Logs:Mommy Leova and Aunty Kaikin
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| RL Date: 9 January, 2012 |
| Who: Leova, Taikrin |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Leova is very pregnant, and Taikrin does her best to cheer her up. Her kindness is repaid with gross pregnant boobs EEEEEW! |
| Where: Kitchen, HRW |
| When: Day 26, Month 9, Turn 27 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Riorde/Mentions |
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| Kitchen, High Reaches Weyr 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.
Little details like 'hours of operation' and 'kitchen is closed' have never held much sway over Taikrin's activities: she's not, after all, a rules-girl. So here she is, getting in the way of the bakers kneading up loaves for the morning and generally causing a stir as she pokes around in search of edible leftovers. Leova must have caught her eye, because as soon as she swatted away from the cookie tray she retreats, laughing, to plunk down across the greenrider. "Hey, Leova," she says, amiably, around a mouthful of cookie. "What's cookin'?" "Funny," says the woman with the bun in the oven, who's been watching Taikrin's progress since the fuss began. "Very funny." She pulls up her knees some, braced by her heels, though she can't do it much. "How's Glacier?" There's a thread of inadvertent longing in her voice, one that slides into gruffness as she steps on the consonants. "And you. Been a while." "Oh, you know," Taikrin drawls, overly amused with herself. "Drinkin' and whorin', mostly. Same old same old. Came up three marks in last week's game." She shows her teeth in a cocky grin, then flicks her gaze over Leova's oh-so-prominent midsection. "Ain't you nearly ready to pop yet? It ain't the same, takin' everyone's money, without you there too." "They still make you pay? Shells, woman." Leova even clucks all maternal-like, but there's a spark in her eyes that hasn't been there for a few hours at least. "Getting close, anyhow. Keep telling myself that. 'Least a month, if I want it to be healthy." She doesn't pat her stomach or anything. "How's Riorde doing? Talk to F'rint sometimes, but too many of the men act like they'll lose their balls if they get near, seeing as how it's not /theirs/." "Riorde's okay," she dismisses, unwilling to talk about the browrider. Rather, "I dunno though, reckon you could tell 'em it /is/ theirs. See how many guys you could get goin' about it?" Taikrin polishes off the last of her cookie, then leans forward to hunch over her spread hands just as she would over a particularly good hand of cards. "I mean, you already got what's-his-face, from Vrianth's last, right? Reckon you could get at /least/ seven or eight more convinced it was theirs, if you start talkin' about that night they all got wasted, remember, when C'len and T'min got in that fight in the middle of the caverns?" She grins again, her smile predatory. "Make for an interesting betting pool, yeah?" Just... okay? says the tilt of Leova's brows. At least, until her expression tightens: "Didn't /mean/ to. Didn't /want/ to. Just because I didn't want to collar every gossiping uncle and tell them that yes, I /know/, so shut up." And if Taikrin doesn't remember, she doesn't see fit to elaborate. "Don't even go there. Don't play on me." Beat. "And no, I wouldn't have liked it none before, so don't go /there/ either." Though it's true her sense of humor, ordinarily relatively deadpan, has frayed all to tatters. Some of Taikrin's enthusiasm for a rigged betting pool deflates at Leova's obvious lack of interest. "Aw, c'mon, you know it'd be fun to pull one over on 'em. We could even split the marks, 50-50, yeah? Buy something nice for the kid, whenever it shows up?" She wheedles hopefully, one last time. "Don't even have to tell 'em, if you don't want? I'll even get you a /cookie/!" "No..." Leova's tone resists desperation in favor of just plain flat. "No." She eyes the younger brownrider, wingmate cameraderie threatening to verge into a weyrlingmaster's stare. "/Fine/, whatever," Taikrin sighs, momentarily dipping into a teenager's petulance. "Could'a made /so/ many marks, though." That avenue exhausted, she fidgets a moment, then kicks back in her chair. "So... another month, huh? So you'll be back flyin' with us in, what, two? Three? After you get it fostered it and all?" Because, in