Who

Kyara, Xanthee

What

Kyara catches up with Xanthee to share some very exciting news.

When

It is the seventy-ninth day of Summer and 107 degrees. Mercilessly bright, Rukbat's light heats the desert as a small dark cloud appears on the horizon.

Where

Living Cavern, Igen Weyr

OOC Date 24 Jul 2018 04:00

 

kyara_default.jpg xanthee_default.jpg

"Oh? You coming down with something?"
"Not exactly."


igenlivingcavern.jpg

Living Cavern

Brightly lit by a regimented march of strung glow-globes, Igen's busy living caverns are cut of the same exotic limestone design that frequents the bazaar without. Tapestries line the tops of the walls, one for each of Igen's wings, past and present; beneath them, skybroom tables litter the floors in scattered profusion. Some of the wicker chairs have seen better days, but most of the worst offenders have long-ago been replaced. The seemingly random placement of furniture, however, at closer inspection yields a sort of cross-shape of negative space. The northernmost walls and nooks of the caverns are owned by the kitchen's buffet, food-laden thrice daily in regimented shifts by busy bakers from the curtained southern entrance to the kitchens. To the east is a large arch leading outside; westerly lies the large doors leading down into the bowels of the weyr itself.


Midmorning, and drills and PT are over for many wings…which is definitely a good thing, given the appearance of sandstorm signs on the horizon. Kyara, obviously having just come from the baths in the wake of her morning routine, is currently scouring the sideboard in the living cavern with an apparent case of post-workout munchies going on…though what's currently on her plate doesn't seem very conducive to helping muscles recover. There are pastries and fruit but no form of protein. Yet. She's being extremely picky with the meats at the moment, none seeming to her satisfaction just yet…and she is a bit troubled by this, judging by the faint frown tugging at her lips.

Coming through from the inner caverns, Xanthee is wearing a fresh looking summer dress in a sunny yellow that sets of her light toffee colored skin perfectly. Hair is carefully styled into effortless looking waves that now fall halfway down her back. Over one shoulder, a bulging satchel that she's struggling to keep closed over the hides she has in it. Quickly losing the battle, she turns to the nearest surface to put it down, a table that is coincidentally right across from the sideboard. With a grunt of furstration, the girl drops the bag with a thump. Rubbing at the red mark it left on her shoulder, Xan idly looks around the Living Cavern for anyone familiar. When her eyes fall on Kyara not that far away, she walks lightly over to stand next to her teacher, "So what's looking good?" she asks as her gaze wanders over the fare.

"Rationally speaking? All of it," Kyara replies, straightening and riffling her fingers along the underside of her plate. "Yet my stomach isn't having any of it. And I love wherry." Usually. With a sigh through her nose, the greenrider looks to Xanthee, a coppery brow arched at her own indecisiveness. Her lips curve into a tilted smile as she surveys the young woman, however. "You've always been well-dressed, but I think you're absorbing fashion cues from Diem now, too," she quips, and takes the few steps to the table to sit down.

"Oh? You coming down with something?" Xanthee asks in light of Kyara's stomach complaint as she peruses the fare before settling on a redfruit, grabbing up a knife for good measure. Grinning at the greenrider's compliment, she does a litle twirl on her way to join her, before batting her lashes playfully. "Why thank you. I might be at that…her fashion taste is impeccable." Settling down across from Kyara after she moves her bag from the table to the floor, she starts to cut pieces off the fruit and pop them into her mouth.

Kyara takes a sip from her mug of heavily sweetened iced klah, giving a shake of her head. "Not exactly," is her rather cryptic reply, her expression turning momentarily thoughtful before returning to present. She eyes the satchel Xanthee sets on the floor. "You know," she notes, observing the rather full state of the thing as she pops a bit of apricot into her mouth, "if you were to ask Onari, she'd likely be willing to make a folio satchel for you. She might even have one available." The Reika woman has had a good deal of experience hauling Diem's hidework about for the past few years, after all. "Anyway. I'm glad you happened through, Xanthee; I've been meaning to chat with you a bit."

That cryptic reply has Xanthee tilting her head curiously in the greenrider's direction but she doesn't say anything about it just yet. Cutting off another wedge of fruit to chew thoughtfully on, she nods along with Kyara's next suggestion, clearing her mouth before speaking, "That's a really good idea actually, I'll make a point of asking next time I see her." Her curiosity heightens when the greenrider mentions about wanting a chat, one carefully arched brow hiking up in speculation, "Well that sounds ominous…" she trails off with a nervous giggle.

