Logs:Two Truths and a Lie
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| RL Date: 19 June, 2015 |
| Who: Dee, Kaelige |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Dee asks Kaelige to teach her things; he's reluctant; she's persuasive. |
| Where: Classroom, Hatching Sands and Galleries, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 15, Month 1, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Lilah/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Later in the same day as this log. |
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>---< Classroom, Fort Weyr(#2034RJs$) >--------------------------------------<
In the classroom, a solid wooden door keeps most of the noise from the
Commons at bay as well as any overflow noise from kids practicing their
Teaching Ballads. The whole back wall of the room is taken up by a massive
chalkboard, often covered with bits of grammar, math, and snippets of
music or poetry. Both side walls are lined with shelving that contains
kid-sized instruments, books, scrolls, stacks of practice slates and other
'school' supplies for the children to use for their lessons.
Rows of benches and desks fill up most of the room leading up to a massive
desk for the Weyr's teaching harper to use. Colorful drawings are pinned
up on the wall behind the desk and another chalkboard contains the week's
assignments. A precious globe of the planet Pern takes up the corner to
the right hand side of the desk beneath a moldering and somewhat
frightening stuffed feline's head. Dee's handwriting is large and loopy, feminine but not neat. The note had been tucked into the top of Kaelige's press rather than under his pillow since there's still little proof his head ever meets it, the request was simple: meet her in the classroom late tonight, please, and the trio of letters that make up the brunette's name. She sits, fit a little awkwardly on the bench made for someone with a smaller frame, bent over a desk that has a single low glow on it to light her swatch of space. The chalk in her hand whispers over the practice slate in front of her. The room is vacant except for the girl, the glow and the usual inanimate fittings. A flower blooms in white on its dark surface, but under a moonlit sky with rudimentary sparkling stars. A great artist is something Dee is not, but the small curl of her lips and innocently pleased expression shows she's enjoying the task that eats the waiting time and that enjoyment must be why she bothers at all. Kaelige had been absent for most of the day into the evening from the barracks proper. One must assume that he sleeps somewhere else, likely during those daylight hours that he can't be found, since he seems to always have somewhere to be at night. So it's later than expected, already edging into the later hours of the evening, when he finds the note on his press. Gloved fingers pluck it from its place, his free hand touching the edge of his hood as he adjusts to read the messy girlish writing. One watching him may think that whatever he just read made him angry, for as he turns on his heels to leave the barracks nearly as soon as he'd arrived, he pauses at a water bowl and dunks the note within. The writing smudged, destroyed, unreadable, and the remaining material ground in his palm as he exits the room. A habit, though hardly anyone could realize such. It's not far to go from there, and moments later, the shadowy teen swings the door open into the room, closing it behind him with a single rapped knuckle on the door as if being 'polite' on announcing his entrance. Too far away yet to see her glorious drawings, he walks only far enough into the room so that the volume she'd need to address him wouldn't be heard in the common room beyond, the boy himself shielded best by the darkness away from the glow. Dee's eyes draw away from the slate at the sound of the door. Part of her must think to ask if it's him, but then, as the door closes and the figure lingers in darkness... can there be much doubt? So instead, the girl sets down her chalk, and brushes fingertips to fingertips with a kind of delicacy often foreign to her, nearly ladylike in its primness. When she speaks, it's with quiet resolve to say, "I'm going to help." It's not details, but this much she needs to tell him. Probably, she wasn't supposed to be one of the ones doing the stealing. Something about that or the forthcoming request has her jaw set with uneasiness as much as determination. "I suspect I'll be caught if someone doesn't teach me how to not be. But I'm going to help." She's looking at where she suspects he is in the darkness, the glowlight hampering her vision. The last is simple, "Will you teach me?" Not can he, this time, but will. Kaelige ghosts a few steps forward, but not close enough, just enough to continue to be a figure just outside of the dim glow light. "That's my job." Comes his familiar voice, though perhaps a little bit more distanced than it had been at their last one-on-one encounter. "You gather things, drop them, make a mess, I make sure you know if