This Grand Adventure (Tag Zen/Novarel)

[Taxx]

After the hard work the day before, sorting and organizing the Weyr to make it seem more like home, Vitra had been all too glad to settle down and sleep. It was strange, really; not only was she spending her second night in a new place, it was Turns in the past. The night before had been the first she'd spent away from Benden Hold, and she'd spent half of it looking forward to the dawn. Her exhaustion helped her to find sleep quickly, and not until Rukbat rose did she wake, spending a moment wishing she could sleep more- and then remembering all of what had happened the day before.

Furs thrown back, the young girl roused, helped with breakfast for the group, and then took her share over to where Nova was sitting. She hadn't had much chance to talk to him the day before, so why not now? She wanted to get to know all of her fellow Candidates, her hopeful future weyrling-mates, and Nova was a good place to start. He looked about her age. "Hi!" she chirped as she settled beside him and took a bite. "Sleep well? It's odd, isn't it, being here? Knowing when so many even at Mavros don't?"
Zen

[Zen]

Novarel

Novarel had thought he'd never be able to get to sleep over the excitement of knowing they'd traveled back in time, but there had been so much to do upon their arrival that everyone had worked hard all day. He was definitely not used to so much physical labor, and when he was finally allowed to curl up to sleep in the great cavern that would one day house herdbeasts, he was asleep almost instantly, his entire body aching from all the exertion.

Waking up the next day had been horrible.

He was so tired he was sure he could sleep away the entire day, and maybe the next too, and everything hurt. It had taken several calls and a final threat to dump cold lake water on him to get him up and ready for the day, and then it was with much groaning and wincing as tired, overworked muscles protested every movement. Then the realization came that today would likely be more of the same and he started to wonder if traveling back in time was really as exciting as he originally thought it would be. Leaving Dusty curled up on his furs, Copper took the brown's usual place on his shoulder as he followed his nose to the smell of cooking food.

Dead tired, he hardly tasted his breakfast as he shoveled it unceremoniously into his mouth, realizing just how hungry he was as the first morsels touched his tongue. He could see his mother's horrified look now at his complete lack of manners, and he didn't care. A sudden greeting caused him to jump in surprise, his attention entirely on his food and the task of getting it into his belly as fast as possible.

“Mmf!” he started to attempt a greeting back, but his mouth was full and it turned into nothing but an unintelligible noise. He swallowed quickly and coughed, Copper rustling his wings in agitation, “Sorry. Yeah, I guess. I haven't really thought about it that much, too tired to think. I didn't know it was gonna be so much work.” He stuffed another bite into his mouth without really meaning to and was forced to chew before he could continue speaking, “What's your name? You're new right? I'm Nova.” Copper chirped and he used his fork to gesture to the little bronze, “This is Copper. I wouldn't try to pet him, he's still nippy sometimes with strangers, but I'll introduce you to Dusty later. He likes to be pet. He's still asleep though... lucky for him.” He yawned then, rubbing at his eyes for a moment, “I'm so tired I could sleep forever.”

Taxx

[Taxx]

She'd interrupted the boy mid-bite, she noticed, and as he swallowed back the mouthful Vitra dug into her own breakfast, savoring the taste. When Nova began to speak, she glanced back at him, nodding along to show she was listening as he answered her questions. Tired? He looked it, with those shadows under his eyes. Maybe he'd get lucky enough to find a quiet spot later, to take a nap and recover some of that lost energy, but who knew? There were surely tasks to be done, maybe even lessons to attend, or maybe they were holding off on lessons until everything had been settled in. They'd find out, she supposed.

"I'm Vitra, and yup, I'm new. Like, I just got to Mavros the day before they were going to send us back. Barely had time to settle in before having to pack up again. But this is cool- this is great!" She couldn't help a grin with the words, too excited to really consider Nova's total exhaustion, but she curbed it just a bit when she was given the name of the bronze on his shoulder and she grinned, starting to reach out before she'd taken in the warning not to touch and then withdrawing her hand again with a slight flicker of disappointment. "Hi, Copper," she greeted instead. "And I'd love to meet Dusty. Maybe some day I'll have a firelizard of my own- or a seaspitter or gemglider. Any one would be just great to have."

