Logs:Perky Negotiations
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| RL Date: 7 December, 2015 |
| Who: Lys, P'tras |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Lys meets a tanner-rider-greenrider-guy. They might be friends. |
| Where: Nighthearth, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 24, Month 6, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Quinlys/Mentions, R'vel/Mentions |
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>---< Nighthearth, High Reaches Weyr(#1549RJ) >------------------------------< With its entrance located between the kitchen and the living cavern, this tiny bubble cavern is cozy, always kept warm and is filled with comfortable chairs and a small round table. At the far end, there's a hearth, outlined in ruddy, aging bricks, where a pot of stew simmers in the evening hours. Generally quiet, the nighthearth is the haunt of insomniacs and those seeking quiet from the bustle of daily Weyr life. -----------------------------< Active Players >----------------------------- Lys F 20 5'5" slender, blonde hair, blue-green eyes 0s P'tras M 20 6'0 lean, curly brown hair, green eyes 1s The nighthearth is a nice place as semi-secluded spots go. The comfortable chairs and the readily available snacks make it good for those who need a spot, say, away from very interested dragons or dragons who'd really rather fly than study, to catch up on what paperwork needs doing. Lys has a book on the armrest of an overstuffed chair and a clipboard in her lap. She pauses in her writing to set down her pen and wiggle fingers in the air, cramped for how long she's been at it and then shifts to flip from the full page to a fresh one, setting it atop her book to let the ink dry. In the meantime, she rises and collects her cup from the low table nearby to go refresh the klah that once filled it and to snag a muffin from today's offerings. "Aw," says a sad voice when Lys takes a muffin from the spread. "I wanted that one." P'tras looks at her hand, more specifically the muffin in question, with eyes that look more mopey than they have any right to be under his curly mop of hair. Then, suddenly decided, "No, no. You have that one. I'll take--" He pauses to look at the remaining selection, leaving her ample opportunity to go back to her seat if that seems like a better option. "This one'll do. And this." He's apparently just talking to himself now. "And some of this," as he pours himself a mug of klah. "Too bad," is automatic, out of her mouth and into the air before Lys even registers the thought. Of course, once she has, she has to take a pointed bite of the muffin. His permission? She'll take it, even though she doesn't need it, says the bite and the challenging way she looks at him over the top of her muffin. Turning to reach for the pitcher when he's finished, she asks in a way that suggests she might just be finding out if she needs to finish her essay elsewhere, "Do you always talk to yourself?" He doesn't seem perturbed by her demeanor. He could even be blissfully unaware. But probably not. P'tras takes a sip of his klah, must deem it drinkable, and says, "Not always. Just sometimes. Other times other people talk to me and I don't have to talk to myself." Unsubtle hint? He steps away, off to settle himself right near the overstuffed chair Lys had been sitting in, glancing at the open page only to find it uninteresting. "This yours?" "Unfortunately," is dry answer as Lys sets the pitcher back where it belongs, collecting her mug for the trip back across the small space. She takes another bite of her muffin as she comes and stops a few paces back from her seat as if it only now registers where he's chosen to sit. There's a brief look askance to take in the other seats, how many unoccupied and how many not, if there's a better option - that sort of look. Then, with purposeful steps, she reclaims her seats. It probably means she's either decided to surrender or determined to drive him off. "And you are?" somehow manages to be something of a dark accusation. Busy chewing on a bite of muffin, he watches Lys as she glances at other seats, then does the same himself, but with much less meaning behind it. He picked the right one, clearly. This is the closest. "P'tras. Riennath's," he says when he's swallowed the bite with a bit of klah. "You can call me Pip if you want, though. My friends do. Well, some people do, anyway. It's just fun to say, you know? Pip. Pip. Pip." He stops with the three demonstrative Pips as though that number is especially sufficient. Lys' eyes narrow as he goes through those repetitions. "Are we friends, P'tras?" is the obvious question and it comes with a tilt and turn of her head to look at him with an arched blonde brow. "Not with that attitude, we won't be," he says, giving her a pointed look for her lack of cooperation in the matter before his attention returns to his muffin. P'tras picks pieces off of it to roll between his fingers and then pop into his mouth. Exciting