Logs:After Aleith's Flight
| |
|---|
| RL Date: 1 September, 2007 |
| Who: Satiet, N'thei |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| Where: Resident Common Room, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 28, Month 4, Turn 13 (Interval 10) |
  |
| It's late, and N'thei has found himself a hidey-hole where the likelihood of someone screaming at him is relatively slim. In one of the large chairs, pulled in front of the fireplace with a footstool for his heels, he hunkers down behind an extra large mug of something fortifying. All is quiet and peaceful and almost serene; certainly serene for High Reaches Weyr. It might be expected that the arrival of the Reaches' slight and distant weyrwoman might shatter the serenity, but in fact, this night, it merely brings a coolness remnant from winter just past. Nominally silent on her slippered feet, Satiet steps out of the nursery wing, a light shawl thrown over her shoulders, but her arms conspicuously devoid of child. Looking only slightly wearied, her steps take her not to the lower caverns and the eventual destination of home, but to the hearth in that blind way that speaks of countless nights already spent like this - and as such not expecting or looking for someone else in her seat, that seat, that one N'thei's claimed. N'thei waits a lot longer than one normally would in such a situation, wordlessly watching the Weyrwoman. He carefully switches his mug to one hand, leans that hand over the arm of the chair lest there be sloshing of drink in the exchange to come, and he braces the other arm to catch Satiet on her way down. Calmly; "People will talk, miss. May I recommend a chair of your very own instead?" Her blind path leads to blind seating, and the closer she gets, the clearer it is that her pale eyes are already half-lidded with slumber. So when an unexpected voice interrupts her near-nightly ritual, her startlement fails to propel herself forward, instead causing her to fall onto that braced arm with an indecorous yelp, and then up, as if her pants are on fire. "Faranth's golden arse! You're not supposed to be there." The sleep flees Satiet's eyes as she turns to swirl an accusatory finger at the weyrling. "Graceful." N'thei helps right Satiet as best he can without vacating the chair, all the while with eyes that insist on dancing. "I'm not? I'll be damned. I wish I'd known that before I got comfortable." He looks square at the end of her finger for a second, takes a calm sip out of his mug (now that the immediate peril has passed), and gets around to smiling questioningly upwards by and by. "Are you always so high-strung at this hour, miss?" The realization of the ridiculousness of the situation, however belated, dawns in Satiet's eyes and seconds later, her pointing finger drops lamely to her side. With her mouth twisting in a manner of indecision, to be grumpy, upset, or tired once more in light of N'thei's placidity, her expression finally decides on tired. Everything else is too much effort. Tired hands lift to rub tired eyes and then press down her flushed cheeks, molding pseudo-composure back into place before stepping back further from N'thei and his chair to sink into the one just opposite. "Were you always there?" is her question in lieu of an answer for his. "I mean, I could swear-...?" N'thei offers the only thing he has for calming nerves to Satiet, that being the mug. It's better than half full, and the drink inside it is a warm concoction of milk and spices and enough rum to completely overpower everything else. "Always? No, not always. I've been known to step out now and then. But I like to try and be here in time to catch sleepwalking goldriders. If you ever decide you need to share a chair again, please keep me in mind." Satiet eyes his offering with suspicion glinting in her gaze, narrowed eyes trying to discern the mugs contents before the waft of rum overwhelms her, but once it does, there's a visible look of relief that softens the weyrwoman's countenance. A slim hand reaches out, her body scooting forward to the end of her armchair to take the rummed up milk. "I meant, now, tonight. I swear when I went in there-, oh whatever." Irritation with the knowledge that she's spent more time in the nursery than intended is dulled by a sip of warmed milk that turns into a greedier gulp. "Thanks. I needed that. And no," remembering herself, the woman allows a sardonic silver of a smirk to appear, "I won't be requiring your services as a chair again, any time soon." "If you're sure." N'thei waits a second, time for Satiet to change her mind, before he slouches deep into the chair once more, all shoulders and bad posture and long legs stretched out to the foot stool. Less tired-looking that Satiet certainly, he still presents the air of a person who is completely committed to drowsing in place, quiet for a spell before he speaks again otu of the blue; "You don't seem like someone's mother." Definitively sure, Satiet sinks back, likewise, into her own couch, cradling N'thei's mug like the liferaft it is and looking none too eager to relinquish it back to its rightful owner. Cozying up in the high sided chair and drawing her feet up to tuck beneath her, the raven-haired woman sips some more in the resulting silence, head tipped back in between each fortification until N'thei's voice jostles her out of her nighttime reverie. The chin tips forward, dark lashes lifting in a long-lingering blue regard of the bronze weyrling. Finally, the low-toned alto poses a