View source for Logs:Look! A'son's Back

{{Log
|involves=High Reaches Weyr
|type=Log
| who = A'son, N'thei
| where = 
| what = 
| when = Day 4, Month 4, Turn 19, Interval 10
|day=4
|month=4
|turn=19
|IP=Interval
|IP2=10
| gamedate = 2009.03.21
| quote = 
| weather = 
| categories = Death of a Weyrwoman
| mentions = Tiriana, Leova, Milani, K'del, Satiet
| icons = 
| log = Den of Orange Sherbert

It's orange. It's tangerine. It's even lemon and lime. There's little else to detract from the sprawl and sweep of this well-set ledge painted an unfortunate mishmash of neon colors. Citrus hues, bright tropical shades all swirl together into a brilliant fresco painted along the ledge and up the weyr walls. Pale peach and gold spin tangled patterns about the talon scoring at the edge, and distractingly abstract patterns weave towards the paler yellows and pithy white splashed up towards the tunnel into the weyr. Orange, the dominant color, explodes up the walls again, an artist's nightmare set off against the green papaya designs along the outside shelving and the pale mango-swept rattan and wooden chairs set out of the wind, in the shelter of the bowl wall.

Wherever the former occupants got the paint, they certainly got enough of it, for the virulent swatches of color continue on through the archway between ledge and weyr before finally giving way to the natural grey stone of the weyr's interior. Ah, quiet: no wind, no noise, no eye-blinding colors. Inside, the weyr is all soft colors and creamy furniture, its pale wood furniture clothes in natural hues, with driftwood and thin linen accents covering the many storage alcoves and the lovely rounded sleeping room. The hearth is likewise sleek and smooth, its short mantle hosting a simple stone vase full of now-dried flowers. Only along the edges of the dragon wallow near the door does orange explode again, matched by citrus-hued sacks full of sand for resting a dragon's tired chin.

One bronze dragon lays asleep in his brightly colored couch, head rested peacefully on his overzealous looking sandbags. Past that though, the weyr is a disaster. Furniture has been pushed roughly into a corner. Shelves are unassembled and thrown onto the floor. Buckets of dark blue paint are here and there, and the orange that dominates the scene? Is slowly and not so methodically being attacked. A'son is dressed in his worse clothes (which are pretty damn bad ugly) and seeming to almost frantically be painting away at the walls. He's started in some places and then stopped, as if he gave up. In addition there are still bags and boxes of unpacked things scattered around. The place is basically a shit storm. In between strokes of paint, he's drinking from a half empty bottle and looking like he's on the way to getting pretty trashed.


A thud later, there's Wyaeth on the ledge. His wordless greeting blows right in toward where Nikoth dozes, some quality that only Wyaeth could muster: derision, possession, superiority, amusement. N'thei only embodies the latter in his own greeting, voiced from the very edge of the weyr, as if he fears some of this orange hell might infect him if he risks coming in much farther: "Nice place you got here, brother." With one foot, he nudges the nearest paint can and delights in watching the blue slosh around, dangerously close to spilling. "You look like shit," he adds abruptly, only just now getting around to a look at /A'son/ instead of his tremendously appalling surroundings.

"I'm trying out a new look, I'm hoping that it catches on. People need to relax a little bit." He sloshes another layer of paint onto the wall, streams of blue trickle down until they reach the floor. "Got something for you there." He turns a little and points to a large bottle of untouched brandy on the floor. Opposed to the rest of the things around it, this seems to be carefully placed. As in, it's away from paint and stuff that might fall and break it. Yet another streak of blue is added before he takes a real pause to turn and look at N'thei. "Like this place? I think it was intentionally gifted to me."

"Unless it's a beautiful woman with huge--" N'thei's eyes land on the bottle in the middle of that, disappointment comes-and-goes from his expression all in the space of time it takes him to lean down and collect his present. And read the label. Eyes cast up, around, orange; "Wouldn't surprise me. Makes you feel better, it's a sight better than what I'd have picked for you if it had been left up to me." With one bottle, his, he gestures to another bottle, A'son's, and asks a question with his expression: we really need all this liquor?

"I haven't been back long enough to pick up any women in general." He replies with an amused lift of his eyebrow. "When we were near to graduating, they made us look at weyrs. I saw one that was pink, frilly, dusty and it had a huge doll in it. That one was really ugly and I didn't think I could find worse. But this one? It's pretty close. The only difference is that it's in better shape." For the bottle he merely lifts his shoulders and shrugs. "I'm evidentally supposed to bond with you tonight. But in a masculine way."

