Logs:Invitations
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| RL Date: 29 March, 2010 |
| Who: Aleis, Val |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Val visits Aleis, uninvited, and gets an invitation to return. Benden might even have an invitation too. |
| Where: HRW |
| When: Day 6, Month 5, Turn 22 (Interval 10) |
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| Aleis and Galbreth's Weyr, High Reaches Weyr Inside, stone shelves of varying heights and sizes provide good shelving for various trinkets. An old desk to the right of the entranceway boasts a few leftover hides; there's a wobbly stool in front of it. Further back, a large cavern in the right wall, about two feet up from the floor has been made into a sleeping chamber, the bubble-shaped hollow stuffed with a mattress and generous pillows and blankets in cool colors. At the very top of this chamber over the head of the bed, a quirk of the rock creates an open space, a short tunnel that shows a generous patch of sky above it, its slight tilt keeping out rain and snow. On past the sleeping quarters is a fireplace, set into the back. Its once-beautiful wood mantle is cracked and warped, its run-down state matching the general aged look of the rest of the place. Uninvited, the visitor hasn't dressed up for her host. Her leathers are dark but scuffed, even if they do trace her sleek curves as faithfully as ever they had, at least as of a few Turns past being a weyrling. Aleis's weyrling. Now, Val's ensconced herself upon the older brownrider's stool, even if it /is/ wobbly, leaning back against her desk as though she owns it. Or is just, unashamedly, enjoying it. This whole business of an assistant weyrlingmaster is time-consuming. Aleis has rarely been home for more time than it takes to sleep. Occasionally to change clothes when the tasks of the day has involved more unexpected excrement than usual, although this is tapering off as the weyrlings get a little older. Today, she's obviously got more than five minutes, because she takes her time about dismounting, ambles in like she owns the place. Which she does. And this interloper doesn't. But if Aleis is shocked or particularly disturbed, it doesn't really show. "Fancy seeing you here," drily. "Figured it was here or in your bed," Val says lazily. "Missed you." And, "My duty to High Reaches and her... Galbreth." She hasn't bothered to change her pose at all, beyond a lifting of her lashes that lends that much more brightness to her eyes. That gets a glance in the direction of what passes for a bed, which, though everything else is quite tidy, has taken on more of the look of a nest of some sort, all cushions and blankets and no particular method to the madness. "It might have been marginally more comfortable. I apologize for the lack of chairs." More than a hint of sarcasm, there. This is not one who is used to playing hostess, or who expects anybody else to think she will. "Can I get you something? Water? Brandy? I'm afraid those are the only two options." The sarcasm brings back Val's smile, for all that it had never truly left. "I suppose I could have cleaned off your desk, and sat myself upon that," she allows. But that would have meant cleaning. Unnecessary cleaning, worst of all. "Brandy will do. I'm not sure about the water, here." The brandy--well, aside from what Aleis keeps on her person--is in a stoppered-up bottle on the desk. Aleis does not have an extra glass for company, but she does at least have the one, which she pours a small quantity into, and offers it up with a faint smile. "The water here is perfectly drinkable, so far as I have been told, but it tastes wrong. So did you come all the way from Benden to tell me you missed me? I'm really flattered." Val leans forward enough to accept the glass, even toasts her fellow brownrider with it. "You sound just the same," she says. "Haven't aged a day." Over her glass, which hasn't yet touched her lips with their faint curl, "Come home, Aleis. We miss you. /Benden/ misses you." What Aleis keeps on her person is a small flask tucked away, which she retrieves. Its contents are no doubt the same. She opens it up to have a sip. And another sip. "Of course I sound the same. I've only been away a few months." Oh, Aleis, the practical one. "Benden is surviving quite well without me, I'm sure. Without me taking up space. I have work, here, now. I'm being useful. There's something to be said for that." One small amount of etiquette Val seems to have learned: sip after your hostess sips. So she does. Both times. She shows the burn more than the older brownrider, shutting her eyes for a moment, cheeks flushing until she opens them again. "There is," Val's slower to suppose, as though it were one of Aleis's little indulgences, to want to be useful. "Though you haven't seen any rocks fall from the sky to hit Benden, now have you. We're still using the alternate visualization to get here, though they say there's a new Eye Rock now. Do /you/ trust it?" "The new Eye Rock? As well as anything, I suppose. We've barely left." Aleis' world is a small one. For that matter, right now it basically encompasses this space and the bowl and the weyrling training cavern. And the living cavern at mealtimes. Sometimes. She takes one more sip, and this time there's watching, as though she's