Logs:Weird Public Displays of Affection
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| RL Date: 25 August, 2015 |
| Who: Everett, Yesia |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Everett and Yesia, sitting in a bar, B-O-O-Z-I-E-R. (There might also be a little kissing.) |
| Where: Snowasis, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 15, Month 8, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Alida/Mentions, Taikrin/Mentions, Jo/Mentions |
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The Snowasis is rarely quiet, and even then, the high-ceilinged former
weyr is kept from echoing by the fantastical booths tucked into its
convoluted perimeter. The secluded seating spaces have been shaped from
the truncated stalagmites that escaped the smoothing of the main floor,
and are both softened and separated by colorful hangings that are thick
and opaque enough to make each corner its own private nook.
Some of the smaller stalactites still roam the ceiling, their jagged teeth
tracing a bumpy, inverted spine to the hearth. There, a thick rug with a
low klah table and comfortable armchairs and couches sit, their upholstery
and cushions changed sporadically to match the season: bright, light
colors in the summer, fresh greens and yellows in the spring, warm
autumnals in fall, and clear, rich hues for winter. Small tables litter
the rest of the cavern, enough to fit up to four people each, while stools
stand along the smooth wooden bar behind which is the passthrough window
to the kitchen. Glass-paneled cabinetry behind the bar provides a clear
view of the available liquors, the many colors reflecting the soft light
of glows tucked into strategic niches around the cavern. Here we are: exactly where every guy wants to take the object of his affections. His workplace! Oh, but it's Everett's night off, which one can tell because he's sitting playing solitaire on the wrong side of the bar as he waits for this girl to show up. He has a beer, there, that he's been working on for a few minutes, but it's a particularly mild form of liquid courage. Just a few sips to take the edge off, not too many to remember which order the cards have to be stacked in. He seems to be trying very hard to avoid looking in the direction of either entrance. For at least a few minutes, it'll work. Among the things Yesia learned during weyrlinghood? Leatherworking; dancing; self-defense. The importance of being on time. Okay. Maybe that last one slipped past her a little bit, because she's never on time, even for dates. You have to keep them on their toes. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Maybe she forgot. Maybe she forgot. Maybe she fell between. Any of these things might cross Everett's mind, if he gets anxious enough waiting, but eventually the greenrider does show up, dolled up as only Yesia dolls up to go to a place literally three minutes from her ledge. The skirt she's chosen stops mid-thigh, white, and the tunic is a bright yellow thing like the gemstones people sometimes find in the mines, with exactly the same shine. There are ribbons in her hair to match, and - well, yes, she looks very pretty. Finding Everett isn't a chore; if he keeps looking he'll spot her well before she slids into the chair across from him, propping a chin in her hand and grinning. "Hi." The first game is nearly won; the second is begun and lost in short order before Everett lets himself start looking at the door. In a way, a slight delay might have been worse. She might have caught him on edge, instead of after he's had a few minutes to force that back into a near-perfect facsimile of calm. He does look up before she reaches him, makes eye contact there, but then it's all broad smiles. He's... well, he's made more of an effort to match than usual. His clothes are crisp, fresh, monochromatic gray and black. There is a brief moment where his gaze is tugged downward. Still holdbred enough to be impressed that women have legs, evidently. "You look fantastic." At least it has the advantage of sounding heartfelt. Or somewhere-felt. It is to Yesia's credit that she doesn't say she knows. She simply lights up at the compliment, tilting her head so the ribbons and curls bob off to the side while she studies him, his clothes, noting the effort he's put in. "You look nice too," she decides after her suvey is complete. "I don't have a lot of reason to wear dresses or skirts anymore. The worst part about dragonriding is that all my clothes would get ruined." When she frowns, it's not entirely serious, though she does seem the sort. "Were you waiting long?" The question is innocent sounding, as she leans down to peer at his cards, like she might commandeer his game again. "I hadn't even thought about that. It must be tricky just getting down to the bowl--" Everett cuts that off before it can progress to the logical line of questioning. Too forward? "A few minutes, but it's not like I was bored, and a little bit of anticipation is good for the spirit, isn't it?" He doesn't give her too long to look at his cards; he collects them back up and starts to cut