N'thei, for girls, "When you find one, at least she'll be comfy here." That while he dares to traverse the room, passes by some dainty furniture with a derisive chuckle, one that deepens when he sets the bottle on some pastel-painted wood and relishes the contrast. Bond? Masculine? "Whose idea was that," while he continues wandering among the detritus of A'son's big return to the 'Reaches. Yes, eventually he's going to have to address the issue of A'son being back at all, but let's deal with the immediate problem of a bright orange weyr first.

The dainty piece of furniture recieves an eye roll. "That's going to have to go and all these other things. It's like I moved away and into a concentrated version an Istan tropical drink. It's terrible." Casting a look behind him, A'son shifts a foot or so over and leans onto a dry portion of wall. Eyes dropping to the ground he answers, "A meddling woman." In response to whose idea it is. He lifts them back up to study N'thei's countenance while places the bottle down. "Though you look to be in fine shape."

Dry; "Guess we've got plenty of those to pick from." And the slight edge would indicate that he's got a few in mind already. Finally settling, leaning himself against a piece of that dainty furniture so that it looks even more girly and delicate supporting N'thei's decidedly ungirly and undelicate weight, he comments, "Do I. I'm a hair's breadth from rock-bottom, so that's reassuring. Assuming the same for you, or you wouldn't be back." With so much alcohol, accuses the look between two bottles. "Welcome home and all, but why?" Honest question, not like the usual "I hate you and wish you'd go die" tone he throws at people.

"Indeed." He looks over the man who's supposedly hitting rock bottom and tilts his head. "Yeah? You're still standing, still moving around. Look the same as always except for..." A'son trails off, lifting his shoulders as he studies the thread scars. "What's kicking you in the balls so bad?" As for his question he shakes his head. "I wouldn't say I'm a hair away from hitting rock bottom, I'm basically there. Maybe a fall or two and it'd make it all complete." There's a brief glance in the direction of a sleeping dragon. "I got my ass handed to me. If I'm going to waste away and die during the interval, I might as well do it where I was born."

N'thei. Scars. "Girls don't seem to mind so." Shrug. As for what's eating him, another shrug, his eyes chasing A'son's toward where Nikoth-- the cruel bastard!-- sleeps. At 'waste away and die,' a smile tricks the corner of his mouth, leaves him shaking his head in quiet amusement. "Hell of a choice of words, brother. --What happened to..." His hand waves aimlessly in the way of someone who can't find the right turn of phrase, but the gesture means to indicate the past, A'son himself, something grander. "You're almost making me look good by comparison."

"Women are strange. They'll take, even desire a man who's scarred on the surface. Hell, they'll want him even more if he's like that on the inside too. I don't know if that's something that can be said so generally of men." A'son's lips open and a sigh slips out. "You're made of different stuff than me. Tougher and you don't dwell nearly as much. I dwell on everything, too much thinking." He taps the side of his head and smirks. "Ever feel like your tale is told, your story done? Like we're going to be footnotes in history? We were Weyrleaders and bronzeriders and one time, we were in jail too. But no one will really remember our faces. Or who we were, the people we are. The people we cared about." He shrugs. "What about you?"

"You morose bastard." N'thei sounds more derisively amused than honestly disappointed, though the look he casts across to A'son is downright accusatory. "People will tell stories of me to their fucking grandbabies, count on it. So don't count me in your depressed little club. But if you really think you've got nothing left to accomplish--" He pushes off the little piece of furniture, laces his fingers, cracks his knuckles, approaches with a meandering stride. "I'd be happy to off you. Or." He stops, head cocked, waiting.

"Oh, right. Like you're so fucking special people will talk about you to their grandbabies. You're going to be just another line in the books. Maybe two, if you're lucky. You're just a cranky guy who does cranky guy things. You might get classified as crazy or mentally unstable, after you're dead." A smile is cracked at the end and he laughs. "You're not offing me, I plan on dying old and miserable. I'm too much of a coward to kill myself or let myself be killed." He rolls his eyes up to the ceiling, "Are you going to drink that stuff or what? I don't want it laying around in my weyr. I think I'm going to kick the habit."

