Another Day of Chores (Z'dayi)

[blueaid]

Again, laughter. Z'dayi slipped easily into amusement, and the chuckling left him without reservation now that Salina was assuming a personality in his mind rather than just the vague classification of That Girl Who Impressed With Me. So he quipped in response, "Old 'nough not to fool around with girls who ain't old enough to admit their real ages."

And he stretched back a moment, quite content to be given the once-over, a likely recipient of wandering eyes on enough occasions to have learned to appreciate rather than resent it. He laced his fingers behind his head, the knife held idly between two fingers, and looked languidly back at the goldrider, adding, "Twenty-two. And I ain't weyrbred, so why don't you tell me what exactly that's supposed to imply."

[Xinnai]

Grey eyes rolled and she decided to join him in idolence. When did she really ever give herself the chance? She set aside knife and stretched out hands that had started to cramp, eyeing him speculatively before she leaned back, crossing her legs over one another in a slash of brown cloth. She really did like wearing trousers now.

"Twenty-two," she mused. Well, this was interesting. "It means that we have no discretion against age. We can't." Her smile was slow and long. "Seeing as dragon mating passions circle around to include all us folk. Especially the gold risings." She winked and then cushioned her chin in her hand, watching him with those smoke eyes before finally speaking, deciding that he could either play along or pass a good thing up. Salina wasn't naive, of course. She knew she was rather pretty. "I'm sixteen."

[blueaid]

"Practically a child!" scoffed Z'dayi with feigned shock at such sauciness, with his jaw dropped open like the idea of a sixteen-turn-old girl in flagrante dilecto was just too much for him. But he still looked at Salina if she was going to be there for the looking; it was going to be a long stretch in the barracks, wasn't it?

That drawl stayed amused, and he nudged at the mostly-empty pot by his feet with one toe, entertaining himself with his thoughts for a few extra seconds. "Well, fortunately for us, I do have some discretion about age. I don't like to play around with 'em too young, but I s'pose it won't be such an issue when Deoneth's old enough for it to matter. Seventeen's a sight more palatable than sixteen for some reason." And he didn't try to make it seem logical, just shrugged off the matter as personal preference.

"So don't you be making bedroom eyes at me, little girl, I'm too old for it. Save 'em for the Weyrleader." So the rumor goes.

[Xinnai]

"Fortunately," she mocked, watching him with pale face unreadable. So, he did have problems with it. Oh well, she decided with a light shrug. That was for him to decide. Still, she couldn't but playing with him, just a little. Maybe Ex had rubbed off on her a little.

"Well, if it's hard to handle, just don't think of it then. I do act much older than I am, if you haven't noticed." She smiled slightly. It was always a bit of a disappointment when people decided to take her over age rather than rank or how she acted. There were just so much more mature ways to handle things than concentrating on one small fact such as that.

She was grinning at him still, those eyes rolling as he called her little girl, but she snapped up, attentive, all humor gone from her face for a second and more. Had he truly just said that? Her heart pounded, color suffusing her face but she took control of herself. Everyone knew, but it always shocked her when some were so impudent.

"Well, it'd be at my discretion, wouldn't it?" She laughed softly, reigning her shock back in and grinning at him again. "And if the Weyrleader doesn't object, why should a bronze weyrling such as yourself? It's about rank now, not age. The Weyr really doesn't care for it."

[blueaid]

In some things, it might make sense to take a person's actions as the measure of their maturity; sexuality just wasn't one of them, at least as far as a liberalized former holder-lad was concerned. Whatever Z'dayi read into Salina's slight smile, whatever her remark about acting older than she was might have stirred in them, he remained resolute in the concept that sixteen is too young for twenty-two. No offense. "You do, you do," he granted with a nod, his chin dipping down against his chest while he left his hands laced behind his head. "And I ain't meaning to imply you're not bright'n capable, just..." He pulled one hand forward and wobbled it, teetered it in the universal gesture of so-so.

When the blush rose in her cheeks, he raised his eyebrows, his own eyes brightened while he caught a glimpse of Salina's apparent discomfort. Had he truly just said that? Why yes; yes, he had, and he seemed perversely delighted by the sudden reaction from composed Salina. "Accourse it's at your discretion. What you choose to do and with whom ain't my concern, just trying to point out that you got yourself a suitor already."

To her latter question, he made a face and prompted himself to lean forward, as if even peeling potatoes might be more pleasurable than playing romance with a woman-child. "Why should a bronze weyrling such as myself? 'Cause I got principles, suppose. 'Cause you're closer to the Weyrleader's age than mine, 'less I did the math wrong. If it's about rank now-- well, shells, we weyrlings oughta not be talking about it at all, huh?" And he chuckled as he reached for a potato.

