Logs:Warmth for Winter
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| RL Date: 5 December, 2015 |
| Who: Lys, V'ret, Evyth, Zoth |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Lys and V'ret try to beat the crowds in looking for the best stuff |
| Where: Storerooms, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 18, Month 6, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Anvori/Mentions, H'vier/Mentions, Jocelyn/Mentions, Z'riah/Mentions |
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>---< Storerooms, High Reaches Weyr(#273RJs) >-------------------------------<
Massive in scale, the Weyr's main storage passage connects to the kitchen
on one end and the outbound tunnel on the other. Large enough to admit a
wagon laden with goods, the tunnel easily permits the unloading and
organization of supplies into the various storerooms.
Branching off from this corridor are multiple caverns, the nearer two
being 'open' stores from which residents can readily help themselves,
while the deeper stores are kept locked up tight with a posted sign and
inventory hung on a hook outside of each. An alcove next to the public
stores serves as a catch-all area for reshelving items whose destination
is uncertain; two sets of stone shelving and several bins hold these items
neatly until a stores assistant has a moment to deal with them.
Though the storage caverns vary in size, shape, and the smoothness of
their walls, all belong to the same system: whitewashed walls, swept
floors, and most importantly, neatly labeled and inventoried shelves
providing ample space to stow all the supplies a busy Weyr needs. Though
there's no direct internal lighting, a glowbasket may be brought in from
the niche outside each cavern, the better to ward off pests and the inky
dark of deep caves.
-----------------------------< Active Players >-----------------------------
Lys F 20 5'5" slender, blonde hair, blue-green eyes 0s
V'ret M 20 6'2" fit, brown hair, blue eyes 2m Evening is usually when V'ret vanishes. Even as the sick are recovering and the Weyr is finding its new normal, he hasn't been back to being super sociable. He did sit down to dinner with most of the rest of them, tonight, but only long enough to eat and bolt for the lower caverns. This particular evening, though, he's wound up in storage, which is not at all usual. It's still near enough dinner that his is the only glowbasket illuminating the cavern he's wandered into, way back in a far corner among shelves of feather pillows and blankets. Even if it weren't for the light, he'd be easy enough to find; the process of poking through the shelves has stirred up enough dust to provoke an occasional explosive sneeze. The bobbing glow light grows brighter as the slender bearer nears coming along the corridor the storage cavern V'ret is in. It pauses in the entry to the cavern, pauses in a way it hadn't paused in answer to the sound of sneezes. Carrying the glow basket at her side, Lys' face is only faintly illuminated, her head turned toward the other glow. After a moment, her boots move across stone again and she greets the bronzerider with the question, "Taking the first come first served policy seriously, V'ret?" "Shouldn't I?" V'ret shoves a stack of things back onto the shelf as she approaches, as though concerned that his preference for anything there shouldn't be noted by any prying eyes. But then he grins, easily. "When one's taste exceeds one's budget, it seems only prudent. But I don't seem to be the only one, unless you've decided to come all this way just to keep me company?" The first only gets a lopsided grin, the sort that suggests the answer is obvious from Lys' presence here, now. She moves to set her glow so that it's far enough away from V'ret's that the cavern benefits more from the light. "Do you have very rich tastes, then? Too bad we can't find sponsors or something. People who would buy us things for some kind of service we could offer now or in the future." Perhaps she'd be too willing to trade away her loyalty, but with the rumors about her service to Irianke, it's as likely more words than follow through. "And if I were coming just to keep you company, we might have to wonder what you'd done," horrible things, must be, says her tone and single lifted brow, "to warrant that." "Rich?" V'ret regards a quilt rather reproachfully for that. The top one on the stack on that shelf, folded so tidily, the stitching clearly giving way between two squares of fabric from the strain. "Maybe not that. Better than I was raised to, certainly. The exchange of goods for services--around here they'd call that unthinkable," with a gesture at the piles of things all free for the taking. "But it does seem potentially more lucrative. The services we're entitled to offer at the moment are unfortunately somewhat limited." A slight pause. Just long enough to be meaningful. "I've thought about seeing if Anvori will let me have a few shifts back after graduation, so long as I take them in my free time." See, mind out of the gutter, completely. "Do you think me so undeserving of your company?" "Oh, no," Lys disagrees, but with a tone of sarcasm, "All you have to trade away for this very fine, second-third-fourth-fifth-or-twentieth-hand items to furnish your little temporary slice of the Weyr is to give