someone's coming." And stop them from getting too close, but he leaves that out. For all her knowledge, he's to be a figment in the background only. Unseen gaze sweeps down to the slate she holds, able to see only hints of what she's done. A grin is drawn on his face in response, but he pursues it no further. And as soon as the lightened expression comes, it's gone, for her question breaks another term - whether it was laid out directly or not. "And if I don't know how?" It's playful, though his tone isn't specifically so. "Kael," Dee's tone and the way she shifts to bring one leg over the edge of the bench to straddle it and face him more squarely could be saying 'that's not funny' as easily as it does what actually comes out: "I don't want to be the weak link. I don't want to be the reason people's lives get messed up." It's honesty. "If you don't know how, then it may be all my fault that anyone gets caught." She rises from the bench, stepping toward him in the darkness and (of course) stumbling. This sort of move, that could send her sprawling if reflexes aren't quick and don't reflect a willingness to keep her from the floor, is exactly the sort of thing one would want to avoid while robbing the Weyr they're calling home. The shadow of Kaelige doesn't seem swayed by her words, and since his face is not only covered by cloth but darkness, there might as well be no physical response at all. The candidate who the time before was quick to grab her, this time does not. Just like the days past that he's seemed to be almost avoiding her, he makes no effort for contact. However, should she stumble close enough to him, he'd not move as if remaining a pillar for her to use to steady herself. But should she fall? He'd only watch. If one could see his expression, it's blank yet with a tension to it that suggests straining. The kind of a child who put his hand in a candy jar once and had his hand slapped for it. That, of course, means the want is still there, just not acted upon. "You will be the reason anyone gets caught, because you instigated this whole movement." Is the rather cold response, turning the words around to a different side of the truth. "But." He presses after a moment, "Again, I will do what I can to make sure that doesn't happen, but I don't believe that should include teaching you how to be better at what you shouldn't be doing anyway." She does fall; there isn't time to expect him to catch her, so her arms move instinctively to catch herself. Fortunately, knees hit first which keeps anything severe from happening to bones that might otherwise have taken the brunt of the fall gravity and darkness have cultivated. "Parsnips," is a swear the way she says it. She's okay, of course, and it shows in the way she's already moving to push herself back onto her knees and then from her knees onto her rump to look up at the figure. Now that she's moved from the glow, her features are similarly obscured (though with no hood and upturned face) though there's something troubled there. "I should be taught," is the argument. "If you won't teach, I'll find someone who will. I'll go where people who know are." Not that she probably knows where that is, just now, but she is a determined sort with an unhealthy amount of perseverance. "If you teach me, I can owe you." This is said simply, but here's her selling point: "If they do, I'll owe them, or have to pay then." Then when... what does she have to offer? A paltry few marks? To men like that? No, they'll ask for payment in something else. One of Kaelige's gloved hands curls into a fist as she falls, the only physical sign of his struggle with restraint. But as Dee pushes herself back to sit, the hooded boy squats in front of her, one arm rested over a thigh, the other steadying himself on the weight of a couple of fingers. There's a moment of quiet where he studies her expression, used to the dark and eyes already well-adjusted to see at least the few details the lack of light may allow him to. "You know people?" His dark voice asks, though there's a teasing aspect to it that otherwise covers his real reason for pursuing that concept. "You don't think one of the other candidates is a good enough pickpocket or liar to give you some pointers?" The sarcasm in his tone is at war with the weight of the things he asks in light of the danger she seems to want to find. "Seeking out the kind that you're.. imagining.." As if they don't really exist, "May make you question some of those optimistic thoughts- you know, the ones about everyone deserving a chance." He's close enough now beside her that at least some of his expression can be seen once her sight adjusts to the low light. His smirk is shallow there, and he doesn't tilt his head enough for his eyes to be seen. "You're willing to make their sort of payment?" "Wouldn't it be better to?" To sacrifice of herself rather than condemn her cohorts. Dee's expression is briefly hollowed by a flash of fear that proves she's either very brave or very stupid (or a mix of the two). "I think I know someone who would take