Logs:Milani the Helpful Saves Persie's Toes
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| RL Date: 17 January, 2008 |
| Who: Milani, Persie, N'thei |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| When: Day 21, Month 12, Turn 14 (Interval 10) |
| Milani meanders in from the tunnel to the bowl. Milani has arrived. In the warm quiet of a post-dinner cavern, N'thei sits doing something painfully mundane, something just short of drinking klah-- he's eating stew. He just drags the last bite out of the bottom of the bowl, just pushes it away and leans back into his chair at a corner table to exhale and pat his stomach, full of belly-filled satisfaction. A still rosy-cheeked Milani emerges from the lower caverns, still tugging on the bottom of a sweater like she just pulled it on over her clothes. Her hair's a little damp, not so much from bathing perhaps, but something got the ends of it wet. The assistant headwoman steers a course for klah, filling up the mug and wrapping both hands around its warmth. She just stands there for a moment, breathing in the steam and soaking up the heat, before turning towards the tables. "Hey Greina, yeah, I lost this time!" in answer to a query from a plump blonde who asks about the outcome of a snowball fight as Milani walks nearby, N'thei unnoticed just yet. N'thei spends time trying to work a piece of meat out from his teeth with his tongue, lips closed but occupation unhideable the way his mouth wiggles, this all accomplished while Milani gets her klah. Either satisfaction or resignation leaves him done with the preoccupation right after Milani's exchange with the blond, in time to contribute, "Aren't you a little old to be pitching snow, assistant headwoman?" The words from the bronzerider cut through Milani's chatter with Greina and she turns slightly, giving N'thei a very long, assessing look. "Oh I don't know, just right maybe?" She makes big eyes at N'thei and tilts her mug up for a little sip. Greina peers around her curiously at the bronzerider, a puzzled look on the blonde's face. "You know. Old enough to be good at it, but young enough to still have fun with it. What about you, bronzerider, too old to pitch snowballs around? Might hurt your knees after all." A little zing in that one. There's a question in N'thei's smile, an amused question at that while his eyes linger on Milani beneath raised eyebrows; the question goes without voice. He moves on after her zing, humor exhibited in the abbreviated laugh he exhales. "Might at that. After last winter, I'd sooner leave the damp and cold to you whippersnappers." He rubs his hands together, palm to palm, in the middle of an amply warm room. "It was a pretty cold one," Milani replies, "a lot of the older folks were /really/ uncomfortable. Joints aching and everything. Hope you don't get that /this/ winter." The assistant headwoman pastes on a bright smile to accompany those words and Greina makes big round eyes around her then turns back to her own remnant of a meal. Head down on this one for Millie's pal. N'thei at a corner table with the remnants of a bowl of stew in front of him, Milani in a sweater and damp-ended hair with a mug of klah in hand. It's the bronzerider's turn; "I've found as long as I stay buttoned up, I'm all right against most of the weather. You though? Been keeping yourself adequately dressed?" He asks it like he's concerned for nothing but the girl's well-being, his forehead creased and eyes bright with worry. There are people who stride into a room like they own the place, those who mouse in through the shadows hoping never to be noticed, and then there's Persie, who comes in from the wintery weather, hopping on one foot. The other foot is wearing only a sock, a bright orange sock that is obviously soaked. So in she comes, hopping along with a boot in her hand and now that she's inside, she turns toward the hearth, padding unevenly. Thud squish thud squish thud squish. "Of course, you know I know where to find the /best/ clothes to suit any occasion," Milani replies, tone as bright as the bronzerider's eyes and then she just goes ahead and perches up on that table, legs swinging off the side of it, klah mug held out at a jaunty angle right before she takes another drink. "If you're needing anything, you just tell me, I'll be sure to find something that'll keep your joints warm enough." Right after Milani gets that rejoinder of dubious quality out in the open, there's Persie going squish-thud and her head turns to track where the sound's coming from. "Although, it looks like, maybe someone else is in far greater need of my finding skills. Persie! What happened!?" Millie just goes right ahead and calls that out all clear-voiced. N'thei's feint is in his smile, in the dip of his head like there's only gratitude for Milani's charity. He lets a look linger longer on her before the inevitable, before the squishing