them--no, he can't seem to shuffle like a normal human being, not with an audience, instead it's a complicated-looking series of sybil cuts. "Speaking of spirits, what do you fancy? All top shelf, I'm not cutting any corners on a special occasion." He squares up the deck and sets it down again. "It's not so bad," Yesia assures, leaning back and waving a hand as he takes his cards up, her eyes tracking his movements with curious eyes. "I mean, it's just Aeaeth bringing me down, but straps aren't comfortable without breeches, or a jacket, and then you have to wear the helmet and..." So yes, it's actually tricky. She's hypnotized by his hands, the flip and switch of the cards, enough so that she says, "Wooow," in a very low voice, barely blinking until he asks about drinks. "Oh. Whatever. You're the bartender," only, not right now, "I trust you to pick something I'd like. Maybe a good, sweet wine. Or, one of those," she gestures with her hands in stacks, "layered, colored fruit things, with the speared fruit out of the top? I don't drink much, usually." Hint. "Sweets for the sweet," Everett says, grinning. "I got it. You just sit pretty, I'll be back in a minute." He leaves his beer, the cards, pushes his chair out to go let himself back behind the bar. He has to wave off a couple orders in the process, but surely this is too important to be left up to someone else's discretion. A couple minutes before he returns, with another beer in one hand and the other with, well, a girl drink. It's not the size of a boat, just a Collins glass, and the fruity garnish is limited to a trio of raspberries on a skewer. But it's impressively red. "I like doing fruit. Even though we're generally a bit limited in whatever we have on hand on any given day. Sometimes you get folks who come in wanting something that involves every berry known to man and I wonder how they think we just keep all that around." Sitting pretty is her specialty, and Yesia smooths that very short skirt to fold her hands in her lap very obediently, with a very bright smile that follows him. It can't take him too long, otherwise she'll get distracted and probably wander off, if the way she's looking all around the Snowasis by the time he returns is a prelude of things to come. She catches his return though, with an "Oh!" of delight when she spots the drink in his hand. She'll take it greedily when it's offered, but her first sip is dainty, testing it. "Most people don't know how to do them right, here. Everyone just drinks cheap beer and whiskey, or these really expensive, thick, burning things. I don't like the taste of them. So fruit." And she plucks a raspberry off to put it in her mouth. "I'd go all over Pern to buy berries for good drinks, if I knew how to make them." There's lemon in it, which helps to cover up both the gin and the sweetness that might otherwise take on a certain cough syrupy quality. "Most people have more workaday tastes," Everett reflects as he resumes his chair, watching that trick with the raspberry with avid interest. "I think I get more orders for this sort of thing from men than women, strangely enough." Or maybe not strangely at all, if he were to take a minute to think about it. "But women do drink more cocktails and less straight liquor. I... I only do straight liquor either when it's incredibly expensive, which is almost never, or when I need to get drunk very efficiently, which is also almost never." "Wine," Yesia emphasizes, "is easiest. And good, and not hard to get even if you can't afford the expensive stuff." She, who never really buys her own drinks, would know this certainly. Even so, she's alternating toying with the straw - with her tongue - and drinking during the conversation, apparently rapt on Everett's inferences. "I think the women here are very mannish," is her explanation for the dichotomy. "I mean...there's Alida, and Taikrin, and...Jo. They're all more manly than most men." His eyes have a habit of following her mouth like snakes are supposed to follow flutes. Everett is not the most subtle of creatures, here. "I like some wines better than others. It's easy to get spoiled by the good ones, I think. I guess that's true of a lot of things, if you think about it." Which is not actually apropos of what Yesia's going on with, and his focus is now clearly on catching up. "Well, expectations are different, here. I guess when you're free of having to be what tradition says you have to be... some people make different choices." He looks at her over his glass, eyebrows raised. "Do you prefer that kind of macho? I could probably take up grunting instead of having real conversations." Yesia, however, is the most subtle of charmers. She can't be doing that incidentally, not cold sober as they both still are. "I guess," she ventures, "I don't really have very refined tastes for wine, then. I still prefer klah, just klah, or tea. I got a very old whiskey when we graduated from weyrlinghood, and I think I'm going to sell it to someone. I hate it." The blasphemer -- lucky for her looks, she is. She leans away from him though, as he brings up