Logs:Garden Party
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| RL Date: 19 May, 2015 |
| Who: Casseny, Dee, Kaelige, Lilah, Mayel, Wynne |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Not a real party in the herb garden but enough people to think it was. |
| Where: Herb Garden, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 6, Month 11, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Clouds make the skies leaden and gray, but no rain falls. A cool breeze often blows. |
| Mentions: Derner/Mentions |
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>---< Herb Garden, Fort Weyr(#792RJs$) >-------------------------------------<
The herb garden is a veritable feast for the eyes and nose. All manner of
herbs from medicinal to edible are grown here and tended on a regular
basis. The area is fenced in, separating it from the rest of the grounds
around it, with a trellis arch over the gate leading into it. The pathways
are lined with irregularly shaped stones that lead between the various
plots and patches of exquisitely aromatic plants, each section labeled
clearly. Pots and boxes provide alternative growing spaces for plants that
do not thrive in Fort's native soil.
Stone carved benches scattered throughout the sprawling garden provide
places for quiet conversation or for gardeners to take a rest. In the
southeastern corner of the garden is the shed where gardening tools and
supplies are kept.
Clouds make the skies leaden and gray, but no rain falls. A cool breeze
often blows. Even with the overcast and breezy cool autumn morning, Dee is probably overdressed by Fortian standards, with her three sweaters, which are overtop her formless coveralls. It makes her one of the markedly less fashionable among those working in the garden this morning. At least she seems to be one of those showing more dedication to the work at hand, weeding out those annuals that have had their moment in the sun and now are naught but husks of their former glory. She hums as she works, something with a simple tune - a teaching song anyone who knows the basics could put words to. Lilah has been buried away in work in the past few days since Eliyaveith's flight; one wouldn't be remiss to accuse her of avoidance, since she is rarely seen out and often sends for her food as she catches up on duties that were allowed to slip before. Eliyaveith, apparently, doesn't feel the same. She is not so far from the herb garden, the dark, bronzey gold curled up next to a blue brother against the chill of the morning as she watches over the garden with a distracted attention, though there may be a hint that she watches Dee specifically and her white knot. Of course, whether or not she carries eggs, it is too early to tell; nothing about her large form has changed, yet. Bundled in a sweater whose sleeves drape past her wrists, Casseny travels by stone, each foot placed with care, exactly within the marker's allowance. She's not slowed; it's something she's done before. Her steps are almost idle as she goes, for she's also not alone. Two of the Weyr's native-born wards walk beside her, far less cautious about where their toes go as they discuss with half-hushed voices things that the young healer apprentice occasionally answers. Yes, that's something Laurie's done. No, she doesn't know if it's common. Don't they have studies to attend? As they round a soft bend, marked by one of the garden's benches, the three are presented with a heads-on view of Eliyaveith's sight. The two younger full-stop, leaving Casseny to go on ahead several feet before also slowing in Dee's periphery. If Dee is uncomfortable in Eliyaveith's regard, there's no outward sign. She's noticed, surely, but hasn't done more than flash a smile here or there in the gold's direction as she works. While weeding might not strike some as the sort of task that many enjoy, but it's obvious the once farmcrafter apprentice has love for her work with the gusto with which she yanks at the stems. Only, her work area is, by now, cluttered, so, "Hey!" is called to the passing trio. "Can you lend me a hand taking these," the messy litter of ungrounded weeds, "to the compost?" a gesture is made to the construction for just that. Eliyaveith's attention is drawn naturally to those other young women, flicking a gaze over them in a specific study to see their knots before turning her gaze to Casseny. That study lingers, for the moment. Leaning cheek to cheek, the girls in back mutter conspiratorially to each other as they're eyed by the queen; something is propositioned, and the spoken to girl shakes her head rapidly, hand unconsciously going to her own shoulder-- designating her as a resident only. They're both around the age to apprentice, by their looks, but it's Dee's knot they eye with trepidation and expectation as they close in with distracted smiles. Hello, hello, they chirp while picking up the bits of torn out plant, neither afraid to get their hands immediately dirty. It's a stranger's fingers that draw Casseny's attention. She finds no problem in staring openly, with a razor's precision, at the other girl without so much a noise of greeting or strain of her face to make more than a watchful expression. Dee has friendly greetings enough for both younger girls and Casseny too, where she's crouched collecting weeds into her own leather gloved hands. The dead plants don't have much in the way of sharp bits, but the leather work gloves are no doubt helpful when elbow grease is needed to yank the roots from the cold earth. The morning's overcast chill is fought off by movement from the bed where Dee was working to the compost. The work is done in short order, the bed not having been so large, and many hands make light the work in any case. Dee casts a single glance toward the watchful gold curled up with her blue brother as she comes to a stop near her temporary helpers. "Thank you all," the tanned candidate offers the trio with a bright smile, "I'm