N'thei points out cheerfully, "Lucky for you, I'm just brave enough to slit your throat, neh?" But, with nothing to do with them, he drops his hands and stops, making like all he wanted to do was admire A'son's shoddy paint job. "If we get you laid, will you stop being so damn depressing? Know some very easy girls who won't care they're fucking a mere footnote-in-history." A term that will make him smirk for a few days. Drink? Glance. "On the wagon. Will find someone to give it to if you're going cold-turkey, though." His way of acknowledging that it's the thought that counts.

"How lucky for me. It's the old saying, right? About not needing enemies when I have a friend like you?" There's a snort for being on the wagon. "Ah, so you're like this genuinely. Well, don't tell anyone that we didn't drink this together and bond. In fact, lie about it. Just in case anyone asks. Tell them you gave me a hug." He looks down at the bottle by his boot and kicks it over casually. "I should stop someplace I suppose." As far as getting laid goes, he just laughs. "I'm a terrible man. Nothing like that ever cheers me up. That's why I'm such a miserable wretch, I'm practically a woman."

"Do you put out?" No, immediately after the words leave his mouth, N'thei's mind rejects the thought, one eye closing and his head shaking hurriedly. Moving on! "Far as anyone's concerned, we got dead drunk and arm-wrestled and passed gas all night, on my honor." With a solemn, two-fingered oath of a gesture to cap it off, all while peering at the piss-poor painting progress. But A'son's down-and-out, it would seem, and he makes a go at being an actually decent friend, half-turning to ask, "There anything I can do? Anything you need? Want?"

"Do you want me to?" He asks, suggestively raising his eyebrows and striking a pose that would likely be alluring if he was a woman. But he's not, so it probably just comes off as creepy. "Excellent. And the first thing you can do is... not be like that. It throws off the dynamics of our relationship. It's sort of hate-love, frienemy, leaning more towards like than hate. But if you go all the way towards love than I don't know if I could respect you." A'son takes in a breath and looking marginally more serious, "But you know, if you need anything. This is where I live now, so just come here. When it comes down."

Gross gross gross, and it's N'thei's fault for even going there, so he goes away from it fast, lowering his head and raising his hand to blot out the image. Again, moving on. To address the issue of friendliness, he clarifies, "Just so, when I finally break down and choke you to death, I can say with a clean conscience that I made a go at being decent. But you're right. I know where you live." And his smile, so malicious, raises to make that exactly as threatening as it sounds. "Quick heads' up-- your ex-girlfriend's still fucking that sixteen year old, far as I can tell, and she's still an insufferable do-gooder. The sixteen year old should be easy enough to torment about being queer since he won his first greenflight, if you're looking for ammunition. Tiriana's here, in case you hadn't heard, and I recommend you steer clear of her till your sack again. But you can trust damn near anyone in Glacier. Except Leova."
till you find your sack again**

Real genuine laughter erupts from A'son as he watches N'thei's reaction. It's not all doom and gloom it would seem. "Alright, as long as we're clear on that." The heads up causes him to wrinkle his brow and shake his head. "I'm not going to torment a sixteen year old, about fucking my ex-girlfriend or about being gay. I don't really want to see him or her. I'm hoping she doesn't notice I'm back for awhile, I need some time to settle in." For Tiriana, he makes a face. "Isn't she gone? Or something? Southern Continent?" The last bit brings a look of confusion to his face. "Why not?"

"No? It's all right if I do though?" That's not really asking permission, more just informing A'son that he intends to torment K'del at all available opportunities. N'thei even smiles briefly at the thought; simple pleasures~! "She'll be back. Soon, if I don't miss my guess." Notably, the smile's gone for that part, and it stays gone when he adds, "Because. Only put in Glacier because I knew it would make her miserable, only keep her there because it makes me happy to know she can't do anything about it. Mind, that all goes to hell when I'm not Weyrleader any more, but it gets me off for now. Do you know her?"

"Is he annoying or something? I mean, he's just... sixteen." A'son looks like he's beginning to feel bad for this kid he hasn't even met. "He's probably over the top because he has a pretty girlfriend. Do you have to torment him?" The rest is listened to in silence, enough hints are dropped. "Yeah, I've met her. And dodging aside, I'm just going to say that I'm sorry, man. I'm real fucking sorry. I saw her when I got in." Appearing considerably uncomfortable he straightens his shoulders. "But uh, Leova." Subject switch. "Met her a few turns ago. When X'lar was chasing after her."