stuff. "So if I keep it up," Lys wonders, the second brow joining the first, "Will you give up on chat and go away?" She flashes him a pretty if very fake smile to go with it. P'tras looks over at Lys while he puts another ball of muffin into his mouth, dark brows furrowed over clear green eyes. It'll take at least a couple moments of consideration. "Do you want me to go away that badly?" Lys looks at him a long moment as if she's really giving the idea of saying 'yes' and being done with it serious thought. She relents with a sigh, "I don't know. You're awfully perky," and that is not a compliment. "Do you think you can tone that down?" "Perky," P'tras repeats as if it's some distasteful sort of word, nose wrinkling as he pops another piece of muffin into his mouth and slouches down into his chair, looking at his food now instead of her. "Sure. I can just... sit here." Probably. One leg lifts to cross over his knee as he finishes off the muffin and moves on to the sweetroll. It could be just to keep his mouth too busy to talk for a few minutes. "So it's perky or silent? There's no middle ground?" Lys has even stopped eating her muffin this thing seems to be that important. "No." It's said despite whatever's in his mouth, just to make sure he gets it out promptly enough. Fortunately he's taking little, thoughtful bites. "Unless that's what you want," P'tras glances her way. Is that what she wants? "You're all so hard to read." "Middle ground is good," Lys says it cautiously as if it's an utterance that might blow up in her face for having made the compromise. "'You're all'? Who all?" This matter must seem less important since she starts to eat her muffin again. "Girls." That comes out right before P'tras amends to, "Women." Like that's better, somehow. "It's hard to know how to act around you all sometimes. And I haven't met many of you who take kindly to me asking straight out about it." His words start lilting toward perky again, but it sounds calmer by the time he's finished. "I'm not a good gauge to go by. I barely count." Lys tells him without looking at him, more interested in her muffin to all appearances. "How do you normally act around 'us all'?" Even if she barely counts, she still counts, apparently. "Well, I wouldn't have called it perky, but I suppose mostly like that?" P'tras' glance turns into more of a looking, studying Lys before saying, "I think you count just fine, though. Why wouldn't you count?" "I'm not like most girls," which probably many of them say to be mysterious and intriguing but which this one says very matter-of-factly. "I'm Lys," she finally offers. "Lys." He tries out for himself. "That's nice. You're one of the weyrlings, I know. I see you sometimes. Not that I'm watching you or anything." P'tras is a young man used to talking himself in and out of holes. "It's nice to meet you, Lys. Face to face."a "Creeper," Lys says anyway, but it seems to be with good (if odd) humor. "Evyth's," she adds before looking at him askance. "I don't suppose you feel like reliving the hayday of your weyrling days and want to finish my homework, do you, Pip?" since they're friends and all, apparently. Good humor or not, there's a slight color in P'tras' cheeks now. Color that he's going to ignore. "I'd be doing you a service by not touching your homework, honestly. I'm rubbish at most of that stuff. I think I'm probably a pretty terrible rider even now. Not even in a good and proper wing now." Pause, then a conspiratorial lean Lys-wards and a drop of his voice. "Just don't repeat that to R'vel or anything, yeah?" "R'vel doesn't listen to me. You're safe," Lys has a shrug for that. "What are you good at, then?" Surely, there must be something. P'tras settles back into his slouch, maybe sinking just a bit lower. "I'm a tanner. I make leather. Things out of leather. Nothing very... important. I help make straps look prettier, I guess, sometimes. But most of us like to make our own straps, right? I get that." It's around there that he realizes he's still talking and instead asks, "What're you good at?" Lys listens to P'tras talk, but she doesn't look at him, opting to bring her klah up in place of the gone muffin and let her eyes wander the space of the nighthearth. "Is making straps look prettier the most important thing to you about what you do with leather or what you think would most interest me about what you do with leather?" It's asked almost idly, but seems well paired with the dryly delivered: "I'm good at making people uncomfortable." "What?" Color P'tras confused. He's looking at Lys again, but he doesn't stare at her. His eyes fall back toward his legs. "I didn't mean it because you're a girl. The most important thing I do is probably repairing old boots? And that sounds kind of lame compared to pretty straps no matter who you are." Her skills won't go unquestioned, anyway, "Is that what you enjoy? I don't think it's a very solid career option." "I'd rather have boots in good repair than pretty straps. Do