Logs:Irianke's Return
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| RL Date: 15 March, 2016 |
| Who: Irianke, K'del |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Irianke returns home. |
| Where: K'del's Weyr, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 14, Month 4, Turn 40 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Eriskel/Mentions, Farideh/Mentions, Ienavi/Mentions, Jaine/Mentions, Jo/Mentions, Jocelyn/Mentions, Jounine/Mentions, Rone/Mentions, Tevrane/Mentions |
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| In the middle of the night, Niahvth arrives at the Weyr, with bags tucked along her sides and alights onto her ledge. With periodic visits, but nothing too long, this time, it might seem she's back for good. The silhouette of a slender woman dropping and unloading the bags with alacrity can be seen, until she (and the bags) disappear into the weyr. Shortly there after, footsteps sound just outside the Weyrleader's weyr and there, in the entreeway, stands Irianke, the strains of too much family time self-evident about her eyes. She pauses there, assessing. Is he awake? Is he sleeping? How far does she venture in either way? Maybe K'del was sleeping, but he's not, now. That's probably due to Cadejoth, who must have felt the shift in his Weyr's web of dragons at the return of his queen, never mind how deeply he so often sleeps. That wakefulness allows the bronze to alert his rider, and so it is that his bare feet pad across the cold stone floor, his hair rumpled and mussed (though at least he's clothed) to find the returning weyrwoman. "You're back," holds a note of muzziness from recent sleep, but K'del's expression is alert, at least, visible even through the gloom. "Are you well, Irianke?" Relief spreads across the woman's far too (now) carved face when she hears K'del and then sees him through her grayed blue eyes. "Better now that I'm home." This is followed by the slightest beat, a hesitation that allows the word to sink in to herself and make itself comfortable again. Irianke pushes out a lopsided smile on her thinned lips and points at the rumpled mess of his hair, "I woke you up. I thought you'd like to know that I don't plan to leave for a while. And," the smile slips sardonic, "That the Weyr is still standing." Home. K'del's mouth curves into a smile, acknowledging what Irianke says without commenting on the most of it-- at least not immediately. One of his hands lifts to run through his hair, as if in an attempt to smooth down those wayward curls, grown too long. "I do," he says, and then clarifies: "Glad you're back, I mean. Glad to know it. It's been..." But he pauses, shaking his head. "Things're fine. No disasters to lay out in front of you in the immediate sense, minus the potential uprest in Nabol which doesn't seem to be turning into anything. But that can all wait." "I may...," Irianke starts and then shakes her head, as if changing her mind mid-sentence, rather than any true calculated fishing expedition. She speaks while walking, "Nabol? With the lady or with the population?" Once closer to the Weyrleader, the Weeyrwoman reaches up to tuck those curls backwards a raised brow for the length of them conveying her amused askance. "Mid-life crisis or just too busy to groom yourself?" May? K'del's brows do raise, but he's distracted from that line of thought by the rest, most especially by the goldrider's fingers in his hair. "Ali usually cuts it," is offered by way of explanation, the rest open to extrapolation: he's not been in a position to go south as much, these months, and perhaps when he's there his time is better spent otherwise. "Nabol-- the population. Some of the holders seem pretty unhappy with the Lady." "She's the one who catapulted to leadership on the back of her nephew's failed coup?" Irianke asks, the refresher of Nabolese history, non-native to her, possibly necessary. Or just filling in dead air space as the various insinuations of what K'del says go their varied directions. "Mm," agrees K'del. "And the one that locked herself and her immediate family away during the plague, leaving her people to manage under the direction of her steward-- who died. Farideh and I were at her grandson's turnday party recently. He, at least, seems to be popular with people... though that's easier when you're twelve. We're keeping an eye on things, anyway." Indelicate questions can be asked in the privacy of personal chambers, and Irianke, long out of touch with the daily grind of Weyr politics has no reservations asking it: "Which of the Nabolese contenders or their protectors