Difference between revisions of "Logs:Dick Waving"

Lake Shore, High Reaches Weyr

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.

A lovely, cloudless sky offers warm sunshine during the day, though the weather turns distinctly chilly after dark.

To a certain set of the newcomers - oh, poor Vienne especially! - this weather is as cold as "home" has ever been. Ainslee, in contrast, thrives on the cold: the redhead's color is high as she slips from the dark emerald of her lifemate's neck, patting fondly at the closest subtle striation of color at the joint where foreleg meets chest. She doesn't even wear a scarf, the vulnerability of freckled neck pale against the rich brown of her leather coat. "Go on, love," her east-coast accent can be heard murmuring, and the length of long dragon slides closer towards the water, slowly testing the temperature with a tentative, distrustful nosing of muzzle against the water. The surprised - and pleased - sound that the dragon vocally makes prompts a throaty laugh from the greenrider: "You said that yesterday!" she calls after her lifemate, in fine spirit, caring little about the chronically poor memories dragons tend to have: they just allow for new experiences on a weekly schedule, rather than a lifetime.

This is probably the very last gasp of the season: it can't be long, now, before the temperature drops on a more semi-permanent basis, and the lake becomes an ice-pond better suited to skaters than swimmers. Now, of course, that K'del is actually a swimmer this afternoon - not when there's a perfectly formed boulder on the water's edge to sit on, and a bronze dragon submerging himself deep into the lake's shadows. The arrival of Ainslee and her green distracts the bronzerider from his own dragon, and turns his attention side-on towards her, appraising rather than curious. "You," he says, after a moment's pause, "must be new. Hello."

The temperature has raised, if slowly, since this morning which H'vier spent next to the hearth in the Snowasis with something to warm himself from the inside out. It's never too early to drink, after all! But now it's time to be an adult and force his dragon into the comparatively cold water of the Reaches. Not that H'vier looks like he's about to get anywhere near it himself. His jacket is fastened up tight though the scarf tucked into it at least isn't wrapped around his neck. He's not that big of a cold wuss. Yet. Reisoth is still circling the sky overhead, a dark blob, while the bronzerider makes his way across the bowl toward the lake. No doubt his attention will focus on Ainslee as he approaches. She's nicer to look at.

Kalaith takes to the water as easily to the skies, treading past the initial mud-churn of entry to dive into the clearer depths, disappearing from view unsettlingly fast. Ainslee gazes after her a moment before K'del's greeting catches her, surprised: she turns as he talks, a swift smile offered after the second of startlement. "That obvious, is it?" comes her wryly-pitched return. "Ainslee," with the scrub of fingers against pants-leg precipitating a step closer and a hand outstretched to shake. "Of Kalaith," a flicker of a gaze towards the water, as if her lifemate was at all hard to miss. H'vier's approach is belatedly noticed, and her free hand flags in a wave as he enters from the bowl. Cheerfully called: "Did you ever finish that /business/?"

"Only because I don't recognise your face," says K'del, all smiles. High Reaches' former Weyrleader leans backwards, supporting his position upon the boulder with one hand placed strategically behind him; the other reaches out to take Ainslee's, his grip firm. "K'del," he adds, with that obvious self-conscious and awkward hesitation that so often accompanies the introductions of those semi-used to being recognised, and now conscious of it no longer being the case. Such a come down; so tragic. "Cadejoth's." It's only after the introduction is complete that he turns his head further, letting H'vier - another face he doesn't recognise - come into his view. The bronzerider also gets a nod, and a wry, "Now I'm beginning to feel like I'm in the wrong weyr. Have we been invaded?"

"I told you it was an errand," says H'vier as he approaches, plenty of emphasis on that last word of his. "An errand that would have been just as comfortable in the hands of a weyrling," he adds, lacking amusement. The large bronzerider glances up toward the blob of his dragon before his attention falls onto K'del and he returns a grin of some sort. "If your weyrwomen are to be believed, you'd think you were, I'm sure. H'vier. Reisoth's." He points up toward said dragon still circling above.

"Well-met, K'del." If Ainslee recognizes the name - as likely is the case - she doesn't make any fuss over it. "There's another one," she informs the local bronzerider. "A bluerider previously hailing from Igen." Her accent by now betrays her Bitran past - should one have an ear for it. "By the great egg, do they grow /normal/ sized bronzeriders this side of the Big Bay?" She'll lop people off at the knees if they start on the short jokes (she's sized well for knee assault, after all). "Errand. Sure." Subtle stress on the last, amused, a curving smile sent upwards to H'vier. "Keep your secrets, then." Her naturally throaty voice is terribly amused.

K'del's gaze is still in H'vier's direction when the bronzerider remarks on his errand, and he laughs - he is amused, apparently, despite coming in late to the conversation. "There're only seven of them," he points out. Weyrlings, presumably. "High demand. Well met, both of you." He shifts, drawing himself around so that he can face both riders, hands now resting idly to either side of his knees. "We've a lot of oversized types around here; sorry about that. Can't help it. Hope you were easy on my weyrwomen. They're young, yet." He's trying not to sound posessive of them. Trying.

