Logs:Child's Play (Part 1?)
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| RL Date: 29 July, 2014 |
| Who: Alida, H'kon |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Alida is looking for someone to play a game with her. H'kon has unsought advice, but no time for games. |
| Where: Living Cavern, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 20, Month 5, Turn 35 (Interval 10) |
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| Living Cavern, High Reaches Weyr Stalactites hang high above this enormous cavern like a jagged chandelier or an inversion of the Spires themselves, but shadows cling to them instead of light. Below lie great tables arranged in rows, each large enough to serve a fighting wing, while in the nooks and alcoves around the cavern's edge sit more sensibly-sized tables, from six- and eight-seaters down to intimate spots for just a couple of diners. The only really open space is around the kitchen entrance, smelling of food and rarely quiet, and by the nearby serving tables with their long buffet of the day's offerings. Tapestries on the smooth walls -- some faded and others newly woven -- only slightly mute the sea of sound when a meal is in full swing, but they add cheerfulness augmented by the glowlight from wall sconces and the centerpieces of each table. Still, shadows always creep along the ceiling and into the mouths of the exits -- the myriad small hallways at one end of the cavern and, at the other, the twisting tunnel to the bowl near an array of coathooks and and hatracks -- and late at night, when the glows are allowed to dim, the chamber can seem very dark indeed. The living cavern's quiet at this time of the night, dinner long since past, and Midnight not yet arrived. The more day-based riders are in or moving towards their beds, as are those with duties in the earlier morning, and those who tend to enjoy the night life are already out. Someone who rises and sets as her body wishes, no matter the hour, is Alida, and tonight she can be found settled at a smaller table at the back of the cavern, the blonde woman nodding to another female, who's departing the bluie with a soft chuckle and a lift of hand in farewell. "Another time..." the Glacier rider's alto notes with a certain, not-often heard rich musicality, to which the Kitchen worker shakes her red head and notes dryly, "Maybe after my pocket recovers in a few months..." before she disappears back into the kitchen area. With a faint sigh, 'lida moves something atop the table, and sits back, rotating her shoulders, moving her torso around some. At this hour, the caverns are also inhabited by those trying to accomplish what extra they can, while balancing... well, other things as well. One such is H'kon, the compact brownrider moving through what people are still in around the hearth, looking for klah, a satchel of sorts slung over his shoulder. There's a certain calm about him, rather than his usual determination. It sees him to a mug of klah, sees him around a handful of younger riders, sees him to an empty table - not Alpine's, not any wings - in the middle of the caverns, where he settles his drink as well as his things. She looks mellow while he looks calm? What are the odds? Alida allows her green eyes to roam over the contents of the cavern, and they soon affix to H'kon and his satchel, studying them for some moments. A faint smirk toys at one corner of the woman's mouth as to his choice of seating arrangements, and she finds herself shrugging, and then calling out just barely loud enough to be heard by the brownrider beyond her, "Got a half-candlemark?" It's up to him. He must be monitoring conversation around him, as he arranges those hides so carefully before him, only once having to stop and shift his mug forward. It's after Alida's question, after long enough that it becomes strange that he's not heard an answer from someone else, that H'kon looks up, fingertips still adjusting one hide (to a right angle) before him. Green eyes find the bluerider. Stubbled chin raises, slightly. "For what?" The look - greens meeting greens - the bluerider presents H'kon is touched with ample, dark mirth that he finally realizes she did indeed mean him, Alida bobbing her pale head first, then answering, "A simple, short game." Already she's clearing the tabletop from what was there before, scooping small objects into a large pouch, then rolling, folding up a felt board. "A game," repeats H'kon, skepticism touching his face in the slight furrow of his brow, the pull at the corner of his lips. That paraphernalia that the bluerider is gathering receives a cautious look. The man makes another adjustment to the hides on his left, and looks up to track the woman's progress. "Anybody over the age uv' six c'n play it..." the blonde notes dryly. Addended, "Not like I'm gonna sicc 'Go' on ya." Is that what she was putting away? If so, he might thank Faranth. "Takes anywhere from 10 