Who

Linny, Jalebren

What

Linny finds herself a new assistant without even trying.

When

It is midmorning of the second day of the ninth month of the second turn of the 12th pass.

Where

Galleries, Igen Weyr

OOC Date

 

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Galleries

Though occasionally cleaned by ambitious (or neurotic) drudges or weyrbrats being disciplined, the lack of Eggs over the last several Turns has led to the Galleries falling into a state of disrepair. Sand can be found…well, everywhere. On the benches, under the benches, on the railings and walkways. There is also the random tidbit leftover from people who've wandered into the gathering place since the last cleaning. A random bit of cloth here, a bit of something that might have been a carving-in-progress once there.


Linny is supposed to be down on the Sands, asked by Mayte to watch over the clutch while she takes a break, but it’s too damn hot down there, and so she’s escaped to the slightly cooler Galleries for a reprieve from sweating to death. Kaelidyth stays put down there, standing guard even more so now that her lifemate has left her, but considering recent events with the goldrider, the dragon is more than happy to pull her weight in order to give Linny a break. With a glass of water beside her, there’s a small pile of hides on the other side of her, and one by one, she picks one of them up, looks it over, and from there it gets put in one of two piles. A ‘maybe’ pile and a ‘hell no’ pile. At the moment, there’s one or two in the ‘maybe’ pile and a heck of a lot more in the ‘no’ pile.

Since Threvobek got pulled from the stables to become one of those candidates, Jalebren has been left alone most of the time to tend to the animals. Feeding, mucking, and monitoring. It's hard work making sure everything is in order and that the animals are healthy — if anything were to happen to Rev's precious herd of caprines while he's away, Jay would never hear the end of it. Regardless, it's been a tad bit lonely in the barn so after chore time it was decided that he needed a break. So, here he is, sitting a few rows up from the sands, elbows on his knees while his shirt is held in his hands. Shells, it's hot. The garment is then used to wipe his face and a sneeze is heard right after — must be pieces of hay or something.

It’s the sneeze that grabs Linny’s attention from her hide sorting, dark eyes sweeping around to find the culprit, and after they land on Jalebren, her forehead wrinkles pensively. He’s familiar, and she searches her brain frantically to place him before— “Ah ha!” said aloud to no one but herself, proud that she was able to pull anything of use besides Weyr politics out of her brain at the moment: pregnancy brain in full tilt. “Jalebren, right?” Even though she doesn’t need him to confirm that she’s right: she knows it already. “How did your apprentice work out?” The last time she saw him, which was also the first time she’d seen him, he had been given someone to look after by W’rin, and considering she gave him advice on how to handle it, she wants to know how it all went.

Jalebren looks up suddenly from his sneeze to see who called out his name. A glance is thrown over his shoulder and he spots the junior weyrwoman a few rows back — holy shells, she remembered his name. And he remembers hers because who would forget a face as pretty as that? Standing up out of respect, a salute is given to Linny along with a lopsided grin. "Went by without a hitch, ma'am." is his response, his voice a bit loud since there's some distance between them. Then as if he committed a heinous crime, he quickly jerks his attention to the dragons on the sands who fortunately didn't hear him. Apparently the junior queen wants silence around her eggs, so Jay steps closer to Linny so they can communicate quietly. "May I sit down? Don't wanna bother you if you're busy." Can you tell the poor kid is starving for conversation? He's a chatterbox on a good day and now it's even worse since his best friend is no longer able to listen to him as much.

Linny’s face immediately breaks out into a big beaming smile at his news, unable to resist a good, “See? I told you it would be fine.” Basically an ‘I Told You So’, but a lot more polite and not at all mean spirited. “Oh, please,” she replies cheerfully at his question, gathering up those hides beside her to make room for him, placing them on her lap with a little bit of a sigh. “Not really busy. Trying to find an assistant, but it’s a lot harder than it sounds.” Especially when you are as particular as Linny is in her assistants. Not that she’s under the impression that she has the hardest job in the Weyr, but it is pretty damn important, and she can’t afford to have someone slacking off, lest it reflect badly on her. “You wouldn’t happen to know anyone who’s looking for something new to do, would you?” Hopeful eyes are turned upon him then; he’s a good looking kid, surely he has a lot of friends.

Nope. Poor Jalebren is practically a hermit amongst Igenites and hangs out with felines and barn animals for most of his day. Though he doesn't reveal said information, he reaches up to scratch the side of his blonde head as he thinks about who would be a good option for her. Threvobek immediately crosses his mind and he quickly brushes the thought aside — Rev's a candidate now and has no time to run errands for a weyrwoman. "Shells, ma'am. Can't think of anyone in particular." Taking a seat in the row in front of Linny, Jay uses the back of his hand to wipe an eyebrow before pulling on his shirt — it's a bit rude to be half naked in front of leadership. Both hands are then run through his hair as he continues to mull over potential assistants: "I’m sure you can take whoever you'd like. Don't know many people who would refuse helping a lady like yourself." Because, shells she's pretty.

Well, if he’s putting his shirt back on, that just means that Linny needs to steal one final look: he’s young, obviously, but that doesn’t mean she’s not allowed to look. With a clearing of her throat, she goes back to looking through her hides for a moment before stopping with a frustrated shake of her head. “That’s not my problem. I have plenty of people who want to. It’s about being good at what I need them to do,” Linny explains, running a hand through her long waves before pausing to take a few sips of water. Even if he didn’t ask, it would seem the goldrider is in a talkative mood, so intense eyes focus in on his. “I just need someone detail oriented. I don’t need them to go to meetings for me or anything like that. I just need notes made for me, hides run wherever I need them or picked up from someone, meeting minutes transcribed.” But it all gets a groan out of Linny, looking more and more displeased by the moment, or that could be because a hand reaches up to start pressing on her stomach, fingers digging into her pregnant belly. “Stop kicking there.” Nope, not said to Jalebren; that’s directed at her unborn.

