Settling In [Leevi and Isaak]

[Ferret]

“…Kay, you are aware you can fly, right?”

“Mrrp!” The gold firelizard shivered and peeked over the edge of the tall bookcase, her eyes swirling with yellow fear. It was just so huge! And she wasn’t entirely certain how she’d gotten there and she had no idea how to get down either! One moment, she was on the ground and then something scared her and then… well, she wasn’t certain what happened next. Dim images fluttered in her mind, a vague sensation of wind under her wings and then she was up on the shelf!

Leevi sighed and introduced his palm to his face. They became very good friends very fast. He loved the gold, he really did, but sometimes she was just so… very unbelievably special. Honestly, he wasn’t certain what had spooked Kay either. Running a hand through his short curly hair, Leevi considered the situation. The room wasn’t exactly full of anything at all right now. There was an unmade bed in the corner. Well, they called it a bed. Leevi was personally still highly suspicious of this whole ‘sleeping in sacks that were strung across poles’ thing. Hammocks sounded more like a joke that the Southerners played on Northerners like himself.

Either way, it definitely wasn’t something he could safely stand on. And the crates holding his precious scrolls and hides were even unlikelier targets. Kay would eventually find her own way down, even if she did whine and complain about it the entire time, but those research scrolls couldn’t be so easily replaced. Leevi did his best anyway, standing up on his tip-toes and making very close friends with the empty shelf. Unable to see over the top, he was reduced to groping blindly with one hand.

“Come here, Kay. It’s ok, girl, it’s just me! You like me! I give you food!”

“Sssss…” judging by the hiss, Kay was less certain about this whole ‘hand without an arm attached’ thing. It hadn’t been there five seconds ago, and was therefore Highly Alarming! There was no telling what it could do, especially in this place that was so strange and different! She wanted to go home! And where was her Leevi? He was there just a second ago! A few random brain cells collided and Kay was forced to come to a conclusion: this Hand Thing had taken her Leevi! With another highly distressed screech, she flapped her wings ineffectually at Leevi’s hand, trying to scare off the Hand Thing That Wasn’t There Before. “Skreeeee!” she screeched as loudly as she could.

“For the love of little green dragons,” Leevi muttered. It wasn’t like the firelizard ever bit him at all. The most she did was breath in his hand’s general direction or lunge at his fingers with her mouth open. Honestly, if Kay ever bit him, it was by complete accident and she was even more surprised at the incident than he was. Still, it was very annoying, all of that noise. After a long day of trying to settle into his new surroundings, the last thing Leevi wanted to deal with was a very, very loud and frightened firelizard. He pitched his voice low, trying to calm her down. “Shh, it’s ok! See? You can still hear me!”

“Chrp?” well, that just confused Kay! She could hear her person, but not see him. “Skrreee?” she screeched again, just out the general principle of the thing.

[Inkwell]

The first screech had been jarring. The second had been annoying in that it had actually made him lose his place in the scroll he had been reading. The third made him drop the scroll entirely and that... that was downright unacceptable.

Trust his very first day to be an exercise in patience, Isaak thought ruefully. He might as well start cultivating some now, though, because he didn't intend to leave his post here unless forcefully ousted. Third time was the charm; wasn't that the saying? He would make this position work, noisy neighbors or no.

Though that didn't mean said neighbors wouldn't get a talking to. He replaced the scroll on the little corner table and made his way out of his new (very bare) room and into the hall. It wasn't hard to figure out which room held the offending screecher; that door got a swift couple of knocks.

"Excuse me?"

[Ferret]

Leevi looked over at the door as though genuinely surprised that it could produce such a sound. Oh. Oh! OH! Someone was at the door! The young mindhealer flailed just a little, a sense of panic overcoming him. Oh Faranth, this person could be his very first patient at the Weyr! Faranth, he was a mess! He didn’t even have clean clothes on. Admittedly, traveling by dragon was fairly neat----it escaped the dust of the roads anyway---but he was still wearing clothes that looked as though they’d been slept in. Not to mention, they smelled of wher, just slightly.

“Skree!” Kay answered from the top of the shelf, calling his attention back to the stranded firelizard.

