Difference between revisions of "Logs:Blood"

Meadow, Fort Hold

Set apart from the main hold, this meadow offers an inviting respite from the bustle of Hold life. Lush and verdant grasses and grains grow rampant and abundant in this peaceful and tranquil meadow. Shaded by a copse of softwood and evergreen trees, the light is dappled and freckled where it warms the ground. At certain hours of the day, small woodland creatures emerge from the small forest and may be seen frolicking about in the grasses. Paths lead back toward the hold, winding their way along near the inner edge of the orchards before returning to the white stone so familiar to the Hold's courtyard and main halls. The peace and tranquility have been shattered as the meadow has been taken over by the Travelling Show. Lush grasses have been trampled flat or cropped short by grazing runners. Those wagons not converted into stages for various shows have been pulled in amongst the trees at the meadow's edge, a private camp for the show's populace. The show area itself takes up the majority of open space, performance tents and wagons set up in a horse-shoe shape about the edge. The central area is dotted with smaller stands and stalls that house the various games available. Only two are devoted to food and beverage, one selling small cups of cheap liquor and juice, the other frying up strips of meat and tuber slices to be smothered in salt and sauce. An 'entryway' is marked with a simple, multi-coloured banner and ribbons attached to two tall poles, with a small platform set up to one side for a crier to announce shows about to begin and welcome patrons.

In anticipation of the approaching Weyr performances, crowds have thinned on both sides - show and audience - with the impending glare of dark clouds exacerbating the effect. Yet the troupe proves hardy; undaunted by the threat, performers test the proverbial waters in hopes of luring in people before the actual drops fall from the sky. It helps to be forewarned, and thus prepared: not necessarily weather-proof, but weather-slowing, tents and overhangs have extended over the acts that are more prone to exposure. Today, the offered drink is warm, and the games a pleasant escape from an otherwise wary day.

The clouds above might make it that much easier to see a foreign visitor wink into existence in the skies high above the Hold - a sunny gold dot that, sadly, gives off no light - the day remains gloomy. But the gold that leisurely wings down towards the performer's camp seems undimmed by the weather; she's curious to those who know enough about these things - making a lowish circle or two overhead before her rider gets her under control and she lands, closer to the Hold proper. Eventually, there's a tall, slight, dark figure that saunters over from that direction, dressed stylishly but casually, in a loose white shirt and colorful print shorts that show off long legs.

Enough dragons have winged in by now that the grounds keep to task - a few eyes straying to the illusion of a sun moving - even the children, their work ethic ingrained in them from intense practice. A couple of young ones, on break in the back, spread their arms and begin running from side to side. They putter and roar in youthful imitation of their own imaginations. It's through these windmilling children that Serah winds, wariness dragging regal eyebrows into a sullen flounder over her dark gaze. Her shorts stick to her in the mugginess, and she rubs a thigh far less interestingly printed. Though, she's less unkempt than usual; there's a chance she may be seen, so her unruly black hair is wrestled into a 'tail. With the leather roll of Nolan's performing knives clutched inside of one arm, she passes from 'members only' into the fairground, weaving towards that tent a crier clearly identifies for passersby.

The dragon over by the Hold might be snaking her neck this way and that to peer over at the camp with quickly whirling blue eyes, but she doesn't approach with a restraint that's either surprising for her age, or entirely due to her rider. But the tall young woman who's come from that direction hardly looks taxed - she doesn't have much of an expression at all, actually, beyond polite interest - but her sharp dark gaze is quick and focused enough for the rest of her, picking through the booths, the crowds, the people, the children. She catches a glimpse of /something/ that draws fine brows together, but she doesn't break off to follow right away - not until she hears the crier at the tent near there, the tent's purpose. For some reason, knife throwing makes her smile, if only briefly, as she slips off that way.

Fair-haired Nolan is there when Serah arrives, passing a glance to his ward as she works to open one of his folding tables with her free hand. "Not sure I like this post," he mutters, his thick boot turned half-sideways as he scrapes it across one of the tent's supporting frames in the front; the structure is only half that, with no door in the front, just an opening in the fabric so people can spy in. "Going to reinforce it whilst we've the time," he tells his charge as she unrolls the belt not unlike the decorative bandolier over his chest full of artful weapons. Hefting up with a huff of breath, he rumbles back at her, "Nobody likes a slippery knife." Serah's eyebrows slant upwards but her sights remain down. She's turned off of the entrance as he slips around it, blazing right by Brieli in one, happenstance, lapse of guard.

Walking up to the booth, Brieli seems in no hurry for the show to start or the setup to finish - that seems to be part of what she's interested in, though she's not necessarily eavesdropping; she's not close enough to be in earshot of mutters or other quiet discussion. Though Nolan and his knives are certainly interesting, more the latter than the former, it's Serah that has most of her attention, in trying to get a good look at her. It's not easy, as quick and efficient as she is, and given she's looking down - it's not until the man passes by her that she can take a step or two closer and ask, in cultured and calm tones that hold no trace of trader /or/ the Crom that she claims, "Excuse me? When does the show start?"

