Logs:Relative
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| RL Date: 18 March, 2013 |
| Who: Jo, Alida |
| Type: Log |
| What: Jo checks up on the guard-turned-weyrling, Alida. The two talk a bit about their origins. |
| Where: Living Cavern, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 10, Month 4, Turn 31 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Mave/Mentions |
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| For once, Alida's not taking dinner in the Barracks, or later than usual...given Ilicaeth's horrid and seeming perpetual itchiness. *This* evening, the pale-blonde weyrling is pacing into the cavern amidst its hustle and bustle to serve herself up a nice helping of food...and *freedom*. Her heavy outer-wear hung on a peg near the entrance to the 'Cavern, the ex-guard steps in smart fashion towards the serving area, grabs her tray and utensils, and gets into line. Good thing she's kinda early for once, too, given how more and more folk are trailing her with the same intention. Jo's usually not seem in the living cavern much, so this is likely one of those rare times. Or, she's on a mission. It must be more of the latter than the former since once she steps away from the food table with drink and a piled tray, she's not one of those hovering around trying to decide where to sit. Not finding her target at the tables, she turns in time to catch a certain blue weyrling stepping in line. She approaches the blonde with intent, slowly passing by her with a look meant to grab her attention. If she gets it, she jerks her chin towards one of the back tables unoccupied before she heads off there with her tray and drink in tow. If anyone's giving her any dark looks, she seems to not notice. If anything, she seem rather used to it. Well then...it's an evening *not* to be spent with some precious alone time, since Jo's giving her the signals to join her. With an internal sigh, Alida simply nods tersely to her fellow bluie, then continuing on in line until she has a cubic bloatload of steaming, delicious food on her plates. A mug of klah and one of juice top it all off, and it's off towards where she sees the other bluerider taking up a table on her lonesome. On occasion, while getting her food and now - while walking - the ex-guard's cool and incisive gaze flicks all about, monitoring whos and wheres like it usually does. Some habits can keep you alive in bad situations, so it's not likely that 'lida will ever lose this particular one. Once she's stepped up to Jo's chosen place and settled her ass into a seat - note that it's facing the majority of the cavern, her back as guarded at possible - the weyrling bobs her braided head, lifts a mug to the older rider, and peers questioningly at her in a silent, 'Well?' Once Jo's seated - she herself facing the brunt of the cavern, too - she starts shoveling food into her mouth while she waits for the weyrling to join her. Once Alida does, she picks up her cup of something that doesn't look like klah and nods to the younger woman. "Haven' been able to catch up to ya since yer hatchin'," she says, perhaps by way of an excuse in pulling her aside. "Sure the little-let's been keepin' ya plenty occupied. Ilicaeth, was it? A handsome blue, he is." "Mhm..." is the first thing Alida has to say to Jo's words, her inquiry, a little flash of leftover pride and joy in her greens showing when the other bluie speaks of Ilicaeth. A sip of klah is followed by lifting of utensils and a neat slip of gravy-coated herdbeast into her yap for a good chew and swallow before the blonde speaks again. "He's a handful, that's fer sure." A low snort is followed by a sip of juice this round, while greens affix themselves in direct fashion to Jo's own gaze. "So whaddo' I owe this little invitation to?" Yep, right down to brass tacks the weyrling gets, as she's not one for much light chit-chat. "Can' a girl check up on one of her favorite weyrlings?" Jo drops on the question in a deadpan manner, continuing to eat. "Ya did lose me a markpiece for Impressin' blue." Then, after a short chuckle, she takes a drink and reverts to something Alida had said before. "Looks like he suits ya, anyway," she notes. "Bet he's all up in yer head, too." There's a pause, considering the guard before she adds on, "And. Wondered what will come of yer gig with Pars, too. Among other things. Guess a guard always stays one, even after they must change loyalties." Around another mouthful of herdbeast: "Bullshit..." Alida clips off in her usual 'take it or leave it' fashion to the other rider's first words, then quieting to chew again, listen more to Jo. "S'why they call it gambling." Smirk. "Didja' have me pegged for a brown?" A shrug and nod are given for word of Ilicaeth suiting her, more juice and food downed while the weyrling maintains her neutral expression, her greens again flicking outward, then back to the woman at her side. As for Pars...cue another shrug, along with a low alto, "Like y'said." And to who