Squid-napped!

Half Moon Bay Weyr - Candidates' Barracks
Carved from a natural bubble in the volcanic stone, this small dorm room has room enough to hold around two dozen occupants comfortably. Along the walls are stationed sets of cots and clothes presses, each made up to the standards of the weyrwoman. Above, the soft white light from electric lamps cast down during waking hours.


"What the shit?"

Oh yes. Heryn probably thought it was really funny when Venryk's shoe was taken, the now-glittery sandal drug into the deep (er, the tank) to serve as a bed for the little squidlets sharing their space, but when it comes to having his stuff stolen, the shoe was on the other foot. Badum-psh.

"Who did it?" The bartender spins around to point glares at the few inhabitants lingering in the barracks after morning PT, in various states of preparing for the day's work.

"Who did what, darling?," Nadarya purrs from her perch on the edge of her cot, legs curled in front of her in an attractive position, dragging a comb through hair she's letting dangle over one shoulder, head tilted to one side. She had to be on stroke one hundred by now, but still she kept going, pale eyes focused unerringly on Heryn.

"Threw my bottle opener into the tank!," Heryn says, gesticulating emphatically, totally immune to the woman's attractiveness at this point in candidacy. Indeed, there it was, protectively guarded by the curling tentacles of a single squidlet. No, not guarded, Heryn amended with a shake of his head. They couldn't be given that much credit. The stupid thing was just using it as a perch.

"Whoa, really?!" Taleekah hustles over in a flurry of blonde hair, all but shoving her face against the tank to peer into it. "Oh man, crazy! Hey little squid, do you like your new toy?" Her pointer finger scratches the surface of the tank in a little wave.

"It's not a toy," Heryn sighs, lips pursing as he glares into the water, clearly debating something as Nadarya laughs, executing two or three more strokes of her brush to her hair before finally setting the object aside. Her fingers move to begin plaiting her dark locks instead, mouth still curled up around the edges in a permanently smug look. The noise earns a sharp glare from Heryn, which only serves to amuse her more.

"It would seem that it is now," the woman intones, making swift work of the braid, pulling it out at a curious angle as she goes. "The little dear seems rather… attached to its prize." Braid complete, she wraps it about her head in a crown, using small hairpins to set it in place.

"Yeah, well it can go ahead and unattach itself," the bartender grumbles, though he can't quite keep up the grumpy facade - Taleekah has taken to pushing her nose up against the glass, flattening it in a manner reminiscent of a porcine. Blue-grey eyes roll skywards.

"D'you think they're stealing the stuff, maybe?," Taleekah asks in a moment of divine astuteness of the young and imaginitive, vocals warped a bit by the press of her nose against the glass. The question earns a delicate shrug from Nadarya, and an indelicate snort from Heryn.

"What? No, of course not. Don't be ridiculous. That was in the bottom of my trunk. I just left the lid open last night, so I'm sure someone decided to be an asshole and go through my stuff. Budge over, Talee, I'm going to get it out." The girl moves at his insistence, and Heryn lifts the lid of the tank, rolling his half-sleeve further up his bicep before sticking his hand into the tank.

The reaction is an instantaneous flurry of squidlets, some darting to further cover the bottle opener, others to attack the hand entering their territory. Heryn doesn't even get half way to the opener before he's shrieking and jerking his hand back, shedding squidlets as he goes. "What the fuck," he screeches, shaking his hand repeatedly as he snatches it back out of the water, wide eyes staring as the squids flee back into hiding as though nothing had ever happened. "Did you see that?!"

They had. Even Nadarya's mouth was opened in a gentle 'o,' normal smug smirk vanished in the face of the attack. Taleekah looked like her turnday had come early, startlement lasting only a second before she all but smacks her face off the glass in order to press herself up against it again. "That was awesome," she cries, one hand waving in a 'come on' gesture. "Do it again, do it again!"

"I don't think so," Heryn replies, incredulous. "I think one of them bit me." Indeed, there's a teeny puncture on either side of the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, a small amount of blood spreading into the shimmery water on his skin. Nope, he's never putting his hands anywhere near that tank again. There is a sullen look given towards the tank, and especially the bottle opener within, but he shakes his head and steps away from the tank, mumbling a dark, "They can have it."

He, in the meantime, had better go find a certain Healer and make sure squid bites wouldn't result in one of those horrible deaths as described in her books. Stupid shardin' squids.


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