Meet the New Guy
Location: Hot Springs
Time: Evening on Day 12, Month 2, Turn 2
Players: J'cor, Roa, Karth, and Tialith
Scene: Roa encounters the new Reaches Weyrleader at the springs.
Hot Springs
This large natural cavern is heated by the same mechanism that warms the hatching sands. Fed by a spring, the waters that fill the center bowl are warm enough to steam and deep enough that a bronze might almost float after following the gentle slope down into the pool. There is room enough there for several dragons, provided they mind their wings.
To the right of the entrance tunnel, a second pool has been hollowed out of the rock. It's much smaller than the first and is intended for use by the human residents of the Weyr. Alcoves over the pool hold extra towels and pouches of 'sand.
Glowbaskets have been raised on poles around the lip of the larger of the two pools. They end three-quarters of the way into the cavern, leaving the rest in perpetual shadow. The rear of the cavern is gloomy, its wall broken by a number of small crevasses.
Shirtless - in fact, stripped to his skivvies - J'cor stands waist-high in the water, scrubbing at a little bronze dragon who's making it hard for him by constantly rolling over, like a rotisserie chicken. At one point, exchanging some inner comment, J'cor lets out a sharp laugh and gives Karth's shoulder blade a friendly smack.
Into the baths pad a very small young woman and, comparatively, and enormous dragon. Though Tialith is small for a queen, standing next to her rider seems to make her look even larger than her natural birthright allows. The rider pauses, watching the rotisserie bronze and the man bathing him as she begins to peel off her outer garments and leave on only the clothes she wears when bathing her lifemate. Tialith, on the other hand, glides forward, stopping at the edge of the pool to simply cran her head and observe.
Karth's playfulness passes quickly once he realizes that he doesn't have the baths to himself anymore; rolling himself upright, he shakes a little water off his back and offers a short, throaty welcoming sound to Tialith. Alerted by this, J'cor glances over his shoulder and offers a smile to the gold and her rider. "Good evening." His eye passes over Roa's knot on the way to her face, but his mild, pleasant expression doesn't change. "Here, let us move over a bit so there's more room for you both." Karth obliges his rider's words instantly, sidestepping so he's no longer hogging the middle of the pool.
Courteous when she is so inclined to find it novel, Tialith responds to the bronze's greeting with a low, rumbling welcome of her own before she wades into the water to stand, waiting. The girl folds up her clothes, back to J'cor while she's tucking them away in a hook. A faint red and white scar going down the girl's left calf can be seen. But then she's turning around and padding towards the water with a sack of sweetsand and a brush borrowed from those leaning against the wall. With J'cor being shirtless, she hasn't the same advantage he did: there is no knot to inform her of who he is. "Thank you," she says as she steps into the water. "I'm Roa from Telgar, by the by. And she is Tialith. Good evening."
J'cor's smile is paused as he, too, remembers his lack of knot. "Oh, do excuse me - I'm Weyrleader J'cor." He doesn't mince the word at all, saying it matter-of-factly and certainly not adding 'new'. "Karth's and my welcome to you, Roa and Tialith. It is our pleasure to meet you." Karth dips his head slowly, a graceful echo of his rider's formality.
Politics classes have served Roa well as, setting the sack on the edge of the pool and scooping out a fistful of sweetsand, the Telgari doesn't miss a beat. 'Well met," she says. "How are you finding High Reaches?" Karth is offered a smile as he 'bows' and even Tialith's sharp snort sounds bemused.
J'cor turns back to his dragon, tapping Karth's leg so the bronze lifts it, spreading his toes and holding the foot level with his rider's waist. Scooping up his own handful of sand, J'cor goes to work cleaning between them. "It will take me some time to truly know it, as the natives do," he says, after considering her question for a while. "But it is a beautiful weyr, and very well-kept. I am glad to be here."
There is slow nodding as sweetsand is slathered onto Tialith's front leg and begins to get scrub-scrubbed with the brush. "It is lovely," Roa says. "I actually find the snow to often be comforting. It's private, I think. Calming." Idle chatter.
J'cor nods as well, easing Karth's foot back into the water and running his hand along between each toe to make sure all the sand gets washed out. "A lovely perspective," he says, with a note of admiration in his voice to let her know his words hold genuine approval. "The desert sand can have much the same effect, when stirred up, though Karth would argue that such privacy soon becomes isolation." The bronze makes a cut-off noise in his chest, and J'cor gives him another friendly pat.
