Logs:Foretold
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| RL Date: 11 May, 2015 |
| Who: Dee, Lilah, N'rov |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Soothsayer N'rov forecasts the future. Only part of his audience is appreciative. |
| Where: Galleries, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 10, Month 10, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Ali/Mentions, Guzman/Mentions, Hattie/Mentions, N'jem/Mentions, Zennia/Mentions |
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>---< Galleries, Fort Weyr(#745RIJMas$) >------------------------------------<
The entrance to the Sands and Galleries alike is little more than an
archway and a section of flat stone that curves into a broad pathway in
front of the Galleries that are carved into the right-hand side of the
Hatching Cavern. This pathway is set with three flights of stairs that
lead all the way up to the upper tiers of the Galleries; one set near the
entrance of the cavern, one set at the northernmost end, and one set
between both. Beyond the pathway, that flat stone dissolves into the Sands
proper, a golden expanse that sits before the large, odd engraving that
lines the far wall -- an etching that details the rotation of the Red
Star.
The Galleries themselves are rows of flat seats carved from the stone wall
and stacked backward to allow observers the best view possible of the
golden sands. Those at the bottom are protected from wayward dragonets by
a railing, while dignitaries from outside the Weyr -- Lord Holders, other
Weyrleaders, Craftmasters and their ilk -- have a specially designated
spectator's box at the topmost row With the weather dismally gray, duly eyeing one's wingleader's dragon's eggs isn't the worst place to be, especially with entertainment at hand; Vhaeryth may have had enough of sands-sitting, but the bronzerider's been lounging partway up the galleries for a while now, lean legs propped on the seats before him. Sometimes it's been with Hematite riders, sometimes it's with random-seeming acquaintances or friends, but it's always with a scarlet scarf spread before him and a set of oddly carved dice. Eliyaveith is freshly-oiled, her dark, bronzey hide shining brightly where she perches on those dragon ledges that line the cavern. And for all the attention that she has paid N'rov in the past, he gets none today. Instead, the queen watches those eggs, her soon-to-be brothers and sisters, with an intent that would likely make most people uncomfortable, to say the least. Her gaze is unwavering, her focus never breaking, as if she might be trying to communicate with them. Her rider, however, is nowhere to be found right now. Dee is nearly a paradox. She comes in fits and starts, covering half the distance to the arch, then half again, and half and half. She avoids being the proof of the paradox by arriving eventually at the archway into the cavern, one hand pressing to the stone there as she steps aside (unnecessarily) to let a pair of caverns women too old to be candidates pass her by on their way out. It's a visible process to anyone who cares to take note, the process of gathering herself, her wits, her courage, to come here. A glance to her white knot is telling further of her unease one hand moving to tug at it, as if the loop were suddenly too tight. Then all at once, as water breaking from a dam, she pushes off the wall and takes quick graceful steps toward the rows of stone benches. There. She's here. Now what? The uncertainty has her stopping awkwardly, half turned toward the Sands and the eggs there. It's true, N'rov has glanced Eliyaveith's way a time or two, but if he's urged Vhaeryth to fly through her line of sight, the bronze hasn't obliged; if he's taken note of the most recent arrival (or the others' departure), there's similarly no evidence. The man is in this way singularly unhelpful, but he doesn't choose to justify his existence; the easy low-drawled words he exchanges with a couple uncles passing by are purely gratis. Eliyaveith remains silent and still, likely so as not to upset Elaruth anymore by her presence so near those eggs. It doesn't stop her rider from striding into the caverns, dark eyes lifted towards those ledges to stare at her queen for a moment before a sigh escapes from Lilah's lips. "Fine. Fine, but if you upset her," murmurs the goldrider, without a hint of hypocrisy there. Her gaze sweeps the caverns only after, lingering on the bronzerider as she catches sight of him, before she sets her next path that way with all the subtlety of an incoming train. Dee's awkward pause doesn't last and her eyes sweep the other way. It makes her half-way up the nearest stairs to N'rov and his dice by the time Lilah is setting her non-subtle sights on him. The candidate is oblivious as she