tradition, heaving a sigh. "I think they were mannish to start with, not that the weyr made them this way. It hasn't made me mannish. My new wingleader isn't mannish. Even my friend Paz, who Impressed a blue dragon," like that's a scandal, "isn't like that. Try again." She laughs over her glass at him. "No. Well. Sometimes. It depends on what I want. I like talking to you. When guys are just...big and grunty, they're probably better for other entertainment." All of this seems to bear some real thinking about, it's not necessarily all just pleasant small talk. Everett even frowns a bit there, momentarily, but it washes away easily. He finishes off the first glass, finally, and moves on to the second, but it's not particularly noticeable when he says, "The way you say that, I could almost think you'd been here all your life." There's a wry smile to go with it. "I'll take what I can get. The grunty types have their uses, but I'm not good at it. Can't really get the, ah--" He makes an attempt at such a sound, hand on his belly. "Diaphragm, I think. Doesn't come out right." The greenrider's expression goes stony for a second or three, then she shakes her head vehemently in rejection of his comparison. "No. Only about a turn. Maybe it takes time, before I start grunting and growing a mustache and...back hair." Shudder. "It's been a very long turn, though. Everything changed so much." She uses a perfectly manicured nail to twirl the skewer of fruit around the rim of her glass, chasing it absently with her fingertip. Her laugh is chiming and lingering, that hand drawing away from the glass so she can cover her mouth and shake her head at him. Yesia sounds suggestive when she says, slow, "You don't have to be grunty to be good at it." After another drink, Everett eyes Yesia across the table, eyes first on her finger and then on her face. "Don't I? No, I suppose I don't, do I." Allow him to look a little pleased with this turn of conversation, sitting forward in his chair. "I thought you were going to be shy. That I was going to have to be patient. Now, I'm starting to wonder if this isn't all going a bit fast." Only, he doesn't actually sound particularly concerned. "You're something else, aren't you?" Yesia looks archly at him, her lips pursing. "You think so?" is a question of everything he's said, and she picks each apart in turn. "I'm very shy, sometimes, and I don't mean to be too forward. I mean, we haven't kissed or anything, not really, but I don't want you to be uncomfortable, not when you make me feel so comfortable." There is something genuine in that last bit, but she doesn't let it linger. "We can go slower." All those calculated movements cease: finger withdrawn, posture prim, taking another sip of her drink. "I'm just a holdbred girl with a green dragon. There are plenty of girls like me. What about you, bartender?" Affectionate, that. A pet name, more than a title. "Plenty, really? Will you make me a list? I'm kidding." There's not even an actual pause between the second question and what follows, there, no chance taken on any possibility of her taking it seriously. "What about me? I have a decent job, a few marks in my pocket, a little free time. I'm good at stupid card tricks. Most of my jokes aren't very funny, but I mean well. I think I'm a good listener. You could do worse." He takes his glass in hand but doesn't drink for a moment. "And I'm perfectly comfortable, so long as you are." Yesia levels a look that might be dangerous, were she not smothering a smile, but any semblance of it fades as she listens. Habitually, one big ringlet of hair ends up between her fingers, twisted around. "Not that stuff. Tell me - tell me what you did before you came here. What about your family? How did you end up at the weyr? You can't have been Searched without dragon to lay the eggs, but people come and go all the time. Everyone has their story." Curses, this attempt to divert the conversation appears to have been foiled, and that's exactly the face he makes. At least not trying to hide it. "From near enough to you to curse not having known you sooner, it would have probably brightened things considerably. Mother got married when I was a kid. Her husband and I never got on. Took off soon as I could, did odd jobs, learned to do this," lifting his glass, "and then decided I should try and get a job somewhere with a slightly classier clientele than my last place of employment, maybe a little less... uptight place than even a major Hold's apt to be." He pauses, has a drink, pauses some more, eyes the glass. "Don't know much about my real father, but he was a rider. Maybe I've got half a fancy that if I hang around awhile, it could happen." That, at least, appeases her more than his first attempt. And, in retrospect, maybe it is an accident that she moves the way she does because she is twirling that stick of fruit in her rink again, daintily and without apparent thought, before she pulls it out to pull the last two raspberries off the spear. It was probably more effort to sit still. "You wanted classier clientele and you ended up here." She sounds