Logs:No one wins
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| RL Date: 24 May, 2013 |
| Who: K'zin, Telavi, Rasavyth, Solith |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: The dragons have a very interesting discussion with a field trip into K'zin's mind while the humans have a disappointing night. (Solith even manages to keep her hands to herself!) |
| Where: Questionably Painted Weyr (K'zin's), High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 14, Month 11, Turn 31 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: I'zech/Mentions, Meara/Mentions, Quinlys/Mentions, Sabella/Mentions, Sh'mel/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Part 3 in a series of month 11 snippets between K'zin and Telavi (this one ran away and got a little long for a snippet). Preceded by Logs: First Flames (Rasavyth and Solith). |
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| Rasavyth's Ledge, High Reaches Weyr What a spectacular weyr! Its large ledge boasts a pair of perfect hollows, room enough for a pair of bronzes, and just inside the entrance are a series of shelves cut into the stone, ideal for displaying small knickknacks and keeping everything organized. Questionably Painted Weyr At the back of the weyr the cavern branches into two good-sized back rooms with a double-sided fireplace occupying the wall they share. The weyr even comes already decorated. It has an ornately carved bed and press in both of the rooms; the front area offers a polished rectangular table and six matching chairs, a set-up perfect for entertaining. Rugs are scattered across the floor, their colors bright and cheery to match the walls. But oh, those walls! Some artistic hand has painted mural on every wall, filled with bright colors and bordered by mixed fruits and vegetables. The mildest murals are filled with exuberant scenes of dancing people, but most of them are of a more... questionable nature. They're certainly not the sort of thing any concerned parent would want their children to see, though they give the weyr a definite party atmosphere.
His weyr was scattered with the evidence of his near-nightly socializing with Sh'mel. For a soft-spoken, unassuming sort of guy, he was a high maintenance friend. K'zin refused to think of him as a project, as Rasavyth did. The dragon dehumanized people too much for his liking sometimes, though deep down, K'zin knew it to be true to a degree. He wouldn't've gone out of his way to get to know Sh'mel were it not for this whole awkward mess they were in leading the wing this month. The wine glasses were empty on the table, the drop-cloths down around the food mural wall (the others still intact), and covered in the fine mist that comes from sanding down paint to the smooth stone beneath. At least, K'zin was getting help with this project. Though Sh'mel's ides for appropriate replacement murals ranged from boring to boringer, so once it came time for painting, K'zin would have to find a tactful way to re-direct. Maybe they'd sand them all down first. That'd surely take all month. He was excited to see her. Here in this not-wing-work context. Hopefully, she hadn't brought a stack of hides expecting to study. His eagerness had him on the ledge, waiting. When Solith touches down, there's a warm smile on K'zin's lips. No thump-and-slide from sunny-eyed Solith this time. She lands so lightly that, were there sanding-dust out here, it would barely have shivered from the slight impact of paws meeting stone... if it hadn't already flown up from the turbulence from her wings. Tela's leaning forward, her hands over her eyes, and it takes her a moment to drop them; when she does, when she's past the other moment it takes to realize-- she laughs, smiling back at him, as though she'd just been brought a present instead of the other way around. "Look who's here." "For once," K'zin answers with a grin, moving to Solith's side, giving the green a light, friendly pat before offering a chivalrous hand up to the greenrider. "Coming down?" He queries, "Things are a mess inside," and he's a little dusty here and there in his brown work trousers and green shirt. "But you're welcome to come in for a bit." A bit. But not the night, evidently. Not that she needs it, but while there actually are some things Telavi's in the habit of turning down, that's not one of them. "Apparently," she says, doing just that. "Of course." Solith curves her neck around for a better look, and Tela pauses with no more warning than that to answer the green with an uptilted look of her own. After a moment she rubs Solith's narrow chin, gets a breath of airy brimstone in return, and moves on. "By this point," she says, "I think the betting has moved on from whether you and Sh'mel are moving in, to who gets the top bunk." Rasavyth chooses this moment to