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Post by ryanne on Jul 15, 2008 12:41:45 GMT -5
Liassa rolled her eyes at Mutasim's comment. Oh, he was going to be one of those stupid candidates that complained the entire way through a chore instead of just getting it done. She had a feeling that between her and Savitri, the boy would shut his mouth if he had any further complaints. Sure, this chore was messy and disgusting and the firestone dust was killing her throat, but it was something that had to be done. It would go a lot more smoothly if everyone just worked instead of complaining and making it a bigger mess than it already was. She grabbed another large chunk of firestone and added it to her bag, careful not to drag the sack around more than need be. Not only did it minimalize the dust kicked up, but she had a feeling that Savitri would yell at her for ir.
"Not pulling our weight?" Lia repeated, a threatening tone to her voice. Now was not the time to cross her. A pregnant woman was like a proddy dragon. She had mood swings like nobody's business, but the angry ones were much more prevalent when she was poked at. He was going to get what was coming to him if he continued along this line of conversation. He had no idea what was going on and they were worst two weyrlings to have in here right now. A pregnant woman and an injured one. Yes, put them to manual labor. Neither of them were complaining and they had taken some time out for her little breakdown, but he didn't need to know about that. It was none of his business. They pulled their weight more than he could imagine. She kept her head down, though, continuing to fill her bag. Savitri cut in with her comments, the older weyrling would deal with him. They seemed a bit more familiar than she was with him.
She balked, though, when he began to kick things. Like that was happening. She sneezed again before coughing rather violently. This dust was not helping and he was making it worse. Before she could set in on him, though, Savitri began. Hopefully that would stop him. She continued along her way, finishing filling her bag. With a grunt, she picked it up and moved it to join her other one. Before she walked back over to the sacks, choosing a less-large one. Now that the male was here, he could do the largest ones. She had no issues slacking off in that regard. Males had more upperbody strength, that was a fact of life. At his question, she waited for Savitri's response before adding her own. Before she spoke, though, she laughed a bit. The rotations definitely weren't evenly divided in that regard.
"I'm with Savitri. They decided that the capable ones needed a break and the injured and little weyrlings should kill themselves in here." That was the extent of complaining that would drawn from her. If she was asked again, she'd give a much more typical-Liassa answer. Something along the lines of "because I can do it as well as the next person." She allowed herself a bit of complaint, though. After all, there were many more weyrlings that would be better suited to this job. If nothing else, Savi was injured. This was a bad chore for an injured person. And a pregnant one, but no one knew about that. Yet. Damn. She just had to add that thought now didn't she? Sighing, she continued to fill her bag, trying not to cough again.
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Post by reqqy on Jul 15, 2008 20:57:28 GMT -5
It had struck a nerve, his comment about the weyrlings not pulling their weight. Somehow, that didn't please Mutasim as much as he thought it might. He could only think that he was being rather unfair about it. Shardit. Shardit. Shardit. Why did that matter? It shouldn't! With his conscience buried somewhere on the northern continent, it should be easier to be a complete jerk, but apparently the conscience within himself thought he needed something to keep him in check. He should stalk that annoying little voice and kill it one of these days. It had lain quite dead for a good amount of time. Now it seemed to be sniping at him more and more, growing stronger in voice and power.
The Headwoman's fault. Or the Weyrlingmaster's. Likely both, that between the two of them they'd not been able to keep up with the firestone bagging. With all the weyrlings running about nowadays - and all of them needing to know how to sort firestone - you'd think this would be one of the best-maintained rooms in the entire Weyr. Apparently there were quite a few wherryheads around here. Surprise, surprise.
These thoughts helped him to mostly ignore the coughing and sneezing he'd stirred up around the room. Blasted conscience would be screaming at him again. What he really needed was to go back North for awhile. That would kill it nicely enough. Mutasim hated this unnatural sense of actually feeling. He also didn't acknowledge his own cessation of such bothersome activities, as that would imply that he was responsive to the girls' wishes. No, it simply suited him. Nice even pace was better. Lifting the largest of the stones with surprising ease - especially for a young man of his small stature - he made swift, but steady work of stuffing these bags. At least he could be grateful that three pairs of hands were involved.
Mutasim was working quicker and with more ease than either of the two girls, for various reasons, not the least of which being that he had no medical conditions to speak of. He was also in arguably the best shape of his life, and he'd never been out of shape. Earlier, it would have killed him, and later he simply couldn't abide by the thought of doing nothing. The boy had a restless soul. A thin layer of sweat worked up on his bare arms, capturing the dust and making him feel grimy. Also, strangely, it was somewhat comforting, for it was conditions like these in which he'd been raised. Familiarity was a strange phenomenon, certainly.
