View source for Logs:Being Kind... Or Not

{{Log
|who=A'rist, Irianke
|what=A'rist visits during Irianke's downtime and asks some questions about political things.
|where=Irianke's Weyr, High Reaches Weyr
|day=27
|month=2
|turn=37
|IP=Interval
|IP2=10
|gamedate=2015.03.03
|mentions=K'del, Azaylia, Nimae
|type=Log
|icons-new=Icon a'rist wary.png, Icon irianke bw.jpg,
|desc=>---< Irianke and Niahvth's Weyr, High Reaches Weyr(#1207RJ) >---------------<

  This hollowed out bubble cavern is large. Tendrils of steam come from a   
  corner near the lower caverns entrance to the weyr. It's situated near a  
  separated cave that has hanging glass beads obscuring view of it, likely  
  the bed chamber. The outermost room is decorated in bright colors and a   
  lot of interesting pieces of art hung on the walls. A large stone table   
  sits in the entrance from the ledge atop a yellow and teal rug. The       
  furniture is chaise lounges on other sectional carpet pieces and a cabinet
  of liquor. The glassed-in bookshelf is filled with volumes and volumes of 
  books and scrolls and locked from prying eyes.                            

 -----------------------------< Active Players >-----------------------------
  A'rist       M   19 5'8"  slim, dark brown hair, light brown eyes       3m 
  Irianke      F   36 5'7"  slender, dark curly hair, stone blue eyes     0s
 ----------------------------------< Exits >---------------------------------
                                Complex  Ledge                              
>-----------------------------------------< 27D 2M 37T I10, winter night >---<
|log=When the sun goes down, Irianke's work day ends and she's become known for making the distinction quite clear. After hours is for relaxing, for fun, for enjoying a glass or an entire bottle of wine in the comforts of her weyr. And, as of late, sitting in the galleries watching the stand off between her dragon and another. But tonight is not a night to watch the silent showdown. Tonight, the goldrider has no shoes on, a blanket tucked around her knees, a bottle of wine uncorked and a fire roaring in her hearth. If only Pern had record players, there'd be the Pernese equivalent of Alanis Morisette playing loudly in the background. The millions of glows and candles around the main cavern of her weyr are lit, making the room really really bright.

Maybe it's the lack that has drawn A'rist here. Lythronath has surely been aware of his audience. It's not why ''he'' goes; he's gone again even now, without Irianke, and with the same determination to stay directly in the centre of where he's not wanted, or at least, not comfortably accepted. But he's known Irianke is there. And now that she's not... A'rist is. With dragon away, he's made the hike up to the weyr under his own power, feet moving silently. It's not his conscious intent, and he even opens his mouth to declare his presence. Only then, doesn't. Then, just slips in, albeit staying nearer the entrance than not, and watches.

Out of the public spotlight, Irianke sits on one of her chaises, the only movement the occasional lift of the glass of wine to her lips. There's a book whose place is marked by being tented face down into the seat cushion, but it goes untouched. The weyr is immaculate, the very brightness of it making sure that any speck of dust could be visible if it were there. There's a stone table where a goldrider's work is stacked neatly, chairs that are tucked under the table ''just so''. There are knick knacks decorating the weyr from tiny little ones to great big ones like the decorative wooden sword hung against the wall next to a large tapestry depicting somewhere not ''here''. Splashes of teal and sandy yellow color mark the wall, though the entirety of it is not painted over, just accents here and there. If she had noticed someone entered her weyr, surely she wouldn't look so pensive and small, given the personality she's come to be known for.

A'rist has all the look of a dragonrider heading toward the end of his day, a bit of shadow on his chin, a few marks on his clothes, hair that has been flattened down by riding gear at the back. But he's a young dragonrider, and there's still energy in him. It lends itself to silence, just now, intentional or no; breath is drawn smoothly, imperceptibly. When he takes a step forward, it's again with little sound of footfall. He seems ready to keep going, to press the intrusion - and then catches himself. His left foot drops audibly when he comes to a flat stand.

Any noise in this kind of quiet is the kind that could and would be heard. For him to make it so far without noise or detection is laudable indeed and so it's with a start that Irianke looks up, the poise of her public life flooding the niches of a face that did not expect to have to be ''on'' tonight. Well, that and a wide-eyed surprise. "Who's there?" is asked, reflexively, even though she can see who it is, even if ''see'' and ''know'' are two entirely different things. "Did we have a meeting? I didn't forget something did I? Would you like a glass of wine?" The goldrider does not stand, but takes it all in stride somehow and gestures towards one of the couches. "Assuming," she adds with the wryest quirk of her mouth, "You didn't get yourself lost on your way to someone else's ground weyr."