Dee," and a hand juts out toward them for whomsoever would like to take it. Eliyaveith loses interest as the girls move around pulling and throwing away those weeds, laying her head back down over her brother's neck. Her first eyelids even close, and she doesn't meet Dee's look. But then, suddenly, there is a low rumble in the queen's throat, her head jerking up to cast a look across the garden that way, particularly. A distant, distinct redhead is moving towards the herb garden from that direction, bundled into a soft blue sweater and carrying a book, it seems, from this distance. A trio of soft greetings-- the girls are Mayel and Wynne-- the least of which comes from Casseny, though she's the one that shakes her hand free from overly long sleeves to take Dee's. Instead of precisely shake, Casseny cups the bottom of Dee's hand with hers and glides a couple fingers across the glove's palm, staring at its fibers all the while. "Casseny," she says, a second before raising her eyes to Dee's face; not a moment later and her head's swinging to follow the queen's interest. Quiet eyes watch that redhead, retake Eliyaveith, then skip past Dee so Casseny can raise pointed eyebrows at the two Weyr girls: Mayel shakes her head again, Wynne shrugs. It's her, hair so pale blonde it's almost colorless, that asks, scraping her dirtied hands together, "How much longer you going to work, Dee?" "Your work ethic is exhausting." Comes an eerie, quiet male voice from a little farther away, nearer the garden's shed. Spying eyes would find the hooded teen boy's figure perched on the fence, lanky arms drapped over thighs with worn boot heels caught on the lower rung for stability. His face may be unseen, but for those who have seen him around it's really not hard to guess who it may be. The drab once-black garb he wears is baggy enough, layered enough that while he should be covered against the chill, there is a hint of rigidity to his usual lazy form that suggests mild discomfort in the breeze. It's unknown how long he'd been there, assumably having been behind the shed. Or perhaps within it- not the worst napping spot right? "And always in the dirt too." Obviously said to Dee in particular, but the comment is open to all the girls. Enough of his head tilts upwards that his blue-green eyes might be identified as red hair is noticed approaching from the distance. Oh, the timing. The former farmcrafter blinks at Casseny as she studies the worn leather of her gloves, not seeking to reclaim her hand, openly curious. "Not long, I made an early start-" Dee was just starting to tell Wynne, when the boy's voice cuts through the conversation. Her eyes go to him, instead of to find Eliyaveith's approaching rider. It's with wryness that the candidate lifts her voice to her fellow, "Obviously I'm not trying hard enough to exhaust you, since you're not drooling into your pillow at night." This sort of comment might mean that she's been watching the watcher, or watching for the watcher anyway. "What is going on here? Some sort of party? Kaelige?" cuts across the distance from Lilah to the little gathering, though why she singles Kaelige out with her words or that dark gaze-- Well. Her look lingers for a moment, expectantly, on the young man, but it does slip over the young women after a moment to observe them as she draws into easy range. "Don't you all have things to do today?" Her knot, threaded with that dark gold, is worn on her shoulder, even if its likely that everyone in this gathering knows her, at least. Mayel had skittered several paces like a trapped insect at the revelation that'd she'd been watched by a strange boy, but Wynne took it in stride, nodding to Dee with a soft, "We were-- " Lilah's voice erases all that. No, weyrwoman, no party, yes, weyrwoman, they're taken to task. Letting her hands drift to her sides, Casseny shifts a shoulder and foot to meet the goldrider's wake. Quiet, contained, but alert, by all appearances, she's as unperturbed by Lilah's entrance as the hooded boy's. Kaelige's name brings bright blue eyes to him: registered. Her gaze dips slightly but she addresses the weyrwoman easily, "A couple of Southerners in the infirmary, didn't know how to handle our nettle." A couple fingers uncurl to indicate other workers further into the gardens where Casseny came from, but not Dee-- notably in sturdy enough gloves. Perhaps an attempt to catch more cases before they worsen, and stop the rest. "You do a fabulous job." Kaelige offers from his perch, the smirk evident in his words if not seen on his face. "But it's hardly attractive of me to be drooling all over the barracks. I can't let the ladies see that." He takes her jab in stride, if not even with some sort of malicious-sounding enjoyment of it. Granted, his sarcasm is not well-woven and obvious that he means no truth out of it. His name given to the collected before he gives it grants a playfully defeated but quiet sigh. He leans a bit forwards over his thighs, though doesn't appear to intend to give up his seat. Snake in the grass as he may be, he waits for most of the others to state their greetings before he does. Casseny's gaze is briefly met, his smirk widening at a corner in the exchange's wake before he turns his more complete attention on Lilah. "It's always a party with you here, Weyrwoman." Is his sugar-coated welcoming, as if its psuedo-sweetness grants him ability to avoid her follow up question. Dee's nose crinkles at Casseny's words and there's a sigh from the Southerner. "I told Derner to pass the word." Evidently, he must not have heeded his farmcrafter peer - how easily the learnings of apprentices are dismissed sometimes. Those work gloves are peeled off as she directs an amused look toward Kaelige. "Any lady who would mind a little pillow drool is probably not worth your time," she advises him helpfully. If it were anyone else, it would be easy to think she's making fun of him, but Dee is probably mostly genuine in her