moves toward the bronzerider, drawn apparently by his dice, to drop onto the bench not far away and peer at them side-long. If N'rov's playing the ingenue tied to the tracks, no one's bothered to inform him, not even said uncles who tip the bronzerider a part-toothed grin and clear out of there. Not that they're fast-moving, but they also don't get in Dee's way in an effort to escape Lilah's. The dice, between the bronzerider's tanned palms, don't hold still for long at a time; still, there's an eight-sided die that might be bone, the other ten-sided and some dark-stained wood, the latter's symbols scratched light to the other's dark. There's a gray, sideways glance at the girl that doesn't linger either. The shake and spill does develop a rhythmic quality, however short-lived it may prove to be. "Bronzerider," is Lilah's greeting to N'rov, a simple, neutral thing that brings with it the study of dark eyes over him first. (She only spares a moment's glance to the dice, likely recognizing and dismissing them quickly.) "Congratulations on Vhaeryth's children are in order, I hear." It might perhaps be evidence of Dee's youth that she rocks a little as she sits, each little side-to-side sway bringing her a little closer, and a little closer, and a little closer to N'rov. The motion arrests for a moment when Lilah arrives and speaks to the man with the dice, the teen's hazel gaze going from dice to redhead and then back to grey-eyed man. Finally, they're back on the dice and she's side-rocking her way a closer, until she's close enough to leeeean to try to look at the dice more closely. Don't mind her, she's just here for the dice, curiosity written across her face. "Lilah." It comes with crisp amusement, N'rov's gaze not moved to her; no, he's smiling down to his dice, whose symbols aren't numbers but rather small designs. One might be a tree, with its inverted vee and single-scored trunk, but the lines don't quite connect. "Utterly charming, each and every one of them." Drawled deeper, "Tell your fortune, leddies?" "Aren't they always," is only slightly dry on Lilah's part, the weight of her attention flickering away from N'rov briefly as Dee moves in the corner of her periphery. "If anyone could tell the future, I'm not sure I would want to know." But, she does look expectantly to the Candidate there, for the moment. Dee, who was invisible, surely, until the moment she's not, is caught in mid-leeean. As she tilts her chin to blink wide hazel eyes up at the riders, she has to drop a hand to the stone to steady herself. Her embarrassment is short-loved, replaced by an instantly charmed and delighted sort of smile, "Oh, please, can you?" She doesn't doubt N'rov in his sincerity. She does cast a surprised look up at the goldrider though, "Why wouldn't you want to know?" She must ask. "All alive, then," N'rov substitutes with a negligent wave of his hand. He is watching Lilah by now, a glint in his gaze that doesn't slow the dice's movement any. It's turning to Dee that does, if only so that he can catch both in one hand and start straightening out the scarlet groundcloth. His accent thick, "What is your name, miss? And your origins? We only tell the future, not the past." "And healthy, from what they say," Lilah agrees in a murmur, her gaze flicking towards the queen on the Sands rather than her own, only briefly, before shaking her head. When she glances away, her gaze finds Dee even as N'rov asks his questions, her brow curving lightly until she answers after, "I only have so many options in my future. If I even have one, given the misfortune that tends to befall--." She catches herself at that statement, not glancing to N'rov as her words die to nothing. Dee's eyes go from man to woman as they exchange about clutches, and though there's interest there, there's clearly neither especial knowledge or experience on the candidate's part, but then, she's young. There's time yet for serious business like that to become part of her world. For now, she has a rather dazzling sort of smile for N'rov. It's not flirtatious, just one of someone who's fully invested in enjoying this moment for what it is. "If you only have so many options," Dee points out, giving Lilah a slightly tempered but still playful version of that smile, "then it should make it easier for him to tell it true, shouldn't it?" Clearly she lacks experience for what kinds of things befall Northern goldriders. "I'm Dee," she tells the bronzerider then, brightly, "I'm from Southern Weyr. I'm an apprentice farmcrafter," then quickly, "was, am, sort of. Knot, eggs." Does he understand? She seems to think it makes sense as described. The man's jaw tightens, muscle working there; if Dee's smile doesn't wholly lighten what he's caught from it, neither does it hurt, nor does the chatter. Rather