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Post by meah on Dec 14, 2008 18:10:18 GMT -5
Emme drifted around the room she was supposed to sleep in, trying to find a redeeming quality for the living space. There weren't many. It looked and smelled like it housed several dozen people at any given time, and the light was bad. It was better than the light in the passage down to it, but not by much.
She was seventeen turns old. She should be off courting some farm boy (as if she had the desire to do so, but it probably would have shut her mother up) and doing what all the other almost-women did in their spare time. Not that she cared to know what that actually was. It sounded so boring.
Instead of doing all those things, she was here, in a cave they pretended was habitable in order to stuff the dregs of weyr society into and called it the "wher candidate barracks". Emme wasn't so stupid that she didn't realize that nobody wanted her here at the weyr any more than they'd wanted her at home. If they had, she would be in some cushy bed (bed! not a sad excuse for a cot!) with the girls in candidacy for a queen dragon and the chance to rule the entire weyr (and essentially the entire region protected by said weyr). But, they didn't and she was stuck as a candidate for the ugly beasts scorned by all but the nightlurkers who bonded to them (and she'd heard tell that they were rather ugly beasts themselves).
She wasn't sure she wanted to live here, in this disgusting place to get a disgusting farse of a creaure, like those drawn by toddlers trying to show their mother what scared them in their dreams. Yet she must live here, and she would have to make the best of it. It wasn't as if she had to bed the old bastards who simply moaned about the shunning they received decades earlier. Simply stay near them for a time, until either they, she, or both received the joke of a gift that any watch-wher represented to the people here. Emme sighed and slumped down onto the floor dully, acutely aware that while she was alone now, she would not be soon enough.
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Post by C'lyn on Jan 4, 2009 20:32:07 GMT -5
Keil made his way down the passage way that had been pointed out to him, scowling at the poor lighting in this section of the Weyr. He only had a small pack across his back carrying the few clothes he owned. Why on Pern had he agreed to come here? Whispered promises from a mysterious man were hardly a reason to leave one's home where a living could be made.
But, Keil was curious despite being quiet and a wall flower. The man had spoken of impression and Keil had at first thought he had meant to a dragon, but the man had quickly dashed those hopes with mentions of Whers.
Keil shook his head as he finally found the barracks down in the bowls of the weyr itself it seemed. His scowl deepened as he saw that the lighting was worse inside. He looked around the room, not that it did him any good at the moment with his eyes not adjusted to the gloom inside.
He had taken his time in deciding to allow the man to bring him here, liking to think things over throughly before making a decision as big as this. His parents had not been happy with him at all, so he had left at night, simply leaving them a note that he had made his choice and apologies for the anger it caused them. He knew they would forgive him in time, his was their youngest son after all, not like he was the heir to his father's ship.
He snorted at that thought and tossed his pack onto the nearest cot, sitting down after it. His scowl deepened at the feel of the lumpy cot under his behind. "Well, shard it," he muttered as he looked around the room again, able to see better now. He arched a brow slightly as he spotted someone sitting on the floor.
He squinted to see better, that combined with his scowl and crooked nose that had been broken more then once wasn't very flattering to his face. Though if his face was relaxed one could see the rugged handsomeness to it, the long lashes that really should have been given to a girl and a full mouth. Those features saved his face from being too harsh.
"I didn't know any one else had gotten talked into doing this," he said to the person sitting on the floor, unable to tell if it was a male or female in the gloom of the room. He had been told that the wher candidates didn't have separate quarters for the boys and girls. He shook his head and relaxed his face, still looking at the person on the floor.
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Post by meah on Jan 4, 2009 23:44:10 GMT -5
Emme shook her head at the newcomer. "Some of us didn't have a choice." She thought back to her own transition, her banishment from home and then the ranks of general weyr citizens in favor of this humble abode and humbler ranking. At least it was something. They hadn't completely banished any of the ragtag band of brothers that the whercandidates had become when they could have simply left them to the many wild beasts outside the weyr's protection.
She yawned and pulled herself up, stretching as she went over to go properly introduce herself to the man. He would have been attractive, if he had been properly cleaned and in the light. Well, in Emme's opinion anyway. They had always said she had interesting tastes, however. Not that it mattered much. She held out a hand to the man. "I'm Emme. You new in this little camp?"
