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 Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2009 2:31 pm
It had been so tempting that he couldn't not throw it. After the fellow teenager had shown tongue and flipped him off from across the tables, Bachi had decided he'd had quite enough throwing insults.
Since throwing fists would be too obviously stupid (his brother had taught him something), he'd gone for the better option. It was amazing how well sloppy food in a bowl could fly. He had loved it.
After that, the kitchen had erupted into a catastrophic mess. Food went everywhere.
And it had ended badly. Naturally, everyone in the building had seen him throw what had started the whole ordeal. There was really no escaping his fate.
A few other boys (and a girl or two) had been nabbed to help out, and now he was feeling rather high in the complaints department.
With a heavy groan, he set the buckets of water down on one of the huge dining tables and began to stare idly at the mess off food that littered the hall. This was going to take ages to clean up.
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Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2009 10:48 am
He definitely couldn't say he had been innocent. As the food began flying, he'd hesitated, but it was just too big a temptation. The stuff didn't taste very good anyway, so he scooped a spoonful of some mush he had no name for, aimed, and then fired. Throwing food was a very oddly exhilerating activity, you could hardly bring yourself to stop. Until... well, it all came to a halt when the Weyrling Master had appeared with his eyes full of wrath. Many had been sent to their rooms with dinner unfinished. Others were sent immediately to help the cooks with the rest of the meals, to give them a break after ruining the food they'd already prepared. And he... he was in the last group, given the duty to clean up the royal mess.
He didn't mind so much, though. It was filthy work, but he was still chortling over the expressions of those he'd tagged with mush. One had gotten it square on the nose and gone nearly cross-eyed in astonishment! For Berjint, that made it all worth it, making it easier to set about the task at hand. He had been given a bucket and the order to deal with anything too solid to be mopped up with rags. As he scooped up hard crusts of bread, chunks of meat, and other unnamable substances, he whistled a merry tune or hummed to himself.
He glanced over at another boy nearby with buckets of water. "Well, it was fun while it lasted!" he commented cheerfully, slopping something pungent and thick into his bucket.
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Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2009 11:17 am
So lost in his inner groaning feeling, Bachi almost didn't hear the comment from the nearby boy.
He glanced over and grimaced when he saw him pick up whatever kind of food that was. Then he grinned. "Yeah!" he agreed. Suddenly the exuberant nature of having an evil, plotting friend was installed into Bachi's nature.
"Did you hear that one girl scream when the porridge hit her?" he piped as he heaved the buckets of water onto a moderately clean portion of a table and pulled out a wet, scrubbing towel and began working on the tables.
"It was great. I think she might have even started crying." And then, of course, that girl had thrown something back at her perpetrator. She was at least tough enough to throw something back.
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Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2009 12:18 pm
He shared a comspiratorial grin with his fellow flinger. He doubted they were supposed to be sharing about how fun the debacle was, but that didn't stop him from doing so! He smirked about the crying girl, then shook his head. "I must have picked the wrong girl. When I managed to smear her hair with my mush, I got a glare, then one of these," he held up a rock hard tuber the size of a fist, "hurled under the table at me." He winced and theatrically grabbed at his shins, miming the pain.
With a snort he dropped the tuber into his bucket. "I tell you, some of these girls are tougher than most of the guys I've met here." He didn't mention that they were also tougher than he himself. While he hadn't spurned the help he'd een given by a girl, saving him from the ocean, he also didn't spread it around that he'd been in such danger and needed rescue by a girl. It was perfectly fine for a girl to have been better than him at swimming, but a guy had to have some dignity among his own kind, and you didn't get it by spreading stories about having one snatch you from the jaws of death.
He glanced back over at his companion after picking up another soggy hunk of meat. Someone had tried to drown the stringiness out by smothering it in gravy. that had been before it was thrown however, of course. "I'm Berjint. Pleasure to meet another fancier of food." He smirked, saluting with a particularly long crust of bread.
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Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 10:07 am
Bachi grinned as made a wincing face when his cleaning companion held up the tuber. "Ouch," he added, but he was half laughing at the idea of it. It was unfortunate that his mother had taught him that he should never hit a lady. Then again, did some of these girls really count?
