Difference between revisions of "Logs:Methods of (Mis)Communication"

The Hold's cliff rises high above the courtyard, its impassive stone face studded with Threadfall shutters thrown wide, surmounted by the fireheights where the Gather flag snaps in the wind. A symbol of its Lady's public belief in the Interval, the Hold's grand doors are barely ajar for once, the Gather a sprawling and wholly outside affair.
Food and drink are served in the upper court, its central fountain performing double duty as a place to keep ale kegs and wineskins cool, away from the porcine roasting on its spit. While the side nearest the greenhouse is lined with tables bearing platters of simple party food, the side opposite has long trestle tables and benches brought out from the Hold itself, with festive lanterns to light the scene as the sun goes down.
A few steps down in the much larger main courtyard, a regular rotation of harpers entertains the masses from a dais next to the dancing square. The vintners are doing good business at the entrance to their Hall, but the booths of other tradespeople are down the ramp in Crafter Row.

Why not have breakfast at a Gather? Benden Hold's well into afternoon by now, and Telavi's even gotten over yawning as she accompanies Alida, nibbling on one of those fried cakes poured out through a funnel. Some of her hair's up in a crown braid with the rest left loose as the ripple of her skirt above strappy sandals, and her eyes are drawn to so very many of the shiny trinkets in sight. "It's nice to visit again," she says, looking and looking. "It was our home Gather, you know? Though it's not as though, once we got flying, we couldn't go anywhere at all... oh, look at that one. I think you'd look darling in it." Only Telavi's looking far too impish, and indeed, the girl she nods to is clad in as many frills as the layer cakes they don't get around the Weyr anymore.

It's breakfast time for the Reachians, if not others, and so Alida has some sort of sandwich composed of fluffy scrambled eggs, ham, and cheddar cheese between two english muffins to top off her tank, the hot thing wrapped in one of her handkerchiefs to keep it together and from dripping goodness all over her still new riding outfit. The jacket and heavier parts of it have been left on Ilicaeth's straps, of course, a buff colored and short-sleeved, pull-over shirt of cotton clinging some to her torso's lines and curves. While she refrains from gawping like a redneck, the blonde's never been here before while there's been a Gather, and she does take the time to glance thoroughtly over everything the two women pass. "It's so big..." the bluie notes with a bit of wonder, then peering at the girl in that ridiculous frilly dress. "Don't make me have ta poke yer eyes out..." is noted dryly to Tela, the woman waiting for said gal to pass before she makes a small face of disgust.

"I don't think you would," Telavi claims brightly. almost as good as a dare. "You'd drop your breakfast, and what fun would that be? Or if somehow you didn't, because you're amazing that way, you'd get... eye-insides... on top of your food, and I bet that would taste horrible." She fairly swims along as though this is all second nature, though they have been slowed by nods here and there or, taking even more time, exclamations and hugs and even introductions in what could be a dizzying whirl of names and faces. "Tell me if you see any more stalls with hard candy, though? That last one seemed terribly picked over. And did you decide what else you want aside from fabric? Ribbons? Buttons? Something for your weyr that may or may not be fabric?"

Alida points to Telavi's second reason for being the one that keeps her from poking at the greenie's eyes, the bluie then taking a solid chomp from her sandwich, and grinning at the lavish taste of it after months of porridge and such. While they move along, look around, and Tela gets greeted by myriad familar faces, the guard remains mostly quiet, giving others only nods, grunts, or spare greetings, as needs be. "Candy...yeah," 'lida notes around a tiny smirk, then shaking her head. "I just... I dunno' about all this stuff," Alida admits to her companion. "I don't want everything I own ta be riding gear, uv' course, but I just feel better in pants, shirts..." Aside from basic colors, the woman's pretty clueless about what might look good on her. As for her weyr, "I think I'm gonna have ta give up on the idea uv' a sissal inner curtain. Just way too expensive. Maybe a really light...uh...what was that fabric called?" Linen.

"What about a split skirt, then? So you don't have to worry about modesty, it can be cut to flare out beautifully. Unless it would get in the way... Gauze? Muslin? Linen?" Tela watches Alida's expression for signs of getting closer, though the barker up ahead is trying to distract them, something about scarves, and Tela does like scarves. There are plenty of others wandering up and down the aisle nearby, including a young girl who keeps loitering along their general path.