question: "And what do someone's mothers seem like, my unlikely saviour?" N'thei draws out his smile like a blade, slow and satisfied, as that was likely the direction the conversation was supposed to go; "Homely." After a long pause, he adds, "Friendly." The laugh has to struggle to get free of his utter immobility tonight, but it makes its way out, a feebly amused little thing. "How many babies?" A yawn is stifled with thinned lips and a scrunched face. Hovering above the mug's rim, another drink is stayed by N'thei's response, tired superimposed by bemused. The corners of Satiet's eyes crinkle, her pressed mouth shapes into a crooked smirk. "Be sure to point out your mother to me some time. Perhaps when you graduate, and I'll be sure to pass on your compliments." Pale eyes dance above the mug as it tips back, and when it falls, the goldrider is slow to wipe the milk mustache away. "Two." Pause. "But I only love one of them, at best." N'thei has a handkerchief, of course, and the good grace to offer to a moustached lady. The plain but clean article flutters from the end of his fingertips limply, extended just over halfway toward Satiet, while he wipes his thumb across his upper lip to pantomime her problem. "The other one will turn out to be the interesting one. Names?" For all the drowsiness of the encounter, the weyrling never attempts to hide a certain captivation in the candid rest of his eyes on Satiet, nothing untoward but still obvious. Slow, but not completely unaware, as the extended handkerchief is ignored in favor of the unladylike back-of-the-hand approach to cleaning in a motion that turns sheepish midway. Flushing, she completes the gesture and waves the dirtied hand, dismissive of his second offering of the night. Satiet clears her throat and casts a glance to the hearth, studiously away from N'thei, "Riahla will be loved on the days the Suireh isn't. And some days, they'll both irritate me enough that neither will be." The troublesome mug of milk is held out over the divide. N'thei puts the handkerchief back in his pocket, stuffs it away and reaches back to reclaim his cup. "Not very maternal, miss. If you tell my mother I called her homely, I'll tell your children you don't love them." Slinking back behind his cup, never speaking a word about the milk moustache, he busies himself with tipping from a flask into the mug, with frequent refresher glances toward Satiet in the process. "Father?" "Satiet," the goldrider corrects, "And if my name displeases you so, then ma'am will suffice." Bereft of anything to buy herself time with now that the mug is no longer in her hands, the woman fiddles with the loose ends of her shawl, tightening it around her white nightgown, and then relaxing her grip so it slips again. Repetitive, it fills in the resulting silence that meets his question of the father, until a clearer voice, marginally less somnolent, inquires: "Why here?" Again, the little laugh struggles away from N'thei, only to be caught inside the mug and drowned in the milk mixture. "'None of your business' would work." Even he has to wrinkle his nose at the new potency of the drink, and now he puts it aside, a lost cause, to watch while Satiet fiddles with her shawl, as if this is a new breed of fascinating. With a very elongated vowel, speaking volumes with a stretched syllable; "Fliiiiiight." The dirtied hand, in hopes that it's been forgotten in the minutes lapsed, drops to swipe idly against the top of her nightgown, where it's stretched smooth by knees bent beneath her body. It's an idle, surreptitious movement that ends in the arm being draped over the armrest, the slight woman's torso to follow suit in a leisurely lean. Enlightened, the sharpish face turning quite dry in its regard of N'thei, Satiet purses her lips and expels a mocking little echo and wit at its sleepiest: "Fliiiiiiiiight. Damnable things those. Liquor, men, or women? Liquor." Her rhetorical question is answered decisively by herself. "Liquor." N'thei eschews decisive in favor of resigned, even baleful with the way he accuses the mug with a glance. "Hours ago, and I'm on the mend, but I've been sorely abused since then." To bring it back around as an answer to the earlier question; "So here. Where it's quiet. Don't you have a bed to get to?" The combination of Satiet in her nightgown and N'thei's understandable preoccupation this evening makes it a natural question. Thus reminded compels a sigh to escape the goldrider's lips, a reluctant little noise that rolls her shoulders back and tips her head to study the ceiling a long, suffering moment. "I should." But for all talk of her children being unloved, or loved only one at a time, Satiet's pale gaze strays to the nursery entrance. "I should," repeats she, a little more forcefully, while legs drop so her feet graze the ground. "So here. Where there's no one to tempt you. Find a woman, weyrling. Or a man, if you prefer. A'son, perhaps," she finishes blandly. "But I've never been on your end of flights. The female," bland twists sharply sardonic, "Always wins, you see." Slim arms push herself up, reluctance weighing heavy on her shoulders, "Good night, N'thei." N'thei thinks it over, his eyes tilted to the ceiling like he might find woman-- or a man, if he prefers-- floating around up there somewhere. There's nothing but a fleeting glimpse at the departing goldrider, wistful tempered by a little drunk and tired and many hours later; "They'll love you anyway, don't worry. Good night, ma'am." |
Leave A Comment