Rain, rain… Telling it to go away would be moot; it's just in its nature to be nearly ever-present when Southern's winter is afoot. It's one of the unfortunate things about going through a winter weyrlinghood - the constant damp and cold. Even so it, doesn't stop Amani and Zymuraith from coming by to pay a visit, the junior queen getting as close to the barracks as she can and lifting her iridescent wings to form a copious umbrella of dragonhide, while Amani slips under the eaves and pulls back the hood of her oilskin, watching her lifemate with fond amusement. Zymuraith's white, cauldron-kept bonfire warms to life across the minds of those within, the sweet, spiced scent of caramel and cider spice wafting through on a crisp autumn breeze. The black and white canvas walls of her tents are present, but it's the bonfire that remains as the center of attention, quiet and comfortable invitation extended to those of her children who might wish to come meet her.

Water is already the order of the day for one Omairhuith, the brackish depths of his thoughts suspiciously tranquil (perhaps it's just that he's disinclined to share anything beyond the surface just now— just yet). It does not seek to diminish Zymuraith's bonfire, however, but rather warms itself in front of it, lured in by that warmth. "Omair?" It's curiosity that draws Kyriatis out of the barracks and after her blue, curiosity turned to surprise as the blue settles amidst the damp and leaves her to stand nearby, quickly snapping a salute to Amani and her queen. "Ma'am."

Vinodestroth is similarly drawn to the new presence, though he'll insist it's sheer curiosity and in the spirit of scientific inquiry to go investigate such things. Katrya is on his tail, surely at his insistence, and she's out of the barracks and under golden wings before she realizes what they are. "Ah." A salute is secondary to the situation being parsed but crisp,"Weyrwoman, Zymuraith." She does retreat a step, though; the gold is large in a way that is hard to parse from this close by.

Amani smiles warmly at the appearance of two Weyrlings, returning their salutes with practiced ease. "Kyriatis, Katrya." Others begin to trickle out as well, though with these two being nearest, her attention stays with them, saving the return of other salutes. "She decided it was a good day for a visit, now that you've had a seven and then some to be with them. I won't ask how you're settling in, since I know that'll take some time yet. But how are you, along with them?" Zymuraith's great golden head lowers to be level with the dragonets, a deep croon vibrating in her throat as glittering eyes whirl with glowing sapphire and emerald. Coppery sparks jump from the bonfire to zip merrily across to Vinodestroth, joining in the threads of light that twine through his mindscape. Omairhuith's murky depths are laced with feeling - cool currents of affection, the silt sighing free streams of bubbles to tickle across his mind. « Hello, Vinodestroth, Omairhuith. You are looking strong. »

"He's—" Kyriatis is without specific words to explain much of anything, and simply gestures towards her blue: he's Omairhuith, and maybe that's enough. She looks tired, but at least she's managed to get her uniform tailored to more-or-less fit, though she still looks a little young and dwarfed in it, like a little girl playing in her slightly older sister's clothing. The blue is intrigued, perhaps, by Zymuraith's bubbles, but inscrutable otherwise in his reactions; he draws himself into a poised stance, head tipped back and back and back to watch the queen, a flash of tide and current perhaps suggesting that he's a little over-awed. « Big, » he decides.

Shokravanth follows the others out of the caverns with his rider in pursuit, their arguable tardiness perhaps explained by the oily rag in Ginger's hand. Or rather pocket, which is where she stuffs it before saluting Amani. "Weyrwoman." She looks up at the unaccustomed shelter, and smiles. "Obliging of her." Shokravanth is more aware of the other shelter that his dam is providing, the internal locale. Still, he tilts his head this way and that, and looks up, and up, and up… « Big, » he agrees, with stunned regard in his tone, and his thoughts surrounded by a vast blackness that converges on a patch of the brightest light. « Big, and to be respected. »

Katrya take a moment to consider the question, preventing herself from shying away further when the head swings down towards them, "Still trying to find what part of my mind is mine and what part is his, and I feel like my brain is close to bursting half of the time. It's hard to not be taken in by his physical needs and parse them as my own." Pink spreads across her cheeks as she realizes by her clutchmate's answers she's perhaps being a bit too verbose and she shrinks a bit. The copper threads added to Vinodestroth's mindscape are locked onto with interested, zoomed in on, scrutinized, tentatively interlaced with his own strands to continue examining them from up close, « Big, and we're very small. Greetings, Zymuraith. My hide itches incessantly, which does seem to indicate we're growing at the proper speed. »

