Logs:Hides of the Past
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| RL Date: 11 April, 2011 |
| Who: V'teri, Milani |
| Type: [[Concept:{{{type}}}|{{{type}}}]] |
| What: V'teri winkles a favor out of Milani. Dimples and big innocent eyes are very effective. |
| Where: Garden Patio Ledge, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day {{{day}}}, Month {{{month}}}, Turn {{{turn}}} ({{{IP}}} {{{IP2}}}) |
| Weather: The weather today is very pleasant. A few clouds chase each other across the mostly clear skies, and a soft breeze picks up in the afternoon to make for a fine day. |
| Mentions: R'hin/Mentions |
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| Pretty day it's been, still is as sunset approaches and ruddy light starts to reflect off of the spires, Rukbat caught between two 'fingers' of rock. Milani sits perched on one of the benches on the patio, legs folded beneath herself, with a folder resting in her lap and a seemingly long-forgotten glass of iced tea slowly turning to flavored water on the benche's arm beside her. A much abused pencil bearing teeth marks on one end is twirled absently between her fingers as she reads through the contents of the folder and now and then hums snatches of a popular tune, slightly off-key. Other patrons of the Snowasis sit around the patio, though it's not what anyone would call busy. The sound of voices inside though speaks of a brisk custom already getting started. Not far away, V'teri sits, his lifted boot heels balanced precariously along the edge of one of those rustic tables. His legs roll precariously back and forth, side-to-side, even as he pushes his luck by tipping his chair onto its back two legs, but none of these movements seem to be helping him make much progress at the hides he looks to. While other such hard-working patrons pass their time with a popular, if off-key, tune, the new transfer instead just grunts. His chair falls with a thud of wood against stone and a grimace claims his angular face and in disgust, he tosses the hide aside to observe instead. His, "Oy," is a second later as he spots someone more studious than him, "Oy. You any good with numbers?" He'll even punctuate his rude interruption with a lopsided, half-hopeful, half-playful smile. The thud of V'teri's chair earns a brief glance, but given he didn't fall right on his behind, Milani looks back down at her own lapful of work. The 'oys' though lift her head and his question earns a laugh. "Numbers, yes," and one of her own hides is lifted and displayed: columns of figures. Yay, math. "Why? Are you stuck on something?" Long legs unfold and Milani gets to her feet, leaving her much diluted tea behind. The pencil and the folder come along with to V'teri's spot, her hand held out, then withdrawn as she tucks the pencil up over her ear. Take two, hand to shake. "I'm Milani. You must be the new bronzerider who transferred in." There's the slightest deepening of his grimace at the mention of new but he does nod. "New to the Weyr yeah. Um, V'teri. Most people call me Van, except Riu. And he hates it when I call him that." V'teri retrieves his own offensive hide, the one that forces him to grunt and abuse chairs and waves it at Milani. "Look here. I'm looking for something in all this jumble of numbers and when he told me it was a little notation-," his rambling continues without a pause, as if he expects Milani to just follow along with his explanation without back story, "-I didn't think he really meant just one little notation and I can't make hide nor hair of what the shells any of these tithing things mean. You," he favors the strawberry-blonde who may just be his new hero with a cajoling look, "Look smart." As opposed to how not smart he feels (and likely looks at this point). "Van," Milani echoes, "nice to meet you. And welcome to the Reaches," she adds on with a sunny smile that melts into laughter at that chain of explanation. "A tiny little notation on tithes. Should I ask who 'he' is, or is that best left alone? As for tithes, /that/ is something I can definitely help with, smart or not," she folds down into the other chair at his table and taps its surface, her own folder set aside. "Let me have a look? But you'll need to tell me a bit more about what you're looking for." "Oh," his free hand rifles absently through his hair, pushing back the waves, before waving absently at Milani, "My mentor at Monaco. Used to live here at the Reaches. R'hin? Maybe you knew him. Told some fantastic stories about High Reaches that sounded more like the kinda bedtime stories you tell kids. I mean, we heard all about Crom and stuff but it's-," V'teri