Logs:Pestering Exiles
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| RL Date: 8 June, 2011 |
| Who: Azzarion, Emmeline, Raum, Riorde, Taikrin |
| Type: [[Concept:{{{type}}}|{{{type}}}]] |
| What: Taikrin cons her way into the barracks to see if she can ferret out the truth about this so-called treasure. She inadvertently ends up reassuring some of the exiles. That won't last long! |
| Where: Candidate Barracks, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day {{{day}}}, Month {{{month}}}, Turn {{{turn}}} ({{{IP}}} {{{IP2}}}) |
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| Though the older lower caverns woman bustling into the barracks to clean up after today's lunch offerings might be a common sight, the brownrider trailing after her lugging a kettle of tea certainly is not. The smarmy grin on Taikrin's face might be a clue as to how she got there though, or perhaps: "... an' you know, I feel so /bad/ for 'em, they got such a hard start? I know what it's like, not havin' enough, you know? Feel like I ought t'help any way I can." The older woman directs a beatific smile at Taikrin, gesturing for her to put the kettle on a table while she cleans up the (prodigous) leftovers. "Such a considerate thought, Taikrin dear. You've come such a long way!" Of all the exiles, Raum's fairing better than most. For one, there's no crying over leaving the island. For another, this sickness that's going around doesn't seem to be bothering him at all. And best of all, he's readjusting to the food quite well. In fact, he's at the tables again, to pick up a little more before the woman and her new helper carry it all away. The woman, she's largely ignored; but Taikrin-- Raum gives her a longer look, maybe recognizing her a little more. Riorde has been hot and cold and then hot again all morning but so far refuses to admit that she might be coming down with the fever that's struck the candidate quarters. And given how many more are visibly worse off and don't have the same problems calling attention to it as she does, the girl goes overlooked for now, swallowed up in an overly large jumper that wasn't hers until a day or two ago. She's near enough the entrance to pay attention to the two women entering, and after a moment makes the effort to drag herself over. Presumably for the tea, since that's what she asks for, clearing her throat a little. "Can I?" "-- an', you know, seein' as how me and Szad /found/ 'em, I feel like I oughta be responsible for makin' sure they're okay, like." The grin really does look unnatural - and a little disturbing - on Taikrin's pale features, but that doesn't seem to bother her companion at all. The other woman nods along, piling leftovers onto a tray before hefting the laden thing with a grunt. "I'll be back for the rest in a moment. You all let me know if you need anything?" The question is directed to the room at large, though she's looking at Raum in particular. Meanwhile, Taikrin sets the kettle down and blinks at Riorde, brow furrowing - though she's still grinning. "'Course! Oi, ain't you Ri--, uh, one of the kids we brought back? How you doin'?" Raum, dryly, "How sweet of you." He glances over Taikrin once more, then steps over closer. The kettle's glanced at but he doesn't seem particularly interested in it, not with the brownrider around. "We're lucky to have such a protector, I suppose?" "Riorde," the girl supplies after the minute it takes her to realise that the brownrider in the barracks isn't using one of her childhood nicknames. Someone who doesn't know nearly everything about her hits her as a novelty. "Fine," she lies, drawing herself up a little straighter against the inclination to hunch over her sore stomach and shiver. "You're Taikrin," she remembers, reaching for a mug. She doesn't reach for the kettle yet though, glancing at Raum when the man speaks. Riorde's quiet, but interest in the exchange sharpens on her features as she looks between the two to see how their brownriding 'protector' replies. "Thought it was you. You're lookin', uh." Taikrin hesitates, humming deep in her throat before offering, "Warm?" She draws back a pace when Raum appears, intercepting her instinct to put arms across her chest and instead propping them against her hips, superhero style. "Do the best I can. I just like to make sure people're okay me." Cue the return of the smarmy grin. "Y'all had a rough lot, stuck on that island and all with nothing of your own to have. Right?" Azzarion has arrived. "Rough enough," Raum