Fort Weyr

Fort Weyr - Lower Caverns
This volcanic bubble is smaller than the Living Cavern, but no less well crafted. The walls are smooth, with electric lights placed into niches that used to hold glowbaskets. Another hearth burns here, with a pot on always keeping water hot for making tea or cider. Worn but comfortable couches and chairs are arranged by the hearth around a few tables where game boards and a few packages of dragon poker cards are laying.

From this cavern you can get to many other places - the tunnels of Fort Weyr having been dug far back into the caldera where the dragons make their home.

Hours after the new weyrlings have been settled into their new home for the next half-turn-plus, the activity level in the lower caverns edges toward that in-between phase at the tail end of a celebratory feast, with some people still riding the high of the occasion and others starting to wind down for the evening if the morning will see them recalled to too-early duties. Wrapped in a loose shirt-dress of summer-blue that's cinched at her waist with a wide belt, Hana apparently took the time to clean up just enough to be passable company in public; she abandoned the (now stained) robe, plaited her hair into a thick side-braid, and slipped in and out of the crowd that's ebbed and flowed around the food and drink smoothly enough to snag something simple in a napkin on her way deeper into the tunnels. Whatever's in that napkin is munched on rapidly as she side-steps to avoid other traffic along the way, gait slowing as she nears the juncture of hallway that splits to the bathing room and farther along, the section where her room - no, former room, now - still waits with some of her possessions. With relatively few passing this way over the next minute or three, she allows herself to lean against the far wall and finish her meal-on-the-go with a silent sigh of probable relief, a hand drifting to rub briefly at her midsection. Classes may only have been so much preparation.

Hours. Orrion heads down the hallway from the other direction, without for once his apprentice in tow; he has the luxury of the same attire as before, unstained as it is by any bodily fluids. It's chance, that timing; it's chance, the look over, the actual noticing— "Hana?!"

The harper's hand falls back to her side; blue eyes lift to meet brown, features still awash with the residual glow of Impression, even if there's a touch of the bittersweet in what's an otherwise glad smile. "Ori. Did you and Nita watch? Have you - " The empty napkin crumples in her fist. " - eaten?" All may as well be as normal for Hana as it was before, save perhaps for a dried smear of rust near her hairline that may have been missed between the hasty change into something clean and finding her way first to the food, then here.

The hand leaving her belly gets a second glance, a puzzled glance, but Orrion — already heading to join her, not running into anyone by virtue of the less-populated quality of the cavern — says, "We came, we watched, we ate, and how are you? You look happy," only his tone says 'mostly happy' whether or not the glasscrafter realizes it himself. "They say you're supposed to be happy." Nita would notice that smear, surely.

"Happy, " repeats Hana, squeezing her eyes shut briefly. And she does look it, mostly, despite still seeming dazed by the events of the past few hours. Wonderingly, "I'm hers now, Ori. It's remarkable." And for the harper to struggle to articulate the magnitude of it all, it must truly be so. "I know her needs and wants as easily as if they were my own. I didn't know it was like this." There's a glance toward the direction of the bowl before she tilts her chin toward the way to the crafters' cavern. In what's an almost complete conversational non-sequitur, "Have you managed to find the sorts of things you wanted in the stores yet? For your room. I lucked out early on and snagged a small, well-made set of bookshelves not long after I first moved here."

Right after he's said that, Orrion's expression turns queasy, as though he'd like to take all those words back for a redo, or possibly as though he'd had his way with a bottle of hot sauce and it's just now kicking in. But the way Hana responds, that alleviates some of it, maybe most; with revived interest, "What — " only, "What? No. I, we, were busy and — good?" Even if it's small. Pasting the two together, "Does she want a bookshelf?"

Hana might be forgiven for staring askance at the other journeyman, whether for that uneasy look, the question that follows, or both. "Does she - " And she breaks into a laugh, which almost just as quickly turns into almost-sobs, followed by irritated swipes of her hands at her eyes. "Sorry, it's - " Likely all of the high emotions, good and bad, from the afternoon and evening overflowing all over again with the tip toward one extreme or the other. "I don't think we could have one right now, " she says after regaining enough of her composure, "but you could. Or Nita could. If you wanted it, that is, before they relegate it back to the stores and make it fair game." It's a thoughtful offer, even if there's a flash of interest at the end that shows she could be more invested in his response than the casual nature of her words might imply.

That doesn't help Orrion's composure any, though he trials a careful hand on her shoulder until the swiping's done. Speaking just as carefully with this strange new emotional Hana, at least in tone if not phrasing, "Sure. Uh, yes. Thanks. You don't have to— move out right now, do you?" Her life isn't that quickly over, is it?

