Unavoidable Avoidance [Star]

The last several sevendays had been... wild, to say the least. He and the other Harpers had spent many days after the Hatching speaking with the Weyr's new Weyrlings and the Weyrlingmaster about the new dragons, gathering as much information as they could for the sake of record-keeping. Anything they could get was viewed as detrimental, as Tsuneath was Pern's first Pearl to clutch. Should she survive and continue, things would only repeat until there was an established "norm."

For example, would every clutch she had have a high degree of "abnormalities"? Or, "mutations"? Could Pearls actually lay Queens?

However, now that most (or maybe all, he hadn't gathered with the other Harpers yet for the day) of the weyrlings had been spoken to, he had decided to speak to a few of the Candidates as well. Well, maybe he was pretty guilty of only wanting to talk to one, specific Candidate and using the "wanting to interview Candidates about the Hatching" as an excuse.

Unfortunately said particular Candidate was incredibly difficult to track down. It was almost like he was actively avoiding Izuku. Even after asking around, he wasn't having any real luck. But, he'd found out which room was his, and was planning on dropping by unexpectedly during Candidate downtime. He knew their schedule after some poking with the Candidatemaster, after all. It wasn't hard to ask for, considering all he had to do was mention that it was for Weyr records.

Knocking on the appointed door, Izuku tucked his hide scroll under his arm, waiting politely for someone to answer.

To say Shouto was... exhausted would have been an understatement. Somehow the last few months felt like they'd been years instead, and it was difficult to determine why. The sudden departure from the hold, his surprise roommate, being thrown head first into his role as a candidate, and then all that had come after the flight... it was a lot. It was overwhelming and Shouto certainly found Katsuki's early warning about drowning hadn't come without reason.

It was... fine though. He was fine even if he found himself all but collapsing back into his bed as soon as his day was done. He had found himself spending the vast majority of his spare time here, considering... he didn't exactly know many people. He supposed he could have spent time with his brother but... Touya was little better than a stranger himself, and besides, he was likely busy with his new role as a weyrling, considering he now had a dragon to tend to... Shouto really didn't want to bother him.

And besides that... oddly enough this seemed to be the place he was least likely to run into his roommate. Katsuki seemed to keep busy from the time he woke up to the time he went to bed. Aside from that first day, Shouto had hardly seen him here during what he supposed counted as 'free time'. Which... in all honesty suited Shouto fine. At least it meant he knew where to stay to be out of the blond's hair.

And that's where he was, lounging on his bed, eyes closed as he absently stroked the firelizard curled up on his chest like a lazy feline, when he heard something unexpected. Frowning , he opened his eye and pushed himself up, ignoring Vitali's indignant little chirp as she was sent falling into his lap, before being forced to crawl off of it was he swung his legs off the bed and went to the door.

He wasn't sure why anyone would be knocking-even less so when he was greeted by a boy, roughly his age in appearance. Short and slim with a mess of black hair and a plethora of freckles that Shouto was [i]fairly[i] sure he'd have remembered if he was another candidate. "Can I help you?"