Eastern Weyr - Commons Cavern
A grand stairway leads downward into the cool rock of the commons cavern, a place for socializing and relaxing, as well as an area that provides solid shelter from the seasonal storms of this area. One of the few caverns at Eastern Weyr, the rock here has been worn away by centuries worth of water movement, leaving a nearly glass smooth polish over much of the room. Rocky shelves line the walls on which electric lights covered with paper lanterns rest, providing adequate illumination for the area. High above are further light fixtures, enabling a wide range of lighting options here. A natural pool occupies half of the far end of the cavern and is supplied with heated water piped in by an ingenious techcrafter. All about the room are balconies of rock with stairs leading to them and small dumbwaiters for the purpose of delivering food and drink to their heights.
S'dan and Jenoisa are sitting near the backof the cavern. They are each petting one of Jenoisa's felines and S'dan has a sandwich on a small plate that he's slowly eating.
Fiona finally makes her way into the caverns after a long day of discovering just how much being a wingsecond sucks. Her eyes scan the gathered people and catch on Jeniosa's knot. Ah, yes. She takes a sip from her klah and moves towards wingleader and beastcrafter with a bit of purpose.
S'dan rubs Citrine's head again and takes another bite of sandwich, a bit neater this time. As Citrine moves around and stretches up with his nose to get a tthe sandwich S'dan has to try and turn his head away. "Hrn…nnno…" Chew. "Now he thinks I'm going to share!"
Jeniosa continues to pet the little white ball of fluff, plate of meatrolls haven't been forgotton as she takes another one and nibbles on it idly. Hey, that person that person is coming towards her, or is she headed towards S'dan. The girl's attention is caught by Citrine's trying to sneak a bite of sandwich and instead she gives him a bit of the meatroll she had been eating.
Fiona manages to put on a reasonable facsimile of a smile as she approaches, "Wingleader S'dan and…?" She silently asks for Jeniosa's name even though she's fairly certain where she's going, "Mind if I join you?"
S'dan smiles up at Fiona. "Hey! FIona! THis is Jenoisa. She's a BeastCrafter with a couple of crafty beasts here," he says as he pets the cat some more. "Have a seat. What's up?" He sincerely hopes nothing is up.
Jeniosa offers a bit of a meatroll wave, though the blue curled about her neck makes the wave considerably less meatrolly as he slurps the last bit from her finger. "Erm, yeah, what he said." She grins a little as the brownrider does the whole introduction thingy for her. "Is there anything amiss, ma'am?" Ha! She just called you ma'am, how do you like that.
Fiona inclines her head to Jeniosa and pulls out a chair to plop into, "Hey Jeniosa, I'm Fiona, as I think you know. No, there's nothing amiss. I'm just trying to be a little more available. Starting with my wingmembers."
S'dan says "Things going well for you then, WingSecond?"
Jeniosa ohs, at least she's not in truble or something. "Well, that's good at least. Wingsecond? I thought only riders could be wingseconds and stuff." She shrugs, figuring she must have the rules wrong or something. Pearl, on the girl's lap, purrs softly and lifts her head to the table trying to get a meatroll from the plate.
Fiona nods once to S'dan, "They are, Wingleader, thank you." She keeps up the smile for Jeniosa as she shrugs, "I thought so, too, but Ur'con apparently decided to shake things up and the Weyrleader supported his decision, so now I get to check paperwork. yay." Can you feel the sarcasm on that one? "I did have one question for you, though. Your paperwork didn't list a specialization I just wanted to check if you had one or not."
Jeniosa ohs, quietly slipping a meatroll to the white feline. "These guys are my specialty, I'm learning all about them." Yay catlady! Hmm, she watches the wingsecond to see if there's any disappointment, maybe Eastern was waiting for some other specialty apprentice, mrple.