"Wouldn' it still drag on the ground, though?" Alida inquires, looking at Tela's own, longer skirt, though she does seem a little interested at the idea of something pretty combined with sound function. "Yeah, linen. But that's kinda expensive, too. What're those other two like?" Greens flick between the greenrider, the booths, and their path ahead, the paler blonde's gaze finally noting that young girl, then moving on towards the scarf vendor. A sudden, large smirk-grin presages the bluerider's laconic, "Doomed. Gonna be sucked in like a ship inta' a whirlpool." Yes, she *does* know Telavi's prediliction towards those bits of outerwear.

"Only if you have them cut long," Tela points out. "It even could be a short split skirt, just so that you have to apply more lotion to your legs, so you're sure to use up all your lotion before it goes bad," said as though this would really be a practical move on Alida's part. "The other two... well, really they describe how they're woven, not what they're made out of? Gauze is about as open a weave you can get for clothes and still stay remotely stable, so it lets a little air flow through and still keeps the bugs out if they're curtains and oh," forget muslin, Alida's right, for Tela's tugging at the bluerider's elbow and making for the whirlpool in question. "Look at that."

"I don't wanna look like a Southern whore..." Alida quickly notes to those words of a short skirt, the bluerider frowning just a bit pensively as she thinks of that look on her. "What's a good, mid-range length? Knees?" Blech-face. "Just above 'r below 'em?" Telavi's words of gauze draw a small smile and a nod from the guard, plus a hint of greed in green eyes. "Now *that* sounds nice. Get it dyed ocean blue 'r something relaxing..." Coo. Maybe the greenie's corrupting her, for the more times they go out on escapades like these, the more flexible the guard seems to become on acquiring some nicer 'feminine' things. And then 'charybdis' sucks Tela in, and Alida's dragged along to their dual doom in her wake, while making soft little sounds of woe. "Halp, I'm gonna go down with the ship..." Eyeroll, snicker. Give the two some time, and - though she's not a scarf person herself - 'lida will have various neat looking, and soft feeling samples of them wrapped around and tied up on her companion.

Tela may well be all for being tied up within her version of reason and, what's likely more conservative, the boothkeeper's comfort with having his merchandise messed with... but first, "'Southern whore'?" She's smiling, and Tela has such a bright, shiny smile when she cares to. "Why don't you explain what you mean, Alida!"

"I've been down South enough, seen enough uv' their short-skirted trollops ta know what I'm talkin' about..." Alida notes briskly to Telavi as she tries to encircle the greenrider's hips with some sisal pretty in a tone of grey to light and fine it almost looks silver. "Looks nice with yer eyes..." the bluie notes after glancing between the fabric and said gaze...and then suddenly jerking her greens away as she blushes a little. This is about the time that Pyrite zips under the booth's awning, and tries to land upon her human's shoulder to sniff at Alida's fingers for leftover tidbits of her earlier sandwich. "Get *off*..." the woman grumps softly to the little gold, who creels at being kept out of the food loop, then trying to land on Telavi.

Telavi is not so much avoiding being encircled as standing very still, those eyes of hers a dark blue verging on that grey, increasingly chill. "Why, I didn't know that you visited them that often," Tela says, with a little light implication set into the verb. "I would have thought they wouldn't wear a split skirt so much as an open skirt, but I suppose that shows what I know. Then again, I do like short skirts myself, open and otherwise." She's none too tolerant of Pyrite at the moment, flicking her fingers at the young firelizard when she comes too close.

Alida just...does not get it. Not until Tela's saying that second round of words...which is when the bluie's eyes drop and she stops trying to play with scarves. She's not going to do anything in front of a vendor, and so the guard just hands the poor man back his lovely scarf, mutters her thanks, and then strides out of the booth in some random direction. "Pyrite!" is clipped off harshly to the flit, who creels again, but zips off to come to roost on her human's shoulder.

