Difference between revisions of "Logs:Accomplices"

Stars shine cool and bright over Telgar, Belior not even a pale wisp at the horizon to dim them by comparison: bright stars and the dark spaces between them, while inside the ground weyr, barely-there light layers with shadow upon shadow. The hearth. The mostly-lidded basket with its thin glow directed toward the wall and catching at bits of mica in the dark stone. The other glowbasket upon the nightstand, the one that had been brighter earlier, the better to play-act shadow-creatures of all things-- a valiant canine, a reformed tunnelsnake, a lumpy creature made a wher by default-- against the headboard. Now, though, Telavi murmurs drowsily into the side of K'zin's chest, "You're awake, aren't you." It's not quite a protest.

"Mmm." It's not a sleepy sound, but more one as one drawn out of deep thought to confirm the fact. The fact that his fingers idly trace across one of her shoulders where he can reach from where his arm is pinned under her is probably what gave him away. "I was just thinking about home. About my weyr. It was always big, but now it must be empty. I never felt like it was when I was there, so it's strange to think of it that way." That seems to remind him, "Did you bring the things I asked for?" They didn't really get that far in conversation before they really needed to be in the bed doing things that don't require talking.

The deep sound of his voice, just like that, invites her sleepy smile; it's possible, not so likely, but possible that she had been listening only to his timbre and not his words, that her own mmm was merely an echo lingering in his pause. Only, "I did," comes with a would-be nod or maybe it's a stretch of her neck; though there must be more to it, it seems she's still back with what he'd said first. "Empty... because you're really gone, not just not there?" is an even more gradual wondering.

"Good. I need to do something," he must be thinking of the drawing supplies, "or I'll go more out of my mind than Ras." Did he say that out loud? Anyway, moving on! "Yeah, I guess. Empty because we are," he and the dragon, "Because we're not there to tend it, to fill it. I wonder if it's lonely." But then there's a laugh because weyrs don't miss anyone, not even those who leave them behind for between.

"Draw me," proposes the greenrider in a murmur with an undertone of playfulness, never mind that she's hardly in a position to be drawn at all given how closely she's tucked up to the artist; if he's not going to examine what percentage of what he'd continued to say was a joke, she needn't either. As for the weyr, she can't help but chuckle along with him, even if that does turn into a yawn; "I think it must." Even if weyrs don't. "Its hearths have been cold. No sounds of voices, no touch-ups of paint... do you think you'd ever add to the murals? More than just the map, I mean."

"Now? It's the middle of the night," K'zin protests, and they're just so comfy now. Moving is not an exciting idea and his voice says as much. "Probably not. In a couple turns I'll have to sandscrub the walls and re-do them or maybe do something different, depending on if we're still living there. Otherwise they'll start to look shabby like they did when I first moved in." There's a frown; the idea of not living in his home weyr? Also, apparently, unexciting.

"Well... maybe not now," allows Tela, evidently convinced by K'zin's impeccable logic. Abandoning the idea for the moment, she's near-immediately struck by something else, and-- even though it requires more movement-- lifts her head enough to try and peer at him. "But... why wouldn't you be living there? He'd surely be flying again by then, you wouldn't be stuck here...?" Here, where he'd not even really moved in. Could matters be worse than she'd thought?

"He does intend us to be Weyrleader someday," K'zin answers without hesitation. "Weyrleaders are supposed to live in the Weyrleader's weyr." Maybe someone should tell K'del...

"There is that," Tela says with a bit of a sigh. She's not leaping out of bed to go tell K'del. Or to think about K'del, not right now. More positively, "About your things: you're not getting the one tunic back until I've fixed it. I got the new holes in your hang-out trous already; that's getting to almost be a tradition for when you're under the weather... The sketchbooks weren't hard to find, you have a handful, and the pencils, and Jo's picks that were with the pencils-- I didn't know that you'd need them here? but they were right there," as temptation tends to be, "and I wasn't sure about leaving them." And it's not as though they're hard to put back.

The groan is familiar; it's the sound he always makes when she finds something of his she thinks needs mending but that he would insist is perfectly fine, holes and all. It still covers most of him, after all. "Oh. Don't think I will. Might as well leave them though. No sense in making a trip back and I can practice in all the time I have on my hands." So long as no Telgari finds them and thinks he's up to no good, think of the Incident that would create!

"Practice on what?" A dimple had emerged with that earlier groan; now it deepens as Tela shifts onto one elbow; otherwise her neck has to do so much work propping up her head.

