Logs:Origins
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| RL Date: 20 December, 2013 |
| Who: H'kon, Leova |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: H'kon has questions for Leova about their baby. H'kon's and Madilla's baby. |
| Where: Sunset Across the Lake Ledge, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 1, Month 8, Turn 33 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Dilan/Mentions, Lilabet/Mentions, Madilla/Mentions, Raija/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Dated so that logs sit in order on the wiki. Actual RL date is 2014.01.08. |
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| Sunset Across the Lake Ledge Afternoon slants sunshine across the ledge that had once housed a bronze. Vrianth lounges within it, her wingspars casting long, angular shadows between the more ephemeral swaths from her sails. Even when she's surveying the Bowl and those who roam beyond it, she keeps a hungry eye on her rider, working amidst the trees. Leova works sleeveless, the muscles of her arms shifting as she pours one dipperful of water after another from the barrel stationed discreetly between two of the retaining walls. There's dirt beneath her nails. It hasn't rained nearly enough. Arekoth's shilhouette, way up in the sky, would have been a giveaway of his arrival back at the Weyr for anyone watching. His arrival on the ledge isn't quite a surprise either; there's a long approach, and, « Lovely day, lovely. » But obvious doesn't mean requesting permission. So Arekoth, he just grips the edge as he settles, and watches Vrianth for reaction. H'kon, notably, does not look to dismount just yet. « I do like it, » and Vrianth leaves a long, trailing pause where ordinarily she might say his name. Arekoth. It's all but audible, all but visible, and then it is the latter: a haze of pink and pale blue-green. She walks right through it, now that she's eased up to her haunches with her wings layering shadows over her spine. She prowls right to him, there on the edge, padding paw- by deliberate paw-press. « What do you want? » Arekoth. She can look him over from there, and his rider. Arekoth arranges his wings against his back, taking a bit more space as Vrianth approaches, a more stable perch on the edge of that ledge. Freshly-arranged, spars lift slightly away from him all the same - Arekoth - when she's got near. « Oh, nothing to worry on, lamb. Well, not yet. » H'kon has taken the time of the approach to reach his decision, unattaching himself from his straps, lifting up and at the ready to dismount. « Just words. » « Well, then. » Since there's nothing to worry about, there's nothing for him to worry about, not even when Vrianth keeps coming. Not when she moves to insinuate herself beneath one of those wings, not to linger but to slide along the length of the brown, almost touching. Why, his rider could practically dismount onto her. Perhaps that's even what they had in mind all along. Leova lifts her head, frowning. Arekoth might be able to hear Vrianth's murmur, « You have nothing to worry about. » And yet, the green's rider doesn't exactly look comforted. Arekoth, of course, takes full advantage of her closeness, stretching out to let his muzzle brush along her ridges. Preen. « I almost never worry, poppet, » he assures her, not quite able to keep that amused back-of-the-mind glow down, at the end. H'kon does not, in fact, dismount onto Vrianth. He waits, and looks for her rider, a hand gripping his straps, though he makes no move to reattach them. There's at least that much trust. Vrianth just doesn't seem to mind such attentiveness, and especially not the amusement, arching her neck beneath his touch with just a bit of a twist. She might even seek to incite more, unless it's just coincidence that she draws on that glow, letting it light more of her free-flowing energy. Not free-flying, not yet. Leova compresses her lips, glances towards the heavily hanging fruit. She could offer H'kon an apple. She doesn't. She does walk towards green and brown and brown's rider. "What." Arekoth is just fine with that; he has more to give, more to preen, more to press up against, always. H'kon is incredibly trapped, and is doing his best not to let the awkwardness of draconic flirting going on between his legs distract him overmuch, from his serious expression, from his serious intent. "Leova." He shifts, better to look at her as straight on as he can, all things considered. Arekoth shifts a little, as if to help with the dismount, and yet... well, he's happy to be distracted, regardless. "I must speak with you. About the girl." Would curving her long neck about Arekoth's be too much? It might. Vrianth saves that thought even as she briefly shares that image, less vision than imagined sensation, and leans up against the brown instead. Not hard. Or, not too hard. He can take it, surely, it won't push him off. Though it might push Leova over the edge, the green's rider folding her arms, not looking. H'kon might as well be seated across the table. "Thought you might." H'kon's grip on those straps doesn't tighten, so much as it twists, flexing the muscles through his forearm, giving him a more solid point than that brown, who has all sorts of sensations that he can send back to Vrianth in answer. H'kon, focused, gives