Closed A new old job (Ana)

[Alea Davenport]

6th of Winter, 512
At Jakobi's Yard

Alea walked into Jakobi's yard, feeling vaguely nervous. She had groomed horses before, but this was a new place, with presumably different methods of doing things. Besides, she was hardly confident enough in her skills to just know what she was doing. She hadn't groomed a horse aside from her own in a couple seasons, and she didn't want to upset anyone by doing something wrong.

She carefully made sure the gate was closed behind her, not wanting to risk the horses escaping, especially mischievous ones like hers. Not knowing where to start, she looked around to try to find someone who could get her started. She saw someone grooming a horse not too far away, and decided to introduce herself.

"Um, hello? My name's Alea, and I just started working here. Do you know what I should help with first?" She offered her best nervous smile to go with this introduction, just in case that might make it easier to get along with her new coworker.

[Ana Sol Starris]

The day was cold, and so were her fingers attached to the hand which was holding a fuzzy looking horse brush. Her motions were in a repetitive direction, rhythmetic as she brushed the mare down, working from its haunches to its main body, and all the way up to the mares neck gently. Ana liked horses more than she liked any other animal, they were trustworthy, strong, sturdy, she was certain this beauty could go for days on a ride and still be pumped with energy. Working with horses was like meditation for Ana, they calmed her already buzzingly worried mind down, and just allowed her to relax. Heck, she had even forgotten she was cold now. Working down the legs, she followed the hair pattern, how it flowed instead of going against it. If Ana went against the direction the hair was going then it would only ruffle up, and cause discomfort to the mare. That wasn't something Ana wanted; and was certain the mare wouldn't like it either, she huffed a bit, her breath fogging over in the air lightly. Ana made her way in front of the mare to the other side, where she would practically be hidden by the size of the mare; there she began to do the same rythmetic motions with her horse brush (ones she had borrowed from Jakobi, and left at the stables when she was done with them.) "There we go.." Ana whispered lightly to the mare, happy with her work, "now lets see what we can do for that lovely mane of yours." Ana went over to the tool box and picked out a comb before going back, reaching up to lightly comb through the mares mane, getting out the knots and tangles carefully. As the thief did this, she heard an uncertain voice call out to her, making the thief stop for a moment and look at the woman. Freezing. It's that chick! Ana's mind screamed, her face contorting oddly between a mix of surprise and disgust, "You're the new girl??" Ana asked, unsure of what else to say before sighing and setting the comb down on a hay stack and moving towards the girl and holding her hand out for a hand shake "well, I didn't expect it to be you- but nice to meet you again, this time on better terms." Ana smiled at Alea, as genuinely as she could "so what do you know about horses? Because theres feeding, watering, brushing, picking the poo up, theres trimming the slugsuckle fences as well as getting water, getting the hay out.." Ana rambled off, naming everything she could think of. Yep, that sounded about it to her.

[Alea Davenport]

Alea was pleasantly surprised when she realized that this was the girl she had met a few days previously. It would be good to work with someone she knew (even if only a little) and liked. There were too few people Alea could call friend. "Your name's Ana, right? I know a little about horses. I worked with them in Avanthal. Though, I was usually mucking out stalls..."

Alea looked around at the wide open pasture and notice that there did not seem to be stalls here. Still, there was no reason to get stuck with shoveling manure if she could prove herself useful at any other task. "I can also brush them reasonably well, even the really obnoxious ones," she said, eyeing the herd in the distance, trying to pick out her own Gilding. She couldn't see him yet, but she had no doubt he would start trouble if given half a chance.

Belatedly, she noticed Ana's attempt at a handshake. She was so flustered by leaving the woman hanging for so long that she was already shaking Ana's hand before she noticed its bright green color. "You have green hands!" she said, unnecessarily. Curiosity overwhelmed her, distracting her almost entirely from the work she was supposed to be doing. She wondered if Ana was human, or some strange Spires-race she had not met yet. The hand felt normal enough, it was just a weird color...

Somehow, it occurred to Alea that assumptions or direct questions about Ana's race might offend her, so after a few full ticks of thinking, she came up with a question that seemed relatively harmless. "I've never seen someone with green hands before. Were you born with them?"

[Ana Sol Starris]

"Hmmm," was all Ana said to her previous experience with taking care of horses, but she kept her hand there awaiting for her to return the handshake. She's so twitchy.. The thought was brief, but she seems nice enough considering the little incident a few days ago. Just a normal a girl with a temper, and a big mouth, Ana could have chuckled if she wanted to at Alea but she did not. She had mentioned Avanthal, the thief knew of Avanthal... Not alot, but just enough to know that it was the place where the Vantha lived and prospered. Lixues description of the place struck vividly in the thiefs mind, for however long ago that had been. So deep in thought, that Ana too had been startled a smidge by Aleas exclamation over her hands, though she had to admit she was use to such reactions. Ana glanced down at the greenness of them, and shrugged, she had grown accustomed to having the green there that she had come up with a lie for their reasoning. "Wasn't born with them, they're tattooed," she stated, confident in what she had said "but you're not here to talk about my green hands," Ana cooly redirected the conversation and gestured to the stables which they stood in, smiling a rather knowing smile "you're here to help with the chores, am I not correct?" The thief didn't wait for Alea to reply, as she knew she was right about that. "Well I'm certain Jakobi could give you the lay down of everything," Ana peeked from side to side around Alea and then behind herself, trying to pinpoint where her silly lover had gone, uncertainty in her voice, he always loved being unpredictable- but by now Ana was pretty certain she knew what he was going to do- he had a knack for coming up behind people and scaring the living daylights out of them "...he should be around here somewheres..." Ana stated, lightly stepping to look at each sides of the small stable. Unsuccesfully finding him, he must have been in the small group of horses a ways away, was all Ana could think. Turning around to go back to Alea, she jumped out of her skin backwards to avoid collision, finding the girl standing behind her, "how long have you been there!" Ana chided at her, annoyed.

