Logs:Ham-Handed Incompetence and Not Cherry Pie
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| RL Date: 29 May, 2009 |
| Who: Leova, N'thei |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| When: Day 15, Month 11, Turn 19 (Interval 10) |
| 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. Hatching. Hatching hatching hatching. It's all anyone can talk about. Never mind the fact that there are bigger, more important things afoot. By bigger and more important-- N'thei stands at a counter, arms crossed, watching a couple of people who are too busy arranging pies to notice him waiting to be noticed. He'll get tired of it sooner or later, but, for now, there's a blond picking at a bowl of jarred cherries that keeps him from raising hell and storming off. Yes, blonds with cherries are quite enough. An efficient hip-check sways a swinging door wide, enough for a greenrider to make her way through the passageway despite the sack she's cautiously carrying in both hands: burlap, plain, the sort that clinks like dishes. She abandons it where the dirty dishes go, too. Lucky dishwashers. That, before she starts raiding: not stray wagons, not even pies yet, but leftovers from dinner including a bowl of mystery meat stew. /Then/ pies, rather than blond or big man, angling to see what's actually been cooked. N'thei would like credit for the fact that he actually talks to Leova, when this is all over, for what it's worth. "Not yours." He might mean pies or chesty blonds, hard to say. The girl, being of a more friendly sort, adds cheerily, "But we can put one aside for you if you want, ma'am. We're making loads!" On cue, a mountain of them come out of the oven on trays. On cue, N'thei looks like he'd like to strangle the blond, and not in the kinda-hot way. Her eyes may narrow, but it's only to fly wide as as the blonde interrupts: "Would sure appreciate that," and look, Leova can smile too. For the blonde. "How long's it likely to take? Before they're ready to bring home." She'll lean her elbows on the counter, too, unless the cook's likely to object. Might even look all companionable, wingmates gone all pals-y, to someone who didn't know better. Much better. "The pies?" If the girl didn't have such ridiculously big-blue-eyes, if she wasn't so obviously well-intending, her inane question would probably be annoying as hell. "Oh, they can go home whenever you want, ma'am. They're not like kittens," with a giggle. N'thei, who was a lot happier just watching her than trying to listen to her, closes his eyes in a pained way and adjusts his lean in such a way as to detach the angle of his shoulders from the way Leova's leaning. Yes, very pals-y. "Those would be some fucked up pies," he mutters. "Not too hot, then? /Would/ like one," Leova says, yea, even into the face of that giggle. "Please," and her smile deepens that much further. No coincidence that after she's held it a moment, she's got a sidelong look for N'thei, a quieter, "Seeming a whole lot less likely that the kid's uncle is going to man up. 'S getting colder, too. Snow pretty soon." Like he should know, just like that, which kid she's talking about. Which uncle. And when this is all over, if she's not in a ditch somewhere, no doubt she'd like credit for actually not asking a question. The girl's, "Oh. Oh!" is ripe with the realization of a simple person struggling with a remotely complex topic. "Oh, yes. They're probably pretty hot. Do you still want one?" She's not the one that takes them out of the oven, just the one that checks the jarred cherries for pits and then starts adding sugar, which she does with commendable skill, such dedication that she totally tunes out the subject that comes up next, except to bob a nod at the likelihood of snow, yep yep yep. "Let me alone with him. If his uncle's findable, if there's a chance the kid knows where, will find him." Which would be N'thei, not the girl. "Or just go on keeping him like he's a new pet, seeing as that's working so well." He's a bit miffed, yes. "When they're not going to jump out and burn me," Leova replies in that let-it-carry talking-to-you-not-him voice again, which is to say: yes, she'll wait. Until she just up and disappears out the door instead, anyhow. But that moment isn't yet. Instead, for N'thei: "Having to feed him, too. Though I don't reckon he gets pie." Better not, says her tone. "Suppose you'd have tried just.... swinging by the ledge." Okay, she can handle that. Hmmmn hum hmn, as if making pie-filling was just about the bestest chore a person could get. N'thei starts to look like he's sorry he stopped here at all, with the girl humming and Leova existing. "Got the impression he was something a commodity." Which is to say, no, he hasn't, but only because he's grown out of the phase where he chases his own tail. There's a question threaded beneath the impatient derision of his next; "But if you--" Incompetent. "--people are done playing nursemaid, sure that I could find time to welcome the lad." At least Leova's not humming. Yet. Hopefully it's not too catchy a tune, and she can just set her head in her hands, curl her fingers to scrape back that growing-out hair. Muffled that way, "Just caught him, not in charge of keeping him. /He's/..." and as she straightens it's become a different sort of him, not much older than their captive if at all, wearing that big old knot, "Got different folks looking in on the kid, that way. Mostly. That other fellow, the one you got to welcome before they clocked you," and that could be derisive in her own right but her voice stays somewhere between cool and tired, "Too bad he hadn't more to say. That was useful, anyhow." That she heard. "And /he/ can s--" N'thei, smiling, is no pretty sight. It serves to clip whatever he might have said, as does the side-look to the humming blond. "Want me to write it out in triplicate for you? Having not gotten to the part where I cut off his fingers yet, he wasn't really in much of a talking mood. Suffice it to say, your boy's uncle could very well have gotten himself a guided tour when those wagons got brought in." Which would account for the arcane 'there's more of them.' Triplicate: it gets one of her own sideways looks, this one filled with humor that maybe the big man hadn't intended, though it doesn't last long under what's left of that smile. Instead, Leova skips the not-my-boy and moves right on to, "S'what worries me. More clever'n just a bash-and-grab. Lot of them, to be keeping their mouths shut, to boot." And not your-boy, but, "Your buddy, don't know how much he's been talking to you." N'thei's look is briefly malevolent in light of her amusement, or maybe it has more to do with, "My buddy knows I think this whole thing's being managed with ham-handed incompetence. People steal from you, you put a fucking stop to it." The cursing, which is about all she can hear, gets the pair of them a warning look from the blond, who sidles down a few steps with her bowl. Gosh, such language! "So not much," to answer her not-question. What blonde? Though the slide of her bowl does get a brief glance from Leova, one that should hold apology. Doesn't. Instead: "Pretty much." And: "In that case: him and me, we asked to be kept in the loop," and there should be air quotes to go with that phrase in her voice like that. "Don't know that I'd rather there's something going on, what nobody's bothered to tell us, than nothing going on at all. Meantime, flybys, asking 'round. But that new knot he got offered..." That new knot, that same old shrug. "Man needs something to do with his time, suppose." And, for most people, standing around in the kitchen waiting for someone to feed him just doesn't cut it. N'thei refolds his arms, since shrugging had the undesired effect of loosening his stance, and looks blandly at the greenrider once he's resettled. "Good for you both. You let me know when all that flying-by and asking around pays off, neh?" Her brows go up, part of an all-around bemused look: that's all? Really. But then N'thei goes on, and Leova's got a darker mutter for, "Not holding my breath." Though she does add, "Let me know, you think of something better." That, before she's leaning further over the counter, the better to catch the blonde's eye if she's not ignoring them too much: about that pie? Even if it hasn't been as long as all that. But then, there's got to be something around here to save fingers from being burnt off if not cut off. N'thei spent four years just aching to tell people this: "Not my job to think of something better, is it." Ha /hah/! You suckers deal with this shit on your own! His own smile, a bare thing, is pretty ignorable compared to the vapid-but-pretty one the blond summons to turn her attention back to the greenrider. Whom she seems to like. For whatever reason. "I could get you a napkin to wrap it up in? But you'd have to make sure to bring it back. It's the good linen! And it's all accounted for." It should occur to her to just fetch a dish-towel or something... but it doesn't. His sally hooks one corner of her mouth, pulls it wryly aside in something that's not quite a grimace: don't want to scare the blonde, after all. Leova even tries to make it into a smile by the time the girl's facing her, dragged up from somewhere-or-other: "How about the not-so-good linen? Long as it's clean. Or a couple dishtowels, so long as /they're/ clean." There! Provided the clean thing doesn't get in the way. It's then that she asides to Mr. Doesn't-Care-So-Much-He-Jumps-Onto-A-Runaway-Wagon, "Just said, /if/." And leaves it at that. Again with the, "Oh!" If she'd just replace it with "duh" it'd really be perfect. But she trots off to find a drawer full of clean dishtowels, to use one to scoop up a pie off the tray where they'll eventually get served to people come to oooohh-and-ahhh over baby dragons in the next few days. Which leaves N'thei ample time to argue his case-- best bud says show up, you show up, end of story-- but he doesn't. Just watches a pie that's not his being handed to a woman he... well... kinda hates. "That one's not cherry," says the girl sagely, so totally oblivious to all the rawr. Pity, really, that Leova doesn't know about the bar-raiding so she could not bring that up too. As it is, she's just keeping half an eye on the bronzerider while she focuses on watching the girl do her thing: the trotting, the drawer-opening, the pie-taking and the pie-bringing and, "/Thank/ you," the greenrider says warmly, her hands cupping air around the rim of the pie plate, not quite touching the dish itself, not flaunting it any more than... well. Than her possession of it, really. "They'll love it. What kind is it, then?" If it /is/ kittens, maybe not so much with the loving after all. N'thei, ends of his fingers pressed to his forehead for a pained second, realizes he's actually standing here listening to this. And, right about the same time, realizes he can leave. Which he does. Yay for initiative. Thankfully, the girl kind of didn't like him around anyway, so his departure never puts a hitch in her cheer; if anything, she's even more vapidly bubbly now that he's gone. "I don't know what kind it /is/, I just know it's not cherry. I make the cherry filling." See? Bowl full of it right there. Does the conscious casualness of Leova's pose ease somewhat once he's gone? It /does/, and she's able to smile back at the blonde all over again, take a dutiful look at the cherry filling, smile smile smile. "Then it'll just have to be a surprise," she says. Hoists it up, careful of the edge crust. Gives it an exaggerated sideways look before peering one-eyed past it at the younger woman. "Almost like a Turnday, hm? Good luck with all the hungry people," and one more thanks for the road before she's off to find a little family with a pair of seven-Turn-olds, who just might like some surprise too. "Thank you!" With really hefty cheer there, like that good luck just brightened up her day. Though, gosh golly gee, she better get to work on that pie filling or she's sure gonna hear about it from the cooks! Stir and hum and maybe someone will come along and knock her upside the head someday and put the Weyr out of its misery. Her being the blond, not Leova. Though that wouldn't be so bad either, really. |
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