Work it harder, make it better, do it faster.

Martina had just so happened to be in the proximity when a student had decided that blowing a hole through the roof of the stables was a good idea. The mess itself was easy enough to fix after neutralizing the boys power, Martina managed to hand the student off to another teacher nearby so that they could take him to detention. After doing so, Martina was left walking back to the stables to see the complete damage and to also see how spooked the horses where. Stepping into the small building, the older woman couldn't help but sigh. She would need to start looking for some more people to specifically take care of the horses and the building they stayed in. It was mystery to her why some parents thought it was a good idea to send horses to them, but since they had a meadow nearby it was easy enough to allow the animals some sort of exercise.

Clad in loose fitting grey shorts and a white t-shirt that made it seem like the Headmistress was already doing work, it was a surprise that the woman was wearing work clothes in the first place instead of something nicer. Despite the fact that Martina didn't seem like the type of woman that could do hard work, she had after all been raised at the school and knew every nook and cranny of the place like the back of her hand. She also knew when the spot things that weren't working and thanks to the fact that the school was lacking in a maintenance staff the Headmistress had taken it upon herself to do some of the dirty work.

Looking up toward the hole in the roof that was made, Martina was slightly thankful that it was in the walkway instead of being above a horses stall. She couldn't fix it herself, but the least she could do for now was cover it in case the weather went bad later in the day. Looking around the area, Martina spotted a ladder off in the corner along with some other tools. Easy enough, right? With strength that seemed unusual to her size, Martina managed to pick up the ladder and carry it outside - setting it up next to the building. The next thing she did was look for something that she could lay over the hole for the time being, finally finding few small pieces of wood.

Lastly, she needed something that would hold the wood down until something more permanent could be found. Nails and a hammer were her solution and soon enough the woman was walking back outside and slowly moving all of the things she had found up onto the roof. Now, even though Martina was familiar enough with the school to know when something was wrong - that didn't necessarily mean that the Headmistress was a handy woman. She was familiar with a lot of things and she wasn't afraid to do work, but whether or not she was skilled and actually knew what she was doing was an entirely different thing.

Finally managing to get everything on the roof, with the hammer being the last thing in her hands Martina started to climb onto the roof - standing up momentarily so that she could move toward the hole that had been made. As she did so though, Martina under stepped from the ladder to the roof - which caused the woman to accidentally kick the ladder away from her, propelling her body toward the roof. The top half of her body somehow managed to successfully get onto the roof, but the bottom half dangled haphazardly off the building. "Shit," Martina muttered to herself with closed eyes as she let the hammer out of her hand to grasp at the roof instead.

Thunk.

"Yah! Hey, what are you-" Nikolai rubbed his head, where a sizable welt was appearing and fading just as quickly. Looking up, a smirk crossed his face. "Headmistress, is this another try for my job? Doesn't look like it's going well."

He was dressed in clothing that made him look like a teenager. Loose, medium-dark jeans that matched the current distressed style only because he wore them to do anything from fix boilers to paint, dark colored canvas sneakers he'd fished from the lost and found, and a form-fitting, dark gray t-shirt with a band name he was not familiar with (he enjoyed music, but there was so much there was no remembering it all).

Nikolai's silver eyes briefly turned amber with interest as he eyed Martina's legs. "I can catch you if you let go," he commented after a moment, his tone borderline teasing. "Unless you feel like 'hanging out' or whatever the phrase is."

The sudden sound of Nikolai caused Martina a brief moment of surprise that almost made her let go of the roof, but instead hold on tighter at the last second. "Dawes, what are you doing?" The woman managed out for a moment almost sounding frustrated before focusing back on the situation she was in. There was a bit of distance between where she was holding onto and where the ground was, and the older woman was considering her options at this point.

Missing any sort of expression Nikolai showed at the conundrum that she was in, Martina let out a light sigh. "I'm not enjoying hanging out one bit. If you would be so kind to help me out though, it would be much appreciated." Martina waited then, intent on not letting go until it was confirmed that Nikolai would catch her. It really wasn't like she could rely on anyone else at the moment since he was indeed the only one around.

<So she is back to formalities, hm?>

Nikolai shrugged, replying, "I was here to clean the stalls and tend the horses. I guess it's my lucky day to find you here." He looked up at her appreciatively, adding, "It's not often that opportunities like this come my way."

It was true enough. He'd already gone ahead and assumed she was up there for repairs and he sighed. "You know, I could take care of everything outside the school if there was a handyman for the inside jobs. With Tobias MIA, I am spread pretty thin. The fire-thing that happened a few months ago took a long time to clean up." Not that he should complain, considering that he had the capacity to do more than just char part of the school.