amused. "Are you disappointed? I was. Am still, sometimes. It's not what I thought it would be, the people, the place, even the job. Only Aeaeth. Aeaeth's perfect." Sigh, wistful and affectionate. She hooks onto his last, though, and sounds gossipy when she imparts, "I heard you can ask to Stand, when there's a clutch on the sands. Don't even have to be Searched." "Disappointed?" What Everett sounds like, actually, is genuinely surprised by that. "No, it's great. I mean--sure, it's not a Harper's tale, but what is? Tips are better than I've ever had, even if some of them come from strange quarters, and I don't worry about somebody nicking all my stuff, or at least, I don't worry as much as I used to." His wistful look echoes hers, but it's a slightly different sort of wistful. Passes soon enough. "One way or another. Not like I don't have time to think about it, of course. Don't know what I think of the whole... thing." A vague wave of the hand. The future is so far away, right? Voice lowered a little bit, though he's smiling, "Don't know that anybody in this world who gets put in charge ever does deserve it, but mostly I try to avoid getting in a position to get ordered around." Really. Look, he didn't say he succeeds. "It's not like the books," Yesia suffices, not that she should think that living in the weyr is anything like those silly harper's tales. And yet, "I just think I imagined there would be more...glamour? Fun? I don't know, I realize it's silly. I've been told it's silly." She gives a little, bitter expression for that, but she smooths her face into neutrality. Dubiously, then, "I guess. It's not what you think it is, even when you do know what you think. I'd try not to think about it at all. It makes things easier." Not thinking, of course. She scoffs at his last. "Sometimes they do. I think K'del is very good as Weyrleader. Less for Farideh, who didn't even get Searched, she just asked," which explains why Yesia knows that loophole. She takes another drink, this one with feeling, and long enough to empty her glass at last. "Being a dragonrider is nothing but getting ordered around, Everett." "I'm not sure I'd call a dragon nothing. Being able to travel. Maybe someday getting to give some of the orders?" Everett, of course, would be the one exception to his own rule. The tone of his voice suggests he might actually believe that. "But I don't know. Would kill right now just to have a little room of my own in the caverns. I have a neighbor who snores terribly." Gently, but firmly, diverting the conversation back to lighter things. "Do you want another of those? Something else?" He's already reaching for her glass. "Fine. Just a dragon," is also not really a fair assessment of the greenrider's situation, barely a concession. "And a weyr," she amends when he mentions space of his own, and that with a big smile. That was the best month, when they all started getting too large for their couches and they had to move us into our own places." Beat. "It might be worth it for those two things" She will nudge her drink towards him with a nod. "Something else," she says at once, with a friendly reminder, "You said you'd teach me how to make drinks." "Mm," is the only response for the first part. Thoughtful, not an argument. Everett's attention is more on the latter, anyway, or at least it seems to be. "I did say that. You know, if you're going to go holding me to all my promises..." Such an empty threat, his eyes bright with the smile. "I can't turn you loose on the customers, though. Not at this point, anyway. Here, why don't you sit tight and look pretty and think about how great I am until I get back." Which is his way of saying that it's going to be a minute, but it doesn't actually take too long for him to return with a tray of things, calling, "I'm bringing them right back, hold on," back to his coworker. Yesia sits so pretty, adjusting the ribbons in her hair and thinking about -- well, hard to tell, or maybe not since when he returns she says, abruptly, "I could show you my weyr, some time." She adjusts the things on the tabletop to make room for Everett's platter, flashing a brilliantly charming smile past him at the other bartender then saying, "I mean, if you wanted. It can be my promise, since I'm holding you to yours." Once he's set the things down, she nudges them with a knuckle, giving him a taste of the smile too. "I don't want to pour drinks for them," she notes, "just us." On his return, Everett comes around to her side of the table, dragging the chair around so that he can sit next to her. Did he give her personal space, on the beach? Yeah, he's not so keen on leaving the extra room, now. He sets the tray down. "I would like nothing better," he assures her, but lingering too long on that line of thought might be terribly distracting, so instead it's back to the tray. "This is simple. Lime, triple sec--which is an orange liqueur--and tequila. Which is to say, your garden-variety margarita." And on, so as to save both typing and reading, with the standard 3-2-1 recipe, the shaker, and so on. At some point in there, he