Logs:Anything But Polite
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| RL Date: 2 August, 2015 |
| Who: Farideh, X'vin |
| Involves: Igen Hold, Fort Weyr, High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Farideh and X'vin bump into each other at an event out Igen way. |
| Where: Minor Hold, Igen |
| When: Day 7, Month 6, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Irianke/Mentions, Lilah/Mentions, K'del/Mentions, Nimae/Mentions |
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| Summer in Igen means less rainfall and arid heat, with only the slightest break at nighttime when temperatures dip. Amid the sweltering days and chilly nights, Igenites are known to partake in festivals farther out into the desert and at the rare minor Hold; it's the perfect outlet for the dwellers of the dry landscape. One of those outlying minor Holds, built into the side of a large, red mesa in the central part of the Igen desert, serves as tonight's venue. Vaulted ceilings and open windows give the Hold's main hall a spacious feel, and the pyramids stacked with lighted tallow candles, set at intervals around the room, provide a golden glow. It's a gathering of Igen who's-who as well as numerous holders and traders from surrounding cotholds and camps; not to mention foreigners. Farideh is amid the crowd of Igenites, dressed in deep sapphire blue and turquoise fabrics cut into Igen style, with an open back and a pretty jeweled comb holding back one side of her hair. She's chatting amiably with one of Keroon's distant cousins off to the side of the hall, while the comforting noises of polite conversation buzz around them. X'vin's always well-dressed, but there are always excuses to dress better, and holidays rank among the best. It is perhaps his sudden reintegration with Fort's holds as both a rider and as family that has again netted him invitations to parties like this one, and excuses to wear the finest of his riding leathers, trimmed in silver threading at the cuffs and stand colar of his shirt. There's a woman on his arm and they've been making slowly intersecting loops for some time now, stopping for familiar faces and refreshments, and at least once taking the time out to dance even though the music is simply ambient, with laughter to accompany it. "Isn't that High Reaches' new goldrider?" comes the question from several feet away, and X'vins attention draws that way, bored at the prospect of yet another goldrider when he has so many on his plate already. "She looks terribly familiar," he says in response, but still drifts - however more slowly he might be moving now. "No, Rejal, our Weyrleader is a wonderful man and his aspirations high. Yes, yes--" Farideh laughs lightly at whatever else it is that the middle aged man says, but her eyes move behind his ruddy complexion to the waiter carrying a platter filled with crystal flutes filled with chilled champagne. She plucks one off the tray as the server passes by, giving a smile to the still-chattering holder as she sets the rim against her lips; seemingly enraptured. Any familiar faces are beyond her yet, any recognition on anyone else's part unknown. "I know her," X'vin decides, and there are suddenly too many teeth in his smile. "Give me a moment, 'rider business, you'd be bored out of your pretty head." X'vin presses a kiss to his companion's temple and shoos her with a pat; she giggles as she leaves, making her way through the rowd for a drinks table and immediately engaging someone who is already standing there. X'vin, then, is free to do what must happen so frequently to Farideh these days; he steps within a few feet of the speaking pair and clearing his throat to announce his presence as unobtrusively as possible, complete with apologetic glance at Rejal for his interruption. Rejal is the first to glance over at the Fortian wingleader, stalling mid-sentence -- something trivial about good breeding stock that may or may not be innuendo -- to give the bronzerider a cursory once over. His voice is jovial when he says, "Surprised it took someone this long to steal you from me, weyrwoman." Farideh's amused gaze travels from the rotund holder to where his attention has shifted, but her smile doesn't immediately lose its brightness; she looks curious first before surprise flickers over her face. Recovering easily, she inclines her head to Rejal grandly. "My apologies, Rejal-- I'll find you later and you can finish your story about-- sheep." He chuckles, murmuring his farewells, before stepping away in a leisurely manner, leaving the riders to their talk. "X'vin," she says, still watching the holder's form disappear through the crowd. "I promise not to keep her long," X'vin says to Rejal with a gracious nod of thanks. "Weyrwoman," X'vin says, rolling the word over his tongue in a peculiar way, clearly amused. She gets a small bow of courtesy, a little mocking, and then to counter it there's a wink. "Congratulations, however late I am to be offering them. If I'd known that name wasn't a coincidence..." A shallow shrug of one shoulder and a tilt of the head. "How are you?" When the holder completely disappears, and