Chores?
You head into the Living Caverns.
Living Cavern (#2070J)
This is the vaulted, high-ceilinged main gathering area of Ista Weyr, where
riders, residents and drudges congregate to socialize and make merry. Or even
just to eat. Long, sturdy tables fill most of the cavern in neat rows, two of
them hemming about the hearths that line the northeastern curve of the cavern.
Sideboards by the kitchen entrance groan beneath a constant burden of food and
drinks, kept fresh by the cooks and lower caverns staff.
Obvious exits:
Bowl Kitchen Lower Caverns
Carise has arrived.
Carise moves slowly out of the kitchens, a bucket of water grasped tightly in her hands, tiny steps taken to prevent the spilling of the contents, even though some still manages to escape. Lifting it higher, she manages to balance it ontop of a table, one arm disappearing inside the bucket to pull out an old cloth, with which she starts to wipe down the table end.
Azarin trudges in from the Bowl, his arms and legs covered in dirt. A few strands of hay sticks out from his frizzled hair and he has a certain scent about him, revealing where he's spent the past few candlemarks. Headed for the food table, he pours a mug of juice before slumping into the closest chair, grinning at Carise. "Hi, there. How're you?" A little too cheerful perhaps, for someone just out of stable duty.
Carise continues moving around the table, rubbing at the surface, retreating back to the bucket now and then to rinse out her cloth, before it's back to washing. Straightening up, she rests one knee on the chair, wrinkling up her nose at him with a look of digust on her face. More for the chore then anything else, of course. "As well as can be expected?" And the candidate bobs her head, sweeping the cloth over the table before dumping it in the bucket and moving it all to the next table. "And... yourself?"
Giving Carise a broad smile, Azarin makes no move to come to her aid. Just yet, anyway. "Oh, I was just over in the stables, mucking out the stalls. I really always liked the smell of runners. It's sort of an... A comforting smell, dontcha think?" Sipping his juice, he leans back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him, tilting his head this way and that to get rid of a crick. "I'm sure we'll be less busy as more candidates come in, though." Always the optimist, isn't he?
Carise
Dark brown hair, which could be mistaken for black, is pulled back into many
braids. These braids in turn are pulled into a ponytail of sorts. The braids
are dyed either silver or red, but some are left the natural dark brown. The
resulting ponytail is a dazzling array of contrasting colors. The dark hair
surrounds a round face, which is characterized by the ice blue eyes. Her eyes
draw you in, and after a moment's inspection, a mischievous glimmer is apparent.
Her small nose is covered with freckles, and her whole self is tanned, it seems
from years of working outdoors.
She is wearing a short weyrhide skirt that barely reaches her knees. It is dyed
a deep blue and appears to be well worn. Hold it up, is a plain leather belt
with a star as the buckle. A lighter blue sleeveless tunic, which matches her
eyes, clods her. Heavy brown weyrhide boots cover most of her calves and provide
protection. Loeje regards you, perched atop Carise's shoulder. Karibean regards
you, perched atop Carise's shoulder. Taury regards you, perched atop Carise's
shoulder. Dusck regards you, perched atop Carise's shoulder.
Carise is 20 Turns, 8 months, and 1 day old.
She is awake, but has been staring off into space for 5 minutes.
Carrying:
Dusck
Taury
Karibean
Loeje
"Or else they'll simply find more for us to do." Murmuring quietly under her breath, she pauses, hands resting on the edge of the bucket to glance over at him with a shrug. "We need to stay busy, afterall. Training for if our lifemates are on the sands." Someone's been listening to the riders too much. Dropping the wet cloth on the table, Rise gives it a push before glancing over at him with a shake of her head. "They smell fine.. It's their mess that don't." And flushing at her statement she pays more attention to the chore at hand.
Azarin wouldn't have any idea /why/ they were given chores, only that he would follow them pretty much blindly without question. "Oh.. Is that why they give us so much work?" he asks, finishing his juice and then pushes off the chair to move over next to Carise. "D'you have another cloth in there?" Pointing at the bucket, he raises an eyebrow and quirks a corner of his mouth, waiting for an answer.
