Who

Ibrahim, Talya

What

Talya is cleaning up in Stores, and Ibrahim stops in to drop off some wild feline pelts.

Candidate Bingo!

When

It is the sixty-first day of Spring and 77 degrees. Despite being clear, dry and sunny over the Weyr proper, a thunderstorm drenches the outer reaches of Igen's desert.

Where

Stores, Southern Weyr

OOC Date 17 Jun 2018 05:00

 

ibrahim_default.jpg talya_default.jpg

stores.jpg

Stores

A vast and sprawling cavern, the main storage area of the weyr is well-tended by the loving and stern hands of those who oversee the bounty stored within. Depending on the time of day, it is a place of illuminated neatness, stacks of dry goods and foodstuffs labeled clearly… or it is a place of werelight and stygian darkness that taunts those who would dare challenge the depths thereof.


Stormy days usually are good times to stay indoors, hang out by the warm fire, read a trashy novel laying around… For Talya the candidate, it was unfortunately not one of those days. The storeroom is chilly in the autumn day, at least for this young woman sporting her jacket and grumbling about the weather and chores. "You'd think suffering once is enough through these dumb chores," she says to the firelizard that is observing her progress. The gold is perched on stacks of bags that were set down while her human can dust off the shelving before reorganizing them. She gives a chitter, that could almost be interpreted as a laugh, while the girl continues dusting with a moist rag, occasionally stopping to move something aside on the shelf.

What, and miss the opportunity to get to know the very bowels of the Weyr? Say it ain't so! Ibrahim would be very disappointed in Talya. "You'd think they would come up with different chores for you to do." He says from, oh, over there, by the giant stack of hides he's hauled down here for storage. Merry Turnover, Talya, he's brought you presents. He'll even plant his butt right on top of them and settle in to watch the young woman clean — such is the life offered to those who are not under the Weyr's authority in any real sense! He doesn't have to do anything if he doesn't feel like it.

Talya freezes in her dusting and muttering when a new voice fills the room. She slides her dark eyes over to that wildling and the stack of hides. She jerks the dirty rag away from the shelf to point at the hides. "How many did you drag in here?" Her eyes narrow at him, bringing her /more/ stuff to have to inventory. She slams the rag down on the shelf and moves over to her second firelizard, a blue hovering by a pencil and some paper. Note taking time. "Do you have any other ideas on what kind of chores they'd have us do? Different Weyrs, different Headwoman and assistants and what not in the caverns, and yet it's always the same thing for candidates." The candidate stares at the man, waiting for a reply, because she wasn't going to be the one going over there to count.

Ibrahim will merrily hand over the count for her, then! It's the least he can do for scaring her, as she plainly hadn't known he was here. Whoops, forgot to take off that invisibility cloak, or something. "Fifteen, ten golden, five silver-spotty. A present, if you will, from th Chayeeli youth." He tilts his head and sparkles at Talya, resting his chin on a balled fist. The gold on his shoulder chirrups to Beast, wrapping her tail around Ibrahim's forearm, proud and posessive. Her wildling."I suggested you be taken on a little trip through the jungle, clearing some of the more useful trails. Be a good opportunity to learn of the native flora of Southern."

Talya is way too into complaining about candidate chores while doing candidate chores, or moving stuff aside noisily, to have realized Ibrahim's arrival. Something like that. She responsibly writes those numbers down on the paper she brought, messily and in handwriting that probably she could only read (besides the numbers). "Chayeeli?" she questions as she gives Blue a few scritches for guarding her list. Satisfied, she returns to her empty shelf. But now it's to shoo off her gold and get the stuff situated back into their place. Beast flutters up to higher ground, able to get a better look at the other gold around the man and giving her a curious cheep back. Does she really think she wants /him/ when she has a Talya? The candidate huffs at the man's suggestion, "Not a bad idea, but ain't it overrun by felines or something? Or are those hides enough dead felines to have cleared out the danger?"

