Logs:Congrats, Sorta
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| RL Date: 15 December, 2011 |
| Who: E'gin, Evali, Riorde, Sa'zl, Taikrin |
| Type: [[Concept:{{{type}}}|{{{type}}}]] |
| What: The weyrlings have graduated and E'gin's going to be a daddy thanks to winning Rielsath's flight. And speaking of flights, Evali's due for one. |
| Where: Snowasis, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 5, Month 7, Turn 27 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Lujayn/Mentions, K'del/Mentions, Iolene/Mentions |
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| It is late in the afternoon at High Reaches, Avalanche ended it's afternoon drills a few minutes ago, and most of the wing went to grab a late lunch. E'gin, however, did not follow. Saddled up in a stool at the bar, the male is the middle of ordering a shot of something or other. He's smiling, beaming even, which perhaps is all the sadder that he celebrating something alone at the counter. Riorde's induction into Glacier hasn't ended with drills and sweeps. It's no surprise that afternoon finds her here, with her new wingmates introducing her to the finer points of certain gambling games that appear to involve a pack of cards and a set of dice. The waitstaff's shorthanded, so when the drinks run out, Riorde volunteers (or is volunteered; fetching for the table the price of being the greenest member) to get the next round and winds up near E'gin. Waiting to order while the bartender deals with someone else, she glances at the younger islander, but that's all the recognition she gives him. "Riorde." E'gin's purposefully trying to keep his tone dry, but happiness skirts around the edges. His glass is set before him, and he fingers it for a moment, twirling the liquid so that is swishes almost over the edges. Suddenly, he turns to look at her, the pulling up of the corners of his mouth uncontainable. "Let me buy you a drink, you don't have to stay here to drink it, I just feel like it is etiquette to buy someone a drink at a time like this. Please?" He turns his gaze back to the bar. For all the signs Riorde gives, she might as well not have heard E'gin speak. She continues facing forward, hands resting on the bar as she waits her turn, but her eyes flickering to the side gives her away. Her response is slow in coming, pitched low and even when it does: "Whoever taught you your bar etiquette left out the part where apparently it's not highly looked upon to drink by yourself." But then she gives a little, nearly dismissive wave that also gestures towards the bartender, now coming towards them. "I won't say no to a drink." If E'gin notices that Riorde ignores him for a while, he doesn't mention it, "Oh, well. I know that, but not much I can do about that." Turning back towards her, "And it isn't really bar etiquette, it is more like celebration etiquette, but I suppose I'm shouldn't really do that alone either..." Reaching into his riding jacket, which is set on the stool next to him, he pulls out payment. With a soft grin to the bartender he waves a hand at Riorde, "Whatever she wants is on me, and make is top shelf." "So why are you?" Even with E'gin buying her a drink -- a good drink at that -- Riorde, standing alongside the other newly promoted rider, doesn't make any pretense at friendship. She stares at the alcohols neatly arranged in the cabinetry behind the bar, trying the patience of the bartender in her inability to decide. "Oh, one of the whiskies," she eventually throws out, playing off her choice as casual when it's really predicated on absolutely no knowledge of top-end liquor. "Surprise me." E'gin waits quietly for Riorde's drink to arrive, despite his offer to allow her to walk way, he's still trying to be polite. Her drink order, he nods, "Good choice," Sliding the marks across the counter, there is a certain sadness behind his grin as he studies Riorde for a moment, "Why am I celebrating?" The grin slides into a full smile, "I'm going to be a father, Ri." Habit makes him slide back into using nicknames, despite their icy relationship at the moment. "Since /when/, you sly dog?" It's not as if Sa'zl actually knows what a 'dog' is, or why one is supposed to be particularly sly, but he's been taught as long as he can remember back that someone who's been particularly lucky with the ladies -- much less facing impending fatherhood -- /is/ one. At any rate, E'gin's patient waiting is repaid -- not in kind, at all, but rather by Sa'zl