Difference between revisions of "Logs:Drinks with Persie"

Evening's fading light has taken with it the some of Boll's blazing heat. The summer air is still close and humid and certainly warm, but now it's a little less soporific and the Hold, napped and fed, is active. Of course in the Lava Lounge, cave that it is, the heat doesn't penetrate the stone and the room is damp and cool. There are a variety of patrons: a few groups of people enjoying an after-dinner drink, a man in the corner drowning his sorrows with a friend whose patience seems to be wearing thin, a couple with their heads together. And then at the bar is a girl. A rather skinny girl. And she's not sitting on the stool but kneeling on it with her elbows on the bar so that she can peer over at all the secret things on its hidden shelves. Her blonde hair hangs around her face, obscuring her features for the moment, and she chatters to the barkeep. "So, if you spend all your time around ale and wine and liquor, do you drink at all or would you rather have, you know, milk?" The barkeep just mumbles an answer and asks (again, if his tone is any indicator) what -she- might like to drink.

Among those who had been keeping a low-profile this evening was a group at a table toward the back, relatively unremarkable amid the usual crowd, the four men playing a seemingly good-natured game of poker. The game must have just broken, right as the bartender is working on getting Persie's order, and three of the four filter quietly back out to the fading heat; the fourth, that being N'thei, gets up, pockets a short stack of marks, and hips-and-elbows his way to the bar-- with a curious glance at the kneeling patron; "Something cold but not too fluffy, if you catch my drift."

N'thei's approach, or rather his appearance so nearby, has Persie startled enough to jump. "Oh!" And she must recognize that her position isn't really putting her best face forward, ahem. She leans on the counter to shift her wait and drops her backside on the seat where it belongs. Thus, her head is up and her hair gets swung behind her shoulder. "Fluffy?" she asks, looking to the barkeep first to see if he has any idea what that means and then to N'thei - actually to N'thei's shoulder because his head is a good deal higher than she expected. "Shells, man. You're a wall," she says, looking up at him with an easy laugh. "What's fluffy? Fluffy like froth or fluffy like... girly?" As if she's the one getting him the drink.

N'thei looks down. And down. And down. "If I'm a wall, what does that make you?" There must be some measure of understanding between the bronzerider and the bartender, because the latter turns to work up some concoction while the former sets to explaining; "Fluffy like pink fruit juice with watery wine and a little purple umbrella sticking out one side. And have we met?" Brow raised, confusion collected, he peers at Persie with a more suspect purse of his lips.

"If you're a wall, I'm a..." But this seems to be a question to ponder and ponder she does, brows darting together and eyes dropping as she thinks. But then the great big Reachian explains 'fluffy' and Persie forgets about the wall metaphor. "Ooh, that sounds good. I'll have the umbrella thing," she says, putting her palm flat to the bar and leaving a mark piece behind. Then she's grinning up at N'thei again."I don't think we've met. I think I'd remember you, but, well, maybe I just don't remember that I've forgotten." She follows that meandering statement with another light, self-depricating laugh and the offer of her hand. "Persie."

Digesting the logic, having some trouble getting it down to judge the flash of bewilderment that crosses his face, N'thei foregoes any commentary on Persie's roundabout way of thinking. He just waits till she's done, then takes her hand with one of his big mitts; "N'thei. --Don't take this the wrong way, but you seem a little young to be ordering up drinks, fluffy or otherwise." His own drink arrives about then, and he pays with very little ceremony.

The big mitt makes her laugh again, sort of breathless sounding, but she rises to the challenge and gives him a good solid handshake. "N'thei. Right." Then Persie pauses with a brow cocked up. "Young? How young is too young?" she asks, something mischievous toying with her smile. "I suppose calling a lady young is better than calling her old, huh?" She twists on the stool to face him a bit, one leg slipped over the other as she leans on the bar. She even bobs her sandaled foot a bit. "How young do you think I am?"

N'thei pauses, tell-tale sign of a man who realizes just how close his foot is to his mouth. During this stall, he hitches himself up to sit on the stool next to Persie's, slides his drink over to spin it against his palm. "This will teach me to bring up a woman's age, won't it?" A chagrin-laced smile finds its way toward Persie while careful gray eyes study from the bobbing foot to the pale hair. "Fifteen."

