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For all that Carltis didn't want to smile, Rochelle didn't give a s**t - she grinned, her hands to her hips. His talk of taking back Malvren made her smile fade and she shook her head slowly, squinting back out over the water again. "We aren't getting Malvren back," She said after a long moment. "Even if we go in there and burn them out like a nest of trundlebugs, they've won once already and they've left their mark. We can call it Malvren and go live in the rooms we used to, but every time we walk to the infirmary or the crafting rooms or anywhere else, it'll be a kill zone. Not a Weyr. Not anymore."

She shrugged, and crossed her arms over her chest after a moment. Lovely day out and with half decent company, things weren't horrible. It could be worse. they could be at Malvern.

"Yeah, it sucks. Don't go thinking I'm a bad luck charm. But hey, couldn't ask for a more interesting welcome home party. Have you been at Malven the entire time? Figured you would've run off."

She'd not meant to strike a nerve, at least not to that extent. Carltis scowled, sure, but he always scowled, that was the default Carltis [removed](from what little she remembered). His honest anger and the distasteful expression were not something Rochelle expected from the discussion of a craft, for the sake of little green dragons. Asking about apprenticeship seemed to be a normal thing to her, ask if someone wanted to be something else other than a regular Weyrfolk or a 'brat. Catching up with old friends (or something like that), it seemed logical to her to ask. His response, growly and sharp, it put her on edge.

He looked ugly with that scowl and that tone. It made him appear larger too, in a bad way. She didn't like it.

Rochelle straightened her shoulders, head half cocked to the side in an attempt at nonchalance. "I'm going to assume you flooded the hall to get a snarl like that one on your face," Rochelle half turned to face him even more, her hands going right back into her pockets. She smiled again, a bit more guarded than before. "What were you apprenticing in?"

Oh. Oh. That made sense, much more than just assuming he hated things like flooding Halls and everything like that. She blinked, glanced down at his fists before up to his face again. Good, that scowl directed to the water as opposed to a cold smile at her, at least enough to keep her from shuffling back away from him. She stayed right where she stood. It'd be a bad idea to back down from Carltis in this situation, like encouraging a puppy to keep barking by patting it on the head once it shut it's mouth. No, time to actually... talk. Time to say nice things, to soothe a beast so to speak. Lying took too much effort, so she decided not to.

"I didn't expect you'd get into a fight," she said softly, rocking back and forth idly from heel to toe. Shards, so defensive, and at these sorts of moments she saw the snarling weyrbrat she'd lived with in the creche. "That isn't what I said, Carltis, so no putting words in my mouth. And shells, I'm not going to laugh because you wanted to go into Harping. There's no reason to laugh."

The glasscrafter shrugged and looked out to the water as well, although she didn't turn away. "What do you want to do now? Brand new Weyr. New life. You can do anything."

She listened in silence to his rant. Rochelle tended to react with smiles or scowls, noise, snide comments about flouncing panties, anything but silence. They happened rarely and typically meant nothing good. Before, Bereck had bruised whatever feelings she happened to have. This time, Carltis and his cynical rant did it. Her smile faded, eyes became hooded even as he calmed himself down somewhat.

"The only thing holding you back is your assumptions that you're going to fail," she said after he stopped talking. The angry and physical child grew into a bitter and angry adult, one filled with glares and anger and a highly skewed version of the world. "If you think horrible things about yourself then that's all you're going to get. This Weyr is new to us. The people in charge don't know that you were that angry weyrbrat that beat people up. The dragons certainly don't. Everyone who escaped is just happy to be alive, we're not going to b***h about someone from home unless they do something worth bitching about here, at this different place. You can be an apprentice somewhere else. HarperCraft is not your only option."

Her eyes narrowed, full lips pursed into a disapproving line. "And you don't need a sharding shining dragon to be someone. Having a bronze doesn't make you better than anyone else, it wouldn't prove anything. So what, who cares about the kid? Snot nosed thing, he'll grow up the hard way. A woman doesn't need a gold to prove she's worth something, a man doesn't need a bronze. People don't need dragons to be useful. Be a Candidate because you want a bondmate or, hell, use my excuse of 'why not, I want to', but don't do it so you can have a winged trinket to make yourself feel better. Bronze and golds are baby makers and maybe they make the rules but without the colors, Pern would be dead. You'll do sharding well to remember that the world isn't saved by the ones who have a glittery hide, it's saved by the small and the fast and the chromatic. You want a dragon that can take you places, that can be all worth something? Then make yourself into a man who can handle it, with or without them. I think you can be."

And there she went, running her mouth. It had turned to a rant, a full fledged mouth vomit. Last time that happened, little wherrie of a healer slapped her. Carltis wouldn't hit someone who'd been nice to him for something that petty (right?). She readied for his storming off and angry in three...

...two...

..one.

