Avoiding Papercuts

[Luna]

Luna smiled as she gazed upon Raineth with her clutch. Some queens were known to begrudge their first clutch or just be angry at all the time they had to spend alone with the eggs, but Raineth had taken to it all quite well. She lay sleeping with her tail curved around the eggs and her snout pointing towards them, guarding them in her sleep. She wasn't too proddy, Luna thought, just the right amount. Then again, not many people had come to view the eggs yet. She smiled, that would change, a Touching would happen rather soon and her eggs would be show cased to all the people in the Weyr!

With a sigh she turned away from the Hatching Sands. She had some transfer papers to fill out and some request forms to send out to adjacent Holds. Since she hadn't really gone the official route, no Hold was tithing to her. She was a little nervous about sending out the request, but her Weyr needed a way to sustain itself. She just hoped the Harpers either assumed she had the right number of people or just didn't' know she existed yet.

She huffed as she started to climb the steps. Well, she wanted a Weyr and that meant some dreary paperwork, the bane of her exis... Oo the Lake. In all the excitement she hadn't really gone to truly explore the lake. She'd passed over it once or twice to make sure it was big and deep enough and had enough empty space for herdbeast pins to be erected, but she hadn't really looked at it. Well, it was her responsibility wasn't it?

With a smile on her face and far more energy in her step she made her way down to the lake. By the time she arrived she realized how much time she spent adragonback. Walking was far more time consuming. She really did miss the flying, she couldn't wait to go back to the sky once Raineth's clutch hatched.

Now throughly sweaty from her trek down to the lake in the afternoon Southern heat she stripped off her tunic and breeches. At a hold doing this was terribly unladylike, at a Weyr ... well, it was just rather normal, afterall she was still wearing her underthings. Without much ado Luna wading into the water to continue her 'investigation' of the lake.

[Ayla]

Vittoria was done with her chores. Finally, finally done. She had woken up early that morning so she would be finished by the afternoon. She had wanted to go down to the lake and wash her hair properly. The bathing rooms here were nice and all, but small and dark.

She went to the Candidate Quarters, hiding from those still working, and got some sweetsand, a hairbrush, and some swimming clothes. It wouldn't do to have someone find her wearing nothing. Vittoria hurried out of the Weyr, trying to hide her newly acquired supplies. It wasn't strictly against the rules to do this, but she assumed if anyone who knew better saw her, she would be put to work.

Thankfully, Vittoria didn't trip over the thick vegetation on her way down. With her arms full, it would have been disastrous. She was sweating even before she sighted the lake, which said something for the heat and humidity. After living her entire life in the South, she wasn't prone to being sweaty unless it was absolutely scorching.

The air did turn noticeably cooler as Vittoria ventured closer to the water. About a dragonlength from the shore, the trees thinned out and she was soon standing on sand. She looked around slowly, making sure no one would see, then walked back into the trees and changed into swimming clothes. Although she was sure that her regular clothes would dry quickly, she didn't want to risk them shrinking.

Vittoria took her supplies and went back to the shore. She glanced to the left and right, proving to herself that there was no one else around.

Except for the brown-haired woman half a dragonlength to her left. Who looked remarkably similar to the Weyrwoman.

Vittoria gasped and quickly bowed. "I'm sorry, Weyrwoman Luna. I'll come back later," she managed to say. She usually wasn't this shy about speaking, but she hadn't expected anyone to be at the lake, let alone a Weyrwoman who wasn't wearing pants.

Hurriedly, Vittoria picked up the items she wasn't aware she had dropped and clutched them to her chest as a sort of protective measure.

[Khell]

Tuber peeling was the worst. Okay, latrine duty was the worst but tuber peeling was pretty close to it. That was the chore Khell had been stuck with, he had knicked his hands a few time while starting out but now considered himself to be a pretty darn good tuber peeler. Still, he hoped he wasn’t stuck with that chore again. He would have like cleaning or something – that would have been more enjoyable.

Now that all the tubers were peeled, he wanted something fun to do. Something to make the day just a bit more enjoyable. There were a couple of options. Flirt with the few cooks and drudges that were at Surion, flirt with some of the candidates, and the Lake. There was plenty of time to get his flirt on so the lake seemed like a pretty good choice. He grabbed an extra shirt just in case and cradled it against his chest as he left the barracks and made his way down to the lake.

