Logs:Learning The Ropes
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| RL Date: 1 August, 2015 |
| Who: Jo, Everett, Grathon |
| Involves: High Reaches Area |
| Type: Log |
| What: The Greenfields gang sends a new recruit to the Weyr and Jo gets to transport him. |
| Where: Dive Bar, Greenfields Hold / Bowl, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 2, Month 6, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Jounine/Mentions |
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| The dive bar in the mornings at Greenfields isn't as busy as their nights. there's a lot more children running around, and the area where the gang operate tends to look more like a hold just for anyone passing through their territory. When Jo arrives, her presence is immediately noted by those within - especially by Grathon, the man behind the bar currently wiping the counter down. Cased in black leather, she has a little boy that looks around the age of 7 preceding her into the bar as she guides him by the tables towards him. "Where's Zuman?" she asks, nodding towards him first, then down at the boy. "I have someone that needs a place to stay." - "We've got someone that needs a place to stay, too," Grathon returns, nodding towards someone sitting at the tables. One could be forgiven not thinking that Everett looks like anything particularly impressive. His hair's combed, he seems clean enough, but he slouches at the table with a mug in one hand, squinting past it at the table, where he appears to have set up a solitaire game of cards. To judge from the amount of brow-furrowing, the game may be winning. He should probably be more attentive to his surroundings if he's supposed to be waiting for someone, but for the most part he at least appears to be perfectly oblivious. Grathon moves around the counter to take the boy by the shoulder to examine him as he says, "Third table from the right. Where did you pick this one up?" - "Tillek," is all Jo gives for now, for she's walking towards the very table - coming up from behind Everett to stand right in front of him. Her sharp gaze looks him over first, taking in what she could of him before she says, "Hey. Hear ya got yer orders. Need a ride?" That some of the kids are staring or gawking doesn't seem to bother her one bit, the woman only looking up long enough to see Grathon engaged with the boy she had brought in. While she's on her way over, Everett finally seems to make some progress. He sets the mug down and then carefully starts rearranging the cards, careful stacks of by suits gradually making their way up. Not a won game, not yet, but all at once it's gone from nothing to halfway done. That's when he looks up, slow with all the confidence of someone still young enough not to know better, and breaks into a smile. "Well, if the alternative is walking, I might freeze before I got there." See, because it would take so long? He clearly thinks he's more amusing than he is. He is better-spoken than one might expect around here, although it's likely to sound very much like an affectation to the ears of someone accustomed to this place. Eyes narrowing slightly as she studies his face, "I don' think I've seen ya around here before," Jo comments at length now for his response, moving towards his table. As if she knows everyone at the hold. "How long ya been here in Greenfields? Ya sound awfully learned." "What of it? Book murdered yer ma?" But that, too, just slightly artificial. Maybe you do enough code-switching and it's not possible to actually sound like yourself anymore? Everett's eyes drift back down to his cards, a few more things moved around before he's able to collect up the rest of the deck, at which point he shuffles it with restless hands. "I've been back and forth. I know who you are." He could not possibly sound more pleased with himself for this fact, like the disparity of information is going to do anything to even things up between them. "Obviously," Jo is deadpan in answering on any books, hand landing on her cocked hip. "Aren' you the quick-mouthed funny man." When he says that he know who she is, the convict rider doesn't bat an eye as she quips back with, "Do ya. Who am I? 'N who are you, since Grathon's neglected to tell me anythin' other than ya needin' a ride. Don' even know where I'm s'pose to take ya from here." Information that she's looking for him to fill her in with, evidently, the look of pointed anticipation on her dragon poker face as she watches him with the cards. There's a few moments longer thought than these questions strictly ought to require, accompanied by the soft shuffling of card against card. Cut the deck, start again. "You're dangerous." He says it like it's as much an identity as a name, and also like he has entirely too much admiration for it and entirely too little respect for what it might mean. "You're supposed to take me home with you, obviously." See? Smiling. "And then show me the ropes, if you're feeling generous. I've never actually been to the Weyr. If it's as much a den of iniquity as my mother used to say, well." To being dangerous, there's no response. Jo merely stares at him for a few moments longer - enough to make it awkward - before she straightens up from her lean and states, "Yer goin' to the Weyr, eh? The girls're gonna love you." There's sardonic amusement in those words, the convict rider snorting softly at his smile. "Well. Hope ya have all yer things yer takin' with ya there, 'cuz it could be turns before ya can come back," she warns, stepping away from his table. "Otherwise, gimme yer name'n let's get goin'. We'll talk 'bout rope-showin' over there." "All my worldly possessions." Which seems to encompass one knapsack presently occupying the space under Everett's chair, actually. He pushes out from the table, collecting his cards up and slipping them back into their box. The box goes into the knapsack, and the knapsack goes to his shoulder. "Charming as everyone here is, I don't feel any particular need for teary farewells, so we might as well get this show on the road. Or in the air, as it were." Jo's snort is a loud one, and the look she's sending over his shoulder is likely going to one of the bosses since she's calling out, "Hey! Ya know this kid?" - "Everett," comes Grathon's voice somewhere behind him in it's gruff manner. "Goin' where yer goin'." A