Farideh doesn't catch any strains of his voice over the crowd, she slowly turns toward X'vin, one arm tucked across her torso, the other still securely holding her glass flute. "Thank you," she says plainly. "I wasn't aware you got were invited to things like this." Her eyebrows lift a tiny bit and her smile edges wider, though not any nicer; in fact, her smile lacks a certain luster. "Things have been well. You?" Such a cool reception. X'vin's fairly unwavering, even so, his smile even and his gaze roaming over her in a fashion that is at least mostly innocent. "I stopped accepting the invitations," he says. "There were better things to do. You'll understand." He gestures to her knot before sliding his hands into his pocket. "Well," he offers in counterpoint to her own, but there is a gentle query under it that manifests moments later. "What strange lives we lead. Not so long ago, you told me you had everything you wanted; now look at you, a goldrider. And not even near your home." "Did you? I don't know-- the average rider isn't invited to things like these. It should be a compliment. You don't agree?" Farideh's eyes traverse the bronzerider's form from face to feet and back up again, one slim brow arching gracefully over dubious hazel eyes. "I haven't seen you in turns and-- things are bound to change in all of that time, and yet others-- are you? The same? Still luring off holder's daughters?" "I'm anything but average, Farideh, you know that. And you know these people. If you send them letter politely declining, a good bottle of wine and a promise to say hello next time you're around, they'll forgive you readily, won't they?" Relaxing into his posture, X'vin catches the next server to breeze by and swaps his own glass out and sampling it cautiously. "Sometimes, when I find myself in Holds," he says with a rakish grin. "Less often though. Moving closer to home has put a stopper in who is eligible. I've graduated to goldriders, mostly." He's almost certainly teasing her, trying to break that ice of hers. "I expected to find you married, with a brood of children as the wife of some holder -- not as a weyrwoman to a weyr halfway across the continent from your home. If I found you at all." Farideh keeps up the pretense of a smile, all the while listening to X'vin's pretty words, but her eyes flit, now and then, to other faces and sights. "Oh? Where did you move to?" she asks, distractedly, before taking a small sip from her glass. "Were you looking for me? It was just one night out of a whole life full of nights--" She, pointedly, doesn't comment on her past, future possibilities, but gestures vaguely with her champagne flute towards the other side of the room. "We should walk." "Fort," X'vin says easily, noting her attentions and how they stray, but not addressing them. "I wasn't no. I heard your name when you Impressed, told myself it couldn't possibly be that same girl I met, and carried on. But," X'vin gestures broadly around them, falling into a step the way she gestured, "you never know when the world will cross your paths with someone." X'vin clicks the back of his teeth, "A shame, though, that some Reachian rider Searched you, when I might have snagged you myself." "Fort?" That gets her attention, hazel eyes shifting to X'vin's face, where they stay. "You-- moved to Fort, from Benden-- why?" Farideh doesn't elaborate on her surprised at his new home, for now, but her lips quirk ruefully. "I was meant to Impress Roszadyth from High Reaches. Had you searched me, I might still be-- dragonless, or a greenrider, or-- and surely you don't miss me," she accuses, head canting towards him with a stunted laugh. One of X'vin's eyebrows goes up, his eyes lighting at her reaction even if his smile stays steady. "I hoped to help Lilah with the holds. And," he adds, wry, "I was perhaps a little homesick, in some ways. I'd done my duties to Benden, but you never want to stagnate if you can help it." On Roszadyth, he nods. "True enough," is on the first several parts, but the end, gets further acknowledgment. "You were fun," he says lightly, lifting his glass pointedly, "but no, I don't pine for you in the cold nights, or the warm ones, as would probably be more apt." "How kind of you-- and from the goodness of your heart?" Farideh laughs openly then, but sobers quickly as she slips between a group of holders. "I'm almost glad of it. Your weyrwoman needs all the help she can get," would be a compliment if it were anyone else, except there is thinly veiled skepticism behind the words. "And here," she quips, with a glance towards X'vin, "I thought it was true love. What a pity." "From the goodness of my heart," the bronzerider confirms blithely, with a courteous nod as he follows in the small woman's wake. It would conceal his surprise at her off-hand remark about Lilah, but a very little bit of it leaks into his words. "I worry less about her than I do the situation she's stepped into," he says contemplatively. "Were that true, I'd be sorry to have broken your little hold-girl's heart." "The situation she's stepped into? I wasn't aware Fort Weyr was in a situation." Farideh's