Who

Iluska, Veresch

What

Impromptu morning meetings in the kitchen courtyard. Shoulders are involved. Mostly innocent.

When

It is midmorning of the tenth day of the fifth month of the seventh turn of the 12th pass.

Where

Kitchen Courtyard, Igen Weyr

OOC Date 12 Mar 2016 06:00

 

iluska18.png veresch_default.jpg

"Who's Shoulders over there?"


igenkitchencourtyard.jpg

Kitchen Courtyard

The domestic space of the kitchen courtyard is small, dusty, slightly over-grown, and practical. The focal point of the stone courtyard is a large well found directly in the middle. Turns have worn the once angled bricks to soft, crumbling curves about the lip, and a bucket always slightly damp is tied, secure, and ready to use at the side. Though a broom has swept here since last you passed through, it would appear the wind-borne dust has merely been heaped under the cobble-cracking shrubs of a stubborn environment that grow ever upward. A few benches are scattered around, but the feel is not comfort, for this small slice of sky and wind are saved for a kitchen staff always on the move.


There are some days where Veresch is thankful for her mother's definition of bright and early, because it starts before sunup and it generally didn't involve any klah. It turned her into a morning person who generally gets her chores done before most people are awake, which is why she's allowed to swan about the kitchen courtyard like she's a lady from a fairytale. She sits upon the little bench with a twist of cloth on her lap and one leg up to balance a cup of carved wood on her knee, and is looking up at the sunshine that's starting to creep over the caldera wall into the Weyr proper. Every so often there's a small twitch of her foot in almost-silent rendition of a tune hummed in her head, and she stares at the side of the little supply hut as if the secrets of the universe are there, if she should just care to look. The rest of the place - the noise, the cook's assistants, the riders come begging day-after pastries - do not impact on her, trapped as she is in her own little bubble of pleasantly tired arms, re-moisturised arms and spare-time-until-lessons.

Mornings come early for apprentices, too! Iluska, bedhead hair and all, traipses through the courtyard, following the tall, gangly form of another smith apprentice. It is he who gives Veresch a smile and a nod before he strides into the chaos of the kitchens, leaving is dark-haired peer behind to meander the dusty courtyard. "Thought I'd be used to all the sand by now, anyways," Iluska mutters to no one in particular, as she slouches against the well and peers down at its contents. Eventually, her gaze lifts and sweeps the yard, only to fall with ease on Veresch. "Morning!" is cheerfully offered, with brightness of smile.

Veresch is not checking out the apprentice's back and arms, because that would be tacky of a Candidate, despite the barracks being one big hormone at times. From the way her eyebrows tilt, she might even approve. That's dialled back, thankfully, when she turns her gaze to his peer and grins to see the bedhead, despite it being as black as a raven's wing. She follows her amble around the well, tilts her head to the greeting, and returns Iluska's smile with equal brightness and a disarming frankness. "Good morning! Do you want to sit?" She twists her legs off the bench she had them on, does her best to pat it clean just in case her boots somehow transferred dirt onto it, and finally indicates it as an open spot. "You get used to the sand eventually. And then you find it in entirely a different place on your body, and you hate it all over."

"Sit? Course I want to sit." Slouching against the well becomes weeble-walking towards the bench on which Veresch sits, and soon, Iluska too is perched on its surface. "Iluska," she offers helpfully, her fingers curling around the lip of the bench. "I'm a smith apprentice. /Glass./ We need the sand, but usually it's all.." She laughs, lightly, and shrugs. "Contained." Sand being everywhere else being the part to get past, eventually. "Who're you?"

"I'm Veresch," she notes, giving the girl a little more space on the bench. "You look like you're about five ticks from falling over, as my dad used to say. I didn't know you used the sand around here, thought it had to be finer, like the powdery stuff you get on Istan beaches." Clearly not a smith. "But yeah, when you wake up with sand in an awkward place, that's how you know everything is saying 'Welcome to Igen'." Her lips twitch. "Candidate myself, but usually just a doer of things, whatever I can put my hand to. Never had the smithly knack." Her chin gestures to the kitchen. "Who's Shoulders over there?"

"Veresch." It rolls off Iluska's tongue with ease. "We don't use this kind of stuff," to illustrate, with er boot digging into the ground. "Not usually. Some of the apprentices try it, but it never works out. There's other materials we use that come from Igen other than the sand you see all around. It's easy to have close contact to it. We get shipments of the finer stuff from Cardiff sometimes, Ista too." She's genuinely pleased to relay bits about her craft, but towards the end she gets a funny divet between her brows that is only alleviated when Veresch starts sharing her /own/ story. "Candidate? Congratulations on that. You must be pretty excited. Dragons and adventure." Her grin widens before she tries to curb it, fingers tapping against her lips. "Shoulders?" Glancing back to the kitchen entryway, "Poltek? He's a senior apprentice. They say he's going to walk the tables soon. Lots of talent in that one. From Benden, too. You like him?"

