beneath the dirt [open]

[kite]

This was a task better-suited to drudges, in Malta's opinion, but she wasn't likely to complain. While some of the Candidates seemed shocked that they were expected to do any work at all, she found herself with a fat glut of time, and no idea what to do with it. She was not familiar enough with the Weyr to take random tasks upon herself, and some of the other dragonhealers seemed to think her Candidacy took precedence over her craft. She'd been shooed out of the Infirmary so many times she was thoroughly sick of the whole business, and when she'd been assigned to cleaning the Weyrling Barracks, she'd been quietly relieved.

There was an air of disuse in the area reserved for the youngest of the Weyrlings, who'd bumble in here with their new-shelled dragons in a few months' time. It was tempting to think that she might be among them, but after so many Turns around dragons and only now being Searched, she doubted it. No offense to Plaeth, of course, but she rather expected the Amethyst would be proven wrong. Ah, well. She had quite a few Turns of Candidacy ahead of her before she'd be allowed to return to her craft, and she supposed she should be grateful for the lightened work-load. Then again, there was an awful lot of dust in here.

With a philosophical sigh, she prodded the glow-basket a little farther open, and began checking the others. She'd brought spares with her, and suspected that at least a few of these would be dim. Some thoughtful soul had settled a trio of brooms, mops, and some clean, if ragged, cloths just inside the hallway, and she'd added a bucket of water and sweet-sand to the grouping. It was probably the sweeping and mopping that would take the most time, but she wrinkled her nose slightly at the look of the bunks in the first room; maybe flipping the thin mattresses wasn't a bad idea, either.

Most of the glows were in surprisingly good shape, so Malta dampened a cloth and began wiping the few items in each barrack free of their clinging layer of dust. No point in sweeping if she was only going to cover a clean floor with the grime of items higher up. She wished she'd checked the list to see who was assigned along with her, then quashed the desire. Sometimes it was better not to know, and perhaps they wouldn't show up at all. No sense in creating a problem where there wasn't one just yet.

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[Akira]

Motoki sighed and shook her head at her two firelizards, sometimes there was just no living with them. You two do realize that if you keep this up you are Both going to be cleaning the Weyrling Barracks by yourselves right? A smirk spread across her lips as both brown and green firelizards clamped their maws shut and settled quietly onto her shoulders, as hard-working as the two of them where neither one of them wanted to even attempt a job that size without the help of their human. The young candidate took in a deep breath and relished the silence that spread around them as he made her way to the Weyrling Barracks.

Oh, hi. Sorry to interrupt, I didn’t know anyone else was here. Motoki stood stock still in the door way as she spoke. She really hadn’t expected anyone else to be there, especially not someone who appeared to be another candidate. Lunete chirped curiously at this strange girl, wondering if she had anything tasty with her, whereas Korigain just looked the girl over quietly trying to decide whether or not she was someone that they could trust. Motoki had known that someone else had been assigned to work with her, but she hadn’t expected anyone else to actually show up.

[kite]

A girl's voice broke into Malta's cleaning reverie; her hand stopped its steady motion, and she turned to see a Candidate framed in the doorway. A pair of firelizards accompanied her, a Green chirruping a greeting, the Brown regarding her steadily, much as Shale would have done to Motoki, had he been present. "You're not interrupting," she answered, returning to her dusting, "I believe you're Motoki?"

She wasn't quite sure. While she remembered all of the names and faces from the Hatching, some had blurred together somewhat. The only ones she'd been especially careful to remember had been the Crafters. Holders, and especially Holder girls, had been of least interest to her, and her mind had very pragmatically let a few of them slip through the cracks. Still, she wouldn't have guessed had she not been reasonably confident; the girl's firelizards had ensured a greater level of recall.

"I didn't think anyone else would show up," she added, unconsciously echoing Motoki's thoughts, "I've only just started dusting, but I'm glad of some help." That was one thing she could say for Holdgirls; they knew how to clean. She glanced around the dusty room, wondering if Motoki was considering her future as much as Malta was, and impulsively decided to speak on it.

"Strange, isn't it, to think we might both be living here in a few sevendays," she remarked off-handedly, turning to face her work rather than the girl. Beyond that, she had little to say, and rather hoped Motoki would be more social than she was. Malta had no love for small talk, though she could force her way through a conversation if she must. It seemed a serious waste of time, but perhaps Motoki would have something of interest to bring to the table. Certainly she knew little of Holds and their ways; perhaps they could discuss that, and she could learn something.

