Logs:Hung in the Basement (Not Literally)
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| RL Date: 24 May, 2011 |
| Who: Leova |
| Type: [[Concept:{{{type}}}|{{{type}}}]] |
| What: Vrianth saw Riuscyth's rider's signet. Leova recognized it as River Bend's. Later, the pair go off to get a better look at the Hold and just... see what there is to be seen. Leova sees a nervous girl and portraits in the basement. Vrianth sees (slightly foggy) sunshine. Vrianth wins. Poor Leova. Now what? (GM'd by V'teri) |
| Where: River Bend Hold |
| When: Day {{{day}}}, Month {{{month}}}, Turn {{{turn}}} ({{{IP}}} {{{IP2}}}) |
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| Mid-morning finds the autumnal fog just dissipating, the remnants lingering in a thin grey covering about the turrets of this built structure. People, who from the labor that creases their foreheads, have likely been working from very early on in the day dot the landscape, plowing empty fields while others gather from still-untouched ones the fall's bounty. It's a quiet day, where avians might chirp and the random firelizard might zip in and out of existence and the banners above the hold lie still. The main hold's giant ironwrought doors have been thrown open to a mini-market where Blood and non-Blood alike mingle and bargain. Sweeps may not be flown as often as in the days of old, but how unusual can it be to see a dragon overhead? This one /betweens/ in from quite high up and floats in a shallow spiral downward, above the fog, minute adjustments to her long dark-sparred wings holding her aloft in that still air. And then it's through the fog, landing on the fireheights rather than the central courtyard, without bothering to warn firelizards of her approach. They should /know/. Vrianth does take it easier on her rider, at least. Leova, her hair neatly pinned back beneath a cap and wearing one of her better sets of leathers, dismounts without draconic fanfare. Not that there isn't payment: in exchange, the greenrider has to crane a look courtyard-ward, at something her green's longsight has spotted. Something leaflike. Something... hard to tell more, without bright-eyed Vrianth /sharing/ more. Leova takes a deeper breath, then, and heads for the stairs, one hand strangling a mail-sack by its neck. A few eyes look up, a few heads turn. The sight of a dragonrider, even now, even these turns after the actual Pass and mere minutes in the scheme of things since the Comet Pass bring a sight of relief to some worn faces, as if the entire hold is taking a deep inhalation and exhaling it all at the same time. Dragons and their riders are welcome here, as shortly Leova might find out. While no one mans the fireheights during reaping season, down the stairs will find people, men and women alike, sparing the greenrider some sort of acknowledgement. The children, on the other hand, are more overt in their curiosity, some too shy to do anything but stare while others approach cautiously, with a little smile and extended hand as if to touch Leova - on the leg, on the knee, at her waistband. There's a draft in the main hold even though wind is conspicuously absent outside and it makes the inner chambers drafty. That relief must relieve Vrianth in its turn, as though that long exhalation could ripple along her eyeridges and headknobs and the sensitive folds of her wings, until even her tail's in a gentler curl. She stays at the fireheights' edge, where she can be seen, and if it also means she can soak up what sunlight there is, so much the better. Now and again, her slower-whirling eyes spark that much more in that light, something Leova takes down with her. Down those steps. Down into the hold. It's likely a good thing she does branch into the hold rather than heading directly for the courtyard, because if there are these people /here/, these people who want to /touch/, these people for whom she must find an answering smile while still trying to keep her distance... there must be even more down below. The mail bag swings. She's on a... mission. A yes-we-appreciate-you-back-but-don't-touch mission. Even if she's something of a tourist during it: taking detours now and again rather than heading straight for where the headwoman's office might be known to be, glancing at tapestries, looking for paintings. Slowly. Like she's just taking it all in. The fireheights have led onto the third floor of the hold proper. The bolder children are pulled away by knowing adults, their stretched fingertips failing in their goal. One might think there's a running bet going on, some sort of competition for as Leova passes, there are child-like giggles. A harper class must have just ended; or... Or children are that much quicker on their feet without responsibilities to scurry after to play 'Find the Dragonrider.' The hold is currently lit only by the long, narrow windows that reach from ceiling to floor that bracket the long hallways. It floods the morning misted light past the drawn blue and tan patterned drapes