The rider's lounge was a small place of bustling activity. Jo is here, having flown Faryn up with her by enticing her to celebrate her turnday with a drink. Jo's usually generous on her turndays, after all and had paid for whatever Faryn wanted, only inviting her company instead. Having chosen a table towards the back, "One day, ya'll get to be my amazin' age," she is telling Faryn as she nurses through her dark liquor.
"If you can make it, I sure better," Faryn says, though she's still taking in the mishmash of furniture and people in the lounge, and the fact that there's a lounge at all. Her attention is pulling between Jo and her drink, and in stretches at that mural on the back wall, hidden from her until now. "My life is way less high-risk than I always imagine yours to be. If someone had told me this was up here, I think I might have accepted a lot more offers for drinks. I always thought they were pointing this way because they lived hereabouts." She gestures with her own drink, lighter in color but no less potent in its clarity. "What are you now, fifty? Fifty-five? You look good, for slightly younger than my mum."
Snorting, "I'll doubt ya'll have the same troubles, or even make as much trouble as I do," Jo states, taking a drink. "Do ya want yer life to be 'high risk'?" she teases now, adding immediately behind it about dragonriders and their offers, "Oh, I'm more than sure at least most of those offers involved that drink happenin' right up in their own weyr. A good girl like ya wouldn' fall for such tricks, would'ja?" That teasing continues with a waggling of brows - which stops at the drop of her age. She gives Faryn a look for the guessing, dropping dryly, "It's thiry-four, thank-ya-very-much. No need to age me that much, darlin'. I'm in the prime of my long, reckless life."
"If I wanted that, I would've joined a trader caravan, or a gang of thieves, or poked proddy riders with sticks and skipped away giggling." For the dragonriders and their intentions, Faryn has a snickered laugh into her glass, followed up by a sip from it. "I don't kiss and tell, unlike some people," she teases mildly, nudging Jo with an elbow to lessen the blow, such as it might be. "Ah, thirty-four," echoes the herder lightly. "You built that up a lot more. You've only got ten turns on me. That's nothing."
"The third option more yer style, I'm wagerin'," Jo quips behind that first one. "Ya'd be gigglin'n causin' all manner of ruckus. 'N who says I kiss'n tell, hmm?" Brow arches at that one, tipping her glass in Faryn's direction. "It is nothin'," she agrees then on ages, all joking aside in her tone. "Well, other'n an excuse to party. I don' really need much excuse to do that, although I do miss the wild nights for Taikrin's own turndays. We would drink'n and make a game of how many women we could charm into our beds by the end of the night. I'd win in those days, if the aim was how many drinks in the face ya'd get by dawn." She snickers at the memories before asking, "How do ya celebrate yer turnday?"
"I don't giggle," Faryn says, mock-defensive. "And I don't skip, you wound me at every turn. You're the cruelest person in the weyr." She sets her glass down then, folding her arms in front of her on the table and letting her hands dangle between her body and the table. She looks at Jo with a small half-smile while she recites her old antics, and there's even a laugh for the end about drinks getting thrown in Jo's face, maybe an understanding and appreciative nod for...well, either Jo's drink-catching prowess or the women who had such exceptional aim. "I don't, usually. Most of the time I forget until it's long past. Sometimes mum sends me something, and my dad too, if he's in port."
"Ya look like a giggler," Jo puts Faryn under her scrutiny with narrowed eyes. Being declared cruel, though, has the convict rider stealing a hand over her heart before she states, "I swear I'm not. I'm nothin' but good to ya, Faryn. I bought ya a drink'n everythin'! So, ya don' put much stock in turndays, sounds like? What, too many bad ones spoiled it for ya?" She nods when parents are mentioned before she adds, "'Least they remember, darlin'. Yer dad's a sailor?"