me, leave me and return for me and not ask questions." If there were anything to return for at all. Hopefully whomever she's thinking of would have enough sense to stay even if she told them to go, or would turn back if they realized her unsophisticated plans for self-corruption. Even if she doesn't manage her aim, to be taught, she does seem determined to try, and that in of itself can be dangerous to the cause - perhaps she doesn't realize, given her trust. "I don't think one of the other candidates will teach me." This is the last, and it's not explained. Perhaps she even means to sweep the statement away with the way she moves to get onto her feet, her skirt brushing the floor as she does. "No." The answer is quick, easy, as if it should have been obvious and the question shouldn't have been asked. "The price is higher than the benefit." That seems to be a biased statement, and not fitting with the distanced place he'd put himself so far in this night's discussion. "Far higher." He stresses. "And once you become involved, it's not so easy to be cleaned of it." As she rises, he mirrors her, standing from his squatted position with liquid grace. "Who?" That question is pointed; so much so as that it seems he expects to be familiar with whomever she names if she divulges it. Kaelige folds his arms once straightened, focused on her, "You shouldn't even want to owe me. You don't know what I would ask of you later." Beyond the favor she's already promised him, which he has most certainly not forgotten. "Would you ask the same that they would?" Dee asks just as pointedly as he asked of who she's thinking of; notably, it doesn't answer the question of who she's thinking of. She leans onto the balls of her feet a touch, waiting for an answer to come, her gaze intense and steady on the boy. Kaelige doesn't miss her evasion of the question, but for now lets it go, if with a furrowing of his brow. "No." Is the short answer again, though there's a hesitation with it, not quite as confident. Not quite as sure. "It depends on their goal," He finds some desire to explain, though vaguely, "I'm intrigued by your Craft. Others might not be." "And we're friends," aren't they? "So you wouldn't ask me to trade a piece of myself to fulfill a favor, would you?" Now Dee is stepping closer to the younger boy, not into his space, but not far from it. Those greenblue eyes of his, strict in the moment, don't waver from her as she moves closer. "I don't use that word." Kaelige says as if it's a trained statement, though that notably is not an actual answer. "That could mean many things." He says on her latter question, his head tilting just slightly as if amused with such a serious and potentially sensitive concept, "Remember what you're asking me for? What 'specialty' you want guidance in? You sought me for it for a reason without me telling you any specifics. Which means you know you can't trust me." Or shouldn't, whichever. His view of himself is noticeably negative, his responses driven by it. "Well, you should," Dee is undeterred. In fact, she looks downright stubborn about it, lips pursing and brows raising as if to make challenge or simply point out how useless a challenge would be. She reaches for his hand, seeking to entwine her fingers with his gloved ones. "I'm sure you have your reasons for knowing what I think you know." Dee says it slowly, whether she got the hand or not. Evidently, her view of him is noticeably positive, regardless of how he behaves. "Kael, you don't have to teach me," obviously, "but I will find someone to do so." A pause, "At least I know I'm safe with you when learning." So that's something, by comparison, isn't it? Kaelige lets her have his hand, bothered enough by her resolve to do something so very stupid that it apparently is pushing past that emotional wall he'd resurrected. His gaze doesn't leave her face, though, studying her as if trying, hoping to find a lie there. A lie he knows he won't find because she isn't him. "I won't. It implies too many things." He replies to her stubborn response, a thin grin following it. "Don't." The word is punctuated heavily. For all he said about not caring about a life, apparently Dee throwing hers to the dogs is not in the cards. "I could ensure you never have the chance to ask them." Whoever 'they' are. He continues with that superficial threat, but puts no weight on it, "However," He knows he can't keep her from making her own decisions, not without drastic measures, and even then.. "If it keeps you from asking every shady character in the lower cavern tunnels about how to steal things.." Reluctance seems to drain the energy from his words and himself, a heavy sigh following the trailing off of that statement. "What are you afraid it implies that mightn't be true?" Dee wants to know, squeezing those fingers. In the next moment, though, she's pressing up onto her toes and leaning, with every intention of rewarding his grudging surrender to her wants with a quick peck on the cheek, if she can find it under the hood. Her smile is bright, rocking back