sneaking up behind him in time to hear that last part and pummel him one on the shoulder. Sa'zl's grin completely fails to make it clear if he's teasing or oblivious. "Alone," Riorde clarifies, sliding it into the space just before E'gin's explanation. Her hand closes on the glass, and she turns half-way to look him in the face -- he has her attention now. "Oh," she says after a minute; it's not the resounding congratulations likely expected. "When did you have time with all your wingleadering to find a girl?" Sa'zl gets a waggle of his eyebrows and a chuckle, "I suppose, it was really mostly Vysravth." This explanation goes to both Sa'zl and Riorde, who has regained his attention, "Lujayn. I don't think you can say 'I found a girl'...so much as Vysravth caught one and now we've had a picnic." Who needs a normal relationship. "Have another?" Not that she's even started the one she has, "To babies?" He lifts his glass toward her, with a nod to Sa'zl. Evali, too, walked in on that -- on hearing E'gin say something about being a father. Did she hear, clearly, who it was? No -- not until Riorde's comment, and then the further conversation definitely clarifies it. Feeling horrifically guilty about the eavesdropping, she actually approaches the table of clutchmates to pipe up, "Congratulations," in a slightly-louder-than-her-normally-soft voice. Is it blatant that she hopes he will persuade Lujayn to let her attend the birth? Clearly. "Is there a seat for me here?" Maybe next to Riorde, instead of the guy who upset Io, or the huge bluerider ... Poor huge blueriders; nobody loves them, until they're trying to hide behind a wall that /isn't/ conveniently portable. Sa'zl's grin doesn't change at all, which either means he /was/ oblivious or he has the best poker-face in all of High Reaches. He also leans waaayyyyyyyy over the bar, murmuring something to the bartender, and -- before /too/ much longer -- has, with that worthy's assistance, produced a fresh wineskin and four glasses (so far, for now). "You're not supposed to drink /whiskey/ in order to congratulate someone," he tells them patiently. "You're supposed to drink sparkling white wine! It's /traditional/." "Oh, that." Riorde's tone is impeccably dry. "To babies," she agrees, but her lack of heartfelt agreement undermines it even as she clinks glasses. She takes a sip of her drink, trying to appreciate the whisky that's been hitherto completely out of her budget -- not to mention that Glacier seems to pride itself in drinking alcohols often harsh and hard -- then makes room for Evali. "Here, I'm not sitting," she says, stepping out of the way so that she can get at the available stool. "Balls for your traditions," Ri then says to Sa'zl with a rough, impatient sort of humor. "Isn't anything traditional about a baby outside of marriage either." "What's all this about a baby?" Look, it's Taikrin, snuck up behind Riorde as if it were no big thing. Those observant might have seen her enter, bee-line it for the Glacier table, then promptly detour over to lurk behind Riorde with a cocky grin. She raises a finger to the bartender when he glances over, then rests hands on her hips as she steps out from behind the other brownrider. "One of you all's got knocked up already?" She slants a look at Riorde that pretty clearly says 'better not be you' before staring at Evali's midsection with some interest. "Of course there is a seat for you, Evali," E'gin is clearly unaware that the 'little tiff' he had with Iolene has gotten out, "Should we drink whatever makes us happy when we celebrate?" Whiskey seems like a good enough idea, as E'gin sips his own, but still he won't say no to more alcohol, especially with the chilly nature of this party. "Sparkling wine? Can't say I've ever tried it." He turns so that his back is towards the bar and he can see those who have gathered, a finger to the barkeep, "This one is on me too," he says nodding toward the recently ordered Taikrin, "Me, well not /me/. I knocked someone else up." "Me, too," Sa'zl solemnly intoned, and then failed to clarify, busily pouring all those glasses full of the sparkly, fizzy white wine. Champagne goes /great/ with whiskey, right? The expressions on Evali's face change fairly rapidly: from first startled at suddenly Taikrin, to uncomfortable as the older brownrider looks at her as if perhaps /she/ is the pregnant one, to giggles as E'gin admits that he is the one who is knocked up. It must be the mental image of E'gin knocked up. But as