Difference between revisions of "Logs:Battle Scars"

Far past dinner now, most of the people have begun to return to their rooms and weyrs. There are a few hanging around, but they're just the usual night owls. Huddled away in their corners, most are not seated anywhere near Z'ian. The rumors are true, he's taken quite the beating from the Istan. Broken nose, delicately reset but having given him two large black eyes. He's lucky that he avoided any terrible swelling, so he's able to see out of them. Anything else visible is bruises and scrapes, aside from the occasional grimace and hand to ribs that he does. He's done with dinner, so now he's just over by the fire staring into the flames. His spirits are higher than they were earlier in the day, but the bronzerider isn't quite back to normal just yet. He's oblivous for the most part to the comings and goings around him, removed from it.

Since having abruptly left the Snowasis for darker pastures with urgency, Jo arrives back to the Weyr in a darker mood than when she left. Her hair is tussled and her black leathers looked scuffed with dust and who knew what else, but she's in the process of trying to rub it all out while she trudges into the nighthearth. She has a mark on one cheek that looks like a smudge, and there was a small stack of hides tucked under one arm. Dark eyes send withering glares at those that turn to stare at her when she arrives, and most of them quickly return to their own business. When she spots Z'ian, there's that pause - in her appearance, she probably should turn right back around - but slow booted steps take her towards where he's sitting by the fire and stopping just shy of him as indecision grips her again. Then, with a breathy exhalation, "So I heard ya got into a fight." That's her greeting, and it's with open non-chalance as she stands behind his chair.

There might be some small registration on his part. One that people around him are shifting, moving. When they see the bluerider approach him, a couple even just get up and leave. They're here for the quiet, relaxing atmosphere. And perhaps these two don't look like they're going to be helpful in supporting that today. There are other places to be, certainly. Z'ian turns his head just a little, eyes narrowing and then inhaling sharply when her voice reaches his ears. He was expecting this, but maybe just not today, so soon. That quick intake of air has his hand going to his side again and he twists painfully to look back and up at her. "Yeah, Tsanth and I both." He answers easily and turns back, straightening his body out and sinking into the chair as he breathes out slowly.

When Z'ian answers, then Jo moves into the light and pulls up a chair. She straddles it facing backwards arms folded and landing on the chair's back as she turns her head just a fraction to watch a few people suddenly leave. "Either I'm lookin' like shit, or you are tonite," is her comment on the observation, her voice deadpan with its usual traces of sarcasm laced in. She eyes those retreating back before her dark gaze focuses solely on the bronzerider, taking in what she could see of his facial injuries with slightly narrowed eyes in silence. For now, she abandons cleaning her own self up. "Heard it from Brieli," she goes on to say after a moment, searching his face. "What happened with this....H'vier?" She supplies the name given, too.

Z'ian rests one elbow onto the arm of the chair and leans his face into his hand. His eyes wander over Jo and he hazards a tired sort of grin, "I think it's a combination. I look like shit, but you look sort of dusty. Maybe they think we're going to have a fight too." He glances past her to a couple that are getting up and leaving. There's a a couple of beats where he doesn't say anything, but then he begin to rub his bruised face. "Tsanth wasn't going to win. So we decided to take out the nearest threat with us. Reisoth and Tsanth fall out of the sky, kick the crap out of each other. H'vier gets very upset, comes after me. Breaks my nose. I get upset." He rolls his eyes up to the ceiling. "And it really just sort of escalates from there and doesn't get much better." He smiles crookedly at her and lifts his shoulders, "They tell me I'll still be pretty after the swelling goes down."