them your fealty, your service, your dragon and your life if they need it." The blonde flashes a fake smile. "I'd say these days the cost isn't usually a life, but-" there is that plague that's said to be stopping now. She shrugs, clearly very sensitive to the whole situation. Clearly. At least she's stopped wearing gloves and mask by now. "Seems like he might, if you were any good at what you did," she adds of Anvori. And to the rest, she feigns thoughtfulness, "I'm not sure," then, almost playfully, "Have you been a very bad man?" She reaches for the nearest pillow to pull it off its shelf and give it a thorough examination for stains or other disgusting disqualifiers. "Most things in this world cost you your life, one way or another." V'ret's tone is more serious than it ought to be, under the circumstances. Or perhaps not, given the topic of conversation. Two things contrasting against each other, and apparently the serious wins. "I won't claim to be a good man, but I'm better than some. Worse than others. Depends very heavily on your standards. Jocelyn disapproves of my work ethic," or at least his lack of public demonstration thereof. He shifts around her, to take that pillow off her hands, or the next if she's particularly attached to it, have his own look-over. "They could all stand new feathers, I think." The greenrider's surrender of the pillow comes with a slight hesitation, perhaps just because she's not done yet, but she doesn't keep it, taking up another (and surrendering that one after study if necessary). "None of us are going to get out alive anyway, and for most of us what we do while we're here isn't much going to matter in the long run either," Lys seems to agree readily with his first. Speaking also gives her time to consider the second and that might be why there's the wry, "Jocelyn disapproves of a lot of things, I wouldn't take it personally," the greenrider might even be called a friend of the gold-. The greenrider's movements slow to a crawl before she says, "They could," the pillows, and, "Not everyone can be good, or should be good, I think. Seems like there's some kind of balance. I mean, not that I can tell what it is or what it should be, but." Another shrug. This might be a little deeper of a conversation than the blonde is comfortable with. Two points of lightness in the dark. Why shouldn't it be deep? Except that this whole part of storage smells like old feathers and mustiness and the glows are particularly good at illuminating the dust getting dislodged by all this moving around. Lighter, then: easy smiles as V'ret puts the pillow back, without depriving her of the second. "All shades of gray," verbally waving off those thoughts. Gray, like his shirt. Most of them are. He doesn't wear a lot of color. "If you don't share her opinion, then maybe you could find my presence tolerable now and then. Without regard to where I fall on the scale of good to," pause, "not." "My company isn't something that people generally welcome," Lys points out after a moment's silence and some picking at some feathers poking through the fabric of the pillow. "An acquired taste, if you're being kind," not that it seems to bother her if he's inclined not to be. "What kind of company do you like? Talking? Silence? Cards?" She makes suggestions as she leans to put the pillow back, keeping one of those small feathers for occupying her fingers, fanning the fluffy tufts. The young man makes an acknowledging noise, but not necessarily one that could be taken for agreement. "When I first started working at a bar, I would do shots and just hope they wouldn't burn too bad going down. Waste of good liquor, sometimes. Some of the best things in life, as it turns out, are acquired tastes." It's a careful little speech; V'ret's precise not just about the choice of the words but the articulation of them. "Do you play cards?" Head tilted as he eyes her. "Why?" Lys asks with a tilt of her own head; probably, it's about doing the shots, but it could be about the cards. Her smile is a coy thing now, keeping the answer about the cards with a silent inquiry of 'what do you think?'. "Why?" Echo? "You can't be much of a bartender if you don't have a taste for the alcohol." It's not a metaphor for anything, it's just a statement of fact. Probably. Accompanied by more smiling. He's amused, V'ret, for some reason or another. "Some women don't think of it as a particularly feminine activity." His tone implies, of course, that there is something seriously deficient about women who think that way. "I haven't played much in a long time. But I think if I'm going to be a proper bronzerider, it would be a good idea to get back to it. I know a few tricks, though." Oddly, perhaps, Lys seems amused in turn, her smile going from coy to something warmer. "If you show me yours, I'll show you mine," sounds like a genuine offer. She leans to her left to pull down a quilt to examine next, shaking it out in front of her as she adds, "I've never had a reason to be concerned with what's feminine and what's not." She's no tomboy, not with the way she uses cosmetics from time to time and the way she kept her hair braided before it was cut for weyrlinghood, and there's enough skirts in her non-work wardrobe, but neither is she sitting around the barracks with some of the sillier