"Well, yes, of course it needs to be done," Muta commented, his tone almost, but not quite, dismissive. Then they really were the only ones assigned to this place? A brief flare of anger erupted inside of him. "How difficult is it," he growled, never once stopping the pleasantly mindless work, "to mix some of the stronger weyrlings in with those who aren't as physically able?" It was not meant to be offensive. Obviously, Savitri was injured, and neither she nor Liassa were particularly large. Small males could sometimes manage well enough, but small women rarely showed a great deal of strength. It was simply the way things were. Men were built to bear loads. Women were built to bear other things. Nor would he say men were stronger - for it was females who had the greatest capacity for withstanding pain, for endurance, and they tended to be healthier mentally. Not something he cared to admit, but truth just the same.
The candidate might have continued in his righteous anger against the idiots who came up with the weyrling rotation had not Savitri's words interrupted his thoughts. He glared at the use of his name in such a fashion, sniffing. Few had ever dared to call him that. Oh, he recognized that he'd shortened her name, but she wasn't the testy Bitran candidate who'd been left Standing four times already. Double-standard. Didn't matter to him. Yet he answered anyway, because he recognized his annoyance as something juvenile, and was not in a childish mood - quite - at the moment. He grimaced. "The Headwoman. And quite possibly the mother or fostermother of a weyrbrat with one ear partially removed." It was not a common reaction from him, but the fool child had been idiotic enough to attack him a second time after a more conventional beating. Mutasim was not about to suffer a third instance.
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Post by kysseh on Jul 18, 2008 18:28:19 GMT -5
Savitri was gratified when Liassa had a similarly unhappy reaction to Mutasim's comment, glad that she was not the only one who thought little of his jibe. Really, the weyrlings were doing their best, but it was hard to do this sort of work while disabled. Still, she kept working right alongside her two suffering fellows, quickly sorting through the firestone and filling the bag with the appropriately sized pieces. She did keep an eye on Liassa, though, just to make sure that the girl was not completely overexerting herself. Exercise was good, but straining every muscle and damaging her lungs was not helpful for a pregnant woman... or girl.
"We need the experience, but it would have been helpful to have a few of the stronger males in here," she commented dryly, tying off the full bag and tugging it over to the side. It was a dust-raising process, and she sneezed lightly at the irritation that dust caused. She grimaced as she shook out a new bag and returned to the pile to begin filling, disliking this chore. Her wounds protested the stretch of her movements, but the exercise was actually fairly stimulating. It was nice to be moving around, even if her still-healing wounds disagreed. Savitri hated sitting idle. "The exercise is good for us, though I don't envy the... next person to end up with this chore," she said, breath catching as she tugged a particularly large chunk free of the pile. Well... that was a tad large. No small dragon could chew that, and she set it back on the pile for a later, larger bag and picked up a more decently sized one.
She was impressed that Mutasim was pulling his weight, though she would never tell him that, for a variety of reasons. Still, he seemed a little angry with her new vengeful nickname for him. She simply rolled her eyes at his explanation, though, offering up a sigh. "They probably just want to keep you away from the other children," was all she said aloud, not wishing to encourage him to explain any further. She wanted to get this chore over with relatively little drama on all of their parts, and she fervently hoped that Liassa would not overreact and instigate him further. The healer could not help but flick a small grimace of sympathy on the weyrbrat's behalf, though; she simply could not help it.
She tossed another too-small piece into the barrel, wondering mutely what other chores the weyrlingmaster had in store for them. Could they be any worse than this, really? "What other... chores are we supposed to do on this rotation?" she queried of both of the other youths, staring curiously at an unusually-shaped piece of firestone before dropping it in the bag. "Besides inhaling rocks and changing glows, that is?" Changing glows was a tedious job that she would normally not mind, except that it meant seeing many of the riders whom she wished to never see. Stupid... stupid bronzeriders.
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Post by ryanne on Jul 19, 2008 11:48:48 GMT -5
Liassa continued to fill the medium bags, wondering briefly how much of this they had to do. She didn't think that they were supposed to finish bagging the entire room of firestone, but no one had told her how much work they were to do. Though, surveying the closet, there wasn't enough sacks for the amount of firestone. Logic dictated that they were only suppsoed to fill the bags that they had. Even then, it was quite a chore, but it was doable. If they had to go get more sacks, though, it was going to turn into an all-day and part of the night task and she doubted that even the Weyrling Master would be that demanding. They did have to care for their dragons after all.
At the thought of her dragon, Lia reached out to the small green, wondering what would happen while she was pregnant. The little one was sound asleep, a near constant occupation for her Tiaeth. Sure, she was going to be pregnant during the times where she could probably afford the impairment. They wouldn't be flying or betweening or anything of the sort. They would be learning about dragoncare and the straps and teaching the dragons to fly be themselves. So she hopefully wouldn't hinder her dragon's learning even if she might have to repeat a class or two for when she was really really pregnant. That was something she wasn't looking forward to at all.