"Probably not right this second, " reasons the new weyrling, "but I have to get - a few things before the staff starts going over it." Past the hiccup-that-isn't, the remainder of her phrase automatically smooths, much as one hand unnecessarily does at her skirt. "Come on. You may as well see if you'd like the shelf while I'm in there." Not ten steps away, there's another journeyman-rider (although he's not in training) exiting the crafters' cavern as she turns toward the entrance, who gives her a friendly nod - and after a brief pause, a congratulatory, "Fjainoith's Lhiannon, right? Well done." Hana's thank-you is quick and quiet; there's a tense set to her shoulders by the time she turns to tell Orrion, "In here." The shelving really is a fairly nice piece, darkly-stained and solidly built. Meanwhile, she's more intent on busying herself at the little desk nestled in the far corner, pulling a small, drawstring pouch and a longer, thinner bundle from a drawer.

"Going over it," Orrion mutters beneath his breath, a slightly-puzzled echo of ominousness. He obligingly starts following her, and he nods to the journeyman-rider while he's at it, only the puzzlement's gone up a notch. He looks around, checking out her quarters, the state of things — if it already had been ransacked, could he tell? — and he's gotten around to examining the bookcase (and its contents) when he finally says, "What had he said? I couldn't make it out."

It's sparsely furnished, but still has a relatively lived-in appearance given that its occupant has been sleeping elsewhere for the past five months. "Fjainoith's Lhiannon, " Hana answers almost absently, absorbed in chasing neatly sharpened pencils from where they audibly roll to and fro in what must be an otherwise empty compartment of her desk. "Her name. And what she calls me." One, two, three - and with a frown, she sets her writing utensils down, unrolls the cloth bundle to count those within before joining the two sets. "I'll move the books, of course, " perhaps not right this second, although there aren't very many which she can call her own.

"Fee-yi-what?" Really, a journeyman ought to be more articulate than Orrion with his, "…What?" He starts removing the books from the shelf if not the room, setting them wherever's handiest that isn't the floor. "How do you spell that?" Those.

The question of the evening! Dryly, "I don't know, Ori, but why don't I give her a pencil and ask her to write it down for me." There's a frustrated undercurrent that must not be meant for him, given the way Hana pinches at the bridge of her nose and exhales immediately after with an apologetic grimace. "Sorry." In lieu of knowing exactly how the green's name is spelt, she has to settle for careful verbal repetition of the syllables instead as they were made known to her only (only!) hours ago, a flow of vowels and mostly soft consonants. For the other? Slightly dubiously, "I think she doesn't intend for Lhiannon to be spelled L-e-e-h-a-n-a-n, although I suppose it's said that way. It doesn't really feel like my name yet, " but there's already a note of acceptance somewhere in there, however small.

Orrion rubs his chin, scraping his fingertips through the bristly black beard as though that could comb it all into sense; he gives her an uncertain nod for the apology— and, far less certain, for the name. Names. "Didn't realize dragons knew about writing. Or cared. Knew about boys getting their names shortened, of course," none too clueful about exceptions, "but this didn't sound like that. You don't… mind?"

"Maybe some do know about writing, or assimilate the knowledge from the bond, " the harper speculates with a little shrug. "I can only go off of what I - " know, "am learning." There's a nod for boys shortening names post-Impression while she ties her writing utensils neatly together, slipping the strings of the much smaller pouch onto her wrist. "They do. I'll have to re-learn everyone's names, I guess. Dakalis, Emiel, Erestel and Mo - " although how one shortens that, well. Whether she leaves the list of her fellow weyrlings there on purpose, or to furrow a thoughtful look at the glasscrafter, it's a moment before she finally musters a quiet, "I suppose it's - fitting, to be the same and yet, not." At least she gets to keep practically the same syllables in this name that's hers-but-not-yet.

"Huh." It isn't a complaint: something that's interesting, but someone else's specialty, like spicing a meal. But Orrion's still looking back at her, not smiling, until he almost does. "Guess so." He starts easing the shelf away from the wall, careful to not whack a corner into wall or floor. "The rest of the class, they're all right?" All right by her, all right in the world, whatever. "And, need me to store anything else?"

And Hana almost smiles back, except that then he's asking about the rest of the class - for which her gaze briefly darkens. "I think one - " what were you thinking, Tsoth? " - is struggling a little more than the rest of us, " which is a nice way to describe M'zal's almost attempt to walk away, and Lhiannon's tone is somewhere between pleased and calculating for the difficulties of that One Person. "And half are probably not-quite twenty, " young. The blonde taps her chin thoughtfully with a knuckle, tilting a measuring look down to her desk. "Take whatever you might find useful, " she says finally, expression lightening. "I have everything I need, for now." And maybe she truly does, even as her attention gets pulled to the doorway with a flicker of unfocused-focus that's common to dragonriders. With a mixture of regret and something dutiful, "I should go check on her and put these, " small items in her arms, "away in case she wakes up. If she's anything like other types of babies, I have a feeling we won't be sleeping through the night."

So young! The whole-turn-over-twenty journeyman nods, all seriousness. Even her change in expression— which he does observe with a wry lean to his mouth— doesn't change that. "Give me your key and I'll lock up after? I'll get it back to you. And thanks." Make that, "Good luck." Good luck.