He tipped his head at her, a devilish smile curving his mouth. "Hm. Maybe I help you out... on two conditions. First, you use my first name. Second, you go for a ride with me and forget about the stable roof. I can fix that later. The sky is clear for now; there's no danger of further natural damage." A light breeze plucked at his hair, which needed a trim that he'd wind up mauling because he couldn't be bothered to go to the barber.

Martina closed her eyes and muttered a small curse as Nikolai started to talk some more as her grip on the roof started to get looser and looser. "I already hired a new full time janitor that should be able to handle more things inside the school." She explained to him with a somewhat annoyed tone. This was not the time to talk and she much preferred him to be getting ready to catch her over everything else.

A moment's hesitation and Martina finally let out a loud sigh, "Yes, fine Nikolai - Now would you please catch me?" As she asked this Martina's grip finally slipped and the woman was left falling from the roof in a less than graceful manner along with another curse escaping from her lips.

Nikolai grinned. Some of his good mood was due to the good news, but mostly because she had agreed to his terms. "Excellent," he commented. "That will make things easier." There was never any doubt that he would catch her. He made the minute adjustments needed to catch her without hurting her, his grin morphing into a gentle smile as he held her in his arms.

"You okay?" he asked, not making any maneuvers to put her down. "Ready to ride?" He started walking, taking them both into the stables. Having done much of the caring for these creatures, he knew their personalities pretty well. And, unlike dogs, they didn't seem to have a problem with him. He spoke to some of the horses as he passed their stalls, greeting them in a long-dead language. "Which one do you want to ride?"

Before she knew it, the headmistress was falling into the were-dragon's arms. A light noise escaping her lips as this happened, at his question Martina resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the man. She wasn't sure why she was so frustrated, maybe it had something to do with the fact that he had taken his dear sweet time letting her know that he would catch her. "I'm fine," she finally said after a brief second of hesitation. "Am I allowed to walk or is this another part of the ride?"

It was when he moved up to the horses though that Martina looked around at the animals, in truth it had been awhile since she had come by just to see the animals in general. After a minute or so of looking around, Martina spotted a larger than normal horse covered in all black. "How about that one?" The headmistress then said pointing in the horses general direction. The demeanor of it looked normal enough, and it didn't seem to be bearing any special hatred toward the two.

Nikolai laughed at her question, humor transforming what would normally have been a cold face. He responded casually, saying, "It's almost as though you don't want me to sweep you off your feet." He purposefully ignored any potential innuendo in the statement; there would be time for that later, when he'd be certain that she actually meant it.

Nikolai arched an eyebrow at her choice. The Friesian she was gesturing at was a tall one, easily sixteen hands, probably a little more. While Gus had never given him any issues when he took care of the stables, that was a lot of horse for such a tiny woman. However, he knew better than to suggest something else and there was nothing in Gus's history (that he knew of) that would indicate that this was a bad choice. He set her down in front of Gus's stall, asking, "Do you need me to harness him up for you?"

Meanwhile, he glanced around to try to decide which horse he would ride. He didn't necessarily need to go with something larger than the one Martina chose; he was pretty confident in his masculinity. Furthermore, taking anything larger into the woods would be asking to be knocked out of his saddle by an errant branch. He settled mentally on a draft horse a few stalls down. Moony was occasionally a little skittish, but usually fairly even-tempered.

Martina ignored Nikolai's first statement on purpose, looking away as he mentioned any idea of being swept off her feet. The woman was still thinking about the things that had happened between them before and it would be awhile before she would forget them. As she was set down though, Martina took the brief moment to adjust her hair which had been thrown up in a loose bun for the time being. "No, I can do it." Martina replied easily to the were-dragon then, moving to get all the things necessary to ride the horse.

Even though she was a small woman, it was quite apparent that she had some strength behind her small arms as she picked up a saddle and set it on the large horse. "Tell me again, where were you wanting to go exactly?" Martina asked Nikolai then, curious about the path idea that he had in his mind - that was if he had any plan at all.

He glanced over her way, having disappeared for a moment to retrieve tack from the tackroom. With his arms bearing a saddle and bridle for Moony, he arched an eyebrow. Martina certainly didn't need help. He seemed to ponder her question as though he didn't already know where he wanted to go.

