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.
It's close to the evening meal, the staff from the kitchen already busy preparing that which will be served shortly over yonder in the living cavern. Already on the hearth though here in the lower cavern is a thick savory stew, hot water for tea or cider and a pot of freshly brewed klah. Passed out on one of the couches is Kairhys, or rather K'hys now. Weyrling to blue Jheth, who's rumored to be the kind that is far too curious for his own good. Licking rocks and such, sticking his head into small places, and other youthful blunders. Not that the half turn old dragon is anywhere to be found at present, only his future rider. One leg on the couch, one leg bent at the knee with the foot firmly planted on the floor along with one hand draped there. His other hand is curled up on his chest that rises and falls gently, his features smooth and lacking any expression. One the klah table nearby is a empty bowl of stew and a half finished mug of klah.
Walking up from the depths of the weyr is someone you really wouldn't want to happen upon you while passed out in public. Kimmila brushes dust off her trousers as she slips out of a tunnel, adjusting her short sleeved tunic and the jaunty little scarf she's wound around her neck. Passing by K'hys, the bluerider stops, and takes a step back to look down at him. Slowly, a wicked grin tugs at the corners of her lips as she ponders how to awaken the Weyrling.
Apparently the weyrlingmasters are doing their job if their charges can't even consume a simple meal without falling unconscious, course laying down was probably K'hys' mistake, one he seemingly has to pay for by the contemplating bluerider that looms over him wickedly. Perceptive perhaps, even in his sleep, the weyrling startles and brown eyes fly open, if only to see Kimmila looking at him like that, which instantly has him shrinking back some. "W-what?" he asks, disoriented, rubbing at one eye as he starts to shift his position to one more upright. "Hmm something going on?" A yawn quickly follows, one that he manages to stiffle behind the back of his hand before blinking and peering about before his gaze returns to the woman once again. Brows lifting in unison. Blink. Blink.
Kimmila grins, climbing over the end of the couch to sprawl where his leg recently was. "No, you just avoided a rather rude wakeup call, if I know myself as well as I think I do," the Western bluerider teases. "You're K'hys, right? Bluerider?" she asks, reaching for his klah mug to peer into it, and then setting it back on the table with a snort.
Lucky for K'hys, he'd moved that leg only moments before Kimmila had deposited herself, not that the weyrling had particularly noticed this. His sleepy brain was probably only half registering much of anything right then, slumping back some against the sofa as he realizes there's no fire or anything. "Not allowed to sleep here?" he asks, still sounding half asleep. Then he's being asked a question and it appears to take a moment for this to sink in, before he slowly nods his head. "MmmMmm. K'hys, blue Jheth's." He manages to make it look like at least it doesn't sound as funny as it might sound to his brain still, even after all this time. Though, a second later he's working his jaw and making a face. Perhaps not so successful after all. There is a blink and confused expression for the picking up of his mug and then the return of it with that snort there. "Um…" Yeah, still a little out of it.
Kimmila laughs, leaning back in the couch and propping her feet up onto the table. "What?" she asks of his expression. "Still a little bit shocked?" she queries. "And certainly, you're /allowed/ to sleep here, but you have to take the consequences of being awoken in all manner of rude ways, should the more…mischievous happen along." She grins at him.
K'hys shakes his head, though there is a few more blinks before he widens his eyes probably in an attempt to hurry the whole waking up process along. It's difficult to say how long he'd been asleep there on the couch before Kimmila came along. "Not shocked, just not awake." he supplies, with a distinct pause with a blank stare off into space and then a shrug. "I don't know. Ask Ronareoth." Random. Brows knit however, at what the bluerider says about consequences, as if he didn't understand something. No comment comes, or explanation, instead the weyrling picks up his mug and takes a sip, cringing as he finds the contents cold. Guess he'd been sleeping longer than he expected, or something. "I'm going to get a refill, would you like one?" he asks, rising to his feet and taking a few steps the direction of the pot of klah.
Kimmila nods, "I would, thanks. Black," she says, making herself more comfortable on the couch. "So how are you finding Weyrlinghood?" she asks the back of his head.
Making some abstract sound of confirmation, K'hys refreshes his own mug as well as gets another for Kimmila before he returns to the couch. Handing the mug over to the woman, he lifts his shoulders in a shrug, dropping them a few moments later. "I'm too exhausted to find much more than the inside of my eyelids. When they're not pumping our brains full of things, their running us in laps around the training field." he nearly whines, but with the lopsided grin on his face it would difficult to tell if he was entirely serious about the tone.
Kimmila takes her klah with a nod of thanks, drinking slowly from it with a soft sigh of contentment as the warm liquid scalds her insides. "It gets better," she promises, her grin crooked. "Once you can fly, you'll still be exhausted, but you'll be flying at least. There's always duty to attend to. Drills. But you'll have your freedom at least." She glances to the cavern ceiling, lost in distraction for a moment, her scarf moving as she swallows.
"I figured as much." K'hys says, settling back into his seat and crossing his legs beneath him, folded. "Else you all would be passed out willy nilly everywhere, rather than dreaming up tortures for innocent bystanders." He'd seen the look, obviously, that Kimmila had been giving him. "I feel like once we graduate I'm likely to sleep for the next couple of months. Jheth thinks that's ridiculous of course, but he's just as tired as I am half the time." He takes a sip of his own mug, sweetened and lightened with a bit of milk, and releases a long heavy sigh as he sinks back into the cushions. "I don't think the rules are at all unreasonable. It's not so much about us, but the dragons as they mature. So the things we're not allowed to do and the restrictions in place, aren't anything I wasn't used to already as an apprentice. I think I might have more trouble adjusting to being able to do as I please when I please outside of drills and wing duties, than anything else."
