Not in the Mood (Tarian)

[Zephyr]

Ani. Was. Positively. Exhausted. Whoever thought that being a candidate was easy needed to get their heads checked. It wasn't just some little vacation that someone went on while they wait for their bonded to hatch...it was hard work. And sometimes, they got the people that just liked to make them work until they were close to collapsing. Vellani hated these days, but she worked without complaining (well, mostly. there was almost always a little complaining when she got into one of her moods.), but her patience had been wearing thin. At the moment, the blond candidate was a little more than grumpy. Luckily for her, and the other candidates, there was no one around. At least not visibly.

The thing that she wanted to do the most was to just collapse on her bed, but she knew that wasn't an option. There was a candidate lesson in about an hour and she knew that if she went and lay down, she'd be out in an instant, and she didn't want to find out what Emoyan would do to her if she showed up late ( or not at all ) because she was too tired to haul her ass out of bed. So, instead of curling up in her nice, comfy bed, she picked out one of the most uncomfortable, hard chairs in the commons. Her body screamed loudly, but she ignored it, leaning her head against a cool table.

Oh sharding great. On top of everything else, her head was pounding.

Now that she didn't have much to do, Ani let her mind wander to the next hatching, wondering when it would be. Had any of the weyr's queens even risen yet? Her stomach did a flipflop when she thought about possibly being left standing; that a hatchling wouldn't find her suitable enough to bond to. That of course, would be the worst possible scenario.

With a disgusted snort, she lifted her head from the table and stared into the empty commons. The thoughts about dragon eggs were jerked from her brain. There wasn't even a clutch on the sands. In fact, she didn't even think a sharding gold was ready to lay yet. There was no point in thinking about something that might not even come to be. After a moment, she leaned back int he chair, tilting her head up and back, pale blue eyes peering curiously at the ceiling. She should have grabbed a book or something.

Waiting here like this sucked. It was a hell of a lot better than incurring the wrath of the candidate master, though. Not that Ani was afraid of Emoyan or anything...she just didn't want to get off on the wrong foot with the other. Impressions were something that mattered a great deal to the girl, and it would suck to make a bad one just because she was a little tired. Pft. Not worth it.

Being a candidate was annoying...and complicating.

[larren]

Raising a hand to stifle a yawn, Tarian's nose wrinkled in distaste as she noticed the other girl in the common room. A holder girl. A moment's thought brought her the candidate's name – Vellani, she believed – though they'd not interacted much, past the usual intimidation techniques that Rian applied to each new girl. She hesitated in the doorway for a moment, tempted to avoid interacting completely, but finally went to lean on the chair opposite the girl, looking at her critically. Nothing special.

It was fairly clear that Tarian had only just woken up. One of the younger girls had volunteered to cover her shift in the kitchens, eager to get on the good side of the girl who held the power to make their lives miserable, allowing her the leisure of a lie in, and someone had even been thoughtful enough to bring her lunch from the dining hall. She wasn't even sure that she would attend the candidate lesson; she probably knew the content better than the candidate master by now. Her lips twisted downwards as she considered each past failure, each hatching that had ended in disappointment, and the fact that this girl was more likely to Impress than her only served to further sour her opinion.

She would have laughed if she'd heard Vellani's thoughts. If the girl was whining about candidacy, and having to do a few chores, then she shouldn't have even considered becoming a rider. She knew that holders often possessed a romanticised idea of life in a Weyr, but she'd have thought a candidate would have realised that being a dragonrider was a hard life. For Faranth's sake, the Weyr was a military organisation that had no room for self indulgement. And yet, despite knowing all this, there was nothing that Rian wanted more for herself. She'd probably kill if it assured her Impression.

Plastering a sickly-sweet smile on her face, the older candidate shifted her attention back to the other girl. “Finished with your chores already?” She deliberately left the question hanging, as if suggesting that the other was skipping. While Rian was clearly guilty of it, and made no attempts to hide it, she wasn't above turning the others in if she found them copying her example, and the Headwoman always believed her side of the story. While she currently had no intentions of tattling, the opportunity to bait the girl was simply too much to pass over, and would hopefully serve to amuse her for a while.

Sharding holder girls deserved it.

[Zephyr]

She hadn't noticed the other girl come up to her. At this point, Ani ha her eyes closed, head tilted backwards, as if sleeping...though she wasn't sleeping at all, was she? After a moment, the breeze from the other girl's passing alerted the candidate and her head lowered, pale gaze finding the form of the older girl in front of her. As they watched each other in silence, Vellani wondered if she knew her. Despite her exhausted state, a name came to her quite quickly.

Tarian

The name was said in her head with a hint of distaste. Mostly, since she'd been here, she'd stayed away from the girl. Rian didn't seem terribly friendly in the first place, and continued observance of the others' mannerisms had proved that assumption correct. She knew girls like her. No matter if she believed it or not there were some hold girls who were just as entitled, selfish and spoiled as she was. So she knew the like. Tarian thought that she deserved more just because she was...her. A mean though tickled the back of her throat, but instead of voicing it, she noticed that the other girl looked disheveled and not really awake.

As if she'd just awoken.

