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The vanity which afflicted Renna had little hold on Moira. It wasn't so much that she didn't hold herself above others in dedication or value, she simply didn't think of things in the same way. Moira had been taught all her life that what must be done must be done for the good of all, not the individual. When weighing the options, one must consider what would benefit the most people with the least sacrifice. That path, she had so often been told, was always the right one. Granted, she didn't always agree with the result of that equation once the variables had been plugged in, but she almost always followed it, often begrudgingly. While her tendency to write people off rather quickly might suggest a superiority complex, she simply felt that associating with dimglows was not beneficial to the whole.

“Only a bit of a dimglow,” Moira said with a small smile, sarcasm evident on her face. “I think it's natural for some of us to feel drawn to the Weyr. It's a measure of character, really.” Moira held dargonriders to be self-sacrificing in nature, though she held no illusions that the process was foolproof. If there were dimwitted humans, there had to be at least a few dimwitted dragons to bond with them. That fact was evident in Ista Weyr; one needed only to look around for loads of evidence. No such thing as a perfect system.

“I hadn't either. The first time I saw a dragon up close, only a few days ago, I nearly forgot to breathe,” Moira shook her head, though she remembered the green fondly. “Ianquith, the loveliest green. And more shy than a wherry in a lightning storm.” The young candidate straightened as she threw the last of the reeds onto the pile, arching her back and lifting her arms in a full-body stretch. Moira had always prided herself on her keen ability to evaluate others, catching things that most would not. However, with her eyes squeezed tightly shut and her hearing diminished by the groan of a wide yawn, she failed to catch Renna's momentary falter. When at last she was done, she stopped next to the pile of reeds and began to bind them into two bundles using twine withdrawn from her back pocket.

“This should be enough, and F'sey... well, I haven't met him yet. He's the Weyrlingmaster, but I've heard nothing short of horror stories about him. If you can, imagine a really cranky, extremely strict man. Then double the strict part, dip the resulting mutant in a large vat of stick-up-the-butt, and wrap him up in a nice fluffy coating of wherry-a**. From what I've heard, that's about the equivalent of F'sey.”

Moira tugged at the rigging, making sure it wasn't going to snap on the way back to the Weyr and send the contents spilling out across the floor. Once the ties proved secure, Moira hoisted her bundle up onto one shoulder, tossing her head in an attempt to get her unruly hair to clear her field of vision. Something struck her as peculiar when it came to Renna, a sense of familiarity that made it seem like her question should have some sort of significance. Moira brushed the feeling off as superstition, cocking her head slightly to one side in thought. “No idea,” she answered after several moments, “Nobody ever really mentioned it. I'm afraid the Weyr is too filled with complaints of overcrowding and mindless whining for people to talk about much of use.”

A shrug rolled off her pale shoulders as the candidate turned and headed for the faint path that would take them back to the Weyr. “To shards with waiting for the right time. I was in the main hall oogling like a dimglow when I saw Ianquith.” It wasn't like Moira to care whether or not people saw her doing so, but perhaps it would make Renna feel slightly less... aware of what those around her were thinking of her. “Better yet, there was a starsmith there, nice woman. Turns out she's terrified of dragons, and I don't mean terrified the way people are terrified of crawlers. I mean she literally had a panic attack right in the middle of the hall. Absolute hysterics, hid behind me and everything. And the dragon,” Moira's laugh was slight, but her grin was wide with the memory, “The dragon backed down and hid around the corner so as not to frighten her. Sweetest sharding thing I've ever seen.”

Moira stepped over those same fallen logs and branches as she picked her way along in front of Renna, considering what she'd said about their peers at Ista hold, “As for the hold, well, I guess a lot of people have lost faith in the riders. It's as cyclical as the Pass itself. People forget what they can't see with their own two eyes, greed sets in. They have reservations about tithing to a Weyr when they're not immediately threatened. I remember my mother's... companions use to complain about it constantly. It was the quickest way for them to get a cooking pot to the back of the skull on her list.”

