Logs:Escaping Parts of the Past
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| RL Date: 14 March, 2013 |
| Who: Xhaeon, Sabella |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Xhaeon would like Sabella to give back that thing she totally stole. |
| Where: Kitchens, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 23, Month 3, Turn 31 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Snow |
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| Kitchen, High Reaches Weyr(#267RJs) Polished marble and granite surfaces, gleaming metalwork and pale woods characterize the vaulted fastness of the kitchen. Several large hearths gape red-mouthed against the outer wall of the cavern, their fires almost always stoked for the constant cooking the Weyr requires to feed its denizens. Sinks line the wall to one side of the hearths, providing ample space to wash large quantities of dishes, while to the other, cabinetry and a deep pantry provide storage space for items commonly needed on a day-to-day basis. The remaining wall space is taken up by passageways and extra seating: swinging doors that lead variously to the main living cavern, the inner caverns and the storage rooms, a counter-height pass-through for food service to the Snowasis, and a series of nooks equipped with tables and benches for quick, out-of-the-way meals any time of day.
How long has it taken Xhaeon to track Sabella down? Faranth herself only knows. The tall man enters from the living caverns, procures a sweetroll from a tucked-out-of-way-nook (he's already found out where the good stuff is kept, ha!), pours himself a mug of klah, and only then does he sit across from Sabs, thus arranged. "A part of me considers grabbing that and hoofing it," the young man's Telgar-accented tones offer. "A book for a book, mayhap." His expression is carefully-wrought neutrality, eyebrows lifted in fair inquiry, his mouth hidden in a long sip of klah. Caught unawares. That doesn't usually happen. A certain tension seeps into her shoulders before she forcefully eases it away and looks up across the table to him. Her expression is carefully crafted innocence to his neutrality and her hands draw back with the notebook gripped firmly in them. "You'd find out that I'm much faster than whatever you're imagining." Sabs leans back in the booth, once she's gotten that possession of hers away from the possibility of him snatching it from her. Her green eyes remain steadily on him as she reaches for that canvas sack next to her, pulling it into her lap. That notebook is popped safely back in and she withdraws his larger sketchbook. There the impish smile begins to tug on her mouth. "It's not what it looks like." "Oh, it isn't?" Xhaeon leans back, sweetroll settled on the plate before him, klah cradled in big hands. He assesses the girl - observant eyes, catching minor details that may get lost amongst the rest of personal minutiae. Mug is settled down, fingers laced together, eyes resting upon the reappearance of his sketchbook with a relief that can't be completely kept from his expression or stance - shoulders relaxing from subtle tension, lines about the corners of his eyes smoothing. "So what is it, if it isn't what it looks like?" His demeanor shifts into something much more comfortable, relaxed - amused again. "Of course it's not." Sabella confirms again, but she doesn't hand that sketchbook over to him right away. She turns her body so that she can open it without him being able to lunge over and grab it from her, not without some difficulty anyway. Flipping idly through the first couple of pages. "It might look like I've taken your book for some nefarious purpose. Like exposing all these tastefully done naked woman..." He's given a suggestive arching eyebrow for that one, but soon she's snapping the cover shut again. "But in reality I was just safekeeping it for you. After all, you left it on the floor. So I picked it up." Once more there's a smile on her face as she slides it over to him. Leaning her elbow onto the table, she props her chin up in her hand to consider him. Her eyes take in the relief of tension and the change of expression. "Unlike some of my more holdbred," and a faint ironic twist to the word, focus on Sabella with a hint of a smile, "--companions, I don't have much issue with a beautiful woman wearing naught but what nature equipped her with." His fingers close upon the creased and cracked cover a little compulsively, gripping the spine in one hand in a possessive gesture that can't quite be lightened. "Just tell me you didn't write back to my mother," beat, "Or maybe I should be hopeful that you did. She's probably furious that I haven't sent word of... the recent developments." If Sabella did indeed read the letter tucked away towards the back, she'd know how oppressively proud Ayonie is of her eldest son's achievements in his craft, and how very excited she is about him having such a successful posting such as High Reaches!, and oh, has her-father-the-Harper-been-by-often?, since he was all too interested in his grandson's activities. And she'd know some of the embarassing nicknames, too. (Mothers.) "Some of your more weyrbred companions seem to find women frightening with their clothes on. You know, this place isn't the hole of debauchery that it was advertised to be." Sabella mock chides as she shifts the bag off