"I've never had the pleasure of visiting Igen," Roa notes lightly as she works her brush. She seems to be getting a particularly effective spot as Tialith extends her neck, partially lids her eyes and croons softly at the ministrations. "Does Karth enjoy his social circles, then?" She smirks fondly up at the small bronze.
J'cor wades over to the next foot, which Karth holds ready for him while looking down at Roa. He huffs a breath in response. "Karth does not see the point of pleasure which can not be shared. He reminds us that he is a dragon, and that his entire being is predicated on companionship." The bronze flexes his toes as his words are repeated, though he's careful not to catch J'cor with any claws.
Roa laughs, tipping her head back to meet Karth's faceted gaze. "He is a philosopher, then?" she queries. "Tialith is rarely so contemplative." The spot finishes getting scrubbed and the girl begins to move her way down along the side of the dragon. "When I first impressed, I found having debates with her to be...disorienting. I would begin to forget who was her and who was me and which side I had taken."
J'cor drums Karth's nearest toe with his finger, causing the bronze to yank his foot away and plunge it back into the water, away from harassment. The weyrleader has to bend down to run his hands through for the sand this time, his voice bouncing off the water towards which his face now points. "It can become confusing for me, sometimes. I do not think Karth ever loses track, but then, the drive to debate is primarily his. He is never unsure of the opinions he holds." Agreeing, perhaps, Karth's eyes whirl a little faster.
Tialith seems to particularly notice that toe sensitivity the bronze displayed and her attention hovers, for a moment, on those limbs submerged beneath the water. However, she controls herself for the moment, lifting a wing higher so that her rider may scrub the area beneath. "And what are Karth's opinions on this new weyr and the position he now finds himself in?" The question is asked more to the golden hide than to the Weyrleader, but that's because she's busy scrubbing, isn't it?
J'cor tucks a glance under his elbow at that question, then straightens from his bend. A hand trails along Karth's sides as he moves towards the bronze's rear quarters, to a hindleg that paddles the air impatiently while it waits for attention, but his voice has no trouble rising over the distance. "An overwhelming positive. It is a rare spot, and a hard one, but one from which we can do a great deal of good." Scrubbing the toes, J'cor does not look up to monitor the response to his words, but Karth's gaze whirls lazily on both gold and her rider.
"I imagine," Roa's own voice is somewhat lost amid the sounds of water, scrubbing, and dragons shifting weight, "that the residents here are pleased to have you as well." Though what, precisely, that means isn't clarified as now she's working down the length of the side of Tialith's whipchord tail.
J'cor pauses to look up at Karth, brushing a forelock out of his eyes - and then just as quickly scratching it down again, when he remembers his receding hairline. "I can only hope they are," he says mildly, "though I also understand the reservations some feel about my having come from Igen. High Reaches's needs are immediate, but its trust will take time." He lets Karth lower the foot, making a karate-chop out of his hand and running it between each of the longer hind toes.
The little goldrider has stepped around to the other side and is working her way back, up the tail on the right side and towards the haunches. "I suppose," she calls thoughtfully, "that meeting those needs might begin to build such a trust. Would it be impertinent if I asked what are the needs that you find the most pressing?"
J'cor smiles to himself, crossing around Karth's backside and stepping high over his tail. The bronze sweeps it away through the water, causing an underwater wave to ripple across the pool. "It would not," J'cor assures her. "As an attendee of the Caucus, you have as much right as any other resident to know what the Weyrleader would do." Reaching Karth's other side, he takes the proffered foot and goes to work. As he scrubs: "A weyr, of course, must be able to meet Thread. That is our purpose. High Reaches has had some trouble in that regard, which I believe springs from a lack of stability in the leadership. Reestablishing such stability, and strengthening our wings, is my first priority."
Roa ahs softly and nods, little head becoming visible and disappearing behind the gold's long neck as she does so. She steps back and and gives a small gesture that has Tialith crouching down and letting the current of the waters rinse her hide clean. "Some out-weyr transfers, then, while Ulyath's clutch hardens, hatches, and matures?" Now her attentions are on her own hands, rinsing them in the same heated water that tends to her dragon.
"All of my options are left open," J'cor admits, letting Karth drop his leg to the ground again. "Whatever out-weyr transfers can be obtained would be a welcome addition. One of our wings, of course, has been permanently grounded; it will need more men to get it functional again." Coming round to the front of his bronze, he's greeted by Karth's nose entreating him for a scratch. Obliging, J'cor adds, "Ulyath's clutch will help eventually, but as I said, High Reaches has immediate needs. Those needs cannot wait for weyrlings to mature."
