Living Cavern -- Starmount(#38RDJLM)
A huge, vaulted dome of rock arches overhead, pocked in places with outcroppings and little holes where firelizards are constantly squabbling and eating various things. The floor of the cavern has been smoothed out by years of feet walking over it, polished to a shine except for the scuffs of table legs. The rough wooden tables are scattered around the room, chairs distributed almost as randomly. Dishes cover the tables, filled with all kinds of foods kept ready for hungry riders and weyrfolk, with firelizards swooping and playing amoung them, grabbing snacks as they will.
 A wide tunnel to the east leads out to the bowl, while several much smaller tunnels lead off in various directions. One dark tunnel, sloping downward, leads to the lower cavern complex for residents. Another, judging from the delicious smells coming from it, can only lead to the kitchen. The last, a steeply upward-sloping tunnel, bears a small iconograph beside it denoting the record hall.

You see:
 Aewen, Sitting in a chair in the middle of the room
 Ramaki, standing near the door.
 Tamial, standing near the door.

Aewen grins. "Mm. I like the little green ones."

"Little green ones." Tamial mulls that, glancing casually toward the newcomer. But candy's forgotten, and a brow arches as she spies the former Puokano. "Well, well. Heyla. Convinced him to sleep, did you?" She's not -that- far from weyrlinghood, herself, after all.

In clumps Puo, scowling at the dusting of snow he leaves behind on the cavern's floor. But attention slides away from the quickly-melting wetness upon Tamial's greetings, and he even manages a faint smile. "Something like that." After a minute hesitation, O'kano strides towards the sideboards, and food. "He's full, and he usually can't do much more than sleep after he's fed and oiled -- but /I'm/ still hungry."

Tamial nods, running a finger gently over Dashing's ridges. Back in a pleasant mood, the little 'lizard butts his muzzle against her cheek. "At least you can tell when it's you hungry," she observes, tone cool but appreciative. "Sometimes I had difficulty deciding if it was her or me with the grumbling belly. Easy to feed them too much if you're hungry yourself, too."

Aewen has left.

"When he's not awake and I'm still hungry, then I know," O'kano states simply, gaze fastened upon his goal: food. Meatrolls and wherry and herdbeast and tubers. He fixes himself up a plate and snags a mug of klah before retiring to a chair.

Ramaki has disconnected.

Tamial nods slightly, watching the young bronzerider with a peculiar kind of expression. She rests her chin in a hand, laying aside her quill for now. "Is he anything like you'd have expected?" she wonders after a moment, a hesitation to it as if she isn't sure she should ask.

Fork poised over a succulent, crisped tuber, Puo pauses. "No," comes the response, finally, as the weyrling resumes eating, popping the legume in his mouth; he munches. "No, I'd say not." He refuses to glance up, attention transferring from plate to mug, then back again.

Tamial nods again, brow furrowing. Still, she's silent for another moment or two, pushing hides around with her fingertips. But curiosity-- maybe something more-- wins out. "Are you all right? It was... a shock, for me. I had Z'ina to talk to. If I hadn't, I don't know how I'd have handled it."

"Fine." O'kano's response comes rather quickly--too quickly, perhaps. "I mean, Jharzeth's wonderful, and I can't imagine not being with him, but..." He fidgets. "But I never even /wanted/ to ride." Puo becomes the master of understatements as he hurriedly shovels food into his mouth, and spares a tiny peek over at Tamial to gauge her reaction.

Tamial's quirked smile is more than a touch wry. She nods against her hand, sighing. "Nothing to be ashamed of-- my example aside." With a grimace, she straightens up and turns her chair a little so she can lean back and still converse well enough. "I didn't either. Matrith wouldn't take no for an answer from me any more than he would from you. I tried to push her away when she came to me-- meant to, anyway. It didn't work out like that, obviously."

O'kano's eyebrows rise slightly as he listens, slurping from his mug. "Obviously," he echoes, bemused; then, after a moment's hesitant silence, he offers, "I tried to get away, but I wasn't fast enough, I guess. It sounds like they don't take no for an answer."

"Khavvi would've followed me," Tamial says quietly, looking down rather than at you; canines aren't the only ones to take eye contact as a challenge. She flips lightly through the hides again, moving one to a new pile. "She says she would have, and I believe her. You couldn't give him up now, could you?" Her smile twists again, a little ironic. "I still regret, but there's no way I could trade for what I had before, not knowing what I'd lose."

O'kano admits, "I couldn't. He wouldn't let me, anyways, if I'd wanted to trade." The klah mug is set upon the table, and he picks up his fork once more, digging into the pile of rapidly disappearing foodstuffs. "Yeah. That's pretty much how it is for me, too. Sometimes I don't know what to think anymore."

"It took me a long time," Tamial agrees, still focused on inconsequentials; hides, firelizard, the quill in her ink pot. "Months. I think it bothered Khavvi a lot until I got over it," she adds, hesitant again but for a different reason. "She scared me a little. So don't think it's just you." Now she does look up, trying to be supportive but not entirely good at it-- too independent, too little a mother. "I think a lot of Holdbred go through it. You can always come talk, if you want. To Cam, if not me-- he was raised even less Weyrbred than I."

