[LOG] Ouch.
Who: Tiriana, Whitchek, Devan.
What: Whitchek's in need of some assistance. He doesn't find it in the kitchen. Well, sort of.
Where: Kitchen, HRW.
When: 5/2/2009
5/2/2009
Kitchen, High Reaches Weyr(#267RJs)
Polished marble and granite surfaces, gleaming metalwork and pale woods characterize the vaulted fastness of the kitchen. Several large hearths gape red-mouthed against the outer wall of the cavern, their fires almost always stoked for the constant cooking the Weyr requires to feed its denizens. Sinks line the wall to one side of the hearths, providing ample space to wash large quantities of dishes, while to the other, cabinetry and a deep pantry provide storage space for items commonly needed on a day-to-day basis.
The remaining wall space is taken up by passageways and extra seating: swinging doors that lead variously to the main living cavern, the inner caverns and the storage rooms, a counter-height pass-through for food service to the Snowasis, and a series of nooks equipped with tables and benches for quick, out-of-the-way meals any time of day.
It's early to get drunk, and hell, who does that in the middle of the kitchens when there's the Snowasis or your own weyr to do it in? But here's Tiriana, perched on a stool by the counter, stealing nips of brandy straight out of the bottle, while the cook who's trying to make a sauce of some sort with it pretends not to see.
Ice. Now that Whitchek has obtained a shirt that isn't covered in his own blood, he needs ice, because his lip looks like somebody just punched him in the fact, which is true. But the moment he sees Tiriana in the kitchen, he nearly heads back in the other direction. Only--pain. Swelling. Right, the lip. He tries to edge around outside her field of vision.
It's early for a lot of things. Like stealing dinner from the kitchen staff, or whatever members of it like you enough to hand feed you. Devan, over there, is taking a few rolls as they're passed to him by one of the cooks, but his hands are a little full from the plate she passed him with the meat and the veggies on it, so he drops one or two. And chokes on his laughter, because it wouldn't be good to laugh at dropped rolls. Bending to pick them up, and trying so very hard not to drop /everything/, he scrambles a little and backs up so as not to be within arm's reach. Those rolling pins are dangerous. He bumps back into Tiriana's counter, turns with a wince to set the plate down. Grins. "Hi." Whitchek succeeds in sort-of hiding from /him/ at least.
"Hi," says Tiriana, not slurred yet; getting sips while the cook's back is nominally turned is apparently slowing her down that much, at least. "What do you want?" Nothing like getting straight to the point. The mild, fat old cook takes advantage of the distraction to surreptitiously put away the liquor. And Whitchek--well. For the moment, he succeeds too, Tiriana not noticing one more slinking figure in the kitchens yet.
Thankfully, Whitchek gets discovered by one of the kitchen women, a maternal type of middle age who takes one look at him, starts clucking and doing all those mothery things, and gets him a chunk of ice in a towel to hold on his face. It helps. But she makes a fuss at the same time, and that doesn't help his invisibility level. "No--no, thanks, I'm fine, really. I just--" Fell on somebody's fist? "It was nothing, I'm okay, honest." He turns to try to escape from a gathering knot of ladies very interested in his well-being.
"Nothin'." If Devan sounds a little distracted, it's because he's noticed the bottle. And maybe a little something-- off, about the Weyrwoman. It amuses him; he's grinning more, now. "Don't people say hi when they see other people?" he wants to know, putting one roll then the next right there next to his plate. And if /he/ acts as a distraction for the cook to take advantage of, then Whitchek's wellbeing and the commotion it causes makes for a fine one for Devan, who saw where that bottle went and reaches to steal it back and hide it behind the wall of shoulders and back that he is.
"Not to me, I don't think," says Tiriana with a lift of her shoulders. The bottle's no longer on the counter and she frowns, but before she can put it all together, there's a growing group of cooks off to the side. And there goes Tiriana's attention toward that fuss: the women, and in the middle of them, Whitchek. Her eyes narrow. "Stop that. Leave him alone," she snaps at once. And you can bet that isn't for Whitchek's peace, either, because she adds a spiteful, "And don't you dare give him any ice or /any/ thing."