It's only when Z'ian notes her appearance that Jo leans herself back and takes up wiping what she can off of her leathers with a frown. To his comment of them fighting, "Wouldn' be much of a fight, would it?" she muses low, the light of the fire now showing a bruised color on her knuckles as she works. "Between my knife and my thighs, I'd be bettin' on me." Cranky Jo can find a little humor, apparently. She continues to clean through his rendition of what happened during the flight, her gaze lingering on his face on occasion, and when he finishes, there's that barest flicker of a smile and then she says, "Huh. So ya started it. And Tsanth. Do they look just as bad?" Snorting softly and starting to undo the clasps of her riding jacket, "Heard he fought with Bones, too." Observation, perhaps, but to the last that Z'ian says, she meets his gaze and one corner of her lips lift into something more human in the smile department as she says, "Thank Faranth for that. I don' know what I would have done. Shit, what am I talkin' about?" she sends her a pointed look and adds, "Lucky you, I like men that look worn around the edges."

"I could get up and ask them?" Z'ian offers, glancing past her once again. But at this point anyone that would have gone has already gotten up and left. The people that remain are the ones that couldn't care less what they're doing there. He laughs tightly, "I didn't expect him to come over and try to wipe the floor with me. It probably would have been kinder if he just let both of the dragons land right on top of my head." For his dragon he exhales, "Reisoth looks alright. Tsanth, looks kind of like me. You know, for a dragon. But they stitched his wing up so he should be flight worthy in no time." Flickering his gaze down he notices the discoloration on her knuckles. "What happened to you?" He asks, eyebrows drawing together. Dragging himself to the edge of the chair, he leans forward and presses one hand tightly against his ribcage with a wince. Reaching out with the other, he takes her carefully by the wrist and turns her hand over to survey the damage. "You'd have had to dump me before we even got started. I'd probably have cried." The bronzerider replies, looking up to flash her a crooked smile. "Lucky you. I'll be just the man you want after this."

Jo rolls her eyes to the first. Just a little, and it keeps some semblance of a smile lingers where before it was more of a scowl. Back to the Istan transplant. "It sounds to me like ya think he did ya wrong," she notes with a faint touch of wry. "Perhaps ya should have had Tsanth take out Szadath instead?" Yeah, Taikrin won. Over bronzeriders, a female brownrider won, and she's noting it. "Think I might have paid to have seen ya and Taikrin go at it. If I was around." Which evidently, she wasn't. She could have added more - something witty and distracting, no doubt - but then Z'ian points out her knuckles and too late, when her eyes are drawn to that wince from him, her own hand is taken before she could conceal them. Silence meets that question - Z'ian probably is used to THAT by now - with her gaze going quite guarded. She regards him for a long moment as if struggling with an answer, and then she simply chooses the answer as she curls her fingers, "Wasn' a fight. Just had to slug someone today." Simple as that. No big. That's the way she's making it sound right now. His last brings that something crooked in a tired smile right back, the woman quipping back in a lazy tone, "Don' even think I know what I want these days. And, I'd drive ya up the wall. Any man, really."

"I think he might have gotten a little overly emotional about the situation. But then again, maybe I don't blame him." Z'ian runs his thumb over the darkened part of her knuckle. Exposing his own scraped and bruised hand in the process. She's needling him about Taikrin and that takes him back a step, breathing in painfully and pressing his lips together. "Thanks for reminding me that we royally fucked up. I'd mostly forgotten that part." Except he absolutely didn't, clearly shown by the way his eyebrows draw together. She's meeting his inquiry with guarded silence and he's meeting it with a brief look of frustration. It's one that he tries desperately to stuff down and away, if the way he shakes his head, swallows and eventually smiles is any indication of. "I'm getting... I'm just tired." It sounds like an apology, even if he hasn't said anything yet that's necessarily so terrible. Doing his best not to backslide, he wrestles up a half-grin. "I know, you've told me that before. Driving a person up the wall bit." He lightly squeezes her bruised hand before he lets it drop, drawing his own back.