First off, "Milani's not all that hot, and she's a whore, so she's not exactly a hard get." N'thei has so few people to vent to, sorry. Second, "Of course I have to torment him." Has A'son been gone so long that he forgets who he's dealing with? Hands open, helpless, he can't really stop himself. With the same unfettered tone, he continues, "Unless you're the one killing her, not for you to apologize. But if you really feel bad and want to do me some favors, L'vae, Leova, Milani-- wouldn't miss any of them." Talking about killing people is easy; talking about people dying is... not so much.

"Milani is not a whore and if you want to bad mouth her, this is the wrong place to come do it." Dark eyebrows shoot up as A'son observes him. "You've got a lot of hate in you, brother. A lot more than you did the last time I saw you. Why exactly are you railing against these people?" He asks, not accusatory so much as merely curious and confused. "I'm not apologizing. I'm saying that... I don't even know. I don't know what to say, I don't think there's anything. I just know you're going to hurt like hell, if you don't already."

N'thei insists in an undertone, "She is though." A whore. "It's not hate," he adds, no more undertone, with a shrug that's as loose as the tone. "Just some people I wouldn't miss if they... happened to disappear one day, that's all. Though, truth be told, I do generally find I would like to personally kill Milani given the option-- but she stabbed me in the back, mate, so she'd deserve it if I did it." The important part in all that is: /If/. Busily, he adds, "She's the love of my life, and she's dying, and it's something I can't control." And there it is, all the more he has to say on the subject. "So I'd rather talk about killing the do-gooders, if it's all the same."

His face remains impassive, but there's a definite tightening of his hands as they cross in front of his chest. "No." A simple denial. "Stabbed you in the back? When? Over what?" A'son looks genuinely confused and as if he's trying to dredge up some memory, something he should know. That seems more important than N'thei's declared desire to kill her, which he may or may not be taking seriously. "Will you tell her that, at least? Even if she denies it and acts the way you do when you say it, she should hear it." He shakes his head some more. "She's a good woman. I'm sorry, man. Tell about some more people you want to kill. Maybe we can find one we both agree on killing."

When and over what... "It's complicated. Short version is, I told her not to do something, she did it anyway, now some kid's doing time in the mines for crimes he didn't commit, and I know who I can't trust." And N'thei's got a long memory for that sort of thing, though he doesn't actually sound pissed so much as disappointed. But maybe that has more to do with everything else on his plate. A warning look arises at yet another I'm-sorry, one that effectively closes the subject from his side. Instead; "List is thankfully short at the moment. Anyone you want me to add though?" Is A'son the kind of person that keeps a list of victims?

Passive turns to dismay and then more headshaking. "She got someone imprisoned? Why? On purpose?" A'son pushes his legs out and allows himself to slide down onto the floor, lifting his chin to keep an eye on N'thei. "Not right now, I just got back. Give me some time, I've got a knack for pissing people off unintentionally. Maybe I'll need help killing someone so that they won't kill me." He smirks a little and shrugs.

N'thei repeats insistently, "It's complicated. She didn't mean for the kid to go to the mines, no, but she did do exactly what I told her not to." And that still frustrates him. For lack of anything better to do, because he can't sit on the floor and feel sorry for himself-- regardless of what some people seem to think-- he starts putting lids on paint buckets, occasionally pausing to eye the contrast of orange-and-blue. "Who've you ever pissed off, brother. Everyone loves you." In an it's-sickening tone.

He remains on the floor for a few more minutes, watching as N'thei closes the lids on his paint buckets. A'son eventually pushes himself to his feet and starts rearranging a few things, letting the silence drag on. "Maybe it seems that way. But if it were true, I'd have a lot more than I really do. Things wouldn't be the way they are today. Maybe you won't believe it, but what you have right now? Is more than I'm probably going to have, maybe for life. Love, hate, other things. I'm going to bed. Take this bottle, see your woman. Do what you have to. I'll be here tomorrow. And every damn day following that one."

N'thei waves a hand at the bottle, saying, "Keep it. When I come asking for it, whether or not you still have it will decide once and for all which one of us really is the lesser man, neh?" Halfway to the door, he pauses, looks back, and states emphatically, "You best take a hard look at your life and realize how much worse things could be. Because if you keep on like this? I will kick the shit out of you." Them's his parting words.

His lips twist into something of a smile and he waves. "I missed you too!" A'son calls after N'thei's back before he laughs, genuine amusement seeming to cross over his face. He looks over to the unopened bottle and considers before picking it up. He looks at the label briefly and then stashes it inside of a trunk, out of sight, out of mind.



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