rests a hand on her shoulder, all encouraging. Yesia isn't a flighty sort - well, mostly - which means that invasion of her space and that encouraging hand are both met with beaming smiles as she works through the tray with his direction. There's probably too much tequila, if that is possible, but there are no disasters. The shaker, for example, doesn't fly across the room, and eventually she pours it with caution that becomes triumph. "Aha!" And a sidelong look, that is teasingly unimpressed, "That wasn't so hard. I should steal your job." Two glasses, there, which lets Everett retrieve one to test it. "Drinkable," his verdict, like there was some question of that, but he's having a hard time holding the grinning at bay by that point. "A toast to your new career?" He offers his up for the purpose, while some distance away the actually-working bartender is saying something pointed about needing his tequila bottle back, which Everett thoroughly ignores. "Just drinkable," she echoes him with a pretty little pout, but she ultimately toasts back and takes a sip, eyes rolling ceilingward thoughtfully as she considers the taste. "Alright," she concedes at length, "just drinkable." But not bad enough to stop, and that bartender in the back might be up a creek as Yesia leans against Everett fully, tipping her head onto his shoulder. "You'll have to tell me what I can do to make whiskey drinkable." Trapped. Thoroughly trapped. What can be done about it? Nothing. So Everett doesn't even bother responding. His coworkers must adore him. Maybe he has other virtues? Not that he's concerned about, right now, anyway. His hand slips the rest of the way to get his arm around her. Leaning in, he inhales deeply, takes a moment to get around to answering. "Like many things in life," he finally says, "it takes practice. An acquired taste, as they say. But there's nothing wrong with liking whatever it is you like." He has another sip, rolling it around in his mouth like he's tasting wine, though he swallows after a moment. No reason to let it go to waste. Oh, his life must be so terrible. Yesia is very good at this snuggling nonsense, but she takes her sips carefully, like she may not like hers. When she moves it's just to set it on the table. "You're the first person to tell me that about anything," seems like praise, and it certainly must be about more than just her taste in alcohols, with a relieved smile like that. "What now?" she asks, big eyes innocent when she looks up at him. "I mean, are you going to teach me more drinks? How to do card tricks?" "If you want." So easygoing that Everett can't possibly be really considering doing all that. Not while he's all relaxed there with one arm around a girl and a drink in his free hand. Who has hands for cards? "We could do something else." He actually sets the glass down, goes to catch her chin, long enough to get a good look at her face. Confidence! Mixed with just enough nerves to need to take a deep breath before he suggests, "Maybe we could use some privacy. And you said something about showing me your weyr. But--" Confidence? Deep breath. Growing smile. "That's up to you, isn't it? I guess we could make out here. From what I've seen lately, I'm not sure anybody would notice." "Are you into that? Those weird, public displays of affection?" Yesia's pert nose wrinkles, but her mouth is very close, feather light when she speaks.Her voice is throaty, her smile salacious. "You'll love flights, I bet. All that kissing," kiss, "and touching." Well. that too, fingers plucking at his shirt. "We can go to my weyr. It's not far. Privacy, right? I can show you...stuff." "Mostly, right now, I'm into you," is the pat response, his voice low with her right there close. Everett waits for her to initiate the first kiss, but after the invitation's put forward, he helps himself to another. Not long enough to scandalize anybody else in the bar, though. Just enough to serve as an answer before he starts pulling away. He was supposed to return this stuff, right? Another sin for which he can do penance later. He keeps at least one hand on her shoulder even when he's getting up out of his chair. Parting for that long would be unthinkable. Given the nature of people in this particular place, the bartenders on duty are lucky the bottles get left behind. Truly, they're being comparatively kind. Yesia ignores her drink altogether in rising, taking the hand on her shoulder so she can twine their fingers together and tug him away, out to the bowl where a clearly miffed green dragon awaits to loft them up, to the ledge with the permanent puddle. |
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Comments
Varied (07:55, 28 August 2015 (PDT)) said...
I can only imagine what Anvori would say. >.> They are cute.
Yesia (10:03, 28 August 2015 (PDT)) said...
/SIGHS SORRY ANVORI.
Everett (10:34, 28 August 2015 (PDT)) said...
Ev is probably going to end up trading a night off to make up for it. Now, if he lets Yesia behind the bar, that will probably have to involve more copious apologies...
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