It's early morning. Dawn has brushed aside night with the promise of another nut-freezing day looming along the snowy horizon of the Barrier Hold. The dining hall is full. Bustling with a combination of cheery good mornings and grumbling complaints as early birds and hibernators come together for the morning meal. Among those entering, is R'ik - Under his own steam these days rather than being led in wearing shackles. He doesn't pause to pick out seating, he just makes a beeline straight for the kitchens. The bronzerider is gone a while and when he returns, he's carrying a plate heaped with bacon and sausage. There might even be an egg or two under there. Whether he had been standing watch or has just arrived from the Weyr, as yet undetermined. He hasn't, however, bothered to remove any of the flight gear (save for helmet and goggles obvs.) that insulates him. Now, he'll cast about for somewhere to sit.

Myziri is peeled down to a warm shirt, her jacket, gloves, helmet, and scarf piled on the bench next to her, working her way through a hearty meal of her own. What is she doing at the hold so early? Who knows - at the moment, she's stuffing her face, sitting somewhat by herself and staring off into the distance as if deep in her own thoughts, rather than in the dining hall in the middle of Southern Barrier Hold. Or perhaps she's just thoroughly absorbed in her meal - rather than a whole bunch of protein (she's only got some sausage), she's got a sugar thing going on, with flapjacks piled high and smothered in syrup, a side of fruit a nod to good nutrition, though that's untouched as she loads up with carbs.

Places are filling up fast while R'ik stands there shovelling strips of bacon into his mouth. Back and forth, his brooding gaze sweeps. He's just about to tell some lanky youth nearby to scarper when his gaze lands on Myziri. A smirk twists around his current mouthful and he heads on over, sliding into the seat opposite her just as a portly gent sporting a miner's knot attempts to do so. Chewing, R'ik glances up at him and waves at him witha sausage. Sorry dude. You snooze, you lose. His jaws still working that mouthful over, his attention skips to Myziri. She too gets a wave of sausage. Howdy!

Myziri forks off a bite of layered carby, sugary, buttery, syrupy goodness, her hotcakes stacked half a dozen high, and starts to move it mouthwards right about the time she notices that waving sausage and another moment is taken to assimilate who is greeting her with breakfast linkage. "Morning, R'ik." She manages finally, before going on with that mouthful, chewing and swallowing before reaching for a big glass of milk. "What brings you to the hold this early?"

R'ik has no milk. Or klah. R'ik is sad that he has no beverage. Thus, once he's swallowed, he simply reaches over and helps himself to Myziri's. Sharing is caring among clutchmates right? Swiping a milk moustache from the stubble studding his upper lip, pale eyes glint with devilish amusement. "Sure you wanna know?"

Well. Now her milk has R'ik cooties. Luckily, it doesn't seem to bother Myziri - she doesn't even bother to glare, just forks off another hunk of hotcake goodness. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want. Just making polite conversation. I was holding weak light cold target practice myself. Worked up an appetite." She eyes the protein stuffing. "Looks like you did too, whatever it is you're doing here."

R'ik cooties are special, okay? His wear blue sneakers. Aaaaah, and there's that typical Myziri 'tude. Much as he's not a morning person, it's enough to draw a bastard's grin into place. "Sounds like fun," he comments with a grimace on her reason for being up in the snowy wastes. As for his reason for being there? His flight jacket shifts across his shoulders when he shrugs. "Had a date." Sausage time! Two bites and he's devoured the thing. Chew, chew, chew, swallow. "With a chisel."

R'ik usually doesn't share his cooties with Myziri - she's not used to it! She also was trying hard not to have 'tude, dammit! SO HARD! She grins "You'll notice I'm eating alone. I don't think my riders appreciate my efforts to ensure they can shoot accurately with frozen fingers and when the light distorts things. Rocio taught me that." She licks a dribble of syrup off her lip, reaches for her milk again as she watches him absorb all that meat in steady conveyor belt fashion. "You starting something new, or revising your work? I never did tell you - you did an amazing job. I liked that tree you did for Keelie, too. I've been thinking of getting you to do something for me. Just not sure what." Back to forking up pancake.

