Logs:Between Holds
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| RL Date: 18 August, 2013 |
| Who: K'del, Telavi |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: A chance meeting leads to a shared lunch. |
| Where: Empty field, Nabol Hold |
| When: Day 18, Month 7, Turn 32 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Aishani/Mentions, Anders/Mentions, Azaylia/Mentions, Edeline/Mentions, Huelet/Mentions, N'ky/Mentions, Quinlys/Mentions, Riahla/Mentions, Rone/Mentions, Rysa/Mentions, Ustelan/Mentions, Z'ian/Mentions |
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| Southwest of Nabol proper, close to the Ruathan border, valleys ripple one after the other like ovine-cropped velvet down towards the river. Solith's picked one with a field currently out of rotation to land in, though, Telavi stopping briefly to talk with its small hold's inhabitants before wandering back to the meadow with a little extra added to her lunch. She sits there, on a rock overlooking the water, while Solith-- who'd been very interested in certain of those inhabitants-- lounges with her tail and hindquarters in a stream that will eventually feed into the river, now and again scanning the sky. Solith's scanning might catch a pale dragon, the afternoon sun outlining his green-bronze hide in something more luminescent; something brilliant. Cadejoth is threading his way through the currents with an emphasis on wing stretching, as though he has been cooped up and kept down for far too long (as, indeed, he has been). It may be that they could go straight home now, the bronze and his rider, but why would they do that? There's flying to be done, after all, and Cadejoth is here to make sure it gets done. Cadejoth, glowing? Can it be? Those currents freshen, somehow, light and bright and... delighted, because, « Cadejoth! I see you. We see you! » Look, look, down below, and yes, that much-tinier figure is Telavi indulgently looking upward too, her hand shielding her eyes. Solith's even begun to flap her wings, a wave of sorts, again and again in a ripple of gilt-hazed green that appears to have no awareness of draconic propriety at all. Clearly, Cadejoth has had no expectation of being seen by anyone - except perhaps holders out in their fields, admiring or fearful (preferably the former). His languid path swerves on receipt of Solith's hail, that pale head turning and lowering to seek her out. His, « Solith! » is cheerful, perhaps even verging on outright delighted, and it's true that he's almost immediately dropping down into a landing, only barely avoiding the indignity of grappling with grace in the process. "Tela," greets his rider, with a lazily executed mock-salute. "Fancy seeing you all the way out here." Such positive reinforcement. Solith dips her wingtips into the water just so that she can toss up bits of glittering rainbows to herald his descent. More used to the antics by now, Telavi just links her hands behind her neck and leans back, though it may help that the green's distant enough that she only gets a droplet or two anyway. "Amazing, isn't it?" Her little finger 'salutes' behind her ear. "It's almost as though we're working, or something," and her smile grows as it travels along the other rider, looking for clues as to his reason for being in the territory or just plain looking. "Lunch?" Rainbows! A different dragon would probably consider such things his due, but Cadejoth's just pleased... even if he's significantly less glow-y down here, with the sun above and not directly behind him. "Working," repeats K'del, with an over-exaggerated moue of disgust. "We couldn't possibly do something like that. We're dragonriders; people of leisure!" He's swinging down, now, crossing towards the stream, and Telavi's rock. "Lunch? Is that a 'have you eaten?', an 'eat yours with me', or a 'would you like to share mine?'... or maybe an 'are you on your lunch break?'?" The stream doesn't have seaweed, sadly, but it is cold and wet, so that's something! And also sparkling, for much like Cadejoth and his glow, it doesn't reach full-on glitter when it's not up in the air. "Lei-sure." The way Telavi draws it out, that first syllable does the work of five. "Well, I don't know. What do you have for lunch? Will it taste good with mine? You should know that I had a bite out of dessert first." It's a rare half-circle of a bubbly-- the better to make them go further, or so is the rumor-- golden with crystallized sweetening on top and the bit of apricot peeking out. The wrap in her hand seems more mundane, some sort of meat layered with crisp greens and cheese, but also in the napkin on her lap is a handful of fresh-picked