Logs:Life Craft
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| RL Date: 2 March, 2013 |
| Who: Xhaeon, Mave |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Mave wants to know what Xhaeon is doing. Xhaeon wants to know what Mave does. |
| Where: Nighthearth, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 18, Month 2, Turn 31 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Steady, today's snowfall sticks, creating dunes on the bowl floor. |
| Mentions: Lady Smith/Mentions |
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| Nighthearth, High Reaches Weyr With its entrance located between the kitchen and the living cavern, this tiny bubble cavern is cozy, always kept warm and is filled with comfortable chairs and a small round table. At the far end, there's a hearth, outlined in ruddy, aging bricks, where a pot of stew simmers in the evening hours. Generally quiet, the nighthearth is the haunt of insomniacs and those seeking quiet from the bustle of daily Weyr life.
Shuffle, shuffle; a foot, and then another, sneak right up to the outer edge of those hides, stopping with a toe pointed at one's careful organization. Above the foot, a leg, and a torso, and so on and so forth until there's Mave, her lips rolled deeply into her mouth, eyes keen on the Smith's personal mess, making strange, uninformed shapes out of the upside-down structures. Her hands are stuffed into her pockets, but she one juts out to stop the invasion of an even smaller -- imagine that -- even faster, and more potentially destructive foot, it's revealed that she's a fair parade, a small bunching, of giggling, shoving, peering weyrbrats behind her. A young girl tugs on the slightly older adolescent's tunic and she pats the child's hair thoughtlessly. To Xhaeon, the matter-of-fact statement, "You're in all the way." Lest he hadn't noticed. Benefit of the doubt? When realization dawns that there are People, Xhaeon looks up, still distracted, owlish-eyed from brain-fog. What? People? /Children/? "There's space around me," he returns Mave's statement on reflex, then seems to belatedly take stock that the fringes of his portfolio, as it were, actually do extend past the lines of reasonable limitation. He rectifies this by creating a complicated pattern, until the different sketches overlap in a way that make it seem one rather large and disturbing Rorschach test. The man has enough brainspace yet to smile at one rather charming little tyke, shyly hiding behind the skirts of the one tugging on Mave's tunic; he even raises his hand to wiggle fingers in that awkward way men wave at little girls. The staring, ala raised eyebrow, with which she'd evaluated this supposed space cools off as Mave watches the man stack the hides, and interest cues in. Lips releasing with a pop, she pulls her hand from the girl's hair, ruffling it generously by chance, and circles a pointed finger in the air. With the grappling and shoving of young things, the assembled brats-- four, they can be counted as they surge forward-- dart around Mave, two playing a daring hop-scotch with what Xhaeon's left on the outskirts, before they tumble into what must be a pre-assigned chore: fetch soup, fluff pillows. It could be a game, or not. The one that got waved at chokes out a giggle before scurrying on by. What remains is then Mave, handler, sliding her foot slightly closer more to the frame of that work. "Did your room catch fire?" She queries, despite the words, not sarcastic, but by the gleam off her eyes and firm practicality of her mouth, dead curious, "Maybe someone fouled up the craft corridor." An eye kept on the hop-scotch - more to check that they aren't smudging his drawings instead of keeping an eye on them tripping, to be perfectly honest - means that Xhaeon's still half-distracted in his response to Mave. "Maybe, in return, "It's just warmer, here. And brighter. And food." Food counts as a whole reasoning group, see; as if reminded, he grabs the sandwich, lifts it, peels off a wilted piece of lettuce and takes a bite. "Do you need right here?" He gestures at his area of space, and the question seems more genuine than it should be, really. "Oh." Mave's jaw snaps shut, eyes skirting sideways as she thinks, process, decides, "Practical. Boring, but practical." Her hand lifts to her own hair now, having disassembled the brats, and she shakes out red-brown half-curls that have been kept out of a runner's tail today, falling willy-nilly over her shoulders. "No," she politely answers him, contrary to the toe she's prodding so close to his things, "Not more than you do." Chin lifts, evaluating the rest of room, perhaps assessing how the other occupants feel. A familiar auntie is smiled at, and the generous expression lingers when she looks back down at Xhaeon, pushing her hair behind her ears before crouching to his, current, level. "They won't step on it, don't worry." A late reassurance, at least it's there; not the same to be said for the hand she