Persie makes a soundless 'oh' and drops her face into her hand with a heavy sigh. And then her pink drink shows up and so she reaches for it and takes a sip, giving him a quick glance over the cups rim, well aware that the moment of her drinking is an extra moment that he has to wait to find out how right or wrong he is. She finishes with a smack of her lips and an 'ah', taking her time. "You know, this pink thing is actually pretty good... I tell Secath --she's a little round, you see-- that if -I- could have some of her fatness, maybe I'd have some decent curves and I wouldn't get mistaken for a fifteen turn old girl any more. But she's eight, so I couldn't possibly be fifteen, now could I." She gives him a wide, cheeky smile. "Twenty-two."

N'thei lifts his glass in a toasting gesture, dips his head in a penitent one at the same time. "At least I didn't say forty-five." And he drinks to that, rolling around his second taste with a little more leisure now that it's not going to be chased by the taste of his foot-in-mouth. As if small talk were the very pinnacle of witty exchange, he inquires, "And where do Secath and Persie call home? Ista? Igen?"

"Oh, cause I've a tan for Istan or Igen sun?" Persie laughs. "I suppose I might a bit pink." Then, for a moment, she forgets that she was answering a question and takes a little time to poke a finger testingly at her shoulder, checking for the tell-tale white fingerprint. "Fort, actually. So you must be from... Telgar? Reaches? Because if you were from Igen or Ista, then even if you didn't really know me, you'd probably recognize me enough to know that I'd be from your Weyr." She looks a bit proud of herself for that, a smug smile and a tap of her forefinger to her temple. Yep, that's Persie thinking.

"Sandals and shorts." N'thei makes a point of clunking his own boot-wearing feet against the rock edging of the bar, even scrapes a little of the metal heel against the floor. "You don't see a lot of that around High Reaches." With the flourish of one hand, palm held upward and fingers inclined in Persie's direction, he concludes, "Which is where I fly. For considerably less than eight turns. Fourteen, hm?" He whistles a quiet, impressed note, drowns the end of it in his drink.

Persie rolls her ankle, wiggling bare toes at the mention of her sandals. "Well, it's summer and I was coming to Boll so it all made sense to me. My weyr's warm, too. Not Fort but -my- weyr. It's a bit of a pain sometimes because I get dressed and step out on the ledge and realize that it's way colder that I thought it would be. And Secath is useless for that stuff." She sucks down a bit more of her drink and then her brows pop up with a thought and she swallows quickly to ask. "How old are you? Are you sure -you're- old enough to be drinking that?" There's a teasing in her voice, enough to say that she plainly doesn't question that he is indeed old enough to drink as much as he likes.

N'thei, calmly, "You think I'm going to tell you? After you made me guess?" He looks over the rim of his glass with a very serious look on his face, save the dancing gray eyes. "Is it as fluffy as it looks?" The question sent off with a nod toward Persie's drink, a wary glance landing on the miniature umbrella.

Persie stills a little at his challenge, teeth holding her smiling lip as she watches those gray eyes dance. Then her gaze narrows a little and she considers him, height and breadth and all. "Twenty-seven," she tosses out, not at all worried about his reaction. She takes another sip of the pink stuff just to make sure that she gives an accurate accessment and to return the over-the-rim look with a smile still curling at the corner of her mouth. "I think it's pretty good. Wanna taste it?" She holds the glass out to him and bounces her pale eyebrows.

N'thei's lips purse together in a mute formation of the word "ow." He even breathes out through the purse, soundlessly, and shakes his head at the guess. So wounded, it seems, he never supplies the correct age, though he reiterates the head shaking for the drink as it comes his way; "There are few things I would rather not taste, but thank you." As if framing the whole tableau, pale-haired Persie and her very bright cocktail, he holds both hands up with his thumbs and forefingers making an L-shaped box around the look of her. "Besides, you look good drinking it. I can't pull off dainty froufrou drinks."