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[Akira]

Motoki was relieved that she hadn’t interrupted the other girl. Yep, that’s me. And this is Korigain and Lunete, be good you two. She tapped each firelizard gently on their little muzzles as she told them to be good. Please don’t be angry with me for assuming, but you are Malta yes? Nice to formally meet you. There was a friendly smile on her face as she spoke, it was quite nice to meet new people especially since she didn’t know all that many people here at Trelis. Maybe Malta would be her first real friend here at her new home. Oh how nice that would be.

Motoki chuckled softly and nodded at the other girl’s words. To be completely honest with you, neither did I. But here we both are. There was a slight hint of playfulness in her voice as she spoke. Mo walked over to Malta and grabbed the other dusting rag, and began to dust. Mo looked over and considered Malta quietly as she thought about the other girl’s words. It is a bit strange…though…I guess it is a good thing that the two of us are cleaning it instead of some of the boys… There wasn’t anything really bad about the boys, but from what she had seen so far, there were more than a few boys who needed a few long lessons about how to clean.

Motoki wasn’t really a nosy person, but being in the same room as someone she didn’t know just sent her curiousness over the roof. Being here makes me miss my family back in Apolla…I wonder if the boys are being nice to Tanwi and Tawiya…Pardon me for asking, but do you have any siblings? Mo wasn’t normally so open about asking a person about their family, but for some reason being there in that room with Malta made her think of her five older brothers and two younger sisters. Korigain crooned softly at the feelings he was getting from Mo, and him and Lunete nuzzled against Mo’s neck, giving her a comforting feeling.

[kite]

Malta spared some of her attention for the introduction of the firelizards, a very faint smile in the corner of her mouth. "I've an Ebony myself," she responded, "And yes, I'm Malta." She couldn't imagine having a pair of firelizards, even though Shale was very little trouble. In his first Turn or so, that hadn't been true, and she'd never so much as considered purchasing an egg or standing around at one of many tame firelizard hatchings in the Weyrs she'd lived in. While her own Shale had gone a long way towards improving her opinion of the little creatures, she still had a lingering belief that they were rather more likely to be more trouble than they were worth than otherwise. So far, Motoki's pair seemed generally well-mannered, and Malta hoped they'd stay that way.

She had nothing to say to Motoki's agreement, and settled on a smile as she returned to her own dusting. It was certainly nice that she didn't have to tackle all of this on her own, even if she was more comfortable doing things herself than trusting someone else to. She resolutely kept her eyes on her work, trying not to watch the other girl. If she did, her finicky brain would try to find some fault in what she was doing, and she'd itch to take over. "Good point," she conceded, "These rooms would probably look about the same when some of our fellow Candidates finished with them." She wrinkled her nose at the idea of having to move into such a dusty, disused space. "Don't blame everything on the boys, though. I think some of the girls would do worse than they would," she added, amused. The girl who'd been so sure she'd Impress Gold jumped to mind, and the Lord Holder's daughter surely had no idea how to clean much of anything. Motoki, for her part, was certainly willing enough, and that counted for quite a bit in Malta's book.

"I do," she answered slowly, dunking her rag back into the bucket and wringing it out to give herself a moment, "I have a younger brother, Taerol, but I don't know him well. I met him for the first time two Turns ago. I Apprenticed at Fort Weyr, and my parents live in Southern Hold, so I had no real opportunity to get to know him." She didn't add that she hadn't wanted to meet him, since he would doubtless fill the spot in her father's heart she'd always hoped to take for herself. In reality, she'd liked the brash, outspoken little boy, and they had rather more in common than it seemed on the surface. It didn't hurt that Taerol hadn't the slightest interest in Healing, and had been predominately a test of her father's patience, rather than the obedient, dedicated son he'd dreamed of. "He just Apprenticed to the Fishercraft. My father is furious," she added, grinning into her dusting, "And you? It sounds like you have quite the herd of siblings." She wasn't sure how she felt about that. It was typical of Holders, she supposed, to have as many children as possible. Having been raised as an only child, however, she couldn't begin to imagine what it would be like to grow up with a boisterous pack of brothers and sisters.

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[Akira]

At the mention of another firelizard, Lunete immediately perked up. She chirped curiously at Malta, hoping the other girl would call her firelizard so that she could meet him. If firelizards could roll their eyes, Korigain would be, instead the burly wood colored firelizard shook his Peru colored muzzle at the smaller female. Motoki sighed and grabbed her little green and pulled her back from where Lunete had climbed onto the back of her shoulder and placed her on the ground. Lunete leave Malta alone or I’m going to leave you back in the bedroom. Mo’s voice was firm as she spoke to her firelizard, but yet, it was also full of love.

