Logs:Satiet Asks Why, N'thei Says No
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| RL Date: 29 December, 2007 |
| Who: Satiet, N'thei |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| When: Day 28, Month 9, Turn 14 (Interval 10) |
| Snowasis, High Reaches Weyr(#7315RIJ$) Quickly popular, the Snowasis plays host to a half-dozen vignettes, from the lovesick couple near the bar to the drunkenly slouched older rider passed out in the corner to the tail-end of a poker game at one of the curtained tables. N'thei's a participant in the latter scene, the only one who plans to stay as the other three have just left the table after draining what's left in their mugs. Pleasant-seeming farewells spent, the other three "gentle"men file out of the room, leave N'thei to put away his marks and gather the spilled cards. Neither the lovesick couple nor the drunkenly slouched rider capture the attention of Satiet, her arrival marked by a clatter of boot heels to the stone and a pause by the entreeway. Blue eyes dance quickly over the scene, her gaze causing her to pull to the side of the entrance instinctively to allow the three men their ignoble exit. The gruff greetings they impart are returned with a cool drop of her chin, its absentmindedness only noticeable to those who pay attention and so few of those people remain in the newly-minted watering hole. Drawn past the departing men as she makes her way to the bar and her 'usual' already waiting for, the pale eyes trail to the table beyond the open curtains and lingers on the figure visible there. A dry thoughtfulness quirks her mouth into crooked smirk, marks and spilled cards taken in. Despite every effort to the contrary, N'thei's eyes still attach themselves to Satiet the moment he's aware of her presence, which isn't too long after she's left the entrance. His fingers continue to collect his things, his expression schools to blankness, but gray eyes stay pinned on the goldrider even when she lingers a look back to him. Without looking away, he tips his mug in that direction and finishes off whatever's left therein, sets it down in front of one of the empty chairs at his alcove with a join-me flourish of his fingers. All too aware of the attention she commands, when blue meet grey in the passing linger of her gaze, Satiet's crooked smirk hitches more lopsidedly. A blind reach grasps the high ball glass of brandy, her pale eyes unwavering from that corner table. While his join-me flourish is met by a come hither curl of her already crooked lips and the flash of dancing blue eyes, the sardonic flirtation carries little weight as, after a pause, the slight woman drops a few marks to the bar top and makes a clipped path towards the booth. "You gamble." Why is she not surprised? "And you win." Again, no surprise. "Is there anything you can't do, my little jailbait?" N'thei puts away his marks one piece at a time, drops them into a purse left on the edge of the table, still intent on watching Satiet like she's the only thing left in the room. What he does not do is bother to respond to her taunt, to the question embedded therein, not even a twinge. Rather; "In public? I thought the rest of the world was supposed to believe you were temperate." The recently flourished fingers reach like they'll pluck the glass from her fingers. He might not respond to her jibes, but his words in return lift Satiet's chin faintly and the glass higher to touch her lips for a quick swing back. Raven curls bobble for the jerky movement, shaken back in efforts to command them to stay out of her face even after her chin drops. "But not you," she concludes, rather than verbally rise to the occasion. Her drinking habits do that for her enough. Satiet's free hand drops to the table, palm pressed against a mark piece and fingers splaying over her trapped prize. "You don't believe that I'm a dutifully chaste, liquor-free goldrider. Tell me about your day and I'll tell you why I drink." From stretched toward her glass to minding his marks, N'thei's fingers drop to the table and slide across it toward the palm covering his fair-gotten gains. "I don't want to know why you drink." He doesn't expressly say I-don't-care, but the implication is free to find in the flatness of his voice. With surprising delicacy given the rough look of his fingers, he glances a stroke along Satiet's forefinger and then seeks to peel it back from the table, to free his mark. "And you don't want to know about my day." Stubborn fingers remain firm against the table, unhindered by the gentle strokes of his hand to hers. Satiet slides her body, the hand over the mark with it, to rest her hip against the curtain-decorated wall, poised to slide into a seat across from N'thei with just a shift of her weight. "You really don't give a shit," marvels the slight woman, sharp features piqued by flat response. "And yet you