first steps into hell [CANDIDATE LESSON]

[Mystery]

"Good morning, Candidates!"

It wasn't really morning, it wasn't even quite dawn. There was just the barest hint of pink in the sky when C'lior walked through teh candidate barracks, bashing on one end of a metal pan he'd taken from the kitchens for this particular purpose, the sound reverberating through the barracks and likely some candidates skulls. Of course, he hadn't been so cruel when Ealinor had been a candidate. Nope. Back then, as some of the candidates would recall, he'd walked in softly, taken the time to wake each individual as they needed to be, with even a kiss to his son's forehead. That had been before he'd been kidnapped by the rebellion. Now there was no waking them sigularly, unless a solid kick to one of the boys' beds counted as he hollared again.

"Up! Up, you lazy sons of scarlet letters! Up you useless ninnies! Up and assembled before I start kicking asses instead of beds." By that point he was back at the door, arms crossed over his chest for a moment before snorting and turning to walk out.

Candidates. Once he'd loved the job, he'd loved watching them learn and prosper as people. He remembered a few of the faces, though others he had recalled as a younger group, not the older boys that they were now. At least the lot of them were older, there weren't many young candidates and for that he was almost relieved. Whta would happen if he failed them as much as he did little Ealinor. Up until last turn he'd been learning right along side them. Sweet, quiet, eager to help, eager to learn, eager to be happy and give whatever assistance he could to any person. He'd adored everyone, every day had been something special to him.

Now that was gone. And all he had left was the job, he was going to make sure those candidates got through this alive.
Candidates, you have two minutes to assemble in the common area for training.[/i]

[Akira]

Apparently it was a good thing that Motoki had so many siblings, she was used to getting up rather early, and this morning she had gotten up before most of the other candidates. She had just finished her breakfast and had only just reached the common area when she heard the candidate master’s voice and someone banging on a pan. She covered her ears as she entered, hoping that would help keep her ear drums from breaking with the amount of noise this singular man was making. Excuse me Master C’lior, but I think the pan was a bit much. She was trying to be polite, but wasn’t sure if maybe she should have just kept her mouth shut instead.

Korigain opened his brown jaws and yawned as he sat atop Motoki’s left shoulder, now more awake than he had been just a few seconds before. Lunete yawned and hissed softly at C’lior as she blinked wearily at the candidate master. Motoki lifted her hand and stroked the large green firelizard’s tail, making the young female yawn and curl herself up a little closer to the teen’s neck. Anyways, good morning Candidate Master C’lior. She was silently hoping that he wouldn’t be too harsh on all the candidates today, but she wasn’t keeping her hopes very high. It was moments like this that made her wish she had never agreed to become a candidate, or even have been searched for that matter.

[Thorn]

Jisene shot up and out of her bed at the loud clanging noise, which was closely followed by C'lior's dragon announcing that they had two minutes to get into the common area. Grateful that he hadn't entered her rooms-there was wood shavings everywhere from where she had started making a bow the day before-she dragged her clothes on and raced out into the large common area, only to trip over someone's boot as she did and fall-face first-onto the floor.

With a small hiss of pain, she sat up, rubbing her forehead where she'd caught it on the floor, and then, with the same speed and agility born from years of travelling in the island's jungles, was on her feet once more and making her way over to the spot she'd claimed for herself in previous lessons.

"Good morning, Master C'lior, Master Serlanth." She smiled at the man and his dragon, hoping that today was one of his good days. She'd heard of what had happened to Ealinor, his son, and her heart went out to the man, but that didn't necessarily mean that the boy was dead, and she severely hoped that he wasn't.

[pulp]

If the sound of that insufferable clanging wasn't going to jolt him awake, the fact that Hatsya, who had been calmly curled up on Bahari's chest, scrambled into a sort of panic due to the sudden sound was enough of a wake up call. The blue scratched at Bahari's neck, and the young man groaned, hands moving to grab the squirming thing as he rolled over and shards that noise. Bahari opened an eye, hissing slightly before pulling himself upright. Hatsya dove down onto the bed, at once trying to regain some of his pride from being awoken so rudely while his human was rubbing at his face. Bahari was groaning, and managed to catch the sight of C'lior in the doorway to the barracks yelling at the lot of them before the man finished his lovely greeting and turned to leave.