It's not a direction that Telavi follows. But then, she doesn't go anywhere right at first, instead helping the man rearrange his wares so that they look nice again, chattering lightly about this and that to diffuse anything he might have overheard. When she does leave, it's to browse, starting to spend her marks with a careful eye for what really is a good bargain and what she wants at the same time. Mostly it's little things, housed in jars, packets, this and that. Unless Alida seeks her out, it could take some time for them to bump into each other again.

For a few minutes, there's upset and anger at being misinterpreted. But once again, there's a typically mellow Ilicaeth to the rescue, and after Alida's temper has died back enough, the blue's making subtle (and not-so-subtle) suggestions that finally have the paler blonde meandering back towards where Pyrite (who's now flying around overhead) shows her Telavi is located. When the greenrider's between booths, the guard moves in like a tunnelsnake near her side, and mutters a little sourly, "All I'm sayin' is what I saw every time I was down South, at almost every place I went outside a proper Weyr 'r Hold."

"So after you see all these girls," for there's no startlement when Alida gets that close, as though they had never parted except for how Telavi appears nothing other than calm, "and you see me in a skirt like that," the sort of thing Tela often wears off-duty now that it's summertime, "do you think I'm a whore?" Not that she's turned her head to look at Alida, it being far too important to examine the feathers set in the jar in front of her. They're all different, after all, and if she's going to pick just one, it had better be right.

There's a small glare for Tela's 'stupidity,' then a blurted, still sour, "Uv' *course* not... unless ya suddenly started sellin' sex fer a living." Eyeroll.

"But you said you'd look like one if you wore such a thing," Tela points out. "What am I supposed to think?" She's narrowed the feathers down, at least, one shimmering iridescent blue-green while another's a warm brown at its base and then dappled with more brown over cream, plus a third that's striped in ruddier shades.

Glare. "I'd *feel* like one after seein' enough Southern whores dressed like that..." Alida fires back irritatedly. You stupid girly girl! GAH! Alida sees things in her own way, and apparently that stuck somewhere between a male and a female. And if Tela wants to futher roast her, she'll just walk the fcuk away.

"I'm just trying to understand, here," Telavi remarks. "You don't need to get upset with me." Her smile to the vendor doesn't hold quite its usual brightness, though it's charming enough, and she refuses to be distracted out of bargaining for all three. Apparently, today, she can't or won't choose. "I've seen you in short trousers, after all. You know, you could have a pair of those made in a pretty color, or even a bright one, unless you plan on staining them."

Alida's holding back her temper, and while she's not truly angry, she *is* definitely irritated, now. "*You* coulda' just come right out 'n said it straight, instead uv' usin' that..." Search for it, Alida. Perhaps Pern doesn't have the equivalent word for 'passive-aggressive'. Splutter. "Instead uv' bein' all catty about it." As for her shorts... Blink. "What the shit is it about my shorts?" She sounds both honestly confused and irritated, now.

"How would you like me to have said it?" Telavi stashes the precious feathers where they won't get crumpled or even mussed before turning back to the bluerider for the first time, her eyes intent enough to impact even if her posture's still polite. "Put the shorts aside for a moment," and she'll even draw Alida aside if the bluerider will let her, just enough to be out of the vendor's way or more if the bluerider would rather. "Pretend you're me, and you think you've just heard someone you're becoming friends with," she does use that word, "say that the clothes that you like to wear look whorish, and the way she says it, it doesn't sound like that's at all a compliment. Talk to me like you're me, the way you think I should have said it."

She's testy about being touched, but...something within Alida lets Telavi do such, though the bluerider gives off subtle signals of 'don't touch me,' still. Grump. Her voice kept low for the sake of some small propriety, the guard mutters darkly, "I woulda' just come right out an' asked 'so do ya' think I'm a whore too fer wearing short skirts?" Direct. And then Tela's using that 'friends' word, and the bluie darts her snapping greens elsewhere for a few moments, neither confirming nor denying such. And then, once she's recovered, back to basics again. "An' *then*, instead uv' the cattiness, there woulda' been either words leadin' ta' understanding, 'r there woulda' been fists." The hell is she's going to play act out in public.

Telavi doesn't touch even Alida's elbow for long, and that lightly, whether from the bluerider's vibes or her own inclination. "But what about giving you a chance to realize, and explain, before putting you on the spot?" she asks simply. "If I said that, some people would take it as quite the accusation, and take that much more offense. Though not," there's a flicker of a smile, at least, "the sort that would probably use fists."

