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Cetalese placed the cleaned pot on the appropriate shelf, ready to use for the next meal that the Headwoman was already directing the cooks about. Really, she should be appreciative that she'd somehow managed to land kitchen duty. She could be carting sacks of firestone about, or scrubbing down empty weyrs again. To her, though, a job was a job and someone needed to do it. If it was her, then it was her.

She said nothing to the drudges around her as she went back for a stack of dishes. It was amazing how many dishes there were after the riders had taken their lunch. Were there really that many riders in the Weyr? She set to washing the first dish on the stack, shaking her ponytail back over her shoulder. With all the hair she had, Ceta always had to tie it back for work. If she did Impress a dragon, and it was one of the fighting ones, she often debated whether or not she would actually cut her curls short. There were other female riders who had close-cropped their hair so it would be easier to fit under a helm when they flew Thread.

You may not have to worry about it at all, she reminded herself calmly as she started a new stack of dishes for someone else to dry and began washing the next plate. If a dragon partner doesn't come up in the next few Turns, you may be returning to Hold life and picking up where you left off.

The drudges didn't seem to mind Ceta's silence or thoughtfulness. Mostly, she knew, because they were too busy doing their own work to worry about what a Candidate was doing. As long as everyone's hands were busy, they didn't care if you were dumb as a doornail.

Another plate clinked onto the stack, her other hand already moving for the next dish. Without needing to look outside, Ceta knew she'd already been here for almost as long as her shift required. At dinnertime another pair of Candidates would come down to take over for the dinner rush and post-dinner clean-up.

Cetalese was startled out of her musings and looked abruptly at the girl, though her hand finished it's last sweep over the latest plate in her hand. She was no drudge, but neither was she the other Candidate assigned to kitchen duty right now. She was somewhere else, or maybe had managed to sneak free early. Ceta wasn't really sure that every other Candidate took their work as seriously as she did.

"Yes," she replied politely, finished off the plate and stacked it with the others. The drudges, in the meantime, had dumped a few more small pots in the sink, so Ceta snagged one of those next and worked on scrubbing it out. Ceta already knew who Eliza was, as far as name and rank went, before now, but this was her first time actually interacting with her. Actually, truth be told, outside of whoever her fellow work Candidate was reminding her they had their chores soon, she hadn't really interacted with many of the other people in the Candidates Barracks. The thought didn't bother her much.

The pot went in the drying stack and Ceta wondered where her Candidate partner actually was. It looked as if she was going to be drying the plates as well as scrubbing them.

The onslaught of questions made Ceta instinctively lean slightly away from Eliza and wonder which she was meant to answer first.

"I'm not sure where he went." No need to snitch him out, right? She did fine on her own with the drudges helping, even when the other Candidates snuck away from their duties. It was hard, though, with such a small group of Candidates at the Weyr to work on tasks. A lot of times your partners weren't reliable. Luckily, Cetalese was used to relying mostly on herself.

"I'm Cetalese," she offered, looking up briefly to meet Eliza's eyes. Chatterbox, good willed, probably trouble, likely... weyrborn? Maybe. She was obviously comfortable enough in the Weyr to just take up tasks and bother others. Cetalese blinked and looked back down as she gave the plate a last swipe and put it on the stack. With a small, pointed nod at the clean dishes, she suggested in a voice surprisingly steady and strong for someone who appeared withdrawn, "If you'd rather dry, you're welcome to. It would go faster with one washing and the other drying."

"No, I haven't. Only a sevenday now," Ceta confirmed, handing Eliza the newest clean dish and then taking up Eliza's unfinished dish when her hands were free. Eliza wasn't going to let up on the conversation-- that reminded Cetalese of her littlest sibling-- so she asked, "You're weyrborn? Or were you Searched for this Clutch too?"

Drudges muttered to each other in the background, their voices almost completely overrun by the sounds of a kitchen preparing for the big cooking of the next meal.

"We shouldn't have much longer before the next pair of Candidates arrives." Then Cetalese wondered why Eliza had chosen to come down and help clean. Was she part of the next shift arriving early, and that's why she had flocked so readily to Cetalese? Or would she leave when Ceta did and was really just looking to talk to someone? If she was looking to talk there were plenty of people in the Weyr easier to talk to than herself, but Eliza wouldn't have known that when she walked up.