of her lap and pushes it to the side once more. It's still protectively between her and the wall however. "Don't worry, Xexe. I might have skimmed the letters," Scratch that: she totally read them. "but I didn't write back to any of your relatives. Especially not your mother." She moves forward suddenly, leaning across the table and batting at the compulsive, possessed hand on the book. If she can, she'll flip the cover up again and thumb to a specific sketch of some buildings. So she stole and so she totally invaded his privacy, but the next comes out sounding at the least, completely genuine. "You're very talented. What are you doing standing?" "Sad." Whups. Isn't Xhaeon supposed to be holdbred? /Craft/bred is a different breed altogether, evidently. He winces at the nickname, and makes a sound of exasperation at the hand-batting -- and maybe more than all of the above for how competent and familiar she is with handling the book. He eyes the lines of the building with a critical gaze, absently brushing a thumb across a line that isn't-quite-right to his eyes, a thumbnail smudging it into compliance. "Thank you," he states, quietly. He isn't necessarily modest, but neither is he a braggart, and so he sits for a moment, contemplating the roofs, not looking up. "Honestly?" He slants a gaze up, finally, grey eyes rueful. "Politics." It's probably some sort of inappropriate for her to be leaning over the table quite so wholly as she is now. But there isn't anyone in here other than that one lonely kitchen worker. So it's not like someone is going to tell her to stop, she puts her hand out and draws his own away from the page. Another is flipped to and it seems as if she really is familiar with it. Like she knows the pages and what's on them. "This one is my favorite." More buildings, but this time with some outlying landscape. "Where is it?" She asks, eyes full of curiosity. When he slants his gaze up to her, she meets it and her smile tugs into one that's equally rueful. "Were you embracing them or hoping that this would take you away from it for awhile?" Her hair falls and she pushes it roughly out of the way, away from her eyes. "High Hill Hold," Xhaeon identifies absently, watching her hands nearly as much as the picture. "I thought that shrub looked so much like a wooly -- it's why I did the landscape." He gestures to the little patch of now not-so-quite-forbidden greenery, off to a side of what appears to be a slab-like building of a secure-stone stables. It does look a little bit like an ovine. Just a little. "A little of both," he admits, skipping past a drawing or two of specific areas in the weyr, and the arching of ceilings specifically, to land upon a mostly-done drawing of an egg hardening under the trickle of sands, only the roughest outline of a dragon-paw beyond. "Trying to secure myself here. Candidacy seemed ... the surest bet to making ties to the kind of people that I would need to know." A snort, and a bare admitting of something a moment later: "Maybe the riskiest, too. Closer I get to the Sands the more I wonder if I haven't lost my ever-lovin' mind." "Are you from there? High Hill Hold or?" Sabs pulls her hand back, leaving it to him to turn the pages now. "It looks like a nice place." That comes absently from her, almost distracted. For every one that Xhaeon lingers on long enough for her to get a second peek, she seems fascinated by. She's pushing her hair back again, leaning onto her elbows to better leverage herself against the table and see the drawing of the egg. "Do you feel like you accomplished what you set out to do?" She asks quietly dragging her eyes away from the sketchbook and back up to the man across from her. There's nothing accusatory in her voice, it's more of that same curiosity. "You're not really aiming to impress then. Have you thought of not going through with it?" "Oh, no. It's close to the main hall," Xhaeon comments. "I'm from Telgar. Telgar Hold." He glances up to Sabs, then; "And you? Are you from some little minor hold back of nowhere?" A mild interest, a wry amusement. "Or were you a hall brat? My father--" He waves it aside. It doesn't matter. His mother would have only referenced his father in passing, and nothing more than the most personal reference anyhow. "I think the moment I feel accomplished is the moment I die." His fingers brush against the egg, page flips again. Too much skin; he flips through again, until the blank cavernous emptiness of the galleries stretches out on paper, the shadows pooling in the back: a surprisingly ominous sketch, as they go. Someone was loitering. "Every once in a while, maybe. But then... politics." A half-smile, a glance up; a question, there, but he doesn't ask. "But you go there sometimes." Sabella notes off-handedly. "Hmm. Telgar Hold. Your father?" Her eyes drift away from his face when he asks her about the location of her own origins. "I'm from Crom." That's put simply with nothing in the way of further explanation. Instead she reaches out to touch a finger very lightly to that empty cavern of the galleries. There's something close to a troubled expression brewing on her face, but it's bustled away by her smile. Whether it's natural or not is up for debate. "Well, maybe you could choose something else to accomplish after you're done with everything else. But I think it may be a long time before