"He seems like an overly emotional guy, period," Jo returns on H'vier, not having met the man but having only heard that he communicates with his fists, evidently. Z'ian's thumb over bruised knuckles has her drawing her gaze down to hers - and then his - and the hand in his own turns over to grip his own where she's tracing over his own bruised knuckles in much the same way that he had done hers. She only looks up at his reaction for bringing up Szadath's win, almost looking at a loss at his reaction and words before she briefly closes her eyes and shakes her head. "Shit. I mean," she seems to fumble a little, clearly awkward when it comes to apologies herself. "Shit." Pause. "I'm an ass. I know," she states then, frowning. "Probably even more of one tonite. Just...didn't have a good day today." And even moreso, she can feel his frustration more than see it, and as she watches him struggle with it - with her evasiveness, rather - "Look. Let's just say...this man owed someone something...and I got it back for him." It's abrupt that she says it, and she's watching Z'ian rather carefully. "And I had to talk. Without words." After a lengthy pause, "And I'm tired too," she notes, her growing smile matching that statement. It drops off a little before she decides to say, "So...there's some people I've been lookin' for lately." And her voice drops low, even if most of the people there have already gone.

He laughs shortly, "Maybe he just needs a hug." Z'ian sighs and gets to his feet, not enough to stand really. Just enough to move himself and the chair closer to hers. There's a long breath of air that he exhales when he sits again, moving clearly not so awesome to feel at the moment. "I'm supposed to relax a couple of days." He tells her, as if that's supposed to explain everything. Leaning forward he rests his arms onto the back of the chair she's straddling. Quickly he starts to cut in with, "No. Don't. It's not you. She's your friend and... I understand that you're happy for her. Or glad. And that doesn't have anything to do with me or what I was trying to do. I fucked it up by not paying attention." They're close enough now that it would be difficult for anyone to really overhear them, especially if they pitched their voices low enough. Her further explanation draws a concerned look from him. "It sounds dangerous, talking without words." He knows what it means, honestly. But the verbal observation comes out from him anyway. Her last has his full attention and he presses his chin into his hand. "Are you close to finding these people?"

Briefly jaunty, "Oh I can give him just the hug that he needs," Jo notes with a flash of her usual cocky self before this leather-clad wraith version of herself made her appearance tonite. She's still chuckling to herself on it when Z'ian moves himself closer while she's staying right where she is for now. While she tries to keep most vulnerable emotions under wraps, the bronzerider's obvious pain shows in that brief flicker of concern that goes through her. The convict rider shakes it off, the odd note of confusion chasing it away as she absently answers him on Taikrin, "I don' know. I'm not sure what we are. I'm not sure how I feel about what's happened, or what it all means." Her voice is kept even as she says it, and then she puts in, a touch wry, "Did ya want him to win?" Tsanth. That wryness lingers a bit, even though she spots that concern rolling off of him when she actually isn't being too evasive with where she's been, this time. She lifts her chin at him, showing that bold profile as she draws herself up and states, "Nah, ya think I'm goin' to let anyone roll up on me? He was far too piss-drunk off of booze and food to get out of his chair properly. Scuffed up my leathers though. No one touches my leathers." She's still watching him carefully despite her brave-sounding words, and the last has her weighing what she wants to say before it's decided with a strange nod that's almost going sideways into something negative. "Maybe," she says, before looking him in the face. "Those bastards are the ones that got me sent to the mines." He wanted to hear it. There it all was.

