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Nari... Poor, poor Nari. Bored and alone, for once.

Normally a person would be happy about some free time. After all, Nari was almost constantly surrounded by the younger candidates, them thinking that she knew better than they. She didn't, but she liked to pretend she did.

At the moment Nari was sitting on her bed, back slumped and her hair draping across her face. She looked, to anyone unfamiliar with her, as if she was sad. She looked depressed, less-than-eager to face the world one more day. But she wasn't like that. She was very content at the moment, because she was doing one thing she loved more than anything to do when she had nothing else one her mind.

She loved to smell her hair.

Odd though it may seem, Nari just loved to smell her hair. Every day she took a bath, or at least tried to, and she had been waiting all afternoon for her hair to dry. How does this work? Well, when you get out of the bath you leave your hair up, making sure it doesn't fall out like it sometimes will. Then after it is completely dry you take your hair out and throw it over your face and smell.

It smells like sweetsand, and that other herb I forgot the name of, she thought to herself, shaking her head like a dog and finally swinging her hair out of her face. She sighed, in frustration and boredom, and threw herself back onto her bed. She started messing up the sheets, knowing full well she would have to fix them later and not really caring.

Slowly she settled, thinking to herself in an effort to keep her mind occupied. She began listing what chores she had done today, what she might yet have to do, and what she wanted to do.

I already helped make breakfast, so my kitchen duties are done. I also replenished the supplies of sweetsand in my assigned weyrs... I helped that new kid find the stables, what's her name again? She sighed, exasperated with herself for forgetting, and then moved on.

I also visited Mina in the stables, her foal is looking pretty good... I should probably go see if anyone else needs help, but I don't want to work right now... She started chewing a bit of runner fodder and continued; I haven't written to my family, and it's my turn, but I really don't have anything to say to them. I'd ask what's happening with the runners, especially Enulam, but just that would sound... bare. I could read, mama wanted me to, and there's that book I got last Gather... Oh, who am I kidding?! I want to do something, anything, but nothing is appealing!

"Argh!" She screamed, throwing her head back like a child being forced to eat his veggies.

"My name is Lanari Isrek of Quentin Runner Hold in Keroon." She said, immediately sitting up, red-faced.

"But call me Nari. Lanari is what my older brother calls me, and he's annoying." She grimaced while pushing her hair back behind her ears and smoothing her skirts in some attempt to be presentable.

"And I don't think I'd like having something cut out of me, thanks all the same." She said, frowning.

"You said your name was Njaria? I haven't seen you before. Are you new here?" She asked, a little confused. She knew everyone in her barracks, and most of the other candidates. She had never seen this one before. Maybe she wasn't a Candidate?

"Then the question, here, is, 'Do you like spending time with your family?'" Nari asked, grinning.

"How old are you, Njaria?" She asked, tucking errant strands of hair back behind her ears.

"I'm fifteen, pretty old for a Candidate." She sighed, knowing she was discovered late and hoping her dragon would come before she had to retire from the hatching grounds.

"I'm... sorry for your loss." She said, startled into speechlessness by this abrupt comment. She wondered how to get the subject off of dead relatives.

"Do you have any pets?" She asked.

"I have a grey runner mare, Emnili. But I left her at my hold when I went to apprentice at the BeastHall.

"I know how that is." Nari smiled.

"So do you know anyone around here? Gotten acquainted and everything? It's nearly lunchtime so you could probably meet some of the nicer drudges as you'll know they're near the kitchens. That reminds me... Lana just got off scrubbing duty." Nari said happily before realizing the girl probably wouldn't know who Lana was.

"Um... Lana is my bunk-mate. She's somewhere around here, I'm sure."

"She's very..." Nari started, struggling for the right word. "Giggly. She's very giggly." That seemed about right.

"She is very pretty but also a total maniac. She's fun when she isn't lecturing people on how there should be some cute older Hold boys around. She's obsessed." Nari said, rolling her eyes. She was glad Njaria seemed comfortable talking around her, she hated when meek people came in and you had to be extra nice until they got adjusted.

"I hope I never get to be that way, though I know it's kind of pointless to wish it wouldn't. I would just hate looking so idiotic, I mean, boys aren't everything... Not even if they ARE drool-worthy." She flumped back on the bed and started kicking her feet.