Logs:Corruptible
| |
|---|
| |
| RL Date: 8 March, 2013 |
| Who: Nicky, Jo, Alida |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Nicky meets Jo, and Alida demonstrates why she's got no friends |
| Where: Nighthearth |
| When: Day 8, Month 3, Turn 31 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Brieli/Mentions, Azaylia/Mentions |
  |
| Nighthearth, High Reaches Weyr With its entrance located between the kitchen and the living cavern, this tiny bubble cavern is cozy, always kept warm and is filled with comfortable chairs and a small round table. At the far end, there's a hearth, outlined in ruddy, aging bricks, where a pot of stew simmers in the evening hours. Generally quiet, the nighthearth is the haunt of insomniacs and those seeking quiet from the bustle of daily Weyr life.
One tall woman in black leather arrives with flask in hand and writing tools in the other. Dark hair wild, she almost pauses to take in her surroundings, looking for a place to sit away from the masses. Since there's nothing like that to be had this early, she moves further into the room until she comes upon that one couple. There's a little smirk for them before her dark eyes land on one with flushed cheeks, trying his best not to look their way. That gets even more of her amusement in her eyes, and since there's seats to be had around him, she approaches the chair right across from him and drops her flask and sheets of hides down on the table decisively. "Hope ya don' mind if I join, darlin'," comes from her husky tone eyeing his rosy cheeks with open humor as she drops into a seat. And since she's clearly not civilized, "Ya can go over and join them, ya know. They might not mind." In his efforts to block out the canoodling in front of him, Nicky hadn't even noticed Jo - not until she drops her things on the table, causing him to jump. Brown eyes wide with surprise, he blinks up at the black-clad woman, and he did have a smile of welcome for her - until she finishes up with that saucy suggestion. If Nicky was blushing before that was nothing compared to how he is now; flushed from neck to ears, he looks absolutely terrified by the thought. Knowing how bad his stutter will likely be if he tries to actually vocally respond, all the candidate does is shake his head emphatically, tapping fingers against the white knot on his shoulder. If there's a little bulge in the crook of Jo's opened jacket, it's probably nothing at all...until it stirs. She looks down and shifts the arm there that was holding her flask, and once she's settled at the table with her supplies, only then does she notes his startlement. She watches his smile vanish towards something more terrified, his blush increasing before she eyes that couple openly again. "What, not yer thing?" she drops with a pointed look before she permits herself to grin a bit and glance down at the white knot he points to. "Ahh, candidate," she seems to understand, still rather amused by his reaction. "I seem to be runnin' into the lot of ya lately. Eh, I wouldn' worry about gettin' her pregnant or anythin'," she notes with a shake of her head. "I'm sure he'll take care of all that. Ya look like a bashful little thing, aren'cha?" Her study of him is strong now, perhaps borderline uncomfortable as her eyes narrow a fraction and she takes a drink from her flask carefully. Then, abruptly her gaze lets him loose and she's nodding towards his hide. "Writin' home, maybe?" she asks, being nosy. "Um n-no, miss - r-reading, not, um, writing." The shift in conversation makes Nicky far less nervous; how bad of a topic can reading be? He draws in a deep breath through his nose, then directs his attention back down to the scroll he's unwound across his lap. That seems to calm him, if only a little; it has the slope of his shoulders softening as the untense, at any rate. "It's, um... s-sort of a history thing. An a-account from a f-former candidate? Of th-their time on the sands, miss...?" Will she supply him with her name? The question asks for it. Jo immediately is grimacing at the very word Nicky supplies her with: miss. Still, she stays silent as he explains, her gaze falling on the very sheet that he was talking about while her hands carefully smoothed out a blank sheet of hide on her end. "So some candidate from a long time ago wrote up what's it like on those sands?" is her own summary to that, frowning a bit. "Huh. Oh, ain' gotta call me 'miss', darlin'," she clears up with a wave of her hand before she flashes one of her infectious smiles and sets a writing stylus down on top of the sheet. "Call me Jo. Blue Tacuseth's. Ya don' need to be 'miss'in me or anythin' like that. Ya can tell me about what ya read, though, ah...?" She looks expectant at him now for his name. Nicky extends his hand to the bluerider for her to shake, if she will. "Nicky. It's a p-pleasure to meet