Had that been C'lior?

Bahari had been searched back before he left to study for his craft, and his brief interest in candidacy meant that he knew who C'lior was, and he certainly knew how nice he had been. The past seven turns he spent at Sollace Hold had been a while but that certainly looked like C'lior. The brunet scowled a bit, moving to get into some proper clothes and wincing when Serlanth's voice broke in and followed up with a much more polite notification. Bahari grumbled, finally pulling on his boots and standing to move away. Idly he lifted his head up, chin tilting as he looked briefly for his brother, shards, with his luck Joskell would probably end up arriving late. A smile toyed on the crafter's lips as he walked away, hands busy in fixing his thick hair in a loose braid down one side of his shoulders.

He was entering the common area and finally blinking away the sleep in his eyes when he arrived. Hatsya had popped up onto his shoulder and went about fussily trying to fix one of the stray, wavy locks of hair behind Bahari's ear as he moved to take his place. Hearing a few other of the people pipe up his thoughts were affirmed, so C'lior was still the candidatemaster, fancy that. Bahari had been mindful enough to lend an ear to gossip, including the fate of the man's son. "Fantastic morning, Sir C'lior."

[phantomofthewolves]

Kite groaned as the Candidatemaster awoke him. He had only been in the Weyr since only yesterday and already he was put through waking up for a lesson. He slowly slipped out of bed and put on his clothes. Nerugui, his best friend since when he was small, awoke and took his place on his shoulder. He opened the door and was greeted by C'lior, the Candidatemaster. "Good morning, Master C'lior." Kite said to him, giving a respectful bow. Nerugui gave a chirp of respect too, as he was a bit shy around new people.

As he walked to the common area, his stomach grumbled with the voice of no breakfast. He groaned as he was hungry and now he was forced to take part in a lesson before he was able to eat. He scratched under Nerugui's chin as they entered. Luckly, only a few candidates were already there, including Master C'lior. He took a spot close to C'lior and waited for the lesson.

[Kitsuneko]

Laila was dragged out of sleep by the Candidate Master's cacophony, and she quickly strangled a scream when she thought the Weyr might be on fire or something. Once she realized it was just C'lior waking her and the other candidates up, her heart slowed down a bit and she launched herself out of bed. Two minutes was hardly enough time to fix her hair, but she did her best, and rushed out to join the other candidates.

She took a moment to catch her breath and looked around. Jisene was already up--at least she knew one other candidate already--as well as another girl and two boys. She felt a slight irritation towards the Candidate Master, though she quickly hid it. Had it really been necessary to wake them up at this hour? They didn't even have dragons yet. That noise certainly hadn't been necessary. All she said, however, was, "Good morning, Master C'lior."

[Ace]

Joskull kind of wanted to die.

Joskull was not a morning person. Between the yelling and the stomping and Sktrun screaming bloody murder, the blond was forced to turn over and pry his amber eyes open. Why. Why. Grousing, the glass-smith attempted to just roll over and pull his pillow over his head when the brown's voice rumbled though his mind. He groaned again. Pillows were useless when it came to dragons invading your mind. Didn't they know that was rude? It was practically pre-dawn. Shards, it was pre-dawn. Joskull's interest in this lesson was approximately zero.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much choice in the matter. Strun had started shrieking again, highly offended another dragon dare Bespoke his. Slowly, slowly, Joskull rose. It was only by sheer chance that he managed to pull on his breeches and his shirt (though it would have served that damn candidatemaster right if he just showed up in strictly underthings), and Strun fluttered onto his shoulder. Where the man looked disheveled, the garnet looked like the picture of elegance and grace. (Which was a complete and utter lie.)