"I recommend you approach him from behind. He's got fists like boulders." He shoots back, sounding mildly amused by her bravado. Z'ian shifts around until he finds a position that isn't really uncomfortable, but he doesn't move from where he's leaned his arms into her chair. His eyebrows lift in response to how she feels about the other rider, there's a brief flicker of surprise there. For her question he ducks his head and laughs quietly. "Us? No. That's not for us, Jolie. But I wanted someone else to win. That we could trust, that people could know wasn't in it for himself. I didn't count on Szadath, maybe I should have. Like you said." He taps his fingers across his mouth. "The best laid plans, right?" The bronzerider slowly rolls one shoulder, carefully. "Anyway." Glancing down at her scuffed leathers, he smiles crookedly. A smidge wolfishly he teases, "I gather he won't be doing it again. And I hope by no one, you only mean lousy drunks that think they can fight you." When she reveals who she's after, he's quiet for a good moment. Contemplative, speculative look taking possession of his face. With a deep breath, "I usually know what to say next." But he doesn't exactly know so he buys himself some more time by trying to draw himself up, wincing and getting into a spot that makes him eye level with her. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Jo is easy to laugh on the account of taking that one from behind, though she remarks back to that, "Guess we'll see." Brows lift and fall on that. She turns to the matter of the flight - and who won it - briefly, the bluerider picking up on something said and fitting a look onto him. "Someone that's not in it for himself? And you are?" His eyes falling on her poor scuffed leathers has her going right back to trying to fix it, though she shoots the man a look that's something suggestive for his tease. All that though falls to the wayside in light of more serious topics - like the past she's been harboring close to her chest. When he admits that he wasn't sure what to say, coupled with that contemplative look, her own is slightly more guarded now as she answers, "I'm only tellin' ya because...I think ya can be trusted. If it's misplaced, rather ya let me know now than when ya fuck me over later." As in, she was taking a gamble on the bronzerider.

"I'm not in it for myself. I don't want it at all. Which is some sort of selfish in its own right, I guess." That has Z'ian furrowing his eyebrows, like he hadn't given that aspect of it any actual thought before. He watches her as she regresses back, the walls beginning to inch up again. Reaching forward, he doesn't grab her. He just lays his hands onto her arms, it's an easy sort of contact that doesn't require her to acknowledge it. It's just there. Pitching his voice quietly again, "I wouldn't be going down this road with you if I had any plans on throwing you to the wolves." He lifts his eyebrows and chews on his lower lip, "When you talk with me, you're safe."

Jo considers him for a long moment when Z'ian speaks about the idea of being Weyrleader, and then she comments, "Ya should want it," which is firm from her. "Yer one of those good ones, like K'del. Didn' mind him, when he was Weyrleader." It was much easier to regress for her - perhaps showing some sort of paranoia from her? - but then Z'ian speaks about being safe, and that acknowledging touch....There's a lingering pause as she seems to recall everything, before she takes a breath and drops at least her short version with a husky voice of neutrality. Her fingers idly rapping against the back of the chair, "Well. His name was Deetan. Everything pretty much started and ended with him." She shakes her head in the pause before she continues with, "I never could leave the bad ones alone. Even when I was young. Well, long story short. I got involved with him, he got me involved with these friends of his, and then the next thing I knew, we were out and about, thievin'. Ya know." It sounds blas? on purpose. Almost. "I got pretty damn good at it, too. Hadn't got caught, till that last time." She pauses, leaning back and starting up again. "Last heist went bad real fast. The one we robbed ended up dying from a knife wound. I didn' do it," she's quick to note, "but, my stupid ass picked up the knife right when the guards showed up. One of my so-called friends told them I did it before he died himself. Deetan and those two other bastards already high-tailed it like their asses were in flames. Didn' care that I myself got shanked in the leg and looked as innocent as all get-out. So." So. By the pointed look, it was obvious what happened next in her little narrative.

"What I should want out of life is a whole other conversation." Z'ian tells her firmly. "One you can have with Tsanth once he's feeling better. I'm sure you'd both have a great time." And then he's silent, because she's talking. Explaining how she ended up there in the mines. His expression follows along, mostly neutral but falling when she gets to the part about the murder. There's naturally relief when she points out that it wasn't her. The mention of a wound to her leg has him glancing unconsciously down before flickering back to her face. And when she's done, the only thing left is assessment, but he doesn't pull back or away from her. "These are the people you want to find again." It's not a question, he knows from her voice, from the way she talks about it. Those are the people. There's a certainty to it. Searching her face, he turns the acknowledging touch into a gentle squeeze of her forearms. "What then?"

