[PRP] Just, Just the Worst Match-up Ever [Jacquol/Marty]

[ShinosBee]

Every now and then Jacquol found something interesting at the Weyr. Western was, on the whole, dull as a trundlebug, if you were a candidate when no eggs were on the sands, but hey. It had its moments. She'd amassed a small treasure trove of odds and ends, usually worthless items but pretty, or unique, from around the weyr. Some was stashed in 'her' territory—the barracks, or outside the weyr, and some was hoarded unknowingly in Ambrin's weyr. Bottles of passable but rare wine, a belt buckle shaped like dragons twining in flight, some golden shards from a dragon's own golden egg. She liked to pull out those treasures now and then and admire them, though there was little time to do so most days.

And today, well! Today Jacquol'd found an interesting person! She'd seen the other woman before, but the shock of adjusting to weyr life had been enough that it must have slipped from her mind. Getting the girl's name wasn't hard—Martirae, sometimes Marty—and she was just lovely. As cold and hard as marble to look at, slashed light and dark, and supposedly just as friendly. That was fine. Jacquol'd been around enough stickler-for-the-rules types before to not be put off by their inevitable glaring and holier-than-thou-ing. Shards, half her own siblings were just like that!

But she wanted to meet the woman the rumors were about, and so she'd pointedly ditched her usual cadre of companions at breakfast to toss herself, casual as a feline, onto the bench beside said woman.

"You ever think about getting tattoos? Dark ink over the light skin, white ink over the dark? It'd look just the wildest, y'know. Not that y'need the intensity, aye?"

Yes. This was really going to just go perfectly swimmingly, wasn't it?

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

The Weyr was most definitely less energetic now that the surprise hatchlings were settling in - a certain hubub about how they'd brought home less of the children than High Reaches still buzzing about, though their golden mother had followed after. Marty had lost most of her interest in most of that when she'd been one of the many to find herself waiting again for the next time. It didn't sting to wait. There would be others. She would bide her time as she always did.

Sometimes, that time had other people in it. Jacquol wasn't an entirely unknown face, though Marty had never reached out to her and outside of an awareness, she didn't know much more about her. She leaned up against the table, resting one cheek against her palm as she looked over her fellow candidate, mulling over her inquiry. A tattoo, hmm?

"No," she stated flatly. "A tattoo would do nothing for me. The concept isn't unpleasant if it was only to look at, however."

ShinosBee

 

[ShinosBee]

Oho! Well this was an even better surprise! The frank way Marty had replied instantly won Jacquol over, and her toothy grin made that more than clear. "No? Nothing worth celebrating or memorializing yet? It would look a wonder though, so if you ever change your mind, do be sure to show me!" Her hands grabbed at this or that, setting herself a plate of breakfast that bordered on just slightly too much food. One thing the weyr had going for it was the wealth of food. Fresh things were rare enough at sea, and she'd been indulging more than a bit since joining up, though you'd never know it to look at her.

"How about piercings? No? One of each color in the ears, or, oh! Something studded in your nose, bright red or blue, really stand out?" She mirrored Marty's posture, slouching forward to use one arm to prop herself up and the other to deftly funnel the contents of her plate towards her face. "They only hurt for a second, I swear, could wind your hair back in braids to show them off?" Oh this mental image she was creating was a delight! She could just picture the tough young woman as a member of some crew, brandishing a blade while clinging to a rope, half stood off the rail of some great ship. Ahh, but she missed the sea...!

"I can't imagine just sitting around between clutches. Maybe because I've only seen the two now, but y'know, aye? Do you not get up to anything in the meantime? I've heard it's all chores and lessons for you, but who can tell which wagging tongues are telling it true around here these days!" In all reality, Jacquol's determined pestering came from nowhere but a place of boredom. A friendship would be nice, but being cussed out and run off would be fine too, she'd decided. So far it felt more like this would become the former...but she wasn't writing off the latter either, not yet.

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

"I've not considered any of that either," Marty replied, almost as if she'd not even entertained Jacquol's mental images she was trying to paint for her. They simply had no appeal to her - her flesh had become an accessory of it's own, whether she'd wanted it or not. "Not an impossibility, but not something I will do with haste or urgency," she didn't simply want to shut down the dialogue, after all. It was entertaining, to a degree.

While the woman continued to ask her chain of questions, Marty chewed at her own breakfast thoughtfully. Ah, so she'd only been there for a short amount of time. How much patience would she have if she ended up having to wait as long as some Candidates did?

"It's only sitting around if you do nothing with the time. I'm sure with the show we've put on for the last few clutches we'll have more lessons, but when you've heard the same lectures for six turns...well," Marty shrugged. She didn't exactly tune them out, but her brain existed somewhere at a place six or seven sentences ahead of them at all times. "Utilize your free time wisely and you can do plenty with it. Some practice their craft, some find a way to beg a dragonrider to take them on some venture for a day out."

Certainly, she could see how the Weyr could become tedious if one spent all their time their.

"I'm sure at some point of waiting it is meant to get boring."