Leova one nod. As if she might see it. "What is she to you, then?" It's the dragons Leova's not looking at, after all. She still doesn't, even as Vrianth gradually ups the ante. Vrianth's pleased. Leova is... looking only at H'kon, just now, still standing far enough back that it's not too strong an angle. "A relative's daughter. Her father's gone missing," that last with a twist to her low voice: Leova does not approve. "A close relative, I'm told." With a deepening of his usual frown, "And told no more than that. Not without your leave." He leans a bit in Leova's direction, though from Arekoth's 'ridges, it's hardly an obvious change, so much as an intention. "So again, what is she to you?" "'By my leave.'" It's musingly said. Even Vrianth twists to look down at him, for those moments, and surely it's been too long since drills for him to really smell phosphine on her breath. What Leova says first is, "You don't care for that, do you." That grip twists, reversing the previous change, back to the original position. H'kon retains that lean, unblinking. Arekoth's motions slow, if not stop. "I do not." So, as long as she's there, Vrianth makes to swipe a long, teasing lick along Arekoth's neckridge. Not H'kon's neckridge, of course. Indeed, she might return to more of her earlier distance where the rider is concerned, depending on the brown's reprisal. Her rider's gaze flickers but does not leave the other rider. "What does it matter? To you." Why is it so important? That stops the man, at least for a moment, though his posture remains bold enough. H'kon closes his mouth, slowly, and still doesn't break his gaze - even when Arekoth shifts, changing the angle, to open his mouth and try the tips of his teeth, so lightly, against the green in answer. Finally, jaw working deliberately over the words, and still with the most stern eyebrows he can muster, he answers, "It matters what it was that had her brought here." Those so-stern brows just don't seem to intimidate Leova any. Of course, she has Vrianth to deal with, who's taken it upon herself to press deeper between Arekoth's jaws instead of away, as though she counts on him not to bite. Or as though she dares him to control himself. Or as though she's minded to see just what he'll do. "She has no place else," she says, flat. "You heard, did you not, that the girl's parents," she who bore her, "want to forget she ever existed. That my cousin's boy, who sired her, is gone. My cousin cannot take her." She does not stop. "What did you think? That she was secretly mine? You know I go between after flights." H'kon listens, and slowly twists his arm again, and resettles himself. It might well bother him, that with Arekoth carrying on as he is, he cannot look straight on to Leova, chest and shoulders and all. It can't bother him enough, though, for Arekoth to stop. There is no clamping of jaws. There is the slightest shift, to run, tiny scratches, along the green's neck. "I did not expect her to be yours, no." His free hand clenches and unclenches where it sits, resting on his thigh. "Is a cousin's daughter all she is to you?" Such tiny scratches yield a rumbling sort of croon, one that quiets only audibly at the dark look that follows Leova's, "Good." It's still entirely perceptible, still shared with Arekoth her visitor, still able to be felt. Leova doesn't look at her again. "Daughter of my cousin's boy," she says as a correction, never mind how people may differ in their definitions. And still she does not stop, only a beat's worth of a pause. She weighs the words down, syllable by syllable. "No. Beware of what you ask, H'kon. Some things cannot be unheard." The brown stops, not withdrawing, not continuing. H'kon gives one, slight nod. "Daughter of your cousin's boy, and what else?" "Tell me what difference it makes," Leova says, intent. "Tell me what would make Madilla leave her, or you Madilla. Tell me what you would judge of her, who is blameless. What she needs is welcome, as much as you can welcome anyone." Vrianth does not hold her breath, though she could. The hesitation is minimal, and then words come quickly, sharply. "Do not mistake me to be looking for an excuse for distance." H'kon's chin pushes forward, just a little. He sits straighter, angle and all. "Her origins have already had an effect on her present. Now," raising up even a bit more, as his dragon presses his teeth just a bit harder to Vrianth, though with no changed intention on Arekoth's part, "what else." "No?" Leova asks no forgiveness for the doubt in her voice. She lets that hang, even as her gaze moves across him, a dragonhealer's evaluative gaze focused on a man. "It will not serve you to attempt to press me so. H'kon." Vrianth twists that fine neck of hers, just enough to run her neckridges against those teeth of Arekoth's. But her tail also flicks, once, a near-subliminal shiver down its length. "Nor does she need a lack of distance when coupled with pity. Or resentment. Or grudging sufferance." That breath that he draws comes through a tight chest; H'kon cannot seem to force relaxation into his shoulders, his arms, his legs. He can, however, in a very controlled fashion, sit back. His jaw wants to lock, defiant. He makes it work, but the words bear the tension. "Leova. If you so doubt me, I wonder that you were so keen to