Logs:Clothes Make the Man
| |
|---|
| |
| RL Date: 5 November, 2015 |
| Who: Telavi, V'ret |
| Type: Log |
| What: Major decisions about one weyrling's future sweaters. |
| Where: Storerooms, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 15, Month 3, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: A layer of gray clouds hangs oppressively around the spires. The air is humid and cool, but there is no snowfall today. |
| Mentions: K'zin/Mentions, C'ris/Mentions |
  |
Massive in scale, the Weyr's main storage passage connects to the kitchen
on one end and the outbound tunnel on the other. Large enough to admit a
wagon laden with goods, the tunnel easily permits the unloading and
organization of supplies into the various storerooms.
Branching off from this corridor are multiple caverns, the nearer two
being 'open' stores from which residents can readily help themselves,
while the deeper stores are kept locked up tight with a posted sign and
inventory hung on a hook outside of each. An alcove next to the public
stores serves as a catch-all area for reshelving items whose destination
is uncertain; two sets of stone shelving and several bins hold these items
neatly until a stores assistant has a moment to deal with them.
Though the storage caverns vary in size, shape, and the smoothness of
their walls, all belong to the same system: whitewashed walls, swept
floors, and most importantly, neatly labeled and inventoried shelves
providing ample space to stow all the supplies a busy Weyr needs. Though
there's no direct internal lighting, a glowbasket may be brought in from
the niche outside each cavern, the better to ward off pests and the inky
dark of deep caves. The deep caverns aren't warm, but at least they aren't as cold as outside; with dinner settling in as slow-burning fuel, Tela's had an assistant headwoman-- someone with whom she's well acquainted, by the friendly sound of it-- give them leeway to roam. "At least you aren't growing an inch a seven like some of them," the greenrider says as she leafs through a pile of gear. "Shoulders fitting tight at all? Arms? And how picky are you for sweater-scratchiness?" "I hope not," says V'ret, wandering after her, hands in his pants pockets, looking about as they make their way into the cavern. "Used to think I wouldn't mind filling out a little, but I've met fellows who had a good six inches on me, and I wouldn't like to have to find trousers to fit that." It sounds a bit distracted; he's finally started really looking at the contents of the shelves. "I could use more room in the shoulders. Not too snug, but--" He picks at the fabric of his sleeve, thoughtfully. "Does anybody actually answer that they prefer their sweaters to be awful? I would just as soon find the best I can get." "Six inches as you are now?" Telavi glances back to survey him, eyes green today in the glowlight before she gets back to sorting. "No, it is a pain. But at least when you're a full rider, and are probably as muscle-y as you're going to be, you can get things tailored better as long as you aren't in too much of a hurry... this cold, I hate it." She offers him a couple of sweaters, roughly the right fit, one baggy enough to allow for layers. "But really, V'ret, 'the best' isn't that simple. Soft is nice and all, but it pills something fierce, and it wears through. It's not that I want any of you wearing something awful," she even shudders, "just that if you can handle some coarseness without scratching in the middle of class, you shouldn't wind up with patches so soon." Bit of a smirk, for that. "Probably about that, yeah. You meet some interesting characters, working in bars." Which is totally what V'ret has done his whole adult life so far, such as it is. And nothing else. No. "That's the problem with all this rummaging, isn't it? I would far sooner just rather get a new sweater. But for some reason my income seems to have dropped at exactly the wrong time." So regretful. Even so, he takes the ones he's offered, tries pulling one on over his current shirt. Eyeing a cuff that comes up about two inches short, it comes back off again, almost but not quite taking the shirt with it. Tela laughs, lilting and light; "Imagine that." She's quick to steal back the reject unless he proves to be more figuratively attached, not to fold it immediately but to compare it to some of the others. "How did you get into the bar trade, anyway, were you 'raised by your father in the grand tradition'? I can't imagine it was just liking to drink, or else everyone would be." The weyrling proves completely commitment-phobic when it comes to sweaters, eventually going through the others he was originally offered, some of them for reasons far less obvious than sleeve length. "Something like that," V'ret declares of the last one, "only--gray? Or black. Colors are too hard to match." Without so much as a pause, he goes on: "I left home and needed work and wound up washing glasses, worked my way up from there. Started before