The following is a log of roleplay on Star Stones MOO, logged by Dallaney.
All references to the world and characters of Pern™ based on Anne McCaffrey's fiction
are copyright© 1967 by Anne McCaffrey, all rights reserved. The Dragonriders of Pern® is
registered U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, by Anne McCaffrey and used here with
permission.
Baths
Scents of sweetsand and other cleaning herbs give the large chamber a relaxing feel after
a hard day of work. The drudges keep clean area tidy and make sure there floating bowls of
sweetsand never run out. Quiet conversations are dotted with children squealing with
delight as adults try to get them to bathe instead of playing. The steps into in the pool
are on the east side toward the entrance from the hallway into this room. The west side of
the pool is deeper and favored by the young children as a diving site. Many shelves are
there for people to place clean clothing and other items while they bath.
Niamh is here.
From here you can go:
Hallway Pool
The current weather report:
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TelgW: Center of the Bowl (#999)
The sky is clear and bright without a cloud to be seen. Belior is a quarter
full and Timor is waning from half dark. It is a winter night.
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A good night for a swim. So think the happy hordes clustered in the pools, scooping up
sweetsand aplenty for their uses; Dallaney, however, is hunkered in the corner where the
shelves are, fiddling with a pile of towels. The secondary stacks of clothes nearby
threaten to dwarf her littleness, emphasised in this position.
Dallaney
Gaunt, Dallan is, grown into a gawky adolescent stockiness. A mass of indifferent mahogany
curls crisps defiantly from behind her ears, huddling to straggle over sharp eyebrows that
cap equally hazel eyes in a thin face. Her nose is sharp, her chin well-defined; dark
brown cheeks and lips naturally pursed make her no pleasure to look upon. Uncertain growth
has given the slender limbs wiry strength, with a simple agility of motion, but she
remains shorter than most others her age.
A pair of leather pants, patched at the knees, hang on by the bare grip of a hide belt
winding around her waist. Too long by design, multiple folds serve to hitch the pair up,
echoed by the tucked in, tucked up shirt the boyish girl wears. A jacket attempts to cover
it all: its adult standard issue and proudly bears the pips of a thrice-corded medal. As
dusky as she is, her garments attempt to outdo that by their solid umber shades; even the
loose sandals are intensely russet.
On her shoulder, a single white cord chokes and twines ruggedly upon itself, purity's
epitome.
She is awake and looks alert.
[13 Turns, 4 Months, and 9 Days]
Niamh takes a deep breath of the warm air, then immediately coughs as she gets more steam
in her lungs than she wanted. A moment to recover, and then she lets out the sigh of
pleasure which was meant to follow it. "Ahhhh. This is nice, isn't it?" she
says, walking over to Dallan. "By the way, I'm supposed to help you. What're we
doing, folding towels?" Not that anyone had to tell Neev to come here. She sort of
volunteered after spending a back-breaking afternoon shoveling snow in the bowl and wanted
to thaw out.
"Yeah. We're supposed to be in teams," Dallan says, matter-of-fact, after a
backward glance at Niamh. "Baths are all like this, with that much steam." She
extends a hand to indicate the bunch of rumpled towels, presumably laundered and dried.
"I reckon if we finish this the day's chores are done."
Niamh
A tall, lanky figure is Niamh's, enhanced by her long, slender legs. Her hips are slim and
her chest nearly as flat as a boy's, with broad shoulders. This lack of curves, coupled
with her short hair of thick dark brown locks which tumble recklessly to her collar with
no semblance of a part, create difficulty in identifying her gender. Her androgynous
appearance is continued in her blunt, simple features: thin, pointed nose; eyebrows that
little more than slim, straight lines resting on her forehead, with the barest suggestion
of an arc; pale lips well-proportioned to her large mouth, though broad like a man's
rather than full. Amongst these, her eyes seem out of place: dark, appearing alternately
to be green or brown, they're framed by long, thick lashes which are startlingly feminine
in an otherwise genderless countenance.
Heavy wool cloth, both sturdy for work and warm against the cold weather, makes Niamh's
candidate outfit. The shirt is off-white and cut in a loose, modest style with a high
collar; little can be said about the pants except that they're coal black and held up by a
leather belt, fastened with a plain buckle of tarnished slate gray metal. Black and white,
for Telgar Weyr, but with all the dirt they probably won't remain that color for long. A
black vest of similar material and a polished red stone hanging from a leather thong
around her neck provide further sparse accessories.
Good-bye to Niamh's hard-earned senior apprentice knot: it's back to the very basics.
Nothing is simpler than a single white cord which loops once, and yet this mark of a
candidate means a lot.
She is awake, but has been staring off into space for 3 minutes.
Carrying:
Dagda
Niamh just looked at you.
That's all Niamh needs to here. "Really?" she asks, already sitting down and
grabbing the nearest towel, a faded purple thing, and giving it a firm shake. "Cool!
Then maybe we can go join those guys in the main caverns -- I think the Turn's End Eve
stuff has already started. Without us." Typical, of course; start a party while the
candidates are still working. "What've they been making you do? I was lucky enough to
escape the kitchens, but that meant clearing walkways out in the cold. Brr."