than stepping in on the question, N'rov cocks a brow at Lilah before addressing Dee more freely, "One of Ali's! Well, well. I don't remember you," but his tone is perfectly comfortable with that, as though he could as easily have been soused in the back of a bungalow as sitting in on high-level meetings or making nice with the local aunties. "Good luck?" "Mm," is Lilah's only point to Dee's, perhaps because she has no good disagreement with the logic there. She doesn't ask for her fortune still, however, her gaze falling on to N'rov instead with what might be regret, though she only waits to see him tell the young woman's future. "Besides," Dee points out to Lilah with that same irrefutable logic, "It's fun!" The smile she's wearing says so. "Old Guzman's more like," The Southerner then tells N'rov, "I've never met Weyrwoman Ali," helps clarify that much. She tilts her knees toward the cloth, her hands coming to clasp each other on top of them, her subtle rocking marking her as something slightly more subdued than giddy. "You might've met my parents," she adds a moment later, "Bluerider N'jem and greenrider Zennia," not that they're anything more than faces in the Weyr, but they have dragons so that obviously makes it twice as likely that Vhaeryth and his lifemate might have some experience with them where he has none with the girl herself. "N'jemnZen," N'rov slurs together, holding up two fingers crossed together to display the weyrmates' closeness before more affably admitting, "Beyond that, you got me. Now, Dee," he leans to fluff the cloth over her knees, over her hands too if they all stay put, which might make it hard to take what he's about to offer. "And I hope you're paying attention, Lilah, because it's about to be your turn... What you need to do is take these dice, and blow on them three times. No more, no less. The number of the counting shall be three. Envision your hopes for the future, hold them in your mind, and then shake the dice out onto the cloth." All of this he tells Dee very seriously, his gaze intent on hers even when he says, "The most important thing, of course, is not to drop the dice off the cloth. If you do, you'll never find anything but your doom." "I am always paying attention," is Lilah's dry murmur, her arms crossing lightly over her chest. But, she is telling the truth, at least in this moment, since she will continue to watch them both. It's possible that the dark-haired teen is truly gullible to require such wide eyes and rapt attention for N'rov, though it's equally possible that she buys into it, because it's fun. She will try to lead Lilah by example. Dee casts a glance to the Weyrwoman as if to silently query as a sister might her elder - is she hearing all this? It seems important, doesn't it? Then she looks back to N'rov and reaches with due reverence for the dice. His instructions appear to be followed to the letter. Then she casts them with only a touch of caution and perhaps a bit too much frivolity, grinning as they leave her hand and head for the cloth. N'rov's own glance, when Dee seems distracted, is all that warns Lilah of some sort of examination later. Then he's busy humming, a low and significant drone that breaks off only when he catches the die that threatens to head doom-ward in the nick of time. Placing it next to its neighbor without seeming to change its orientation any, he moves his hand in a circle, palm down, above them as though cleaning the air in some way. "So close to the brink," he intones. "Yet, at the last instant, rescued by a stranger." Pointing to the lighter die, "It is unusual for that one to land first. I sense... darkness to come, the chill of stone, followed in the end by light. Much light, and fewer clouds." The 'tree' side is up, coincidentally, but on the diagonal. As for the other die, it might well be the letter 'H' if it weren't for how the lines continue longer than they should, the two in parallel ending in different points. "Three in your life..." He rubs his chin, the better to portray great thought as how to continue, how to relay what the reverie has shown him. There is what may be a huff of laughter escaping from Lilah at N'rov's dramatics, but the goldrider doesn't interrupt further. She eyes the bronzerider, certainly, but she also watches Dee much more subtly for her reaction to him and his words. Dee's breath catches and then releases when doom is averted. Her brief glance to him in that moment is fleetingly grateful, but distractedly so because she has to know how the dice land in the end and what they foretell. Her attention bounces by way of the direction of her hazel gaze. Dice, soothsayer, goldrider, dice, soothsayer, dice, dice, goldrider, and so on. Lilah is hardly forgotten, but the way the candidate's expression tries to