Logs:Hesitation
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| RL Date: 22 February, 2015 |
| Who: Irianke, Lycinea |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Irianke's assistant brings breakfast the morning after the flight. |
| Where: Irianke and Niahvth's Weyr, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 28, Month 1, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Drex/Mentions, Farideh/Mentions, H'vier/Mentions, Itsy/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Flowers are a cross between the red ones and this one, hobbyist level stitching, not pro. |
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>---< Irianke and Niahvth's Weyr, High Reaches Weyr(#1207RJ) >---------------< This hollowed out bubble cavern is large. Tendrils of steam come from a corner near the lower caverns entrance to the weyr. It's situated near a separated cave that has hanging glass beads obscuring view of it, likely the bed chamber. The outermost room is decorated in bright colors and a lot of interesting pieces of art hung on the walls. A large stone table sits in the entrance from the ledge atop a yellow and teal rug. The furniture is chaise lounges on other sectional carpet pieces and a cabinet of liquor. The glassed-in bookshelf is filled with volumes and volumes of books and scrolls and locked from prying eyes. The morning after Niahvth rises finds Irianke's weyr messy in a different sort of way. The meticulously kept home has little things wrong with it. A cabinet slightly moved, and one of its cabinet doors ajar. A chaise not quite in its right spot. The clothes Irianke shed not in a neat pile anymore. It seems whatever surface could have been used has, at least for a short period each, and a mirror on the wall has a handprint smudge on it. However the work table has its usual neat stacks, but an open bottle of ink now long gone dry and the goldrider who works there is curled up in a robe, sleeping on a couch with the things she had been reading blanketing the floor. So it's not traditionally messy but it's just not quite right for someone who has been here more than a few times, including the oversleeping weyrwoman. Lycinea really has been doing her very best. Not that she's been perfect (not even close), but she's taken extra care with the last two days and the tension of the self-imposed pressure has shown in the stiffness of muscles. It's not conducive to the way she's seeking to slip in with not just one tray, but three. It's a miracle that the lot doesn't go clattering to the floor when she unexpectedly finds Irianke on the couch, and not within the inner weyr. Her caught breath is an oddly full sound in the quiet cavern, though still not loud. She composes herself as she moves to set the stack of trays on the work table, pulling from an inner pocket of her jacket a pair of what appear to be red blooms, though they don't look quite right somehow, setting them atop the trays. Once free of her burden, there's a lip-bite of indecision as she looks over the area. There's what she was told and what she thinks she should do. The latter wins out and she begins to take care of straightening those few things she can manage without making much noise, starting with the clothes on the floor. The breath, audible though not loud, stirs Irianke briefly, her eyes moving behind closed lids, and traces of effort, whether to stay asleep or to force her eyelids open, contort her face. Eventually, once Lya begins to straighten up, she expels a low groan followed by a moan of the pain a body feels sleeping somewhere other than her bed. Maybe it's the smell of food that eventually stirs her further, in this slow waking up process, but the dried berry black tea and perfectly cooked bacon finally rouse her to sitting. Slouching. A few blinks, a rub of the back of her hand against her eyes, and a wide-mouthed yawn, and then she's looking around, stopping at Lycinea. A sleepy smile claims her mouth. "Morning." Lycinea freezes where she's moved on to taking a rag across the smudge on the mirror, her gaze habitually focused on the mirror and not her own reflection in it. Her eyes flick in the mirror and catch sight of Weyrwoman looking at her. "Good morning, ma'am," she doesn't turn, and a moment later returns to her smudge-cleaning. "I brought breakfast for you and H'vier." She says it quite matter-of-factly. Which explains the four trays instead of the usual one or two. "They weren't sure if you'd prefer something light or more filling so they sent everything." There's a very brief pause before she asks, "Would you like me to draw your bath, Weyrwoman?" She's more formal than usual, oddly so. Irianke's palms rub against her eyes once more and then shift to pressing into her temple. "Sometimes, having her rise is both wonderful, with a hangover worse than from alcohol. H'vier?" The goldrider's voice rises, but there's no response. "He might be passed out in the bedchamber." She's not about to go check, standing to step towards the tray and see what delectables were sent her way. Once there, however, a spare glance is sent Lycinea's way, the formality ear-catching. "Please. And bring out the special soapsand I keep in the cabinet there. The one that smells like a warm cookie." Lycinea's blue-green gaze shifts toward the beaded curtain expectantly at the call the weyrwoman makes