Logs:Many Happy Returns
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| RL Date: 21 May, 2008 |
| Who: N'thei, Satiet |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| When: Day 16, Month 6, Turn 16 (Interval 10) |
| Garden Patio Ledge, High Reaches Weyr Wyaeth senses that Teonath entertains the possibility of being coy, rude, or just silent in light of such an intrusion in a rainbow that colors her mind. Begrudgingly, after a moment where she possibly confers with Satiet, she shares an image of the Snowasis' ledge. Wyaeth> I bespoke Teonath with « Good. » He high-tails it from Teonath's mental proximity, gets the hell outta Dodge. « Thanks. » What Teonath neglected to share with Wyaeth is that Satiet's hardly alone on the ledge, a tall, softly rounded, older woman standing across the table the raven-haired woman is seated at. A taller, older woman who bears familial resemblances to the goldrider, and looks to be on her way out, though tapered fingers linger just a moment atop a small crate. "Merita wanted to send some more things. Your last visit, she mentioned you'd gotten thinner. But-," with a helpless shrug, "I'll check in on the twins and drop by before I leave. Don't drink yourself to death." The last, a warning that's long since lost hope of making any kind of impression, drops droll from the older woman's lips and evokes a thin smile and rueful duck of Satiet's head. Probably that, the lie of omission, accounts for the sparse smile on N'thei's face when he reaches the bottom step from the bowl to the patio, when he can make out words and form for the two women up there. He lingers on the edge of the scene, unwilling to intrude but only too obvious about eavesdropping. Impeccably mannered if not groomed to suit, needs a shave as usual, he waits to offer this older woman-- this, dare to assume, /mother/ of Satiet's-- a hand down the stairs. Maybe she wants an answer from her taciturn daughter, that this woman lingers that second longer and then exhales. The lingering fingers across the crate's top stretches forth to rumple Satiet's hair in the way only a mother, or someone with a death wish, might do, before she turns not towards the steps but to shortcut through the Snowasis. Curious hazel eyes slant towards the lingering man, a sharpness in them catching the telltale signs of eavesdropping. Favoring the ill-groomed, but impeccably mannered man a wink, her head tilts to indicate her eventual path with a mouthed 'thanks.' Which leaves Satiet alone to wrinkle her nose at the crate and prod at the top of it with her drink holding hand. Another smile, this one tainted with appropriate chagrin for being observed while observing, N'thei lowers his head in his own farewell to this mother-person, stays at the foot of the stairs a moment longer. With deliberately heavy steps, loud footfall to alert his presence, he climbs up and advances on her table with an expression better suited to encounters with Satiet: a guarded smirk, pinned eyes, purpose without expectation. His expectation is met with lifted eyes and the set of her chilled glass to the table by that crate. "Figured you'd be along," remarks Satiet, pale eyes finding the guarded smirk and lifting to meet his gaze unblinkingly. "And presumed you wouldn't want to make small talk with my mother." Bereft of her drink, her hands find it hard to keep still, fidgeting first along the table's edge and then falling into her lap, where her fingers still play against each other. Agitation leads into awkward silence which is broken by a forced, uncharacteristic, "Hi. Hello. Did you need something?" No lie to counter that, wouldn't want to make small talk with her mother. It's the stilted words that draw N'thei's last couple of steps to the table slower, that raise his eyebrows, that turn a confused question down at Satiet. "Only a moment or two." And he wants her to know, in tone and look, that he finds the hi-hello-question to be utterly odd. But purpose-- a four-inch by four-inch, thin, peach-silk jewelry box held up by thumb and finger for view, handled indelicately, slid on to the middle of the table. In response to his confusion, there's no words but the lift of one hand from her lap, finally finding some purpose however nonchalant, so it might rest lightly on the table, wrist-wrapped and all. The slight woman takes in a breath and exhales in efforts to regain some semblance of self and composure. Her mouth quirks into an odd little pursed smile that hovers in between mocking and and the effort to make it so at the sight of the jewelry box. "An apology? You shouldn't have." Beat. "You might as well take two of those moments by sitting. Here," whether N'thei wants or not, Satiet moves to fill the second glass, untouched, with some brandy from a decanter at the table. "My brother made this." Shouldn't have? "Never would." N'thei accepts the offer for a seat, not hard with a chair right there in front of him, across the table from Satiet, the promise of brandy at hand even. "And your mother delivers it with a warning not to drink yourself to death. I hope she recognizes the irony?" It's a nursed glass, one that he draws toward him, lifts to inhale, yet to taste. "She does." In two words, Satiet's voice levels in its coolness, unspoken words laden in the dryness of the weyrwoman's intonation: /And/ she knows better than to admonish, but she's a mother, so... Two thin legs lift so she can curl into the patio seat all the more comfortably, half-tucked beneath her, half-bent so her knees press into the chair's armrest. "So if that's not an apology," she reaches for her glass, one filled with not brandy, and gestures, "Then...? It's not a box that lacks a key is it to try and drive me crazy?" Mention of that /other/ box surprises a different sort of smile from N'thei, one of genuinely fond amusement; "No. You wouldn't suffer the same debate that Persie does." Glass set aside, in reach, not forgotten, he reaches across the table to prove this one opens-- to a pale peach bed of silk, a blood-drop ruby laying just off center of the pillowed inside. His fingers turn the box a few degrees, set it back down front-and-center for Satiet. Dryly, "Lucky me," trips off a tongue that's then silenced by a knock back of her drink. No nursing here, liquid medication galore. It's when Satiet sets the glass down, that the deep-hued splendor of the ruby set against peach catches her eye. Moving slower, the glass clink near inaudible as opposed to when it was speeding