I Want An Adventure! {OPEN}

[Chey]

Running a hand through his damp hair, Terorram toweled it dry with the scratchy piece of cloth that passed for a towel here and got dressed quickly. No matter how long he lived here, he would probably never really get used to common bathing areas, or having to dress in the same room as how many ever boys there were in the room. Just wasn't going to happen. Quite frankly, he looked forward to having his own room again; it would be nice. As much as he liked people...he didn't think he liked them that much.

Life had settled into a easy rut here at the weyr. There weren't any hatchings scheduled for a while, as far as he knew, and life was pretty good here. While he was a bit unhappy at not Impressing at the last hatching, he didn't worry. There was a perfect little baboo out there for him somewhere and he just had to be patient and wait for them to arrive. All in due time, right?

As it was, he was sitting in the Common's room. When not being used for a lesson, it was a quite nice place to relax and maybe read a scroll, if there was actually anything good to look over. Most of the scrolls in this room were educational, mostly on how to provide and care for a weyrling and the protocol or a hatching, yada yada yada. Basically the stuff used for lessons, and he got enough of that on a daily basis, truth be told. He wasn't about to read it in his free time, no matter how much it might help him.

He perused the room, looking for another scroll. Was there even a musty scroll in here that the Candidatemaster hadn't had to bring in? He didn't know. As it was, he couldn't find any and harrumphed to himself quietly. It was boring or nothing, and quite frankly neither was appealing. Where was a good adventure when you needed it, right?

[Requiem]

So maybe it was a weird thing to do. Miguel kind of knew that. Just the same...well, he liked Elias but the kid was four and after awhile the constant babysitting thing could get to a guy, yeah? He'd determined that despite his interest in healer-type things his almost neurotic (some would say decidedly neurotic) fear of blood probably had no place in the infirmary. He was too old to just crash his dad's office and pretend that he didn't know a weyrleader probably didn't have the time to play with a fourteen-turn-old. And Elysia? He liked the woman well enough, but she was in one of her frequent pissed at the world moods which meant she had to pick a fight with someone (or flirt with someone and leave him hanging afterwards) just to get it out of her system. While she wouldn't employ him for the latter he was more than an adequate target for the former.

Thus, time to bounce.

All his friends were in Inverness, though, most as candidates. He'd thought about bribing someone to take him. Really he had. At times Miguel fantasized about running away there right before a Hatching, Impressing by "accident" where he wasn't the Weyrleader's nephew-turned-son and might be treated less like a thing and more like just another guy... But much as the idea appealed, much as just running away from all this some days appealed cause he got tired of how people talked to him here like they were afraid it would get back to his dad, he didn't actually want to upset S'rei. He liked S'rei. Just not the Weyrleader part. So that left trying to escape somewhere here.

So yeah, strange for a guy so determined not to be a candidate to make his way to the candidate barracks, but the honest truth? The holdborn candidates who bunked there might well have been about the only people in the entire Weyr who didn't know him on sight as the Weyrleader's "son". Not that there were many here right now or anything, with no clutches on the Sands. He thought there might be a wher hatching coming up kind of soon, though? Possibly? Or the barracks would be completely empty. Holdborn were sent back to holds if they didn't Impress these days unless another chance was right around the corner, and the weyrbred candidates didn't typically bunk here unless they really wanted to. Being completely alone wasn't such a bad thing in Miguel's mind either, though.

Turned out that wasn't to be the case. The smaller, dark-haired boy with his distinctive blue eyes paused in the doorway, watching a tall blonde older kid apparently looking for something. Miguel wasn't the most talkative of people. Mostly it was general shyness. In fact, that was his biggest problem with being the Weyrleader's "son", apart from people treating him differently because of it. He didn't like all the attention. But he didn't look enough like his uncle for people to guess at their related blood, so if the holdbred didn't know his name...which was why he didn't mind the candidate barracks so much even when they were full. Nor was he really antisocial. Just shy. And always a bit curious.

"Um..." the younger boy ventured. "So...are you looking for something specific?" he questioned from the doorway. Miguel was pretty sure that he hadn't met this one before. Rather than give his name right away he stepped further into the room and glanced around curiously, having never paid particular attention to the scrolls before. "Are they all about dragons?" the young teen questioned after a moment, more a curious question than a judgmental one.

[Chey]

Terorram looked up abruptly, spooked ever so slightly by the sudden voice. He looked over the younger boy. He looked vaguely familiar, but Terorram couldn't put a name to him. It'd been a few years since Terorram had been in the weyr, however, let alone associated with anyone, so he didn't really ponder over it too much. A grin sprung to his face as easy as ever. "Hi, I'm Terorram! And you are?"

He looked over the scrolls as the boy queried about them. "Yeah, mostly. Candidates are heavily educated about hatchlings and whatnot. It only continues into Weyrlinghood, from what I've heard. We spend a lot of time covering protocol and all that...It's rather boring somedays, actually. 'Specially since I already know a lot of it."