Tipping her head a bit, she took in Nova's appearance; cramming a bit into her mouth, she chewed and swallowed before piping up again. "Maybe a walk would help wake you up? As far as I know, there's nothing we're supposed to be doing right now, and there's a whole beach to explore. We're close enough we shouldn't run into any trouble, don't you think?"
Zen

[Zen]

Novarel

Despite his overall tiredness, he couldn't help but laugh when Vitra told him she'd only just arrived at Mavros before they all went back in time, “Really? You got to Mavros just in time, huh? I bet that makes it even more exciting.” He shoveled more food into his mouth as she greeted Copper, the little bronze tilting his head curiously at her, lifting his wings slightly and clearly posing, which made Nova snort another laugh. “They are pretty great, mostly,” he grinned, gently prodding Copper's belly with the handle of his fork and eliciting a peep of protest.

She suggested they take a walk, and Copper recognized the word 'explore', his eyes whirling faster as he peered at Vitra and Nova could feel his eager desire to do just that. “Oh yeah, you just got to Mavros so the whole island is completely new to you, huh? I wonder how much is different between now and when we left?” Finishing off his meal as he pondered that briefly, he nodded, “We should definitely have a look. I can show you how to get down to the beach. Hopefully that path was natural and not something people made when they got here.”

If it didn't exist now, they'd have a difficult time getting down from the top of the cliffs to the beach below without a dragon to carry them. He was sure trying to navigate down through the caverns would prove a maze, since none of the caverns had been worked by miners at all and would very likely not be the same. On top of that he'd never been to the beast hold in the present and didn't know those caverns at all as it was. He was pretty sure the way down the cliffs was natural, it hadn't seemed man made, but....

He stood, “C'mon, this way.” He hadn't gone very far when D'rew called to him. Shards, were they going to be put to work already?

Their new candidate master made his way over, “Where are you headed?”

“Ah... Vitra wanted to see the beach. I was gonna show her the path down,” he glanced at Vitra, “We don't have to start working right away do we?”

“Hm,” D'rew considered the two of them, “You shouldn't just go off on your own without telling anyone. There are wild whers and felines on the island, you know. The beach might be safe enough I suppose, but there is still quite a lot of work to do. Ah, why don't you two see if you can catch anything for our next meal? I'll send a couple of the other candidates with you, you'll be safer in a group and be more likely to catch more fish. And I'll have Sabanth watching for trouble as well.”

Nova grinned, “Thanks, D'rew. We'll definitely catch tons of fish for everyone.” He said that, but really he'd never had much luck with fishing. He tried it a few times with Relvanish and Delvirin, but his impatience always got the best of him in the end and he'd never managed to catch a single fish in his life. It was one of the things Delvirin was actually better at than he was. Oh well, it still got them to the beach.

D'rew assigned three other candidates to go with them, but once they got to the beach everyone spread out a bit to pick fishing spots, while Nova stayed with Vitra, walking at the water's edge and carrying his boots as well a fishing pole, letting the water wash over his feet as the waves rushed in and drew back out, “The beach here is way better than in Tidewalk. I mean, the temperature is better. The water's always cold in Tidewalk. Even in the summer. That's where I'm from,” he glanced over at her, “Where'd you come from?” Copper circled overhead, riding the breeze blowing in off the sea. The cool water and breeze both were doing wonders to help him wake up.

OOC: the three other candidates can just be NPCs we can ignore lol
Taxx

[Taxx]

"Just in time!" Vitra agreed. "If I'd been Searched a day later, I wouldn't be here now. I'd never been happier than when Rachel told me I had what it took to Impress." The bronze's obvious understanding of her greeting made her smile and she wished he was accepting enough to let her pet him, but she couldn't make him accept it and it would be better if she acknowledged his dislike of strangers trying to pet him. Besides, maybe she would have her own one day soon- a friendly one like her sister's three- the green firelizard not counted.

