Difference between revisions of "Logs:Meeting Anvori"

It's late, the glow baskets half-shuttered along the corridors and in the public caverns, much of the Weyr has begun to turn in for the night. There are, of course, exceptions, and amongst those exceptions is the sole occupant of the nighthearth. With his knees parted and a slouch affecting the posture of his torso, and a half-empty bottle of whiskey with its matched half-full glass at hand, Anvori sits on the couch before the hearth, hazel gaze contemplative into the dancing flames.

In those public caverns, people come and go, even if it's less frequently now. One of the leatherworkers, he of the handlebar mustache who recently survived a bout with weyrlings, drops by for a bowl of soup and a grunt that might be greeting. Not that he stays: instead, he takes his bowl with him without fuss or a pause longer than what it takes to ladle the fishy stew. And then it's quiet. For a while. And eventually there's movement behind him, bootsteps, a shift of leather against leather and then wool against leather. No hurry. And then hands curving over the edge of the couch's back, not too close to him, and she's leaning to look at those flames too.

He's not unaware of the comings and goings, but the leatherworker who finds his meal and then leaves, marks no difference in the brewer's thoughtful expression. There's no cordial greeting. No affable smile. No quick wit or comment to raise the joviality of the cavern, and when the man leaves, the slim held shoulders slouch all the more, as if Anvori aims to disappear into the cushions. Which is all easier said than done when a second arrival sounds behind him and instead of leaving, a hand drops so near. And he inhales slowly, exhaling even slower in an audibly measured breath to fill the awkward silence of two people sharing the same space without words.

Flames. Whiskey. Knees. "Sorry to disturb you," the woman says in that smoky voice of hers, low and not a little tired, though also not as though she's going to stop disturbing in the next breath or two. She shifts. Finds the sweet spot on the couch's back, the solid place within the upholstery that will support her upper arms when her elbows slide forward, linked hands going up to support her chin. Exhales slowly, near-silently, since it's her turn.

His tongue wets his lips, wiping away any remnant whiskey from them. Then his mouth disappears into itself, sucked inward so his teeth grind on the soft flesh around his lips. A second audible exhale releases his lips from his teeth and parts his mouth so that his dry, "If it were my intention not to be disturbed, I'd have started drinking in my room." The low-filled drink swishes with a languid swirl of his wrist. Without looking backwards to match the smoky voice with its tawny face, Anvori inquires, "Need a drink?"

"Figured," she says unapologetically, nearly as dryly but for the splash of humor. She does glance his way, firelight catching her eyes before she turns back to the hearth again, lets it warm her skin even diffused by distance. Consideringly, "Could use one." A little different. "But not, I think. If it makes you feel on duty."

She's a current of awareness, of attention, heading his way as she has now and again over the last sevendays. « Cadejoth. » It could be a whisper, but there's nothing furtive about it. Just quietness: is he awake? (Vrianth to Cadejoth)

« Hello, Vrianth. » His response comes quickly, as solid in mind as he is thin-boned in body - and with his own current to it, the zing of electric aliveness, the rasp of metal on metal. (Cadejoth to Vrianth)

The reflection of fire compounds the sudden light in his hazel eyes, a momentary return of congeniality. "Wouldn't feel on duty if I just kissed you, 'magine." He then looks to match a face to that smoky voice, turning his head to look upon Leova's profile. "Then you'd get your whiskey or the ephemeral taste of it, and I wouldn't feel on duty, ne?" But his tease falls short when his slow spread smile fails to maintain the glitter of his eyes. Instead, the half-filled glass held in his far arm crosses over his chest to offer to her, warning low, "It's rough."