That little lift of his chin must be his first answer to that instinctive question. "No," goes once for all those next three. With a smirk of his own, another, "No," to the last, one that suggests getting lost, especially perhaps getting lost ''here'', would be highly unlikely. A'rist looks over to those couches, but doesn't move for them, not yet. He tilts his head a little, nose wrinkling and eyes sharp to look her over, this time with her knowledge. "You were into something."

"Of little consequence," says Irianke, the surprise fading in favor of welcome. The book, tented as it were, is lifted and a bookmark slipped out of a later page and set into the opening and then shut closed. "I'm always at a disadvantage here. I find everyone knows my name and I'm left to ask what theirs is." The woman's smile, as brilliant as the lighting of her room, curves. "So, who do I have the pleasure of speaking with and what might I do for you?"

"Hah," isn't really belief, for her dismissal. A'rist doesn't pry further. "Well," and he shifts his stance to be a little bit wider, his head slowly shifting to tilt in the other direction, "you are the only borrowed goldrider here." That smirk toys with his face a little more. He seems ready to tuck his thumbs into his pockets, shoulders shrugging up, arms lifting out to the sides faintly, elbows even bending - but then lets his hands fall to his sides. "I'm Lythronath's." Maybe what he wants is hidden in there. Maybe, he's forgotten the second part of her question, busy not holding back a little grin, amiable enough.

And there it is. Irianke's bright smile turns into laughter, the full-bodied, head thrown back kind. It takes a while for the laugh to escape her system and by the end of it, she's curled into a ball, knees tucked to her chin and that wine glass safely set on a nearby table. The grin that appears above her knees is broad and carries in it a genuine flare that didn't ''quite'' exist before. "Here, you need to be drinking more if you're his rider." A foot extends, knees still close to her chin, to nudge that bottle a little closer across to where he does not sit yet. "And sit. I don't generally like speaking to people while looking up at them and I don't plan on standing any more today unless you plan on capping the evening massaging my feet for me, of which," she considers A'rist astutely, "I don't think you're the type."

That assessment just brings a little twitch to one of his eyebrows. It doesn't get to lift all the way. But A'rist relents, first in the sitting, his footfalls more audible now, the previous mood having broken. He sits intently, however, giving only a nod to that bottle shortly thereafter, trusting in his hostess to apportion what she will. "Based on my dragon?" It's a bit of a tail-end thought, that comes with the young bronzerider holding his hands out before him, considering them.

"I was being kind." Irianke's chin rests on her knees once more after her foot retreats back under the blanket. The book she was holding is still in her hand, and taps lightly against her shins as she hugs her legs to her. "You're decades younger than I'd prefer the men who massage my feet for me," is her truth, the frankness of them softened about the edges by an apologetic tip of her head. "Your dragon is holding his own. I've never seen Niahvth in ''such'' a state over one dragon before and it's become a ''point'' for her not to give in and force him off her sands."

The word 'kind' brings an 'oh' to A'rist's lips, a knowing nod and widening of his eyes that is just a bit too clearly formed to be serious. His eyes sharpen up on her, and hold just a bit longer than might be called for, in the weyr of someone he's only just meeting. Irianke's explanation, such as it is, of Niahvth brings A'rist's mouth into a thin smile. He sits back, purposefully, letting his hands come to cross before him, wine seemingly forgotten. "Well that's good of her." A beat later, "Lythronath's not like other dragons."

"Tell me about him." From the rider's lips to her ears, and past that, to her dragon's brain. Irianke leans forward, her own wine not forgotten, reclaiming its stem between two fingers. Story time! "And what kind of human self-control it takes to be paired to a dragon such as Lythronath."

"I can't," comes A'rist's quick answer, abrupt, and leaving him flat-faced all at once. "That's not the kind of dragon he is," has something almost conciliatory about it, though it's yet to change the bronzerider's new demeanour. "It ''doesn't'' take human self-control." He shakes his head. "That's never been it."

His non-answer is an answer for the goldrider, her lighted eyes bright with a curiosity that ends up fulfilled by what he says. "It's interesting how each Impressed pair has a unique relationship that, even if I might know the feeling of Impression and the difficulties it was to come to terms with this lifelong commitment in those first few days, really months, it still wouldn't be the same for you. Do you know anything about scents? Perfumes?"

A'rist has remembered himself again, and gives Irianke what is even a sort of polite smile, nodding along as one might do to a story heard before - until the mention of perfumes makes his lips purse. "I've smeled them on people." Now, that wine is remembered. Now, he reaches for his portion, movement for waiting.

