Metal and Fire

The slight prickle of hairs along the back of his neck was the only premonition to the individual who was drawing near. Clautiv only brushed it off as a symptom of the cold weather. There was a slight moment of surprise when the voice spoke up next to him, his reaction shown in the slight widening of his eyes and the careful tick of one eyebrow upwards. Well, he hadn't expected someone being so forward. Absently he reprimanded himself for not being more on guard as he looked down at his own clothing that the individual gestured to, catching a glimpse of the burned arm from his peripherals. "S'cold. Winters never been m'favorite." There was a lingering scowl settled on his lips before he looked back towards the woman.

The scowl dissolved as he looked at her fully, a small smile curling onto his lips. There was no reason to be brutish to anyone here yet, especially if they were just trying to instigate in some casual conversation.

Wait.
Was that burn Threadscore?

Clautiv swallowed thickly against the sudden knot of rage that tightened in his throat. She's done nothing. No, the correct phrase was that she's done nothing yet. So it could be deduced that this woman was a dragonrider, not everyone had Threadscore. How fantastic that this woman was one of the individuals that he has such a bitter grudge towards. Were they all always so outgoing? Simply waltzing up to whoever they please and brutishly pushing into some form of conversation? Okay, perhaps Clautiv was looking for an excuse to be short with the woman. Something deep within his gut pulled together, hardening into a tight stone. No, he couldn't be rude, he would have to deal with what was at hand. He didn't come this far simply to be kicked out of his job for being disrespectful to those of higher rank.

This assessment happened in nothing more than a moment, and Clautiv pressed on with conversation.

"I work in warm atmospheres, and overdressing for 'em would be far worse than dealin' with some cold." Cold was an understatement. This was a sharding blizzard. "Granted, I haven't dealt with this kind of cold before."

And so it begun, Clautiv started to slide into an amiable persona to suit the person he was around. This was easier, changing who he was outwardly to put those around him at a state of ease. People had a tendency to be a bit more open when they relaxed, and how else would Clautiv gain any information on this place otherwise? He took another drink of his klah, swishing it around in his mouth a bit before swallowing, relishing the warm sensation of it running down his throat. He turned his gaze back to the fire from a moment, exhaling deeply. "I've never mixed well with snow of any sort."

Clautiv almost immediately felt his ears flush red when the dragonrider started talking again. Although he should've known better than to say something like that he was downright brimming inside with fury. Laughing at you, she's laughing at you. He clenched his jaw for a moment, working through that distress and smirking. Turn to steel. He reflexively fought off the wave of anger, doing his best to come across as the newly transplanted crafter who didn't know any better. It would be easier that way if questions would asked, he could just say that he was unprepared, not loathing the fact that he was transferred to a Weyr for his Journeymanship. It was a smidge harder to contain his composure when the woman had started to giggle.

"I've never had to use 'em before." He nodded to her coat, shrugging a bit as he did so. "Metals make you hot, and if you get too warm you get distracted." He lifted up his hand as if punctuating that with the burns there. "Distractions aren't fun, but it makes you wary of what not to do." Clearly he was in a different environment, and he nodded at her suggestion. "A jacket might be good, especially if I need to go outside at all." There was a grimace on his features for a moment. It wasn't bad enough that he landed at a Weyr, but it was deep winter.

He didn't like the cold. Which was why he worked with metals. Sure, metal itself was cold, but Clautiv made things, he created. There was warmth in creation.

She was judging him, and that made his nerves singe through his chest as it lit up with a ball of contempt. Still. Still as steel. He shrugged at her statement, nodding a bit. "You're right on that point. Haven't been here long at all, but I've been plenty busy." Plenty busy was an understatement, he had been nearly secluded to the craft rooms, although that was partially due to his general dislike of most of the folk around and his best to try and avoid confrontations like this. He could confront when he knew more. This, this was a section of information gathering. He would seep up his surroundings like a sponge and find a way to worm in and make it his own. He hadn't planned on being ridiculed so early on in his plans.

"I was at Telgar." He took another drink of his klah, apparently unaffected by how hot the brew was. "Before here, that is. Reassigned here for Smithing, Metalsmithing in particular." He grinned, sliding into a more amiable personality smoothly. "And apparently the turns in metals have left me with no manners. I'm Clautiv, Journeyman Smith of the Smithhall in Telgar." He dipped his head in a small bow. He knew she was a rider of some sort, and perhaps if he had thought to be more brash he would've spoken up, but instead he kept quiet. Let her introduce herself, most riders usually got a kick out of that, right?

