It's that time of the evening where the Weyr's denizens are either hanging out at the Snowasis for some wild drinking and bantering, or they're wandering about getting that last errand or duty done before retiring to their homes for the night. The raucous laughter could be heard from the patio where most hang, and there's a few smaller groups of riders and residents mingling at the long tables here in quiet companionship. Jo - still in her black riding leathers and looking very much like she had just flown in from outside the Weyr - has taken up residence on the bench against the wall that affords the best view from the patio. With one leg up and over to be used as a table, she's in the process of scribbling something down on a sheet of hide in the afforded light, with an open bottle of something amber in color beside her.
He might not have done a tremendous amount of stuff today, but he has at least finished all of his errands. Most of them anyway. Either way, it's time to go hang out at the bar for some wild drinking and bantering. Oh wait, this Z'ian. Not so much on the wild. Okay. Well, so he's going to order a drink inside and take it outside. Strolling along the patio he passes a few familiar faces, nodding a quiet greeting to them as he ducks out of any serious conversation until he arrives by Jo. They're probably not on a first name basis or anything, but he gives her the same consideration he's given to everyone else. Finding an empty space against the railing, he leans against it, conveniently facing her. He's curious, watching her out of the corner of his eye as he observes the general commotion of the patio around them.
The convict rider writes in earnest, her head moving though she does look up at those that pass by her. None really acknowledge her with nods or greetings - she was part of that shady convict lot, after all - so when Z'ian passes by and seems to be out of the norm for her, her head comes up briefly and she eyes his drink first before she eyes him. Her stylus doesn't stop moving, however - well, it sort of does, when he takes a lean within her proximity. Jo could feel his curiosity more than see it, and so, with the movement of the stylus slowing down, there's a heavy pause as if she's going to break her silence, but, doesn't. Not yet.
Z'ian is one of those nameless people that from time to time come out of the background. There's nothing about him that would necessarily alarm someone like Jo, but he's not exactly being inconspicuous right now. The bronzerider has a certain degree of nosiness to him. He lifts his drink to his mouth, just your standard beer in a bottle and takes a long swallow from it. When he's done, his attention slips onto her again. The moment of mutual acknowledgement is basically at hand now. "I can move if you want?" He offers amicably, his tone friendly and light as before he takes another drag on the bottle.
"Why would I want that?" comes from Jo in her deep husky tone, leaning back more to give the man and his drink closer study. A loud bout of laughter erupts from the direction of the Snowasis right then, catching her attention before she steals another look towards Z'ian. The stylus going down as she reaches over for her bottle, "Not in the mood for card games and slaps on the back, tonite?" she asks, gesturing with her chin over towards the bar as she takes in the way that he leans - his casual gait.
"I find that a large portion of the population enjoys their personal space. I've been told that I can border on the intrusive." Z'ian explains easily, giving her a humorous roll of his eyes and a shrug of the shoulders. He presses the half full bottle against his neck, gaze darting to the entrance when that loud guffaw echoes out. "I generally like to keep my marks in my pocket. And as a rule, I don't enjoy anyone slapping me. Though the back isn't the worst place to be hit, I guess." He grins and inclines his head towards her writing. "What's your story?"
Jo smirks, a little. "Depends on what yer intrudin' upon," she counters, shifting to study the sheet of hide before her as if she was reading over her handiwork. Glancing at him from it, "I'm pretty much done." The hide gets folded into quarters, the stylus getting tucked away somewhere inside her riding jacket. The noisiness of the bar gets that shift of attention as Z'ian answers her before something he says gets that rather deadpan "As opposed to bein' slapped on the ass?" There's a pause, and then she looks from the bar's direction towards him. "Ya sound like a man that has had trouble with the tables before," she adds on his keeping marks in his pocket. And as to the last, she takes that moment to slide the folded sheet of hide inside her jacket before she settles the bottle on her thighs and answers, breezily, "Ya mean, ya don' listen to the gossip around here?" Brow lifts at him along with a corner of her lips.