you, Jo." Pleasantries exchanged, he gives her a crooked sort of smile and relaxes more into his chair, raising his klah mug to his lips to take a hearty sip of the stimulating drink. When he's swallowed, he drops his gaze back to the hide, skimming quickly over it before looking back up to Jo with a gentle shrug of his shoulders. "It's quite, um, s-standard. K-kind of boring so far, actually." He snorts a wry sort of laugh, picking a line from the text and reciting it. "'T-today, we filled f-firestone sacks. It was dirty and h-hard going, but it has to be d-done, of course.' I thought, um, that there m-might have been s-something in there more... um... e-engaging?" Jo takes the offered hand, her own shake firm before she turns the hand held this way and that and comments casually, "Nice, delicate hands." Then she lets him go to pick up her writing stylus and lets her gaze linger on him. The nighthearth is pretty crowded, though there seems to be open seats at the table Jo and Nicky are sharing. The convict rider sits right across from him, and there's a couple well engaged in a make-out session nearby, which they both seem to be ignoring. To Nicky's response on the hide, there's a snort and the woman shakes her head. "Ain' nothin' excitin' about that," she seems to agree. "I doubt ya'll find anythin' engagin' in that. I could give ya a personal account and all..." and for a nice touch, she seems to make it sound so ominous with a hard stare. Done with her dip in the bathing pools, and finally having dried her long hair fully, a stretching and lazily pacing Alida enters the night hearth area in search of a snack, her green eyes and features at rest...unlike earlier today. Her hair, unbound for a change, ruffles out behind her on occasion like a thick, straight, silky drape of fabric, reaching to her rear-end, but the guard seems to not pay it any mind, unless a lock wisps into her face...when it is then banished behind ears with a slightly cross look and a pair of fingers. "D-delicate?" That's the first time anyone's used that word to describe Nicky, and he holds his hand up to look at it in surprise, post-shake. "Um... m-maybe I went easy on you, c-cos..." Y'know. Girl, and all that. "N-normally I, um, squeeze k-kinda hard. Um... m-maybe, c-can I ask you to, er, k-keep the 'delicate' q-quiet?" He looks hopefully at Jo, flexing his work-roughened fingers before one-handedly rolling the scroll up in agreemenet with Jo. "C-could you tell me about wh-when you Impressed T-Tacu... Tacuseth? W-Weyrwoman Brieli told me s-something about what it's like on the S-Sands, and I th-think, um, a bit more... awareness would go a l-long way..." Jo settles casually in her seat - her arm seeming to be holding something within her black leather jacket that has the smallest bit of stirring - at an angle to take in the coming and goings of the hearth, so naturally, she spots Alida entering with the barest flicker of study when Nicky has the brunt of her attention. His response to her observations on his hand has her leaning a little forward to peer at that hand more closely before she sits back and quips, "Cuz? Shit, ya ain' gotta go easy on me, darlin'. I can handle ya." There's an innuendo in there somewhere, too, but it's not a blatant one at least. "But sure, I'll keep it on the down between us. Don' wanna screw with yer reputation or anythin'." His question gets a chuckle from her, though there's a glimmer of interest when he brings up Brieli's name and her head turns and falls silent before she asks, "What did Brieli say it was like?" Curious. Approaching the hearth-proper, of course Alida can't help but espy Jo and Nicky chattering, the palest-blonde candidate cocking one brow slightly at their interaction, though continuing on past the pair in order to avail herself of some bread left upon the hearthstones to keep warm. Stew in its traditional pot over the low fire is considered even as a respectable bite is taken from her hank of bread. Repositioning himself in his chair so he's leaning a little towards Jo, Nicky rests his elbow on the table and props his chin up in his hand. He gives the bluerider a smile, and there's just a hint of blush on his cheeks as he says, thankfully, "They p-probably wouldn't like it s-so much in the, um, f-forge, if there were people saying I have, um, d-delicate hands." Grinning, he looks down into his klah mug, then up to the pot where there's more brewing - which is when he spots Alida. His fell candidate is given a finger-wiggling wave if she happens to see him looking, then he looks back to the bluerider opposite him.... right as the macking couple a few seats down make a very loud, very distracting sort of sound. Nicky's eyes go wide and he stiffens up, trying desperately not to look at them. They don't exist! "Sh-she said... she said, um... it's f-fast. The eggs h-hatch fast, and