Logs:Loving the Dance
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| RL Date: 19 June, 2015 |
| Who: Irianke, Jo, Sybile |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Irianke happens upon Jo on the cliff and talk of their burdens. |
| Where: Diving Cliff, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 15, Month 1, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Aishani/Mentions |
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Diving Cliff, High Reaches Weyr
Thrusting out from the shadow of the mountain, this long and narrow
clifftop might once have been a ledge, but a pile of bramble-strewn,
graffiti-chiseled boulders where a weyr's mouth would have been suggests a
reason for its abandonment long ago. Though its views of the eastern bowl
are grand, particularly the lake itself and the yawning air entrance to
the hatching sands, its location makes the diving cliff unique: jutting
some ten or twelve feet above the deepest part of the cool, clear lake.
Especially in summertime, many climb up the narrow stairs to seek the
thrill of a swift fall into the water, but those who just want to enjoy
the view can take those same stairs back down: carved directly into the
bowl wall, worn and crumbling and slick from use, but enough for the
careful to get the job done.
Brilliant light plays off of the dunes of snow as a cloudless winter day
brings with it extreme cold. It's a late evening that one could find a burnished blue dragon floating in the lake and his black leathered rider standing towards the tip of the diving cliff. Jo, her riding jacket loose about her, seems to be concluding some makeshift meeting with another blueriding woman as the two look out over the lake. The shorter and younger woman turning to leave and head down the cliff, "Syb, tell'em I'll be seein'em soon," Jo sends after her, and the other doesn't turn back to even acknowledge that she had heard - except other than backhanded wave. Then, left alone on the cliff, and with a bronze firelizard in flight over her towards where Tacuseth swims, she crouches down to settle with her flask in hand. Irianke's approach lacks stealth. She's buried beneath layers and layers of furs, but there's determination on her fine featured face to make the most of the remnants of what was a gorgeous winter day. If that includes hiking up the diving cliff to catch what little sun might be on that evening horizon, so be it. "Reachians must be bred either to tolerate the cold better or have a knack for the machismo in chatting outdoors. In this weather." The irony of her statement to Jo, and in part to the departing Syb, is not lost on her as a smile quickens her lips into movement. Jo doesn't turn to the approaching, familiar voice, but she slowly straightens up from that crouch as she continues to gaze out over the lake before answering. "My father once taught us that to embrace the cold is to conquer it," comes in her low, heavy tone, straightening further to her feet with her flask. One could probably detect the smile present in her tone, as well. "I also suspect it had more to do with him not havin' a mother's touch in makin' sure his children were properly clothed in the cold times than by him makin' us tough." Her head turns but a fraction to perhaps catch her in the corner of her eye in the pause before she adds, wryly, "Evenin', Weyrwoman." "My father told me the faster I learned how to spread my legs, the faster I'd be able to get what I want out of life." Irianke's return is absolutely dry. It has nothing to do with the fact that her teeth are bearing down to not sound as cold as she must feel. "Jo, was it?" The reemerging smile says more than the greeting does; a knowing smile, a familiar one. "Fathers. What do they really know about life anyway." Her smile growing, "I didn' get that talk until I was 7," Jo relates breezily, as if it was the talk of weather. Looking back at her and taking her in openly with her intense study, "I doubt ya would forget me that quickly," she notes upon hearing her name brazenly. "Irianke." After a pause, she snorts on their fathers before she says, "Fools, the lot of'em. Missin' all the potential to spreadin' yer legs. What brings ya out here away from yer comforts?" "Absolutely unforgettable." Irianke's shoulders lift and her smile turns into the furs that line her cloak. Or at least the top most cloak. "He wasn't half wrong," she notes, her tone milder now as she gives Jo's other, non brazen, statement some thought. "It was how I convinced an Igen rider to Search me and I think that did work out in my favor." A gloved hand escapes from beneath the sleeves of her cloaks to tip her nose and slide that finger down to her lips and then chin. "Drunk mostly. About to fly to a gather and I took one glass past fortify me from the cold and into tipsy and Niahvth refuses to let me fly until I sober up. You?" A glance casts back to where the other bluerider disappeared down the cliff. Turning to face her fully now, the playful (and dangerous) smile playing on the edge of her lips, "Did pretty good for yerself," Jo agrees on Irianke's Search fortunes with a brief nod. "I'd have done the same." Dark eyes watching, the path of that gloved hand, "It's good currency," she agrees, meeting her gaze. "Got me far to this Weyr in the end. Surprised I Impressed at all, considerin'." She gives a soft, amused snort at her answer, looking a bit impressed as she says, "Don' even wait 'til ya get to the bar. My kind of girl. Ya sound like someone I could really cut loose with down at the dive bars." More soberly, "Tac pulls that on me, too," she adds, shaking her