It was quite possible that he wasn't and she just hadn't seen him around. After all, she didn't pay that much attention to the people around her if they didn't directly affect her. The more people she knew, the more melodrama she ended up involuntarily dragged into, and she was rather tired of melodrama. Her mother had, after all, been the queen of melodrama. She was fairly new herself, in any case.
She was more bored than anything else, by this time. There seriously wasn't much to do down here in the dark. Except the obvious thing to do in the dark, but at the moment, she wasn't really in the mood. Not with anybody here at the moment. She preferred to get to know people first, for the most part, and she didn't know this guy in the least. She was bored though. Perhaps not that bored, but almost.
She was bored enough to sit on one of the beds nearby, not hers, but a vacant one, she assumed. It was certainly made, which was rather unlike all of the whercandidates she knew. And the sheets almost crunched when she sat on them, which was another clue that they were freshly clean. She'd crunched hers until they would crunch no more, and hardly wondered why it crunched at all. Probably overly cleaned with strange soap or something and that had made them stiff as boards. Well, not that stiff, but almost. "Sit with me?" she offered the man, whose name she didn't yet know. She would get to know him sitting here, she decided, and she wouldn't leave until she could introduce him to someone else.
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Post by C'lyn on Jan 5, 2009 15:27:05 GMT -5
Keil tilted his head as the girl got up and moved closer, a brow arching at her comment about not having a choice, but not asking her to elaborate either it was her business and he didn't stick his now into other people's business.
At her question he nodded. "Yeah, I just got here and they pointed me down here. I'm Keil," he said, watching her sit down. He watched her for a long moment before moving to sit beside her.
Now that his eyes had adjusted to the little light down here he could see her more clearly, well that and being closer to her helped. He looked at her another long moment in silence, looking her over. She was nice on the eyes he decided, but he was still surprised that there was a girl in the room. Weren't the candidates supposed to be in separate quarters?
"I thought that candidates were separated by gender," he finally said, still turning slightly looking at her, his knee brushing against hers. "Not that I'm complaining about the company mind you," he said, smiling at her. "And Emme is a nice name."
He knew that sounded pathetic, it sound pathetic to his own ears. Her silently berated himself for the tacky comment, but it was truthful at least. He hadn't had the practice most young men his age did at flirting, he had never felt the need for it. But here in the dark with the pretty Emme was a different story.
He smiled as he continued to look at her, going quiet again, certainly not a master at conversation, no not him the wall flower former fisher apprentice.
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Post by meah on Jan 6, 2009 18:52:51 GMT -5
Emme smiled fondly at Keil. Separated by gender. Nobody cared enough what they did down in the home of the wherries to bother even separating them in as primitive a way as a curtain. "Separated by gender? Not down here. They don't care enough to do that. Probably forgot this cave ever existed until they needed it for us." So she was being a little blunt. Whatever. It would get her where she wanted to be, in the end.
She giggled at his compliment. It wasn't very good, but it was the thought that counted. Keil was turning out to be a really nice guy. She knew she could sit here and talk to him for hours on end, which she might very well end up doing.
The question burning her brain was what he'd done to get stuffed in this dump. "Why, in the name of the egg, are you down here? Wha'd you do to piss off the great gold-riding monster?" She questioned, almost accidentally. And she'd insulted Sitareh, big time. Oops, he probably wasn't much of a supporter, if he was down here. The insults were something she'd picked up over time after being in the great shunned cave for so long.
It didn't even occur to Emmeline that she was flirting with the man. It never had before occurred to her when she was flirting, and this was no exception. She didn't realize that she might be leading him into believing she was at least mildly interested in him. She wasn't particularly interested in anyone at the moment, after having lived with all the people she really knew until she thought she would start bleeding out her ears with boredom and a desire for better company.
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Post by C'lyn on Jan 8, 2009 13:53:20 GMT -5
Keil shook his head slightly as she told him that they were not separated, not that he would mind sharing a room with her, but it still struck him as odd. He tucked that bit of information into the back of his mind for mulling over later.
