Why am I not leaving these in the creche? (Shoki/R'le)

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

3076.08.01 | Early Evening | T’kar’s weyr/office

Why couldn’t you be more like your brother? T’kar thought at the child clinging to his shoulder. She seemed almost asleep… he decided to risk it. Gently, he reached up and started to unhook the little girl’s hands from his shoulder. He started to shift, so that he could carry her over to the crib where her brother was sleeping, and she woke up with a vengeance. No sooner had his shoulder shifted under her, she immediately began to protest. Fortunately, she wasn’t doing so at full volume. Unfortunately, she managed to wake her brother up as well.

Vakaral’s cries joined those of his sister Avonia, and T’kar wanted to scream in sheer frustration. Placing Avonia back on his chest, her head resting against his shoulder, he stalked, yes stalked, over to the crib and started rocking it by means of his foot resting on one of the rockers.

Outside, Ancalanath rumbled a deep croon. Both babies relaxed. In the nearly five months since their birth, T’kar had already come to the conclusion that they were going to be dragonriders. Not only were they not scared of Ancalanath, they considered the RR Flame’s deep-chested croon to be one of the best lullabies. It was the only thing guarrenteed to make them get sleepy.

Thanks Ancalanath.

Ancalanath’s reply was a wordless acknowledgement. He changed the pitch of his croon slightly, humming the tune of a particularly simple lullaby. Vakaral didn’t want to sleep either though, now that his sister had woken him up.

At least he’s not trying to climb all over me, T’kar thought, though in truth he felt rather special, that Avonia liked him so much. Sighing, he pulled the crib over towards his work table — an exercise which woke both kids to brief cries before they were distracted by Boot and Wamarna flicking their tails around for the kids to watch. T’kar couldn’t imagine anyone managing to spend time with their kids without the aid of firelizards.

Finally, he got settled at his desk, Avonia’s head resting on his left shoulder and her body mostly contained on the left side of his chest. Vakaral, still in the crib, was close to T’kar’s right side. The crib so located that T’kar could rock it using his foot as he wrote. It wasn’t the easiest thing he’d ever done, but it wasn’t impossible.

Someone knocked on the door.

T’kar sighed. “Star, Wamarna, open the door,” he said, before returning to the latest in a long string of depressing notes.

[Shoki]

Thrice cursed paperwork. R’le started at the papers in front of him with a frown, but he was getting close to the end. However, the end could not be reached soon enough. He wanted to get out, and spend some time with the folks he liked. His only company was… not really company at all. Burn was a great firelizard in the fact that he kept quiet and didn’t get in the way. However, the Flame didn’t actually distract him from his work, which, in this case, was a bad thing. The warm colored creature was attached to his back, as he usually was. Which made the sudden cry of an unhappy child all the more painful.

Burn, jumpy little guy, dug into R’le’s back with his claws, which in conjunction with R’le’s own jumping, made for an unpleasant experience with some cursing. Burn was quickly peeled off of the Cloudrider’s back and placed on the desk, where the Flame was most unhappy. After a time, the crying stopped, And R’le let go of the Flame, who immediately skittered back onto R’le’s back, and started to chew on his collar. The man sighed, before going into the pouch he had, and pulling out a piece taken out of one of the jungle trees. He had discovered this trick some time ago. He offered the piece to Burn, who took it into his mouth, and started to chew on it. After a time the firelizard would unceremoniously spit it out, but for the time being, it saved his shirts. Now that everything was settled, R’le decided now was a good enough time for a break. And if the crying was any indication, someone else needed one too. So he made his way to T’kar’s office.

After he knocked briefly, some of T’kar’s fair opened the door. Burn was still clinging to R’le, but now his head was peeking around the man’s waist as he chewed. He regarded them with some curiosity, but kept to where he was. That and his mouth was full. R’le on the other hand took one look at the room and raised his eyebrows.

“Well someone has their hands full.” Literally. He was surprised T’kar wasn’t using his nose for something here. “Thought you might need a distraction, but I’m pretty sure you need to grow four extra arms.”

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

T’kar smiled. Sure he could be serious, was, in fact, generally serious when on duty. However, that was because he respected the duty. R’le was right, he needed a break. “Unfortunately, you only have two arms,” T’kar pointed out. “You should have brought another person with you.” T’kar tried to keep a straight face, he really did, but his friendship with R’le was too tight for that, and he wound up grinning at the slightly taller man who was both his Wingsecond and his Jr. Weyrleader.