notes with a shrug. He's taken a bowl of fishy stew to finish off the meal, and while he wrinkles his nose at it, he still eats it, leaning his back against the wall idly. "We survived, though, well enough. Truthfully, I think your rescue's killing more than died of late on the islands." A nod takes in the mattresses that are now more empty, for those in the infirmary, or more full, for those who've taken to bed with sickness but not yet been quarantined. "Getting there," Riorde agrees, another lie. But it does jolt her memory towards, "Your baths - those are warm - I've never seen anything like it." She picks up the kettle to pour herself tea, and with her gaze on the liquid steaming out of the spout, decides to fill Taikrin in with a straight face and even tone, "Raum's our shipwreck." Once, her attention flickers towards the man in question - she knows, she knows. "It... it is?" It can't be that Taikrin hasn't heard of the illness, but she does look a little uncomfortable as she follows Raum's attention towards all those beds. "Huh. Ain't none of us sick, so I dunno how you all're getting sick." A pause, as her gaze sweeps up and down Raum's body. "You look okay, but-- shipwreck? Whaddaya mean, shipwreck?" She looks from Riorde to Raum, confusion wiping away the rest of her smirk. "Ain't you-- didn't we pull you off that island, same as everyone else?" There's a 'fort' of sorts made in the far back corner of the barracks. Blankets and sheets are proped up with a chair or two and ahandful of rather rough looking young men have taken up residents there, out of the way. Azzarion pokes his head out from the flap of the tent, his face sporting a black eye, a split lip and the filth from the island indicating he hasn't washed yet. He glowers at the voices and hesitates from his place, squating on the raw stones and begins to ease back into the shadows of his safe place. Raum's eyes narrow slightly and he gives Riorde a look; but if he's annoyed with her for the big reveal, it doesn't last and he dons a smirk again as he looks back to Taikrin. His shoulders lift. "Aye, but I'm from out of Igen, originally. On a ship that went down somewhere out there, well beyond Tillek, and I washed up with them." He nods toward Riorde and their fellow exiles. "Lucky man, no?" "They say the dragons killed Evie's baby, too," Riorde reports next, quieter this time. She puts the kettle back and turns to face both Taikrin and Raum more fully, leaning back against the table. She watches Raum while taking the first sip of her tea. "Only one who we found." "Wait, seriously? So you ain't really one of them at all. Huh. Sailor, eh? Guess you /are/ one lucky bastard, gettin' rescued /twice/ and all." Taikrin quirks a grin, but it's mild compared to her previous efforts-- even if it does turn a little patronizing when she looks at Riorde. "Dragons don't eat people. Promise. Even little noisy ones like babies." This news, apparently, she hasn't heard. To Raum, "How long was you lost out there? Was it really terrible as it looked?" Not a sailor, but Raum doesn't bother to correct that, and when it looks like Riorde won't, either... Well. "Half a turn? Longer? Long enough," he decides, with a shrug. "It was summer; now it's not. It was--they're good peoplel, by and large. They didn't have much but they shared with me willingly enough." They practically sang kumbaya together around the campfires. As for the baby? "She was pregnant. Evie." Azzarion hears that lie, the denial that dragon's don't eat people. His nose snarls up along with the cracked lip and his backward slink stops. Now he watches the others, anger in his eyes but lacking the will to join in polite conversation. With his distinctive red hair and fair freckled skin, Raum could stand out most places. He's tall, too: a little over six feet, with a lean physique even as he heads into his forties. His face is narrow, ending in a pointed chin; there's a few lines beginning to show up around his mouth to mark the turns. His eyes are a sharp, cool blue, their no-nonsense look mirrored in both posture and attire. "Guess that makes sense. Y'ain't got, you know. Their look." Presumably Taikrin means the wasted figures that come long-term malnutrition. "Good to know. Word was, they was all criminals. Some of 'em ain't got the look, but you never know." There's a purposeful look towards Riorde there, along with a raised eyebrow. "She was knocked up, and she went between anyways? Well, shells. Why'd she do a fool thing like that?" "Descendents