Terorram walked away from the shelves. "To be quite honest, I was looking for a scroll about something other than what we study in Candidate Lessons, but that seems to be a bit difficult here. I like reading, but this is all dry and musty after a while."

He looked over at the boy. "What are you doing down here? Not a lot of weyrbrats come down here. Hell, I'm not down here most of the time. I usually stay in the creche with my foster-mom."

[Requiem]

Being just fourteen, Miguel's infrequent association with the holdbred tithed to the Weyr in these candidate barracks didn't make it altogether surprising that he might not recognize Terroram. There wasn't even the slightest hint of recognition from the weyrbrat. The younger teen was slow to answer his companion, if only because the quick smile and enthusiasm set him back a bit. He smiled a little uncertainly. Miguel was used to that type of enthusiasm from his young cousins and not so much people his own age or older.

Before he could respond, the topic had shifted to the scrolls. Miguel watched the candidate more than he paid attention to the particular scrolls the older boy was looking over. The dark-haired child nodded slightly, almost absently, well-aware of what was usually taught to candidates. He'd grown up around dragonriders. To be more specific, his real mom and dad were a green and brownrider, his uncle was of course the Weyrleader and he'd been raised at one time or another by all three of the man's weyrmates (two greenriders and a goldrider), had been briefly fostered to a blind greenrider who had saved his life, and S'rei's grown son (his cousin technically then) was a wherhandler joined to a greenrider. Miguel was very comfortable around all sorts of draconids, and of course more than familiar with weyrlife, candidacy included. He didn't mind listening, though. He always found it interesting to get others' perspectives on things, even if he thought he was fairly familiar with them.

"Foster-mom?" Miguel questioned, openly surprised. "I thought you were...well...holdbred? I know most of the weyrbred." The young teen shifted a little uncomfortably then, remembering he had yet to give his name and a bit concerned that as soon as he did this conversation would turn...well, kind of shallow? People usually got really polite and closed up around him. Miguel didn't like to admit how lonely it sometimes got here, even to himself. "I'm Miguel," the smaller boy offered quietly, toying with the edge of a sleeve. There was no helping it. Elias (S'rei's son by Elysia and Miguel's young cousin) was just four and stayed in the crèche often during the day. There was hardly any hope Terroram wouldn't know who Miguel was.

Nevertheless, he attempted to keep the conversation going just a little longer before the inevitable caught up. "I...my uncle's weyrmate isn't in the best mood right now? She sometimes gets that way." He liked Elysia. Truly. More than either of S'rei's other weyrmates before her. Miguel even called her Mom, which he hadn't done with the others despite the habit of calling his uncle Dad which he'd had as long as he could remember. She got temperamental sometimes though. "I'd like to be a candidate someday," Miguel added a little wistfully, more to himself than the other boy. He didn't often admit this aloud. "It's just...weird...with my uncle..."

Looking up at Terroram again finally, he flashed a small, self-conscious smile and changed the topic back to scrolls. Again hurrying to say something before the other could respond and he'd be left alone again in this room. Lame as it sounded...Miguel really wanted a friend. He knew that was probably out the window now but as long as he kept talking he could pretend. "All the other scrolls are in the library...the forbidden library...with the...creatures...which is why it's forbidden?" Which Terroram should know if he was weyrbred. Then again, maybe not. Miguel wasn't always sure how much of what he knew was common weyr knowledge and how much was because of being the Weyrleader's nephew.

[Chey]

Terorram laughed, but not at Miguel. It was a laugh of pure amusement. "Oh, no! I was raised here in the weyr, by a chef in the kitchen. Born and raised weyrbrat myself, I haven't been here in a while. I was a ways away with her brother, my foster-Uncle. I've only just returned as a Candidate. I live in the lower creches, though I do have permission to stay in the Candidates Barracks. I stay here when I want to get away from it all, really."

Ah! Miguel! Now he realized why he looked so familiar and Terorram's face flashed vaguely in recognition. Even having been away for a while, he knew who Miguel was and his relation to the Weyrleader. Pretty much everyone here did and you'd have to be pretty stupid not to, really (or holdbred). He'd often seen Elias down in the creche and had even interacted with the young boy himself on an occasion. Most of his chores now consisted of helping the kitchen staff (AKA his mom) with whatever really need be done and occasionally that came with babysitting duty, since he was one of the only people the kitchen could spare to watch them.

Terorram nodded. He'd been there often enough himself, despite usually being uncannily cheerful and happy. Hence why right now he was staying in the barracks as opposed to at home. Every once in a while, you just needed to get away from it all, right? He nodded knowingly. "I gotchu. I know how that feels. And Candidacy right now...it's pretty boring without a clutch, but what are you gonna do, right? I say if you really want to be a candidate, go for it. I did. My mother wasn't happy, not in the slightest, but I still did it because I wanted it."

His head cocked to the side as he watched Miguel with unerring eyes, absorbing the small smile and the shaky reply about the library that followed. "Yeah, I noticed the library's been off limits for a while now because of the whatchamacallits. Sucks, because I just love reading and knowing things and stuff, but...I guess Weyrleader's orders are the Weyrleader's orders, right?"