you give discounts to your friends?" Lys asks, gingerly folding one knee over the other so that one of her well-worn boots is tipped closer to his knees. She sips her klah nonchalantly. "I enjoy it, except when I don't mean to do it. Sometimes things just slip out." It's probably a more open answer than she normally gives and for it she has to allow herself a look at the klah as if deciding if it's been spiked. "I don't need career options. I'm a dragonrider now. A dragonrider I shall forever be," is a pronouncement made with a flourish of her free hand in the air. Honor bestowed: no take backsies. "You're a practical one," he says like he should have expected himself to pick up on it sooner, but is also not very surprised that he didn't. P'tras knows himself pretty well. "Depends on the friend, doesn't it? Sometimes I'll trade services for people who aren't friends at all." He shrugs, either oblivious to her implication or being deliberately obtuse. "Anyway, I think you're probably pretty enough to get away with slip ups. But I think you should reconsider options. It's almost sad, isn't it? These older folks who're just dragonriders like that's enough anymore." "So, what would you trade me to repair mine?" Lys makes it much more difficult to be oblivious or deliberately obtuse by posing the direct question. "Being a dragonrider is enough, sitting around on our hands as dragonriders isn't." The weyrling seems to have given that some thought. "It's not like I could take up a craft now anyway. Too old and a dragonrider. You should be grateful they're letting you lot do that kind of thing." 'They' the crafts or 'they' the weyrleaders (or both) is unclear. "What've you got worth trading?" That question is to be expected. P'tras doesn't really know the weyrling from Moreta, after all. "What do you think being a dragonrider is, then? You're never too old to pick up a lucrative hobby. It's not as though I'm an official member of my craft anymore. They know that. I know that. And you aren't old, anyway. What are you? Seventeen?" "Twenty," is coolly corrected and briskly moved on from. "I've some shells and fabrics from my time with the traders," Lys considers, "but I'd be considerably put out to part with them. Happen to have anyone you need made uncomfortable?" It is one of her great talents, after all. "And if you want me to define being a dragonrider, you should march over and ask Quinlys for a job so you can read my boring essays." The suggestion comes with the flash of an exaggerated, if not now wholly faked, smile. "Twenty?" P'tras is dubious, sitting up in his seat just enough to give her a quick look over. "I'm twenty," he says as if he's a more standard example of a twenty turn old. But there are more important matters to focus on here. "I don't want anything you don't want to part with. A trade should generally end with both sides happy with the terms, yes?" If she's run with traders, she ought to know that much. Maybe he's just an idealistic sort. "Is whatever you told her what you actually think or what you think she wants you to think?" "And you don't look a day older than twelve," Lys chirps with smile. "How do you keep your skin so youthful?" She leans toward him as she asks, as if he might confer upon her some great secret. "The good kinds of trades, sure," she can agree before giving him a funny look. "Why would I bother to write something I didn't actually think?" He pulls a face for that, proving that he's about as mature as twelve, too. Fortunately, he doesn't say the first thing that pops into his head. It's obvious he doesn't say it, though, biting his lip instead, redirecting his thoughts, and then saying, "Because you can get away with less work when you tell those sorts what they want to hear. Instead of them going to all the trouble of correcting the way you think." Since he's not getting anywhere with that, though, P'tras gestures at her feet, "Let me see them, then, yeah?" Lys snorts in a way that suggests it would be a waste of time to try to correct anything about the way she thinks. With one foot, she presses the toes of her boot to the heel of its mate, setting aside her klah so she can lean down and pluck up the left specimen for the tanner to examine, lifting that foot up so her ankle rests on the opposite knee. P'tras takes it from her after setting his mug aside. He's not shy about getting a good look at them, either. He studies the sole, its tread, even puts his hand into the heat of the boot's insides to, presumably, feel for wear in there, too. When he's done, he leans forward to hand it back to her while he looks at the other boot to see if it's in similar condition. "They could definitely use some work," he concludes. "But I don't think you've got anything I want. Nothing I'd take in a trade, anyway. Good thing you're a dragonrider and you can get the shitty standard ones for free." "Good thing," Lys echoes in what might seem like dissatisfied agreement. She leans forward once she has her