Difference between revisions of "Logs:Bouts Of Sentimentality"

It's evening in the Reaches. Jo continues to be a wraith between partial wing duties and her weyr. This evening, however, finds her up at the lounge - cradling a mug of something amber-hued at a table to the side as she seems to be lost in her thoughts. It's new, dark leathers that she wears, distinctive from the black leathers she's used to wearing about the Weyr.The lounge isn't as crowd as Snowasis would be at this time of night, but most of the tables are occupied by riders from the looks of them - and they seem to be leaving the wingsecond to her own devices.

Faryn's here already, inexplicably exiting the rear storage room and shoving something into the bag she carries as she goes, scanning the gathered faces with a neutrally distant curiosity and equally neutral recognition of some. Her path doesn't deviate for any of them. Single-mindedly, she weaves through the tables for the ledge, and pauses only when the nearest face belongs to the shadow of a bluerider who--well. Her features cloud with something unpleasant (distrust?) and Faryn drops into one of the free seats without a word.

Jo was on the verge of taking a measured sip of her ale when she suddenly finds a new occupant at her table. There's a pause of the mug going to her lips, the woman's already lingering frown strengthening as she looks at the contents of her mug for longer than is necessary. Perhaps she can see Faryn from its glass since the mug doesn't come down fast enough. It's lengthy, the silence. Jo lets it linger before that mug makes contact with the table and she studies it further before she asks, "Wanna drink?" There's no greeting.

Faryn is uncharacteristically patient, watching Jo through the distorted bottom of the glass without a word and without fidgeting, at least not after she pulls her bag up into her lap. Her answer is flat. "No. You look like shit." Neither is wholly unkind, and the first has no bearing on the second, but her intonation is the same all around.

"I could say the same 'bout ya," comes from Jo, the woman finally looking at Faryn with her own dark gaze. Then, "I'm fine." It sounds like she's been saying these two words on repeat since the Crom gather. "What's goin' on with ya?" she asks now, looking at the bag. "Awfully far up from the ground." Beat. "Ya need a drink." Maybe Faryn looks thirsty.

"You try sleeping in a barracks with a bunch of children and tell me how you fair," Faryn challenges quietly, but she's still focused on studying Jo's face. "I handle business where it comes up. Today, it was here. Tomorrow..." Her slender shoulders lift in a shrug. "I don't. You don't either. You look like shit," she repeats, emphatic. She leans forward, resting her elbows on the edge of the table and linking her fingers together, loose-wristed and dangling just in front of her face. "I've been meaning to...." Faryn stops, inhales, and breathes a low sigh, shaking her head like she's thought the better of the sentence.

"A candidate," Jo guesses, her look on Faryn. "No longer the stables. Rat's one, too." Pause. "I need more," she says of drink, looking at the level of her mug. "I look fine. Been meanin' to what?" Her words and answers mingle together, and it seems like she's not noticing. Perhaps she's had too much to drink already, but if so, she's holding it well. "Candidates can' drink, right? I don' 'member mine. I'm sure I've nicked a few sips durin' that time anyway."

Faryn nods, the sharp and straight cut of her bangs flipping up. "Yeah. Last chance. I haven't been in the stables in forever. You know that." Doesn't she? Did Faryn not tell her? Perturbed, Faryn's index fingers begins tapping out a little rhythm on the back of the opposite hand. "I know he is. I thought I told you to drop him. He's going to be trouble and not the good kind. What's he here for?" That's not the question she means to ask, and it doesn't require an answer. "We can drink," she agrees, on the last lap skate around the meat of things, "but I don't want to, right now. I've been meaning to talk to you. About Crom."

Crinkling her face a bit, briefly, "Haven' seen ya," Jo says, draining her mug. "Ya haven' told me ya met him. So, ya met him." Despite looking like shit, the convict rider is expecting some kind of report on the newly-minted candidate. There's an anticipatory air between them, even. But then, there's talk of Crom, and it's clear Jo's going to need a refill for that particular topic. She turns to try and flag someone down to order more drinks for them. While doing so, "What ya wanna know 'bout Crom?" she asks now, the taste of guardedness in her tone. "Tell me 'bout Rat first. Why ya think he's trouble."