peas right off the holder's vine. "You've heard of it?" Leisure. K'del clambers up onto one of the other nearby rocks, and pulls out his own repast: pastry-wrapped sausages not yet entirely cold, with a collection of fingerroots, celery and other easily munched bites, with some kind of cheesy dip served in a leather 'cup' with a lid. "At Nabol," he declares, as he lays all of this out. "They eat better than we do. Which is hopefully a good sign for the tithe to come, don't you think? Unless this whole business gets messy-- also, Tela. Eating dessert first. How very decadent of you." He has a stem's worth of grapes, also laid out for her inspection. "It's one of those wild rumors I've been listening to lately." Spotting that cheesiness of his, Tela uses her nails to pry off the 'string' going down the length of two of her pea pods, dropping one pod off in trade as she reaches over to dip the other. "Isn't it?" Good sign and decadence both. Her voice dropped into a confidence, "I also have to warn you that it's a split household over yonder; the grandmother's all for Huelet, and the holder too it's said, but the mother's for Rone or Anders and the girls are bickering. Bicker, bicker, bicker. It half made me wish I hadn't asked," though her amused tone makes it rather less than half. Of course, she's also regarding those grapes again, and whether they look like standard Weyr issue or something better. Peas for cheese seems to be an acceptable trade, so far as K'del is concerned; he seems pleased, picking up the peas and testing out the same combination. Genuine amusement fades to something a little less genuine, and rather more thoughtful, however, as, while he chews, he contemplates what she's said about the holders. "And they think Weyrs have a peculiar process of it," he says, not without some wry recognition of events from the last few turns. "Up at Nabol, I heard a rumour Rone's walked away from his Steward gig, all the better to focus his attentions on winning support. Not sure that's good news for us, with the harvest soon to start." He nudges the grapes closer to the edge of his rock, encouragingly. "Nabol grapes. They're good." It lends some wryness to her smile. "At least the old Lord could have made it differently, if he'd only chosen." Could have, should have, Telavi's well-equipped to be judgmental about that."I hadn't heard that rumor, but no, it doesn't seem good at all. I hope it's not true." Tela smiles for that grapes-nudge, but settles for sampling the cheese-and-peas-- her raised thumb pronouncing the latter good-- before picking off a couple. "Locally? Thank you." It's followed by, more meditatively, "I can only imagine, even if he thinks the right thing to do is to stick with his work, he's got a lot of pressure to, I don't know. 'Take charge' or 'make a difference' or even just 'keep those bad other people from getting it.'" Her gaze has drifted to K'del, somewhere in there, and now she finally tastes the grapes, seeming by her half-smile to enjoy them too. "Those 'other bad people' being, of course, his own family. Father. Aunt. Cousins. Amazing, the whole thing." As if K'del is not hold bred; perhaps he thinks that puts him in an even better position from which to be judgey. "Anyway, honestly, they're probably all no better or worse than each other, as long as none of them devolve into assassination or--" He can't seem to think of anything else, and shrugs. "So really, I don't care as long as they get it sorted out soon. I can tell you that Lady Edeline visited... watching people come and go is about the only interesting thing to do on watch duty, and we've been doing a lot of that lately." He drowns his sorrows in sausage pastry. It, too, seems to be good. "He wouldn't be the first wingsecond to want his own wing... as it were," Telavi comments, though her hint of dimple is short-lived, even given that third grape that she makes off with before settling back with her wrap. "Why watch duty, though?" she has to ask. "To watch people come and go? Cadejoth's so active, or at least it seems that way," said with sudden deference because really, how well does she know as opposed to know of them? "Or... are either of you content to sit like a grape on a stem?" Waiting to be eaten, or crushed and drunk, or left for the avians to feast? But then again, she doesn't say it as a bad thing. The shake of K'del's head is vociferous - or, rather, is made so by his, "Shells no!" And certainly, it's obvious from the way Cadejoth is already stretching his wings and shifting around that he, certainly, is not a dragon built for such activities. "Taking some time off," he explains. Again. For those