she settles on her stool, she tries to calm herself down and not break into a total /fit/ of giggles, she speaks up with, "Sparkling wine is actually quite wonderful. Though I do not know if it was white when I tried it before?" Riorde turns rapidly around as Taikrin speaks up behind her, a quick, undisguised smile materializing before she represses what it might reveal, contours changing to one that's slighter though still friendly. She gives Taikrin the wide-eyed look of an innocent 'not-me' before tilting her head towards E'gin. "Elgin -- Lujayn." Then, "They send you over to get the drinks? Sorry-- I got held up." Her whisky lifted again, this time as the excuse. "Oh." That's less interesting, E'gin knocking someone up, and so Taikrin offers only a half-shrug to Evali by way of apology. "Sparkling wine's for little babies," she intones, with all the weight of someone well-versed in the art of drinking, but then relents. "Guess maybe it fits?" There's a momentary distraction as she reaches across Riorde to retrieve her drink as it's deposited at the bar, then a low whistle as she looks from Riorde to Lujayn. "Shards, kid. You work fast." Then, to Riorde, from over her glass of whiskey: "Nah, it's cool, just gettin' mine. Guys're busy fightin' about which is gonna take more of your marks, now you got 'em to spend." E'gin seems to take Taikrin's lack of interest as a compliment, and he lifts his glass in her direction, "Sprkling wine for babies? You guys have some strange baby raising habits around here." Teasing plays in his voice, "Work fast? No. Vysravth does." He explains again, now that more people have arrived. "I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have a kid on the way if except for that meddling brown." He eyes Riorde and then Taikrin and then Riorde again, "Gaw, your wing is so much more exciting than mine." "I always like recommendations," Evali the aspiring alcoholic tells Taikrin with a smooth smile. "If my tastes are not up to your par. The journeyman vintner lets me taste his work a lot -- there are kinds that burn, I enjoy them." And yet she is not a Glacier, and she's quite happy in her wing. "Do you -- want a baby, E'gin?" Evali is trying to adjust to this idea of having a child outside of marriage, and she is forcing herself not to actually comment on it. "Will the two of you need help?" Rather thoughtfully, at about this juncture -- all four glasses have sparkles in them, now, and the bartender might even bring another glass by for Taikrin at some point -- Sa'zl sort of /announces/, to the group at large, "There's nothing /un/-traditional about having babies outside of marriage, if you're specific about which traditions you're honoring, really. I think I turned out okay." Pregnant and all. Riorde meets Taikrin's pronouncement with a show of dismissive bravado, rolled eyes and a snort. She's drinking slowly, nowhere near close to starting on that champagne, either because she's trying to appreciate the fine whisky as she should or, more likely, because she's trying to pace herself for when she goes back to the Glacier table. "You're in /K'del's/ wing," Ri points out to E'gin, as if that says it all. She's curious about his answer to Evali's question and watches the soon-to-be father except for when her glance briefly slides down to the bluerider at the other end. "/You/ think you did," she ribs Sa'zl. Most of the weyrling/exile by-play is lost on Taikrin: she's pretty uninterested in this whole babies and wedlock business. Rather, she takes to schooling Evali. "Pssh, y'can't listen to a vintner, they'll have you drinkin' overpriced watered-down crap. Y'gotta have the good stuff. Whiskey, maybe, or one of the brews some of the guys make. There's a real fine whiskey they get in, from this tiny cothold up north past the Hold-- worth tryin'. Like smoke, you know?" There's a smug grin about how exciting Glacier is, and she nudges Riorde at E'gin's statement, eyebrows raised. "Ain't so bad, Glacier. Teach people all /kinds/ of important things, you know?" Like about whiskey. And not having babies. "Of course I do..." E'gin grins at Evali, "I mean, it was a surprise but it feels..." He pauses to assess his feelings, "It feels good, and I helped raise Aella after our parents passed so it's not like it is entirely, but this is going to be mine, Evali." He pauses to grin wickedly at her, "Besides, if we start breeding with them they'll have to accept us right?" The question is all playful, but he's turning