That explained the 'why' of why she was here, at least. Ceta nodded, to be polite, and continued stacking dishes for Eliza. They didn't have much more to wash, and then she'd snag a clean rag and help her fellow Candidate work her way through the stack. As she worked her way through the last of the plates-- leaving only a pot or two-- she could only imagine what Eliza considered 'more exciting than doing dishes'.

Her mind, for a moment, fell into a state of sedate silence that she used to finish off her washing work. She reached for another dry rag and dried her hands before beginning to assist Eliza with the drying, knowing that with the two of them at it it would go much more quickly. At least Eliza's hands moved even when her mouth was. Her youngest sibling never could master multitasking.

He was still little. It might come to him with time, she reminded herself. Of course, Ceta had always known that to become a dragonrider meant forsaking your family, but she was just a Candidate, and a newly arrived one at that. It was relatively easy to sink into a Candidate's life, but that particular aspect of living in a weyr hadn't come in to play with her just yet. She still thought frequently of her siblings and wondered if her mother was managing them all right on her own.

For once, Ceta's face took on an expression beyond calm regard. Confusion knit her brows and her hands stilled in their work. She'd heard young boys discussing how they wanted to become a dragonrider and Impress a Bronze dragon, and she was aware that there was a hierarchy in weyrs-- such as Golds and Bronzes being the most important colors and the ones with the most responsibility-- but dragons picked the rider. Everyone knew that. The hopes of children were all far-flung fantasies most of the time, weren't they? No one couldn't determine what color someone would get before the Hatching. In the North, she could have assumed that she would be chosen only for Gold or maybe Green if she was Searched. In the South, however, it worked different. Women rode more colors than just the female colors, Ceta had heard.

"What color?" she repeated, all of this in mind. "I thought the dragon chose you. How would you know which color would choose you until it's done so?"

So just the usual hopes, then. That made more sense to Ceta, and she nodded again. "I don't know much about the differences between colors." Would that make Eliza think poorly of her? Maybe she shouldn't have said anything. "And I never really thought about being a rider." That was the truth. Most other children-- mostly boys, but sometimes girls too-- dreamed of dragons when they were young, before handfuls of Searches failing to choose them showed them their place was in the home. Cetalese was 18 Turns old. Why it had taken so long for her to be Chosen she didn't know, but really she'd never had that flight of fancy. She had enough to do with keeping her siblings in line and helping keep the house running that she hadn't really had the time many other children had to daydream about lofty aspirations to dragonriderhood.

Thinking better of her previous words and determined not to say anything else condemning, Cetalese pointed at a pot out of her reach, but closer to Eliza. "Pass me that big pot?"

It wasn't that she was embarrassed at her lack of knowledge, or that she'd let her hurt feelings show if Eliza started teasing her. Really, she shouldn't be bothered by it at all. She was Holder born and bred, not weyrborn. Still, part of Ceta was always effected by the way she was treated, even when she let it flow over and away from her like water in a stream.

Cetalese took the pot from Eliza with steady, sure hands and upended it so the water that had accumulated in the bottom could stream out as she dried the outside of it. She listened to Eliza's justification of her ignorance and felt a surge of gratitude. Chatterbox, yes, but kind. It also told Ceta a bit about Eliza's upbringing and the upbringing of some of her other fellow Candidates.

The offer to do something wasn't surprising, but it was the thoughtfulness of the request that was. Ceta glanced up to meet Eliza's eyes, then turned the pot over and focused on cleaning out the inside. On the one hand, she knew that at some point Eliza would get into trouble, though it didn't seem likely that would happen on such a simple occasion as walking around the weyr. Plus, she was interested in seeing all of the dragon colors Trine had, since she'd seen sparse few dragons in her life and certainly nowhere near the usual array of colors. Then again if they entered someone's weyr uninvited to get a look-- but there was no proof yet that Eliza would do something like that-- Cetalese stopped herself, privately sighing over her silliness. She was wasting time. She didn't want to seem rude by taking ten minutes to give an answer.

"That would be... really nice," she answered, and smiled at Eliza to show her pause wasn't meant to be offensive. If the pot was any drier it would turn to ashes, so Cetalese took it over to a shelf and placed it there before wiping down her hands and folding the rag. She set it on the counter as she made it back to Eliza. She debated asking Eliza if she had chores, then realized it was up to the girl what she did with her time.