Who

Ryker

What

A series of ficlet-type drabblevigs. A day in the life of Ryker, dutiful goatherd candidate.

profanity

When

A few days before the hatching.

Where

Hatching Sands - Herder Stables - Candidate Barracks, Igen Weyr

OOC Date 30 Jun 2017 05:00

 

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Candidate Barracks

Hopes, dreams, and fears are contained in these cramped quarters, full of small cots and smaller trunks; thin ragged curtains barely provide privacy between the bunks, shining patches in the material suggesting one too many mending attempts. The minimal floor space is kept clear of debris and personal possessions, wide enough for a single broad table often used for study in the art of dragon care. Here, too, humidity has gathered into high corners, running down the walls and creating a slightly unpleasant atmosphere of damp and mildew. Near the entrance, one cubby exists, large enough to contain a bit of luxury for an adult overseer of the candidates, and a desk — for once in reasonable shape — is set to the left of the entrance, conveniently placed for the monitoring of comings and goings.


late morning. grey.

The eggs are getting too hard to touch. It seems counter-intuitive, almost, until you put your hands on a shell and sense the tactile difference of then and now: from soft, leathery promise to the brittle strength that speaks to no-more-waiting.

A cluster of candidates strewn across the Sands, one of the last groups – a couple younglings tittering with ill-veiled anxiety over the eggs starting to hatch from their hands upon them – move slowly, collecting the last dragon-dreams of the sleeping lives incubating in these great hardening shells. From above they are colorful, red and blue and yellow and purple, a motley of motivations above and beyond the disparity of attire.

Only Ryker is grey. The ash-pits have left their mark on him, personality, physicality, and every spirituality that blends the two together: a streak of charcoal kisses his left cheek, giving his somber expression little help in sooty camouflage.

He stands before an egg and traces his hands over the shell, lightly, as if afraid for the inhabitant within. In return, the flights of fancy that overtake him are tropical and colorful, exotic, different. He never loses himself, a grey presence in a colorful world, and moves on to the next.

The freckle-faced ginger he passes looks close to pissing himself or throwing up, and Ryker almost wants to clap the kid on the shoulder in solidarity. But that is a notion for red, or yellow, or blue, and Ryker is as grey as the ash-streaked hands he lays upon the next. This one is ominous hooves and the feel of wind racing against your neck.

Ryker is unmoved, his gaze shifting off into the near distance. This mayfly dance of candidates to the burning-bright eggs is almost painful to watch, even as a participant-spectator. A girl in a purple shirt lurches away from a dark egg, her face pale and hands shaking.

That’s nearly enough to jog him to attention, but he leaves it. Two more. Three. They all seem threatening in a flippant way or too sleepy to make sense, and nothing quite fits with him, nothing quite matches the greyscale of his attentions.

He places his hands against that egg, later, at final call. It isn’t something he plans on doing, it just falls that way, and the memory of the girl’s white face briefly comes to recollection as his callused hands fall to rest at the top of the egg.

This one to him comes across feminine, distinct, an abyss that threatens to swallow him whole, to bleed out all that makes him grey and force color into his veins. His adam’s apple bobs without his consent and he breaks away after a while, staring down at the egg with trepidation.

The remembered feel of ghostly fingers trailing over him as a woman’s touch will nag at him far longer than the low-level worry at what may soon happen to him.

- :: - :: - :: - :: -

late afternoon. why is it always goats?

He arrives at the weyr stables as summoned, brow well-stitched with trepidation to whatever mischief awaits him now.

It’s always something.

“Aye, and is this herd yours, then? Have ye become a goatherder in your spare time, then?” The short, grizzled Herder briefly reminds Ryker of Yaliemos, but the comparison is short-lived. This man doesn’t trade on violence.

Ryker’s left to blankly stare inward at a massing crowd of bleating goats. They all have collars, well-worn and notated with their… owner’s… information. He catches one and flips over the tag, rubbing a thumb very thoughtfully over the cross-stich.

