambling turns he keeps making, before he spots the pale-haired Candidate and even so, in the scant light, he doesn't recognize her. "Hey, who's that there then?" he questions as the gleam of hair and the shadow of her slight figure become visible. Friendly-enough he sounds, as he squints into the darkness.
"Uh..." That's Persie's oh-so-eloquent response. "Um, it's just Persie, sir." She moves forward, a few long easy strides that take her towards the hatching gallery while curving around some invisible bubble of which P'draig is the center. "A candidate, sir." Her lower lip finds her teeth and her eyes watch him. A silent sigh is visible in the puff of breath from her mouth.
"Oh right, Persie, heya," replies P'draig easily. "How's Candidacy treating you eh?" The rider's customary easy manner takes over, the young man hooking two thumbs through his belt loops as he speaks and a brief flash of light on teeth betraying his grin. "Can't sleep?" he tosses off the question almost as an afterthought.
Persie coughs a little, perhaps just expelling the cool night air from her lungs. "Yeah, something like that. I was tossing and turning for a while and then I just gave up, I guess." Her gait becomes slower, circling in a little, but just a little. "You... about the same?" she wonders.
"Mmm - the eggs are getting ... very hard," remarks P'draig and shifts his hands from belt loops to pockets, shoulders hunching forward a little. "It's ... Faldaverth's clutch ... maybe you might think it odd, but I'm sort of ... nervous for her and for Piper."
Persie cants her head a bit, a breath of a laugh sounding only a touch anxious. "What's to be nervous about? They'll hatch and that'll be that, right? I'd imagine the hard part is done now." A few more steps draw her nearer, eyes squinting in the moonlight for a better look at the rider. "You don't think.. I mean, it's alright for me to be out this late, right? Being a candidate and all?"
"Sure, sure, I guess so ... I guess things don't go wrong often," notes P'draig with a sheepish chuckle. He squints back up at the sky. "Is that the plowman there?" he questions, then looks back down. "Dunno, actually, did Thandril give you a curfew? I'm not liable to rat you out anyway. I pulled my share of rule-breaking as a Candidate."
"What's the worst that happens? I mean, sure, an egg might not hatch, but that happens now and again, right? I didn't think it was terribly uncommon. 'Course, I haven't been to all that many hatchings." At that thought, Persie's brows tuck together and her lips press thin. "I suppose it could be rough for the candidates, but it doesn't seem like you're worried about that so much," she says slowly, her expression slipping from hard thought to curious speculation. "I don't remember if there's a curfew. I have a hard time with stuff like that. I keep telling Sokar that no dragon could want a girl who'll hardly remember more than they do." She kicks a pebble with her booted foot, untied laces flopping around.
"No ... there's injuries sometimes though. Candidates gored or headbutted or trampled. That's why you get taught dodging and how to be careful." P'draig frowns after a moment. "They have taught you that stuff yeah? I don't mean to scare you if they haven't." He pauses and then rolls his shoulders a little. "Yeah ... I'm not really sure what I'm nervous about, but it's like this ... weird charge in my bones that makes me restless. Make sense?" Eyes made dark by the lack of light follow the pebble until it vanishes beyond sight.
Persie's eyes narrow as she looks at him, intense thought turning behind them. "Now you're not the clutch father, right? You're Piper's guy? P'gaddy or something like that? And the other guy is T'bag?" She flicks a glance over him, toe to head and back again. "I guess there's not flirting with the weyrwoman's guy." It's not quite lamenting, nor teasing, just... saying it, and mostly to herself, even if he's well within ear-shot. "I can dodge alright, I think. I don't know. I've never had a dragon chasing me."
"Nooo noo, Jekzith didn't catch Fa, though, he wanted to of course and I wanted him to. Yeah, Paddy, I think we spoke once before and I've seen you about here and there," is P'draig's non-chalant response. "T'bay, his Sarevith caught Faldaverth, but Piper and I are mates." He blinks a couple of times at the head to toe eyeing. "Uhh, well flirting sure, s'long as it's all in fun y'know, but uh, no funny business, no." He wags a finger at the young lady in mock-reprimand. "Hm. No practice dodging yet? Tsk. What's Thandril up to? We played a game to help us get used to dodging when I was a Candidate. Mostly it amounts to "see large fanged creature coming your way? Run to the side and away."