"You didn' gimme' that chance, anyway," Alida notes a little testily, staring at Tela. "Ya just *assumed* what my meaning was, an' got catty." As for accusations, "Some people, sure." Shrug.

"Asking you to explain didn't give you a chance?" Telavi inquires with an arch of fine brows. "Because I distinctly remember doing so, Alida." That testiness of the bluerider's has sparked something in her green-today eyes, but she keeps her own voice carefully calm. No, bystanders, they aren't fighting. They're clearing things up.

"I *gave* you an explanation, and ya' proceded ta' get even more hostile 'n catty, indirect until yer very last little sentence," Alida informs the greenrider, while trying to keep herself from snapping something testy back. "It was only *then* that I figured it out... So ya' spent more time 'n effort at bein' touchy 'n catty, dancin' around the subject instead uv comin' right out immediately an' tellin' me *exactly* what pissed ya' off."

"My not finding your explanation personally acceptable doesn't mean it wasn't a chance," Telavi points out briskly. "That would be like someone saying to the judges of the pie contest at this Gather that they didn't give her a chance... when she entered a pie with a burnt crust." Then, with a tilt of her head, "Was that sufficiently straightforward to please you?"

By this point, Alida appears...impatient. Oh sure, she's also still irritated, but this whole complicated 'dance' about what makes Telavi unhappy has got the rather straightforward bluie both on the defensive and internally pulling her own hair out. A small sound of her growing frustration is accidentally emitted - a very soft, low growly-whine - before the paler blonde notes quite grumpily, "*This* is why I don't bother gettin' close ta' most femmes...this whole dancin' around shit 'n cattiness an' crap." Stare. "I already *said* I don't thin uv' ya' that way, plus I toldja' the reasons why I thought uv short skirts plus females plus the South equalling whores. What the fuck else d'ya' want?" Growl.

Telavi's long lashes fall, momentarily, only to sweep right back up again. Rather than trying the same tack: "I would appreciate," she says, "if you would not dismiss an alternate style of communication as 'catty' and 'crap,' particularly when part of your difficulty seems to be that you don't know how to navigate it. It is, you know, something that you could learn, and valuable in certain circles." A dimple shows. "Though perhaps not in Glacier."

Alida appears as if she's working up to a small outburst by this point, her greens narrowing slightly and going harder by the odd-second... And then, once more, there's Ilicaeth. The woman's gaze becomes instantly bifurcated - partly seeing Telavi and the Gather around them, and partly turned inward to pay attention to what her blue has to say. This goes on for about 6 seconds, during which the guard's expression alters to many different modes of feeling, though more subtly. Even now, she's used to trying to cover herself. And when her consciousness fonally emerges back into the outer world in full, again? The bluerider still looks a little cheesed-off, but much more rational. When she speaks once more, it's with some of that left-over irritation and frustration, but her alto is pretty equitable. "Alright; so even though I loathe double-speak 'n dancin' around the fucking subject, I still need primers in how ta deal with it."

Telavi even waits her out. Six seconds is quite a long time in Tela-land, but then she has all those expressions of Alida's to observe. And when the bluerider comes to that conclusion, Tela meets her with a dip of her head. "Practice helps," she murmurs, "and in the meantime, for the rest of the Gather, why don't I practice being... straightforward... instead." If Alida takes her up on it, she will, too, and it may be heartily amusing to see her play at it, over the top in her simple, simple sentences of as few words and as few syllables as she can possibly, possibly manage.

It helps that Tela doesn't try to rub Alida's nose in any of this. The bluie looks somewhat surprised at the solution the greenrider comes up with, but she runs with it, no matter. Adapt and improvise. As time moves along for the pair of 'riders, 'lida even manages to try out some 'flourishes' of speech on her own, in contrast to Telavi's more concise adaptations. It's pretty difficult, at first, but, by the time they get to the end of their day at the Gather, the paler blonde's managing to sound like an assistant Weyrlingmaster in training about half the time. Of course, every time she walks away from a more erudite, and politic interaction like that...the woman still has to cross her eyes and dot her T-eeth with a raspberry. Ick.