curious to see just how far this mirror act goes. "So... why, exactly, are you in my weyr again? I'm really not accustomed to... visitors." Barely /left/. It brings Val to her feet, an easy gesture with glass still in hand, and then she begins to walk along the wall of the weyr. The long way. Her fingertips lift to the rock, the better to pitter-patter along it, arrhythmic. The stool's abandoned, not pushed in at all. "Would you believe me if I said I had a dream," she asks of the wall, the ceiling when she tilts a look up at it. Yes, she does drink. It nearly spills. Given that the stool is the only convenient place to sit besides bed, Aleis takes it, carefully shifts it into the position in which it is most stable, although that's not saying much. "Galbreth dreams," she says. This, anyone should know. Galbreth dreams such that they bleed into the vicinity. No weyrling she's had could have missed that at some point or another. But then, in more clipped tones, "I don't." This time, no more drinking. She sets the flask on the desk. So Val sips again without her, not spilling this time, not even coming near. And since Aleis doesn't herself come near so as to stop her, she gives herself the tour, as though she hadn't looked the place over and touched and smelled those trinkets on their shelves. Maybe she hadn't. Things don't look out of place, do they? "I know you don't," she says softly, but it's not a whisper. Those trinkets... she bypasses what appears to be an egg shard and reaches out to pick up the little memento next to it, turn it upside down, look for a maker's mark. If she's not forestalled. "You used to, though. So maybe I still do." "Children do." There's a bit of acid in it. Aleis doesn't so much as twitch a muscle as Val gets all touchy on her stuff. It's just stuff, says her lack of defensive posture. Just stuff. "All right, Val, I'll bite. So what did you dream?" For some reason, that question and the answer it precipitates seem to require another drink, this one a longer one than the others. Val catches herself wincing, and exaggerates the gesture until it seems designed, complete to the hand fluttering up to her forehead. And then she puts the oddment back. Safely back. Right where it had been, down to the alignment. "It was dark," she says. "I don't remember all of it." Another step. "There was wind, and falling, and men, laughing." Another. A stretched-out silent pause. Aleis tips her flask back and forth, the liquid in it sloshing, then drinks again. Not even a hint of a flinch for it. Whatever's in there, she's used to it. Finally, she holds it in both hands, leans one elbow on the desk, says, "So... a dream of laughing men led you to my weyr." Quirk of eyebrow. "It may have escaped your notice, but there are no men here." "Please don't think I expected there to be." Val executes a little pirouette, just so she can look at Aleis for a moment before momentum takes her off again. What's still in her glass doesn't spill. "I remember that much, at least." She doesn't look back, just keeps walking, placing each foot just so. "If you make it through this clutch, the weyrlingmaster will take you back... wanted to do it sooner, but the mindhealers... You know." "I'm not going back." Aleis says it flatly, without looking at Val this time, her eyes suddenly taken up by her hands. "I'm glad that you seem to remember me so... fondly. Val. But I live here, now. There's no past, here. No stories. No ghosts. No leftover bits of the dreams of childhood. I am content with that, and see no reason whatsoever that I should go back to all those things just because my former student seems to disapprove of my current arrangement." Again, at the end of that speech she seems to need another drink, but it brings no relaxation. Again Val turns, but this time it's to lean back into the curve of the wall and just look at Aleis, the glass lifted above her like a candle. Her eyes are warm brown. Her voice is warm, too. "I'm sorry." Hardly any meeting of those eyes; Aleis takes a moment before she can look in that direction, abruptly blinking more than she ought to be though her eyes to all appearances are dry. "There's nothing to be sorry for. I have a very nice arrangement here. You have friends your own age, don't you? I can hardly imagine that my absence is cause for any great distress on your part." Nothing overt about the younger brownrider's posture has changed, but now she's less lifted than... pinned. Carefully, her muscles are made to soften again, one by one. The glass lowers and she looks over it at Aleis. Takes a defiant swallow and manages through sheer force of will not to blink this time, however much /her/ eyes might water. "My own age? It has been ten /Turns/. Aleis. I'm not the teenager you taught to muck." "You're what, now--twenty-two?" Aleis can be forgiven that minor error, right? Only a few months off. "My dragon is nearly your age. We aren't of a generation, Val. That's all I mean." She needs another drink after that, inexplicably. "It stopped being fashionable to feel sorry for me a long time ago. I'm not sure why you still insist on it." It was just moments ago, wasn't it, that Val was all warmly attentive? And now... she doesn't /growl/, but her teeth do clamp together. Momentarily. And then she's crossing the weyr again, saying with an