When Carltis didn't start storming off like the petulant child she'd started to suspect he grew into over the last fifteen turns, she eyed him warily, like a cat preparing for a spray bottle. Still no screaming, no snarling, no angry, ugly smiles. Instead he talked like a civilized human being, spouting reason instead of hate, not looking her in the eyes rather than glaring ice. Slowly, she relaxed, defensive posture fading.

"You are going to hate my answer," she murmured after a pregnant pause. Everything about this situation oozed 'dangerous', especially considering after he expressed having to want to join to Revolutionists. He wouldn't be turning on Trine, would he? (Somehow she doubted it; a man that hated himself that much didn't seem the sort to start a revolution.) "Start liking yourself. Shards, start thinking you're as amazing as you want people to believe you are. No one else is going to if you don't."

She shrugged, peering back to Carltis and his grumpy-a** self. "I think deciding to not join them is a good way to prove you're not an a*****e. Thanks for not doing that, by the way. I prefer you here and not a part of my fantasies where I'm burning Malvren and the murderous sharding bastards to the ground."

"I said you didn't like yourself. Want me to list how I know? The big one was assuming you'd be laughed at because you were going to be a Harper," She wriggled a finger, shook her head at him and his attempt at being a d**k. It fell flat when one didn't really want to break the face of the person you were talking to. Either way, this was Carltis being a tit. "That's either you assuming I'm a huge b***h, which I am, thank you very much, but not like that, or it's you not liking yourself. It's good you put the smart first, though. That, and the witty. You're much more than muscle, you know."

Oh, yes, Carltis. She remembered that particular little upset in the Bastion and once she had time to think back at things, she felt bad that he'd felt like that. Rochelle pushed gently at his arm, at the muscle there, and she smiled faintly. The glasscrafter shrugged and dug in her pocket for the first stone she had picked up and held it out to him, palm up.

"You, good sir, are going to take this pebble. I was going to keep it as a token of learning to skip rocks and talking to you. I've decided we're going to be friends and you can try to argue about it and call me annoying, but people always find me annoying and they always end up liking me. So. Take the rock and tell me what you liked about Harping. I'm curious. The best way to shut me up is to talk yourself." Rochelle paused and her smile quirked a little more. "And talk fast or I'll pick something horrible as my next token and you wouldn't want that."

She liked that rock. Maybe one would be grabbed for Aleck too. She could kidnap another one for herself. A trio of weyrbrats that fought together and all had rocks picked up by an eccentric glasscrafter right now.

"I can always make you a bauble from glass later, when I have the supplies. We can teach you how to blow glass, if you want!"

Rochelle smiled. Dimples were involved. "There's never really any point to arguing with me unless it's for fun or foreplay. I always win. It's a special talent of mine." And that was that, he took the pebble even, though the look on his face absolutely screamed suspicion. Rochelle felt quite good with her minor victory, taken even without the lock of hair or having to grope at him or something equally as awkward in his situation.

She'd liked that stone for a bunch of silly reasons. He kept it, didn't throw it or snark or anything like that. Som epart of her thought that maybe she would have the pebble flicked at her face, an attempt to skip it over the water, something. He didn't do any of that but... No, this looked like it would be going well. She could relax, breathe a little bit. Things were alright.

"You like to draw?" The glasscrafter brightened at that, another smile lighting up on her lips. "I suck at drawing. We're supposed to be good at it, if we're doing things like jewelry but it's not easy at all. Do you sing too? Play anything? Or - ha! Wait, idea. I teach you how to blow glass, you can try to keep me from being so bad at art. At least with basic shapes and stuff so if someone commissions some jewelry I can sketch it out, you know?"

Rochelle leaned down and scooped up another few rocks. They were small things, not flat at all, but they busied her fingers. The glasscrafter peered out over the water, dropped one of the small stones into her hand, and threw the stone out over the water. No skipping, nothing pretty, it sank to the bottom with a desolate plunk. Carltis could find it as depressing as he wanted to, she saw it as them building up the lake, stone by stone. Best to be optimistic, the sad times be damned. She grinned.

"Or both," Rochelle agreed with a laugh and a quick wink. "Feel free to attempt either or both, Carltis. See how far it gets you." Another plunk into the water and she spotted a stone suitable for skipping. Another bend and she scooped it up, tucked it into her pocket. One more and all three of the Weyrbrats from Hell could have a skipping stone. "Just no picking me up and throwing me into the lake. That stops being cute when we're ten."

Granted, at ten she doubted he'd be able to pick up her chubby little self. Now... Well. A quick look up and she decided he could probably manage that now.

"I'm sure there's someone around willing to sell a lap harp or two," Rochelle stretched out, a smile still on her face. "Do you want to sit down? I want to. This whole standing thing is tedious. Hmmm. Think there are Harpers here you can poke at maybe? I'm going to be harassing the nearest Glass Master I can find and clawing my way into the crafting rooms here. Bugger not doing things. We may as well find Crafts we like until we get dragons or ... something. You'll probably impress. I'm standing because I want to see what happens, so the dragons will probably just go 'pah! You're a poser'. But! It'll be an adventure either way."