"Well, I've been here before, for when my brother T'vir Stood, but I never got a chance to explore so- yes, it's all still pretty new. I've never been so close to the ocean before, it's cool. The waves, I mean." She hadn't had much chance to really notice it the day before, and no time to actually go down to the water before the sun had set. Which meant that Nova's offer was met with enthusiasm, a wide grin as she rapidly worked her way through the rest of her meal before pushing back from the table. "Let's go then!"

Her excitement was only momentarily dampened when D'rew spotted them, but when he decided to allow them to go- with the request to try fishing which Vitra had only heard of a few times and never once even dreamed of attempting. She had no idea what it entailed, but she wasn't too proud to admit that if she had to- and watch to see how the others managed it, unless they were just as clueless as she was. Holding the pole over her shoulder like the others did, Vitra happily trailed after Nova down to the beach, thrilled at the chance at actually getting to get her feet wet and not even minding that they were here under the guise of work. She'd never fished before- she couldn't get in too much trouble if she didn't catch anything, right?

"It's probably always cold in Nerat Bay too," she replied, taking just a moment to kick her boots off before wading in, childishly pleased at the feel of the water swirling around her ankles. "I'm from Benden Hold; the ocean's too far for anyone to walk to, especially with Thread falling so often." Wading back to the sand, Vitra set the end of her pole on the ground, catching the hook in her hand and then glancing over to Nova with a more sheepish grin. "So- you know what to do, right? Holdbound girl here, I'd have never been allowed to do something like this where I'm from."

[Zen]

Novarel

“Benden huh?” Novarel paused as Vitra waded into the water to glance behind them at where the others had wandered in the other direction, and caught sight of D'rew's blue up at the top of the cliffs, watching for trouble. He didn't know all that much about Benden Hold, it had never much mattered to him so most lessons about it sort of went in one ear and out the other.

He looked back over at Vitra as she asked if he knew how to fish and made a face when she'd pointed out she'd never been allowed to try it before. His sisters hadn't been allowed to do certain things either, because it wasn't proper for a lady. Novarel thought it was stupid. He grinned then, “Of course I know what to do. All the men in my family know how to fish. Probably half, maybe more? Of the entire population of Tidewalk are fishers.” He didn't have to tell her he'd never managed to catch even a single fish in his entire life. Not with a rod anyway. He was a little better at spear fishing, but D'rew hadn't given them spears.

“It works better with bait but well... we'll have to make due without for now,” he shrugged and released the hook and weight from where it had been tucked under the line for transport, letting it drop a little before catching the reel to halt the hook's fall. “Let the line out a bit first,” he explained, and swung the rod a little to show her the length he'd let out. “From there you lighten your grip on the reel to just enough to hold it until you cast with a quick snap,” he pulled the rod back to the side and snapped it forward in a sharp motion, sending the line flying out over the water where it fell with a soft plop as hook and weight both sank, “That's probably the trickiest part, making sure you let go of the reel at the right time. And after the hook sinks you wanna let the current take the line a little bit, but then keep your hand on the reel or it'll just pull your entire line out. Some reels have stoppers built on so you don't have to hold the reel back yourself, but it doesn't look like these ones do. Which means we have to hold them the entire time and can't just stick them in the sand.”

He sighed unhappily, “And then you wait.” But another grin tugged at his lips again as he looked over at her, “Oh, uh... careful when you cast that you don't throw the entire rod, and... maybe move down that way a little so you don't catch me on your hook the first couple times. Not that I don't trust you.” He reeled his back in and waited for Vitra to give it a try so he could help her if she needed it before he had to try and focus on the stupid waiting business.

