Difference between revisions of "Logs:Back to Back"

Above the Living Caverns, High Reaches Weyr
A narrow and extremely steep stairwell leads upwards into the darkness to finally end at an open room that is very broad and yet has a ceiling that is low enough that people taller than average will have to stoop a bit. There is a faint curve to the floor here but not so much that it's difficult for people to walk. The far corner of the room is in shadows, a crevice or two snakes its way up the naturally rough walls near a large nook. Right in the middle of the room, there is a good sized barrel that has an aged appearance to it.

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It's early enough at High Reaches Weyr that there are still plenty of folk at breakfast in the living caverns, creating the powerful murmur of numerous conversations. These waves of sound splash out into every corner of the great cave. They even trickle in through the closed peep hole of the secret space above the cavern, lending a dull whisper of background noise to the hidden room. The interior is lit by a single glow basket, placed on the central barrel so a circle of light splashes out in the middle of the space. A pilfered blanket has been spread below it, and there sits Louvaen. Having snuck away from the laundry, he leans up against the barrel with his head tipped back and eyes closed.

Bootsteps climb the dark staircase, quick at first but growing slower and quieter as the young woman nears the top of the steps and the beginnings of light. The sound wouldn't have been so audible from down below but here, the stone cups it, those waves less like the lake here or even the waterfall than the ocean of home. Leova stops at the highest step to take her boots off and then her socks, using a sock to dust off her feet before stepping barefoot onto the cool stone. And then she all but tiptoes, not secretively but more because the space seems to call for it, until she drops herself onto the corner of the blanket. There, in the light. She takes a deeper breath of the sound that's so much like silence.

Louvaen is immobile through the tiptoeing, his breath slow and even. It almost seems as if he's perhaps been lulled into sleep by the peacefulness of this secluded place. But as Leova arrives at the blanket his head rolls towards her and an eye cracks open. "Hi," he says simply. And then he yawns, mouth settling back into a sleepy smile afterwards. "I think I could hide up here all day, today."

"Me too," Leova admits as she settles down further, lolling onto her stomach with her bare feet tipped up into the air, pillowing her head sideways on folded arms so she can still smile back at him. "Think anyone would notice? Got glows today... not so bad."

"I don't think so," Louvaen says with a grin. He shifts, turning towards Leova so that his shoulder is wedged against the barrel. "And if anyone asks, you can always say you were in the back caverns." His eyes turn upwards, taking in the rough circle of illuminated ceiling and then the shadows beyond before sliding back to the other candidate. "It would even be sort of true," the young man points out and nudges his knuckles towards one of her elbows.

"It would be," Leova decides, watching his knuckles proceed with the casual interest of a wherry observing a trundlebug. Won't eat it, not worth the effort of pouncing on, let's just see what it does next. There's more silence, or at least silence from her within the murmur of sound, and eventually she gets around to saying, "Everyone's so tense out there." Not in here. This is better. Maybe, if it's like anywhere else at High Reaches, it's like how a den behind the waterfall would be.

The knuckles just rest there now that they've arrived, the heel of the hand serving as a prop for a lean. His cheek leans, too, resting against his shoulder as low-lidded eyes watch Leova. "It's getting close," Louvaen states the obvious. "Things will be changing... more for some, less for others. Still - change." His words are slow, lazy. Quiet and breathed softly into the den so as to not stir up change, here.

The wherry can nudge the trundlebug with its muzzle, maybe, the elbow shifting to a light knuckle-bump. A bump that triggers a yawn, or maybe it's Louvaen's words that do it, Leova's forearm all that prevents him from getting a grand view of her teeth and a whiff of eggs and muffins. Her words are quiet too, and similarly slow. "If you Impress... and I don't... tell me what it's like? Nobody can, so far. But you'd still be new. Remember."

The trundlebug holds steady, flexes to give a little bump right back. A dimple creases deeper and then disappears as the yawn proves to be as contagious as they often are. Louvaen turns his into his shoulder, pale gray peeking sideways from his eyes. "Okay," he promises easily. His knuckles stay in place, but the rest of him tips and sli-ides. He is a poor reflection of Leova, feet tipped up into the air but his forearms propping along the ground so that his torso is angled upwards. "You will remember to do the same?" he asks, hopeful. And then, more curious: "What have you been told? So far?"