to... not to run. To d-dodge. Um..." He's really struggling with not looking at the pair now, and focusing intently on Jo is his way of hopefully keeping his gaze averted. Jo turns her head towards Alida when she passes by, catching that brow lifting as she drawls towards her, "Alida." Eyes will follow her where she gets her food, but then they move towards Nicky and that hint of a blush and the convict rider's rumbling some low laughter for his words. "Delicate hands and cute," she has to change her observation, shaking her head. "I can corrupt one like ya, with the right motivation." Pause. "Ya work the forges?" That gets her to pause as well, though the distracting couple draws her attention away, too. A brow lifts at them and she snorts lightly, looking back at Nicky and watching him go stone stiff before she prompts, "They really bother ya, Nicky?" She has to keep from laughing, so she turns on what Brieli told him and she nods firmly to that. "Yep. She's got it about right. Sand is as hot as a dragon's breath, though, so ya'll burn yer feet up. Ya might get injured out there, too. Those little dragons sometimes charge right at ya." Really? "None of that happened at mine," she goes on to say. "Tac found me pretty quickly when it started. Clearly I was the best choice out of that bunch. He thought I was amazin'. I couldn' fault his logic." Nicky's finger wiggling is given a bob of the guard's head, the motion sending a few of Alida's long locks to swishing about her shoulders, the errant strands yanked back again by her free hand, dashed irritably backwards. For now, all the young woman does is chew quietly, cast her eyes out over the room on occasion, and listen to what is exchanged between the other candidate and bluerider. Jo's words of dragon babies charging candidates has the blonde's ears perking, her attention now riveted on them as she eats. A chuff of soft humor at the other woman's thoughts about Tacuseth's choice seguays into a clipped alto inquiry of, "So what *do* we do if some baby goes berserk and charges around, biting 'n clawing? Bleed all over it?" Snork. "Training to be a f-farrier, when I'm not being a candidate," Nicky says to Jo, somewhat proudly. He holds his hand up to the side of his face, effectively blinkering himself so that he can't watch the heavy-going couple to the side. "It's a p-public place," he says in a soft, almost-whine. "P-people come here to eat, not to, um, g-get a free show." Even with his blinkering hand in place, the teen's eyes dart in the direction of the offense - blocked efficiently from view by palm, of course. Talk of dragons and hatchings is a far nicer subject to lose himself in, though, and he latches onto Jo's story eagerly. "She said, um, Hraedhyth m-mauled weyrwoman Azaylia?" He's about to say more, but then Alida joining in interrupts before the words can come. Not that he seems to mind; he gives his fellow candidate an awkward sort of smile, patting the table beside him so that she knows she's welcome to join. "You d-dodge. Quickly. O-or run, but, um, you don't wanna run, cos what if you're r-running from your lifemate?" "Is that so," Jo muses over Nicky's job when he's not candidate, giving him a once-over. He does have her highly amused when he shields his eyes from the overt couple, the bluerider clearly doesn't seem to see anything wrong with their displays of affection. "I've seen worse, darlin'," she notes offhandedly as she finally picks up her writing stylus and sets it to the blank hide. "Ya can be amazed at what happens in the bathing caverns real late at night, sometimes. Where ya from, anyway?" His words on the hatching has her nodding like she knows, the woman saying back, "I'm not surprised. Those hatclin's get pretty crazy out of the shell. One might leave ya all bloody and curled up on the sand. Might be good to be careful out there." Trying to scare them? No... But Alida's question has her tossing a look her way as Nicky answers it, but she does tack on behind him, "Yer lifemate might just chase ya. Bet they'll chase ya all over the sands and into the galleries! But nah, dodgin' might be good enough. There is a bet goin' around on who gets mauled, though." Totally not scaring them. "Well duh..." Alida notes blandly to Nicky's words of dodging, her lips then tipping into a slight smirk that barely touches the edges of her green eyes. "I meant *other* tactics. If they're anything like an animal at that stage, they could be triggered by running. Runnin' triggers a predator's chase 'n kill instincts." This was learned by her from raising canines to hunt and guard, attack. She too seems to avoid looking at the smoochers out beyond them, though instead of coloring, Alida just rolls her eyes and mutters, "Get a weyr." Snort. For Jo's answers on various things...well, the holder gal gives a short smirk of dark humor, then finally