Difference between revisions of "Logs:Fancy Meeting You"

Seedy Tavern, High Reaches Area

A little ramshackle and moss-grown around the edges, most riders would probably have a fit about the green condition this place is in. Perched on the side of the road between High Reaches Weyr and Crom Hold, this is your typical small waystation comprising a four-walled building with a main room filled with dilapidated tables and chairs, a splintery bar and copious quantities of bad beer. There's a kitchen at the back and a single large room where cots can be set up for sleeping. A small beasthold provideds shelter for up to a half-dozen runners.

Ramshackle and overgrown, it's a pitstop for many a traveler between the Weyr and Crom. With the Interval, it should have seen some growth in its business, but the people who traverse Crom to High Reaches are fewer and those who stop in from one direction or the other are likely headed to other destinations. It might get busier later, when people are ready to turn in for the night, but just past noon, the bar sees only its regulars (those farmers who live near enough), with very few strangers, one of which is the slender woman who's taken up shop at the bar itself. Maybe she's already seen some unwanted attention, for the short knife that would typically hang along her belt, rests in between her elbow and the drink she nurses.

N'thei and F'rint ought to know better than to play around in seedy taverns. But two men have a better shot of walking through a place like this completely unmolested than one slight goldrider, and they come in shoulder-to-shoulder, confident in their untouchability. "--because even if they could afford it, why would they pay for it?" is the present bent to the conversation, with F'rint posing the question like this argument has been ongoing for quite some time. "Because they think they have to or--" That's as far as the answer gets before that niggling sense of something being not-quite-right stops the man in his tracks. "The world is out to get me sometimes, I swear," he adds, chin tossed to indicate Satiet. It's F'rint's job not to laugh.

Dark hair, slight build -- to someone who sees it day in and day out, it's recognizable, even when all decked out in not-Satiet-like attire. Particularly when it's paired with brilliant, pale eyes that lift to seek out the source of such arguments in the humdrum afternoon of this bar. If F'rint won't laugh, Satiet will; or at the very least catch her surprise mid-expression and adjust into a roll of her eyes and toss of her glossy curls. There's possibly a moment, in that caught expression of half-surprise, where the goldrider might pretend not to know the pair, but between curling her hand about the knife's handle, and beckoning two lunk-headed bodyguards- sassily, "The world? Or just your crotch?" For the erstwhile Weyrsecond, there's a chin jerk of acknowledgement and the slightest smile.

"There's a difference?" N'thei glances down a moment, tries to reconcile the idea that his crotch is not the most important thing in the whole-wide-world, and is rewarded by a pat on the shoulder for his bewilderment. "For most of us," answers F'rint, half-steering his beleaguered friend onto the stool next to Satiet's with an eye on the goldrider's knife. "I think I'll just step outside and leave you two to..." He doesn't even want to wager a guess, to be honest, though there's a questioning look to the Weyrwoman while he lingers: what is she doing here, anyway?

As F'rint, with his friend in tow, approaches Satiet and seats him down, Satiet's loose grip about her blade relaxes, so only her palm rests over the handle. Then, as the Weyrsecond looks to leave, the woman cocks her head to one side, and jerks it to indicate the seat by her, returning his unvoiced question with an unspoken invitation: Sit? Stay? Don't leave on my account. Tellingly, the weyrwoman's gaze slips to N'thei's crotch and then back up to the brownrider to wink. "They brew their own ale here." Beat. "It's not good, but it gets the job done. Whiskey's better."

F'rint, who manages to tolerate N'thei to the point of friendship, is ill-at-ease around Satiet, and her sit-stay prompt pauses him uncertainly on the course he's set for himself and the one she seems to prefer. "I know," they brew their own, with the twitch of a smile. His so-called friend seems oblivious to the brownrider's discomfort, instead reaching across the bar to knock loudly on its surface and recall the bartender to the new patrons, who are now in need of drinks. "He's afraid of you, madam," he imparts abruptly, his mouth near Satiet's ear but his voice not quite low enough that F'rint won't intentionally overhear.