Taikrin's world, that's a bygone assumption. A petulance which curves Leova's mouth just a bit, a reminiscent near-smile. "Something like that," she says. "If things go right. Don't know /who/ all Anvori's got lined up to help him out." To the extent they've talked about it at all instead of just holding their breath, waiting. "Depends on the milk and all. Vrianth, she'd like it sooner," as if practically the whole Weyr didn't know. Speaking of which: Vrianth pokes at her wingmate's mind, a touch of energy that practically explodes if and when it detects a vulnerable part of his attention. (Vrianth to Szadath) There's something fascinating about the curve of Leova's stomach: Taikrin' gaze keeps wandering there, despite her efforts to look, well, anywhere else. "/Milk/? I mean, any of those fosterer's can do it, yeah? Heard they just keep goin', like-- like herdbeasts, or somethin'." Or maybe it's not fascination, but horror? Either way, it's terribly distracting. "I mean, you-- you ain't gonna do it /yourself/, right?" Yeah, that might be horror alright. To Vrianth, Szadath HAD been dozing; that spark of energy pings off a sheet of perfectly smooth ice, dissipating into the reaches of Szadath's mind as he comes to full alert. Then, « Bored? » Full and utter relief: wordless agreement. Entertain her. Step on somebody's tail, or something. (Vrianth to Szadath) A curl of smoke, interested: « Fly? » From the booming undertones, icy-hot, is Szadath's implication of a flight of a not entirely wholesome nature. Then again, it's been a /long/ time, now, for the curbed brown. (Szadath to Vrianth) Better or worse than slightly higher? It's harder to conceal fine curves these days, though the greenrider's /waist/ isn't what it used to be. Maybe Leova doesn't notice. She doesn't cross her arms. "For a while. That's the plan." /Now/ she does. "You want a game distraction, I can whip out the old teat, squirt the other fellow in the eye." Beat. "Or, no. Might get milk on the felt." Never mind! Not that long for /Vrianth/... but still, too long and, if her rider's lucky, going to get longer. And wider and... still, she can guess what he means, and she flicks disparaging glints of gold here and there, stolen from another's chains-clanging mindscape. Go chase that. (Vrianth to Szadath) "No, nonononoo!" Taikrin rocks her chair backwards with the vehemence of her protest, very nearly ending up ass over teakettle as it wobbles unsteadily. "S'ok, really, reckon you ain't gotta even /pretend/ to-- /no/." At least she's not looking at at Leova's curves anymore? "I dunno how you can even--" Too horrified to finish, even; a shiver travels down her hardened criminal spine. The look Leova bends on Taikrin is a fond one, yet somehow playful: "You know," she drawls, that smoky voice of hers gone all the way back to Tillek, "I hear it tastes real good." And waits. As attractive as glints of gold might be, there's an echoed shiver of horror that very clearly doesn't originate from Szadath himself, but acts just as well as a restraint as those clanging-chains. « Fine. » Irritation, unsuppressed, but now a part of his customary mental-scape. « Maybe later. » (Szadath to Vrianth) He gets a snort for it, too. Maybe he should hold his breath. (Vrianth to Szadath) Oh. Ohhhhh. Bad Leova. Turnabout is NOT fairplay, in this case: Taikrin's gone pale, the same sort of queasy look to her as after particularly rowdy night. "I-- you-- I don't--- /Leova/!" Slam, as all four chair legs make contact on the ground and the brownrider buries her head in her arms with another muffled, "/Gross/." And that's right around when the snickering starts, growing into full-bodied laughter that stops only when the fetus does a backflip and it's a good thing Taikrin isn't watching her stomach roll. Of course, /then/ she reaches awkwardly over to try and ruffle the brownrider's hair, and maybe she's thinking about it again because... that last, that sounded outrageously like a giggle. "I hate you," Taikrin tells the table, in a muffled response to the hair-ruffling. "I'm gonna tell your kid all about how you're awful to your wingmates, an' how you won't even let 'em make a profit off bettin' on him, an' then I'm gonna teach him how to hide tunnelsnakes in your closet." "Mmhmm," says Leova kindly. Laughter may be escaping her here and there, too, as the brownrider goes on. She gives Taikrin a last pat and straightens some, if only so that she can then peer beneath the rumpled hair and keep on agreeing. "He can call you Auntie Taikie while you dandle him on your knee." A sweet little pause. "Or would you prefer... Rinnie?" There's unmitigated horror in the gaze that lifts up from her arms to glower through the fringe of dark hair at Leova. "I will take you between myself," is the dire threat. But then, "My /nephew/ don't even call me that. 