"I do not think you have an easy task ahead of you," the Telgari says as Tialith rises slowly and carefully lifts and stretches her wings to let water cascade off of the sails. "But it would be a joy to see more dragons in the skies and fewer in the infirmary," she softly admits.
J'cor watches her solemnly, from what he can see with Karth's nose blocking him, and nods. "That," he says, "is my wish also." Karth flicks his wings wide, stretching them and providing an incidentally dramatic backdrop for the Weyrleader's words.
Roa bites on her lower lip. "A philosopher and a dramatist. Your Karth has quite a repertoire of careers." Tialith settles her own wings primly against her back and turns to step out of the pool, letting each paw drip over the water before she places it onto stone. "I suppose it is everyone's wish, really."
J'cor smiles, patting the bronze's nose before he pulls it out of reach. Karth then folds his wings back in again, not showing an ounce of shame for his brazen dramatizing. "His potential is boundless," J'cor murmurs, before stepping out of the water himself. Karth follows, less careful about his dripping than Tialith but certainly mindful not to get any of his wet near her. Louder, a tone pitched for conversation, J'cor says, "And it is around that wish, I believe, that the weyr can unite. In the end, it does not matter where one comes from, but what one does."
"That," Roa says with a small laugh, "seems to have been proven quite well." Tialith seats herself as her rider steps out of the water to return the brush and begin to put her over-clothes back on. The gold's tail flicks at the tip every so often.
Karth waits patiently, his forelegs crossed before him, while J'cor finds the pile of clothes he brought with him and, toweling off thoroughly, puts them back on. Fully dressed, and now with a knot on his shoulder, he turns to face Roa again. "Well, weyrwoman, it truly was a pleasure speaking to you. I wish you the greatest success in your studies here at the Caucus."
Roa settles her own garments on her person, smoothing down her skirt a little bit before looking over at J'cor. And it's slightly jarring to actually see that knot out and about. It had been in absentia when G'thon was still acting Weyrleader and her gaze lingers on it a beat. But then her attention slides more correctly up to the man's face. "Thank you, sir. I wish you success in your endeavors as well." And she and Tialith begin to make their way towards the exit.
J'cor inclines his head graciously, and lets her depart. He and Karth follow a little ways after, the bronze pausing only to give himself a good shake that gets rid of any lingering drops of water (J'cor blocks with his towel) before subjecting himself to the temperatures outside in the bowl.
Time: Evening on Day 12, Month 2, Turn 2
Players: J'cor, Roa, Karth, and Tialith
Scene: Roa encounters the new Reaches Weyrleader at the springs.
Hot Springs
This large natural cavern is heated by the same mechanism that warms the hatching sands. Fed by a spring, the waters that fill the center bowl are warm enough to steam and deep enough that a bronze might almost float after following the gentle slope down into the pool. There is room enough there for several dragons, provided they mind their wings.
To the right of the entrance tunnel, a second pool has been hollowed out of the rock. It's much smaller than the first and is intended for use by the human residents of the Weyr. Alcoves over the pool hold extra towels and pouches of 'sand.
Glowbaskets have been raised on poles around the lip of the larger of the two pools. They end three-quarters of the way into the cavern, leaving the rest in perpetual shadow. The rear of the cavern is gloomy, its wall broken by a number of small crevasses.
Shirtless - in fact, stripped to his skivvies - J'cor stands waist-high in the water, scrubbing at a little bronze dragon who's making it hard for him by constantly rolling over, like a rotisserie chicken. At one point, exchanging some inner comment, J'cor lets out a sharp laugh and gives Karth's shoulder blade a friendly smack.
Into the baths pad a very small young woman and, comparatively, and enormous dragon. Though Tialith is small for a queen, standing next to her rider seems to make her look even larger than her natural birthright allows. The rider pauses, watching the rotisserie bronze and the man bathing him as she begins to peel off her outer garments and leave on only the clothes she wears when bathing her lifemate. Tialith, on the other hand, glides forward, stopping at the edge of the pool to simply cran her head and observe.
Karth's playfulness passes quickly once he realizes that he doesn't have the baths to himself anymore; rolling himself upright, he shakes a little water off his back and offers a short, throaty welcoming sound to Tialith. Alerted by this, J'cor glances over his shoulder and offers a smile to the gold and her rider. "Good evening." His eye passes over Roa's knot on the way to her face, but his mild, pleasant expression doesn't change. "Here, let us move over a bit so there's more room for you both." Karth obliges his rider's words instantly, sidestepping so he's no longer hogging the middle of the pool.