bring this child to Madilla. A child of such importance to you." Arekoth goes on helping with his rider's edginess by gently pressing that much more at those ridges, and moving his own tail for the green's. His touch relaxes Vrianth just enough, for it's not as though that tail of hers is imprisoned. She seeks to dip her head, the better to free those ridges, and then slide it under Arekoth's: where those angular tips might roam along his throat. It's not as though they're sharp as talons are sharp. She can be, can Vrianth, very gentle. Leova, who is still refusing to look at her dragon, nods once as H'kon shifts. She says, plainly, "I have more faith in Madilla, when it comes to this, than anyone else." Herself, presumably, included. Arekoth is quite content under that touch, craning his head up, maybe even blocking H'kon's view of the greenrider in the process. H'kon, he cannot but nod to acknowledge that point, something miniscule changing in his features, and covered up all again, replaced with another of those nods of his. He's quite a moment, surely chewing things over, and juggling that difficult task of trying to ignore the dragon, whom he really can't. Finally, quieter now, measured, though it can't quite be called patient, "Who is she to you. This girl." Which would block Leova's view of the brownrider, but so it goes, and Vrianth is certainly not interceding. She answers anyway. "Someone for whom I have to ask: are you going to stay by Madilla? Hold by Madilla, and her family? Not my business, most days, not beyond having her back. But. If you've sworn oaths I don't know them. And it's not just my story to tell." It's one step closer to what he's asking to know. Arekoth lowers his head, be it for his rider or an attempt to nuzzle at the green, enough that H'kon's line of sight to Leova is clear. He watches her, face seemingly unchanged from what it was when the brown's head first came between them. Again, it's the lag of time that shows, more than anything, whatever thoughts he's sorted through. All that, for, "If I had no stake in this, I'd care little for yours." All that, and Leova still looks at him, just as intent as before. And then she walks towards him, towards the dragons, and the only reason why she's not looking any longer is that, with some invisible signal, Vrianth crouches just enough that it's possible for her to climb. Braced on her green's shoulder and the base of one wing, she looks past Vrianth's neckridges at him. Her voice is lower, even, than it had been before. "There is none else who has a claim on her." And, "You might want to make yourself comfortable," one corner of her mouth more quirked than truly lifted. She had warned him. H'kon twists that grip on his straps, after so long locked in that same position. There's a light puff of air that escapes his lips, not quite working its way to a grunt, though that arm must be quite stiff by now. He cants his head to take in those words, and (it would seem) staunchly ignores the play in the second half of them. The rising frustrations of moments before do seem to have come under control again, when he states, "That is not what I have asked." No surprise is writ on Leova's features, those yellow amber eyes so like Raija's. They both are quite capable of staring, though the woman ordinarily doesn't, and the girl doesn't dare hold it for long. Now that she's begun, the greenrider does not relent. Her voice has changed, still Tilllek-inflected but with something obscurely different about the quality of its timbre. "You realize that should this get around, I'll know exactly how." She holds the pause, poised, before she chooses to continue. "Feel free to tell Madilla in so many words, or I will. I'll not have her know less." "You will know already,that is not my purpose in asking," the brownrider replies. The nod is delayed enough for it to be acceptance, nonetheless, of passing on the message. H'kon waits. "Will I?" Now she is smiling, not just one-cornered but a quite thorough thing. "Let it also be your purpose not to." She rolls her shoulders, first one and then the other, in a manner quite uncannily like Vrianth. Who is, for the moment, all but immobile to a casual glance. "Know you don't necessarily object to children born out of wedlock. At least, you don't cast them in shame." Not Lilabet, not Dilan. "At least, not here. Don't know how you'd take to it, were it your sister's." Arekoth remains as still as Vrianth, in tune. H'kon dips his head - not a nod, this time - so much as a slight giving of ground, and with it comes, "I will keep it close." It might be taken as a promise, though it sounds, coming from him, more as statement of some already-laid plan. But this one, this much, at least, Leova is allowed in on. His head stays bowed as it is, until that last word from her. When it lifts, it's not a sudden shock. Just progression. "This girl," Leova says directly. "Was not so fortunate in her progenitors. As you know. Neither was her father." As he hadn't, whatever he might suspect. "But," and her tone bears iron, "You must also know that he was not raised to this. Not to abandon a girl. Not to seduce her," and her tone carries all the implication of leading astray that it would have in the Holds: it may be possible that the girl did the seducing, but it must also be