keeping count, this is his third absence in as many months. "F'manis said yes, as long as I made up the duties-- and that means picking up everyone's least favourite activity. It'll be okay; we're nearly done. Can you really imagine us just hanging around, waiting to be--" He demonstrates, plucking one of the grapes free. "No thank you." Telavi's eyes go round, and so do Solith's haunches as the young dragon crouches. "But why?" she just has to ask, as Solith has to leap airborne, and she may not be the most agile of greens but she can get up there in a jiffy when she wants to... and she does. In her wake, the greenrider unconsciously takes a deeper, not quite laughing breath. "What's worth all that?" She hasn't been counting, but it's the way he talks about it, even before he plucks the low-sitting fruit. And if Solith is going to take to the air? So too is Cadejoth, so eager is he to stretch his wings and recover his sense of self - a sense of self that is not well preserved when stuck upon the ground for so very awfully long. "Got a friend who needs some company," is the bronzerider's explanation, light enough that it could be casual except for the smile that can't keep from his eyes: he's looking forward to it. "We'll forget the dismalness of the past little while soon enough, and then it'll just be the happy memories of time spent away." What has it been? Minutes?! While Solith plays up in the skies, Telavi... well, she says quite seriously, "So the trick is to make sure you pay with your dismalness in advance." That might be playing too. "But of course," confirms K'del, serious enough, if not wholly so. "Better that than have your fun and then come home to dismalness, don't you think? That," he's quite sure, "would be utterly unbearable. Anyway, I'd rather not think too much about the dismal right now. How are you, Tela?" He is going to focus on lunch: on cheese and sausage and grapes and other lovely things, all tasting the better for being eaten outdoors. "Grateful that my lunch isn't dismal," Tela says pertly, and with that, can finally leave the dismalness alone. "It's good, I'm good, we're settling in." Though, "Have you ever had a weyr that gets a bit stuffy, summertime, and if you did, how did you cope? It was lovely last winter, but I've had to settle for keeping the curtains open and convincing Solith to wave some air through now and again... which, as you might guess," and when she smiles at him, a hint of a dimple has to show just briefly, "can be just a little dangerous." The way K'del shakes his head suggests this isn't something he's experienced overly, though his smile is bright - and clearly for the mental image of Solith's dangerous breezes. "Mine've all been fine," he confirms. "Clearly, what you really need is a window, though from what I understand, they're expensive to get installed, and then there's winter to worry about. Maybe you should just find a way to hang a hammock on her ledge, and spend your time lazing around outside." "A window." The way Telavi repeats it, she's dubious, so dubious... and yet intrigued, not exactly an unfamiliar combination. "It does sound like a lot of work, and there's so much more winter than summer around here," meaning there, but either way, it's a start. "Do you manage to not fall out of hammocks? I haven't spent too much time in one, I think I'd worry about falling out. Although... if I strung it in the mouth of the weyr..." Though she starts in on her meal again, only a couple bites left of her wrap, she's barely looking at it. Thinking. The point about winter versus summer earns acknowledgement in the form of a nod from K'del, though most of his attention seems focused on her non-verbal reaction. "Sadly," he admits, "most hammocks aren't quite long enough for my legs - not comfortably, anyway. Reckon you'd be fine, though, and right, in the mouth of the weyr there's no chance you'd fall to the ground," the real ground, "or anything. It's an idea, anyway." He peels some of the pastry off of his roll, idly dropping pieces of it into the water; evidently, he's not that interested in eating. At that, Tela can't help but glance down the length of him, but manages to make it brief; she'd stretched out her own legs, and now crosses them at the knee before looking up at the sky with a bit of a smile. Skipping comfort, "It is. And it's less... visible, then out on one of the benches on our ledge where anyone could fly overhead and look." Not a lot less visible, but even a Solith-length helps. It's on the barely-there click of look that she thinks to glance back at K'del, though she's in no hurry whatsoever to say anything; when at last she does, it's