Difference between revisions of "Logs:The Kiss That Wasn't"

Records Room, High Reaches Weyr(#3141RIJs)

The records room is a quiet place at night, the glows and candles keeping the room bright and well-lit. Rather than take one of the many empty seats, Satiet is leaned against one of the bookshelves carved into the wall, thumbing through a thinly bound volume and reading aloud, if softly, to herself. The alto, devoid of her typical coolness, echoes in the otherwise empty room.

N'thei comes round the corner into the room like he's in a rush, stride long and steps hurried from the corridor into the cavern. But as hasty as he was, so abruptly does he stop, his head cocked to the side, his ear piqued to listening as a voice usually frosty arrests his attention. No more than two steps into the room, his feet scrape to a shuffling stop and he lowers hands busy with scrolls. Maybe he oughtn't interrupt a rare treat but; "Your voice is lovely."

Poetry, the words oddly melodic and surprisingly mild on Satiet's tongue, trail off first at the clatter of steps outside the records room. The pale eyes lift, obscured by the sweep of dark bangs, pinned to the door briefly, and then the halt in steps causes her to shake her head and resume her aloud reading. It's a short-lived reading, for two more steps bring N'thei into the room and conclude this rare treat. She skips a beat, gaze lifted once more then allows a gracious, "I'll take that as a compliment." As if it could be anything else. "Working?" Surprised?

"And poetry?" N'thei takes the time to look over Satiet with his own surprise writ on his face, unable to reconcile what he thinks of the woman with this new discovery. Something about her question irritates him, dashes a moment when he wasn't halfway hating her, and he passes farther into the room now, begins assigning the scrolls in his hands to homes on the shelves, irreverent handling as he tosses them into untidy rows. "A'zan flew at Telgar, checking legal precedent if one weyrleader murders another."

"So pleasure." Satiet can ignore everything he says or questions, drawing the open book against her chest and looking at N'thei over the top. The fact A'zan flew Telgar is hardly news, but N'thei's declaration pauses those delicate features oddly, the thin brows hitching faintly, and her lips pressed thin. "Upset he's on level with you?" Thinned lips hook crookedly, pulling her right cheek and dimpling the pale skin mockingly. "That you would want to murder him now and not before?"

N'thei turns very slowly to face Satiet directly, his one hand still in a scroll cubby, his other lowered gradually to his side. Very deliberate; "He's not on a level with me." There's exaggerated menace, surely he can't be so perturbed by one of Satiet's many many many seemingly innocuous remarks. The same grimness touches his smile, far less dimpled and delightful than hers. "I want to murder a lot of people. Are you a heavy sleeper?"

Silence. A tilt of her head for that exaggerated menace and the meaning of his words. Then, only mildly regretful, though very deliberate in her intonation, "No. He's not." Satiet's book falls from up near her chin to down to her waist, in a half-open half-shut state as one hand aims to keep the book from falling completely. His question is given just a moment of thought before her, "Yes," answer trips cool off her tongue. And she dares, dark lashes lifting high above those pale, piercing eyes, and a lift of her chin and tilt of her head exposes that creamy white neck for him.

Narrowed eyes look hard for some duplicity in her deliberate response, even her little regret enough to spark N'thei's suspicion. "Ohhhh, tempt not a desperate man, my love," with a voice hardened by too many little games. His free hand lifts, reaches, will take the measure of her throat with his thumb lined up along Satiet's chin and his finger snaked around beneath her hair. "It would not improve things, but it might make me feel better."

She doesn't swallow or breathe when the thumb traces her neck up to her chin, and only when those fingers snake beneath her hair does a single, elongated breath escape. It could be a sigh - the half-turn of her cheek towards that hand a betrayal, perhaps. Her grip on the book tightens, shutting it one-handedly, and tucked against her side, her own free hand mirroring his, reaching high up to curve a finger under his ear. "Does A'zan as Telgar's Weyrleader bother you so? Didn't he," she pauses her dry words, "Come to make amends. Once?"

N'thei stands to lose an ear, Satiet a windpipe; technically this gives him the upper hand. He never looks away nor bats a lash, only the pressure of his fingers along the back of her neck to differentiate this from countless conversations that have come before it. "He also came to torment me in jail. Once. Would you forgive so readily?" That hand, rough fingers just caught in her curls, would bring her nearer still; the better to smother you, my dear.