"Oh man. I'm way off, am I? Which way?" Persie laughs brightly, seeming to enjoy his reaction. She takes a breath, preparation for thinking. "Let's see, if you've been a rider fewer than eight turns and... you're not younger than me so you were older when you impressed. Well, maybe not older than me -now-..." She winces a little to guess again, "Twenty five?" And since he's refused her drink she withdraws it and sits up a bit. Then the framing, well, that does get a pleased smile, one that only grows brighter for the words that follow. "I should order this drink more often," she returns, holding the glass by her face. For the image, of course. Then she flicks another glance over him. "Afraid someone'll beat you up for drinking a girly drink?" Another cheeky grin follows.

N'thei hitches up an eyebrow and leaves it there; "Beat me up?" He leans back from the bar a few inches, looks down the whole oversized length of himself, shakes his head conclusively. "Twenty-three. Twenty-four in the fall. Still older than you, and definitely old enough to know that six-foot-four and little-purple-umbrellas don't match. But little blond girls in bright green shirts? Pull them off in spades." With a raised finger and a point to the glass he sets on the table, he garners just enough attention to get another drink lined up.

If Persie is entertained by his descriptions, she's even more pleased when he points to the glass and the implication that he's not running off just yet. She shifts around in her seat, leaning on the bar again to get one leg tucked up under her and letting the other foot hang with her sandal threatening to fall off. "So, a twenty three turn old wall from Reaches visiting Boll for a drink. Or was it a swim? What did you say your name was?" She doesn't bother to tame the light of her smile.

"N'thei." And the wall looks more entertained than anything else, the subdued kind of amusement that rarely laughs but always seems right on the verge of a chuckle. "And the drinks were peripheral. I came to--" He shifts just enough to open his breast pocket, thumbs a card off the top of the deck stowed therein to illustrate his purpose. Then; "So. A twenty-two turn old stick from Fort visiting Boll for...? Not a drink, since you hadn't ordered anything until I mentioned fluffy. Fort is just that dull?"

The one brow that lifts curiously as he reaches for his pocket is joined by the second as Persie takes his meaning. "Oh, a bit of a card player are we? I can't play much at all. The whole poker face thing is..." She lets out a low, conspiring laugh and lets her open, animated nature speak for itself. "Visiting Boll for a drink," she finished for him, "and a change of scenery and some new faces. I like new faces. - Did you win?"

N'thei answers soberly, "Recovering card player." He clears his throat comically, reaches for the arrival of his second drink with another pass of marks from bronzerider to bartender. "You don't look much like a poker player, true true. But it's often the luxury of pretty girls to win by distraction, so you could always work on that." Whether he won or lost must remain a mystery, for he only wobbles his palm in a so-so fashion to answer the question.

"Yeah? I hadn't thought of that angle, the pretty girl thing. I mean, I guess that compared to all the guys, I'd have to be the prettiest girl at the table." She laughs brightly again, as if she didn't just deflect his compliment. "Or, if I learned a bit, maybe that whole 'looking fifteen' thing could work in my favor," Persie considers. "I don't know that I've ever -tried- to do the whole poker face thing. I mean, the whole point is not to do anything, right? Be all stony?" She purses her lips, twists them to the side. "I don't know if I can pull off stony. Stony might suit girls in lime green shirts the way pink umbrella drinks suit walls." She grins again and eyes his wobbling so-so response about his winnings. "Aw, if you'd won, I'd have had you get my next drink," she says with a wink and another sip of her dwindling beverage.

"It's more..." N'thei thinks hard through his next sip, brows knitted and eyes cast off across the bar aimlessly. "It's more just not telling anyone anything by your face. You can talk, smile, and be jovial, but that's all disconnected from the cards." He pauses just a beat; "And that's N'thei's Quick and Dirty Guide to Poker Faces." With an exhale through his nose, probably a stifled chuckle, he lands a look on the fluffy drink and shakes his head. "If you'd been drinking anything worth buying, I'd have offered regardless of my take. As it is." He shrugs, sighs, lose-lose.

Persie gives a thoughtful frown for his explanation. "It doesn't sound like the sort of thing I'd be good at. Every time I've tried to play, I always have to stop and ask what beats what. It kinda gives things away, I think." And then her drink gets that look. "Hey, I'm not picky about my drinks. Stouts and ales are all better up north." She gives a quick aside to the bartended, "No offense. Boll's got all the good fruit." She quirks a bit of a sly grin at the man, turning her head to give him a slightly sidelong flick of her gaze. "If you're up for paying, I'll let you choose the drink."