[Xinnai]

Salina laughed at his explanation. It made no sense logically but she supposed some were just that way. She also had considered he was hold stock, and hadn't grown up as she had. She could accept that and know he might change his mind-not that she was interested. That was just a very intriguing conversation.

Salina exhaled in a gust as Z'dayi brought up J'fel again. She paused for a moment to think, lips pursed before she shrugged. "Suitor he's not. Surely you've heard of his reputation if you've heard of me. You'll know then it's not as if we're mutually exclusive."

The goldrider followed his suite and reached for a potato as he did. She picked up knife, using it to gesture with as she glanced up at him from amused eyes. "Ah, but you see, you won't be able to use that excuse for much longer. And what then, bronzerider?" She pointed at him with the knife, as if demanding an answer before she chuckled and peeled the tuber quickly.

[blueaid]

Then what? "Then I'll find me some voluptuous woman." He hit the word woman just a little harder than necessary for the laziness of his drawl. "To come'n take the edge off all this enforced celibacy. Or maybe two." Z'dayi sighed dramatically at the thought, his eyes unfocused while they cast down at the half-peeled potato-- ahh, the lascivious whimsy of it. He drew a breath and forced himself out of the delightful but currently useless reverie.

To the matter of J'fel's reputation-- "I ain't heard of it, actually. Didn't expect I'd be staying, so didn't bother much to find out. Only heard about you and the boss 'cause..." Everyone with ears knew about the tryst by now? Probably how even uninvolved Z'dayi got to the meat of that matter. He shrugged listlessly, an attempt to assure Salina that her extra-curricular activities weren't particularly his concern.

"Bugs you to talk about it though? Or just bugs you that other people talk about it?" It seemed like an honest question rather than a baiting one, asked with a look across at the goldrider that-- for a change-- was genuine rather than merry and baiting. "'Cause I'd think you'd be prepared for it, what with him being the Weyrleader and all. If I had an affair with Aderes." Snickered at the thought, briefly. "I'd expect people to talk about it, y'know."

[Xinnai]

She hadn't meant her question the way that he appeared to take it. But it amused her, to see him fantasizing over what he'd do. With a small shake of her head, she tossed a potato in the pot and glanced up at him, laughing quietly. Oh yes, amusing for sure.

Salina tucked tongue into cheek, picking a potatoe with more discretion that strictly neccessary and certainly more than she had before. She glanced back up at Z'dayi and then srhugged, peeling the potatoe silently before speaking.

"It's not an affair I'm having. Rumor intensifies things." She sent him a pointed stare, as if to remind him that in his age he should know even that. And really he should, the way he was acting if he had worlds more of experience. She felt brief irritation rise and pushed it down. It was nothing to worry about. "Really, it's nothing. But it bugs me to talk about and I don't like when other people do so." She lobbed the tuber and picked another, head tossing as she sat back up. "A matter of personal preference I s'pose."

[blueaid]

With sudden resolution, Z'dayi proposed, "Then let's talk about something else." He fished about the room for inspiration, looked across the barracks for anything that might spur conversation-- which sadly limited it to the minutiae of weyrling life. "D'you know you can make liquor out of 'taters? M'dad used to make a killing off it, said it was the cheapest stuff on the planet to distill." Considering how many potatoes are being peeled right now, that's probably fairly true.

But the subject, for all that he fished for it, seemed to hold little interest for Z'dayi, and he abandoned it promptly. "Kitchen-girl to queenrider. Little girls all over Pern're gonna know your name before long. Don't seem to be the likeliest Impression, always thought of goldriders as well-groomed things with clean fingernails and fine educations." I.e., Aderes.

[Xinnai]

"Let's then," Salina agreed complacently, quite content to drop the entire conversation. If she wasn't going to talk to Ez'ki about it, it was doubtful she'd talk with anyone else. However, Z'dayi's proposed topic of conversation was not the best thing to hold one's attention.

"Really?" The goldrider asked, peeling another tuber and completing it easily. Her tone was just barely interested and she didn't even look at the man as she began to peel once more. But at his next topic, her head snapped up.

"Really now?" She laughed enchantingly and shook her head. "Well, I don't know about that. But I am well-groomed." She sent him a slight reproving look and continued. "But I don't see why people have that image." She thought of Aderes and sighed. She didn't know why people thought of that image but she wished sometimes she could achieve it, to live up to something like...that. "Deoneth's not a normal queen anyhow, so we suit quite fine. And what of you then? You're not exactly what most would think of as a bronzer."