offer Solith a cheery warble in greeting, though he looks sleepy for sure. "Really?" K'zin sounds surprised, brows furrowing. He plays the joke well before delivering the punchline. "The way I heard it, the odds were two to one that I'm the bottom." Not bunk. "I'm sure there's still time to get in on the action." He takes the opportunity once she's on the ground and done with her lifemate to face her, curling his arms around her and pull her close, his body pressing firmly against hers in the way of lovers long parted. "I feel like I haven't seen you in ages." Which is silly, since they see eachother everyday. But maybe she knows what he means. Solith's is a bright reply, it's just that she's gotten herself distracted, and that's even before she goes peeking about the ledge as though it might have gotten itself scraped and carved and painted, even, when she wasn't looking. There's a glimpse of some sort of canopy, a richly striped adornment to very practically extend the overhang, with the sense of banners co-opted and changed from some fortress's heights. She doesn't seek to disturb the other dragon, though, not directly. Let him seem to sleep! Her rider's left to laugh at the ploy, the play, brightness in her own eyes. "Sounds like someone wants to make," is all that escapes her before he catches her up like that, the slight stiffness that hadn't shown to look at her dissolving with her smile. She may be tangling her hands in the back of his collar instead of his hair, but that's only to start with, and then she lays her head against his chest. Dust or no dust. "Better?" It's soft. Sleep? Why sleep? Just because he's sleepy? Pfft. Rasavyth is pushing himself up off the cushions, stretching like a feline before moving to follow Solith, mind following hers to see things the way she does, curiosity leaving an oozing trail as he follows. "Much." K'zin's baritone rumbles in his chest, translating to her ear as it's there against him. "Not as good as could be, but I swear I'd fall dead asleep mid-act and I'd never hear the end of it if we tried right now." It doesn't, however, stop him from rubbing his hands across her back and squeezing her even closer to him. Fine, fine, she needed a shadow. A sticky shadow. A bigger shadow. Solith doesn't quibble, but rather turns outward with a tilt of her head, seeing what is to be seen way out there. What will be able to see, looking in. Does he always want to be on display? she wonders without words, always keeping her rider discreetly reflected in a facet or two of her eyes for all that she's looking and looking, elsewhere. Her rider who sighs, dramatically, going low on her toes so her words can make it to the hollow of his collarbone. "That would be the worst thing ever," she vows. "Worse than the time where, well. Tragedy." Higher, using her arms about his neck for balance, and she reinforces it with the press of her teeth. Perhaps better than most others, Solith might have access to the sensation that Rasavyth does not prefer the spotlight. Will he accept it if eyes seek him? Surely. He has nothing to hide, but he's not one to seek the interest and attention of others, at least not as voyeurs. He sidles up alongside her looking out over the bowl and then up to the stars. His ooze burbles contentedly as it weaves idle patterns in trailing the green's mind. He chooses to let his lack of words to be more significant than if he were to speak. The bronze head does jerk, however, for a moment distracted by the sudden flood of sensation, some of which leaches through the ooze to Solith: surprise and pleasure, not his own. It is with the bite that K'zin's hands cease to rub and instead grip suddenly tight, crushing her to him as he wavers in his stance, suddenly weak-kneed. It's been long since she discovered the profound effect that a perfectly pressured bite can have on him, and no doubt it's for that effect and the longing whimper that escapes him that she does it now. "Teeeelaaa." He breathes, half protesting, half encouraging. As he approaches, Solith compensates, shifting in a concave arc that follows the line of the ledge. Neither of them are full-grown, but there's more room for wings that way. She looks back at Rasavyth for a contemplative moment before following his gaze upward to... oh, stars, shiny! Surely stars can't be voyeurs, and behind the patterning a constellation of them glimmers brighter, some fond Olveraeth-association or other. It's that quick movement that has her contracting her neck, its ridges moving closer together, what she reacts to before the relayed emotion that leaves her wings shivering right down to their fingersails in its wake. She doesn't move her head in her rider's direction, though she's attentive to both her and the narrow, ruddy dragon beside her. Solith doesn't pretend to not