Myziri is studied in silence for a couple of seconds and then he just looks downright amused. "With frozen fingers, huh? You expecting to be charged by one of them snow monsters? Yebi. Jedi. Webbsomething." He can't remember what the name is for the frozen myths whispered about. R'ik goes back to digging through bacon and sausage to reveal the poached egg beneath it all. Using his fork he stabs the yellow centre and then dips the end of a sausage into the rich runny yolk. Delicious! A corner of his mouth turns about a crooked edge to produce a tilted smile for the praise given. "Thanks." Beat. "Something new," he says and takes a bite of yolky sausage. Once his mouth is empty again, "What you gonna pay in return?"

"Another commission, or just something you felt like doing?" Myziri queries, smooshing a forkful of pancake through the lake of buttery syrup coating the bottom of the plate. "And you never know. Might come in handy at some point. Best to be prepared, don't you think? Kind of like….I don't really need a knife most of the time, but better to have one and not need it than not to have it and…well, you get it, right?" She smiles again, pops the bite in her mouth, and chews, with a little shudder for that sausage in yolk dipping. Eww. Head tilts as she swallows, and her expression turns thoughtful-calculating "What d'you usually charge? Or is there a barter thing you do?" She lets out a low laugh, a husk of sound. "You aren't going to take my shoes again, are you?"

R'ik shakes his head on the matter of what he's working on being a commission. "Personal," he replies. While Myziri explains her reasoning behind frosty finger target practise, he makes short work of what remains on his plate, using the one slice of toast he has to mop up yolk and meat juice. "Yeah." He gets it. Leaning back in his seating, replete, the bronzerider exhales a contented sigh and stretches his legs out under the table. "Depends on the size of the job and how longs it's gonna take." On the matter of her shoes a smirk peels into being. "Nah. Not my size."

Myziri nudges her milk glass closer to R'ik - he's already cootied it up, might as well do it again, right? She is savoring her own meal, rather than inhaling it, so she's still got a few bites left, which she busies herself with as they converse. "Do I get to see it when you're finished?" she wonders, sliding her fork out of her mouth slowly so as to get all the syrup goo. "But glad to hear my footwear isn't on the bargaining table. Not sure what else I have that you want. I suppose I could just pay you marks. Though I'm not sure really what I want. Maybe a sculpture of some kind." She thinks about it, then shrugs "Dunno. Maybe I should leave it up to you. You're the creative one."

Eyeing the milk for a nanosecond - perhaps it's a trap - R'ik curls his hand around the glass and promptly drains it of every last drop of milky goodness. Exhaling the breath he'd held while chugging it down, he pushes the empty glass away from himself and then narrows an intent look on Myziri. "You want something but you don't know what," he repeats to just to ensure he's got the right of it. "That has me wondering 'bout the why of it? You think I need the marks?" Rather than appear affronted by such a notion, he seems amused. "Hoping to keep me outta trouble?" A devil's grin appears.

Myziri doesn't seem chuffed by the milk draining, which obviously wasn't a trap as she's busy concentrating on her last bite, getting as much syrup saturating the fluffy pancake as possible. "Story of my life, isn't it?" She points out. "I never seem to know exactly what I want…or when I do, what I want I can't have." She pops that bite into her mouth and chews thoughtfully. " Except pie. I can always have pie." she qualifes after swallowing the last of her breakfast. Which is when she realizes R'ik has drained all her milk. Darnit. She looks at the empty glass, then looks around - where's that waiter? Ah, well. She shrugs, sets the glass down, and turns her attention back to the bronzerider. "The why? Well, because you've got talent. Can't I want it just because I recognize and appreciate your artistry?" she points out, adding a little smirk. "As for keeping you out of trouble, I think Hrykeluth has dibs on that. And don't put words in my mouth." Ha! Payback. "You set the price, since you're doing the work. If not marks, what?"

