Difference between revisions of "Logs:Confessions of a weyrwoman's assistant"

>---< Mad Smithcrafter's Den Weyr, High Reaches Weyr(#2003R) >---------------<

  There's ample room in both the couch area and the rider's living area for 
  visitors to stretch out, a white chalked line and improvised patchwork    
  curtain in rich tones is all that separates the two. Around the walls,    
  working areas have been carved to make several spacious stone countertops 
  with shelves and tool hooks hung above. The shelves are filled with       
  various items, tools for scribe work, jars of spices for cooking, there's 
  even a set of shelves all but overflowing with books and notebooks. One of
  these counters contains a utilitarian sink, a neat square with a pump     
  attached to it and copper tubing disappearing up into the ceiling and out 
  along the base of the wall to the ledge outside. Should one follow the    
  tubing out, a metal cistern tucked into a niche above the weyr's entrance 
  would be found, its purpose to gather rain water to supply the sink. The  
  bottom pipe discreetly pokes out over the back edge of the ledge for      
  drainage onto the Bowl wall.                                              
                                                                            
   The bed in this weyr hangs from the ceiling by a set of chains bolted    
  securely into the rock and can be lowered to the floor for sleeping, or   
  raised up out of the way for entertaining. Likewise, almost all of the    
  furniture, table, chairs, desk can be pulled out of a wall for use or     
  folded up into a niche or nook to make room. An overstuffed couch in a    
  terrible color has been draped with numerous quilts, preserving comfort   
  and aesthetic sensibility. With a low table in front and two on the sides 
  that, much like everything else in the weyr, can be folded away when not  
  in use. The ceiling has had other things bolted there too, numerous liquor
  and wine bottles adapted as glowbaskets hang in various shapes and colors.
  The hearth is a large affair with an actual oven carved into one of its   
  walls and a metal grill that can be pulled out over the flame for cooking.
  This weyr was probably home to some mad former smithcraft apprentice who  
  had too much time on his/her hands during an Interval.

Faryn's frequency of appearances on Akluseth's ledge have lessened in the week since Niahvth's flight, based largely on recent events; she's crashed at least once in Farideh's weyr, and twice at T'mic's, the latter of which suggests there are some reparations being made. Even so, tacit arrangements bring her here, where she's taken advantage of what Edyis has offered, including leaving a spare set of clothes in the cabinet and liberal use of the tricky unlocking of the door so as to minimize interrupting the brownrider. A seven, then, since Niahvth's flight, and Faryn is already curled on the couch and wrapped in a blanket against the chill this high up. "Remember when Niahvth rose?" As if there's been time to forget.

There is a look from the brownrider where she works on a stretched hide, paintbrush held between her teeth as she inks in what will be the backing pattern for a deck of cards at one of the work counters, perched on a stool. Edyis casts a glance back at Faryn when she speaks up, dark brow arching skyward. "Not very clearly." She states, with an odd tilt of her head and an apologetic sound from Akluseth's corner as though he's issuing yet another apology. "What about it?"

Faryn falls quiet, watching Edyis work, not paying too much attention to the exchange between rider and dragon. She's got her mug in hand, but doesn't drink from it; just looks inside for a moment. "When she rose the first time, then," an amendment. The point is still some distant mark on the horizon. "When she rose a couple turns ago. Do you remember that one?" And more to the point, "Do you remember her feeling that way? All..." one hand lifts, imagines a wobbling twisting near one of her temples. "Were you alone?"

"I wasn't in the weyr." Edyis says of Niahvth's earlier flight, with something in her tone suggesting it wasn't accidental. "Last, well the only flight I had felt before that was when I lived in Monaco, before Savannah was exiled." She exhales softly with a purse of her lips. "I ended up making out with E'nest, in the Records Room in Monaco, but I realized what was happening quickly enough. I bit him hard enough to jar us both back to our senses. But... Well I had a blue ink streak up my back and across my shoulders for weeks." There's a flush with the admission.