When P'draig mentions flirting, Persie jumps as if she's surprised, as if she didn't realized she'd said that part aloud. "Huh? No, sir. That doesn't seem right at all," she says, turning her face away, cheek towards him so she can give him a sidelong glance, wary as though the whole thing was his idea. Her eyes follow that wagging finger. "A game? I don't see how a game could feel much like the real thing anyway."
P'draig laughs outright. "Sorry - just teasing," P'draig reassures. "I think Piper would probably throw apples at my head if I got all flirtatious." He waves that away and then considers. "Well no, it's not really like the real thing, but it does help you to be faster about noticing a rapidly moving dragonet moving towards you. Otherwise ... nope, it's just not like the real thing. Not a jot. At least, not from my perspective." Restless feet plant and unplant themselves from the ground, adopting slightly different positions on the Bowl floor. "Wanna keep walking? I've been hoping it'll help me sleep."
Persie was still watching him warily, uneasy and uncertain about this fellow who seems friendly and yet distant, but as his suggestion she smiles, the first broad easy smile, and nods her pale head. "Yeah. Walking sounds good," she replies, a wry quirk coming to her grin, a touch playful. "Anywhere in particular?"
P'draig shakes his head back and forth. "Wherever my feet feel like going?" he proposes and waves vaguely towards the lake. There's still that hint of edginess about him, but it's fading, a more easy-going manner taking over, likely his more natural state. "Remind me then - where're you from?" he asks with a slight frown. "There's so many of you now, Candidates I mean, it's hard to keep track, though there's always some that through design or uh, accident, make themselves stick out. What do you think of some of your fellows?"
Persie falls in line beside him, unlaced boots shuffling, looking particularly clunky around her thin legs. The blanket falls around her like some wild cape. "I'm from Fort originally. The Hold, I mean. Not here. Otherwise, well, otherwise I'd probably know folks a little bit better. I'd remember you more at least," she notes factually. "I've been studying at the Harper Hall. Voice for the most part. I don't know how good I am, though. It probably doesn't matter much anyway, since I'm so bad with the words. I think my family is hoping that I might be chosed as a proper apprentice of sorts, if I can get good enough." - "My fellows? Oh! The other candidates. Well, some of 'em seem nice. I like 'em. Others are a bit... odd, I guess. Sokar and Cyrus, though, they've been nice to me."
"Oh! The Hall huh? So you know my brother maybe? Giremi? He's an apprentice down there ..." another vague wave that's intended to be towards the Hall no doubt, only it isn't. "Singing. Yeah, I can manage to get through a song, but I'm not what you'd call a uh ... vocalist," confesses the young brownrider with another movement of his face that is likely a broad grin. "Sokar ... that the same as Soka? I met a guy named Soka ... Cyrus ... Cyrus, that seems vaguely familiar. It's Theron and Trusaren that somehow seem to be always underfoot though, and this wee lass from Nerat, Quederina. Quite the name that one. Don't forget it too easy. Big name, little girl." One finger scratches at the end of his nose and he nods towards the fair-haired Candidate. "Sing something? Doesn't have to have words."
"Giremi?" Persie repeats, trying to place it. "I... I mean, the name sounds familiar and all I just... I might know him?" She gives a shrug of her thickly blanketd shoulder and trugdes along. "Sokar is... well, Sokaris, Soka. Only I messed up his name and called him Sokar for so long that now I'm just used to it. Uh..." That's for the singing. She lets the stunned syllable hang for a moment and then launches into a common learning tune. Her voice is plenty pleasant to the average ear, enough to show that she has some natural talent for it, though a expert would note that, she doesn't sound as if she's had much in the way of training.