Ibrahim will have to test Talya again at some point in the future; such disregard for her surroundings will never do. "Chayeeli." He confirms idly, twitchiing Nicandra's tail to remind the possessive creature of her manners. She huffs, but settles down, watching Beast carefully all the same. Who knows what these golds want, being all curious and whatnot. There's a rumble from her chest, swiftly cut off in the face of Ibrahim's stern mental rebuke. "Or as many Weyrfolk call us, 'wildlings'." He snorts softly, dismissively, at the moniker. As if they didn't have names and territories. "We'd obviously bring along some hunters, to keep watch." No sense in endangering the candidates' lives.

Beast enjoys watching the other gold get put in place, making an amused hum down at her. She can do as she pleases, out of her reach of her own human! And what she pleases was just to watch the possessive gold from a safe perch. "You have to admit that Wildlings are easier to say than Chayeeli… though I only ever heard you guys referred to as Wildlings." Talya doesn't seem quite so knowledgeable, nor look for said knowledge. "Anything sounds better than wiping dust off down here for days on end, even facing down a feline," she notes with a grunt, picking up some heavy bag of grain to place on the lowest shelf she cleaned off. Slowly sorting, already counted for. "It's even cooler out, so no losing candidates to heat exhaustion too. Though, no use a candidate that can't defend themselves or just faint right away, right?"

Ibrahim's grins flashes white against his brown skin. "I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say we are not a monolith. My particular…. tribe, the Chaeyeeli, sent these." Simple explanations work, yes? He looks about, eyeing the dusty, dusty room with a jaundiced eye. "Yes, I take your point. It would seem they wish to punish you. Or simply bore you into leaving." Was that humor? Who knows, with this man. But it's likely! "Ah. Do we have unspeakably timid candidates among you?"

Talya nods her way into the short explanation, likely housing it into her mind for future use… or not. Wildling was still easier on the tongue. She does turn her attention onto the man for the first time since he got down here besides the cursory glance at him and the hides. Her own dark eyes roam over him up and down, not for the first time since she's run into him before. "Really, you'd think they'd make candidacy more exciting some way before chasing us all off from boredom and have us die miserably choking on the dust down here. A trip into the jungle would work." Her shoulders lift up in a shrug after she hefts another bag up onto the shelving with a grunt. "Are you calling me timid or others?" She takes a break in her rearranging to cross her arms at him.

Ibrahim is guessing not; most don't bother, as wildlings is easier to remember. He takes no offense, for it's often difficult for him to remember the many different strata of Weyr rankings, bar a few of the dragonriders. Convenient, those knots they have, sometimes. "Perhaps the idea is to bore you to death?" He teases playfully, before considering her questionn with every sign of seriousness. "You don't strike me as particularly timid."

"They may succeed by the end of it," Talya says dramatically. "The eggs aren't even hard enough to touch yet and I feel like my brain is rotting from these chores already. If it weren't for PT, I don't think I could survive candidacy." Purely chores would be a drain! She eyes the stuff she still had to place back onto their proper place and then, giving the shelves still left to do, she sits down heavily on some discarded bags with a sigh. Break time. "I guess I just haven't really fit in with the group yet, though we're all busy doing these horrible chores anyway." She eyeballs the man again. "Have you never gotten asked to stand before? Or is it harder for Wildlings to leave the jungle than the hold-bred being dragged from their dragon-less Holds?"

"I can understand that. There seems to be an endless round of them just waiting for you." He knows he should say something portentious about it preparing her for a new llife as a dragonrider, but he has yet to see dragonriders doing menial tasks. Poor, poor Guard girl. He will say nothing of her taking a break. "Ah. And is the fitting in… difficult? No like-minded young women or men among the crowd?" Absently, he pulls a dreadlock forward, spinning it expertly into an ever-tighter spiral, root to tip. "I've never been asked. And it is often harder for us to leave. At least among my group. I wouldn't knnow how a group like, say, Treivyshe's would feel about it."

