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 Posted: Sun Mar 07, 2010 7:21 pm
Only two or three more full candlemarks of cleaning empty weyrs and then Millet would be done and allowed to run free with her friends, her hands red from scrubbing and her eyes watery from the dust. There was a cloth about her face to prevent all the dust from making her wheeze as the floors were swept and objects moved around, and as Millet ran from here to there she was glad that there were others inside helping her out. A weyr that hadn't been used for a while was way too much for a single person to clean on there own, so a few tenths of a candlemark several people had been brought in to work together.
It sort of ended up that Milly was doing most of the work, the others watching her and some of them even loading her arms up more when she finished whatever she was doing, but the little girl only bit her lower lip and smiled, unwilling and unable to say no. She would have preferred to have her flitt at her side to keep her company in terms of conversation but there was no reason for Milly to really be picky.
Eventually she'd be done and on her way. What would the kids like to play today?
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Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2010 7:48 pm
Roni had been excited about the prospect of cleaning empty weyrs. It'd seemed, at first, that it couldn't be so different from cleaning a house, something she'd done before. Something she knew how to do, unlike so many of the chores candidates were assigned. She'd been confident about until she saw that she wasn't working alone. It made sense. She told herself that. It was big. She was small.
But she was also in the way. She knew it right away. She knew it when another candidate bumped into her. She knew it more when one of the louder ones told her rather loudly to move. She was in the way and she was doing bad. She was bad and she shouldn't be there. She was gonna mess up. And then the rider who someday lived in the Weyr would get angry. Or worse, what if the dust she missed made the dragon sick?
What if she accidently killed a dragon! She was going to kill a dragon just because she was so bad at cleaning! At which point Roni was nearly reduced to tears, her eyes wide and wet as she stared downward. She kept working, her particular task at the moment scrubbing the raised platform a dragon might someday sleep on. But fear had so taken hold that she could barely move beyond the spot where she started. It had to be clean enough.
Finally she looked over to the nearest candidate, which just happened to be Milly, "Ex-excuse. Excuse me. I'm. I'm sorry. I'm cleaning this. Trying to. Sort of. Did I do this right? It's wrong. I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. Really!"
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Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 9:55 am
"Hm? Roni? Why are you fretting?"
It was yet another person that Milly only knew by name thanks to wandering constantly about the Weyr and helping here and there, and with a smile on her face the girl pulled down the cloth over her lips to speak and respond in kind. It would have been rude of her to do otherwise and continue to speak through it, since most likely it would have made her hard to understand.
"Did you clean this part? It looks good, how many times over have you done it? It looks like you've been scrubbing at it for a while now, why don't you move to the next place? You can help me move things around if you want since four hands are better than two and some of these things are heavy. I don't know why they've got us cleaning though, are they expecting something very soon?"
They were all childish concerns from Milly's point of view, and she did her best to try and ease the feelings of her companion. If any of the others saw how unhappy she was there was a chance that Roni would be treated badly and used by them too, and that didn't sit well with the little girl.
"We can work on wiping things down together."
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:05 am
Roni kept her eyes downcast, staring fretfully at the spot that Milly had pronounced 'clean enough'. Unlike Fell, who the little candidate would happily follow into fire, Milly was someone she only knew by sight and just barely by name. Clean enough for Milly might not be clean enough for a dragon. Father was always saying how they didn't have neough good, hard workers at the Weyr. That no one knew the value of a hard days work the way he and his children did.
But Milly sure seemed to be working hard! Working harder than almost anyone, really. Surely she wouldn't lie. Unless she was trying to get her in trouble. That was possible. Roni hadn't made many friends and more than one of the candidates she'd encountered had been downright cruel. She was learning that blind fear was a bit safer than blind trust.
Knotting her fingers together and sniffling a bit more, partly from fighting tears and partly from the dust that was making her sneeze, she let her shoulders slump in a defeated way. "If you think it is. I mean. If it's done. The spot. I can help. I can carry. I'm not good though. At lifting. But I'll try. This isn't done though. I should finish. After I help you. If you want, that is."
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Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 7:04 pm
"It looks really good, don't worry Roni. You did a really good job, much better than anything I could do and I pride myself on making things spotless. Whomever will be returning to have this weyr will be really happy that you tried really hard for them. So don't worry about it all, okay?"
Millet didn't see a reason to sugar coat anything, she honestly did think that the spot that had taken Roni forever to clean did look good. It would have to be very good with how long she'd spent on it, though the young girl wasn't about to mention anything about speed. She didn't think that her companion would do well with anything that sounded negative, plus she didn't want to appear mean. There were enough mean girls in the Weyr already.
"Are you okay though, dust in your nose and eyes? I have an extra scarf if you want to wear one, it's clean and has only been in my pocket. It will help you out against this dust, I'm a little surprised you don't have one already. Feel free to use it, okay?"
She pulled a nice looking cloth from her pocket and held it out towards the other Candidate, a large smile on her lips. She was friendly and kind, she wanted to make this other person feel relieved! No need for stress.
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Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2010 9:23 pm
Ronasha rubbed at her eyes and sniffled one more time before even daring to dart out a hand and take the cloth. Well that, that had been nice, hadn't it? Milly wouldn't have given her a cloth for her face unless she really, sincerely wanted to be nice, right? It was a clean cloth even, and here she hadn't even known to get one when she'd arrived for the job.
There were a lot of things she didn't know.
But none of those things were how to mind her manners, "Thank you," she managed, with only a little bit of a hitch in her voice, "I shoulda brought one. My own. I'm sorry. I will. Next time. I'll remember."
There was a brief flicker of what might have been a grateful smile on her lips as she tied the cloth, but it was a blink and miss it sort of event. Her eyes, still shining with tears and worried, showed little in the way of joy.
"What should we do? Now, I mean. I'll help. With anything, really. I can work. Honest. I just-- I haven't done this. Not before. Cleaned a weyr. It's, umm, important." She spoke with utter seriousness. Of course she did. To Roni, everything was important.
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