does the newly-minted bluerider owe her loyalty to? Apparently she's not telling, though the blonde *is* still listening to Jo, judging from the small cock of her head at her tablemate. There's a snort. "Whether it really is or not...." Is all Jo gives on that before she answers on the gambling. "Actually, yes," she admits a touch wryly. "I did have you pegged for brown, but blue's better. Says somethin' about the person, who they Impress to, but I'm still figurin' it out on the blue front. Maybe we women are just too tough to be brownriders," is her ego likely talking with a twitch of lips. Half of her food is devoured by now, but she's more regarding Alida than her food now. There's the lingering silence, and then, "So. I'm not getting' a swing from ya, after what happened?" she drops, brow lifting at her now while she chews. She doesn't have to clarify the 'what happened', assuming she knows. "Already got the one, and judgin' by the looks goin' my way, I'm expectin' she won' be the last." Her gaze is open, expectant. Seeming to want to hear the former guard's take on the matter. "Well...salve yer' wounded coinpurse, 'cause I thought I'd be walkin' off those Sands with nothin'," Alida quips back in her usual tones to Jo, the blonde's brows pulling inward a little as she drops her gaze back to her food, shovels more of it in her mouth. Nom. "Or maybe a laid-back brown doesn't wanna mix it up with the crazies..." the weyrling factors in with a hint of a drawl, a smattering of smirky sarcasm. As for the swing... "Psh. I figure when my class takes over the Weyr, all the rest uv' you'll be makin' it up to us." Surely she's kidding, given the gleam in her eyes... Right? While sipping from her klah, one of the guard's brows is arched a little at Jo, followed by a rumbled, "Do tell..." About who took the swing at her already. As for Alida's take on the whole Brieli/Aishani debacle...well, again, the weyrling isn't saying. "I said the same thing," Jo counters on the purse dryly, "and yet here I am. And I was the sort guards liked to chase after back then." She must be joking, right? Maybe. She takes a sip from her cup and scans the crowd in the caverns in the lull, though when the weyrling speaks of them being crazy, "Reckon yer right," she snerks with a little smirk going her way. "Perhaps our dragons are drawn to fucked up. Which speakin' of....how are ya gettin' along with the others, anyway?" Alida's words on her class taking over earns her a look and a deadpan, "I don' make up anythin' to anybody, darlin'. Not unless it involves my bed and no clothes." Maybe she's kidding too, but if Jo is known, then likely not. But then there's the 'do tell', and swallows another drink before she shrugs and states, "Ya know the one. Mave. Was teachin' her how to punch and she started takin' swings at me. Had somethin' to do with the whole..." and she lifts a hand and waves it about, not saying further on that. She notes the silence though on her take, and it's taken under notice. "Mebee best for ya' that I'm a rider now, eh?" is noted blandly back to Jo, Alida then lifting her gaze from food to the other bluerider to offer her a slightly wintry bit of a smile. Sip. While the older rider looks around, Alida takes a few seconds to peruse Jo's features, her eyes, her manner. Again, habit...and by the time the bluie looks back, the weyrling's once more peering down to her food as she cuts, lifts, consumes. "Mrph. Holdin' my own..." is noted of the blonde's clutchsibs, though she does concentrate on the former-convict once more when Jo speaks of Mave takin' a swing at her. "Got lotsa' emotional people here, so I've seen." Like the swinging, crying K'del...in Technicolor! Chucking shortly, "Yer assumin' yer that good," Jo quips, just as blandly on the first. "And, anyway, I was hopin' yer took some of my words from before to heart. About havin' someone at yer back. Not just Ilicaeth, now." She eyes her plate and the food that's left on it and now chooses to nurse her drink instead, noting with her dark gaze certain older Glacier wingriders walking in passing long looks at their table. Eyes dart back to Alida then on the last as she notes, "Ya see a lot, doncha?" idly. "Take in a lot. Watch a lot. Yeah, I do notice there's more emotional ones than not. Actin' on the heart than the head. Not how it is where I come from. I imagine it's the same with ya. Wherever ya were born." Another small shrug is all that Alida offers in riposte to her fellow bluie, the blonde soon tucking into her veggies with a still solid appetite while she listens to Jo. For a long moment, all the weyrling does is study her tablemate, though she does sip at her klah again, but finally the guard does speak, though it's kept low and intimate, not going beyond their table. "Someone at my back for when the real shit hits the fan, hm?" is inquired in bland tones, the younger woman's features and eyes kept intentionally neutral. A faint hint of a burp is quickly followed by her soft, "Pardon