"That's not what I hear. Farideh has to remind me to smile all the time, when we're out. T'mic, too. You're thinking of some other crafter I think. Or Farideh. Our names are similar enough." But she laughs anyway - not giggles - and shakes her head at the bluerider. "You are that. Thank you for the drink. I should be buying you drinks, for the auspicious occasion." There's another shallow shrug that only takes one shoulder. "Not really. I just never paid a lot of attention to them. It's not important, in the scheme of things. He's a fisher, yes. And my brothers. He's home a lot more, lately, I think. With four boys, it's easier to make them do the work." There's a chuff for that, amused.
"Ya smile when yer with me," Jo notes lightly, bringing that cup to her lips in a playfully pompous manner. "I never require ya to smile, 'less ya just find me so funny. Are ya good friends with Farideh?" She waves away talk of Faryn buying her a drink as she states to that, "Yer witty company's all I want. Wit's in short supply these days so I have to take what I can get. I plan to head out tonight anyway'n maybe do some gamblin' to pay myself back the generosity. Ya never wanted to be a fisher? Live on the water? I think Tac wants a weyr on the water so he can swim all day, the fish with wings." Regarding her, "I find it interestin', though," she notes. "Yer mother with a fisher. Are they still together?"
"Oh, I see. I was your last resort. No wonder you got drinks thrown in your face with Taikrin. You're such a smoooth talker." Her words aside, Faryn doesn't seem offended, and indeed relaxes a little into her chair comfortably now. Last resort or otherwise, she's here to stay. "I don't really know what we are, honestly. I think...maybe we just trust one another. Does that make us friends?" She doesn't know. A puff of breath goes up, to her bangs, exasperated. "I tried. Seasick. Never got over it. And my parents were never together, really. They had an arrangement." A pensive expression crosses her face, then it dissolves into a grimace. "Maybe they still are. Blech."
Jo levels a thin-lipped look Faryn's way for the first. "I have plenty of folks that would love to hang with me on this day," she notes loftily. "Plenty. Ya should be glad I'm hangin' with you. 'N anyway, I only had those drinks thrown in my face 'cuz my lines hardly worked at the time. I can promise ya that they work very well now." She drains her cup then and reaches for the jug set in the middle of the table for a refill. As to what they are, she's quick to remark to that, "I trust ya enough. We're past the fear of me shankin' ya in the gut, so that should count for somethin'. Ya don' let rumor'n my rough edges dictate how I treat ya, which is a rarity where I come from. Friends, perhaps. I like that yer different from some of the folks 'round here." She doesn't explain how, taking up her filled cup once more as she chuckles a bit on her family. "Arrangements are useful, darlin'," she says with a nod. "Better way to go that weyrmatin', I think. Ya wouldn' want to handfast, yerself, then? What sort of woman are ya when it comes to sex?" It's a genuine question, punctuated by drinking her fill.
"Sure they are, but nobody ever wants to think about their parents having sex, including me. Blech." That calls for a drink, which leaves her with less than an inch in the bottom of her cup but no apparent desire to reach out and fill it just yet. "You're good people," is what she has for the bluerider, for all that praise, three whole words. There's a rise of color to her cheeks though, unbidden at the next question. "You're filled with questions tonight, aren't you?" she asks. "Are you liquoring me up for any specific purpose, Jo? Or just trying to sate some curiosity? Shouldn't I stay mysterious to keep your interest?"
"Fuck no," Jo states on parents with a brief wrinkle of her nose. "'Nother round?" upon noticing that Faryn's cup was empty. There's an incline of her head to being good people - she's not looking to deny it, it seems - and when she glances at that rise in cheek color, a snicker escapes as she gives her excuse: "The turnday girl can ask all manner of questions. It's part of the turnday rules. Surely yer aware of them? 'N I know what avoidance of answerin' a question looks like, darlin'. I wouldn' worry, though," she drawls with her cup as she settles more comfortably in her seat. "I ain' lookin' to bed ya, if that's what ya fear. I'm lookin' to see what makes Faryn tick is all. 'Snot like ya couldn' ask me what ya like. I can ply avoidance tactics on the questions I won' answer just as well as ya can."
