Difference between revisions of "Logs:Random Tunnel Encounters"

Random Tunnel, High Reaches Weyr(#1636RJ)

There are many twisty, turny tunnels throughout High Reaches Weyr. And this just happens to be one of them. It branches off from one of the main ones, taking you away from the resident dorms and private rooms. Here and there are some storage closets, but the hall is mostly bare. It's devoid of decoration and seems to otherwise just take a windy path towards the main caverns.

Twisty, turny tunnels are meant for exploring, which may explain why Crom's niece is roaming dusty corridors long foresaken by their would-be cleaners. Not quite abandoned, there are still people who live down here in the darkest bowels of the Weyr, but certainly not a place many would want to go. And yet, there's Yuliye, drifting down all the corridors with a glow basket held in one hand, each corner perplexing her pretty forehead all the more. Lost, maybe?

And naturally, who else would be strolling these dark tunnels with a sense of ease born from long-term familiarity? A pilfired glow is clasped in one hand as A'son makes way, with what appears to be some sort of wood plank slung over his shoulder. He sees the glow of another coming towards him and he utters a friendly, "Afternoon, miss." As he goes to pass her.

And he might pass right by her too, for all the attention she pays him in her own puzzlement of the various corridors. Not even a nod until he's almost passed when a slim hand reaches out to catch him by the sleeve, to stay his presence just a little longer in these dark and quiet hallways. "I'm so sorry to be a bother," her free hand lifts to rake through and press down the slight muss of her mostly coiffed hair, "But do you know how to get back to the main halls?" Two steps back, so her arm isn't stretching quite so much, and a sidelong glance bring her hazel eyes up to find A'son's face, where her expression stills just a half-beat before she allows a smaller, tentative smile to climb her lips. "Please?"

A'son starts a bit at the touch on his sleeve. He stops, pivoting a little so that he can more appropriately face her. He glances in the direction she was currently walking and then cants his head the opposite way. "Where you're headed is going to take you into the Stores, if you head straight. If you go along this way we'll be back to the main caverns fairly quick." There's a small smile in return for hers, but soon he's taking in the design of her clothes. He lifts his glow to shoulder level, investigating her knot. The smile doesn't falter for a moment and he's soon gesturing forward. "You can walk with me, if you don't mind company?"

Brazen hussy, wearing her knot so openly like that, but there can't be a complete lack of Cromese who pass through the Weyr on occasion for this or that. Right? There's no self-conscious smoothing of it, though the hand to her hair falls to press against the nape of her neck and then slips forward past that knot along her collar bones before dropping down to her side, only to lift in a dainty girlish offer against A'son's elbow. There's only the choice of dodging her claiming hand. With a noted look of relief, the smile growing out of its uncertainty into one of gratitude, she remarks, "If /you/ don't mind the company." Her sweet voice floats past the puzzlement of seconds prior to echo lightheartedly in the quiet hallway. "I've been here for weeks now and some of the twisty hallways is enough to confuse even the brightest of us. I don't even remember how I got here in the first place, but one hallway starts looking like another and then..."

No, there are indeed some that come through now and again. Not often as well dressed as Yuliye, though. But if A'son seems overly concerned about who she is and what she's doing wandering the near-abandoned tunnels of High Reaches Weyr, he doesn't show it outright. He lifts his arm to accept the dainty girlish offer and moves them along. "No, not at all. It's not so common that I run into pretty young woman down here." He informs her with small smile, "I've lived here almost my entire life. These tunnels come a bit second nature to me by this point. But I suppose how I could how they would be confusing to a newcomer with only a few weeks under her belt."

"Ah, but you see, sir," Yuliye is quick to point out, and even quicker to slip her hand and arm about his elbow to draw suitably close in their walk together. "I wear no belt to tuck such experiences under." Indeed the rumpled chiffon layers of her dress, though stitched tight about her empire waist, has no belt or ribbon. Her subsequent laughter is bright, her smile growing even more so, and quite companionable, as if she does this all the time (walk on the arms of any random strange man), she keeps up with A'son's pace. "I grew up at Crom," there's no need to hide that fact, "So I imagine it's much of the same for anyone and their birth home. I could point out to you my grandfather's especial chamberpot, the one he swears was once laid in gold, but the rest of us know he's just going a little blind and batty to boot. Or the secret hallway where many a first kiss has been stolen." A beat tilts her cheek up to study A'son sidelong, her twinkling eyes and half-curved smile cast upwards. "Is that a storeroom requisition?" The wooden plank. "Or do you plan on beaning strangers in hallways with it to save my honor?"

A'son's face seems to wrinkle when she calls him sir, but it's almost immediately smoothed out. There's some practice to it, as if at one point he'd had to deal with this before and assume a neutral expression. He glances down at her and there's a little shrug of his shoulders. "Well, not a real literal belt. But perhaps more like a figurative one. You have one of those, don't you?" A small polite laugh for the story of her grandfather. "You had a grandparent who really thought his chamberpot was made out of gold?" There's a heft of the wooden plank, which on closer inspect has a few sizable hooks sunk into it. "I needed a coat rack. Though if we're attacked, I'll do my best to smash your opponent in the head with it if need be."

