Logs:Satiet's Bandaged Ankle is Not N'thei's Fault
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| RL Date: 3 August, 2008 |
| Who: Satiet, N'thei |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| When: Day 5, Month 17, Turn 17 (Interval 10) |
| Seated on a cot, her foot lifted to rest on a cushioned chair, the healer on duty appears to be putting the finishing touches on a brace for Satiet, winding the bandage securely about her ankle and fixing it into place. Sparing the low words of admonishment that only someone of -that- age and -that- much life experience might get away with, the elderly journeyman gives one last reproving look and a less solemn tousle of the weyrwoman's hair before he drifts towards his next patient. She takes it well enough, only the slightest screw of a more youthful petulance marring her brow. It's early enough in the day that she hasn't had the chance to change out of her exercise clothes. For a nice change of pace, N'thei enters the infirmary in seemingly perfect health; no obvious broken bones, bruises, blood gushing anywhere. He's been doing something to work up a sweat, mops his face with a handkerchief while he marches in from the lower caverns with a purpose. Without breaking stride, he waves off the can-I-help-you look that his presence alerts from a healer, flicks his fingers in a silent no-you-can't response and walks over to a cupboard known to contain vast quantities of redwort. But then he stops, forehead knitting to match his eyebrows, and turns slowly to look over his shoulder in Satiet's direction. He's going to need at least half a minute to reconcile her presence at all, let alone dressed-down with a brace on her foot. Whaaa? A difficult figure to miss, Satiet's too intent on eyeing her own ankle and likely calculating the impediments brought on by its state, to catch N'thei's initial steps. Whatever the case may be, what's going on in her head matters less as the seconds pass and the sounds of a familiar gait moving purposefully past draws her startled attention up from her swollen foot to N'thei's path past the good intentions of people to the redwort. And in the half minute it takes to reconcile her presence, brilliant, pale eyes wait for the return of his grey gaze from her ankle to her face. Stay or run? The momentary shade of a sorrowful look colors N'thei's expression while his eyes stay on that ankle. Maybe he's sorry for Satiet? Maybe he's sorry it's not his handiwork? He doesn't look the rest of the way up to her eyes yet, wrenches his attention back to the task that brought him here, squares his back to her to scan the disinfectant contents of the cupboard and select one large sealed jar off the top shelf. A protest dies on the healer's lips while N'thei closes the cabinet and turns away, a stretch of his lips-- sort of like a smile-- to convey his thanks to the infirmary staff. "What happened to your foot," is asked abruptly from across a sizable distance, from cupboard to cot at least twenty feet off. Now he's able to look down the barrel of blue eyes, having had time to like compose himself and stuff, to not look sweaty and hard-worky. It's the colored sorrow that immediately sets Satiet's lips thin and flares proud color in her eyes, and her decision to flee rather than stay screws in all the more. But curiosity stays her a moment, the sudden turn that claims a can of redwort raising her brows so that when he finally turns to find the barrel of blue eyes, they're less a barrel and more puzzled, and then she's stuck, silence broken. "Sprained it jogging. Obruen's looking for crutches that are the right size." Where he's not looking sweaty or hard-working, Satiet's dressed-down state is far less composed; perspiration causing the sleeveless camisole and the loose ends of a high-held ponytail to cling to her back and neck. "Found new uses for redwort?" Pleasantly asked; much implied. He crosses to her bedside then, his head tipped, his frown studious. N'thei's well-attuned by now to the wisps of Satiet's temper, to the little things like pressed lips and bright eyes, and he wagers a guess on their cause; "Not pity for you, my love, promise. Only that I wasn't there to see it happen." Stopped, a hand toward the injured ankle, not that he has any business messing with the delicacy of a turned ankle but wounded-Satiet is the flame for his stupid little moth. Oh; "Yes." He has found new uses for redwort, jar held toward her if she needs a distraction. When her implications don't elicit much more than patronizations for her, Satiet tries again, less subtly, a touch snide, "Your new vice?" She might not look the part of weyrwoman on her distant, self-imposed pedestal in shorts and sweat-stained shirt, but she sure can sound it. Or try and fail, particularly as her