Logs:Warning
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| RL Date: 21 June, 2015 |
| Who: Kaelige, Yetob |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Vignette |
| What: Kaelige catches a Hood with impure intentions and issues a warning. |
| Where: Stores, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 21, Month 1, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Dee/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Yetob by Dee. |
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>---< Stores, Fort Weyr >----------------------------------------------------<
Fort's Stores are made up of a series of caverns of differing sizes that
hold the vast majority of the Weyr's perishable and non-perishable
supplies. Accessible from both the Kitchen and the Tunnel to the outside
of the Weyr, these Stores are split into two levels, with the lower levels
dug down deep along a sloping passageway where it's always chilly for
perishables and the upper level containing mostly dry goods.
Second-hand clothing and linens as well as cleaning supplies are kept in
open storerooms. Several 'junk' rooms are also left unlocked with a 'free
to take' policy on items that are not in good enough condition to
requisition but not broken enough to throw out. The rest of the caverns
are usually kept locked and require permission from the Headwoman or the
storeskeeper on duty for access. Those that were the recipients of Dee's painstakingly sewn hoods and the scarves that go with them are good people. They want to help other people. Other people who have needs. Right? In an ideal world, perhaps. This is Pern. As much as some people ignore the facts of life or see only the good, there are bad people, and people somewhere on that long range in between. Yetob is probably not as bad as they come; with a ready smile and an easy manner, he's likable, and it shouldn't come as any surprise that with a few of the right words here or there, he was included in those Dee trusted. The messages Yetob has been sending, however, paint a different picture. There are inquiries to known vendors of illicitly acquired goods, for pricing, and that's probably what brings him tonight into the section of the stores set aside for the infirmary excess. He's perusing the shelves like he belongs there; confidence is easy for Yetob, but judging from the notes sent, he's almost certain to take things that will be missed and in no great amount of time either. Why spread out a score when you can take, have done, and let another or several others take the fall for you? Kaelige had many habits, some of which he knew the candidates he's been living with for quite some time knew well. That being his lack of cot use, his tendency to overhear conversations, his lingering where he shouldn't be- though never actually seen doing anything wrong so to speak. There were also others that significant fewer, if any, noticed- though he wasn't so naive as to think nobody ever saw him around a cot that wasn't his. He had read many a'letter, opened many a'press, learned things of some of the other candidates that were utterly private unless they took a great deal of care to keep them as such. He kept it to very specific candidates, however. And lately those specific ones were all those he knew were following Dee in her plan for Lux's Ledge. The small thefts had been going well, all things considered, but with more people frequenting the stores in concern for security, he made it another habit lately to case them regularly. Are the exits still usable? Were things moved around? What were the routines of the people keeping watch? Details that had to be known and updated constantly. As he passed through the lower cavern tunnels towards the stores, the paper he holds in one hand is tucked against his back, held beneath his shirt by his pant waistline- that being an intercepted letter of Yetob. If he wasn't in a foul enough mood already, his expression a darkened but level and unreadable thing not fairly demonstrating even a degree of it, he'd slipped on his greys earlier only to notice a pink heart inside the neckline. With his others in the laundry, he's left to work tainted with that speck of happiness sewn there. Yetob turns at a whisper of sound. There's no one there, but the fact that the strapping young man is enough on edge to look when he thinks there is, is telltale enough. Probably, this is as much Yetob's first time with stealing as anyone, an opportunist rather than a career criminal. Given his charming smiles and good looking face, he's the sort to rely on being able to talk his way out, but still... one hand has gone to the hood down around his shoulders: ready. He blinks into the dimness for some moments; it's the amount of time it takes for a person to convince themselves a sound or shift of shadows was a figment of the imagination. He moves across the hall to reach to the hanging for the glow basket on the wall that he might pluck it down and bring it closer to his quarry as he searches labels on shelves, jars and small crates alike for the highest take. He must have scouted, but someone must have been in and moved some things around, more likely in the process of inventorying rather than in a counter-security