to Riorde with a nod, "Yep. Very structured, so at least I know when my off time will be and stuff. How's Glacier treatin' you?" "Like smoke," Evali echoes, and she looks -- intrigued, pleased, a little bit excited. "I should like to try that. He gave me some that tasted like fire, so it would be nice to have something that tastes like smoke." Unless it was that smoke was something worth trying, but that would never occur to her either. Boldness, likely forced by Yanijath, leads her to ask of Taikrin: "May I try your drink? Just a sip?" Before she returns to the safe champagne a la Sa'zl. Sa'zl grins goofily at Riorde, and shoves a glass of champagne at her. No, really, try it!!! "Yes, yes I do, and I did," he assures her, adding, "and if that's the vintner I think I'm pretty sure he's mostly experimenting with making his wine /more/ concentrated, not less. Watery-er. Not that." A gulp of his oh-so-finely-appreciated sparkles, and he's pointing that grin at E'gin instead. Pregnant men, unite! (Something like that, at least.) Ri keeps half an eye on the conversation going on between Taikrin and Evali, and in an interlude notes, "Think this one's more sweet than smoky. You can try it too, if you like." She puts her tumbler, empty save for a sip, down as she turns back to consider E'gin. "Just because you knock up a goldrider doesn't mean people have got to like you for it." Riorde, bubble-bursting, sounds unimpressed and reaches for the glass that Sa'zl had poured and now holds out to her. The smile that had disappeared resurfaces briefly when Taikrin nudges her, and although she ostensibly answers her fellow graduate, a glance goes to the other Glacier rider when she says, "Yeah, it's not bad." Although the words aren't effusive, a sense of satisfaction carries them. Taikrin shrugs, then holds out her half-full glass for Evali to try. "This ain't the best stuff, but it's okay. Give it two sips, see if you like it, yeah?" The talk of goldriders makes her figdet, her grin slipping sideways a moment before she can recover it. "Reckon she'll prolly just dump the little squirt on a fosterer, yeah? Ain't like she'll have all that time to take care of it, 'specially seein' on how she's a goldrider." More brightly, she offers to Evali, "Anyways, ain't somethin' most of you have to worry about, on account of how much goin' between we do. Takes care of things, or so I hear." Because Taikrin doesn't fraternize with boys, after all! "It was a joke, Riorde. Clearly people don't have to like me, which is why it was..." E'gin waves off the conversation by simply not finishing it, downing the rest of his whiskey, he takes the class of bubbly-wine, "Anyone need anything?" A nod to Riorde's comment receives a nod, he doesn't say it, but the lack of comment a statement that he is happy for her. Still Sa'zl is to the other side, grinning at him. E'gin raises an eyebrow, and then his glass to the man, "This one to alcohol, and getting blitzed tonight." Offering his glass for celebatory clinking. Evali gets a chuckle, but Taikrin's comment gets a half hidden frown. "Maybe, he asked how much I wanted to be involved..." The male has retreats back into his own head for a moment before shaking it and returning to with a grin, "In any event, it is an excuse to get drunk, right?" And suddenly, Evali has drinks to try all around -- which certainly has her satisfied. She takes a tentative sip of Taikrin's, and then a fuller one, before returning it with a conclusive, "It is interesting. I believe it would grow on me, were I to encounter it again." She hesitates, then, to clear her palette more than anything else -- though she has nothing but air and her own mouth to do it with, so it may not be the best cleansing -- before taking an equally slow sip of Riorde's drink and concluding, "I think I like that one, as well," after returning it. As to getting drunk, and excuses thereof? "If you are drinking instead of caring for your child, I will be sure that you suffer," she points out in a cool, even and sociable tone that is of course typical Evali, but what harm could she really do? before continuing, "but as for now? I have only been drunk once before." "I don't think he can really do anything to care for said child /now/," Sa'zl muses, pointing a champagne glass at Evali. Next! "So we can probably give him the benefit of the doubt, and figure he'll do better than that. Although to be fair there are a lot of people who don't, and some of them nobody even thinks