Talya silently appreciates the lack of a lecture on life lessons learned by candidacy chores. Talya has heard it all before, and that did not make the tasks less boring and aggravating. She tucks her hands into her jacket for warmth, huddling herself into as well. Even doing some heavy lifting, this cool storeroom is cold for her. Someone definitely prefers the summer months. "Well, my bunkmate doesn't snore here so that's a relief and something we have in common. The ones next to us, though… they make up for her not snoring. I haven't really bonded with anyone yet." Not timid, but not quite as excited as some of the other candidates, this time around. "It is quite a change," she says somewhat sympathetically to the man that hadn't been asked before.

Ibrahim is a wise wildling; sometimes things are just boring, and nothing grand to be gained fromm it. Perhaps Talya sees the value of that lesson: sometimes you just have to deal with being bored spitless. He notes her shivering with a sympathetic glance, and makes as if to peel off his own jacket to offer her. "Here, my jacket's a bit heavier." She may wear it or not as she chooses; he's used to the chill. "Hmm. It seems to me that the excitement wears off as you go through each candidacy. It's not new after you've done it more than once. Especially if you're an adult in among the children." He cants his head, mildly curious. He feels no upset at having not been asked; he is hardly dragon-mad. "Our cultures are so different. But one adjusts."

Talya's eyes light up at last at the offer, and she pulls her bare hands from out of her jacket to snag at the Wildling's heavier jacket greedily. Oh, she will wear it! Blessed warmth. Good luck on getting it back though, Ibrahim. It probably would have been easier to just give her one of those hides to hide under for some time. She drapes the jacket over herself like a blanket with a sigh and then smirks at the man. "Thanks," she says only once she feels warmer under the heavy weight. "There are some even in this class that have stood more than twice. This is my second and shells, I think it'll be my last. I mean, cleaning the brig out after a nasty night is bad, but having to clean latrines just cause it's on your rotation and dusting shelves all day long is torture. Why put yourself through torture and disappointment more than necessary?" She asks herself this every night now, but she doesn't seem too beat up over it. Yet.

Ibrahim is, fortunately, capable of getting another: likely Th'res will be replacing it, just cause. "You're welcome." He's also likely to make one or two of those hides 'disappear' later on. Settling in onn his pile of hides, he turns the idea of standing multiple times over and over in his mind. "I believe Kyriatis may be of the same mind; it's a lot to do, over and over. I would certainly not wish to subject myself too such tedium multiple times." If he's ever asked, to begin with! Somehow, he's managed to be overlooked in all the Searches that have gone on in thhe four Turns he's been at the Weyr. Some kind of wildling magic, no doubt. "It's clearly the expected thing for the Weyrbred, from what I've seen."

Someone from the lower caverns may come to Talya later wondering why she noted too many hides or where they had gone… hopefully they won't notice the disappearance for a long time, like after she's left candidacy. "I do notice that." Talya says this with a furrowed brow, however, as if she's just making the connection now. "Maybe those Weyrbred are just used to the chores and the people. They've probably been doing the same things since they were old enough to work between Harper lessons." This holdbred girl is going to think otherwise. Draped how she is with jackets, she does look over at the chore still awaiting her and hunkers down lower. "I should probably get back to this, though." She doesn't look like she wants to get back to it!

Yes, yes she should. And now Ibrahim's done delivering the hides and being a distraction, the naughty boy, he'll bounce up, and prepare to face the chill of the great outdoors. Or whatever. More than likely, he'll just go haunt the Infirmary for awhile as an excuse to avoid leaving the Weyr proper. "Perhaps they are. May I never become used to such tedium." He'll head on out, now, with a parting shot: "Try not to be smothered in the dust, there, dear. I don't want to explain to Th'res." Before she can respond, he vanishes.

Add a New Comment