Logs:Who Goes to the Reaches to Find a Wife?
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| RL Date: 13 May, 2009 |
| Who: N'thei, Persie, Whitchek |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| When: Day 23, Month 9, Turn 19 (Interval 10) |
| Lake Shore, High Reaches Weyr(#276RJs) The rest of the bowl may be barren, grass barely surviving at best, but here by the lake, it's brilliantly green in the warmer months: thickening and thriving in the silty, boulder-dotted soil just before it transitions to soft sand and thence to the cool, clear water itself. A large freshwater lake fed by a low waterfall, it not only provides warm-weather bathing space for humans and dragons, but has one end fenced off as a watering hole for the livestock in the feeding grounds. The water there is often muddier than the rest of the clear lake, whose shallows drop off abruptly several yards out into deep water, and whose edge undulates against the coarse-hewn bowl wall: here close enough to just be bramble-covered rocks, there far enough away that a narrow land bridge divides the main lake from a smallish pond. Between are several rocky outcroppings that form excellent makeshift diving points, though only one -- across the bridge -- has a set of narrow, slippery, quite possibly tempting stairs. Fog begins to coalesce in the very early morning hours and lingers throughout the day, soft and still and clammy. Ah, fog. Gotta love that Reaches weather. Despite this, there are still dragons to wash, to oil, to look after, and that's N'thei's occupation this morning. It's only taken just shy of eight years for N'thei to get comfortable enough with that autumnal weather that he doesn't look peeved about being up to his knees in water when it's not even 60 degrees out, and just shy of those same eight years not to look pissed when Wyaeth helpfully flicks some sand off his wings and sprays water in the process. Though there is a firm, "Knock it off, asshead." Persie has already had something of a run-in with the cold autumn weather and the cold lake water. Today she's rather bundled up as she comes strolling through the fog around the shore's edge with her hands tucked in her pockets and her jacket collar turned up. Certianly she sees the bronze and his rider, and for some steps she considers them, but it takes a while before she actually turns her path toward the water and heads in N'thei's direction with a determined stride. There are two ways to keep warm: one is bundling up, the other is keeping moving. Whitchek is doing that annoying jogging thing again, delayed from his usual crack-of-dawn outing by distractions unknown. He, however, has apparently found an ounce of common sense somewhere between here and the other side of the bowl, and if he notices N'thei's presence, gives no indication of that whatsoever. "Morning, Persie, ma'am," he does offer as he passes her. And, in response, Wyaeth pissily hauls himself out of the water in such a way as to lap the waves up around N'thei's rolled pants, to flick water off himself in a little spatter of droplets. Before he turns, the Persie-ma'am remark catches N'thei's ears and, whether it's the greenrider's name or the voice that utters it or the fact that now his pants are wet, his frown shows up while he plods toward the shore. Persie stops at the water's edge, but when she gets there it's Whitchek she's looking at. "Hey. Morning." Her smile is a beat late, but it shows up eventually, wide and laughing. She pulls a hand from her pocket to hide the side of her face. "Ma'am. I feel so old." The sound of N'thei plodding through the water has he glancing his way again, but she doesn't say anything to him. The response gets Whit to stop--or maybe just a break to catch his breath. "Well," he says to Persie, "if you prefer not? They said we didn't have to if folks preferred not." Stretches out first one leg then the other. There's no way he can't have seen N'thei at this point, but the effort he's expending not to is impressive. "How're you this morning?" "We are old," is N'thei's cheerless information for Persie, a shrug-- can't fight City Hall-- while he passes the pair of them. And, yes, there's a Look for the stretching candidate there, no pretense that he's Whitchek-oblivious. So helpfully, Wyaeth lumbers by the lot of 'em to stretch out in the lack-of-sun and wait for his oiling. Impatiently. "Well, we don't have to be," Persie answers the bronzerider just before a nervous little swallow. She turns her attention back to the Whitchek. "You can just call me Persie, really. Ma'am is fine too, it just caught me off guard. I'm... I'm good this morning. And you're..." She