Dallaney says, bluntly: "I'm not interested in the turn's end." A shrug follows,
and she turns a toothy smirk to the other candidate. "I tended flowerpots in the
morning, then worked in the kitchens for a while. Mopping of course, /not/ cooking."
As if they'd ever trust candidates with food. The busy fingers pick a towel out and deftly
flick it closed. "Most of this is easier than I thought it would be. /Boring/."
Niamh is here because of that, presumably: if they have teams on the boring jobs, at least
they can chit-chat. "Well, it's better than our other options," she points out
happily. "It's not hard and we get to sit here in the nice warmth... and there's a
nice view." Meaningful glance towards the water, where a lot of weyrfolk,
particularly riders, don't even bother with a bathing suit. Yes, a /very/ nice view
indeed. "What's wrong with turn's end? At least there's lots of food."
Dallaney is just folding those towels now, like before, which includes smoothing out the
obvious creases, but anything more subtle is left in. The smirk stays, though, lingering
in the line of her lips. "It means time's passing. And that's good, in a way.
But--" and she hesitates before muttering for Niamh's ears alone. "I don't want
to get older." And that's another towel done and tossed aside.
Niamh looks at Dallan more closely, trying to guess her age. After a moment she shrugs.
"I guess I can't really blame you," she admits. "Some parts of growing up
are nasty. But I wouldn't say it's all bad...." No, that wasn't another glance
towards the water; she had an eyelash in her eye, really. "And you don't have a lot
of choice. It's either grow up... or die before then. How come you don't want to grow up?
Dallaney elucidates that, "It's bad enough I'm stuck doing chores like folding
clothes and cleaning rooms." The grumbling doesn't fade more than pause abruptly
then, as she bats at a towel rather too hard. Smack, smack, /smack/, pause. "It's
still better than staying. And I'm only saying this because we're all candidates here, and
it doesn't matter-- you're older than me, right?"
"I think so," Niamh says politely, though it doesn't take much guessing to
figure that one out. "I'm going to be twenty in a few months." Imagine that! She
won't even be a teenager anymore. Scary thought. "How old are you?" She stands
up to take a small stack of towels and move them to the shelves -- they're running out of
room on the floor.
"Past thirteen turns," Dallan growls back, with an approximation of Niamh's
courtesy. The stacks /were/ getting a bit tall on her side, and she scoots to one side to
form another lopsided little pile. Neatness is a gift the ex-weyrbrat doesn't possess.
"Someone said you were a harper," she continues after a brief pause, in which a
booted foot spills onto a snowy towel by accident.
Niamh puts a few more piles up on the shelves while she's standing, then returns to her
seat with a nod. "Yup. At the Hall in Crom. I was studying law." That nice scary
complex thing with all the big words, you know? "I don't have a lot of talent for
music, so before you ask I don't play a whole lot--" she's adding it simply because
it is a frequently-asked question she gets, with people expecting her to provide
entertainment "--and I think they basically just let me in because I can talk a whole
lot, and it's just about the only craft that can be useful in. Where're you from?"
"Can be useful in--" Dallaney ponders over the latter words of Niamh's, then
nods. "Yes I think that's what D'aad said. He probably heard it from the weyrharper
too. Igen's harper, that is. Igen Weyr," says she absently, tilting her shoulders
sideways to retrieve the creased and now dirtied sheet. "You mean they let people
with no talent join the craft?"
Niamh shakes her head. "The term 'harper' is misleading," she explains. "I
said I have little talent for /music/... but that's not the only thing the Harper Hall
covers. A lot of harpers are picked for their musical abilities or good singing voices,
but it's not the only criteria. I suppose you could say I have a talent for talking
people's ears off, or something." She shrugs, and then nods. "Igen Weyr, eh?
There seem to be several candidates from down in that area... wouldn't they have been
Searched down there with all those dragons around?"
Dallaney decides to take the begrimed towel, depositing it on a shelf for the drudges to
pick up later. Turning back to Niamh, the hazel eyes have brightened in her scalp,
highlighting the canny curve of hairline and nose; the sturdy girl leans forward slightly,
looking up to compensate for the height difference. "I wanted to join the harpers a
while ago -- it's a craft, and a dependable craft -- but I don't have the skills needed.
My father said so, anyway." As for Search, she grins, cynically. "Not exactly.
People of my age couldn't be Searched /last/ time there was a Hatching. The dragons
wouldn't have wanted me then, I heard."
Niamh looks sympathetic. "Ahh. Well, maybe your father... didn't know, or perhaps
just underestimated you?" she suggests, trying not to insult either the girl or her
parent while still giving some encouragement. "After all, harpers do cover a lot of
things. I'd try getting a second opinion on that." And then the lightbulb goes on.
"That is, if you don't Impress. I don't mean to suggest anything about your
chances!" She just keeps forgetting about that Hatching looming in the future which
will mean big changes in a lot of her fellow candidates' lives; she tends to think of this
whole thing as a temporary situation where you do a lot of chores for a few months and
then life returns to normal. It's terribly difficult planning your future when you've got
that big uncertainty hanging over you, so she disregards it.