The poor Whitchek clutches at his towel like a drowning man clutches a life preserver. He might not be getting any more, but he's keeping what he has, thanks. The dispersement is an improvement, the presence of Tiriana is not. "Look," he says, or starts to say, because he doesn't seem to be able to come up with anything really good to follow it with. So, in response to Devan's comment, the best he can manage is: "Hi?"
Her attention is diverted, so is Devan's. Isn't hard to see over Tiriana's head, she's sitting, and he furrows his brow at the noise over there and in the same turn sets the bottle of brandy down between himself and the Weyrwoman, out of sight unless someone's looking real hard. "Why's he need ice--" Oh. "Kid's got a bloody lip." Curious. Whitchek's 'hi' earns him a chin jerk and a grin from Devan, who goes on to tell Tiriana, "I say hi to you." So there.
"Yeah, but you're--" Whatever. Tiriana doesn't know, doesn't spend long trying to categorize Devan in the end. She waves him off, in favor of eyeing Whitchek again. "Look /what/?" she prompts him when he breaks off. At least that crowd disappears, all the cooks returning to their work, though many of them are still half-listening in to the conversation between the Weyrwoman and her current target of ire.
There's not that much to say at this point that wouldn't make Whitchek sound like a petulant five-year-old complaining about how a sibling wouldn't share his toys. "Thank you," he says to Devan witheringly, or as witheringly as you can get with a towel full of ice pressed on half your mouth, "as if that weren't obvious." He takes the towel away, finally says to the Weyrwoman, "What do you want me to say? He was a boor. That wasn't my fault. And you were... very rude back, actually." Weyrwoman or not, facts are facts. "Can we just forget it all ever happened, please?"
Sarcasm. In this Weyr, Devan's never heard of it! Truly, his grin does fade a little when he's... spoken to, a little hurt maybe. And since he doesn't see any happy thoughts coming his way from either of them, he turns sort of to take great big bites of food and wash them down with that bottle he stole for Tiriana but just nevermind, anyway. Sulk.
"Lay off him," Tiriana is quick to jump to Devan's defense, her hands balling up at Whitchek's words to the handyman. His to her--that only worsens her already ill humor, and her feet find the floor though she doesn't quite slide off that stool just yet. "Oh, was I?" asks the Weyrwoman, her brows lifting. "But I'm a lady. I can't possibly have been /rude/ to somebody. That's beyond my worries, isn't it?"
At least part of that is deserved. Whitchek gives Devan a sort of sheepish smile before he bothers to respond to Tiriana. "I didn't mean to--I'm just not having a good day. Obviously." And then he should be responding to Tiriana, but he seems to be weighing those words extremely carefully. "I would certainly give a woman of your elevated position the benefit of the doubt, Weyrwoman. I would rather think you a lady than not. But what you are or aren't... how could that be up to me?"
In a break from completely devouring his meal, Devan gives the situation a quick once over out of the corner of his eye. Nobody's punched anyone, but Whitchek's giving him sheepish smiles and Tiriana's looking like she might pounce. The word 'lady' has been dropped twice in too soon, so he wipes his mouth off on the back of his hand and adds, "She is a lady." And seriously, too. But less seriously, and with a grin and a lean on his elbow, "Too good for the likes of us." His hand reaches around to present the bottle to the Weyrwoman. If she's thirsty.
"Then do not," Tiriana says, words clipped and cold, "presume to tell me what is and is not my business in my own damn Weyr." And she looks, ofr a moment, like she'd like to say or do more to Whitchek, but Devan is pressing the bottle back on her and that takes precedence. For just a moment, her eyes flick from bottle to Whitchek's head and back in rather ominous fashion, but then she settles back on her stool and steals another drink. To Devan, "Thanks."
"I'd like to believe that," replies Whitchek to Devan at first. Then, to Tiriana, he adds, "And if you're no lady, then what do you care about it? Some things, women ought to stay out of. Men ought to stay out of if we had any sense but--" eyes go to Devan "present company possibly excepted since I don't know you, most of us evidently don't." He eyes the bottle with a little wistfulness but doesn't bother asking because, well, whatever he'd get would probably be more pain than it would cure.
"Don't mention it," replies the handyman with a fond little half-smile. And, leaning like he is, Devan is sort of protectively looming at Tiriana's back, though whether he means to or not is anyone's guess. Whitchek's comment makes him have to bite down on his lip, either to keep from grinning again or to keep from saying the first thing that comes into his head. Instead, in a sort of muttering voice, with his eyes downcast and his eyebrows lifted, "Aaand some of us should stop talkin'." Helpful!