Taxx

[Taxx]

Gamely, Vitra copied each step of instructions, determined to get a hang of this. Nodding along, she glanced between Nova's pole and her own as she completed the last one, and grinned as he requested she move a bit farther away so she didn't snag him with the hook. "Do people actually throw the whole rod sometimes?" she asked, her smile breaking into laughter at the thought of them just chucking the whole thing into the water- and their reactions afterward.

"Okay, here I go!" she warned, hesitating just a moment at the self-conscious thought that she'd do badly, hoping Nova wouldn't give up on her if her first didn't go very well. It seemed simple enough, though: just toss the line into the water. Would the waves take it farther out? A motion to the side caught her attention just as one of the other Candidates cast, and Vitra tried to imitate the effortless way he'd done it. An overhead toss was easy enough, the string and hook sailing out- to land on the damp sand just short of the waves rushing out, and she flashed an embarrassed look at Nova. "I'll get it, I promise! I don't give up that easy!"

It took a few more times, a few more adjustments to her throws, before she finally got it right, and pride warmed her as she let out more line as the hook sank out of sight into the water. "And now, we wait?" she repeated, grinned brightly at Nova. "The most boring part of fishing, I take it? Have you caught anything? What kinds of fish are there around here- if you know that?"

[Zen]

Novarel

Nova couldn’t help but laugh as she asked if people really threw the entire fishing pole, “My nephew did his first time. Great Faranth it was funny. The look on his face!” Unfortunately Delvirin was a deal more sensitive than he was and being laughed at had made him cry at the time. Of course, they hadn’t been all that old when they’d had their first go at fishing either. “He cried, so I threw mine too to make him feel better,” he grinned over at her, “He got better than me at fishing anyway, even if he was really bad at casting at first.”

He watched her take her first try and covered his mouth with his hand to hide his grin, “Well, at least you didn’t throw the pole?” He chuckled, but was glad to see she wasn’t letting her poor first try keep her from trying again. When her line finally flew a decent distance, hook and weight plopping into the water, he cast his back out as well with another sigh, “Yeah, now we wait….”

When she asked if he’d ever caught anything, he chewed his lip lightly. He’d had success with spear-fishing… it wouldn’t really be a lie if he told her he had caught something. “I’ve caught stuff,” he responded confidently, “Whitefish, actually. They’re real common around Tidewalk. I’ve caught a couple redbellies too, but they aren’t normally found in the sea.” And that was about the extent of his fishing knowledge.

He twitched his rod a bit, hoping the movement might attract something, and also because just standing still was starting to get really unbearable, “There’s probably different fish here, since the water’s so much warmer.” But he couldn’t begin to guess what they might be. He’d probably eaten them before, but he didn’t really pay attention to the details about his food’s background. Fish were, all in all, pretty boring animals.

Copper, still circling over the water, suddenly dove down and with barely a splash, was pulling back up into the air with a small fish of some sort in his jaws, all but swallowing it whole while he continued to circle. “Showoff!” Nova called at him, but the bronze ignored him, his whirling eyes watching the water below for his next target. Nova sure hoped the other candidates were having more luck because he didn’t have high hopes for himself or Vitra when it came to catching anything worthwhile. But maybe she would get lucky. Maybe she had more patience than he did.

Growing bored, he looked over at her, “So what did you do for fun in Benden?”

Taxx

[Taxx]

Vitra had grinned at the story, amused at the thought of Nova and his cousin as kids trying their hand at fishing, before glancing back at the water and taking her first go. Sure, it took a few times- and she might have got a little overeager as she kept trying, but the rush of success as she managed to finally make a decent cast made it worth it. The waiting, though. She'd never been particularly good at sitting and doing nothing, and it was barely exciting watching the waves roll in. She picked up the conversation again in an attempt to have something to do, looking toward Nova as he mentioned what they might catch.