Shuffling out to join the others already assembled, the glass-smith joined his younger brother almost immediately. He shot Bahari a sleepy glare, leaning over to shove him with one shoulder. "Why didn't you wake me up, you little shit?" he grumbled, eying Strun carefully. His pet was…well, that was a good question. The fact that Strun appeared to be behaving was highly suspicious. "And stop being such a kiss ass. Fuck, you are so Uncle's prodigy." Bahari, you were so gross.

(Joskull was just going to take after their mom and be generally grumpy until someone gave him a good reason not to.)

[taylor]

Koroniket was used to waking up early. He'd been raised under a cook, after all, and that meant being up at the crack of dawn to start kneading bread, brewing klah, and cooking breakfast so that they would be ready by the time the rest of the world awoke at a more normal hour.

Today, however, had been a rare exception. While he would normally be awake at this hour, he figured he should take advantage of his Candidate status - he had to do chores, but was temporarily relieved of his old duties. He'd been at the weyr for just three days, and had finally trained himself to stay asleep another hour. It wasn't much, but it felt like heaven.

Today, though? Well, today was just determined to be horrible, it appeared. As if the odious clanging wasn't bad enough, the candidate master abruptly kicked his bed. He'd bolted upright at the noise, and the sudden lurch of his bed combined with that movement to send him rolling out of bed onto the floor. Graceful. Wonderful.

He glared at the man - who was now retreating to bang his pot in other peoples' ears - and then got slowly to his feet, mind full of chastisement. Once he was dressed, he'd give that man a piece of his mind.

Koroniket dressed and patted down his hair, not frantic with speed but not exactly dawdling either. About three minutes later (so sue him), he sauntered up to the rest of the class, leveling C'lior with a very unimpressed look. "While I understand your desire to make an impact, sir, that dramatic display came off more than a little bit juvenile. You might consider, in the future, whether you want to look authoritative or merely irritating."

[Mystery]

Zeke had been very displeased with the loud banging. He'd been having one of those wonderful dreams where he was married and back on the cothold, and he and his wife had been turning down beds because the children would be back soon. Just sayin' too, his wife had been something to look at. A real handful, front and back and Faranth and the first egg, that body. It had been a great dream. He'd been reaching for his wife, and there were sweet whispers of love in the light breeze that stirred the trees and then--
"Before I start kicking asses instead of beds!" Well, that was kind of a horrible thing to say to him, dear. Why, why would you wound him so--
Candidates, you have two minutes to be up and assembled.

[/i]

With a rather dramatic flailing, Zeke not only threw himself out of bed, with enough flailing limbs to knock one of the other candidates in the head (earning a "Sharding son of a fishmonger!" and a guilty "Sorry, Kvothe"), but he managed to get himself completely tangled in the sheets as he did so.

For a long moment, the farm boy merely lay there, snuggled into his furs and trying to work up the energy to move and put clothes on - he knew for a fact he wasn't the only candidate sleeping completely butt-nekkid, thank you - and brush his hair and arrange himself like everyone else was. Attempting to find energy. ..

Energy not found.

Wriggling himself deeper into the furs, he merely wriggled himself out towards the area with the rest of the candidates, only getting to his feet when he reached them and promptly leaning all of his weight on Joskull.
"Mornin', 'm awake. Sir."[/blockquote][/blockquote]

[Mystery]

x x

There appeared to be a fascination with dawn in this weyr. One of these days, Nyssa was going to do away with candidate lessons at dawn. No lessons before the noon day meal. That would be one of her first orders when she ruled Pern. So it was a while away, better to start making edicts now before she actually had the power and had no idea what to do with it. Vaguely, she heard Jisene fall over and promptly snickered with amusement, carefully settling herself about her daily tasks. C'lior could wait, she was in no hurry and none of the other candidates were of any use to her yet. Maybe she'd talk to a few of them, and such, make some connections, but really it was a shame that the weyrleader was in a relationship and the new weyrleader was a woman. Seriously, life?