It's not a corner of the bar he's had to pay much attention to all day and for a moment, the aging man seems startled at the sudden influx of customers. But in the tried and true way of barkeeps everywhere in sizing up folk, his sudden alacrity in service must be due to the fact that F'rint and N'thei, unlike the small Satiet, look to be drinkers and good ones at that. His voice carries the twang of Crom's most redneck regions as he takes orders, meanwhile casting a surreptitious look to the woman with a knife. The one who inquires, all too pleased, "Oh?" of N'thei. Then, "I'll keep that in mind," even as slight fingers dismiss F'rint to whatever corner he might want to haunt on his own.

N'thei orders a pair, despite the fact that F'rint slinks off toward the exit with the remaining fragments of his dignity, the explanation that his friend still needs to drink, even if he's forgotten his balls today. "Oh," he echoes after all that's settled, exhales a laugh through his nose that is roughly amused by her frail attempt at sounding surprised there. Then; "What do you think you're doing with this, anyway." While he reaches a palm to cover the knife-hilt, his turn to be derisively amused.

She can't help it. The smile that chases after F'rint is a little smug, and caught in the pleasure of such emasculation of such a bullish man, Satiet, at first, misses N'thei's question. But it would take a far less aware woman to not notice the hand sliding up near hers and near her 'only' source of protection. The slight shoulders stiffen, before relaxation follows a split-second later along with an easy smirk cast over her shoulder at the Weyrleader with his newly acquired balls. "Didn't you know? I used to hunt. Figure a beast and a man aren't so different. Besides," the smile widens a fraction, climbing up along her right cheek towards that dimple, "Easier to carry that than a gold dragon in my back pocket." Though Teonath is nowhere to be seen in the vicinity. "They don't get so bad until they're piss drunk anyway."

She used to hunt. "Could have guessed." But N'thei shakes his head anyway, slides the knife down the bar with his fingers gingerly tapping Satiet's forearms to suggest they lift off the countertop. "Speaking as one of them," the types that get piss-drunk and wind up with the stupid optimism it would take to approach a woman like Satiet in a bar, "the knife is more cute than deterring." Which might be why he attempts to divest her of it now? "What are you doing here?" he asks outright, since F'rint never really got around to posing the question.

It says something of well, something, that Satiet allows N'thei to take that knife without a word, or another glance for it. With protectors like N'thei, who really needs enemies? "B'rakis. He used to hunt. Found passion in it, and I used to join him. Sometimes." Redneck barkeep arrives with a double of cajones and slides it down to the bronzerider, and seeing both woman and man preoccupied with each other, then returns to washing glasses. His question earns him and then his shoulder a dry look: does he really have to ask? Her thin hands play about the bottom curves of her empty glass, spinning it in slow circles on the countertop. "Why are you here?"

"Prefer them nameless," admits N'thei off-handedly, his easy-seeming smile sent aimlessly across the bar for a second. He's not a jealous man by nature, no, but he's studiously avoided acknowledging that there may once have been-- and might still be-- other men in Satiet's life. Fortunately, F'rint drifts back through long enough to claim his drink and then disappears to parts unknown, actually leaves the building with an air of industry about him, which interrupts that whole train of thought. "Mmn," after a sip makes it past his mouth, the knuckle of his thumb to his lip for a second. "So you came here rather than harass my barmaids then? Courteous." As to his presence? He gives her a similarly dry look; clearly, he and his sidekick are up to no-good, as ever.

Both having asked the stupid question, with answers so self-evident, Satiet now sits more at ease, her thin shoulders dropping into non-descript, granted it's hard for a woman like her to not attract some attention even dressed as she is. The glass stops its rotation and the slim hands clasp around it tightly. "Don't know why she got hired. There's not enough there to please you, I thought." Not that there's much there herself, though for a second, she can't help the glance down at her own chest before turning a quizzical look upon the man. Her, "Should've fired her," comes right before the glass lifts to her lips, forgetful that it is in fact empty.

N'thei answers for himself with a shrug; "She wanted to work." And he hasn't been in his usual particularly bad temper lately, so there it is, Rimara-the-curveless got a job. "Don't try to figure it out," he adds, following the look down toward Satiet's chest-- chastely, mind. "Because you're right. She's not exactly my type." Which means neither is the goldrider. Having had no more than a sip, his mostly-full glass slides down into the space Satiet's knife (which he's stolen? put somewhere?) previously occupied. "Would prefer if you didn't." Fire her. "Good help and all."