that she believes him capable. "Not to abandon her child. My cousin and her man did not raise him thus." H'kon's eyebrows lower, just slightly, as Leova talks, the muscles at the corners of his eyes twitching also, as information is processed. Or, tries to be. Still, he does not interrupt. Still, he forces his gaze to stay steady on her. Still, he waits. Those clear eyes don't seem to miss those twitches. "I worry that it is in the blood." All it is is a slightly more conscious closing of his mouth, teeth coming together between still-closed lips. H'kon's look becomes a bit sharper, an inkling. And he waits, otherwise still. "It may do his sire some small credit," though Leova says it with a particular twist, and sire is not without stresses of its own, "that he was not capable of doing right by the girl. Or that much more discredit, depending on your particular opinion of such things. Of course... it should certainly do his dam discredit that she knew." Not even now does she turn from his gaze. That inkling is now not newly-arrived; any change there might have been in H'kon's face fades. Now, he holds his conceptions, holds her gaze, holds his tongue. And waits. "She was half again Lilabet's age," Leova says. And waits. "Was she." That darkening of his brow might well be for the idea brought in so near to Lilabet. Or, for the game that progresses. "What the girl did do," Leova says after the single, specific pause. "That this girl did not and perhaps could not do, is find the child a fosterage. Not just a fosterage, but a home, with parents who would hold him to their hearts. The girl was unaccountably fortunate in that if nothing else. They counted themselves fortunate, having had no child of their own. Of course... they at last came to have one of their blood not long thereafter, but I am told this happens at times." Of this, if nothing else, she can briefly smile. H'kon's expression has flattened somewhat, even before the mention of that blood child. That cannot be the cause. There is, in fact, no reaction offered up on the brownrider for that. "Did that," he finishes, "and then again." Those ideas must have solidified. He slowly eases his fingers from the straps, not all at once, but one at a time, so as always to have some hold, if not a strong one. This brings his eyes down to his fingers, a break for Leova, perhaps, before they seek her out again. "And then you," with only the slightest weight to that syllable, "will have no claim on her? Who has brought her close." She does not incline her head, but then, it is not as though he needs confirmation. "An aunt's interest I can have. I cannot think of what more would benefit. I would not have my cousin troubled by scandal, nor her man who is dying, though her boy may be thought to have... forfeited... protection of his sensibilities. As for the girl, she remade herself long ago. She paid, and is still paying." Leova looks at him. "She does not deserve more." H'kon carefully brings all fingers at once to close again on Arekoth's straps. The brown, still in tune to his rider, offers Vrianth a nudge that has something like finality to it. But he doesn't back away, not yet. "Desert seldom curbs affairs of the heart." The look he gives her is not suspicious. Measuring, perhaps. "If there is aught else I should know of her history. Raija's." A nod. Now would be a good time. To the extent Vrianth's entrusted her balance to Arekoth, she takes it back now, the whisper of her muzzle velvet-soft against his neck. She stretches, the roll of one wing and then the other by necessity abbreviated for her rider's unorthodox <position>. Her rider has no reply for the one. For the other, "Details of sire and dam I can give in writing, what I know of them. Beyond that... one might imagine," hope, "consanguinity less of a concern due to distance. There are no tics, twitches, nor frothing at the mouth in her lines, to the extent I am aware... more so than in the general population." That might even approach humor, though her tone does not, quite. H'kon's nod, hopefully, seals the offer into a promise. His face, of course, shows no signs of that humour, neither received nor appreciated. "If ever they should seek to close that distance... I would appreciate your informing me." Before Madilla? Maybe. H'kon doesn't specify. He does look from Leova to his belt, to the straps. All is attached, though they cannot be going far - surely. "Or anything else important that might occur to you." Arekoth's crooned note to Vrianth is, really, the clearest sign of their departure. H'kon offers Leova no farewell, a practiced nicety missed even by him. But there must be a great deal in his mind. "Will plan to. Both of you." Leova's back to dropping pronouns, if only the one. She waits, and watches, until the other pair are well gone before prompting Vrianth inside for a very thorough oiling indeed. If it settles Leova somewhat too, that's no small thing. She now has a letter to write... and it's not as though she can take it herself. |
Comments
Comments on "Logs:Origins"K'del (K'del (talk)) left a comment on Thu, 09 Jan 2014 21:45:35 GMT.
I love this log so much. H'kon, pushing do hard. Leova, pushing back. Challenges! The dragons! All the references to my character (XD)! *wiggles*
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