If Life Were A Story (Siarryn)

[Whim]

Rekima had not been in the Weyr for more than a day, but he was already quite fond of it. More the type of fondness he felt when visiting a new Hold and exploring a Gather, but still a fondness. And, really, who could blame him? The Weyr was exciting! Full of dragons, which he couldn't much interact with but which were all universally gorgeous, and people, who were all interesting (if generally busy) and fun to talk to, and Sol and Bell had yet to stop flitting away from his shoulders every few minutes to greet some new firelizard, or an entire new fair. He'd tried giving them pieces of meat to offer to the other firelizards a few times, but they just ate them; it seemed that gifts were a concept slightly beyond their abilities. Oh well; they were getting along quite well with the others anyway.

Rekima brushed his hair out of an eye as he reached the dining cavern, glancing around to find a table with enough space for him to sit. And a few others; there weren't too many open seats in the cavern, but those that were open seemed to be clustered into a few spots. Well then, there would be plenty of room for Sol and Bell to sit and eat without having to perch on his arms or shoulders, or for someone new to join him. Or both; neither Sol nor Bell were spending that much time with him. Even walking into the cavern, Sol was cartwheeling somewhere in the air with a new friend, and Bell launched into the air himself as Rekima neared his chosen seat.

The food was not too unusual; in larger quantities than he often saw, and perhaps a bit more richly flavored, but Rekima was quite familiar with sliced and seasoned tubers, roasted meat, and stuffed rolls. And all were quite good, too, and plentiful. Rekima only needed a glance at the seemingly endless stream of laden plates to dismiss any potential guilt about taking as much as he wanted.

[redwerecat]

There was a loud and distinctly feminine screech as Bounty winged her way into the cavern, complaining loudly and spinning in midair to chide the young man tailing her. Said young man seemed perfectly happy to just wave her off and ignore her entirely. So the gold fire lizard screeched again and dove at his head, violently assaulting his hat and succeeding in knocking the fedora clear off his head.

Siarryn sighed, rolled his eyes skyward, and muttered something under his breath before he grabbed the creature and trapped her under one of his arms, ignoring her complaints and struggling until she gave up, whereupon he just set her on his shoulders like some giant, glittery scarf, and Bounty shut up and sat there, grooming his ears. Sia grinned, whistled a little tune at her (he had both her and Gambit trained to answer to vocal commands- specifically whistles) and scooped up his hat. He gave it a little twirl, sat it back on his head, flicked his arms out to settle his long jacket back on properly, and surveyed the dining hall.

Let's see... oh. Handsome, pretty, something sparkly that caught the only slightly kleptomaniacal young man's attention over there-

Attention caught.

Without any bit of preamble, Siarryn made his way toward one of the empty clusters of seats (why did the empty seats always build up in little bubbles like that?) grinning his trademark 'This is going to either be awesome or blow up in my face and I don't care anyway so let's have some fun' grin and appropriating a muffin from someone's tray with a flick of his tail.

By the time they even noticed he was sliding into the seat across from the young canine tailed man, tipping his hat politely.
"Well I ain' seen you around here before, handsome." Siarryn said. "You either new or I've missed seein' you somehow, which is a cryin' shame given the fact that yous far too pretty to have missed catchin' my attention. Name's Siarryn. Min' if I join you...?" He was definitely fishing for a name here. And if he got utterly blown off, well that was half the fun.

[Whim]

It was almost predictable that Rekima had just taken a particularly large bite of particularly chewy meat when someone--tall, with a very long tail and fluffy ears, and Rekima needed a hat like that, now that he'd seen it--sat across from him... and immediately started flirting.

Rekima was struck by a sudden sense of disappointment that this wasn't a girl.

...Oh well, new best friend in sight!

It took a moment for Rekima to be able to answer, but in the meantime his ears perked up, pointing toward Siarryn to listen better. And when he could answer, he grinned. "Sorry; feel free to sit. I'm Rekima, and definitely new." His eyes visibly flicked over Siarryn. "Normally I'd never argue with handsome, but everything is relative...."