would support the Weyr most?" K'del, plainly surprised by the indelicate nature of that question-- or perhaps it's just that not five minutes ago he was deep in sleep-- is taken aback, left without an answer for long seconds. "Hard to say," he admits. "Until these most recent months, there's been no reason to consider any of them. Frankly, none of them stand out, with Rone dead and Ienavi married to Crom. Even the people don't seem to know who they want, except that they're unhappy with Tevrane." "Which wings have been servicing Nabol in the last months?" Irianke asks, stepping back from K'del and his unruly hair. There's a certain coolness in her gaze, the distant look of someone visibly thinking and calculating and thinking some more, with none of her usual veneers masking those thoughts. "Snowdrift?" K'del's hands move to clasp each other behind his back, his gaze more focused now as he considers Irianke in return. "Snowdrift's one of them," he confirms. "Been some rotations, and everyone's been asked to keep an eye out for unrest-- there's been a few reports. I'll show you them in the morning. There was an incident with some tithes towards the end of last turn... Tevrane wanted us to spy for her as a result; Farideh handled that one well." An aside, really, that mention of the until-recently Acting Weyrwoman. A tease in sotto voce, "Shall we make Farideh your Weyrwoman?" Some semblance of Irianke before her father's death surface in the light of her eyes, curving smile, and weighted swing of her hip into one hand. The snort K'del offers by way of response is, to be fair, far less vociferous than it might once have been-- better yet, it gets followed by a laugh. "We kept things together," he tells Irianke, shaking his head. "But we've neither changed our personalities that much. Think we'll all be glad to have you back... seems like Jocelyn and Farideh have been having their own issues." Reaching into her back pocket and retrieving and well-worn flask, Irianke twists open the top, takes a swig, and then offers it to K'del. "I am unsurprised. I do not think Jocelyn will be the very model of a modern Reachian weyrwoman. Or, rather," the Weyrwoman corrects, "She believes too strongly in her birth right of being of and from Reaches, a distinction neither Farideh nor I can lay claims to. Nor Jounine for that matter. You," she allows with a shake of that flask, "Can at least claim Tillekian blood in your veins." K'del is silent and inexpressive as he considers Irianke's words, taking the flash from her only after she's finished shaking. Not that he drinks, immediately: he holds it, and says, thoughtfully, "Won't say you're wrong. She hired an outsider for an assistant, though; thought that was something. She also doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve the way Farideh does. But-- she's been working hard. The test will be how things settle now that you've returned." Now he drinks, a long swallow that, afterwards, has him wiping his mouth with the back of one hand. "She could wear her heart a bit more visibly," remarks the Weyrwoman, though not exactly in criticism. "I imagine we'll see, whether my return is a rude awakening or a welcome change for both of them." There's a pause, and an abrupt 180 back to Snowdrift with another, less than politically phrased, question, "How does Snowdrift's wingsecond take to Nabolese oversight?" Electing not to comment further on the two younger goldriders, K'del offers Irianke's flask back, and answers, "I've not spoken to her myself, nor interfered in Mielline's activities. You think you'll be useful? Of interest?" Mention of Jo has put a faint pinch to his features, albeit one he quickly attempts to smooth away. "I just wonder," is Irianke's vocal musing that goes absolutely nowhere. The flask is back in her hand an back in her back pocket. "It's good to be home." This time, there's no hesitation, and her voice is firm, graced by her more typical smile. "I need to go unwind my hair, unpack my bags, and see if the drudges have kept the cobwebs at bay and sit in my bath, alone. Blissful aloneness. Good night, K'del." "Enjoy it," is genuine, and replaces anything more serious K'del might have considered adding to the conversation. "Glad to have you back, Irianke. Good night." He'll begin to trace his steps back towards the darkness of his weyr almost immediately, though he won't disappear from sight altogether until she does. |
Comments
Jo (17:22, 20 March 2016 (PDT)) said...
I'm intrigued, as always when these two are together. XD
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