Carise nods quietly, swirling the cloth around on the table top, eyeing the wet streaks it leaves behind with a sigh. Returning the cloth to the bucket, she wrings it out, before looking up surprised at Azarin. "I... I'm not sure?" And her hand disappears into the bucket, before she fishes a pale blue rag out of the water, draping it carefully on the edge. "There is, although what you need it for is beyond me..." And taking her now mostly dry cloth, she moves down the table to mop up the water she left behind.
Azarin wrings out the cloth so it won't dripple all over the floor, then moves to the next table over, starting to wipe that, neatly darting around people seated there with their dinner. "Why didn't they wait till /after/ dinner was over?" he calls out to Carise, excusing himself to a bronzerider as he accidently splashes a few drops on his leather. "I really am sorry, sir. It's only a couple of drops." Brushing the man's sleeve doesn't help much, and poor Aza is violenty pushed away with a 'don't do that again!' call after him.
Carise wipes at the table, leaning over the top to get the far side between a pair of young riders, murmuring apologies for disturbing them. Glancing in Aza'a direction she blinks for a second before smiling, starting at add a thank you, before shaking her head at his question. "You can ask that, if you'd like to know." She's not in any mood to find out. Dumping the cloth back into the bucket, she starts to move it, before making a face at the bronzerider and skittering closer to Aza with a creased forhead. "Are you okay?"
Giving the bronzerider a displeased look, Azarin moves back to the bucket to wring out his cloth again, flashing a smile at Carise. "I'm okay.. I just never knew bronzeriders could be so... Vain about their clothes." The last bits whispered as he leans closer to his fellow candidates. He'd heard a thing or two about /green/riders and their clothes, but never bronzeriders. "I'll just take that table over there." The one with no people sitting at it.
Carise has to stifle a giggle as she glances at the bronzerider, quickly nodding her head to Aza as she turns around to avoid looking at the offended bronzer. Taking a deep breath, she nods her head again, wringing out her own cloth, moving towards the far side of the cavern to a table with only 2 or 3 people spread out over it's length.
Stopping at the head of the empty table, Aza leaves the cloth lying on the table-top, jamming his fists into his hips overlooking his work with a satisfied look. "Y'think we're done soon?" Obviously he hasn't noticed those tables over there in the shadows. Or the ones behind him. "I think I liked the stables more. At least the runners didn't complain when I interfered with their lunch.."
Carise coughs softly, glancing over her shoulder at the other tables, before nodding back at Aza with a grin. "Oh... almost done." Even if she only has to do half of them. Some other poor candidate gets stuck with the rest. Swirling the cloth around on the table, she drags it along next to her as she goes back to the bucket, wrists balanced on the edge as she rinses it out. "But at least the rider don't smell, and you don't have to watch where you step." Although both of those could be debatable.
Shrugging, Aza moves away from the freshly washed-off table and strolls back to the bucket, stopping a few feet away, aiming his cloth carefully and tosses. Splash! Water everywhere. Good thing no one was sitting next to the bucket, eh? Laughing, the candidate retrieves his cloths, wrings it, then drenches it once more and starts in on the next table. "How many candidates d'you think there'll be?" he asks, glancing up at Carise.
No was was sitting by it, but Carise had to stand by it. Wrinkling up her nose, she glances down at her tunic, brushing at it ineffectually before resigning to wipe down the tables with a sigh. "Thanks..." And starting at the opposite end of Azarin's table, she mops it along the surface for a bit, quietly, before glancing over at him with a shrug. "More then there are eggs..." Well /that's/ a given.
"So more than..." Frowning, Aza realizes that he hadn't been able to count just how many eggs there'd been on the Sands. "At least... D'you know how many eggs there are?" he asks, blinking as he grins lopsidly. "Sorry 'bout that... I'll wash it next time I'm on laundry duty?" Nice of him to offer, right? The least he could do, having soiled her tunic.