Stretching his right leg out slowly, T’kar hooked a chair with his booted toes and pulled it out, gesturing for R’le to sit. “I know you’ve been sitting all for too long already, probably ever since practice finished up this morning, but it’s more fun to sit with company, and I’m trapped here anyway. Avonia, you see, has me quite penned.” Giving R’le another grin, Over Avonia’s head of soft black baby hair, T’kar continued: “How’s your little one doing? You get to see her much?”

[Shoki]

R’le grinned. “I think I might have some wings on my back, if you think that would help.” He walked in, Burn peeking out again while he chewed on sap. His human was talking about him again. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. R’le peered at Avonia, and then at Varkaral, still grinning. He really did like kids. Probably one of his favorite things as a harper had been performing for children. Being the first one to tell them a story, or perform a trick. It was fun. Of course, T’kar had his hands full, there were two of them.

“Ah well since you seem to want to practice moving furniture with your feet, who am I to deny you?” R’le himself had only just put his boots back on. He still spent a fair bit of time with his shoes off in his office. It didn’t really matter after all, if his feet were under a desk, that his shoes were off. He sat down in the chair and grinned. “Ah, at least they’re cute enough you wanna forgive them at this age.” Yinaire was floating back into his head. Ah, good days ahead.

“Plenty. After finishing up the papers I was going to go find Retny and then get Yinaire and go watch the ocean.” No staying cooped up in his weyr if they could help it. Well, there were some reasons to head back, but quality time together should be out and about. “Not for long, but we planned it, so I’m gonna be sure it happens.” He looked at the currently quiet kids T’kar had around him and asked, “So do you ever get these ones unglued from you?”

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

T’kar laughed. “Wings always help. These two are definitely going to be riders. I swear Avonia’s favorite activity is riding Ancalanath.” He laughed again, this time softer, more amused than anything. “You should have seen Dalonia’s face when she found out I’d taken them flying. She was not happy.” Perhaps it wasn’t a good thing, that T’kar sounded amused by the fact that Dalonia had been angry. Then again, his and Dalonia’s was an interesting relationship. One not understood even by the principals, let alone anyone else. Especially considering that one of the few things they seemed to have in common was firey tempers.

Star chirped to Burn. Soon Wamarna and Shadow came over. They were quite clearly asking Burn to come out and play.

T’kar grinned. “You still got Burn chewing wood?” he asked. “I’m glad to hear you get to see her. It’s important to spend time with your children.” Looking back, he often wished his mother and Galdoc had had more time to do so, same as he wished his little sister had had them for longer. He chose to stay away from the mention of Retny. He was glad for his friend, it was just he wished his own love life wasn’t in absolute shambles.

“I’ve successfully unglued them a few times,” he said. Avonia started moving, T’kar stilled her again he ruffling her hair. “They coon like firelizards,” he observed, grinning at R’le in wonder. “I never get tired of that. Avonia’s just in a mood today, apparently she kept the whole crèche up for the entirety of our practice. The poor crèche women practically jumped me as soon as we got done.” Glancing over at Vakaral, who was attempting to catch Boot’s tail without success, T’kar smiled. “Then of course Vakaral had to come along and…” T’kar spread his hands. “Here I am.”

[Shoki]

R’le chuckled. “I bet. Then again, not happy is not a surprising feature of Dalonia. I think it’ll be good for ‘em. I know Quiorith is looking forward to giving rides to Yinaire when she’s older. Mostly because right now she isn’t old enough that he can do ‘the fun stuff’.” Quiorith and his aerial maneuvers. Anything that was fun and fast for the Cloud. Quiorith was happy enough at the moment though, glad to have the Rainbow back to fly with. Though he always came back when R’le came outside. The pair missed being together as much as they had been before R’le became Jr Weyrleader. Fortunately, they were only as far as a thought.

Burn observed the friendly flitters, but was not interested in playing. To avoid it, he crawled up to R’le’s neck and tried to go down the back of his shirt. This elicited a hasty reaction from the rider, who grabbed the Flame before he could get into too much trouble again.

“Yep. It saves my shirts, and apparently the trees around here have some chew to them, if you find the right one.” He deposited the flitter on his lap, who observed the attention, and then tried to curl up and hide. His human wasn’t going anywhere, so he didn’t have to keep a hold of him. Much easier than trying to follow him all day. “It’s really nice. Not what I expected though. That’s fun though. Balancing everything is not my strong suit, I tend to try and cheat to have more time with Yin.” And skip work. At least paper work. Being wingsecond was a breeze comparatively.