Courteous when she is so inclined to find it novel, Tialith responds to the bronze's greeting with a low, rumbling welcome of her own before she wades into the water to stand, waiting. The girl folds up her clothes, back to J'cor while she's tucking them away in a hook. A faint red and white scar going down the girl's left calf can be seen. But then she's turning around and padding towards the water with a sack of sweetsand and a brush borrowed from those leaning against the wall. With J'cor being shirtless, she hasn't the same advantage he did: there is no knot to inform her of who he is. "Thank you," she says as she steps into the water. "I'm Roa from Telgar, by the by. And she is Tialith. Good evening."
J'cor's smile is paused as he, too, remembers his lack of knot. "Oh, do excuse me - I'm Weyrleader J'cor." He doesn't mince the word at all, saying it matter-of-factly and certainly not adding 'new'. "Karth's and my welcome to you, Roa and Tialith. It is our pleasure to meet you." Karth dips his head slowly, a graceful echo of his rider's formality.
Politics classes have served Roa well as, setting the sack on the edge of the pool and scooping out a fistful of sweetsand, the Telgari doesn't miss a beat. 'Well met," she says. "How are you finding High Reaches?" Karth is offered a smile as he 'bows' and even Tialith's sharp snort sounds bemused.
J'cor turns back to his dragon, tapping Karth's leg so the bronze lifts it, spreading his toes and holding the foot level with his rider's waist. Scooping up his own handful of sand, J'cor goes to work cleaning between them. "It will take me some time to truly know it, as the natives do," he says, after considering her question for a while. "But it is a beautiful weyr, and very well-kept. I am glad to be here."
There is slow nodding as sweetsand is slathered onto Tialith's front leg and begins to get scrub-scrubbed with the brush. "It is lovely," Roa says. "I actually find the snow to often be comforting. It's private, I think. Calming." Idle chatter.
J'cor nods as well, easing Karth's foot back into the water and running his hand along between each toe to make sure all the sand gets washed out. "A lovely perspective," he says, with a note of admiration in his voice to let her know his words hold genuine approval. "The desert sand can have much the same effect, when stirred up, though Karth would argue that such privacy soon becomes isolation." The bronze makes a cut-off noise in his chest, and J'cor gives him another friendly pat.
"I've never had the pleasure of visiting Igen," Roa notes lightly as she works her brush. She seems to be getting a particularly effective spot as Tialith extends her neck, partially lids her eyes and croons softly at the ministrations. "Does Karth enjoy his social circles, then?" She smirks fondly up at the small bronze.
J'cor wades over to the next foot, which Karth holds ready for him while looking down at Roa. He huffs a breath in response. "Karth does not see the point of pleasure which can not be shared. He reminds us that he is a dragon, and that his entire being is predicated on companionship." The bronze flexes his toes as his words are repeated, though he's careful not to catch J'cor with any claws.
Roa laughs, tipping her head back to meet Karth's faceted gaze. "He is a philosopher, then?" she queries. "Tialith is rarely so contemplative." The spot finishes getting scrubbed and the girl begins to move her way down along the side of the dragon. "When I first impressed, I found having debates with her to be...disorienting. I would begin to forget who was her and who was me and which side I had taken."
J'cor drums Karth's nearest toe with his finger, causing the bronze to yank his foot away and plunge it back into the water, away from harassment. The weyrleader has to bend down to run his hands through for the sand this time, his voice bouncing off the water towards which his face now points. "It can become confusing for me, sometimes. I do not think Karth ever loses track, but then, the drive to debate is primarily his. He is never unsure of the opinions he holds." Agreeing, perhaps, Karth's eyes whirl a little faster.
Tialith seems to particularly notice that toe sensitivity the bronze displayed and her attention hovers, for a moment, on those limbs submerged beneath the water. However, she controls herself for the moment, lifting a wing higher so that her rider may scrub the area beneath. "And what are Karth's opinions on this new weyr and the position he now finds himself in?" The question is asked more to the golden hide than to the Weyrleader, but that's because she's busy scrubbing, isn't it?
J'cor tucks a glance under his elbow at that question, then straightens from his bend. A hand trails along Karth's sides as he moves towards the bronze's rear quarters, to a hindleg that paddles the air impatiently while it waits for attention, but his voice has no trouble rising over the distance. "An overwhelming positive. It is a rare spot, and a hard one, but one from which we can do a great deal of good." Scrubbing the toes, J'cor does not look up to monitor the response to his words, but Karth's gaze whirls lazily on both gold and her rider.
"I imagine," Roa's own voice is somewhat lost amid the sounds of water, scrubbing, and dragons shifting weight, "that the residents here are pleased to have you as well." Though what, precisely, that means isn't clarified as now she's working down the length of the side of Tialith's whipchord tail.
