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There were not a lot of things that particularly bothered Florian.

Back when he was an apprentice, his year mates had tried an awful lot of inventive ways to either embarrass him or cause him to embarrass someone else unintentionally. They had tried sticks, they had tried stones, and as the old child's rhyme went... both did on occasion break his bones. Yet even then he hadn't been bothered by their antics. Long ago he had decided that if he couldn't understand the 'why' of something, then he would either make every possible attempt to understand it, or just move on. This logic applied to both academics and to his social interactions, with mixed success.

Academically, he was by far their superior, and he had made no bones about it. When testing time came or a Master asked a question, he did not cow himself so the class would appear uniform. He would instead stand up and be judged right or wrong, and take from that experience what he could. Now while he understood that such behavior made him different, what he could not grasp was why his year mates did not react favorably to the competition. To his understanding (and his life logic) being met with adversity meant striving to better ones self, and he just couldn't fathom the mob rule of dragging down the whole to the lowest common denominator.

Whatever the case had been back then, his stance hadn't changed much over the years, and to those who had known, well, they would have been beyond tears at the current sight of him.

Yes, finally the universe had found something that actually bothered Florian.



And it was this sharding lizard.



Blinking whirling bright red eyes, Roco called raucously again.. right in the Journeyman's ear, as they passed near the Lower Caverns. Of course, 'near' was a relative term for a hungry firelizard, since from what Florian could tell the entrance to the Caverns was about two dozen paces off and around the corner.

Clapping his hands over his ears, Florian managed to dislodge his brown companion for a moment, until Roco decided to swirl about his head trilling apologetically. That, of course, compounded the ringing in the young Healer's ears until he almost screamed himself.

"Roco QUIT IT!"

Predictably, Roco did not quiet down, and instead reacted to his person's show of temper by squawking even louder the second time around. Florian winced at the continued noise and managed to keep his cool long enough to back track and walk towards the lower cavern. Really, he should have known better then to try and get any work done this early without breakfast for the both of them. Or for Roco really, since Florian had always been an early riser that postponed breakfast until the usual time.

Still, he fervently hoped the Lower Caverns wouldn't be terribly crowded. Bad enough to be dropped here at Ista unceremoniously by H'shan one sevenday ago with barely even a letter of introduction from the Healer Hall and Fort Weyr, but as it was the young journeyman was at some serious loose ends. He hadn't quite gotten around to the kitchen staff yet, and he'd hate to make a bad impression via one ugly, malformed, beyond annoying...

As if he caught the thought, Roco squawked again, and flapped his wings.

...but still very much loved firelizard. Florian amended to himself mentally, sending a trio of bright loving images in Roco's general direction. The brown crooned in response, and rubbed his dainty little head against Florian's cheek. Sighing, Florian rounded the curve into the Caverns and peered around curiously. From what he could see there was not a great deal of people around, and the klah was still brewing somewhere... he could smell it.

Relieved that Roco was at least trying to behave now, Florian ducked towards the back of the Lower Caverns as unobtrusively as he could. He wasn't as lost as he looked, but he definitely felt out of sorts in the strange Cavern after staying in Fort Weyr for so long.

For starters, Fort was no where near as crowded as tiny Ista... the current lack of occupants was a little misleading given the rumors. He'd from H'shan about Ista's overcrowding, and had outright asked the older brownrider what was he thinking to bring yet another mouth to feed to the small Weyr. H'shan had just rumbled something incoherent and told him to get on or get lost. At that point, Florian was well aware that H'shan wouldn't just leave him, so he had allowed himself to be carted off to the unknown like so much baggage.

Sighing again, Florian made a beeline for the klah mugs and the serving tables right behind another man. As with most Weyrs, he could at least count on good cooking, even if his stomach rolled at the thought of eating this early and on plates he hadn't cleaned himself.

"Roco, behave yourself please." he mumbled as an afterthought, remembering the last time he had brought the brown near one of these tables. However, since the firelizard was perched on his shoulder and not directly in his line of sight, the young journeyman missed the look of fascinated curiosity the lizard had for M'zaji's hair as Florian waited to gather his own plate of breakfast.