of them, to be sure, but I expect most of us have some bad blood in us somewhere, if we only looked," answers Raum with a lift of his shoulders. "I wouldn't think the Reaches would shy from that, though. The gossip in the desert says you're as wicked as any, and run by thieves and murderers beside." Azzarion leans to one side and then the other, like a snake getting ready to strike. There's no strike though, just an angry, gutteral growl, his words in there somewhere, "You monsters didn't give us a choice." Leaving. Staying. Dying. Living. "You just kill us one by one." Because he has been sick way more than once so far thanks to the strange food. "Is that what they say?" Taikrin appears amused by the accusation. "Don't know as I'm allowed to say nothin' against that. Reckon you ought to watch out if you decide to come an' do some wagerin', once they let you ought. Nearly sharp as a Bitran, most of us." Her grin shows teeth now, in a friendly sort of way-- that turns patronizing again at Azzarion's outburst. "You're welcome t'go back and stop eating up all our food, kid, once your island ain't under water or whatever that storm was gonna do." Raum's mouth stays curved into an amused little smirk. "It's what they did say, last I was there. That's months and months ago, so maybe it's different now. "Anyway, maybe we'll play sometime. Give us something to do, locked in here as we are." He glances then to Azzarion, lifts his brows slightly at the accusations. "Would you rather we die all at once, drowned like Grams? Evie's baby was an accident," he adds the answer then to Taikrin. "She didn't know, and it was too soon to show. These people--they know nothing." There's inhuman hate and loathing for Taikrin and disgust for Raum the traitor. He makes a sign to ward off bad omens or maybe he's flipping them off. "Ain't eatting your poison!" The savage assures her in disgust and slithers back into the shadows of the tent, just his face showing to indicate he's watching and listening. "I'd rather die." Not eatting will help that right along. All this is quite fascinating - a Weyr full of criminals and the like, not to mention the slurs on her own familial background. Riorde's been silent, nursing her tea, until Azzarion has the gall to go and voice what half the community's saying. Then Riorde cuts in, sharp. "You would've died with that storm rolling in." Fool, says her tone. "Reckon I can bring some cards down. Maybe dice? Any of these lot know how to play? I mean, ain't like you got anything worth wagerin', but." While Taikrin is speaking to Raum, she's staring at Azzarion like she would a tunnelsnake. She doesn't respond directly to him, but rather turns to eye Riorde speculatively. "Cute kid. Friend of yours?" "And you're doing great at it," is all Raum will give Azzarion--well, that and a laugh. He shakes his head, gives the rider another look. Of cards, "We could teach 'em easy enough, I expect. Though don't count on them having anything worth winning just yet." Azzarion looks like he might bite like a tunnelsnake too, he certainly smells worse than most of them. Still squatting in the mouth of the tent, he keeps a silent eye on his captor and the traitors, more like a wild feline in a cage, desperate and paniced. "Teach me?" Riorde tries to make her tone neutral and less like a plea as she looks between Taikrin and Raum, hungry for these bits of another life. Today, cards. Tomorrow - who knows. She makes a face at Raum, just a little, for the suggestion that she and her lot are more or less worthless. "Oh, yes," she answers the rider next with dry sarcasm, discarding Azzarion like yesterday's news. "Best mates." "Surprised y'all didn't do any gamblin' at all. Dice're easy enough to make; made couple of my own, you know. Ain't you guys got nothin' worth gamblin' for?" The question is casually asked of Riorde, though she's got a careful eye on Raum as she does so; Azzarion is ignored for the moment. "You know, stuff to trade?" ... by Taikrin, of course. Raum lifts his brows. "And when are we to find the time for gambling? Before the storms and after we spend all day trying to find food enough to feed ourself. We don't have time for such--frivolities, on the islands. We'll teach you, though," he adds to Riorde. "My guards and I knew a fair few games, in Igen. Like as not they're different from the ones up here, though." The remark about a dice game earns no perk of interest. With a lingering flat look at the others, he eases back into the tent, letting