Who

Jaune, Zetali

What

Woken by Jaune's night terrors and subsequent panicking firelizards, Zetali listens as Jaune describes the nature of his fears.

When

It is evening of the tenth day of the first month of the fifteenth turn of the 12th pass.

Where

Candidate Barracks, Igen Weyr

OOC Date 18 Sep 2018 07:00

 

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"Vintner isn't too bad. Everywhere is lit up for the most part."


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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. It is a cramped space despite it all, when dragoneggs lie upon the Sands: there's no helping the worn surroundings, when use is at an all-time high. 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.


Candidacy Barracks. Everyone is clean. And trying to sleep. But its getting close to egg time. So some people are still awake. Jaune is not. Not awake. snoring softly in a manner that bothers only his closest cots until FWOOM. He is up, sitting up and gasping deep. Firelizards perched upon end-table rouse and squawk insanely loud. SOMETHING IS UP.

Most of the Candidates have made a point of cleaning themselves up and falling into their cots. Life as a Candidate is rough, physically and mentally, and sleep is a much-needed commodity. Zetali was asleep. She was sleeping ery peacefully, in fact, up until the point where somebody's firelizards start squawking. Zetali is up and thrashing away from her blanket, as Sforzando hisses in alarm and coils protectively around her neck, eyes winking into light, orange-red. Five seconds later, Zetali manages to muddle through where the squawk came from. And there is a pillow hauled off and lobbed through the air, straight at the direction that should be Jaune's head. "Some of us," she hisses, "are trying to sleep."

If it hits him, or doesn't. Jaune doesn't notice. Maybe Zetali will relate the strained sucking intake of a sob from that direction as to be a VERY direct hit. Or not. Either way there is more thrashing as Jaune gets upright standing and gets profiled by the lifted glow left somewhat unshuttered to allow easy access towards restrooms. It takes him a bit, standing there to realize just where he is. Then flitters start to settle once more.

She hadn't hit him that hard. Is it possible to hit someone with a pillow hard enough to make them cry? With a growl, Zetali lurches toward sitting up, grinding the heels of her hands into her eyes and willing away the last of the cobwebs. She glances up at the firelizards settling, frowning a little as they finally seem to settle; a hand comes up automatically to soothe Sforzando, bristling as he does on her shoulder. "Jaune?" It's spoken quietly, so as not to wake anyone else up. If they didn't all wake up. "What's the matter?"

"Hmm?" Jaune hears his name but doesn't quite glance over that way. Not yet. There is light here. He can see. Nothing is pressing down, threatening to suffocoate him, drown him. Just. Deep breaths. His hands move to lace fingers behind his head and he turns to spot Zetali now, illuminated by faint glow and highlighted by the halo the reflected light makes of her hair. And Blue's eyes. "Go to sleep." Bristly himself.

"I was asleep. Now I'm not. And after that," Zetali hisses, padding over so she can hiss at him more effectively without waking up the entire room. "I don't think I'm going back to sleep, no. But I guess it's better than trying to tell me nothing's wrong. What is it?" Her voice softens, only marginally, because she is still awake when she would rather not be awake. "Nightmares?" There's some sympathy, though. Everyone suffers nightmares in these barracks. And if they haven't, yet, they will.

She is close, too close. Maybe its the opportunity to be courageous about anything that makes him stand his ground. Hazy blue matches sea-green for the moment. Before such courage fails and his eyes flick away. "Nightmares are things that haven't happened to you." Which isn't entirely true. But it'll work for here. He would hold his ground, stand and die on this hill of not talking, but he knows Zetali would set in like a splinter, and fester until she had her way. "I was stuck. Trapped. The air becoming staler and staler."

The way she stands there radiating irritation, with a firelizard on her shoulder lashing its tiny tail, Zetali seems more annoyed than sympathetic. As she had already pointed out, though, she's awake now. There's no going past the point of no return. Not for a few restless hours, anyway. Sighing and folding her arms with more force than is strictly necessary, she shoves the rest of her bad mood away, stroking Sforzando's delicate little neck with a forefinger. His guess about her persistence is probably correct. "I've had dreams like those, sometimes. Not for a long time, though." With a harsh exhale, she backs away, sitting down on the edge of her cot and tucking her feet up beneath herself. Sforzando stalks down her arm, jabbing with his pointy little talons by the way she winces, and curls up in her lap to be stroked absent-mindedly. Silence for a few beats. "Want to talk about it? It helps, sometimes."

"Dreams are things that haven't happened." Jaune reiterates again, softer still. There are plenty of people sleeping. Its easier without so many to wake up. "I get this one every now and again." Long calming breaths are still being enacted, like he knows it will help. Or hopes it will help, so keeps doing it. "It hasn't helped." A quiet murmur taken almost entirely by his turn back towards his own cot, to press hands overtop of intrigued and weary firelizards. "3 days, Zetali. I'm told. My uncle passed the first day. I was barely eleven turns."