Kyara gives a soft, wry chuckle, shaking her head a bit. "If it were bad, you'd know," she assures Xanthee, leaning back in her chair and picking off the corner of a pastry to put in her mouth. "It's mostly just to let you know that there's going to have to come a point in the near future when a break in your lessons will need to happen. Probably…in the next four or five months. You see…" Amber eyes take on a bit of an excited glint, the knowledge still fresh enough to make her giddy. "I'm pregnant. Three months along now. Which means I won't be able to move around as I'd like sooner or later, no matter how much I want to keep on as usual." Her shoulders hitch upward in a quick shrug as she smirks. "Worth it, I expect. Even if I won't recognize it fully until the end."

Emerald eyes grow wider as Kyara explains, Xanthee frozen with a piece of fruit on the end of her knife halfway to her mouth. Mouth dropping open as the greenrider finally spills the reason, and, taking care to put the knife down first, she claps her hands excitedly as she bites back a yell into a much more acceptable squeak of joy. "Good Faranth Kyara, that is wonderful news. Look at you, you're already glowing," she exclaims as she holds her hands clasped in front of her, beaming with joy for her teacher and friend. "Don't even worry about me," she says with a wave of her hand dismissively, "It's totally understandable. I'll figure something out, maybe I'll train in something else for a bit, but that's neither here nor there…" Leaning forward on her elbows, she asks excitedly, "So…What's it like??"

"I keep getting told that. The glowing bit. I don't think I've quite figured out what it means," Kyara says over the matter of glowing, promptly taking on a slight blush. She takes a hearty bite from the picked-at pastry to compensate. "Right now? Things don't feel so very different, save for the throwing up at random. Usually in the mornings. I have some tea that's helping with that, though. And the aversions to food I normally like. Odd cravings, certain smells that bother me…" Then she laughs a little, giving another shake of her head. "I guess it might be more different than I think. But mostly…it's an amazing feeling. Even though I don't look it now, there's another life taking hold inside me. Something I wasn't sure was possible. Part me and part R'xim." There's a quiet sort of wonder that brightens her gaze as she speaks. Perhaps if she could see that, she'd understand a bit more of this concept of glowing.

Obviously facinated, Xanthee props her chin up in her hands and absorbs every little thing the greenrider is saying about her experience. When she gets to the end, Xan just chuckles, "Right there! Your whole face just lit up when you said that," she teases good-naturedly. Her whole expression softens into one of sympathetic joy for the expectant woman, "Awwwww Kyara! I'm just so happy for you. Congratulations. I'm sure you and R'xim are gonna make a gorgeous baby!" A long, wistful sigh and it's obvious Xan is briefly lost in her own thoughts before she comes back to herself, picking up her fruit and knife and digging back in.

Kyara just blushes a bit again at the tease and takes a long pull from her mug. "Thank you!" she says to Xanthee's last, noting the wistful sigh and giving a knowing smirk. "I think I can probably tell what that's for."

Now it's Xanthee's turn to blush as she ducks her head, "I don't know what you're talking about," she says rather unconvincingly as the half-eaten redfruit suddenly becomes the most interesting thing in the room.

"You're not going to fool an ex-Harper trained to read a face or two, lass," Kyara counters atop a chuckle. "Especially since I doubt you've found a piece of gold or something in the middle of that redfruit." She finishes off her pastry, washing it down with some more klah. "The two of you would make a gorgeous baby, too. But…after you Impress, perhaps?"

Shard it! Xanthee has never been good at keeping her emotions hidden and when Kyara basically hits the nail on the head with her assessment of a mere wistful sigh. Looking back up into Kyara's amber eyes, she offers a weak smile, "Ok, you got me," she finally concedes, "So I have a little bit of baby fever. Mal and I have been together for two turns now, we should be talking engagement, marriage and babies, but I'm stuck waiting for something I desperately want that isn't assured…" With a heavy sigh, her frustration apparent, she shakes her head.

Kyara gives a sigh of her own, lacing her fingers together and leaning forward, elbows upon the table. "They are both incredibly worth the wait," she notes softly. "And really, neither are assured. I was reasonably certain I might not be able to have a baby, honestly…and I still find myself holding my breath, event though it took this time. I'm thirty-four, Xanthee. You still have plenty of time, and you have a devoted man in your life. You'll get to be parents when the time is right, I have no doubt. But if you want to Impress, don't you dare give up on it. Unless the ache becomes unbearable."

"I get that, I know neither is a given," Xanthee concedes, slumping her shoulders forward before listening to Kyara's experience, "That must have been hard, thinking you couldn't have a baby. The only thing I've always known I've wanted to be besides a rider, is a mom." Putting the fruit aside, she lays one hand over the other on the table and sighs again, "I do want to impress, I wouldn't dare give up on that, besides I'm pretty sure Mal wouldn't let me either." She chuckles softly at that, "He'll keep me on track. And the ache isn't too bad, it's more of an itch at the moment really."

Kyara smile broadly at Xanthee's admission of her two biggest ambitions in life, giving a little sigh. "Good on him," she says of Malosim not allowing Xanthee to give up her dream of a dragon. "Have you told him about your itch? Maybe talking it over, planning a few little things surrounding it will help. Or make it worse; I'm sure it's different for everyone."