lifts his face away from the hide he's again tried to decipher on his stubborn own, and considers Milani a long beat, "It's different when someone who was there tells you what happened." A bemused sigh exhales, a self-mocking sort of sound for his entrancement with children's tales, and then he slides the sheet over. It's a typical sort of tithing sheet from around the time of Crom and the Comet Pass from High Reaches Hold. "Don't understand any of it. Never did learn maths myself." "Of course, he was the Weyrleader here, for a while," Milani says with a little smile. "I didn't know him well personally, though." The word 'Crom' earns a slight grimace at the first mention. "Those were ... some pretty hard times," Millie replies slowly and sighs, chin propped up on her hand and she looks down at the hide in question. "Boy doesn't this ever look familiar," she adds wryly and points to the columns each in turn. "What came in, where it came from, what was expected, the difference between the two, if any and where it went into stores." V'teri blinks a bit and then chuckles, the amused sound turning swiftly into an outright laughter. "Right. Right. I keep forgetting someone made him Weyrleader." Never mind that Weyrleaderships are a thing mostly of chance. "It's," he tips his head to Milani with a grin that only barely suppresses more of that impish laughter, "Hard for me to remember that. He's not much one to talk about being Weyrleader and I don't know that he really acts like what I'd expect a We-," pause. "Actually, never mind. I don't know much what Weyrleaders are like." For now, Milani's explanation flies over his head as he's still stuck on this re-recalled information of R'hin's origins. "Huh? Hmm?" His blinking eyes suddenly clear of amusement and instead take on a plaintive, 'run that by me again in dummy terms?' look. "No, he didn't," Milani answers, quite directly, "act much how most would expect a Weyrleader to, traditionally speaking. But he managed some really tricky situations well enough." She offers a little grin V'teri's way, clearly unbothered by his manner. The plaintive look though, earns laughter and she goes over it again, this time more slowly and with a bit more detail. "So everything that comes in on tithes is tracked. There's agreements in place about how much the holders are supposed to deliver. So as the wagons bring the actual stuff to the Weyr, it gets catalogued and if there's a difference between how much was agreed to and why, that's noted down so that it can be looked into." Retraining his thoughts to try and focus on what Milani says, V'teri follows her fingers pointing things out and, well hopefully, listens to her explanations. "But how do you know what gets used? Is that in a whole other document? Like, how do you tie what's being used to what was brought in?" is all he finally asks, his own finger falling first to grace the top of hers and then continuing down along the line even as his lips mouth out the tithe and its following numbers silently. "Like this roll of lamb wool. How do you know how it got purposed? Who can keep track of all this stuff?" Utter bafflement. "Oh yes, what actually gets /used/ is a whole other set of tallies. There's lots of ledgers and counts to keep track of everything," Milani says with a couple of very emphatic nods. "Someone would be keeping track of all the requests that came in for wool and marking off how much was passed out. That kind of supply isn't left in general 'please take me' kind of storage," Milani explains further. "That's why the headwoman has a whole bunch of staff to keep track of those things. The headwoman, her assistants, storeskeepers, recordkeepers and it all gets reported up to the Weyrwoman and the juniors." V'teri's eyes look like they might be crossing as he brain attempts to parse through what Milani says. Aloud, he starts disentangling his thoughts: "So if 50 pounds of wool come in on the tithe train it gets put into a room that the Headwoman keeps track of. But when let's say I go in and ask for wool, no one knows if I'm getting wool tithed from High Reaches Hold or Tillek, if Tillek tithed wool in the first place. After this ledger, no one cares?" A lilt of an inquiry lifts as his hopeful, but still slightly confused face also trains back up to Milani. "That depends on the material," Milani provides helpfully, shifting a bit in her seat. "For some things, no, it's all sort of put together. For other things, it's kept track of like you just described so that you know whether or not you're drinking the Tillek wine or not, for example." She grins at him again and taps the sheet with two