0001-03-06 - Last Words

It's the day after they found out when V'riad buttonholes Constance, far too early. "What are you doing?" he asks, jittery already but filling up a klah carafe anyway. "This morning." His voice is hushed, quieter than it needs to be, quieter than is reasonable for someone not wanting to look secretive or draw attention. As word spreads, they're getting enough of that as it is.

Constance is generally an energetic person...but it takes her some time to get up to speed, and she is NOT there yet today. "I...wha? Whas happening?" She flounders for a mug, since V'riad has the carafe all set. Hope he's ready to share! "Nothin'. What're you doing?"

V'riad bites his lip, then abruptly decides, "Grab some food. I don't know how long we'll have before we leave. Come to my," our, "ledge? Djarith says he'll leave room," sparing her the sense of the bronze sounding so put-upon in his head.

"Food. Food, food..." It takes a bleary Constance longer than it should to wrap a couple of rolls in a napkin and shove the bundle into her pocket, no doubt squashing the contents. "Yeah, right behind you." And for the most part she is. As is Jeveth, who happens to take up quite a lot of ledge room.

V'riad gets more than that, though the food might get just as squashed in the sack he's brought; his legs are hollow, after all. While he's leading the way into the weyr, flipping the lid on a glowbasket, Djarith permits Jeveth plenty of space to land in... but then, as usual, agitates to take as much as possible of it back from his clutchmate. "So what do you think? Igen." Not just a between destination anymore.

Jeveth is a genial creature despite his size and build...think bulldog...and he politely squishes himself up as much as he can manage to give Djarith the space he needs. Constance, meanwhile, follows her clutchmate blearily to the interior of the weyr. She blinks and reaches into her pocket to retrieve her rolls. "Igen?" There's a pause while she tears off a chunk of the roll and pops it in her mouth. "Seems like a nice place. Sort of wish they'd said something before I unpacked. You?"

Djarith needs lots of space, apparently. And then he gives Jeveth a little back, out of the goodness of his hearts. If V'riad rolls his eyes, it's not Constance's fault, and it doesn't stop him from pouring klah for them both or tearing into his own meal. Her words, though... "Yes! Yes, exactly. Not that I wanted to stay in a weyrling weyr one more day but still." Once that's washed down, "How much do you like your weyr, anyway? This weyr. This Weyr's weyr. I hope the ones out there are okay, that they actually want us," that they welcome them.

Jeveth oozes gratefully into what extra space he is given, and Constance seems aware enough of the jockeying outside to know that V'riad's eyerolls are not for her. But what is for her? Is this klah. She lifts the mug and breathes in the steam off the top, eyes closed, before taking a sip. "Mm. No. Me either. Too small." She cants her head knowingly towards the dragon brothers outside. "It's drafty. I hope the new one isn't drafty...it's hot there, isnt it?" She purses her lips thoughtfully when V'riad gets to the real issue at hand. "Well. Me too. It's true that some of us-" she looses one hand from her mug to include them both in a gesture, "-are a bit green."

V'riad's nod isn't a happy one. "We'll do all right with J'rias," he'll protect them, "but I'd rather we actually knew what we were doing. Knew more what we were doing." He shifts position; sitting on the floor isn't so comfortable, after all. And once he's done that, he has to refuel. But then... "You're right, it's hot. Really hot. I had this idea, though. Have you worked with limewash before?"

"The Between lessons went so quickly, I wasn't sure I had the right place," Constance explains, when her suspicions are confirmed. That Igen. The hot one. "I have every confidence in your brother," she replies with a touch of wryness for her own abilities. "Anyway, new blood is good, right?" She says it like she's parroting it from someone else. V'riad's question makes her bark a little laugh mid-bread-bite. "Faranth have I ever. Maybe limewashed every room at Fort Hold." Dark eyes narrow, intrigued that there's more to this than making the walls nice and fresh out of the goodness of their hearts. "What's your idea?"

New blood: V'riad grimaces. Not that it lasts long, given the description of her skills, or at least experience; sitting up a little straighter, "So, I got my hands on a bunch, to make this place less dingy and dismal. Good thing I didn't start! But I was thinking: I could share, we could leave messages to whoever's going to have our weyrs next. Or just 'Constance was here,' something literary like that." He looks amused for the first time that day. "Want in?"

Constance's dark eyes widen a little when the plan is revealed, and she agrees...well, about as readily as V'riad may have come to expect from his clutchmate when mild mayhem is on the line, which is to say, very. "Brilliant." She knocks back a big sip of klah, then rolls her sleeves up. "Let's do it."

"It won't take a lot," V'riad inserts; he can be fussy that way, whether by nature or by just how much Fort -- or the Starcraft? -- had inculcated the whole 'waste not, want not' theme. "We won't waste it." Much. "What do you want on yours?" He sets his own mug down by the carafe and hops up, heading for what turns out -- after he unlids one more basket -- to be a barrel with a basin and brushes on top.