"I hope he falls from the hay loft and breaks his neck," Faryn tells Jo generously, and if while the bluerider is trying to flag down waitstaff the weyrwoman's assistant is covertly shaking her head in negation, with meaningful eye contact to boot, well. Maybe the waiters won't see her, or maybe they'll just ignore her. "I sent you a note about him. He lies too smoothly. Too proud, too...he makes me nervous, Jo, and he doesn't take no for an answer. Can't you trust my gut this one time? I know I fucked up, but not about him. Now." A beat. "What...happened, Jo? The harpers are going to say whatever they think happened, eventually. I want to hear it from you."

"Tell me how ya really feel," Jo remarks on that first assessment, with only a touch of humor. The barkeep comes by and she's brief in detailing what to order for them both. Faryn gets a dubious look from the man for her eye before he returns to his counter. "We all have our vices," she notes once the man leaves them alone, not exactly defending Rat. "'N his bein' 'round is out of my hands. I'll keep it in mind though, 'case he ever steps outta line. I'll fuck'em up." The woman doesn't look like she's joking about that, her tone taking on a dark edge. As for the last, it seems expected. The convict rider studies the younger woman sitting before her for a long moment before she answers, "He'n I got to Crom together. He found out M'kris was around'n he wanted me to get'im for him since the man likely wouldn' come on his own. I did, they argued, they fought'n R'hin got stabbed in front of me." It's a story well rehearsed by now, the telling of it almost monotoned. Perhaps Jo entered the numbing phase of her grief.

Unsurprisingly, the almighty power of the mark wins out again; Faryn isn't surprised. "I doubt I'm going to be the only person with a problem with him," she suffices about Rat with a small grimace, not bothering to linger on him as a subject. Her warning is because she's obligated to it; trying to persuade Jo is not part of the deal. Their second topic isn't less uncomfortable, it's just more relevant, and it's the only direction to move. "That's it, then." Her gaze drops to the table, and she presses her forehead against her linked hands. "I supposed when he went, he'd take whatever got him down with him. Not--that. Not now."

"He's a candidate now," Jo states, as if that might matter. She doesn't linger on Rategar, either, the bluerider watching Faryn closely for her reaction. Her silence is markable, the one that follows as the bartender comes by with drinks for them both. It's whiskey, two small glasses. When Faryn's gaze drops, "'Spose he did," she answers on the last, her demeanor heavy. "Saw ya at the gather," she notes now, perhaps finding that easier to talk about. "Where did'ja go?" That Faryn ran was noted. Maybe Rat had seen her go and mentioned it to Jo, too.

"Yeah. You said. Like, a minute ago." Faryn studies Jo in return, searching her face while the drinks are delivered. "And here's hoping he gets nothing but disappointment out of it. Knock him down a peg or two. It did me." She's located whatever she's looking for, though, and notes, "You should really stop drinking. It's not good to be numb, Jo. I know, it's shit that he's gone and it's more shit you had to -- I don't want this to go somewhere that makes us lose you, too." There, she said it. Despite her objections to drink she shoots back the whiskey to wash the bad taste of sentimentality out of her mouth. "For a walk."

Once the drinks arrive, "How so?" Jo asks on Faryn being knocked down a peg or two, her brows furrowing a titch. She takes up the glass, right when Faryn gives her suggestion, the woman pausing from downing it whole as she seems to give her words thought. It's a heavy silence that meets all of what she says, that penetrating gaze on the candidate along with something akin to a glare. Then, she downs it in one go before she says, "That's pro'bly the sweetest thing ya've said to me yet." Because, she's noting it. Setting the empty glass carefully down, "Ain' nothin' gonna happen to me yet, girl," her voice is rough as she says it from downing the whiskey too fast. "Gonna take much more'n this to get rid of me. Girl just needs to get her hard right, is all. Usually, knockin' out a few folks helps with that. A walk." Her chin lifts just a bit. "Is that, he meant somethin' to ya, too?"