Well-versed at reading such tells, A'son's wrinkle doesn't go by unnoticed, though only the demure drop of her lashes allows him that moment of neutrality. Looking ahead at the path ahead of them rather than up at the dragonrider, she starts up again with, "We humor him." There's the subtlest emphasis for the present tense: has, not had. "He's aging and infirmed, and what can you do but to appease his moods? Surely, even in a Weyr, there are times when people age enough to get to that stage of senile?" Surely! Surely the Weyrs are civilized enough for that! The hand about his elbow tightens just a little along the lengths of her fingers, then releases as she inquires, lashes lifted just enough to espy his profile. "You're A'son, aren't you?"

His eyebrows arc at the remark about senile old people. "Uh, yes. We do see our share of the old and infirm. We take care of them until they pass away, too." A'son's tone catches a bit, as if maybe he's just been insulted by her words. This is allowed to slide too, as they walk further on up the tunnel. Brighter lights can be seen up ahead. At the tensing and then subsequent release of her fingers along his elbow prompts him to look down. For her question about his identity he produces a rather well acted response, perhaps one that wouldn't be so easily assumed of him. "Y'ston." The name rolls of his tongue easily, "A'son is a cousin of mine. Are you two famililar?"

Perhaps she knows better. Perhaps she doesn't. Perhaps those delicate brows that lift are merely to reappraise A'son's face to compare it with the mental image she must carry /so close/ to her heart. There's that laugh once more, an ephemeral, bright thing that echoes. "My mistake, you look very familiar otherwise. To A'son. I never had the honor of meeting him in person, but glimpsed. From afar. Once." Growing distant and oddly syncopated in the would-be recollection, her mood is returned shortly with a clearing shake of her head. Happier thoughts! "Then, I was married and sent off and never got the chance for an introduction. Do you enjoy cake, Y'ston?" Oh, how easily that name rolls of her own tongue, her tongue savored about its hard consonents and few vowels.

A'son smiles, cautiously as she maybe takes his features in for a second look. "It wouldn't be the first time that I've gotten that comment." For her saying the word 'honor' he makes the appearance of being surprised and snorts. "You're probably better off. He's exceptionally dull and doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut. A typical meat-head of a bronzerider." Then there's mention of cake and A'son's (or is it Y'ston's?) mood seems to also lift considerably. "I like cake, though not when it's vanilla." Their steps find them soon drawing closer to where this dark tunnel merges with the main one. He covers his glow and slips it into the front pocket of his jacket.

If he'll play the game, so shall she then, a second and then third glance lifting to graze those hazel eyes along Y'ston's jaw. The resulting dubiousness is a show, her chin dropping sharply to one shoulder her look up sidelong again, and that mirth-filled smile playing about her lip corners. Since they've reached the the intersection of dark tunnel across main--the crossroads where all bad deals are made--she'll halt her steps and readjust the glow basket she holds. Quick hands shutter its sides and even quicker after that, a hand climbs the front of his tunic to stay his presence with the lightest of touches. "You should visit sometime. My mother sends me cakes frequently." Good humor squints her eyes so the creased corners might be met by her growing smile. "To fatten me for my next suitor, I always say, but she doesn't think the Weyr would have much in the way of such luxuries. Please. I would," her smile casts not up at his face but into the tuniced chest that's on eye-level, "Honor your visit then, Y'ston. Since you are neither exceptionally dull and know how to keep a lady preoccupied from fearing the shadows around each corner. Promise," looking up now sunnily, "No vanilla."

He's not an awfully skilled player of games, but he does try his best to keep the act up as he enter the light of the main caverns. He glances around these crossroads of of bad deals, then down at the particular pretty dealmaker in front of him. He sideways smiles, lifting an eyebrow up. "You'd be surprised by the goods the Weyr's kitchen can produce. Perhaps I'll bring you something of my own to prove it you." There's a friendly pat to her arm and he's soon creating a safe distance between them. To her sunny smile, he creates a rakish one of his own. "I look forward to paying you a visit sometime. But unfortunately, I'm not aware of your name?"

Yuliye is most chaste as she takes her own step back and turns towards hallways more familiar now. Oh, not so easy! Archly over her mostly bare, summer-clad shoulder, she cocks a smug little smile, "Y'ston can call on me to find out." And she's /so sure/ he will. If not tomorrow, sometime. But such is the way with girlish arrogance, the natural conceit that their prettyness seems to ordain in such women. "Thank you~," is called in a far more singsong fashion as she turns to find her way home and away from the dark hallways with its inductions into rumpled dresses and mussed hair and away from all too kind gentlemen who save the damsel in distress.

A'son watches as Yuliye turns and scampers off on him. He shakes his head, a low whistle coming out of his mouth. "Time to be careful." He mutters quickly and quietly to himself. That coat-rack is heft again over his shoulder and soon he's moving on a path that takes him towards the bowl. A path away from poisonous women that seek to sink their fangs into you in the dark.