Carise glances down at her tunic once more before shakign her head with a shy grin. "It's not something to worry about. It'll come out." Sloshing the cloth around on the table top, through the puddles her overwet cloth left behind, she slowly shakes her head with a wrinkle of her nose. "I... have no idea. I never found out exactly how many..." Had time to count, is more like it.
Attacking a particularly viscious spot of spilled klah, Aza rubs furiously, not realizing that it is probably an ancient spot which has been given up on long ago by the drudges. "Well... There're two clutches, y'know, so it must be more than usual," he notes, still rubbing at the silly klah-stain. "It won't come out!"
The spot is carefully eyed as she nods absently to herself, a quick glance tossed in the direction of the Hatching grounds before peering at the offending area once more. "But how many is the usual?" Rise doesn't know. A fingernail scratches lightly at the surface of the table, with a face. "Maybe it doesn't come off?"
"I dunno? But there /must/ be more, right? With two queens clutching at the same time..? The barracks are gonna be crowded," he muses, giving up on his own resistant stain, moving on to another part of the table. "I'm glad I got one of the /good/ cots. Those coming in last'll prolly have to sleep on the floor!" Chuckling, he winks at her and then slumps down on a bench, leaning back to lie down. Just taking a little break..
"There are, of course. But sometimes they overlap, so there have to be enough cots, right?" And blinking Rise wrinkles up her nose, biting her lip before shrugging again. "I'm not giving up my cot, though." Not even for a little girl. She gives another scratch at the stain before shrugging, leaning over the table to rub at it before tossing her cloth at him. "Or they could sleep out here on the benches."
Trying to avoid the oncoming cloth, Aza tumbles to the floor, the cloth still hitting him smack in the middle of the face. "Hey!" he yells, coming up to kneel, glaring at her with a surprised look on his face. Bursting into laughter, he comes to stand tossing the cloth back at her, quickly following by his own before ducking behind a table to avoid any missiles coming back at him. "I wasn't sleeping," he informs her, peeking up from underneath the table he'd taken cover under.
Carise hurriedly starts to apologize before the cloth comes right back at her, followed by the second. Managing to catch one, the other one catches her shoulder and drapes over it. Holding the one in her hand at arms length, she backs away slowly, taking a few steps before tossing it back at him under the table. Nearly tumbling over a bench, she giggles. "Are you sure you weren't?"
Missile missing Aza, he quickly snatches it up, scrambling from underneath the table to seek cover behind a bluerider, peeking from over her shoulder at Carise. "Of course I'm /sure/! Sorry, ma'am," he says, direction the last words at the rider as she tells him to scram. Dodging behind a chair, he grins at the other candidate, waving the cloth at her. See? He still has ammunition.
Carise quickly grabs at the cloth still on her shoulder, backing around the table, glancing now and then over her shoulder to make sure she's not going to run into anyone. Snickering quickly at the bluerider, she covers her head as a tall greenrider moves her out of the way after the candidate stepped on her boot toe. "Um... Sor-sorry ma'am.." A sheepish grin and then Rise's back to sneaking around, cloth clenched in her hand. "It sure seemed like it, you know.."
"My eyes weren't /even/ closed!" Crouching as he dodges from a chair to a table for cover, only the top of his head is visible above the tabletops. "Can you sleep with your eyes open, perhaps?" he asks her, calling out from behind a drudge. They wouldn't complain if they were hit by wet cloths. Would they?
"You can sleep with your eyes open, really!" And cutting off her exclamation, Rise continues circling around the table. How is it that he is getting closer and closer? Hand held up, cloth in hand, she eyes him, moving the opposite direction, trying to get a better shot around the drudge. It's not nice to hit an innocent bystander, right?
Azarin's hands grab the drudge's arms, turning the poor girl around so that she's in the line of fire. Dragging her along, he backs towad the inner caverns, glancing over his shoulder now and then to navigate between the tables. "I'm gonna go now. Get myself a bath before having my dinner," he calls out to Carise, stepping out from behind the drudge long enough to fling his rag at the other candidate, then turns and runs toward the darker area of the weyr.
You head into the Living Quarters.
*** Disconnected ***