Wounded

Writers: AL, Jane
Date Posted: 9th September 2008

Characters: Seriand, Westni
Description: Apprentices Westni and Seriand chat while she works and he rests.
Location: Dolphin Hall
Date: month 12, day 2 of Turn 4

"Hello Westni," Seriand said brightly, popping his head up above the side of the wharf and then climbing up onto the warmed stone and laying down on it. "I've been swimming for _candlemarks_," he commented. A happy sigh escaped him as he soaked in the warmth from stone and the sun beating down on his body.

"Is that so?" Westni didn't even look up, bent as she was over a map, two more stacked beneath it and cascading over her knees. "Swimming instead of doing something you were _supposed_ to do I'm sure."

"Oh, you wound me!" The apprentice boy clutched at his chest for a moment and then, as if the effort was too much, he relaxed back onto the warm stone. "Actually, no."

"Why does that not surprise me?" The boy never did what he was _supposed_ to. Unfortunately, he never - well, rarely anyway - seemed to get into any real trouble for it.

"No, Westni, I wasn't swimming instead of doing something I was supposed to." He grinned up at her. "Do I get an apology?"

"Wait...you were actually doing something you were told to do." Westni looked up from her map, a dubious expression silently giving away her thoughts.

Seriand seemed to consider her statement and then nodded. "I was," he said, but something in his expression suggested that the honest answer was not the whole story.

"Okay...so what were you doing that was what you were supposed to be doing?" Westni still looked doubtful. "Usually you do your best to get out of anything that requires responsibility."

"That was exactly what led to me doing what I was supposed to be doing," Seriand admitted. He sighed, making what was a simple expulsion of breath into a complaint against the things that were such a trial to him. "_Not_ doing something."

"Okay, explain _that_ one to me."

"I didn't do my assignment," he finally admitted with a totally unrepentant grin.

"Which one?" Westni pressed, "You don't do a lot of your assignments."

"Navigation ..." he groaned. "With my grandfather."

"Of all the idiotic things." Westni sniffed. She held no sympathy for the lazy wherry. "Master Tarehg should tan your hide. He'd have a right to do so!"

"I don't think he'd _hit_ me," Seriand said, quite put out at the suggestion. "But he did make me swim a long way."

"How long is long?" Westni pressed, hoping it was long enough to make him ache all over.

"Western headland, eastern headland, and back. I tell you, I've been gone for so long it's a wonder you can even remember who I am."

Westni rolled her eyes and shook her head, turning back to her map. "You've probably not swum near as much as the Master told you to. Anyway, go swim some more. I want to finish going over these maps so I have time to myself later."

Seriand sighed. "I have to do my mapping assignment too. Perhaps you could help me with it?"

"Nope." Westni shook her head. "You're on your own. After all, you need to learn some responsibility." Not that he would. He'd probably find some other gullible apprentice to copy off of.

"I have sacks full of responsibility," he protested, then he smiled. "I just don't use much of it."

"Maybe you should use it more." Westni made another mark on the parchment on the bottom, then began rolling it and the maps. "You might actually make something of yourself."

"Mmm. Making something of myself. Why doesn't that sound more appealing?"

Westni's eyes rolled back in exasperation, exposing nothing but white for a brief moment. "You are impossible. I'm done, you go do something constructive."

"Talking to you is always constructive, Westni. And _always_ a highlight of my day."

"Well the feeling is _not_ mutual." Westni sniffed as she rose and turned to make her way back to the hall.

"Again! She wounds me again!" Seriand called after her, rather spoiling his wounded wails with laughter. Westni was such fun to tease and her reaction made doing so almost irresistible. But, as she had guessed, he still had some of his swimming punishment to complete and he had no doubt that his grandfather would know to the dragonlength how far he actually went. With a sigh he got to his feet, checked for obstructions with a caution Westni might not have expected to see in such a lazy young man, and leapt into the water.

Last updated on the September 10th 2008

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Wounded