Fiona arches a brow at the kittens, then nods, "Unusual. Are they… trainable?" It's not that she's disappointed, more surprised, "Not that they're not, well, fluffy and all…" She's trying not to be insulting, really, but she's so good at it.
Good question. Jeni frowns briefly. "Well, I really want to become a feline breeder, but they can be taught some stuff." If you have a really willing feline. "And I'm learning about their anatomy and any illnesses or diseases they may obtain." Hey, felines aren't all useless you know, they catch vermin and, well, not much else yet.
Fiona nods a few times before sticking a tentative finger towards the kitten, "Do they grow large enough to act as guardian creatures or anything like that?"
Fluffy little white paw bats lightly, playfully, at the finger. Mrrr? "Ah, well, umm.." Jeniosa is suddenly feeling a tad uncomfortable in this spotlight. "Not really, I mean, there are bigger felines in the jungles and such but I don't think they're tameable." Hey, lightbulb, she should go out into the jungle and study the big felines, oh wait, that would be like a suicide mission or something, wouldn't it?
S'dan says "Oh, those beasts are mean! They're big and they're mean. I've heard that they've even taken after sleeping dragons. Seriously! There were reports of that happening. It's one of the things I've been considering on where we build the art gallery."
Fiona smirks at the kitten's playfulness, "They are, yes, but some people say they're tamer if raised from kittens. So… you do know how to work with other animals as well, right? We still have beasts to breed, care for, and feed to keep the dragons healthy." She's polite enough not to say that the kittens would be little more than snacks to a dragon. Popcorn.
Jeniosa peers, "Of course, I've taken all the required general care classes and such before being promoted to senior apprentice." Hopefully that didn't come out too defensive. She doesn't like the bigger stinkier beasts, but she'll do whatever she's told to.
S'dan takes the chance while the gals are talking to finish eating his sandwich. Meanwhile, Beryl comes flapping in fron his hunt in the jungle to see what's going on. Ah! It is the S'dan unit. He is with some fuzzy thing. He lands on the back and makes a warble then a squawk! What is that? What is that thing? It has claws, right? But no wings. Nice long tail, though.
Fiona smiles gently and nods, "Well, your duties are primarily overseen by the herdmaster so that's up to him. And you're not the only apprentice around, I just wanted to establish where you were in terms of qualifications for him. Sorry if I'm a bit, well, me… I hear you're related to our Weyrleader?" She barely flicks Beryl a glance. Lizards.
Jeniosa shrugs a bit, "Well, maybe, I don't really know any of my relatives except mom and dad and my brothers." Well, they could be related to J'em, never know, he was a wild child afterall.
S'dan reaches out an arm so that Beryl can leap oaver with a bit of a flap and land on his. S'dan carefully brings his arm over so the firelizard can be near enough to the feline to just reach out and nuzzle it. "Easy now, Beryl. This is our new friend. He's maybe a little bit more like you than I am. We are going to be very gentle, all right?"
Beryl seems to understand and just gives a gentle warble as he stretches his head out on his neck and gives a careful little sniff.
Citrine mrrs curiously at the winged thing, ficking his tail to and fro and just watching the firelizard, sure he's used to Azurite, but this is definitely not Azurite. But the feline is too sleepy right now to be uptight and he just…yawns.
Fiona blinks a couple of times, then nods, "Oh, sorry. It must just be speculation. I know I heard it somewhere. I didn't mean to pry." She glances back at the blue, "Is he usually so… excitable?" Says the woman with the lizard that steals everything.
Jeniosa shrugs at the apology a little. Though she wonders who might be talking about her heritage. Ah well, no big deal right? She glances at Beryl and Citrine and giggles softly as the feline all but ignores the brown for now. He must be really tired because usually the orange tabby plays with anything and everything.
Beryl sniffs again then raises his head as he sneezes! She hakes his head and wings. Whaaaaaat izzat stuff?
