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.
Candidate's Peephole
Immediately the temperature increases as you slip into this small nook off the
main chamber of the barracks, folding tightly enough around to cause
claustrophobia. The only light is the dim glow from behind, and a single
stray beam of light that slips through the thick walls from the space beyond.
The hole admitting it is meticulously smoothed, no hard edges left to
irritate sensitive eyes.
You may 'view' the Sands, and 'view <object>' to take a closer look.
Mikani is here.
From here you can go:
Tunnel
The current weather report:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IgenW: Center Bowl Area (#5491)
It is a clear, crisp evening Belior is slowly waxing towards a quarter full
and Timor is three-quarters full. It is a fall night.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was still night, the last time /she/ checked. Dallan is crouched before
that precarious peephole, her hunched back illuminated by the glowbasket at
her feet. "Shush," says she at someone's entrance -- it might be her 'lizard
for all she knows -- not bothering to glance backwards just yet.
Dallaney
Short, slightly gaunt around the edges, this adolescent bears Igen's glare in
the burnt brownness of her skin. Uncertain growth has worked away the
childish plumpness from the avid angles of nose and chin, further accenting
pinched features with their harsh planes and abrupt peaks. Below forehead's
darkness, a primal acidity informs her hazel eyes, restrained by stubborn
mahogany curls -- but flaring inevitably into the compact rebellion of a
muscled shape and habitually agile motion.
A robe of light brown, barely feminine, covers most of her long-legged, spare
shape, sending any hints of figure into obscurity. Of Igen make but
self-styled, the linen material sheers ungracefully just above bony kneecaps,
hitched up in folds to allow easier wear and lighter travel. An ungainly, if
quaint, umber belt winds around her waist, binding cloth to flesh and holding
up the robe in ragged manner, keeping it dipping into the dark sandals that
flicker out far below its hem.
A single cord sits on her shoulder, twirling from bedraggled grey to the
pristine white of candidacy.
She is awake and looks alert.
Carrying:
Rip
[15 Turns, 4 Months, and 3 Days]
Mikani /IS/ shushed.. in fact, she barely makes a sound, feet placed precisely
against the ground. She doesn't press her presence on Dallan; instead she
moves to the side so that she won't cast a shadow on the other girl.
Bubbles wakes up from her nap.
Rip has arrived.
Rip does, though; does cast shadows and make noises that is, erupting with a
small chirp on Dallan's shoulder. And is promptly hushed, too, as the
youngster concentrates for a few beats... then shakes her head. Speaks, a
bit more loudly than intended. "Did Heida tell you I was in here? I thought
this place would be empty tonight." Oh, delusionary youth.
Jagged lines cut the frame of this vivid firelizard, from razor-sharp ridges
to finely-honed talons. An aristocrat's chisled lines rake down the length of
his long muzzle, leaving nothing to chance but the glimmers of a stolen gold.
Amber's frozen hue shapes the rest of his slim form, carved with attention to
detail and a mind to all trials ahead. Wings' canopy is abraided with a lost
battle's might; veins of dark-ocher crack, webbing over the frail surface to
leave scars that transcend his brutal nature.
Rip is 1 Month old.
Mikani chuffs softly, laughter smothered against clenched teeth. "You know
better than that, Dallan. This place is almost /never/ empty. I'm here,
aren't I?"
Dallaney nods morosely. "Well, I thought it would, for a while..." She might
be pleading at the speed her words are escaping through clenched jaw. "But
never mind. What brings you here now?" The little head tilts back to study
the older girl through the glowlight's paleness.
Bubbles dozes off...
Mikani lifts her shoulders in a shrug. "I dunno. I couldn't sleep, so I
thought I'd come to a place where... where nobody would be." she finishes
lamely. "I didn't know you would be here. I can go if you'ld like?" And
Mikani turns, in preparation to leave.
Dallaney turns in her crouch, sandals scraping on sand, to face Mikani. "Oh,
don't be a dimglow. Doesn't make that much of a difference. It's public
property, this place." She understands that, at the least, even during one
of her unreasonable moments. A hand flails dimly in the air. "Did you want
to see the eggs?"
Mikani relaxes, and turns back towards Dallaney. "Yeah, I did. I just didn't
want to creep out to the Galleries. Seems like every time I turn around, some
rider's there to caution me 'Now don't leave the weyr..' As if I would or
could!" She shakes her head savagely back and forth, upper lip wrinkling back
in a soundless snarl. It's easy to see that the waiting's starting to get to
the assstant cook.
Dallaney barely catches those shakes of the head. She does reply with a
head-shake of her own, though, the hand curling back to beckon Mik towards
the slit. "There. Have a look. There're no riders here to call you away,"
and possibly, just possibly, her tone tugs tight around that last utterance.