anything about it." In the moment that Taikrin mentions the expediency of between, the half-smile Riorde wears is frozen in place-- and then she tries that champagne. "That's what they told us," she remarks along a similar vein, that of hearsay, and with no recognition that she's mixing drinks, finishes the last bit of her whisky. "It's not like how we grew up, Elgin." Riorde, insistent on this point, can't seem to just let it go and let her fellow brownrider bask in his happiness. "She's not going to have the time to raise them -- and you probably won't either." E'gin studies Evali for a moment, considering how to answer but then Sa'zl takes care of him. Men unite, "Yah, already helped with Aella after my parents passed, remember?" There is a soft sigh from the male as he turns to Riorde, but he doesn't say anything. There is a passing look that one some level he knows he deserves it. Turning to the barkeep is waves a hand, exchanges some words about how much he owes for the group, settles up and slides out of his stool. "I appreciate you guys celebrating with me. It's been nice." And with that he strides out of the Snowasis. "Don't need an excuse to get drunk," Taikrin reminds E'gin as she recovers her drink from Evali and polishes it off. "Anyways, you know, I reckon she's just askin' on if you want the kid to know who you are, maybe visit in the nursery. Some of the guys don't want a kid to know, 'specially if they ain't super sure." But then he's leaving, so she only shrugs after him and turns back to the others. "Anyways, babies ain't somethin' we got to worry about, so-- don't. Drinks're better. Poor kid's way over his head, I reckon." "That is what they told us," Evali essentially echoes Riorde, as she sips the offered champagne. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she sounds rather forlorn about it instead of the pleased one might expect. "I will always worry about babies, though. Not -- my own, perhaps. But there is no Thread, so I should hope I may continue delivering until we start to study dragonhealing." More champagne. The relatively green greenrider attempts to drown her sorrows, and it is at least partly a success. "And perhaps I will be lucky and she will not rise." "There are greenriders who have children," Sa'zl murmurs softly, more of an aside than not, to Evali. "They just have to do it on purpose, y'know? Not by accident, the way someone else who doesn't travel so much might." Riorde watches E'gin leave, expression giving in to a guilty regret-- but only when his back is turned, as he walks away. She settles on the stool E'gin's left vacant and turns to repond to Evali. "If that's what you want, no reason why you shouldn't be able to, right? Why'd you want to keep Yanijath from doing what she's meant to do, though? That can't be good for her." Suddenly interested, Taikrin's head snaps back to Evali at that admission. "She ain't, yet? Risen?" There's an echo of Szadath in her expression, somehow, or perhaps more a feeling of the weight of the brown's interest that might only be perceptable to other riders. It takes her a moment to refocus herself, tearing her gaze away with difficulty first to where Riorde was, and then to where she's apparently resettled herself while Taikrin wasn't paying attention. Faux-casual, "Nobody can stop a green - or gold - when she takes it into her head to go up." "I -- no," are all the words that Evali can find, suddenly, and her hand tightens around the champagne glass until her knuckles are white. "I would not /stop/ her. But she has not done so yet, and perhaps she is simply choosing not to? She was born so little, though. Spindly. Always eating. She is still always eating and she has barely ever really grown." Well, she was two feet long when she hatched and is almost twenty now, but to Evali, perhaps ... "I just wondered if maybe she -- would not. She does not talk about it. I worry for her health, but I would also rather not -- go through it." Of course, by now Evali is so pale it's obvious she's embarrassed a bit. It's unlike her, to actually /express/ these kinds of thoughts. "The morning after is usually a lot more embarrassing than the night before," Sa'zl offers, trying to be helpful. "Or day before, if it happens during the day, I mean. /During/, you're not really paying atte-- this isn't helping. Okay. Sorry." He raises the wineskin and his eyebrows, offering a top-up. Ri, angled in a way that gives her a view of Taikrin's expression, concentrates