Logs:Prisoners Over Lunch
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| RL Date: 9 August, 2013 |
| Who: C'wlin, Telavi |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: After talking to Aishani, Telavi finally asks C'wlin about beating up the prisoners. C'wlin has an answer for her. Telavi wants to believe. |
| Where: Some small Hold |
| When: Day 22, Month 6, Turn 32 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Aishani/Mentions, Devaki/Mentions, N'hax/Mentions, Z'ian/Mentions |
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| Another small Hold, another lesson. At least the weather's gotten better and better, and eating lunch in the meadow is no hardship; there isn't even mud, just grass and wildflowers, very pastoral. Not even any ovine dung to be whiffed nearby! Telavi may have been caught giving C'wlin an odd look once or twice over the past while, somewhere between pained and withdrawn and worried, but all of it a shadow behind normalcy; now she seems cheerful enough, just distracted. "...and then I could have sworn they tapped, well, does this really mean 'Bored Now'?" She illustrates, fingernails tapping on the metal rim of her canteen. C'wlin's life is a life of sweeps and lessons and staying under the radar; he forsakes drawing attention to himself these days. Attention is pulled from the current activity of consuming lunch, pale brows raising. "Of a variation, yes." It's like slang or short hand. The looks the girl's been giving him haven't gone unnoticed, but for them all, she's merely gotten a vaguely confused response. To note, he's not voiced a question yet. "Were you ever posted outside of the Hall?" Tela asks. "Before here, I mean," only there's a questioning note: she's heard he was posted at the Weyr. To explain why, "It makes me wonder how much of it, at least away from the Hall! tends to be bored harpers telling jokes to each other because they can. And nobody else can tell. And it sounds important." "I went from the Hall to the Weyr," C'wlin comments, right before teeth close over a bit of what must be a large, thoroughly delicious sandwich. "I will never give away Hall secrets," the former-harper states with a cool chuckles. Despite the fact that he's been disavowed of his craft; he still holds some shreds of dignity. Besides, rider life seems to agree with him these days! Abrupt: "What's with the scandalous looks, Telavi?" Never? It wins a smile from Telavi, though one not accompanied by a dimple; come to think of it, those have been few and far between too. And then he asks that question so abruptly, and she pales beneath her golden tan, blue-today eyes darting from her own food up to him. "No scandalous looks from me," she says primly, and gives away that she knows what he means with, "Scandalized, perhaps." But perhaps it's not a true giveaway if she'd meant to ask all along, just... some other time, sometime in the future, sometime not now. It only buys so much time. Finally, those eyes wide and soulful and visibly hurting, her hands linked and all but wringing before she knots them more firmly together, "Why did you beat up the prisoners, C'wlin? I just don't understand." However little it had been rumored, she says it as though she's certain. C'wlin stares, blank. The slack expression is not feigned for a moment the bronzerider truly doesn't know what Telavi speaks of, but the knowledge settles in fast enough. That time a dark stain on the blot of weyrlinghood. "Beat up?" The bitter chill in his voice cuts as enunciation is executed perfectly. "Who tells such tales, Telavi?" The sandwich has lost it's appeal, icy blue eyes pulling away from the greenrider to lose their gaze to the vast vale of the sky. "Someone who should know," said flatly, unhappily. There aren't many of those. "I haven't noised it about," Telavi adds. She watches him, not the sky, certainly not her food. "And who should know, Telavi? The only people there were me and N'hax and a bunch of pirates swearing to slit our throats. Tell me, do you believe pirates over what N'hax and I have stated -- which has always been that we questioned them? Or did the Hold just decide, one day, to spread rumors without proof?" C'wlin levels a neutral look to Telavi. "The thing we did was make the mistake of trying to do something. Then I tried to help a scared young boy, which I shouldn't have. Shouldn't have done it at all, but the past's past." Not much can be done about it now. She weathers his words, his harper-honed cleverness, his natural facility with it all... but not steadily, not without effort. Not without falling into it. "The pirates, weren't they locked..." but then Tela stops herself short, mouth tight. Two shallow breaths later, "Saying you questioned them doesn't rule out the rest." The work she'd undergone in that silver thread training, she's learned from it, even if whether it's helped her in the end is a matter of opinion. Which doesn't stop her from asking, her voice touched with hope against hope, "Do you want to tell me about the boy?" "Yeah, they were locked behind iron bars." Which logic would dictate the prevention of physical contact, but C'wlin's face gives nothing away. Not a twitch, jerk or tic to give truth to lies or lies to truth. He does add, lowly, "I will never confess to something I didn't do, Telavi." That is the first, only, and last thing he will say about pirates and physical contact. Anything else will go with him to the grave; of course it is all semantics but only N'hax, C'wlin, and the Pirates know what really happened. "The boy. The young boy the pirates threatened to kill as soon as they were freed for even talking to us." Bitter face, here. That lack of giveaway, well, the way Telavi looks at C'wlin, that may be something right there. It's not that the corners of her mouth droop, even, it's how she holds them so they don't. She can only nod for his confession of not confessing, and if she can imagine all sorts of scenarios... well. "What did he even say? What was so important?" It's very quiet. "I guess it wasn't. He said they had something on board -- something they were supposed to steal, or was it something they'd stolen?" Time has made the details fuzzy, or C'wlin is a little recalcitrant in giving the details. Perhaps it's the expression on her face, but regardless, the details are fuzzy. "The strangest thing was how quickly we were made. I suppose that's to be expected. I'm sure we didn't think of every angle, but I thought we had. Something fishy..." Voice trails off, a shrug commencing. "All I know is I want nothing to do with Devaki." Telavi nods for that, musing, the something whatever it was; she also murmurs, "It couldn't be that you thought so much more of yourselves than was merited, could it?" in a way that really should be teasing, coming from Tela, but can't quite make it. For Devaki, "I wonder how long these, these limits on us flying over will last. I suppose Z'ian would know more than anyone. Do you know if any of us has asked him? I... haven't brought myself to it, yet. He must have so much to do." Her tone begins to lighten through this, ever so slightly, not just trying not to be melancholy but actually beginning to manage on its own. "Of course we thought we wouldn't get in trouble, but we were careful, Telavi. Very careful... we didn't go in with a half-baked plan." C'wlin slants her a look, shuttered. "I like Z'ian," really, he's a fanboy, "He got us out of an untenable situation. Not that we didn't deserve it, but, it lasted long enough." So he's a good boy now. At least on the surface. Her nod holds agreement, or maybe it's acknowledgent, but, "What's that look supposed to mean?" Telavi asks it just that little bit wryly. "That you doubt how careful we'd be." Really, that's an injured sniff that comes from C'wlin right there. That doesn't quite make her dimple even with the can't-help-it smile, but it's close. "Well," Tela says. It might be an answer, or it might just be prelude to, "I'm glad you're out of it, anyway. Even if you are getting bored," at a guess, her guess. "Hah. Bored, I am, but what can I fill my days with? Stepping outside the line getters higher tongues than I waggling about how awful we are." C'wlin rolls his eyes. "I have no eagerness to find myself without meat." He loves him some good food, though he is a lucky one who's body doesn't show it. "Unless someone sneaks it to me." The meat. "You could always," Telavi begins to interject, only to break off, and this time she really does dimple at him. "Well, you could always fill your time with something that doesn't step outside the line, you know," but she says it as something that could come as a complete and ever so shocking surprise. At least in the meantime, well, there's lunch. |
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