"Is it," Jo counters with that slight rising intonation at the end that could make it easily a question, not in the least bit deterred by his firm tone since she's just that sort of bold. However, that's all that follows it for now, but by the twitch of brows and that look of piqued interest, something Z'ian says or does is on her radar. Through her narrative, she watches his expression, even the relief he shows on her not killing, and as to the look down to her leather-clad leg, "Yeah. It's there," is her response to his wordless question. She seems a bit more relaxed now that she's told it, though there's still that shade of guardedness that if detected, had always been there at the ready. She nods firmly to his words those being the people she's looking for. "Deetan, Kinervus and Bareta," she gives the names like they were poison on her tongue. She meets his gaze then for the question, bemusement touching her face. "What do ya mean?"

"It is." Z'ian tells her, giving her just a little bit of a look for it. But she's moved on and doesn't seem to be investigating the deep corners of his life right now. Which is probably all for the best tonight. When she acknowledges his glance down to her leg, "How bad did they hurt you?" he asks, concerned for a knife wound that's probably long healed. His focus shifts down there again, but briefly. Lifting his chin to meet her gaze head on, "What are you going to do when you catch up with them again? Have dinner?" He's masked it with his own characteristic humor, a touch of amusement with some teasing. But really, he's serious beyond just that.

Jo isn't one to back down so easily, and so, her look back at Z'ian for the first is mulish. But the convict rider was tired, and the look doesn't really have the strength that it should, so she does move on with her gaze going down to her right leg when his does. She looks up and sends the man a tired smile that probably tells of one that's seemed to have lived longer than her younger age as she states quietly, "I've gotten far more of those since, darlin'." Pause. "They didn' hurt me," she corrects on that particular unseen scar. "The one we robbed, did. Wrong place, wrong time." Z'ian then clarifies his question and the bluerider looks away and starts to find cracking her neck more important than doing something like...answering that question. After hearing a satisfying crack, then she answers, "Not sure anymore. Had somethin', but, then Tac sort of came into my life. Unexpectedly." She leans back, eyes going in the direction of the bowl where perhaps the blue is waiting, Back to Z'ian, now equally teasing since that seems easiest, "I could always just kick Deetan's ass into next turn," is her idea. "Really, really hard."

Possibly relieved that they're not going to hash out how he can improve his own life, Z'ian is happy to let that other topic drop for the moment. Not that hearing about getting hurt at other times seems to brighten him up any further, that all garners a quiet clenching of his jaw. His eyebrow lifts when she looks away, cracks her neck, puts off on answering him again. He starts to turn his head to the side, questioningly look beginning to intensify until she does give him something of a response. Glancing past her towards the exit, "I'm glad that he did." He's quiet then as he takes in a breath, giving her arms a final squeeze before he lets go of her. The bronzerider pushes his chair back and works on standing. His hand goes to his tender ribcage and he puts the other out to her. Smiling lopsidedly, "Let me know if you want someone to come along. Just... can we kick his ass next week? Because it might be a few days here." Since they're back to teasing now, it would seem. "Walk with me outside? I want to go see him." Tsanth, who else.

Z'ian's quiet words on Tacuseth finding her draws that lingering silence from Jo, the convict rider's eyes narrowing a fraction onto him before she suddenly follows suit and swiftly gets to her feet. She re-tucks the sheets of hide under her arm again while doing so, more lost in her thoughts than before. She spots his hand going to his ribcage before he lifts the other to her, and she looks to his ribcage injury once more. Then, his tease on kicking ass gets a crooked smile from her and a wry, "Can' have ya bronzeriders stealin' all of my fun." But then he's clearly needing help out of the place and so she's there, her black leather-clad body to be used as a crutch as she takes him by the arm and drawls, "Come on, grandpa. Let's leave the talk of ass-kickin' for later." And if he doesn't resist, she'll be helping him out of the room and towards his waiting dragon.