N'thei beckons the bartender over once more, a flick of his first two fingers to draw the man thither, a comment out of the side of his mouth while he waits. "Do you always let strange men buy you drinks at their discretion?" He meets Persie's sidelong look with a questioningly cocked eyebrow, a smirk at the corner of his mouth before he makes an undertoned order. Shortly, it's three little shot glasses, a wedged lime, a cellar of salt, and some Pernese variant on tequila. "The very opposite of fluffy."

"Nope," Persie answers readily. "Not always." She'll leave him to wonder what the criteria is. She watches with interest as the two men murmur and with a growing smile as the shot glasses and such are laid out. "Three, huh? You know, it's one thing to buy a girl a drink, another to try to get her drunk. Or are you and your invisible friend doing shots with me? Or, hey, is one for him?" she asks, thumbing toward the barkeep.

Patiently, like someone explaining the matter to a rather small child; "Three of a kind beats a pair, and I think you'd fold if I called you on a full house." N'thei holds up all five fingers, indicative of the number that he'd have to lay out for said full house, eyes on the very pale liquid in the glasses, even the splash of it that landed on the bar by the little plate of limes. "If you get drunk, I'll personally dunk your head in a vat of ice water, how's that?" His smile sparkles when he turns it back to Persie.

Persie is grinning such that it's hard to tell if she really is up for the challenge or covering up the urge to balk, eye glinting and smile giddy. Perhaps that -is- her poker face. "A vat of ice water? Oh, you do know how to show a girl a good time." She keeps her eyes on him as she licks the back of her hand at the base of her thumb - at least she knows that much about tequila shots. The salt gets sprinkled liberally across the wet spot she's left behind and then she picks up a slice of lime and a shot. "Ice water, hear I come!" Lick, driiiink, suck. And she smiles at him with the slice of lime between her teeth, no hint of coughing and only a slight shine to her eyes.

N'thei settles back to watch the show, such as it were, with his eyebrows climbing and climbing till they reach a pinnacle up around the middle of his forehead. By the time Persie knocks back the shot without coughing, he goes through amused to surprised to a touch tense-looking; "I don't really expect you to down all three." It's a quiet, careful admission.

Persie starts to laugh even before she's taken the lime from her mouth, such that she has to catch it a bit as it gets spit out. "I think if I drank all three, I really -would- need that ice dunking," she admits in return, still giggling a bit. "Who are they for then? You?" She wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand, a process belabored as she realizes she's smearing the remants of salt across her lips that must then be licked off. She gives her hand a quick lick too - all clean.

"Appearances. They're for appearances." N'thei taps the end of his finger on the edge of the bar in front of the shot nearest himself, then the next one, then the empty spot where the one Persie's downed initially sat. "More to see how you'd react if someone set up three shots than to see what would happen if you drank them." To be a good sport, he dabs the end of his tongue against the flat spot just above the hinge of his thumb and extends it toward the greenrider, forehead dipped toward the salt cellar.

Her next giddy laugh has her thin shoulders creep up like an excited child's and she shifts in her seat as she reaches for the cellar. She takes a pinch herself and sprinkles it on his hand. "Hold up and I'll do the last one with you. It's not gentlemanly to make a lady drink alone," Persie tells him. It might a scolding for his set up and all, but she's smiling so easily it would be hard to buy. She passes him a slice of lime, then licks and salts her own hand again. "This, however, is my limit. Drunk, but not so that I can't fly home." Apparently, it's a line she's already acquainted with. "You'd probably suck down a whole barrel of ale before you felt your legs wobble." She takes up her shot and holds it to clink with his.

N'thei blows briefly across his salted hand, dislodges a few extra crystals and leans to see that they hit the floor. "Not so that you can't fly home? There go my ice water plans." With a sorrowful shake of his head, he barely flicks his fingers to tap his glass, then primes his lime. A quick lap of salt later, he tosses back the drink and cuts off a watery-eyed exhalation by shoving the lime wedge between his teeth. In all truth, Persie handled her first shot far more manly than he's taken his.