“Aw, she just wants some attention from her dad. That’s the best thing. Glad they get along now, but who knows what trouble they’ll get into later.” With the help of Uncle R’le. He respected T’kar and all, but he was of the school that had kids having fun, getting into trouble and all that a lot later then T’kar had gotten. What with having impressed Ancalanath so young. So he wasn’t above making sure that the kids learned some tricks to have fun and not be so serious. What with their parents, he wanted to keep things lighter.

“How’s everything else? Quiet I hope.” The question was kept general on purpose. R’le didn’t want to reference Rilora unless it was work related or T’kar brought it up. So if he wanted to talk about it he could, or he could just pick any other subject. He liked both of the Senior Weyrleaders, and counted both of them as his friends. As such, he was not going to be picking sides in all that complicated stuff. He hoped for the best though.

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

Star turned towards T’kar. He was clearly appealing to his human to make the other firelizard come out and play. T’kar held raised his hand so the palm was facing the firelizard and lowered it back down. A calming gesture, or one indicating a need for quietude. In this case, it was also a signal to cease and desist, for Star chirped once and then placed himself on his own human’s lap. Wamarna joined him, but Shadow simply lay on the table.

T’kar grinned. He was well aware that R’le tended to try and skive off on paper work. He did the same thing occasionally, and really, R’le was almost doing him a favor now. Being head-down in work helped him deal with his personal life. The ironic thing was, it wasn’t even like he didn’t have offers for company overnight, those were still as frequent now as before. He hadn’t accepted them then, because he’d been building things with Rilora, and now he couldn’t accept them without in all probability straining even his professional relationship with her to the breaking point.

“Yeah, it’s all been pretty quiet. Nothing too major happening.” T’kar sighed, then changed the subject slightly. “They’re sitting up and crawling now. The crèche women say they ought to be walking soon.” The look he gave the top of Avonia’s head (she was sleeping now of course) had a little bit of trepidation in it, as well as some surprise. “I didn’t think time would seem to pass so fast.”

[Shoki]

“Quiet…can be good for a while. Don’t forget to call if you need a little trouble.” A slight mischievous grin played on his face, before cooling into a mild smile. Yeah, T’kar was still hung up on all of it. R’le didn’t see how the other man was going to fix things, it was something that R’le was deeply glad wasn’t happening to him. Still not great that it was happening to his friend though.

“They all say it speeds on by, but you don’t believe ‘em till you see it yourself, yeah?” R’le was still reeling over how big Yinaire had gotten on Retny’s trip. For two of them, he wasn’t sure if their quick progression was better or worse. He opened his mouth before his attention shifted at the light and airy voice in his mind.

[smear:B0C4DE]Mine, Retny is asking after you.[/smear:87CEEB] The Cloud was already shifting his position, after all he had company to keep as well.

“Speaking of kids, I think I have an appointment with mine before she grows up on me.” Things he didn’t want to think too hard about, Yinaire grown up. “I wonder if the growing up fast thing becomes more apparent when you start thinking about it too hard. Best not. Anyway.” Burn skittered up the man’s chest up to his shoulder, until he was back in his spot on R’le’s back, all happening as the man stood up. “Make sure to catch some sleep sometime. They certainly will.” He waved a bit, heading toward the door.

“Ah, and T’kar. Don’t forget about the offer to get ya relaxed. Can’t hide yourself in here forever.” R’le looked back, looking probably more serious then he had the hold conversation. “Got it?”

[Ghost of Fire (Fëanáro)]

T’kar smiled. Sure, he still had an almost five month old infant stuck to his chest and shoulder. Sure, she wasn’t moving and protested if he tried to put her to bed. On the other hand, she was cute. Cute and his daughter, even as Vakaral was his son. It was still kind of a new feeling. He had children. Small humans who depended on him to be their father.

“I’ll try,” he assured R’le. He fully intended to get some sleep — eventually. He was already starting to shift some of the paperwork around on his desk when he heard R’le’s footsteps stop. He looked up, just in time to intercept R’le’s backwards glance. The smile returned to his face.

“Yeah, I got it,” he said. “Have fun with your family.”

T’kar nodded to R’le, then turned back to the room. He didn’t really have any idea what he was going to do yet, but… He glanced down at the paperwork. Deciding could wait on the paperwork being finished. At least, a little more of it being finished. Maybe he’d take the kids flying again.