ShinosBee

 

[ShinosBee]

"Well, alright, that's fine too." A shrug, and Jacquol almost even meant it. It was a bit disappointing to think of the chance to express oneself that way going to waste—it really would be a gather-stopping look, just amazing!—but she got it. Some people just didn't care for that sort of thing. Or maybe, she belatedly realized, Marty's been getting those sorts of questions for ages, and was tired of it by now. If so, yikes. Way to come off all rude and stuff, Jackie!

Thankfully the conversation went on, and she nodded along as she unleashed the kracken of her hunger on the rest of her plate's contents, swiftly rendering the meal to crumbs. "Oh! Well hey, if you ever need a rider here or there a-dragonback, let me know!" Her grin had gone positively sly. "No need to beg when you've got one wrapped around your little finger, after all!" And sharing your bed, of course. Though she had Jacomus to bother too, in the moments Ambrin became unavailable.

"The lessons are fine enough, I guess. Nice to be able to read and write all neat and proper. I'd started before I'd left the Hold ages back but...well. Not too much call for that on the sea." She hadn't been illiterate, but she'd needed some polishing for sure. And now she'd know just when documents were worth filching along with wine or other more glittery things, should this whole 'get a dragon' thing not play out. "You've got a craft then? Doing anything interesting?" She didn't recall hearing that about Marty, but who knew. "I suppose the threadfall days are interesting too. Seeing it all in action. Learning what to do if you're hauling stone or tending the wounded. Not that I'm interested in healing but you know. It's more interesting than sweeping or cooking or latrine duty." Not that she'd ever had to do the last one. Always a way out of doing the nasty work if you looked hard enough, after all!

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

"Hm! I'll keep that in mind," though in truth, Marty would not actually think too hard on Jacquol's offer of a convenient dragon-at-hand. It was hard to be a bit spur-of-the-moment or specific to someone that didn't share a mindspace with her, and the idea of putting herself at a stranger's debt or upending their day didn't particularly appeal to her. That said, there would potentially be an occasion here or there. A need, even. So she wouldn't put it completely out of her thoughts.

She listened intently enough to Jacquol's words, nodding along. It was true that the lessons did, after some time, get a bit repetitive after all. Especially to those who had been at it for turns and turns. How much did those who had aged out still recall, she wondered? "I do have a craft," she answered almost vaguely, "finishing up some ends here or there. Interesting is a point of preference, after all. I do know all the hidden ins and out of the Weyr after enough snooping for it, though." That seemed like something Jacquol would have found interesting.

Sure, most of her fellow Weyrborn kids would too, but she had them documented.

Threadfall though. "That's where you find out if you can handle stress at all. At least it feels more useful than cleaning, at least."

ShinosBee

 

[ShinosBee]

Talk of hidden passages and shortcuts certainly did snare Jacquol's attention, enough so that she even opted to let slide the vague answer as to Marty's craft. Another day for that, she decided. The tawny woman leaned forward over the table, hands folded together under her chin, clearly all ears and bright, glittering eyes of interest. "Sounds useful! Purely for errand purposes and all, of course," She added after a moment, though she made no effort to hide the sly grin curling her face. She'd certainly use such knowledge for mischief. And chores, of course, but definitely for trouble more often.

Without bothering to break eye contact, a hand snaked out to snare a palm full of berries from a platter nearby, popping them one, two, three between flashing teeth. "Threadfall's safer here'n anywhere else." That was certainly true. "Same's being caught at sea'n a storm, really. You act, or you don't. You die, or you don't. Usually actin'll make it more likely that you don't die, but sometimes not. Either way, if you lose your head you're as good as dead, and going glum and whimpering about it just makes more trouble for them's trying to keep things afloat." Another berry, pop, crunch, gulp.

"It's the discipline, right? Bein' fine to, when the call goes out, do what needs done without gettin' in anyone else's way." Of course, if you asked her, the rest of the time was fit for doing the exact opposite. You had to let off some steam now and then or you'd explode! And it was a wonder then that Marty'd not gone off on the lot of them, with her stoic, driven demeanor.

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

A wicked grin that many would have thought uncharacteristic of Marty spread across her face when Jacquol played at innocent. "Of course. I'll have to show you them sometime," she suggested, feigning a similar amount of innocence. Certainly, she could have drawn out the paths off the top of her head, and if she'd been nose deep in some other task she'd consider it. "If you want to search them out, I'd suggest the ones near the kitchens that make it fairly easy to take food to the more important weyrs," though her tone implied that wasn't their only job.

"We're only safe because we make the effort for it. The lack of effort previously showed when it was needed," Marty perhaps would be unpopular in pointing out the obvious - a lot of damage had been caused because they'd been lax. But even she hadn't actually expected Thread to return the way it did, and maybe part of her was still kicking herself for not being able to do anything about it.

She idly twisted a piece of dark hair between her fingers as she considered the reasons Threadfall simply weeded out so many Candidates. "It's the chaos," Marty said decisively, "That when everything is falling apart you can keep your head on your shoulders and without direction know what you need to do to keep it from getting worse." Discipline certainly assisted in that, but some knew even without it how to make those calls. It was a quality that Marty had worked very hard to try and have - and perhaps that made her come off as more intense than she meant to.

ShinosBee