Logs:The Upper Hand
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| RL Date: 19 December, 2007 |
| Who: Satiet, N'thei |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| When: Day 16, Month 8, Turn 14 (Interval 10) |
| A delightful summer continues to mock the insufferably cold winter of months ago, the sun setting later so that even at this hour, rose and gold claim the cloudless skies. Satiet, with Teonath an obliging backrest, sits on the ground by the star stones, legs tucked neatly beneath her and an uncorked flask in one hand. Not so long ago, the watchrider left the star stones, he and his dragon awing toward their own weyr. A little later than he really should be arriving, Wyaeth alights to fill his place. The rangy bronze scrapes to a thumped landing on the far side of the platform from where Teonath plays backrest, no sooner furling his tumbleweed wings than N'thei's hopping down. Sight of Teonath, sight of Satiet gives him pause before tossing his straps back up over Wyaeth's neck, an extra moment borrowed. Then turning to face her; "Nice place you've found." Luckily, despite Wyaeth's late arrival, the Weyr was never left unattended, and as the dusty bronze alights, Teonath swivels her lean neck about to face the recalcitrant with near still, jeweled eyes of askance. "Isn't it? A funny thing, we were at the diving cliff, looked up, noticed the Weyr was left all alone to suffer the intrusion of foreign dragons without a welcoming committee." Coolly reproving, Satiet shakes her dark hair back when she turns to hail the man with the silver flask and the pale, icicle eyes set in a sun-warmed face. "Fancy it being you we replaced." N'thei manages, in a pretending-not-to-comprehend way, to avoid addressing the accusation in Satiet's comment. He just pulls his coat down from a buckle on Wyaeth's strap, shrugs it over beefy shoulders with a pause to take in the view-- the view of the Weyr, not the view of Satiet. "Any foreign dragons I ought to know about?" He smiles the questions, jacket left open while he walks toward Teonath with an expression fit to match the tranquility of a summer sunset. "You don't look to have suffered much?" "Do I ever suffer in your mind?" is the weyrwoman's quick return, self-mocking heavy in her sarcasm. The flask in the air is brought to her lips for a quick swig, and then drops into the folds of her overlapping white summer dress and pink knit shawl. "If you'd like to go and enjoy the rest of your shift, go," she bids, fluttering fingers in a dismissal, "Teonath and I manage fine in fending off an imminent Telgar invasion." Ignore the rumble of a dubious queen. "Or stay and watch over the watchers." Same smile, down and down and down at the goldrider; "In my mind? Suffering is hardly what occupies you." In /his/ mind. N'thei watches the flask now; so far, it's been Teonath, his riding straps, the sunset, and the flask, very little time spent watching Satiet herself, contrary to his usual occupations in her presence. "No doubt you two would be our most staunch defenders, but I'd better take my turn anyway. I don't get to spend enough quality time with you anyway." He coat-pockets his hands and hinges to watch the gray-turning clouds. "Oh, and it's such quality time," jibes the caustic weyrwoman, not oblivious to the fact that she holds very little attention for N'thei. "Where you needle me, I needle you, and you can't take your eyes of my chest." Her crooked smirk is audible in all its sly glory, even if he's not looking. "Or, my flask. Moonshine from my home." Aiming to return his attention to the flash of silver, Satiet extends it once more to the man that stands watching the clouds. "If you can handle it." N'thei asks with surprise to color his tone, "Do you think you needle me?" He casts down a questioning raise of his brows, an oh-really tilt of his head. Meanwhile, his hand falls out of his pocket toward Satiet's flask, which he accepts with a smile that's got as much gratitude as it has self-confidence. "I'll manage." Brave man sets it to his lips. Satiet'd ask the question in return, but it only really works once. Plus, his response pauses her, a flicker of uncertainty fleeting in her eyes. Her lips purse and then thin, and she's silent all throughout when he drinks from her flask: all acrid and harsh. "I think I do," she finally settles on saying, "Else you'd still be watching me with those undressing eyes and be able to meet my face. Have you found a new woman to follow all doe-eyed after? Or are you afraid you might want to punch me in the face for the ills I've committed?" Despite the machismo, N'thei coughs; he manages to swallow most of the cough, and the ruddiness of his complexion could owe to the last wisps of rosy clouds, but the telltale glaze over his eyes would still betray him. He hands Satiet back her flask with a long pause before he speaks again. Finally; "Do you fuck I'daur?" He whittles away all the nettling questions and returns only that, now looking squarely at those frosted eyes-- just to prove her wrong. There is no malice there, as though he asks a perfectly natural question. Satiet's smug up until he speaks: smug over his reaction to her choice of drink and smug when he opens his mouth to speak. Then the smugness fades into surprise, which is