Logs:All Dragonriders Are Assholes
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| RL Date: 26 October, 2015 |
| Who: R'oan, Suireh |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: R'oan welcomes Suireh to Fort; they discuss the merits of dragonriders. |
| Where: Living Cavern, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 10, Month 2, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: From morning straight through until well into the night, large, soft-looking snow falls steadily. |
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| The living caverns is quiet this late at night, the buffet food put away and the hearth lit low enough to provide light and warmth but does not require constant supervision. Suireh sits at one of the chairs the elderly usually occupies (though not at this hour), with her feet tucked beneath her and a miniature gitar, akin to a ukelele, thumbed idly in her hands. A goblet of the mulled wine that's simmering on the hearth sits at the feet of the armchair, barely touched. When the brownrider ducks into the living cavern, those large, soft snowflakes that have fallen steadily over the Weyr toay still stick to blonde hair and dust broad shoulders. If he notices Suireh as he puffs warm air over his hands, it is buried under the way he strides across the room towards the wine. By the time he has a cup for himself, snow has melted away to leave only dampness. Perhaps he didn't really see the harper, since when he goes to flick the water off his shoulder, it ends up going in her direction. She's noticed him. It'd be hard not to with the whirl of chill coming in with him in the way of snow and just movement. It interrupts her quiet enough that Suireh, harper trained though she might be, cannot help but watch this man's movements overtly. The flicked water lands on her gitar and she frowns, though doesn't vocalize her displeasure in a yelp or other sound. Instead, she shrugs the sleeve of her sweater off a little so the wrist can be used to wipe up the water. "Watch it," she says, voice low and neutral, less a warning and more just some odd brand of hello. R'oan's gaze slides to take in the bearer of the words, a quick study made even before he answers with a rather dry, "Oh, did I get you wet?" He's entirely too old for the boyish, amateur humor that glints in his gaze at the question, but not at all too old (or maybe, given Suireh's age) for the lingering look that slides over the harper after. He moves with ease to take up a chair nearby, dropping into it with all the grace of a cat despite the slosh of wine in his cup. "I know people," says Suireh, watching R'oan with a wary look in her largely luminous, pale eyes, "Who would think the waste of wine is the biggest sacrilege in the world." Not that her goblet is doing much better, untouched as it is. "I trust it's still snowing outside," she states in a clear alto, rather than asks, even though it's mostly a question. "Please, please tell me that they care about vintage and turn and how it was stored, too," is challenged with a hint of laughter to his words, wry as if in some private joke to himself as R'oan meets Suireh's wariness with an easy sureness in himself. "You'd think that people'd have better things to worry about." But, maybe he's trying to make Suireh and her people feel better when he lifts his glass and the hand wrapped around it to suck the droplets off that has caught against his skin. He adds in confirmation, "It's starting to pile up. Be glad you don't have to go back out into it to get home." Suireh looks down at the goblet at the feet of her chair and finally reaches down to pluck it, delicate fingers bracing the goblet's rim to bring it up so her hands might wrap about the thick stem. The miniature gitar rests in her lap. "I never said it's something I think of. Just, there are people I know out there somewhere. Whatever." Whatever her train of thought was with this, it's suddenly dismissed and she looks down at the ruby red drink flecked with cinnamon and unfiltered diced citrus peels. "I don't drink much," she admits. "It just seemed like the kind of night that calls for something alcoholic and warm." "What do you think of, then, harper?" murmurs R'oan in a low question, something dryly interested in that and the way he watches her with her glass. He has no smile, but only the edge of amusement in his gaze, and it's her later statement that has him suggesting, "Isn't every night? Something alcoholic, something warm, something soft--." Some nights, Suireh might have flushed at that. Tonight, a brow cocks upwards in askance and she sets the goblet down again without taking a sip. The gitar's fingerboard rests in one palm and the other plucks at the strings near the bridge, both sets of fingers floating. "I think of... things beyond your comprehension," she finally decides, the lovely alto turning tart to match the askance she looks at R'oan with. "And my name is Suireh. The way you say harper makes me wonder if you're replacing it in your head with wench." R'oan only laughs, a crooked smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth briefly as he agrees easily, "I don't doubt that." He makes a gesture to himself with his own glass of mulled wine, and then finally brings it up to his lips for a sip. It obscures them as he repeats, simply, "Suireh." She isn't sure if this pleases her anymore. This uncertainty is written all over her sharply featured, tired face. Her fingers slow into more idle strums that seem to be a placeholder until she figures out what else she wants to practice her fingers on. "I've decided, any time you designate anyone, be it by name or title or rank, you are mentally replacing it with wench." She's decided, so it must be so. But there is, finally, a hint of a smile at the brackets of Suireh's mouth, just twitching there, but not quite settling permanently. "Have you? Well, that's quite the thing to decide," counters R'oan casually, humor warm against the edges of his words. "Why do I do this, then? Women issues, mommy issues? Something deeper?" Suireh's mouth firms into a reproving schoolmarm look and she turns her head with a contrived airy loftiness that then takes her attention away from R'oan to the fire. "I'm a harper, not your mindhealer. Why don't you tell me?" R'oan replies reasonably, "You're the one that decided." Reason is not something Suireh seems capable of at this precise moment. "Because you're a dragonrider," seems to be the extent of it, before she's lapsed into silence, the idle strum of her fingers even falling still. "And all dragonriders are assholes." There's humor there, and if it were another dragonrider, perhaps the words would be sarcastic. But there's something sincere in R'oan's grey eyes as he watches Suireh in her silence. Silent and visibly struggling with something in the flittering of her lashes as her gaze skitters this way, that way, and then settles in a half-lidded look to the fire, Suireh lets out a slow, audible sigh. "No. I'm sorry. That's not what I meant." "No, don't backtrack now, Suireh," R'oan says simply, shaking his head as he shifts to lean towards her, elbows on knees and the wine dangling between his legs. He doesn't look away as he continues. "We're all assholes. A bunch of stunted would-be heroes that stepped onto the sands to find a dragon that would always love and cherish us. Always absorbed in our bond and ourselves and not the rest of Pern. How could we not all be?" Suireh's fluttering and then still to the hearth eyes, veer to look at R'oan, startled. Her mouth falls open and she stares. "It helps to get drunk more often, if you're going to live around us," is what R'oan offers as advice to Suireh when she stares, tipping his glass towards her to punctuate his point. "It will insulate you from being bothered by the asshole attitudes." Her staring is broken by his words, which then causes her to choke something (laughter?) back before speaking, "Is it your own asshole attitude that drives you to drink then?" R'oan's lips only quirk in a grin as he replies with the same reasonableness of before, "I can't escape myself." "If only," responds Suireh. "Maybe that's why-," but she never concludes the thought, finally reaching for and bringing the goblet to her lips to sip. "To insulation from assholes," she toasts after her drink. "To insulation," R'oan echoes, lifting his glass in a toast before he drains the last of the mulled wine, including the dregs. He doesn't press at abandoned thoughts, instead drawing back to his feet. "Welcome to Fort, Suireh." "Shall I," inquires Suireh, her grey eyes suddenly grave, "Say, thank you, asshole or do you have a name I might otherwise use? Either works for me." R'oan considers her at the question, as if he could also go either way. But then finally, he gives her, "R'oan." She also receives a crooked smile before the man turns to leave. Suireh stays, sipping at her wine and looking at the hearth until the drudges come along to sweep. |
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