watches the positions the candidate is striking and tips her head sideways. "Stretching." Okay, now, see, they're talking to the same person, so it can't be avoided: "Morningsir," like it's one word to be gotten out of the way quickly. Whitchek finishes the stretch self-consciously, says, "Er--well, yes. Sorry. Sort of automatic." Scratches under his ear. "Trying to make up for oversleeping a bit this morning. Didn't get out of bed until half hour before breakfast." Gracious; "Yes. It is." Morning. N'thei looks between the two of them for a second, adds a dubious, "Unless you know something I don't," at Persie, and sets about the business of oiling his asshead dragon. It's not very interesting, but it keeps him from punching people, so at least it serves a purpose. "No. Automatic. I know." Persie tries to best to brush off the whole ma'am experience. It just doesn't go away. "Are you... are you feeling any better? About things?" She wonders this, but even as she does, a wary glance flicks over to N'thei again. "I..." Whatever that was meant to be, and for whomever, it doesn't get any farther than that one weak syllable. Whitchek hasn't even done anything worth being punched for. Today. Yet. It's possible he won't. Vaguely conceivable. "There's no use stressing over things you can't change," he declares. "Which I'm sure I'll start actually believing sometime a few Turns from now." For all that, his tone is almost cheery. He gives the dragon a look up and down, which might indicate that the bronze has at least moved out of 'thing' status at last. "It could be worse." Much like acclimating to weather, to a stubborn dragon, to getting older, N'thei has acclimated to the unfinished sentences that pepper Persie's speech. Questioning glance-- she?-- but no arm-twisting to get that thought finished. "What do you have, son? Eighteen, nineteen Turns yet?" he adds while he sloshes oil against hide. Look look look! He's engaging conversation! All on his own! Someone cheer or something. That questioning glance gets a look that is surely supposed to be meaningful, it's just that the meaning is as vague as her unfinished sentences. It's Whitchek who gets the direct answers from Persie. "Or maybe sooner. You said you didn't want to go home right away anyway, right? So what's the difference?" The blonde flashes a big smile, an encouraging sort. And while she doesn't cheer when N'thei actually does make an effort to jump into the conversation, the way her brows lift and her smile softens is likely some form of recognition. A moment of deer-in-headlights stare in the bronzerider's direction. "I didn't mean--she asked--nineteen," Whitchek finally settles on. It doesn't take a mindreader to get the hint of 'ohshit' behind the words. Persie is safe, though. At least in comparison. "Um, right. Not for awhile. Well, the difference is the whole--" Eyes on the dragon. "--eggs-hatching-thing. But I'm not thinking about it. No use worrying." Like if he repeats it enough, it will turn true. "Nineteen." N'thei shakes his head like that's just so-damn-young, either missing what Whitchek means to clarify or (as is more likely) not caring about it. Either way, the end result is the same. It leaves Persie, who is probably better at this sort of thing, to discuss Hatching day with the candidate, and him to elbow Wyaeth in the chin for putting his newly oiled cheek on the sand. "Don't pay attention to him. He think he's fifty," Persie says. And with that? She does actually sneak a smile in N'thei's direction. Of course, with her luck, he's probably too busy beating up his dragon to see it. "Anyway, there isn't anything to think about. You might as well think about whether or not it will be sunny for Turnover. Who knows. And meanwhile, there's other stuff to do. Right?" "He's not gray enough for fifty." One of those classic Whitchek moments of the brain not kicking in until after the mouth is already open. At least he seems to realize that well enough to move on: "Sunny day on Turnover doesn't really have exactly the same impact. But yes. Plenty else to do. Running. Chores." He seems to run out of ideas for the list after two and bites his lower lip like that probably sounded as pitiful to his own ears as to anybody else's. N'thei, out of the side of his mouth, the other side of it getting wiped clean of grit-and-dirt, "Thirty." And, yes, he did miss Persie's attempt at a smile; he wouldn't know what to do with if he'd caught it, anyway. His snicker is low, as is the comment that follows; "Shooting off at the mouth. Getting punched in the head." Persie seems to miss all the things Whitchek could be doing now. Instead, she's