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 Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 12:27 pm
So, they weren’t getting rid of him. Viskal was more confused than excited. Most boys his age from his hold would have killed to have the chance at a dragon. But what if he didn’t Impress when the time came? He’d heard there were two clutches, but he could fail at one just as easily as the other, and is he never impressed his position would be even worse. At least at his hold he’d had a steady future planned. His craft would be a hard one, but after several years he could have gained rank and made a good stead for himself while he was still young enough to enjoy it. Here, well, if Candidate duties kept him this busy his craft was going to move much slower, and his prospects later in life would be weaker. He might have only been fifteen, but he never had believed it was too early to worry.
Irate at this, he’d bought a few strips of cured leather from a visiting trader he’d found the day before, and this evening he’d plunked himself down in the center of a small courtyard that jutted out towards a lake where a green dragon could be seen landing to sun itself. The courtyard was a simple, small circle of clean sand and a few rocks and columns. Decorative, like everything in the weyr, but simple and easy to maintain. Had he known the courtyard was a favorite sunning spot of several of the weyr’s firelizards, he might have picked another spot. However, Viskal had no eye for flits, the lake, nor the dragon, but was hunched over his knees, working on the strip of leather he’d already cut into the rough shape of a belt. A set of tools lied beside him, mostly small and delicate knives.
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Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 5:19 pm
Salin had been born at the Weyr, so when he'd been selected as an candidate, he had reasoned more or less that he was all set, and had only really recently begun to worry. Not that he'd be kicked out of the Weyr, but he really preferred the version of the future in which he was a dragon rider... even if this was looking increasingly slim.
What he had to admit you didn't see very often was someone sitting alone working on... well at the moment anything other than lessons, and he wandered closer to examine the tools, and what was being made with them.
"What are you making?"
A pretty to the point question, but sometimes thats what it took.
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Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 6:00 pm
Footsteps. Viskal ignored them, hoping and expecting them to wander away as he was busy with a particularly important of the base design, but they didn’t. He drew in a deep breath and set the belt in his lap, looking up and flexing his aching fingers. His hands and fingers were stained and rough from the dyes and blades of his craft, but tone had started to lose its strength since his arrival at the weyr. It was something of a plesant surprise since he’d half thought the dyes would have marked his skin forever. “A belt,” he answered, eyeing the older boy. “You’re one of the candidates?” he prompted.
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Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 6:33 pm
"Salin, nice to meet you." He offered, extending a hand to the other boy, since he seemed to need a short break anyway. "And yes I am, you?" He didn't seem that familiar a sort, but he might have just missed seeing him around before. He would have asked the gossip chain, but with everything else, he was sure it would be mostly about the invading healers from Benden, and that would probably mean it would end up being theory's on weather or not the new boy was a plant from Benden.
"Looks complicated." He added, eying the complex work on the belt. "No chores?" He asked, though maybe they'd put him to work on some chores that actually involved the boys trade, or he assumed it was the trade he'd been taken from.
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Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 7:03 pm
Viskal wiped his hand on his pants leg, only removing a bit of the sweat there, before shaking. “I’ve hardly started on it yet, and it still needs to be dyed and sealed,” he said, holding the piece up to show. A twining vine already crawled from one side of the belt, curling and twisting into a thinner strand and latching onto a new figure, something that might have been an egg. He was right, because the present design only covered about a quarter of the belt. “And some silly boy wanted my last job so he could flirt with a girl. I gave it to him to work on this.” He needed some example work if he was to apprentice himself to another master here, after all, and he’d stupidly left most everything of quality at his hold when he’d been searched.
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Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 7:14 pm
"Thats really impressive." Salin's eyes widened slightly as he studied the intricate details on the belt. "You'll have to show me the end result when it's done." He flashed an brilliant white grin. "Hey, if you're making these things still later, maybe I can have you make me a piece."
If by chance he actually impressed, it would be a lot of fun to have an leather wrap for his braids, and the decorative traits on a functional material seemed like the best of all worlds.
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Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2010 9:12 am
He hadn’t actually introduced himself earlier when Salin had given his name, but he did so now at the prospect of business. “Well, my name is Viskal if you mean that. I’d be happy to sell you something after I re-apprentice myself to a master here. Right now I need to keep everything for example work though.” A belt was a simple thing truly, meant only to show his capacity for design. Everything else would be a matter of structure, and it might be difficult to get his hands on materials. He’d had the wit to bring his tools when Searched, but nothing else besides that and his personal belongings.
“Where are you from?” he prompted curiously. The boy’s complexion and hair were a bit odd. He hadn’t seen much like it around the weyr.
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Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 9:00 am
"There's so much going on I'll be surprised if you find time to sleep if you re-apprentice before the clutches Hatch." Salin noted, raising his eyebrows, and filing Viskal neatly under the filing of 'cutely naive Holder', and decided to wait to see how he handled things with the great invasion of Healers from Benden, and the enormous pressure on the Candidates.
"It's a pretty impressive example so far though." He added. "You'll have to let me know how things go. And I was born here. How about you? I'm going to take a guess that you were hold-born?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 5:35 pm
“Yes, I’ve only been here for a few days.” He squinted critically at Salin, noting the boy’s age. It seemed a Candidate from the Weyr would have begun Standing at hatchings at an early age, and this boy was older than him. “But I don’t expect to Impress just because I’ve been Searched. Even hold-born, I know many stand here for turns on end and then watching and being passed over, sometimes seeing dragons prefer going between than bond with them. I’d die to Impress, like anyone, but I won’t be crippled by disappointment and forgetting my trade should I fail in that way.” His words seemed chosen to strike a nerve, but it was delivered flatly, as if he’d lost focus on Salin during the monologue. At the end of it, he glanced away and across the courtyard. Was he embarrassed at saying such a thing to a stranger that had done him no harm, or simply further considering his words?