measure. Once Kaelige nears the stores, his manner changes. He takes a considerably long time to make it there, considering he waits at corners and listens, follows the murkiest edges of the tunnels, trailing only the edges of glowlight at best. And when he hears movement inside his target location, he's stone still at the last turn that would grant him entrance. When he's confident it's only one and, as the other candidate brings a glowlight closer to himself, who it might be, the teen clad in layers and shadows steps into the room just far enough to make that figment of his imagination a real entity. "Second one on your left tends to fetch a hefty sum." Comes a voice far from friendly. The way Yetob jerks as he whirls might be gratifying. The hood is already halfway to being donned when he asks, "Kaelige? Is that you, kid?" The older man struggles to regain his composure. In the end, he's not wholly successful, and the way his eyes search outside the glow light, which he at least has the sense to lower beside his leg to encourage his eyes to adjust, betrays uncertainty that it is the creepy candidate after all. "You're correct." Kaelige answers with a dismissive undertone. He stays where he is, however, lending what little Yetob may see to however quickly his sight can adjust to the lack of light around him. "You might want to try the lower shelves." The ones with multiple stacks worth of items, bandages, blankets and extra stock of readily accessible salves. The kinds of things the infirmary goes through so quickly the absence of them may well be attributed to a busy day. "Before someone happens to notice." That warning might be that one chance that he's been told that, apparently, everyone deserves. Just because Kaelige is immune to Yetob's smiles doesn't mean he doesn't continue to employ them. One comes to his lips as he manages to recover himself. "Oh, yeah." Like he was just reminded. "I just thought if I looked to the backs of the shelves-- well. Inconspicuous," he makes a gesture to the shelves. The ones that don't have blankets or bandages or other of the types of items they are supposed to be taking. "I've got it covered here, but I think one of the others was with the clothes and might need a hand. Bulky, and all that," it's lazily dismissive, laden with the kind of self-assurance that almost certainly means it hasn't even crossed Yetob's mind that Kaelige might not believe him as Yetob attempts to send him along his way. Kaelige strides towards Yetob as if with intention to see what he was gesturing to, the threat from his previous tone not found in his pace or posture. It's the very moment he's close enough to see those particular shelves that his left hand snaps up to take a fist full of the older boy's tunic at his left neckline. A step too-fast brings Kael body-to-body close with him, the bone of his forearm shoved up into his fellow candidate's throat. It's very fluid, very simple, no waste of motion but the force of which is intended to push him back against the store shelves and pin him there. He's deathly calm despite the power in that effort, that cold, practiced, trained sort of calm that speaks of danger far more than erupted anger ever could. When he speaks again, it's level and humorless, "Don't play games with me." Those hard eyes of his bare into the other's, equivalence of height making him too level, too close for any sort of comfort. The pressure of the blade of his arm steadily, unmercifully, and ever so slowly increases. "I don't play fair." Yetob clearly doesn't have much in the way of training to fend off the attack, especially not when it is so swift and unwavering. "Not!" is the first word that manages to get out, the older boy's teeth bared in the face of the younger's apparent malevolence. Evidently, the older boy has balls and is not so easily swayed to betray himself. "The hell you aren't." Kaelige's low cutting voice interjects. His right hand sweeps behind his back with a motion that's intentionally prolonged as if he's pulling a knife from its sheath. But it wouldn't be a weapon- in a physical sense, anyway. He produces the letter he'd stolen from Yetob's personal effects, partially unfolded enough to reveal a few familiar lines at face level as his example, his judgement. Yetob's eyes flick to the letter held before him, his Adam's apple struggling to bob under the pressure of Kaelige's forearm. It's in the moments that follow that the other boy, no more tall but sturdier of frame, gathers his strength for a push, hands getting just enough purchase to make the effort worthwhile, pushing the younger back. "-the fuck you care anyway?" is a snarl of annoyance. Kaelige is an annoyance. Yetob is still not afraid. "Just because some bleeding-heart bitch wants to solve the problems of a place that isn't even hers to care for doesn't mean all of us are in this for the same reasons." Hadn't Kaelige told Dee as much? And hadn't she not listened? Kaelige willingly releases Yetob's tunic, the shift in the older's weight making him expect the push as he gathered it. It lends him to remaining balanced as he takes that step back, and allows him to keep the pressure of relatively close proximity. Yetob's snarl is replied with only that