Logs:Deny It To His Dying Breath, He Will
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| RL Date: 14 December, 2008 |
| Who: Leova, N'thei |
| Type: [[Concept:{{{type}}}|{{{type}}}]] |
| When: Day {{{day}}}, Month {{{month}}}, Turn {{{turn}}} ({{{IP}}} {{{IP2}}}) |
| Snowasis, High Reaches Weyr(#555RJ) The Snowasis is rarely quiet, and even then, the high-ceilinged former weyr is kept from echoing by the fantastical booths tucked into its convoluted perimeter. The secluded seating spaces have been shaped from the truncated stalagmites that escaped the smoothing of the main floor, and are both softened and separated by colorful hangings that are thick and opaque enough to make each corner its own private nook. Some of the smaller stalactites still roam the ceiling, their jagged teeth tracing a bumpy, inverted spine to the hearth. There, a thick rug with a low klah table and comfortable armchairs and couches sit, their upholstery and cushions changed sporadically to match the season: bright, light colors in the summer, fresh greens and yellows in the spring, warm autumnals in fall, and clear, rich hues for winter. Small tables litter the rest of the cavern, enough to fit up to four people each, while stools stand along the smooth wooden bar behind which is the passthrough window to the kitchen. Glass-paneled cabinetry behind the bar provides a clear view of the available liquors, the many colors reflecting the soft light of glows tucked into strategic niches around the cavern. Let's call it a lively evening, shall we? Traffic between the ledge and the bar is always higher this season, people prone to drift in and out and out and in with drinks in hand, chattering and making merry as only barflies can. Somewhere between the man that pours the drinks, the girls that serve the drinks, and the patrons that spill the drinks, there's N'thei. What his precise purpose is may well be one of the last great mysteries of life, but tonight he's just here to drink. And he's been at it a while, to judge the entrance he makes with a knot of men from Glacier, all red in the face; the Weyrleader's got an empty mug dangling from his finger and a smaller cup-- dice?-- coveted in the other hand. "...sixes, always sixes. Buy, brother, and we'll drown your sorrows together, neh?" At that, he gives a bluerider whose eyes already all but swim in his skull a light shove toward the bar and leaaaaaans himself toward a stool. And the good thing about all that merry-making is that it isn't quiet in the least, which means that an hour's worth of conversation and a blush or two (courtesy of Maraya) fit right in. Particularly since weyrling and assistant weyrlingmaster have been ensconced upon the couch in front of the summer-empty hearth, in what would in another season be quite the choice spot indeed, but now passes for stagnant compared to the fresh air out on the patio. They had iced klah at one point, but now its dregs have melted, and the bristly-haired assistant slips her charge a fractional mark that's about as small a denomination as it gets. So Maraya leads the way, petite Maraya who used to be from Southern and still has the accent to prove it, heading for the bar to get herself something... if not special, something she can afford. As she starts to take a spot, Leova: "Not there, hm? Give the men some room." "Oh, we don't need room, darling." That's N'thei. Intoxicated. Reflexive. He just hits the stool when whatever-her-name-is starts toward the miniscule gap between shoulders lining the bar, just gets his balance in time to turn upon her a smile that half the female population of the Weyr would give their thumbs to receive-- because, as we well know, they still line up for the Weyrleader. "Much rather--" Something penetrates, slowly but surely, and the twitch at the corner of his eye has him swiveling around on the stool to try and find the source of the warning, to eventually land a heavy-eyed look across the room at one Leova. Next to him, the bluerider hiccoughs and tries to say, "Ladies first," but with more Zs and Ths than the phrase usually involves. Thumbs seem to be quite the article of commerce around High Reaches Weyr some evenings, lucky Maraya to not even need a one. And she knows who N'thei is, has to given the suddenly coquettish smile she's got no matter how bloodshot his eyes or light-the-air-on-fire his breath may be, doesn't even give that poor bluerider with the drinky accent a second look. Starts to invite him to continue that sentence, even, when her escort/guard/what-have-you finally makes it up to her shoulder and murmurs none-too-quietly into the girl's ear, "Wingleaders and 'seconds still off-limits, hm? Besides," and here she gives their weyrleader a professional eye, not-that-kind-of-professional, "Probably wouldn't be much use to you by now anyway." And then she's smiling too. Brighter. Over Maraya's shoulder, where she can't see it but that's a problem that cannot penetrate a rummy haze, a drunk bluerider wave-waves, wave-waves, helloooo? With a chopped-liver snort, he leans heavily on his elbow and drops coin onto the counter, the entire performance completely missed by N'thei. He has gotten preoccupied, staring with not-unusual intensity at Leova while she comes over, while she whispers. His voice is a sudden thing, out-of-tune with the solidity of