have noticed, but then would she, could she, ever? But neither does she think to share that other pleasure and whatever there might be beyond it, Tela made breathless by more than that crushing squeeze, smiling into the way he says her name. "Yes," she says. That's her. And also, yes. She doesn't look up, does talk when she finally does talk with her lips in the very same spot, by way of a reminder. "Know you've been having people, people and more people all day long, asking things of you for sevens now. It's not like..." how to put it? The pleasure the bronze passes along with the tell-tale of orange peel and leather seems to bleed off as Rasavyth becomes aware of it's transmission. It's back to the simple pleasure of stargazing, which he sets to, casting his mental ooze in a net high above as he goes fishing for stars, mentally manipulating some to draw them closer, tweak them brighter. Soon enough, an image is starting to come clear in the stars he polishes. Can Solith tell what he's painting in the stars for her? Like cloud watching, but better. Sparklier. Tela, for her part, will have time to contemplate just how to put it. If she can think and kiss at the same time, because with a quick series of moves, her lips are suddenly claimed. It's done so needily that she might suspect he didn't even hear her, his hands traveling farther than just her back. He doesn't kiss her for too long before he pulls his lips free, forehead against hers, voice soft and thickened with desire. "What would you ask of me, Tela?" The question agrees with her statement of how the month has been going. Sparklier. Can she? She'll find out, dropping lightly to her hindpaws to look up and up and up, though surely the green shouldn't have to crane physically to see in their minds' eye. Easily-distracted Solith even winds her tail about her paws, the better to physically remind herself not to nudge those stars about. Yet. She must wait for the vision, first, of what Rasavyth has in mind. As for Telavi, quite likely she could, but why? It's easier yet to reply: "I'd tell you," Tela tells K'zin, now that she's opened her eyes to him, "to do what you want while you can." She doesn't so much as press her wingsecond with suggestions, not even with how he's pressed her up against him already: not that she should tuck him in and leave, not that she should go right now, not otherwise. A few more stars are perfected and then the image is all too clear. There it is: a starry Solith. The star-eyes glitter enchantingly, a complimentary reflection of the green's own bejeweled eyes. « It doesn't compare, really. » The tenor purr is soft. « You're much lovelier than the star's reflection of you. » He's not really putting the moves on the green, just making observation; then control of the starscape is offered to the green so she may toy, play, and rearrange as she likes. Telavi had better mean what she says, because K'zin is all too quick to take her at her words. To do what he wants while he can. For all that he said he'd fall asleep if he tried, his hands are at her belt, hastily undoing it with every intention of disrobing her just enough to do what he wants while he can as he leans for a distracting kiss, lest she try to dissuade him from the idea. Solith's bemused, a girlish wiggle evidence of how she just doesn't know what to do with that. It looks like how she sees herself, surely, the more so since she doesn't have dragon-sized mirrors to gaze in and likely wouldn't even if she did, and so only ever sees herself through others' eyes. Lakes are for splashing in. For that, she steals some of the stars down her imaginary self's neck, slow-moving but blurred like a milky galaxy in motion to wrap around Rasavyth's headknobs... or at least chase them down if he doesn't hold still. It could be a veil, or clouds about the game table's miniature mountaintops, if not precisely a halo. As for Telavi, her 'not precisely dissuading' is more like 'not in the least dissuading,' the distraction of his kiss more like incentive to walk them both backwards, hopefully back into the weyr and not off the ledge. The weyr with its table... with breakable glasses atop it. The weyr with its dropcloths... with all that potentially sneeze-inducing dust. The weyr with the potential for all sorts of exciting detritus. Holds still? Where would the fun in that be? Rasavyth dodges, his sinuous neck curling and sliding through the air. Let Solith and her galaxies give chase. It is too oft the other way around and will one day be so. But those are not thoughts for now and here, even if their riders are more focused on that action. As though to give himself better balance as he shuffles backward, his bronze wings which are so dull when wrapped about his body, as they so often are, are brilliant in the light of moon and stars