through the main throughways, but doesn't extend into the nooks and crannies, those shadowy trespasses where glows are never lit. Two baskets are hooked just outside these inner hallway entrances and it could be assessed that this hold is built in almonst maze-like layers - without the maze/getting lost part - and the headwoman's office must be somewhere near the inner sanctum. But for now, these outer layers offer tapestries in the color of the major hold. Tag, she's it? Or maybe, just how much pestering can they do /before/ they're pulled away, or before she runs? Or maybe it's somehow like luck, like that little statue on her clutchmate's ledge. Find the Dragonrider. See the Dragonrider. See the Dragonrider Roam. It's once the children are distracted /from/ her instead of /by/ her that Leova slows of her own accord, her own appreciation rather than just a goal. It's those windows, like those from /her/ ledge, if more long than oblong. That light. The quieter places that, now and again, she noses into as Vrianth might... but not as drastically, nor does she linger, then. Part of it is, though she must have visited here before, getting a better sense of the place, a better smell of the place. Is it musty, even out here? Or well-kept? And those tapestries, do any of them have portraits, or are they color alone? What are the sounds like? It can't be conscious through and through, the way she's drinking it in, taking a long detour but one that still must eventually reach that office, that near-sanctum. If she doesn't get lost along the way. It's quiet up on the third floor, in these hallways where many people never really go up to except along the outskirts. It's well-cared for, dusted and funny enough, as the thought arises, so too does a maid pass by with her feather duster and a belt with rags and odd little spray bottles hooked. Does it smell? Like damp moss growing along the rocky shores of a river, somehow clean and yet stale at the same time. Surely, that maid isn't earning her keep. As for the tapestries, they're patterned, a closer inspection of which showing overlapping imagery of High Reaches Hold's badge intertwined with that of River Bend Hold, both decorative and an indication of the closest of ties that this particular minor hold has had with its major hold - just now? Or also in the past? Or only in the past? That maid returns, her step as slow as the greenriders, both curiosity and purpose fueling her retrace: "Ma'am, might I help you? Are you lost?" There's a timidity about her now that she speaks, spreading from the mousy voice to the way her eyes shift furtively. Perhaps, fear. Amber eyes take in the maid the first time, her coming and her coming, tracking her without complete attentiveness: it's easy to go overlooked, sometimes, if you're a maid. Sometimes it's safer that way. Sometimes that's true for greenriders too, even if it isn't now, not here. When the maid returns, when she actually greets the greenrider, she's greeted with a glance over her shoulder that becomes a longer look. Quiet. And then a bit of an upturned smile, skewed a bit, like the rusty-haired woman maybe has some uncertainty to her too. "Perhaps. I don't know." And then, "Hello." And: "/Would/ you? Help me." Gently. "If I wouldn't be keeping you. Too much." Perhaps she has a mistress who, however kind to greenriders, might treat her less kindly if she tarried. Or perhaps she just doesn't want to. There's a hesitancy in the young girl's eyes, she can't be a day over fifteen turns, and those grey eyes of her shift furtively again, cast up and down along the floor of the corridor they're in before looking back to Leova, but only for a moment. Those eyes, they cast down again. "I- I s'ppose. I...," seemingly tongue-tied for a moment, the young girl's hand clenches about that feather duster. "What might I help you with, miss? I- I could try at least." Another glance takes in the hallway and the girl leans in quickly, sharing in a raspy voice before her courage fails her, "The young master don't like strangers roamin' his floor." Dealing with that, it's something Leova can do: with weyrlings, with the (forcibly forgotten) runners, with young people who aren't related to her. And who aren't touching her. Such a purpose lets the uncertainty fade into... calm. It lets her be quiet. Unhurried. The maid could take all the time she likes. "Wouldn't want to disturb the young master," she agrees. "Only if one of my messages is for him," and she holds the bag a little higher, not too tightly: see, she's official-like. Like she should be here. "Just remembered something a friend-of-a-friend said. The... portraits? of the family? they aren't to be missed. Real nice, like. Don't even know whether they're around here, or somewhere else." Leova's bag stops the young girl short and her cheeks flush crimson. "I'm so sorry, miss. I-... I didn't see." One could suspect that she's gotten in trouble before for allowing strangers to roam these quieter corridors. "His chambers are down