Logs:Twenty Minutes
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| RL Date: 28 August, 2015 |
| Who: N'rov, X'vin |
| Type: Log |
| What: N'rov (reluctantly?) helps X'vin finish his routine workout. They chat, obliquely. |
| Where: Training Room, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 1, Month 9, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: B'doran/Mentions, C'ram/Mentions, Cora/Mentions, Hattie/Mentions, Kyouri/Mentions, Lilah/Mentions, N'muir/Mentions |
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| Clean it as they will, the training room still has a special quality, and the other one is brightness: bright enough to have had those glows freshly changed, unhampered by the screens currently shoved back against the wall. The mats are out, and N'rov's one of those who've been working out for some time now, N'rov and a couple buddies who aren't even from Hematite. "Yeah, you got me," the rider calls good-humoredly to the others, and breaks off to head for the waterskin he'd left back off to the side. As he often is, X'vin is prefaced by his own cheerful, if tuneless, whistle, though the sound of his brisk pace is abnormal. He's been working already, if his appearance is any indication: usually coifed hair has curled forward and down across his forehead, and his breath is still just a little uneven as he enters the training room, likely to round out his workout for the evening. The people already there will get a cheerful grin, a greeting if they address him, but little else, save a Flint rider who gets a clap on the back on his way out before he considers exactly what he'll choose to do. They tend toward the nod-and-move-along; in this N'rov's no exception, once he's finished drinking deeply enough to come up for air and notice. The next palmful he splashes over his head and shoulders, and then it's off to stretching while the others keep at it. It's the bag that X'vin eventually settles on, with only a briefly lingering look on N'rov. There's a sort of methodical movement to his preparation; hoisting the bag singly to hang it from one of the hooks (not a graceful task, but at least he doesn't break his back), a couple test pushes to make sure it won't just fall. And then, voice pitched to carry, "I don't suppose any of you would stay long enough to hold this for me." There's some shuffling, and a grunt or two, but otherwise nobody much is saying anything; maybe that fellow over there's just too busy to hear. N'rov breaks up the awkward in the end, toweling off his palms and striding unhurriedly over. With a not-unamused look at the other bronzerider, "How long you have in mind?" X'vin's sigh is an undertone, and nothing about his body language says he's more put out than they would be to come over, but by the time N'rov deems it's appropriate to break away X'vin's already contemplating something else, though his nose is wrinkled while he does it. "Twenty minutes. Max." Then, wanly, "You'd think I had a contagious disease." It's reason for a brief inspection, a half-circling; "No spots yet, for what that's worth," N'rov determines in lieu of other commentary, though the brief flash of a grin doesn't keep it entirely tongue in cheek. He's moving on to step up to the bag proper, then, offsetting its residual rocking with a few strikes from the heels of his hands, steadying. "Maybe I'll go to the healers anyway. You can never be too safe." Still wry, X'vin squares up to the bag and again throws a solid punch, not too much force, just testing; he may half expect N'rov to move, which would admittedly be hilarious...if it happened to somebody else. Not much point in moving now, some might say. Later... "Calling visiting the healers safe?" That just might be more like a straight face, if N'rov's weren't over on the bag's other side, keeping it the way it needs to be. "Safer than transferring some undescribable disease to the riders of the weyr," amends X'vin with a laugh, one of those bright ones people generally note as being up to something, though now there's not much for that. When he hits the bag again it is with more force, and each subsequent punch will come quicker and with more force until he's going at a clip to warrant being called an actual workout. "N'rov, right?" "Means of contamination, now, there's the question." N'rov, all speculative, though he still hasn't bothered to grow (or on less scruplous days, shave) a mustache to twirl. He steadies the blows readily enough, though the bag gets the beginnings of a sway here and there before the rhythm really sets in. "The same." X'vin grunts under the twist of his next punch as each of them finds the rhythm, and he is quiet while he does. It's not until he's set in it that he begins varying, hooks, crosses, very deliberate. "Thanks," seems warranted. "Flint's all over hell. I should have stopped C'ram from leaving, if I'd known." "Yeah, you should've," N'rov drawls, all over deadpan this time. He does glance back to where a couple others are leaving, giving them nods before refocusing. "This bag-holding thing, it's really cramping my vision for the evening. Twenty whole minutes. Maybe even twenty-one." Movement ceases, with a fist out to prop the bag so it won't move between them at all. X'vin's eyeroll is blessedly, hidden behind the bag. "You can say no. This isn't contractual. Go on. If you leave now, you might save face enough for them to forgive your lapse in judgment." It's a long day, maybe, that makes him less inclined to mince words. He backs away from the bag, flicking a hand toward the departing riders, though when he speaks again he's reacquired his good nature...or some semblane of it. "I owe you a drink for - what. Ten minutes out of your night." He backs away; N'rov steps out, one hand still proprietarily on the bag. And he's looking at X'vin, quizzically, dark brows hooked over gray eyes. "You," and the drawl's still