onto her heels. "You're a wise man. I promise I'll only ask you, about this." If not potentially other shady talents, if she ever has the need. "Obligation. Liability." Other adjectives sit on his tongue as he trails off again, but are restrained with how she squeezes her grip on his fingers. After a pause that would seem like he doesn't intend to react, she'll find a returned pressure as he squeezes hers. Kaelige doesn't pull away from her peck, his eyes very briefly closing as she does. His free hand lifts to pull back his hood, not that it does all too much to reveal him given the darkness of their surroundings. When he reopens those eyes of his, he studies her- her brightness, her words. All very much with a partially deflated resolve. What is it about this girl? "Not so wise for giving in to you." He corrects with a tired grin. "And you better. If I find out otherwise, I'll make sure they-" Not the shady characters, mind, but the weyrleadership, "do find out and you're as far away from this Weyr as they can get you." While serious, it's not mean by any sense. "No, that's exactly why you are wise," Dee disagrees with a playful bounce on her toes. "You're smart enough to see what a wasted effort it would be to try and do otherwise." She manages to look obedient for a breath in the face of his promise, but then her fingers squeeze his again and she slips her hand free to turn back toward the slate and glow, away from him. "I thought here would be good, since there's less light and there are things we can use to pretend with." It's almost a game. It's dangerous that she thinks of it in that fashion in her alto, though there's a measure of consideration of the space. Evidently, she expects to be taught here, and now. She looks back over her shoulder, arching a brow to silently ask his opinion of her pre-planning. Pre-planning that assures she never had any doubt that he would eventually agree. "I think we need a better definition of wisdom." The playfulness is returned, but still with that reluctance that drags him back from being able to draw any fully-fledged sarcasm. Kaelige follows behind her, his steps still not all unlike the nigh-silent ghosting he'd done before. "Anywhere is appropriate, but everywhere is different. The acoustics- the sounds- of each cavern will carry differently, the exits are placed differently. You better have an escape plan even better drawn out than your theft." His instruction is said over her shoulder as he comes up behind her to look at the slate. He doesn't miss the fact that she'd been expecting this turn of events, and there's a soft groan under his next sigh. "What- besides everything- concerns you the most?" "Everything," Dee answers, already looking back to the slate, the playfulness dwindling from the start of her word into the sigh that comes on the heels of it. The older girl chews her lower lip a moment, thoughtful. "I just don't want to get other people caught." She probably also means also not caught herself, but that somehow doesn't make it out. "I'm afraid I'll... I don't know drop something and people will hear and come running. Or that when I run into someone, I'll not speak a lie smoothly enough. Or..." There's probably a number of these sorts of concerns she could list. She turns to face him, but his catlike tread has left her unprepared for his proximity, even though his voice sounded close, and she's bumping into him as she turns, stumbling a step back. "Or that I'll do something clumsy like that," for all her usual grace. For Dee, it's grace of movement, not refined reflexes. Kaelige raises his gloved hands to place them on her shoulders and, while intending to do so from behind, ends up with her facing him. Still, he rests them there if she allows it, not really applying any sort of pressure, just presence. "I'm expecting you to drop things, and I don't expect you to hold up a lie." There's a smirk there. "And no matter what I do, I can't turn you into a mastermind thief with a pokerface." A small, slow shake of his head follows. There's a lot of won'ts, can'ts and don'ts, though none of this seems to bother him. "I can lie," Dee protests, "just maybe not when I'm nervous." Her lower lip juts out in a brief approximation of a pout. "Maybe we should start there." She takes a breath as if it takes courage to look up at him and ask. "Have you ever played Truths and Lie?" Kaelige's greenblue eyes narrow in playful disbelief. "Oh really?" He asks, smirk broadening enough to create lines over his face, lightening his darkness. "I tend to play lies." A joke, but not really. "But if you wanted to see if you can lie to me, go ahead." He's never pried into her history, he never needed to, so there's little to compare whatever she says to making it a somewhat more even game. "However." He draws out, "There has to be stakes, or else there's no nervousness to counter." "Do you lie to me?" Dee wants to know, though it's asked in a way that seems merely curious. "The way the game works is you tell the person you're playing with three things about yourself, your