Logs:Violence Begets Violence
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| RL Date: 17 May, 2008 |
| Who: N'thei, Satiet |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| When: Day 28, Month 5, Turn 16 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: A'son/Mentions, R'hin/Mentions |
| SeaCraft Hall - Courtyard(#1492RJLah) High atop a jagged bluff on the southern shore of the Tillek Peninsula, the courtyard of Seacraft Hall looks out over the surface of the Western Sea. A low stone retaining wall follows the naturally curving edge of the steep rock face, providing a place to sit and gaze out over the water that stretches to the horizon. Ships dot the crystal blue expanse, sometimes with colored sails and hulls and sometimes with black shadows in front of a brilliant sunset. Blue and light grey flagstones have been carefully arranged to tile the stone deck with the form of an accurate compass complete with a brass arrow inlaid in the granite. Warm spring evening falls while the sky just hangs, empty of clouds, above you. A break in the northwest wall leads to a well-worn, curving path to Tillek Hold, and Seacraft's harbor is accessible to the southwest, down a path leading to the water and the shipyards. A twisty stone staircase leads southeast to the rowdy, rollicking Rusted Hulk, and the main hold lies due north at the tip of the compass's brass arrow. Wyaeth> Teonath senses that Wyaeth hates the Istans, N'thei hates the Istans. « You dunno what you're missing... » Wyaeth senses that Teonath floats one image for the bronze and his rider's pleasure and a quizzical thought attached: A'son. Hate? Wyaeth> Teonath senses that Wyaeth can't hold the image well, makes it all sloshy and tipsy and liquid, all doused in beer and smugness. « Bullseye. » Wyaeth senses that Teonath digests this. Considers this from all angles, taking into account the sloshy, wavering image. Then, her version of A'son's face is superimposed with the glow of a tan, touched with languid leisure and surrounded by a bevy of tropically clad women. « Jealous? » Wyaeth> Teonath senses that Wyaeth dusts laughter, grit to sand away the thought. « Me? » Without the tan, without the coconut-bikini girls, a glimmer of A'son in Tillek's bar, of N'thei very much in his cups across the table. « Him. » Wyaeth senses that Teonath repeats, in her dulcet, desert tones, « Him. » A'son's face, and not Nikoth's colossus figure, sharpens in a rebuke, contrasting against the rider's intoxication that shades Wyaeth's images. For N'thei to be in his cups is a matter of swift calculations by either the gold's rider or the dragon herself, and a directive, in which a half-question lilts, is returned: « Stay...? » Wyaeth> Teonath senses that Wyaeth clips off imagery, the sun behind a cloud in his mind's eye. « Worried? » The rumble, thunder across the desert, is amusement. Dragons learn. Over time. Picking things up from those around them, both human and beast. Quick. Sharp. Amused. « Matters? » Mocking. (Teonath to Wyaeth) Wyaeth> I bespoke Teonath with « Funny. » A flare of irritation, thanks for reminding him what he deals with /constantly,/ most indulgent queen. « Matters. » In the sky above, Teonath emerges from Between with a blast of cold air! Indulgent is such a funny description given Wyaeth's words coincide with Teonath's arrival in the skies above Tillek. « Matters. » It could be just another firm, however quiet, repetition. It could be an answer to the Weyrleader's bronze's question. What is obvious is the queen's momentary holding pattern in the sky, tail jerking from side to side as the jeweled eyes search the ground below, before spiraling towards a beach between Tillek and its beholden crafthall. (Teonath to Wyaeth) In the sky above, Teonath spirals gracefully to the ground below. Wyaeth> Teonath senses that Wyaeth, surprised-- « You're here. » Then it's her descent not to the courtyard, where Wyaeth waits with grim impatience for the argument on the ground between sobriety knowing enough not to *between* and intoxication too foolish to listen to reason. « Why? » Echoed question, prized from the mind of rider and dragon at once. Wyaeth's knack for stating the obvious is brushed aside with a gust of sand-swirled desert wind. It blows past his surprise and his question, to churn mini-tornados about the bronze's impatience. There, thoughtful, relaxed, those wind storms rotate idly. « Why? » Instead of answering, she asks, offering behind her question a series of images and thoughts that flip past fleeting, like cards being shuffled: A'son, drinking, Ista, drinking, Crom, drinking, Satiet, drinking. Why. (Teonath to Wyaeth) Wyaeth> I bespoke Teonath with « Why? » He can't grasp the