Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Useful," C'tis grinned, "I should pre-write sick notes myself. 'Hungover bad enough to kill a gold dragon. Will not be in today. Send help'. I'd have to borrow Sassy to send them though until I get a flit of my own." After chuckling at his own joke and taking a sip of klah C'tis made a 'humm' noise and nodded. "Well, I can use the flight excuse too. I'll get Mal to send word once the lazy sod wakes up... and people can make of our mutual absence whatever they like." A day off sounded nice even if he didn't technically need it s such but it had been Mal's first victory, first chase come to that, so he was probably entitled to one day to get his head on straight again.

"If you'll fetch him here I'll write one," C'tis replied with a small shake of his head. "Better that it's in my writing, and signed by me and everything. Hopefully Kleos won't get her noble knickers in a knot over us not being there." So wingleaders went he supposed the crimson rider was okay in his book, but only because she was a crimson rider rather than another bronzie.

"Mmmh, well, I'm sure we can occupy ourselves. Mess around with crafting stuff, cards, whatever," he added with a shrug. It was nice just to get to spend a bit of time with her, things had been a bit busy since graduation with settling into wingrider duties and so on.

"Part of being a Harper," C'tis commented absently as he took the paper and pencil to scribble a note in an unnecessarily loopy hand; let the ponsey lady deal with ponsey handwriting! Smirking a little he passed the paper to Sassy, now actually taking a moment to eye the hat he was wearing with a snort and a shake of his head. "I'm still baffled by the fact that he likes things like that," he observed.

He really did wish he had a flitt of his own. If he'd kept that egg he'd meant for himself when he'd given those ones to Aleck, Roche and Becka he would have got a crimson which even meant the potential for more flitts but noooo, he had to feel sorry for Aleck's confused half dead father and give it away. How many did the old b*****d have now? He could have given him one of the eggs he got!... Though insisting at the time he hadn't wanted it anyway probably hadn't helped there. Still, the healer could have offered.

"Anyway, I've got a deck here somewhere," C'tis scowled a little with lingering annoyance on the subject of flitts and got to his feet. Stretching and scratching the back of his neck he headed over to a small chest in the corner and crouched down to rummage though it.

The small light object smacking into his back caused C'tis to look around with a deeper scowl. "Hey, don't do that! Throwing things at me doesn't put me in a good mood." When he was already in a good mood being pelted with things was all in good fun, but when he was pissed off it only made things worse.

"It's nothing important," he continued in a growly mutter, picking up the earring before going back to looking for the cards. "Nothing you want to know about anyway," he added, feeling petulant and spiky. "Here, cards." Pulling them out C'tis replaced the lid of the box, straightened, and slouched back over to Rochelle. "And I believe this is yours," he added, dropping her earring onto the table, though only from the height of a couple of inches.

"What? No. It's... it's stupid." C'tis pulled his chair out and flopped back down into it, plonking down the deck of cards before taking another swig of his klah. "It doesn't matter," he repeated with a shake of his head, still scowling somewhat and hunching his shoulders in a recalcitrant manner.

"I'm being stupid." You didn't get to go around regretting having given out presents, especially to people other people you knew liked more than they liked you and doubly so when they'd been so... yeah. Rochelle would think he was stupid and selfish for wanting that red firelizard for himself, so pretty and loyal and obedient.

C'tis sighed and poked Rochelle's shin in return, his angry fading to vaguely sulky. "It is stupid," he repeated, "but fine." How did he phrase this without sounding like he was having at go at the healer? Maybe he should try to get on with the old man too, Rochelle and Aleck might like him more if he got on with Bereck. Probably the old man wouldn't want to know though, thought his son and Rochelle were far too good to be associating with some 'ruffian'. b*****d, he ought to-!

What? He'd just made all of that up in his head and was pondering what to do to the healer about it? That was not the kind of thing decent, non-vicious people did.

"I'd just... like a firelizard. And I could have had one but I gave it away, and now I'm bitter. Of course I wanted one myself, but I'd just given you one and Aleck one and then he woke up and.... Well, yes." C'tis scowled and crossed his arms defensively across his chest. "Happy?"

"I've been looking," C'tis said dismally, "but they're expensive and... I didn't want to make a fuss." Shrugging his shoulders C'tis looked down at the table top and started picking at a splinter. "And, well I couldn't ask you or Aleck or anyone to help me get one because I'd claimed I didn't want one. I didn't want to look stupid. Bit late for that now. I just... I don't know, I felt bad for you and Aleck and... yea." He still remembered the way the old healer had smiled when he slipped the egg into his hand, claiming he'd got it specially for him. It had been a good feeling, but that didn't mean he didn't feel jealous and bitter now.

"Well... I suppose." C'tis pulled his cards towards himself and smiled a bit. It was actually good to have said all that now, more to the point good to have discovered that Rochelle didn't think he was an awful person or completely stupid. She was great, she really was. Pretty good at defusing him, funny, snarky, pretty.... Sometimes he still wondered if she might be interested in him, but she was friendly and tactile with just about everyone she knew. It sucked, it really sucked, but friends was better than nothing.

Pushing his fingers through his spiky hair C'tis yawned slightly and reached over to give Sassy a scratch. "Good boy Sassy."