"Three days?" Zetali tilts her head, although she doesn't stop her mindless stroking of the firelizard. The whirling of Sforzando's eyes gradually slows, and the orange and red colours, the colours of aggression and alarm, leach out of them. She's distantly aware that she's staring at Jaune, but she doesn't care. It's mostly dark, although not completely dark, so she's just trying to focus on his silhouette. Understanding comes a moment later. "A cave-in," she ventures slowly, although it's more a statement than a question. "You were caught in a cave-in…?"

"Kinda puts a damper on the whole, try out minercraft instead. If you want to be a little different, Jaune." He'll turn and settle his backside at the end of his cot. She is still there, outlined by light but just the figure. Clambering firelizards press talons through the thick wool trousers that has kept him warm. "My uncle was trapped under some rock. He just kept talking and talking to me. He'd pass out here and there. I'd let him sleep until he woke back up to talk more. Then he just stopped waking back up." A weary sigh escapes him, "So no. Not a dream or a nightmare."

"Oh." Zetali doesn't move, but her voice is a little softer. Silence passes, broken only by the rustle of the firelizard settling more comfortably in her lap. She runs a finger rhythmically down the spine, but her attention isn't on the creature at all. Her gaze turns somewhere toward the aisle. "I'm sorry," she finally says, with feeling. That's a terrible experience to carry around. Then, quietly, "Why'd you go into Minercraft? Wouldn't you want to get as far from the underground as you could after something like that?"

"Oh no no no. I did not. I was visiting. I had made mentions of not wanting to be a smith. So they sent me to visit my uncle." Jaune finally gets tired of being pricked and prodded and sends his own bed companions off to lay down somewhere else. "I shut up and did Smithcraft for 4 years. Until I couldn't take it anymore and left to Benden." More rustling as Jaune eases back onto his bed, legs hanging off still though. "Vintner isn't too bad. Everywhere is lit up for the most part."

"I'd guess you spend most of your time in brighter places as a vintner, but I don't really know much about Vintnercraft." Zetali reaches up and finger-combs some of her hair away from her face, mainly so it's out of her eyes. She shifts a little, prompting a sleepy rustling of wing vanes from her firelizard. She shakes her head and stifles a yawn. "I stayed in Keroon for most of my life. This is the first I've really been away, and the longest, too." There's a short pause. "I studied with the resident Journeyman Harper at Keroon, mostly, but I guess he had nothing more to teach me. He sent me here." There's a short pause. "Or he just wanted me out of his hair," she adds, serenely. "It could have gone either way."

"Its…interesting. I think they sent me out here to get rid of me too. At least you could find something to do." Jaune flops back and starts to drag drag himself back into place on his bed, over blank for the moment. "I have been just about everywhere. A few years at Benden, then shunted from here to there on the onus of learning to brew new things. But just to keep me moving." He'll turn to watch that hair get messed with. "You know they don't impress cowards."

"I already heard that story." Zetali waves one hand in a dismissive gesture. "You and the Craftsecond exchanged heated words that may or may not have prevaricated on your being gloriously, roaringly drunk, and now here you are." She shakes her head, although he might not be able to see the gesture in the gloom of the barracks. "Actually, a desert isn't much more useful for me, either. It's dry enough to destroy instruments, either before or after they've been completed… besides, all the wood I'd need to use comes from Southern Weyr, because the only thing I'd be able to make here is… I don't know, a hand drum or a bodhran or something, maybe. You know, one of those scraggly little trees that grows on a rock outcropping or something. Not that there's much of any salvageable wood in those." She pulls a face. "Coward my arse. You stood and took the punishment with the rest of us when Wingleader Eala walked in on the kitchens. And believe me, I know that took courage; that woman is terrifying." Normally she might list the condition of 'when she's angry,' but let's be fair, here. Eala is scary to someone like a Candidate pretty much at all times.

"I don't think I was drunk. Just bitter." Rory's shoulders find pillow now. Soft whispers in the candidacy barracks won't wake people up, will it? Probably not. He'll even squirm to face towards her as if it would matter. "Thats not difficult. She is just a person. She can't kill you." That is apparently the minimum requirement of something to be afraid of. If it can and might end your life. "You are smart, brave and passionate. But I feel like you hear it enough. Or at least it rattles in my ears enough because I say it to you." Long quiet breathing. "I am sorry I woke you."

Shrugging Sforzando off her lap, Zetali settles so she's flopped on her stomach, dragging the blanket back over herself and letting an arm drape off the edge of her cot. The gleam of reflected light on her eyes suggests she's still listening, though. Wing vanes rustle as Sforzando curls back up on her shoulder with a sleepy little hiccup. "No, but she can make my life a living torment," Zetali points out. There's also the unspoken superstitious fear of being stripped of the white knot. "That's worth a little healthy caution, at least." She breathes out between her teeth when he pitches his usual praise, and the sound is almost a little unhappy. "You keep saying that. It rattles in my ears because you say it all the time," she agrees. There's silence, until it almost seems like the harper could have drifted off. After amoment, then, he might feel a hand touch his shoulder – so fleeting it might be imagined; maybe the brush of a firelizard's wing vane, but it's warmer than that. Zetali is back across the aisle in the span of a heartbeat, and turning away from him, blanket pulled up over her shoulder. "Go to sleep. We'll be up with the sun again." There's another long stretch of silence. "I don't mind." About being woken up.

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