and thudding attracts his attention and hoists his eyebrows to a reveal of Persie from head to shoeless toe. He agrees with Milani's question, with the confusion of a frown; "I couldn't have said it better myself. I believe boots work better when you wear them." Persie startles when Milani calls out to her, jumping upright and nearly dropping the boot she's holding. And then immediately she smiles big and broad. "Hi guys." And then she giggles sheepishly. "Oh, I'm just a klutz. I'm alright and all. You know how sometimes, when you put your boots on, your sock gets all bunched up funny. Well, I was coming across the bowl and it was bothering me and so I stopped to pull my boot off and then I lost my balance and I stepped and... right in a puddle, of course." She bends down to strip the soaked sock off, revealing some painfully white toes, turned pink and red from the cold. With a glance from N'thei to Milani and back again, she grins, "How are you guys?" That lingering look of N'thei's is met with a chin-lift by Milani and a return gaze that's more irrepressible than formidable, but there you go. She's trying. Persie's narrative gains her full attention though and after a moment she asks what might be the obvious question: "So ... where's your boot? Did it get stuck behind?" And then she winces at the sight of Persie's toes. "Oh /shells/ you need warm socks, /right/ now. Or you know, a good foot rub. With liniment!" Fuss fuss. When did she start sounding like Hayda? N'thei leans down to look at where the boot landed right about the time that Milani asks where it went, his attention stayed on the article only until the white-turned-red toes come to the forefront. "Right now. Your toes could be set to fall off any second." He finds gravity for his voice, levity for his expression. "Next time, stop and put your boot back on before you hobble the rest of the way to the caverns, yeees?" "That boot?" Perise says, swinging her wet sock toward the unworn shoe. The sock then gets held up in better display. "It was all wet. I didn't want to put it in my boot and get my boot all wet. And wet on the inside..." She makes a face for that, nose wrinkled. But all the attention to her pale foot has her looking down and wiggling those cold-pinkened toes. "They feel all right," she mumbles. Head still down, she peeks up at the two. "Is this some weird High Reaches thing? Do people's toes falls off a lot?" Milani blinks downward as Persie points out the fallen boot, the one she didn't notice because she was too busy staring down N'thei and then staring at Persie's cold-stricken toes. "Oh! Well, good that you /have/ it at least. And you know, that's actually pretty smart, not getting it wet inside there, but you really need some fresh socks." Pause. "Fall off? Not lately. But you do have to be careful about frostbite." Millie's klah mug hits the table about then with a solid thunk and she slides off said table, holds up a finger. "I will be /right/ back, don't go back out there with your foot all bare. I know where I can get you a really great pair of purple and green stripey socks that you'll just love." And with that, she's running off towards Stores. Gone the space of maybe ten minutes. N'thei waits until Milani is gone from the room, his head turning and turning until he can see she's left the space entirely. Gradually, he returns his attention to Persie and says in his most serious-and-somber voice, "See what you've done. She's got a purpose." Somehow, to judge the accusation, this is a /bad thing/ and it's all Persie's fault. "At least stand by the fire there. You make me cold all over." "Oh!" Milani is so very accomodating that 'oh' is just about all that Persie can get out before the assistant is dashing off. "Well, that's nice of her," she says, chuckling self-consciously as she turns back to N'thei. "A purpose? What did I do?" she blinks. And then, instead of going to the hearth, she drops into the chair by N'thei, her knee bent high so she can get her slightly warmer hands around her chilled foot. "Are you trying to get rid of me?" she teases. At least she seems to be teasing, her lip caught between her teeth as she wears an impish smile. Her glance goes to his bowl, trying to see in it. "What are you eating?" Purple and green and very stripey indeed, Milani resurfaces holding the socks in one hand, a basket in the other and boasting a smile as bright as the sun on her face. "Here you go! Socks!" The assistant headwoman's voice carols cheerily forth as she draws near the table where N'thei and Persie sit. "Here's the liniment too, for your foot. To warm it up." N'thei taps the very end of the handle, which has the effect of making the usable end of the spoon rattle in the bowl's emptiness; "If you mean to ask what I /was/ eating-- stew." Even he recognizes the utter dullness of that answer. "Yes, is it working?" Very probably, he's teasing