Difference between revisions of "Logs:Some Perspectives"

There's a buzzing that shortly turns out to be Oswinth, a little reluctant to intrude. « We went. » To Ertrand's wagon, a blip of visualization just to explain. It's past tense; they're home now. « She'd like yours to come. » (Oswinth to Tacuseth)

To Oswinth, Tacuseth's own is like a burning sensation - the rumble of falling rocks, though, muted. He's amused, but he always is. It's just this - the feeling - for a long moment, without words before the sudden blare of his deep voice is felt. « We are done. I'll get her there. » Done with what, he doesn't say.

On this snowy evening, Oswinth is a little less coiled up in a miserable cold-hating ball at the back of his couch, and rather he seems to be hanging out, almost on his ledge, watching the activity of the bowl and awaiting the expected visitors like a shy sentinal. Inside, Vienne has the fire blazing, perhaps wastefully built, and the tiny weyr is, as it would be, uncomfortably warm. It's just as it was last time, basically empty, and Vienne herself is padding around in socks, a pale pink sweater and, most importantly, some new suede pants in dove gray.

The proud nicked and scratched blue is flashy in his sudden landing, his rumbled greeting being more of an announcement in its sound once he lands. Jo's down his side in an instant and busies herself straightening out her leathers before she clicks her tongue at Oswinth in her own greeting and heads into the very warm inner weyr, already in the process of unfastening her jacket to peel off in response to that. Her sauntering gait takes her just within the inner sanctum as the jacket comes off, a fresh darkening bruise revealed on her left shoulder that causes her wince just a bit from the exertion. Still, her gaze falls on Vienne from behind and she's totally checking out those pants. "I see Ertrand hooked ya up real nice," is her greeting, tossing that jacket into a chair and letting her hands fall to her hips as she nods. "Told'ja he's the real deal."

Oswinth just has a silent tuck of his head for both the arrivals, a distance kept from Tacuseth as if the size of the other blue's personality is enough to make him wary. Vienne has a nervousness about her too, when she turns to face Jo, but it's the excited kind. Her smile is wide and a little breathless, and it looks like she's had some sun recently, with a touch of fresh color in her cheeks. Better sun that High Reaches can offer. She twists in place to show off the new trousers, fully aware that Jo's already been checking them out. "What do you think? Are they right?" But that's all she can get out before that purpling bruise steals all the attention from her pants. "Oh, Jo," she breathes, eyes suddenly round and full of questions.

With Oswinth being so shy, Tacuseth is the friendly enough sort to try and engage him in some kind of weird image game while Jo takes in the sun she can see in Vienne's cheeks. Always the observer, "Ya been out and about," she comments now moving towards Vienne's table to lean up against it. "And ya look amazing in those. I knew he'd do ya right." She shakes out her slightly damp hair and would continue to extol Ertrand's abilities until the other spots the bruise on her shoulder. She hitches it up to glance down at it with a frown, then tests it by rolling it a bit with a grimace. She presses her lips together and lifts one hand to show her knuckles, a clear sign she's recently been in a fight before she remarks, "It'll be alright. I just got in so I haven't been to my kit to clean up." Was that small flecks of blood on her tank? Maybe. "Just a little tussle to clear the head," is her excuse, perhaps, the Glacier rider lifting fingers to tap at her head. "It's not as bad as it looks, darlin'." All bravado, as usual.

Weird games that involve little talking are right up Oswinth's alley, though the concerted effort to draw him out does continue to keep him uncertain. With some of the wind from Vienne's sails, there is a only wry smile for the compliment to her pants, proud even if she's shy about it. But the bruise, the knuckles, "You've been fighting," she remarks, just before Jo can comfirm it was only 'a little tussle'. "Is this when you say I should see the other guy?" she quips, even if there's still a bit of concern in her eye. "You should put some snow on your shoulder." She sinks down to sit on her trunk, her hands skimming over her hips, probably just to feel the fresh suede. She leaves the chair for Jo if she wants it. "Can I offer you anything? Water, tea?" It's probably no surprise there's nothing stronger on that list.