recruit her as co-conspirator in receiving these secret tidings. "Three what?" Dee is hooked, lined and sunk, clearly, from the way she leans toward the dice more than the man as if by looking harder she might divine their meaning herself, all the faster. Three. Three. Finally, "A man from your past, a woman for your future, and a third who walks the gray ways." N'rov studies the dice, his gaze hooded, rather than the women who listen. His voice, though thickly accented, keeps that slow and peculiar rhythm. "Three decisions, yours, that will change lives. Watch for them, lest they pass you by. Watch for them, lest you see them only from the other side." It's gotten somber, his words resonating with the stone, until his grin flashes white and swift at the girl. "Last but not least, a flower." "The gray ways. Now you're just making things up," is breathed out finally when N'rov hits that note, her brows lifting up in a challenge for that. "Does anything gray count with that? I suppose I do, today." But the goldrider's lips twist in a small smile, caught at the corners. Dee squeaks at the bronzerider's last words, having soaked the rest in with seriousness and no sign she's taking this so lightly as the older and wiser goldrider. The young woman's hands fly up to her mouth and cover it along with her nose under an angular shield. It's only after Lilah has spoken that Dee makes another noise - protest, "But, Lilah," which is far too familiar, even if it's too far below her notice just this moment to realize she's remiss, "No, he's right. A flower, that's me. Dahlia, my whole name." And how else could he have known? Her eyes try to communicate her belief in him to the redhead. Certainly, though, she'd probably like to know what he means by the gray ways as well, since she'll have to keep a vigilant watch from here on out. N'rov doesn't attempt to shush the doubter, though the brief look he bends her is as frankly disbelieving as it is offended; how could she, after all, bear to stomp on the girl's dreams? How could she doubt his art? He spares a few words of surprise for 'Dahlia,' and a few moments of appreciation for her defense, before neatly moving to snare dice and cloth and stand at the same time. "Dahlia," yes, Lilah will use her full name, since it is the topic of discussion. "How can your own name be about your future?" The reasoning, though, isn't expected to sway much, as instead the goldrider's gaze slides to N'rov as he moves to stand. "How can it not?" Dee answers back, as if that makes perfect sense, rising because... well, it's awkward to be the only person sitting. Only, standing makes her look out to the eggs on the sands and she swallows hard, any fight she might've had goes right out of her and there's paleness under her tan. "I think... I have to go. Excuse me." She's fleeing, quick out of the row and down the stairs the way she came, running by the time she hits the path out, one hand pressed to her lips. If they're all lucky, she'll make it to the bowl before she loses whatever's in her stomach. His departure trumped, N'rov shakes his head after the girl. "What's with her?" he asks in something more like his normal voice. "Tell me it's not contagious." There is certainly a thoughtful look that follows Dee from the cavern, Lilah's lips twisting into a line before she adds her own, "Or pregnant. But, then, you would have predicted that, at least, wouldn't you?" Her attention turns back to N'rov, but she only ends up exhaling a quiet sigh and saying, "It's good to have you back, N'rov. I hope--." That she doesn't finish, her mouth closing on the words. "Who's to say I didn't," N'rov tosses off into that sigh. Only, then his eyes narrow briefly and he takes a step closer. "Yes?" "You seem better. Than you were before," Lilah answers to that challenge simply, dark eyes lifting to meet N'rov's unflinchingly under the fan of darker lashes. "I hope it helped. The clutch, being at Benden." She lifts a hand in the gesture of waving fingers in what is possibly, but not probably, Benden's direction. He keeps looking, intent. Then his hand goes up to the back of his neck; "Yeah," N'rov says. "It did." Then , if she's still looking, he widens his eyes at her to see if she'll blink. Lilah doesn't blink at him trying to get her to; instead, a smile spreads briefly across her lips, the only response to his answer, before the goldrider turns on a heel to retreat from the galleries without even a goodbye. Even Dee managed that, Lilah! N'rov laughs, is what he does, and says while she's still close, "You'll get to know your fortune later." Tossing the dice in the air, he catches them, and just for that goes to talk with another group in the stands; it's better than sloppy thirds. |
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