Faryn nods only after considering the contents of her glass and a longing look at the bar for whatever she was drinking before, but the dark liquor will have to suffice for now. Down the hatch with what's left, and a refill is graciously accepted. "If that's the rule for turnday girls, maybe I should look forward to mine more often," the herder remarks with low amusement, shaking her head and pulling the cup closer. "I didn't think you were trying to bed me. You haven't tried yet. It's another of those 'plenty of chances, never taken' things. Like you not stabbing me and stealing my runner. How do you mean, what type of woman? Who do I like? What do I like?"
"I could go'n getcha another round of that," Jo offers, catching that look towards the bar. "I doubt he'll come over." Since Faryn takes the strong dark liquor as her refill, "It's my rule for turndays," she continues to say on turnday rules. "I have a list of rules like that. Comes in handy." There's a little smirk for that, something that lingers around the rim of her cup when Faryn responds on bedding chances not taken before she wryly notes, "Yer way of askin' me to bed'ja, then?" Yeah, Jo's going to read into that any way she sees fit. "I'm tryin' to be good'n chaste woman, for once," she adds quite lightly. "'Least until night. What I mean is, are ya one of those girls lookin' to handfast or weyrmate? Lookin' to fuck as many men as ya can in yer young life? Lookin' to experience what all of Weyr life is like? Or are ya one of those with strong, holdbred views, unshakeable, hmm?" The last getting her to drink. "Sort of woman ya are."
Faryn makes a noncommital sound, one of her eyebrows up incredulously at her explanation about the rules. "That's the most reasonable thing I've ever heard," she says of rules, "especially from a woman like you. Don't like the rules? Make your own! There are no rules yet? Make them up!" She tries the drink and makes a little face but then takes another for good measure. "Methods like that, people should probably be worried." Or maybe she should be, if the way she leans back and takes the cup with her again, considering the options. "I wouldn't ask," she says, and Jo can take that as she will too, since she's doing it with everything else as well. "The third one," she says after some thought. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to experience this, not after -- that damned hatching, you know? It makes no sense to want to try again, but I'm here, and I want to. But it has nothing to do with...who I want to sleep with, or even if I will, because that isn't going to find me a future on the Sands anymore than it did sleeping with good looking fishermen or sailors." What she means, of course, is "I'm not shy if that's what you're asking. I'm...picky."
"I find life to follow the same pattern," Jo comments on making her own rules. "Don' like the ones made? Break'em. I like folks that take life like that. Ain't afraid to make yer own path. I've been tryin' to teach some of the weyrlins' that lesson. As to my methods, well," and she gives a shrug to finish that. To the rest though, "So yer stickin' around, determined to land yerself a dragon?" It's more of a statement than a question, the bluerider considering her over her cup. "Didn' realize ya had that sort of desire, but since ya did stand before...yer wantin' to stand has nothin' to do with sex, by the way. 'Nother nice evasion, but I'll allow it." She lifts her cup in a sort of toast towards her before drining deeply. "'N, I know yer not shy," she adds belately after. "Shy is a word farthest from my mind when it comes to you. But picky, well, that does bear some thought."
Faryn makes a knowing sound. "Oh, is that your doing? You're going to get Quinlys grey if you keep at it that way. Are you responsible for Farideh getting grounded all those times? Jo, is this your influence?" She points a finger at the bluerider very sternly, holding her gaze still for two, maybe three seconds before she breaks into a quick and bright smile that dims with the next. "Determined to try," Faryn corrects with an odd sort of lightness to her tone that feels distant instead of nonchalant. "I need to know it's not something I can do before I choose something else, Jo. It'd just be a loose end that hurt later, if things didn't turn out well." The smile lights again, a little sly, when her evasion is pointed out, and she puts her drink on the table to hold her hands out to surrender. "Sorry, sorry. I told you, I'm not into handfasting, or weyrmating. But there's someone, right now, which takes the fun out of promiscuity rather well." And then, "What word does come to mind when it comes to me, then? I hope it's prickly."