not even quite a whisper, a little too laid-back to be properly conspiratorial. "Don't let the aunties catch you, now." "Imagine there's plenty of people who simply wouldn't be able to help themselves, but to look," teases K'del, stretching out his shoulders with a long, lazy roll of them, now that he's giving up on his food and focusing, instead, on the conversation (and the sunshine). "You think they'd disapprove? So wasteful. Which - you'd think we'd've learned otherwise," he would have learned otherwise, "after all that rationing. But--" Evidently not so much. Telavi gives him a smile for the gallantry, too, right before she wrinkles her nose with a short, deep sigh. "Rebels," she muses. "Well, 'rebel,' really, unless you hand me a bit of roll to toss in too, corrupt me to the dark side," and here her smile gets to be more teasing in return. "If only this were a lake, we'd likely have fish bobbing up to be fed, and then you could tell them-- the aunties, I mean-- 'Think of the fish, the poor starving fish.'" "Won't take you down with me," avers K'del, teasingly, as he swings around to glance down the stream a ways, as if to seek out those fish that are not here to eat his remains. His leftovers, that is. "Exactly so. Pity. Imagine they'd jump right out of the water for my pastry crumbs, and all a person would have to do is reach out and grab them, in order to catch dinner. Though - guess that depends on the kind of fish, doesn't it?" "Or on the pastry. Does your pastry have worms in it?" Telavi inquires, bright-eyed, and squirms her forefinger in the air like one of them. Quick as anything, K'del's response comes with a grin: "Only the sausage meat. You never know what they'll put into that, right? Yum yum." Telavi makes such a face. "I don't know if I'll be able to look at a sausage again, now." "No sausages for Telavi," says K'del, mock-sadly, as though this is a great tragedy indeed... and perhaps it is, given the way he's lifting his eyebrows at her, implying something other than the kind of sausages that had been found in his pastry roll. Whereupon Tela promptly blushes, not that that stops her from rejoining, "At least you can stomach them, and I won't have to worry about your starving." K'del promptly makes a face, even if it's not a face that lingers, not when he can smile, instead, and seem genuinely delighted somehow. "Saucy," he says, just to continue the metaphor. "I was going to ask if you liked them better with sauce than without," Telavi says, but then she dimples. "Actually, I was going to ask first about fishing, before I got distracted... where 'fishing' really means 'Searching.' Are you two good at that too?" "Definitely with," is K'del's immediate answer, though he's prompt about moving on to her other remark, too, even as he's leaning forward to trail his fingers through the water. "Not great at it, no. We've brought in a few who've Impressed, over the turns. N'ky, for one. But Cadejoth's not a natural, not the way some dragons are. You're thinking about Hraedhyth's clutch?" There's a sparkle in Tela's eyes that suggests she could quip back, but she masters it, even giving a respectful nod for his having brought in her clutchmate, "I am. With things as they are..." K'del's nod is short, and he's silent afterwards, his gaze abruptly far away and thoughtful. "Always a difficult question, in Interval. Who to Search. Who not to Search. Whether we should 'Search' at all." "Tell me what you're thinking?" Tela requests, her voice pitched so as to be unobtrusive. "'At all'?" "Well," says K'del, after a moment. "It's always an option. Unless it's a big clutch, do we need candidates from out of the Weyr? It's just as possible to stick with the ones we've already got - people who've Stood in the past, or people who're weyrbred and can just ask. And that way, you don't piss any holders off." "Even weyrfolk who have Stood several times have been known to Impress eventually," Telavi says without particular inflection. "Do you think it would be hard to talk Cadejoth down? If he finds someone, I mean? Though you said he's not a natural at that." K'del hesitates, and then admits, "It's not something we ever actually instituted, in my time. We generally didn't send our, you know, search wings, but if you happened to notice someone..." He's looking at Telavi, considering her. His hands, damp now, rest idly on each knee. "What do you think? Good idea, bad? Potential?" "So you always ever were able to say yes, no one was blind or married or craftranked or anything?" Telavi asks first. That's a different question, and leaves K'del hesitant, gaze focused now on a distant point on the horizon, down