Veresch looks at Iluska, faintly boggled at the spill of words, until she's suddenly shooting a wide grin. "I remember," she shares quietly as she leans a little closer, "getting into a sand-pit that was dug because it had this powder-fine sand, gorgeous stuff. I was, mmm, one or something, I think. And I remember widdling in it, and all the Smiths lining up to have a good cry. My mom apologised for days." Her eyes flick to the kitchens, and her shoulders lift. "I don't know him well enough to know if I like him, but I like his shoulders. Keep him out of the barracks, or girls are going to start exploding." Blandly said, no apology about it. "And I am excited, but I'm also tired of being the lowest rung, you know? I'd really like to hear more about you and the Smiths. Have you ever made a firework? Or… I dunno, are you one of those people that can do amazing things with glass?"

Iluska can't help it, so she giggles at the imagery of a toddler getting stuck in a sand pit dug by the smiths. "I'm sorry, that sounds terrible," she says, once she's choked back the laughter and eased back into a pleasant smile. "Poltek? /Poltek/? Making the barracks /explode/? I can't imagine that. You'd get bored of his lectures about proper safety gear and technique." It's a half-attempt, but then she leans to the side. "He does have a nice smile though," is confided, with a smile as bright. "Hey, who are you talking to about the /lowest rung/?" Still, good-humored. "One day I'll be the one getting apprentices to wash my dirty klah mugs and fluff my pillows, but you.. one day, you could be way, way, way, up there, above us all," she says, looking up at the sky, squinting against the sunlight.

"I bet he has great technique," Veresch says in a tone as cheerfully lecherous as she's managed in her life, and her eyebrows dance in a hilarious attempt at lasciviousness. She draws her legs up on the bench, tucking them easily in beneath her. "Well, so could you. Perhaps one day you'll be on the sands, or on the stands, and all around you would be the roar of the crowd, but you wouldn't hear it because you would never, ever have to worry about apprentices ever again, just tiny dragons shitting on your feet." And she makes it sound so romantic. "I want to be a rider one day. I dream of it, like most kids in the Weyr. But I've been up since three helping to knead dough for bread, and my arms are about to fall off, and I don't think I want to see another loaf for… quite a bit."

"Master Zolorane /does/ always boast about Poltek's skills," Iluska adds, that innuendo going over her head completely. "Talented, but not as good as say, that one guy at the Hall, that everyone thinks might overcome the Mastersmith's skills. Not that good." She puffs out her cheeks and shakes her head, her eyes dropping down from the sky. "Me? Oh, no. Crafting is in my blood. Ma and da are both crafters. All my brothers. Dragons.." a dreamy sigh, "aren't for me. Even if I'm here and surrounded by.. dragons." That irony is not lost on her, and remains etched in the stretch of her mouth. "I've already been an apprentice for four turns." Another shrug, followed by commiserating sound. "Sorry. Can't you trade duties with one of the other candidates?"

Veresch shall be a bit delicate about things — no sense in frightening off Iluska, after all. "I know how that is, a little," she murmurs softly. "My Da is a Herder, and my older brother was a Herder. Somehow I didn't get the liking though, thus here I am, terrorizing the Weyr." Or something. She grins down the scant inches' difference in their height. "You must have started early," she hazards. "And I can, but some of them cheat at poker. It's not that I'm unhappy though! They have lessons, and practicals with most of the crafts… I bet we'll be swinging by the Smith section here soon, not that they'll likely allow us to touch anything. Probably how the tanks work, and… I don't know. How to make nice buckles? I'm a little lost, I have to admit."

"Truth be told I always wanted to be in the seacraft like them, y'know, but seacraft's not interested in women in their ranks. Even with all my relations in it and living my life from the beginning, breathing the sea life. I got some of my ma's talents though," Iluska contributes, leaning slightly forward so her elbows are locked. "Smithy can get dangerous at times if you don't know what you're doing, but wouldn't be a harm to /look/. Could trade up for some laundry or dish washing? Sweeping or stuffing the mattresses? Changing the rushes?" Helpful, this one; trying to be, anyway. "Get one of them riders to let you follow them around, shadow them. Can you do that?"

Veresch considers her as she nibbles on her last piece of breakfast, and there's a sight into the kindness hidden inside her when she nods. "That's a good idea. I'll have to ask one of the riders I know. Um… if you wish, would you like to come along? I know that quite possibly you don't find being in a smithy all day as boring at all, but I'd be happy to ask if you want to get out for a day and get to know the dragons you're surrounded by better." She looks up at the sky, frowning at the sheer amount of light there. "That is, when it's not about to be time for exercise, which is going to consist of firestone sacks being thrown about today, I'm reliably informed. I'll have shoulders like your hottie almost-Journeyman once I'm out of Candidacy." She stands, then pats her hand clean on her side leg and offers it to Iluska. "It was a real unexpected pleasure meeting you."

Iluska perks up at the offer. "I wouldn't mind shadowing a rider around. It would be different than what I know. I like different. I'll be easy enough to find if you get one to allow it," she says, smiling still. "Throwing firestone sacks? Bigger, probably!" and then she relaxes back into her seat, rolling her shoulders and throwing a thumb over the left one. "I'll just wait.. for Shoulders, back there. It was definitely nice to meet you. I'm still working on making new friends around here. Hope your day goes better than predicted," but her hand clasps Veresch's briefly in a friendly handshake.

Add a New Comment