It might as well be said to him because Jalebren practically jumps at her request: "Do you need some more water? I can go grab some with ice if you want, it'd take less than a minute…" No one ever said Jay wasn't a nervous guy, but when a pregnant weyrwoman acts as if she's in some kind of discomfort, he practically goes into fight or flight mode. Kid can move when he wants to — a good quality when a situation calls for it. Blue eyes lock with the goldrider and he's practically on the edge of his seat, just waiting for the word to fetch anything she needs. "Or maybe the baby's hungry?" Hey, he doesn't know jack about babies or pregnancy, but he's going by what he's heard from other people. And babies get hungry. So do pregnant women. Makes sense to him.

“I’m fine,” Linny assures him, even as that pained look remains, though thankfully, it only lasts a few more minutes before she must win the battle with her unborn, and her petite body relaxes, hands straightening the hides in her lap. Belatedly, a thought strikes her head, and it has her eyes lifting to study him closely. Whatever she sees, she might like, since her head falls to the side as a slow smile spreads over her lips. “What about you, Jalebren? I know you work in the stables, but do you have any aspirations to do something else?” It’s yet to be seen how his penmanship is, and if he would be able to pay attention to the small details that she so enjoys, but he’s attentive when it comes to her, and that is something Linny definitely needs. And something F’dan couldn’t argue with: someone to watch over her and make sure she and the baby are well taken care of when he can’t be there.

Jalebren has a mind like a sieve most of the time. He's horrible with names and often times has to sing-song details to himself because he just can't remember things, but — holy shells, what did she just say? Straightening a bit, he looks at Linny like she has three heads. "Me?" Oh man. At first, he's shocked. His mind is racing at the very thought of being someone's assistant and all the details that come along with the job but then he's quick to think about one other very important factor: he'd be around her all the time. "I'm…not very good at remembering things." Another very good trait Jay has is his honesty. "I'm also bad at remembering names." Anything else? Well, Linny might as well know the truth about him now than find out later if he screws something up. Both hands rise in surrender as he looks a bit flustered: "Not trying to be disrespectful, ma'am. Just figured those are things you'd wanna know about."

Linny’s not about to force him into doing something he doesn’t want to do, and with all of his honesty, it has her sighing, seeing it as him not wanting the position and being polite about declining. The hides are tossed down beside her as a hand raises to scrub at her face, groaning once more. “I give up. I’m not having an assistant. F’dan can kiss my ass, because I’m just not doing it.” If only because she can’t seem to find anyone worthy. But not wanting to ruin this moment, Linny forces a smile as she looks over at Jalebren, reaching a hand over to squeeze his knee. “Well, if you come across anyone you think would be good, please let me know.” With that, she goes in for more water, gulping down the last of it before putting the empty glass back down beside her. “So what brought you here? Of all of the places to relax.” It certainly isn’t the coolest place to escape Igen’s heat.

"No, wait… Hold on." Jalebren says a little too quickly. He'd be an absolute dimglow if he let an opportunity like this pass him by. "Running errands, getting stuff, writing stuff. I can do that, y'know." And he'd do it in record time, too. The main motivation here is simple: the woman is sharding beautiful. Girls seem to render him powerless and when a weyrwoman is asking him point blank if he'd be an assistant, even he's not dumb enough to say no. Scratching the side of his arm —yeah, must still be hay or something — Jalebren shrugs his shoulders at the request. "I'd love to help you, ma'am, if you don't mind me lacking experience with stuff like this. I mean, I can work real hard if you give me the chance." Try not to sound too desperate, Jay.

For a long moment Linny just looks at him, pushing almost to that uncomfortable point, but suddenly, her face breaks out into a huge smile and arms are quickly thrown around him in a giant hug. With a pregnant belly in the middle. “You’ll be great,” she whispers in his ear, giving it a kiss before she pulls away to continue beaming at him, leaving her hands on his shoulders. “I’ll be in touch with you tomorrow morning, okay? Meet in the Council Chambers, and I’ll walk you through what I do, though most days I imagine I’ll just have you come to my weyr. You know where that is right?” Linny waves a hand to dismiss her question before he even has a chance to answer. “I’ll show you tomorrow.” A little squeal, and then hands are grabbing his face so she can pull him in to give him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jalebren.” And with that, Linny gathers her hides and empty glass, off to start getting things ready for her assistant.

Jalebren doesn't quite know what just happened. Perhaps later on it'll hit him like a ton of bricks that he just volunteered to be a junior weyrwoman's assistant. A pregnant junior weyrwoman whose hormones just might run in every direction like a team of wild runnerbeasts. Oh, Jay, what did you get yourself into? And she better not kiss him like this every day or he might not survive… So far he's nodding at everything she's telling him. "Yes ma'am." Time to start writing things down. All he's heard so far: 'council chambers' and 'tomorrow morning'. Well, that's good enough for him. When Linny grabs hold of his face to plant a kiss on his cheek, he just sort of lingers there for a moment until she starts gathering up her hides. "I'll be there tomorrow—" And off she goes. "Morning." A salute is given as he stands and the same hand reaches to touch where her lips were on his skin. Then as if the realization is finally sinking in, he looks himself over and dashes toward the general direction of the baths — better start cleaning up and looking for some decent clothes.

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