down to the table, the goldrider is long silent. A brief, crooked smile emerges, the blue eyes lifted to find N'thei's face squarely, "The last time, it was a bucket of coal in exchange for my consent. This?" Where are the strings? N'thei shrugs, leans back in his chair slowly, fingers dragged the length of the tabletop until he crosses his arms, hands tucked across his elbows; his wrists work just great for such a comfy posture. Right back at her, ash eyes to blue ones, the mirror of a crooked smile, and he responds with a perfectly tranquil, "You could say thank you." So far-fetched? She reaches, the wrapped hand lifting off the table, stretching forward a tiny bit before hesitating and retreating back to its spot on the table. Maybe it went unnoticed. From her safe distance, a cautious regard is granted the gem, narrowed eyes scrutinizing the gift before they lift, wider set, to N'thei. Her, "Would you like my other wrist?" is followed shortly by a brief, eyes lowered, "Thank you." If it's not an apology, damned if the timing isn't perfect. "It's...," in efforts to find the right word to describe the stone, her lips thin, "Special." "Cliche." N'thei corrects the gem's compliment with an unabashed smirk, with merry eyes settled on the box instead of Satiet for a time. Thought to get a drop-shaped, blood-red ruby and put it on a bed of skin-tone silk won't change the fact that it's still just another gemstone, and his laugh has no vanity about the gift. "I'm not sorry." His eyes fix to the bandaged wrist now, his forehead lowered to indicate it. "I don't want you to think I am. It's for your turnday, not for apology." N'thei's correction sends thin cracks throughout the veneer of Satiet's initial and continued awkwardness, crumbling it here and there enough so that a thin laughter escapes, the ridiculous of it all sinking in. The bandaged hand ventures forth once more, this time reaching the peach-silk jewelry box and lifting it, an air-tug, matched with a self-mocking twist of her lips, testing for the strings attaching the box to its giver. "Then thank you," she says, reseating herself. "It's so rare I get jewelry as a gift, metaphorical meanings or not." She's almost pleasant, the intonation culminating into, "If you were sorry, I'd hate you more." N'thei answers to the last remark first-- "How would I live with that." Dust-dry humor for that, and carried into his next comment, into the look he lifts across the table to Satiet's. "It's not a sapphire snowflake, but it was either this or handcuffs." He rubs his fingers across his unblemished wrists, cuffs them contemplatively. "Went for subtlety in the end. And self-preservation." Satiet's, "Smart man," carries only a hint of dry regret for those missed-out-on handcuffs. As for the metaphorical snowflake, long relegated to gather slow dust on that mantel, the raven-haired woman's head tips, considering N'thei before speaking again, cooler for the topic, "It was a gift," which is what she said before, "From someone who used to be a friend. Who apologized, too much, too often, for things he didn't need to apologize for." The slender woman's legs drop to the ground, her chair scooting backwards a little so she can recline all the more leisurely, "You haven't sipped your brandy yet." Cherry. "When my mother returns..." N'thei gets it, he does, the other end of that apology spectrum; a rough laugh, an accusing look across the table at the birthday girl. "And why will I used-to-be-a-friend one day, I wonder." Mentioned, he retrieves the brandy from the side of the table where it's been waiting so patiently, reaches across to set the glass in front of Satiet, beside the jewelry box. "Your brandy. When your mother returns?" The same way, he drags his hand across the table; the change comes that he doesn't cross his arms, that his fingers brace like they'll push him up from his seat in a moment. In N'thei's rough laugh, much like in his correction, Satiet finds some measure of equilibrium, a delighted, sly look arcing her brows higher while curving those lips into a deep-rooted smirk that susses out the dimple of her right cheek. "Coward," accuses said birthday girl in return. "Thank you." She doesn't move. It's her party after all, and her birthday drinks, crate, and jewelry to indulge in. "I shall cherish this... cliche as much as I have the metaphor." With level mirth, N'thei watches the gradual reassumption of Satiet's more Satiet-like qualities, specifically the dimpled cheek, the one that momentarily puts his teeth to filing his lip and slows his will to stand. "Cherish it as much as it deserves, my love, only try to blow the dust off every few months." But he does stand eventually, and he reaches across one last time, to press the lid of the box with his forefinger, to snap it shut. The flickering uncertainty that rises when N'thei reaches across is quelled in an instant with pressed lips, the smirk and dimple disappearing into enforced neutrality. "Perhaps," she advises, "Next turn there'll be handcuffs as well." But she's given herself to the inevitability of the Weyrleader's departure, trading her not-so-chilled glass for the brandy and lifting it to toast his exit. "I'll tell my mother you said hello." Whether he did or not. N'thei sees that look, that uncertainty, and it puzzles him in a rare unfiltered frown and furrow of his forehead, an uncommonly unbaiting prompt in the look he puts to Satiet; she's afraid? Unsure? What? "Don't lie to your mother. Bad form." Ever a superficial gloss to cling to when there's the threat of something real, he glazes a farewell smile, a derisive backward laugh at her and her brandy. N'thei exits, Satiet begins drinking in earnest. When her mother returns, she finds Satiet nursing her third glass of brandy, the fruity drink abandoned for good, and contemplating the shut peach jewelry box. Whatever they talk about next that others might overhear have nothing to do with the box. Maternal sixth sense and all, knowing when to and when not to bring things up. As N'thei departs, Teonath's, « That was nice of him, » is as dry as her rider. After all, she's learned from the best. But pleased, nonetheless. (Teonath to Wyaeth) If only riders could read the nuances of thought so clearly: N'thei's a damn idiot, and anything nice-of-him is equally idiotic. « Wasn't it just. » Pleased that Teonath's pleased, can't help that, but Wyaeth withdraws with a rumble. (Wyaeth to Teonath) |
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