invited me over. Shall we sit in silence then, or play a game? Shall I buy you a drink and coddle the spirit and balls I can't tell whether I've broken or kindled." A flash of a smile, faint mocking underlying in it, turns coaxing, the lift of her slim, raven brows transparent in their 'Try me' rejoinder. "Yet I invited you over." N'thei echoes the words with bland humor, with his palm smeared flat across the back of Satiet's hand over his mark. It lingers there a spell, the warm roughness of it pressing against the fine bones of her knuckles before long fingers wind around her wrist. There should be little difficulty in simply lifting her hand off the table, but he only holds her wrist for now. "I may have stopped caring, but I'd still fuck you given the opportunity. We can play a game if you want to, but why? We don't enjoy each others' company." For all N'thei says, there's only another marvel, a breathed out marvel that's given just the faintest weight of volume: "There's another girl." Satiet's presumption melts the smirk into an amused and intrigued smile that blossoms on her face, turning sharp features mellow with the rose color of delight that hits. He may hold her wrist and he might just simply lift her hand and regain his mark, but she still has the freedom to just release it to him, her firm, finger-splayed grasp of the table loosening tangibly beneath his hold. "And you think I don't desire your company. Pity. I don't fuck claimed men." A beat gives time for the low, overly warm words to have their moment, and then quickly before he might speak, she inquires, cool once more, "Why did you do it?" N'thei shrugs at Satiet's assumption, if-you-say-so, the tranquility of his eyes unfettered by what may or may not be a good guess, unmoving from her face all the while. His hand slides another few inches up her forearm, fingers breezed down the curve of her wrist before they dart beneath the slack fingers to extricate the mark. Only once his own index finger presses the wooden disc against the table and set to slide it free does he lilt a question in response; "I've done a lot of things; which one?" "Crom." Here at this table, though uncurtained, in a nearly empty lounge occupied with a couple who can't stop sucking face and a rider passed out at the bar. And them. There's no lie written on her face of who is exactly to blame. Satiet watches the mark return to its pouch, impassive where once she was full of smiles. N'thei answers quietly, barely a breath to give volume to the words; "So many reasons." At that, he holds a look on Satiet that is unlike the others, without malice or lust, a look that only wishes for a moment that she could understand without the need for explanation. "What you should be asking yourself." He slides free of his seat, stands very near Satiet while he puts his purse in one pocket, his cards in the other. "Is why no one else did it." And perhaps she does. The understanding without real explanation. But it's hard to tell from the still features, so easily malleable to her various emotional whims, that just hold his look for as long as he returns the favor, thoughtful. The brilliance of her blue eyes waver, lashes flickering indecisively, before she takes that minute step forward to gap any distance between their very near stances. Impassive gives way to invitation, a muted one, free of gaudy lust, malice, or in Satiet's case, sly calculation. "Come with me tonight?" N'thei swings his arms into his jacket, settles it across his shoulders, and ends with one hand against the curve of Satiet's hip, the other to take the liberty of sweeping hair away from her ear and graze thumb against her cheekbone. He leans down and down, close enough to exchange the taste of his earlier ale for her brandy, and he says quietly against her lips, "No." What he does, the hand that beckons her hip, the fingers that sweep her hair away and the close bend of his head to exchange alcohol flavors belies his eventual decline; but perhaps that too was expected. The shift of her lips can be felt as she doesn't step away, a hook upward that claims one side of her mouth. "Good night, hero of High Reaches." Satiet completes a movement long unfinished, shifting her hip into the booth. As cavalier as he would have that denial sound, N'thei still stands in that space fully ten seconds after Satiet slides into the booth, not fingers but fists that he winds up dropping into his pockets. Eyes that have chased her all this while slip away at last. Cold-comfort for the queenrider: he still wants her even while he walks away. Unaware, simply out of necessity of maintaining her composure and studying her drink, Satiet only lifts her head as N'thei leaves, pale eyes inscrutable before the rest of the hefty remains of the brandy is knocked back in a large shot. |
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