With Tacuseth more than willing to engage in a few wordless games, "Ya should get some more made, different styles. Ya know," Jo suggests, moving to claim up that chair on wordless offer. She seems right at home with injuries though, so when she confirms Vienne's words, it with a jaunty "Ya should definitely see the other ones. One of them got right under my block, but I got him back. Just needs some snow," she agrees with the assessment with a nod. "And some salve I've got in my weyr. Like that yer all worried about me, though," she just can't help to tease. It's her nature to. The offer of drink gets one of her wry smiles, the woman answering that with, "Gonna need somethin' stronger than that. I'm good. Tell me how ya been doin', Vi. Looks like ya got a nice tan goin' on." She's certainly noticed.

"It doesn't seem like I need to be." Worried. Vienne's smirk is slow and lingering for Jo's tale of blocks and jabs, things of which she knows very little. She tucks her concern away, since her fighter-friend is so casual about the whole event, and when there's a request for something stronger than water, she gets up from her seat, hands feeling her knees this time, to turn and open the trunk. "I've been..." It sounds a little troubled, but she doesn't continue with it. "I'm good. Oswinth and I got away yesterday." And for that her smile is pleased and private. "I'm lucky I didn't burn." Though really, with the heat in this weyr, it's hard to tell if the rosiness in her cheeks is from yesterday's sun or tonight's overbuilt fire. She pulls half a bottle of something brown from her trunk and closes the lid gently. However, that bottle is not just handed over wholesale. She moves away toward the hearth, where a few glasses are kept on the mantle and she can fill one half way. When drinking at Vienne's, one does so with dignity and restraint.

"But I like it all the same," Jo is easy to counter the first, her smile winsome as she intently watches Vienne get up and move to open her trunk. She's silent as the other explains their recent travels, legs crossed with the cavalier way of someone with some sort of authority - even though she has none in the Weyr. It's just the mark of her confidence, however, and the crooked smile she sends is amused as she says, "Shit, and ya didn' invite me? I could use another day in the sun! Tac could use it with his joint, there. Sounds like it was a day needed, hm?" A slight prompt, her chin dropping down to pin a look on the slight woman for that brief tone of trouble she detects before that. All the while, she watches her movements as that bottle is revealed along with glasses.

Vienne doesn't doubt that Jo enjoys the attention, or so says that knowing smile she slips over her shoulder, the flirtatious curl at the corner of her mouth for the woman who has so casually claimed a throne in the midst of her weyr. And meanwhile, not only does she pour only half a glass, but when she returns, the bottle is tucked away into the trunk again, refills tacitly denied. "We'll go sometime, then," she promises as she stands by Jo's knee and hands the glass over. One sip will prove it's not the cheap stuff. "We needed some time together, some sun, some perspective. I feel like I can't be with him as much here. It's so cold out there, I can't sit with him like I used to."

Jo appears distinctly amused when Vienne puts that bottle away, but she answers on the idea of them going out for sun with a brisk, "We will." Certain, but then, she's usually so certain about everything. Dark eyes track the slight woman as she approaches her, legs uncrossing as she leans forward and takes up that offered glass. Briefly raising it in a toast to her, "Perspective?" she prompts on that one before taking a drink, and find it's of good quality, she's quick to add, "Good stuff. Ya been holdin' out on me, darlin'." A tease, more or less, and since she's rather robust with her drinking, the rest of the contents in the glass gets downed in one more shot. She hands the empty glass back with an amiable, "Thanks. Needed that." Pause. "Ya spend a lot of time with him, doncha?" she says now, looking towards the ledge where the two blues are. "Oswinth." Not uncommon at all, but, it's clear the convict rider is studying her host tonight.

The look Jo receives for her amusement is rather like a warm, understated remonstrance, shown in Vienne's slow blink and that thoroughly-aware smile. Yes, you'll just have to restrain yourself, you hard-drinking wild woman. There's little reason for her to keep standing there, but the little bluerider does anyway, a few awkward beats made a little less so by the way she eyes that bruise as Jo leans forward. After her teeth start to work at her lip, Vienne sinks back onto the trunk, knees together and hands tucked neatly between them. "I think I've been feeling... weighed down by things, the leadership." There's something sweetly self-effacing in her smile, such a silly girl to be troubled like that. And then, with discussion turned to Oswinth, she glances over her shoulder toward the ledge, even though there's nothing to see of him from here. "I suppose. I don't know that we're any more connected than any other pair." She brings her grin back to Jo, private and shy again. "But it's nice to have time that's just for us, without all the interruptions of day to day life. Maybe that's strange. Do you and Tacuseth..." She lets the question trail off nebulously.