[blueaid]

Almost absently, certainly not a thought-through gesture, Z'dayi scraped a bit of potato off the keen side of his knife with his teeth, chewed on the raw bit of vegetable with a distracted looking frown. Raw potatoes aren't particularly palatable to most, but he seemed happy enough to be chewing through the starchy, crunchy bit of tuber-- though really it was just watching Salina react to things. The enchanting laugh, the sigh, the snap to attention; if no one had gotten to know Zedayin the candidate, chances are high that he'd had plenty of occasion to watch them without comment. What's more, he seemed to take all of these things without judgment, like he could simply appreciate Salina's peculiarities without approval or disapproval of them.

Either that or he was just lost in his own thoughts for a moment and thinking nothing at all about the goldrider.

Whatever the case, he returned to the conversation with a chuckle. "I doubt anybody'd call their dragon 'normal.' Would mean they weren't special." And, one weyrling to another, he smiled a brief, indulgent smile for the specialness of his own bond. "Well-groomed girls don't peel taters and play innuendo games with men of ill repute, sugar," he pointed out with a growing grin.

As to the stereotype of bronzeriders-- "No? Dashingly handsome, ain't that pretty much all people think of when they conjure themselves a bronzen image?" Tongue-in-cheek.

[Xinnai]

Salina watched with a slightly revolted expression as her slave labor companion crunched at a bit of raw tuber. Nose wrinkled and lip curled as she shucked another few spuds from their skins with assisstance from her knife. Could he in some delusional way think it was actually an appealing taste? Or was he still stuck in that age of boyhood where nearly anything tasted good?

The goldrider gagged mentally. It just was not an appealing. At all. She was grateful when conversation returned, to distract her from the thought.

"Well of course we think our own dragons are special," she began and then stopped, the rest of his words catching up to her. She stopped, struggling for a moment for some witty comeback. There was none. "Yes, very well. And of course, dashingly handsome is one but aren't most bronzers supposed to gain their reputation for ill repute after they ascend into the ranks of actual riders?" One eyebrow arched high.

[blueaid]

"Sure, for a boy of fifteen." Whether he ate because he enjoyed it or just because it was there would have to remain a mystery, for Z'dayi showed no reaction to the raw potato taste. He didn't eat any more, but he only watched her revolted expression with a tug at the corner of his mouth that looked much like the beginning of a grin. No questions asked, though, just a sparkle of amusement at her revulsion.

Peel, peel, peel. Talk, talk, talk. This is the height of weyrling training? "See, you Impress a boy of fifteen-- or a girl." He gestured with the flat of his knife toward his partner in lack-of-crime. "And they ain't had time to sample life yet, right? And I know, I know. You're weyrbred so you've had plenty of experience, I get the picture. But your life's just beginning really, ain't it?"

[Xinnai]

An eyebrow arched and she let her task fall into her lap. She leaned forward, eyes hooked to his as she gestured with the knife once more. "Ah, but it's just starting for everyone in our position, my good sir. Everything before was just a prelude. Family, lovers, friends, habits, discretions. They make you but you leave them behind for this."

She sat back, peeling at her potato demurely, eyes lowered towards it as she spoke. "You leave them behind for your dragon. For Deoneth. Or Tremaith." She tossed the finished potato in the pot and stretched shoulders, rolling them beneath the loose white cotton shirt she wore. "You're still you but you really have no past."

[blueaid]

Unsurprisingly, given that they seemed to have nearly no common ground between them except a pile of potatoes, Z'dayi begged to differ. He didn't seem perverse about it, not arguing as much as bringing to light the differences in her Impression and his. "I don't think it's like that for everyone though. I had a whole life, y'know, and it ain't gone just because things're setting off in a different direction."

And maybe the thought that all that really was gone troubled him, prompted the lowering of his eyebrows and the frown that he cast down at the harmless potato between his fingers. The knife spiraled inexpertly, and skin scraped away in a loose pile at his feet, and he shook his head over her last comment-- no past. "See, maybe that's the crux of it. Maybe Deoneth's starting-over for you, maybe being a goldrider'll be your whole life, but it ain't that way for me. Tremaith don't change who I am, this place don't make me into a different person. If I was a decade younger-- shells, a half-decade younger, I'd probably agree with you though."

And he shrugged, tossed a potato, pointed to the rolled shoulders. "You oughta put your arm up like so, grab your elbow, stretch like that." Demonstrated by bending one arm up over his head and reaching across with the other hand to pull on his elbow.