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Meep! Was that? Oh, please, no. Ronasha glanced back at the voice while simultaneously doing her best to cringe in the opposite direction. But, yes. He was. Talking. To her. Okay. Right. That was fine. Deep breath. He didn't seem too threatening, did he? She hadn't quite figured out threatening yet, but it usually had to do with loud voices and red faces. He wasn't either of those things.

"Your chores?" she asked, scurrying a little closer to the older boy, her eyes fixed firmly on the floor. "I don't-- I mean, maybe. It's just. Well. You see--" Oh, please don't let him get angry with her! "I don't know you. So. He said names. And maybe yours. But, I don't know it. So I don't know. If I know."

Right. Time for retreat. Roni took a few hurried steps back, just in case the boy did decide to explode or throw things or feed her to the whers or something equally terrible. But she stopped there, lingering guiltily. She was supposed to help. It was-- nice. Nice.

"I. Well, maybe. If you tell me your name?" Roni bit her lip while glancing nervously up from the floor. "I remember some. Like, everyone peeling tubers. I have to do that. Peel tubers, I mean. Not remember names."

"Me?" Ronasha seemed startled by the question, her fingers knotting in front of her, thumbs pressing together. If his attempts to charm her were working, it certainly didn't show. "Oh. I'm no one. Roni. It's what they call me. My Dad, I mean. And my--"

That wasn't what he wanted to hear about. She stopped talking, biting her lip in what might be called a nervous habit. Except, everything she did seemed that way. She was just one big nervous habit. She only looked up from the floor in sharp darting glances, ruining any chance for the boy's smile to work at her. She almost missed his extended hand, but catching sight of it, extended her own. It was a hurried gesture, her fingers barely brushing his palm before she pulled back again.

"Fellendar." She echoed his name, turning it over, trying to remember what words the Candidatemaster might have attached to it when he shouted off orders that morning. "Not tubers. I'm doing tubers. Not you. You were after."

"Dishes," she announced. There was momentary triumph in her tone. But doubt quickly leaked in. "I think. I heard Fellender. And dishes. Umm. I could ask the Candidatemaster. I might be wrong. I'm wrong. Sometimes."

"You can't skip chores!" Ronasha's shock was so sudden, that it momentarily overcame her fear, allowing the slightly more level-headed girl beneath to peak out for a breath. Key word there being 'slightly'. "No one skips chores. What if I don't peel tubers and then, and then, the Weyrwoman wants some. And then she starves!"

Oh, Faranth. She hadn't even thought of that. She was personally responsible for the Weyrwoman's potential starvation. And the poor woman had already had to endure the Weyrleader's death. It was so sad. And now she was letting her down. Poor Roni crumpled under the weight of her own imagined importance. What if she peeled the tubers wrong?

The older boy was still standing there. In all honesty, he didn't seem like he wanted to hurt her. "You don't wash dishes?" she asked, hesitantly, as if feeling her way back to the conversation she'd somehow managed to leave behind. "I umm. I wash dishes. For my family. I can do that. I mean, if you can't. If you don't know how. I do. I could do it. After the tubers. But I have to peel those. For the Weyrwoman."

Very much like a wild animal, Roni seemed incapable of deciding between stillness and motion, shifting anxiously in place while attempting to sort through the confusing preponderance of ideas that Fell had presented. Oddly, the pat on the shoulder did seem to calm her a bit, she lifted her head just a tad, though her eyes continued to dart between the floor and his face.

See, Roni's world until recently had been almost completely comprised of two people. The first, her father. The second, her older half-brother. And Fell's little pat and the attitude he'd taken, one more commanding than comradely, was just the sort of thing that left Roni feeling like she was in the presence of someone safe. Someone who had her best interests at heart.

He certainly talked like someone who had her best interests at heart. Of course, no one who'd talked like that had ever wanted her to skip chores.

She wanted to be good. But good was a concept she was just figuring out. It'd always meant keeping quiet and listening, before. It seemed to mean a lot more at the Weyr. Now, Fell was making her think that good was about breathing and going outside.

