[prp] Haters gonna hate (Rhiyn, Ticene)

[Thaliawen]

After visiting a mindhealer, Rhiyn had decided to treat himself to a few pies. He'd asked Owara for a bubblypie, and the woman had provided him with two. He'd given her a grin, the first one he'd felt cross his face in almost a sevenday. He'd thanked her and hurried off--spotting that girl. That girl. The one he'd spoken to before, what was her name? Ticene! She had been kind, and he did have two bubblypies.

He stood there for a moment, altogether unsure what to do. What if she left before he reached her? What if she thought he looked like a wher with the flu? What if... He held the tray with one hand and ran the other through a mess of hair. He'd made his curls worse with his habit of curling them when he was nervous. A few, small curls stuck up near the top of his head, and he tried to mash them down. He needed to look presentable. Had he last time they'd spoken? Why did it matter? Why did he care what this girl thought of him?

"Hey, Tic!" he called, and waved her over. "One of the kitchen workers gave me two of these, you want one?" He showed her the tray. "We could go eat."  

[The_Muffin_Puppy]

She had managed to find another thing about the Weyr she wasn't overly fond of. The lack of greenery. Walking across the bowl, Ticene kicked a rock across the dusty, bare, earth. The reason, that she was aware of. Settlements had to be kept clear of growth because of thread. The rule had always seemed kind of odd to her, but she didn't question it. It hadn't been much of a walk away from the hold back home before you could be outside the range that was reasonable to keep free of plant growth. The Weyr was so claustrophobic in contrast. The bowl was a good name for it. Ticene really did feel like she was trapped in a bowl, closed in on all sides.

The rock got a particularly forceful kick and went skipping away from the young woman. Dry, bare, and confined. That was the problem with the Weyr. Hearing her name pulled her out of her rather disgruntled thoughts. Looking around she spotted another candidate waving at her. Great. What was it now? Surprise chores probably. Pivoting she slowly made her way over to the lad. Coming to stand in front of him she tilted her head to the side. "Hey, Rhiyn, right?"

Rhiyn's offer had Ticene arching an eyebrow as she looked the other candidate up and down. That seemed right out of between. In all honesty, Ticene wasn't really one for sweets. Didn't lose her mind over the prospect of a bubblypie the way some did. Still, it was a nice gesture. She had no idea why Rhiyn would seek her out after this long to offer it to her, but the part of her that craved social interaction couldn't really refuse it.

"Uh, sure. Why not?" Ticene managed a small smile for the other candidate, but it lacked any real joy behind it. All in all the candidate seemed just not as bright as she had a few months ago. Maybe Rhiyn just wanted company too, and she happened to be the first person he had stumbled across.  

[Thaliawen]

"Yeah, I'm Rhiyn," Rhiyn confirmed, smiling. She'd remembered his name! That almost won another smile from him. "Want to sit with me?" he asked. She'd been new to the Weyr last time he'd spoken to her, how was she adjusting? "You doing okay?" he asked. He looked around for a spot they could sit and talk. Somewhere not too dusty, somewhere they wouldn't be bothered. Somewhere L'mul or T'rel wouldn't find and tease them.

"Hey, when the next clutch happens, want to stand by me during the hatching?" he asked. What made him ask that? "I bet you Impress, it's your second one, right? Maybe we'll both Impress. My friend Demanthra Impressed a while ago, her green's huge now. Relatively huge, anyway." He ran a hand through his hair. "Where do you want to sit?" he asked.

"Have you met anyone interesting lately?"  

[The_Muffin_Puppy]

Well wasn't he just full of questions. "Okay," Ticene replied simply to him at the invite to sit with him. The candidate was less forthright when asked if she was okay. Instead she gave a non-committal shrug and a nod. If she opened her mouth then Tic wasn't certain she'd be able to stop the waterfall of all the stuff about the Weyr that ticked her off.

The question about the hatching caught her off guard. It was still a fair while before the next one, wasn't it? Did candidates usually start planning that kind of thing in advance? At her last hatching she had been essentially lassoed into a little group, that had been pleasant enough. It was probably a support thing to have friends on the sands. Providing an anchoring point to seek out. It would have been nice to have someone to go to when the disappointment of realising that she hadn't been chosen had set in. "Sure, I guess so." Someone that she barely knew was better than nobody at all. Unless Rhiyn impressed and then she'd be on her own again.

Tic let out a slight huff of a laugh at his idea of impressing. If only it were that easy. No. Given how last hatching no dragon had deemed her worth a proper look, the candidate was pretty resigned that she would be waiting a while. If she was lucky all the good candidates would get picked in this next hatching. Then the Weyr would have poor luck searching before the next one. Then one of the last eggs to hatch would decide she was the best they were going to manage and settle for her.

Her contemplation on where to sit was interrupted not long after it began by Rhiyn's next question. The candidate looked down at her new company with a frown on her face. What kind of question was that? "Interesting how?"  

[Thaliawen]

That didn’t look like Ticene was alright. Rhiyn frowned slightly. Wasn’t she making friends? Was she eating properly? Whatever the issue was, maybe he could help. Oh, good! He gave her a smile when she agreed to stand next to him during the hatching.

“I can get a couple other people to stand with us, too, I bet. Then dragons are sure to notice us!” Maybe Ionan and his sister, whatever her name was...Kinye? Maybe Tassiel too, but the older boy would probably stand as close to the healer station as he could. He was googly eyed over that one girl. “What color would you like, if you could pick?” He asked.