Constance may not share the tendency towards fussiness, but neither does she begrudge V'riad this particular quirk. "Hmm. Eat my dust? Hope you like drafts? Igen or bust? Don't feed the tunnelsnakes? So many choices...do you think I should put all of it, or focus on one singular powerful statement?" She shoves her hands in her pockets, rocks back on her bootheels and tips her head to look up at the ceiling. "What are you gonna put?"

V'riad breaks out into an actual laugh. As he takes off his coat and pushes up his sleeves, "Drafts, definitely. Can I steal that one? Or... no, the dust. Shorter. I was just going to do a basic 'D plus V.'" He stops to unlid the barrel and start stirring. Not looking at her, "You probably heard. Shari's staying here."

"Oh!" Constance seems mildly surprised that V'riad doesn't have quite as many graffiti phrases to hand on short notice as she does, but she waves at the limewash setup airily. "You can steal any of those." Clearly there's more where that came from. "Maybe D + V as well, just so they know where it came from." Her expression softens a little when the bronzerider mentions their mutual acquaintance. "What, she doesn't like dust?" But then, genuinely sympathetic, "You can always visit though, yeah? Just blink on over whenever you feel like it."

"What if I steal all of them," V'riad parries, not that he will. "Ha. Very funny. I wish that were all that was." He sighs as only a teen can, a teen or a particularly melodramatic harper, then makes a face as he gets too much limewater-stank on the inhale. "She'll visit too," he supposes of their clutchmate, then stirs the literal pot some more. Finally, "Grab me that ladle over there?"

"Oh, I could come up with mildly insulting slogans for days," ripostes Constance easily; is it bragging if it's true? "She'd better. Can't have you moping about in our new home, folks might think we don't like it out there in the desert." She is trying to be encouraging. The ladle is proferred. "Make it nice and thick, since we're sending messages instead of freshening up the place."

V'riad doesn't exactly snicker; it's more of a cough. "Fiiine," the vowel drawled out enough to almost be an essay on its own. He waves the ladle skyward -- or rather ceilingward -- and starts to dip it in, before catching himself at the last instant. "Shells. Brushed it earlier, see, over the entry there? but almost forgot to wet it down. All right. You get the fun part. Jug's over there already. Try not to get my room all wet, we've got at least another night yet." Meanwhile, he'll start ladling into the basin, while keeping at least half an eye on things. "What'll you miss most?" Beat. "The food?"

"Can't even skip steps for vandalism," Constance intones with a shake of her head, but she's grinning as she heads over to the water jug. "Where do you want to put it? Over the bed? Just think, the next hapless ex-weyrling comes in here after a long day of drills, throws himself down on the bed in complete exhaustion, looks up and BAM!" She chortles with satisfaction at the imagined scenario, then shakes her head. "Shells no, not the food. I'd be happy never to see the kitchen again." The real answer takes a moment of consideration though, before she answers. "All the reminders of Jeveth as a baby, I think. He'll miss it here more than I will. At least for a little while."

"No, no, over the entry. Entry to my room." Where there isn't the hanging a reasonable rider would have to block their quarters, but then, V'riad just got to move in not long ago. "Sort of like, 'Abandon all hope,' et cetera. Though actually, if we do it on the inside, it won't be noticed as soon." He adds, "I like the idea of over the bed, though. Do that on yours?" And while he's at it, "About the baby things, I can hear my aunt in my head saying to 'Write it down because you aren't going to remember.'" The Bitran accent is thick with this one.

"Right." Constance moves to the spot V'riad has indicated and frowns, then casts around the place for something to stand on. A broken-down chair left by the previous occupant will serve, if perhaps badly, but she scrambles onto it with typical fearlessness and starts dabbing water on the wall. "Oh, I will definitely put mine over the bed." And probably before she has to clear out, too. She doesn't always think ahead. There's a chortle at the Bitran aunt impression. "Too late for that now, I guess. I was too tired to write."

"Are you telling me," V'riad eyes his clutchmate, "that it's all a blur, back then? Or you just wish it were?" He charges the brush and then walks over with the basin, not too close: giving her plenty of room to get down when she's set. "Ready when you are." Not so unlike when they flew for the first time.

"Are you telling me it's not? Have you forgotten the first month when we couldn't figure out who was upset or hungry or had to poop? I actually ate raw wherry at one point because it looked delicious." Constance wrinkles her nose and dabs a damp spot onto the wall a couple of feet across, then hops down from the chair so V'riad can take over. "Go fast, before it dries out."

"That's going in my memories," V'riad says with a smirk. And then he does go fast, though it's hard to work with the limewash that's hard to see when it's still wet: the promised 'Eat my dust!' with, higher, a 'DV' where one initial blends into the next. The handwriting's not the best, but that's not the point.

The basin necessitates care getting down, but after that, he offers her both basin and brush: "Yours. Refill some if you want, I gotta lid this thing up," the barrel, not the surprisingly-survived chair, "before we go."