Z'ian was about to take another sip from his beer before she directs that question at him. He snorts and laughs, lifting one shoulder. "Yeah, as opposed to getting slapped on the ass." He repeats the words before clarifying, "Though I was more leaning towards getting slapped in the face. I suppose it works either way." He only spares another quick glance to the bar before refocusing his attention onto Jo. "And what man hasn't? I've learned to keep my marks in places where I won't lose them. The card tables aren't one." Now he takes that sip from the bottle, grinning around the opening before he takes a swallow. "Of course I do. Snippets here and there. But I like to form my own, independent opinion on things."
"Getting slapped in the face isn' nearly as pleasant, I assure," Jo quips with a light snort before taking a long drink from the bottle she holds. Z'ian gets further study, like most do in her presence - always assessing. Always observing. "Ya don' like risks." It's an observation, not a question. "A man would be drawn to any card table with the promise of makin' more than what he has in his pockets. If not risks, then what is it ya like to spend time on, ahhh...?" A prompt for his name, her chin dropping. At the last, the bluerider chuckles once and re-crosses her long legs, her drawl one of a faint Nabollian accent as she says to him, "Good answer." Pause. "Keep to myself, mostly. Don' want to intrude on anyone's fun, or safety," and the words are directed towards the bar, her reason for not being in there with wingriders and residents alike. "I can get....twitchy, in a big crowd, so I keep to the shadows. 'Sides, the view out here's much nicer after a long day."
"I don't enjoy either, to be honest. But I think my appreciation of ass slapping is rather situational." Z'ian confides to the bluerider openly before he drains the remainder of his bottle. It's empty, but that doesn't stop him from rolling the cool glass against his skin. "A promise of making more isn't a guarantee of making more." The bronzerider pushes off of the railing and drops down into one of the nearby chairs, stretching his long legs out. "Z'ian. I spend my time being a nosy bastard that intrudes on other people's free time. I also like puppies." And being a glib pain in the balls as well. "That's probably a good decision. You look like a woman that could kick some serious ass...?" And here he trails off, leaving her to supply her own name this time.
There's low laughter on the first, the woman inclining her head to what's said before responding, "Situational. Interesting choice of word." When Jo sees that his own is empty, she wordlessly tips her own in his direction. He was proving to be good conversation, and so, the convict rider was sharing. "But that's the risk of it all, isn't it?" she puts forth on the gamble, apparently a patron of the art. "All ya really need is a promise, darlin'. For some, that's all it takes." She falls silent when he introduces himself, watching him drop into a chair and inclines her head in acknowledgement of the pleasantries. It's only at the end, when he trails, that she answers. "It's Jo, blue Tacuseth's. A pleasure, Z'ian." Pause. "And I try not to go out of my way to kick ass. Though, what I try for and what ends up happening aren' mutually exclusive." She runs a hand through her dark hair and kick back to slouch a bit herself before asking, "Nosy bastard, huh? Is that how ya get yer kicks 'round here since ya want to keep marks in yer pants?"
Z'ian graciously accepts the offer, taking a quick swig from her bottle before passing it back. Sharing, but not greedy. "Sure it is, I'm not arguing that. I guess it's all just a matter of what gets your blood boiling. Unfortunately I only get mildly flushed when I do win marks. Mostly it's the cold, freezing clutch of defeat that graces my body. I'm not so much into that." His own empty bottle finds a place on the ground next to his chair, while his hands work at idly massaging out some knots at his calf muscles. "Well met. Not mutually exclusive?" He questions curiously before grinning, "Doesn't that happen to all of us now and again?" The bronzerider laughs and rolls his shoulders. "You could say that. I try to appear harmless and act charming while I'm at it. Sometimes it gets a slap on the ass, sometimes a slap in the face."