It was at that point that one of his firelizards--Rekima couldn't tell which--dove at his head, making him yelp and tangling his hair horribly, in order to chatter a greeting at the gold Rekima had half noticed wrapped around Siarryn's neck. Rekima buried his face in his hands, as the firelizard perched there, torn between laughter and annoyance. Laughter won. "And apparently, my lizards don't like my ego. This's either Bell or Sol, the other's off meeting every lady lizard he can find. Now get down, you!" He reached up, removing what turned out to be Bell from his head with minimal protest and only a few scratches, and set him, and a piece of meat that Bell immediately attacked, on the table, then grinned at Siarryn as he attempted to fix his hair, having to disentangle some strands from the metal bits he'd stuck in it. "So! Wonderful to meet you. What's the Weyr like? I just got here last night."

[redwerecat]

Sia's grin stayed plastered to his face, and, if possible, only got bigger as his lovely new friend began to speak. (And he was in no way offended by the perfectly timed bite of food or anything- Sia had a habit of making quite sure he timed things like that- gave him longer to throw out his initial proposition if they couldn't immediately answer.)
"I wasn' exactly gonna leave either way, but I'm quite glad you ain't chasin' me off." He said with a cheeky little grin.

At the rather blatant examination he spread his hands, giving Rekima a better view. If one could manage to convey 'Like what you see' with a tilt of the eyebrow and a flick of the wrist, well, Sia just had. "Relative, huh? Sugar, you're an easy sight on the eyes no matter what anyone says. What you mean, 'relative'?" He was teasing, actually. (Well mostly. He still wasn't quite sure what that had been supposed to mean, but ego and a half-hearted guess said for him to take it as a compliment.)

And then the firelizard. Sia bust out laughing, trying (and failing) to stifle his snorts of glee with his hands and eventually just settling for letting it go. "Sorry, sorry, but he's a lovely fella. Trus' me, I know the problems with vain little critters like these. Bounty here's a handful in 'erself- though she seems to think your boy's quite the shiny mark, don' she?" Bounty had indeed perked up at the sight of the bronze, and was preening vainly, fluttering her wings and tossing her head back to say 'look at me, I'm soooo beautiful, aren't I?'

Sia snorted. "Vainest lil' gold on Pern, I swear." He watched the bronze tear into the scrap of meat (which, attention off her, Bounty decided SHE wanted, and made Sia feed her muffin by pawing at his ear until he gave her the top) and waited until Rekima was settled before answering.

"So far's I can tell, borin' as a heart attack." He sighed. "Less hidebound than the Holders, sure, but there's all these flamin' rules an' stuff. Then again', suppose to get more interestin' real soon. I hear the eggs were laid, so if I'm right, and you're here for the same reason I am, we've got our work cut out for us. Candidate, right? Heard tell one of the Searchers brought someone in..." He blinked. "Not that I eavesdrop or anything. But you know, the weyr is also very friendly and good for getting information if you know who to talk to an' how. "

He paused. "Or... is that not at all the information you was lookin' for?"

[Whim]

"Now, that would be an absolutely ridiculous thing to do." Even if Rekima hadn't enjoyed flirting, there was no reason for him to chase away a potential friend. Particularly when he didn't yet have any in the Weyr.

Rekima grinned, leaning back casually, and entirely by coincidence making himself a bit more visible as well. "I mean, not compared to you." And, perhaps, not egotistical compared to you, either, but that was best left for someone else to judge (or not, if the two succeeding in distracting said judge with how handsome they both were, of course).

Rekima rolled his eyes as Bell attacked the meat, carefully removing strands of hair from where they'd tangled in and around folded metal corners. "I suspect the feeling's mutual. Though I'm not sure Bell's ever seen a lady he didn't like, either."