Who says a frigid bitch needs to breathe? "I don't forgive." Or forget, but that doesn't necessarily need to be said, what with the quirk of her pursed lips. Satiet's finger about his ear drops, trailing up the N'thei's forearm, then falling once more to his belt band. "Would it please you that much to try and kill me off? What?" Mocking humor sparks life in her blue eyes. "Do I torment you so that life without me would be that much more liveable, Weyrleader?"

N'thei only lets his teeth scrape at his lip a second before he forces the ease of a smile. "/Try/ and kill you off?" His fingers bear a few strands of hair still coiled about his knuckles while his hand slides from the back of Satiet's neck to her throat once more, the curve between his index finger and his thumb fit across her neck so neatly. "Yes, it would be, only that I hate to think of your body getting cold."

One point to Satiet. "So I torment you." Somehow, in some unexplainable way, this pleases her and the sharp features soften, blending the lines of her face as her smirk shapes a little less cruelly. Thoughtful. Her chin lifts, body leaning forward so her throat presses all the more into that thumb against her neck. Even now, where that hand plays about his waistline, traveling only a little further up and to the sides before finding home again in the middle, she thinks to inquire, "How are our visitors?" Against his thumb, her words are felt in the movement of her throat, the swallow that follows that attempts to keep her breathing slow and even.

N'thei's fingers tighten across the soft curve of her throat, a warning moment's pressure while he advises in a low voice, "Don't look so pleased, my love, or one of us will remember that we shouldn't touch each other." He touches her now though, his other hand brought up so his finger lays along the cheek that pulls in her smirk, then down her jaw, a feather's touch along the side of her neck to balance the rough fingers that hold the other side of her throat. "I believe they're stealing things, are you missing anything?" It's a careless answer while he steps to her, leans lower, wants to kiss her.

Despite that warning, the smile lingers, fainter for his words, but still remnant in the ends of her mouth, paused poised beneath the exploration of feather-light fingers. And while he leans lower, wanting to kiss her, her hand at his waistband pulls lightly, slender fingers curling beneath the band, then tensing abruptly, shoulders following suit. Frigid or apprehension? Satiet's hold of her text loosens, the books departure of her side and clatter to the floor impetus enough for her free hand to lift and cling, however briefly it might be allowed, against his chest. But while her body might betray her, somehow a semblance of coolness lingers in the one word shared, of what she has lost: "Beads."

N'thei just touches his lips to Satiet's, a taste he'll live to regret. The book hitting the floor does nothing, but then Satiet does something human and real and clings to him, and his head pulls back abruptly; the kiss goes away. "There will never be a moment's peace between us, will there." So saying, he leans close for only a moment more, now to press a pair of softest kisses to her cheeks, all manner of malice returned when he smiles down at her. "Leaving now. I'll ask after your beads."

Where she might try to push at his buttons, the touch of his lips against hers must be a pause, for she stills, the tension that glided from her fingers curled about his waistband, and rose up her shoulders, claiming the entirety of her body as well as her breath in a way his hands at her neck failed. Quick composure is hard to find so Satiet settles for keeping her breath even in her response, though her cheeks are colored. "You do that. They're tiny." A failed attempt to dodge the press of soft kisses to her cheeks, leads into a step taken back and an overtly steadied remark, "I lost a half dozen that night just by dancing alone."

N'thei does not care about beads, not that it needs to be spelled out, but he takes a moment to lay it out there for Satiet in the blandness of a look. The color in her cheeks strikes him more, has his thumbs graze across her cheekbones while his hands detach from her with their own reluctance. Just a second longer he lingers; he's fucked and he knows it and he shares this knowledge with her in a moment of rarest candor, frustrated regret in every angry line of his face. Then; he turns around and strolls out.

He's fucked and he knows it, but from her lack of composure and the fluster of cheeks and tension of body, she might not know it, despite the fact pale eyes seem riveted to every turn and movement of N'thei's body. Her fingers, plucked from their resting spot by his turn and departure, hang in the air as long as his footsteps sound in the caverns without, and then fall to her side, followed by the slide of her body against the bookshelf to join her text on the floor. Satiet's cheeks puff. Then release and her head tips back so she's staring at the ceiling. If he's fucked, she's likely in the same boat.