and actually laughing for a few moments at the thought of a baby dragon chasing some freaked-out candidate. After the snickers end, the blonde quips, "I c'n see it now...Some'a those big, macho brutes in this group runnin' around hot Sands, screamin' like little girlies, pursued by cryin' hatchlings beggin' 'em ta stop." Snicker. Nicky frowns at Alida's response to his answer, leaning away from her and towards Jo. But, when the blonde continues, he can see her point - and that gives his frown a more thoughtful edge. "I'm j-just gonna dodge," he says softly, scratching at the side of his cheek. That means his view of the couple is unblocked, and he gets an eyeful before quickly covering that side of his vision again. "I'll be, um, avoiding l-late night baths. I'm from F-Far Reach, u-up in the mountains, here?" Here, as in the High Reaches. "They, um, d-don't let you get dirty at the tables like that." He's not happy with the display in the slightest, and he squirms uncomfortably. "It's k-kind of inapp-priopriate." And yet he's sneaking another glance. Alida's answer on a hatchling chasing a burly candidate seems to paint a visual for Jo. There's laughter for it and the convict rider counters with, "It's probably wrong that I'm findin' that whole scenario funny right now. Some would think ya gotta disturbed humor, over there," she notes to the guard, not including herself in that 'some'. To Nicky, "I'm sure ya'll be fine," she's breezy in saying. "I mean, not that I know or anythin'. Shit can go wrong even at the best of times." Nicky's place of origin has her momentarily frowning as she tries to place it before she nods and says, "Far Reach? Holdbred. Ya'll get used to that after awhile here," she tosses a gesture in the couple's direction. "I'm from Keogh and I did. At least they're just kissin'." That smile pretty much alludes to what they could be doing. His last on inappropriateness gets her saying offhandedly, "Ain' inappropriate at all. I've done worse in public. I think ya like starin' at them, despite their inappropriateness." She calls him out on it, her crooked smirk in place. ANother slight look over at the smooches out yonder garners a bit of snerk from Alida before she notes to Nicky, "Try accidentally happenin' past a quick shag in a tunnel going on. I had ta' break that shit up, too. Orders." A look for how the other candidate handles such transitions into a thin smirk back at Jo', and a faint wink. Yes, 'lida is rather dark of humor. It's like a trainwreck - Nicky can't help but look! And when Jo calls him up on it, he sinks low, shoulders hunched, blushing furiously. "I-I don't mean to look, i-it's just... s-so distracting, I c-can't help it." He shakes his head, then hides his face in his hands, scrubbing fingers over his forehead and into his thick curls. "C-can you not break them up?" He asks Alida without looking, since his eyes are currently covered by the heels of his hands. He peeps past one to look at Jo, blinking at her. "Worse?!" Could there be such a thing? To that wink, "In a tunnel?" Jo is eyeing Alida now on that one. "That's not the worst place," and no big deal to her, it seems. She could add something likely crass to that but with Nicky blushing so furiously, she is drawn to his discomfort with open humor. "Ya wanna go over there and tell them to get a room or somethin'?" she asks him now, even when he asks Alida to break them up. "If ya catch him slippin' her the tongue, I fear ya might melt to the ground with how red ya look." His last gets a knowing nod on worse, though the convict rider states, "Mmm. Worse. If can' handle that lot kissin', ya ain' gonna handle what worse could be, darlin'." "Shell'uva' lot worse..." Alida notes almost merrily, her greens firing with dark humor again as she takes in Nicky's furious blushing. "Me? Nah; I got no pull in this place..." is noted laconically to her fellow candidate, the woman jabbing a finger pointedly at her spare knot. Just a pissant candidate, exactly like him. Well, not exactly. And then, over to Jo, a brow is lifted, as if silently asking her to continue in just how bad sex in a Weyr can get. "Me?" Nicky, go over there? He quails at the very idea of getting up close to a smooching couple. "U-um... n-no. No, I'll j-just... I'll sit here. A-and not look..." Or listen. Or acknowledge that they're there. With one hand remaining a makeshift blinker, he drops his other down into his lap, angling himself away from the two lovers to look more towards Alida. Nicky bites on his lip, giving the blonde candidate a coy, hesitant smile. "You look n-nice with your hair down, 'L-Lida." Anything to steer the conversation from blush-causing subjects! Jo picks up on that wordless prompt from Alida, but she's merely returning a smile that purely says right back 'wouldn't you like to know?' before she tucks the writing stylus above one