She draws on that zing, the energy akin to hers. Tastes it. Could send it back, but doesn't. Yet. What she does share is a wordless sense of presence, of stone that blocks all the wind except that which sweeps by her extended muzzle, the scents of stone and distant trees and snow. And dragons, many dragons, but that's not what she's focusing on now. His turn. (Vrianth to Cadejoth)

He gets a narrowed look back at him: one that after that moment's surprise hints at sympathy rather than excitement, and never mind that the firelight gives warmth to her features in in a way that green glowlight cannot. "Think it would be hard on your neck," she mentions instead, amiably. And reaches for the glass, careful to make sure she's got a hold before lifting it from his hand: who knows how full the bottle was when he'd started, but that's not a chance that calls to be taken. "Though I appreciate," the whiskey? "The effort."

To Vrianth, Cadejoth examines those senses, exploring them, though not in great depth: he is not a deep-thinking, reflective dragon, after all. In response, he shares the half-dark of the barracks, the rustle and thud of moving dragons, the clean, warm scent of the pages being read by K'del, who flashes into view just briefly - a hunched figure, leaning low over a nearby glow. There is, too, a sense of caging: he yearns for the beyond.

For that exploring, there's more to find: the sense of the nearby blue, versus the bronze, the other green. Stone and snow and soil, too. The warmth lifts along that hunched back as though it could unknot him into a stretch. « Where do you want to go? Cadejoth. » Anywhere. (Vrianth to Cadejoth)

To Zunaeth, Vrianth borrows the flicker of another, inner-caverns hearth, complete with fishy stew, to light her way towards his. And ups the fishy smell some more. Just because.??Dragon> To Vrianth, Zunaeth endures. Not without a sigh that flickers at the fires of his own mind, but he's remarkably tolerant, fish and all. Though he does warm after a second, furnace-like as his touch takes over the heat she gives.

To Vrianth, Cadejoth leans in, awake with the aliveness of it all - the soil, becoming visible once more, the stone, the beginning-to-melt snow. Without intending to, his answer is a repetition, told with feeling. « Anywhere. I want to see, Vrianth, and do. I want to see the places K'del reads about. » Unspoken: weariness, with all the reading, all the do-nothingness. Impatience. Tail flicking, flicking, constant flicking.

Pleased Vrianth. It worked. She lets the fishy smell fan away on his sigh, superimposes the sense of whiskey that they're told is rough, for all that by now the smell might seem invisible. And curls her way into that furnace of his, once again unthinking that she could be burned. « Is it quiet? » (Vrianth to Zunaeth)

'Quite full,' would be his ready response if she but asked, but he lacks the cognizance to read intention in even the careful handling of the glass he extends, never mind the sympathy that lights her look towards him. "S'funny. People go to bars to drink and find companionship. They go to the living cavern to interact. But people come here to escape in as public a place as they can. To find quiet and solace, a place to wallow, but with that bright, flickering hope of being interrupted and asked what's wrong with their life." Apparently Anvori's capable of high verbosity despite any level of intoxication; perhaps a trick of his trade, and in the collected put-togetherness of his voiced thoughts, he finds some level of humor for a wry smile surfaces once more to deepen and crinkle the lines about his face. "So why've you come to this little cavern?"

She listens. Drinks, and her eyes close in a flattened-out grimace before she takes a deeper breath and makes it drop away. Again he gets a glance, drink and solace and wallow. And for his question she sniffs the whiskey, as though that might make the difference. "This isn't your moonshine, is it? And." The corner of her mouth turns up, but it's the far corner, even if it might show in her voice. "To ask you what's wrong with your life. Of course."

It's only pleasant warmth, though, when Vrianth curls against him: that dry, cozy sense of heat. « It's quiet, » he affirms, with a flashed image of the barracks, all silent and still, just this once. (Zunaeth to Vrianth)

To Cadejoth, Vrianth can focus even more closely: ice-crusted soil held within stones, her stones, stones of which she is possessive indeed: oval ones, set as a framework to supplement the mountain's bones. « What he reads. Does it make pictures for you? In his mind? » And there's some sympathy there: she will not say that it will be soon. But if she could, she would.