as they are spread wide, conveniently providing a privacy curtain for the riders. It seems more like design than coincidence though as her attempt to walk them back toward the weyr proper is met with the press of K'zin's body. If she didn't realize before, maybe she gets his intention now. Right now, clearly she got. But does she now realize 'right here'? That's easier to deal with, the natural response to retreat being advance, at least for a night like this... and if Solith can employ some of Rasavyth's very own goo to not only reflect some of those stars but glue them on, so much the better. If, at least, he can take it. If, at least, if she's not interrupted... which makes it all too clear when one realization becomes another and the green dragon stops and stares before snorting gustily. Fine. Let them play their rousing game of scrabble, she'll do what she can to make sure no one cheats and looks at the pieces... as long as it doesn't last too long. It's only too late that Rasavyth realizes the sticky situation he's gotten himself into. He's armed Solith of all dragons with sticky glitter to use against him. Brilliant, Rasavyth, just brilliant. Whirling eyes turn briefly back over his shoulder toward the canoodling riders, and it is with a distinct air of 'the things I do for you' that he turns back to the green to accept his fate. But then her attention, too, has gone to the the riders as well, and the bronze observes her acceptance of the act. And hey, if it distracts Solith from stickering him with stars, more's the better for him! It turns out that it doesn't last too long. But in the end, no one wins. K'zin makes a valiant effort, but the tiredness he professed before demands his concession to their mutual defeat when neither's victory is forthcoming. The whole thing leaves him breathless, sweaty, blushing, and frustrated. "Faranth's filthy finger. I'm sorry, Tela." At least even such a brief wait provides opportunities for more stickering, though Solith's changed her mind enough to also want to peel off any of the stars that strike her as being particularly Olveraeth-y, with or without glitter-glue. Her rider straightens in her turn, taking care of such things as popping her back with hands to hips, and glances back. Whether or not she's any of the four of those, there's something like a smile in her voice when she says, "It was ambitious. Come on, I'll see if I can dig up something water-y to drink." The kiss she leans to set on his shoulder is light, like she's not fussed... but thirsty, yes. Well, at least some of the stickers are coming back off courtesy of the green. The bronze has no choice but to be grateful for small blessings. Telavi's assessment of the attempt as ambitious only makes the bronzerider's embarrassment worse. "Yeah," He doesn't sound exactly like he agrees, and is uneasy saying the single word. The placating kiss to his shoulder compounds, the underriding feelings of inadequacy. It's that note in his voice. Tela can't help but twig on that, though as ever the difficulty is what to do. Solith has it easy with her decorating and redecorating, confusion briefly in the greenrider's gaze as she glances even more briefly toward the dragons, because what is she doing? but it's hardly unusual for Telavi to let the draconic sphere take care of itself. At least, where flame isn't involved. Hesitation's followed by uncertainty but she tries, moving closer to set her arms more firmly around him this time if he'll let her. "K'zin." It's not a bite, but neither is it light, airy, as easy for her to walk away from as she'd like. He'll let her put her arms around him, but it's hard to catch his dark gaze. Mostly because he's looking anywhere but at her. K'zin's arms settle in exchange briefly around her waist, hands resting on her hips, though not with the grip they had moments before. "You said you were thirsty. There's water in on the table." Then he's making move to slip her hold, a gentle, but insistent movement that has him stepping toward the weyr proper. That would answer that, even if she hadn't guessed before. It takes work for Telavi to not sigh as heavily as her ribs urge her to, to keep it to the brief flare in her eyes. Which he's avoiding looking at anyway, though for those first couple of moments she'd tried. She nods, though, that's agreement, isn't it? and for all that she acquiesces to that insistence, walks with him. Only, low, "Wish you'd look at me." As they walk, after her words, his hand finds its way to hers, curling his fingers around her smaller digits. His brown eyes flit down to her, briefly, but he makes the effort to attempt it. "You know I'd look at you anytime you wanted." And after that pitiful performance, it's the least he can do. His footsteps are swift though, in bringing them into the weyr