to her flight partner, and then away when it doesn't seem he will appear. Then her eyes go to the path the goldrider is taking toward the food and her rag is tucked back in her coat pocket and she steps quickly to meet her at the trays, reaching to carefully unstack them. "These are for you," is a mumble as she moves the flowers (a pair of blooms that prove to be sewn of fabric and on painted sticks), to one side before pulling lids off of the trays to expose the still warm food offerings for the older woman. The food doesn't catch her eyes as much as the flowers do. Irianke reaches out to take one, whether it's from the table or from Lycinea herself, and studies it. "Lovely." The goldrider decides, a faint blush pinkening her cheeks. Instinctively, she leans in to sniff and ends up laughing at herself as her nose presses into fabric. "Habit. They are beautiful. Did you find them in the stores?" A half breath later, she ventures, "Or did you make them?" The 'stem' is twirled in one hand. "H'vier? If he doesn't wake up soon, can you make sure to rouse him and send him on his way. Men always seem to be heavy sleepers, flight or not." Funny coming from a woman who was lightly snoring just a few minutes ago. Lycinea's attention is quite studiously on stacking the lids of the trays off to one side where they won't be a bother and where the steam from the food won't drip on anything important, "Yes, ma'am," is the admission for making them. "The... time leading up to the flight seemed... I don't know, tiring or taxing or something," the right word doesn't seem forthcoming. "I thought they might... cheer you?" She sounds uncertain of this choice of phrasing also. It's possible she feels as silly as Irianke. "If you wanted them to smell, you could put scented oil at the base, I think." But she doesn't have access to that kind of thing. She turns away from the goldrider to make for the curtain. "I will," is her simple answer for the possibly snoozy bronzerider. "Thank you." Irianke picks up a slice of bacon, making short work of it and then reaching for another. Dark eyes follow Lycinea while she puts the room to order, the transparent fondness for the girl clouded by something else as something other than the room's disarray is off. "Did the flight treat you well? I've never... I never experienced the other side of a flight except once when Niahvth was a weyrling. I don't imagine it'd be the same. Are you," the goldrider pauses, "Well?" "No, ma'am," Lya pauses on this side of the curtain to look toward her mistress, hesitation in her expression. "They've never affected me before." There's anxiety in those words. "I found it extremely disconcerting," of this word she is certain, unlike so many others. Then she steps through the curtain only to rock back after a moment. "He's not there," she sounds surprised and relieved. A blush colors her cheeks as she looks to the older woman. "I'm sorry, I didn't ask. Was the flight... are you well?" She abandons the first half-formed question in favor of this one. Never mind her. Has Irianke ever really answered questions thrown her way? "You seem a little peaked. Here, there's enough food for two and then some, share my breakfast with me." Since H'vier's not there and all. She seems, at best, unfazed, at worst, a little relieved. Post-flight is always a little awkward. "Would you like a biscuit? They made it with some sort of nut flour and I find it's enjoyable with a lot of jam and butter. Here," without waiting, the goldrider prepares a snack for her assistant and holds it out, "Did you end up with anyone? Or hidden in a closet? I believe," a rueful smile emerges, "That's what I did. I was so afraid I'd disappoint my Weyrwoman and have sex while we were not allowed to." Lycinea hesitates because there was the bath-drawing to do, but the new instructions seem to override the old and she moves toward the goldrider and the good. "Thank you," she accepts what was prepared for her with some measure of grace as if that were really her choice. "With Farideh." She answers, but then, "Oh!" And she's coloring brightly, "Not with Farideh. Just with her. We-" She stumbles over the explanation from the start, "H'vier didn't come home last night, so we had a sleep-over in his weyr." Stumble becomes blurt. "That's... I thought he must still be here. But I don't-- with with anyone." She makes a face that's not quite all the way to disgust but certainly distaste. Irianke listens attentively, all the while doctoring up her own biscuit. The initial texture makes her cringe, but another bite has the flavors all meshing together and happy as a clam, the first biscuit is polished off quickly. "Farideh?" Wait. "Farideh? I imagine it's a popular name but, is she from... No, I imagine not." Post-flight Irianke's senses are all muddled and it shows in her rambling chatter both to Lycinea and to herself. "Igen?" Lya supplies, nodding. "Yeah. She's a laundress here and sometimes my best friend." Sometimes, because they're teenage girls and things get complicated. "She ended up sleeping with that sailor boy whose friend threatened to kill me for being in her business. Neither of them are very nice at all, and I'm not even sure why the Weyr is letting them stay when they're only waiting for Lord Devaki to finish building their new boat after their last one got destroyed in the