cards, not the meaning behind the thought-- yeah, yeah, there's a lotta drinking. Part-and-parcel given Satiet and N'thei, ain't it? Something... frustration? Some feeling won't pin down. Torment, disappointment, intoxication. « Beckoning? He'll come, nothing good will. Why'd you come here? » Wyaeth senses that Teonath, after a lengthy silence, chooses this moment to point out: « I did not choose to come. » Wyaeth> Teonath senses that Wyaeth, full on delighted, belly-laughs wreathed in smoke. « How you flatter. » There has been, for a time now, a war of wills; N'thei wants to leave, Wyaeth wants otherwise. There are many many many many times that size has worked to the man's advantage, this is not one of them. Coat on but unfastened, flask open from his fingers, N'thei watches the resolute bronze from across the space of the courtyard-- him just outside the open doors of the bar, wreathed in light, the dragon across the expanse, wrapped in shadow. Size doesn't seem to be much an advantage pitting an man, however imposing still a fraction of a dragon's bulk, against a bronze dragon. From a northwest corridor, the clipped boot steps of a feminine gait make their way from the docks to the courtyard, coming upon the war of wills with a clear view: N'thei to the south at the bar, Wyaeth much nearer. There, Satiet pauses, her hand climbing the wall's side until she's able to shift her weight against it, the picture of peanut-gallery leisure complete with her own brand of peanut-gallery comments. "Always knew your dragon was smarter than you." "Saying much?" Wyaeth's greeting is a little less brusque, slow-whirling eyes turned toward the woman, a muted shuffle of his decidedly settled-for-the-night wings. "A'son's inside. Looking very tan and confident." N'thei taps the corner of his flask against the swinging door of the bar, metal against wood, tink-tink. In the dark, across a distance, there's not a lot to give away his drunkenness, just an uncharacteristic precision to his speech, hard work not to slur. And if it weren't for ill-gotten knowledge of N'thei's actuality, perhaps those little signs of intoxication, the overt precision, might be missed. Where the Weyrleader is precise, the Weyrwoman lacks that, her slim, straight body relaxing into the wall of the courtyard, back finding the stone and her arms folding over her chest. "Happy?" Ohhhh, here's one seen coming for miles; "Matters?" N'thei smiles, so happy with himself for his little bit of cleverness. Down the last steps, heavy-footed, slow certainty to cross the courtyard toward where Satiet's holding up the wall. His question will beat him to his destination by half the distance. "Why are you here?" Hope surprises the fringe of his tone. She's cruel enough to let that fringe hope hang in the air for the rest of that half distance it takes him to reach her braced wall. Silently, pale eyes track N'thei's boots as they take one slow step after another and it isn't until the boots are right beneath her downcast gaze, that she finally lifts her chin to flash the most saccharine smile up at the drunk man. "Matters?" If he's pleased with himself, Satiet's moreso in gleaming, brow-arced eyes, to get the opportunity to return the favor of many encounters. A hand reaches out, palm up, and bouncing twice in the air between them. "Is it empty?" N'thei stops in Satiet's personal space like he's got some right to be there, like it's perfectly normal to flatten his palm on the wall above her shoulder, to lean his weight on his arm and look down at her with a delicious grin for her sweet smile. "No," he answers her first earnestly. At mention, he tips the flask to his lips, leans his head back, and spares it a loooong empty; sloshing it at about ear level, he shakes his head with a frown and drops it heavily onto her upturned hand. Empty. Residual smug delight fades, the flask heavy in her hand and dropping the extended arm to her side. Simple, her cool intonation is at odds with what she states, "I grew up around here." His invasion of her personal space leaves Satiet unfazed, the slight woman turning into the arm that's braced above her so her lifted shoulder can check him lightly against his chest, and pivot her body towards the docks. "Walk." Pause. "If you can." N'thei slumps against the empty space beneath his arm, folds it so now his elbow rests on the wall and his hand can pry at the back of his neck. "Did you." Can't pretend to care, and the strict directive startles his newly acquired comfort. "Mmhm;" while he peels himself off the wall, casts a malevolent look back to the traitor bronze all tranquil and yawning. "I can." /Can./ "Of course you can." Condescending or coddling, whichever, his assertion