She didn't know much about fish; being landlocked, all seafood had been dead by the time it made its way to the Weyr, and nobody had really seemed to care much about it before then. Questions had been met with a shrug or a glare, and she'd given up. Maybe she could actually learn about that now, being in Mavros.

Copper's display made her laugh, and she kept half an eye on him as Nova asked another question. "Ugh," she groaned dramatically. "Not much. My mother was determined to turn me into a proper lady, so all I ever got to do was what she thought I needed to know. Holds are boring. It's so much better here, even if some of the chores are dull. Like this- she'd faint if she saw me doing this- wearing these." She plucked at the outfits she'd scrounged from Mavros in the brief time she'd been there. They were perfectly adequate, but nothing like the dresses she'd owned. Which she'd shoved in the bottom of her trunk and hardly looked at. "Now, you- what's it like being at Mavros? Father doesn't think much of it, said it was a Weyr of... well, misfits, to put it lightly." The actual language had been much more colorful.

[Zen]

Novarel

Nova wrinkled his nose at the words ‘proper lady’. He’d heard those words before back home, when he’d tried to get Valwia to do something or another and sometimes she would while other times she wouldn’t. But if their mother caught her at certain things there would always be a scolding about how it wasn’t proper for a lady to be doing such things. Nova always thought it was stupid, but Valwia took it to heart and never did it again.

He grinned as Vitra explained how her mother would react to seeing her wearing what she was wearing, doing what she was doing. People sure had a lot of weird thoughts about what girls should and shouldn’t do. Meanwhile there wasn’t a whole lot he could think of that he was ever told not to do because only girls did it. But then, he’d never really been much interested in the things girls usually did either.

“What’s it like being at Mavros? Hmmm…,” he thought for a moment, twitching his line again as he tried to tempt a fish to bite, “I’ve never been away from home or my family this long before. I kinda miss them, but it’s been great anyway. Doing new things, meeting new friends, and getting to be on the sands at a Hatching already, even if I didn’t Impress then-OH! Look at THIS!” He shoved his pole into the sand and promptly stopped caring about it as he turned around to pull his shirt up over his back, where the scars from a hatchling’s claws showed pale against his skin, “I got mauled by a hatchling trying to get to her new rider. Cool, right? My mother almost made me come home after that, but my father convinced her to let me stay.”

He grinned over his shoulder at Vitra, only bending the truth a little about his supposed mauling and happy to be able to show off the scars. His brother Rilano had some scars from his smithwork and liked to say that ladies loved them. It stood to reason that Vitra would like his scars, then, wouldn’t she?

Taxx this boy x'D

[Taxx]

Nova's excitement was catching and Vitra hung on every word, nodding along and giving a gasp and then a jealous sigh as he told her he'd already stood for a Hatching. His sudden shout caught her off guard, but she watched, enthralled, as he turned his back to her and hitched his shirt up to reveal the scars. Thoughtlessly, Vitra reached out, but she stopped and pulled her hand back before making contact; she edged closer, though, and stared.

She knew Hatching injuries were a thing, and not a rare or even uncommon thing; hatchlings, T'vil had told her once, didn't care who you were; if you were in their way they'd either push you aside or go through you. She remembered asking, wide-eyed, if candidates died, and sucking in a gasp when he had nodded affirmation. Nova's scratches didn't seem too bad, but it was living proof of her father's comment. "That must have hurt," she replied. "You're so brave- getting scratched up and not letting it stop you from Standing again. Aren't you scared it could happen this time too?"

Another thought came to her: what if she got mauled? Could she still Impress if she were all clawed up? What if... and her face fell a bit, apprehension swamping her- what if she got killed? Would Arvia and T'vil be sad, or angry that she'd done this to them- to herself? So caught up in her thoughts, she hardly paid attention to the pole in her hand that was twitching in sharp little jerks- and when the line suddenly snapped taut, she nearly lost her grip on it, a gasp breaking free before her fingers closed tightly around the pole and her voice was a sudden shriek as she whipped around to stare at Nova. "What do I do?"