Fortunately, it's a casual visit; there's no tardiness for Amani to call anyone to order for. Kyriatis' attempted answer and the following gesture earns a sympathetic smirk from the goldrider. "Sometimes that just about sums them up," she notes wryly, and returns Ginger's salute, chuckling as she glances up at Zymuraith's sheltering wings. "She wanted to be sure she didn't invite everyone out to get drenched." Insistent but considerate, at least! She nods along to Katrya's reply, understanding, but there's a note of amusement there, especially when the brownling blushes. "It'll get clearer as you go along, I promise. Though depending on how he communicates, your head feeling full might be a constant thing." There's a rueful drawl that edges her tone to indicate she might know a little something about this, and Zymuraith gives a little snort in the direction of her bonded before returning her attention to her gathered progeny. « Yes, » she replies wryly to their collective observations about her size, « and I always will be. Though all of you will someday reach the point where I do not seem as big. Hello, Shokravanth. » She draws the other brown in with a burst of bonfire sparks that settles amidst the stars cape of his mind, glittering brilliantly in a constellation of their own. « Itching is a good sign, if annoying, » she affirms. « Yours are all tending to you well, I hope. »

"Is it normal when they don't communicate, or at least not clearly?" wonders Kyriatis, jumping in to ask her question before anyone else gets an opportunity to ask their own. "All the others seem to use words just fine, but Omair…" There's nothing wrong with Omairhuith (thank you very much): he's content to sit and watch Zymuraith, and if he's not got further verbal commentary, he does have an image of himself, many times enlarged, to share with the group. Will he one day be Zymuraith's size? Perhaps not, but his mental image suggests determination to get close. (ish).

Shokravanth emits a wondering « Ohhhh! » as sparks and stars form new, joint patterns. « Mine cares very well! Being oiled is soothing! Meat makes me full! Bathing is wet and splashing is fun! We must do these things a lot - it is the only way! » "Shokravanth talks enough for two - he's quite funny sometimes. Only then sometimes he'll stop and just go quiet and thoughtful for a bit, like he's contemplating the whichness of what, or something. I can tell if it's him or me that's hungry or thirsty now, but I'm getting sick of wanting to scratch in places I don't have places every time he wakes up."

The weyrwoman's attentions return a bit of Katrya's volume as it serves as reassurance she hasn't massively overstepped. "It's uncanny how much Vinodestroth picks up from me. I tend to think in a lot of words, though, so maybe that's why?" Katrya muses in response to Kyriatis. « I think I get oiled more. The meat gets on my hide and it has to get off again, so mine has to help me scrub frequently. » Cursory examination of Zymuraith's bronze threads complete, he modulates his mental signals to come in contact with them, sparking where they do.

Amani's interest sharpens at Kyriatis' question, a dark brow lifting curiously. "Shards, they really do have bits of her in them," she observes somewhat wonderingly, her gaze going vague for a second as she checks in on something with Zymuraith. "They'll never not communicate," she states definitively, focusing on Kyriatis again. "I think figuring it out always takes some time - more time than you've had so far. But with some of them, things are less straightforward. Zymuraith…she's always full of images and impressions that are hard to understand, and she kept telling me I needed to get more in touch with my imagination and let myself feel things more. So with Omairhuith, it may be that you have to find where his mind and your imagination meet, and let yourself think from here more," she explains, tapping a gloved finger over her heart, "rather than here." She touches her temple, then lets her hand drop. "It might not solve everything; she still frustrates me. But it gives a certain approach to interpreting what they're telling us that should work, in time." Glancing to Ginger, she notes with a smirk, "Shokravanth seems to have her sense of balance. Talk, and then silence. Both are important, and it sounds like he feels that. And Vinodestroth seems to have aligned himself perfectly." That last is sent to Katrya with a wink before she glances up to Zymuraith again. The gold rumbles amusedly, one tent flap fluttering back to reveal an intricate garden wrought in ice. In the midst is a rendition of Omhairuith, but at a more reasonable size for his color. « One day, » she assures the taciturn blue. To Shokravanth, she adds a subtle cloud of contented gold among his stars. « The only way for now, » she agrees cryptically, but for Vinodestroth, her words are a bit more practical. « Take more care when you eat, and you will not need so much scrubbing. »

The way Kyriatis straightens, just slightly? It's a definite indication that she's pleased - and relieved - by Amani's explanation and example, though her expression remains quietly exasperated. "I'm not much good at that," is possibly in line for understatement-of-the-year, "But I'll try. They're all so different, and I'm not sure I fully expected that," is aimed at her fellow weyrlings, her grin wry but also cheerful. Omairhuith is having none of this moderation: no, he intends to be /big, and nothing Zymuraith can suggest will change his mind on it. That he's currently a foot shorter than his brown brothers is simply a matter of time. Stubbornness, thy name is Omairhuith.