fingers. "Do you want a list of all the things that are kept track of that closely?" "Oh," exhales the poor puzzled man, "I couldn't trouble you further. I don't know how I'll even begin to repay you for this speed lesson in tithing." V'teri's grimace emerges again, his nose crinkling with it and he sighs a heavy little sound as he leans back in his chair once more. "I was right. You /are/ smart. Talking to you, I think I almost got it, but I bet the moment I walk away, I won't be able to figure much of it out again. Maybe... maybe," he reaches to possibly tap Milani on the nose in unrepentant hope and humor, "You could look for something for me instead? It'll only take you a very little while and me a very long while." "You don't have to repay me at all," Milani says generously. "I mean, this was my thing for turns," she adds with a slight note of wistfulness in her tone. "Assistant headwoman, then headwoman," she explains and waves that aside with another one of her bright smiles though her eyes cross a bit in response to that fingertap to her nose and her head draws back a little. "What are you looking for?" she asks with a little tilt of her head to the side. His favor can wait. V'teri's curiosity is piqued by the wistfulness, and then the succession of her titles she shares with him. "And you... aren't Headwoman any longer?" No, she isn't, as the sudden recollection of aforementioned woman suddenly draws a furrowed brow above a gaze that is a mix of recollection and sudden, instant apology. Woops. "Do," the sandy-haired man hesitates on his next but then forges on, "You wish you still were? Aren't you awfully young to have been a Headwoman? Let alone retired?" One question leads to another thought, which then leads to another question, and tonight is just not the night for V'teri's puzzlement lobe of the brain. "You can't be over thirty!" Cause of course over thirty is the age women retire and calling any woman not over thirty is /such/ a compliment. "I miss the job sometimes," Milani says with a nod. "But I like what I'm doing now too and it lets me have more time with my kids. Mostly I just wish that some things hadn't turned out the way they did. Don't you?" Pause. "I mean, have regrets about some things." Another pause and a breath caught. "No, I'm not thirty yet. Got three and a half more turns to go!" Three fingers are brandished in the air and dropped back to the table's surface. "I started young. Helps to've grown up here running around the caverns. Are you from Monaco originally? Weyrbred? Or someplace else?" For someone who can't do math, age math doesn't seem to be too hard for him as his expression clears. Well, not too hard, if the fingers that counter along the table are ignored. "Ah, you're almost my age," V'teri states, pleased. "You really didn't look anywhere near thirty, but Headwomen are usually.... old?" This time, his pause isn't even half a breath before he continues, as if his words are being chased by the foot that seeks his mouth. "And aye, regrets. I was never really close to my da, he's from th'Hold, and then he passed away." The even, typically cheerful, voice falters here a moment. "I always thought he was a pig farming nutter, but things change." Death changes things apparently. "Thanks," Milani answers maybe teasing a compliment of some kind out of the foot-in-mouth disease. "Sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't, it depends on who's got the experience and might make the best fit." She pauses there and laughs again, one hand smooshing up the side of her cheek. "Or you know, either convincing the Weyrwoman or having some connections that get you ahead." 'Pig farming nutter' earns another laugh and Millie reaches out, aiming a light pat of fingers toward the top of V'teri's hand. "They do. Time passes by quickly and then it's just gone." Pause. "I'm sorry you didn't get that chance. Have you gone back to the hold? Sometimes ... you can learn things about people from just ... going to places they were or that they loved." "I," but whatever V'teri means to say gets swallowed up by the sudden clamp down of his lips. Instead of whatever that might have been in response to, he returns, "I went home for the funeral and picked up a few belongings he had bequeathed me." His single dimple appears in the wry smile that claims his, now not-being-chased-by-his-foot, mouth. "What does a pig farmer really have to be able to bequeath, eh? His farm got passed on to my uncle's youngest. None of us, my sisters and brothers and me, can really go back to take that up." The leaned back chair drops once more, and his hands shove into his pockets, one hand