Logs:Confessions and Conspiracies
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| RL Date: 30 April, 2011 |
| Who: Emmeline, Riorde |
| Type: Log |
| What: Riorde follows Emmeline to the cliffs. |
| Where: Cliffs, Western Island |
| When: Day 15, Month 8, Turn 25 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Seani/Mentions, Tomaeran/Mentions |
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| Rather then the bench, Emmeline is perched on the rocks that overlook the archipelago far below. Anyone not born on the island would probably think she's nuts for the way she's leaning back against an outcrop with her legs dangling over the cliffside. But it -is- the best way to make the most of the view. That's pretty much where the girl has been since running away from the group at the beach earlier. Dinner held no appeal at all for her, really. Dinner was a rather bland affair anyway. Afterward, Riorde comes picking her way up to the cliffs, long habit removing any need for light to guide her way beyond that provided by the moons. She moves confidently but carefully - some of these rocks are sharp for bare feet - as she winds her way up the path. Rounding a switchback and reaching the top, she sights Emmeline and hails her in a voice pitched low, not meaning to startle. "Thought you might be up here." Riorde, being another female, receives a rueful smile in return for the low greeting. "Sometimes it helps put things in perspective, you know. We can see our whole existence from here. Can even feel the grip of the ocean. There's nothing more breathtaking then this." she muses. "So are you here to make sure I didn't murder anyone on my way up and dump the body in the caves?" Ok, maybe she's got a morbid little sense of humor. "I can promise no harm came to anyone. At least not today. But I've got your brother on the list, per request." Approaching, Riorde comes to stand alongside the other girl, one hand steadying herself against the outcrop that serves as Emmeline's backrest while she catches her breath. "I like it up here." Emmeline is more eloquent than she is, so Riorde settles for simple agreement. "It's quiet." She looks down at Emmeline's question, a slight smile showing her amusement. "No. I brought berries. There's more where it came from if you really do off Eirdan." Her brother. Emme pats her hand on the space beside her and sidles over enough that Riorde won't feel like she's going to fall right over if she tries to sit down. "Since I missed dinner, I wholeheartedly welcome berry offerings." There's a pause there, and her lips twitch. "Free berries, and all I have to do is off Eirdan? Tempting." the girl intones, before there's a bit of the serious again in her voice. "So, think I scared Azz and Dev enough today?" Riorde slides down the rock and into the seat, at first tucking her legs up under her rather than letting them dangle off into the emptiness below. The berries are in a little woven basket that she carried in hand, now offered to Emmeline. "Yeah, he's a little shit these days. Bet he had something to do with dragging all our stuff out of the hut." The moonlight silvers her sharp features as she gives a further smile to go with a glib response before looking out across the dark archipelago below. "Oh, they could use a bit of scaring." Oh if Riorde only knew! Emmeline chuckles about the stuff being dragged out of the hut, lips curling up into a full smile at the remembrance before she allows a sigh to whistle past her lips. "Good point." is agreed, finally. Unable to resist plucking a few berries out of the basket, she chews on them thoughtfully. "Don't think I've ever felt more lost then I have the past couple sevendays. Could be an age thing." Not that boys or men help with any of that, mind. But at least she's opening up a bit instead of looking frightened and running away. The other girl has succeeded in draggin information out of her just by not asking a thing. Riorde helps herself too, scooping out a small handful with cupped fingers, and balancing the bowl on her knee where both girls have easy access. "Hmm." Riorde looks contemplative, popping berries into her mouth one by one and not immediately offering comment. She doesn't say much, which maybe makes her a good listener. "That new man showing up?" She hazards a guess after sitting quietly, thinking. "He unsettles people." "No." Emmeline admits, sliding a sidelong glance at Riorde. "Him I can deal with, mostly." Wouldn't that be so much more simple? "It's more like three people. Well, maybe two people. Mostly one. And Khorde just sort of pushed me over the edge." The other girl is, indeed, a good listener, prompting the teacher