Rukbat was up and warming the ground, removing the chill that had been bothering Khell practically all day long. He skirted around the foliage the looked like it could tear his shirt with their branches and when he emerged he quickly examined himself. No rips in his clothes, no scratches and no leaves in his hair. He made it out in one piece – he was good. With a jump, skip and a hop he had reached the lake. And he wasn’t alone it seemed. Two girls were there – the Weyrwoman and another. The other girl was apologizing; apparently Khell wasn’t the only one who hadn’t expected to seen others here.

Khell knew he was supposed to respect the Weyrwoman and all but…he really wanted to go in the Lake. Plus she was just a person right? He hoped so at least. “Mind if I join you?” He called out to Luna, shirking off his shirt and folding it on the ground. The water was calling to him, he didn’t want to be denied from the lake.

[Luna]

Luna twirled in the water when she heard someone speak. Sometimes it was absolutely remarkable to her that anyone could be intimidated by her. She was just Luna of Benden. At others times she felt she deserved to be heeded, mostly when she was angry over something. In any case, she wasn't going to hog up the entire Lake today. The whole Weyr just might mutiny. She smiled at the thought right as the boy suddenly appeared.

"Sure, I think the lake's big enough for the two of us." Considering the lake could hold quite a few dragons at the same time she hoped it could hold the three of them. "Feel free to join Victtoria." She was rather proud of herself, there was only the slightest pause before the girl's name. Although since she was still under ten Candidates that wasn't the biggest achievement in all of Pern.

"Water's nice and I don't really bite, despite what the drudges say." She smiled to show she was joking. She knew they were Candidates and prone to be a little nervous, but she'd have to loosen them up a little. This clutch was going to be the core of her Weyr, well hopefully, most wouldn't transfer out. Plus, if she only talked to her bronzeriders, she'd be a lonely woman.

[Ayla]

((I'm so sorry for the delay!))

Vittoria was almost going to turn around and run when Khell asked to join. How dare he, just intrude on the Weyrwoman when she was very obviously looking for time alone? They would both get in trouble. She was just as surprised when Luna let him join her, and even more so when she was invited in too. She was too stunned to even correct Luna on her name; she just nodded and walked to the waterline and placed her things on the shore.

Quickly, she stepped into the water. It was cool compared to the hot day, but very comfortable. Vittoria knew the lakes by Cove Hold, although nice, were not this cool. She walked forward, feeling the water creep up her legs and torso until it just covered her chest. She dunked herself underwater and came up, hair wet and plastered to her back when it wasn't in her face. Vittoria pushed the stray strands out of the way, then reveled in the light breeze that picked up.

Vittoria couldn't bring herself to get out of the water to wash her hair, not just yet. She went underwater once more, this time swimming a short way. Her eyes remained tightly closed, but she was sure she was headed away from Luna and Khell. It turned out that she wasn't, but the situation was not disastrous. She surfaced fifteen or twenty feet away from Luna, which was still a respectable distance. Vittoria smiled, her wariness gone. "How are Raineth and her clutch faring, Weyrwoman?" she asked politely. The riders at Southern responded better to questions about Theirs than about themselves, but Vittoria wasn't totally sure Luna would react the same way.

[Khell]

When Luna permitted him into the lake, Khell flung up his hands with a loud, “Yay!”. Within a matter of seconds, he was under the water. Oh thank Faranth he was allowed to swim, the water felt extremely refreshing. He blew bubbles, watching them rise slowly to the surface before following them. His head poked out above the water, hair plastered to his forehead. He lay on his back and grinned at Luna, “I don’t know about that. One of the drudges showed me the bite marks you left on her.”

He watched as Vittoria joined them in the water and grinned at the girl. He was glad that she had joined them; otherwise he might have felt a bit awkward with being in the Lake alone with Luna. He slid back under the water, wanting to see how far he could go down. Not very far apparently because in a few seconds he was back at the surface, coughing slightly as water went into his mouth. Once the water was out, he added onto Vittoria’s question. “Is it true dragons have like…attitude or something when they have clutched? Or are close to rising?” He was curious, picturing a dragon doing a ‘Z-snap’ or something. The image brought an amused smile to his face.