((Note: Viskal is an a*****e. Sorry. X_X))
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Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 6:29 pm
"Well if you're so forgetful that you'd forget your entire trade before the clutch hatches, I suppose that would be a pretty significant problem." Salin's voice was cool, and his expression, while still friendly, had cooled to something of a remote mask. There were a few traces that indicated that Viskal had hit a nerve, and truth be told it was a sharp one, or he might not have displayed even the few traces he did. A slight twitch of the mouth, a remoteness in his eyes as though he'd stepped back twenty paces or so in his mind to avoid... well. Whatever he was thinking beneath his blank expression.
"On the plus side, the hatchlings will certainly be spoiled for choice." He added. "Which will hopefully minimize them going between. Which they do not because they can't -find- their person. Maybe they weren't there...maybe they weren't treating things seriously..."
Maybe they were a hold born snot who didn't deserve a firelizard much less a dragon...
Ok that was being uncharitable, even if he did find it frustrating when holdborn impressed over him. "It's your choice if you want to stay or go." he noted, icily. "If you think you're wasting your time."
He'd only meant to make light of the exhaustion all the candidates were feeling. Two clutches on the sand, constant lessons and chores, and THIS boy thought he could do all of it AND apprentice. Did he plan to learn the art of going between without a dragon? It was the only way Salin could see that working out.
"Although before I leave you to your preparations to walk the table, I was wondering if you owned any flits. They've been everywhere lately, and there didn't used to be so many. I can't tell if they belong to the healers or the candidates, but I'm sure you're familiar with what kind of trouble an under-trained flit can be... stealing things and what not."
He wanted to just storm off, feeling that he was being looked down on for not having impressed at his age, and by a Holder no less, but there was more at stake here than his ego. Much more was if he'd put the pieces together right.
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Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 7:57 pm
Viskal turned back at the older boy’s voice and studied him with a direct stare. His own stony expression was proof that he took no cruel malice in having piqued Salin, but he didn’t exert himself to make amends. He wouldn’t have known how to go about it, and believed too strongly that trying would make him look a fool to try.
“I don’t waste my time,” he said around a deeper squint as his mood sharpened. Any more antagonism between the two and his eyes would be reduced to black-eyed slits. “That why I’m working all sides.” He wanted a dragon though. The desire had been sneaking up on him slowly since arriving. Hope, the stupid, fluttering thing, swelled his chest during dark hours in the barracks, followed closely by fear. Fear he would be rejected from this new thing the way he had been by his mother, by other children, by his master when he elicited the man from friendship. He told himself it was the same nervousness that every other Candidate had, but he still hated that twitching dread. Hated it enough to wrap himself in more work than he could sensibly handle. He would be a Candidate with double the chores from two clutches on the sands, and an apprentice besides, and a suspicious resident toward the Benden crowd as well, searching around the healers quarters when he was ordered to serve their needs. In the end, he would have his dragon or not, but he refused to be crushed by them should they prove indifferent to him. Refused!
He licked his lips at the boy’s question, somewhat set aback it. “Flits though? No. My mother had one. It clutched once, but,” he shook his head, “no.” His mother’s green, Gleep (a stupid name, as if he needed extra reason to resent the creature) had been a greedy, hostile thing. His most vivid memories of the beastie were of it curled around his mother’s throat and hissing and swiping at him when it claimed some bit of his food at the table. He actually feared the things, and while dragons seemed larger, nobler things hardly related to flits, he planned on keeping his fears secret.
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Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 5:09 am
Salin's mask broke into an even more distant look of frustrated contemplation, though it no longer seemed directed at anyone in the immediate area, and he went so far as to bite his lip, hard, scowling as he clawed through whatever was going through his head, trying to make connections.
He didn't Viskal. Quite frankly he didn't like Viskal at all, but he was a fellow candidate, therefore he had something to loose as well.
"Something is strange, keep your eyes on the Benden healers and their flits." He warned, cryptic, but gravely serious. "Or don't." He added, waving his hand to dismiss protests from Viskal that he must surely be pulling some kind of prank. "They're as trust worthy as a tunnel snake in a clutch of eggs."
He was disappointed that Viskal didn't seem to know any more, but what else could he -ask-?
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Posted: Sun Jul 18, 2010 10:20 am
“You act like you know something.” Viskal said, eyes ever squinted as he gave thoughtful inspection of the boy. He was guessing though. Maybe Salin’s sudden distant look after being so focused on their shared hostility meant he knew something interesting about the Benden flits. More likely, one of the beasties had stolen a dinner roll from his hand or somesuch. Their Benden visitors seemed to find their discomfort amusing at times.
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Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:10 am
Salin grimaced, folding his arms as he debated how much to reveal. "I overheard something odd." He admitted. "But unless I find out more it won't do any of us any good."
He had to admit he questioned why he was telling the other boy anything. He was a Holder, why would he care about the Weyr politics, when he didn't even want to be here, from the sound of it. He might even tell the Benden Healers that Salin was trying to find things out. "And there are an awful lot of flits with the Benden group..." He shook his head with a frown. "Nevermind. I'm sure you're already convinced I'm not worth listening to."
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Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 8:33 am
“There might be a few things I’m convinced you’re not worth, but listening to isn’t one. I’d presume your ears and mouth work well an independently of your opinions.” In other words, he didn’t expect to be lied to by the older boy. He’d been wrong before, but what was one more rumor flying around? “Mine don’t, and I’ve seen a few interesting things myself.” The corner of his mouth twisted slightly – in derision or some kind of dark reassurance?
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