to begin revealing a much more intricate tale then Riorde probably ever wanted to know. "It's hard to, you know, stop yourself from feeling things for people, even when you know that it's not really going to matter once the elders make a match for you. Or am I the only one that has that problem?" Part one, unfolding. "I think Shimana wants to muzzle him." Riorde sounds a little delighted by the upset the outsider's caused in their small community. But Raum's not the matter tonight so she lets him pass from her mind beyond that one statement. "Khorde does that; Khorde's a boy," Riorde says in a tone that settles it, excuses Emmeline from any responsibility. Her gaze slips across to the teacher when the revelation starts to out, slight surprise communicated in the twitch of her mouth and eyebrows, but she sits still and doesn't ask the most obvious question: who. "Eighty turns or however many we've been here are a long time for that problem not to come up," she says instead, stretching out her legs as they start to fall asleep under her. Emmeline chokes back another laugh at the thought of Raum being literally muzzled. She even glances over in surprise. "Really? Like, literally? Wouldn't that make an interesting sight." And she surely appreciates being so blithely let off the hook for shoving Khorde around. "That's what I thought too. Boys. Dumbasses." she agrees, but averts her gaze away from the obvious question. One she's not prepared to answer. "I told Iolene about it - I don't think the girl has a diplomatic bone in her body, for all that she's the sweetest thing." Here comes the scrubbing of the forehead. "All I got for that was the truth, sure. I'm one of maybe dozens of girls who feel the same way about the same person and boy is it ever just silly. He'll never even remember that I all but admitted it to him, cause he must get *so much* of that." Both hands cover her face now, ostensibly to smother a groan. "You ever met Tomaeran? And no, it's not him. I'd rather fling myself off this cliff then let him anywhere near me if he weren't already married." "Entertainment of the Turn - I can see it now, him running down the beach and her running after with it in her hand, yelling about how the sea'll get him if he doesn't do as she says." Riorde's grinning now, her berry-stained teeth showing. Her dry humour evaporates when she shrugs. "I don't know, just know that she doesn't want any of us talking to him." Which means it's exactly what Riorde intends to do, when she finds the right moment. But then Emme's speaking, and Ri knows better than to interrupt another's ruminations about ill-fated feelings. "Only a couple of people with that much attention," she remarks with a sidewise glance, something sly about her, but keeps her guesses to herself. As for Tomaeran: "I avoid him," she admits freely, matter-of-fact about her dislike. "Surprisingly, the island's actually big enough for it. He never goes out to fish." Nobody, even at the worst of moods, could help but bust out laughing at that image. For real. Emme's no exception and she near chokes on one of those berries before finally settling back down. "Yeah, only a couple. So don't go saying anything. /Please/. I think I've been humiliated enough the past few sevendays." That she's resorting to pleading is a bad sign about her state of mind, truly. "Well, I had the misfortune of running into him the other day. Already feeling terrible." Can we get a wince from someone? "I feel so bad for his wife. She...." Pause. "He all but told me to remember my place, being only a 'little teacher girl', low born... only good enough to breed for some blooded male and then be tossed away like trash if we're ever saved from this place." Not his exact words, no. But close enough to a translation of what she /heard/ that it becomes obvious when combining the two topics that she's just been caught up in a typical teenage angst fest about self esteem. Riorde eats one more berry and leaves the rest for Emmeline. "Who would I say anything to?" Her flippancy is meant to cover up the fact that the question is relatively serious; the trek up the cliffs tonight withstanding, Riorde rarely goes out of her way to seek out others for companionship. "Tom's an ass and an idiot. All that fine blood of his doesn't count for nothing if he can't catch his dinner or cook it. And given that you're the one who teaches the kids he's supposedly supposed to be breeding, I should think you are a good deal more useful than he is. If anyone should be tossed away like trash, it's him." Something fierce enters Riorde, transferred to Emmeline in her gaze. She's not finished. Once started, Riorde can't shut up, and