Restrain herself, Jo does, for now. She has the look of one that can do anything on her face, with little ease. While she's well aware that Vienne still happens to be standing there in her personal space, the only restraint seen from the wily bluerider is those long fingers curling into the armrests of that chair. Watching her move to sit, "And what about it all weighs ya?" she asks on leadership when it's voiced with a dash of interest, leaning back into the softness of the chair once more. On the matter of rider and dragon, eyeing that shy smile with a casual one of her own. "So yer man and ya spend time, gabbin' over the sleekest greens, or the cutest asses?" she drawls back in tease, before putting in, "No, it's not strange. Many get along with their dragons. Tac and me...." she pauses, her gaze taking on the gaze one gets when communicating with said dragon briefly, "...well, we ain' like that, but we're close. When we're out, we get our time. It's not much, but it's been enough for us and how we are."

It's the dragons that Vienne responds to first, attentive eyes watching the way her companion settles back in that chair. Her own posture remains upright, rounded faintly by the demure hiding of her hands. "It sounds right for you," she grins, a faint laugh following because, well, of course it sounds right. "But that's their way, isn't it." She draws in a deeper breath, a sigh that is more about the filling of her chest and drop of deflation afterwards. "I think he was having trouble with the weather, too. We were both just... It was good to get away." And so, perhaps she's a little reluctant to undo all the good of her holiday by dissecting the leadership woes. Her mouth pinches small. "I guess I just felt caught up in it. Invested in what was happening, what could happen. And there's no need for that. It doesn't help me." Her teeth find her lip there, and her brows lift, asking a vague question as a prelude to a more direct one. "How are you with all of it?"

Giving a shrug on her relationship with her blue, "He's not one that asks for much," Jo relates, eyes briefly going on the direction of the ledge. "He enjoys chasin' greens, submergin' himself in water and diggin' into my head to get past any blocks I put up. Not really in that order." All smiles, the woman could be joking. She then turns to the pressing matter of the leadership, there's an underlying non-chalance there in the way she arranges herself in that chair, asking, "What do you want to happen?" And then, to her more direct question, there's a lingering silence before she says, "Ya know, my mind's been as easy as day since I've thrown in my lot." It's likely not needed to be said on who she was betting on if Vienne didn't know. "I always believed the right sort of folks will take up and be what's needed for this place. It's just gettin' past all this interference and keepin' the masses calm. And, every now and then, I do what I can to help things along. Give my duty to the Weyr where it's needed." She sounds so dedicated to the interests of the Weyr, too.

She cocks a brow for Jo's account of Tacuseth's favorite pastimes. "Like dragon like rider?" The part about digging around seems particularly appropriate when Jo goes asking such a direct question, and a new one as far as Vienne is concerned. "Very little," she claims with a smile. "But I think the longer a resolution is delayed, the harder it will be to find one and the more time there is for loyalties to fracture and become confused." And ultimately, with a shake of her head: "I don't know who the 'right sort of folks' are. One way or another, the Weyr will probably be just fine." So while Jo sounds questionably dedicated to the Weyr's best interest, Vienne sounds like's embracing her distance from the whole circus. Except... there is a little furrow on her brow. "How do you think your lot will fair if all of this goes before the council?"

There's short laughter at the first, Jo hard-pressed to deny her words. On the topic of resolutions and the right sort of folks, "Taikrin'll get the winds flowin' right," is her opinion, casually given. "Tough girl like her, she's gonna prove them all wrong. And, she's got me." There's a pause to that question though before the bluerider answers with a blithe, "Don' matter. Those four ain' gonna take defeat sittin' down. I know Taikrin won'. I know Brieli won'." She seems fairly confident about that, but that's how she usually is with everything. "Anyway," she moves on, "it all ain' nothin' to get yer panties in a twist over," in a drawl, her lopsided smile one of teasing intent. "The cards are dealt, and they'll fall where they may. Just don' be surprised if either of those four got an ace up their sleeve, just waitin'. Tell me about where ya went to sunbathe. Was it back in Igen? Right after turnover?"