"Ya have a way with words, I see," Jo observes on Z'ian's answer in involving the cards, taking back the bottle and letting some of her humor reveal itself in her dark features. "Ya weren' a harper before, were ya?" She takes another drink and then wipes her mouth with the back of her hand before adding, "Knew a guy that cheat at cards better than a Bitran. Had a nice string of luck in not getting' caught, too, until he did with the wrong sorts. Taught me a lot before he vanished under curious circumstances." On the comment of mutually exclusive, she lifts her bottle briefly and says, "I'll walk in there, not planning to cause trouble," and she tips the edge of the bottle in Snowasis's direction, "and trouble comes, anyway." She sets the bottle down close, in between them, it being within reach of them both. The last has her shaking her head. "The suggestion of appearing harmless means ya aren'? And I think ya got the charm part down pat. I haven' even felt the urge to reach for what's at my hip." Consider that a compliment. Brow arching, "Ya gotten a slap on the ass recently?"
"Nope. Just a kid at a hold. Then I was a kid at a weyr. I wasn't blessed with formal training, I've just got a penchant for running my mouth." Z'ian quirks a mischievous grin at her. "That sounds unfortunate. It's too bad that he couldn't gauge when it was time to start losing." His expression turns more serious momentarily, "Or maybe he was too far gone to care if he got caught. Sometimes that happens to men, they get in too deep." He shakes his head, chasing away the more ugly thoughts. "Do you think that it's you or them?" The bronzerider asks, considering her seriously over the bottle that's between them. Her question over his degree of 'harmless' brings back the boyish smile. "That didn't come across so well, did it? No, I wouldn't say I'm harmful. Just that I like to make certain that people don't think I am. Just in case." He rakes his fingers through his hair and arches an eyebrow at her for the query, laughing. "Not the type that I'd like. So much for the charm, huh?"
"A better life ya had," Jo notes, head tilting slightly, "than I, darlin'." There's a hitch of a shoulder on the man that cheated cards well and his unfortunate fate, the bluerider stating, "Even cheatin's a risk. He knew what he was getting' himself into. Some of us do when we make the bad decisions we do, anyway." When Z'ian asks about the trouble - her or them - she reaches for the bottle and takes a sip before she answers, frankly. "It's me." Beat. "Ya aren' harmful," she adds, her piercing gaze intent, the study frank and open. "So far." The last gets open laughter with him from her, setting the bottle back in its place and shifting in her jacket. "What, wrong gender?" Wry.
"And yet we're both sitting here on the same ledge." He reaches over and picks up the shared bottle, another quick sip before he places it between them again. "Sharing a beer. Life takes you where it wants to sometimes. I wonder how much of it we really have a choice in." Z'ian's return gaze for her frank answer remains considering, assessing of his drinking partner. So much as he claims to be harmless and unassuming; he doesn't shirk from her piercing stare on him. "That might be true. But you seem alright to me." He decides finally, rubbing the bridge of his nose and breaking out a joker-ish smile when she laughs. "Not that I have a problem with other men. It just doesn't get the same positive reaction from me that I'd get with a woman."
Nodding once, "From opposite sides of morality and outlooks, at that," Jo agrees, amused. "Ya maybe right on choices. How I ended up here...how I'm here now." Gaze lingers since it's wont to do, easy to fall to silence, and when Z'ian delivers his own assessment of her, the rider chuckles low at that, finally looking away from him as she raps knuckles against an elevated knee. Glancing back at him, "Maybe that's cuz I'm tryin' to lure ya into a false sense of security," she notes, brows lifting, then falling with a boldness in her dark gaze. "I'm not exactly someone ya should be friends with." To his last, laughter still lingering in her gaze, "It's the reaction that would make ya less than harmless, I would think?" Eyes flicking over his chest and shoulders, she adds in a guess, "And ya don' seem like the greenriders 'round here."