The listening comes first, the rider's head cocked slightly to the side. "Hey, nice," he compliments before going on. "Mm. Giremi, right. He looks nothing like me unfortunately, so can't help you there. Light hair, light eyes, freckles," he describes. "Shorter ... kind of skinny. Likes to stick his nose in hidework all day." That summary description is followed by a shake of Paddy's head. "I can't do it what he does. I need to keep moving. Get fresh air y'know." He falls silent for a few moments, still ambling along in casually friendly fashion, then his steps still and he stands, brows knitting together before a rush of wings sounds from overhead. "Hey, sorry, I need to uh ... go tend to something, all right? Hope you get some rest, okay? Don't stay out too late. They get worried." 'They' is accompanied by a jerk of his thumb back cavernwards, just as the immense shape of a brown dragon blots out the starlight and lands, a shadow not too far ahead in the Bowl. Briefly, a gleam of azure eyes is turned towards the pair of humans and then P'draig is trotting away, to vault atop Jekzith's neck. A telltale jingle of straps says that it's not just up the Bowl they're going either. A moment later and dust goes flying, wings carrying the dragon aloft straight up into the sky, until his dark shape suddenly vanishes, leaving stars in its wake.
When: day 26, month 3, Turn 6 of the Tenth Interval.
Where: Bowl, Fort Weyr
What: Paddy and Persie have a chat in the Bowl about Candidacy and dodging dragons.
Fort Weyr Bowl, northeastern area
The Bowl of Fort Weyr, a large, featureless plain surrounded by steep mountain cliffs, stretches out before you. It is vaguely oval in shape, long from southwest to northeast; you're standing near the wall at its northern end.
Off to the northwest is the long path leading up to the Junior Queens' Weyrs, while steps to the north lead to the Weyrleader Complex. From here you can see in to the Hatching Grounds to the east, and the steps leading up to the gallery stands in the Grounds to the southeast. Stretching off to the southwest is the center of the bowl, where the Lower Caverns, Weyrling Barracks, lake and Feeding Grounds can be seen.
Aimless, might P'draig's steps seem as he ambles about this end of the Bowl. He doesn't seem to be coming from any particular direction and he curves away from the Bowl walls every time he nears them. Every now and then he casts a glance upward at the sky, speckled with stars and the moons hanging high above, casting just enough light for most to avoid accidental collisions. Of course, it might also help that he's whistling a tune, jaunty, with a dancing rhythm to it.
Persie doesn't seem to have really intended to step outside at all tonight. She's got her pajamas on and an old blanket wrapped around her shoulders, pale hair falling across it and gleaming in the moonlight. It makes it harder for her to evade notice, much like P'draig's whistling. As she nears her booted feet come to a stop and she looks at him wordlessly and waiting.
Oblivious is the brownrider, apparently fairly absorbed in his observations of the sky, so it takes one of those rambling turns he keeps making, before he spots the pale-haired Candidate and even so, in the scant light, he doesn't recognize her. "Hey, who's that there then?" he questions as the gleam of hair and the shadow of her slight figure become visible. Friendly-enough he sounds, as he squints into the darkness.
"Uh..." That's Persie's oh-so-eloquent response. "Um, it's just Persie, sir." She moves forward, a few long easy strides that take her towards the hatching gallery while curving around some invisible bubble of which P'draig is the center. "A candidate, sir." Her lower lip finds her teeth and her eyes watch him. A silent sigh is visible in the puff of breath from her mouth.
"Oh right, Persie, heya," replies P'draig easily. "How's Candidacy treating you eh?" The rider's customary easy manner takes over, the young man hooking two thumbs through his belt loops as he speaks and a brief flash of light on teeth betraying his grin. "Can't sleep?" he tosses off the question almost as an afterthought.
Persie coughs a little, perhaps just expelling the cool night air from her lungs. "Yeah, something like that. I was tossing and turning for a while and then I just gave up, I guess." Her gait becomes slower, circling in a little, but just a little. "You... about the same?" she wonders.