"Mmm." Faryn's neutral, eyes on the mug. There's not much in it, apparent in how far she has to tilt it back when she takes a drink, and the way she leans far forward to put it empty on the table afterwards. Her smile is wan. "Just senseless kissing and a blue streak. Clever you; unlucky him." That seems to be the end of it; no questions forthcoming, no apparent explanation, and she doesn't seem all present in the conversation as she considers a far point on the wall. Edyis might even have time to get back to work when she says, flatly, "I fucked Drex. On Farideh's floor. While, or after, or around the same time she was watching K'del get stabbed."

"Well as fate would have it, the next time I landed in that situation, it was with someone who biting has the opposite effect on, so..." Edyis doesn't know anything about clever or unlucky. She keeps inking in the finely drawn pattern, but fortunately the brush is well away for when Faryn drops a bomb of atomic proportion. The brush held between Ed's teeth drops and rolls across the floor leaving a watery blue trail in its wake. "I'm sorry. Um. I think I was possibly hallucinating for a minute. Or did you say you fucked Drex. On Farideh's floor."

Now would be the perfect time to yell, "Gotcha!" but Faryn doesn't do it. She maybe doesn't know how these situations are supposed to work, or the importance of comedic timing. Or, "He was just there. It wasn't -- I didn't intend --" Now she wants something to do with her hands, with anything, and Faryn gets up to that bottomless pot of spiced warmth to fill her mug, her back to Edyis while she reframes her words. "I thought Farideh had overslept. He was - there," echoes, "It just sort of...happened."

The impossibly slow blink that follows, the wordless slack-jawed stare, her eyes wide. It's only after Faryn finishes her vague explanation that Edyis is up on her feet, padding over to the liquor cabinet, and pulling out a bottle of something far harder than what's been heated in the pot. Filling a glass in absolute silence, before knocking it back wordlessly, and repeating the process a second time. She turns then to look at Faryn, bottle and glass in hand, plopping on the other end of that couch. "So -- you fucked -- Farideh's -- in her bedroom -- while she was tending to a critically injuried weyrleader." Even coming from her own lips she is utterly shocked by the words. "Well, I mean. That's one way of figuring out your feelings."

Faryn winces. "She was flying," the woman says of Niahvth, like an excuse. "Farideh was planning on leaving, to make sure she was gone before it happened. Protect Ros, you know. I just went to check the letters, and make sure she had everything sorted to go. He was," this is important, because Faryn turns from the fire to look at Ed more directly, "already naked." It doesn't sound better. She drains her mug all at once despite the heat. "I'm not proud of it, Edyis. It didn't feel like anything. Just -- need. There wasn't anything to work through."

When that mug is emptied, Edyis is generous enough to refill it from the bottle. Setting it down to pick up her own glass, brows knitting together at mention of nakedness. "So that was easier?" She asks carefully, those intense dark eyes lifting from her glass. "Than sorting out all those nasty, complicated emotions with your own boyfriend, without flight influence?" It's not intended to be as harsh as it sounds, but there is a sort of dark curiosity there all the same. "Farideh isn't going to believe that story, you know that right?" Edyis sighs, "No matter how true it might be." Draining her glass and refilling it. "No matter true it might be, women get downright unreasonable over men. It's probably one of our greatest flaws, well at least in the top ten." The alcohol must be doing its work, because she seems less shocked, and more... contemplative. "What are you going to do about it?"

Faryn's jaw goes taut at the accusation. "That's not it. Wasn't." Deep breath, and it's good that Edyis is already seated, because she follows with, "I went to T'mic later. Faranth!" When Faryn sits again it's to take the blanket she's been hauling around and pull it up over her head like a shawl, all without touching her refilled mug. Muffled, then, "Why do you think I didn't tell her?" for the first part. "Drex is scared she's going to castrate him." And for the second, "I'm going to jump off your ledge while you're sleeping. I thought you should know why. You can have my...shit. I don't have anything."

Oh, yes. Sitting is good right now. Empty goes the glass. "T'mic." She arches a brow, "I feel like you probably haven't told him either, but I would hope it is because you don't want to hurt him." She blinks, "Well he should be castrated for it." She frowns thinking again. "Or not - castrated. Fuck I don't know, I have enough trouble figuring out relationship etiquette in a place where everybody fucks everybody." Edyis grumbles tugging one of the quilts around herself then. "Akluseth wishes me to make known that he objects to any night time splatters off his ledge. He usually gets blamed when things like that occur." That the brown, angles just so the door is inaccessible and resumes his nap right at that moment. Pure coincidence, surely.