His interest peaked a bit. The current Goldrider had come from Telgar? Telgar Weyr was something he hadn't frequented, but he did know if it, and everyone in the Hold did know who was in charge. So the Weyrwoman of Sunset would be a familiar name, how strange. It wasn't as if Clautiv favored dragonriders in the least, a name he remembered might ignite more spite, if anything. He instead nodded, feigning a look of mild surprise. He grinned broader at her mention of Ista and the weather there. Sure, he had never traveled far outside of the Smithhall but he knew, he had heard stories, heard tales of places with sweltering lands and humid air. It seemed, right then, so far and distant from what he as experiencing.

"Ista, I can only imagine how warm it is there." He allowed himself a chuckle. ignoring the dark, cold steel that settled itself deep within the pit of his stomach. He nodded his head again in a small bow once the dragonrider had mentioned her name and bonded, a force of habit that his manners had forced up, along with a tart, bitter taste in the back of his throat. "Clear skies to you, J'ain. I'll have to invest in this layers idea, sounds like it might fight off the bite that seems to haunt the hallways." He grinned again, and almost, just almost he could feel himself warming up to the informality that the rider had about her. Firstly, her noticed he had a man's name, elided like one. Sure, she was a dragonrider, lumped into that large sum of ignorant, foolhardy, arrogant fools who overstepped their boundaries. However... she didn't act like she required intense levels of praise and adoration.

She did judge. She did laugh.
That was all that seared in Clautiv's mind.

"Glad to be of service. Actually I just finished a load of buckles for riding straps, glad to be helping the riders of the Weyr." It was a bold lie right through his teeth, but he sold it with his look of familiarity and casualness that exuded from him. He'd be deep and bitter somewhere hidden and small inside of him, he'd touch upon it later, when he was alone, and otherwise keep it masked. His issue was no one else’s, and he would hold true to that. He tilted his head a stitch as the rider continued to speak. "Farming, you say? I'm sure each craft has it's strong point within the Weyr, I'm just thankful I can provide my help to it." It wad terribly new, he knew that much, although it, along with the rest, had participated in that turn's long absence.

"Oh! I don't know if I could agree to any dragon being a blob." He admitted that in almost a sheepish light, allowing a soft smile to grace his lips. Dragons. To be entirely truthful, he hadn't touched much on the dragons at all, he hadn't thought much on them at all, he only focused on the riders.

Within a moment his whole composure froze. It would be hard to describe the sensation of a voice breaking into his mind and announcing those words proudly, Clautiv would later realize he couldn't put the feeling into words. It was absolutely, in a way, terrifying. Without much effort this... thing had breached the walls he had safely erected in how own conscious that kept stray thoughts out, and the voice had vibrantly broke in, declaring something about scratching it's 'own rump'. The journeyman only paused, his eyed widening outwardly as he heard the blue dragon's voice. Did everyone deal with this? outward intrusion on a very private mind?

He didn't have too long to think about it when the bluerider seemed to swallow down the contents of her mug and belch. Clautiv suppressed a grin, and after her cackling he almost regarded her next comment as something unreal. 'Ansith says you're worthy of standing.'

Clautiv's stomach froze over.

"St-standing?" The memory of hearing the news of Brondin, his once closest friend, burned in his mind. The boy had been slaughtered, torn to ribbons by a mislead hatchling in a hatching at Telgar. He had died. The person that Clautiv had once associated at being the individual who knew him best, gone with nothing more than a message to tell of his passing. His mind was only distracted by the following question that the dragonrider asked. "Came here? Truthfully, I aim to excel. The MasterSmith had sent me here for further learning, and that's what I had planned. I'm here to shine." Despite the guise he had been fronting, that answer was true to the core. Clautiv was here to succeed, and he would aim and strive to do so no matter what.

Tie themselves on? The mental image that roused up in Clautiv's mind was strange enough, and the Smith managed to grin at the bluerider. Had he been raised more within the Hold rather than the Crafthall he probably would've thought it strange, probably downright wrong that a female was on a blue dragon, a blue male dragon. Clautiv, despite having very clear and set boundaries for nearly every aspect of his life, didn't care about that, not one bit. Besides, plenty of the girls in the Smithhall were of the more, ah, masculine sorts anyways. This J'ain was strange, strange was probably putting it lightly. She had a deep voice and was nothing like the prissy Holdbred women who fancied their lace and ruffles.

He had already known that dragonriders were an unruly lot, turns out most of them were more so than he knew.

"Thread." He murmured the word under his breath when the dragonrider continued to speak of it. Thread, the one thing that kept the dragonriders useful. Without thread what would there be? The only reason these individuals had such egos to boast about was because of thread. It was only the fact that Pern had this villain that created the supposed heroes that were dragonriders. Selfserving heroes. Their dragons were the one who flamed, their dragons were the ones that naturally fought against the deadly silver strands. Clautiv allowed a small smile at the mention of the rider's dragon being a blob--Ansith. He was preoccupied, mind buzzing with the idea of a hatching.

Would he stand there and be cut down just as his friend had been? Were there healers present? Why did no one save him? Were they not to disrupt what happens or was it simply because no one chose to act?

