Logs:Sacrificial Lambs
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| RL Date: 4 December, 2007 |
| Who: N'thei, Satiet |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr, Crom Hold |
| Type: Log |
| What: I'daur is offered as the sacrificial lamb. |
| When: Day 27, Month 5, Turn 14 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: I'daur/Mentions |
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| The prisoners are still moping around in their cells, the guards are still passing time shooting dice and talking about their kids, and time is still tic tic ticking at a pathetically slow rate. About the only changes in all this would be that the three under lock-and-key have now been allowed to take cold showers in the guard tower, with fresh clothes to wear afterward-- probably because even the guards couldn't stand the stink. But that blessed outing is long over. N'thei's back to sitting on the floor of his cell, staring at the wall. Satiet makes her way down the stairs without the aid of a Cromese official, but a drop of her chin that acknowledges the guards coupled with the knot on her shoulder also allows her passage past them to the cells at the other end of the guards' room. Her chin remains high despite a snicker that escapes one of the men as she passes, and the first cell along the row is stepped up to. "Good evening," the weyrwoman remarks pleasantly, as if this were just any other pleasant night and their encounter chance. She even flashes a quick, dry smile at the cell's occupant on the floor. N'thei looks up at Satiet for a change, up and up till bleary eyes land on the lifted chin and permit him occasion for a laugh exhaled through his nose. "I'll take your word for it." With resolve, he peels himself off the floor and on to his feet, uses the cot for leverage until he's upright enough to finish the job on his own. To be sure, he wants Satiet aware that he's expending a great deal of energy to stand up on her behalf. "So...?" View of the slight weyrwoman is between the bars that separate them, and for each of his very deliberate movements, there's a glance to the body part that moves: arms that brace to the hips that lift and the knees the unbend as he rises from the floor. The guards watch with some interest initially, first to see N'thei's reaction and then down the line at the other prisoners before returning to their card game just outside the outer chamber's doors. "Short or long?" inquires Satiet, cool voice buoyant. "Me? Because..." N'thei's eyes go down toward his lap, his brows go up toward his forehead, then humor goes the way of the dodo. He manages to hold a decent posture for at least ten or fifteen seconds, the time it takes to answer Satiet's question with more seriousness; "I've got time." The posture breaks and he leans forward, fingers wrapped around the bars that brace his weight, even his temple tipped against it, leaving him to regard the slim goldrider slantwise but no less devout. Unwillingly, the pale eyes slide down to N'thei's lap and the faux cheer demeanor slips, a flush touching her pale cheeks. Satiet's lips purse then thin, eyes closing briefly before lifting to pin the bronzerider with an intent stare, as deliberate in on how it fixates on anywhere else other than the humorous insinuations. Forcibly, the woman adopts a casual stance, one shoulder turning towards N'thei as the two bars brace her sidelong frame. "Tomorrow," is what she says, tiredness betrayed in her low-pitched alto. "We've discovered I'daur masterminded the entire situation and we've come up with a negotiation ploy that will be presented tomorrow to both Telgar's Weyrleaders and Lord Crom and his council." At first, N'thei wears a proud smile-- he got a reaction out of Satiet! By the time she's done with her explanation, the expression has slid further and further into confusion. "We've discovered. You've discovered?" He starts two preemptive breaths, swallows them with words unformed. His expression trying hard to land on something the guards can misconstrue as longing for the goldrider; it's not his best work as an actor. "You can't just throw I'daur to the wolves, Satiet," in a frantic, urgent whisper. "He'll be fine." He has to be fine, says the resigned inflection of a tired woman's voice that fails to bolster into any kind of belief. "He's a big boy, you know. I'daur, weyrlingmaster, bronzerider. Cripple." Satiet exhales that last word flatly. "He's agreed." End of discussion. But instead of stopping there, the slight woman turns in towards the bars, a flicker of plea for understanding betrayed in her searching eyes. Convince her she's not wrong. "He'll get off easier than if it were you three, able-bodied and strapping young lads that you are." N'thei, lost. "He's what? Why would he?" No sooner have the words gotten away from him than gray eyes find blue ones, the look in Satiet's dawning a quick enlightenment across the bronzerider's features. "You told him to. Why?" The low clang of metal sounds against his fingernail when he taps the bars he's behind, clever conveyance of his literal and metaphorical position. "Not that I'm in any position to argue with you." Satiet studies N'thei a long moment, body turned so her slight frame's pressed into those bars he clacks again. She's silent, either searching for words either in half truths and lies, or speechless for once. Then, there's a sly smile that curls her mouth, stretching to shatter her slow weariness. "Maybe. Maybe I love you that much. So much so that I can't see you languish in here forever. Or," and more likely, her livened pale eyes cooling rapidly at some recollection, "/Some/ of us don't leave heroes to dogs. You're dragonriders. Act as such." Present circumstances aside-- "I'm not stupid." That's N'thei's reaction to maybe-I-love-you. "That's what you're doing? Acting as such?" He laughs derisively down at the goldrider, eyes pinned to the pretend smile and the cold eyes that follow it. "Have it how you will. I won't undo your lie." But he doesn't have to be happy about it, and the grim look that claims him says as much. "No," the singular response stretches out. "You're not stupid and I'm not acting as such." Cool eyes drop then lift reflexively away from N'thei's lap area and back to his eyes. Pinned. "I do what I must and I don't care what you think or if you're happy with it." Satiet skips a telling little beat. "But I'm grateful. To you. To I'daur. To them." The other hapless prisoners who languish without a visit from their weyrwoman. "Thank you." Amused incredulity leaks into N'thei's rough-whispered voice; "What you must? No, you're doing what you want to do. What you must do is give Crom and Telgar someone to blame. What you want to do is give them someone other than us, though I can't for the life of me figure out why I'daur." He uncurls his hand from the bar and reaches out toward that proud little chin of Satiet's, but his fingers fall short of the mark. "I'm perfectly happy to get out of here, but don't bother lying to me. Not about this." "Whatever. You believe whatever the fuck you want to believe." The cool composure she's held on to cracks, her cheeks flaring to life with bright color. "Whether I'm lying or not. I'd thought you'd like to know." Satiet drops her lashes to catch sight of the curl of his hand from between the bars and where it aims for. "By tomorrow, maybe you'll even be out of here to confront him as to what the fuck is really going on." "I'm being told to place blame for something I did on someone I actually like and respect, and you're the one who's mad?" N'thei snorts at Satiet, at her bright cheeks. Unaccountable merriment lives briefly in gray eyes, the backs of his fingers just near enough to brush across the apples of her flush. "I suppose that's the most emotion I've ever seen from you, so there's that. --I'm not sure how it will go over with A'son and Jolak. They occasionally suffer bouts of dignity." Something in that merriment displeases her even further, once shattered the ice veneer difficult to piece together and a slight lean forward to begin a turn completes the gesture of fingers across her heated cheeks, fleeting across her lips as she pivots. Deliberate? "You'll convince them." No goodbye, no kiss, no longing look in return; Satiet's little kid boots clatter on the stone floor back to the stairs up to the hold proper. N'thei counts his fingers when he gets them back, the digits too near Satiet's teeth to have been completely safe. Clinging to the cold bars for an extra few moments, watching as long as he can, he answers a guard's questioning look with a helpless-clueless shrug, then resumes his seat on the floor. Staring off into space again; at least now it's the space where the goldrider was standing a few moments ago instead of just any-random-direction? |
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