chilly, level tone, "You won't compromise her." Her it seems, not the plans in general, though likely because it was she who 'hired' him beyond any other reason. It's the only answer he would give, not entertaining any other part of his explanation. Partly because he agrees, partly because it's a waste of time. The boy in greys stands squarely before the other, arms relaxed at his sides but hood too drawn to see his eyes. "Whether that be because you agree to follow the plans or because you disappear, that's your choice." "Look, I'm helping them too," Yetob tries to sound reasonable, which isn't easy given the annoyance which radiates from expression and short tone. This somehow justifies him gleaning from the top himself. "There's nothing wrong with it," except some people would think so. "Why don't you just run along and leave this to the rest of us. Like you have been all along. Why do you even care?" Evidently, Yetob isn't worried about Kaelige giving them up, but the rest... given his lack of participation in the movement? It's reasonable for him to ask, not that he really seems to care about the responses - if only Kael will just go away. "I don't think you understand your situation." Kaelige drops that hidden gaze for a moment to his hands, the one holding the letter shifting to tuck it back against his back where it'd been. "Getting rid of a candidate is messy." The cruelty in his voice mixed with an inappropriate cadence of amusement is nigh demonic. He looks back up as his hand comes back around, this time with a weapon, almost entirely hidden. Given that it's a knife similar to the one strapped to his leg, it begs the question of what else he has on his person. The short dagger is held with the blunt side of the blade held back against his forearm in a silent hint of a gesture that the next time his arm goes against his throat- "There's an art to it. But in the end, nobody questions your lack of resolve when a 'friend' turns in your knot tomorrow since you left the Weyr before dawn." The amount of talking leaves a bad taste in his mouth, and he clearly has no intention of valuing Yetob's defensive, annoyed curiosity. The way Yetob's brows lift in disbelief and then narrow do confirm the young man didn't understand his situation. Not really. He might have some grasp on it now though. "You wouldn't," he has to try for pride's sake, attempting to call the younger candidate's bluff. "We're not friends," is followed by a shrewder, "she'd never believe you," only she probably would. She believed him, after all, didn't she? "You're right, I'm not your friend." Kaelige steps forward with intention to close the distance again, the knife nearly vanishing behind that right forearm with the way it's grasped and its color not all unlike the clothes he wears. He'd pin him to the shelves again, this time with a weightier threat than before, if the older candidate doesn't move. Even less noticeable in those movements is his left hand drawing something from an indiscrete pouch at his side. "I don't need her to believe me. Because you'll never step foot in here again." Yetob is many things but an idiot isn't one. As Kaelige steps to close the distance, Yetob is sidestepping to avoid being pinned a second time, though he might not be fast enough to avoid all contact with the younger candidate. "Won't I?" He frowns, turning the tables, "I wonder if the weyrleaders have any idea just what sort of boy is Standing for Eliyaveith's eggs. Perhaps you ought to mind your own business as I do mine," he suggests, making an attempt, at least, to turn the tables to something more like even ground. "The successful execution of her plan is my business." The weight with which that's said leaves no room for questioning his stance, though little about his overwhelmingly dark confidence does. Kaelige moves such that the older candidate would have to make contact with him to get beyond him with that sidestep, though no further revealing his concealed weapon as if inviting the older boy to do so. There's a slide of hand and the feeling of a pinch in the other boy's side that comes nearest Kael in that escape route. Just a pinch like that of a small insect bite or a sting, and no more. Otherwise, the hooded figure is motionless. "Aye," He gives in a hushed, vile tone, that devilish grin just starting to spread on his face as if he knows something Yetob does not- yet, "A group of thieves and liars, every one of us." Yetob, so long as he stays out of the range of the knife in the process of fleeing in a manly fashion, doesn't care if he has to push past the younger man. In his haste, he likely doesn't even notice the pinch. He has a sneer as he goes, but perhaps he thinks they've struck some kind of bargain. He might go on thinking that, right until he gets woozy enough to realize something is amiss with that assumption. Fortunately, by then, he's in the barracks and he manages to make it to his cot before he falls unconscious for the next few hours, to awake groggy but otherwise unharmed, the memory of the perturbing interlude hazy but hopefully enough to deter Yetob, at least, from another self-interested effort before all things are said and done. |
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