Logs:Milani On A Mattress
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| RL Date: 13 December, 2008 |
| Who: K'del, Milani |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: K'del gets a mattress for his turnday. And a Milani, on the mattress. |
| Where: K'del's Weyr, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 15, Month 6, Turn 18 (Interval 10) |
| K'del and Cadejoth's Weyr, High Reaches Weyr There's nothing particularly unusual about this mid-sized weyr, at least from first glance. To the left of the entrance is the same, low hearth typical of many weyrs at High Reaches, which keeps it snugly warm in winter, while in summer the high ceilings and stone walls provide a cool retreat. Opposite to the hearth is a desk made of fine, polished wood, with a comfortable chair that nearly matches, while to the back of the weyr is a double-sized wooden bed, also of a similar shade, as well as a simple washstand. A few glow lamps attached to the variegated stone walls provide light, as does a fine, oil-based reading lamp that sits on the desk, next to the stack of books and papers kept tidy with matching book-ends. The bed is made with fine sheets and down-filled pillows and blankets, all dyed in shades of navy blue, a paler blue, and bronze. Between the hearth and the desk on the opposite wall is a rug made up of neatly patterned blocks of primary colours, which sits not quite flat, as though something has gotten caught underneath. A set of straps hang from wall near the ledge, and, frequently, a jacket hangs from the back of the desk chair. Beyond this, there are few personal touches in this largely functional weyr. Sometimes, the best laid plans just don't pan out. Milani ordered that mattress right on time she did, but between one thing and another and an apparently lack of cotton supplies, the delivery was delayed. This would be why the headwoman is delivering the rolled up article personally, waiting in the Bowl for K'del and Cadejoth to come down after she let them know the thing was finally in stock. Between the two of them it wasn't that hard to get it on board and now there's some huffing and puffing to steer the awkwardly shaped roll through the entrance to the weyr. "You know, they're usually much better at getting these things ready quickly," Millie says apologetically. "Of course, I wound up ordering a lot of new ones because of the whole infestation thing, so I guess it's just good that it's here now. Think of it as a slightly belated turnday present." K'del has taken the front end of the rolled-up mattress, which has him walking backwards as they cross the threshold of the weyr, which is awkward, though he manages valiantly to not trip over anything. "It's not a problem," he assures her, head lifting from the task to give her a smile that could almost be described as exultant. "Good to have it now, yeah, but I managed." Beat. "Only a very little belated. Thanks, though. Course, I could think of a way to improve this fine turnday mattress." "Watch the rug," is Milani's warning as they start to cross over said article. "Well good that you managed, but still, not having a mattress and have to sleep on the floor or with a dragon, can't be /all/ that comfortable," she says with a little shake of her head and grins across at the weyrling, eyes twinkling. "Oh really? Something other than linens and blankets?" continues Millie teasingly. K'del adjusts his steps accordingly, as well as the mattress, lifting all of these higher to avoid entanglement, while flashing Milani a grateful smile. Head shaking, he tells her, "Didn't really sleep here that much. Plenty of places to go. And I've a really good bedspread, worked okay to soften the floor for me, when I /was/ here." The mattress train progresses, slowly, navigating between furniture towards the bed in the far corner. "Mmm, yes," he grins. "In all the dirty stories, the deliveryperson always offers to test out-- whatever it is they're delivering." Milani laughs merrily for that explanation. "Go figure," she teases the weyrling further as they reach the bedframe and she nods to the ties. "Shall we get that on the frame then?" she says blithely. "Can't really test it until it's properly in place after all," she continues, grinning impishly across the rolled up article. K'del, with a wicked grin, notes lazily, "In that way, I guess, the not having a mattress thing was rather /convenient/, you know?" Concentrating on the task at hand, he's looking at the mattress rather than Milani as she continues, and though his hands still just briefly as she makes her remark, his reaction is otherwise nothing more than a laugh - and the dramatic lifting of his eyebrows, and fluttering of his eyelashes. "Lift it onto the frame first, then untie, or the reverse, which is easiest? Got to make sure it's done properly, yes. Else, the test would be no good." "Get it into the frame, line it up, untie it and let it unroll," Milani answers promptly. "And then /we/ can roll around on it," she continues airily, laughter in her eyes still. "So, how's it feel to be sixteen, any different than fifteen?" more seriously than the former teasing as she settles the end of the mattress appropriately into the frame and looks over expectantly to see how he's doing. "You'll make a man's fingers all clumsy in anticipation," teases K'del, though he doesn't seem to be having too many problems, positioning his own end, then leaning across to begin working at the ties. "Mm, not really. You know how, as a kid, you always expect to feel older? Never do, though. Funny, though. I turned fifteen having no idea what I was going to do with my life. And now..." The first tie is released and cast aside, and he moves on to the next. Milani laughs again. "Tsk, can't have that now," Milani says with mock-reproof. "How's a girl supposed to tell if you can walk the walk you talk, hmm?" She's leaning though to pull the nearest tie loose