Logs:Fired
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| RL Date: 24 March, 2009 |
| Who: N'thei, Tiriana |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: The day after Satiet's death. |
| Where: Tiriana's Weyr, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 14, Month 4, Turn 19 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Satiet/Mentions |
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| Things aren't normal, but at least Tiriana's not crying right at this particular moment. What she is doing seems to consist mostly of pacing from her couch to Iovniath's to curl back up in a pathetic little bundle, after fidgeting with everything else in the weyr along the way, too lethargic to do anything worthwhile and too restless to actually sit still. N'thei put on his clothes! In light of recent events, that actually deserves to be an exclamatory remark, yes. He took a bath, he ate something, he didn't get around to shaving but does anyone really want him anywhere near a razor right now? And now he walks into Tiriana's weyr with his shoulders squared, with his eyes red but dry; "Get up. We have business." Eyes widening, Tiriana jumps at N'thei's abrupt entrance, but she doe stumble back to her feet from her latest flop alongside her dragon. "What? Now?" she says, blankly. "You're supposed to still be wrecked now." As though he doesn't still half look it. "Well, I'm not. And you apparently are." N'thei, arms folded, silently challenges her right to grieve in the particularly disparaging way he looks down at her, the very slight and slow way he shakes his head at her. "So while I have the upper hand-- I'm done. I don't want to be your Weyrleader." Subtle, but it's /her/ Weyrleader specifically that brokers his resignation. She knows what's coming, even she's not /that/ dense. But still, she doesn't look any less hurt or angry when he actually says it: her own streaked-up face twists into a scowl. "You can't just quit. You can't just run away, too." N'thei, on the contrary! "Oh, but I can. /I/ can still do whatever I want to." There's no symbolic gesture, not knot he can drop in her hands; for as little as he wears it, he probably can't even remember where he left it to hand it over properly. "You can't quit," Tiriana insists, more stridently, as though that will change his mind suddenly. Her expression darkens, lips pressing together. "You can't quit because I'm firing you. You coward." The coward responds without a decent rise even, "Then consider me fired, Tiriana. Will it make you feel better some day to tell people you fired me?" N'thei's arms stay folded, but one hand shifts so his palm opens toward the ceiling, an empty gesture. "No," answers Tiriana, truthfully enough. "No, because it's not /my/ decision." Her shoulders tighten with anger, frustration, and she scornfully declares, "/She's/ the one that told me too--told me all about how you're such a miserable Weyrleader and I have to get rid of you now. I don't know why she kept you on this long, the way she talked." It has been a bad enough day so far that her jabs, although well-aimed, do little more than scratch an already dented surface. N'thei's eyebrows pull together, not angrily but sadly, his forehead lined while he stands there and lets Tiriana have her say. Then, "Why are you trying to hurt me? Today?" Other days, okay sure, but today? He looks down at her, in all her scorn, patient. "You started it," but Tiriana can't look at him while she says it; she turns away, arms folding across her stomach. "You dragged me here into all this, and now you're just going to leave me to pick up all the pieces by myself. It's not like you /do/ anything anyway. Why do you have to quit?" N'thei takes a step toward Tiriana, rethinks in the brief pause between the second step, resolves himself to uncross his arms. Heavy hands to her shoulders, and at least he's they're not shaking any more, when he answers resolutely, "Because my heart's broken, and what good will I do anyone like that, neh? You're not all by yourself, and you were hardly dragged here. Quit feeling sorry for yourself." That should be a hard rebuke, but there's an unfamiliar edge of understanding in there, like maybe he grasps a little of the reason for her self-pity. Maybe. Tiriana shakes her head, frowning first at the hands that find her shoulders, then up at him.. "We're all broken," she answers, as though that's self-evident. Probably it is. "And the rest of us--we don't get to just walk away. You can't even... Just a couple of weeks? Just until me and Iovniath, we can find somebody else and make them Weyrleader instead? "F'rint's better at it than I am anyway," to answer the question of the interim-who. N'thei looks, in a little way, sorry to be doing this to Tiriana, in light of everything else, but there's as much determination as apology in tear-tired gray eyes today. "You were right, I don't /do/ anything anyway, but I need to officially not be doing anything for a while. And you need support from people who'll be just as happy I'm gone. So," again, "quit feeling sorry for yourself, and remember that she actually picked /you/." Very mild humor there, what's meant to be a bolstering squeeze for her collarbones. "F'rint's a /brown/rider," is Tiriana's derisive response to that, but she sighs, apparently resigned to having him fill the spot for now. "But--where will you go? What are you going to do? You can't just go back to being nobody again." N'thei, quick; "And a damn good one, be wise of you to remember that." Another pat and, seeing as she's not being a hurtful little bitch for the moment, he withdraws his hands and folds his arms again, taking a backward step to resume the distance at which he started from Tiriana. "Don't know. Get my old weyr back, figure out what I used to do with myself." Get drunk, get in fights, raid Holds, all very worthwhile occupations? "Beyond that... not really your business, neh? --Ought to worry about the rest of the Weyr." Tiriana shrugs. "Even so," she concedes about F'rint. She frowns, bites her lip while he tries to explain. Then, with a sad half-hearted smirk, "Rest of the Weyr can take care of itself." The look, bland and doubtful, a hint of mockery, questions Tiriana's assertions there. All the little do-gooders taking care of themselves? Really? "Not that you have a choice. As you said, you can't just walk away." But N'thei? N'thei can, and he's accomplished what he set out to: quitting, being fired. "Will look in on you, sometime when I'm..." His hand unlaces from his arm-cross stance again, wobbles uncertainly to demonstrate when-he's-not-teetering. "Till then, try not to make me look bad for bringing you here in the first place." Tiriana, after a moment's hesitation, nods. "Okay," she concedes, albeit reluctantly. "I'll do my best." And she manages another wry half-smile, and then, abruptly, leans in to try to hug him. Just for a second, y'know, because them being halfway nice is weird enough as is. N'thei gave the shoulder squeeze, sure, but hugging? He's already been crying on Milani's shoulder. "You'll feel like an ass when you think back on this if you follow-through with that," he says, eyebrows pulled up in frail amusement. "Get some sleep," when he pulls a step back from the goldrider, prepares to go back out into the world. Which sucks. Big time. "Just for that, you're fired!" Tiriana yells after him. Which maybe makes her feel a little better about being left hanging. So at least one relationship is still in the same state it was before Satiet croaked~! |
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