Welcome to Gaia! ::

[I'll swap the title out if you choose to go with one of your other characters, but it seemed like Tia was the most likely, so I stuck her up there. Also, my recollection of the Pern series is still reaaaally sketchy, so if I slip up on continuity anywhere, please don't be afraid to call me on it. XD]


There were a set of rules that Okassis had always lived by - a philosophy, he guessed people might call it, though that bit of vocabulary was too high-minded for his tastes. Being idle had never been a part of his life, however. There was always places to go, goods to move, chores to be completed, work to be done.

But he wasn't supposed to work too hard, the Healers at the Weyr had told him. In fact, if Okassis expected to have any chance of joining in the upcoming Hatching, he had damn well better sit on his a**. Coming straight out of an active life like he had, they'd assumed that he'd enjoy the excuse to take it easy for a while.

It was entirely the opposite, however. It was midday, and Okassis had more energy bundled up than he knew what to do with. A couple stitches in his forearm, a nasty bruise on his cheek, and maybe he was limping a little on a bum ankle - sure, he didn't look pretty, but that didn't mean he had to sit all day until he rusted! Someone around here must need an extra pair of hands, or at least have something worth doing - anything that let him be more than a lump around the Weyr would make him happy, really!

Ah, finally! Okassis had begun to worry that there was no place in the Weyr that wasn't as absolutely dull and stagnant as his little Candidate bunk had been. It would've been something of a disappointment to have made it into the Candidate circles, just to find that the dragonriders were the bunch of laid-back, slacking bottom-feeders his father had denounced them as.

He hadn't forgotten his sore appearance, and so when Tiaet looked alarmed and immediately asked about his help, he couldn't help but to quip, "Just come from there, and they told me I might as well head over here where I might blend in better." Passing through the room, he paused ironically beside one of the hanging pieces of meat. "If I had to guess, though, I'd say this guy is lookin' a bit prettier than me, eh?"

When asked about how he received his startling injuries, Okassis's eyes tightened at unpleasant memory, vivid and fresh in his mind, but his smile was completely unaffected. "Okassis. And these are what I deserve for picking a fight with someone that could take me, got the snot beat out of me before it broke up," he replied lightly. It was surprisingly easy to talk about, when he put it like that; the youth moved closer, speculating, "I imagine he's lookin' pretty sore right now, too, though."

"You need a hand in here?" he gestured to her work in a friendly manner. Cutting up a hunk of meat wasn't so hard, after all, and beat standing around uselessly.

Reflexively, Okassis began to laugh- "Just as long's you don't drop me on my head, I can't afford too many more lumps up there!" Then, getting a better look at who he was talking to, he was struck by realization. "'Course, I don't think I gotta worry about that, do I?" he commented appreciatively. No wilting flower was Tiaet; more like a strong, tall oak! Hard-working, brawny, and not too hard to talk too, either. They didn't make many girls like her in the Holds - or out of them for that matter, Okassis thought, thinking of his sister.

Smiling a bit more now, the youth found a bit of workspace along with a cutting blade, and set straight in to work. He hadn't the slightest traces of squeamishness as he hacked through the meat, unafraid to apply strength where needed. "So," he grunted as he began sawing through a tough sinew, "how do you make your living, Tiaet?"

"If you don't Impress, huh?" Okassis echoed, a bit startled. It hadn't really occurred to him that some of the other candidates might have a backup plan - he'd ended up burning his bridges to get here, and had somehow just assumed it was the same for everyone else. Coming into the Weyr, he'd been told, Impress or else - but listening to Tiaet, maybe wasn't as dire a promise as he'd thought.

Loosening up, he asked grinningly, "Who's to say you couldn't do both, anyway? Dragonrider and master blacksmith both." There had to be plenty of downtime between flights, he figured, and what he'd seen of the Weyr so far suggested to him that the dragonriders didn't always have enough to do. It worked in his head, at least.

"For me...." he thought, then shrugged. "Impress or else, I guess." Her brought down his knife with a powerful shukk, cutting a haunch straight off the increasingly unidentifiable carcass with a note of finality.

"Somewhere, yeah, but who's to say where?" Despite his light-hearted voice, Okassis's jaw set itself. Exhaling, he set the knife aside for a moment, he shifted the hunk of meat he was working on around, eying it up like a sculptor to marble, explaining, "My folks are Traders. Probably well on their way to Igen by now, and it'd be a mite hard to catch up." Never mind the fact that they'd turn him out if he tried, after the scene he made. Taking up the blade again, Okassis returned took another cut. "How 'bout your folks? They live in these parts, do they?"

Ah, damn. He'd hoped they were beyond that subject already. Okassis grinned, either a force of habit or attempt to brush past the seriousness of his answer - "Yeah. My dad an' me. Guess it's a bit hard when someone decides in the matter of a few seconds to leave the family business, right?" No matter how laid-back his vocal inflections and careless his hand gestures were, it didn't take a lot to see that the subject had put Okassis on edge; his shoulders were stiff, and he was starting to get a bit more violent when attacking the meat again.

"So!" he continued on cheerfully. "You must've seen Weyrs a decent amount, or at least been around this one longer than me. What's life like around here, most days? Pretty slow, easy-going?"

"Sounds like you've got a smart master, there. The Weyr's a world apart, for certain," Okassis agreed, musing. "Haven't been around much yet, but just taking a look at the people, and you start getting an idea. The folk here, you know, at least a good share of them - they want. More than anything you ever see in the Holds. Believe me when I say I've seen most of them out there, so if I say Holdfolk aren't like Weyrfolk, I mean it!" The youth seemed to be lightening up with the change in topic, his voice picking up more of its usual boisterous inflections.

Then he frowned, thinking again. "It's sort of... a hegemony, though, isn't it?"