"It's just...humbling," Faryn replies, putting the empty glass on the table upside down and nudging it to the edge. If Jo's glaring, Faryn doesn't care. So long as there aren't fists or--shit, knives--she is fine with taking the brunt of Jo's annoyance with her. "Mark your calendar. It'll be the last. I don't have time to waste on niceties. I have a reputation to maintain, and if you tell anyone I'll tell them I think you're a murderer and was telling you so." If, perhaps, not a murderer of R'hin. "Just be careful," is where she'll leave it, a simple enough request. Her own reply is not a glare, but a shake of the head and a brusque, "No." Her eyes slip past Jo to, yes, flick her fingers out to hail the server and indicate her empty glasses with two fingers pronged.

"Took a long while before havin' Tac in my head humbled me a bit," Jo admits with a slight shrug to her. "Impressin'em affects folks differently. 'N, everyone already thinks I'm a murderer'n all manner of bad things. Surprise'em by claimin' I'm normal, 'n decent instead. Ya might get a far better reaction." That's to her telling anyone that Faryn has a sentimental bone in her body. Still, that the candidate cares enough to say so has the wingsecond acknowledging it with a nod and a look that says more about it than what she could say verbally. She watches the other for her answer, hailing that server as she says, "He had that way 'bout him, didn' he?" Yeah, she can see right through that answer, her gaze studying.

"Nobody'd believe that. It's almost funny," ponders Faryn darkly, "despite all the bullshit with Monaco at Roszadyth's flight, and all the history? It's hard to tell for sure who they want to have killed him more: M'kris or you. Doesn't matter either way, does it? People suck." Indeed they do, the server among them for his slowly sauntering pace. Faryn's hand draws into a loose fist and she raps her knuckles on the table near her glass. "He sucked. Fuck him," she says, venomous, even if everyone else knows better than to speak ill of the dead. "He's gone either way. I can rest easy knowing he won't interrupt my life by abandoning me in the mountains or taunting me my entire lunch hour about things that aren't his business."

"Folks do, at that," Jo remarks on people sucking, her tone arched. She even joins Faryn in the look being given to the slow server. She even seems to be in agreement of the assessment for R'hin, though it does finally draw the glimmers of a grin somewhat forming on her lips for it. "Just like'em to go out like this," she remarks to that dryly. "If he was here, I'd hit'em. Or try to. I'd pro'bly end up fuckin' him'n beatin' on his chest. Why would be abandon ya in the mountains?" As for taunting, "Gimme a month," she offers her. "I'll take his place'n taunt ya 'bout shit that ain' my business. 'Least I can do." It's almost even humor as the server finally arrives at their table.

"Murdered? Seems right in some ways," she agrees, "wrong in a lot of others. I guess dying in his sleep was right out, too boring. And," pointedly, "gross. I don't want to think about you having sex. Or him. Or you both--shells." Faryn wrinkles her nose, frowning at the bluerider with displeasure. "Why not?" is of abandonment, and though she parts her lips to continue the server finally brings them refills and Faryn is relieved of the burden of explaining, at least briefly. "I'd rather you didn't," she says instead of picking up the old thread of her thoughts. She's slower with this new glass, sipping it as it's meant to be. "I get along fine without being routinely harassed, believe it or not."

"Maybe ya'll never have to worry 'bout that for a long time to come," Jo says on going out, the woman shaking her head. "Ya don' seem like ya have any enemies. 'Less ya pissed in someone's pie or somethin'." This. This seems easier to talk about than any current events, though at the face Faryn makes to her having sex, there's a look and a, "Ya think I'm fucked up cuz I see him like a brother, do ya?" She takes up her refilled glass before continuing. "I don' see him abandonin' ya in the mountains. Anyway. Someone needs to keep an eye on ya. Dunno why, just....he had a knack with findin' folks with potential."