over-the-shoulder glance, "That was before. You could wish me a happy Turnday, you know." Step. Step. "And it's not that kind of sorry." It might escape the so-there inflection, but narrowly. A happy--it takes a moment for Aleis' expression to change from faint bafflement to something approaching understanding. "Well. Happy Turnday, then. So--twenty-three? It's not that much of a difference." Nothing much conciliatory in her tone, but she finally stands, the stool rocking as she does so, squeaking on the stone floor. "If it's not, then why are you here? I'm just trying to understand. Surely you have other friends. There's no reason to go missing your decrepit old teacher, dear." A wry smile for 'decrepit'. A joke. See? Funny. As she walks, Val skips over the remaining months in between with a so-gracious, "/Thank/ you." And goes with it, "Can't a girl visit her teacher on her Turnday?" Even if it's not her Turnday. "Even if she is decrepit. ... I tried to tell you, you know. And I'm dismayed you don't believe me." Dismayed! Why, she even has to have another nonchalant swallow to tide her over. "You tried to tell me I was decrepit? I'm not sure I should thank you for that." Aleis actually manages a flicker of a smile for that one before she offers the bottle back towards Val. "Another, then. For your Turnday. I still think you ought to be home celebrating with someone your own age. Some nice... someone of the appropriate persuasion. I'm not trying to be rude. If I was trying to be rude, I'd just throw you out. But, Faranth." That play gets quick, surprisingly light laughter from Val, a naturalness that softens her face as well as her tone. "I have all the time in the world to celebrate," she says, leaning lightly on the relevant word. And it's not celebrate. "What are you trying to be, Aleis?" Drawing nearer, the younger brownrider does hold out her glass, but not quite far enough. The bottle is held out, tipped--but Aleis isn't going to go trying to reach too far and possibly spill it, so she holds it waiting for Val to provide the glass. "I suppose you do," she agrees, voice a little softer. "Plenty of time. I suppose I'm just trying to have a good fresh start, isn't that reasonable enough? After everything. A blank slate is a beautiful thing. I've met some very nice people here. I'm being productive. Moving on. As the world has tended to do." "Reasonable." It's reluctantly said, as much as Val's, "You always could convince me, as much as anyone could. Do you remember..." but she leaves off, Visigoth having left off shooting the breeze with some of /his/ acquaintances up on the Rim to backwing towards a landing on that ledge out there. Instead, she shakes her head at the bottle after all. "Save it for next time." Galbreth has already drifted off. He seems to be able to do that at the drop of a hat. On landing, Visigoth will get something in the way of a watercolor landscape, purple mountains majesty and all that, clouds like puffs of wool. A flash of green in it. He doesn't rouse unless an attempt is made to rouse him. "Ah. So you're going." There's an unspoken 'already' on the end of it, after all Aleis' protests. "Next time?" Despite the scrape of claws on stone, today is no battle. Visigoth does not attempt to rouse him, though the mountains acquire a metallic tinge, chrome within the color, a cheerful puff of smoke to go with the wool. "Yes," his rider answers, just as cheerfully. And then she leans forward, seeking to press her glass into what may pass as Aleis's free hand and wrap her fingers about it, regardless of whether she's still got the little flask. There's still brandy left, not much, but enough to tip and slosh with the movement: a good-sized swallow, maybe two. Bright eyes regard the other brownrider: can she bear to throw it out, or will she drink what Val has left her? "You did want peace, did you not? Thank you for your hospitality, my dear. Teacher." Waste not, want not; Aleis takes the glass, pulls her hand back away, knocks back the rest of it all at once. Then a shake of her head--that was enough at least to get her just a little bit--and she offers Val one more solid smile. "Peace. Well, yes. Been looking for peace since... since." Since probably a long time before she came to High Reaches, but never mind that. "Well. You're welcome back, although if you tell me when you're coming I can at least have a better chance of being off work." Val's eyes widen at that, if fleetingly, made the blacker by brandy at the very least. "I can't promise," peace. Foreknowledge. Any of that. But by the way she draws it out, the way she smiles back at Aleis even after walking further for the ledge, she just might try. "You have a good evening," Aleis bids at last, and then before Val has made it to the ledge she's turned back to take the glass and the brandy bottle. Since she's presumably going to be alone momentarily, there's no need to settle for the rickety stool; instead she heads straight for bed, obviously intending to curl up with her comfort, not particularly concerned with being seen doing just that. Question is, is it as comforting as the day before, and the day before that? Departing Val's hand swings up in salutation, a far too girlish bounce in her step, and she doesn't look back. |
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