Moving forward to grab a plate and look around for meatrolls for the fat lizard, Florian leaned forward far enough to give Roco the excuse the lizard needed to take flight. That is, he was 'unbalanced.'

Which he did.

And it also gave Florian a reason to curse in surprise and drop his plate right into the empty mugs, though Florian's maneuver hadn't been as well thought out as Roco's. While Florian's actions managed to destroy not just his plate but three of the clay mugs, the brown had fairly somersaulted through the hair, little pincher type claws extended towards M'zaji's head, while he beat his wings only two or three times to clear the distance...

.. and the rest.

..Well, in retrospect Florian doubted he had enough blood in his body to account for the bright red flush of embarrassed anger that now suffused his face.

"ROCO!"

Red faced beyond embarrassment now, Florian gave up even trying to comprehend the why of this situation. After his startled yell, his brain finally processed what Roco had been after...

.. and if possible, he grew even angrier.

"SHARDIT ROCO!" He bellowed, making a grab at the brown's tail while the little lizard merrily nuzzled his way through the blue riders hair. This had always been a thing of the brown's... hair. The silkier and curlier it was.. the better the blasted beast liked it! Back at Fort he'd gotten Florian into no ends of trouble with his Hair Dives, especially with the non-riders. Once he'd even had to do one woman's chores for three sevendays to make up for his lizards behavior.

By Faranth, who knew what kind of trouble it would get him into here!

"LEAVE IT BE!" He yelled again, finally managing to grab the waving tail.

Still grasping Roco's tail, Florian ground his teeth audibly in frustration. Sharding lizard, just had to go and do this in the middle of the Lower Caverns, with a Dragonrider as the target no less! Roco, for his part, was inordinately pleased with himself, and he showed it by weaving his way to the top of M'zaji's head where he could spread his wings, ignoring the incessant tugging on his tail. Blessedly, (to Florian) no one appeared to be screaming for his head (though he was expecting the afflicted bluerider to do exactly that at any moment) and Roco usually only did this for a moment or two...

...But Florian was surprised by M'zaji's calm instruction, and with a hasty apology, he released Roco's tail. "I'm so sorry about this, you're right though." He added, fixing the brown with a sideways glare. "Hard not to just snatch the bugger off."

Had Florian been able to read the rider's thoughts like his dragon could, he would have likely sagged into the nearest chair in relief. However, he hadn't the foggiest notion of what the rider was thinking, and given the current predicament, what he really wanted right now was to get the blasted brown out of the Caverns as soon as possible! The rider's indication that he had suffered worse under the small pincers of firelizard kind didn't help much, but he could at least appreciate the attempt to put him at ease. "It is not alright, but thank you, and I apologize again for all this." he said, eying the brown. "If you reach up over your head, you should be able to grab his belly and dislodge him..." he added crossly, figuring that if he couldn't dislodge the lizard without pulling out a few hairs, maybe the rider could.

Roco, however, had decided that he liked M'zaji a great deal and in an entirely uncharacteristic turn of events, slithered his way down to the bluerider's shoulder, a light croon escaping his small throat.

"At a loss for words, that was what I was." Florian replied with barely concealed exasperation, eyeing Roco again. "I really can't apologize enough sir..." He trailed off, realizing with further embarrassment that he didn't even know this particular rider's name.

"Forgive me, my name is Florian by the way. The lizard is Roco, and we were both dropped here rather unexpectedly by a rider from Fort to attend the hatchings here." He said, relaxing a little when he saw how calmly the rider was dealing with Roco's behavior. Of course, Florian would probably have nightmares about it later in the evening, but for now he allowed himself to calm a little.

When M'zaji extended his hand, Roco sniffed it obligingly and crooned, but he was not one of those lizards the needed to know who he was clinging too... just that he was clinging to something that he liked. There was particular tunic of Florian's that he abhorred (the outer layer of fabric was very scratchy) so he adamantly refused to go anywhere near it.