Logs:Winter Song
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| RL Date: 6 February, 2014 |
| Who: Suireh, N'rov |
| Involves: Fort Weyr, Harper Hall |
| Type: Log |
| What: N'rov visits Ruatha on a night when Suireh performs there. |
| Where: Ruathan Great Hall |
| When: Day 5, Month 13, Turn 33 (Interval 10) |
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| Ruatha Hold, Ruatha Area Set into a cliff in a steep valley with a breath-taking view of the Ruatha River, Ruatha Hold presents a grand facade above its long walled courtyard. A rampway leads up to the main hold, smaller cotholds huddled along its length and down the Causeway Road to the river. The road passes the open gather square, intersecting with the north-south road that leads off to outlying cotholds and the Hold's walled orchards and leads all the way to the river where it widens into Ruatha's great lake. >---< Local Weather for RAW >------------------------------------------------< Current Temp: 25 F Today's Lo/Hi: 25 F / 43 F Belior: first quarter Timor: waning gibbous Weather: snowy ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Snow falls intermittently all day, leading to piles of accmulated white. >---------------------------------------< 22:29 D5 M13 T33, winter night >---< Rukbat's disappearance over the horizon line has long since left a frigid night in its wake. Outside, snow continues to dance down from the skies, blanketing the entire Ruathan countryside in gleaming, mostly untouched white, and the drifts are starting to buffet up against the Hold itself. The long tables of a Hold feast are starting to get cleared as people cozy in against a loved one, move to a spot closer to one of the hearths warming the Great Hall, or are young enough to brave closer to the small dais set up for harpers. The first set is particularly for the children that gather close, a cheerful series of ditties sung by a young, unaccompanied boy. So far, N'rov hasn't yet followed suit; as space clears out around him, he does justice to the very last of his share of the roast, flashing a quick smile at the also-young boy who's been assigned to tidy this particular table. "Almost done," he assures. Soon he'll be done. Soon his table can join the others, set to the side to clear space for later dancing. But for now, "Wish you were in his shoes, or just as glad to not be in front of everyone?" The boy grimaces, "Wish I were sittin' there listenin for sure, but standing there singing like a little girl? I'd rather be like you, sir. Ridin' a dragon out there." This one has a great future ahead of him. "Could fetch you some more wine, sir, if you want." The ditties end. The boy bows with a flourish, exiting to the left while a slender young woman enters from the right. She perches on the stool, one leg on the ground, the other braced against a rung, and rests her gitar on the higher leg. Her balance shifts here and there until she finds a comfortable spot and a test strum is taken to fill the Hall with a dischordant (but not altogether unpleasant) sound that captures attention and quiets the din between acts. There's no introduction, merely a crooked half-smile and a turn of her head to study her fingers at the neck of the instrument before her voice starts, low-pitched, but sweet and ethereal. The self-accompaniment comes shortly after. The bronzerider's laugh is low but definite. "I hear you. Just think of me later, when you're wrapped up all warm, and I'm freezing my... toes off, flying out in the cold." For all that they have eggs, he doesn't now ask the boy's age. Maybe it's the strum that's plucked his attention away, but then again, he also doesn't forget to add, "I'd appreciate that, lad. Especially if you bring the bottle." The song's the more pleasant sort of seasoning, it seems, to see him through the last of the meal. Then he's standing, still by the table where the boy can find him again, at the last tossing the napkin down once he's had his fill of that too. It doesn't take long for that boy to return with the entire bottle, or two. What he hopes from the exchange is written all too clearly on his face, that gleam, that brightness. That near worship. "Brought you some wine and some brandy if that's what you like." Then, the lad hovers, just visibly waiting but also visibly straining to not look like he is. At least, now, with Suireh singing, he can pretend to listen, until that pretend isn't so much pretend anymore. It's a song in the minor key, a ballad that tells the tale of two lovers born to the the opposing Holds of Bitra and Lemos, dancing briefly as it soars over their secretive courtship before slowing into a largo that concludes with them dying in each other's arms. The song, however mournful it might end up, could be marred by the telltale twitch in the concentrated furrow of the harper's brow -- what little of it can be seen at any rate with her head bent