Wrinkling his nose at a very odd smelling bit of stew that had spilled, he flicked the offending portions off the table towards the other boy and drug his towel over it. "Yeah," he agreed and eyed the table with scrutiny. "The girls here are kind of weird. Where do they Search girls like that?" Or perhaps it was just a part of the mentality required to be Searched by a dragon. Who knew?
It was a good thing that Berjint bothered to introduce himself, because Bachi certainly wasn't the type to remember to do so. When a name was given, his smile turned toothy and he saluted back with a now delightfully dirty towel. "I'm Bachi. And I think I started this mess." And what a beautiful mess it was.
"How long do you reckon all of this is going to take us?" Taking a look up, everyone was going about as slow as they were. When you had chores all day, the last thing you wanted was to do more in your free time.
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Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 4:17 pm
Laughing, he dodged the flicked bits and continued his work, scooping up more nasty food for his bucket, which was getting increasingly heavy. A dump was soon to be called for. He reflected that this could make some good slop for certain animals. "Well, I figure that the prissy girls who can't stand to get dirty are left in cot and hold, since a Rider has to be tough." To his mind, it was rather like farming. You couldn't become an apprentice tiller of the ground and yet not like standing in the sun and wind. "So all the girls taht get Searched would have to be more than just jgirls, don't you think?" He cast a glance at the other boy inquiringly. His own logic seemed sound to himself, but maybe there were other reasons why?
But at the question of how long, he merely stood up and laughed, shaking his head. "I don't think we'll be done for a long while. In fact, I think I'm due a bucket dump. Here, I'll be right back, and I'll help with the tables." Since really, there was only so much solid you could get out of this muck, and he'd done what he could. He scurried off and soon was back with another rag for table wiping and an extra bucket of water for good measure, this one with bubbles.
He set to with a vengance, probably too much in fact. Soapy water was flung to and fro as he vigorously scrubbed a table Bachi hadn't gotten to yet. "What color dragon do you want," he inquired sociably. This was on everyone's mind, he knew. For some it was clearer than for others, but still, he thought it worth asking. "I myself, I think I want a brown. I nice big brown." He hummed as he worked, thinking about his dream dragon. "I don't think I'd want a bronze. They seem so... well, full of themselves." He meant the current bronze Riders, though he actually hadn't met any himself. It was all by reputation, what he'd heard from other Candidates.
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Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:11 am
Bachi mused over Berjint's revelation. What he said had quite a great deal of sense, but it was still quite obnoxious. "You might have a point there," he admitted with a shrug as he wrung out his soapy towel. "Sure makes it more difficult to get them to squeal, that's for sure."
Bachi wrinkled his nose and made a gruff sound of agitation at the idea of doing this for a long while. It was true, but it didn't make him any more excited to admit it. His towel was already an oddly-colored gross mess. Dumping this in the dirty bucket, he retrieved a cleaner one from his still clear bucket of water. When they'd said he'd need a lot of towels, Bachi hadn't guessed he'd need all of the ones he'd grabbed.
At the dragon color, however, he had to pause to think. To be quite honest, he'd never really put that much thought into it. After all, he'd only watched from afar, and he'd had dreams of riding all types of colors when he was a boy.
But now that it was mentioned, Bachi did get to thinking about it. He went through the colors in his mind. The bronze would be wonderful to have. The biggest, the strongest, the most 'noble'. Surely a good dragon. But, then, he was also the slowest and the hardest to turn.
He'd been impressed with L'thor's green, and not as impressed by R'than's Garith. There was something about that man he didn't like; not one bit. "I think a green, actually," he said with a light smile. "Something fast and loyal that won't be afraid to do anything I want to. Browns and bronzes are nice, but there are some places you just can't go with them, and I want to explore."
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Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 10:27 pm
Now there was a revelation. it had never occured to Berjint that with a flying companion like a dragon, one could go anywhere one wanted to! The idea was staggering. Having grown up in a place where four generations of his family all lived together or near each other, the concept of exploring was new.
He paused in his work, rag laying still on the table, while he pondered this idea. He had ridden adragonback only the once, when he'd come here, and that had been somewhat brief. Now that he thought about it, going between to get somehere seemed a bit like cheating. He tried to imagine all the land between here and his home, but lacked the experiences to think of it as anything but fields upon fields, tended by other families like his. But no, he knew that wasn't as common as he might think.
There was much wilderness, land untouched by men because it was too far from Hold or cot. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying all the harder to imagine uncultivated land, stretching as far as the eye could see...
