Logs:N'thei Needs--
| |
|---|
| RL Date: 18 June, 2008 |
| Who: Satiet, N'thei |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| When: Day 16, Month 10, Turn 16 (Interval 10) |
| It's late and the candles are burning at both ends for the slight woman left in the council chambers; any meetings long over. Despite the hour, or perhaps because of it, the stacks of hidework arranged in a semi-circle around her chair have been pushed aside in favor of a carafe of wine, and without a glass to drink from, Satiet, curled up in her seat, chugs ever so elegantly. The tops of the stacks indicate various reports: inventories (1), correspondence with each of the major Holds in the area (4, with the highest pile from Crom), and lower cavern reports (1, complaints, disputes, whatnot). Wyaeth on the ledge, wings rustled, a greeting grated out to his mate, N'thei hopped down just as the bronze hits his thump of a landing. Just in from *between*, smarting with the cold as much from that as from the early chill of the coming winter, the man's slow about pulling off his gloves, shedding his jacket, following the tell-tale spill of light toward the council chambers. "It's late," he informs from across the space of the room, framed by the black shadows of the passage to the ledge, his eyes on the wineskin, not the woman. "Brilliant, you are," returns Satiet's drawl, not startled by the intrusion on her alone time in the vast chamber. The squat carafe is lifted, better for him to see the near-purple red wine that sloshes in a beckon, punctuated with a request that colors wistful about the edges. Slightly. Just a little, easy to miss. "Come in? Keep me and my endless piles of work some company?" A beat passes, her sharp chin jerking to one side and the opposite brow lifting quizzicaly, a glance cast past N'thei to the 'late' shadows without. "It's late," she repeats, "And you're just coming home." The sloshing tricks a smile into place, brightens N'thei's eyes briefly when they lift from the bruise-colored liquid to Satiet's pale gaze. Repulsed; "Hidework." Passing, he drapes a hand across the stack of complaints, knocks it over into a toppled tower of pages-and-ink. "No rest for the weary." And he looks it, as much as he ever looks anything but grim and hateful. "Don't you have people to do this kind of work for you?" /People,/ said in a belittling tone when he arrives at the arm of her chair, a finger outstretched to trail toward her raised brow. "The wicked," Satiet automatically corrects, pushing aside the Crom stack and patting the table where it once was, ostensibly for N'thei to sit there. "No rest for the wicked. The Hold correspondences, no. Unless you'd like to take them on for yourself? Dear Lord Crom, Up Yours?" A supercilious beam slants upward at the Weyrleader, chin tipped sideways, smug. "And the rest?" Ignoring his outstretched finger, but doing very little to avoid it as she turns and grazes a collision path with it and her eyebrow, a hand flitters over the other stacks. Sarcastic, "Unlike others, I enjoy knowing just how many slotted spoons the Weyr happens to own. Or need. And where we might procure it." N'thei balls his fist up, looks menacing considering it was going toward Satiet's eye a moment ago, but it's only for the effect of cracking his knuckles. "So long as I get to deliver the Dear Lord Crom letters in person, could be worth the writer's cramp." One hip to occupy the vacated space, one knee bent and partially hitched, his foot dangling, he turns so he can see more of the hides. "Slotted spoons. Mmmn, I have always had a penchant for educated women. --I may kill someone soon, do you think you can get me out of it if it comes to that?" Transition? "Oh?" Discluding herself with a sarcastically-fueled tilt of her head and a deliberately ditzy toss of her hair, from Satiet's pursed lips comes an, 'oh-really-now' response: "And here I thought you preferred your women missing a few but brilliant enough to possibly be buried in Y-shaped coffins." She takes liberties, her free flittering hand turned from hides to travel up and trace, lightly, the various crevices and bumps of N'thei's balled fist. "Depends. Is it me?" N'thei opens his fist after a moment, splays his fingers beneath Satiet's with an absent look down at the contrast in oft-abused fingers and hidework hands. His chuckle is momentary; "Do you want it to be?" A twist of his palm later, it's easy enough to latch his fingers around her wrist-- loosely so, but there's a memory flaring up behind that momentary smile. Phantom pain ghosts a thin smile on the weyrwoman's thin features, her clear, blue eyes dropped to catch sight of the hand-wrapped wrist. Sight of this only serves to deepen the look, her mouth shaping crooked to impress her right cheek dimple, and her upward traveling gaze followed by a test of just how loose his grip might be in the slightest jerk. "Tell me," she cajoles, voice cool, gaze not, as they latch onto N'thei's lips, "Who you'd like to kill." Cause she can make it happen, right. Not that loose, not while the point is in question, his fingers supplying just enough resistance to retain her wrist before N'thei's fingers slip down the length of her arm to rest briefly on the inner curve of her elbow. "No time for the full roster. But you should know--" By the change in grip, the hand that scoops beneath her elbow, he would draw Satiet from her chair with a painless but steady pull on her