she hardly allows a breath before continuing, "And also, his wife's an idiot for not leaving him. She could've." "I don't know. I just feel embarrassed by it all." Emmeline admits, sounding a bit sheepish. "Here I am supposed to be setting an example for the kids, and handling disputes... and I tell off Tomaeran /loudly/, get caught up in *the* dumbest crush ever, and then all but shove Khorde right into the dirt just for upsetting me." She of course has to couch it all in the most unflattering terms possible. "You should have heard what I said to him, Riorde." Seeing how fiercely the other girl is standing up for her rather then agreeing with Tom, it seems pretty safe to assume she can share her own foul mouthed response. "I called him a little lazy ass and told him if Ani was good enough to fuck and impregnate she should be good enough not to be thrown away later." A flush heats her face up at that, but she nods solemnly in agreement. "Too bad we can't muzzle /him/ and send him off to sea somewhere." Once she's said her piece, Riorde sinks back into a self-imposed silence as if she's said too much. Emmeline's list of sins just makes her smile, amusement turning into a sharp grin when she details her exchange with Tomaeran. Riorde approves. "Maybe we can." The idle comment spins out further thought on how to get rid of Tom, at least temporarily. "Get him to go on a fishing trip and 'lose' him. No reason to keep him here if he won't /do/ anything." Please. Riorde could continue on that particular tirade for hours longer and Emme would eat it up like a gourmet meal at the moment. She's just so relieved that at least one person really /gets it/ that the tension drains out of her. "Could we really pull that off?" Don't think the teacher won't try, either. Her interest is considerably piqued at the idea. "I mean, we'd need someone who could convince him to go. Either a woman he thinks he could charm into sleeping with him." Ugh. "Or, one of his ilk willing to convince him he should go - but that means a blooded islander who agrees with /us/ rather then him." Then she pauses, apparently not stopping there with the ideas. "Or... find a way to get him to eat something with a sleeping herb in it. Then when he's out for the count, shove him onto a boat." No one ever thought Riorde was sweet. And she's proving it now. "Well, he'd see through it if you tried," she says wryly. "Do you think I could pull it off?" She twists to face Emmeline and uses both hands to pull up her hair into an untidy up-do that exposes her neck, the sharp lines of her face, and a stern sort of beauty. With her chin at an angle, she looks at Emme from the corners of her eyes, trying her hand at seduction. Then she drops her hands, shaking it off as her dark hair falls back around her face. "Devaki might agree with us," she suggests, following up the idea of a Blood on the inside; the suggestion is not entirely innocent. She's guessed the target of Emme's affections. "I'd have to be the island's best actress." Emmeline agrees wryly. Her eyes all but sparkle as she watches Riorde pile up her hair for the femme fatale expression, and hoots with laughter. "I bet you could! Just flatter his ego, and simper a little if you can pull that off." is suggested, all that tension suddenly rushing right back in when her companion makes the suggestion of who else they could pull in on this. "I guess it was obvious, wasn't it." she mopes some, realizing that her attempt to hide at least that portion of her embarrassment has failed. "Well, it doesn't matter much anyway right? I guess we could see if he'd be willing to help us give Tom a little taste of his own medicine." "If I simpered he might see through it," says Riorde, who never simpers. "But maybe - he hardly knows me - if I could keep myself from rolling my eyes in the middle of it." She sounds thoughtful, mulling it over, then moves from her proposed role to Devaki's. "Yeah, kind of." Riorde fails at sympathy, a bit too blunt. "You could tell him. And if he thought the same, then you could find a way to work it. He's got a hand in with the bloodlines after all, hasn't he? Or just present them with a fait accompli." Riorde rather likes the latter idea with its straightforward force. "At least you've found someone." There's a faint emphasis on the subject. "True, you aren't known for simpering." There goes that idea. "I bet leering would work though. He'd probably like the sordid obviousness of it." Where does Emmeline get these ideas?? She does have to blink a few times though, then. "Tell him that I...? Or about our idea for Tomaeran?" She's absolutely going to make sure of what Riorde is talking about