head. As for why she was here, she briefly raises the flask she holds as she answers, "Meetin' with friends, lettin' Tac swim, 'n decidin' who's gonna warm me under my furs tonight. The usual." It's cocky in its deliverance as she takes a drink, her eyes staying on the weyrwoman the whole time before she offers the flask her way. The flask being offered, more than the cocky deliverance, has Irianke bursting into laughter, the cold flush on her cheeks heightened now for the amusement. "I need to sober up. There's a beach down Ista way that has my name on it, preferably with an umbrella drink and something warmer than this," she gestures to the frigid, but no precipitation about, air. "Even if this is growing on me more than I imagined and the cold has previously unimagined uses for requiring body warmth." The goldrider tucks her arms about beneath her cloak a little differently, perhaps fending off that cold air, except a hand suddenly snakes out to reach for the flask and tip it first to Jo in salute and then back. "Sober's overrated anyway in this kind of weather. You're," the studious weyrwoman ventures a not quite guess, "From Greenfield way. There's a place I've discovered since I came to the Reaches, that brews their own ale and it's the most shards awful ale you can imagine, but it gets the job done." Bearing teeth in that rakish smile, "Ista, hm?" Jo still holds that flask out anyway, temptress that she is. "So is this what ya do with yer time? Travel 'round, headin' to gathers'n beaches'n drink with strangers under disguised names? Sounds familiar." Once Irianke takes the flask, there's a flourish of her hand to that salute along with the following quip, "Ya should try the beaches in the South. No one for miles. I enjoy the sun naked down that way." When Greenfields is brought up, there's barely a change in her composure as she says, "The Rusty Nail's pretty bad at their brew, too. Is this place near Greenfields?" There's a pause as she studies the other woman before she adds in question, "And do ya read up on all of the Weyr's residents?" along with lopsided twist to her mouth. "I like people. I like dancing. No, I love dancing. And deserted beaches with no one around for miles doesn't let me dance off..." Irianke's voice trails off and she looks back down upon an increasingly quiet weyr. Little lights show from the cave pockets up the bowl walls, and movements can be 'seen' in the sense that something blocks the lights here and there briefly. "It's nice to be anonymous for a few hours and have a different kind of weight upon you." A second swig from Jo's flask has Irianke shuddering. Or shivering. Then it's handed back, and once it's exchanged, she stretches her arms up into the air and sinks her gloved hands into her hair to rustle the curls back. Seeming to understand her as she regards her while she talks, "I grew up bein' 'round so many people that I value not havin' to be 'round so these days," Jo says a bit soberly to her. "Likely why I tend to stick to myself. Have my friends. Have my dragon. Been all I needed since bein' here. And I hardly dance," she adds with a look going to Irianke, "unless other entices me." Taking the flask back and drinking from it, "I don' envy yer burden," she admits then. "Used to hang with Aishani a lot before she died. Saw the weight of it even on her, 'n she was one of the strongest I've ever met in this Weyr. Does it really work? Makin' the stories ya do. Bein' someone else for awhile." "I," Irianke starts and stops and looks back at the Weyr then at Jo. Whether it's an honest confession or alcohol induced doesn't matter when the end result is something shared of her past. "I don't actually know where I start and where what I was bred to be ends. Traders rely on being able to morph into whatever someone might want to see, whatever makes that sale or gets what we need from them. So, yes, it works for me, but often times, if I sit alone in my weyr too long, I start wondering who that me really is." Abruptly, she laughs, "I've either had too much to drink or not enough to wax on in such a way. And to answer your question, I only go back and read the people/ who are particularly interesting." Brow lifts slightly as Jo keeps her gaze steady on the Weyrwoman, the honesty given is taken in silence before she nods to it a few times. To the insight, the convict rider looks over the night lights and sight from being so high up before she answers. "It interests me how a former trader'n an ex-con could have quite a bit in common," she quietly notes. "Particularly in identity issues." Glancing her way, "It's hard to bridge life as a holdbred girl'n the one standin' before ya tonight." The slight incline of her head is given, but she lets off the intense discussion to send her an infectious smile and snort to the last. "Particularly?" she teases, echoing that word. "Ya could always ask, too, darlin'. Not all of my secrets are for a steep price." "But simply asking doesn't intrigue you enough to keep coming back," remarks Irianke, the velvet of her voice sing song. "And, Lee, I mean for you to keep coming back." Leaving the subject of their respective pasts behind with a non too subtle wink, the goldrider turns to go back down that cliff. "Ista's beaches call. Good night, Jo." Laughing, its resonance low but easily heard, "What web are ya weavin', Iri?" Jo gives rhetorically, bringing the flask to her lips. Her smile dark and sensuous, predatory, the promises mired there rather than in any words she could have said, "I'll see ya 'round, Irianke. Enjoy those beaches." |
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