the third hallway, a left." But that's not what Leova was asking for and when what the greenrider asks for actually sinks in, the girl's big grey eyes round in curiosity. "Oh, them pictures? They're all hung in the holder's study, his ah-, mm, library." The word takes some time in forming, her tongue slipping about the odd combination of vowels and consonants tha she so rarely uses herself. "Th'older ones are down in the cellars, but the last ten or so holders'n their wives are hung down there. They're not very lifelike," asserts the girl, boldness once again rearing its head if for a brief moment and her hand suddenly claps over her lips. She shouldn't've said that. For the maid's distress, Leova even manages a soothing noise or two, though Madilla isn't going to hire her on anytime soon. She glances down the mentioned hallway... and then turns her shoulder to it, a gesture designed to seem casual rather than pointed: see, she isn't going to storm the halls. "Aren't they?" Laughter lights her eyes, but even then she keeps it mild. "Do they make everyone look lov... even lovelier than they are? Maybe I should ask the headwoman about the cellars instead. Wouldn't want to bother, hm? and if the quality's the same..." Her eyes scrunch closed and she must be mentally hitting herself, but the girl can't seem to help her nod and the apologetic, "The young master looks more pig-like than in his portrait. But-, he ain't even the master yet so..." But she won't begrudge the boy his portrait, even if she might not think it looks particularly real. "I like looking at the old masters," opines the girl, finding her voice again even as Leova attempts to sooth her. "Wonderin' what happened to them and how they lived. Gramma always told me there were older masters'n the master and his pa. Different ones. She said she was wet-nursed with one of the girls." Here, the young maid's voice gentles, as if petting the fancies of an aging lunatic. "But if the family's paying for it, they get what they want," Leova supposes. "Old masters, hm? Different... not sure what you mean by different," and though there's friendly interest there, a large part of it is just encouraging the girl to keep talking, casual-like, start up an easy amble toward those areas where nobody should be in trouble for lingering there. After all, just now she's just... sifting. Seeing what maybe there might be to be seen. And delivering mail besides. "Different," says the maid in turn, as if it were obvious, "The master's pa wasn't the old master's relation." Startled that someone might not know this, the girl is late in noticing Leova's started moving, and reflexively, from turns of following after those ranked higher than her, follows. "Gramma never knew what happened to 'em. Maybe the holder moved them to another hold to hold for him." What those high falutin' politicians do never make sense to people like the maid anyway. "She said the daughter was a pretty thing, but I says to her she wouldn't know if she were pretty or not cause they were only wet-nursed together. Not like they got taught by the same harpers later." "Ahh. Think I follow you," Leova says, though the maid's the one literally following /her/. Gramma: her mouth curves with the girl's saying of it, warm, heedless at first until what the girl's saying of the /rest/ catches up with her. Vrianth shifts, folding back her wings. Vrianth's rider laughs in the right place, a muted chuckle that goes with, "Story's better when she's pretty, I reckon. Well." More stairs. She pauses, looks more directly at the girl for the first time, like she'd memorize her face. For a /good/ cause. "Thanks for your help, getting me un-lost and all. What's your name? I'm Leova, Vrianth's, if you ever need to send word up to the Weyr. Think I can find the headwoman from here, maybe visit the market before seeing if she'll let me get an eyeful of those old weaver-works." When Leova comes to a stop, so too does the girl, looking down along the stairs, that slender neck of hers craning to make sure she won't get in any trouble. But to all the greenrider says, she nods and then nods some more. "I never have reason to go to the Weyr," is what she does say though, affirmations aside, "But I'll try to remember. I remember pretty good. Most of the time." But she can't answer any more of the dragonrider's questions, when dark brown highly coiffed hair becomes visible at the base of the stairs and with a little yelp, apology (but fear also) blatant in her eyes, she scurries away to do her dusting and cleaning -- possibly to get the damp moss smell out of the air for the young, pig-like master. And on their way home, after her deliveries, her viewings, and her purchases... Leova has her sack weighted again, with homemade jams and jellies this time, and her thoughts weighted altogether differently. Resemblances. If she isn't just imagining. Vrianth sees through her, remembers through her. They take the long way home. |
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