[PRP] A Needed Break (Ielin/Rizdax)

[Prism Shine]

The ringing in his ears hasn’t quite subsided even after such a scathing lesson had left him reeling. He had never quite thought the knots he’d clumsily made ever carried any weight--they were little bits of fabric, after all. But here he was, feeling a bit off, not seeing his knots, or the gentle feel of them against his shoulder. Gr’del’s lesson had both set his teeth on edge, but also made him feel a bit sick -- properly so, he supposed. While he hadn’t been part of the problem, he hadn’t been part of the solution to make it better -- which was just being part of the problem when he couldn’t/wouldn’t do anything about other candidates’ behavior.

Ielin scruffed a hand through the wild blondebrown locks, not doing anything to help tame them down. Today they apparently wanted to look even more the wildman as his beard wanted to, and with his angular face, he had a good feeling it wasn’t the most.. Attactive look on the stocky miner. Why else would people stare? It was awkward…

With a sigh, and having a break, he makes his way to the lower caverns to grab a snack. It’s all he can do to put a few meatrolls on a platter and a mug of hot klah before settling a bit heavily at the end of a table. He’s.. tired, really. The meatrolls are ripped into little bits to eat, needing to feel something under hand since he had left his carving knife and his latest little project at his cot. The lecture had exhausted him, and still so much of the day left to go.

Hattaki

 

[Hattaki]

Coiled up at the very end of the table he'd chosen, head buried beneath his arms and his forehead pressed so hard into the table that he honestly thought it might just become part of the wood since it was so hard anyway, Rizdax was just done. Normally he would still be out and cleaning and pushing everything far past his physical limits for his small body, but the redhead's chest felt hollow after that lecture with Master Gr'del and with the empty spot where his knot should have hung feeling even heavier than he'd expected, the Candidate was anything but ready to go and continue cleaning. At least this day. He had eaten lunch and now all that was left was his plate beside his elbow but he still hadn't managed to drag himself up from where he was sitting to go back out and work as hard as he normally did, for if he got up he knew he'd end up out there cleaning even harder than before.

He wasn't ready.

A long time ago he'd told his sister that it was okay to wait until she was ready to react to something, until everything had settled in her head before she leapt up to run after whatever it was she was aiming for. Riz had never listened to his own advice even once, he'd always run at everything full tilt and never stopped to think about his own internal issues. Of course he wanted a dragon and of course he wanted to help the Weyr and protect everyone on Pern, but why was it that he wanted to do that? Because his brother died in his arms and his sister's fate was unknown somewhere on the Southern Continent, that was easy of course. But there were some underlying things that he never thought about, how he knew that he owed the Weyr always came up in his mind. High Reaches... had saved him, but now he wasn't certain that he was enough of a person, enough of a Candidate for them.

Just this once he would follow the advice that came out of his own mouth so long ago, just this once he had decided to sit still and soak it all in.

A noise drug him from his own thoughts though, pulled him back towards the rest of the world, for he couldn't really relax with his head pressed into the table when he didn't know exactly who was sitting across from him. If it was Shar she would hit him with a spoon or something for still being here, for not having come back to help her as quickly as he could and normally would have. When Riz lifted his head he didn't find the person that he expected to find though, instead it was a face that he'd seen before, but not completely gotten to know. Not that he was overly friendly with new people anyway, they probably were all afraid to get close to him with how prickly he was. His golden eyes were already starting to narrow a bit before he stopped himself, noticing the lack of any knot on this man as well.

So he'd seen him before because he was a candidate like himself, stripped of his knot and trying to come to terms with it in his own way most likely.

"They're pretty good today, I think. I didn't really taste the one that I ate." Riz offered, realizing that the words were probably hollow even as they came out of his mouth, but he had to say something didn't he? They were both in this together, even if they didn't know one another very well, they were Candidates in the same Weyr and would stand together come time.

Hopefully.... right?

Prism Shine