darts out to dare and touch the very edge of the closest hide, "What is it all?" Xhaeon glances up: amusement skitters across his features at her denouncement of his activities as boring, but it passes without him giving it much other discussion. He keeps contracting his pile down, changing this hide and that, sliding one under another until an experienced eye could see that the weyr itself is represented in a rough semi-circle of the eastern bowl, and the areas tucked into the bowl-wall. "Structural representations," Xhaeon replies to the question, reaching for that hide and offering it to her to hold, so she can see it closer. It's a sketch done in charcoal, with careful attention paid to angles and lines of how stone rises, how wood intersects, the dimensions of furniture. Not much emotion to it, but it's technically sound, and pretty in an way of spare aesthetic. "Putting together how the weyr looks, in case something happens and a part needs to be rebuilt - or if someone needs to be rescued. Wingleader Mielline has asked for fair-hand copies of it all, with dimensions." A charcoal-dusted finger nudges towards the neat numbers copied to denote lengths and widths. Having been so well invited, Mave's crouch falls naturally into a sit, her feet rolling out in front of her to then cross, keeping her from taking up more of Xhaeon's precious space, even while he pars it down. Both eyes are glued straight to the document he's let her hold, clutched between her hands, while she rakes over each and every line, nodding along to either her findings or his words, both, or neither at all; she's just moving her head indiscriminately, hair falling about near her ears. The hide tugs down an inch or two and suddenly her almond eyes are visible above, peering at him -- no, staring overhead at the rest of them, to piece it all together the way he lays it out. "That's beautiful..." A murmur she catches onto later, but not in regret, just a clearing of her throat, "I mean. Not something happening to the Weyr. But this. Look at how nice everything looks." Who can't help but be flattered when someone says something like that? Xhaeon has only the cheekiest of expressions in return, a grin limned with the pride of a young man for his work. "Thank you. It's rough, but it works, I'd think." And because he never stops working for his craft - not really - he presses on, "Have you ever given thought to engineering-- smithcrafting, that is? Not everyone finds these things beautiful. Angles and the mathematics of things." He keeps going with his paring down, collapsing areas into drawings and starting the process of rolling them together only to secure them with a bit of string and a jotted note for what area they represent. Disappointment wrecks Mave's face that he's disappearing the Weyr inside that bundle, holding her tighter to the one in her hands. "Psssh, no," she spits out, protruded lips emphasizing the scoffing noise before, eyes widening, she recognizes some fraction of what he may assume, "Not! Not against the craft, I don't mean." She's let go of the page with one hand, holding out her palm to him endearingly. "It's just, well. I know me." To her, nose wrinkling expressively around freckles, that's meaning enough, and she rests an elbow on her knee to observe the rest of the packing up, thumb running idly against an edge of the hide where she won't smudge anything, staring at its lines with an absent concentration in her lowered eyebrows. "I'll leave that to Lady Smith, I think. I'm sorry," her head suddenly pops up, "I'm Mave. Manners, yeesh." At least it's a slow process - Xhaeon is naturally given to thoroughness, and the compilation of hides takes longer than one randomly ramshackling things together. He accepts his hide back from her with a murmured thanks. "I don't think that Lady Smith would be much use in structural smithcrafting," states the journeyman with some little amusement. "He's rather bound to the forge. If you ever change your mind, though..." A smile half-hidden, he finishes another binding of rolled hides. "Well-met, Mave. Xhaeon, Smithcrafter-- current candidate." There's rue in the end of that, a gesture towards his knot. Gnawing at her thumbnail helps to hide the perk of her lips at the jest over Lady Smith and she hums a soft note that weans out the rest of her amusement safely. Mave's eyes roam to the note when instructed, and linger. It takes her a second for wryness to cup her lips, "Ohh, I see..." she irons that out, too, tilting her head to stare woefully at him; she gets it, now. "You're only just courting me," her hand spins in the air luxuriously, half-gesturing to the hides that he must've been using to do so -- gems and flowers, such as they are. "To your craft because you're abandoning it, yourself." A soft clucking of her tongue as she gives him a thorough, up and down, eying. "Honestly, I think someone might eventually notice if I took your place. Maybe. Eventually." "I'm not /abandoning/ it," Xhaeon corrects, and none-too-swiftly, either: an ironclad point. "Smithcraft is my life." Then why did he accept the knot? Mira... hypocrises never end. "So what do you do, then, Mave? Other than babysit - or are you a nanny? Assistant nanny?" The smithcrafter-candidate keeps an eye on the closest child of reference, almost belatedly, starting to stack his neat little rolled bundles of hides in a way that only makes sense to himself. "Oof, I'm not good at jokes, either. Point taken." It's self-deprecating enough not to have malice against Xhaeon, as Mave straightens off of her elbow-lean, pushing her hands into her hair. She's got no tie to bind it, so just gathers it all into a clump and guides it over one shoulder for now. Her eyes rise to mark the brats, but only passingly; she seems little concerned, and, indeed, two are on best behavior, while the others have turned to quiet game-making. "This and that, me. This and that-- you know, if you Impress, which you've apparently invested some interest in, then that will be your life, too. I don't think they have to be exclusive, but you should, you know. Be aware." "Sorry," Xhaeon returns, with enough grace for an aw-shucks kind of mild embarassment. "I'm in someone else's headspace today, I think. Can't seem to focus for the life of me." Or maybe he's just awkward when too-young girls make courting jokes. That could be, because he's rather holdbred.... "Thank you for the public service announcement," is his comment after her warning, eyes crinkling about the edges with mirth. He's nearly done with his wrapping of hides and bundling: only the living caverns themselves remains, and he carefully spreads out the stack to peer away from the hearth in an attempt to cross-check dimensions from where he sits. "This and that? So... whatever they put you to, then?" Some little sympathy, there, before; "Did you give any thought to standing for a clutch, yourself? I'm sure they wouldn't refuse you, if you presented yourself as a candidate." Look at Xhaeon, getting all wiley with the weyr rules! "You're welcome." Perfectly sweet and chipper; if Xhaeon was ribbing Mave, she seems to be blithely ignorant, and not even purposefully. "Seen my share fair of candidates come through," she relates, in a wisened sort of 15-turn-old way, while stretching one foot out into the new space the Smith-candidate has created, "Utterly shell-shocked that they can't go back to their home! How would that even work!" A jump and shrug of her eyebrows, and she rests her temple into a hand absently to, more thoughtfully and to herself, mutter, "Crafts are different, though..." And now she's being asked, and eyes blink slow to accommodate her leisurely processing. "Umm, nah." Without regret, or second-guessing, she spies over on the brats then back to Xhaeon pleasantly, "But if you ever need anything cleaned, or found in the stores, I'm your gal." Her other foot stretches out, taking her head off its resting spot, "Well. Really, the Headwoman, but." "Cleaned." Out of all that, Xhaeon hears that word. Cleaned. Such a man? At least she didn't reference food. He jumps backwards in the temporal stream, backing up to say, "Crafts /are/ different. I don't think I would have accepted, if I'd had to have given it up." It being his jonesing for the perfect order of existence as rendered into angles and lines on paper? Er, something like that. The man's done, then, and starting to put away his hides, one after another. "It was nice to meet you, Mave, and I wish you luck in all of your endeavors, whether they be cleaning or finding or crafting, someday, after all." He does rise to his feet about then, a belated glance to the nearest marking-candle. "But I have a meeting that I'm afraid I'm going to have to hurry to meet." Dumb bureaucratical conventions. Interesting, seems to say Mave's twisting of her mouth back and forth as she regards him, nodding softly. Sure, yeah. Oh! Leaving. Uncoiling, she gets to her feet, spying on all his things one last time before granting his actual face a smile. "Hurry on, then, Smith-candidate," she gives him leave, gesturing as she steps out of the way. Fluidly, it's a step also towards the children, whom she's decided have had enough freedom. It takes more than a twirled finger to gather them back up again but, as she said, Mave is fine with doing. "Fine, then," Xhaeon remarks. "Take care of yourself, this-and-that girl," is his last tease. He flags a hand in farewell as he skips out on the hearth, leaving only half-eaten sandwich in a tray and amused aunties in his erstwhile location. |
Comments
Azaylia (Dragonshy (talk)) left a comment on Sun, 03 Mar 2013 21:31:30 GMT.
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Smith-candidate and This-and-that girl. I liked this. I liked this a lot. :3 Nice to get a peek at what people are up to, who aren't all spazzing about the state of things. Though that's fun too!
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