looking suspiciously like it might be playing with something in the depths. Or something more naughty, but unless pig farmer's sons grow parts in the wrong places, that's highly unlikely. Oh well, says another sigh and another, very slightly pained smile. "About that favor?" "Pigs?" Milani hazards a guess, maybe aiming to joke just a little. "No, but you can visit. If it ... feels right." She smiles again and very politely doesn't ask him what he's got in his pocketses that he's playing with. About that favor. "Yes. What're you looking for?" "Can you look through the records for the 191st and 192nd turns of the last Interval?" Specifics suddenly fly from V'teri's mouth, his light eyes latched thoughtfully onto Milani. He watches her without trying to seem like he's watching her in that way where he hopes there might be a reaction, but isn't sure there even should be. "I just want to see how much was tithed and how much was expended." A charming smile accompanies the last, full of wheedling, like a child's for the last cookie in the jar. "And I probably shouldn't. Visit that is. Riu scares the pigs and he always wants to eat most of them." If anything, Milani looks puzzled by those specific dates and her brows knit together, like she's trying to pin down why those dates would be important. "I can look through what I have access to," she offers. "What's so interesting about those specific turns?" Millie inquires next. For his last though, she nods. "Sure, if you land too close. There must be a lot of mud around a pig farm too," she muses thoughtfully, seemingly momentarily distracted by the idea. Not that Milani's ever met Riuscyth, but V'teri seems to assume she must have when he tips his head forward and cocks a brow upwards: Really? Really? You expect Riu to sit in mud? Such expressive little eyebrows. But she might miss his wordless return with the puzzlement over dates or her distraction with the idea of muds and dragons. Taking her preoccupation as a good sign to be breezy, V'teri shrugs and leans back in his chair again. "Was just curious. R'hin mentioned something that seemed... off and I just wanted to look into it," is all he's able to say, and by able, it sounds as if he isn't really capable of explaining more than that. Pretty boys might not always have brains. Re-focusing on the immediate favor asked, Milani nods. "Sure, I'll see what I can find," is her easygoing reply. Though his cocked brow earns a tilt of her head and a bemused expression. "What?" "Nothing. Nothing really," V'teri grins back a show of innocence, but more importantly, gratitude. "I'd really appreciate that. You taking your time out to do this for a perfect stranger. Maybe I can bring back a suckling pig for you some day." Cause bronzeriders are apparently otherwise destitute in the gift-giving department. "They make great playmates for kids up until they're ready to be eaten." So matter-of-fact that. "It's not a big deal," Milani disclaims with a shake of her head then she starts laughing again. "That's okay, I don't think I'm ready to set up my kids with a pet pig. But how about you buy me a drink sometime?" she counters, winning smile of her own on display. "It's a deal," returns V'teri, his nod and equally affable smile sufficing in lieu of a shake. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Riuscyth is so repulsed by the idea of rolling in mud that I am apparently required to give him a bath. By your leave?" The latter more a formality than not as he's already getting to his feet, hand reached out for the copy of the tithe sheets he's given her. Milani gives the tithe sheet a little nudge in V'teri's direction so that it might meet his fingers as he reaches for it. "Of course," she answers with a smile. "I hope he enjoys the bath. I'll see you around, V'teri." So saying, Milani retrieves her own paperwork and retreats back to her bench, eyes her very very very pale tea and picks up the glass to head indoors for either a fresh drink or simply to get rid of the original. One hand is still in his pocket, his fingers rolling over some small object in there, while the other retrieves his hide. Looking much relieved, under that thin veneer of dragon-induced despondency, V'teri takes long strides to the stairs and down into the bowl where a dark, awkwardly shaped bronze awaits impatiently. "And she was cute too," is the plaintive complaint spared the dragon, who merely chuffs in disdain. If it doesn't have four limbs, isn't bigger than him, and doesn't shine prettily, he's just not that interested. "G'wan with you." And off they go to bathe. |
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