A bark from one of the adult drudges snapped him back to reality. He hurriedly got back to washing the table, ducking his head apologetically to the disgruntled woman. As she turned to oversee another set of the cleaning crew, he turned his head back to Bachi. "I didn't know they'd let you out to explore much," he half-whispered. "Don't they always have something to do?" Kinda like themselves, in fact. He'd always figured that being a Rider meant little free time.
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 12:52 pm
Bachi was rather confused at this idea of being 'let' out to explore.
"Well, you've got to grow up sometime!" he pointed out with the point of his finger. "They can't keep me cooped up here forever. I'm going to make darn well sure I get my fair dose of exploring in!"
Sure, there were always things to do, but there was now! They always found free time even if it was scraped off the walls much like they were scraping the mess they'd made off the tables and floor.
"I mean, think about it. Not everybody can fit here forever. Sometime, we're going to have to start exploring for a new place, and I'm going to be ready when we do."
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 6:04 pm
His eyes lit up with the idea. "Say, you've got a point!" So pleased was he, he stood up straight and twirled his rag jauntily, sending soapy water spraying everywhere. Someone nearby who knew one of the two boys had begun this mess snapped at him for it. Having the grace to look repentant, he immediately went back to sluicing down the table. The whirling water had given them the idea to pour out some of his soapy water on the table itself.
This actually proved a pretty decent way to clean it off, as well as the benches too. Of course, it'd leave a mess for whoever had floor duty, but even then, it was soapy water after all!
After getting a good deal of scrubbing done to make up for twice being scolded, he glanced around, then spoke again to Bachi. "So, if you get a dragon, would you stay here or go elsewhere?" Everyone had heard the rumors about groups wanting to break off from the main Weyr, or of organized efforts to select Riders for a new Weyr. He wasn't entirely sure how it was supposed to work, to be honest. "I mean, would you want to go?"
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Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 9:06 pm
Bachi wiped some soap from his nose and shrugged it off. As long as he didn't have to clean up the residual mess, Berjint was free to slush whatever kind of slop he wanted over the tables.
It was quite an effective way, and so the boy followed suit with a grunt of exertion from lifting the heavy object.
"Hard choice," he pointed out quickly. A choice that he had made a long time ago, however. It was likely made in his youth when he picked up the first three-eyed frog and ran around the Hold looking for people to scare it with. It was likely reinforced every time his brother gave him a lashing.
Bachi would show him when he Impressed. He was a man now!
"I wouldn't stay here." There was a pause as he found a particularly sticky part of the tables and had to scrub it down with more vigor. "It's safe here, I guess, but I don't want safe. I want to feel alive."
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:27 am
Berjint pondered the other boy's perspective in silence. As his rag swept across the weathered wood of the table, his eyes tracing the grain, his mind chewed on Bachi's words.
Safe? Yes, he supposed Ista Weyr was safe enough. They let children here, after all. But was being a dragonrider safe? Thinking of wheeling high in the air, wind rushing past him, the people below the size of ants... it made his heart thump faster. The idea seemed plenty unsafe to him, but what was he? Just a farmboy in a Weyr full of strangers. He cast a glance over at Bachi, still thinking. What was unsafe for him? What made him so sure somewhere else would give him what he wanted?
Whatever it was, Berjint was entirely certain that what he sought in his time here at the Weyr was entirely different than what this other boy sought. Somehow, he hadn't quite realized that they all had different dreams, even if they all included a dragon. This actually was quite a revelation for the stocky boy, and he found himself with little to say about it, or at least little he wanted to share.
Knowing some sort of response was likely to be expected, he gave a half-grunt of thoughtfulness and mumbled something akin to, "Dunno what I'd do."
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Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 3:31 pm
Bachi didn't seem to mind the silence of Berjint's thinking. In fact, he found he got much more done when he wasn't busy trying to talk.
He glanced up when he heard the mumble, but since it was nothing inspiring nor intellectually challenging, Bachi assumed that Berjint had just as soon they end the conversation there. They both had a lot to think about now, it seemed.
Making a noise that said 'i'm going', Bachi held up his bucket to give his meaning before wandering off to dump out the worst in the kitchen and refill his bucket with cleaner water.
When he came back, he was resigned to his task and little more of importance was said.
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