Logs:Home Is Where You Make It
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| RL Date: 24 April, 2016 |
| Who: Jo, Quint |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Quint and Jo catch up and make a deal. |
| Where: Lake Shore, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 21, Month 8, Turn 40 (Interval 10) |
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The rest of the bowl may be barren, grass barely surviving at best, but
here by the lake, it's brilliantly green in the warmer months: thickening
and thriving in the silty, boulder-dotted soil just before it transitions
to soft sand and thence to the cool, clear water itself.
A large freshwater lake fed by a low waterfall, it not only provides
warm-weather bathing space for humans and dragons, but has one end fenced
off as a watering hole for the livestock in the feeding grounds. The water
there is often muddier than the rest of the clear lake, whose shallows
drop off abruptly several yards out into deep water, and whose edge
undulates against the coarse-hewn bowl wall: here close enough to just be
bramble-covered rocks, there far enough away that a narrow land bridge
divides the main lake from a smallish pond. Between are several rocky
outcroppings that form excellent makeshift diving points, though only one
-- across the bridge -- has a set of narrow, slippery, quite possibly
tempting stairs.
Warm sunshine and cloudless skies make for a beautiful day and pleasantly
warm evening. A breeze tempers the heat with no humidity lingering in the
air. It's early morning, but the air is already warm enough to make it pleasant, a breeze keeping it from being too warm. There's some early starters making their way around the lake, and amongst them is Quint -- dressed for once not in his harper blues, but in more casual, loose clothing to aid running. His jogging is gradually but noticeably slowing down, until he's barely plodding along, a sheen of sweat forming across his brow. Jo and Tacuseth is here, though, the pair is further down the shore towards the end of the lake. The blue dragon glistens in the morning light with fresh oil and bath, lounging close to the shore. As for the wingsecond, she's pouring over written sheets of hide, moving her attention between that and the view of the lake and her dragon and lost in thought. Spotting a familiar face is as good an excuse as any to desist from running, and so, shortly after Quint catches sight of the familiar part, he slows to a walk, angling in their direction. He's breathless enough perhaps that, at first, he offers a nod, steps towards the shallows and bending to splash some of the water onto his face and neck. His, "She seems lost in thought for this early of a morn," appears directed towards Tacuseth rather than her rider, an amused observation to which, it seems, he expects no response. At least, not from the dragon. When Quint is near, Jo's gaze transfers toward him. Tacuseth's head moves in his direction as if he understood his words. "I've never seen a harper run at leisure," is her called out greeting as she looks over the hides before putting them back into the rucksack by her. "He won' answer ya," she adds now, nodding in Tacuseth's direction. After a few moments merticulously smoothing back damp hair, Quint moves from the shallows towards where Jo's seated. He remains standing, starting to stretch. "I wouldn't call it leisure so much as shame," the harper admits, ruefully. "I'm sorry to admit I'm perhaps not as fit as I imagined -- and it's just lucky for me that my apprentice was much less fit than me so that I could set my pace to hers." With a glance over his shoulder, he adds with a quick smile, "I hadn't expected him to. But I feel that, sometimes it's nice just to acknowledge they're part of the conversation." "So ya don' run often, ya mean," Jo surmises, grinning as she leans back. "Mm. I go for a run sometimes. Not as much as I used to since takin' this knot. I imagine doin' so for ya breaks up the routine, eh? How have things been? Yer sister?" she inquires now as he approaches. "I'm afraid between lessons, and the lure of music and books, running doesn't often come at the top of the list as it must for someone with a more physical profession," Quint confesses, with a gesture to the Wingsecond. He continues to stretch, using the excuse of it, perhaps, to give him a moment before he responds to her questions. "I'm well. Since I got back from our journey I feel more invigorated. It's nice to spend time away from the 'norm' to give one perspective, I feel. Perhaps that's why us Journeyman are so frequently moved around," he muses for a moment, before he answers the latter, with only the smallest of hesitations, "Oh, she's well enough. She stayed on at Fort after the hatching, and by all accounts is well-settled in. Though part of me wonders how much of that is stubbonness now that she's made a decision -- but I suppose she's old enough live with her own decisions." He straightens, now, exhaling. "And you, Wingsecond? I apologize I haven't had much time for lessons of late -- I promise I will make time for you this seven, though. Perhaps a drink after?" he proposes. "Journey'mn," Jo repeats that with a nod. "Ready to move on already? How long have ya been here in the Reaches already? It's good to hear yer sister's well. Perhaps Fort's meant for her, right?" She watches him stretch, leaning back on black leathered arms as she listens. She shakes her head on his apology, however, before answering back, "No need to apologize. This knot of mine keeps me runnin'. Why ya think I'm here with these hides so early?" It's