his expression; you'd never know he's drunk to look at him when he gets like that, immovably in his own thoughts, but then he goes and speaks. "Happened to your hair." Maraya, whatever cleverness Leova imparted, his blueriding dice partner, none of it has a place in the new immediacy of this problem with the greenrider's coiffure. Poor bluerider. Maraya really should have looked: for all she knows, might be F'rint, and if he's not a real weyrsecond despite all the riders who want to bend his ear anyway, at least it's something. Especially since, once she's heaved a heavy worth-a-shot won't-hold-/that/-against-you sigh, the younger greenrider's obliviously trying to wedge herself closer to the bar anyway. Not that she drops her own money. No, it has to stay pinched tightly under her thumb. Leova would be, should be keeping more than the half-an-eye on this that she's doing, but the weight of N'thei's scrutiny has pulled her attention back. Hair. It takes her a moment. Then, all offhand, "Close call with a wher." Maraya, not oblivious enough, laughs: she-wishes. "Jealous. Of the wher." There's a notable pause between the one word and the follow-up, as though N'thei realizes in the beat between that he really must clarify that remark or it's not going to make any sense at all. Good for him. In much the same way as her hair became a focal point, he demands, "Why do you bring them in here for." Lucky for us all, it's not F'rint that's now slumped against the bar. Although N'thei's second does not wholly abstain, he is at least temperate enough not to be a snore away from drooling in front of a girl he was all set to woo mere moments ago. And in that pause, Leova's brows start rising, until then she's starting to chuckle (wher!), and then outright laugh into her quickly upheld hand. Because that's really going to hide it. She recovers for a just-a-moment upheld hand, a, "Hurry /up/, Maraya," to the girl who at least has encouraged a bartender into heading her way, and has gotten to eyeing that bluerider on the side. Although the bartender, at least, may see that it's less coyly romantic and has far more to do with whether anyone will notice if she shoves him off his stool and claims it for her own. Leova? "Test their mettle." Weyrlings'? Other weyrfolk's? The bartender's? "Name a drink for her, would you?" N'thei? "No." But that should come as no surprise. With a sudden start, the bluerider awakens and peels himself off the bar, off the stool, his gesture suddenly reminiscent of Leova's; except that he covers his mouth for entirely different reasons, and staggers off toward the ledge in hiccoughing haste. It has little impact on the bronzerider, who seems to expect it to have as little impact on the greenrider in turn. "Grow it back." A shoulder's lift is Leova's worth-a-shot, and then that so-convenient departure gets the greenrider hurrying her charge onto the stool, not like Maraya needs it. No, Maraya's got the bartender's attention, a stool, and has finally, /finally/ decided upon a drink. Life is sweet. Leova, on the other hand, and along the lines of worth-another-shot: "Why? Planned to go bald." Why? /Why?/ "Because." He said so. N'thei slides a palm over the top of his own shorn head, unknowing of the gesture, fingers from back-to-front, all the while scowling darkly at Leova's crop. "Never liked you, you know." Musing, confessing, surprising himself a little by the sudden downturn at the edge of his mouth; "But I didn't used to mind looking at you so much." It's the sort of movement that gets her eyes following it, narrowing, could get into pot-kettle despite herself. But. N'thei's voice brings her back to looking at his face instead. Scars. Scowl. Maybe-stubble, and all the rest. "I know. Said so before." It's plainly spoken, her mouth only pulled to the side a little, and a moment later she aims to reach out, swivel his shoulder the other way. "So turn around." "Don't go getting bold, love." It's a suggestion compared to the weight usually in N'thei's words, his slooshy eyes landing on Leova's hand and following toward its destination. Immovable object; she'll have to want it if she's going to swing him around, no light shove to do it. "All this time later, best keep things as they've always been, neh?" He thinks he makes perfect sense, by the way. It's his eyes that are hurting, so he just gets a press of palm to cotton-clad shoulder, solid but brief: advice more than anything, before she lets it go, turns away her own self. The back of Leova's head turns out to be just as bristly as the rest, maybe a little shorter as it softens into her neck, sunbleached from auburn to rust right down to the roots. At least Maraya's happy, and satisfied with having checked on her, the older greenrider chances a profile's worth of look over her shoulder. Sense or no sense, "Heard it's Interval. Time to change it up." The littlest give, there is a man under the shirt, a man at rest whose arms have nothing hard about them while he's sitting peacefully in his own bar, but N'thei doesn't move on the whole. Still just looking at her, harmless. "Damnedest thing about that. Man finds ways to fill his time, innocuous ways." Big word for as many as he's had tonight. "People look cross at him for it. But not you, never you. Except-- I know who your friends are so... I have to wonder what