So, because she did want to be good, she did her best. Admittedly, her 'deep breath' was a series of little inward pants, the breath of someone who'd never even considered that there might be a proper way to breathe. "I. But. What if?"

What if she went outside and everyone died because their weren't enough tubers?!

But, well, what if she was really bad at tuber peeling? Maybe it was better if she just listened. Fell sure seemed to know what he was talking about. Maybe he was trying to protect her.

"Umm. Okay. But, what's better? We could. Well. Sack firestone? Some of the Candidates are. Would I do better at that?"

Where Fell strolled, Roni scampered, taking urgent little steps. When they passed others in the hallway, she darted to whatever side of the older boy the stranger was not on, peering at them nervously from her new defensive position just behind Fell's shoulder. "I umm. I don't sleep. Not much. Not since the dragon. Since here. So. Maybe, not sleep? But. I mean. If that's what you want. We can sleep."

She really hoped he didn't pick sleep. Her dreams had been haunting, hunted things lately, full of strange faces and threatening shadows. There were a lot of those when she was awake too, but at least they didn't morph into anything many toothed and dangerous.

Except the dragons. And they started out that way. "I carve. With my Dad. And my brother. Is that a chore? It probably is." She bit her lip. This whole 'things you enjoy' question wasn't an easy one. Her Dad didn't talk about fun, much. He talked a lot about wood, and a little about responsibility. And, as she hadn't had much outside contact before the Weyr, that'd been her life. Wood. Responsibility. What else was there.

"I liked flying? Not that you can. Can you? I mean you will. When you impress. Well, the dragon will. Fly. And impress, I guess." She bit her lip, doing that knot thing with her fingers again. "I like the dragons. But, not close. Except flying. The hatchlings. They eat people. I heard." The breathless was she made that particular comment was enough to indicate that she was not entirely capable of convincing herself this wasn't the case. "So. Umm. I want one to fly. But. Not to eat me."

It was pretty apparent that any sort of innuendo was soaring right over Roni's head. Certainly, she didn't join in the snickering, too busy watching someone pass on their right with a fixed, untrusting gaze. Best she didn't Impress, all things considered. While one could assume the girl knew about sex in the most biological of senses, it was clear the matter of flights would come as quite a shock to her.

"I know the teaching songs." She hummed a brief few bars of one of the songs she remembered from her time at the Harper's feet. She hadn't spent much time in such classes, though. Her father preferred to keep her close at hand. There were dangerous people out in the world, after all. He'd always told her that.

And she believed him, now. People at the Weyr sure did seem dangerous. Except Fell. Fell was her friend. Fell wouldn't let anyone hurt her.

"Nobody? But they said--" Her tiny mouth screwed up into a hurt little frown. "They lied? I don't like that. Lying. I wouldn't lie." She seemed to be getting a little better at forming sentences as she further relaxed in Fell's presence. "But I would like that. Meeting your dragon. Flying. When you get him."

Roni made no effort to question how sure he seemed. She was sure too. Sure she'd poison the Weyrwoman by accident, sure she'd get eaten by a hatchling. Oh, she was sure of all sorts of things.

"Could we see them? The sands, I mean. There's no eggs. I know. But I've never seen them."

Under praise, Roni glowed. She was such a tiny thing that it was easy for the whole of her to be washed away by a single feeling. The feeling had been fear. Now it was pride and she bounced and preened. She was likable. Fell liked her. She'd done a good job. She still wasn't sure how, or what at, but the important thing was that she'd done it. "I like. Umm. Hanging out with you. You know things. Like secrets. I mostly get lost. When I'm alone."

Now that they had a destination in mind, Roni's tiny self was as focused on this new task with as much energy as she'd previously focused on tuber peeling. If she was intense when presented with a goal, it appeared that she was capable of forgetting that goal in favor of a new one without much difficulty.

"It was the last clutch. I was searched. Didn't come. Dad wasn't, wasn't sure." She nodded severely. She certainly didn't question her father's perspective on events. There were dangerous people out there. "But my brother. He got work here. And Dad said I could come. Be a candidate. The eggs had hatched, though. I didn't see it."

"Did you like it at the Hall? I've never been there."