"I can't take credit for any of Feline's doin'," Jo waves a hand on Farideh. "She, so far, has rebuffed most of my influencin'. Apparently, she has this notion that I'm always after an ulterior motive, like gettin' up her skirts or somethin'. I haven' even hit on her. I think. 'Sides," she adds, reaching to refill her cup. "Quinlys gotta problem with it, she can come to me'n we'll fuck it out. I'm sure we'll come to some solution after." Standing is a more serious topic, though, the convict rider stating, "I get it, darlin'. Tie loose ends'n all that. Well. Anythin' ya want me to do on that end, ya know ya can come to me." Evasion aside as well, that sly look is matched with her own as she says, "I know ya did. Ya may have mention there's a someone. Ya don' seem the exclusive type, to be honest. Why try it with him?" As for one word, though, she ponders it for a moment before deciding on, "Sharp-minded."
Faryn chokes on her drink, leaning over the side of her chair and coughing to clear her airway. It might seem more dire than it is, but when she does catch her breath she exhales it in slightly unhinged laughter and the word, "Feline! Is that Farideh? Do you call her that?" The herder straightens again, covering her mouth a little, spluttering another laugh with, "To her face? Oh, that's golden." The humour lingers in her face, her smile wide, even as the conversation goes more serious. "I think I'll be okay, as long as they don't take their time," she says without clarifying. "Quinlys said...she'd do what she could. I appreciate it. From you, too." She grows somber, and thoughtful, shaking her head about her relationships. "Because he's terribly sweet. And because it hasn't come to telling him I won't. He's not some hold brat anymore, so he knows -- well. I don't know if he's still thinking he might weyrmate some woman and have a million children, but it won't be me that gives them to him. I cross that bridge when I get there." She takes a pensive sip, her eyes narrowing at Jo. "And prickly," she adds, one side of her mouth twisting up. "I don't feel very sharp these days."
That Faryn nearly chokes on her drink, Jo looks like she was to get up to help her but the younger women turns out fine. "I do," she states casually, like someone talking about the weather. "She hates it, but it fits her like a glove. 'N, yer gonna be fine, darlin'. Once a queen takes to the sky'n clutches." There's open amusement on Faryn's relationship, tracing an idle finger over the rim of her cup as she states, "Tryin' out a good boy. If yer not interested in such things, darlin', who's to say ya won't grow bored of him, then? If he's the type to weyrmate'n want children. Yer not that prickly, darlin'," she adds the last with a snort. "Yer sharp in what ya show me. Wanna talk about it?" Presumably about her not being so sharp these days.
"She's fickle," Faryn agrees, but adds gently, "she'll figure it out." She seems reluctant to continue down the path of her plans, her fingers wrapping around the cup fully like she's a bit cold, though that's unlikely. "I'm not trying him out," Faryn sounds offended, but she's talking into her glass and her gaze has dipped considerably, looking at some interesting knot on the table. "I'm -- I don't have the heart to hurt him, either. I don't know how not to. Case in point," she adds dryly for how sharp she is. "I shouldn't have gotten involved with him, knowing the kinds of things he wanted. I shouldn't have Stood. I shouldn't have...got it in my head that a potential future here, as a rider, or as anything is in any way better than the one I could have had with the Hall. I'm burning bridges. I can't get back. That's not sharp, but I think I was, before..." she thinks, though she must have concluded this months ago. "Before I Stood, and left feeling hurt, and then got lost trying to figure out why that feeling wouldn't go away."