the flap fall closed. From within there are murmurs and then a faint rustling and stone against metal. "We've games," Riorde puts forward, purposely ignoring the remark on the value behind gambling as if she's ignorant of it. Backing up Raum, she adds, "There's just no time for them." She manages a slight smile when there's indication she won't be left out of the loop, but holds back fuller expressions of gratitude. "Oh, yeah. Guess that makes sense. Even /we/ had a little time t'play, when-- well. When I was workin' real hard, once." Taikrin leans back against the table, taking her ease as she smirks. "Reckon our games're better'n Igen's. Gotta have a good way to pass a frozen winter, yeah?" "Just the once?" wonders Raum, looking Taikrin over one more time. As for their games-- "And what do you do in the desert summer, where it's death being outside in the daylight?" Riorde misses something (or several things) here, and she knows it, between the too-casual comment given by Taikrin and the look given her by Raum, not to mention the references to Igen summers. The name means practically nothing to her. Rather than call attention to her ignorance, she stays quiet but keenly attentive. "Ain't never spent time in the desert, me. Born up by Crom, you know? I'm a cold weather kinda girl, me and Szad both." Taikrin offers a lopsided grin to Riorde, as if the girl were in on some sort of private joke. "'Bout burned the hide off me this summer, spendin' too much time down south. Like to take it easy and all, we do, but-- layin' around on the beach? Dangerous, that." Plus, tunnelsnakes. But she won't go into that. "Crom," repeats Raum, with a thoughtful frown. "That's the mining one, no? Forgive me, I know only a little more of the Reaches than they do--" he nods toward the herd of exiles "--and most of that just gossip. At any rate, I can't say I miss the desert overmuch, and as nice as my island vacation aws, this seems as good a place as any to stay for a bit." Riorde doesn't look entirely sure what Taikrin grin's for - another thing she misses - but she returns it all the same with a tentative smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "Mining?" she echoes, once again clueless, before Raum's further remark has her asking in a more guarded tone, "Staying?" "Sure is," Taikrin breezes, raising her hands and flexing fingers to show off the stereotypical traceries of fine white scars. "Minebred, myself. Done some work there, a'fore coming here and impressing Szadath, 'course. You know," she frowns in consternation at Riorde and her lack of understanding. "Mining. Digging for metals and jewels and coal and firestone? Where else you gonna get that stuff from?" She, at least, accepts the comment about staying at face value-- after all, who wouldn't? Raum shrugs. "The islands aren't for me, girl," he tells Riorde, with a faint little smile. "I don't look good in fishy rags. --They don't. Get that stuff, that is. Everything they have of it, they've had since they found their little islands," is added to Taikrin. "I wouldn't think they'd send a girl to the mines, but you northerns are a different lot." "Right," Riorde says to the explanation, aiming to sound offhand when in fact she's further and further adrift as one reference piles up after another. "No, that's not --" Suddenly frustrated by the way Raum seems to misunderstand her, Riorde turns rather incomprehensible. "It's just, there are people like him," and she waves back towards Azzarion in his tent, "and we can't leave, and I was fixing my hut --" With little energy to spare, she exhausts herself. Having been ostensibly oblivious to the world, asleep off and on for the whole day, Emme finally starts to wake up with a bit of a groan. And, sits up slowly, rubbing at her eyes. Conversation nearby shifts her attention from the lint on her blanket to actual people and the girl just sort of eyes who is talking and listens at first; she's trying not to draw attention to herself, it would seem. "Kick your ass any day of the week," Taikrin offers genially to Raum. "Even after we get you fed up a little." She does, true enough, have that sort of rough-and-tumble look to her. "We ain't gonna make nobody do what they don't want," the brownrider assures Riorde, leaning forward from her perch against the lunch table for emphasis. "That kid wants to go back? More power to 'im. Can't imagine going back to that myself, but. Free's free. Do what you want." This is probably the most genuine expression of her feelings that Taikrin's given all morning. "Welcome to try one day," agrees Raum. He, then, is apparently through with the conversation for the day, because he steps away, heading off to his cot. Riorde looks up sharply, surprise replacing some of her mistrust. "You're not?" It's the first such expression the islander's heard, especially with the amount of rumour floating through the barracks. Some tension eases from her slight frame, and she sees Raum off without a word. It's crowded; she'll see him again. "Well /I/ ain't, anyways," the brownrider amends, quite seriously. "Not like y'all're our prisoners or nothin'. 