"I just think you're fucked up, full stop." Faryn barks a laugh. "Joke's on you, then," she says, "because he picked me up from Tillek and left me in a holding in the Benden mountains for a month." It's an unfair half-story she doesn't elaborate. "I think, sometimes, he just wanted to see something in me. Not sure he ever really did." Small frown. "Doesn't matter now."

"Thanks a lot," Jo states dryly on the first, with just a twist of the corner of her mouth. "Left ya? why a holdin' in the mountains? R'hin wouldn' just..." Would he? Jo pauses on that as if she would amend what she was about to say before snorting and finally bringing that glass to her lips. "Found him fucked up on a beach in Monaco one time," she admits now, as if in relevance. "He's found me all screwed up more'n once. He saw somethin' in a lot of us. Even me. Reckon if the bastard had reason to leave ya in the mountains, he had his reasons. Ya don' hate him." It's not a question as she lingers on her drink.

"Welcome!" Chirped, with false glee. "I was Steward, while I was there," may shed light on the situation, just a little bit. "It was a good distraction after the hatching." Jo's recollection elicits a wry smile from Faryn. "Fucked up beaten or fucked up drunk?" she wants to know, "Or both?" Though that, like everything, hardly matters. What does matter is that shake of the head in the negative, counterpoint to her words. "He had a way of making me feel this tall." She squints at Jo through fingers a half-inch apart. "I could hate him. Probably should. But no, I don't. I just--don't know." More sentimentality? More booze, down the hatch!

This being news to Jo, "Steward. You?" she is looking Faryn over with the frown of open curiosity. "Did'ja like it?" On the memory of R'hin, there's a softer snort from her as she answers, "'Lil of both. I remember the riders there comin' at him'n I got in their way. Sometimes I think..." There's a pause as if she's lost her thought, the frown less on curiosity and more on uncertainty before she grunts and drains her glass as she says, "Doesn' matter. He pushed everyone he came across, didn' he? So I've heard. It wasn' like that with us. Ya don' hate'im. Neither do I. He had his way of carin'. Didn' make ya go soft." Next round of booze.

"Steward. Me," confirms Faryn neutrally, her teeth catching the inside of her cheek and drawing her entire mouth off to the side in what seems to be displeasure, but her eyes -- they're a little sad. "I did. I thought I did. I thought I wanted to...to help people a little more than just in the stables, so I left the Craft and thought I'd figure it out. Then it all...." Snowballed, demonstrated by the over-and-over looping of her fingers. "Sometimes you think what," she presses, softly. If the server notices, her gesture this time is for one refill, not two, indicating her imminent departure.

Jo listens, leaning back now that her glass is empty as Faryn speaks. She nods towards the end to it, her frown more prominent and grave as she says, "Maybe he was tryin' to help ya find all that out in the end. Without him, ya wouldn've gone, would'ja?" But Faryn is prompting for the return to the previous, and there's a silence before she quietly says, "Sometimes I think, wonder, if he had seen somethin' like this comin' even back then. The way he was, darlin'. Never know, right? Thanks for the drink, Faryn," she says now, having seen the hand signal as the server approaches. "I'll come by the barracks sometime after drills." The thanks may not be said aloud, but it's there in her gaze.

Faryn's smile is rueful as she gathers her bag up and slings it over her shoulder. She pauses, nudging her glass away from the edge of the table and propping her hip there briefly, looking down at the bluerider dubiously. "I can't accept that he knew. If he knew, and he let everyone--?" She undertones a grunt, frowning. "Better not knowing. He wouldn't tell us if he were here, anyways." Her last is a wave of the hand to dismiss the offer, and a brisk shake of the head as she turns away. "Unnecessary. Get yourself right, Jo. Maybe when you do, I'll come visit you."

With a slight shrug, Jo seems to concede what Faryn says on the late bronzerider with a brief, "Well. Just as well, darlin'. Just as well." Because to all the rest, the convict rider claims her new round of whiskey just delivered with a brief raise in her direction as if in a toast. "Do that." As Faryn goes, Jo remains.