"Half an hour out, m'um," replies full-trader, so distinctly not the lingering culture of her proclaimed uncle. Fixated on the glimmering line of metal she's tending, Serah's as much as bushel of fitful hair as she is a person to Brieli's angle. Girlish fingers prance over the knives. "After t'fire dancing." Then her hand lifts; her head, too; in overturning her fingers to gesture for the woman's benefit, she's made to twist, and the dim, cloud-heavy horizon casts her in a moody profile.

Folding her arms easily, Brieli watches the brace of unruly curls tend to the knives with some little interest, gaze flickering between the lethal metal, girlish fingers, what she can see of Serah's face. Whatever crowds that are nearby are less likely to come around with a show on deck shortly; as some people begin to stream towards the fire-dancer, "I'd heard it's quite a show. I have a friend who's quite interested; she's not here, unfortunately." Possibly why /she's/ in no rush? "Do you throw them as well? Or... take care of things?"

With Brieli not letting up, Serah's hand curls in, fitting defensively against her shoulder as she spies around loose hair at the ensemble: tall, shorts, dark - all after a shrewd spying on the woman's own bare collar. "Tis," she murmurs encouragingly, lost somewhat in the quietness, till the personal focus weasels somehow past her unhidden suspicion to light her face with a secretive vigor. "Some," she chirps, sounding more like her age: immaturely proud, "Mostly, I string the bows. Tend t'animals." 'Animals' she slurs with affection. She shifts, looking over with her first open-faced appeal, and suddenly she's staring at Brieli with the older woman's own, dark eyes.

Easily, "I've been wondering how one learns that... but I suppose the same as-- all of this." Brieli makes a little gesture that's likely meant to include the tent, the camp as a whole. She doesn't seem to catch that glance at her attire and for her knot, but who knows. "I'd never seen-- Well. I'd never heard of anything like it." With a tilt of her head, flicking loose curls back over her shoulder, she quirks a slight smile. "Knives are useful. As are animals, but I imagine more affectionate..." Her last word fades out; even though she's expecting something, she didn't quite believe the report - her eyes are a mirror of Serah's, wide and surprised, but for the sudden hope that surges there. "No. You..."

Fear whites the face staring at her; Serah reacts with her hearing first, her eyes narrowed in tunnel-vision even when widened by the aghast ripple caused by the recognition - turned to accusation in her ears. She skates a short step back, hands tight behind her. There's one less knife in the leather clutch. A whip of her head is a jostle of fussy hair. "I'm not." While her tone screams: /I am/. Her flinch suggests she knows how much her body language has betrayed her. After a second of indecision, she hardens her voice, "I'll yell," but she's not, somewhat shallowing the threat, "Everyone'll hear me."

Like it or not, something forces Brieli to finish her sentence, despite turns of training and practice and careful words, and there's no accusation in it, just stunned amazement: "... You were-- /gone/." And /that/ makes her blanch and blink, look around stealthily to see who's around them, in case someone's stopped in passing; in case Serah's boss is coming back. There's a flick of dark eyes to the knife-belt, then to the other young woman, who - if anyone bothered to look for long - might just have a similar stance, definitely the same coloring, though the elder's curls are certainly more tamed. She takes her own time with her response before wryly, "What are you going to yell about? Who do I have to tell?" Slow and significant, trying to meet her gaze, "I'm Brieli." Not who you think I am either.

Too sheepish to be entirely practical, but passingly measured, that gaze shoots from Brieli to the outside - to an unalarmed, un-alerted crowd, not so full of terrors - and returns. Met. Mirror to mirror, Serah, glued to her stance, yet wavers as that sheen of paranoia drops the filter from her eyes. Behind her back, her white-tight grip loosens, adjusts, then instinctively holds to. Holding the knife feels as natural as staring into Brieli's face, and the younger girl performs both through long seconds of equally significant silence. Hope, not at all different from the other's, blunders into her gaze. She rears it back with the lingering fear. "Brieli." An unfamiliar name said skeptically. Recognition tries to sneak in, against the overwhelming weight of what she holds as fact. "W- what did you... say I was?"

Not full of terrors, not yet. Brieli, such as she's called at the moment (by nearly all), doesn't seem jumpy, but does seem /wary/ - even though the crowd seems to be undisturbed. There's a show coming up, after all. She doesn't move but to shift her weight, given Serah's armed, but by her expression, one would think stabbing is the furthest thing from her mind. Though hope will reflect hope, despite the other girl's fear, despite the smirk that surfaces at the echo of her name. With a shrug, "It is what it is. Brieli of High Reaches." A pause. "What a fucking month /this/ is." After she shakes that off, she can have a bit more empathy, offering up a look that borders on apology. "... Gone. Lost. You know." Dead, perhaps. "There was a search, but there... there weren't many left for it."

Armed - knife clutched in a flinching response to the unapologetic association with the Reaches - then, abruptly, not. "A... search..." she murmurs, the over-swell of emotion making her look, conversely, lifeless. This is how the knife slips out of her fingers to clatter on the ground; she notices on a time delay. "/A search/..." It baffles, it hurts, and delights her - and the delight is painful, too; all viciously painted across her face for Brieli to read. The mirror's cracked, with Serah representing some alternate plane where Brieli was free to emote. No, not free. Just untrained, and still, despite everything, young. And still aching for what a girl not named Brieli could represent. "Many-- but /I've/ been-- " disconnected denials shoot out. In a fit of preservation, she darts a look out of the tent. It seems to organize her jumble, at least enough to say: "But I /looked/." Please don't doubt that she wanted it, please! "I sent a hundred messages and no one /ever/ found me. /You/ were gone."