stream. "No, maybe not quite that. There've been some married women. One pregnant one. Journeyman who refused." Telavi doesn't make the joke she could. She does ask, "How did Cadejoth handle that, were you able to explain, did he 'know'? What about others you've seen? I have no idea how Solith will be... I keep thinking I will but I don't." "He was disappointed. Not sure he really gets why any of these things should be a problem, you know? But - it helps that he's not a really intense search dragon, I guess. Like, maybe he feels them, but he's not fixated. Some are." That blue-eyed gaze returns towards the greenrider, now, and he adds, "Mostly, it's fine. You'll be fine.She'll be fine." "So they're the ones who'll have to stick at home... or have to cope," Telavi puts it more realistically the second time around. "I think we will." She's not averse to meeting his gaze, underscoring it. "She doesn't argue with me often, or for long." "If Z'ian and Azaylia decide not to Search outside the Weyr," confirms K'del. "Though I imagine they'll at least avoid High Reaches Hold and maybe Tillek. If she doesn't argue, well, that makes it easier, hopefully." His smile is encouraging. Tela's demeanor is composed, as she sits there on the rock, the better to give the effect of someone who doesn't need encouragement for such things, for all that she likes the smile. "It would. I wonder about swapping weyrfolk with other Weyrs, if they're interested? People who want a change of scenery. Fresh blood. Although," she doesn't quite smile, "I suppose it may not be so easy to tell if they'd just want to transfer back, afterward." "Do you think about transferring back?" says K'del, less like a question than it could be. "Riahla and, uh, Quinlys' sister didn't transfer back; they Impressed at Monaco with Aishani. Seems like... it feels like home, eventually." The greenrider cocks her head, considering K'del before she answers. "Now and then. I do get asked... It's nice to feel as though I have options, and maybe this is strange, but it lets me not think about it for too long." K'del blows a curl away from his eyes, ineffectively, and considers. "Reckon we've all got options, one way or another. Maybe less for the goldriders - they kind of have to go where they're told. But if I wanted to transfer tomorrow, unless it was somewhere that... didn't like me, well, I could do it. But why does it let you not think about it for too long?" What are the chances of that, of having that other Weyr not like him? Telavi doesn't ask it. "Call them 'acceptable options,' then, that's what I meant anyway," and she gives him a repressive frown that, admittedly, is equally touched with humor. "Feeling like you have options... it seems like there's less of a scramble to make more. You're not locked in. Even if you stay right where you are, it's because it's your choice, you know?" And K'del doesn't specify, though something in his expression suggests he could name one. Or even more. "Okay, fine," he says, with a laugh. "Reckon I can see what you mean, yes. Options. It's nice to have them. Better than feeling trapped, one way or another. Of course, then there's such thing as too many options - like Nabol - and that just complicates everything ten times over." "Ugh, yes," and Telavi rolls her eyes. "Don't get me started." Which doesn't stop her from asking, "Do you think it was more that he was playing them off against each other and that's how he got by, or that he guessed that whoever it was would try to take over as soon as he was acknowledged," and there are options she could name but instead she stops there. When K'del answers, it's with a musing kind of thoughtfulness to it. "Wouldn't entirely put it past him," he says. "He was a strange one, Ustelan. Sometimes you'd see him and he'd be sharp as a tack, and other times... he used to try and grope pretty women, and it'd be half impossible to get anything sensible out of him. Can imagine it would've been difficult, getting old with all those ambitious men - and women, I suppose - around you, just waiting for you to die. He wasn't even supposed to be Lord in the first place, though I don't remember what the circumstances were. His brother died, maybe? Something like that." "Was it... convenient for him, those other times?" Tela has to ask when K'del's done, her voice quiet but interested, speculative even, rather than wholly neutral. "One..." K'del pauses. Then, diplomatically: "Certainly had to wonder, at times. I suppose there's power in that, too." "The aunties would probably say not to second-guess the dead," Telavi says with a sigh. On the other hand, there were those auntie-defying crumbs, and it