quickly replaced with coldness. The flask is left in his care, her pale eyes fixed upwards onto the broad man. "Is it any of your business?" "No." N'thei's brow twitches, his scrutiny over the surprise-turned-cold revealed by the minute change of expression. "Is it any of yours if there's someone-else?" Discretion is the better part of valor; he holds the flask, but he does not drink from it again, not yet. "But you must know why I ask, why it's the only thing that makes sense." Distant where once she aimed for sly, Satiet slips her legs out from beneath her and bends them to wrap her arms about. Her chin turns, pale eyes looking anywhere but N'thei now, off the ledge, into the distance, at the still setting sun. "If you'd like to think that, go ahead. If you need to think it took fucking," the expletive harsh for the emphasis her moonshine-scratched throat puts onto it, "To convince I'daur to do anything he didn't want to do anyway, then go ahead. Perhaps we know different men." N'thei is again quiet for a spell, again just watching Satiet with patient attention. Once more, after a long delay; "You think I'm talking about him." The 'hmn' that he adds onto that remark is faint, with an very-innnnteresting lilt to the simple sound. Subject change-- "Wasn't B'yan. He found the culprit. Before you ask, I still wish I'd choked him." Betrayed, somehow, but uncertain of just what or how, the raven-haired woman swivels to stare for a breath too long up and further up at N'thei before tossing her curls abruptly away. A flush creeps along her high cheekbones, thin-pressed lips a visible sign of her attempt to regain and keep her composure. Her, "Good for him," is subsequently deliberately flat and apathetic. "He can keep his fucking knot then." Unresponsive to Satiet's terse tenseness, Teonath continues to maintain a watch of the skies, dropping her lids every so often to spare Wyaeth and then his rider a glance. N'thei looks back down and further down at Satiet with an expectant expression, prepared for some sort of... for something that never comes. Where before he wouldn't look at her, now he won't stop doing it, and doing it in a hard way, without the glances that caress. "Mad at me? Or only mad that, for even a moment, you don't have the upper hand between us?" N'thei couldn't care less about Teonath's glances; Wyaeth stays busy looking dashing and rugged against the outline of the faded sunset just in case she looks over again. The silence in response stretches a long time, during which Teonath slips another glance down at the dashingly rugged Wyaeth with distant, whirling eyes. Then, Satiet breaks it with one simple question, where her face tilts upward to spare his abdomen, if not his face, a steadied glance. "Do you believe you have the upper hand between us?" Now would be a good time for N'thei to rethink his position, to take a breath and remember that she's the Weyrwoman and he's a bronzerider that came within a hair's breadth of banishment. Since that would be the smart thing to do, he instead grins a sly smile down at Satiet; "Yes. --This is horrible." He holds the flask down to her more importantly. Contrary to what someone might expect, Satiet doesn't turn livid at that. She doesn't pale or flush, or show any other signs of anger in her brilliantly blue eyes. Instead, she's quiet, staring up at the bronzerider she outranks, a distinct sliver of something intrigued bright in her gaze. In accepting the flask, she curves her fingers further up to grasp N'thei's wrist in an attempt to haul herself up. While she pulls herself up, she inquires mockingly, "And how long do you think you'll have this upper hand of yours?" Familiar! N'thei makes a fist to tighten his arm while Satiet braces herself to her feet, his arm naturally flexed to help bring her upright. "The moment will pass any time now, I imagine. Mmn yes." He watches her to her feet, he watches her /on/ her feet, he just watches her; order is restored. "There it goes." Upright on her feet now, her hand lingers a moment longer at his wrist, squeezing to test its strength and pursing her lips slightly, all fetchingly. The moment that passes for him, sinks in as passed minutes later, and when it does, the intrigue dissipates. Fashioning a thin smirk for N'thei, Satiet leans in, in a light cloud of rose and lavender, with her hand still at his arm and singsongs tauntingly, "Pity. I like my men with a side of balls. Good night, N'thei~." A year ago, a month ago, N'thei would have stopped breathing at such proximity with Satiet, purely impotent to /do/ /anything/ about it. Now, although he's still lynched by her eyes, he has the capacity to cover her hand with his, to draw the small fingers off of his arm with a smudge of his rough palms. Like they're the sweetest words, like they merit the alluring whisper he employs; "I have stopped caring what you like, Satiet. Sweet dreams." Instead of being hurt or, again, angry, Satiet merely smiles, unfazed by the way he draws her fingers away or what he says. It's her turn to undress him with her eyes, deliberately, and liking what her mind sees. "Oh, I will." Teonath is all too ready to forego watching duty and whisks Satiet off the moment the goldrider is atop, unfastened. |
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