helpfulness. "I've got academics today," she volunteers for the benefit of the party, and perhaps especially the explanation-seeking Lilah. It only explains Dee's presence here if one knows her former knot, or her obnoxious tendency to volunteer for tasks not originally her own. "How sweet of you to say, Kaelige," drawls Lilah dryly to that attempted sweetness, her gaze sliding back so quickly to pin the young man with a look. "And you? What Candidate duties do you have today?" It seems that the other young women will be excused on the basis of their lack of Candidate knots from having to explain themselves, though the goldrider does nod acknowledgement to Casseny before she informs both Dee and Casseny, "I will ensure that anyone working in the gardens are properly informed and protected. The Head Gardener should have been--." Her gaze sweeps past all of them to try to find him, something displeased pulling at her lips. "One had been told." And he either ignored the advice or thought he knew better. Perhaps this Derner. Casseny passes no judgment, offering it only as salve for the former herder, or a soft pass for the Head Gardener. Her allegiance falls short after that, letting the gardener fend for himself-- should he be later found. Though freed from scrutiny, the two other girls wrestle with a moment of conscience. Wynne bullies Mayel with an elbowing, murmuring ask, ask, but Mayel disentangles herself, slicing a silencing hand through the air before her fingers curl inside Wynne's and she drags the both of them off. Casseny's lower lip scrunches lightly, watching them go, trapped between an air of humor and one of exasperation far too old for her face. To Dee, Kaelige raises a hand slightly, palm-up, in innocent question, "Those delicate ones, though. Isn't it all about first impressions?" The lifted hand scratches his scruffy chin in thought and idle motion before returning to its place. He's not quite escaping the 'where he should be' topic. "The cavern staff have never seen glow restocking quite like mine." He eventually answers, with the statement's meaning and the truth of the matter being two very separate things. He fades to quiet as he watches the interaction and shortly the departure of the two girls, lingering again with dark curiousity on Casseny before shifting back to the familiar goldrider. Kaelige gets a reprieve from the follow-up questions that that statement would usually receive; instead, as those girls start to whisper, the goldrider tenses, gaze narrowing despite not looking towards them. Her words come with a snap of cold to them where she states, "I am going to go have a word with the gardener, in any case," before turning on a heel to stalk off and away. Hazel gaze follows the Weyrwoman as she departs before directing to the boy first. "Is delicate your type?" Dee picks up on the follow up questions where Lilah leaves off. There's one for Casseny too, "Was he a big fellow?" She raises the hand holding her gloves to indicate a few inches taller than herself, "Brown hair? Dopey sort of smile?" Somewhere within Kaelige's look, Casseny's stealthily returned it-- with less curiosity and more a quiet expectation that yet doesn't urge him to act. She should be all smiles at her age, with rosy cheeks like that. But her expression's all in her overly blue eyes. These shift to Dee, following up to the measuring hand. Big indeed, since both these girls are rather tall; Caseny more lanky, less grown in. "Derner," she says after an evaluating pause, and it's both question and statement. She looks a little unsure how to categorize 'dopey'. Her hands have slid back up her sleeves, clenching and unclenching the soft material. A glance looks where the weyrwoman has since disappeared. "He'll know better now," is said with a healer's ominous practicality. A little chin beckon to Dee's hands. "Yours are fine." Shot of bright blue at Kaelige and then Casseny's turning out the way she came. Kaelige seems keen on waiting and observing the interaction of the two remaining girls as the weyrwoman takes her leave; the passage of time doesn't really have any touch on the boy whose patience is rivaled only by his avoidance of work. "My type?" Kaelige muses darkly, gaze following the apprentice as she turns to leave as well before sliding back to Dee smoothly, "I don't think I have one. Girls take up too much time." As if he's so busy that he has none. "What about you? You spend all your time in the dirt; do you like the stuffy types to balance that out?" He presses, with some semblence of real interest there. "And how do you have time to be out here anyway? Did you already finish all the candidates chores for the entire sevenday already?" "At least in that we are the same, sort of." Dee answers Kaelige with a lopsided smile after she smiles after Casseny. "I don't really have a type. It's not really that important at my age." Evidently that much she's sure of. She tucks the gloves into a pocket on her coveralls, before moving to pluck leaves from the three layers of sweaters she wears on top, fashionlessly. "And there's nothing wrong with dirt," she's happy to tell him, "But I do have studies to get to. This was just the practical part of my academics day. Now I have to read about water absorption in local soil." Fascinating! Dee seems to think so, genuinely, for she has a bright smile as she moves toward the bowl. Kaelige finds no further words to add to the conversation, his shadowed face giving the hints of the smirk remaining beneath. Perhaps it's a bit softer than his typical sneer for Dee, if only given her familiarity to him at this point. He folds his arms while Dee talks, and eventually drops his gloved palms to the fence bar as the farmer apprentice-now-candidate turns for the bowl. He slips off the railing like a serpent, barely a noise at landing, and his lazy gait takes him the opposite way of Dee to a destination untold. |
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