"Morality and outlooks..." Z'ian drops his hand down, allowing his arms to settle comfortably across his chest. Meanwhile, he draws his lower lip in and chews on it, thoughtful. "I'm not so sure it's as opposing as that. Again, here we are on the ledge. Two people, enjoying the better view and choosing to not be in a room full of drunks and general troublemakers. I won't lie and say it's exactly the same, but is it polar opposites?" Her comment catches his smile and he lifts his raises one eyebrow challengingly, "What if I'm letting you think that I'm lulled into a false sense of a security? But this is really me on heightened alert?" Right. Noting the darting of her gaze, he glances down at his own shoulder as if just remembering something that he forgot. "Tsanth. Bronze Tsanth's. Sorry for forgetting to mention." Shaking his head to disperse the spell of his own absentmindedness there, "Should be? Eh, fuck that. By whose call?"
"And whose to say a general troublemaker is not right here, writin' a letter and now talkin' to ya?" Jo counters in banter, finding it hard to keep the slight smile from an otherwise stoic face. "No, it's not so different, us here, but ya know 'we' seem to be." His next, his rise to the challenge, gets silence at first. The convict rider is curious, lips pressing together before she breaks silence with a blithe, "Then I would say to 'that' that ya might wanna reassess yer take on risks, Z'ian." When he mentions his dragon, she lifts her head and regards him anew. "Ahh. A bronzerider. Now I know where that charm and nosy bastardness comes from." That's if all bronzeriders were charming. But it's the last that has a little of the humor ebbing from her, a pause from lips as she reaches for the bottle and takes a healthy sip before setting it right back. As if considering something in that ensuing pause, dark eyes flick over towards him before she says, "They say I'm either crazy or unstable." It's matter of fact. "My reputation has gotten moreso since I'kris went and done with he'd done. Folks get wary 'round a rider with a shady past, darlin'."
"I guess no one. There's just the two of us here." Z'ian glances past her. "And those guys over there. But they don't count." He unfolds his arms so that he can wave dismissively at the drunks further down the way. He's some sort of a nosy bastard, it's true. But he's at least possessing of some innate sense that their conversation may begin to veer quickly southward. He flashes her a grin for her observation. "From where, him or me? It's been more than a decade, sometimes I'm not sure where the line is anymore." It's mostly humor, but he's not entirely joking on that last part. The blurry line. "I'm sure you've got an idea." He leans forward in his chair, settling his elbows onto his knees and leveling her with a steady gaze. "You're not I'kris. And I'm not 'folks'." The bronzerider purses his lips, twisting them off to the side curiously. "Look, I give the people I meet a fair shake." He offers his hand, "Now, you go and stab me and I lose a finger, then I know where we stand. I'll be short a finger and needing to do some real serious risk assessment. As you probably rightly suggested."
"All this kindness is gonna make me either blush or get uncomfortable," Jo remarks on his assessments, baring teeth in a brief flash of a smile. Certainly, reputation was not proceeding her here, and that's been a rarity in the turns she's been at the Weyr. His words on his bronze, "Is it a case of 'like rider, like dragon', by now? I think the same could be said between Tac and me. He bit Azaylia's on the belly the other day." Then, he leans forward and the convict rider's leveling an intense stare at him, his first getting a dry, "But yer not denyin' that I'm crazy, either." Eyes drop to that offered hand, that challenge. Dark eyes lift from there to his eyes, then back down again. Then, it's swift: the woman scoots closer, and there's a knife in her hand that must have slipped from somewhere on her hip. Dark eyes locks to his, unwavering, as the blade is brought slowly towards that offered, open palm. Like a game of chicken, the blade aims and angles close to the top of his palm - close enough to graze the skin, but not enough to break. Perhaps it's not her intention to chop off a finger at all, but all the same...she's watching him in silence, her eyes a blatant dare. A test, of sorts, waiting to see what he does.