[Alea Davenport]

Alea's face fell at the tattoo explanation. She'd been hoping for something exciting that she'd never heard of before, but it turned out the strange magical green hands had a perfectly logical explanation behind them after all. Her disappointment was so great that it might have led her to become despondent, but fortunately she was distracted by having to do work.

Alea followed Ana, expecting to be shown whichever chores Ana thought she should start with first. But it soon became clear that Ana was not going to instruct Alea, and Jakobi was nowhere to be found. Alea was starting to feel frustrated, and when Ana snapped at her, she started to get a little bit annoyed herself.

"Well I've been following you since you turned around, wondering if you're going to find anything for me to do, but I guess I'll just have to pick something myself," she said rather defensively. She looked around at the herd grazing on the hardy grass and tried to mask her mood with professionalism. "I think they're good on food, but I could fill their water troughs. Where do you typically get the water? I could go looking for a stream myself, but that might take a while. Are there buckets around somewhere?" Alea looked around to see if she could spot something that could carry water, but she wasn't having much luck.

[Ana Sol Starris]

"Er, well, I.." Ana stuttered and began to mumble, fiddling with her cloak and shifting on her feet slightly nervously. She wasn't the boss here, Jakobi was, it wasn't her job to give the newbie orders- was it? Ana began attempted to grasp at grass straws within her mind, failing terribly as she tried to come up with something to say. "I'm not the boss, Jakobi is.. I was just looking around for him so he could give you orders, y'know.." Ana fumbled with her words as she looked around paranoidly, as if expecting him to be there at any moment- why did that man have a knack for deserting her when she needed him most? Exhasperately, Ana moved towards the storage bit of area and pulled out some wood made, slug-suckle held together buckets for Alea, and then tilted her head the way of the lake nearby. "Theres a lake of ice cold water over there, it's still unfrozen I think so if you really want to go get water, instead of doing something else-" Ana smiled a little, holding the bucket out to Alea, "be my guest; do you want me to guide you there? Or no?" Then she thought for a moment, did the horses have enough water for awhile to drink? Bathing them in the winter would be a terrible thing to do in the cold, so most of the water was now used for drinking. It wouldn't hurt to get more though.

[Gossamer]

Character: Alea
Experience: +2 Observation, +2 Socialization
Lore: First Days Are Rough

Character: Ana
Experience: +2 Observation, +1 Socialization, +1 Grooming, +1 Leadership
Lore: Being New On The Job

Additional Note: This thread was turned in for a grading credit for job expense. I'm not sure if its done. If you decided to continue it let me or a current ST know and we'll regrade.

[Alea Davenport]

Alea took the bucket and tried to smile. "I think I can find it, but you can come along if you want, I guess? I mean, it'll take more than one bucket to water all of the horses." Without waiting for an answer, she wandered off in the direction Ana had indicated, looking for a body of water.

She heard it before she saw it, the gentle sound of tiny waves disturbing the water as the wind blew through the trees. She turned slightly to the left toward the sound, and her eye was drawn toward a familiar sort of shimmer. She frowned... that looked like the glow of a Gilding. When she got closer, she saw a small Gilding foal playing at the water's edge.

She stopped walking, torn. On the one hand, this was almost certainly an escapee from Jakobi's Yard, and she should probably get him back there. On the other hand, he was a Gilding, and Alea knew that any sort of interaction with him would be "fun" only for the foal. The fact that he was between her and her chosen task of fetching water decided her.

She walked with brisk purpose toward the pond, trying to ignore the foal and hope that he would ignore her. But it was too late. He saw her. Gleeful at someone to torment (or so she could only presume), the Gilding pranced in front of her, blocking her way forward. When she tried to walk around, he blocked her, and when she tried to shove forward, he snapped at her, forcing her to keep her distance. She could tell by his light whinny and the bounce in his step that he was playing and not actually hostile, but she had no doubt he would actually bite her if she did not play his game.

The trouble was, the foal was preventing her from getting water. If she had another person to help, one of them could distract the foal while the other got water. But she would have to get the foal back to the Yard anyway, which meant figuring out how to manipulate him without losing an appendage.

OOCSo my thought was you could either follow Alea, or do something else work-related on your own for a post If you're not there to help Alea, she'll have to think of something on her own ;_;