Korigain had flown up to perch on a windowsill as Motoki had scolded Lunete, and shortly after that the little green joined the larger brown. They really aren’t that bad, but there are times I wish she was more like him. And you do have a point there. She giggled a little as she finished speaking, a few of the other female candidates had come to mind at Malta’s words. One in particular really, but she wasn’t the type to gossip and quickly put the thoughts from her mind. She had more important things to occupy her mind after all. So she returned her attention back to the task at hand, which at this point was cleaning off her rag.

Motoki dunked her rag into the bucket and rang it out thoroughly before going back to dusting. Mo didn’t know what to say, she couldn’t even imagine what her life would have been like without her siblings, and was very thankful for all of them. That I do, I have five older brothers and two younger sisters. Even though they were a bit rough with their games but, I always knew I could count on them if ever I had a bad day…though…most of the time they are the ones that got me in trouble in the first place. Mo couldn’t help but laugh at all the memories she had where her brothers had gotten her into trouble.

[kite]

It was easy enough to guess what the Green wanted, but Malta wasn't inclined to comply. Her Shale was an independent fellow, much as she was, and she had no objection to him keeping his own company. Besides, he wasn't too likely to be friendly; while he was generally warmer to strangers of his own kind than he was to humans he didn't know, it was a matter of degrees. "Friendly," for Shale, was more of a polite chirrup than an extended 'lizard conversation, and the Green very clearly had another definition of the word. Malta guessed Lunete would be very disappointed if Shale arrived, only to pop between to avoid too much social contact, and simply pretended ignorance of the firelizard's wishes. It wasn't long before both of Motoki's pets were perched off on their own, and the girl was speaking.

"I can imagine," she agreed quietly, though the Green didn't seem too bad. Certainly, she was trained well enough to not be much of a bother, but Malta guessed putting that training in place had been significantly more difficult with the Green than the Brown.

Tilting her head slightly as she listened, Malta wrung her rag dry again and finished up the shelf she'd been working on. Most of the rest of the room was clean already, and she supposed sweeping was the next step. "Oh," she was surprised at the sheer amount of siblings Motoki had, "How did you ever find time to yourself? I don't think I could breathe with so many people around." She shook her head as she took up a broom, starting in the corner farthest from the door. It seemed simplest to sweep the dust out into the hallway, and collect it from there. "What did your parents do?" she asked, more interested than she'd expected to be. Then again, she'd always been a particularly curious creature, and this was a way of life she had absolutely no frame of reference for. It was, well, interesting.

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[Akira]

Motoki smiled triumphantly as she finished dusting the bookshelves she had been working on. There all nice and clean again! With the amount of dust that had been on the shelves she wondered how long the place had remained unused or unoccupied. hmm…It wasn’t easy I’ll tell you that much. But since my oldest brothers, twins Molwi and Tonwi, are eight turns older than I am, my brother Mokan is four turns older than I am, my brother Mokwi is two turns older than I am, and Tokaya is only one turn older than I am. Thankfully for me, Molwi, Tonwi, and Mokan were already apprenticing to my father by the time I came along. Wow, that was a lot more talking than she thought it would have been, and yet she still wasn’t done.

Mokwi and Tokaya started tagging along with the older boys as soon as they could, which left me a lot of alone time. Then the younger girls came. Tanwi is three turns younger than I am, whereas Tawiya is eight turns younger. While my mother was taking care of them I would always sneak off by myself, but as they got older, I got more attached to them and stopped looking for time alone. That and they made great helpers if you know what I mean. There was a slight giggle in her voice as she finished her…um…”speech”. Memories flashed in front of her eyes of her sending her younger two sisters off to get sweets from their mother. Oh how she missed her family now that she didn’t see them every day all day.

My mom was a weaver, and she taught me everything I know about weaving…not that I’m all that good at it. She had started sweeping as she had started talking, and was rather amazed with herself at how much talking she had done. Oh well, she liked Malta, and it actually felt good to talk about her family. My mother is from Apolla, but my father is from Solace. They each have a different way of telling the tale about how they met, and I gave up long ago at trying to figure out which ones the truth. Mo shook her head at the thought of her parents arguing about who’s tale was the right one, and who’s wasn’t.

[kite]

Malta listened attentively, the rhythmic brush of her broom against the floor a quiet counterpoint to the flood of words coming out of her companion. She didn't mind; she was a far better listener than she was a talker, and she'd asked for the information. After a moment, she gave up trying to keep all the names straight. While her memory was generally excellent, she was much better with names if she could pair them with faces, or at least some other sort of information. Anyway, she was willing to bet their own mother couldn't always keep that herd's names straight.