proper. K'zin squeezes the hand he holds gently. "Cups are in the cabinet," And surely she can see the pitcher of water next to the empty skin of wine and empty wine glasses. "I'm going to get changed, alright?" He is quite dusty from the on-going repainting project. Hers curl back, warm pressure that can't stay tight. Tela's hands don't have the calluses they once had, even the tip of her finger she'd used as a thimble now shaped like his to dragon-work but softened by dragon-oil, though she's begun to make friends with her needle again and he has, had until this month, the forge. "I... didn't, actually. I like that you say it." That he did look. And then, later, that he let her be the one to let go, smoothing her thumb lightly-no-not-too-lightly along his along the way. "All right." She'll give him a minute. Two. More, depending on her nerves. "When a beautiful woman asks you to look at her, it's a no-brainer every time." K'zin tries to say with some lightness, but it comes out sounding a little flat. He slips his hand from hers when she gives her blessing and heads for the bedroom. There's the quiet sound of movement in the room, and then silence, but he doesn't reappear. And when Tela comes to find him? Poor guy is passed out, looking like he got halfway through undressing, sitting on the edge of the bed before just keeling over into sleep. She doesn't reply, lips pale from being pressed together like that. What she does do is, with an ear for movement or its lack, retrieve a cup from the cabinet and a couple of the softer napkins, too. After wiping out the cup, just in case, and fruitlessly poking the wineskin just in case, she catches herself giving the now-closed cabinet another look. No, she can't see its familiar contents right through the doors. No, she doesn't need to. She turns deliberately away and both fills and drinks from the cup twice over... with water. She walks, along the way, around the table... twice. She does not do anything like putting the wineglasses away, does not neaten, does not dust. What Tela finally does do is walk into his room, bringing the pitcher with her, and the cup and the cloths. Even their dragons wouldn't discern surprise at what she sees, and she begins by setting down the things she'd brought and persuading the hearth to more warmth. With equal deliberation, once she's wiped her palms on her knees, she pours a cupful of water and sets it next to one of the cloths already upon the nightstand. Now she can sit, though it's on the very edge of the bed; she shapes the remaining cloth into a bowl in the palm of her hand and pours water upon it, wetting it before squeezing the water further into the cloth. She must be tired, but she takes the time. She looks at him for a moment, even, and then starts to cleanse his forehead, first, of the dust. Rasavyth is the light sleeper of the pair. K'zin can (as Tela surely knows by now) sleep through just about anything. There could be wherries squabbling over a clutch of firelizard eggs laid on his chest and he'd miss the whole thing. So it's unsurprising, surely, that Telavi's gentle ministrations. Rasavyth's words come softly to Solith as he proceeds to attempt to scrub himself of some of the remaining stars, « Please tell your Telavi that he will be sorry in the morning. Well, sorrier. » But at least that's a preview of the apology she's bound to get at some point, regret coloring the bronze's ooze a mulchy brown. At least the stars come off more readily as the dust does, bit by bit, as though Telavi were loosening it for the both of them. Solith makes sure to send the dislodged stars spinning skyward again, at least unless Rasavyth has other plans. Preoccupied, « She does not need him to be sorry. » Once Tela's finished with the cloth, which has to have different areas re-wet a couple of times to keep it actually cleaning rather than smearing around some new-made mud, she just needs to get that second big boot off that he'd missed before: starting with the laces, careful to undo them widely enough and far enough that she shouldn't break his ankle or anything when she pulls it off. The moment of truth approaches, will K'zin wind up walking with a cane? but before Telavi can get that far, « Why is he bothered so, Rasavyth? » Rasavyth does better than to simply explain. He pulls away curtain of woven patterns, visible only in the shimmers that glitter across the ooze, sharing intimately with Solith a vision of K'zin's mind. After all, it is not sweet, goodhearted K'zin whose mind need be hid from the world; this difference, however, is not something he shares, not even with his K'zin. Solith, should she choose to see what he offers her, would be suddenly suffused with pleasant warmth, the flickering of flamed, the smell of smoke with a metallic tinge, the sensation of supple leather