eyebrows creep upwards. "They haven't had the reputation Fort has had in the past, but I thought Hattie was a competent weyrwoman and the Weyr in a decent place. That's not speaking of Lord Astivan's prior discretions-- still, that's not their problem." She inclines her head to a couple who wave towards them, and then fake-smiles hard, looking up at X'vin. "Smile. Laugh. I know you know how to act." "Wrong," X'vin says flatly, sobering. "Hattie's competencies aside, even Lilah's aside, the weyr doesn't exist entirely apart from any hold it protects, or vice versa. Not at Fort and not at Reaches and not at Benden. Especially not now." He sounds exasperated, and looks it, one hand coming absently to the bridge of his nose so he can pinch from the corner of his eyes, like he's explained this countless times, to her. But his eyes rise, his hand drops, and there his brilliant smile comes, at her bidding, along with the observation, "My, that knot of yours has made you awfully bossy. I suppose that was only a matter of time, either way." "Wrong? Fort Hold's struggle is their own. Fort Weyr has Ruatha and Southern Boll to support them, still, not counting the Halls. If she chooses, if they choose to shoulder Fort's burden as their own--" Farideh's shrug is distinctly uncaring. "What they want to provide in part out of goodwill or philanthropy isn't the same as it being theirs-- and that, now, in an Interval-- they can try to be self-sufficient." She keeps her smile, but her voice has a edge to it when she asks: "Are you trying to be Weyrleader, that you care so much?" Definitely suspicious, but then her next laugh is more genuine, if wolfish. "Should I have aspired to those kids hanging onto my skirts instead?" X'vin sighs, keeping his smile in place and flicking his fingers dismissively. "You're all so short-sighted," he remarks as an undertone, before draining his glass and casting for the nearest server, not that they're long in passing on their routes, like ants. He concedes, "If you say so, weyrwoman. You must know, all that time you've spent in Harper lessons and politics." Her direct question and the edge to it has him looking at his glass mournfully, wishing he'd waited just a few moments more to empty it. His answer is clipped and low-throated. "I wouldn't object." Out of no where, Farideh wheels around to face him, and her tone is half accusing, half disbelieving. "Are you mad? You're mad," she laughs, "that I'm not enamoured with your little redheaded weyrwoman." And just like that, she gives him an up-and-down glance, her arms folding loosely over her chest, champagne flute upheld. "My, my, things do change, X'vin." "How presumptuous," X'vin says, eyebrows going up in challenge. "I'm not mad, because not a soul I've met save her dragon is enamoured with Lilah. I'm irritated that everyone thinks an Interval will sustain this bullshit--" and X'vin cuts himself off with a sharp intake of breath between teeth he suddenly grits. There is a moment where every bit of his carefully cultured facade is broken down, a fleeting glimpse at the point where calculation becomes annoyance, and then it slides back into place, smoothing over. He takes a deep breath, saying evenly, with perfect politeness, "One can only hope, weyrwoman." Where is that sharding server?
"Yes," X'vin says drily, grabbing a server almost bodily and dragging him close enough to exchange glasses with a sharkish smile and a dark-sounding thank you before he lets the man go on his way. "It does, every Interval. But we're talking about centuries now. If it's going to be a slow decline, it's probably easier to cut off at the pass. Before we hit year 250 and it's bloodshed and new riots. Not that either of us will be there." Now he gives Farideh a sidelong look, the glass hovering in front of his lips as he looks her up and down, taking some stock of her before, "How did you end up here? With that knot, and that dragon of yours?" The one Besmernyth has been staring at since they landed, with no particular purpose behind his unwavering eyes except to watch her. "Do you have a plan to make it new? I never took you for a hero wannabe," Farideh notes idly, twirling her champagne glass between her fingers and considering X'vin almost caustically. "People are curious-- look at Farideh, she had such a bright future. She could have been somebody-- she could have been someone's wife. I do not doubt that they all expected me to be pregnant already by who knows, with a busted face and a mouth full of unsavory platitudes." Her smile is wry as she slides a sidelong look towards the holders nearest them. "Holders swear they aren't scared of us, but-- what we mean, what we are-- it makes them uneasy. I can tell the difference now from then. When did you?" No amount of staring could make the petite queen impolite, or stare back, but she is aware in so much that he's aware, of her. She doesn't stir to solicit conversation, even if the vague fragility of sunlight comes and as quickly goes. "Even if I had a plan, what good is it? I'm in no place to implement it, even on trial. People are still entrenched in their