lightens her expression into a smile and her conversation lightens too, "At least, not unless they were doing it first! But," and her smile turns faintly guilty for the veering topic if not at all repentant, "what does it feel like when Cadejoth wants to Search someone? Does he tell you? Or stick their face in your head? A picture of their face, I mean." "The aunties say an awful lot of things, and I find it generally easier to ignore them," declares K'del, with a smile, though it's just as likely not to be true: he's not exactly known for being good at accepting criticism, however nicely intended. "He shows me, usually. It kind of varies. It usually starts with a mental nudge to start paying attention to someone, and then he'll make a decision. Seems like he's got his tells, even before he's made up his mind, sometimes even before he's nudged me. But it's different, one time to the next." Telavi's listening with close attention of her own-- then pulls a moue. "Of course it would have to be." Tela may not be able to see Solith, or even larger Cadejoth, but she looks up anyway and waves in the general direction of the green. "Although it's more interesting that way, maybe. Did he ever try for one where it was terribly awkward? Do you bother trying to convince them if they're at all..." she shrugs her own shoulders, illustratively, before lifting her brows in question. K'del's gaze follows Telavi's, up towards the great blue of the sky, and those little white fluffy clouds. "Most of the time, we've only found people inside the Weyr, and so most of them are aware of what they're in for, and interested. We didn't tend to Search much when it was his clutches. But if a person says no - well, I'm not going to push. No point getting reluctant riders, you know?" He's only just getting into the first couple syllables of 'reluctant' when Telavi starts nodding. "Maybe somebody or other's too-- well, actually, if they go on about 'I'm not worrrthy!'" mimicked with a tremulous soprano, "I don't know that I'd want them about anyway, unless maybe they're the kind that's actually sincere instead of trying to get you to talk them into it. Save the chance for someone who really wants it." Tela's mimicry makes K'del smirk, eyes dancing with irrepressible amusement, for all that his answer after that is firmly determined. "Exactly so," he agrees. "There's not so many dragon eggs available these days that it seems fair to waste them on people who don't really want it. If this were the Pass... sometimes I wonder at how many people say yes in a pass. Martyr complex?" "Maybe! Or they don't think it will happen to them. Or," says Telavi, "they're just frustrated by waiting around for other people to do something and want to take it on." She doesn't say this quite neutrally either, but the exact nature of it-- she looks down, now, hunting out that small pastry and using clean nails to break it in half, but as though the bitten-off line were the natural edge instead of an already-removed part of the share. With a glance to K'del, displaying the not-bitten portion in a slow, slow figure-eight, "Would you like a taste, to finish off? You don't have to be hungry." A bite, or two, before it's back to work. It's that last possibility that has K'del's mouth twisting, rather like he's all too aware of what that is like. And, too, there's the admission that, "Pretty sure I would've said yes, even then, so maybe I can't talk." He considers her pastry, hesitating for one second, two seconds, three. "Well. If you're offering!" Tela's pleased laugh enjoys that very admission, lightening into a smile as she leans forward to offer the treat atop the barely-concave curve of her palm. If he makes the bites small, there could even be three, or more. He tries... but in the end, he only manages two. Still, they're two delicious bites, and he says as much: "That was awesome. Thanks, Tela. This was fun." Sadly, given the way he's glancing up in the direction of the dragons, duty calls all over again. Telavi: four, not even counting the original, but then she's motivated. "It was," she agrees, hopping off to go dust her hands off over the water. "Pleasant skies to you, all right? If no longer quite as leisurely." Solith trails behind Cadejoth, a ribbon strung from his kite, but eventually-- maybe even before the other pair's gone-- they too will be on their way. "And to you," agrees K'del, cheerfully enough. He tilts his head up towards the afternoon sun for several seconds, eyes closed, but then it's back to business - those who want vacations can't be seen to be shirking at their duties, after all! |
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