Friends?
Candidate BarracksReiko is sprawled on her cot fully dressed, her hands behind her head, staring blankly at the ceiling. One leg hangs over the side, idly kicking back and forth, soft slipper shuffling against the stone floor. Whuff. Whuff.
Kinecha carries her basket of boots into the barracks hoping for some more peace in here. Heh! Peace! In the barracks? Necha is gravely mistaken as she glances around, seeing various forms, both sleeping and awake. Going to her cot, she slams the basket down on the floor. "I dunno /why/ Ri'k had to squeal to all the other riders," she mutters, picking up a boot to start a spit-shine of it.
Reiko
Jet black hair falls shiny and straight just to her chin, a fringe of shorter hair in front just brushing delicate brows. Her skin is creamy-pale, with just a faint blush on high cheekbones and and full lips. Wide-set emerald eyes are tipped up slightly at the outside corners and framed with thick black lashes, giving her a vaguely feline appearance. Neither overly tall nor overly short, Reiko stands straight-shouldered with quiet confidence and moves with an easy, quiet grace.
A soft blouse of white cotton, sleeveless and open at the throat, ends at her waist in a wide, brightly-embroidered band. Jade-colored skirts swirl heavily about her legs, devoid of decoration, from slender waist to delicate ankles, just a flash of creamy skin showing beneath the hem. Soft black wherhide slippers cover her feet, enough protection for moving about indoors and occasional treks across the bowl.
A single cord, white as new-fallen snow, loops once at her shoulder.
She is awake, but has been staring off into space for a minute.
Reiko is 20 Turns, 1 month, and 7 days old.
Kinecha
Eyes, grayish-green, look out from under long arched brows, darker than the shock-white blonde hair sitting on top of her head. Ragged and uneven ends cut short, bears witness that she doesn't put much interest in personal appearance. A bend in her long, narrow nose, tells of a long forgotten break, and adding to that is a two-inch scar on her right cheek, giving her a face of someone who's lived a hard life. High angular cheekbones and a strong square chin adds to the impression of masculinity, while the arched brows makes her retain some femininity in an otherwise harsh face. Shoulders and upper arms are hardened from long hours of training and work, as is thigh and -calf muscles, while hands and long fingers are callused and scarred. Along her flat abdomen is a five-inch scar, one of many on her body, but the one most predominant. Breasts are small and rounded, almost invisible when she's wearing baggy or heavy clothing, making her look all the more masculine, her height of almost six feet doing nothing to diminish that impression. Slightly tanned face and hands, from hours spent outside, complete the image of a woman easily mistaken for a man.
Tight-fitting black wherhide pants cover her legs to disappear into kneehigh boots, also black, but buffed to a shine. The dark maroon tunic covering her upper body is a couple of sizes too big, the cuffs having been rolled up to fit the length of her arms, making the sleeves hanging heavily from the shoulders. Tied around her neck is a midnight blue bandana, the two ends held together with a small piece of leather-string. On her left side a belt knife rests in its sheath, attached to a broad belt made from tunnelsnake skin.
A single, screamish white cord circles her left shoulder, designating her a Candidate of High Reaches Weyr.
Kinecha is 22 Turns, 6 months, and 13 days old.
The slippered foot stops its lazy motion as the quiet of the mostly-deserted barracks is shattered by banging and muttering. Reiko lets out a barely audible sigh and shuts her eyes. Is there noplace in the Weyr she can have any peace and quiet?
"I have a right to be here, y'know," Kinecha says, hearing and interpreting the sigh from Reiko (seeing as the other Candidate's cot is not far from hers). Dropping a boot back into the basket, she gives a sigh of her own, looking over at the darkhaired one, leaning her elbows on her knees. "We can't keep acting like this," she finally says, eyes searching out Reiko's.
Reiko sets her features in an expressionless mask, emerald eyes opening to stare at the ceiling again. "We?" Her voice is hard, and tight, but still quiet. "You're one to tell /me/ how to act."
Kinecha snorts, letting the polish rag follow the boot into the basket. "So is that why you pretend I don't exsist?" she retorts, getting to her feet to move closer to Reiko's cot. "Am I really /that/ controlling?" Voice harsh and slightly pitched, she crosses her arms in front of her chest, raising her shoulders in a questioning motion, her eyebrows raised in an equally questioning pose.