"She is," Jo agrees, "but yer right. She will, in time. She survived a dirty bar with me, so, I think there's hope for her yet. Ya ever been to one of those bars yerself?" On her relationship, she watches the other for a moment before she relents and says, "It'll come in time, when ya'll know what ya want'n then ya'll know the right words to say. Just remember though.....it goes both ways. As much as ya don' wanna hurt him, look after yerself as well. Hardly fair to him to be with someone that doesn' ultimately want the same things he wants, ya know? It's not 'bout bein' sharp, this," and she taps the space between them with a point look. "Yer still learnin', darlin'. Ya stood. Own that," she switches from relationships to her, her tone turning sober despite the drinking. "Shit, if I worried over ever lil' bridge I burned....if ya wanna give it another shot at standin', then that's nothin' to be ashamed of. Do it cuz ya wanna. If the rest don' fall into place....remember what I said 'bout makin' yer own rules when the old ones don' work."
"Depends whether you mean dirty in the sense that the people aren't up to any good," which earns Jo a look of professionally judgmental proportions, "or that the owners are not as into mopping as they should be." This sounds like yet another deferral, until, "I generally avoid the latter. Always seemed to end up in the former, especially when I still rode. Win or lose, at least racers will buy you a drink after it's all done." Her silence is somewhat heavy, filled with Jo's reasoning and the sound of her glass going to the table with a thud after a long swig. "I think it might hurt more if I don't try," she says, and that could be for the boy, for Standing, for anything. She doesn't clarify, instead content enough to move the conversation away, "You don't regret them, when you realize you can't go back? I don't buy it. You've never made decisions, turned around and realized, 'well, shit, that was fucked'?"
Returning that look, "Both," Jo boldly tells her on the dirty bar. "What, don' tell me yer afraid of a place like that! I'm thinkin', a girl like you would thrive! Me'n ya, fleecin' some men of their marks....knockin' a few heads together...smashin' a glass or two against the table..." Yeah, she could be joking by the bright smile on her face. Could be. She seems to concede to Faryn on her response, simply raising a glass to that, but it's the last that she speaks of - regrets. Considering the other, "I don' regret leavin' home," she admits easily. "I don' regret bein' with the bastard whose friends betrayed me to save their own hides. The only things I regret is leavin' my brothers'n that damned heist that got me sent to the mines." It's candid, her admittance as she takes a drink. "I don' regret anythin' else since, darlin'. It all led me to Tac. It all led me to a better life than I had before. You?"
Not for the first time, Faryn says, "I'm not afraid. I just don't have much cause to go there, you know? You sound like my mom," and washes the taste out of her mouth with that dark alcohol, all the better to hide her smile, and whatever other expressions might flit across her features at Jo's explanation. "Not expressly," she says after some thought, setting the glass aside. Her brows have knit down, her expression a little grim. "But I'm young yet. I think there are plenty waiting. I have time to build experiences I will look back on and cringe."
"Ya go there to kick back," Jo says with a roll her shoulders - as if to get the kinks out of them. "To relax'n have fun. Yer mom goes to places like that? I haven' met her, have I?" Now she's looking at Faryn critically, as if she's trying to recall a woman with Faryn's features hanging around dive bars. To the last though, the bluerider nods and holds her glass out for the other to clink as she simply says, "To makin' regrets, darlin'. May yers don' end up as fucked up as mine's! But, ya seem like a good girl. Not the sort to make the sort of mistakes I make, eh? Wanna 'nother drink before we head out?"
Faryn knocks back the rest of her drink, shaking her head to the negative. "Nah," for the drink, and, "Maybe. I think she hangs around Ista more and more now. Tiny? Looks a little like me? Swears a lot? Big, brown sweet dragon always laying in the surf with nothing better to do?" Any bells going off? And for the rest, Faryn has a laugh as she lifts her light jacket off the back of her chair and pushes it out to stand in a smooth movement. "Well, I promise not to get involved in a heist, how's that?" She looks like she must be teasing, and adds, "You might tell me about it sometime." No pressure. "Not on your birthday though."
"Nah, think I'd recognize someone like that," Jo states as she swings to her feet. "Still, yer mom seems pretty awesome, if she's like me." She nods for them to head out towards ledge, delivering a brief clap of hand on Faryn's shoulder to the rest before she says, "No heists for you, but yeah. Sometime I will tell ya all 'bout it, darlin'. Just not today."
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