[PRP] New Arrivals (Goran & Timor)

[DruidTigeress]

Tsunake

Timor walked back through the tunnels towards the Candidate barracks with ease. Though they sent someone to meet him, he still remembered the way quite well. It hadn't been so that he'd been gone, after all. His mother was the one to bring him back to the Weyr, all too eager to get a look at the new far-north observatory, though she only stayed long enough to give him a quick hug and kiss goodbye before she disappeared between again. She didn't like to linger around Weyrs now, since thread started falling. Duty was all well and good, but as far as she was concerned, her duty was to her craft first. If they could track the location of the Red Star precisely, nothing like this would ever have to happen again. And she was close. (Or so she always seemed to say..)

But she had Xaroth let them know he was coming, so his arrival wasn't unexpected. Reaching the barracks, the woman who'd been guiding him pointed him to where he'd be sleeping. Same barracks, but a different room. Timor didn't have that much in the way of possessions, and what he did was mostly starcraft related, so when he left he took all his things with him. He set his bag down on one of the beds, starting to unpack. The room was empty now, but he'd been told by the girl that another candidate had arrived today, and would likely be joining him.  

[Tsunake]

Everything here was overwhelming, to put it mildly. With nothing to pack, he had been able to leave immediately from the mines of Nabol. It had been hard enough trying to adjust to the sunlight, but riding dragonback to High Reaches? It had been terrifying. Once his knees had stopped shaking, he'd been swept into a whirlwind of information delivered to him by the Candidatemaster. Lessons, learning, dragons. They'd given him fresh clothing to last a sevenday, told him would be fed, and given a bed. Of course, he would be sharing with others, but that was hardly something that bothered Goran.

When he was finally shown his way to the barracks and left, the broad-shouldered boy was left standing awkwardly in the doorway, trying to process everything. It took him a moment to realize he wasn't alone, his clothing held in his arms as he stared at the other boy who was already in the room.

Steeling himself, Goran set his jaw silently and moved to put his new belongings away in a nearby chest. Though he said nothing to his... roommate, he was keeping a careful eye on him. He didn't have the best experience with people. He was big enough these days that few were stupid enough to mock his slow speaking habits--to his face, anyway.

That was fine. Let them say what they would, as long as they left him alone.

DruidTigress

 

[DruidTigeress]

Tsunake

Despite knowing there was another person coming, Timor still visibly started when he turned around to see the large man standing in front of the other bed. He put a hand on his chest, breathing out. Shells.. How long had he been there? He didn't say anything when he came in.. That already put him on edge.

"Hey. Hi, uh.. Hi." Did he say that already? He looked down at the stack of clothes Goran was holding, which they usually gave people on their first day. "So... J-just arriving, huh? Me too. Although, I was actually candidate here before.." Oh no, did that sound too boastful? Too self important? He certainly didn't mean it to. But he often worried about the way things could be taken. Having spent most of his life in the company of aging starcrafters, he knew he wasn't exactly a pro at meeting new people. With his fellow Crafters, it was easy; he could just talk about the stars. His first two roommates here had been easy too. Amazingly. But somehow this guy seemed different. It wasn't his appearance that made him nervous so much as the stony silence and icy stare he'd been giving him since he stepped inside. He was beginning to think he'd just gotten lucky the last time..

"Uh, it's kind of a long story.." (Which should have been anyone's hint not to bring it up in the first place.) "But, yeah, I've been gone for a while. And I guess my old roommate went off and Impressed, so... Um." He'd sort of forgotten where he was going with this. Shells, this guy was huge.. Had he been staring? He really hoped he wasn't staring. "I'll just.. Um. Stop talking now." Yeah, that seemed like a good idea.
 

[Tsunake]

Oh. He was talking. Goran glanced back at kid... who, now that he was giving him a proper look, wasn't really much of a kid at all. After a moment, he decided not speaking would be a jerkish thing to do. It didn't mean he had to talk a lot, right? Internally, he sighed and mentally steeled himself for the task at hand.