traditions. I never took you for a cynic, but here we are." Her diatribe catches him off guard, though; cynic or no, she seems to have surprised him with it, and X'vin finally lets the glass touch his lips while she speaks, and though his eyes roam to those nearest it's clear he's listening, ready to turn back to her with a cynical little smile of his own. "Earlier than you did, in some ways," he says. "Or, perhaps, around the same age, but before Besmernyth. I was never so carefree as you, though. If I compare the girl I met at a party once to this," a flick of the fingers towards her, "I don't think I'd be able to fathom what happened between to cause it. But it's easier on us, isn't it? The men always have it easier. I would have chosen a wife, maybe someone like you. Maybe you, even. I didn't want to be a steward though, staying in that hold while Astivan ran us into the ground. And I learned very early that no matter how much my father thought he was in control, he wasn't. Power is much more complicated than that." Besmernyth doesn't seem to be keen on anything more than being unsettling, her sunlight glancing off frozen walls, but nothing else. His curiosity, if that's what it is, is purely cosmetic. "I thought that was the point of being a hero. Trying regardless if it will work or not-- what's the saying-- against all odds." Farideh returns his cynical smile with a hike of eyebrows, seemingly unimpressed by the comparison. "I wouldn't say I'm a cynic. I'm still learning. I still have a lot of holder values left, but--" Her shoulders lift and fall in quick succession. "It's not what it once was and certainly, my Weyr is in the same predicament as yours, and only slightly better because Irianke has been taught by Nimae's hand all these turns; still, it could be me." Dry as her voice is, she offers him a small smile, that actually reaches her eyes this time. "Even now, you get to choose. You choose the dragons you chase-- mostly." And after all this time of holding her glass without drinking, she takes a delicate sip and purses her lips, savoring the flavor before swallowing. "Is that what you're after? Power?" X'vin tips his head slightly, his free hand sliding into his pocket and worrying at something inside without removing it. "Maybe I only want the power to incite changes I need, before we make the same mistakes all over again. E'dre certainly isn't doing it, and for all her sweet heart is trying -- " scoff -- "Lilah doesn't have the panache." The name of High Reaches' current acting weyrwoman makes him pause to consider, though nothing is immediately forthcoming, if he's acquainted with her at all. "Learning to be a cynic," he rephrases, almost playful. "It will just happen, I think. You don't think you could run an entire weyr yet? This Irianke, she's not imparted enough of her vast knowledge to make you functional?" X'vin looks grim at the conversations about chasing. "As I said - the men have it a lot easier, don't they? Maybe you would have been better on a quick little blue, or a brown. Then you'd get so much choice. He doesn't chase much. Why do you think I was chasing skirts at an Igen party?" Not unlike this exact moment, though the Fortian rider sees fit to note, "But he does like young queens." "Have you considered," but Farideh has to stop and take a step back when two teenagers come running through, jostling everyone nearby; once the grumbling has stopped the goldrider returns her focus to X'vin, though it's obvious she's not all there, anymore. "Neither of us has any more say in what will happen as the candidates do in which dragon will choose them." It's a safe answer, one that she gives from behind the still-bubbling contents of her flute. "Does a great leader become such in only a turn? Irianke could be the most knowledgeable-- the best, and still--" Her words fade at the end, and she tilts her head, regarding him contemplatively. Before she speaks again, her earlier smile returns, a bit wider, a bit more impish. "It was nice catching up with you, X'vin. You will give Lilah our regards, won't you?" There's laughter in her voice and minute hesitation, and then she's turning away, to move onto another grouping of holders, another babble of amused voice and closeted questions. "I disagree," is all X'vin says for that, critical. It might be lost though, with most of his face turned to watch those teenagers on their way. "I think if you doubt you have control, you're not trying hard enough." For the rest, he has a great wave. "I'm not asking you to be great. I was just wondering if you feel capable. If that is your immediate reaction, I have my answer." The disappointment that follows is feigned, and he is not of a mind to follow her when she turns away despite his low, "No more romping in the bushes, mmm? So dignified. I think I liked you better before." He lifts his glass in salute to her, and stands there just a moment to watch her departure before drinking the rest of it down, turning on his heel and seeking out his former companion without making any promises about Lilah or Farideh's regards. |
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