Shokrakanth has one of those silences, before venturing tentatively, « We are to grow? That is what we have to do now? That is what we have to do! » He is awash with a sense of purpose. A shame that he spoils the effect by adding, with great enthusiasm, « Eating makes us grow? We should eat lots more! » Ginger has apparently picked that up, because she rolls her eyes and says, "No, too much food makes you ill. You have to eat just the right amount. Just trust me on this!" He turns adoring eyes on his lifemate: he does trust her, he does! "I hope that doesn't mean we're up next for a thick tail and a midnight purge. Watched - and heard - and smelled - enough of those already."

« I do take care, » Vinodestroth insists with a bashful crackle of static, « it's just others don't seem to mind as much when they get things on them. » His lifemate is given a stricken look that has Katrya forgetting her reason for keeping a distance and instead rushing to his side to calm him before it becomes an issue. "Shh, no, you have very proper manners." She drops down on her knees next to him to turn his head towards her, speaking until his eyes switch from the yellow that's threatening to overtake them back to more placid blues and greens, "You don't need another bath, see? All clean. We scrubbed you extra thorough and now the oil needs to dry." Vinodestroth is taken from his pouting by the opening of tent flap and the Omairhuith proper-sized, which has him picking from the information sources he has available (that is to say: Katrya) to form a mental construction of a future self that's more true to life. « Like this, then? Mine will be so small! »

"It doesn't matter," Amani says to Kyriatis' first, though it's stated frankly, nothing deprecating in her tone or expression. She shrugs slightly. "What we're good at, what we aren't. What matters is what we have. He can't change the shape of his mind any more than you can change being a girl. What this is all about is the both of you learning how to bend in order to see eye to eye. He knows you have an imagination; you know he has words. You both use what's uncomfortable until it isn't anymore, and you grow into what you're meant to be - the best versions of yourselves. It's growth that you can't be afraid of." Catching trickles of the exchange between Zymuraith and the dragonets, she gives a little grin. "Be as eager as them to do it, if you can." Zymuraith rumbles softly at Omairhuith, the sound stuttering in a subtle draconic chuckle. One day the size thing won't matter so much! « It is what you are always doing, whether you're trying or not, » Zymuraith assures Shokravanth. « Do as yours says and do not eat too much. Being ill isn't fun for any involved. » She adds a bit to Katrya's comforting of Vinodestroth, bring the subtlest touch of her mental weight to bear in a gentle enfolding reflecting by the warming of her bonfire's hue. « They will learn as well, » she assures him, and examines his self-build. « Yes. But her size does not matter as much as what her size contains. »

Omairhuith may not communicate much in words, just yet, but he's paying attention. To Vinodestroth, therefore, comes a wave of soapy mental water, and a sense of sheer thrill; aren't baths the bestest? Isn't getting dirty so worth it for the bath that follows? Baths are significantly more interesting than food, it seems. "Oh," says his rider, sounding surprised. "So we both have to… bend and meet in the middle? So that we can learn to communicate with each other." She seems caught between accepting this and clearly wanting to throw the very thought into the trash (and probably stomp on it for good measure). "Huh."

"Seems reasonable," Ginger comments, though about what is not clear. Shokravanth, meanwhile, has become fixated on the idea of growing, and he's craning his neck, peering upwards to see as much as he possibly can of Zymuraith. « Will I grow as big as you? Who will be biggest? Why is it better to be bigger? » He tries out a succession of mental images of dragons of various sizes, comparing them. Most seem to be larger versions of himself, but Zymuraith is in there too, and a green as large as the golden queen. Ginger's got a question. "How much do you hear from her? I mean, he has the times when he does his quiet thing, but he can go for hours talking all the time, and I'm not so much of an inner-dialogue kind of person, I don't think, so it's a bit wearing. Do you get to a point where you just talk and hear like with a person? Or do you just get used to the noise, and the being surrounded by stars?"

The golden Queen's words are considered, stretched out into a band of signal, and add to the background chatter of Vinodestroth's mindscape, « Indeed. Mine contains much knowledge, much hunger to learn. It is good. » He doesn't know what to do about Omairhuith's assertion that getting dirty is ever worth it, waves of light somehow abstractly expressing this to the blue, but he'll bellyflop into that soapy water. That's totally his jam. « Of course you won't grow as big as her. The bronzes from our clutch will be the largest, » is didactically shot back at Shokravanth. "I hope they never just talk and hear like people. It's much more pleasant to share my mind with… well, whatever this is." Katrya gives Vin a final pat on the headknob before retreating again.