She took her sweet time getting ready, brushing her hair out and settling her clothes around her before elegantly making her way to the rest of the candidates. Should that man even be allowed to teach them anymore? He was clearly a mess and completely different apparently. Gossip was a wonderful thing sometimes, it would just be better if she cared. She didn't want to know anything but how to get that gold. Of course she was destined for it, but that didn't mean she wouldn't take whatever help she could get in the mean time. She could take over with another colour, but despite everything golds were still the top of the hierachy, it would make things so much easier in the end.

When she did grace them all with her presence, she simply raised an eyebrow at the two candidates that decided to offer their own opinions, and then another when Zeke appeared in only his furs. Really, idiots, the sooner they shut up and paid attention, the sooner they would be out of it and it wouldn't matter anymore. All they had to do was shut up. So she could crawl back into bed and sleep for a little longer.

[Mystery]

Kvothe's first concious thought of the day was about just where he'd like to shove that pan of C'lior's. It wasn't pleasant and it would be painful. Shards it would be painful.

He was fully awake the moment the first bang trolled around the barracks, amid the harpies screeching and the pricks hollaring and groaning and a fist in the side of his head (he was going to skin Zeke). Bad mood, already well and truly settled and it wasn't even sharding dawn. Who the hell asked people to learn anything at sharding dawn? There was nothing to learn for most of these people. The candidate master, he was such an ass.

He rolled out of bed silently, determined not to give the sadist posing as a brown rider any satisfaction of knowing that he was giving them all trouble. He ran his hands through his hair - only succeeding in spiking it up further and giving it no grace - pulling a simple shirt over his head before shoving his feet back into his boots. It seemed like only an hour or so ago that he'd put his lute down and gone to sleep, that he'd taken those boots off. Never the less, he wouldn't be going back to sleep, not now he was awake - to be fair he wouldn't have been asleep for much longer.

By the time he joined the group, people were talking. Ugh, the useless bleating of ovines in a crowd, never wanting to move from beyond the group and wanting to stand on everyone else to be taller and stand out. Oooh brave people, talking back to someone who was trying to help.
"Or you could just shut your useless mouth and think about whether you want to come across as intelligent or merely desperate for attention." Kvothe snapped at Koroniket, glaring at him for a long moment before looking at Motoki,
"And when you wear the knots of a rider, I doubt we'll all be any more interested in your opinion. If you don't have something worthwhile to say, just keep your shardin' opinions to yourself." Done snapping at the candidates, he settled his glare on C'lior too.

Oh he wasn't done. He was just holding his tongue for now.

[Mystery]

x x

C'lior of Serlanth

Oh great, candidates who had already graduated to be his superiors. One day, they'd have a group of nice respectful students and he might fall over. Glaring at Motoki first, the force of that glare was soon on Koroniket.
"Oh you think so, do you? Both of you, report to latrine duty and double chores for the next week until you learn respect. When I want your opinion on how I run my classes, and wake my students up, I will ask for it. If you have not been riding a dragon for more than fifteen turns, I don't want to hear your useless advice. Do we understand each other?" He wasn't yelling, but he was certainly speaking loud enough to rattle a few bones.
"Good morning to the rest of you." Each candidate was given a nod, barely inclining his head towards each candidate before snorting when one particularly dishevelled candidate stumbled into the room.
"Zeke, next time, put clothes on."

Joskull, considering he wasn't being adressed, was ignored. If there was going to be sibling love going on, he didn't care. At all. C'lior was not in the mood to deal with any of them at the moment, and congrats to the two that had decided to pipe up, you just made things so much worse for your fellow candidates. Serlanth rumbled softly from where he was, trying to sooth the temper that was boiling for poor C'lior. Really, mine, you needed to see someone about that vein in your temple. One day it was going to burst.
"To those of you who don't know me, I am Candidate Master C'lior, my dragon is brown Serlanth. I have been teaching candidates since my graduation. Now, here is how things are going to work. We are going to go around, you are going to tell me your name, craft and what you want to Impress and why. Smart asses will be joining those two clever jokers on latrine duty. I will only give you instructions once. Once you have all introduced yourself I will give you the next instruction."