her attention on the other brownrider for a minute, lips pressed together with-- something, and lips skewing to the side. Still with that sort of half-smile, she attends to Evali again. "Don't be ridiculous, Ev. We'll all have to -- you know that." Practical Riorde, in the habit of bursting bubbles tonight. The only ones she isn't deliberately trying to pop are rising in her champagne flute. Which she's started to empty rather fast, and now pushes towards Sa'zl in response to his mute offer. "Has Yggdratth...?" She doesn't have to finish it. "You'll be fine," is Taikrin's rather curt dismissal of Evali's worries. "She'll be fine. She's green, ain't she? Greens always go up." She shudders all over, like a dog shaking water from its fur, then curls up a deliberate smirk for Riorde. "Shells, you'd think the lot of you were bloody virgin weyrlings or somethin', carryin' on like you are. Drink your drink, an' fret about somethin' else, yeah? Like maybe how y'all're drinkin' girly drinks with all those bubbles. How 'bout somethin' with a little bite?" Just like that, she steps deftly upto the bar again, nudging herself right up against Riorde's stool while she waves a hand to get the bartender's attention. "I think it has something to do with proportions," is Sa'zl's maybe-maybe-not vague and somewhat sideways answer, which is to say: yes. Yggdratth is that cool. And Sa'zl, having grown up in this weyr, is calm enough to reach over the bar -- his arm, after all, is long enough that he /can/ -- and then there's a glass mostly full of beer, and a bottle of more-or-less-quality whiskey, and then a glass that's full of mostly-beer, which gets handed off to Taikrin before the bartender's even worked his way back down to this end. "I hope," is all Evali really manages to say in response before Sa'zl has spoken, and she's stuck trying to twist her head around what he just said. "Was that actually the answer to the question?" she asks aloud, to everyone and no one in particular. It may be rhetorical; it may just be what happens when you ask Sa'zl a question. Speaking up to affirm that while not a weyrling, she /is/ a virgin, thank you very much, at least dawns on Evali as a bad idea. "Whatever." With little patience for vagueness, Riorde more or less dismisses Sa'zl and his lack of an answer. "/I/ don't care," she tells Taikrin, another sort of lofty dismissal, an effort to remove herself from the brownrider's field of criticism. "Sforzath doesn't really care, either." With an eye on Sa'zl's maneuverings, she remarks, "Guess you're paying." It won't stop her from taking what's been set out. She leans to one side so she can see Evali around Taikrin, who's now in the line of sight, and moderates her tone to something kinder in a quick attempt to reassure. "It'll be fun." Taikrin has never yet refused free booze, because that's definitely what this is: free booze. She takes the bottle of whiskey, nevermind that he might be trying to give her the mostly-beer, and takes a pull straight from the bottle. "Sforzath don't care /yet/," Taikrin drawls, her smile turning wicked as she watches Riorde from the corner of her gaze. "Reckon he's just a slow grower, though, ain't done maturing maybe. Kind of a late-bloomer?" Certainly, it's free booze -- or else, as far as Evali can tell, are they even meant to be paying? "Yanijath seems displeased by the idea Sforzath would not care," she passes along, for lo, Yanijath would complain all night if she did not. "This conversation may be encouraging her. We will see, I suppose. I will learn, if we do enter the craft. As for fun ..." She has no idea what to make of it. "No," Sa'zl said patiently, and attempted to trade the shocked beer for the bottle of whiskey, by uttering the magic words: "I'm not paying for the full bottle, so if you're keeping that it's on /your/ tab, Taikrin, not on mine! You should try it like this, though, it's fuzzy /and/ whiskey. Cheaper and drunker that way." No dragons or riders found. "He's not slow. He went after Rielsath." Acting over-sensitive, Riorde reminds Taikrin of the fact a second before the realization catches up to her that she'd rather not bring that up, and she quickly glances away. "He's just not that interested, for now -- but maybe he will be when it's Yanijath's turn?" The turn into a question gives Riorde's response an appeasing quality as she shoots Evali a grin. "They've always gotten along." "Y'can't mix 'em like that," Taikrin dismisses out of hand, even while she