Caught flatfooted, nevertheless dutiful: “I suppose you could say that,” shortly replied, the candidate straightening to examine the Herder. Because what else does one say when presented with the fact that they own what amasses to a small fortune in goats?

Not ‘hey this must be an action of my asshole fellow candidates’, that’s for damned sure.

So Ryker’s left with goats, and the Herder critically looks them over a moment. “Aye, then you’ll be good to take this one. Won’t take the tit of the nurse goat, and his mama’s kicked him out.”

With ill-concealed alarm, Ryker follows the Herder over a stall where the shorter man retrieves a tiny bundle in warm blankets. It’s a baby goat. Not just a baby goat, but a BABY baby goat, all fuzz and devil’s eyes.

He doesn’t even seem to know what’s happening when the Herder dumps the whole thing in his arms and he’s left there holding the goat. “What?” incomprehensible, like what the fuck is happening here george does ryker look like a goatherder to you

“He needs to be fed every four hours. Bottlefed. Here. Just take him with you, it’ll be easier that way.” Here’s a bag with a skin or four of goatsmilk and a pair of bottles.

“Uh,” Ryker starts, uncomfortably left HOLDING THE DAMN GOAT again. “Shouldn’t the goat,” he starts, gets cut off by the Herder’s handwave.

“No,” the damnable man says, “Since you’re already familiar with goats, this will work out fine. You can bottle-feed this one and once he’s ready to go on to more solid food you’ll be ready to take your herd back. We’ll feed them for you in the interim.”

Let it be known that Ryker is a man of duty. He takes the baby goat and leaves.

- :: - :: - :: - :: -

late evening. why does this always happen

The dust of the day is finally washed away – ashpit grey and baby goat hairs both left behind in the baths as he goes – before Ryker returns to his bunk.

Lyda receives curt thanks for watching the baby goat, Ryker taking responsibility again with a look on his face that is a little pained. More than a little pained. The thing seems to want to do nothing more right now than to go hopping all over the barracks, and Ryker swaddles it in a blanket in vain effort to keep it from doing so.

A bottle distracts it. Fuck only knows what Zavyr thinks, but the top bunk is empty and Ryker doesn’t spare a second thought for the performer’s mindspace. Talking about all the sundried specialties of life… the guy really is like a girl.

“I don’t even know what to call you,” Ryker admits to the goat in defeat when those baby devil eyes look up at him adoringly. ugh why do they have to be so fucking cute? Things aren’t cute in Ryker’s mind, this doesn’t work. He shoves the notion firmly into the box at the back of his mind that he keeps everything that doesn’t quite fit with the story he tells of himself to himself every day.

He painstakingly kept the damn baby goat from the teenagers. Xanthee and Mackaley don’t seem like they’d go apeshit over it, but Doji… no, he’s not letting Doji help, not after last time.

It’s not like he’s getting protective over the goat. That’d be silly.

But so would be Lukoith eating it.

He calls it, sliding into bed and tying the goat’s lead to the post of the bunk. Not like that’s going to help. The hellkid is probably just going to chew clear through it and go prance all over Jinorav and Kairmine.

Not that that sounds bad, per se…

But this goat is tired, and all it wants to do is curl up next to its mama. Er. Ryker. same difference whatever.

When Ryker doesn’t think anyone is looking, he rubs a finger over the little nascent horns at the top of the thing’s head. The goatling enjoys the petting, butting its little head against the touch before yawning massively and stretching out to sleep.

“what the fuck did I do wrong,” he mutters to himself as he shifts, getting comfortable, getting ready to sleep. There’s no answer, other than the goatling’s snores. Ryker lifts his eyes to the bottom of the bunk in momentary question, and then resigns himself to his fate. “I’m calling you Curry,” the once-guard goatherd tells the sleeping snorer. “Because that’s what you and all of your friends are going to be.”

Yeah, Ryker. Keep on telling yourself that, man.

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