"I'll get some locks from the Smiths. Buy them if I have to. I'm sure I can come up with a pretense for them. It'll be good to practice on some that are unfamiliar. I'd gotten pretty good with all of the ones back in my weyr." K'zin answers rather idly, not really focusing so much on the conversation as-- well, something else.

"You know," Telavi says after a moment, though his tone also has her following his gaze with curiosity, "there are bound to be people we know who have things locked up where they lost the keys and would be glad to have the help; it's a pity that it would also be like putting up a banner saying, 'People who know how to open locks! Over here! Not that you should be suspicious or anything!'"

"What do you think smiths are for?" K'zin offers back to the greenrider. "I'm technically allowed to know, since I was one. Small mechanics just weren't my specialty." What was his specialty again? Working the bellows and banging on metal in the forge? Probably. But then, he was only an apprentice; no true specialty there.

"All sorts of interesting things," Telavi gives him back. Though, "Too twiddly? What do you think your specialty would have been, if you'd stuck with it? I mean, making things," as first came up during that forge tour way back when, "But that's so broad."

"Whatever kept me in the forge. I'd've hated to be shut up in one of those workshops all the time. I mean, sometimes is okay when you need to polish something up, but all the time? Not for me." K'zin answers still staring at the ceiling, attention only half with the greenrider.

"Mmm. I can imagine." Then Tela's looking up at that ceiling more closely this time, in case there's a crack that's started to look suspicious or perhaps a moth fluttering about; failing something along those lines, she wonders, "What's on your mind?"

"Just thinking back to things undone. I never got around to breaking into the restricted records to look into Seani's death. Ras rocked my world and everything else just slipped away then." K'zin shrugs a little, finally looking over at Telavi. "Probably still couldn't've found a good time to do it in the end. Not even with U'by's access." Record grub that he is.

It's a fleeting moue that indicates that 'rocked his world' is one way to put it; by the time he looks over, she's still regarding the ceiling, her lips only slightly pursed in thought. "Does it still feel like something you need to do?" Her gaze finds his, still contemplative. "In your gut?" or wherever he keeps these feelings.

"Depends on what happens the next time Hraedhyth rises." K'zin probably wants to stop there, but believe it or not, he's met Telavi a time or two, so after a moment of looking over at her, almost waiting for the question, he volunteers, "If Cadejoth catches and K'del is confirmed Weyrleader, then yes. There's something about all that that he doesn't want me to know about," which is probably the lingering feeling from some two and more turns before, "Do you want a leader who needs to keep secrets from his Weyr?" No one look at Ras right now, okay?

Her lips curve when he goes on, the smile taking longer to recede; she does shift in the end, though, lowering her head to rest it on her bent arm. "I wonder if he will," she says. "If Savannah were staying..." if R'hin were, who knows. "I think I'd want a--"

"Suireh's dad?" This is interjected as a point of clarification. One would think K'zin would know by now that yes, Suireh's dad's name is, in fact, R'hin.

"Hm?" Her eyes flick back to him. "Our wingleader, yes. I don't know how I'd feel about that, riding for two Weyrleaders in a row. But they're leaving," this on a quieter note, one that trails into disappointment for all that she knew going in that that would happen. It's that shift, maybe, from 'our' to 'they're.'

K'zin simply nods. "What will you miss, when they do?" He's shifting to roll onto his side now to face her, expression curious.

She reaches out to touch him with her toes, and with a small smile, tinged with something like gratitude. "It feels like... it's such a team, you know?" When Tela continues, it's less wry than wistful. "I'm half-surprised they let Nita and me in. I still don't know all their jokes, their references and shorthand, but I'm learning. R'hin really, really knows what he's doing, and Bristia..." that's not a little admiration. "If Boreal had been this way, I don't think I'd ever have wanted to leave."

The bronzerider looks back at Telavi, puzzled. "Are they... not a normal wing?" Maybe K'zin's experiences with Taiga wouldn't lead him to describe things in a similar way.

"I don't know if Boreal was ever normal," muses Telavi; it must have been, just not when she was there so apparently she's not counting it. After that so-brief change in focus, her gaze returns to K'zin's. "But it's more like how... you know how Hailstorm just isn't good for wet-behind-the-ears weyrlings because they fight all the time? It's like that except... not fighting. Or at least not hurting-fighting? A'gon says they have hardly any turnover." Her words drift off, but she's still taking in his expression, thinking.

"But do they do the same sort of things as a normal wing? Or are they specialized like Snowdrift or Icicle?" K'zin wants to know after listening to Telavi's explanation, a simple nod telling her that he knows what she means about Hailstorm, at least.