R'ik's not a total bastard and summons one of the dining hall servers. A quick exchange has him asking for another glass of milk and a mug of black klah before he turns his attention back to Myziri. He falls into one of those trademark silences of his. The type that includes a thousand yard stare levelled at the greenrider opposite him. Eventually, with a quick inhale he leans back in his seating again and pulls out words to go with the thoughts rattling around in his brain. There's a tiny smile that accompanies them, "So you're an art collector now, eh?" Amused by something he considers her for another round of quiet and then states, "It's gotta mean something. To you. It don't mean nothing, then the stone ain't gonna show it to me." Pretty whimsical commentary from a man such as he.

When the milk comes, Myziri sends R'ik another smile. "Thanks.." she murmurs, taking a long drink; she licks away her little milk 'stache, and returns his gaze with one of her own, moss green warring with sage before she shrugs. "I guess I'll let you know when I know? Sounds like you're busy anyway, with your personal project. I'm not in any hurry. You can think about how you want me to pay, too." She points out. "I just thought I'd throw it out there." She frowns suddenly "I suppose I really should have asked if you'd be willing to make me something. You don't have to if you don't want. Artist's prerogative, or something like that." She takes another drink, then dips her finger into the syrup left on her plate, making little swirls that start to turn into a happy face after a fashion. "Although if you want it to mean something….it means something to me that you would be making it, R'ik. Does that count?" She doesn't look at him as she says that, but instead adds some hair to her face. And ears. Syrup doodle.

He doesn't give comment on how far along he might be in his personal project and deflects from the subject with a chuckle and shake of head. "You ain't understanding me," R'ik says. "Didn't say I don't wanna. Said you gotta know why-" Myziri's follow up cuts him off. Ebony eyebrows twitch though don't quite fold into a frown. He appears bemused more than anything else. Long he studies the Lynx wingleader. Finally, just one word drops onto the air between them, "Why?"

There's gaze evasion still; she knows his eyes are on her, but she's still looking at her doodle; alas, syrup is not a good medium for art since it continuously attempts to fill in the lines her finger pushes through it, so that the face is blurred quickly. She promptly starts a new drawing, this time of …a runner head? Maybe. It's kind of lopsided, though - no artist she. Eventually, she has to answer that single-word question, though first she releases a little sigh. "If I say it's personal, would you let it go?" she wonders, finally glancing up at him with a shrug. "Maybe I just want to be able to say I have a R'ik original one day in future, when you're famous and shit." She qualifies, hedging on answering more completely. She licks her syrup sticky finger, meeting his gaze as she pulls it out, all nice and clean.

Idly fascinated by the syrup's refusal to remain in place, R'ik watches as Myziri stubbornly continues with her finger painting. "Dragon?" He guesses of the pseudo runner head. When she finally decides to give him an answer, the bronzerider takes it at face value, stares at her a little for her last and then startles the people behind them by busting out with a hearty guffaw of laughter. "You're full of shit," he tells her with a grin, thoroughly amused at the thought of his ever being famous for anything. "You figure out what you want and I'll sketch it up. We'll talk payment when it comes down to what materials will be needed." That said, R'ik gathers his boots under him and stands with a scrape of chair legs over stone. "I gotta get back Weyrside for drills. You see one of them Yebi things out there, shoot it in the nuts." Since surely a snow monster has such things.

"A runner." And not a succesful one, since he totally didn't see it. Ah well, she's not the artist. She sends him a frowny look for his laughter at her response. "Well, I think you'll be famous one day, and not just for being a smartass or a dick." Myziri says stoutly - she's sticking to her reason, even if she is as full of shit as he says she is. She gives him a prim look, thoroughly ruined by the way she sticks her tongue out at him, then laughs as he stands to go. "I see a yebi, whatever the hell that is, I'm shooting it in the head; you shoot things in the nuts, you generally just piss em off even more. I don't need a Yebi coming after me for piercing his danglies." Myziri shakes her head "But I'll think about what I want and get back to you. See you, R'ik." She raises a hand, watches him walk out, but then drops it back to try to work on that runner. She'll finish her milk before taking her own leave, and maybe think about what she wants him to create for her.