minutes to a half-candlemark." Another fabric bag - its strings once tucked into her belt - is worked free, the thing hefted upon the air between them in one hand, and dangle-jiggled. Sounds like small wooden pieces in there. "Six," repeats H'kon, looking warily to his hides, and then, to the cooling klah. The topmost hide on the right is shifted, to become central, partway over the left pile, partway over the one from which it was drawn. It's the second page on the right pile - or, the margins he can see - where he looks, though. And then, another glance up, to check on that bluerider again. For a moment, Alida looks both perplexed and somewhat irritated at H'kon's very H'kon-ish statement, the blonde reining in her usual temper in order to answer the brownie equitably enough. "If six minutes is all ya' got..." *shrug* A look towards the 'stuff' that's accumulated on the table before him soon enough finds greens meeting greens again, the bluie noting only half to herself, "Remind me ta never accept a promotion..." "The age," H'kon specifies, with barely a flick of a glance. "Six, you said." He's lifted the top corner of one of the now-centralised hide, to see more of the one beneath it on the right. "If you've no desire for such a position, then no. Best not." The corner of that central hide is placed back down, precisely. Sigh. Even when she's being purposely thick to engender a reaction, she still doesn't get one. Not from H'kon, anyway. "Oh, I've desire, sometimes..." Alida soon comments, letting the small bag of blocks settle to tabletop again. "Then I remember that it takes a solid, large chunk uv time outta' life ta deal with paperwork 'n bitchy wingmates." Her time is precious, and better spent...at least now. Straight-faced: "If y'don' wanna', just say 'no.'" "If that is how you see it," H'kon says, that calm still in is voice and demeanour, "then I'd not suggest pursuing it." Fingers pause above the left corner of that central page. And he looks up, this time, a bit more consistently. At least, so long as might be required for an exchange: "Why do you want to play this game with me?" "How I see it...half the time." It's a legitimate view. Alida allows her lips to try for a ghost-smirk, her gaze never once deviating from H'kon, even as his returns to the bluerider. "Sometimes, I get a...bug in my bonnet." So-to-speak. "So I come down here, play a few games with people." A lean back into her chair sets a few vertebra to cracking. "Refreshes my mind, enough times." Shrug. "Then you'd attend to only half the duties," H'kon finishes for her. Lucky Alida. A moment later, "A child's game," not quite incredulous... bemused, perhaps? "Which is why I ain't fishing fer it..." Right now, anyway. Such a duty is not something to give one's self to half way. "Not a child's game. Anyone's game," Alida notes firmly, then sitting up in her chair again, actually leaning toward the brownrider a little. "Someone I respect once told me the more...intense... sophisticated stuff a person does requires they have more diversions. More fun." "I have things I do beyond this," says H'kon, gesturing to his hides, laid out. But he has stopped now, stopped flipping corners and reading, and that's permission for himself to at least take a sip of the klah. "And you wish to play this game with me." Repeated, with inflection now. "Then y' don't have time fer relaxation, apparently..." Alida sighs in some small frustration, though she refrains from an eyeroll. As for H'kon's second statement, "Ain't played a game with *you*, yet." Unless they're perhaps mental ones? Is she trying to suss him out, perhaps? Investigate him? H'kon gives his head a quick shake. "I do. But," and here, he rests his fingers on the edges of each pile of hides, only index fingers on the central one, "not in the time I've set out for this. This, I must do now." It's almost a gentle apology. Well, it's almost an apology, at least. Well, at least he *finally* admitted it, and Alida merely bobs her plaited head to such, though - inside her mind - she's rolling her eyes. YEESH. "No rest fer the wicked..." is commented, even as the woman pushes away slowly from her table, stands, and moves away, towards the exit. As she passes him along the way, H'kon gets a clipped, "Enjoy..." Oddball who likes paperwork. Go figure. As she closes with the exit, however, some excitable type from the lower caverns intercepts the blonde, and with a faint smirk-grin, the bluerider finds herself snagged for an imprompteau game of 'blocks' the two set up at a larger table nearer the exit. Well, at least Alida has found some solace for her 'game night.' "Rest," H'kon corrects. "Just not here and now." There's something satisfied in it, content. As Alida goes, he sips a bit more klah. And then, he deals with all the annotations and reviews he's been meaning to make. It's a good night for H'kon, also. |
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