boot back to replace it on her foot. "What kinds of things do you want? I might not know I have it," she points out, looking up at him from her bent position. "That's not fair. You can't just go asking things like that." P'tras licks his lips, eyes focused intensely on Lys, but not so much on her face. At least until he realizes he's doing it and looks somewhere else, across the other side of the room. "I don't know what I want now. I can't think of anything else. That's not fair." Lys' look is one of disagreement. Sitting up, she asks, "How am I supposed to know if I have something you want if you can't tell me what kinds of things you want? That's not fair." If she's aware of his attention to parts of her that aren't her face, she hides it exceptionally well. Nope. P'tras is on his feet now like he's just going to leave. It only takes him that movement to make him realize he really shouldn't be standing, though, so he sits back down with a curse under his breath. His elbow leans against the arm of the chair furthest from her and his chin balances on his fist, head tilted away. If he doesn't look at her, everything will be okay. Maybe. "You're right about making people uncomfortable, anyway." Then he sighs, crosses his leg over his knee again. "Why's it the pretty ones who're always so cruel." Rhetorical. "What did I do?" Lys asks, brows furrowed. It's obvious from her look that she feels like she missed something and doesn't like it. "Are you serious?" P'tras sounds serious, now that he's looking over at her. "You can't tell me you don't have some idea. Words affect people, you know. If you know when you're making them uncomfortable, you ought to know when you're saying something that's gonna get some poor guy hard. Shells, you're surrounded by enough guys who probably get off on a stiff breeze, those poor bastards." Lys' mouth opens to make some reply to the first, but before she can, he's said the rest and her cheeks are suddenly aflame. It's her turn to get up like she's going to leave, her look a mixture of shock and some kind of unnerved. It's lame, but when she's able to find words it's to say, "That's not the kind of uncomfortable I'm good at!" She must hope, anyway, and her hasty gathering of her writing and book is almost certainly heralding a flight. "Don't run off," he says, a hand moving in a pacifying sort of way. "Please? It's fine. You didn't do anything wrong. I'll go, if you give me a minute." P'tras looks at her earnestly. It must be important to him that he doesn't chase her away, for some reason. The blonde finishes gathering up her things, but instead of going immediately, Lys gives the other greenrider a look. "It's not okay to go around talking about getting hard-ons to women you don't know. It'll be real easy to read just how much not okay that is real fast." The jerk of her brows up and back demands silently if he understands. P'tras meets her gaze, but it's a couple seconds before he says anything. He must be doing well enough to stand again, though, because that's what he does next. "Next time you ask a man what he wants, do him a kindness and don't let him get his hopes up, aye?" He turns after that, grabbing his mug so he can take it where it needs to go. He said he'd go so she wouldn't feel the need, after all, so maybe she'll be nice and not comment on the self-deprecating mumbling he does to himself on the way. She doesn't comment, but she does step directly into his path. Lys's expression is hard, unhappy. "We were talking about boot repair. I met you almost no time ago. If you wanted-" her voice hitches over a stutter, "a date, say that. I'm not-- I told you already I barely count as a woman." If he's going to make it her fault, she's going to turn it right back on him and make him share the blame. He seems to have a harder time meeting her gaze how. P'tras sort of glances at her eyes now and then, but his focus settles over her shoulder, toward the lower caverns. With a slight shake of his head, he says, "I'm not gonna say that. Not now." Not now that he's made an ass of himself. He lifts a hand to rub the back of his neck awkwardly. "I'll think of something. I can pick them up on your next rest day, if you want. Unless you got another pair you can wear while I have 'em." Lys' expression is unreadable as she looks up at him, hands probably only not on her hips because they have her book and clipboard. She's silent a moment, looking at him. "Think of something first, then we'll talk," she decides, evidently not keen to enter into a trade with unspecified terms. "I'm going to go finish my report." That's said carefully, and chosen equally so seems to be, "Bye, Pip," before she turns to head for the nearest exit to the bowl. P'tras nods his head. He'd probably agree to whatever she said right now. Anything at all. Fortunately she doesn't know that. It's not until she turns to head off that he manages to squeak out a pretty lame, "Bye, Lys." |
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