J'cor pauses to look up at Karth, brushing a forelock out of his eyes - and then just as quickly scratching it down again, when he remembers his receding hairline. "I can only hope they are," he says mildly, "though I also understand the reservations some feel about my having come from Igen. High Reaches's needs are immediate, but its trust will take time." He lets Karth lower the foot, making a karate-chop out of his hand and running it between each of the longer hind toes.
The little goldrider has stepped around to the other side and is working her way back, up the tail on the right side and towards the haunches. "I suppose," she calls thoughtfully, "that meeting those needs might begin to build such a trust. Would it be impertinent if I asked what are the needs that you find the most pressing?"
J'cor smiles to himself, crossing around Karth's backside and stepping high over his tail. The bronze sweeps it away through the water, causing an underwater wave to ripple across the pool. "It would not," J'cor assures her. "As an attendee of the Caucus, you have as much right as any other resident to know what the Weyrleader would do." Reaching Karth's other side, he takes the proffered foot and goes to work. As he scrubs: "A weyr, of course, must be able to meet Thread. That is our purpose. High Reaches has had some trouble in that regard, which I believe springs from a lack of stability in the leadership. Reestablishing such stability, and strengthening our wings, is my first priority."
Roa ahs softly and nods, little head becoming visible and disappearing behind the gold's long neck as she does so. She steps back and and gives a small gesture that has Tialith crouching down and letting the current of the waters rinse her hide clean. "Some out-weyr transfers, then, while Ulyath's clutch hardens, hatches, and matures?" Now her attentions are on her own hands, rinsing them in the same heated water that tends to her dragon.
"All of my options are left open," J'cor admits, letting Karth drop his leg to the ground again. "Whatever out-weyr transfers can be obtained would be a welcome addition. One of our wings, of course, has been permanently grounded; it will need more men to get it functional again." Coming round to the front of his bronze, he's greeted by Karth's nose entreating him for a scratch. Obliging, J'cor adds, "Ulyath's clutch will help eventually, but as I said, High Reaches has immediate needs. Those needs cannot wait for weyrlings to mature."
"I do not think you have an easy task ahead of you," the Telgari says as Tialith rises slowly and carefully lifts and stretches her wings to let water cascade off of the sails. "But it would be a joy to see more dragons in the skies and fewer in the infirmary," she softly admits.
J'cor watches her solemnly, from what he can see with Karth's nose blocking him, and nods. "That," he says, "is my wish also." Karth flicks his wings wide, stretching them and providing an incidentally dramatic backdrop for the Weyrleader's words.
Roa bites on her lower lip. "A philosopher and a dramatist. Your Karth has quite a repertoire of careers." Tialith settles her own wings primly against her back and turns to step out of the pool, letting each paw drip over the water before she places it onto stone. "I suppose it is everyone's wish, really."
J'cor smiles, patting the bronze's nose before he pulls it out of reach. Karth then folds his wings back in again, not showing an ounce of shame for his brazen dramatizing. "His potential is boundless," J'cor murmurs, before stepping out of the water himself. Karth follows, less careful about his dripping than Tialith but certainly mindful not to get any of his wet near her. Louder, a tone pitched for conversation, J'cor says, "And it is around that wish, I believe, that the weyr can unite. In the end, it does not matter where one comes from, but what one does."
"That," Roa says with a small laugh, "seems to have been proven quite well." Tialith seats herself as her rider steps out of the water to return the brush and begin to put her over-clothes back on. The gold's tail flicks at the tip every so often.
Karth waits patiently, his forelegs crossed before him, while J'cor finds the pile of clothes he brought with him and, toweling off thoroughly, puts them back on. Fully dressed, and now with a knot on his shoulder, he turns to face Roa again. "Well, weyrwoman, it truly was a pleasure speaking to you. I wish you the greatest success in your studies here at the Caucus."
Roa settles her own garments on her person, smoothing down her skirt a little bit before looking over at J'cor. And it's slightly jarring to actually see that knot out and about. It had been in absentia when G'thon was still acting Weyrleader and her gaze lingers on it a beat. But then her attention slides more correctly up to the man's face. "Thank you, sir. I wish you success in your endeavors as well." And she and Tialith begin to make their way towards the exit.
J'cor inclines his head graciously, and lets her depart. He and Karth follow a little ways after, the bronze pausing only to give himself a good shake that gets rid of any lingering drops of water (J'cor blocks with his towel) before subjecting himself to the temperatures outside in the bowl.