Of course she didn't do chores. Ani didn't even think she showed up at all of the lessons, though she was usually just concentrating more on the lessons themselves than the other candidates. She would have uttered a frustrated sigh as she noticed Tarian, but instead she just watched her, unwaveringly. Vellani wasn't the usual spineless twit who sucked up to the "cool" girl just to make their lives easier. In face, Ani didn't believe half the things Tarian said about the Weyrwoman. It was just a bunch of lies to scare some younger girls into doing what she wanted.

This just wasn't what she needed.

Vellani caught the inflection at the end of Tarian's question, and she didn't let it show that she knew. Instead, she offered a halfhearted smile and shrugged. " Of course. That's what happens when you work...you finish." She then carefully glanced at the other girl, judging her reaction. " Enjoy your sleep?" Oh Ani could be snarky when she wanted to, and she definitely was being so now. It was clear Rian had only just awoken and that she obviously was planning on skipping her chores today. Not her problem.

[larren]

Spoiled? Tarian would have been amused at that description. Fostered almost immediately out to the lower caverns, brought up in a Weyr that suffered tragedy after tragedy, where death was no longer considered shocking...no. While she might be a lot of things, spoiled was not one of them; she possessed only the things that she had reached out and taken for herself. Part of the hardness that had developed had been necessary for survival though, despite her barriers, she had almost broken down when the news of her sister's death had come.

Still, everything else was true, and Vellani had made a wise move in staying away from her; she tended to ignore those that didn't disturb the hierarchy she had crafted. Oh, she'd make someone's life a living hell if she really believed them unfit for Impression, but, despite her personal opinion on the matter, she conceded that the Holder candidates were needed for the clutches and normally left them more or less alone. They could all hate her, for all she cared, as long as they stayed within the boundaries she had defined.

Oh, Vellani probably thought her comments oh so clever, though they did nothing but bring a patronising smile to Tarian's lips as she took the words at face value. “Fantastic, thanks for asking. I really needed the sleep.”She ran a hand through the front of her hair, smoothing it down into something more presentable, and wondered at Vellani's potential. If that was the best that the girl had, she was disappointed. She'd need more bite than that to survive at the Weyr.

Of course she'd lied about the Weyrwoman – Tarian wasn't even sure if the woman knew who she was – but she hadn't been bluffing completely. Her influence with the Headwoman was not something she needed to exaggerate, and the girls that had thought her lying had soon discovered, that Tarian hadn't been making everything up. They'd certainly had time to reflect on their mistakes after the punishments had been doled out.

“What made you come to the Weyr?” An idle thought had turned into an unprompted question, though it, surprisingly, held no traps; Tarian was simply curious about why a Holder girl would choose to come to such a dangerous place.

[Zephyr]

What? Did Tarian thought she deserved more because her past was a difficult one? If that was the case, the girl needed to stop crying about things she couldn't change and stop punishing people because she didn't have a great childhood! Hell, Ani's father hated her and she killed her mother when she was only a baby. Though of course none of this would have actually when through the blond girl's head, as she couldn't read thoughts. If she could read thoughts though (and Tarian could...read thoughts as well), she wouldn't have agreed with the other girl's assumption. What did she think it was called when she expected something just because she wanted it. Tarian wasn't going after any of the stuff she wanted herself, she was making other people take it for her!

At any rate, Ani's head was starting to hurt, and she suspected that it was the girl in front of her bringing on the pounding in her head. She never really thought differently about hold kids versus the weyrbrats. They were all perfectly capable of impressing dragons. She didn't think the dragon cared if their lifebond was a hold kid before living at the weyr...unless she was really just badly informed about dragons, anyway. The girl would have sighed if she wasn't trying to appear unfazed by Rian's antics.

Instead, she listened to the girl's words. This time, she couldn't help the thought that trickled in the back of her throat. " I noticed." Ani said that with the most sickly sweet smile that she could manage. She gauged the other girl's reaction carefully, trying not to give any of her true thoughts away. That had always been difficult for Ani, but she didn't think she was doing too badly at the moment. Rian thought that she could be a bitch, well...two could play at that game, and Ani was definitely making a run at it now. The two of them were a like in a lot of ways, just not really any of the ones that mattered.

Then Tarian asked her a question. A seemingly innocent question. Ani couldn't hide the slight widening in her eyes. Was it possible for Tarian just to ask something because she wanted to know? The girl tried to find and angle in the girl's inflection, her tone, her stance...anything, but there was nothing to be found. Then Vellani was stuck with the predicament of wondering if she should answer or not. Girls like Tarian had ways of twisting the words of other people and cause them to bit them in the ass again.

After a second, Vellani decided that it wouldn't hurt to answer her. Well, answer her somewhat. Ani wasn't honest about her childhood with anyone, least of all a girl like Tarion. She shrugged quickly. " Change of scenery." It was a lame answer, but she would have said anything to deflect from the true one. Ani would have asked her about why she wanted to become a rider, but it was obvious, wasn't it? Having a dragon wouldn't hurt her status in the weyr at all...and she'd be able to rub it in the faces of whoever didn't impress.

So, she figured that she should ask the other girl a question. She did so carefully. " Have you ever thought about giving up?" Of course Ani was talking about Tarian standing. She wasn't trying to be mean this time...she was honestly curious why someone would set themselves up for that much disappointment time and time again.