Logs:"So a brownrider walks into a bar..."
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| RL Date: 2 February, 2008 |
| Who: Leova, Jasvie, P'draig |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Leova and Jasvie get the last table at the WaveRider. P'draig gets them beer. |
| Where: The WaveRider Tavern, Tillek Hold |
| When: Day 28, Month 2, Turn 15 (Interval 10) |
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| Tillek Hold, The WaveRider Tavern You stand in a wide room, carved out of the side of the cavern. The light is slightly dim, as the room is lit mainly by glowbaskets hanging from the beams that cross the ceiling, but it only helps to create a relaxed atmosphere. The fireplace against the north wall keeps the room sufficiently warm, and the flickering glow is comforting. A bar, the top of which is polished stone, runs along the west wall, with a line of stools standing before it. In the northwest corner of the room, behind the bar, a swinging door leads into a small kitchen. Tables of various sizes range around the room, with some on the east side of the room dedicated to various games. A dartboard there is generally in use, and people generally take their seats at a safe distance. The only exit is through the swinging doors to the south, back into the work cavern. A small door in one corner leads into the kitchen, but this is behind the bar, and appears to be intended for employee use only.
Behind these groups, P'draig ambles in, hands stuck in pockets and whistling low. He stops as he crosses the threshold, eyes a little wide at the /crowd/ in the bar tonight. "Damn ..." He murmurs under his breath and starts to back out then pauses as he notes the spaces still available at that table Leova's claimed, running a hand through his hair and straightening his jacket he approaches with a wide grin. "Hey there, P'draig, brownrider, Fort Weyr," he introduces himself rapid-fire and nods towards one of those vacant chairs. "Mind sharing elbow-room?" Leova turns to look over her shoulder, one brow cocked under the mass of auburn hair, checking out the man and how his knot matches up. Whatever she was about to say, though, her dairymaid friend beats her to it, all bright eyes and tinkling voice, "Sit before someone else does! I'm Jasvie, this is Leova, and--" Leova finishes the sentence, "It could be a wait. I'll get this out of your way." She moves the sack but it's toward her, protectively. "Great!" P'draig holds a hand out to each of the young women in turn. "Jasvie and Leova, well-met. Crazy busy tonight, huh?" He looks around again and pulls his jacket off, letting it rest on the back of the chair. "First round's on me, least I can do for the seat." Jasvie takes her turn first, quick with both thanks and smile before she starts unbuttoning her own, bright blue sweater. Her friend's hand is less soft. Leova mentions, "Have you tried the Dolpho-made ale they have on tap? Furious something-or-other, furious as in mad. I hear it's good. And thanks." "Dolpho-made?" P'draig look between the two young women, curious. His own palm bears some slight calluses still but is much softened by constant use of dragon oil. "Furious. Hmm. Well we should try then, yeah?" He looks around the table again then leans back, head turning to catch the eye of one of the serving folk. It takes a little doing to attract one, but one of them finally makes eye contact with Paddy and when she does, there's a beaming smile for the Fortian rider. "Well look what the wher dragged in, Mr. Fancy Pants Weyrlingmaster gracin' us with his presence. You want the usual, or?" P'draig laughs merrily and shakes his head. "Nope. Got some Dolpho-made Furious something-or-other? For the ladies and I'll try some too. Good to see you again Yessa." The ladies, such as they are, have gotten rid of their outerwear by now and are sitting next to each other on the opposite side from P'draig's chair, heads bent and voices loud only by necessity of the crowd, Jasvie looks up more often, Leova has an increasingly beleaguered expression, but they both have an eye to the rider's reception and a wave to Yessa, too. The sack has disappeared under the table. "You too. Okay, so three bottles of the Furious, got it. You picking up the tab?" P'draig nods once. "Sure, might as well start one up, might be here for a bit." The serving girl grins again and gives them all a little wave then works her way back towards the bar. Paddy leans his elbows onto the table then, lacing his fingers together. "Apprenticed up here a long time back, I come back every now and then, but I guess they liked my marks at the bar." "Did you come by here, back then?" Leova asks, pushing her hair behind her ears before setting her own elbows on the table. Jasvie's question is, "And do they let you into the Rusted Hulk? Everyone says they don't like riders much." Meanwhile, the place is kept busy with a few leaving but others crowding in, the bar starting to stack up two deep. Jasvie starts playing with her own hair a little, adjusting her neckline, checking her sleeves. "Yep. I was learning to be a Baker. Had to learn the ales, right?" P'draig's smile appears frequently and sincerely and makes another appearance just now. "Well see, to go there, you just take off your knot, right? Or y'know, have an in with the barkeep if he remembers you back from when you were a snot-nosed punk who dared ... well, okay, maybe I don't need to tell you /that/ story." His eyes drift over to Jasvie. "You ... meeting someone tonight?" When he mentions the bakers, Leova abruptly shakes her head, muttering something surprised about Seacraft. "And you're telling me that if the barkeep remembers you and... whatever 's worse than being snot-nosed, the rest don't too? Knot or no knot?" She shakes her head again, this time on a laugh, until Jasvie's expression pulls hers into something more askance. Since Jasvie is giving P'draig an extra dose of twinkling eyes and cupid's bow smile. "I am, sir. I very definitely am. In fact, I think he's right..." murmurs the dairymaid, and she blows the rider a kiss. Only really it's the tall deckhand who's standing right behind him, grinning. P'draig just shrugs. "Depends on who's behind the bar that night, right?" One hand opens up and gestures loosely. "And a lot of seacrafters seem to have an interesting code of -- " he breaks off blinking at Jasvie then tilts a look up over his head. "Well hello there, pull up a seat? We're waiting on some apparently fine ale, be happy to order another?" The deckhand, still grinning, answers P'draig in the thickest Tillek accent heard around the table yet. Since the rider's from