He harnessed Moony with an ease that indicated just how practice he had at it. Do things for several hundred years and it becomes second nature. "The beach. Seems appropriate to enjoy it while we can comfortably. This winter will be a harsh one, they're saying." He plotted to himself as he tightened the girth on Moony's saddle. He'd learned when he was much, much younger that if you didn't take care with this step, the horse my suck in its gut and you'd have a bit of tumble.

"Is that okay with you?" A question asked mostly out of form. It wasn't like he'd let her throw his plans too far off the mark.

Martina only seemed briefly surprised as Nikolai mentioned the beach to her, it only seemed as if their fight had only happened just a few days ago - this whole interaction seemed odd to her, but then again she might just be over thinking things. Gus gave the older woman a curious look for a few seconds as Martina finished up with getting the necessary equipment on the horse in order to ride it. "Every year this island gets snow, I feel like it's going to sink into the ocean." Martina said to Nikolai then with an odd sort of expression on her face.

It seemed unusual to her that they go snow in the first place, but the island had a lot of strange weather that Martina often found herself no bothering to question anymore. As he directed another question toward her, Martina offered up a small smile. "I've got the time today." She said to him quite simply. After all, she had been trying to attend to the hole in the roof earlier - of course she could ride out to the beach and back.

Nikolai smiled at her, his silver eyes lighting up affectionately at the hyperbole in her statement. "I can understand the sentiment, but I'm much more afraid of rogue waves sweeping everything away. Or maybe a student blowing something up." The last comment was meant to alleviate the strange tension her words had caused. He wanted to do all sorts of things to take her mind off of whatever caused that strange expression on her face.

He grinned at her comment about her day. "Fantastic," he replied, leading Moony out of the stables before swinging up into the saddle. He waited for her, commenting, "Was this here from the beginning? Did you grow up riding horses?" He was impatient to get going, but he hid this well behind casual conversation and a serene expression.

Nikolai had not spent much of his mortal life around horses, considering he'd been fairly young and his family too poor to have such animals. Horses took a lot of resources to maintain, and with rumors of dragons running about the nearest village... well, they wouldn't have been too keen on keeping livestock even if they could.

No, the first time he had encountered horses was in military service many years after he'd made the change. He had risen through the ranks, earning his rank as well as the accouterments that went with it. That, inevitably, led to getting a horse. Learning to ride had been made doubly difficult by the hunger that had gnawed at his insides.

A confused look flashed across his face. Where had that memory come from?

"Right," Martina replied easily, "Those things are a bit more reasonable to worry about." As she spoke Martina rested her hand on the saddle that she had placed on Gus, waiting for a few minutes to start mounting the horse before it seemed like Nikolai was ready to get moving. As he asked about her past, Martina hopped briefly and stuck her foot quite easily in one of the stirrups - using the constant motion to her advantage she swung her leg over the horse. "It was something my grandfather introduced to the school, he had always been interested in the animals and had been angry with his own father that he had never allowed him to go to America or any other country to experience them. My father was a bit different though, he wanted me to go experience other countries and I did once - but there's something about this island that made me just want to stay." Martina's eyes looked distant for a moment, a certain sentimental expression gracing her face before the woman shook herself back to reality and looked down at Nikolai.

"To answer your question though, yes. As much as I hated it, I was bred to learn certain things passed down through my family. I wanted to be a rebel, but my father had a good way of stifling that on occasion." It was obvious there was some mixed feeling about her father, but instead of focusing on it the woman quickly changed the subject. "Are you ready to go?"

"With you, milady? I'm always ready." A note of suggestion and teasing touched his odd accent, but he didn't linger to draw out that moment. He was glad she had some experiences beyond the island, but unnerved that she couldn't place the reason she'd wanted to stay. Maybe it was a factor of his age and generally nomadic nature, but it would feel odd to stay in a place for very long without a reason. The holes in his memory notwithstanding, he knew that every long instance in his life that had been tethered to a geographic location had borne ulterior motivations with it, motivations that he could point to with some level of satisfaction.

Well, aside from his earliest years, he felt. Those were different. He rubbed his face, remembering how young Martina was. The gap in their experiences added to the isolation he perceived when they were at odds- she was his, there was no doubt about that, but her resistance could be taxing during these realizations.

He pushed all of that aside as they rode through near-invisible paths left by the creatures of the wood. He knew the forest instinctively, as though they were the very trees his family had made a living of in his youth. Moony seemed like an extension of his body and he let companionable silence take them to the beach. Once they'd reached their destination, he dismounted with a nervous flutter in his stomach. He reached for the Gus's bridle as Martina brought him through the break in the treeline. "We are here. Let me tie the horses up and we can wander a little further on foot. Are you still at leisure to 'hang out' with me?"