And the wherry still doesn't eat the trundlebug. Or try to. Will wonders never cease? Maybe the wherry's fallen asleep. Certainly Leova's yawning all over again, and by her muttering, happily blaming Louvaen for it. "I'll..." ahh. There goes the rest of the yawn. "If it happens," see above about wonders and ceasing, "If you ask me. Of course." Her eyes are smiling, her mouth sleepy-soft, ready to be raided by another yawn. But it doesn't happen yet. "Dragons in your head. Well. One dragon. Listening to what you think before you say it. Everything's different. Like getting a lung replaced by a heart, maybe." There's that yawn finally, shallower this time. Maybe the last.

Louvaen bobs his head amicably. There's a hint of wateriness to his eyes, true moisture instead of just the hue of stormy green seas, as he fights off his own yawns. He is successful, the breath contained by his jaw stretching behind a closed smile, contorting the expression a moment. Eyebrows peak. "That doesn't sound very pleasant. Beating with every breath," he says fancifully. The hand that's not facing off with the wherry comes up, weight shifting to that elbow as fingers smoosh against his cheek and palm cradles chin. "It's good that they don't blab to just anyone, all the unfiltered thoughts they hear. Do you think they talk to each other, much?"

"Maybe if you got used to it. If it seemed like it was always that way," Leova lazily supposes, though without the conviction of someone who's actually experienced it or even Jaeni with her foot study. Though mostly she stays where she is, feet still up, now and again one swinging deeper over her back or pointing toes to the floor, she does eventually crane her neck up over the crooks of her arms so it can be seen even better that she's rolling her eyes. "I hope they don't. Some, they talk some. Don't know how much. It's always it depends this, it depends that... never any guarantees. No contracts. No... this much beer for that many marks."

"Hmm," Louvaen buzzes in a low note through his lips, unconvinced. The corners of his eyes crinkle with a smile. A quiet chuckle breathes through his nose when she lifts her rolling eyes. Harkening back to beer sales brings a deeper grin. "Can you imagine? More like an auction, luring hatchlings with the best deal. Here!" A finger lifts from his cheek to point of towards a shadow, his voice dropping lower. "Twenty marks, here!" Pitching falsely high, pointing in a new direction. "Thirty five! With a contract prohibiting waking each other until breakfast." The quiet chuckle again.

Leova has to laugh even as she's clamming her eyes shut, eyelids gone all wrinkly, cheeks pushing up in a grimace. "Oh, Louvaen. Was thinking more about the blabbing. Though I like the not waking until breakfast... just not marks." He might have heard gossip about the infirmary and the catgut and Aleudre. And Leova. All of a sudden, peeking back out at him, "Wonder what kind of morning breath dragons have."

"Sworn to secrecy shall be another clause in the contract," Louvean grants, still at his game. Relenting with a softer smile, he slouches lower down from his shoulders. "No. Not marks. A relationship like that would only be cheapened by such things." It is perhaps an odd sentiment, coming from one of his background. He is a moment in up swinging from that honest, somber note back into a grin. "Awful, I suppose. Though they don't eat very often? Maybe only just after they eat? Or perhaps it is worse as time goes by, chunks of their meal stuck in their teeth rotting away." His nose wrinkles at the thought.

"You really think so," Leova murmurs, not quite questioning, happy to believe but uncertain still. She smiles a little to herself, resting her forehead on her crossed wrists, taking a deep breath that doesn't quite manage to be a yawn. "Maybe we pick between their teeth. Or firelizards do... One of the exciting parts of rider life that they never tell us about back at the Hold." The Hold. "You hear about the party? At Tillek."

Louvaen gives a confident drop of his chin, the motion rocking the arm it's propped on. "I do. It is supposed to be like love, isn't it?" He treads carefully onto the topic, hesitant in the question. Picking teeth is safer to think about. "What, you didn't get the teeth and nail care talk?" he asked with feigned surprise. There's a shake to his head as a smile curves more easily on his lips. "I heard a rumor of it. At Fisher Beach? I hope that we don't all go out there only to have the eggs start hatching back here." By his voice it's more whimsy then actual concern.