"Hey," He grunted, awkwardly flexing his fists for a moment. So he'd left and come back? How... well. Long story. But then the guy was talking about his roommate Impressing, and he focused on that. No, wait. Let's go back to the story. "...Why would you want to leave?" He asked, his brows furrowed for a long moment.

Wasn't impressing a dragon what everyone wanted if they had the chance? It was a chance to break away and start a new life, a life that mattered. ...Unless he hadn't wanted to leave. He just hadn't had a choice, and just finally gotten the opportunity to come back.

His brows creased at the thought. If that was the case, he was a deadglow for assuming otherwise. "Sorry." He grumbled, glancing elsewhere. This was already not going well.

Druidtigeress

 

[DruidTigeress]

Tsunake

Far from being offended, Timor clearly brightened at the opportunity to discuss why he left. "Well!" he started, grinning in spite of himself. "It's actually pretty interesting.." (which is usually what he said when he knew it really wasn't but felt like he needed to convince people) "They were setting up this new observatory in the far Northern mountains -the sky is clearer at higher altitudes, you see, and the cold usually reduces the moisture in the air- and my old master was the one founding it so he asked me along. I was supposed to be testing and calibrating the new equipment, but I ended up getting pulled into this side project tabulating lunar distances as a tool to facilitate the determination of longitudinal distances at sea from observations of the Moon.."

He'd gotten half way into his enthusiastic rant before he realized he was leaving something out.. "Oh.. I'm a starcrafter!" he finally blurted out, explaining. Having finished putting away things some time ago, he sat back on his bed, grinning sheepishly. "Sorry, should have said that first."

He'd also been talking a lot, he realized. He had a tendency to do that whenever the topic of starcraft came up. He knew it wasn't everybody's favorite thing, but he always felt a strange drive to try and drag people into loving it like he did. He sometimes thought that if people could just see the craft the way he did, more people would be interested in it. But he knew that was a pretty narrow minded view. And here he was only going on about his interests..

"Err... How about you? What did you do before here?"  

[Tsunake]

He'd been up in the mountains? Goran followed that much--until the lad began to babble on about equipment.... and then terms that Goran had never heard before in his life. He felt much like a deadglow, staring stupidly as his roommate went on explaining--until he blessedly stopped to interject a very important fact.

"You study stars?" He said bluntly, his thick brows raised in surprise. Stars... Before coming to High Reaches, he used to stare up at the night sky and watch them. Too exhausted to sleep, but too tired to move, he'd taken great comfort in those small, twinkling lights glittering in the vastness of the sky... but he'd never realized that being able to apprentice and study them was even an option.

Goran grunted when the topic turned back to him, debating for a moment. Part of him wanted to tell the young man that it was none of his sharding business. The other part knew that doing so was just rude, especially when he had been the one to pry first. "I worked in a mine. Nabol. Not their fancy ones. Got iron, mostly." It wasn't something he particularly cared about. Necessity had made him good at it, but considering he wasn't allowed to do anything else... well, he'd dreamed of places far outside of those dark, winding tunnels.

"What if you Impress?" He wanted to know, curious. "Will you keep studying stars?" Was such a thing even allowed?

DruidTigeress

 

[DruidTigeress]

Tsunake

Timor nodded and smiled. "Stars and moons and asteroids.. It's pretty awesome." he said, unable to conceal his love of his craft.

He nodded mutely at Goran's reply, not sure how to respond. He hesitated to ask more about his work. Not that he wasn't interested in mining, he was (he was interested in most things, in fact) but the conditions in Nabol's mines were infamously poor and he knew not everyone who worked there did so of their own free will. He didn't want to badger him into talking about something he might find painful.