person's destination is not meant for all ears, and Jo seems to get the vague reference. "Take care of him," she nods, meaning the boy she brought in before she turns to Everett and nods for him to follow her out. "Hope yer ain' scared of heights, Everett," she drawls, her tongue clicking on his name as she turns to go. "Between's a long way down." "There are only two things," Everett reassures her, like she needs the reassurance, "that scare me, and neither of them are heights." For whatever his faults, though, he's not so cocky as to try to precede her out; he proves actually capable of following and not just presuming he knows where she's parked her dragon. On his way, he does raise a hand back in Grathon's direction, a sort of parting gesture of respect, but then his attention seems to shift entirely ahead, to that great big adventure and all that nonsense. "Perhaps we can come to discuss those two things, someday," Jo remarks to that as they leave the bar, Grathon nodding to Everett before shaking his head as he finishes up washing his mugs. The ride to the Weyr is quite short, even, once Jo helps him onto the blue dragon waiting outside. The place they land is in the bowl, already busy in this morning of bustling Weyr life activities. "I'm sure yer aware of how we operate outside the hold," Jo tells him, dismounting from Tacuseth first before offering a hand to help him down if he wants. "As far as these folks know, yer just a young man from a hold, lookin' for a livin' in the Weyr. I wouldn' go wavin' around who ya really work for, were I you." For a young man who's probably never been dragonback before, Everett manages just fine--which is to say, he's clearly a bit nervous about the whole business of between, but he doesn't make a fuss of it. By the time they land, he's beaming, still maybe breathing a little heavy, all that excitement. "Of course not." He accepts the assistance down with some grace, but doesn't seem to need overmuch of it. "I'm from Crom, I have no intention of spending my life down a mine, all I want is some honest work that won't fill my lungs with grit before I'm fifty." This actually comes out sounding considerably more authentic than anything else he's said so far. The Crom mine shot gets a look from Jo, but she nods slowly, seeming to accept his words and the way he says them. "Then learnin' the ropes for ya will be easy," she says turning to face him once she opens Tacuseth's attached compartment where his bag is stashed for him. "Keep yer head down'n yer eyes'n ears open. If ya hear anythin', ya let me know. Anythin' small could be useful to the family," she switches to the known code words they in Greenfields share, "'n our uncles'll be most grateful. Send Grathon letters if it's somethin' big'n ya can' getta hold of me." Taking a step towards him and lowering her voice and the easiness she uses, "I run things here, 'n nothin' goes down without my sayso," she states evenly now. "Ya wanna shank someone? Run it by me first, get it? Same for theivin'. We keep a low profile here. Also," and she steps by him to grab up his bag, lifting it by the strap and holding it out for him to take, "if Lanvec tells ya to do somethin', ya best do it. Same for me. Ya understand that, then we're squared, right?" A verbal acknowledgment could be glib, under the circumstances. Hand over his heart, fingers clenched, that's not. "I do right by my family, Jo." One of them, anyway. The family that doesn't have scolding opinions about all Everett's favorite things. He then reaches to take his bag, glancing into it like it requires a momentary confirmation that everything's still there. "Anything I hear, you'll know. Anything you need me for, I'm there. Anything at all." Grinning at her like that, maybe it has gone a bit glib near the end. "You just let me know." "Good," Jo appears pleased to hear, releasing the bag into Everett's care. "We'll get along just fine, then. I was thinkin' on the way here 'bout maybe gettin' ya into Snowasis. Yer good at bars? Ya seem good at talkin' folks up, anyway," is her mild tease, wry at the end of it. "Seem like ya'd do well there, if I can get ya a in." "If I can find my way around a bottle, I can find my way around several, can't I?" Everett hoists the back back to his shoulder again, and actually seems to reflect a moment. "I think I can, actually. Well enough. I'd like that. Good way to get to know people. Almost everybody's more fun when they're drunk." Fun? "I suppose some of that's out of the question, though. Not if I'm to stay awhile. Still, it'll do, if you can arrange that." "It'll be interestin' to watch, anyway," Jo says with a throaty chuckle at the end of it, shaking her head. "I'll work on gettin' it arranged durin' drills. Maybe tonight I'll getcha'n have ya meet the 'crew'. We're all ya've got now." The lessons at an end, it seems, since the convict rider gestures towards the caverns as she points out, "Ya'll find resident quarters in there near the livin' cavern. Look for Jounine to set ya up. She takes care of things 'round here for weyrfolks. Get settled'n and take a look around when ya feel up for it. I'll check up on ya later." For she's already starting to move, grabing someing out of the compartment as she talks. While Jo is gesturing, Everett turns to look off in that direction. He's attentive, at least when the situation calls for it. "Jounine," he repeats the name. "I'll get settled in, sure it won't be difficult for you to find me when you need me. You can just tell them you're looking for that charming new fellow, at least until they've actually gotten to know me. Let me know if folks want to get together. Not like I'll have other plans just yet, and I don't seem to have a great deal of unpacking." He pats the knapsack, there. "We good?" "We're good," Jo says to that, hoisting a smaller bag over her shoulder before she starts heading off in the opposite direction. "Alright then. Welcome to the Weyr, darlin'. See ya 'round." He gets a cocky wink as she walks backwards away from him, and once her farewell is given she pivots around and is off to do her duty. |
Comments
Roz (15:24, 1 August 2015 (PDT)) said...
I am both horrified and intrigued.
Alida (23:12, 1 August 2015 (PDT)) said...
That's our Jo: bringing questionable scamps into the Weyr! ;D
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