[Luna]

A smiled came automatically to Luna's face, "Yes they're doing great and Raineth tells me all the eggs seem to be healthy. It all points to a strong clutch." Her mouth dropped open before she laughed, it had been quite a while since anyone had cracked a joke. She did hope he'd Impress. It would make the Weyr a cheerier place. Weyrs were just so militaristic (not that she knows that word) that sometimes it was hard to relax and enjoy.

"Oh yes, they get rather proddy whenever they've clutched or are about to rise. It just means that they can be a real pain. I didn't even notice she was close to rising. I just thought she was so worked up about getting this place ready and populated. Of course, now it makes sense. She wanted to make sure her children's new home was ready for them." She dipped her head back into the water, cooling off and getting her hair wet. "Although Raineth isn't proddy considering other golds. I don't know if that's just here or it's because she doesn't have a queen egg in this clutch."

[Ayla]

Vittoria's face broke from a reserved, well-bred smile to one of obvious glee. A healthy clutch was obviously something to be happy about! Her laugh was slightly delayed, however, when Khell cracked a joke. Although she was slowly realizing that this Weyr was nowhere near as formal as either the Hold or Southern had been, she was still wary of anything that could possibly be not taken well.

She tilted her head slightly to the side while Luna spoke. The proddiness she spoke of seemed very similar to the feeling Vittoria got a few days before her cycle began. Now, of course, she was curious if it was the same thing, but it seemed much too forward to ask about. Also, the subject was very different when there was a male in close proximity. "This is her first clutch, right? So fitting, a first clutch for a brand-new Weyr," Vittoria commented.

Vittoria sunk down in the water so what had before just covered her chest now reached her jaw. The cold triggered goosebumps on her arms and legs, but the feeling was somehow pleasant. The contrast between her face, which was sweating, and her toes, which were firmly buried in the sand, was great.

[Khell]

Raineth sounded a lot different than the gold at Telgar Weyr. The Queen there had snapped at everything and anything when she was close to rising, a ferocious sight. Khell just assumed that every gold was like that but apparently some were just moodier than others. He could at least understand that the gold wanted her children to have a good home, most mothers wanted that. At least Khell knew that his kids would be very fashionable, never a wrinkle on their shirt if he could help it.

Male dragons were never proddy – females were so weird. Of course he didn’t want to say this out loud. It would be two against one if a fight broke out and Khell was never really the scrappy kid. “What made you want to start a Weyr?” He said instead. If he was a goldrider (Obviously not) he wouldn’t start his own weyr, it would be too much work for just one person. He had respect for Luna and Raineth considering the fact that, in his eyes at the very least, Surion was off to a pretty good start. He swam to the shallow side of the lake so he could sit down without the water passing his neck.

“Is it really her first clutch?” He kept forgetting that Raineth was relatively young even. He should have remembered considering the age of Luna but he had the tendency to assume that all dragons were old. Except for hatchlings, those he knew were young.

[Luna]

Luna smiled, "I suppose so." She always worried that being far away from the bigger Weyrs might somehow harm her success, but she'd never make it on her own trying to depend on the other Weyrs.

Luna frowned at the question. She'd never really put much thought into it. Starting a Weyr was just something she was going to do. Oh, she had reasons, but she never sat down and analyzed them too much. Realizing she hadn't spoken she smiled at Khell, "What? Other than having complete power?" She shook her head, "I just thought it'd be great to start another Weyr. Benden was becoming too big, and in some ways, too outdated. People were getting lost in there. It wasn't just Benden either, I love that Weyr and wouldn't say a word against it, it was just the whole system. Weyrs just weren't meant to have that many dragons in one place."

"Yes, it is. I'd imagine that's why it's so small. Some queens can clutch up to 40 eggs at a time. Of course that's just the biggest Queens and right at Threadfall, usually it's 20." She moved slightly so her back pressed against a protruding rock. She sighed as she leaned against it. Great spot.