Persie in return, but one never can be too sure, especially since Milani comes back before he can wink or grin or any such tell. "Industrious girl." He beams upon Milani. "Oh," Persie answers for N'thei's empty bowl, and before she can say anything he's so dryly answering her other question. "Oh," she repeats, but this one so much more quiet and uncertain that it might as well be a different word altogether. But now Milani is back and Persie's easy, affable smile is too. "Those -are- cute," she grins for the sock, bunching them up in the crook between her body and her bent leg to wait for a bit. The linement, however, gets a much more dubious look. "What... what -is- it?" she asks, giving the substance a sniff. "Aren't they?" Milani is effusive in the face of Persie's own enthusiasm. "There was a batch the aunties knitted up, I guess they were feeling playful, all different sizes in bright stripey colors instead of the usual black, brown and gray." Her tongues sticks out apparently for the barfy shades that are typical of socks. "Anyway, yeah, here," she hands those over then pulls out a soft, clean towel from the basket and the little pot of liniment. "It's like ... the same stuff they put numbweed into, only it's not numbweed. Some herbal stuff, it smells good?" So saying she opens the pot and holds it out for Persie to sniff. "You ever frozen any toes off N'thei?" The girl's eyes lift upwards towards the bronzerider, no she hasn't forgotten he's there, or the fact that they were trading barbs. N'thei keeps his laugh mostly to himself, a subdued merriment that accompanies him to his feet, to the collecting of his bowl, to the droll smile for Persie's disheartened syllable. "Not clean off, no. But don't let that stop you from stock-piling socks, ladies, I'm sure it can happen." That's all the more usefulness he can muster for a conversation about liniment and stripey socks, better to distract himself cleaning up his place than trying to keep up. "But what... what does it do?" Persie asks Milani, still eyeing that liniment warily. "Do I just slather it on? Won't it be all gross inside my sock?" And 'sock' gets drawn out a bit as N'thei stands beside her and takes up his things. "Oh, I can leave if you want. Really! I can go sit by the fire and do the liniment stuff and..." She frowns. "Don't trip over my boot," is all she can think to offer. Then she turns back to Milani. "I'm sorry." Though the reason for the apology might not be immediately obvious. "It does smell alright. And it will make my toes warm?" "Well that's good, after all, a well-turned foot can get you just the right kind of attention, and the opposite ... well, you know." All innocence, Milani waves her hand a little, dismissively and sends another little smile N'thei's way. "Oh you rub it in vigorously and it gets the blood moving in your foot and the herb stuff helps keep the skin from cracking. Kind of like oiling a dragon against Between I guess, only you don't need as much of this as you would dragon oil." N'thei shakes his head with a light dismissal to Persie, his steps already leading toward the kitchen without tripping over the dropped boot, dishes set to be washed or refilled or forgotten; "Stay. Oil your foot. Milani and I can usually only stand each other in ten or twenty minute intervals anyway, and we must have reached the end of that by now?" He looks to the younger woman for back-up, yes? Persie looks up for N'thie's return, but at his insistence, her eyes go down again and she reaches for some of the liniment to start rubbing it over her toes, mostly with one hand as the other one still grips her wet sock. "I don't mean to be a bother," she says to Milani, apologetic still. There's only another quick glance and a small smile for the departing bronzerider. Milani bites on the inside of her cheek at N'thei's remark and for a moment it looks like she might serve up another smart aleck remark, but in the end her shoulders drop a little and she shifts one hand to push her hair back over her shoulder, sets the pot of liniment down next to Persie . "You're not a bother Persie. I'm glad to help you out. Can't have riders with frostbite." She turns to squarely face the bronzerider and looks him right in the eye. "Actually, I think we were doing pretty all right for once, N'thei. But you do as you please. You always do." The girl turns back to Persie then and after a moment's hesitation reaches for the greenrider's foot. "More like this. To get the blood going. And you'd best give me both of your dirty socks and I'll see to it they get washed and back to you." N'thei shrugs and nods at Milani's square-in-the-eye remark, no arguments here, nor any attempt to dodge the very levelness of her look. It is the most pleasant of all pleasantries that sees him through the doorway to the kitchen; "Good night, ladies." |
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