Logs:Satiet and N'thei - Denoument
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| RL Date: 8 June, 2008 |
| Who: Satiet, N'thei |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| When: Day 28, Month 8, Turn 16 (Interval 10) |
| Immediately after this scene. Stole the log from Satiet, added in The List because it was awesome. :D Funny, sad, or not, what lies beyond that tapestry is a half-lit cavern, with the two half-shuttered lanterns stationed near the unlit hearth. On the couch, lounged with her legs tucked beneath her, Satiet rests in a simple rose robe over white silken pajamas. Has she been waiting long? The half-emptied bottle on the table could measure the time past in how many glass fulls have been drunk. But better betrayals would have been in the turns of her head from the hide she scrawls sporadically at, chin hovering over the couch's back, her hopeful attention trained to any noises from without. But disappointed time and time, first F'rint's heavy steps from the council chambers to the bowl and then a drudge departing after cleaning, the marching steps just outside are ignored in favor of staring at the list she's made. How long. How long. By the time he takes up pacing, nearly two hours have elapsed, filled with the minutiae of a Weyrleader's evening from debriefing Lystros to shaking F'rint's hand to stopping in to pick up his own supper. A further five minutes pass before he gets those shoulders squared, all leading up to the chance to push open the tapestry and step into Satiet's weyr. Then to be struck at what appears to be her composure, to take in the lounged look of her compared to the collar he pushed open with annoyed fingers, the sleeves rolled up to his elbow while he suffered Lystros's apologies, the five o'clock shadow that agitation forgot to shave. "Are you sober?" Ever a fair question for Satiet, doubly when he picks out the gleam of a bottle on the table. The piece of hide with its meticulously scratched out list curls in her hand, the lift of the weyr's tapestry enough to spring once more, fleeting hope in her eyes. Composure? Composure is the deliberate speed, slow, with which she turns her head again, pale eyes briefly illuminated by the dim lights as they pin to N'thei's face, and thin lips parted in a small 'o'. From there, a measured breath exhales, and the shaping of a crooked smile curves faint at his question. "When have I ever been?" And unable to resist, despite the most recent penance done for her pride, a pause leads into a low, tense tease, "My lord?" My lord. A smile comes and goes quickly in the dimness, a brief brightening of N'thei's eyes where they trace the light attached to Satiet. Yes, she amused him. The moment's levity puts him to motion, across the room, along the back of the couch, fingers dragged over the upholstery in his wake. "Are you drunk?" Just as pertinent a question asked when he stops at Satiet's back at such an angle that he could see what she's been writing if it wasn't folded; with one hand still on the sofa-back, balancing his weight beside her shoulder, he reaches toward the hide with a long arm, with fingers that mean to pluck it from hers. Has she caught that smile? That amusement she's granted him? Glittering eyes continue to watch as he crosses the room, head turning awkwardly up to find the length of his broad frame just over her shoulder, and where once that hide was only half bent, it's curled in more, dropped to her lap. In her continued low voice, one word, "Matters?" also serves to strengthen her wavering smile and perhaps answer the questions of what she's noticed of him. There's only so long people can coexist, even as oddly as Satiet and N'thei must, before mannerisms and phrases are appropriated. But he's close enough to smell the brandy on her breath. "It's nothing," she says of the hide he means to pluck away, though her hold is loose and it relinquishes easily. She never quite made it to twenty-five. "A little." N'thei doesn't need an answer after a whiff, nostrils flared briefly to take in the smell, no insight to his opinion on her drink or drunkenness. So it's-nothing that he takes away from her, that he unfolds with two fingers and looks over from top to bottom, bottom to top, top to Satiet. Looking back at her, his smile blooms with dark humor. "This is you or me?" He lowers the hide so it droops from the back of the couch, so the corner of it touches her arm and the writing stays in her peripheral, his own fingers maintaining a firmer grip on it. Written in Satiet's precise, feminine hand, the list is numbered with only two corrections: arrows switch #2 and #3, and #16 is underlined a few times. 1. pride 2. temper(mental) 3. control(ling) 4. distrustful 5. manipulative 6. unapproachable 7. tired 8. rigid 9. selfish 10. self-centered 11. jealous 12. sad 13. vain 14. stoic 15. temperate 16. drinks too much 17. catty 18. always right 19. bitchy 20. cares too much 21. pretends not to care 22. happy (?) 23. 24. 