Under Faryn's shame blanket, she just breathes evenly, so at least she isn't having a complete breakdown. She doesn't see Akluseth move, but he has to shut up and sleep sometime. "This happens. It's just a thing that happens and it's nothing unless you make it a bigger thing than it is. I was supposed to leave once Farideh was gone. I should have bit him." Beat. "No, that would have made it worse," then wretchedly, "She's going to kill me."

"Yep, you're screwed." Edyis supplies unhelpfully. "I guess the question is do you want to runaway or face it head on." Dark eyes focused on the 'shame blanket' and what she can see of Faryn's face. "Farideh might forgive it,she knows what flight lust feels like without a dragon. It isn't like you seduced him or anything. I'm sure it will eventually be fine." There's a pause and a shrug, "But hey what do I know? I can think of a few places you could start over, we could change your name. How do you feel about Baryn or Jaryn?"

Again saw sounds wretched, muffled. Small. "He tried to stop me. It had been weeks. I needed..." Faryn falls boneless to one side, cocooned. "She might. And then, right after, a pink dragon will hatch somewhere. Then, unrelated, Igen will become a lake." Grunt. "Baryn. Barren. Like my fucking morals."

The O shape Edyis's mouth makes is perfectly soundless. The gears are turning, and her lips thin, but eventually what she chooses to say is; "There was a white one, once. Why not pink?" There is a breath out then, her lips pursing at the last. She draws a breath to speak, and then releases it, watching the boneless flop with a dark arch of a brow. "If you've violated your own conscience, that's something you are going to have to square with." She exhales then, "But we are only human. What matters now is what you choose to do, to set things right or not."

There is logic in Edyis' argument that Faryn really can't counter, not even neck deep wallowing in guilt. She doesn't say anything, moving the blanket just enough that she can see out with one eye and grope for her abandoned mug, taking it back with determination. Seconds later it's empty, Faryn's still cocooned, and her eye turns expectantly on Edyis as she holds her mug out for a refill. "She's going to fire me. T'mic will never forgive me. He's been perfect. Patient." Insistent wiggle of the mug. "I deserve it all. But if they don't know?" That's too far for her. "Would you understand, if you were them?"

"I think, T'mic is a far better person than I am." Edyis murmurs, refilling the glasses quietly. "If it wasn't for him I doubt Akluseth and I would have graduated." Her mouth twists in something that isn't quite sympathy, but not far removed from it. "You made your choice, and you can't avoid the consequences of that." She agrees, tilting her head as she considers the last. "I don't know. I would like to think that I could be the kind of person who would." She frowns, "It isn't like you did it out of malice. Or because you wanted anything more than sex in that moment. Had it been anyone else the same outcome would have resulted right?"

Faryn pulls her refilled mug back, drains it halfway without stopping to think, and let's her head hit the cushions again with a thud, arm outstretched so she doesn't spill. It's an awkward position on the whole. "Sure," Faryn agrees automatically. "I doubt it would have mattered, when Niahvth went. I barely slept because of her." That seems to calm her, or possibly it's the alcohol.

"So you've learned something about yourself at least, you lack self discipline." There's something wry and affectionate in her smile with that. "Niahvth, at least she wasn't glowing for forever this time." A beat. "So, lets figure out a plan. And if Farideh puts a hit out on you I know a few places where you can start over anonymously, like a witness protection program but for people who can't keep their pants on." The levity warm in her tone, or maybe it's the alcohol talking.

"Excuse you," Faryn says, taken aback. "I have fine self control. I waited months for T'mic, and then even longer for Jorrth to stop being sensitive. This was...a perfect storm of circumstance. I wasn't myself. I was..." pause, then lamely, "caught up. Niahvth's not into being subtle." Faryn pulls her blanket down to look at Edyis fully now, if upside down based on how she's lying, and it undermines her skeptical expression. "I'm not going anywhere until that fucking dragon lays her eggs. It's the least she can do."

Edyis grins like a cheshire cat, peering down at the woman with a wry twist of her lips. "The very least." She agrees.