There's little reason to believe that Vienne is convinced by Jo's glowing faith in her wingleader, more that it's that faith itself that makes her smile. "Yes, she's got you," she says in warm agreement. But it really seems just as well when Jo is content to move on and there's a little rub of the small bluerider's hands and knees together, just to release the energy. "No, I don't generally go back to Igen," she admits with a deep breath. "It was just yesterday. There's a little beach we like to visit. It's not really near anything." A slim shoulder rises and falls, but then she tips her head, which loosens a pieces of hair she had to unpin her hands in order to slip behind her ear again. "After turnover?" she wonders, not quite understanding where such a guess would come from.

"To help her clean up," Jo clarifies on how Taikrin's got her, perhaps trying to make herself appear all the more important in the scheme of things. Yeah, right. Moving on, "So, ya don' go back to visit yer folks or anythin'?" she asks on Igen with a little frown. "Huh. Ya know what area this beach is at? Ista? Boll? Further south? Tac and I like to go visitin' around," she explains away her nosiness with a quick smile. "I like to draw places, too. New places. Maybe it's a place we haven' been to yet." Eyes fall on that hair, following those fingers smoothing it back before the bemusement has her meeting that gaze. "I haven' see ya since turnover, dressed as ya were," she says in clarification, wry. "Was pinpointin' when ya gone there, more or less."

Back to Igen? Vienne shakes her head, smile almost apologetic, since her guest wears that frown. "I should, at some point. But I'm not ready." But her smile spreads wider, more sly. "Its our place. You'll have to find your own bit of beach somewhere. Some other new bit of the world to draw. Or we'll find a new beach together when we go." There, that should soften the refusal to give up any more details on her secluded getaway location. Vienne has a light chuckle for the whole thing, even if it's mostly silent, and though that bit of hair has been neatly stowed behind her ear, her fingers still toy with the curl at the end. The combination of that smile, the toying fingers and the drop her lashes makes it quite coy when she says, "Did you like that?" of her turnover costume. "I've been here, mostly. I guess you've been busy."

Looking a bit sympathetic to that first as she nods a few times, "Hate yer folks, too, huh?" Jo seems to take it as that with a knowing look. "Well, I haven' been back home at all myself, so, ya don' need to explain it." Because it must be for that reason besides the harper bit. To that sly smile and in finding her own beach, there's easy laughter, her smile infectious as she flaps one hand the slight woman and says, "But how do ya know I haven' been there already, hmm? Fine, fine. Ya harper types don' like to give up much of anythin', huh?" Which she seems to find amusing all the same, as if she can't take anything seriously. She moves from that towards the turnover party that she was late to, that coy question getting a wry, "I did. Truly in disguise. Made me wonder what was underneathe." So much for her own disguise. "And yeah, I'm always busy. Things hardly calm on my end, but that's the way of it. Ya know if ya have need of me, ever, ya can call on Tac. Right?" she suddenly puts out there, sounding sincere. "Even if I'm not in the Weyr. I'll come around."

Vienne seems like she might just go on being even more reticent than usual until Jo goes flapping a hand at her, and then an indulgent laugh breaks free; it would appear that smile really is infectious. "I don't hate them. It's just easier to be me when I'm away from them, if that make any sense. And then when I see them, it just reminds me how much they're hurt that I stay away, so... That doesn't make it any easier, either." She shakes her head again, not feeling like she's explaining any of that properly. "You've mentioned your father a few times." It's not exactly a question, but it's too simple a statement not to invite comment. And meanwhile, when Jo gets to her suggestive remark about what lay beneath that turnover costume, Vienne puts a hand to her nose to hide the chuckle that might just be laughing at how corny the line sounds. It means that Jo's sudden sincerity comes as something of a shock, leaving Vienne to halt in the midst of everything, humor draining slowly as she blinks. "What do you mean?"

"No, it doesn't," Jo agrees on what's first said not making any sense, but she's laughing all the same. "My father," she echoes that one, some of that humor draining away. "Takes his job too seriously." Yeah, she better not closely look at the line she just uttered, but the convict rider seems to realize that herself by the slight frown that quirks out. It's just as well she doesn't follow her crass yet corny remark with another one that would probably be worse, when Vienne's humor drains and puts her on alert. Staring at her a few moments, "Just....ya know," she says, looking a bit taken back. "Ya said I ain' around all that much, and well, that don' mean I'm not accessible or anythin'. If ya need someone to...talk to, or braid yer hair, or somethin' girls do." Something she clearly doesn't do, but the offer still stands. "If ya want. Just puttin' it out there, in case ya didn' know. I may not come right away, but I'll come. That's all I'm sayin'."