25. "Not done yet," says the seated woman instead of answering, tucking into herself all the more somehow to become smaller: legs shifting back sinking further into the cushion, chin dropping. She doesn't need to keep tabs of the list lowered so graciously her way, to know what's written there. A flush of pink graces the tops of her ears. "If I were sober, I wouldn't give it. If I weren't drunk, I wouldn't write it. If I were drunk, I wouldn't be able to write it. Soo," the one word drawls out to give time to sort out the conundrums of Satiet's state of sobriety. "Would you like a drink?" In all honesty, "Yes." N'thei doesn't even have to think about it, would he like a drink. "Are you vain, do you think? Am I? Grant the rest, but take that one off." Control(ling). Fingers flick, toss the hide roughly toward the table though it only clings to the edge a moment before it slips off, crumples to the floor. Hands freed, his finger strays to touch the brightened tip of Satiet's ear, to make damn sure she knows that he knows that she's flushed. "Why did you write it." Briefly, her head tips back so that the strayed finger to her ear presses further into that touch. Briefly, before she's moving forward to pour out a few finger widths of brandy into her glass. "Been used. Hope that's fine." In her return to sit more comfortably, Satiet turns a little so her back and those betraying ears aren't completely exposed to N'thei and in lieu of her ear tips, when passing the glass back, her fingers capture his loosely, staying further movement of at least that hand. "I-... I'm not perfect." An understatement and confession brought forth by being pleasantly intoxicated. "I'm vain. I'm prideful. I'm a bitch. I -want- you to grab my wrist again and crush it. What's there to like? To love? That's my list." To want a drink and take a drink are wholly separate matters at this moment; to have a drink is only a temporary snag, with N'thei sort of at a loss as to what to do with the glass. He winds up with it teetered on the sofa-back, down a ways where caught hands are less likely to tip it. "I thought you were perfect for a time, cold and untouchable, but I know--" His hand scoops down to reach beneath her elbow, to pry a better grip from Satiet's arms, to draw her bodily from her sunken nook in the couch. "I'm not going to crush anything if you keep getting smaller and harder to reach." Frustrated a little, yes. For all her deliberate care in moving, tense and calculating, Satiet's body moves readily when directed, raising a little for the arm braced beneath her elbow, shifting easily from seated to her knees. "Know?" Teeter teeter, hope Satiet's not fond of her upholstery. "That you can be touched." In saying so, N'thei suits actions to words, one hand still coiled around her upper arm, been through this enough times not to leave her proximity to chance. "Still cold." His left hand laid along the curve of her neck, his thumb tracing her chin. "You don't want to lose control, but you want someone to take it. To be worshipped and broken. It's impossible, and I've done it, and it's time I was rewarded for my efforts." A half-second tension releases once his hand bracing her arm becomes more familiar and accepted, her chin ducking instinctively when brushed, but warming to the touch with a slight lift of her face. In her eyes runs the myriad of emotions his words evoke: cold draws a glint of humor. Control shifts it sardonically. Worshipped and broken in succession throw her lashes, as if indignant. But conquering the impossible and the time for a reward simmers the blue flame in her gaze and thins her mouth so that her teeth can crush against her lower lip. "Is that so?" Satiet ventures a tentative hand up to complete the touch withheld earlier, the breadth between hand and chest gap in the lightest, questing touch. "Worshipped, broken, rewarded." A beat. "And then?" Rapt gray eyes catch every nuance of expression that crosses her face, but there's no answer for her question, just the echo. "And then." N'thei wouldn't be here if he stopped to think about and-then, would have let her walk off at enjoy-yourself, and he sure as hell wouldn't be drawing her up with the hand on her arm at the same time he leans down toward her, presses weight against her palm. It's either kiss her or choke her, and all that brandy on Satiet's lips would go to waste over the former. Ninety-three days later, he'll get drunk from tasting her. Control(ling), demanding, selfish, and pride. Of them, selfish rises to conquer the other emotions; control and pride demanding an answer to 'and then' and subsequently ignored. One hand bracing his chest is joined by the other, which quickly snakes up to cling at his neck and shoulders and bring the pressure of his weight further against her slim frame. She must not like the upholstery of her couch much, or at least not as much as she'd like to press her lips against his and draw him, with what strength she has, over the couch's back. Ninety-three days of sobriety broken. Two turns of longing fulfilled. Five turns of needling requited. A broken glass and a puddle of brandy spilled on the floor seem like an appropriate backdrop for N'thei-and-Satiet. Over the back of it, onto the couch, it's hard to say if he pulls her to him or the other way around. Regardless. Adjectives like tender, romantic, loving don't exactly come into play in what ensues; it's not the screaming brutality wrought by Teonath and Wyaeth, but she did say she wanted him crushing her wrists, and that's the kind of thing that sticks in a man's mind after five years of explicit fantasies. He wants Satiet the same way he wants everything else-- reckless abandon, consequences be damned, no pleasure without a little pain. Does it matter who pulls one to the other? The result would still be his reward: the possible fulfillment of five years of fantasies. Her fingers tangled in his clothes, her body crushed beneath his, her skin hot against his, her small feet entwined about his larger ankles. The brandy sweetening her mouth. Even without the benefit of flight-bourne brutality, two turns of waiting matches five turns of torment in overlapping, violent desires and what results...? What consequences? The only pleasure had requires a little pain. Tomorrow there may be regrets, or simply the disappointment in fantasies shattered. But for N'thei and Satiet, this might be what passes for loving. Maybe. |
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