along with its heady aroma and that tell-tale twist of orange zest. After this initial sensation, she is guided to where his feeling lie, taking the shape of a large bucket of cool water, the kind blades and other heated metal are hardened in. Rasavyth encourages the very gentle probing into those waters that, when the surface is broken, reveal an unimaginable depth, far deeper than the bucket suggests, much like the way K'zin's feelings seem so simple or so non-existent on the surface. There she is able to see and feel for herself his regrets and the reasons for them. He feels he let Telavi down, unable to please her, feeling he should be able to give her more or himself but being unable, feeling worn, with not enough of himself to go around, feeling just not good enough. That last feeling is linked on a chain that slithers through the depths, linked with so many other feelings and situations, but Rasavyth gently places a boundary, guarding from too intimate a sharing on all things K'zin. « He thinks of her before himself. It is this way with all. He will be a great leader someday because of it. » There's a glowing pride there as these words are delivered quietly, the glow mingling with the forge-fire before Rasavyth's mental minions are knitting together a thick veil of ooze that nudges the pair of dragonminds back out of this in depth look. It's funny how time works in the mind; this 'knowing' of K'zin's mind taking all of three breaths and nothing more. All the while, K'zin slumbers on, blissfully unaware of the danger that lurks at his boot. Fly, stars, be free! Not that a few of them don't linger about Solith like so many little birds circling about her head, as fascinated as she suddenly is... but she's not now interested in them. Such a dramatic stage setting, so many senses in play, and that's even before Rasavyth actually lets her get hands-on! The young green takes great care with what she's apprehended to be the seriousness of the situation, with what appears to be such rare trust offered to her. She tries, she really tries not to toe past the line as she drinks it all in, though if the water nearest the surface begins to effervesce with a few stray bubbles... well, Solith is busy looking down, down, some peculiar intuition telling her that a chain means a well means something down below, or perhaps that the surface is somehow on the other side. It's a fleeting perception, visible in all her transparency to Rasavyth if he looks, and some part of her really ought to be relieved that she's nudged away before her wonderings can ripple through the water. This while yes, the boot gets off safely because the humans are nothing if not anticlimactic, Tela gauging the other weyrling's movability and his remaining dustiness and the poor quilt, finally settling for raiding one of the trunks in search of a spare blanket. But Solith has questions. Questions! Not about the leader part, she doesn't seem to much care about that though she does for the way for Rasavyth glows, but instead she starts with, « Does he not believe you when you show him? » Surely he must believe Rasavyth. If Rasavyth looks... Rasavyth has not stopped looking. There's an insidious way about his ooze that you'd swear it wasn't there a moment ago, that you were alone, unwatched, and then there it is, peeking at the corner of your eye, an unnerving sense of always there. Unnerving, and yet, somehow comforting? Reliable, and always with the air of kind intention and warmth. Its just that that thing niggles at the edge of the touch. He takes in her reaction, her attention to trying to be so good, and there's approval and admiration for her focus and for not muddying the waters. K'zin might be moveable, but he's a big boy, so, she might be better off just covering him and letting him move whenever he ends up rousing enough to realize he's only half on the bed. He's sitting near enough to the edge of the bed that the pants could likely be tugged off. At least Solith is moveable as Rasavyth finishes ushering her gently out of K'zin's mind. And it isn't until the path is retraced and they are once more two dragons sitting on a ledge, toying with the cosmos that he answers her. « Some things are not so easy to change. He believes that I believe, but that does not mean he can change his belief so easily. Beliefs are forged through strong emotions, strong experiences. He has had too many that teach him otherwise. » Beat. « He thinks I am the smart one. And he is not wrong that I am smarter than he, » Fact of life, stated for the record, because it applies. « But he is smart, too. Smarter than he ever gives himself credit for. But even smart people can not always change their hearts and their heads in one moment. It takes consistency and repetition, and sometimes proof to create change of