She could be tempted to press for a little more, about Jo's father, about his job, about the way it changes Jo's expression, but it's that last that keeps Vienne from asking more. Instead, her own unsettled touch of alarm calmed with an easy exhale and a voice turned quiet and thoughtful, she wonders, "Do you? Ever? Need someone to talk to? To braid your hair?" It might crack a smile, but it doesn't change the softness of her expression, nor still the way her eyes move carefully over the other bluerider's face, then down to the bruise and back again. But then her gaze drops and her head shakes, both hands snuggly held between her knees once more, everything turned inward without explanation.

Does she? That gets a long pause from Jo, the convict rider just staring at Vienne as she must be thinking about an answer. Then, with a light snort, "I always find talkin' about other things - other people - easier than talkin' about myself," she chooses to say, the woman appearing honest about it. "The things I can say....the things I can't say..." and she lets that linger, perhaps indicating her complicated life or so. "Sometimes, I wanna work some shit out in my head. Sometimes I just wanna yell at someone about shit and have them say nothin' at all. By the time I come to the decision to talk, the moment's already passed and I'm don' wanna talk anymore." If her words are complicated, perhaps it's meant to be so since she goes on to say, "And anyway, I don' have enough hair to braid well."

There's a good long moment of silence when Jo is finished. It doesn't stretch into awkwardness, but it gives just enough of a beat to be off-putting. Perhaps that will something when Vienne replies, "Me too." To all of it, it sounds like. She swallows a little, elbow bending and shoulders rounding, leaving her just a little bit smaller. "That's when I go somewhere with Oswinth. And he helps me break it into pieces, put them where they need to be. For the most part. I'm trying to hold onto it. It feels... tenuous." And it's at about the time where she realizes her eyes might ask for help that she drops her gaze again to hide it away.

When Vienne seems to agree - to understand her - Jo nods to that in companionable silence. It's in the silence that the other speaks, equally as complicated, though the convict rider seems to have the look of someone who gets it anyway. She stays silent to them all, watching Vienne as she hides her eyes from her and whatever she could have found there, is not to be seen. Shaking her head, "Sometimes drawin' blood helps with that," is her offer, a hand lifting to gingerly touch at her bruised shoulder. "Well I mean, knockin' some heads together. It's a pretty messed up way to deal with things, but, it's always somethin' I fell back on to clear the head when me and Tac can'." There's a moment of silence to that before she's suddenly up, reaching for her draped jacket as she returns to her teasing self and says, "Guess that's enough disturbia for one night, eh? I should go....get this shoulder taken care of."

Drawing blood. That's definitely something Vienne has plenty of experience with. It almost allows her look wry when she peeks up at Jo again, thankfully while the other bluerider is busy considering her shoulder. And when she reaches for the jacket, Vienne sits up a little straighter, offers, with the reach of her hand, to take back the glass. "Yeah," she agrees. "You should." Effortlessly, her smile is wide and friendly again, eyes brightening just a second later when they fall on the bruise, so that it doesn't seem like she's really saying Jo should 'leave', just that she should go tend her injury. "Thank you, again, for Ertrand's name. I'm glad you approve of how it turned out." She ducks her chin a little, some very vague nod to her own trousers, which she's feeling again with a quick run of her palm over her thigh before she stands to see Jo out.

Slinging that jacket back on carefully, "Like I said, if ya need anythin'," Jo gives to her giving out Ertrand's name, apparently being a treasure trove of useful contacts - or so she wants believed, maybe. She gives those pants an approving nod once more and then she's heading out, wiggling some fingers Vienne's way as she returns to her blue and prepares the quick ride home.

Comments

Brieli (Brieli (talk)) left a comment on Sun, 24 Feb 2013 20:26:45 GMT.

< They're so different, but they seem to get along really well. So interesting.

Azaylia (Dragonshy (talk)) left a comment on Mon, 25 Feb 2013 00:21:50 GMT.

< Oh man. Now Vienne needs to go around making excuses to bend over and shove her awesome new pants (and butt) at people. >:D