dissolves any, if there was any in the first place, sympathy from her cool voice. "Then walk." And follow apparently, as Satiet follows the line of her turned body towards the docks. N'thei's shoulder scrapes along the wall as long as it will last, leather rustling against stone, boots shuffling against flagstones. "Mad?" Three or four steps into it, that's what he's decided is the case, foregone-conclusion tone. Just as she's about to step into the dock area, quiet and void of most people this hour, Satiet pauses long enough for N'thei to half catch up with her. Her own chin lifts that much higher, perceptibly, and while the knit of her brow can't be seen from behind, the catch of her breath before she responds echoes into the cavern beyond. Then, "No," before her steps resume. Satiet heads west, to the main docks of MasterSea Hold. Satiet has left. You stride west, to the main docks of MasterSea Hold. SeaCraft Hall - Docks(#2328RDJM) The spacious, busy docks outside the Sea Hold offer plenty of room for crafters, merchants and other sailors to moor their ships. The Sea Craft itself makes good use of the ample space, moving completed vessels out from the Building Area as soon as convenient. But even when crowded with ships, the docks still have plenty of room to lounge around and watch all the bustling activity-- if, that is, you're not on duty! A gentle spring evening falls without a sign of cloud in the sky. The building area lies to the east, a popular beach follows the peninsula to the northwest, and a path to the courtyard stretches up to the northeast. Bring a drunk man out where the boats sway, where the water makes the whole scene actually bob. N'thei laughs through his nose to acknowledge the humor while he stops, perfectly postured, to acclimate to the rush of salt-air and wave-movement. "Smart." "Still walking?" asks Satiet, though she likely already knows the answer. It's hard to miss when liquor-heavy steps against cobblestone stop sounding, and slowly, moments after he halts, she turns, hands clasped around that empty flask behind her back. "Sick yet?" N'thei teeters his hand, tip this way, tip that, then steady out in front of him because the little gesture didn't serve him so well after all, eyes closed. Recovered; "Not yet." Walking again, resolutely closing the distance, training a calm smile into place. "What do you want?" Again, Satiet waits for him to bridge that gap. A non-sequitur paired with quirked lips and lifted brows inquires: "Do you sail?" N'thei shakes his head, no clever quip to answer the out-of-place question, no interest in dredging one up. Still with the personal space out-the-window issue. "What do you want." Even without the space to do so, the slender woman breathes in deeply, pulling her arms back in a light stretch to inhale the salt-soaked air. "I do." Tonight is a night for volunteering unasked for information and imposing unnecessary questions in return. "I sail. I mend. I gut fish. And," post-stretch, Satiet tips her head to one side, taking a step forward to close any remaining personal space, "I'd rather not lose you in between." Her lips shape thinly crooked, a smirk that stretches up to spark a flicker of dry humor in her otherwise flat gaze. So will you come home with me or would you rather sober up and try and convince Wyaeth of your sobriety?" "So will... N'thei ignores the many talents of Satiet, fish-gut just ruining his pristine mental image, while his one arm hooks over her shoulder, fingers wandered down her back, not so clever as to hide that he's after his purloined flask. "I am a very--" Twitch of a smile. "Big boy. I can get home on my own." Wyaeth willing. "But if there are implications to 'come home with me...'" Merry inebriation brightens the look that answers her flat eyes. Her scoff accompanies the toss of her dark curls, a hand lifted to his chest to try and push N'thei out of her personal space and use the momentum of that movement to step away herself. "Big boys, who know their way home," she notes, with that dry humor-filled smirk pulling deeper, "Shouldn't need to ask if they already know the answer. Why are you drunk?" As opposed to all those other times he's so sober. N'thei shuffle-steps back, allows himself to be rocked off balance by a slight woman with a one-handed shove. "You're really asking that? You?" He stays without stopping her from walking off, sways with the mistake of watching a little boat bob at the end of the dock. "The Istans are going to spend two hundred Turns having a beach party. And we're going to freeze to death. Where are you going?" With his flask. Something in how the man is so easily pushed away stops Satiet from moving back further. She just cocks a