"The same scent reacts differently to different bodies. The smiths call it chemistry. The healers call it body chemistry. In that reaction, the same scent will mutate and smell different." Irianke educates conversationally, assuming the young man she speaks with does not know. "I often wonder if that's what Impression is like across the board. The same fundamental basics of what happens, how it happens, how they decide to pick, and then... everything else mutates. When I Impressed Niahvth, my world changed and my core changed and... this person I didn't realize I ''could'' be emerged. But now," the goldrider shifts in her seat, easing her weight from the shorter side of the corner of that chaise to the longer length, "People wonder if it's just the Nimae in me."

A'rist listens more thoughtfully this time. At the end of that theoretical part, already, he's started to frown. He's shaking his head by the time she's finished with her own story, wine in hand, not yet touched. "I don't think it's the same. That dragons pick the same, that impression works the same. Only thing that's the same is that they impress. Somehow. And their..." his free hand waves little circles in the air, "bodies and things, but." But that isn't important. Not here and now.

"I don't think we're disagreeing. I meant that they Impress and they pick someone to Impress. But the reasons of why it happens is different. The templates are the same. Human, dragon, somehow compatible." Irianke's free hand rolls in the air, a futile attempt to ''find'' a way to explain what she is thinking. "Suffice, the bottom line is, while I understand some of the emotions another person might have gone through, there is just no way the moment of my Impression to Niahvth and the moment of your Impression to Lythronath could be compared, even as I can't fully explain my dragon to you and it was unfair of me to expect you to explain yours."

A'rist still doesn't bear the look of someone who's satisfied with the argument. But he also doesn't carry it on. The wine gets put down in a deliberate sort of motion, and the young rider, with eyes bright for whatever new idea it is he's seized on, asks, "So how are you going to pick who goes back to Igen with you?"

There's work again and Irianke cannot quite hide the grit that worries her teeth against her lower lip for that second she forgets herself. The smile, however, is gone. There's no point in keeping it in place, particularly after the wearied sigh gives her away. She takes a long sip of wine, eyes closed as she does so, and eventually she answers. "I don't pick," is the simplest answer she can offer. "This is not and was not my decision. I would speak with the Weyrwoman first and if you can get an audience wih Nimae, her too, to fully understand the deal that was brokered. It is not my story to tell."

A'rist isn't put off so easily. He stays looking at her with that same intensity, in that same position. "So who does pick? You let a couple weyrwoman sell off your clutch before you and your dragon even got- flew?"

"How do your Weyrleaders decide who goes to which wing?" Irianke returns. She levels a frank gaze upon A'rist just above the rim of her wine glass. "Who decided what wing you were put in? Did you have a say as a weyrling or did you just deal the cards you were dealt with? Do you believe yourself independent of this Weyr and the people who lead you? I imagine the Igen and High Reaches Weyrleaders will decide in combination with recommendations from the High Reaches weyrlingmasters."

A'rist gets that patient waiting face back on, an eyebrow arching when it breaks. "So you don't know," he summarises, all the rest of the rhetoric left where it is, as it is. "Is it any wonder your Niahvth has 'made a point' of not 'forcing,'" and when there were no quotations demonstrated on the first, but in tone of voice, there are definite, finger-driven air-quotes on the second, "Lythronath off the sands? They're not really hers."

"Which I just told you." The way he judges her draws out an amused, if curious, look on Irianke's face. "Your Weyrwoman knows. Your Weyrleader knows. Speak with them. It is not my decision to make. And don't worry your pretty head, child. When the time comes, I won't stop Niahvth from making sure Lythronath cannot fly within a hundred yards of her sands without being eaten alive. Have a good evening and be sure to speak with your Weyrleaders in the same manner you spoke with me, and know that I am kind in not having you put on latrine duties for a turn."

"Well." When A'rist stands, he dusts his hands on his thighs. "At least it's good to know it doesn't bother you any." He inclines his head lightly, formally. "Have a good night." He's partway out when he stops, looks back in, and more seriously suggests, "Find me, before your dragon tries to eat mine? He's not like other dragons, Lythronath."

"He still obeys golds," is the quiet reminder, said from behind a wine glass. "It is one undeniable fact of draconic minds." Anything else Irianke might say goes unsaid. Anything she might ''want'' to say not even written on the continued poise of her face and body. There's wine to be drunk and a book interrupted to be read.

"But not like the others, I don't think." A'rist leaves it at that. Leaves, at that.
|involves=High Reaches Weyr

|Categories=General Logs, The Igen Exchange Logs, Clutch 115 Logs
}}