He looked around. “You know, anyone you’ve talked to. There’s a lot of people from different crafts, I like talking to the woodcrafters, the starcrafters are interesting, too. I didn’t really study a craft.”  

[The_Muffin_Puppy]

"I'm not sure it works that way." Not that she was really one to say so. Rhiyn had been here longer than she had, stood more than she had, perhaps he had some kind of understanding that she lacked. Although from what horror stories she had heard, a group was just a bigger target. It made her think of shoals of fish. Where the whole point of being in a group was so that when someone swam through with their mouth open they were less likely to catch you.

A hiss of a laugh escaped Tic when asked what colour she would pick. "Bronze, obviously," she replied giving the other candidate a sly grin. It seemed a popular question that candidates asked and this was usually Ticene's immediate response. It usually put people off balance. Still smiling the candidate shrugged. "Dunno. Way I see it the only real difference is size. Unless they're a gold I s'pose." Ticene didn't personally think she had goldrider written to her. All the harper tales always made them out to be these commanding, elegant, beautiful women after all. Then again, she didn't think she had much in her that the dragonrider's from harper tales did in the first place. Brave and selfless weren't really words Tic would rush to use for herself. "What about you?"

"I didn't either." Fishwife wasn't a craft. She could have followed in her father's footsteps and gotten into ship-building, but that had never really enthralled her. "Can't say anyone has particularly stood out to me, if you're looking for suggestions." People could be interesting in their own ways, but there wasn't anyone that Ticene had met in the Weyr that she felt the need to namedrop as being especially fascinating.  

[Thaliawen]

“Probably not,” Rhiyn agreed, “but it’s fun to try.”

Bronze?! Rhiyn shook his head, smiling at her. Ticene was an interesting girl, wasn’t she? “I think I’d like a brown, like my brother.” G’ret had been lost during the first Threadfall, but that memory still stuck out in Rhiyn’s mind. “But a blue would be nice, maybe a bronze! I could be Weyrleader then, maybe. That’d be great.” Being Weyrleader had to be a hard job, though, being suddenly in charge of all the lives in the Weyr. “Maybe weyrsecond.”

“I grew up in the Weyr,” he said, and shrugged, “but I don’t feel like I know much about anyone. Mostly I stuck to my foster brothers. One left to be apprenticed, the other...” he shrugged. “Maybe we can find someone interesting together.”  

[The_Muffin_Puppy]

"Eyes set on the top, huh?" Ticene never would have taken the shorter candidate for the ambitious type, but that taught her for presuming, didn't it. The idea of being in charge of that many people was frankly terrifying for Tic. She felt like Wingleader she could maybe manage. A whole Weyr? No thanks.

"Heh, I know that. I've have- ... had, three brothers." The candidate stopped for a moment, looking down at the ground. She shook herself slightly and turned back to Rhiyn with a smile. "Three sisters too. It was a busy household. Still, living in Tillek we had a lot of people coming through. Traders, sailors, that kind of thing. The Weyr seems pretty stable in comparison." Maybe that was why she didn't really see anyone as being particularly interesting in the Weyr. It was mostly the same faces, even if she didn't actually know them.  

[Thaliawen]

"Hm? I guess. My brother was a brownrider," he said, and shrugged. "I think Impressing one would be great. I'd definitely prefer a brown." He caught that had, and looked up at her. "I guess we've both lost brothers," he said. "My other fostersiblings have aged out or went to be apprentices after G'ret."

He had trouble focusing on her for a moment. "You're from Tillek?" he asked. "I bet you met all sorts of people there." People didn't really seem to pass through the Weyr. It was a shame.  

[The_Muffin_Puppy]

Ticene gave Rhiyn a sad smile. "Yeah, I guess so." It was a sad thing to have in common, but Tic imagined that for people in the Weyr it was an all to common situation. "So, did you want to be a rider before what happened?" Maybe she shouldn't be asking. What if it was too raw. "I-I'm sorry. You don't have to answer that." The candidate scrambled slightly to pull back. "I just mean that it was for me. Why I agreed to be a rider, y'know. 'Cause maybe one day I'd be able to be the person that stopped the one thread that made it so someone else's family didn't come home..." Ticene trailed off. She hadn't really told anyone that before. Whenever anyone asked it was just because being a rider would be fun. In all honesty the young woman tried not to analyse why she had chosen to come here and isolate herself from everything she knew. It was easier to pretend it was just for fun.

Her home though gave a welcome distraction. "Oh yeah, all sorts of people. We had ships from most everywhere on Pern come through. Pretty much nobody seemed out of place there." She'd never realised how colourful her home was until she'd left it. She really missed the colour blue.  

[Thaliawen]

"Yeah, I guess I always wanted to be a dragonrider. I really started to be interested in dragons once my brother Impressed, though. He used to take me up for rides." He gave her a sad sort of smile. "You don't have to apologize for asking a question," he said. "I want to destroy Thread too. I think now, more than ever, it's something I want to do."

'I never thought it'd come back," he admitted, quietly. "I know people said it would, but I..." He swallowed. "I thought everyone was safe. I didn't think.." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. He was terrified of it, really. The idea of people he cared about fighting it, after seeing what it could do, after seeing how it destroyed people...

"Can you tell me about these people?" he asked.