you say when I'm not around to hear it." He takes a long breath after wending his way through that revelation, coming out of the spell of his own unkind thoughts, now the softness of a questioning smile at Leova. That single eye gradually widens, rolled back a little to better focus even if it does show that much more of its white, and then her head turns and the rest of her does too, partway and from the waist, looking but uncommitted. Two eyes. United in something like uncertainty. "You keep track," she says. /Really/. Lowly greenrider here, rider of a particularly plaguing green, yes? So, somehow gently, "Thought I had plenty other reasons to look cross at a man." To explain himself, a rare treat; "If you were friends with D'lorv there, it wouldn't make any difference." D'lorv would be the bluerider that just ran out with his guts in his throat. "But those as chum around with our so-called Headwoman and my favorite queer Wingleader-- those, yes. I keep track." And his enemies closer. N'thei really hasn't moved much, so Leova looking back will find him exactly as she left him, occasionally looking from her eyes to her hair and back again. "Tell me about your reasons, my balded darling. Perhaps I can... rub salt in them for you." D'lorv. A slight hip-check gets Maraya to slide over, some, enough that there's room enough for Leova to lean against part of the stool and not just against her fellow greenrider, this while apparently not feeling the need to check as to why the girl's so agreeable. Leova's not known to haunt the poker tables, either as player or groupie, and the slight tightening about her eyes at the appellations melts into a briefly-intrigued, deliberately-cheerful, "Do we even have more than one?" That, before she demurs: "Kind of you to offer. But," because there's always one, "Salt can be costly, would rather have it season my wherry. And I... like explanations too, you see." And must know how unlikely they are, the more so when she's gotten one already. Do we? N'thei's raised eyebrows and knowing smile answer without words; she might be surprised. But then it is a Weyr, so maybe not. Maybe he means to be a gentleman, to give up his stool for Leova rather than watch two women squish on to one seat-- though that does seem like exactly the type of thing he'd regularly enjoy-- that he finds his feet, palms braced on the bar until he's sure his feet have found him in return. Sorry smile; "Can't start handing them out, you know, else everyone will start expecting them. You get one then all your little friends want one and where's that leave me." From the bar to the stool, pat pat pat. He's steady now. She'd sent his boots back, or was that just one? and Leova doesn't move to take N'thei's stool from him, either, for all that he's already abandoned it. Nor, though her eyes track the big man's rising, does her chin lift. "Leave you with, what, a beer and a bar? Wager people always want one already, after all." Rough-life, so-sad. Her murmur's light, a touch more relaxed, now that he's closer to what he always seems to be. "Luck with all that." "Because it's something I can control. It's mine. Doesn't belong to you or stupid Milani or that woman. Makes me happy." In the midst of that, N'thei somehow got his weight back on his one hand and has to remember to straighten up again, to look ponderously around him as if to blame someone else that he got distracted. "Beer and a bar's not so much to ask for, don't think. But what would you people do if it was really as simple as all that." And his sigh is for them, you-people, a shrug to chase away the thought of all that disappointment. "Drink up, love. Won't line my pockets if no one's paying." Presumably, the money left behind on the dampness of the bar is for his own tab. Two. Two explanations, at the least, and don't think Leova's not counting. "You look real happy," she makes to reassure N'thei, though without much regard for making it sound truthful, nor for relaxing how her brows have drawn together some: could even be concern, to go along with her nod for the bar, a she-saw-it, a maybe-later. Only. Now her eyes have narrowed that much more, a dark shadow to her raised amber gaze as though that could help her focus, and further words escape her. Quiet words. "If you're the one gone, when Teonath goes up. Maybe he'll let you keep it." Looking around differently now, taking stock, realizing the room, N'thei lingers a last look on Leova, a smiling look. "Won't need it then, will I. When she's done with me, I can go back to being belligerent. You'll really love me when I've got nothing to lose. --Have a good night. And don't tell anyone about this conversation or I'll knock your teeth out or something, likely." He takes two steps from the bar, issuing a stunted chuckle; "Almost said 'snatch you bald-headed.'" Heh! Drunk enough to walk a straight line. She's not so far gone that there isn't room to blink. Which she does. And then watches him steadily and silently. Until, "Something like that," summoning up that easygoing tone again, no promises, nor offers to thwart him by knocking her own teeth out first. "Night, N'thei." And she'll watch him until he disappears, into the crowd or under it, or until Maraya's finally drunk her last straw. Whichever comes first. |
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