life. One of them is a lie and the others are true. You have to pick out the lie." She explains the rules succinctly. She also thinks on what he says. "Yes," she agrees, but that doesn't help her come up with terms. "Something that makes me nervous." She's really thinking now, fingers twitching into a little drum beat against her thighs. That she happens upon an idea is obvious in the way her body suddenly stiffens and she convulsively swallows. "Come on." It takes a moment for her to erase the slate, replace it like she was never here, and close the glow. Then in the darkness, she leads them a path that becomes obvious by the time they reach the bowl. It's the familiar path to the hatching cavern. Once there, though, it's not to the galleries she's trying to lead him, but rather, onto the Sands. Only, when they get to the edge -- the place where boot would meet hot sand... Dee freezes, pale (too pale?) in the limited light. "There comes a point when you can't tell anymore." Not entirely true, though he means for when he does and doesn't lie to her- to anyone. Kaelige listens to her instruction, though familiarity is present enough that his nod indicates no need for further explanation. His watch of her expression is curious, his patience waiting however long it takes to find that discomfort that becomes so plainly obvious. While he could have offered his own stakes, it would not be nearly as uncomfortable as for her to fish out her own. There's no words as she moves to lead them elsewhere, letting his hands fall from her shoulders as he follows close enough that he could, but doesn't, hold a hand, close enough to be more shadow-like than walking partner. The location she chooses finally draws his gaze away from her, his eyes sweeping over the hot sands and the clutch within. He stops earlier than she, standing about a foot or two behind her as if she's standing on the edge of a cliff and not the Hatching Sands. "This? Standing again for a clutch? Or going on without permission?" He clarifies, a brow raised as his arms slowly fold. Dee's look when she turns her head back to find his face too long a moment later is practically haunted. "Being near them. And all the uncertainty they bring." For all her struggles, her acceptance, for all the talking-- she still doesn't know if she wants to be here for herself. There's a controlled exhale as she turns her head back and closes her eyes, lifting one foot and placing it gingerly onto the sands, and letting the other follow. She stops there, a mere pace on, and turns. She won't go further, won't intrude more than this on Eliyaveith and her children, but here she'll stand and turn toward Kaelige. "So be it." Kaelige's agreement to her source of unease is curt, but the look on his face, still that raised brow and relaxed expression is either entertained or attempting to understand, though much more likely the former. "There's uncertainty in everything, from the weather to the next breath you take. But if this bothers you.." He lets one hand briefly unfold to gesture needlessly to the sands she's barely tread out on. "Now," He presses, serious through his grin that turns his words as if a chuckle is beneath them despite how she feels, "Talk. Two truths and a lie." She doesn't need to say it does for that much to be obvious, so she doesn't. Her body language speaks to how hard it is for Dee to simply not step back off the sands. "There are mistakes that can't be unmade. I'm just hoping this isn't one." There's truth for him, though not connected to the game they now play. "I was trespassing the first time I met my master," is said perhaps because she needs to earn street cred, along with, "I stole my mother's favorite necklace when I was eight," and the last seems to take time to come up with. It comes with a shrug of her shoulders, dismissive, "The first boy I was with apologized afterward and I didn't accept." Kaelige paces a step or two, his head down as he listens. The fact his hood is down at the moment seems to bother him slightly as he releases his arms from their fold not once but twice to scratch the back of his head and the hood-messed hair there. "There are no mistakes, only actions and consequences." Regardless, apparently, if the consequences are preferred are not. But that's said off-handedly, even dismissively, the important part of course coming after. "Trespassing for what purpose?" This isn't part of the game, and he knows that, but as he paces with full intent to be a physical block for her escape route, he pushes her for details in rather quick pace. "Was it a family heirloom?" A beat, and finally with a longer, wry grin, "Was he ashamed?" No, he's not playing the game correctly, and maybe that's why Dee crosses her arms across her chest, or maybe it's only because she can't stop clenching and unclenching her fingers while she stands on the sands. She gives him a look, but doesn't make complaint of the questions; after all, if this were what she's practicing for, wouldn't there be the likelihood of follow ups? "I was playing hide and seek with