Still thinking. "A bit of everything," Tela says, her voice slow and quiet and far less focused than her gaze. "K'zin? Do you remember when I came back late the other night, and my knee was all scraped up, and I still thought I smelled of runner after washing and washing and washing but you said no?" And she was sore and should have been tired but was crackling with energy instead?

"I like the way runners smell." Not their shit, obviously, but K'zin does have a hobby of riding the things. Regardless, there's a nod. "I remember." Then he waits, because there's clearly more she's planning to say. Isn't there?

Even in her distraction, Tela can't help but smile at K'zin in the way that ordinarily would net him a kiss; "I'll remember that for next time," she says. "It's going to be like that, riding in Savannah, not always being able to count on where I can be when." Her voice lowers, for all that it's the two of them in this dark, borrowed cavern. "I remember when you told me," that day after they graduated, "about learning to blend in when you were looking about Harper and Healer. Part of it's like that too, except without getting into their records," that she knows of, yet. "Keeping an ear to the ground; learning what's said and what's going on and what matters to our people, things that we wouldn't know if we just stayed holed up on high or wore the knot of someone who does." She's so earnest. Not that it's not fun too, but it matters. Does he see?

"So, what I was doing a lot of, but in wing form." K'zin concludes, not even needing a moment to come to that conclusion. "I imagine it certainly has broader impact, after all, my things were only for me." And Rasavyth. "Sounds like looking into Seani's murder should be right up your alley. Information you might be able to use someday for something. Secrets." The bronzerider shrugs a little.

"What really happened with Seani," does she seem more real, more important, more a person instead of a body if they keep naming her? "That will have quite a lot of impact," Tela says quietly, though the last syllable lifts ever so slightly in pitch. "I don't want to use information, not for myself--"

"What do you think R'hin does with all that's gathered?" K'zin poses the question, eyebrows drawing down and wrinkling the skin between them.

"He's my wingleader." Evidently, to Telavi, it's different.

"Yeah..." He is. "But he uses the information, doesn't he? Or sits on it until the right opportunity comes up?" K'zin probably asks this because if he, or more specifically Ras, were in R'hin's place, that's what they would do. "People don't find out secrete just to know them, Tela." This last is delivered gingerly and with a touch of apology, perhaps for bringing it to her attention when she seems as though she might willfully want not to think about what happens with the fruits of her labors.

"I suppose," Telavi trails off, though her expression eases somewhat at his tone; "I think he knows a lot more than I do, though," and not just because more people report to him.

"So?"

"And... I think he's wanting to help High Reaches." Telavi has a small shrug for that, even though it's more one shoulder than the other. "Maybe I should be more cynical," but.

"I'm not trying to get you to be more cynical, love." K'zin shifts so he can reach out a hand to caress her cheek. "It's just-" What is it? He has to think of the wording. "R'hin was of 'Reaches, but now Monaco is his home. If the two ever came into conflict, where do you suppose his loyalties lie? Don't answer. It's not for answering, just for thinking about. Because if the answer even just 'might' be Monaco, you should give serious thought to what secrets or information you collect and hand over and how they might be used." He shifts his hand to tuck away one of her escaped tresses behind her ear. "Are you making private reports to your Weyrleader?"

The words are warranted, for Tela had started to say-- something; her gaze stays troubled. Then she blinks. "No." Only it's more like, no?

"I've heard he and K'del are friends, and that's all well and good, but... maybe you should? Or at least to ask K'del if he'd like you to." The bronzerider makes the recommendation. "I'd offer to ask him for you," because surely he's on more intimate terms with the acting Weyrleader than Telavi since she's never mentioned such an acquaintance, "but being stuck here and so out of happenings there, it would probably be better coming from you." His tone is earnest. "I just - I don't know. I don't want you to end up used somehow or for 'Reaches to get the raw end of the deal in terms of the effort you and Nita are putting in. Even if it was 'nice they let you in,' you're both still of 'Reaches and oughtn't let your loyalties get confused. Not that I'm saying you are." By this point, he's babbling. "I just mean to say that I'm worried for you. Maybe I don't need to be." But he is. Then again, he does have an awful lot of time to examine the 'what if's at the moment.

A few more blinks ensue; somewhere in there, Tela says quietly, questioningly, "Isn't he awfully busy? It's not like I've found anything exciting, yet. It's not so much Records and Lords and murders as it is old men jawing over ale or women stitching away, though I did get a nice embroidery pattern from one of them," so clearly that was worth it! "I don't want to get... used, no..."