arm. "Milani lost the list she was told to destroy. She confessed, I lashed out at her, usual fare, distressing news though." Except, possibly that one, though to lift her is an effortless endeavor for N'thei, the slight pull drawing her half off the chair, and ungraceful and dependant on his support for the few seconds it takes for her feet to gain their bearings. "I would hope," insinuates the raven-haired woman, buying time to school tightened features, "That someone suitable is at the top of that list." Standing, her hand again tests the restraint of his hand beneath her elbow, while the carafe is set by his hip. A sidelong looks glances down to ascertain the wine's safe descent to the table, the upturned expression that follows having collected her features; less heated, more ice, but her traveling hand to brush, almost fondly if not for the mocking inherent in such a gesture, aside the Weyrleader's collar is a deliberate betrayal. "You shouldn't have done that. Lashed out. You can't kill her. Her mother's a friend. And we," royally, "Have such precious few of those." But for Milani, a deathless fate rests cold on Satiet's face. "Didn't hit her or anything." Which really counts as a win in his book. Absently, a stray gesture that comes without consciousness, N'thei looses Satiet's arm to coil his fingers around the neck of the carafe, to place it that much farther out of harm's way-- or is it arm's reach? "Deal with her then, since you're such a close friend of the family. I just want the list found and destroyed, and then I want her out of this mess. Her conscience bothers me." Empty hands settle on either of her hips now that she stands, momentarily distracted from the purpose of bringing Satiet to her feet in the first place; business. Oh, because not hitting a woman is so commendable. It's just all written on Satiet's pretty, sharp features; in that lift of a brow, the hook of a would-be smirk, the roll of her eyes. She doesn't miss the departure of the wine, nor does she miss the hands that drop about her waist, her freed hand falling to traverse N'thei's forearm in a light dance of fingers. Whether she acquiesces or not is lost in a dry commentary on Milani, "Pity, she might enjoy it." But perhaps that's her version of an agreeable thumbs up. "You had a conscience. Once." A shrug, unapologetic, accepting: considering his history, it's noteworthy if not exactly commendable, yes. Those last words drag N'thei's smirk upwards, latch laughing eyes to Satiet's with the littlest shake of his head in denial; "Had many things, but never that. I can't do the right thing and still accomplish anything. Some people can." This shrug is more pronounced, good-for-them, followed by his hand detached from her hip to raise beneath her chin, finger and thumb bridging her jaw. "Probably going to kiss you and then leave, you should know." --And maybe that's all the change between them, that at least now he doesn't bother hiding the conscious decision to be an asshole. "I'daur. Crom." His asshole to her unapologetically open mocking. In the askance in the glint of her eyes, she could possibly reiterate a desperate man's desperate plea, sotto voce, particularly as just a hint of that intonation colors her response. "Conscience. A little. Somewhere. Somehow. Milani's bothers you because you miss it? Your own?" The thought of this raises a simple smile on Satiet's mouth. Having spoken it aloud brings a pause of waiting for his insulting denial. Then, less sly, chin lifting a breadth away from the fingers that clasp; "You don't drink in front of me." His turn to mock; "Bad example. I let an old man take the blame for something I did. That's not conscience, that's..." N'thei pauses, tries to elucidate further but never gets to it before he answers miss-it with a dead certain head shake. "Milani's bothers me because this isn't black-and-white, and she thinks it is." True to his words, or very nearly, he leans nearer and nearer until his chuckle warms Satiet's cheeks. "And? You've never laughed in front of me, means you never do it?" But she smiles, for all that he says and means to stand for. For the breath that warms her cheeks. She might not understand him. He might not understand her. But she accepts, and as Milani needs no further thoughts shared between the pair for the night, her mouth claims his very near lips. Satiet's, "Conscience," is murmured, followed by a taunt, both heard and felt in the proximity of her curled lips parted from his, "Kissed you first. Now leave." "I need--" Now leave. N'thei talked over the top of her at first, one of those mistaken moments when two people start at the same time unawares, but he ends with a quick, undaunted smile. The exhalation is very near a sigh, hard to say if it's forlorn or patient or adoring as there's a blend of them all in the look he delivers unto Satiet. A quick brush, a kiss toward her forehead precedes him slipping away from the goldrider, the table, the hides, the moment. No look back once he's freed. In the face of his undaunted smile, there's a markedly rueful one from her - that expression people get with belated recognition of speaking at the same time. But she lets go, and as he leaves, pretends not to watch, but it's too overtly covert for her not to be, and only when he's gone, minutes later after all she's staring at is the darkness of the 'very late' outdoors, does she return to penning out responses to Lord Crom. |
Leave A Comment