partly around here, though, he can probably translate it into how he'll get his own but get a taste of his girl's and steal her seat while he's at it, too. Meanwhile, if Jasvie had been happy to run into P'draig, it's nothing compared to how she greets her boy, and Leova leaves them to it with a hand held comically up to her face as a blinder. "They're always like that," she tells P'draig. "Always, always, always." There are kissing noises going on, but Leova can't see them, so it's all good. P'draig nods a couple of times, amiably and smirks a little at the seat-taking and the kissy-face, not embarrassed at all. "Well y'know, it is a tavern," jokes the rider and then the ales are hitting the table and Yessa's reaching over to tousle his hair. "Heeeyyyy, I've got dignity to maintain these days, y'know?" The serving girl only gives his hair another swipe and winks over at Leova. "Should've seen him back in the day, sweet-talker." And she's off back through the crowd to pick up more drinks and deliver them to tables. "So." He slides one of the bottles in front of Mr. and Mrs. Kissyface and the other towards Leova, claims the last for himself. "You from around here?" Leova doesn't laugh back to Yessa, but she does smile more widely before nudging the first bottle out of the way of stray elbows. And, who knows, knees. Taking her own bottle, she tilts its mouth toward the door. "East of here, actually. Met Jasvie right when I came in, a few months back. You were saying something about a... code of honor?" P'draig lifts his bottle to his lips and takes a good pull. "Oh hey ... nice," he notes, peering inside at the frothy brew. "And east ... so ... up towards the mountains a bit?" He does apparently know the general lay of Tillek. "I used to sail up the coast sometimes, and I like to rock climb so I'd hike inland too looking for good cliffs." Paddy nods once, tilts his beer bottle back up and swallows. "Better n' better," he notes idly then goes on. "Sure, seacrafter code of honor. The kind of stuff that might miss off your average hold doesn't seem to piss them off at all or in the same ways. So lets say you're young and full of piss and vinegar and decide to take on a burly guy in a bar, right? Instead of getting pissed about it, when you manage to land one punch but then get a black eye, they might think it's funny and respect you for trying instead of throwing you out on your arse." And the story gets told anyway if only from the hypothetical standpoint. "Right," Leova answers, and she even smiles again, watching him try it before she drinks her own. "Good? Great. Right in there. Follow the Road east but don't go south to Fort, go north instead. You'd have to go upstream to get more in the way of cliffs, though." She risks a sideways look, then hands up the third bottle, which comfortingly doesn't fall down again, so Jasvie and her boy have that much going for them at least. "I'm impressed, though. Only a black eye." She takes her own pull, shallowly, licking up a little of the foam before drinking deeper. "Lucky you, hm?" "Oh yeah? Good to know, thanks. I come up here to climb sometimes still. Y'know the one down by the cotholds? S'good exercise." P'draig takes another swig from his bottle. "Yeah, I think they took pity on me 'cause I was willing to stand behind what I'd said or something. Haven't had any problems going down there since anyway, even with this." He leans back to flick his big fancy knot. He's doing a pretty good job of ignoring the 'show' going on in that chair next to Leova. Which makes it easier for Leova to ignore it, too, although her shoulders still have a hunch to them. While he talks she makes her drink last, and when he gestures to his knot she looks too, a little blankly but covering with a nod: it's been a while since Harper lessons but complicated, complicated's enough to know. "How often does that story get told, anyway? You don't come off bad." "Not that often, though I use it as a cautionary tale with weyrlings sometimes," P'draig quips with a twinkle in his eyes and tips his bottle back, swigging long. "Think I'm bad?" Both brows lift a little and his eyes settle on her face, expression mild. Leova's surprised into a laugh. "No," she says, and holds up her hand to get Yessa again, this time for some salted nuts. No tab: she pays right away, getting a couple thirty-seconds in exchange. "Unless maybe bad for not being bad, if that counts. But you didn't even play it up all that much. Did I miss any other badness?" Laughing P'draig re-settles his elbows on the table, fingers lacing loosely around the base of his beer bottle. "Some little rule-breaking as a Candidate, um ... pranks when I was a kid at the Reaches. Drinking too much sometimes when things got tough during the return of Thread and ... other tough spots in my life." He shrugs once and looks across the table at her with another loose smile. "Otherwise, guess not. Not really." Leova listens, meeting his gaze here and there, and then she just shakes her head. "Been busy," she summarizes instead of whatever else she might have said, sliding the nuts across the table when they arrive. Even Jasvie comes up for air long enough to take some. "So many places. No, I'm afraid you're going to have to come up with better stories than that if you're going to get people calling you /bad/. But no worries, hm? ...Thanks again for the drink." P'draig only grins in reply and finishes off his beer in two mouthfuls. "Don't really want to be, so there you go. But I do have more stories -- " he breaks off, eyes unfocused for a moment, then he blinks back into the room. "Not for tonight though. Maybe if I bump into you again, Leova, we can trade stories. Thanks for the seat and the company, it's been a pleasure." He rises then, swinging his jacket back on. "I'll go settle with Yessa, so don't worry about the beers." So saying, he gives a little salute and steps over to the bar to settle that tab. Later on should Leova and Jasvie order more beer, they'd find he left enough to cover a second round, before he headed off into the chilly Tillekian night to meet his dragon and head home. Leova waves but is otherwise silent in the wake of his departure, the flotsam and jetsam of all those words and the jacket and the knot and the way Yessa treats him, the way his focus had changed just then before he left. Before he's out the door, though, she turns to pull up that sack she'd had and get back to her whittling. And when Jasvie is finally back for conversation she says, "He talked almost as much as you do," smiles at her friend, and leaves it at that. |
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