Persie's second shot goes down a little more slowly and she fumbles the lime on its way to her mouth, but by then she's coughing out a laugh through her nose as her eyes watch him. She pries the lime from her teeth, taking a bit more of the fruit's flesh this time and smacking her lips at the sour tang. The whole thing needs less show now that she's prove she can take it like a man. "Not your drink of choice?" she asks around another nibble of her lime. "For me the whiskey is harder. It tastes... well, there's something not right about it if you ask me. And you're going to laugh at me when I go to get off this chair and fall over." The lime spent, she puts the rind back on the plate. "And that ladder is no joke after a few drinks," she chuckles.

N'thei pries the lime out from his teeth, leaving most of the flesh in tact but very moisture-free. Even still, he blows a harsh breath out before dropping the spent fruit in the glass. Carefully, like it might yet explode, he slides it down the bar with his index finger till it clinks against Persie's empty pair. "/Not/ my drink of choice." A swipe of his thumb to catch a spilled tear follows the proclamation. "But the laugh will be worth it. Just try not to pass out. I don't think my conscience could take it if I made a fifteen-going-on-twenty-two turn old girl that I /just met/ pass out drunk. I usually try to save that till I've failed to win them over with my wit and charm."

Persie snickers outright. "Did that little drink make you cry?" she asks in a baby voice, putting on a pout as best she can before the giggle breaks it. "See, I like these shots. The salt and the lime, I think it's downright good." She shifts again, leaning to free the leg she's been sitting on and wiggling her foot to get the feeling back. "Oof, feel it in my belly though," she admits. "Whatever will you do it I'm a big liar and can't make it home? Are you really going to dunk my head in ice water? I'm not sure that's a winning impression either, you know." And, speaking of winning impression, she follows that up with a healthy burp and a fresh rough of laughter.

Feigned malevolence in his glare, N'thei answers the baby voice with a hard but false frown. "If you can't make it home--" He pauses, tongue pasted to the roof of his mouth before he washes the taste down with a drink from his mug, looks much less repulsed. Continuing; "If you're so drunk that you can't make it home, m'dear, chances are that you won't remember any impression, winning or otherwise." The burp makes him actually laugh for a second in turn, not the checked chuckles thus far. "Ladylike."

"Well, the combination of that pink drink and the shots... I suppose I should have covered my mouth and said excuse me and stuff." And so Persie adds, "Excuse me," and smiles broadly again, even more so for having made him laugh. "Speaking of making it home, though. I should tackle the ladder before those shots hit me. You almost done there? You're going down first to break my fall."

"If you fall on me." N'thei can't think of anything suitable to finish that threat. Probably because he's still recovering from the after-effects of really harsh liquor. But he stands up, steady as Persie's moniker for him, and puts a little loose change on the edge of the bar by the three empty glasses. Leaned over, he finishes just a touch more out of his mug, then turns and wordlessly heads to the ladder-- either still sober or not a teetery drunk.

Persie hops off her stool, supporting herself on it for a moment longer as she stamps her foot on the ground to make sure it's awake. "See ya later," she calls cheerily to the barkeep as if they're buddies; the man gives her a hesitant sort of wave and then laughs to himself as he clears their glasses. Despite her warning, Persie doesn't seem too addled by her drinks, at least not yet. She waits until by the top of the ladder to start down after N'thei. "I'm not keeping you away from another card game, am I?" she asks, a bit belatedly and not sounding too concerned about it.

N'thei clamors down painlessly, fall-lessly, holds the base of the ladder steady as he hops down the last couple of rungs and peers back up through the space to Persie at the top of it. "Do you think you're company is so riveting that I'd let you keep me from another card game?" He manages a dubious expression, difficult to do when peering up through a ladder chute at a person one's just met while marginally intoxicated. "Should I go get a net, or just brace myself for impact?" He holds out his arms, all set to basket-catch Persie at the bottom.