Curiosity ripples through Cadejoth's mind at these stones, Vrianth's stones, set just so - stones that are not part of the mountain, but still... But his mind does not stay still enough to cogitate too hard on this. « He does, » he confirms, a hint of sulky despite this admission. « And they are interesting. But not real. » Real. There's a nasal note to his voice, here, a whine. Not good enough. (Cadejoth to Vrianth)

There's a teasing sense that Vrianth could make it other than quiet, could flow into those barracks and make life interesting. But she doesn't. It's such cozy warmth, after all, and she breathes him in and breathes him out, laced with her own energy to warm his bones. For a while there's just silence, peaceable silence. Only eventually, « Poor Cadejoth. » Leashed. (Vrianth to Zunaeth)

« We made them. » Perhaps not the stones themselves, but their orientation, the way they stay. And: « Not real, » Vrianth agrees, for all that she filters away some of that whine, and doesn't quite hide that she's doing it. « Not yet. » Not helping, perhaps. She seeks something that might: « Your exercises. You are doing them? So your wings will be strong enough. » So that he can fly, a true dragon at last. (Vrianth to Cadejoth)

"Ah," in his third audible exhalation of the night, there's also hints of a smile kept at bay. "You're good to humor an old man, darling." Because he is, of course, so very old and so put upon by the weight of the world. He doesn't reclaim his glass, instead folding one hand over the other and resting it loosely over his chest as he slouches just that much more, head tipped back to study the ceiling. Heavily, his head then lolls to the side to look towards Leova's hands, the glass she holds, and traveling up slowly to come to a final rest at her chin. "Aye, t'is. T'is what I brew to get as drunk as I can in as few sips as possible."

"Humored older men than you," Leova returns in a tone that she just doesn't even attempt to make deadpan, and holds up the glass enough that she can squint one-eyed at the fire through it: fire through glass, fire through whiskey-and-glass. Her chin stays more or less where it is when she's not talking, no secret birthmarks or moles with foot-long hairs growing out. Just a chin, and the column of her neck, increasingly shadowed down to her throat. "And why do you plan to get drunk? This time."

« Made them. » This does impress Cadejoth, who considers the stones with more interest, now. He's aware of her filtering, conscious enough to perhaps pull that tone back from his voice, just a little, when he speaks again. « No, not yet. But it is a long time before it will be real, isn't it? » The clanking of his chains is not quite bad tempered, but - he is pouting. « I am. » Resigned. « My wings will be strong. And I am still thin, so I'm light. That's good, right? » Fly: he projects an image of himself, in flight, proud. Yes. (Cadejoth to Vrianth)

This time, Vrianth doesn't provide details unasked-for, just a pulse of energy that's assent and pride wrapped up into one, with the more shared pleasure for his being impressed that way. And for pulling back that tone from his voice, even if it is just a little. Brave Cadejoth! Rather than reply to the long time just yet, « Light, not-light, as long as you are strong enough. That is what matters. » Is her Secath light? Zunaeth, flickering flame in her thoughts? But then, her voice dropping hushed as a whisper for him alone, « And it will be a long time. Before you can go there. But before you fly... » They're different, those times, though she doesn't explain why. Nor does she explain, yet, the sudden taste of not-so-long or maybe even soon. (Vrianth to Cadejoth)

"Because." There might be more words that follow that because, but a sudden press of his lips, displeasure unvoiced, suddenly checks himself. Anvori pulls his gaze from Leova, her chin, and the shadows that play along her neck, though there's a moment where the hazel eyes glance across, then return to linger at the hollow of the woman's neck. But to the fire his gaze goes, followed shortly by a smile that stretches thin across his good looks with a glimmer of white teeth as his smile grows. "Anvori," he finally introduces himself, though there's a lilt at the end, not quite questioning, after all he does know his own name, but colored with the uncertainty of whether an introduction is actually needed.