Jem, Rik and the others." Gavrik, their fellow candidate also from Southern. "It was a gift from my father." Then, "He didn't know it was my first time and thought it should mean more." Her expression remains carefully blanked of emotion for that last, but her eyes cast to the ground and she moves a foot to give it both relief from heat and so she can draw a line with the tip of her boot. She's not perfectly comfortable and perhaps could have chosen better for the game. Or maybe she's just lying. Kaelige has stopped watching her expression for sake of listening to her phrasing, watching the ground in front of his slow, deliberate footfalls as he paces. He outright ignores that look she gives him as well, though that could entirely be expected. The names she draws are too quick, too easy so he lets the first statement fall away into unimportance. "Yet it was valuable?" Of the necklace, "Where did you put it?" He asks with an easy tone, as if having a conversation over dinner. "You didn't think it should mean more?" Of course, that to the last option, that bringing interest enough for his glance to flicker over to her all but briefly before he continues his path. "To her," Dee answers with almost a bored sigh. "She's a romantic." It's said as statement, not judgment. Then a shrug, "with my dress up things. I had a whole chest." Is anyone surprised? "She found it a seven later." These volunteered answers seem like they're buying time for her sorting an answer to the last. "I didn't know him," is what she comes up with. "It was the first gold flight since I got Crin, the first time I could feel the kind of want that makes people make impulsive decisions just to feel satisfied." A pause comes before she says with careful neutrality, "It wasn't. Satisfying." "Not an easy one then." The creepy comment in regards to satisfaction is meant to be just that, as Kaelige pauses and turns to face her directly. "So why did you take it?" It's clear he'd honed in on which was the lie, though likely not through the subsequent questioning. "Just because it was pretty? You couldn't ask permission? Why did it take so long for her to find it if you had a whole chest of things potentially pilfered?" He makes that part up, clearly, but the effort is put towards pressure, his boots almost on the sands themselves but not quite, using the few inches of height he has on her to loom. "It was quick," Dee counters with a roll of her shoulders, probably thankful that the light here probably doesn't show how her blush is suddenly touching the tips of her ears. "He was quick," is added a moment later. Then, she looks away from Kaelige and his closeness to her. It's a long moment before she sighs, defeat. "Again?" She asks, for the game, one foot inching forward to between his own in its eagerness to leave the sands. Kaelige shakes his head, reaching to put his hands on her shoulders again. Not for an embrace this time, surely, but to keep her focus as he intensely tries to lock his gaze with hers. "I realize it's not part of the game, but you can't give up when you're cornered. Make up those answers. Now." He's forceful, yet calmer than he was when he was saying them, persistent in that she finishes what was started. Dee's eyes close in the face of this new closeness. Her form is tense, even trembling a touch under Kaelige's hand, as the taut string of a bow ready to let an arrow fly in the hands of a novice. It's hard to say whether the closeness is easing her nerves or making them that much worse. "Kael," is a soft pleading breath that Dee almost definitely doesn't mean to say. Dee's not the type to willingly surrender or admit defeat. A slow, tremulous breath later she stumbles over answers, "I thought it was pretty. She didn't want me to mess it up," somewhere in these answers there is suddenly the ringing of truth. Not a necklace, surely, but something that made an impression, that give life to these answers. "She didn't have time to play with me much back then. Riders are busy people." Beat. "Busy parents." Kaelige's jaw clenches very slightly, his fingers squeezing her shoulders just a little tighter at her plea. But that's all he'll give for it, his stare unwavering, patience underlying the stress he puts on her. When she answers them all, he relinquishes his hold, letting his arms fall back to his sides and he takes a step back and to the side, as if himself a door to let her through. Off the Sands. Even a hand gestures widely as if bowing her through. His voice is low to the point only she can hear. Though he does spare a glance away from her to check for any lingering too-close by. "Good enough. Believable enough." Is her reward beyond letting her free. "If you can feign confidence, and give them answers like that, it will be harder to implicate you." Not hard, just harder. "Sometimes silence is good too, but knowing when for that will only come from experience." As if she intends to repeat this event in the future. Stepping off the Sands sees Dee not just stepping, but stepping and then sinking down onto her knees, as if