His brow arched at he question and he laughed softly, shrugging one shoulder slightly as he gave her a lopsided grin. "I haven't met the weyrwoman and I only arrived at the Weyr today. If I made her mad maybe she got a piece of a fish she somehow found out I caught, but that would be stretching it," he said with a soft laugh again, the sound rusty to even himself since he didn't laugh often.
"No, I was approached by a man who told me about a clutch here at the Weyr. He never told me his name and only approached me in the shadows. I had thought he meant a clutch of dragon eggs, but he quickly corrected me and told me it was a Wher clutch," he rubbed the side of his nose and glanced around the room, shaking his head.
He turned his attention back to her and was silent for another long moment before speaking again. "I didn't believe him at first, I mean Whers haven't been around for a long time, but then again neither had dragons," he shrugged tapped his fingers against his knee lightly.
"I didn't give him my answer right away, but he got my curiosity peaked so I finally agreed to come here. Then as soon as I get here they shoved me down here," he shrugged again and gave her a smile. He realized that he was probably rambling, having said more then he normally ever did in a conversation, but she was easy to talk to, he liked her blunt, forward nature.
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Post by meah on Jan 11, 2009 2:34:39 GMT -5
Emme nodded. That was the same guy who'd analyzed her ridiculously when she'd first arrived. There was no quiet suggestion that she come down here. Only a gruff order to go down the hall and to the left, proverbially of course, and that would be where she was staying. She was surprised Keil'd had a choice. Not that she would've said no to any place to go when she'd first arrived. Now, it seemed like a silly thing, to choose to come here to the bottom of the world. To each his own, though. If Keil wanted to come live with the shunned populace in the dark, so be it. He was welcome to it.
He'd had a choice, so he probably wasn't interested in the story of someone who hadn't. Of course, she seemed to look younger than she was, to the point of resembling someone five years her junior, who would need guidance and not difficult choices for a child to make. So it was understandable that they hadn't given her a choice, even if she didn't like the fact that she couldn't choose. She might have chosen it anyway. She'd rather liked the dark, before she began living there, and the whercandidates quarters weren't even as dark as the passages to arrive there or the places where the wher handlers would live and where Neira lived now. She tired of it now, but that would be a most silly thing to admit to, considering she was stuck with it for the rest of her life at the Weyr. The rest of her life, really. She had no place else to go, so at the Weyr she would remain until her passing.
"It was nice that you had a choice. He gave me no options." She smiled, always the social butterfly. It really was kind of the man to give Keil a choice where he hadn't let anyone else even wonder as to their fate. He'd spoken to them and then sent them home to their brightly lit dens and happy homes or down to the depths of darkness to fumble and tumble like a drunkard in the wee hours of the morning.
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Post by C'lyn on Jan 12, 2009 19:48:44 GMT -5
Kiel arched a brow slightly and tilted his head as he looked at her, frowning slightly as she told him she hadn't been given a choice. To say he wasn't curious would be a lie, but it was not his place to pry especially given that he hardly knew the girl.
He shook his head and looked thoughtful for a moment. Would the man really haven given him a choice if the answer had not been to his liking? Well, it was a possibility. He shrugged to himself and turned his attention back to Emme.
"I'm sorry that you were not given a choice, but couldn't you leave if you wanted?" he asked, frowning as he glanced around the room, not seeing any guards here and he had not seen any outside either.
(sorry for sucktastic post)
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Post by meah on Jan 12, 2009 20:46:05 GMT -5
{ooc;;it's aight. all good ^^}
She shook her head. Was he really that unawares of the people around him, living in this place? Obviously, Keil was new to the area. Even if they were permitted to leave their "candidacy" behind, they no longer had any place to go. She certainly didn't. Even life as a drudge would be impossible anymore, with her fresh-brewed reputation as one of those who belonged for all eternity down below.
Even if she had wanted to leave, she had no home to go to at any holds, and there was no craft who would have her after word of her behavior at home got to them. There was a reason she'd been shipped off to the weyr to begin with, and that was that it was the only place that might have her at all. Now that she was in the candidacy for the beasts of the night, she was hardly welcome even here, except by her fellows.
"No place to go. In theory, I guess we all could. But I don't think anyone else has someplace else to be. I know I don't. Might as well stick around and see what happens."
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