foot tries to shy away from his descending hand. It's difficult to feel imposing when seated semi-helpless, waiting and face trying hard not to contort in pain. Then, with eyes pinned to what remnant scars are on N'thei's face, she gives, "I'm too tired to play this game. What's it for?" If she's not going to take it, then N'thei sets the jar down on the edge of the cot next to Satiet's hips, nestles it in a fold of sheets so it doesn't take a fall and shatter. "No more vices," he lies pleasantly, his fingers dangling and tickling in the air like he very much wants to set them down on her ankle but keeps thinking the wiser of it. Like a kid in a candy shop. "Disinfecting." What else? "We're going to brew whiskey, need germ-free pots for the brewing. --Does it hurt much?" Pleasesayyes. "Pity. It was a pleasant reprieve from my day to try to figure out what you could possibly do with so much redwort. Spike drinks? Sniff and inhale the fumes?" Satiet ticks off all the possibilities for N'thei's new not-so-much-a-drug of choice. She even shifts enough for it to nestle and rest against her hip all the better and in another move that's just as obliging and possibly pain inducing as a cry gets visibly swallowed down, lifts her knee a little so that while her ankle might not brush his dangling fingers, it brings her leg all the closer. "Did your scores hurt much?" N'thei thinks about it. The huffing of redwort. That train-of-thought goes unhidden when he lands a long look on the jar, really possible you think? But no, he shakes his head and, when she moves her leg away, lands his hand in the empty spot on the cot where her ankle had been mere moments ago. Drat. "Yes. Interested now?" /Now./ He looks square at her for that exchange; a month ago, he was still fighting-mad about it, now it's just a little lingering accusation. His hand descends to the cot, her hand lifts, as if to trace those healed scars, fingers hovering where once his tickled. The /now/ hits its mark, no self-certain smug satisfaction at having elicited such an implied accusation on her face. Guilt, a shadow that rises to quell the brightness of her eyes, lingers long after its welcome's ended. So instead, she shifts her gaze away, allowing her hands to fall back to the white, rumpled sheets so she can study them as they trace the sheet wrinkles rather than N'thei's face. "It doesn't hurt as much as that must have." The pain, her deliberate withdrawal from the situation, whatever. Obruen, done with his rounds disappears into the back storage. Patronizing, fatherly, making the weyrwoman wait; all a senior healer's prerogative apparently. "I'm sorry." "Good." That it doesn't hurt as much as /that/ must have, that she's sorry, that N'thei surprised himself with a catch to her wash of guilt. There's no tell for his real satisfaction to all that, no way to know if it's really enough to know she's sorry however many months later; it's just another drop in the bucket between them. He catches Satiet's hand under his, pins it to the sheets with a press of his palm flat to cover her fingers, his hand cool and hard over hers. "I'm going to make a fortune at this, can feel it. Your family's moonshine, will they show us how to make it? Don't think whiskey and beer alone will earn much repute." There's nowhere else for talk of pain and apology to go, nowhere good anyway, so he turns quite naturally to industry. It's the pain, so she'll avow later if asked, that makes her unable to sit behind her stoically mocking facade. And the pain, that prevents her from making the jump from pain and apologies to business as quickly as N'thei decides. It's certainly not that her smaller hand is pinned beneath his that her gaze continues to pin on. "My brother's moonshine?" Beneath it, warming fingers curve, arced up to press into his palm, gain some breathing room, and in that action, she finally draws her eyes away to look back into the bronzerider's face, guilt-free in favor of confusion. Slow today, distracted, please connect the dots. "What?" N'thei will never mention it again, so-- unless old Obruen happens to like wagging his tongue-- Satiet's guilt never has to leave the room. But that she's not following along, that surprises him, works his lips to a silent 'o' while his eyebrows draw upward. "Brewing. Distilling. Our own. For profit. Ringing any bells?" Though why should it, given that the two of them communicate even less than he does with everyone else in the Weyr? Rough fingers curve around her hand wholly then, what most people would call holding-hands except that it's tenderless; touching her for the sake of touching her, the simple thrill of feeling her that has nothing to do with feelings for her. "Moonshine would sell like hotcakes around here, quickest and dirtiest way to get