"Mmm - the eggs are getting ... very hard," remarks P'draig and shifts his hands from belt loops to pockets, shoulders hunching forward a little. "It's ... Faldaverth's clutch ... maybe you might think it odd, but I'm sort of ... nervous for her and for Piper."
Persie cants her head a bit, a breath of a laugh sounding only a touch anxious. "What's to be nervous about? They'll hatch and that'll be that, right? I'd imagine the hard part is done now." A few more steps draw her nearer, eyes squinting in the moonlight for a better look at the rider. "You don't think.. I mean, it's alright for me to be out this late, right? Being a candidate and all?"
"Sure, sure, I guess so ... I guess things don't go wrong often," notes P'draig with a sheepish chuckle. He squints back up at the sky. "Is that the plowman there?" he questions, then looks back down. "Dunno, actually, did Thandril give you a curfew? I'm not liable to rat you out anyway. I pulled my share of rule-breaking as a Candidate."
"What's the worst that happens? I mean, sure, an egg might not hatch, but that happens now and again, right? I didn't think it was terribly uncommon. 'Course, I haven't been to all that many hatchings." At that thought, Persie's brows tuck together and her lips press thin. "I suppose it could be rough for the candidates, but it doesn't seem like you're worried about that so much," she says slowly, her expression slipping from hard thought to curious speculation. "I don't remember if there's a curfew. I have a hard time with stuff like that. I keep telling Sokar that no dragon could want a girl who'll hardly remember more than they do." She kicks a pebble with her booted foot, untied laces flopping around.
"No ... there's injuries sometimes though. Candidates gored or headbutted or trampled. That's why you get taught dodging and how to be careful." P'draig frowns after a moment. "They have taught you that stuff yeah? I don't mean to scare you if they haven't." He pauses and then rolls his shoulders a little. "Yeah ... I'm not really sure what I'm nervous about, but it's like this ... weird charge in my bones that makes me restless. Make sense?" Eyes made dark by the lack of light follow the pebble until it vanishes beyond sight.
Persie's eyes narrow as she looks at him, intense thought turning behind them. "Now you're not the clutch father, right? You're Piper's guy? P'gaddy or something like that? And the other guy is T'bag?" She flicks a glance over him, toe to head and back again. "I guess there's not flirting with the weyrwoman's guy." It's not quite lamenting, nor teasing, just... saying it, and mostly to herself, even if he's well within ear-shot. "I can dodge alright, I think. I don't know. I've never had a dragon chasing me."
"Nooo noo, Jekzith didn't catch Fa, though, he wanted to of course and I wanted him to. Yeah, Paddy, I think we spoke once before and I've seen you about here and there," is P'draig's non-chalant response. "T'bay, his Sarevith caught Faldaverth, but Piper and I are mates." He blinks a couple of times at the head to toe eyeing. "Uhh, well flirting sure, s'long as it's all in fun y'know, but uh, no funny business, no." He wags a finger at the young lady in mock-reprimand. "Hm. No practice dodging yet? Tsk. What's Thandril up to? We played a game to help us get used to dodging when I was a Candidate. Mostly it amounts to "see large fanged creature coming your way? Run to the side and away."
When P'draig mentions flirting, Persie jumps as if she's surprised, as if she didn't realized she'd said that part aloud. "Huh? No, sir. That doesn't seem right at all," she says, turning her face away, cheek towards him so she can give him a sidelong glance, wary as though the whole thing was his idea. Her eyes follow that wagging finger. "A game? I don't see how a game could feel much like the real thing anyway."
P'draig laughs outright. "Sorry - just teasing," P'draig reassures. "I think Piper would probably throw apples at my head if I got all flirtatious." He waves that away and then considers. "Well no, it's not really like the real thing, but it does help you to be faster about noticing a rapidly moving dragonet moving towards you. Otherwise ... nope, it's just not like the real thing. Not a jot. At least, not from my perspective." Restless feet plant and unplant themselves from the ground, adopting slightly different positions on the Bowl floor. "Wanna keep walking? I've been hoping it'll help me sleep."