"They pick people from the stands?" The last comment she had made jarred him from his contemplation. Strange. Perhaps had he been someone more interested or more thrilled to be just Searched he would've rambled into the questions that most candidates asked; how was it like? how did they know? what do you do? Clautiv wasn't interested in such a thing, he was conflicted. There was a swell of anxiety from behind his mask of composure, and in an attempt to quell it he swallowed a full mouthful of klah. "I've heard candidacy is a full-time type of rank. Am I officially Searched? And does this mean I have to step away from my Craft?" His tone was serious, a bit more serious than the jovial persona he had been portraying.

If Clautiv didn't have this bubbling grudge that frothed behind the wall of hid mind, perhaps he would've felt a smidge guilty about how false he was acting. Although, that would mean that he had some honor about him, and anyone who managed to be on the wrong side of an argument with Clautiv would find out that is certainly not the case. He may be in a sharding Weyr of all places, but he won't sit and whine about it. Clautiv will find something to do, something to attain and make his own. His ambition was quenchless and he was setting out to track a course of what to do next. Sure, he the idea of becoming the type of person he absolutely hated, a dragonrider, made him a bit physically ill. He had always been willing to sacrifice his own needs to gain something better, though.

As for what was actually better? That was yet to be thought of. Partially because he hadn't gotten that far along in his thinking, and partially because he was avoiding the topic of Impression all together in his scheming. You'll have to face it. He'd rather come to face it at the Sands the day of the bloody hatching rather than now.

"Informality is quite a breath of fresh air." He grinned again, and this time it wasn't wholly false. He didn't expect the bluerider to give him this answer. His craft, that was really the backbone of who Clautiv was, underneath all of his ambition and lies. Smithing was what he could grapple onto when the world slipped by him slick as oil. Smithing grounded him, but they weren't going to take that away. "I couldn't tell you how much better that makes me feel. I'd be a nutcase without m'metal." Alas, he still was officially Searched, something that he hadn't planned on at all. Perhaps it could work in my favor. And perhaps bloody crawlers will start flying. He didn't flinch when the dragonrider perked upwards, but his hand did noticeably tighten over his own mug quickly.

"My things?" Oh of course. He may still be a crafter, but she did say he was officially Searched, which meant he was under the rank of candidate now. He'd live with the rest of the candidates and attend lessons with them. He'd share a room with them. He could almost imagine the excited prattling. "Of course, 'rider." Privacy, he could imagine privacy with someone--or something--to be quite scarce, especially seeing how easily that dragon had pierced into his mind. "I'll move them today, there isn't much so it can't be too hard." He grinned amiably again, doing his best to not prickle at the idea of co-inhabiting with a bunch of squirrelly candidates.

Strange, this rider was more than jovial, and seemingly relaxed even though this had been the first time this woman had even encountered Clautiv. Were all dragonriders like that? Stupid to even consider that. He wasn't about to let himself become all wide eyed at how dragonriders may act. They were just like anyone else, anyone else, which is why Clautiv believed they shouldn't be treated any differently. They did their job, it was their task, just like it was his to make sharding buckles all day long. Heroes, they're no more of a hero than a stable boy. He took another drink of his klah, his mug near empty now, and arched an eyebrow at the bluerider as she spoke up.

"I suppose you could be right on that, everyone can be called a little strange for various reasons." Sure, people would think Clautiv was out of his mind for preferring to work with hot metals. Granted, perhaps he was a little nuts because of this deep-seeded grudge and how he went about masquerading as this appeasing, amiable figure.

"An apology?" Clautiv's expression read of surprise, and he instantly batted it away with a hand as if J'ain had sent it careening through the air towards him. "I suppose I did come here because of that, the hungry thing, but t'be honest I can't seem t'find my appetite any more." His stomach was too knotted with a mixture of unease, rage and nausea at what he was now weighed down with. A candidate, a sharding candidate. Perhaps some boys would be thrilled, but the prospect of standing on the Sands had completely blocked out Clautiv's hunger. "Excitement, I guess." The word nearly seared open his throat, and Clautiv had to struggle to not cringe at that word. He was anything but excited.

"Oh, but thank you for the offer." He smiled widely, even a bit sheepishly to the bluerider, unaware of what may be going on in that head of hers. "I'll most likely be antsy for a bit, and I've never been to stomach things while all wound up." He shrugged, for one being painfully honest. Nerves had always made his stomach a delicate thing. Funny, you wouldn't expect any part of a Smither to be delicate whatsoever. "But don't feel bad, it's nice t'stand in front of the hearth, and a warm mug of klah is perfect in this weather." He pulled his eyes away from the rider, allowing a brief look down at the clothes he was wearing. "Speaking of the weather, I ought to find myself a tailor here, you're right about the whole jacket thing."