staring off into the fog, thinking about something else. "You know, you never really know. It could be sunny on Turnover, maybe enough to melt things a little, and at night it could freeze and you would be out walking and... anything could happen on ice. Bad things, good things too." Belatedly, she mumbles, "Thirty," to herself. Incredulous, to N'thei's first response: "Really?" The brain-switch has still not quite been triggered, nothing internally screaming SHUT UP the way it ought to be. Whitchek puts his hand up as he clears his throat, biting down on the knuckle. Or maybe it is. "Couldn't call that a hobby exactly. Only happened once." He pauses for a beat, peers at Persie like he doesn't quite follow. "Good things?" "Yes really." And N'thei volunteers only so far as a dare-you-to-ask-more look that finds its way over toward Whitchek. ...once, "So far." Ice, sunny Turnover, whatever. "Fall on your ass, likely." "Good things." She'll elaborate. "Maybe because it was sunny and then it was icy, you're out when the girl of your dreams slips and you get to catch her and she falls in love with you and changes your life." Persie can't help but let out a self-effacting laugh there. "-Or-. Since you're a boy... Maybe someone slips on the ice and gets hurt, which is sad and all, but then they can't work and you get a fancy promotion that you really wanted. You never know what could happen." But with a frown and the shove of her hands deeper into her pockets, which pushes her shoulder up around her ears, she admits, "Or just fall on your ass." "Sorry, sorry." And that--Whitchek just said that to N'thei. Did someone get that on tape? "Didn't mean it like that. Just, talk about getting old and such, and I got brothers past thirty." And this has no chance of actually being relevant, so he goes back to attending to the confusing-but-safe Persie. "Already got a girl, and can't say as I have an eye on any promotion. So with my luck--yeah." A squint shoots off toward the candidate at the mention of having-a-girl, one thoroughly bemused, and the thoughts are almost written on N'thei's face for a second: this gangly, toothless kid's got a girl, and super-awesome N'thei hasn't gotten laid in how many months? With a snort, he tosses the oil-rag over the edge of the bucket and takes a step back, eyeballing his work there. "What's a fancy promotion for a candidate, I wonder." "You know what I mean," Persie says with a sigh. "You have to believe something good could happen. Something unexpected. If you don't think that there's something good out there, then this is all there is and you're not happy with -this- to begin with... What's the point of it all?" Her pale eyebrows have started to draw inward in frustration or concern or some sort of intense expression. "There has to be the possibility of something good happening." "Anything not-a-Candidate?" suggests Whitchek idly. But then, he rubs the back of his neck with one hand and says, "It'd be nice to think that. That there's a point. But maybe there isn't. Maybe we just... muddle through with what we've got." Less morose, he adds, "But I've got good things," like he just remembered that. "Madilla." Okay, she isn't actually plural. Tolerant; "No, sugar. /You/ need to believe something good could happen." /He/ just needs to keep-- that. Muddling through. N'thei doesn't have the morose edge abotu the remark, though; it's just another of those die-and-pay-taxes shrugs, another nod at the work he's accomplished with a none too helpful dragon. Not that Wyaeth'll ever look handsome, but he seems pleased with himself, moreso when he leaps up and successfully sprays gravel all over everyone on his way toward the Star Stones. Persie looks away just as surely as if N'thei had said something more hurtful than calling her 'sugar'. It takes her a moment to regroup, which is a moment she spends looking up at the fog, where it's clinging around familiar shapes of the Weyr, where it parts and swirls as Wyaeth passes through. "It sounds like you do have some good things," she tells Whitchek, her smile not quite returning to full strength and her eyes carefully avoiding the bronzerider. Nuances are lost on Whitchek, ducking away from the spray of gravel. "Does he always do that?" is a question somehow not asked directly at N'thei. "Yes, well. Hopefully. She does still wait for me at lunch," he says, like this is a very big deal, sitting with a young lady at lunch. Serious business. The fact that N'thei doesn't even flinch at the spray that gets him is probably answer enough. Still; "Yes." His eyes trail the bronze up till he's landed, lorded, then he's collecting up the crap