the effort of standing on the edge for even that long was too much. She looks sickened for some moments as she forces herself to take slow and steady breaths. "Hey." Kaelige drops to his knees in front of her, his word not all that much more than a whisper, and somehow comforting despite all the less than friendly things that have passed from him to her this evening. Unless she pushes him away, he would- despite, even, the public place they're in- wrap his arms around her tightly, supportively, unquestionably, one hand on her lower back, the other behind her neck. "...You're alright." "It's like pushing a stone down a slope," Dee murmurs some moments after her arms have gone around him, have seen her clinging to him for that support he's providing. There's an edge of panic in her tone. "I don't think I could stop it now if I wanted to. Not the Standing, not the rest. I feel like some part of me can't even grasp all of this. It's too surreal, too impossible a thing to ever have happened, and yet, here we are." She looks up at him helplessly, her eyes wet with silent tears. "I think I'm making huge mistakes. All of them. If they get caught, if we get caught, I'll have to step forward. I'll never get my master's knot. Everything was so simple in Southern, so simple before all of this." She chokes back a sob, her fingers digging in where they rest; she'd probably like to divert her gaze, but she's locked, somehow, looking at him, in whatever moment she's having now. "You can always stop, you can always give up." Kaelige isn't always (ever?) the best influence, but there's truth in that despite his lies. "I told you when you first came to me with this that it was a bad idea. All of those consequences are very possible. In fact they're damn near more likely to happen than actually succeeding in all this." Not comforting whatsoever in his speech, but his embrace is unfaltering for that time which she requires it. "Aye, it's like you're planning it all. Just so you don't actually have to owe me a favor." And with that, despite the severity of his meaning in losing her potential for mastership, there's a smile on his face, softly playful, his sarcasm restrained to nothing but a light joke as she watches him. "Even if I stop, would they?" Dee's question is practically begging Kaelige for the answer that won't be. Too many things are in motion, too many things will move of their own accord now. The humor is ignored, for the moment, her expression already tortured from all the worry. How much worse will it get before Hatching? Will it break her in the end? There's a rubbing of his thumb in her shoulder, a small massage as he listens, the smile faded after humor had made no appreciable dent. Kaelige could offer not much beyond shrug. The answer she wants but knows won't come, does not. "It's already begun. You can turn your back on it, you can abandon the people who committed themselves to your cause-" Hers because she pushed for it, she helped rile the troops. "You could even put a stop to the bigger plan. But it won't clear your name, no. It won't put back what's already stolen." Could she even stop the main heist at this point? He seems to think it possible. "I can't abandon them." That much is said with resolve. It doesn't stop Dee from putting her head down on Kaelige's shoulder and holding him all the tighter for some moments before she draws a deep breath and forces herself to lift her head and look up at him. "Thank you." It's quiet, too serious and sincere. "Then you have your answer." Kaelige says after her resolution, quietly still but with such finality alongside that dark touch he has to his voice, it sounds all the more like a conclusion. He shifts to stand, intending to draw her up with him and back onto her feet. "You can be afraid, but you know what you have to do, so do it. You aren't alone." In the heist? In the Hatching? Probably both, maybe something even unrelated. Dee sucks in a breath that it seems like she might hold forever, and then lets it go. With it, some of the tension in her frame goes, but likely none of the worry. "I don't want to be alone," she confesses quietly, "will you come sit with me and look at the eggs for a bit?" Kaelige watches her expression, his arms a little less tight and, soon, releasing her as her tension drains away. Just as when she'd asked him to the bathes, again he hesitates with a glance straying over his shoulder and down the tunnel. The same look that previously was followed by a denial of her offer. This time, however, he doesn't draw his hood again. As his blue green eyes look back at her, a subdued grin slightly touches his lips, a detached expression becomes hard to read and a neutral "Sure." is her answer. He leaves an arm out as he turns to climb up into the galleries, as if welcoming her to continue that embrace or leave it, whichever Dee decides. She stays close, letting herself soak in the support that touch affords her. It's some time that she stays tucked under his arm, her head lolling onto his shoulder with growing sleepiness as time passes, her