brow, askance: Is she known for saying anything carelessly? "I'm going to the beach," with his flask, "To have the pity party I can't have at my home apparently." If there were any chance of her capitulating to that inebriated suggestion, it disappears in the stalwart coolness of her response and the sudden stiffness of her shoulders. "We'll be fine." "Pity party." Everything back on the level, N'thei gives Satiet the look of eager contempt that matches his slow smile, the derisive laugh at her stiff shoulders. "Is that what you believe? We'll be fine?" He starts backward, his feet scraping the ground to keep on the level, slow steps that take pains not to get all fouled up. "Go to the beach, my love, I hope you drown." Pillow-talk tone. Everything's back at the status quo. Except when Satiet watches N'thei take those backward steps, thin lips pursing forward before turning in again, disappeared in the whitened press down. All the deliberation of carefully selected words and particular masks for certain occasions vanishes in the one petulant stomp of a boot to the cobblestone that precedes her words. "We'll be fine because you would hate a beach party for two hundred years. We'll be fine because you're the Weyrleader and it's something you wanted. For whatever the fuck reason you decided to want it and that already puts you leaps ahead of anyone else. R'hin, A'son. Fuck you. I hope you drown too." Flasks make such great objects to hurl at heads. N'thei raises an arm reflexively to keep from getting beaned, the flask hits his forearm and goes sailing with a splash, a saltwater relic now. That, after everything else, is what sets him off, retraces his steps with a hand reached to snatch Satiet by the wrist, none of the delicate-little-bird handling for her this time. "Don't play with me, I am not in the mood. I am done with this game. Stop fucking with me." Because everything's been all-her-fault. She's girl enough to be unable to hold back the cry of surprise and pain when he grabs her wrist. She's Satiet enough to clamp down on it with her teeth clenched to her lower lip. "Be the fucking Weyrleader. This is not a fucking game and I have not fucked with you since the day after you became Weyrleader. Except playing the part you've carved out for me in your own fucking mind. No one else wanted the job. Not even R'hin." Disdain for the former Weyrleader replaces the once-guilt of her pale eyes, or perhaps it's a more inwardly reflected one. "Be the fucking Weyrleader already, N'thei, because I'm tired of waiting for you to catch up with how I feel. And if this wasn't what you wanted? What you expected? Then what the fuck are you waiting for?" Flask hurl. Expletive, expletive, expletive. Is it a surprise that she tries to aim a punch at his nose with her free hand? Yes, it's a surprise! Certainly it's a surprise for N'thei, too angry and inebriated for reflexes to kick in and dodge a blow. His head snaps back with a tiny trickle of blood surprised from the edge of his nose, and his hand clenches Satiet's wrist just shy of crushing those little bones. "You liar, you cold little liar. You don't want a weyrleader, you want a plaything, that's why you picked A'son and that's why you're here," he accuses, bears down a step on Satiet to catch the fist-flying arm just above her elbow. "To see how far you can take it, how far before I crack and beat you or fuck you or quit you. This is how far, hit me again and I will hit you back." Again, Satiet cries out, even the drop of her teeth to her lips unable to cancel out the pain at her wrist. The sound echoes, and they're lucky it's late and that the docks are mostly deserted. But she won. She got that blow in, and the sight of blood somehow appeases her: pain, blanched face, and cringing expression notwithstanding. Knowing attempts to wrestle her wrist free are futile, she doesn't even make the attempt, but her free hand again lifts, open palm racing towards N'thei's cheek. Stupid is apparently contagious, and incredibly freeing, for she seethes out, "I picked /him/, because you remind me too much of him." The two pronouns obviously not the same person. "And he's good. Nice. Stupid. But good. And after Crom? Thought we could use a fucking good, but stupid man. Hit me, go on. Hit me. What the fuck ever, I don't even know why I got out of bed to come here." N'thei answers his promise, looses her arm and returns a blow to the apple of Satiet's cheek in return. He could do a lot of damage with that back-hand, but it's just the backs of his first three fingers that sting across her cheek, precise and unapologetic. "Him! Him him him. /I/ saw us through Crom, /I/ will find a way through the Interval. What did he do? Give you