girls inclined toward chat about fashion and boys. Bigger smile. "I'd like that." And this offer, however in fun, seems to render V'ret much more helpful with getting down the quilt, taking aside another corner of it to help pull it out without dragging it on the floor. Who knows what's been down there, after all? "I'll never fault a woman for her hobbies, one way or another, but some of the, ah, younger girls seem to be convinced that men are considerably more concerned with how they dress and behave than we are." Almost confidentially. The great secrets of the male sex. "I imagine it only matters when sex is a consideration. Or, you know, the things leading up to that. Even then, I think the men I've known have cared less about what a woman was wearing than their willingness to take it off." There's a smirk for that, but, too, a slight tensing of Lys' shoulders. Her discomfort gets rolled into a critical look for the quilt. "Too purple," she pronounces after a moment. "Even if purple is one of the most expensive dyes." If one's tastes were rich, this might be The One. "What else do you like to do?" If one's tastes were rich. "If you don't take it, perhaps I will." V'ret would not know 'too purple' if it threw a drink in his face and called him a bastard, so perhaps that part helps. "Clothes can be appealing, but so can a great many other things." But no lingering on that particular subject; he has sharp enough eyes for that. "Until we Impressed, I didn't have a great many hobbies outside of work. Liking what I did felt like enough. I might take a night off to have drinks privately with a friend," which probably doesn't just mean drinks, "but mostly I had plenty to fill my time and it kept more than enough in the way of marks in my pocket to do what I liked the rest of the time." "They can," she allows, "I used to trade my time to a bronzerider for new clothes." Lys says it so casually that she's either quite comfortable with whoring or it wasn't whoring at all, "Pretending to be bad at cards to win it only works once and even then, it probably could've been dangerous. I never made enough marks to do what I wanted otherwise. Must've been nice for you. Do you like gathers?" "Not a strategy I'd recommend, no. And yes. I can dance well enough not to step on anyone's feet, at any rate, though the last one I went to was somewhat soured by that business at Crom." Though V'ret does not linger overlong on that point. Everybody's evening was ruined on that particular night, wasn't it? Not his for any particular reason. Obviously. "I imagine it may be awhile before..." Pause. "Before people are comfortable with crowds again." Not him for any particular reason. Obviously. "Yeah," is probably for Crom and for crowds. "I didn't go to that one," Crom. Lys moves to start folding the quilt back up, brows lifting to ask silently for his help with the putting away as much as he gave for the getting of it out. "Once they are, we could go. I like gathers, but not crowds if I'm alone. I need people to go with." This help, too, is easily given. Maybe even easier. Corner matched to corner, as V'ret says, "I'd be happy to go with you. It's strange to think, soon enough, we could go anywhere. Even if the weather gets cold, there's always Ista, or Southern. I imagine it's less novel if you're from around here, though." This help, too, is easily given. Maybe even easier. Corner matched to corner, as V'ret says, "I'd be happy to go with you. It's strange to think, soon enough, we could go anywhere. Even if the weather gets cold, there's always Ista, or Southern. I imagine it's less novel if you're from around here, though." It's no secret that flight by this point that flight makes Lys ill, so the way she rolls her shoulders probably is out of deference to that. "I didn't see many beaches until I went to travel with the traders for the turn. Before I came back and stood. We went out Ista-ways, and even then it was only where the train was going. It'll be nice, though, to be able to pick and choose for a change, instead of just ending up where work is taking you anyway. I think I'd like to see Southern. Oh, and Red Butte. Anywhere you've never been that you want to see?" She collects the quilt to put back on the shelf before moving to take another, this time offering the opposite corner to V'ret before trying to shake it open. This for some reason seems to take several moments of thought, but thankfully there's a quilt to make up the time. "This remains the furthest from home I've ever been, I believe." V'ret's smile there is a bit more reserved than most of them. "Used to know someone would talk about how I ought to see Ista, but never got around to it back when I should have." "Well, freedom soon enough," Lys answers with a half-smile that might be meant to be cheering. "Where's home?" she asks as she leans to get a better look at the quilt. "I like this one. The way the green goes with the tans." Her free hand gestures to indicate what she's talking about. It does look awfully well-loved, though. It might be better suited to a summer quilt than something that keeps warmth in winter. "Crom." Simple enough, sparing the details. V'ret's upbringing: Simple. Right. "It's very pretty," though he'd probably be agreeing no matter what she'd said about it. "A bit thin, though. You'd