you have to worry about that." It's only at the end that she finally looks at him again, smile curious as she considers him once more. If the silent question isn't verbalized, she won't answer it. That's just her way. "I admire your nerve to take it all the way to the end." "Sometimes. I find that it's hard to... escape parts of the past. Patterns emerge that you can't break." Xhaeon's tone is absent, and it's not entirely obvious that he's talking to Sabella. "Crom?" A glance up, but nothing past that. He stares at the gaping emptiness of the galleries for a moment - a moment shortened by him glancing up, timely, to catch that almost-troubled expression. He closes the sketchbook, pulls it to himself with a touch of the possessiveness from before. A lopsided smile doesn't seem forced, but does seem introspective. "That's the thing about gambling. You have to be willing to pay the bookie." A bare snort, and he finally picks at the sweetroll, relegating his sketchbook to the seat next to him, leaning back, one hand resting upon it as if it could grow legs and walk off itself. "What about you? Why are you here?" The question is asked, after all. He doesn't have to be talking to Sabella, because even if those first words aren't directed right at her... They seem to hit her regardless. The troubled expression almost returns, drawing her eyebrows together in a thoughtful furrow. But thankfully he's closing the sketchbook and she sighs, in what sounds like relief. It's then that she appears to realize how she's drawn herself across the table. Delicately she clears her throat and slips back onto the bench across from him. "Yeah." Yeah, she's from Crom. Recovering from whatever that was before, she laughs on the point of gambling. "I guess if you have to pay the bookie on hatching day you won't be worried about much else. Or so I hear." That moment of weakness or exposure has passed by almost completely and she just has an impish smile for him again, "A rider asked me to stand. I've never been away from where I grew up, really. I mean I've been at Greenfields for a time but. An opportunity to spend extended time at the Weyr?" She lifts her shoulders. "How could I turn it down?" Xhaeon doesn't seem to really have noticed how Sabella had -- arranged herself, leaning as she was, until the girl retreats. His eyes follow her in a surprisingly non-lecherous fashion, a detached air to the line of eye and gaze and set of expression: a man who has looked at drawings for a moment too long and is still going about the mental exercise of how to best shade /that/ curve of arm, delineate the feathering of light-brown hair, express the subtle crease of worry smoothing from her brow. The last shakes him out of his reverie. He laughs. Belated. "Greenfields. Now there's a place." His tone is -- well, he's been there, aye? "It is interesting. The difference. Between here and eveywhere else. It's less the actual difference and more ... how people perceive the difference?" It's more a question than a statement, really. The girl seems to notice how he's watching her, detached like that. She just might not understand what it's all about, that's all. There's another light clearing of her throat to catch his attention again. "It's all of that. The perception and the actual difference." Sabella's mouth twitches in another smile and she leans to the side, collecting her canvas bag up from the spot next to her. She slips the straps over her shoulder and reaches across to grab her mug of klah, long gone cold now. "It's not any one thing, yeah?" Quietly she slides out of the booth, "I should be getting back now. I'll try not to uh, safekeep your belongings for you in the future." There might even be a touch of apology in the way she smiles at him, rueful. Xhaeon watches her with eyes that actually, like, comprehend what's going on around him. Well. At least partially. He watches her quietly, even, nodding at the statement that it's all of it together; that it's not any one thing, no, it isn't. "Oh, please do," the man states, something impulsive about the way he leans forwards - he doesn't exactly reach for her, but there's a gesture about the angle of his shoulders that speaks of a furthering of hands that doesn't quite make it. "At least," he amends, "I would know who to go looking for first, right?" That crooked smile is genuine. "Have a good night, Sabs." "I'd hate to think that I'd need to... safekeep your things in order for you to want to see me." Sabs shoots back, stepping away from that potential reaching of his hands. Her smile is light and amused and she keeps her eyes on him a second too long. Instead of saying anything else she just takes a breath and laughs, turning herself towards the swinging doors of the living cavern. Over her shoulder she shoots back a cheerful, "You have a good night too, Xhaeon." Then she's disappearing out into the big cavern beyond, without any of his things. ...Right? On that note ... it probably isn't a random coincidence that Xhaeon checks his pockets before leaving. Did he come with a pencil or anything? That could be gone. He did let her get close. Ha. He knows who to come looking for when he figures out he's missing his *favorite* charcoal smudging stick... Eventually he'll stop letting her get within arms length of him. Eventually. |
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