there. "He already knows I was jealous about something. But, well, we never really discussed it. Shouldn't the ball be in /his/ court?" There's a touch of empathy in her gaze when she catches the drift of Riorde's last statement. "Yeah, but it's someone I probably have no chance at. Kind of futile if I'm going to go that route isn't it? There's nobody you, you know, have a thing for?" Riorde gives Emmeline her best leer, straightforward and obvious but shifty and sly. She tries to flirt with a suggestive lift of her eyebrows. "How's that?" she asks, all expectant, when she drops the act. "Well, you could tell him about Tomaeran first and then maybe slide it in there about you if the moment's right." She makes a sliding motion with her hand to show the ease of it. "Oh, men are idiots. If you leave the ball in his court it'll never come out if it. Won't know until you try." Knowing that she's spouting a cliche, Riorde turns a twisting smile on Emmeline, then looks away when her weighted remark prompts a question. "How can you have a thing for anyone here when you've seen them every day, all your life, sweating and snoring and eating and sleeping? There's no...mystery in any of it." She focuses on something out there in the dark as she speaks, frowning. Her tone doesn't grow any happier when she makes her own confession. "My father thinks I should've been married already. I'm sure he's speaking to the elders about it. Only thing stopping it is my grandmother - her mother never married, and she was just fine." The fierce note is back. Emmeline does her level best not to slip on a giggle when she clasps a hand over her heart at Riorde's leering look, and then bats her eyelashes at the brunette and makes a kissy face. "I would totally be all yours." is joked. "I think we might be better off getting someone to help us." is agreed. And she does take a good moment or two in order to allow the advice to sink in. "They really are idiots aren't they." One can almost see the wheels turning in that brain of hers as she considers ways to implement that plan. And then while she weighs the offered confession. "I guess it's about what you think of their character. That's something it takes time to discover. Can't see it just by watching them eat and sleep and snore." she points out, a frown joining Riorde's. "We shouldn't have to be married to /anyone/ unless we want to. That might prevent another Ani and Tom situation also. If women realized they had a real choice." Riorde grins back, giving an extra little waggle of her eyebrows. "Yeah, he can jump out at the right moment, catch him by surprise, help us drag him into a boat. With no oars, of course." Oars would just be too easy. Scheming is far more fun than weighing up the options for their endless island lives, but Riorde does get back to it, having taken in Emmeline's remarks without comment. Her comment now is a flat, hard statement of fact. "I'm not doing anything I don't want to." "I think I could be convinced to actually beg for that to happen." Again we are confronted with the fact that Miss Emmie is not nearly as sweet as she seems sometimes. "No oars. Of couse not. He should have to work for once in his worthless life." Agreement is obvious there, but then so is her staunch support and agreement of Riorde's statement. "I don't know how much good I can do. But, I'll absolutely back you up there, Riorde. As long as you promise not to laugh too hard at me when I take your advice and it blows up in my face." Ok, she'll back up the brunette regardless. But it's hard to blame her for trying. "And possibly a leak," the dark-haired girl muses devilishly, sounding far too serious for it to be a joke. Emmeline's support earns her a real smile, along with support of her own. "I won't laugh," Riorde promises, looking at Emmeline squarely. "And, if he doesn't -- well, he's just an even bigger idiot." She stirs and shifts, the precursor to getting to her feet. "I should go back, early start," she murmurs, though the last doesn't really need to be said; most mornings start early in the settlement. "You alright up here on your own, or you want to come with?" "Thank you." The words meant to encompass everything from the berries to the company to the advice and the listening ear. It certainly seems to have brought the smile back to Emmeline's face, and she nods a bit about returning to the settlement. "I'll head back with you, I think. I need to get some rest too." She waits first for the other girl to get up and move back onto the path, and then quickly follows - cracking jokes about leaking boats and idiot boys all the way back down. } |
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