Malta gave the girl a mildly puzzled look at her assertion her sisters were good helpers. She did not know what Motoki meant; something said in that tone usually referred to, ahem, personal matters, but the girl seemed too innocent for that, and young to boot. Weren't Holder girls famous for keeping their privates private? She sincerely doubted that Motoki had roped her younger sisters into helping her keep a relationship a secret. Probably it was something more innocent.

"My father is a Healer, and my mother an herbalist. Easy enough to guess how they met," she volunteered, thinking it only fair to return so much information with some information about herself, "What does your father do?" After a pause, in which she tried to decide if she dared, she finally added, "Would you mind showing me a little weaving? I know nothing about it, but it seems a useful skill to have." Motoki seemed friendly enough, and Malta didn't mind the idea of sitting and learning something while the girl chattered away. As long as she could keep her talking, Malta would be entirely content.

"Did you have any favorites from the Touching?" she asked suddenly, perhaps a bit off-topic. Her thoughts had wandered naturally in that direction; being in the Weyrling Barracks hardly let her think of anything else. She had her favorites, of course, but she didn't think she'd Impress a dragon out of any of the ones she'd Touched. None had been quite that positive, but perhaps all the Eggs had been that circumspect about their approval. She'd have to ask some of the other Candidates, and see what they eventually Impressed to.

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[Akira]

Motoki had seen Malta’s puzzled look and chuckled. The older of us siblings weren’t allowed to have sweets till after dinner, but I would always convince my younger sisters to get some sweets from our mother and share them with me. They really are good for fetching things like that. Again she chuckled as she spoke of sending her sisters to get her sweets that she wasn’t supposed to have. Mo listened intently as Malta spoke about her own parents, and nodded acknowledgement at what she said about her parents meeting. She figured it was pretty obvious how a Healer and an Herbalist would meet after all.

My dad is a wood crafter, he used to be really good at fixing things that were made of wood, whether that was from fixing a broken roof or to mending an old door frame, my dad would always be there to help. She smiled softly as she spoke about her father. Sounds like fun actually! Mo had helped her mother start teaching her little sisters to weave before she had been searched, and figured that Malta would be way easier to teach than her little sisters had, one main plus was that the other girl was older, and wouldn’t throw temper tantrums because she didn’t get something within the first three seconds of a lesson, hopefully.

I didn’t get to touch many, but out of the three I did get to touch, I like the Flower the best though. Then again, the Little Princeling was rather nice when I touched it…though it did seem a little shy and distant. What about you, any that you favor? Motoki wasn’t sure if she had over-stepped a boundary when she had asked her question, and she hoped that she wouldn’t put Malta off, the other girl really was nice, and she really did like her. Mo hoped she hadn’t just ruin her chance at being friends with Malta, but the girl had asked for weaving lessons, would that maybe help her chances at getting a friend?

[kite]

Malta smiled as Motoki explained; there wasn't anything more innocent than sweets before dinner, in her opinion. "That makes sense. I wondered if you were using your sisters to keep some Holder-boy a secret," she confessed, amused. Sweeping was lulling her into a deep sense of contentment. Any rhythmic, repetitive motion tended to do that, and she used that trait to her own advantage. Often, if she were feeling particularly stressed, she would run or swim, but she'd found many turns ago that sweeping was a very easy way to calm herself down.

Pleased that Motoki didn't mind, she flashed the girl a quick smile. "Well, we'll see. I'm not the most patient student," she admitted, "But I'm good with my hands." She had to be. Putting something as fragile and important as a dragon's wing back together required dexterity and care in equal measure, and weaving couldn't be nearly as hard as all that, if only because the pressure would be significantly reduced. No one lived or died because of a badly-made tunic.

"I touched five," she answered, almost embarrassed. She hadn't felt that she Touched more than most of the other Candidates, but perhaps she simply hadn't been paying attention. "The Wolf drew my attention immediately, and seemed to like me well enough. I liked the Forgotten Knight and the Stoic as well, but I'm not sure I'll Impress any of them. I was curious about the White's Egg, but it felt shy, even just walking near it. I didn't think it would care for me much, but I'm interested to see what will come of it." She didn't mind the question at all. The Touching was still on her mind, as was only natural for a Candidate. It was uncomfortable for her, to have the future be so uncertain, but in some ways, it was exciting as well. An uncomfortable kind of exciting.

"It's difficult, waiting for the Hatching, even if I don't really expect to Impress," she said conversationally, "Are you nervous?"

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