It's nice to meet you all! I hope we can work well together!

[/i]

[/blockquote][/blockquote]

[phantomofthewolves]

Kite waited for every candidate to arrive, his stomach still grumbling for lack of food. He was very anxious to get started with the lesson. When everyone arrived, he took a seat on the floor. Nerugui jumped of his shoulder and began to go check out the female flitts that a few candidates had. When Nerugui was done flirting, he returned to Kite's shoulder. Kite stared into the ceiling, wondering what the lesson topic would be and daydreaming that he was with his future dragon, flying alongside G'daro and his dragon.

He came to his senses when C'lior introduced himself and his dragon. He was then given an instruction to introduce himself to the other candidiates. He got to his feet and said: "My name is Kite and this is my firelizard, Nerugui. I am a Journeyman Weaver and I would want to Impress a brown because I want to be like my cousin, G'daro of Brown Banemith." When he was done, he sat back onto the floor and waited for everyone to introduce themselves.

[taylor]

Koroniket always found that phrase odd. "Learn respect." As if he didn't know the meaning of the word or who deserved it. He did. He knew that he deserved respect - respect he was not currently getting, you might note - and C'lior had yet to earn it. The man's words explained a great deal to Ko, though. Fifteen years, huh? If that didn't explain C'lior's poor attitude, Koroniket didn't know what would. The man had Impressed before Thread returned, when the skies were far less colorful. Clearly he was having trouble coping with the change and it was making him a bit grumpy. If he couldn't be happy, no one could, right? That and he was likely terrified. He'd probably walked onto the Sands expecting a pretty dragon to fly around with and be happy and pretty forever. He wasn't prepared for Thread to come tearing into his life.

"I understand you quite well, sir." The words were right - a perfectly acceptable answer to C'lior's question - but the tone was a bit off. There was some pity there, but also a bit of irritation. A man as broken and scared as this should not be leading the next generation of dragonriders. Ko made a mental note to consider being candidate master once he had his bronze.

For now, though, he brushed the thought away. Flawed as this man was, he was their teacher, and now was time for a lesson. This seemed an interesting exercise. How much insight would others have? He glanced at Zeke. That boy, for example, couldn't think himself worthy of a bronze, right? But would everyone claim they wanted a bronze, anyway? How could you actually want something inferior? He glanced at Kite. Brown? Well, that was still somewhat respectable. Perhaps those who realized they weren't worthy of bronzes would all opt for browns. Better than admitting you expected a green.

"My name is Koroniket. I am a cook, and I will be Impressing a bronze because Pern needs my guidance." Cocky? Yes. But in his mind, it was just a fact.

[Seven]

Imiika frowned at the noise, though she didn't look startled. She had been up making notes by the light of a sheltered glow. Notes about each Candidate - the ambitious, prideful, queenseeking Nyssa being one of them. She rather disliked her. She liked to use men as well. And a lot of the boys, yes boys, they were all boys in her eyes, were too stupid to realize it. Nyssa had her eyes set on more than a Gold though. If her personality was anything to judge by. Imiika sighed. Two minutes were up.

She rose, stretching, neatly putting her documents away and taken care of before emerging quietly and giving C'lior a respectful nod. It wasn't like it would do well to slight the poor man. Besides, he felt a lot of pain at losing his son. It was not a pain easily mended or moved on from and it affected every part of a person's self in a very distinct way. And in C'lior, that distinct way was decidedly how he treated others.

She stood where she could watch them all as she listened to C'lior quietly. Then, she supposed, she might as well speak and participate in this lesson fully. "My name is Imiika. I am a Journeyman Mind Healer. I don't really think it matters what I Impress as long as the dragon and I can keep up with each other and I can continue to ply my craft, I will be happy." She shrugged. "Power in color is not the only power there is, after all." She looked directly at Nyssa, her eyes having a very evil glint to them.

She turned her attention slowly away and back towards the Candidate Master where he stood, waiting.