"Of course." Persie answers so flippantly it can't be honest. "Pretty girl, like you said, even if I am apparently fifteen. Are your catching arms ready?" She doesn't seem like she needs a safety net but she pauses on the ladder to peer down at him, something playing slipping into her smile. She starts down again. "I'm tempted just to let go and see what you do. Hold that thought." Her progress pauses again and she wraps an arm around the ladder to let out another burp, this one smaller. "Shells, excuse me. What a combination. Next time it's pink things -or- shots. Not both."

"'Ready' is sort of a subjective word, don't you think?" N'thei /looks/ ready, but is anyone ever really prepared to catch someone literally falling into their arms? Especially when any preparations are peppered by another snicker to greet another belch. "Yeeesss, altogether riveting company. Less belching, more climbing."

Persie is close enough that her knees are within his grasp, but she stops to look down again, grinning like a scrawny blonde devil. "Catch me, Wall!" she laughs brightly. And then she does, indeed let go, falling back those few feet and trusting, if foolishly perhaps, that he'll catch her. Maybe she really is feeling her liquor.

To answer the earlier question: No. No one, least of all N'thei, is ever really prepared to catch someone literally falling into their arms. He very nearly misses Persie altogether, winds up hooking one knee with his elbow and bracing her back with the other arm, drooped quite low before the impact of the catch is recovered. It is less than graceful. Flustered, he blinks at his armful of greenrider; "Certainly gives a new meaning to the phrase 'picking up a woman,' doesn't it?"

There's a laugh and screech loud enough to alarm the folks still drinking upstair, but Persie is quick to laugh again and sooth whatever nerves she may have startled above. Hanging as she is with an arm caught awkwardly over his shoulder and one leg drooping until she folds it over the one he's got behind the knee, she grins at him, eyes alight. "Nice job! You didn't think I'd do it, did you. Did I scare you?" Slim as she is, she's probably light enough that one of his arms might suffice. "It wasn't -that- far to fall."

"In the way that one is scared of a mindhealer's patient, yes." N'thei shakes his head stoically down at Persie, looks every bit stern, betrayed by the flickering at the corner of his mouth that eventually breaks down and becomes a grin. "You're a strange little person, Persie. But one of the more interesting ones I've met in recent memory." Having no trouble carrying her now that he's got a better grip, he just marches right out of the cave with a laugh that's as easily felt in his chest as heard through his lips.

Persie simply beams at him, whether he's looking stern or not, though even more when he's not. Apparently being called a mental patient doesn't surprise her one bit. "See, now this is the whole point of growing a man so big," she says conversationally. "For catching girls and carting them off." Once they're out of the cave, she shifts in his grasp, but just to extend a leg and an arm out in opposite directions, a stretch that's punctuated by a delighted giggle. She makes no effort to wiggle free. "I'm not really that interesting, you know. It's all a... what's that word. A roo... something." She laughs again and asks, "Where are we going?"

N'thei fills in sagely, "And reaching top shelves. That seems to be my primary function." He hefts Persie a little, unnecessarily, but might as well make the ride a little bumpy. He ducks under the roof of the cave, nearly collides his forehead with hers in the process, but answers calmly, "A ruse. Which I sort of hope is true, else you're almost a bit /too/ odd. --We're going out. You must have left your dragon out here somewhere."

"Ooh, that too. And if I were on your shoulders, we could pick fruit, I bet. Not that I pick fruit all that often, or ever, but we could. We could reach the good apples." Persie's laugh turns into a squeak as she gets hefted around, but it doesn't seem any less pleased. "A ruse, right. That's the word. I almost had it. A ruse." As for oddness, that she doesn't comment on. "I did leave my dragon out here; she's on the beach. She's the fat one, but don't tell her I said that." As he carries her along, she reaches out to snag leaves and low branches along the path. "It seems sort of silly, really, to drink and hurry home before the drunkeness sets in. Is it that you're not supposed to drink alone or you're not supposed to be drunk alone? Or both? Not that it matters for you, really. Unless you're afraid that shot might be the master of you." She grins impishly at him again, teasing.

Casting a look upwards at the supposed fruit, at an ill moment for he snags his foot on a root at the same time and stumbles a step, nearly spills Persie all over the place, N'thei hastens to regain his composure with an apologetic smile; "I think you're not supposed to do either alone, drink or be drunk. But I am not drunk, no, so don't grin at me. And you--" Toward the beach he continues, taking more care with his feet now. "You're not really drunk, are you?"