“Most of them gave up their dreams of being a dragonrider when it stopped being all about sunning on the heights and flying in the clouds. When they grow up and realize that it's largely about risking your life and that of your dragon, leaving most of your family and friend, rededicating your entire life to irreplaceable individual? I suppose it's too much for most people to keep dreaming about. People give up on what they really want in preference for what's easy. Better to be an adequate glass smith than a failure of a candidate, in their minds. It's a trait of weak character; that's why they're still sweating their asses off in Ista, toiling for next to nothing, and we're here, ready to Impress.”

((Gaaah. Sorry Im at work like ALL THE TIME, or doing work things. I'll be off more after Friday, so I can respond faster. 8D))

Moira had been told before that she should have been a harper, given her way of speaking. She had never been able to pinpoint where the habit had come from, but she placed the credit (or blame) on spending a great deal of time studying carefully composed ballads and eloquently written records. Moira's smile was renewed as Renna spoke, the girl's passion soaking each and every syllable. It was a rare trait to find in fellow candidates, many of whom had grown lazy and complacent with the frequency of hatchings.. How often had she tried to have a similar conversation, only to find out that the other end of it was filled with nothing but apathy? She nodded as Renna spoke, her approval evident.

“My mother never completely got over losing her dragon.” Moira began in response. She showed no outward sign of sadness, nor did her voice alter from it's monotonous drawl. When it came to matters such as these, Moira was the very definition of detached. Besides, she'd never lamented her upbringing. It prepared her well for the path she now traveled. “When it became evident that popping out kid after kid wouldn't be enough to fill the gap, she took to raising us in the manner she thought would be most fitting for a dragonrider. I've always had the dream myself, ever since I was little, but had I ever been interested in such a thing as bakercraft or harpercraft, I doubt I would have been allowed the time to pursue them. Our schedules once we grew out of childhood were... tight, to say the least.”

The Weyr entrance was within view by that point, though Moira dreaded the idea of retreating into the stuffy, crowded caverns.

“Candidates who are also apprentices are either searching for a fallback, or just don't actually want to be candidates. There's no reason to pursue a fallback. If you feel it, really feel it, that yours is waiting for you, you don't need to pursue sharding glass smithing “just in case”. I don't second guess my dragon, and I know he or she does not second guess me.”

That laugh was so familiar that Moira nearly missed a step. She couldn't have said from where, or why, but she remembered it as clear as the Red Star shone. The young woman racked her brain as she walked, doing what she could to keep her surprise from springing to life in her expression. In that brief moment of distraction, her foot caught on one of several small steps littered about the winding caverns, and Moira was spilling face-first towards the rock floor before she knew what was happening. Palms took the brunt of the fall, her face took the rest. Any thought about Renna or her laugh was quickly replaced with Oh shards, my face. Am I missing any teeth? Oh thank the Egg, I have all my teeth. Oh shards, my face.

“Nygh,” Moira muttered, pushing one palm against the floor in order to roll herself over. The bundle of reeds rolled off to one side, relatively unscathed. “Yeah.. weyrling training will be a snap once I learn how to sharding walk.” She pushed herself up to a sitting position, grumbling something under her breath about having the grace of a three-legged watch-wher. “Shards and shells,” she grumbled, recovering the bundle of reeds with apparent displeasure, “I always did have a profound lack of grace, even as a kid. I'm surprised I even have kneecaps left to scrape at this rate.”

“Oh sure,” Moira huffed, sarcasm thick in her tone, “Make fun of the short girl.” Her palms were skinned, but they'd saved her face from looking more awkward that it did on a daily basis. She plucked small bits of rock from her palms before accepting Renna's hand, taking a moment to give a deep bow once she'd risen, “Thank you, thank you, I do try to entertain.” Moira pushed her hair, now puffed up in a wild mess, away from her face. She bent to retrieve the bundle of reeds, shaking her head.

“Come on,” she said, pushing the thought of Renna's familiar laughter to the back of her mind. “I've got all the stuff we need in the barracks. Let's go make you a sharding bed.”