'Least he tries to get all the right sounds in there, an' /he's/ only two." "Mmhmm," the greenrider says all over again, like Taikrin's just /made/ /her/ /day/: she's so cute, that brownrider. Though she turns away, it's only to stretch with one hand to the small of her back. "How is the sprout, anyway? You should bring 'im by, he can teach mine all the walking and talking and cussing." And then she nudges the plate closer to her wingmate: who cares that that cookie isn't all there? "Growin'," Taikrin responds, muffled. But then she lifts her head, carefully, a wary gaze still fixed on Leova /just in case/. "Went by last month. He's runnin' all over the place. Reckon I'm gonna get him a firelizard egg. How old they gotta be to have one? Three, you think?" Beat. "Dunno if my sister'll let me take off with 'im all by myself. She's got this idea, like maybe we might drop him between by accident if he don't hold real still, 'cause he don't ever stop wigglin', seems like." Because it's at the top of Taikrin's mind as a DO NOT SHARE, PRIVATE, memory, Szadath takes a particularly malicious delight in sharing the memory with Vrianth: a tiny dark-haired boy, squealing with excitement. "'Nty Kaikin!" (Szadath to Vrianth) And Vrianth mightn't care particularly, except for what that /means/... « /Szadath/. /Sza/-dath. » It's his name, writ in ultraviolet letters that glow, glow, glow, followed by whispering. Wait for it.... (Vrianth to Szadath) Peaceable Leova /surely/ isn't going to leap across the table and terrorize her poor innocent wingmate. Right? Any more, anyway? "You can give him candy'n stuff for now, he'll be happy as anything," she suggests. "Hold off on the firelizard until he's all sulky and doesn't want anything to do with family... and then suddenly you're the best auntie ever /and/ you can get Szadath to spy on him. Meantime? Enough leather, it'll hold anything do...own." To look at her, after that one eyes-widened jolt, she hadn't heard a thing. Maybe she's saving it. Or maybe the baby moved. Or she has to pee. "Yeah, reckon you're right, maybe wait 'til he's five," she sighs, reluctantly. "I'm /already/ the best one ever. Let him sit on Szadath's arm, last time, 'til he almost fell off and Szad went to catch him only his paws are so /big/ my sister flipped out and--" Mid-ramble Taikrin cuts out, frowning, to peer at Leova. "-- all right there?"Wariness, hard-learned from too many green-zings, hardens the planes of Szadath's mind into smooth, icy armor. « Vrianth. » Her own, wreathed in woodsey smoke. « What. » (Szadath to Vrianth) No offense taken, not with that light teasing little circles and curls and trails against the ice, becoming not so much brighter for his saying her name... but deeper into the spectrum. « This. » Wait for it, keep waiting, just a little longer... (Vrianth to Szadath) Poor Taikrin's sister. "Huge paws," Leova agrees distractedly, hand on her side. Right when the brownrider's peering, her belly moves again, a ripple beneath the soft, worn wool. "I, uh. Got to go. Before I..." go. Her exits aren't the way she'd like them to be, these days, what with the work it takes to get herself scooted further down the bench and then all the way upright, so she's silent for a few deeper breaths before hoisting the rest of the way upright. "Night, Taik. Thanks for stopping by." She pauses, and that smile of hers deepens. "Auntie Kaikin." She stays for just a moment, to enjoy and, yes, relay, and then: exit greenrider. And /she/ shares, because his so-irritable self should get some fun too. Better? It's almost like a thank you! (Vrianth to Szadath) DOOM. "Uh, okay, sure, I'll--" It takes a minute for the letters to sink in, but it's far too late to chase after the poor pregnant lady by that point. Instead, Taikrin makes a low noise of complaint in the back of her throat, and settles for burying her head in her arms again. |
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