"I could?" Tentatively, O'kano notes, "I'll keep that in mind." He sets in on a roll, fingers tearing off bits and pieces before mashing them into a round, doughy ball. "I didn't know that, about C'drel--wouldn't have guessed." The last is said rather dryly, in a recognizably-Puo tone of pre-Jharzeth.

"You could." Tamial smiles a little. "I won't bite, I promise. Nor would Cam. I think he likes you." Mind, she's silently praying that he doesn't invite in yet another 'stray.' "Aye, he's Trader-born but grew up mostly as an apprentice Vinter." Her tone, too, is dry. "I daresay you wouldn't have guessed. My family-- the Bazrin-- are closer to Weyrbred than Holder. A Trader camp's a lot like a Weyr. It was only Khavvi who took me by surprise. By storm."

O'kano's immediate response is in the negative: "No he doesn't." Of course, with his previous experiences, Puo doesn't expect anyone to like him. "I remember the traders coming through Boll, and Ista," he recollects. "My mum always told me to keep away -- said those sorts weren't respectable. She doesn't like weyrfolk, either."

Tamial wrinkles her nose dubiously. "I think he may," she corrects lightly. "Matrith does. Besides-- you're family now." Mind, she says it a little uncertainly but only a little. "And your mother will have to change her mind, won't she?" Now she smiles honestly, though still wry. "My folks never minded Weyrfolk, though most Bazrin business is in Holds. But we've got enough odd types in our lot that it would've been silly to dislike Weyrs. Shells know, Uncle Arbin'd be thrown out by the Holder types-- it's why he worked at Azov for so long." A pause. Then: "You're respectable still, aren't you? Despite Jharzeth, despite it all? The rumors aren't all true."

"Matrith just likes throwing me in the snow," O'kano remarks half-heartedly. Eyes are rolled, next, and he notes, "My mum's opinions don't change frequently. She's got relatives who ride, but that doesn't mean that they're on speaking terms." A faint smile quirks at lips, and he shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know." He nearly pounces on the last words, however, and queries, "Rumors?"

"If he didn't like you, he wouldn't have let you anywhere near his eggs," Tamial corrects, laughing. "You really think she'd stop speaking to her own son?" she adds, the laugh trailing off into a sudden frown. "My parents were just a bit miffed that I didn't Impress a chromatic, I think. Khavvi would have nothing to do with hauling things around-- which makes her all but useless to traders." This still seems to amuse her lifemate, too. "Rumors, yes." She tilts her head, blinking thoughtfully. "The ones you used to refer to," she teases. "About orgies in the living cavern, dragons eating babies-- how many are there, after all? Dozens?"

O'kano admits, "Maybe." A quick shake of his head comes next, and he corrects, "No, she won't. Maybe one of my other brothers, but not me." Puo is, after all, his mother's favorite. "She'll just sigh a lot and say, 'The poor dear! Stuck with that /thing/' until my father threatens to have her taken up here to see for herself how I'm faring." His nose wrinkles. "Oh. Those."

"Those." Tamial chuckles again, quietly. "Well, as long as you're all right with it. If my relatives started insulting Khavvi, I think I'd be terribly tempted to have her bite someone." << I wouldn't! >> "Threaten to, anyway." She gives up stirring hides around, and sneaks a curious look. "So what's he like?" Then she amends hastily, "If you want to talk about him. Sometimes I didn't want to talk to anyone about Khav. She was-- she is-- more mine than anything I'd ever had before. It's easy to be selfish about a dragon. I don't know that it's wrong to, either."

O'kano grins a bit, remarking, "That's just how she is. I'm used to it." He brightens, as conversation moves to Jharzeth, and Puo quickly informs, "I don't mind talking about him--he's perfect. He's got a temper, though. Lets me know when he doesn't like something." And that's frequent enough. "He wants me to be perfect, too...his standards are hard to live up to, sometimes."

Tamial nods, listening with obvious interest. "Standards? What sort? Just how you ought to be, or specific things? Khavvi always wanted me to be less serious-- to spend more time with her, instead of hidework." Still does, in fact.

O'kano clarifies, "Just how I should be, mainly. He says lots of little things: stop complaining, be polite, don't even /think/ about saying that." Rueful, the weyrling adds, "I don't always like it."

Tamial grins before she can stop herself, then looks sheepish and amused at once. "Oh, so that's what it is," she murmurs, and ducks apologetically. "They can be like that," she admits, not that it's something that needs saying. "Khavvi's got a problem with keeping secrets-- she's always blurting things she oughtn't. They all seem to have their little preferences. He'll probably grow out of it eventually, and let you do mostly what you want." Probably, unspoken, after habits have been changed at least somewhat. But she wouldn't -say- something that insulting.

"Maybe," O'kano replies doubtfully. "We'll see. Khavrineth hasn't grown out of giving away secrets, yet, has she? Maybe Jharzeth won't ever let up." A polite, courteous, gracious Puo--the horrors.

Tamial clears her throat. "Well, not entirely. Mostly, though. She doesn't read off my cards in dragonpoker anymore." Very often.

Plate clear, Puo clambers to his feet. "He's awake, and itchy," reports the lordling, almost apologetically. "So I'd better go oil him before he makes enough fuss to disturb the Weyr." He pauses, adding, "Thanks for talking with me. I'll see you later." And then O'kano departs, leaving his dishes behind for someone else to clear. Typical.