me," 'lida then murmuring, "Comes with the territory..." before she leans in just a smidgen and notes quietly to her companion, "Crom mines?" in inquiring fashion. Of herself, "Born on a boat, out t'sea." With Alida studying Jo, Jo is doing likewise, openly. Elbows on the table and holding onto her cup, "Doesn' hurt," she notes, just as low to having someone at her back. "Had M'ron and Kait at mine all through our weyrlinghood. Never fucked me over once. If there's someone worthy in there, of course." It's a choice only Alida could make, knowing her class. "Better than havin' to slug through it all alone. Unless ya all get along." She shakes her head in understanding to the burp, and when the weyrling leans in and speaks on her origins, there's rumbled laughter on it. "It's not where I was from," she gives easily on that. She doesn't seem to be denying that she was there, however, if the slightly knowing smirk is indication. "I am, or was, holdbred. Keogh, through and through. Yer beholden to no place at all but the sea, then?" "Mm..." is offered in non-commital fashion to the talk of pals in her weyrling class, Alida then noting thoughtfully, "All uv' 'em are somewhat different people at the very least, now that they've Impressed." Just like her. "Gonna have ta re-form my opinions on alluv'em." At least it's not from the ground up, this time around. Nom, sip. To the bit of info Jo gives up as to herself, the blonde supplies back a small bite of her own: "Hold bred. Pars." Period. "And they'll continue to change, as time goes on," Jo agrees on that with a nod before draining her glass. "Ya will, too. Change how, is the question." She falls silent as she sets her glass back on her tray, watching the blonde even through her answer to where she's beholden to. After a fashion, "I suppose I'm beholden to many places," she drawls, her tone idle. "Keogh. Crom. Its mines. Even its lands. Holdbred, and holdless. Now a rider." Her study is heavy now, taking in her green gaze and the rest of her face. Especially her demeanor. Someone or something - maybe both - taught Alida how to hide herself well when she so wishes, and what Jo sees is no more nor no less that what she knows of the former guard than before they sat down to eat together. "Yeah... everybody changes at least some." Beat. "Most don' have a dragon factored inta' the equation, though." Cue that smirky little smile again, the weyrling then finishing off her veggies. A quirk of the blonde's head presages a question, one that's asked with a certain hint of caution, though she comes right out with the words. "If I can, what got ya landed in the Mines..?" The younger woman's voice is low, neutral, and only slightly inquisitive. "Did ya change, then?" Jo is quick to ask, evenly. She doesn't specify the when, but when Alida asks on her time in the mines, the convict rider as she counters back, "Ya don' listen to the rumors runnin' on about me?" Pause. "I'll answer," she says then, "if ya answer me on how ya a girl born from the sea became a guard, and what has made her so disgruntled with bein' one, since comin' here." A trade for a trade. "Some..." Alida answers laconically, then adding, "Me still sittin' here chattin' it up with you's a testament ta' that." Eyeroll. She's now tucking in her dessert - warm apple crisp - and the scent, taste of it makes the blonde's mouth turn up into its first - if small - smile of the evening. To Jo; "If I can, I prefer ta' get my information from the source." Yes, she's heard rumors. For a long moment, the weyrling seriously ponders the price of the other bluie's words, her flat gaze turned inward for some moments. When she finally returns her attention back out again, it's first to look over everything, everyone in the 'Cavern, then returning to her tablemate. "Shoot." "Awww, and here I thought it was because ya like me," Jo drawls that on the first, looking mockingly affected. The act drops just as quickly as she adds, "Spoken like a true guard at heart." She lets the silence linger now, even when the deal is struck between them. Her dark gaze filters out towards those in the cavern, watching and speculating. Perhaps she's weighing what to say, and how to say it, but when her gaze finally returns to Alida, "I went in for murder." It's blunt. It's very blunt. It's a few more moments of silence before she states, blithely, "Or so even the guards that took me in believed. I don' think they even cared if I did it or not. All they saw was a dirty little crook with a knife in her hand, while the real culprits got away." A scapegoat. While the bulk of Alida's green gaze rests on her apple crumble and klah, she does shift it occasionally to Jo from the sides of her gaze, enough to let the other woman know she's listening...but without staring. Shit like this is tough enough without making someone feel stared at. The word of murder doesn't make the weyrling bat a single eyelash nor pause in her eating at the slightest, though she does give a small nod, her