OH RIGHT! The door! A little belatedly, Leevi remembered that, in order for people to get through doors, they had to be answered first. Taking a deep breath, Leevi opened the door and gave the other person his very best smile. “Can I help you?”

His eyes landed on Isaak’s arm, focusing on the knot. Another mindhealer! Defying biological norms, Leevi’s smile widened more. “You’re a mindhealer too? Please, come in, come in! Don’t mind the mess, I just started moving in today. And don’t mind the l--!”

Several things happened in Kay’s mind, all of them quite slowly. “Crooo?” she asked curiously, tilting her head to one side as she could suddenly see Leevi again. But he was all the way over there and that was so far away! “Krrrooo?” she asked again, this time tilting her head the other way to see if that would result in any ideas. All it did was make the room look funny, unfortunately. Maybe if she kept her head tilted like this and moved forward she’d be able to understaaaa! “Kreeee!” she said, startled as her paws landed on nothing but air.

Her wings flapped open quickly. With all the grace typivally associated with one-winged wherries, she landed against Leevi’s back, cutting off his words. “Kree?” she peeped, clawing her way up to his shoulder and settling down. Who was this? Was New Friend? She liked new friends!

[Inkwell]

Another mindhealer. A young, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed mindhealer with entirely too wide a smile. Living here was going to be... special, Isaak could tell. Reluctantly he accepted the invitation to enter the other man's room -- perhaps he'd learn a bit about its inhabitant with a quick lookabout.

"I wasn't aware that they'd hired another Mindhealer," he said by way of not-so-warm greeting. And really, he wasn't. No mention had been made on the dragon ride over, nor when he'd been shown his room. Either they had assumed he'd known, or they figured he'd find out soon enough. "And I assure you, the mess is... no worse than what my own room looks like currently." It was a lie. His room was already meticulously organized. He didn't plan to invite this man into it, at any rate, so it didn't matter either way. "I actually wanted to speak to you about-- yes, that."

He indicated the suddenly shoulder-bound golden flit with a carefully neutral expression. "She's very... loud. I assume this comes with the shock of being in a new and unfamiliar place and will not be a regular occurrence...?"

Because if it was, there would be problems. Noisy people were bad enough, but at least they could comprehend a request to quiet down. A flit, on the other hand, especially one with the curiously not-all-there look that this one seemed to have, likely wouldn't be able to comprehend its way out of a boot.

[Ferret]

OhFaranth, was he jealous that they had hired another mindhealer? The decidedly cold greeting led Leevi to believe such and the stranger’s ‘reputation points’ automatically fell a little. Immediately, a feeling of guilt wrapped itself around Leevi; it wasn’t like he knew for sure that the other mindhealer was jealous over something so petty. No need to make snap judgments, he reminded himself. Absentmindedly, he scratched Kay’s eyeridges, bringing a purr of absolute delight from the extremely special firelizard.

“Shards, you could hear her? I’m sorry, she’s not usually this loud. She’s just nervous about being in a new place.” It wasn’t technically a lie; Kay was indeed nervous and the move had jarred her a little. Leevi just didn’t feel like explaining that his firelizard was fundamentally mentally challenged and thought he disappeared every time she couldn’t see him. It would simply take too long to explain. At this point, his fingers stopped scratching the firelizard.

“They didn’t tell me that they’d hired another mindhealer. Place must be pretty rife with minds to heal,” he said chipperly, mostly to move away from the topic of flits and onto something more like common ground. Maybe that’ll make him feel better? Or, if he really is pettily possessive of his turf, maybe he’ll just tell me, he thought to himself, but without much hope.

“Karrrooo?” Kay was confused. Leevi’s hand was still there, yet it was not petting her. This had to be rectified. Maybe if she… she… leaning forward, she sniffed the hand and then chomped on it gently. Nooooope, still no pets. Maybe if she tilted her head at it again? Nooo, still no response. Tilted the other way? Heeey, the room looked funny again! And then she lost interest and refocused on the New Friend. Maybe HE had pets to give!

Her wings spread and she prepared to take off.