Wincing when that knife falls, surely concerned for feet - that looks sharp - Brieli still seems sorry, seems like she wants to /do/ something, but what to do in public, when each is not precisely who they once were, nor who they claim to be? Her dark gaze still betrays a little hope, a little wistfulness, but she's not been truly young for many turns; from far off, one might think it's a normal conversation, on her side. But that hope might mean there's a hole in a girl sometimes-called-Shani's life as well. Reassuringly, "I don't doubt it. I don't. Things were just... just awful. They're still... broken and miserable. I don't know why we didn't see /this/. You." But for 'messages', that, she purses her lips. "Who knows what happened. They make decisions I don't understand, I've found."

"/They/." It's a breath, but it's everything: disbelief, and ecstasy. The embodiment of what that one word stands for is too much for one, consistently too skinny, girl to handle. All the processing struggles across her face, managing to even it out. With an anxious shuffle of feet, she sidles forward. Fingers that once clenched the knife loosen, tighten nervously, then slide up, like she might want to close their distance and is too afraid to ask. Roar and clamber of outsiders walking past hardens both her bracingly affectionate eyes and hopeful hand. "I thought-- " no, too positive, for that sinking she eventually settled for, "I /knew/-- I was alone." Her hand quivers up again; where are Brieli's fingers; can they be stretched to. Just such a little gesture, if anyone could see it. Though she tries to remain smart, her hope has burned off most of her skepticism, leaving her sounding mystified - and flushed in the face from the exertion of being afraid. "But if y'didn't get my letters-- come here for me..." Stings, a little, but she'll take it, "Why are you here? And calling yourself that?"

If she can move, Brieli will take the chance, despite the fact that things might be unsaid; she moves forward, unfolds arms to offer her hand out to Serah's - despite where she lives, still callused and scarred from work. Her gaze flickering out to the crowds before back to those eyes so like her own, she has to admit lowly, "So did I." There's no explanation for that though, she only moves on, insisting, eyes brightening, "But I did... My-- Someone I know at the Weyr-" A tilt of her head up the road. "Told me he saw someone that looked like... family. I wanted to see if it was." A pause. Quietly, "It's a long story. But it's for... my father."

"Someone at the Weyr knows what I look like?" Again, Serah jumps the gun by immediately asking, before - mentally - stepping back to review the rest of what she heard. "There was a rider," the title is spat out hatefully, "here and I told her not my name." Sober empathy, a matching pain to what Brieli can't unveil, settles over her at the mention of their executed family member. Her hands are at once timid and encompassing; she teases along Brieli's fingers with the warmth of a hug. Contact, honest skin to skin, springs a telling moisture to her eyes even as they narrow to accept a flash of anger - just as sudden as the one of heartbreaking hope, "-- my mother--?" Lost to her in the chaos, presumed dead of course, but so was the girl Aishani-- /everyone/.

"He... no. He knows what some of our cousins look like. I couldn't go to see them, he went for me." That's all said, quickly, evasively, almost like she's embarrassed about the whole thing. But for all that, there's a trace of a smile that plays around Brieli's lips, disappears. That 'rider' thing does it; she sobers quickly, expression and eyes serious. "There'll be a few," she notes, evasive again, as she squeezes Serah's hand tightly, tighter as she has to deliver bad news; "Passed a few turns back. I'm sorry." There's a reluctant release of the hand as she eyes the skies, the crowd - a half-hour must be ticking away, and some things need more privacy. "Can... Can I come back at a better time? When we can talk, not talk around things?"

Crushed as she looks, Serah is able to snap it back in, creating a neutral face better than before. Sorrow for her mother will come later. "A show'll be soon," she agrees with a glance past Brieli's shoulder. The unwinding of her fingers from the other's is reluctant but quick after the first cling. She steps back, creating a more casual distance between them, and bringing her to her spot at the knives. "There's..." hesitant, she licks her lips, and then plows on, "A show. Exhibition at the Fort Weyr. When-- I was alone-- I didn't want to go, but-- " her eyes search Brieli, instantly trying to lap up some guidance there, some gesture of how she can piggyback on this unexpressed /thing/ in the name of father and uncle.

With an apologetic look, "Everyone misses her." As if it will help with that sorrow. Fine brows coming together thoughtfully, Brieli offers a suggestion: "You could go and see if you can find out anything interesting. Some things look like nothing, but prove to be... important later? It could help your people." These people, or their people - either is fine. With a warm, lovely smile, "I'll see if I can manage to go, perhaps. And we'll talk again soon, Serah." She doesn't explain how, but only slips off into the crowd with a wave. If Serah has her wits about her enough to notice, she might see the sunburst gold take off into the skies a short time after; then again, she might not - there is a show soon, and she's had quite a shock.