I had any taste for the stuff, actually." Her brows arch up, but Telavi addresses the last first; "Really? What was so great about washing glasses? It must have been awful on your hands," she says all sympathetically. "It's nice to see someone care about colors; so many people don't." It's worth a sigh, as she exchanges sweaters, searching. "And practical, to try for things that go with everything when you grab them in a hurry. There are a few more... but if you don't settle soon, you might freeze." He could be here all night, hypothetically, but Telavi needs her sleep. "Better than going down a mine." A few more inspected, her picks and his own, a smaller subset of those tried on. V'ret sets two aside through this process, though neither is precisely gray. "Might be a weyrling, but I intend to look respectable for a bronzerider. Here, which of these would you say is more neutral?" One is a sort of grayish-brown, the other green enough to make it an odd question. "I learned a long time ago that, whenever possible, decisions of fashion should be left to women." There's fashion, and then there's... "Mm," Tela says. There's a sideways glance at him, temptation, but not the usual sort associated with bronzeriders. Still, she points to the grayish-brown this time, before choosing a third sweater to show him; this one verges on reddish. "'Respectable.' Not a dandy?" This new offering also gets tried on, and V'ret seems content enough with it to, after taking it back off again, spend some time squinting between his choices. "If I'm going to go out with a woman with taste, it behooves me," because bartenders who almost ended up down the mines totally talk like that all the time, "to look good enough to be seen with her but not so good as to distract attention from her. I don't see a temporary hiatus in my social life as a reason to change that." Telavi stays out of his choices, ostensibly because she has shirts to look through; "That," she says with some surprise, "is a very considerate approach." She holds one up, shakes her head in a way that sets her braids swaying, and sets it back; the second is rejected, but the third, "I'll just compare this, if you'll turn your back," ready to do just that in a professional rather than touchy-feely way. "Poor K'zin, he had Rasavyth nudging him to wear this or that, when he wasn't used to the nicer things yet... You don't sound nearly so overwhelmed as a lot of them do." 'Temporary hiatus,' and all. "I hope it stays that way." Turn his back? No particular comprehension for her process on this, but V'ret seems to have an easier time obliging this sort of request than anything to do with dragons. "K'zin. I don't think I've met him, at least not properly. I suppose being older helps. Some of us. Maybe it was the line of work there, too. Have to be... adaptable." A pause. "Pay's good, but the hours are long. I could do without the mornings, and I miss my tips, but it's not as though I'm not used to working." And adapting to the dragon? No comment. As long as he obliges, she'll just get it done: squaring its shoulders to his, checking the biceps, stepping back with a disappointed sigh about sleeves that are too tight. It serves for comparison purposes, though; "You would have if he were still working for Quinlys," no sigh there but the tiniest of pauses where one might have gone, "but he likes Tundra and smithing, so that's good, and we're doing fine, even with C'ris' canine trotting about." Telavi works through shirts, not fine material so much as warm. Nor is there any mention of dragons from her, but then, she's not the sort to be caught gazing into Solith's rainbowed eyes. "I'm glad for your sake that you are. Adaptable, I mean. It can be hard with... not just mornings, not just how do-this do-that the way it gets, but so circumscribed, you know? You'll have even less free time if you get into the silver thread program, of course." "I'm not sure who thought that was a good plan. Zoth had some idea that it might make appropriate hunting practice." Practice. Right. "Time to kill means I have to come up with a way to kill it. I always thought, you know, if I work an extra night in seven, or even two, but that gives me the marks in my pocket to make the next night off something special, why wouldn't I do that? Now--" V'ret stands very straight until she's finished, then relaxes a bit, looking at her over his shoulder. "Now, maybe it's about long-term payouts instead." A smile. Telavi's pfft speaks volumes for that canine, though she doesn't exactly urge that Zoth 'practice.' Not in so many words. She's still smiling when he looks back, a hint of dimple to go with the moment's pleased assent; "There's long-term and then there's long-term... but if you want access to wingleaders," if he thinks he'll present well, if that's at all the path he'd want to take, "that's the way to go." Tela lets that hang before adding with a bit of a moue, "In the meantime, though, we'd better finish up." |
Leave A Comment