eyes out on the dim sands. Just when it seems she mightn't speak at all, she asks softly, "Who's Chiv?" A quiet chuckle can be felt more than heard given her leaning. Kaelige leaves the arm wrapped around her, probably waiting for sleep to take her before she could come up with more questions. Unfortunately he'd not win that either. His free hand lifts, a tiny motion, indiscret and simple. Nothing majestically appears from Between, but rather creeps, stalks, slithers from somewhere on the floor of the gallery tiers and intends to crawl right over Dee's feet. At the same time, the chittering announcement of Chiv's arrival comes, something between chirping and growling, an odd noise indeed. The rather small, almost emaciated-appearing dusky brown's eyes reel in yellows of alarm as he tilts his head bird-like up at the farmcrafter. "Him." Kael offers, as if the concept is rather anti-climatic. Dee has to stifle her surprised cry lest it disturb the observant clutchmother on the sands, the chittering familiar and yet not, the slithering far more of concern. To stifle it, she turns her face into Kael's shoulder and she doesn't lean back immediately because there are then giggles to smother. Evidently, she can laugh at herself. She does sit up though, in time to look at the brown, her eyes widening slightly, though her voice still soft, "Don't you feed him enough?" is vaguely accusing of the boy, though she squints to see the brown better. There's an obviously pleased look about the boy at Dee's surprise, as if he knew or even planned for Chiv to arrive in such a way. But he, thankfully, doesn't comment on it, instead squeezing her shoulders lightly as she turns to smoother her laughter into him. "Probably not." Kaelige's amused reply doesn't hint at whether he's being sarcastic or truthful. "He's my extra eyes." There might even be a touch of fondness there, maybe. Or perhaps his tone just describes how important the creature is in other regards besides companionship. Kael's fingers tap on his thigh and the brown latches its little claws on his pants to climb up with a grace not all unlike a feline to curl up there. "Well, you can always come to me for a proper meal," she tells Chiv without bothering to find out from Kaelige if that's an appropriate offer to make. That seems to be all she feels the need to say to the firelizard, though, for she looks up at Kaelige. "Will you tell me two truths and a lie?" She probably doesn't have much hope that he will, but it's might be a good time to ask. With the sleepiness of her curious look, it's possible she mightn't even remember them clearly come morning. The little brown lizard clicks, his head turning quickly with one eye upturned at his Bonded to Dee. And then apparently decides something, whether he understands it or not, is better in the girl's lap which he would shortly try to crawl into. Since he's generally never seen with the boy, one could only imagine he doesn't get all that much physical attention. Kaelige lays his head on hers as she asks her question, a long silence being her reward for it. And when it seems like her request would go unheeded, which it really should, "I once fell off a ship while learning to throw knots, and ended up hanging by my ankle from the bow." He speaks slowly, not as if playing the game but like he's telling a story. "Shortly before I came to Fort, my father gave me his egg as a gift," implying Chiv, of course, "And I have a younger brother." Dee listens, but as Kaelige didn't play the game the right way when she told him, perhaps she can be forgiven for not playing it correctly now. She doesn't guess. Instead, after some moment of stroking and gently massaging the brown, whose presence she doesn't seem to mind in the least, she looks up at Kaelige from where her head is still leaning against his shoulder. "Where's home for you, Kael?" "That's cheating." It doesn't matter that he cheated, only that she is. But as she moves to look up at him, there's a grin there. And that, it seems, is the answer to her question because Kaelige's expressive eyes that look down at hers are as secretive as the lack of words he gives. "I'm a bad girl now, remember? Cheating is part of the--" Dee's sleepy silly smile is interrupted by what turns out to be a fairly tremendous yawn that she doesn't cover because her hands are otherwise occupied, "--game." She closes her eyes in the next moment, her hands slowing. "Mm," is sleepy just when he might think her asleep. "We should get back. Will you walk me?" Kaelige never faltered from that look, as if regardless if she pursued it or not it wouldn't have changed the result. Her request would see him standing slowly, the arm around her being used to stand her with him if she'd oblige such, with that grace that comes too-easy. Another quiet, "Aye." is almost-whispered as he'd lead her out and back to the barracks. No reluctance touches that singular sound, but maybe something akin to tension for whatever may come after they leave this place. |
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