smashed." After a time, Obruen exits the storage with a set of crutches, cushioned and covered in what is immediately apparent as once leftover fabric in its patchwork. "Oh. Right." Does she remember? Possibly not. Is she pulling off that she 'remembers'? Possibly not. "Moonshine, huh?" a sister's disbelief sends her pale eyes rolling, her head shaking, and causes a tiny, dimpled smile to emerge. "He'd likely laugh that anyone would want to pay for the stuff. Likely'd clean out those buckets of yours better than that redwort will." When the healer finally arrives and the real option to flee comes with it, Satiet sits up a little straighter, hands clenched beneath his. "I can talk to him. He's never sold it before. Can I go?" The latter, though in the same breath as everything before, directs to the healer with a turn of her head. "Weyrwoman's Moonshine has a ring to it." N'thei's not so much with marketing genius, though he loses himself in a thought of what to call this ill-fated brew, toys around under his breath with variations of moonshine/weyrwoman. None of them sound any better. Go? He tracks the crutches with a sudden blink, torn from thoughts of profit by the reminder that Satiet's not exactly here of her own volition; he trades her hand from the redwort jar like that's what he'd been holding the whole time, probably just about as warm-and-inviting of his handling of the disinfectant as he was the goldrider's fingers. Not his place to answer, just to stand around and wait for the inevitable chance to smirk at the ungainliness of departing on crutches, could be worth the whole interlude just for that. With bushy brows lifted at N'thei's presence by Satiet, Obruen opts to not respond with anything other than his own brand of mocking in an incline of his head, eye-glittering deference as he holds out the crutches in such a way that it should make it eas(ier) for the slight woman to slide off the bed onto. After that, she's on her own. "Weyrwoman's Wrath," suggests Satiet, the smile flickered up to N'thei remnant on her features long after thoughts of her brother have left. "Wai-." She's pulled herself around to the side of the cot, legs falling to the ground, but before she reaches for the crutches, a hand steals across to try and capture N'thei's wrist - her own touch, just to touch, volition unrestrained, and then pulls back with just a brush, "Never mind." Hands to crutches, armpits to cushions, eyes to N'thei, face to floor. Then the first, frustrating awkwardness of being unable to move freely. She doesn't fall, but for those waiting to see an inelegant, uncomposed Satiet, the result should be well worth it. Wai-? -t? If that's it, at least she'll get what she wants, for N'thei stays right where he was the whole time, offers no assistance to ease her ungainly first attempts. And if that's not it, he waits anyway, his empty hand tucked across his ribs after Satiet's lapse in judgment has her reaching for his wrist, his arm folded across his chest. "This rates among the happiest moments of my life," he confesses, though the bland voice begs to differ with the cheerful choice of words. Throat cleared, glance shot to Obruen just to assure that someone, anyone else is witness, he adds an afterthought; "Do you want some help." No end of pleasure for a yes-please. Oh, now he asks. Upwardly tweaked brows and now, far more easily cool eyes dart to N'thei; really, /now/? With her crutches, awkwardness and all, she finds some middle ground between helpless on a cot and something of 'herself'. Throaty, implications galore, and with that slant of mocking refound, Satiet remarks, "I'm so happy to oblige in all your fantasies." If only she weren't thumping a few steps towards the door before thinking better of it and turns to slant a glance over her shoulder, "You first." "That ankle." He looks at it to be sure they both know which ankle he's talking about, the bandaged one, the obvious one, the humorous one. "You being crippled doesn't work very well in /all/ my fantasies, promise. Fair few require you in one piece. Least to start out with." N'thei lets his look wander briefly, lasciviously up from Satiet's toes to her eyes where he meets her mockery with a conciliatory shrug; she's on /crutches/, of course he's going to smirk, he can't be held accountable for it. Him-first; "Yes? Thank you." One last, disappointed look stays on the hobbled goldrider while he passes in front of her to the corridor, quite whole and healthy and revitalized for whatever chore he sets for himself today. N'thei sucks. It's all written all over Satiet's kind of twisty frustrated features, not quite resigned to being the hobbler, the gimp, the cripple. Let's hope I'daur doesn't run into her today. |
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