"Think I've had my fill of the watching."
Mikani steps carefully, cautiously, around Aline's scattered paints and
brushes, and makes her way over to the peekhole. When she reaches the area
that's dimly lit form the slit, she turns and flashes Dallaney a smile.
"Thanks, Dallan." she whispers before pressing closer to gaze out at the
hardening eggs.
Bubbles wakes up from her nap.
Dallaney simply grunts, but she seems glad for the appreciation all the same,
lowering the contralto further. "I heard that the eggs were really hard.
That it wouldn't be long," she offers, stooping behind Mikani. She brushes
the glowbasket aside, allowing for the other's presence with that extra ray
of ragged light.
Mikani nods and swallows a sudden lump in her throat. "Yeah, s'what I hear
too. Like, in the next week or so." She pulls her gaze from the slit, and
turns emerald orbs on Dallaney. "Well, we're at the point of no return now.
Got to make peace with the fact that baby dragons are going to be all over
the Sands soon, clumsily looking for just /where/ their life mate is. Do you
hope to get one? Impress one, I mean?"
Point of no return? Dallan glances at that hole briefly, hopefully, then
narrows her eyes at Mikani. "Yeah, I'd like it. But don't we all?" That's
her opinion, anyway. "I've been on hot Sands before, but not Igen's. Not
/those/. I know what it's like." Which supposedly means she's smart. Or
something, as she nods towards the specified location. "You?"
Mikani turns back to the peekhole, then she sighs audibly. "I don't know." She
turns those wide, leafgreen eyes on Dallaney as she repeats, "I just don't
know. This is all so different to me." She starts to turn back towards the
slit.. and then she abruptly stops. "You mean you've done this before?"
Mikani
No longer does Mikani's hair crown her head in braided glory. Her dark red
tresses have been shorn to hang to the middle of her back and feather away
from her face flatteringly on the sides, while the front part is a mass of
touseled curls. She's of middling height, about 5 feet and 5 inches tall,
with a generous figure. Her eyes are deepset and are the exact light shade of
new leaves: wideset, they alternate between radiating warmth and mirth in
their openness and narrowing in concentration or displeasure. They are the
windows through which can be seen the fireworks display of an unfettered,
passionate soul. Her face is taking a bronzed cast by the Igen sun, and a
smattering of sunfreckles dusts across her pert nose. Full lips are more
often ready to laugh than frown, humor tracing their upturned curvature. Legs
still retain their musculature, though it's been a few Turns since she's
ridden, walking now being her mode of locomotion.
Glacial blue in coloration, sleeveless with a scooped neckline, the linen
tunic is the the perfect foil for the brief vest of shadowy suede which
hangs, unbuttoned, from sparse collarbone. Shortened trous of unbleached
muslin lend cool comfort while sporting myriad pockets to hold uncountable
treasures; they follow the lines of Miki's thighs just shy of the intimacy of
her skin, and more charcoal suede edges cuffs. A pair of battered brown boots
protect tiny toes.
A simple loop of pristine white denotes Mikani as a Candidate. WooHoo.
Mikani looks to be in her late teens.
She is awake and looks alert.
Dallaney isn't impressed by pretty eyes; she turns hers, dark ones, on Mikani.
"You can't mean you don't want a dragon for yourself," and there's a hint of
scorn stealing in now, just as quickly whisked away-- "Not that I know what
it's like, you know." Despite being through it before, despite everything.
"Though I Stood once, yeah."
Mikani isn't trying to impress with her eyes.. she's merely impressed that
Dallaney has Stood once before. "I don't know, really. I'm afraid if I
Impress, afraid if I don't. I just want the waiting to be over. This is worse
than when I was a kid waiting for TurnsEnd! I guess I /would/ like a dragon,
but with them still sitting there in those eggs, somehow it still seems so
distant, so far away." She looks off to the side, as if embarassed. "What was
it like? Were you.. scared?"
Dallaney attempts reason: "How do you know you'll be afraid when you Impress?"
She considers, mulls it over with a thin sharp smile that manages to make
itself shown. She lifts her shoulders slightly, settling the shrug into the
creak of wry bones. "It will come when or if it will. The dragon, I mean.
I wasn't scared at all. Nervous, maybe."
Mikani cocks her head to the right, thinking. "You know, I don't know. I guess
there really /isn't/ any reason to be afraid then, is there? I will or I
won't." She reaches into one of the patchpockets on the side of her leg;
after a few minute's fumbling, she pulls out a small, napkin-wrapped package.
"Want a meatroll?" she asks, unwrapping several of the small meat pastrys.