"Sorry, I'm one of those 'get in touch with your feelings' guys. It gets the better of me sometimes." Z'ian shoots back, rolling his eyes in a flare of self-derisive humor. He cracks a smile at her next response, canting his head to the side. "Pretty much. Though I like to think I was mostly my own man-boy by the time I impressed. But maybe seventeen isn't old to know any better." The mention on Azaylia being nipped by a dragon gets a quick wince from him, but she didn't say 'and then he ate her entire body' so he's likely going with the assumption that it wasn't that bad. "I can't deny something that I don't know, can I?" That's not a challenge from the bronzerider, it's a simple question, uttered quietly to the woman he's just met. He doesn't know Jo well enough to decide if she's nuts or not. He's not entirely out of his own mind either however, because when she moves swiftly, there's an obvious tension that settles over his shoulders. Splaying his fingers out, he leaves his hand out there in the space between them to meet her dare.
"Ya were seventeen when ya Impressed?" Z'ian continues to intrigue Jo, but she doesn't often put that on display. This case, she doesn't, save for the questioning. His wincing at Tacuseth's play on Hraedhyth gets a wry, "Nothin' serious. Found Hraedhyth hogging up our ledge for the rest of the evening for it, though." She lapses into the silence of the patio with knife in hand and a daring in her eyes, taking in the tension in his shoulders and that splaying of fingers. It's like that she lingers, blade touching skin, just a prick to the surface before she breaks the silence. "Some of the rumors are true," she says, low, meeting his gaze. "I came from the mines." She hears them all but never confirms. Well, until now, and it's only one. The knife gets a sudden reverse, the blade settling against her wrist as she lifts it away and conceals it there. Regarding him, "Yer alright, Z'ian," she says, nodding slowly, perhaps having expected the man to have flinched or jumped up out of his seat. "Somethin' tells me we'll get along just fuckin' fine, you and I."
"Yeah, seventeen." Z'ian confirms, eyes all along fixed onto the blade that's being passed over his palm. It would be really unfortunate if he went home tonight without a couple of fingers. That would probably be reputation damaging. "Figured, else we would have heard all about it around the weyr. You're one of Glacier's right?" He asks, glancing to her shoulder for confirmation of rank, position, whatever. It's a flicker then, of light blue eyes up to her much darker ones and he doesn't watch as she delivers that prick to the surface of his skin, confirms a fraction of the rumors that float around about her. His expression is heavy as he nods confirmation to her final assessment, not diluted yet by his usual brevity. He tracks the knife with his gaze as it disappears again. "Now that that's out of the way. Want another beer?" The bronzerider asks, wiping his hand onto his pants.
"Glacier's, yeah," Jo confirms, a gesture of one hand. "The loudest bunch over there would be my fellow wingriders." She watches him, the arm with the concealed knife dropping away from his hand and she leans back - her body taking on its languid state once more. That he didn't make nasty comment nor blanched at rumor confirmation sits well. Fingers in her hair to smooth back behind one ear, his offer getting that lopsided grin and a "Yeah. Get me another beer." Most of the tension leaves her shoulders, the settling back on the bench being one of ease as she straightens her jacket about herself.
With the immediate threat of slicing and dicing having passed by, Z'ian's posture returns to a more languid state as well. The tension seeps out of his shoulders and he flashes her his easy grin again, hopping to his feet. His gaze sweeps past her to the other Glacier riders that are roaming around on the ledge. "And you looked like you were all by yourself." It's teasing, not quite serious as he bends quickly to pick up their empty bottles. "Two more coming." Long legs carry him through the crowd of riders back into the Snowasis. When he returns, he'll hang around and talk to her for awhile as his time permits or until she gets tired of listening to his rambling sentences and questions.
"Don' be fooled. I am," Jo counters on those raucous wingriders of hers in the bar, their banter heard that far into the patio. And so she stays and talks more with the bronzerider on various topics over the beers, her always questioning, until her blue dragon sends her the call she's been waiting for. To Z'ian, "Look for me sometime," she sends over her shoulder, already fastening her jacket closed for flight. "I'd like to do this again." Then she's gone. Of course, where everyone else was retiring for the night...that's when Jo's business contracts elsewhere are starting up.
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