S'dan gets a face spattered with bits of firelizard snot. He quickly pulls his head back and closes his eyes. "Terrific," he mutters and gently with both hands takes Citrine and hands him over to Fiona. Beryl climbs up to S'dan's shoulder as the man moves. He sneezes again, this time much dryer. "Excuse me, ladies," he says and gets up to go to the nearest washroom for a few minutes.
Beryl neezes again along the way. What was that fuzzy critter?
Beryl sneezes again!
Fiona's eyes go wider than wide as suddenly she has a feline. What? She watches as S'dan starts to depart, then shoves the cat at Jeniosa, "Does this thing spread disease?" It comes out harsher than she intends, and she must have noticed since she winces and mutters a soft, "Sorry. Sorry."
Disease? Jeni just looks…shocked at the question of her feline spreading disease, is that even maybe just a little frowny pout that escapes the girl and she grabs her beloved kitty back and hugs him. "No, they're clean and disease free." Well, at least Fiona apologized, so the comment doesn't come out too harsh. No one understands her and her felines…poutyface. And she murmurs something quietly to Citrine before settling him onto her lap beside his white mate.
At least it didn't pee on her. Fiona sighs gently and shakes her head, "I'm sorry, I don't have the usual female, 'oh, it's cute' instinct. And he doesn't usually sneeze so much." Scorch it, being social and civil is /hard/.
Jeniosa runs a hand through feline fur gently. "He probably just got fur up his nose, longhaired felines shed even with proper brushing and he did stick his muzzle right into his fur." Well, Jeni will forgive Fiona this time she supposes. And she makes a mental note to apologize, profusely, when the brownrider gets back from the washroom.
Fiona eyes the feline even more dourly for a moment, then shakes her head, trying for a more positive expression, "Is that… usual?"
Jeniosa blinks, "What? The shedding? It's not unusual, especially in the longer haired ones, which both Citrine and Pearl are." Yes, fluffybutts the both of them.
Fiona eyes the cats as if they're little balls of terror, then sneezes once herself. Great.
Jeniosa doesn't sneeze, she just watches curiously, and Fiona didn't even stick her nose in the fur like Beryl did. The girl makes a mental note of this to scribble down in her notebook later. If there aren't allergies on Pern, well then we mave have just discovered them.
S'dan soon comes back, face washed, hair neat, jacket free from crumbs and anything else. Even Beryl looks like he had a bit of a bath. He's riding on S'dan's shoulder, trilling and humming happily.
Fiona sneezes again, her eyes getting a little red around the edges. Great. "Do cats normally cause itchiness or should I be seeing a healer?"
Jeniosa blinks at Fiona's sneezing and itchy eyes, uh-oh. "I've, ah, I've never seen them cause itchiness." Oh great, she's gonna kill the wingsecond and she hasn't even been at Eastern two weeks yet. The girl will slink down inher chair, mrple.
S'dan approaches the two women and looks worriedly at Fiona. "Maybe it isn't the feline. Maybe it's some plant matter that was on my jacket that got onto Citrine? I was out in the jungle earlier today."
Fiona's hand comes up to rub at her eyes. Itchy itchy itchy! "I dunno." sniffle, "My face is itchy. This never happens." And she practically lives with her nose in a pile of oil.
Jeniosa is close to tears, she didn't mean to kill the wingsecond. "I'm sorry..I..I'll take them away." She quickly gets to her feet, gathering the two felines in her arms. And she starts towards the passage to the residents' hall.
S'dan leans a little closer to Fiona, "Ah, dear, your eyes are getting a bit red and puffy. Maybe it is some plant matter that was on my jacket? I was out in the jungle earlier today." He hopes that's what it is. He rather likes the felines.
Fiona shakes her head and opens her mouth to try to comfort the beastcrafter, but all that comes out is another sneeze. Fiona frowns, then stands, "I think," sneeze, "I should," sneeze, "Healers." sneeze. "Thanks."
Jeniosa is gone, ayup, she done fled to the recesses of the weyr with her menagerie.