Her chest might not be ample enough, nor her hips wide, but the implication that she's not his type draws the most self-satisfied smirk across her lips, poorly masked only by the turn of her head to study the rim of her glass. "Won't. Not my place." Satiet's silence is ill-kept, a slow sigh exhaled through pursed lips and is broken by, "Do you think of him?" It's been a month, but the studious way in which she doesn't look to N'thei lays a trail of breadcrumbs to which of her various hims it might be.

Precisely. Not her place. And N'thei, with no argument to have about it, just nods satisfaction-- but it's a weird nod, like he's not quite sure what to make of a world without arguments. Knitted brows relax only at that out-of-the-blue question, and there's a second or two during which he might actually ponder who 'he' is. To his credit, he figures it out after a sideways gander at Satiet's demeanor. "Not really. Dead and gone, what's left to think about, neh? You're all right?" And his cavalier tone gives way to something like genuine concern, with him shifting his weight to one elbow so he can look squarely at her.

Still avoidant, Satiet seeks out the other sights of the bar: a chubby young woman sitting in an older man's lap, playing with his beard and laughing, a pair of men playing cards, the barkeep, and the exit, beyond which is where F'rint is up to no good. "I wonder if it was hard for him. Living, I mean." Cause the dying part must have been easy. Or the deciding to die part. Then, just as abrupt as her conversation starter, she turns to look to N'thei, gaze set on his, "Do you still hate me because of that?" But before she allows him to answer, she fashions a wry smile below gleaming blue eyes, "Of course you do. Couldn't sleep with me if you didn't, could you?" But oh, how she hopes otherwise from the careless shrug of one shoulder and the lilt that might almost be plaintive in her quizzical-not-question.

It's on the tip of his tongue to speculate on the ease of I'daur's life-- N'thei can only hope he's still getting laid by as many beautiful women as catered to that old man when he reaches that stage of old-and-infirm-- when he finds himself fastened to those pale eyes. Briefly, stalling, he scratches his lip with his thumbnail and smiles from beneath the gesture, edged with chagrin. "Do you want me to tell you that I never hated you? Not the way I should have, not the way I wanted to. Or," with a breath of his own, leaning over closer with a hand lifted toward that tricky corner of her lips. "Do you want to tell me what's really bothering you." All ears.

"I want you-," then she stops abruptly and underneath that hand at the tricky corner of her mouth, her face relaxes, sinks into his palm and dark lashes lowering release N'thei from her gaze. And in that hand, her head shakes a little, brushing against it. "There's nothing bothering me. I think I'm done here if you want to tell F'rint that he can slink back in and find his balls. They're under my stool." She pauses, drawing back away from his lean in. "Tonight?" If there was ever a universal tone for a booty call.

Grazing her cheek with his thumb, content with his infatuation for a moment, N'thei presses her none for reasons behind her recent tolerance. Reputation aside, he's smart enough to have figured out by now that something's going on, but he's private enough himself not to pester her further. "See, I know if I keep saying yes, you're eventually going to realize--" What the enigmatic, light, cruelty-free smile says that he won't. "And then drop me like a bad habit. But." Drawing himself up with a deep breath, shoulders appropriately squared, he swivels back to face the bar, hands bracketing his glass. "Should be back about midnight." What she doesn't get to see is the gonna-get-some-nookie boogie that will ensue shortly after her departure and the nut-less wonder's return.

She'll throw him a bone. Even as she stands, hopping off that stool, the broad man is favored with her signature, slight and crooked smile, "I was with a lesser man for eight years." There's no danger. "And there's only one name that matters right now." A belated response to his preference for nameless. "Tell F'rint I prefer my men intact and I send my love." Talk about tolerance. With a cheeky smile and an empty glass in her stead, Satiet saunters, knifeless but unmolested, on her way out.

...she does like to blow them up big before she pops them, doesn't she...

She thinks she's being nice! But see, nice is just so variable.