that kind. » Maybe Solith should be more unnerved, should have been more unnerved all this time, but it's so familiar and she's so interested and besides, where she lives there are all these spooky mists that roll in sometimes and whispery moonlit grasslands and even the neighbor's place is haunted. She'd bask in the approval if only she weren't distracted by those interesting things. Not that her rider counts as one of those distractions for the moment, as Tela's only discarding the idea of pants-discarding in favor of employing their cuffs as handholds, bracing her knee on the mattress to swing his feet up and over and afterward tug K'zin like so much firestone where he won't be quite so uncomfortable later. Afterward she'll loosen his belt if he stays sleepy, but that's as far as she'll go. « Hm. » Solith listens in silence, her silence and Rasavyth's explanation, through consistency and repetition and proof. Afterward she considers that chain, visible as condensation in air rather than the real thing: might not the links be convinced to come apart, more directly? While in the meantime, though she has to take some time to manage words for it and even then it's tentative, « It is difficult sometimes. » Not just on his end. Even more tentative, « You say he thinks of her first. But... he reacts to how he thinks she thinks? and not to how she does think? so is that not thinking of himself first? » It has an uncertain quality, not meant to be a goad. « It is only logical. He cannot be expected to know your rider's mind for certain. He goes of our best guess. » There's an amused beat while Rasavyth's web spans into a feathery fan that is gently waved at Solith in the same moment that he reflects sudden toasty warmth of sun, the sensation more than the image of a hilltop devoid of shade and cloud, comfortable, but a little too hot, the fan's breeze providing immediate relief. « And as everyone knows, women, and truly people, can be such fickle creatures. It is no wonder that we cannot always be right. But it does not mean that our intentions are not selfless. » Because they are a good, kind, sweet bronzeriding pair. « But if he pays attention, listens, remembers... » Rasavyth's reasoning can seem so logical, especially with him describing it that way, but it leaves a residual discomfort that's the more unsettled by the change in atmosphere. It is warm, and then he saves it from too warm, but it's right in the middle of thinking and there's something about needing to be saved... Solith can't quite pin it down, and though it's quite possible her rider could, it's not as though Telavi's so commonly available and agreeable when it comes to consultation. Besides, Telavi is tired and Telavi is occupied and just now Telavi is just getting off boots and jacket, the better to climb in with him and pull the blanket tightly over them both. Solith's wistful for a moment, sourcelessly so. It blunts the inarticulate disagreement with fickle, but then he hadn't said people are, only can be, and how is she to argue with that? Finally, « It would be better, » for him, even, she thinks, « if he did not tangle it up. » Rasavyth might need to tell him, if Rasavyth does like him better untangled. They might well be gone by then. « He does. But even all of that cannot assure correctness of opinion. » Rasavyth replies softly, immediately letting the heat temper off. There's mild apology there. It was never his intent to make her uncomfortable, simply to show her another kind of comfort. The reclining lady with man-servants to wave fans at her kind. It might be a better reward for Telavi's efforts that K'zin would wake, or would move to snuggle up with her. But, as ever, he's a hard sleeper and not the type to initiate a cuddle. So he stays sprawled as she left him. At least he doesn't snore. « Tangles, » Rasavyth considers the word, « -are not good. It would be better. » Then he turns and moves to his couch, « We should sleep, my dear Solith. You may sleep with me, or there, or -- » His mental shrug carries with it the sensation that it's not really for him to say. It's her choice where she sleeps, not his, he was simply offering those spaces most commonly considered 'his'. For all that Solith had been discommoded, earlier, now she can't help but shiver. She doesn't disagree, but neither does she agree. And Telavi, it's not as though she expects otherwise. She may not sleep immediately, but she does sleep soon enough, and as for Solith... she pads inward, taking up that wall of Rasavyth's weyr that's nearest to where Telavi is, regardless of how much stone lies between them. If Rasavyth's nearby, then she's near him. If he's not, then not. Waiting, Solith may sleep last and least of all, and even then it's with her eyes open. |
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