ear. "Act more important than ya are," seems to be what she would do at the guard's comment on not having enough pull at the Weyr. "Think I let me ridin' blue stop me from what all I can do?" And then poor Nicky, quailing. She regards him with interest, and his compliment to Alida earns him a wry, "That she does, Nicky. The other day I was just tellin' her she needs friends. Perhaps enough compliments to bring that blush to her cheeks, too." Trying to make Alida uncomfortable now? Possibly. Her smile she sends the guard's way is cheeky all the same. "Not one bit, I'd say..." the blonde notes around a wry little half-smirk at Jo when the bluerider speaks of not letting her position limit her. And then the damned rider goes and says that, and the female candidate goes silent, her eyes hooding heavily, her features quickly growing impassive. Nice poker face. The look Alida finally gives Nicky when he not only trains his embarrassed (and perhaps hormone-driven) gaze on her, but compliments her hair...is not the standard one a female would likely offer up. For one, the guard's brow furrows some, her eyes going a little narrower, appearing a darker green. Next, her chin juts out rather pugnaciously, followed by a tight lipped and slightly huffy alto rumble of, "I suggest you turn that look another way." Unspoken: 'or else.' She's a touchy one, apparently...enough so that the female simply tears off one more hunk of bread, and walks at her own pace right back out of the hearth room. She's recovered by then, once again neutral of countenance, but it doesn't really matter, since all she leaves behind is a lackadaisical wave over her shoulder and the sound of her retreating bootsteps. "A-and that," Nicky says to Jo as Alida leaves, "is why she h-has no friends." He shrugs, settling both hands on the table to curl his fingers around his cold, empty klah mug. "Sh-she won't let anyone be nice to her. I've tried." As is evidenced in the words that drove the blonde away. He frowns in the direction she took, even though Alida's not visible anymore, and sighs. "Maybe she'd even, um, ch-chase her own dragon away. I'd f-feel sorry for it, if that happened." His bottom lip juts out in sad thoughtfulness, and he turns his brown-eyed gaze back to Jo with a sigh. Alida's reaction to both their words draws the opposite effect on Jo from Nicky. She's outright laughing in the guard's wake, leaning back in her chair and responding to Nicky's first, "I wouldn' worry about it. She'll come around, or learn the hard lessons I did." There's some dark glint to those murmured words, the woman watching where Alida had gone with slightly narrowed eyes. His second brings a lopsided grin, but the convict rider shrugs and finally turns to face Nicky as she collects up her flask. "The dragon chooses the rider, darlin'," is her response to that, slowly getting to her feet and throwing an amused look the couple's way. "Ain' no amount of runnin' will change that." Collecting up the sheet, "I better let ya get back to yer readin'," she says then, preparing to depart. Jerking her head towards the couple, "Don' let shit like that get to ya, yeah? Ya might end up bein' one of those out in public yerself, somewhere down the line." She couldn't resist. Nicky doesn't look as though he thinks Alida will come around, but he's willing to smile softly and nod his head - perhaps in hope that it might come to be? He sighs softly, getting to his feet when Jo does, with his klah mug in one hand and his reading scroll in the other. "Um..." A look is shot couple-wards, and he shakes his head at Jo. "I-I'm gonna take this somewhere more, um... p-private." Where they should be, though he doesn't say as much. The teen brushes his curls back from out of his eyes using the scroll, then smiels warmly at Jo - she seems to have won him over. "P-perhaps I'll see you around, s-sometime?" Jo could only chuckle to herself to his words and the expression on his face, but it's the last that gets her final response as she tucks one arm close to her jacket as if she was holding something. "Ain' around much durin' the day, but, ya just might catch me here and there. I never could resist a good blush. Take care of yerself, Nicky." With that, she's out of there with her things, making haste in the direction of the bowl. "S-sure," Nicky replies softly, nodding his head. "You too, J-Jo." When she's rushing off to the outdoors, he meanders across to the klah pot to fill his mug. With one last look at the smooching couple he too slips out, seeking the sanctuary of the candidates' quarters. |
Comments
Comments on "Logs:Corruptible"Azaylia (Dragonshy (talk)) left a comment on Fri, 08 Mar 2013 11:44:57 GMT.
Pretty sure my favorite moment is: "A-and that," Nicky says to Jo as Alida leaves, "is why she h-has no friends."
Jo! What'd we say about rilin' up the candies? >:
Leave A Comment