"No, no teeth and nails," Leova mock complains, lifting her head and laughing, only to circle around to what he began with. Though she loses her smile, she's not so careful as he, thoughts more indrawn and gaze gone unfocused on the stone. "Is it? Love at first sight. No choice. Forever." She shrugs a little, as much as her pose will let her. "No straying. No hiding. No getting away. Some people respect you just because of who you're with. Some people think you're perverse." Suddenly she looks a little surprised at herself, adding, "Good things too, anyway," and then she glances over to Louvaen again, smiling again, a spark in those amber eyes. But what she says is, "Thinking of sneaking off to the stables." Her smile grows.

Louvaen's smile dwindles, his eyes turning upwards. Fingers stretch out along his cheek, tapping thoughtfully. "How much of a choice is love, ever? How often, in this world, can we be so assured of having one that we love?" He lets the taste of those words evaporate from his mouth before going on. "No hiding," is merely repeated softly with a quirk to his lips and something sad in his eye. It is gone as he fixes his gaze more surely on Leova again, amusement returned. "Mmm. You'll take me with you?" Now his other fingers reach out towards her elbow where they intend to splay lightly.

"More of a choice than that," Leova says decidedly. "The rest? If you believe them? Never," though she gives him a fond, amused look for his highflown language. A look that turns thoughtful at his change in tone, though she doesn't say anything right away. Instead she wriggles to her side so she can face him better, substituting the elbow she'll let him have but with a warning that's a conscious, lighter imitation of her earlier words: "No stealing. No tickling." Only then does she add, "And of course I will. She's over four months old now." And without pause, but gentler, "You have a story, Louvaen? Some lost love. Some... beauteous incomparable maiden or whatever the book said."

Louvaen tap taps his fingers against her arm playfully, giving her a daring wide eyed look. "No tickling!?" But, after the teasing threat, the fingers come to rest and he does not really tickle. "It will be fun to see her. Both of them." His gaze avoids her amber eyes, fixing instead on his hand by her elbow. "No. Nothing like that," is said almost absently. Features fall again into that typical grin. Safe. Then he can tip a look back to Leova. "And you? Any dashing men and their fine, prancing runners?"

Leova's feigned glare doesn't hold water, but then it's not meant to. She murmurs something agreeing about the Feet, but then they're a given too. And she asks, still in that gentle voice, "Then like what?" But then Leova also adds a little while later, "Milani likes the book, you know," before going on to say with a wryer twist to her mouth, "More like prancing men and dashing runners. Each more handsome than the last."

Louvaen just shrugs and averts his eyes again, letting the quiet stretch. His hands move, forearms folding together below him. When Leova speaks again, he finds it safe to look back up, eyes brightening at the news of Milani and the book. But it is her final words that bring a low chuckle from his throat. "Really?" He draws out the word, amused and curious. His toes, long swaying gently in the air over his back, drop with a soft thud down to the ground. "I wouldn't figure you for that sort of company... Then again, I suppose it fits in with what you said your sisters were like?"

Leova can't miss that, and not just because his warm touch has gone. She may not press him but she does let silence hang a moment herself. Just so it's clear. Then, back to the usual, "Really. So she told me, anyway... Nice girl. Bubbly." For the rest she might have replied differently. If he had. But as it is, it's still true. "Learned better." Her laugh is low.

"No, not really about the book," Louvaen says with laughter in his voice. "Really, about your men." There's the spark of interest in his eyes, but he does not press beyond that explanation. Clear enough to him, apparently, this idea that nothing given means nothing taken. There's the softest little hum in his throat as he regards Leova a moment. And then, giving a break to his arms, he unceremoniously flops over onto his back. Wriggles to get back in line with Leova so he can peer at her upside-down. "But I am glad Milani is enjoying it. She is a fun girl. Good company." There's a pause as his train of thought wanders a bit further a field. "Did Fraya ever poke at you? About us?" His forehead wrinkles as he tries to get a clearer look at Leova.

"Really." What a trader he is! But as long as he's flopping and wriggling, Leova wads up part of the blanket that neither of them are immediately using and pillows her head on it. And yawns, upside-down eyes smiling over it. "Poke?" She looks upside down. If she were right side up, she would also look blank. Maybe she still does. "Doesn't have a thing against Tillek, does she?"