Reiko turns her face away, reflexively, but otherwise remains motionless. "You're hateful and nasty," she says quietly, carefully keeping any trace of emotion from coloring her tone. "Whether I ignore you or not." Of course, it's worse when Reiko actually speaks to her.
Kinecha drops her jaw. Unwillingly as she's taken aback by Reiko's remark. "W-what?" Taking a few steps back she ends up bumbing into a cot, sitting down on it. Hard. Luckily no one was inhabiting it at the moment. "How.. Why..? I.. I don't understand," she finally gathers herself to say, running a hand through her hair, staring at the back of Reiko's head.
"I don't either." Reiko keeps the same quiet tone, turning to fix an even gaze on Kinecha, really looking at the woman for the first time in a very long time. "But I don't care for it." With a shrug, she turns her eyes to the ceiling again.
Kinecha swallows, turning her eyes to the floor for a good long while, thought churning in her head, as she constantly opens and closes her hand in fists. Raises her eyes again to look at Reiko, she sighs. "I can't see why /you/ should be angry with /me/?" she finally says, closing her fingers in a tight fist. In Necha opinion it had still been the other messing about with other people. So maybe she's dense, but she felt like there was something she'd missed about the whole situation.
Reiko's sigh could almost be called exasperated, but her voice is as dispassionate as before. "I'm not." Well, not most of the time. Of course it's annoying to be snapped at constantly. She drops her head to the side to regard Kinecha with a calm stare. "You're the one who's angry." Still no smirk, but it's not far from the surface. "More or less constantly, I'd wager." Clenching fists are not overlooked. "You're angry now." A simple statement of fact.
"Well, I'd say I have good reason to be angry," Kinecha says calmly, trying /not/ to sound angry, willing her fists to open and relax her fingers. Looking at Reiko she's unable to quell the fire in her eyes however. "I mean, you were the one practically flirting with that musician, right?" She lifts her hand in a somewhat surrendering motion as she tilts her head, eyebrow raised again.
Reiko's gaze doesn't waver. "I do as I please," she says quietly, neither confirming nor denying the accusation. No emotion is betrayed at all, even to her indolent posture.
Kinecha stands. Her arms curling around her body to hug herself. "I figured as much... " she says quietly as she starts to pace back and forth in front of Reiko's cot. "But you could at least have told me that 'fore we got involved." Despite Necha's past, or maybe because of it, she was a one-woman woman, and didn't appreciate when someone was playing games with her.
Reiko turns her eyes ceilingward again with a vague shrug. "You didn't ask." Actually, neither of them had asked the other much of anything... and that had been kind of nice. While it had lasted.
Kinecha stops dead in her tracks, turning to face Reiko, her face a mask of disbelief. "First of all, it's not like I thought I had to, second, if you weren't serious you shoulda told me. I shouldn't have to /ask/!" Taking a deep breath, she stops herself from stomping right out of there to leave Reiko behind for good. Bringing a hand up to rub her forehead, she looks at the other though spread fingers. "Not that we ever said much," she mutters after a long pause.
Reiko shifts in her cot with an indolent stretch. "You never told me you /were/," she replies evenly, as if it were of no consequence at all. Emerald gaze slides sidelong to glance at Kinecha for just a moment before returning to the ceiling. "I never asked because it didn't matter."
"Well, I was," Kinecha whispers, eyes shifting here and there around the barracks. Hands falling to the sides, she sighs again, going to her cot, slumping down into it. "Shoulda know better, I s'pose," she tells herself, picking up a boot from the basket in front of her, grabbing the polish rag and starting in on the faded leather.
Reiko pushes herself up to a sitting position and swings her feet onto the floor, fixing an almost sympathetic glance on Kinecha. But it vanishes so quickly it might have been missed. "You'll know better next time," she says quietly, not unkindly. We all learn sometime. She tucks a chunk of hair behind one ear and turns to leave.
Kinecha watches Reiko's back for a while, before replying to her comment. "But then I won't get involved with someone like you again," she says calmly, giving a shrug of the shoulders. Somehow she felt better now, getting everything out in the open, even though they'd hardly said anything.
Reiko stops in the doorway, halted both by the words and the tone, and turns back to face Kinecha, her arms folded across her chest. For a moment she looks almost regretful, then she shrugs. "If you're smart," she says quietly. Emerald gaze flickers over the guard candie once, then she straightens her shoulders and turns away without a backward glance, slipping out of the barracks without another word.
*** Disconnected ***