Logs:Stint

From NorCon MUSH
Stint
Care to talk about your stint as Weyrleader and whether it's something you'd consider again?
RL Date: 7 July, 2015
Who: H'kon, Irianke
Type: Log
What: Irianke has questions about brownriders as weyrleaders. H'kon has grave misgivings and eyebrows.
Where: Rider's Lounge, High Reaches Weyr
When: Day 13, Month 3, Turn 38 (Interval 10)
Mentions: Aishani/Mentions, Azaylia/Mentions, Taikrin/Mentions
OOC Notes: That awkward moment when... anyone at all tries to interact with H'kon.


Icon irianke.jpg Icon h'kon disapproving.jpeg


Riders' Lounge, High Reaches Weyr
About as high up the bowl wall as it is possible to get before hitting clear sky, right up against the rim, this ledge is tiny, narrow and not terribly inviting. Though angled towards the sun, there's not enough room to properly stretch out, and that same angle ensures it receives the worst of bad weather, with no shelter whatsoever. From above, there's not even an obvious passage inside, as if this particular ledge is, in the end, nothing more than a natural outcropping. It's only from atop the ledge itself that the cleverly concealed entrance becomes clear, angled into the stone as it is.
Inside, there's a cavernous space, more than making up for the stinginess of the ledge. There's one large main room, and a much smaller back room that could probably be used as a bedroom - if this weyr were in traditional usage. Instead, the main cavern is largely filled with a collection of mismatched tables and chairs. Towards the back, there's a bar made out of old, recycled wood, manned during peak hours; there's plenty of alcohol on display behind it, though most of it tends towards the cheaper end of the range. Old, but still impressive, hangings cover the walls, all depicting scenes of High Reaches in glory. The back room has been turned into a storage area, with several cases of whisky and a variety of other spirits ready and waiting.
A strange pipe contraption comes through the ceiling and towards the stone floor, where a large bucket sits beneath it. A lever turns on water from the pipe: fresh rain or snow, ready for drinking.

Four different kinds of gambling are happening in the riders' lounge tonight: dice, cards, some sort of board game, and dominoes. Irianke sits at none of them, though she's seated, or squashed, in between the dice and the dominoes. "You don't want to do that," she advises, unsolicitedly, to the dice player immediately to the right of her elbow resting on the back of her chair.

H'kon has not been involved in any of these games either; but one of the chairs at his (slightly less cramped) table, next to the dice game, but not the dominoes, has been turned so that the Alpine bluerider can start losing some of her money. The gathering is breaking up, apart from the one who's been sucked into the game. Greenriders, bronzerider, take their leave. H'kon stays a moment later, watching his remaining wingmate with some faint amusement, while scratching at the cowlick in his hair idly while his legs stretch their full short length beneath the table.

The greenrider ignores the goldrider, though with a charming grin to show it's a gambling thang not a personal thing, and ultimately loses that round. Irianke tsktsks and turns to her drink, and in doing so, finds herself looking across at the vacated Alpine table and H'kon left there seated behind his own dice player. "Care to make it interesting?" she calls over, lifting her drink in salute to indicate that, yes, yes she is talking to him.

H'kon doesn't. Or so the flat expression that looks back to Irianke might suggest. There's a pause, and then, a raised eyebrow. His feet find the floor, and he sits straight, with them flat. "Weyrwoman?"

"Wingsecond," she replies, though with a lopsided smile to take that formal edge off. "I never like betting my own marks in games of chance where I can impact the outcome. I could say it's either too easy to win or that I get so caught up in overthinking the situation it's too easy to lose." Irianke sets her glass down and peers at the game through the cracks between people.

H'kon's face doesn't really seem equipped to return smiles like that one. He watches the weyrwoman solemnly. "Ah," is said to the information she's given to him. Nothing much else, though his lips press together. He stays seated for now, waiting on the weyrwoman. In case she has more to say to him.

"I'd rather bet on pure chance. Like, whether your player or mine will win." Irianke floats out there. "I'm not your player," says the greenrider, losing another hand. "Don't listen to her."

"She is not my player," says H'kon, almost in tandem to that greenrider, though his head tilts toward the bluerider from his wing. "I have no interest in this." The game, the bet? He doesn't specify. He does make sure to straighten his posture back out, after such heavy gesturing as a tilt of his head.

"Well then, how about this," poses Irianke, her gaze fixed to the game throughout her conversational words. "Care to talk about your stint as Weyrleader and whether it's something you'd consider again?"

It's not quite a grunt, but there's enough air moved through his throat that it catches, a little bit. "I do not believe whether it was such is yet a settled matter." He leans forward a bit, folding his hands together, and resting them on the table before him.

H'kon's expressions are very good at not much changing. As now, with his mouth still set in an almost-frown that is, quite possibly, simply his face at rest, and the slightest furrow in his brow. His eyebrows don't even lift or anything, though his hands press a bit more into the table, shoulders taking on a faintly larger role in holding his weight, and his head tilts slightly to one side when he says, "A 'stint as Weyrleader'."

"You never answered my second question," Irianke points out, skipping over the semantics of whether H'kon was actually a Weyrleader or not.

"The second depended upon the first," answers H'kon, eyebrows drawing a bit closer together. "Ma'am," is a reminder, that likely it isn't meant to be antagonistic, as a flag that he's recognised the sound of it. "I would not have two pairs vying again. My Weyr is better whole."

"No, that won't happen this time," says Irianke, her lips set into a purse when another roll of dice takes her greenrider out of contention. "Mmm, just as well we didn't bet. Better luck next time," she says to the woman, an affectionate hand giving her a shoulder squeeze. "Do you think Pern is ready for a brownriding Weyrleader, minus the contention of two pairs?"

H'kon doesn't so much as cast a glance over to the dicing table, nor the greenrider, even when Irianke reaches for her. He does blink. Once. "The authority he would seek to wield would always be questioned."

"Or she," adds Irianke, absently, but not so much really. "With a strong Weyrwoman, assured of her place, the questions might be quelled long enough for one to make their mark." A strong Weyrwoman, assured of her place; which she is not.

"If it were she, then more so," says the wingsecond, with flat practicality. His head is no longer tilted. His shoulders still support that extra bit of weight. "No," is as matter of fact. "It would not. Then the Weyrwoman also would be questioned."

Irianke's laugh is mirthless, a touche cant to the incline of her head to H'kon: acknowledgement that is unamused. "Would public sentiment have been different had... that not happened?"

"Had there only been one pair. H'kon and Aishani. Taikrin and Azaylia. Had only one pair been confirmed. Do you think the public would have less of a strong reaction to a brownriding, male or female, Weyrleader?" Irianke finishes her drink and sets it on the table. The dice game pretends not to be listening in, the domino game is less sly.

H'kon's jaw muscles flex, faintly, and his teeth press together. He thinks a moment. "There would have been fewer layers. It still would have been unstable. Fundamentally."

"I appreciate your candor, wingsecond." Irianke rises. "Clear skies to you and Alpine." She is polite enough to wait for a parting before moving towards that precariously tiny little ledge.

H'kon pushes his chair back, stands, and nods, once, and firmly. "This Weyr needs stability," is his farewell, "Weyrwoman." But there is a salute to acknowledge that rank before he leaves.

Irianke pauses to consider saying more and then shakes her head, stepping out.




Comments

Alida (18:11, 8 July 2015 (MDT)) said...

Oooh man... Count me as interested in the potential, here! O.O >.>

Faryn (19:07, 8 July 2015 (MDT)) said...

I'm so uncomfortable, Irianke, you scare me.

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