storm near Tillek last turn." The storm that claimed the life of the last occupant of this weyr, as it happens. Has she said too much? "That might've supposed to have been a secret. The Farideh sleeping with Drex part." She gives Irianke a plaintive sort of look, but doesn't ask her not to tell. Wait. Hold up. Back this dragon a few notches back. "A laundress?" Irianke's brow furrows as if trying to reconcile the notion of Big Bay's niece with a laundress. It's not often the goldrider is taken aback like this, or surprised in any way. Life is a carefully plotted course of actions and reactions that can be predicted. Except when people who are part of your other life show up in your new life. Irianke is at a complete loss for words, never mind the sleeping with someone part. "She's a child." The curse of knowing someone since youth. The fact that Lycinea's brow is draw down, puckering the skin on her forehead into wrinkles and that she stops, and looks at Irianke and answers only the very simple, "Yes," to the first question, is all telling that there's so much more she could say, and chooses not to just now. Perhaps it has dawned on Lya that the both of them having ties to Igen might mean they know each other. "Farideh is older than I am," she says after a moment of just looking. And hadn't Irianke just asked if Lya had been with someone? Then, "And she slept with H'vier last turn, so..." Let Irianke draw her own conclusions from that. "I need something stronger." Irianke sits, the assumption that Lycinea will look to her needs, such as this, strong. "Left cabinet, blue glass bottle." The food is forgotten and the goldrider looks at the fabric flower she still holds. "Is she...," hmm, how to say this. More carefully, with thought in each enunciated word, she asks, "Is her family aware she is here?" Irianke's assistant doesn't hesitate to hop to, but having shoved the rest of the biscuit in her mouth, she does have time to hesitate over her answer once she's pulling the requested bottle out. Lya swallows down her mouthful and then turns to come back to the weyrwoman. The choice is lie to her weyrwoman, lie for her friend, or don't. She draws a breath, and it's quiet when she answers, "No, ma'am." And quieter, "She doesn't want to be married like her sister to a scoundrel, no matter how many marks he has or which Hold he's heir to." If Irianke had doubts, that probably will take care of them. "I see." Even with carefully chosen words, the goldrider's flabbergasted state is still obvious. "Can you leave the bottle here and draw my bath? I have," Irianke rouses herself enough to smile up at Lycinea, a warm one that hopes to assuage any hurt at the abrupt dismissal, "Many things to think of. And if you see Farideh later, please give her my regards and hopes she'll come to see me." "Yes, ma'am." Lya answers, though there's hesitation in it. "Only..." She pauses after taking a few steps toward the curtain, "Ma'am? Do you think you're going to fire me? I don't... want her to know I worked for you unless you think maybe you won't." Obviously, it would matter to her what her friend thinks of her, if few others. The look she gives the weyrwoman is vulnerable, perhaps strangely so, but then flight days and the days that follow are strange days by nature. That snaps Irianke out of her Farideh-related stupor. "Fire you? Whyever for?" The goldrider stares up at the assistant, her mouth shaping into a look of displeasure until she finds the vulnerableness writ all over Lycinea's face. "No. No, child, I will not be letting you go. I appreciate the work you do for me and wouldn't want to waste your potential elsewhere. Go, with the peace of mind, that you are not going to be fired." It's like a gulp of fresh air. As much as her question snaps Irianke out of her daze, the goldrider's answer effects a similar transformation for the girl. Her shoulders loosen as though the tension there has evaporated completely, and a smile blooms bright on her lips, it easily finding and brightening her eyes. The rest of the words were more than the girl needed, the 'no' was all it took for this reaction, but the extra words make her look all the happier. "Thank you, ma'am," and with no hesitation (because hesitating now could give the weyrwoman time to change her mind) she's scurrying through the curtain and soon the sound of the bath being drawn and Lya's untrained but pleasant voice singing some Harper song she must have learned turns ago can be found livening the space inside first the bathing chamber and then the inner as she does some picking up and cleaning of the sort that one wouldn't want to entrust to drudges, but might well entrust to a willing (and capable) assistant. |
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Comments
Azaylia (23:37, 22 February 2015 (EST)) said...
Aw! I really like that Lycinea is going to help Irianke out. <3 Maybe the goldrider will help her out, without realizing it? (Unless she already has~)
Farideh (23:38, 22 February 2015 (EST)) said...
Lya! You're punished! But, really, this was a lovely read. I love their interactions together. I think Irianke will be good for Lycinea. :D
Edyis (01:18, 23 February 2015 (EST)) said...
This was a cute read, and it's good to see that Lya has found work that she seems to enjoy doing!
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