Persie was still watching him warily, uneasy and uncertain about this fellow who seems friendly and yet distant, but as his suggestion she smiles, the first broad easy smile, and nods her pale head. "Yeah. Walking sounds good," she replies, a wry quirk coming to her grin, a touch playful. "Anywhere in particular?"
P'draig shakes his head back and forth. "Wherever my feet feel like going?" he proposes and waves vaguely towards the lake. There's still that hint of edginess about him, but it's fading, a more easy-going manner taking over, likely his more natural state. "Remind me then - where're you from?" he asks with a slight frown. "There's so many of you now, Candidates I mean, it's hard to keep track, though there's always some that through design or uh, accident, make themselves stick out. What do you think of some of your fellows?"
Persie falls in line beside him, unlaced boots shuffling, looking particularly clunky around her thin legs. The blanket falls around her like some wild cape. "I'm from Fort originally. The Hold, I mean. Not here. Otherwise, well, otherwise I'd probably know folks a little bit better. I'd remember you more at least," she notes factually. "I've been studying at the Harper Hall. Voice for the most part. I don't know how good I am, though. It probably doesn't matter much anyway, since I'm so bad with the words. I think my family is hoping that I might be chosed as a proper apprentice of sorts, if I can get good enough." - "My fellows? Oh! The other candidates. Well, some of 'em seem nice. I like 'em. Others are a bit... odd, I guess. Sokar and Cyrus, though, they've been nice to me."
"Oh! The Hall huh? So you know my brother maybe? Giremi? He's an apprentice down there ..." another vague wave that's intended to be towards the Hall no doubt, only it isn't. "Singing. Yeah, I can manage to get through a song, but I'm not what you'd call a uh ... vocalist," confesses the young brownrider with another movement of his face that is likely a broad grin. "Sokar ... that the same as Soka? I met a guy named Soka ... Cyrus ... Cyrus, that seems vaguely familiar. It's Theron and Trusaren that somehow seem to be always underfoot though, and this wee lass from Nerat, Quederina. Quite the name that one. Don't forget it too easy. Big name, little girl." One finger scratches at the end of his nose and he nods towards the fair-haired Candidate. "Sing something? Doesn't have to have words."
"Giremi?" Persie repeats, trying to place it. "I... I mean, the name sounds familiar and all I just... I might know him?" She gives a shrug of her thickly blanketd shoulder and trugdes along. "Sokar is... well, Sokaris, Soka. Only I messed up his name and called him Sokar for so long that now I'm just used to it. Uh..." That's for the singing. She lets the stunned syllable hang for a moment and then launches into a common learning tune. Her voice is plenty pleasant to the average ear, enough to show that she has some natural talent for it, though a expert would note that, she doesn't sound as if she's had much in the way of training.
The listening comes first, the rider's head cocked slightly to the side. "Hey, nice," he compliments before going on. "Mm. Giremi, right. He looks nothing like me unfortunately, so can't help you there. Light hair, light eyes, freckles," he describes. "Shorter ... kind of skinny. Likes to stick his nose in hidework all day." That summary description is followed by a shake of Paddy's head. "I can't do it what he does. I need to keep moving. Get fresh air y'know." He falls silent for a few moments, still ambling along in casually friendly fashion, then his steps still and he stands, brows knitting together before a rush of wings sounds from overhead. "Hey, sorry, I need to uh ... go tend to something, all right? Hope you get some rest, okay? Don't stay out too late. They get worried." 'They' is accompanied by a jerk of his thumb back cavernwards, just as the immense shape of a brown dragon blots out the starlight and lands, a shadow not too far ahead in the Bowl. Briefly, a gleam of azure eyes is turned towards the pair of humans and then P'draig is trotting away, to vault atop Jekzith's neck. A telltale jingle of straps says that it's not just up the Bowl they're going either. A moment later and dust goes flying, wings carrying the dragon aloft straight up into the sky, until his dark shape suddenly vanishes, leaving stars in its wake.