need another blanket under it, perhaps. Unless you're planning on spending the winter with someone to help keep you warm." A grin: it's a joke, see? "I don't think Evyth will fit under this," Lys quips back, suggesting that's the only person she's planning to spend her winter with. "I used to have a friend for that, sometimes, but he's moved away." The words are said with a shrug. So much to shrug about in Lys' life; the shrugging is probably the lie she's learned best. "I came from Balen when I was six, but I don't remember living there. Do you like the Weyr better than Crom?" It's an innocent inquiry, the sort that suggests the greenrider's taken V'ret at his word. This first bit does raise V'ret's eyebrows. "And you never intend to do so again? I'm sorry." The first part might not seem entirely genuine, but the second much more so. "I do like it better here. People being more... relaxed. About a lot of things. As I was neither in a hurry to go down a mine nor to be responsible for supporting half a dozen children of my very own, there was a lot to be said for things, here." "Well, I might, but it's not easy to find a guy who just wants to sleep." Lys answers dryly, the humor almost covering all the discomfort. "When you put it like that, I can't help but see it. I mean, I probably would've thought you were odd if you didn't like here better, but..." His argument was just that convincing. She gives the quilt one more look and then starts to fold it up. "I suppose if my weyr is big enough I could have two quilts. If it doesn't have a hearth, I might need that anyway. I heard some of them don't," which sounds just awful given 'Reaches winter and her tone says as much. "You don't meet many women who only want that, either, at least not here," V'ret points out, although gently. "I expect many of us won't, since everything I hear makes it sound like the weyrlings get the last pick. But eventually someone else will--" Tiniest of pauses. "Move, and we'll get better spaces." Move, not die. Dying is something not to be mentioned, not yet. The fact that some people already have and that will have opened up some nicer places is also not mentioned. He helps, again, with returning the quilt to its previous state. "No," is agreement but Lys' voice is hollow in giving it. She doesn't look at him as she puts the quilt away with care, tucking it under a couple of others and making it disappear from sight. She must really like it. "We can work our way to better places, turns from now. I suppose our silver threads are supposed to give us a little edge on something like that. And we're lucky that it's an Interval and not a Pass, or we might all have to be roommates forever." By the end, she's managed to find her humor again. Too serious entirely: "We're lucky for a lot of reasons." V'ret's humor is a more fleeting thing, apparently. Harder to catch, harder to keep hold of once he has it. "Maybe we've made it far enough that we're entitled to relax a little. To enjoy ourselves a little. Silver threads or no." Careful tiptoe words, there. "And if you want company for for anything more than cards..." Apparently taking some cue from her idea, he retrieves the purple one to move it behind some others. "But if not, I'll say no more about it." Lys' eyes are slow to draw away from the shelves and look at the bronzerider. There's silence as she looks at him, her expression difficult to read. It's obvious that she's not dismissing his offer out of hand, but the best she seems able to settle on is, "Maybe," and another little roll of her shoulders that isn't really a shrug. "Time to sort if something like that would work before winter," she murmurs, "while playing cards, or talking, or not-- talking." There's an awkward moment there, but she's turned her face back to the shelves. "Were there any you wanted to look at especially?" is something of an obvious attempt to change the subject, but a glance back toward V'ret betrays mild apology and anxiety. Either V'ret is an incredibly patient man, or at least he's capable of acting the part, smiling, keeping his distance, nonthreatening, also not showing a hint of disappointment at the answer. But near the end, he finally looks away, this forming a great excuse to start studying shelves again. "I'd already been though more than a few. I think at this point I'm going to go wash the dust out of my hair," though it must be said that his hair looks perfectly fine. "We'll find time for cards one of these evenings." At least that Lys can answer quickly, and does, turning to face the bronzerider. "Please," and, "I'd like that," both of which sound genuine, a touch of a blush barely visible on her cheeks. She might try to explain, might try to apologize, but instead, there's nothing. Not from Lys who only looks steadily at V'ret. There is a curious brush of warmth wrapped in the smell of delectable baked goods from Evyth's mind on Zoth's. It's an unspoken question, does he know what's happening? Zoth is rarely a chatty creature, and yet the contact finds him welcoming. A deeper, richer sort of warm. Plush like velvet. « She's very pretty, » unhelpfully, seeing as this cannot have escaped Evyth's notice. « Is she still upset about Reisoth's rider? » He's all solicitous. Concerned for her well-being, like any good person should be. His