That trip gets high pitched shriek from the blonde girl and something in the underbrush rustles away at the sound. "See, if you drop me and fall on me and crush me, then this whole big burly man thing isn't going to be so cute anymore." She scolds him, even if his apologetic expression is met with a forgiving grin. "Me? I'm not drunk. Not yet. I suppose I will be in a bit, once the shots catch up with me. But now I'm just... enjoying my circumstances." And for that Persie gives him a friendly thump on the shoulder. But it's odd the bits that catch in her head. "Why shouldn't I grin at you?" she asks honestly.

N'thei steps gingerly over a stone on the path, rounds a bend, and there greets a view down to the waterline with a nod of his head to indicate it to Persie's attention as well. "Because you are too little a girl for so big a grin." He halts there, perhaps to catch his breath-- yes, even big burly men get winded now and then-- or perhaps just to absorb the view, though he winds up half-smirking at the girl. "If they haven't caught up with you yet, I think you'll probably be fine. Or are we still too wobbly for our own two feet?"

"I'm not that little," Persie points out. "You're just..." She waves her fingers at him instead of finishing. And, well, another little burp would have been in the way anyhow. As he's face is rather close and all, she manages to cover her mouth this time and grins over her hand at his semi-smirk. "Excuse me again." But when her hand drops, there's a pout on her lips. "I suppose you'd have to put me down for us to find out." Secath, who is indeed a plump little butterball of a green, is curled up as if dozing, but an eye is open and watching the riders emerge from the jungle

In a charmed tone; "She's... cute. --And Wyaeth is late." N'thei gently lowers Persie to her feet, assumes she's going to manage to stay upright, and lowers his arms away to let her prove herself steady. At that, the bronze lands just down the beach, a contrast to Secath entirely, lean and ragged-looking and landing with a great big heavy thud on the sand. "And you are that little."

Persie slides from his arms, giving her legs a chance to get under her before they have to take her weight. She holds on still as she shakes each foot and bends her knees -- holding on by a fistfull of his shirt, that is. "Eveything seems to be working. Thanks for the ride," she tells him with a wink. Then she lets go and, for a brief moment, just smiles up at him. "And next time the round will be on me." She steps back and does wobble a bit. Secath takes her sweet time uncoiling, apparently in no hurry, though she will rumble a greeting to the arriving bronze.

"Next time?" N'thei sounds dubious at that, or perhaps that's simply owing to his lack of confidence in Persie's steadiness. He reaches one hand to steady the wobble, hovers it around her forearm with a questioning look. "Because the chances of meeting by accident more than once in a place where neither of us lives are so high, yes?" His grin is brief but cheeky; "Go home, Persie. Drink water. Drown a hangover." Wyaeth sort of rumbles back at Secath through all this, a gruff but friendly how-do-ma'am.

Persie's wobble stills, once she's not taking any steps at least. If she notices the hover of his hand, she makes no move to accept it or brush it away. "Well," she says, catching her teeth in a lip that fails to smile for a moment. Just a moment, then it's back if a little unease. "Could always meet without accident. If things get dull." But she decides not to linger for his answer and instead to turn and make her slightly unsteady way toward her green. "Come on, wake up, Sec. You don't need -that- much stretching, he's not even looking at you." Secath, who -was- stretching to some of her best poses, returns her rider's comments with a snort.

N'thei doesn't even try to answer, since Persie's already on her way to Secath. Rather, he calls pleasantly, "I was looking at her." Wyaeth? Not so much. The bronze swaggers his rangy way toward the treeline, meets his rider halfway down the beach, and it's the latter who offers a faretheewell of sorts; "Next round, on you." Jacket buttoned, straps clipped, ready to go.

Persie looks back, turning over her shoulder enough to share the rather shy version of the smile on her lips. It warms and strengthens slowly, twisting through sheepishness to something more buoyant, more like the grins he's already seen. She lifts a hand to wave goodbye. "Next time," she calls back. And then she faces Secath again. "Oh don't give me that," she tells the green.