upper lip chewed at by lower teeth for a moment after Jo quiets. A long draught of her drink serves to prepare the former guard for her own admission, which comes very quietly, neutrally. "Pa was a guard...so I became one." It's the next answer that needs more thought before she continues. "Nepotism...backstabbin'...bribery...blacklistin'...t'name a few." Shrug. That Alida doesn't stare, Jo notices. That Alida doesn't even bat an eye at the admission, she notices that, too. "So yer right," she says after a breath, the smallest touch of a smile on her lips. "Ya don' need a dragon to change. I had done that far before Tacuseth came to me. And I wondered what he really thought of my time in there. He seems to think it was...good for me. In a sense." She lifts her cup as if to drink but quickly puts it down when she realizes it's empty. Her dark eyes shifting towards the crowd, "I was supposed to be a guard," she relates with a single nod. "Like my father. I left before it was to be, and I always thought I was comin' back there. Are those what ya discovered? Since becomin' one?" and she regards her now. "Does that mean I was better off not goin' back? Endin' up where I did?" Her tone is neutral, but there's something else underlying in her tone, her voice remaining low from prying ears. "Don't need a dragon for enough things, likely..." Alida responds with a certain wryness, finally setting aside her fork, and concentrating on leftover klah. Sip. "Sounds like we Impressed us some tough little shits, then." This time it's an honest, if tight smirk of mixed pleasure and grittiness that settles on the blonde's features, even in her eyes for a few moments before she quiets again to listen to Jo. This time, that incisive gaze flicks directly onto the other bluerider, searching her for hidden meanings before the guard answers flatly, "Depends on th' place 'n the people, I'd bet... 'n 'better's' relative." She can't control her reaction to her memories, though, and Alida's lips twist into a complex expression of mixed ire, tiredness, disgust, wryness. Nodding, "That we did," Jo seems to agree on both their dragons, finding it amusing now. "Maybe Ilicaeth will give ya some peace unlike mine did back when we were weyrlings. He wanted to know everythin. Even the stuff I'd rather sooner forget." She stares back at the blue weyrling then when she answers on the last, grunting to it as she mulls it over before she says, "Yeah." It's likely an uneasy silence between them when the topic is the past, but then she asks quietly, "Ya have any regrets?" Becoming a guard and the like. The low snort of black humor from Alida might go far for convincing Jo that Ilicaeth is not the sort to pass up asking questions, or wanting to know everything, but the blonde doesn't expound. Around her next sip of the dregs of her klah comes another thoughtful look for her tablemate's inquiry, the young woman slowly settling her mug to tabletop, and peering into it at length. It seems as if the weyrling might answer a couple of times, but she cuts herself off for another round of inner consideration. Finally it comes in a voice touched with mixed emotions: "No." Greens lock with Jo's. "I was meant t'be a Guard...'r maybe a hunter. Pern's never had a need fer any big, organized warrior craft..." Or she likely would've gone *that* way. The way Alida answers her question, Jo nods to that. She won't question the firmness in the way she answers that. "Hunters and trackers are good work," she agrees wryly now, the words almost a murmur. "Though, somethin' tells me guard suits ya. I think, once, it did me as well." Time has certainly changed there, and it shows between the two and how their paths in life moved. She takes up her tray then and gets to her feet, looking down at her before she says, "Ever wanna talk about shit. Anythin'...catch me around sometime," she offers after a moment's consideration, signaling an end to her meal. "Maybe I'll catch that blue of yers up close and personal, when he's not in his constant needin' period." "So I've heard..." Alida counters to words of Hunter pay, her own words edges with hints of irony. A faint bob of head for the older woman's statement presages a look up as Jo gets to her feet, the weyrling noting, "I'll remember that." A lift of her mug of leftover juice in mocking salute substitutes for a 'thank you,' 'lida then eyeing the other bluie for a moment before she notes dryly, "Feel like babysittin'? Gimme a 'lizard note." Snort. Stepping away, the last has Jo laughing louder than she's been, drawing a few looks within range before she answers, "And have ya miss out on all this wonderful time, bondin' with yer lifemate till yer blue in the face? I wouldn' dream of takin' that from ya." It's plainly sardonic with the convict rider tossing a very lazy salute of the hand right back, then there's a cavalier smile before she's off to drop her tray where it goes and then she's gone. |
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