"Anvori," she repeats, not quite a sing-song, not quite dutifully. And, "Leova," she gives him in exchange. "Vrianth's." So he knows where her loyalties lie. "You're famous, you know." That smile's deepened. "Across Pern, nearly. Or at least northwest to south." Leova tilts the glass before her eyes, lets the whiskey rock so gently like still-calm seas, before she sips.

Brave! Yes, Cadejoth likes this, and he is brave, and strong, and smart (hasn't K'del said so, after all? And K'del is always correct). But it's better for Vrianth thinking so, too. « Strong. Then I will make sure I am. We will fly so far, and so fast! » It takes him a moment to digest this last suggestion, a querying note, then a growing - glowing! - realisation, until his thoughts positively thrum with this vague, amorphous hope of soon. « How soon? » He puts it into words, grasping for the concept with both paws. (Cadejoth to Vrianth)

Does she find that certainty, that excitement endearing from the still-little dragon? If she does, she keeps it to herself, aside from the underpinnings of electric humor that could be accounted for in other ways. « Very fast, » Vrianth agrees, and there may also be an indulgent note amid the anticipation, however sincere. Shaping that glow around the two of them, « Can you try, Cadejoth? To keep it to yourself. » To not tell the other dragons. And if he does, she'll know. (Vrianth to Cadejoth)

Is it a name he's heard before? His eyes narrow and his brows knit, thinking quite hard with what's left of his addled brain. But any thinking gets put on hold when news of his notoriety trips forth in sing-song from the greenrider's lips. "Oh?" Pleased, with the light returning to his suddenly wide eyes, Anvori slips an arm down the length of the couch, towards Leova, so the very tips of his fingers tremble so near the elbows that brace against the couch's sweet spot. "Tell me of my fame." 'Distract me from my trivial woes,' says the heightened and false sense of brightness in his eyes.

So Leova looks askance down her arm, to her elbow, and the wiggling fingertips there. Gives them a look. And stays right where she is. "Famous Anvori," she agrees. "From the highest of the High Reaches, to down Telgar way, and no doubt beyond." Now she does move, if only to free her far hand with the glass and aim to place it atop the back of his hand. For balance. "It was what you did at the Brewfest, you know. Accomplished what no man's been able, nor woman either, or so it's said. Has to do with your sister." Her head tilts, reading his expression: surely not a problem? Or is it.

To Vrianth, Cadejoth, positively a-thrum with his own excitement, could be forgiven for missing altogether Vrianth's humor, let alone any suspicion that it might be aimed at him - there are solid things to consider, like flying, and these interest him far more. « Yes, yes, yes, » he promises, words energetic, syllables bounding after one another, and a deep promise set in to them. Vrianth is a Superior, a Mentor, part-leader of his pack - if she asks, the unspoken, unreferenced implication in his touch indicates, he will do anything at all.

And he gets a warm rush of approval for it, heady with her electric sense of self: Vrianth does not ask for Cadejoth to succeed-or-else, only that he try. « In the next sevenday, » she tells him, the time reference borrowed surely from her rider, one that might take his rider to interpret. « Or two. So it should be. » No guarantee. But that's the way it should be, the right-with-the-world, the plan. (Vrianth to Cadejoth)

What pleasure there was in Anvori's face stills at Leova's words. Stills further at her concluding tease. Parts his lips and then presses his mouth down in a gesture all too familiar and yet different on his decidedly un-Satiet-like features. "Oh. Oh?" Perhaps he's not quite so drunk; he straightens far too quickly to be that drunk. His reaching, flirtatious fingers pull back too abruptly. "Well-," even stilted, or maybe because, his smile flashes charming to the greenrider, "Perhaps another time you can tell me of my accomplishments and what it has to do with my dear sister. Famous Anvori needs to go find a comfortable bed with or without the comforting arms of someone soft and warm and possibly just a little too drunk to care who Anvori might be before he's too drunk to find such beds. Good night. Leova." And like that, he bolts leaving his whiskey and glass in Leova's care.