K'zin is silent some long moments after he's heard all she had to say. "Say you're wearing a sweater," random! "The knit kind." Brown eyes regard her evenl. "And say that sweater gets snagged on something. There's a chance when you pull that thread, the one sticking out but that otherwise looks just like all the rest of them, that the whole sweater will fall apart, right? A small chance, granted, but a chance." He shifts yet more on the bed. "That's what it's like with information. You never know what insignificant detail is really the missing piece of the puzzle."

"I wouldn't pull the thread," Telavi notes. "Because it would run if it broke, that's practically guaranteed, and it wouldn't come loose unless it was part of the seam and someone had done a horrible job--"

"But you are, Tela. The figurative thread. It sounds like that's your job now. And you can only see the thread while R'hin sees the sweater. Shouldn't our leaders be offered equal shot?" K'zin queries, looking at Telavi a little oddly now. Just where do her loyalties lie?

Tela squinches up her mouth momentarily-- issues with the illustration? --but that doesn't last; she admits, "I'm confused. I thought you were still doubting K'del? Or is it less in comparison?" Or maybe she's just tired.

"Even if I do doubt K'del, he's still my Weyrleader," K'zin starts before flopping onto his back. "And it's not that I don't believe he's doing what he thinks is best for the Weyr, I just disagree with what he thinks that is in this case." Then after a thoughtful moment, "If he was incompetent at the job, then I'd probably not suggest it, but he's not." Just maybe a little wrong about some things.

In the wake of that movement, Telavi idly lifts her upper hand towards the ceilling; her fingers stretch outward, just slightly spread, as though she could tease out wisps of shadow like so many spinners' webs. Watching it, she murmurs, "Oh, well, that's good that he's not incompetent then." Her fingers gradually curve, drawing the imaginary shadow closer. With it her voice becomes more audible, more directed to him; "Anyway... I don't know that I'll come across anything about Seani? But if I do, I'll pass it to you."

"Are you teasing me?" K'zin questions with a raised brow and a dubious side-eye to the greenrider. "I wasn't suggesting you would just happen across it. I might have been suggesting you take a more active role in seeking it out. Unless you think it's not important?"

Her fingers curl, now, gradually pulling at those wisps or, perhaps, convincing a fish to stay on the line but come closer, closer. A shadow-fish. "Maybe a tiny bit," and she's smiling, though it doesn't last. "I hope it never gets so bad we do have someone who is." Incompetent. "I'm good with seeking it out, K'zin; I'll be better when I have a good chance of success and a very, very good chance of not getting caught..."

She gets that side-eye moments longer in perhaps playful rebuke for the teasing, but then that's dropped. "There are plenty worse than K'del, that's for sure." K'zin reaches up and stretches, yawning. "I'm not suggesting you go after it before I get back. A better chance with two, wouldn't you say? Better with a team?" Can two be a team? Surely, yes.

"Much better," as Tela's already opined at length about Savannah; she must like the sound of it here too, given how she turns her head his way without quite letting go of the shadows, smiling. "Don't go without me either. If nothing else, let me play lookout; I don't want you caught."

There's a smile for Telavi. "Not afraid you'll share in my fate?" If he were caught, that is. Maybe K'zin doubts Telavi's skills as a look out.

"I probably should be, shouldn't I." Tela looks up the gullet of the shadow-fish as though it could provide answers, then glances back at him with a lift of her shoulder that she then lets fall.

"Accomplice is what they'll say. Not that I would ever give you up." K'zin's baritone is imbued with dramatic chivalry. The bronzerider's eyes shift away from Tela's face to go lower, then back up. Someone is getting ideas of a less than chivalrous nature.

So of course Telavi has to gaze into his eyes-- with that much more humor in hers for his diversion-- and then lower her lashes so that she can peek just as dramatically out from beneath them, adding the sort of flutter that befits an admiring ingenue. Though speaking of never giving her up... she lets the 'fish' go and reaches for his hand as she leans toward him, seeking to curl her littlest finger about his. "I know you wouldn't," and though she's seen before that he doesn't have sole say, it seems she somehow believes it anyway. "You'll keep mum about my wingmates, too?"

"Mmhm." He will. Can the same be said for Rasavyth? Hopefully Telavi won't ask. K'zin shifts his hand seeking more of hers, seeking to draw her in, seeking-- well. You Know.

Telavi knows better than to ask about Rasavyth... though knowing better than to do something, well, it isn't always a deterrent. Never mind that now, though, as she's all too glad to meet K'zin halfway; never mind that, never mind words, never mind sleep.