Difference between revisions of "Logs:Satiet Wants a Date"

Council Chambers, High Reaches Weyr

At the heart of this oblong cavern is its meeting table: a long hardwood oval with a mirror's dark shine, High Reaches' sigil picked out in lapis and onyx at its center. Twenty chairs surround it, each softened by an embroidered cushion that's just a little too stiff for complete comfort -- meetings need to be kept short, after all -- with the chair at the table's head, facing the ledge, being somewhat larger than the rest.

Interspersed between glowsconces upon the smooth walls, ancient tapestries depict the territories High Reaches protects in a particularly pastoral fashion, all fluffy clouds and fluffier llamas, or else fishing crafts sailing merrily out to sea. Among them is also a natural alcove, its several wooden shelves primarily stocking fine wines and liquors as well as the glasses to serve them, though the lower shelves also hold whatever hidework requires particularly frequent attention.

A narrow wooden door leads to the Records room, while the tunnel that extends to the weyrleaders' ledge is wide enough for three men to walk abreast, with just enough kink in it to block the wind.

The sun's waning light filters into the council chambers where Satiet sits. Instead of making progress in the short stack of hides before her, the slender woman's opted to indulge in a glass of wine, indulgently inspecting her surroundings from the glowsconces along the walls until she finally draws up to the tapestry of the Reachian coverage area. Fleeting past the ships over the fluffy llamas, those pale eyes stop shortly onto Crom, whereupon her thin lips purse and her bright eyes disappear behind narrow slits. Disdain, disgust, it's all writ expressively in the tension of her slight figure.

From the doorway, voices-- N'thei's, F'rint's, words too distant to be discerned but it sounds congenial. Two sets of footsteps, one slowly filtering out until it fades into the background, one growing louder until there's N'thei, drawn up short when he finds the room occupied. Why is there always that arrested moment in Satiet's presence? She's sitting there, drinking, all in reverie, harmless, and he still stops like he's taken a punch to the guts. He tries, standing there for a second, to think of something to say, but nothing comes to mind, so he picks up his steps again before the pause grows too pronounced and crosses along the edge of the room in the other direction, the one that won't intersect Satiet's line-of-sight.

It's hard to miss those noises outside the chambers, and even harder to ignore that one of them is her erstwhile Weyrleader; particularly when his voice grows louder. Closer. And then he's shadowing the chamber archway. It's hard to miss that he's within proximity and is watching, even with her back to him and his eventual path. But perhaps the composure of how she continues to hold herself, paused breathless in tableau, means she hasn't attuned to his presence. Or, more likely, she's all too aware and maintains it for his pleasure. When he animates, she too resumes breathing, dropping that high held chin and shifting to deliberately try and bring the bronzerider in sight. "She's quite the catch." Satiet, the cool-toned silence breaker.

It's an effort not to look once he's beyond the threshold, not to attach his attention to Satiet and leave it there, but N'thei's resolve is nothing short of commendable. His eventual goal is there amid the ink and hides of routine maintenance, and he heads toward those particular shelves with the saunter of one unfettered; if she can make a show of composure, so can he. "Not sure it won't all end in tears," he answers back, arrived at the shelves, crouched to fish among them for whatever he's after tonight. "Challenging project for you though." So conversational, so easy and heedless to contrast her coolness.

In contrast to his non-attention, Satiet's pale eyes linger far longer than they should, taking advantage of the situation to study N'thei's exposed back. The blue travels from the close crop of his brown hair down broad shoulders to the way his muscles shift as he searches. She, with her glass of wine, slowly stands leisurely, only to turn and fold against the table, elbows pressed into the stone. There's even a faint smile for the Weyrleader, taunting for as long as the man doesn't look back at her. "Mmmmmm," noncommittal on the subject of challenges or tears. "My foot's better. Thank you for asking."