"Don't tell me you like little men, darling," H'vier says to Ainslee with a somewhat more amused grin on his scruffy face. K'del's comment on the weyrlings draws his attention back to more, maybe not serious things, but certainly less lecherous. "Aye, well met. The one seems... nice." Azaylia, no doubt. "Could probably use a strong hand beside her." And damned if it doesn't sound like he thinks it should be him. "Not sure if the other could use something even stronger." That could just be to poke at whatever he might think he hears in K'del's voice.

Eyebrows quirk at K'del's apparent possession of goldriders, but Ainslee is far too pol... sober to call him on it. The greenrider does flash a quick gleam of teeth upwards to K'del at the mention of oversized types, a bawdy comment kept behind her teeth if only for the knowledge that this man is, after all, the erstwhile weyrleader. Archly, to the one who /isn't/: "/Little/ men? There's a happy medium, I'd like to think." A shrug of shoulder, before she breezily interjects into this conversation of goldriders and strong hands and youth: "Well, I do believe that they will be just fine. I've the impression that they are both well-formed young women, and either of them will do just fine. This notion that a /goldrider/ has any need of a man's protection or guidance in matters of leading is ludicrous." Well. Maybe protection /from/ a man... but that was more directed to H'vier, certainly, with his 'strong hand me strong man hur hur' scruff. (This doesn't, of course, preclude her from charmingly smiling up at him while she wanders off on feminist tangent.)

It's possible that K'del reads something bawdy in to Ainslee's show of teeth, because his smirk, and that raised eyebrow certainly speak of something, but he, too, keeps his commentary clean. "They're both capable," he confirms, though in doing so he glances back at H'vier, discomforted, with shoulders straightening and expression turning tight. "Ainslee's right. No doubt they will be showing the ropes to whoever ends up as Weyrleader, unless he's got experience already, of course." So much for not sounding possessive; K'del's words are a quiet warning, somehow, utterly at odds with how casual he was only moments ago. "Wingleader, Wingsecond - none of those are preparation for Weyrleader."

H'vier, perhaps infuriatingly, doesn't seem all that bothered by Ainslee's feminist tangent. Oh, that's cute. He returns her smile but it's to K'del he speaks when he does. "I'm sure they're both perfectly capable women. It would be a shame if your golds chose any less, wouldn't it?" His smile lingers for a moment because he's totally being polite but then he glances skywards toward the bronze that's finally descending toward the shore. "No offense, of course, but you managed for quite some time."

All men were created equal - which makes it a good thing that lovely little Ainslee is not, in fact, a man. This way, she can mock them! "Oh, such presumption!" Her bemused alto lilts towards K'del. "Capable, but certainly not as capable as an experienced man." Her eyes roll. "Since they are, after all, only women." She shakes her head, sends apparently-guileless gaze over to H'vier, at his comment of... less than perfectly capable women being picked. "You'd wonder why queens pick women in the first place, wouldn't you?" Though the jibe is less focused on either men and carries a rashly unpretty note of general bitterness. Maybe she *is* brash and contentious enough to rate her Hailstorm assignment, after all. She waves off her previous comments almost as swiftly as she says them, her smile apparently unforced. "Kalaith calls. It was a pleasure meeting you, K'del, and-- seeing you again, H'vier." Her green is indeed surfacing from the lake as an errant water-monster rising from the briny depths, eyes whirling with a quiet tint of yellow to disclaim Ainslee's internal discontent.

"That's not--" It's for Ainslee, K'del's attempted correction, very obviously intended to explain that he wasn't implying that about the goldriders whatsoever, truly! His expression is wretched, and though it's obvious he's still inclined towards posturing and dick-waving with H'vier, he restrains himself. "Welcome to High Reaches, Ainslee," he says instead. And, because he clearly can't help himself entirely: "I learned. From my Weyrwoman," which is debatable, since his relationship with the banished Tiriana is not exactly a secret, "and from others. They," the goldriders, presumably, "Will no doubt assist the Weyrleader in finding his feet. If he needs it." His tone is clipped.

He might rather keep his attention on K'del, trying to prove some sort of manly whatever, but Ainslee's comments draw H'vier's gaze like he has absolutely no idea what could have possibly gotten her precious little panties in a twist. "I hope we can do it again sometime soon," he says to the greenrider. Nope, that's not innocent at all. Back to K'del, "Of that I have no doubt." He hesitates for a moment, eyes narrowing consideringly at the other bronzerider, then, "If you'll excuse me, I should see to Reisoth before he gets distracted." He offers a grin, not entirely amiable, then turns to deal with that dragon of his.

K'del's grin barely counts as such, but he nods, sliding down off of his boulder to head in the opposite direction. He's not smiling for long.

Ainslee has a last, more-sympathic expression for K'del - one not entirely lacking a certain re-evaluating consieration. "Thank you," she responds prettily, a measure of composure regained. "I'm sure I'll see you around." A little wave, too, in farewell. Her expression to H'vier is entirely more of an indulgent smirk, before she turns to more aptly deal with her own personal water-monster. This may take some time.