Amani nods to Kyriatis, though if she's aware of the teenage pugnaciousness that's warring with acceptance, she doesn't let on. "Or communicate better, anyway. You'll understand why it has to be the priority now the more you start learning later." Not that she's about to go into specifics. "I hear from her as much as she thinks is practical. In terms of words, anyway," she tells Ginger. "Imagery comes along a lot more often. And there will come a point when you'll be able to block things out if you don't want to deal with it. Every door between you and him is wide open right now. You'll learn how to close each one when you need to. Mostly it's just practice. And no, that part'll never go away," she assures Katrya. « It is not better to be bigger, only different to be bigger, » Zymuraith answers Shokravath. « We will be the sizes that are best for us. Bronze is bigger than brown is bigger than blue is bigger than green, and gold is over all. Each size has a purpose, but your purpose for now is to become closer with yours. » Which probably won't help Shokravanth's curiosity much, but oh well.

"Right," agrees Kyriatis, more forcefully than the word probably needs, rather as if she's having to convince herself all over again. All this mental water has created an itch, and it's an itch that Omairhuith is not shy in sharing: it's like a swarm of water droplets, pelting down rather than merely dropping. Like bees, maybe, or something sharp. This, at least, Kyriatis seems to be able to understand: "Right, right, you're itching again. Come on!" Does that mean he misses confirmation that he's never going to be as large as the others? HOW CONVENIENT.

« I will show her my secret place! » Shokravanth declares brightly, which leads to a widening of eyes from Ginger. "Well, he seems to have that in hand - not sure what he means, but I'm sure I'll find out! Yeah, I think it's the ability to control it that I'm feeling the need for. Don't get me wrong; I love seeing what's inside his head and talking to him and hearing what he says to me. I don't even mind it when he rummages through my head. It's just hearing everything, all the time, when I've had way too little sleep."

"Like doors. Huh." What Amani's suggesting seems to resonate with Katrya, who takes a moment to mental try it out, to the dismay of her lifemate who's sending out radiowaves of panic the moment it happens. "Shi—" The mental door is slammed back open and the distress signal immediately dies.To the brownling, who's retreated from his mother to bury his face in his rider's coat: "I'm sorry, Vin. You're right, I should've. I'm sorry. Let's try to practice it together later, no surprises, okay?" She takes a deep breath, giving Amani a wry half-smile. "Well. That's something."

The forces of Kyriatis' tone this time does garner a bit of a lifted brow from Amani as she watches the blueling pair depart to tend to the itching. She then nods along with Ginger, reaffirming that yes, it will get better. "You'll learn to pare things down to the bare minimum. There'll be times when it's absolutely needed." Then her attention snaps to Katrya and Vinodestroth. "Close the doors little by little," she advises. "Slowly. He'll come to trust that you're still there after a while." Then she gives a nod, and straightens. "We need to get back. We'll come around more, I'm sure, and especially her." Since Zymuraith has a bit more freedom to wander than her lifemate during certain duties. "Clear skies, weyrlings." The queen lifts her head in preparation to leave, though keeps her wings in place until everyone who wants to stay dry is back under shelter. « Keep minding yours, and be patient, » she tells them with another croon. « I will see you later. » And with that, Amani and Zymuraith take their leave, off to tend to things they'll keep to themselves. The weyrlings have plenty on their plates for now without having to worry about other things, after all!

Ginger returns, "Clear skies, ma'am," to Amani as the goldrider leaves along with Zymuraith and the shelter she was providing. Now standing in the heavy rain, Ginger turns her eyes on Katrya and Vinodestroth. "I… think I'm going to hold back on trying that right now," she says cautiously, reaching a hand out towards Shokravanth's neck without the need to look for him. "But it's good to know that it's possible." She finds herself leaning as the brown neck starts to sag. "Ah, someone's ready for a nap, and besides, it's tipping it down. We'd better get in." They turn back towards the Barracks entrance.

"Yeah, definitely not doing that again. We'll try again much slower until that trust is built," Katrya agrees, flushing again. "Thank you, weyrwoman. Fair skies." She shuffles with Vino back to the barracks, in step with Ginger, "I didn't think… I didn't think I'd be able to do it just like, honestly." Vinodestroth yawns in accord with Shokravanth, "I guess it is nap time. Growing is hard work." Even if it isn't to the size of Zymuraith.

"Must be," Ginger agrees, and the two go inside to settle their sleepy lifemates on their couches, and maybe grab a nap themselves.