"Was I supposed to." Is that the way they play? N'thei pauses in the rummaging, his hands both full of hides, with his head tilted and the dubious frown showing even from the back in the way it pulls down his jowls and shifts his ears some. Two hides withdrawn, folded irregularly, and he stands and turns all in the same motion; his eyes go first to where he expected to find Satiet, exactly where she had been, then to where she's shifted with a quick wash of surprise lifting his brows-- she moved! "Why pretend you're not happy she's here. Nothing happens that you don't want to happen." /You/ in particular.

"Do I sound unhappy?" The tiny smile, devoid of its taunting once he turns, spreads for his grey eyes on her; a gift in the dimple that deepens on her cheek. "Quite the opposite, but things happen whether I don't want them to or not. And things I'd like to happen," a beat, the smile turning wry, "Don't." Leaned, Satiet takes her time in unfolding now that he's watching her, straightening with her glass lifting, which immediately retracts to hover about her mouth. "I'm sorry. I forgot you don't drink with me anymore." A small sip later, she steps away from the table, closer to the tapestry, closer to where Tillek's ships bobble off the pastoral coastline. Reaching blind, her fingers land on a spot somewhere between Tillek and Misty. "My youngest older brother's arriving in a sevenday. He'd like to speak with you."

One turn, 19 days later, N'thei doesn't even register that she started to offer the wine, hardly even seems to notice its presence. That he flicks a glance toward Satiet's mouth likely has to do with entirely different reasons. To that end, shoving the carelessly folded hides into his pocket, leaving his hand there afterward, he ignores her jibe about drinking all together; "The brother with the moonshine?" For /once/, that's an honest question and not one that's all threaded with the idea of how much he love-hates her. --But don't get used to it.

"Anvori," confirms the goldrider with that youngest older brother's name. "The brother with the moonshine. The brother of a weyrwoman and doesn't quite trust dragon transport. He'll manage with a runner, thank you very much." The last, affection-laid mocking in only the way a younger sister can. The blind hand traces the coastline, she's been staring at the map for a very long time it would seem, and stops just short of High Reaches, missing it by a hand-width. "Will he be staying long?" Inquired of N'thei as if he holds the key to the length of her brother's visitation.

Something about Satiet and her family is too twiggy for N'thei to dwell on the concept, to do more than suffer his expression through a spasm of confusion at the concept that this cold-hard-woman was born and not just fashioned out of ice and spite. He answers a little too hastily in light of all that; "Depends on how much he wants to talk and how low he can be bid." He doesn't look at the woman so much as through her for a moment, in her general direction but not seeing her as much. Then-- "Didn't think you'd actually tell him." Sounds like thank-you.

One turn, nineteen days later, and none the wiser to N'thei's sudden decision to be sober, Satiet lifts her glass again in a toast - silent acknowledgement of his maybe-gratitude. "Perhaps he might stay," suggests the weyrwoman, a flicker of humanizing family-driven emotion betrayed, "And as a resident his services would belong to the Weyr?" But such sentiments end abruptly with a sudden pull back of her shoulders. "Be nice. Sir." Slow, measured steps carry her across the room to the exit, and there, she spares her Weyrleader one last fleeting half-smile. "The Benden gather is in a sevenday. Will you be my escort?"

N'thei laughs. It just gets away from him, one "hah!" that erupts for Satiet's request, gone quickly when he wipes his fingers over his lips, smothers the snigger that would like to chase the goldrider out of the room. "I'm sure I'll see you there." The rest-- her brother, his moonshine, the Weyr's property-- disappears behind storm-gray eyes, his thoughts and his alone to line up and rearrange this way and that till it works out economically.

His lone syllable of laughter sends slivers of cracks in her composure, the pristine porcelain of her features flushing lightly, as if stung (can she be stung?). "My dress will be blue," said as if that should matter at all to the Weyrleader, what with the faint emphasis on the color of her dress. And then- then, Satiet and her wine glass disappear into the darkening night. Her work will likely remain there until morning. After all, who would want to steal work?