Rekima grinned at the semi-rambling answer he received. "I'm looking for any information, really, and I am a candidate." He shook his head. "Last thing I was expecting, but it's not something you can really refuse, you know?"

He paused as he finished detangling the last few strands of hair, and his grin became a bit more playful. "And, you know, rules are useful. They tell you exactly how people will react to a lot of things." Bell had finished the piece of meat he'd been given by the time Rekima finished sorting out his hair, so Rekima absently dropped another, larger one on the table for him. Bell picked it up--despite it being larger than his head--pushed himself off the table, and carefully flapped over to hover in front of Siarryn's face, and more importantly, in front of Bounty, whom he offered the meat to.

Rekima found himself rolling his eyes again. "Oh, so now that you've met a gold, you figure it out."

[redwerecat]

"Rules are meant to be broken, right?" He laughed. "So where people's perceptions an' stuff. Or maybe 's jus' me that likes t' see people squirm when you don' do like they expect you to react..."

Sia watched as Bounty continued to eye the bronze, getting huffy when he was more interested in meat than her, and she fussed at Sia's shoulder and eventually hid her head in his neck in a tizzy. Sia rolled his eyes and murmured something soothing at her. Silly girl.

"Did I mention she's a vain 'un too?" He joked.

He was momentarily captivated by the sparkle there suddenly, and he leaned in slightly to get a better look, instinctively reaching out to touch one of the metal bits in Rekima's hair. And then he seemed to catch himself, and just as swiftly jerked his hand back, flashing a grin at Rekima. (It should be noted however, that he didn't stop leaning forward, and was in fact probably a little closer than strictly necessary.) "Uh, sorry 'bout that. Shiny, ya know? I like it though." He flirted instinctively, and while he meant every word, it was almost habit. Then again, Rekima was pretty, and keeping up with him in conversation, so what wasn't there to like?

"Why th' metal?" He questioned. "Ya don' have to answer tha-"

He blinked and did now lean back as the bronze hovered in front of his face, then yelping as Bounty dug her claws in, hissing, and feigned irritation with the bronze. But a few moments later, after she felt like he'd gotten the full force of her scorn and anger, she uncurled, and sprang off her human's shoulder to flutter at Bell, screeching and taking the meat finally after scolding him for ignoring her before. Good thing she had a very short memory.

"Lady, you's a girl with a temper. 'Minds me why I get slapped so often, though." He said, sympathetically pointing at Bell. "I think your buddy and I might be of a same mind."

[Whim]

"Exactly. Far more entertaining that way." Rekima grinned back. "No point in acting like everyone else, you can just look at them to see how that goes anyway."

The grin turned into a smirk at the gold lizard's behavior. "I was beginning to get that impression, yeah."

Siarryn's lean forward was... not expected at all, really. Nor was the aborted attempt to touch his hair. Regardless, Rekima stayed still, only directing an amused look at Siarryn. "Yeah, no problem." He shrugged. "There isn't really a huge reason. Just, I saw all these pretty bits being thrown away or melted down and figured, why waste them?"

Rekima did lean back as Bell fluttered between them, only to bury his face in his hands at the lizard's antics. "Just wait until Sol gets here," emerged from behind the hands. If someone was inclined to pay enough attention to notice, so did laughter.

[redwerecat]

Sia just brushed off an imaginary bit of dust on his shoulder from the gold's departure, and shrugged. "Oh, ah look forwar' to it." He said, and watched as the gold preened and pranced and generally acted like quite a fancy doll to be adored by any boy within earshot or viewing distance.

Sia chose to ignore her, and just went back to watching Rekima. "Huh. A user of random bits o' stuff. Resourceful." Another flash of a grin. "I still like it." He couldn't seem to decide if he was amused or a bit disappointed by the lack of reaction- call him a showboater, but he DID like making a scene. Not getting a reaction was arguably one of the most confounding things he had ever encountered. And he liked hit. Maybe.

"Hatching." He said, abruptly changing the subject. "You must be here for that- any feelin's on it?"