it takes to clean and oil a dragon. Again, Persie's probably better-equipped to talk about lunch dates and stuff, so he stays out of it. "Aw, well that's sweet." Persie gets the 'aww' in there, even if it isn't particularly flattering to Whitchek. "I don't think I realized you'd been around here long enough to have a girl already. You move pretty quick, don't you!" She's teasing, her smile turning all wry and impish -- it doesn't last long before she confuses herself. "Unless you've been here forever and I'm thinking of someone else... which I could be." Embarrassment-wise, this must rank somewhere up there with having your mother talk about how much you loved running around naked when you were three. Whitchek manages to keep from blushing too furiously, arms crossing in what's definitely a defensive posture. "Not that long, no. But it's not anything like that. She's a very nice girl and very suitable. I'm not going to take advantage of her or anything." Only at least maybe if your mother was saying that sort of thing, she wouldn't be saying it in front of N'thei, which would be marginally better. Here's the whole and sum of N'thei's relationship advice: "Best learn to keep your private matters private, son. There a bag of--" Ah, there it is. He heads toward the shoreline to pick up the bag-of-whatever that's now soaked through, since Wyaeth was kind enough to walk dripping-wet over the top of it. "Well that doesn't sound like very much fun," is Persie's immediate reaction, her nose wrinkling at all that chaste, not-taking-advantage talk. "Anyway, whatever you're doing, or not doing, it does sound like you... got on it quick enough. You're just all sorts of trouble, aren't you." It might be that, or something else, that has Persie covering her eyes and turning her face to the sky as she laughs weakly. The advice from N'thei, such as it is, gets a sidewards glance but not an actual response, probably better for Whitchek's health. "It's not supposed to be," he says, unable to keep that little admonishing tone out of his voice. "Fun. I'm looking for a wife, not a--" Whatever he was about to say, it ends up being a cough. "Anyway. A wife." N'thei, collecting his bag and shaking it out and looking pissed about it, what else is new, straightens up gradually with a really confused look crossing his face. "A wife?" Wait, that inflection wasn't right. "A wife. If it goes right in a few weeks..." He trails off, tossing his chin pointedly toward the direction that he knows the Hatching grounds to be in, but-- in the fog-- it might not be so obvious to Whitchek. It's not the same as Persie laughing, but it's sort of his version of ha-ha-ha stupid kid. "Well, why would you look for a wife here?" is what Persie wants to know, though she's still looking at the sky with her eyes covered. So not looking. "But if Madilla's interested... Well, that's good. For you. I think." At last she rights her head, lets her hands slip away. She looks over at N'thei for a beat and then exhales. "I should..." A thumb gets gestured over her shoulder, toward the path that leads away from the lake. Her feet start in that direction, slowly, one crossing the other. An eye on N'thei. "That depends on your definition of 'right'. But either way," says Whitchek breezily, "I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work out well enough. She hasn't been Searched, after all. I wasn't looking for her here, but if it works out, why not?" He actually smiles at that, like it's fantastic news. Then a polite nod to Persie as she turns to go: "Have a nice day." "So should I." N'thei, wholly lacking in things to do, still isn't the sort to sit and shoot the breeze with a candidate indefinitely. His business is done. He's got all his stuff. He spares the kid a dubious look at his optimism. Yeah, "Good luck then." "I bet it will all work out perfectly, one way or another. And I think you're having a better time than you'd like to let on." That's Persie's take on Whitchek, delivered as she narrows her eyes and smiles rather thoughtfully at him. There's only a quick flick of her glance toward N'thei when he says he's leaving too. And then she turns to walk away with her head down and her shoulders up; she must be feeling the chilly autumn air. "Thanks," Whitchek manages to reply to N'thei. Then: "I think." Persie's last comment gets only a puzzled-looking glance, but no reply, since anything he could say at this point would just be repetitive. He crouches to re-tie his shoes, prelude to finishing off that jog. N'thei goes off to do N'thei-stuff. Better we don't know what that entails. |
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