children? Make you--" He wants to continue that diatribe, but he's made the mistake of looking where his hand flew, and he pushes her away with rough fingers torn from her wrist. "You know damn well why, and so do I." And she cries, unwitting and reflexively, her pale eyes watering with unintended tears, which then chokes any response as the ability to multi-task her reactions and articulate her thoughts becomes very difficult. Though he releases her wrist, her arm, and the wrist and hand attached fall limp to her side and her hitting, punching hand flies to cover her stung cheek. "He made me Weyrwoman." And in her own twisted, stone-cold bitch way, Satiet owes him. Something. At least her guilt. "You saved my Weyr." Her eyes drop to study her wrist, trying to flex it and wincing. Broken? Less seething, but no less angry, she has to ask: "Why?" N'thei carries blood away from his nose with his fingertips, shakes his head at the smear with a quiet but wholly bitter laugh. "Because you care, in some fucked up way that I can't understand, probably neither can you. --Maybe you feel guilty about what you did to R'hin but." Now, eyes trained to her cheek again, he plucks her fingers away carefully to survey the damage, to bracket Satiet's fine chin with his other hand while he looks at her face, not her tears. "I would have taken the Reaches that night even if he'd been there." Something in his laughter and subsequent words stills Satiet all the more, frozen. "Why?" Perhaps it's all she's capable of saying at this point, another wince claiming her carved features when N'thei takes her chin in hand. The mark of his fingers remains, however tempered his blow was, in three distinct red lines, and as her chin shifts so her line of sight points elsewhere, though her pale eyes slide sidelong to watch him, and her bruising cheek is presented to him, she finds more words to say. "Why do you want to be Weyrleader? It's a thankless job if you care to do it right, and a worthless knot if you don't." Fingers laid lightly across her ear, N'thei's thumb tests the mark on Satiet's cheek gingerly, the other hand still framing her jawline to hold her face toward a band of light from somewhere-- a docklight, a ship's open door, something. "Because A'son couldn't have done it, and I could. Because I wanted you and it was a means to an end." He leans down, sets an apologetic kiss against the swelling of her cheekbone, and straightens with gradual sobriety loosening his previously meticulous gestures. "I do it for the same reason you do; selfishness and necessity. No one else can, and would you let them if they could?" Those sharp, cold features, stained with the sticky dampness of drying tears and marked by his fingers flinch at the draw of his thumb against her cheek, and then at the subsequent apology. "And that," Satiet exhales, releasing what remnant anger there might be held in her body, "Is why we'll be fine. Because you're not him." A'son or R'hin, whoever. "And I'm me. And you want to be -my- Weyrleader. And I think you broke my wrist." She can't be sure, but she isn't about to move her hand to test the theory out right now. Overly calm and rational (maybe in shock!), she continues, "So I'm going home now, to get it looked to. You'll get home ok?" Oh sure, mute apology for a little bump on the cheek, but N'thei's smile is cold satisfaction at the potentiality of a broken wrist. "Keep it in mind next time you decide to hit first." This time, stepping away, he draws in a clear breath and nods slowly in answer to her question, though his words hit wide of the mark; "Not your business." He checks the flow of blood with his thumb, finds none, and tricks a drunkard's oblivious smile into place, though a fight and a confessional will sober a man up. "Good night." Still moving too briskly on the heels of such dramatic affairs, Satiet lifts her wrist and holds it in her 'good' hand, and mirrors his movements, taking steps back. "At least you didn't say, 'matters?'," the last word infused with her more typical mocking in a thin, strained voice. Maybe the shock's about to wear off and the pain's about to sink in again. Maybe it's time to head off and make as dignified as an exit she can before she starts crying like a girl again. Maybe-- leads into a turn away and quick steps that take her across the docks to the beach where Teonath, unfazed by the night's activities, waits. The dragon's dry, « I told you so, » is not meant just for her rider and is open for both to know they're not the only recipients of such childish retorts. Then it's fumbling movements to get atop poorly tossed on straps, and then quick wingbeats and then between. |
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