Xanthus wakes up from his nap.
Dallaney wrinkles her nose at that. Ask for sympathy from a harper. "'You happen to
know of any openings for apprenticeship in your craft? Or know someone who needs a kid to
run errands? --a back door would be nice too," she suggests, a touch of hope blent
with her habitually scornful note. "I don't suppose you've made Journeyman yet. And
chances, those I'm leaving to the dragons to decide!" There will be many leaving the
weyr, true, and perhaps Dallan will be one of them? She pounds another fold into place and
stacks the towel on the looming pile, ensconced in the west corner.
Niamh shakes her head, looking a little disappointed. "I was close to
journeyman," she says. "At least, I think I was. I might've even walked the
tables by now if Ailaeth hadn't decided to interrupt my studies...." Being that close
to advancement probably has something to do with why she can't get used to this Hatching
idea -- she's eager to get back to the Hall to get the knot she's been working towards for
close to three Turns now. "There's probably room for you someplace with the Harpers,
though. I'm guessing you don't want to go back home?" She hasn't looked at that
growing tower over there for a few minutes -- it'll probably need moving soon, if it
doesn't topple.
"Ailaeth," Dallan echoes the name first of all, perceptible annoyance in her
contralto for not having remembered the dragon, "Whose lifemate is that?" She
stops after that, struck, and the dark complexion even begins to pale a bit. "Who
/said/ I didn't want to go back home-- I do! It's just that it's no... no fun, you know,
having to find a craft I'll have to live in forever and having the kids laugh at me."
Defensively; aggressively, she slaps one towel into another, white into blue, and directs
her stare at Niamh. Rowr.
Xanthus dozes off...
Niamh holds up her hands, both apologetically and in defense. "Sorry! I shouldn't
have said that." She may be a good speaker, but apparently she's still working on
that thing called 'tact'. She quickly changes the subject. "Green Ailaeth is Re'a's
lifemate," she adds hastily. "Re'a used to be a journeyman with the Harpercraft
in Crom... she got Searched herself right around the time I became an apprentice. So it's
kind of funny, if you think about it, that it was her dragon who insisted that I come
here...." See, it's even so funny that she manages a weak laugh.
Dallaney apparently can't see the joke. But the logic behind the humour occupies her mind
with puzzling it over. "So when you entered the craft /she/ was Searched, and then
she Searched you?" she enquires, to see if she got that right. "It's not
funny," adds she, displaying less of tact than honesty. "I learnt my harper
stuff, though," with another steel-clad look to Niamh, "and I know I've to stay
for the Hatching. And I might Impress." Grunt. "/You/ might Impress." Just
keep that distance now, a stack of towels in between.
"Well, sure," Niamhs says, nodding. "You could Impress. There's a good
chance of it, if you think about it. Thirty-five eggs... and there aren't even sixty
candidates." She didn't have the opportunity to count, but she has a good estimate
based on how many pillows are lobbed at her head in the morning. "So that means less
than half of us are going to be disappointed. And if you take into consideration the fact
that you got snatched up by a Search dragon as soon as you were old enough, it means
you're probably high on... whatever criteria Search dragons use. On the other hand, I was
old enough seven Turns ago, and I've been around dragons that were Searching other people,
even." In her mind, that means she can't have been such an obvious choice or why
wouldn't she have been picked up long ago?
"Well, no," Dallan negates as quickly, subsiding into moroseness. "You were
at a crafthall, and I was in a Weyr. More dragons coming and going all the time. And I go
to Telgar often, so I'm probably familiar to their dragons. So I was Searched." Makes
sense, doesn't it? If the facts were correct, that is. "There must be more candidates
than sixty--" A towel's held up, dangled in the air. "--but I don't know for
sure." And she disposes of it haphazardly, turning to the rapidly diminishing
collection.
Niamh shrugs, deciding not to respond to that, and standing up instead. "Here, you
want to give me a hand putting some of these away?" she asks, grabbing an armful of
towels and moving towards the shelf. "We're really running out of room." Even as
she says that, the corner of a towel she's carrying brushes an already-teetering pile,
sending the whole thing to the floor. Uh-oh.
Dallaney is on the verge of scooping up her own armful when the tower collapses, and she
hurries to right it, without any obvious success. Most of the pile soon finds itself on
the floor, towels' careful folds destroyed by the fall. "Uh oh," is what the
candidate says, as she bends to salvage something from the mess. But slightly disgruntled:
"Your fault, Niamh."
Niamh looks properly sheepish. "Oops. Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry." Stuffing her
bundle on the shelf hastily, she bends over and begins the task of refolding the pile.
"We should'nt have stacked them so tall, I guess."
Dallaney mutters, "I don't know towels," and assists Niamh by sorting the
cloths, folded to one side and unfolded to another. In smaller piles, this time. Whether
the towels are clean or not is another matter entirely. "Just have to get all these
back up and hope Rukbat hasn't dawned by then."