You say, "Don't mind one." She takes the pastry, nibbling on it without
further preamble. "It's quite simple, really. You won't even be thinking
when the day comes." So predicts the weyrbrat sitting cross-legged on the
bare flooring. "So which egg do you like?"
Mikani pauses with the meatroll halfway to her mouth. "Won't be thinking?
Whyever not? I /always/ think. And I don't just like /one/ egg.. I like a
couple of them. After all, there /were/ rather a lot of them. I like that
tiny grey one, and the one with the Shapes on it, and that brightly colored
one," she explains, referring to the Watched Pot, Time Waits For No Man and
Time Flies When You're Having Fun eggs.
Dallaney agrees, halfway through one chew and another, "Eighteen, I think. I
prefer the darker eggs, like that black and grey egg and that other one."
She shovels dirt with a foot, glance landing on the covered basket. "That's
what I was looking at just now. Hey, do you think those glows will last till
morning?"
Mikani looks with narrowed gaze at the basket, measuring the glow's light
output. "Not sure. I don't know how far along the night is. I just woke up
and had to see the eggs. If you wnat it to last, I'd add another glow or two."
Hatching Sands
Black and gold, as striking as those of Igen's colors, intermingle to a
glitter of eye-wrenching brilliance, made all the more intense by the
undulations of heat that reflect from their expanse. Subtle dunes spread
their endless waves about the very immensity of this cavern, as wide in its
width as it is high; the inner walls are made of translucent obsidian,
thinner at the top so the light beats through in brownish-grey pools, and
sets it aglow in sometimes-amber brilliance. Hopes, dreams, fears: all
permeate the aura, and are echoed in the height of the ledges and galleries
alike that add reverberation to its span.
You see Mamma Gamma's SunTent and Igen VEM here.
The following dragons are here: Sayurith
From here you can go:
Galleries Stands
Bubbles dozes off...
Dallaney shakes her head at the basket, including Mikani in the sweep of brown
and brown. "Actually, I couldn't see all that much out there earlier, but
it's getting better." She gets down forward on her hands and knees to sneak
another peek, then grins, forehead crumpled. "Thought I could stay up all
day, and maybe I can...if there weren't chores tomorrow." Grimace.
Mikani chuckles suddenly. "I couldn't see anything either, but I kept
/imagining/ how the eggs looked, and you know what? It worked. I think I'm
ready to go and lay back down again, maybe get up later." She unfolds her
legs and stretches. "Yeah, chores. A never ending supply of them. It's gotten
that I actually volunteer for some of them.. like /sweeping out the
Galleries/." She puts odd emphasis on the words, then adds, almost offhand,
"The Weyrwoman likes to have cold drinks.. you might want to bring her one."
She winks at Dallaney, and then moves for the Candidate barracks.
Mikani strolls, hips gently swaying, toward Candidate Barracks.
Candidate Barracks
Stone platforms hewn from the volcanic rock line the perimeter of the room,
each one covered with a cot's mattress for young bones, and a few coverlets
according to choice. The bedstuffs appear to be sinking into the stone, the
platforms going gradually hollow from generations of anxious bodies resting
on them. The walls of the chamber are shot through with obsidian streaks from
long-ago volcanic activity that writhe over the surfaces like striations on
an egg. Natural darkness is lifted from the cavern with glowbaskets
everywhere that provide a cheerful light to welcome weary bodies to bed.
Perched somewhere up high, you see Culpa, Ellia, Aerieki, Cedric, Sen, and Pia.
You see a large basket, Clingy, Kabamit's Cot, Dallan's Cot, Mikani's Cozy
Corner Cot with Mik, Dexter, and Mikani occupying it, Aline's Cot of Wonders,
Solandat's Sloppy Cot, Cozy Cot, Saine's Cot, Aire's Place to Crash, Nitram's
Messy Cot, Ulerae's Under-the-Pillow Utopia, and Kora's-Home-Away-From-Home
here.
Solandat, Chalis, and May are here.
From here you can go:
Bowl
From Mikani's Cozy Corner Cot, Mikani calls Mik closer.
From Mikani's Cozy Corner Cot, Mikani calls Dexter closer.
Mikani leave Mikani's Cozy Corner Cot.
Dexter has arrived.
Mikani drops Dexter.
Mik has arrived.
Mikani drops Mik.
Mikani calls Mik closer.
Mikani Danseur eyes Mikani warily.
Mikani calls Dexter closer.
Mikani sits down at Mikani's Cozy Corner Cot
Dallaney moves, nay, scrambles out from the confined space, heading to her
cot. A hand flops down, and she's out for the count.
You lie down on Dallan's Cot.