and then the one beyond that. With his freed the mattress suddenly springs free, unrolling itself as predicted. "All right then." Millie walks around to the far side of the bed to tweak the mattress properly into place and beams. "Now that ought to be nice and comfy for you and the parade of women you're sure to have in and out of here." Turning about, she goes after the linens, bringing the undersheet back, unfolding it a little as she returns. "Mm, I didn't start to feel that way until my eighteenth turnday really. Then it hit me all at once, that I really wasn't a kid anymore," she muses thoughtfully, but smiles at him sweetly. "Now you know, because you have Cadejoth and that's one thing that will never change." "A complete tragedy," K'del agrees, mock-solemn, as he watches the mattress unroll, patting it down from his end as Milani does it from hers. "Well, I hope so. Man's got to make good on his reputation, keep up the image. Wouldn't do for an up-and-coming bronzerider to fail in even the simplest of comforts." He waits, as she fetches the linens, watching after her with a smile. "Don't feel like a kid, already. But. Older you get, the more other people work that out, too, I guess." His head bobs for the last of her comment. "Right. There's Cadejoth, and-- well, I'm a Dragonrider. I'll be that forever. Gives me a framework, on which to figure out what else I want." Milani shakes the sheet out the rest of the way and then shakes it across the bed so he can grab the other side. "Ohh so is that the goal then, to really live up to that image of a randy bronzerider?" she teases again, good-naturedly and smoothes the sheet over towards the corner of the mattress. "Mm, a lot of people still treated me like a kid. It's a funny kind of in-between time, you know? Not quite a grown-up, not quite a kid and a lot of people look at you one way, and then others the other and ... it's hard to figure out how you should see yourself too," she notes philosophically as she corners the sheet neatly, tucks in all the way up the mattress and corners the top too. "Are ambitious for anything? Rank? Whatever?" Millie straightens then to observe his presumed handiwork on the other side of the bed, hands on hips. K'del grabs the end of the sheet, laughing outright as he begins to tuck it in on his side of the bed. "Exactly right," he tells her, not quite straight-faced. "/Someone/ has to make that sacrifice, and I've elected to take it on." He smoothes the sheet with his hands, very particular with it, as he talks. "Mmm. Try to just-- be myself, I guess. But it gets tiring, people telling you your opinion doesn't count for anything yet. I get I don't have the same experience, but I didn't just appear, fully formed, either. I can still have worthwhile ideas." His hands withdraw, letting her get a full view of his handiwork, as he adds, "Reckon I want to lead, eventually. Lead /something/, anyway. Not, like, setting myself up to be the next Weyrleader or anything." Yet. "Mm, they do at that," Milani remarks, looking up at him briefly, eyes dancing then she's continuing her inspection of the sheeting and nods as he get it done right. "It won't be forever, K'del. And ... it's not even that a weyrling's ideas aren't valid either, but -- there's things that just have to be learned and taken with your chin up. But you know that." Her smile waxes brighter as he puts a name to his ambitions. "Wingsecond or wingleader first, yeah? Well good for you. I'll bet you'd do a bang up job of it once it comes around." She considers him for a moment, head tilted to the side, then she works her way around the bed's frame, comes up alongside. "So." Deep breath. "Are we putting the rest of the linens on, or messing up what we already got on there?" K'del's smile is rueful, and he nods: he knows, he knows. "Learning all I can. So that, when they /do/ start paying attention, I got something to say. But. Still hard. Well: frustrating, anyway." He looks distinctly pleased for her response to his ambitions, nodding again. "Reckon I will, too," he grins. "Don't think I'd be content to be a Wingrider forever. Too--" He breaks off from this thought, as she works her way around, watching in silence with an expression that grows more pleased by the second. "And there I was, thinking you were all talk with me. I say it would be a shame to make the whole thing, just to mess it up." There's a little quirky, sidelong smile from Milani as she reaches for his hand. "Nope, you don't really strike me as the type to just sit back and rest on your laurels," she says gaily. That hand gets a little tug of warning, before she's suddenly jumping sideways onto the bed and flopping down onto the mattress with a rather girlish: "Whee!" "Life's too short for that," agrees K'del, as his hand is taken. "Something you'd know as well as I do - Headwoman before twenty!" Despite the tug, he's not quite prepared for her launch onto the bed, and thus, his own is distinctly less graceful, and makes the mattress wobble a fair bit with his dramatic /thump/. He begins to laugh. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to jump on the bed?" he teases, watching her, amused. "Definitely. Have to take advantage of things while you still can," Milani says with a laugh as her feet kick off the end of the bed and her shoes go flying, one this way, one that. She curls up onto her side though, gives the mattress a good thump. "Firm. Hope you like firm, hm?" There's a quirky smile from her next and she shrugs. "Sure, but where's the fun in that, and how do you expect to test it out properly if there's no jumping?" "Advice for the ages. Maybe I /should/ be aiming to supplant N'thei..." laughs K'del, watching in amusement as those shoes sail through the air, though his attention turns back to Milani a moment later, as he props himself up on one arm, wiggling experimentally against the mattress. "Firm's good. I am, after, a manly man, and we men like things hard." The quip is followed by a grin; nodding, he tells her, "Quite right. And, really, what's the point of being an adult if you can't do the things your mother always told you not to. New mattresses need a proper workout, right? Wear 'em in." "A manly man. Mmhm," Milani says with teasing skepticism. "And just /how/ hard would that be?" she queries next, expression shading impish indeed. A moment later though, the humor fades and there's something serious in her eyes as her hand lifts towards his cheek, fingertip lingering over one of those unfortunate scars, then trailing lower along his jaw to his mouth. "I probably shouldn't be doing this," she murmurs softly, almost guiltily. "You're a weyrling, I'm the headwoman ..." "/Hard/," insists K'del, eyes dancing, though as Milani's eyes turn more serious, he quiets, watching her intently. As her hand reaches to trace down his face, his own - the free one, the one not propping his head up - reaches out to trace down her shoulder, towards her back. "So? Who's going to know. Or /care/. What you do behind closed doors has nothing to do with anyone." There's a humorous snort, brief for that answer. "I'll know, and you will, and maybe someday that might mean something different to you than it might right now," Milani says softly even as her palm curves to match the line of his cheek. Blue-green eyes search his face for a moment then she lets out a long exhale. "Oh what the hell." Her hand slides backwards, fingers brushing over short scrub as she both draws him down and tips her chin up to kiss him. K'del doesn't look like he really /cares/ what his future self might think, feel or do, and even begins to say as much: "You only live--" Once? But then she's kissing him, and, unsurprisingly, he's kissing her back, shifting his position just slightly so as to allow him better access, his fingertips continuing to trace light patterns down her back, while the other hand frees itself to linger about her face. Decision made, Milani is no-holds-barred. There's something a little fierce in the way she kisses him and he might feel the tremor that runs up her spine as his hand traces so. In a break for breath, she's got another beaming smile for the weyrling, fingers walking down the back of his neck, around his collar to tug it awry and then both hands are busy popping free the buttons down the front of his shirt. "You just better be able to make as good as you boast, bronzerider. Because I have had one /really/ rotten couple of months." She peeks up at him from beneath her lashes, merriment dancing in her eyes now and her tone clearly teasing again. And K'del responds in turn - fierce? Fierce it is. While her hands are busy with his buttons, his draw away from their tracings to commence exploring the intricacies of her bodice, though from the way his fingers deal with the lacings, he's not a stranger to this kind of clothing. His lips seek hers again, almost, but not quite, covering over his response: "You'll see. No more disappointments, here, Headwoman." He'd be grinning - his eyes certainly are - were it not for the kiss. There's only a few of those buttons left as he gets going on her laces, a little pull in the corner of her mouth betraying her amusement at his ease with them. Another kiss and her eyes drift closed, the young headwoman putting her all into that one too until he speaks and her head tilts backward a little, gives her room to speak a challenge: "Prove it." And for all it's a real challenge being issued, her eyes still twinkle and there's at least a trace of fondness too. "You're on," avers K'del, accepting the challenge with another humour-infused grin. "Not that that wasn't the general idea /anyway/." And then there was a good trade back and forth in which K'del shows he's not all talk, but Milani still teaches him a thing or two. K'del's fingers manage to find enough strength to squeeze around hers, holding tight - and then tighter still, as she shifts, and then as she's /there/. He lets out a gasp of his own, clearly feeling it, and then it's his turn, his body shaking as he joins her at the peak, his free hand reaching up to pull her close to him, if she'll let him, breath and voice completely gone. Already starting to go limp, Milani's easily pulled into that embrace, breathing heavily into his neck as she goes pliant against him. She's quiet for a while, just breathing, then sighs softly and winds her arms around him turn, holding him tight. "Kas ..." she murmurs fondly and presses a trembling kiss to his neck. There's more silence after a while until she tips her head up, looks at him with a drowsy smile on her face. "Thank you," comes first. "You definitely walk the walk," comes second. K'del's arms wrap around her, too, one hand twining through her hair again, the other holding her tight about her back, snug against him. That's about as much energy as he can muster: he lies there, feeling her kiss against his neck, her body trembling against his. "You're welcome," he tells her, in a tone that might be earnest if it weren't quite so lazily limp. "'m glad you agree. Reckon you /run/ it, though." And that's about as much as he's got to say for sometime. Later, they'll make the bed properly, and Kas will invite her to stay, but fly her back down, if not. And it'll be companionable, easy. Fun. Milani laughs a little for that assessment, not very wordy herself for now. "Mm. Rather think that it's a trade off," she murmurs softly. "And maybe next time it'll be different," she says with easy acceptance. Because apparently there'll be a next time? There's regrets for staying right now, the ride gladly taken and a whisper in his ear to come fetch her tonight if he likes, or to stop by almost any time. Almost. Because yes, companionable, easy and fun are definitely things she'd agree to if they'd been voiced. |
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