The candidate barracks were empty when Nyalan poked his head cautiously around the corner. Breathing a sigh of relief, he stepped into the long room, furnished simply with set after set of cot-and-table. At the base of each bed was a wooden chest for clothes and brief belongings. If all went well, they wouldn't have to stay there much longer.

Brushing honey hair behind his ears, Nyalan sauntered up to his bed and dropped a leather roll with a muffled jingling sound. A bronze firelizard flew lazily behind him, doing random circles and dipping floor to ceiling casually.

The candidate cast a glance over his shoulder and rolled pale hazel eyes. "Show-off."

The flit, also known as Kero, replied somewhat indignantly, but ceased his aerobatics.

Nyalan unravelled the curious leather roll, revealing a long row of neatly-polished knives. Curved, straight, toothed, smooth, simple and beautifully complex, they gleamed in the light of the ceiling-glows. The candidate took in a deep breath, then let it out almost hungrily.

"Miss me?" he asked the weapons with a quirky little smile.

These sorts of knives weren't particularly rare in the Weyr, and a valid form of defence as well as useful in hunting, but somehow Nyalan doubted that the Headwoman would like his having them in the barracks.

He pulled one out slowly - it brushed against it's neighbour with a metallic twish - and looked at it meticulously, turning it this way and that.

"Mm," he said appreciatively. He hadn't had a chance to clean and oil them since being Searched for Dawn Sisters Weyr a while back, and had been mildly worried that they'd have rusted in the damp weather they'd been having of late. They seemed fine, however, and he felt a knot unravel in his belly. His babies.

Not that he was obsessed or anything. Really. He just liked them. A lot. They were pretty and shiny and rather useful. If one knew how to use them. And, to some extent, he did.

He'd acquired them one by one since the age of twelve when his father had taken him hunting and given him his very own hunter's dagger. He still had it, too. It wasn't in quite as good condition as some of the latest acquirements, but that was to be expected. It had a treated wooden handle with a full tang, a smooth, streamlined blade and a saw back for slashing through the thicker sinew and bone of the kill. He'd used it many a time outside the Weyr.

Putting back the blade he held, he drew another from it's pocket - a long, thin dagger that bent like some living thing with the movement of his serpentine movement.

Stepping back, Nyalan went through a few simple moves, combining blade with body. Moves he'd been taught by his father of a completely different nature to hunting. These were styles passed on through his family since Landing - or so his father told. Weaving and winding amongst the cots and chests of the barracks, totally immersed in the style, the candidate didn't hear someone enter and stand quietly, enthralled.

He finished the routine and stopped stock-still, breathing hard. The knife was pointed towards the ground and his feet in what he knew as the feline position.

Suddenly thrust back into the real world, Nyalan became aware of breathing other than his own and spun to see a girl, cornflower-blue eyes wide. He opened his mouth, but only managed a simple, "Uh."

The girl - another candidate, he thought - nodded slowly. "That's what I thought," she said, sounding a little breathless. She had perhaps seventeen turns, and was not without appeal.

Walking abruptly, Nyalan returned the knife to the leather roll almost defensively and rolled it tight, slipping it into his chest under a layer of clothes. He looked up and smiled a little bashfully at her. "You weren't supposed to see that," he admitted. He'd never shown his... hobbies to anyone expect his father and felt rather exposed all of a sudden.

She giggled softly. "Sorry?" he tried, smiling mischievously.

He smiled ruefully. "Too late now, eh?"

"Well I thought it was pretty special. You're kinda good at that stuff. I wish I was good at something like that," she said mildly wistfully.

Nyalan met her eyes with a cocked head. "Really?" She nodded. "Thanks."

"I've seen you around the place. I'm Aronia," she proffered with a friendly sort of smile.

"Nyalan." He looked curiously at her, a sudden thought occurring to her. "You wanna learn?"

Bright eyes opened wide. "Serious?"

He laughed, deep throated and masculine. "Sure thing. C'mon, Aronia, I'll show you."

She grinned openly and walked towards him, eyes twinkling.