an easy chuckle to that with a gesture towards the rucksack where she's placed them. "We'll do it when we both got time'n, ya know I'll never turn down a drink. Or, ya'll learn if ya don'." "Oh, no. I feel invigorated enough from my trip that I've no wish to move on just yet. Besides, it's the Hall's decision." A quick smile is proffered, followed by Quint's pause to calculate an answer: "Not yet two Turns. I'm normally posted even two or three, so," he spreads his hands, as if to say it's anyone's guess. "Perhaps," he allows, as to Gisele's choice. "It does afford me more chances to visit her, when I've an excuse to be at the Hall." The harper's gaze follows hers, rueful twist of lips soon following. "Well, if you're bored of your own hides, we've plenty that could use copying. Old Master Jeroman's eyesight just isn't what it used to be." "Hard to make a home, havin' to move every other turn," Jo comments casually, nodding at something he says. "Do ya enjoy Fort yerself?" There's short laughter on hides before she passes the harper a look on that offer. "Shit, like I need anymore work than the table-ton I've got, harper," is what she verbalizes. "Wing reports're bad enough. Ya can always stop by in read'em for me, ya know. Since we're offerin' each other work." "I like to think that Pern is my home -- not that that's any statement of claim, mind you," the harper hastens to add, with a brief chuckle. "Just that, one can grow to love different aspects of different places, and call to you in different ways." Quint hesitates a moment. "Does that make sense?" As if, for once, he's not sure whether his glib tongue has quite conveyed his meaning. As for the offer of reading her reports: "I'd be more than happy to, Wingsecond," sounds like a genuine answer. "Shall we make it a once a seven event?" "I can see that," Jo admits on home, seeming to study him now. "Keogh'll always be home to me, as much as here'n Greenfields. Ya give such a harper-like answer, by the way," she notes aloud, openly amused now. "That ain' the first time I've told'ja that, I reckon. Makes me wonder how ya were as Quintus the Man of Pern before He Became Quintus the Harper of Pern." That offer, it's likely by the chuckle that she's totally joking, but the banter doesn't stop there: "If ya bring the booze and somethin' to eat with ya, then, sure. We can do it on the nights where I'm not lookin' to get shit-faced, bloodied or only fucked." "Keogh?" Quint sounds both surprised and pleased. "I traveled through there not five sevens ago on our way back. I can see the appeal of it," he says, with an approving nod. When she accuses his answer of being harper-like, he laughs, spreading his hands as if accepting the accusation. "Probably as much a harper as now, though unconsciously so," he says, though it's light in turn, as if he's following through with a joke. And while her offer remains a jest, he in turn takes it seriously -- after all, what harper wouldn't want to read through wing reports? "It seems to me that's a very specific sort of clause -- you wouldn't, by any chance, be taking advantage of a provincial harper, would you?" His head tips, dropping fast-drying hair forward out of its formerly neat arrangement. "There's no appeal to Keogh," Jo relates, laughing. "Other than the kennel, darlin'. It's a cold'n hard place. What appealed ya to it?" She has to ask. As for the man before the harper, the bluerider shakes her head as she says, "Nah, nah. I don' believe it. The place molds the person. Most times. 'N me, takin' advantage?" Jo can't even look innocent. "Nah, ya offered. I proposition, not take advantage. Ya'll be bored to tears readin' those reports." Quint moves slowly, motioning his intent to take a seat on the rock near her shortly before he does. That done, he smooths back his hair before he answers, considered thought to the words: "There's something about an unhidden austerity. It speaks to a focus, a purpose. I liked that they didn't try to dress up who they were." A beat passes, before he muses: "I wonder if it dates, in part, to being taken over by Fax in the eight interval?" It seems he doesn't expect any sort of response to his musing, as he's exhaling as he gives a sidelong look to the bluerider. "Well, if I am, we can spend the evening focusing on your lessons, then." He extends his hand to her, palm up, as if to seal the deal. On Keogh, "One thing I can say 'bout that place is, it never pretends to be anythin' other than what it is. Guess we never had the time to do otherwise. Despite everythin', ya know sometimes I do miss that simpler life it had." She does shrug on the matter of Fax - nothing seems to be coming in mind since there's no answer. Dark eyes dropping on that hand, and his offer, before she meets his gaze and gives it a firm grip. "Deal'n deal, darlin'," she answers, giving his hand a shake. "It's refreshing, after dealing with so many who can't, mm, afford such a bland honesty," Quint says, after a time, letting his hand drop back after they shake over their deal. With a groan, he pushes to his feet. "Well, I'd best soak off before morning class. Let me know the night that meets your criteria, hm?" with a rueful smile, and a last nod towards the blue lounging near the shore, he sets a slow, easy pace back towards the bowl. The chuckle is easy from Jo, and the woman watches Quint as he gets up to leave. "Alright," she waves him off, the woman clearly not leaving just yet. "I'll catcha soon, darlin'. 'Til then." She watches him leave before she returns her study back towards the lake and her dragon. |
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