“No, Kay,” Leevi said, putting his hand over her back to keep her there. “I’m sure… uhh… our new neighbor would not appreciate a firelizard flying into him. She’s friendly,” he added to the stranger. “She’s just… not very good at the landing bit. Or the flying bit.”

[Inkwell]

Isaak wasn't jealous so much as he was a little annoyed with the management. He liked being kept informed of such simple things as whether or not he'd be working with someone. Though he had to admit, it had been good tactics, hiring a man so dissimilar to himself. The Weyrfolk must have figured that if one method didn't work, perhaps the opposite would -- you never knew with unstable prisoners, after all.

Of course, that was assuming that Leevi's mindhealing methods were as sunny as his personality outside of the office. Perhaps there was a hardass hidden under the layers of fluff that only came out during sessions; you never could tell. Isaak tried to imagine Leevi cracking down hard on anything more menacing than a rock and failed.

"Rife with minds to heal indeed. These are murderers and thieves and dusters; Even the relatively sane may need our attention." He didn't seem all that bothered by the idea. The was the whole reason he was here, after all.

And yes, Leevi, keeping your firelizard restrained was a great idea. Isaak wasn't good with touching. Having a small, curious animal crawling all over him in search of food or a place to sleep or whatever small animals usually wanted really was not his idea of a good time. "It would explain a lot." That is, the not being able to fly. If she crash-landed a lot, it stood to reason that she'd be a little... scrambled. "Hopefully she will settle in soon enough. I can't imagine it would take terribly long." Probably weeks. If he was lucky. "Then again, I've never owned a firelizard. I admit I'm not terribly familiar with their habits."

While he spoke, he gave the room a cursory glance. Everything in crates still. Well. There was little he could glean from that except that Leevi had either just arrived or wasn't the industrious sort.

"... I don't believe I've introduced myself, have I." Social conventions, how do. "Isaak. I imagine we'll be seeing a lot of each other, given our occupational similarity and the housing arrangements." He couldn't decide whether this was a good thing or a bad thing as of yet.

[Ferret]

“Oh, without a doubt!” Leevi said cheerfully, as though the prospect of hard work genuinely pleased him. In fact, it did; he loved the idea of venturing into the dark places of the mind and just plain fixing it. It was like getting a brand new Year’s End present every day! Only with mental instability instead of socks. “I think just about anyone who works in a place like this will eventually get a bit depressed about how terrible the world is. I mean, come on.” Like Isaak said, the prison was full of various criminals, each one with their own sad history. Happy families was not a game they played here.

Kay was confused. Admittedly, this happened often, but now she was confused about multiple things. “Karrooo?” she chirped again, twisting her head so she could lick at Leevi’s fingers. Yay attention! She loved attention! But, the hand was also holding her back, which confused her more. In fact, it nearly pushed her tiny mind into bafflement territory, only the double letters would have gotten her more fussed.

And then she forgot and became completely distracted in her new game called Catch Leevi’s Fingers. “Reee!” she squealed.

“Y-yeah,” Leevi said, wriggling his fingers at the fat gold. “I’m sure she’ll settle down.” He looked down at his own feet, well-aware of Kay’s nasty habit of suddenly going completely insane at odd hours during the night. He liked to call them the Midnight Zoomies, those special times when the firelizard suddenly decided that it was an excellent time to tear around the room like a canine puppy on dust. And she didn’t fly during those times either, but preferred to actually run around. It was amazing how much noise a single firelizard could make.

“She’s my first firelizard. She’s about two and a half turns old,” Leevi said, trying to edge away from territory that would make him have to lie; it was one of those talents he’d never picked up on. “It’s been a learning experience. I always thought they were supposed to be pretty bright, but Kay is… special.” Yes. Decidedly extremely special in that, ‘she once got stuck under a very small washcloth’ sort of way. “Oh right! I’m Leevi and this is Kay.”

Friendly as ever, he held out his hand automatically, expecting a handshake from the man who did-not-do-touching.

“Kraww!” Kay complained, annoyed that her prey had been taken away from her. And then she lost interest and started contentedly chewing on Leevi’s hair instead.