"It really does amaze me that I found him, that I'm actually with such a great guy," Xanthee muses, a soft smile playing over her lips, "I'm just really lucky y'know, cause there's some men who wouldn't want their girlfriend to even think of standing, that all a girl is good for is keeping house and popping out babies." Her smile falters a bit with a heavy sigh, but returns faintly at the greenrider's next, "We've talked about having kids, we're definitely on the same page there, but not that I was feeling it so keenly recently. I probably should mention it…but I'm sure he'll say the same things you are, that there's plenty of time for children later and that I shouldn't give up my dreams."

"Even so, talking it over with him might yield something unexpected. Or it might not. Either way, I'm sure he'll appreciate it," Kyara opines, and then smirks a little, her gaze dropping momentarily to her plate. "Though it's…not something R'xim and I talked about, ourselves. I'd been meaning to bring it up. Maybe it's a bit different for riders, just feeling something will happen when it's ready to, if it's meant to. Though I suppose I'd determined that no matter what, I would keep a pregnancy that took." She gives a little shrug, her smile bearing a sheepish edge. "I'd still advise it, for what it's worth. Anyway…" The greenrider takes up the other half of her apricot and bites a healthy chunk out of it. "Now that I've given my extremely advanced notice of things to come, is there anything new with you?"

"I will, just have to make sure I don't scare him into thinking something's already happened," Xanthee replies with a chuckle before picking her fruit up again, but forgoing the knife this time and taking a juicy bite. Chewing thoughtfully, she nods her head, "I get for riders it's different, I hope it doesn't change my and Mal's relationship too much if I Impress. But we're solid, and I trust that," she says, as if trying to be her own reassurance on that score. "So he's happy then, R'xim, about the news? I don't think I've met him…" she muses briefly before registering Kyara's last change of subject, "Nothing much actually. My job's great, still very challenging but I'm loving every second." Snapping her fingers as if she just remembered something, she pipes up, "Selkie, my gold from that egg you gave me after the last Hatching, she's almost a Turn old now, she's probably going to fly soon, any hints on finding her clutch? Banshee and Cersei have yet to show me a clutch, I think they forget where they lay them to be honest," she rolls her eyes at her forgetful greens. "But a gold firelizard clutch could be useful, y'know, for gifts and such…" she trails off as if 'and such' could mean anything.

Kyara nods to the question of R'xim being happy, giving a little grin that emphasizes that it's by a considerable amount. "He's in Arroyo right now, though he was Weyrsecond at one point; you probably remember. He can be…a little hard to get to know, and Shalnth is a pain. But I love them." The rider more than the dragon, obviously. She finishes off her bit of brunch as Xanthee gives her reply, brows lifting a bit over the matter of Xanthee's little gold. "She has a stronger presence in your mind than your greens, and she'll care about her clutch, so I doubt she'll leave you in the dark as to when she'll fly and where she puts her eggs," the greenrider replies. "Her mating urge is also going to affect you a bit more as a consequence, so be prepared for that."

"Oh yeah…His name does sound familiar now that you mention it," Xanthee concedes with another thoughtful bite of her redfruit. "Awwww, I am so happy for you Kyara, truly," she says as the greenrider talks of her partner and his dragon. As to her little queen, her smile grows a little bit, "That's definitely good to know. She's a darling thing, and you're right, much more reliable and in tune with me than my greens, got her trained up nicely if I do say so myself." Kyara's last does set her emerald eyes to dancing, "Oh really? Well, I'm sure I'll figure out some way to manage that…" she says in sly reply with a bit of a wink in the older woman's direction.

Kyara grins again at Xanthee's first, chuckling into her mug as she finishes off her klah alongside the girl's last. "It's simply a nice aphrodisiac compared to being caught up in dragonlust, so do enjoy it," she quips, still blushing a little despite being comfortable with making light of it by now. "I'd better get going. A few meetings in the caravan grounds I need to get to. I'm glad to have caught you, Xanthee." The greenrider gathers her dishes together as she speaks, rising in preparation to go put them in the appropriate place before heading back out into the heat.

"Oh I'm sure it's nothing compared to dragonlust, but I plan to enjoy it just the same," Xanthee replies with soft giggle before finishing off the redfruit. When the greenrider starts to get up to leave, she grins up at her, "Yeah, I'm glad we had this chat too. And hey, once the little bundle is here, I better be the first person you ask to babysit if you need a night off. I'm sure Mal would be thrilled to have some practice as well," she remarks with playful eyes twinkling. With a contented sigh, she'll watch Kyara head out, offering her a wave of good-bye. Shortly after, Xan re-shoulders her pack and decides there's no time like the present to see if Onari can hook her up with something better.

Add a New Comment