'Less, of course, you really are convicts after all. Then fair's fair." There's a flurry of activity at the door: a pair of lower cavern's women have appeared, to clear out the remainder of the leftovers and bring in new, bland foodstuffs. This lot doesn't seem quite as happy to see Taikrin lingering about, so she pushes off from the table and gives a one-shouldered shrug. "Can't speak for the Weyrleader, but at least the Weyrwoman's a decent sort. Ain't gonna hold where you came from against you, like. And I ain't gonna see no little girls made to go where they don't want." Boys? Feed 'em all to the sea monsters. Emmeline watches Raum saunter back to his cot, and glances then between Riorde and Taikrin with a it of curiousity. Obviously, this means that she pushes herself up to her feet and winds up close enough for conversation. "What time's it? Either of you know?" She waits until there's a break in conversation to say it, so as not to interrupt. But what little she's heard is enough to have her looking relatively at ease. Although Riorde's suspicions are starting to bleed away from her as she takes Taikrin's words for reassurances one after another, she has to ask, "So how come we can't leave?" Riorde doesn't want to go out, not yet, taking unfamiliarity one step at a time, but she can't help but ask. She watches the women bring in the food but turns away from it, not able to stomach the idea of even bland things to eat. Emmeline gets a smile of sorts but not an answer since she doesn't know. "Not a little girl," Riorde also adds, in case Taikrin needs reminding. "Dunno, I ain't a healer or nothin'. Maybe on account of gettin' sick? Just a simple brownrider, me. I mean, where you gonna go, anyways? Wish /I/ could just sit around in my weyr an' have someone bringin' me food." It's said teasingly, much as she merely smirks at Riorde and her denial. "Reckon it's about lunch time," she adds to Emmeline as the other woman approaches. "And... also reckon I might'a outstayed my welcome." Sure enough, one of the lower caverns women is giving her the evil eye. "My cue to get out of here. Anything y'all could do for? I can send someone in, like." "Thanks." Emme nods at Taikrin for the information and returns Riorde's smile with one of her own. "Lunch." Shudder. She too turns away from the sight of the food for now, but also gives the lower caverns women an odd look for their evil eye at Taikrin. "I don't get it... why would you have outstayed you're welcome? SOmeone wants you here, then.." And Riorde seems comfortable with the woman, so that makes her ok in the harper's books too. "I'm good, thank you. Nice of you to offer." What should be a simple answer takes consideration for someone who's never ventured beyond a handful of islands before. "Don't know - somewhere." She sets down her empty mug behind her. "Company," she responds in her turn to Taikrin, not knowing what else to ask for. "Nice change from knowing everybody." Her chills are taking a turn for the worse, tea notwithstanding, so Riorde mutters indistinctly, "I should..." And gestures without a clear target towards the part of the room her small family's staked out. "Ain't supposed to be down here botherin' you all, really." And Taikrin is only on friendly terms with /some/ of the workers-- clearly this set are not some of them. "Just helpin' out." She pats the rapidily-cooling tea kettle, then backs off towards the entranceway a few steps. "I'll pass it along," she offers helpfully to Riorde. "Don't let me keep you. Enjoy, uh, your lunch." That's less enthusiastic, given /their/ lack of enthusiasm. "See if I can't stop by some, later." And with that, she really /will/ get chased out of the barracks by an irritated woman, scolding her all the while for distressing those poor, poor exiles. And doesn't she know that they're /sick/?! |
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