Louvaen's knees draw up, his hands dropping to his stomach where fingers play idly at the soft creases of his shirt. "No. Not that I know of," he answers first. Hair bristles quietly against the blanket as his head shifts, tilting an ear towards his shoulder as he continues to peer. Maybe this will help him read her expression better? "I think it was just a matter of her looking to read more into gestures of friendship. That's all. It doesn't sound like she got to you," he concludes.

"Good thing," Upside Down and then Angled Leova says quite firmly. Only... he's using that language again. "Gestures of..." Abruptly she laughs, eyes bright on him and that bristly hair of his. "Us. Us? She thinks we're," and she could use a cruder word but she doesn't, "Smooching?"

Louvaen's hands tilt up, fingers spreading. His shoulders shrug. Eyes roll a little... head, too. All together, a picture of amused innocence. "Something like that. Yes." A smirk turns up the edges of his mouth. "I don't know if I should be relieved or offended, that you apparently find this funny." His attempted dry delivery is soggy about the edges due to barely contained laughter.

Leova reaches out to his hair, to rumple it if he'll let her, "You say that as if you don't. Almost." Though she does stop then, looking at him, one leg stretched and the other bent sharply at the knee. "What's she been saying? How much has she gotten to you."

Louvaen now lets himself laugh, eyes crinkling into slits as he smiles around ruffled hair. "I guess I wouldn't say funny," he grants. He shifts again, rolling to his side. Scooching to get in the right position for stretching his lower elbow forward, hand held as a prop for his temple. "And she hasn't gotten to me. She was mostly just insistently asking if I had a crush on you." His free hand now plucks idly at the blanket. "I guess the only thing I was worried about was that she'd make you think I was pining for you. What with your admonishment to be careful... well, I wasn't sure how you'd take to the idea." His grin stretches again. "With laughter, it seems."

Leova's glance slides down to the blanket too, where he picks at it and then past. Stone. Lots of stone to look at around here. Stone floor, stone ceiling, stone walls. Back to Louvaen if only to admit, "If she was bothering me? Probably different. This way? Makes me want to just mess with her mind." Which may be another thing that doesn't match the Leova he has in his head, but there it is. "Might fall over if I batted my lashes at you, gave you a great big bouncy hug right in front of her, though... See. Louvaen." She's talking more now, serious and steady, toes every now and again tapping against stone. "Don't know if you ran into girls like that before. They do that to get a rise out of you, get you denying it, get you paying attention to them. Might be to make room for them. Might be just to mess with you. She's young." Though not that young.

The admission doesn't match at all, evidenced by the upward slide of Louvaen's brows. There's a lopsided twist at his lip as his mouth drops fractionally open in an off-balance smile. A single laughing breath exhales from his lungs as if it's struck out of him, but he's otherwise quiet and unmoving as he listens to her continue. He doesn't have the words at first, merely marveling at what ideas have come forth from this person he's known as a tangle haired and quiet stablehand. "She is young," he finally says, a bit of wary recalculation in his manner. A bit of awe. "I don't believe she is that conniving. But you're right. And a lot of that can operate, unconsciously." He pauses the barest of moments, head tilting. Gaze even more piercingly fixed. "I did know girls like that. At the time, my best friend and I knew each other quite well. Better then you do me, or I you... I wonder... what rank of society you moved in, Leova? When you had your dresses and dances, your prancing men?"

Leova laughs, warm and smoky-low, at his reaction before she speaks again. Even so, the laughter doesn't last long. "Wouldn't call it conniving. Not like that. Just... what girls do, when they don't have better things to do, when they're cooped up and left to wait. Or sometimes just because. Can't tell me boys don't have a pecking order either. Or men." But he's looking at her and she's looking at him back, chin lifted, maybe a little regret in the flattened curve of her mouth and the way her voice has quieted. "If you found out I was some lord's lost daughter, would we be... better friends? Louvaen? Because I'm not. Nothing like."

"It's different. But," his brows lift, eyes batting closed while he tilts his head towards a one-shouldered shrug in concession on the point of pecking orders. Some of the alertness drains from Louvaen's posture and features. Some. Her questions have his eyes rolling. "Of course not," the young man answers quickly enough, his free hand thumping quietly into the blanket in emphasis. His lips tighten into more of a line - far from extreme, save in the contrast to his more typical smiles. His brows loosen, a little furrow forming between them as the centers shift upwards over softened eyes. "Except in the fact that in learning the truth I would know you better. I would be better able to understand you."