holds the bottle tighter to her chest. "Ain't right. And anyways, I reckon our good buddy already saw you lift it, so it's on your head." The indicated bartender has, in fact, glanced down that way-- though he doesn't seem altogether concerned. To hide her discomfiture when Riorde brings up Rielsath's flight, she merely concedes the point with a shrug. "Maybe. Sometimes they just-- don't, for a while. It's perfectly okay, too." Is that a little defensiveness? Might be, at least before she drowns it in whiskey again. "Don't matter." It's something of a running joke, at this point: for one reason or another, Szadath hasn't been up after a female since the last time Iskiveth went up. Evali is unable to resist the urge to return the smile, even despite her terror of the entire flight issue -- at least she /trusts/ Riorde! "Yes," she agrees, twirling her hair awkwardly around her finger and then finishing off her champagne. "She would, I am sure, like it if he were. She is also now whining about wanting to be oiled, so I should probably --" Her expression as she stands, leaving drinks and pleasant company behind for the evening, is lined with regret. Finally learning to socialize as the dragon wants, and now she is demanding. Sa'zl just rolls his eyes, then, at Taikrin. "Your loss," he decides, and wanders out -- making sure to clarify with the bartender, on the way, just whose tab that bottle should find itself on. (E'gin's, maybe?) Theoretically speaking, the boilermaker will end up finding its way off to Evali eventually, if there's a time when she only needs one hand for the oiling for a little while. She, at least, has always seemed open to trying new drinks! "See you soon, Ev -- don't be a stranger just cause you're in a different wing now, yeah?" The comment necessarily, perfunctorily extends to Sa'zl, though Riorde doesn't show nearly the same sort of affection for her non-exile clutchmate. Once they've gone, Riorde can turn rather smugly to Taikrin to say, "Hear that? She wants him to chase." "Yeah, whatever, weyrling greens go for what they know, 'cause they don't know much." Taikrin's got a half-smile, to take some of the bite out of her words, but they're still pretty sharp. "What she wants now don't necessarily mean nothin' about what she might want when she goes up. Seen it happen plenty of times." There's that feeling of Szadath again, heavy and aggressive. "Anyways, it's fine." And with another heroic effort, she turns back to Riorde - close, very close - and smiles. "Anyways, flights're flights. Just a matter of life. Now we've run all the weyrlings off-- happy with what you got?" Riorde's own smile falters from the tone Taikrin takes, only to be replaced in a surer, cockier version. "Yeah, well, we'll see." She, or Sforzath through her, plays it cool. Without intending it as a move to shift away, Riorde puts her elbows on the bar and leans forward into a casual lounge. "You mean Glacier? Yeah. Course." Short and direct, without explanation, Riorde speaks in a definitive affirmation with intent attention settled on Taikrin, free to do so with the others' departure. While Riorde's attention is on her, Taikrin's drifts back to the bottle she's got her hand wrapped so tightly around. "Glad. Told you, they were pretty impressed with you." She leans back against the bar, glancing at Riorde only in short looks. "Been okay? Been busy, me, but I meant to, you know. Ask." "Yeah. Been fine." The two short phrases aren't much of an answer, small-talk -- or talking around other things -- taking over in the absence of the others. The shift in Riorde's expression could be disappointment, but her tone is even as she slides off her stool, signals the bartender, and says, "Anyway, I was sent over for drinks, so suppose I better get them." "Ehhh, reckon they grabbed someone else to do it, by now. We ain't well-known for waitin'. 'Specially when there's drinks involved. But," she relents, glancing sideways at Riorde, "More rounds're always welcome. I'll help you carry?" Taikrin is still subtly uncomfortable, and the overbearing presence of Szadath hasn't much softened; the distraction of things to carry is siezed on eagerly. "You playin' rounds today, or just betting?" "Sure," Riorde accepts, placing the order, and then it's just a matter of explaining the game as she left it and confessing the points she hasn't grasped: conversation without demands until they've rejoined the wing. } |
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