Instead, he focused on answering Goran's question. "Sure! My mum's a starcrafter and she has a dragon! Makes it easier, she says. You can jump between places like no one else can. Of course, that was before threadfall..." Honestly, he wasn't sure. He knew if he impressed now, he would have to stay at the Weyr. He'd be separated from his mother and sister- possibly forever. Passes were long, longer than most dragonrider's lifetimes. Things would probably never go back to how they were... "I don't know. I guess it's different now." he admitted. "But I hope I can. Starcrafting is important too. If we can track the location of the red star, we have a better chance of knowing when thread will fall, and where."

Despite the bleak conversation, Timor grinned. "Hey, did you know the red star isn't actually a star?" he said.
 

[Tsunake]

Frankly, Goran was more than happy to hear Timor talk about his life instead of focusing on his. He didn't say much, but he was listening attentively. Between... He didn't shiver, but he shifted his uncomfortably. He'd always heard stories, of course, of the cold nothingness that only dragons could navigate.... Still, with his mother being a dragonrider, that certainly made things easier. And would it boost his chances at Impressing? Goran didn't voice these thoughts aloud, but.... Timor likely knew all sorts of things about dragons that Goran had never even thought of.

He offered a curt nod at the mention of thread, his lips thinning as he frowned. Thread and the red star... Being able to better predict it would be a blessing for everyone, no doubt. Before he could think much longer on it, the question made him blink. "Then why do they call it a star?" Goran asked slowly, taking Timor's word on it. After all, he knew nothing about stars.... or... not-stars.

He was watching the other intently, his arms folded across his broad chest. If it wasn't a star, what was it? He'd ask if he had to... but hopefully Timor would indulge him.

DruidTigeress

 

[DruidTigeress]

Tsunake

"Hmm. That's a good question. I don't actually know that.." Timor said, frowning thoughtfully. He'd never really thought about why people had named it that. "I guess because it looks like one?" he guessed, though he'd have to go looking through the records later and see when the first occurrence of the term was, or if it had just always been that way. Perhaps they gave some kind of justification for why it was called that. "Well, it's about the same size as a star when you look at it in the sky anyway." Yeah, that was probably it..

"It's actually a planet," he went on to explain. "With an eccentric orbit, like this.." He traced a long oval in the air with his finger. "Whereas ours is more like this." he added, making a more circular. "That's why it only comes around very rarely." He shrugged. That was his one piece of 'fun' trivia, which he often used as a conversation starter. Though perhaps it really wasn't the best icebreaker.

Since Goran had been listening to him so far, and at least didn't seem to be bored or annoyed by him, Timor went out on a limb, "Are you interested in Starcrafting?" he asked.  

[Tsunake]

His lips pursed thoughtfully for a moment before Goran nodded, accepting that explanation. If it glowed in the night sky like any other star, why would anyone think it was different? Good job, Timor, because that makes perfect sense to him!

A planet.... His brows narrowed skeptically, but he was carefully watching Timor's hands as mimed out the orbit. "Which is why we also don't know where Thread's gonna be all the time." Goran said slowly, looking curiously to the other young man as though to confirm that he was following this logic.

The question made him hunch his shoulders for a moment, and when he finally answered, there was no mistaking the defensiveness of his tone. "....I liked watchin' them at night. Always wondered how they glowed 'n stuff." He was expecting to be mocked, tension rippling through his broad shoulders even as he unconsciously readied himself for a more aggressive confrontation.

DruidTigeress

 

[DruidTigeress]

Tsunake

"Right!" Timor said, nodding enthusiastically. "Well, I mean... That also has to do with some variables in the Red Star's trail and the orientation of the planet at the time but.. pretty much! And that's exactly what starcrafters are trying to solve right now. Predicting exactly where and when thread will fall." He lifted his shoulders. "Well, problem is, our predictions have been wrong in the past." he said with a concerned but resigned shrug. Case in point, the fact that thread was back at all.

Smiling, he bobbed his head again at Goran's answer. "I got into it because of my mother, obviously," he added with a laugh. "But it was the same for her I think. She liked to watch the stars at night. My great grandfather was a ship hand, and he would tell her stories about the constellation. So I guess you could say it runs in the family."