In turn Leova grants him the difference with a tilt of her head. "Of course not," she repeats more quietly, and then sighs, her foot coming to rest on the cool stone. "Don't see what's so hard to understand, Louvaen. And... " She can't quite seem to come up with the words. Can't quite ask for a trade. "You have the truths that are important. Already." Does she?

Louvaen's eyes search, following her movement and what shifts appear in her expression. Uncertainty is written in the lines of his face and in the way his fingers resume picking at the blanket with short little movements which are quicker than before. His mouth presses a harder line before relaxing. "Okay," he says simply. His eyes drop to his hand and the blanket. The line of his brows softens again. "Okay." It is repeated even more easily. A gentler curve twitches on his lips, then spreads wider. No further truths of his own are offered.

"Oil on the water," Leova says very softly, maybe more to herself than to him. "What are you thinking, Louvaen? What now." With a small smile, "Other than... okay. Going along. You're so good at that."

One of those quiet laughs breathes through his nose. His eyes don't lift. "Am I?" The response tips brief wistfulness on his brow. It's a long moment before Louvaen lifts his gaze again. Soft, still, in eye and smile. Not completely shut off, but not exactly open. "You've rejected it all, that life." A little twist appears on his features, the barest hint of wry amusement. "What ever it was - something closer to mine, at least? And you've found contentment in something simpler." Perhaps it's not all he's thinking, but it's something?

"You make it look easy," is what Leova replies, though she voices it more as explanation than anything cut and dried. She watches it all play across his face, and his hands, too, and exhales a quiet little sigh. It would be easy, the easiest, to see closed. To be closed. It would be fair. Nothing's owed. But maybe even Leova needs to talk sometimes, to someone who can talk back instead of a fuzzy runner in an hour's worth of stolen stable time. To someone, she might believe, who means her well. "Tried to," she finally says. "Closer to yours... but not so much."

"It is easy." Some of the time. Maybe even most of the time. He listens. Breathes. Is watched, and watches. He is calm, the inner eye of the outgoing whirlwind of his cheer and smiles. Or perhaps this is the calm that lurks before storms that have yet to manifest. "It didn't work," Louvaen surmises. It is said gently, and still there lurks hopefulness that this is untrue. Yet even deeper... the whisper of grim satisfaction that it is.

"How do you do it?" Leova asks, less watchfully than wistfully now. She stirs, slumping from her side down to her back again, toes flattening out against each other. She can't silence her body just now, even when she can silence the rest. Not that she does. "It did. Work." Past tense. Will it satisfy hopefulness and that grim whisper both, or deny them? Her eyes close. "At Granite. So well. At Tillek, almost always." And here...

Louvaen can't answer. He just shrugs. Taking a deep breath, he shifts up to sit cross legged as she flattens. His arms are flopped in his lap, shoulders rounded, all in all - still collapsed. Eyes stare off into the shadows. "It worked, when you couldn't see what you had given up?" It is fully a question this time. His gaze slides back to Leova.

Leova doesn't demand more. She does keep turning, to her other side now. Facing away from him. She's giving him her back, the curve of her spine that smooths up to her neck, and in compensation edges just a little closer, not quite enough to be touching. "Not quite. Could see it then too, some. Just... wasn't so much on my own."

Louvaen's fingers start plucking at the blanket again. He looks at her back. There are no words, just an empathetic silence. And then he moves, his hands stretching out and crawling him forward. He lowers to his side and scoots the final inches that would bring him against her, shoulder blades to shoulder blades, and he draws up his knees towards his chest.

"And...." But Leova was more searching for a word anyway and at his touch she sighs out the rest in a slow breath, leaning into him so he can lean against her. She doesn't hold herself so tightly, so fetally. Neither is she entirely relaxed, yet, though every breath brings her closer. The background murmuring folds over them in soft, blanketing waves.

(Eventually shoulders start getting uncomfortable, there's shifting, some tired smiles, and an agreement to get back before anyone starts looking for them.)