over her instrument as such. Her voice fades, and the gitar brings the song to it sad, sad close. That gets him an indeed-appreciative clap on the shoulder and yes, N'rov will take custody of those bottles. Whether he doesn't see the boy's bright attention, or whether he takes it as his due... "Clean glassware to go with," the bronzerider suggests (or 'suggests') in a voice that's lower yet, by way of respect for that song that's gotten words by now. He listens. They listen. And then he's making his way, bottles and his own glass in tow, towards not the harper herself but her instrument's case. "To. Go. With?" Uncomprehendingly, the boy looks after N'rov, before it finally dawns on him as the bronzerider leaves. Right. Clean glasses. That hope in his eyes diminishes significantly though and it might end up that those glasses just don't manifest in front of N'rov. Like ever. And the song is over. And while such a singer could sing another, Suireh relinquishes the stage for now to the next act: a trio of instrumentalists that start the dancing festivities. Her gitar is slung over her shoulder and she turns to watch momentarily, wincing when a misnote, only audible to trained ears, mars the music. With a shake of her head, Suireh turns and heads towards the prep area, just beneath a sweeping staircase leading deeper up into the hold. Or if they do, N'rov should probably check them out for spittle. By the time she gets to the prep area, he's lounging not actually against the wall but as though against an invisible one perhaps a handspan off, checking out not the nonexistent glasses but the labels of the bottles. He doesn't look up, though he might see her movement in the periphery. "Is that your favorite sort of song?" he wonders of the harper-girl. Lest it be confused, a hint of humor in his low baritone, "The one you sang." Interruptions. Applause. Flattery. All of that are regular occurrences for her after performances. Questions? Conversation? Somewhat less so, though, she doesn't react to this unknown speaking to her? At her? To the bottle? "No. But it's a general crowd favorite and I was asked to please Ruatha's Lord tonight." The arch cadence implies subtext, but it's her subsequent words that hope to forestall any curiosity therein from growing more. "Were you not pleased with my selection?" Pause. "The one you heard." A slow smile dawns, appreciative of her cadence in all its variations at the very least. "I," and N'rov gives it a judicious moment, "liked it well enough. At the risk of being deemed easily pleased, Lord that I am not." He turns one bottle, the brandy, to examine the other side. "Well enough to wonder what you'd pick, if you were only pleasing yourself." Grey eyes lift, at last, teasing up the smile that his mouth's no longer permitted. A long moment passes, Suireh studying N'rov from that slow smile to the lack thereof and how it travels up to his eyes. It's something more than a glance over and less than scrutiny, but even if it lacks in intensity, there's an intangible something-something in her pale gaze -- an awareness that seems as if it captures everything and remembers. That eye lifted smile gives her an opening to speak or return some sort of expression, both of which she declines with a drop of her chin, a crooked turn of her lips, and movements once more towards her case, working instead, to put the gitar away, carefully tying the straps together that keep it in place before making looping together the buttons that close the exterior. It's a long silence that doesn't just want to be quiet, but demands it. It's somehow sketched in those overly proud shoulders and the quiet way with which she works. It's silence that doesn't stay that way, though not because of speech; it's because of the slow footsteps that approach, not heavily and most definitely not hiding. It's not because of the warmth of the intruder's temporary nearness; it's the whisper of soft-worked leather followed by the clink of glass against stone. "Good eve, Harper," he says at last, low baritone inflected with humored vowels that have never known Ruatha at all. It's lower yet for his not yet having risen, but then he must do, for those same footsteps depart that much more quietly. Or perhaps they don't, and it's just her imagination, and he's still... no. No. Easy, bounding strides: up those same stairs, above her head. Only lesser women would be intrigued. In this case, Suireh doesn't visibly change at the interruption to her demanded silence, only serving to make her work all the more slowly. Nor does she twitch at the warmth of nearness, the whisper of leather, the low non-Ruathan words. Then those easy bounding steps coming from above her release the breath she hadn't quite known she'd held in. And what does an eloquent harper say to this? A low, exhaled, "Fuck." But hey, there's liquor. |
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