Kimmila grins crookedly at the boy, pleased at his perception. "You'll get used to it," she assures. "And no, I never thought the rules were unreasonable either. It's for the dragons, after all, and our own mental discipline. I know I certainly needed it, else Varmiroth would have been…well." She chuckles behind her mug. "Stranger than he is now." She glances over at him, head tilting slightly. "Why do you say that?"
K'hys nods, agreeing with the assessment that it was something he would get used to. "It's only been six months and a few sevendays, and already I can complete a circuit without needing to stop or drop to a walk. So that's something." he laughs, taking another sip of his klah and then palming the warm mug between his two hands. It was a touch chilling in the caverns this evening. Which might explain Kimmila's scarf indoors. "Certainly not complaining about the physical results, not that I was all flappy or anything before, but I seem to be turning a head or two already." Musing this, the weyrling's lopsided grin becomes much more prominent. "Which will come in handy once certain restrictions are lifted." He's not even trying to disguise the meaning there, though as the bluerider asks her question his expression softens. "I've been an apprentice for quite a few turns, and now a weyrling. I'm just used to living a certain way at this point, not sure I could transition so easily into having everything suddenly available and being free to pursue…" he explains, but his words fade off, and he shrugs, sipping at his drink.
Kimmila laughs outright, though it's in amusement rather than /at/ the boy. "Indeed!" she agrees, leaning back to make a show of looking him up and down. "Not bad at all. I'm sure once those restrictions /are/ lifted, you'll have a fine time of it." Her grin is crooked as she chuckles into her mug. "Ahh," she says in understanding, nodding her head. "I'm sure you'll transition just fine. I mean, once you've graduated you still have duties. Wing duties, places to be, things you have to do. It's not like you're suddenly without /any/ direction."
K'hys grins openly at Kimmila, even flexing nicely defined arms for her, ones that will only fill out with even more muscle by the time that he's finally graduated from weyrlinghood. It's playfully done of course, with about zero seriousness. He tosses in a 'oh yeah' once to make it even more ridiculous before he to joins in with the laughter. He's shaking his head at the absurdity of it all, taking one or two more casual sips of his drink before setting it down on the table for now. "I guess we're about a third of the way through training, and they give us enough to do at least so we're not sitting around wondering too much about the future. In the end, Jheth and I really just want to enjoy the things we discover together and try not to plan too far ahead. No one knows what's going to happen tomorrow." He nods at what Kimmila says next, "Oh I understand that, and it's not like we haven't been looking into wings and such, getting a feel for what we might like to do when we're full riders."
Kimmila laughs all the more at his joking, her green eyes bright with amusement. "I have no doubt the girls will be lining up the night of graduation," she says into her mug, her grin crooked. But then on to more serious matters, and the bluerider adjusts her position on the couch. She nods in understanding. "That's what Varmiroth and I have done. Take each day as it comes, and see what there is to learn and to discover."
K'hys only grins broadly at Kimmila's assumption, but he doesn't deny or confirm such things, even if he found the entire compliment rather amusing. Instead he picks up his mug again, and savors the contents. "At least we've seem to have found a middle ground. Jheth does things that really make me question his sanity, but he keeps assuring me that he just has a natural curiosity." A laugh for this, "And his battle plans for the simplest of tasks, crack me up."
Kimmila tilts her head, regarding her fellow bluerider thoughtfully. "Tell me about him," she says, half question and half statement.
"Tell you about him?" K'hys repeats intelligently, sounding as if he was unsure just how to approach answering that, rubbing thoughtfully at the back of his neck with one hand, the other still clutching at his nearly empty mug of klah. "Well, he thinks the name he gave me is hilarious, which is why I'm stuck with it." A pause there and he even goes so far as to pointing out the obvious, "Keese, kiss…yeah." This said he seems to take a couple more minutes there, as if trying to pull together a coherent picture of just what it was to be Jheth. "I think we're probably going to go either into search and rescue or diplomacy. Jheth's a planner, and he's really protective of people, but at the same time he seems to take nothing seriously. Some of the sarcasm he uses…" Another laugh. "He's a contradiction."
Kimmila grins, "Many blues are," she says knowingly. "Personally, I believe blues make up for their lack of size by having the most interesting personalities, and wit. Since they can't chase the golds, they have to distinguish themselves in other ways."
Finishing off his drink, the empty mug is set upon the table, hands idly draped over his thighs for lack of any other activity for them. K'hys seems to consider what his fellow bluerider has to say, and the conclusion appears to be agreement. "Sounds reasonable to me." he says, though is distracted a few seconds later by another long dead stare into empty space. "Itchy? How on Pern can you be…" he argues with thin air, and then sighs as he once more rises to his feet. "I'm being beckoned, so I need to head out, but I hope we can talk more about blueriding and things of that nature again sometime?" he asks, picking the mug up off the table, presumably to put it into a dirty dish bin or something of the sort.
Kimmila smiles, draining her mug and rising. "I'm sure we can do that," she agrees. "I'm always around." Which is true. And odd. Since she's not, actually, a Fortian rider. "Take care, K'hys." She winks and turns, striding back into the tunnels from whence she came.
K'hys smiles friendly enough as Kimmila heads out, waving some before he indeed places his mug into a bin for the staff to take to the kitchen and wash, stretching out his long limbs and then slumping some. "Okay, okay. I'm coming. Itchy, I got it." he tells the air, with a long deep sigh. "You're going to stop growing at some point, right?" A chuckle follows this, as he heads out in the direction of the bowl.
'The World of Pern(tm)' and 'The Dragonriders of Pern(r)' are copyright to Anne McCaffrey (c) l967, 2000. This is a recorded online session, by permission of the author but generated on PernWorld MUSH for the benefit of people unable to attend.