Constance lets out a heavy sigh. "You and everyone else in our class." She shakes it off just fine though, with a keen eye trained on V'riad's work above. "Perfect. It'll look even better when it's nice and dry." She trundles the supplies over to top the basin off...she must have a lot to write. "How's your ma feel about all of this?" The leaving, presumably, and not the pranking.

It's not pranking when it's claiming. Making a mark! Literally! V'riad darts a look over at his clutchmate at her question, humor fading from his expression. He settles for, "She says she'll miss us. Of course. But she's glad I'm in Jer's hands. I mean, that Jer and me have each other." Let's face it, it's more the former, and the wry slant of his mouth confirms it. "It's not like we'd have all that much time anyway. Not with Thread out there. She's got more good Turns in her, and now it's ours." Their turn. He goes about lidding the glowbaskets if she seems done, then holds the curtain to the ledge.

Constance winces a little. "Sorry. Didn't mean to make you feel bad. I just know you're close. My ma..." She gestures with one hand, a dismissive sort of gesture. "She just asked me if I could place some bets for her while I was over there." She shakes her head with a little laugh. "I won't but I'll say I did. We done here?" Because if so, she's ducking on out of there and hauling herself up onto Jeveth for the quick glide to her ledge for further mischief.

"Of course she did." The grimace is in his voice; he and Djarith are quick to follow Jeveth over, too, and since the ledge is nominally the blue's property, the bronze even behaves. Sort of. More, anyway. Once they make it inside, "So on the wall over the bed, or the actual ceiling?"

Jeveth is still very polite and accommodating, even on his own ledge. By the time Constance has her feet on the ground, she's splashed some of the lime on herself, which she swipes it haphazardly with a sigh. But there's work to do. "Why not both?" Her weyr is sparse inside, the bare necessities and little else. She hops up on the bed, boots and all. "Hand me the water?"

Djarith is not above taking advantage of that -- sunshine, must have all the sunshine! -- but in a companionable way, radiating warmth if not light. "Going to get dripped on?" his rider asks, when V'riad's real question might be, does Constance care? He gives the covers a second look, but doesn't twitch them away, just handing up the water obligingly -- while endeavoring to stay out of spill range.

"I'm sure it'll dry before I go to sleep." It probably won't, really, but Constance does at least take the step of kicking the worn hand-me-down patchwork covers to one side and hopefully out of harm's way. She's on the short side, so the dabbing does take some spritely hopping to accomplish. And alas, some spillage. "I think I'll put the tunnelsnake one up here and the drafts one over the door so it'll be extra welcoming," she declares, holding out the water to get the limewash basin in return. "Trade you."

Better water than lime! V'riad snickers -- 'extra welcoming' -- and, once he makes the trade, steps even further back. "So what did you do down at the Hold? Rooms, rooms, rooms and then some hallways for variety? Or just more rooms?"

Oh, but the lime is next! The extra reach bestowed by the limewash brush keeps jumping to a minimum, but despite an obvious facility with the brush Constance can't fight gravity and several lime droplets patter down on the bed and the artist herself. "Oh, everything. Mostly I worked in the kitchens washing dishes and doing the basic tasks, that's what I was best at, but come the spring cleaning, all of the hold brats have to chip in. Rooms, rooms, rooms, hallways and sometimes, as a very special treat, an alcove or two." She glances down to flash a grin at V'riad. "What did you do, as a Starcrafter?"

Decorating herself is one thing. Decorating him -- well, let's just say her clutchmate wouldn't be singing in the rain. "Alcoves," V'riad repeats, clearly impressed! He props himself against a wall, one that's dusty and (except for his jacket) happy to stay that way. "Lots of math and memorization. And it's a funny thing that I know will shock you: stars are a whole lot easier to see when clouds don't get in the way. Or the moons. Or avians for that matter."

"That is shocking. I am deeply shocked," Constance replies, as the words 'DON'T FEED THE TUNNELSNAKES' form on the damp spot over her bed. The corner of her tongue pokes out of the side of her mouth while she concentrates, adding a rudimentary drawing of a tunnelsnake under the words. "Were they pissed off when you got Searched? I heard some of the Crafts are upset about all the Searching lately. Can you wet the wall over the door for me while you're over there?" He's not over there, but that kind of detail isn't stopping her. She tiptoes again and splodges, 'CONSTANCE WAS HERE' just in case the next occupant is curious as to who the perp was.

"Yes," says V'riad darkly, and gets to work. "Well. Less about that -- I wasn't really -- than when I Impressed. They thought, I thought, I was going there to watch." Without a pause, "Nice job, that." Hers, presumably, given his wave towards her writing. In much the same tone, "There were some candidates who were pissy about that, too."

In the end, he's happy to help her with whatever other decorations she wants to donate to her soon-to-be-old weyr, but before he returns the almost-full barrel and gear to the lower caverns, there's got to be lunch.