there, a mix of southerns for the most part, "really thought that was serious." X'vin's shrug his shallow and noncommittal, at best. "You wouldn't exactly be the first person," is a dry note, not self-pitying but factual. "You're a very suspicious lot, here. Or maybe that's just dragonriders, as a whole." He tips N'rov an incredulous look. "I'm sure you've heard any number of things, in Hematite." N'rov's own shrug is open-handed, if by bag's necessity singly so. "If you want to get back to work on that," he gives it an easy thump, stationing it upon its return, "have at. If you want to go over suspicions, you can save yourself the drink." The way he says it, it's not particularly loaded, no skin off his nose (but, perhaps, a door swinging a notch closer to closed). X'vin considers N'rov for a handful of seconds, head tilted off to the side while he tries to read him, then - well. Closed mouths don't get fed or something equally as trite, so he squares. His next punches have more behind them, excess of frustration, from his brief breach into opinion. "You have a poker face on you, don't you?" He squares; N'rov, who'd let X'vin look at him without more than a hint of a smile, steps easily back and takes it up again. Still no bag let to swing back into the other bronzerider's face. "Depends on who you talk to," N'rov says amiably. "Who's won off me lately. The game's all right." "I'm terrible at it, so you're a step up on me. I lose every time, can't keep one, can't read them. You manage a face like you did a minute ago, you'd win every time." Or, perhaps not. X'vin's speculating to fill the silence, it seems, words between impact. "Unless you reserve that for when you're teasing people." N'rov's got a chuckle for that one; "Terrible," he agrees, and even if one weren't looking for the humor in his voice, it's more audible than when X'vin had mistaken it before. "I don't doubt you in the slightest." He alters his footing now and again, more to even things out than anything, always there to meet the strike. "It's a habit of mine. Though I wasn't trying to fool you." X'vin's brow quirks. "That makes one person in the doesn't doubt me camp. So, that's comforting." X'vin's sharp exhale may be a laugh, but it may just be him catching himself before a particularly weighted punch. "You didn't even have to work at it. What hope do I possibly have at not being duped constantly, at this rate? Suddenly, everything is hopeless." But he's smiling, however muted, and that's progress at least. X'vin at least is doing nothing overly complicated. "Not there," N'rov says affably, with that same good humor. For the rest, he leans more on solicitousness; "Beware that your pockets don't come unstitched, and random urchins follow you about like so many avians hunting the strangely round and woodsy grain that falls for the pecking." "That's where all my marks have been going," X'vin says lowly, equally amenable, for all his eyes may turn to where those other riders are - were? - there, occasionally. "Benden was home to fewer ne'er-do-wells. Must be something in the water." "No?" appropriately rhetorical and amused. But there's seriousness underlying N'rov's baritone when he says, "B'doran and Cora run a fine ship; he impressed me, and still does." And for all the gossip about her, personal for the first time, "They're lucky to have Kyouri." Personal, and subtly adamant. He's not looking about, not for those who have left, not for the one who ducks her head in and then retreats. X'vin's smile twitches just so. "This is why I have trust issues." He's slowing though, and a few more hits have him expending the last of his energy in punching and bouncing away, breathing quick but even. "It puts Fort in sharp contrast," X'vin says with care. "In absence of my father, I imagine I looked up to B'doran that way." Which is probably a little more insightful than he intended. "Benden's lucky in a lot of ways. But then, I imagine it has a lot to do with skill, too. They're old hands." N'rov keeps on with the role he's taken on; perhaps when X'vin's gotten all he can out of the place, he'll be left holding the bag. His grunt's acknowledgement. Careful in his turn, to not defend but to put out there, "Hattie has experience of her own." As well, "I was proud to serve N'muir. He's a good man. That much hasn't changed." "I wouldn't discount that," X'vin counters evenly, almost gently. "But one of them isn't Weyrleader anymore, and the other is responsible because it's her duty, not her desire." His lips press into a line, not quite hard enough to make him frown. "I miss it there, sometimes, is all. It is hard not to compare them, when that was life for so long." "A man might wonder just how many Weyrwomen that's true of." That short laugh and a few blows later, N'rov allows, "Comparing's understandable. Might-have-beens, those too. Where would we have been, if... if we don't bemoan too much into our drinks." Dry. Wry. "Set for tonight?" "Lilah wanted it," X'vin says definitively, wiping his hands on the thighs of his pants. He tips his chin in acknowledgement. "I'm set. Thanks, for helping me out. Maybe," and this is delivered in much the same way as N'rov offered the bag, not pushing or expectant, "we could not bemoan into our drinks, some night." Lilah. N'rov's silent there, in words if not the last bag-stabilization, not to stillness but a slow, elliptical sway. "Think we could," he agrees after no more than a beat. "Or if we have to, at least not loudly. Night to you, X'vin." There's a grin in there, flashing briefly when he turns to gather his gear and go. "Night," is in turn, but X'vin's not quite done, in that he doesn't follow N'rov to the door. As the room becomes private - however temporary the state - he takes his time in stretching, and leaves some time later alone, with no whistle on his lips. |
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