rider has looked long enough to take notice of the blush, for the smile to have grown in response to it. "I'll see you... tonight, or in the morning." Then he takes up his glowbasket and heads away until hers is the only light left there. Evyth is a chatty creature, but she tends to be good about not not being overly bothersome when one seems like one wishes solitude (except if they really need her to cheer them up or something). Now, as always, feelings infuse her words in a very honest way. She's confused because Lys' feelings are foreign and the greenrider isn't, just now, willing to try to explain it all to her lifemate. It's like listening at the door and trying to piece together the happenings for Evyth. « She is, when she thinks about him, » is distractedly answered because that's not her personal point of focus right now. « She was nice to him, wasn't she? » V'ret, she means, and the tone is one of great suspicion - not for V'ret, but for Lys, as if being nice to someone is something the greenrider might otherwise try to hide from her). "Yeah," is probably a lame answer, but that might explain why Lys feels the need to turn her back to V'ret as soon as his glow is receding and face the shelves, breath coming too quickly. If the light of her glow shows her sinking down onto the floor to wrap arms around her knees, with her back to the entry, she doesn't seem to realize. « Were they very close? » Zoth's focus apparently is not on his rider's feelings. Or anybody's feelings about his rider. V'ret's a tough guy, right? He can manage himself. Though he does pause, at some point, there. Held low, his glowbasket does little to illuminate his face at that point. « I think she... will be nice, » the bronze settles on, as his rider finally properly makes his exit. Evyth takes this in with a curious sort of silence, thoughtful certainly, but not noisily so. In the end, she doesn't comment on the latter, but rather allows her focus to be shifted to the first. « She was his friend, » of which there are few, it's mentally noted, « and he said he would be there for her. She trusted him, » there's a quiet force in the word 'trusted,' something not easy to come by and not easily earned. It's probably because Lys is able, after some moments to collect herself enough to rise that Evyth isn't panicked, in fact there's no trace of that, but then the mental door still seems to be shut and there is the sense available to Zoth if not intentionally shared that Evyth is still partly pressed to that door. One could get the impression that Zoth is similarly not in conversation with his own rider about all of this--but it's different, too. This information-gathering is thoughtful but not, as one might say, considerate. This isn't information gathered for his rider. This is for himself. « Friends are difficult. Trust is even more difficult. Perhaps it will come, in time. But his taste in women... favors the inaccessible. » Like he is the long-suffering friend who has had to put up with similar nonsense on a number of occasions. Evyth doesn't mean to abruptly snort-giggle. She really doesn't. And the fact that she does makes her do it more. Fortunately, such mundanities don't prohibit dragons from communicating and so the sounds of her sudden amusement lace themselves in feeling and sound around and through her words. « Inaccessible, » it's such an apt description of her beloved rider. That's what's so funny. « Is he patient? » This seems important. There's a hesitation before Evyth volunteers (slowly), « She's had a lot of hard things in her life before me. » There's reasons for her inaccessibility, see. It's not just because, as some women might pretend. « Yes. » And this is as honest as Zoth gets: abrupt, the instant answer, the answer that comes without time to deliberate it, the occasional gleaming-bright blade cutting through his inclination to deliberate everything to where it is soft and pleasant. Yes, V'ret is patient, but it comes with zero explanation as to why this is so sure. Or, if he is patient, what else might he be? « They say that time heals all wounds, but it does not seem to be a true thing. » That phrase is turned over in Evyth's mind. « Time, » she says after some moments, « makes the hurt old, it makes memory of the hurt and memory is imperfect. » Their riders' less than their own. Chatterbox and cheery presence that Evyth might be, she's not stupid. « Time might help, but not all things, I think. Some hurts are part of who you are. » Not who Evyth is, she has none, so far, but Lys? Lys has them. Evyth loves them. They're part of her. It doesn't necessarily make it easier to bear. « Thank you, Zoth, » Evyth thinks to say as she makes ready to withdraw, and « I like talking with you. » He gives her interesting things to think about. If Zoth has noticed the distinction, he shows no sign: « Some hurts are part of who we are, » he says, as though agreeing. Not that he's had any space for his own hurts, but maybe he was born with them. Or maybe he's taken his rider's wounds as his own. But he's showing none of them, smooth and placid surface of his thoughts retreating back to himself as he waits in the summer night for his rider to emerge from the caverns, which does not happen for some time. |
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