But then Savitri pulled her from her thoughts. "I suppose it is good knowledge and work," she agreed, fingering a bit of stone, marveling at its texture before tossing it in her bag. "And we'll have made the chore considerably smaller for whomever comes around after us," she commented, noticing the dent they'd put in the expanse of stone that was before them. "We've actually gotten a good bit done already." The bags stacked off to the side were slowly growing and spoke of progress that Lia hadn't noticed before. Maybe this chore was preferable to boat duty; there was an outcome that was visible and that Liassa could not necessariyl take pride in, but that she could feel accomplished due to. And especially when a chore was difficult, it was nice seeing the piles of finished work grow.
She snorted a bit at Mutasim's sarcastic comment. She didn't answer, though, continuing to fill her new bag. It wouldn't do to give him more amo. She had a feeling that he could go for days if he was given something to build off of. Savi's rebuttal to him was hilarious. Apparently the two knew each other well enough to banter a bit. And she seemed to know something about him that she could prod at. So she just laughed a little and continue to work, letting them go back and forth. She didn't really know Mutasim well enough to jump in. She had a feeling that they would go for a while if given a chance. One thing she did know was that if he'd managed to piss off the Headwoman by messing with her 'brats, he was going to be doing chores like this for a while. The older womanw as quite vindictive.
"Sweeping, mopping, scrubbing floors, etc," Lia rattled off. She'd been assigned to "general weyr service" her fair share of times through candidacy even though she'd never managed to get shoved in the closet before. Usually, her mother would just take her for the kitchens, telling the Candidate Master than they could send one of the other dimglows in there, she needed Lia to chop and clean floors. Apparently her mother seemed to think she had some sort of gift when it came to those activities. That or she just liked having her daughter underneath her thumb. She knew it was difficult for the woman now to have lost her help in the kitchens as much as she had. Lia still tried to get to the kitchens when she could, but Tiaeth came first and she always would.
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Post by reqqy on Jul 19, 2008 21:52:32 GMT -5
Glancing at Savitri sidelong, he hefted a large sack and slung it neatly into a pile that he’d started just to the side of theirs. He couldn’t really tell if she was trying to get his goat or not. Obviously, Mutasim wasn’t the largest, or strongest, of males, but he was fully capable of this type of work, it seemed. If she was trying to prick his pride, that was rather amusing. He didn’t have much to speak of. As arrogant as he came off – and he was arrogant – the candidate truly didn’t care what other people thought of him. The boy mentally shrugged. What use was it to try to figure it out? She jabbed at him occasionally, so he already knew to look for that. And it wasn’t something of great importance, since he could readily admit that he was a shrimp. A nasty little shrimp.
Liassa’s comment made Muta chuckle, though. “Yes. Considerably smaller for the next group, who will likely be those muscle-bound brutes you girls are missing now.” He couldn’t resist. Ah, but her reasoning was faulty anyway. “No. They’ll have plenty. Soon as this room starts looking nice and neat, they’ll dump another half dozen layers of stone on what’s left.” Mutasim shrugged. “At least the dragons have something to practice and flame with. Just seeing what little gets through as part of the ground crew puts things in perspective. Nothing like a common, incomprehensible enemy to bring folks together, eh?” That was actually an attempt at playing nice for Muta. No criticism – or not much, anyway. The young man hardly even knew how condescending he was being half the time.
Spitfire. An eyebrow raised at Savitri, even as he brought another filled bag to add to his steadily growing foothill. A small smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. Both of the weyrlings were gifted with it, and though it was crooked, there was something genuine about the expression that wasn’t usually there. “Yes. ‘We need to pack away the Muta monster, before he eats our children! I know. Send him to the evil firestone cave, with the two slaving weyrling damsels who can be offered up as a sacrifice.’ That must have been what they were thinking, don’t you think?” He bared his teeth in what he hoped was a feral grin, but actually ended up looking far more pleasant than his usual smiles. Then he threw a wink at Sav. Oh, yes, he’d used the nickname purposely. Letting her know it bothered him was only going to have her using it more than she already was.
“Scut work,” Mutasim added to Liassa’s description, rather dismally. He’d been on candidate chores rotations for two turns now. “Anything and everything they can think of that doesn’t fall under some other category – and some of the things that do.” Though that did leave him wondering about Savitri a little. Had she been here so short a time that she didn’t know? Or was it simply because she was a healer and they let her do that as her chores? Eh, everyone was more likely to Impress than he was, even the newly arrived. The evidence abounded. Though he was beginning to think it wasn’t so much him as much as his attitude toward the entire process. Not that he was likely to change anything that engrained overnight, and Liassa and Sav likely would be laughing their respective butts off if they heard he got these ‘revelations’ from an all-night drinking binge with the goody-goody of the candidate barracks.
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