"Oh," Leova agrees easily enough, more focused on his changing expressions, enough that she rescues the glass not quite in time: it bounces into the upholstery, spilling before she can rescue it from its fall, and by the time she looks up he's all but gone. "Good luck with that. Anvori." She says it all the same, even if he mightn't hear. And her fingernail taps against the glass. And she keeps looking after him, narrow-eyed, before coming to some decision and leaving. The bottle goes with her. The glass, righted but empty, stays on its own.

Like many children, Cadejoth positively preens in that approval, all but prancing - it's a given that his tail is tapping at the floor faster than ever, in the barracks, no doubt driving his rider positively mental. « Soon,» he repeats, well pleased, after a moment's pause in which he digs up this fact from, presumably, K'del. « I will be patient. In case. » But excited, too, a metallic zing singing through him, the taste of metal in the air. (Cadejoth to Vrianth)

Such a zing! « Soon, » Vrianth repeats, and there's a sense of sooner-the-better. And then, right as she adds, « We will teach you, » another impulse strikes her. « Unless... Zunaeth chooses to do so first. You might watch him. » Stalk him? « Show him that you are ready. » And, at least to her, the older bronze has an appeal all his own: the shared protectiveness, the patience, the glimpse of now-distant what-had-been turned over and over to remember, herself-and-rider (and rider!) drafting after him on some unnamed adventure. The humor. And the hearthfire that she, at least, can enter and not burn. (Vrianth to Cadejoth)

To Vrianth, Cadejoth is instantly entranced by this idea, projecting an image - with a question mark to reassure that it is, in fact, a good one - of himself, stretching wings out, doing little hops, more stretches, so strong and big! He has respect for Zunaeth, too, another leader of his pack, though his impression of the bronze is more distant - but then, Vrianth is here and now, and that matters. His consciousness flicks some amount of vague interest at this unnamed adventure - but his mind is overwhelmed with the imagined sensation of flight, too much so to be truly interested.

« Just like that, » and Vrianth tucks away her vision-of-Zunaeth to radiate that much more approval for Cadejoth, along with the sense that that is something he can do when he's feeling twitchy. Something he can practice to get even stronger, and who knows, even bigger. Half as afterthought, « Only, you must be careful with your wings. » No wings? No flying! And then, all at once, she lets him feel wind along hide as she abandons her ledge and flings herself out into the sky. (Vrianth to Cadejoth)

Something to do? While K'del is reading! It's like the idea strikes with a thunderbolt, helped along by Vrianth, of course, but partly Cadejoth's own, too. « Like that. But not actually beating wings, right. Because I want to actually fly, properly.» But: oh. His reaction to flight is, though he can't know it, much the same as K'del's, and his mind arches forward to embrace the sensation, the rightness, the quiet yesyesyes, filling him. Ah. Yes. « Right. » (Cadejoth to Vrianth)

He gets a Cadejoth-sized spark for it, too, burning like the sun. And for the fun of it, as well as for that reaction of his, Vrianth takes a turn around the Spindles under Belior's just-past-full light. Upward, fast but not too fast, certain. Around, quick and dexterous. Down... gliding, gliding, taking all the time she can before landing at last before her rider, to bring her Leova home. All that, and a last pulse of energy that might as well be, good night. (Vrianth to Cadejoth)

To Vrianth, Cadejoth holds on to every movement, holds tight, until that last pulse of energy. Then, he releases, drawing back to himself with a final zing of his own - more muted, now, though, for sleep is coming to him, too. Good night.

Time has passed in the outer world, who knows how long, and Vrianth's been up to something even while she stays right here with Zunaeth. (And flies down to the bowl. And picks up her rider again, to bring her home. And who knows what else, but surely what matters is the deep-running satisfaction with herself and with him, and now the sleek sensation of oil being rubbed into her tender hide.) And now, the younger dragon sighs the long firelit sigh of a job well done. Good night. (Vrianth to Zunaeth)