Tiriana sets the bottle down and slides it back over toward Devan for safekeeping for the time being. And then she's standing up, taking a step toward Whitchek and away from stool and counter. "And you think I should stay out of this?" she asks, eyes narrowing.
"I think," says Whitchek, with a sort of abashed look, "that I should have stayed out of it, too. He's very..." The young man pauses for a moment. Lots of words that would fit there, with regards to N'thei. Large. Violent. Frightening. "...intense," is the word Whit goes with for some reason. "If there were anything you *could* do about him, you would have done more than just walking off and basically telling him to have fun killing me, okay? So why should you want to be involved?" He follows the track of the bottle over towards Devan, and and he does sort of a hopeful raising of eyebrows in the man's direction.
Maybe 'protective of' covers both Tiriana /and/ Whitchek right about now. Because while he's certainly physically on her side, Devan is also on the side that could potentially reach out and maybe take hold of one of the Weyrwoman's arms in case it unsprings. So he keeps those dark eyes peeled for danger signs, which means he sees those eyebrows and takes a deep, acquiescent breath. Yeah, right. Bottle's passed, long arm stretched.
Poor Whitchek. At least there's some sort of honor in having large-violent-frightening N'thei beat you up; how much is there in having a lady now aiming her best uppercut at your jaw? Let's hope Devan really does move fast. "It's my fucking Weyr," she growls, in any case. "It's /all/ my business. How many hits to the head you taken, you can't understand that?"
See, this is what Whitchek should have done the last time--because it turns out the boy really *can* move out of the way when he's trying to. And save the bottle at the same time. Barely. Something to do with having spent a few Turns rousting inebriated Holdless folk; he's got reflexes if nothing else. He ends up cradling the bottle like an infant and cowering almost under a table. "I didn't say it's not your Weyr. I asked why you care. Great fucking Faranth." This whole Weyr business is having an impact on Whitchek's language already. "They aren't the same thing. A million things happen here every day that you don't care about. You don't care if I clean my teeth and you don't care how I tie my shoes, so why this?"
Well, he /does/ move fast. To Devan's credit, his hand is around Tiriana's elbow and tugging back towards himself maybe a second after her fist flies. Luckily Whitchek knows how to move fast too. There's a loud clatter when /his/ elbow hits his plate and knocks it around, somehow, but he just tugtugs back gently on the goldrider's body and positions himself between her and Whitchek's... table. He aims another hint at the kid. "Man, shut up already, would ya?"
Between Whitchek dancing back and Devan pulling her the other way, Tiriana gets off-balance; but at least she doesn't actually connect with anyway. "Let go of me. Get out of the way," she orders Devan, with an attempt at elbowing him away from her so she can get at Whitchek. "It's my Weyr," she repeats to that man, still furious, and like he hasn't gotten that point yet; she doesn't seem to have any other way to describe the feeling. "I care."
"And you're going to do what, then?" asks Whitchek, but at least a little quieter this time. He manages to get the bottle open again and take a long drink, which at least keeps his mouth too busy to keep talking. Then he sets it aside, just in case she gets loose; he's sort of backed into a corner, here. He looks up at Tiriana past Devan, finally taking the latter's advice to just shut up.
Okay, bony elbows! One of them catches Devan in the ribs area and he winces, but it isn't gonna be that easy to get him out of the way. He's big, and he doesn't wanna. Whitchek's next, and thankfully last for the time being, poke at Tiriana's temper receives at least a Look cast over his shoulder, then he's turning fully towards the Weyrwoman and leaning to murmur something at her.
You whisper "You promised." to Tiriana .
Tiriana looks very much like she still wants to hit Whitchek, so it's a good thing Devan doesn't let go even when he suffers collateral damage. She still pulls away, though, even as he tries to mutter to her; at least whatever he says pulls her up for a moment. Confused, "What?"
Without actually having heard any of the good bits, of course, Whitchek is just left sitting under a table. He does, now that she's somewhat distracted, finally get up again and into a position where he's not actually totally trapped. But, while he could run off, he opts not to. He grabs his towel of ice from the table again... but the ice at this point has just rendeed the towel cold and dripping. It's still better than nothing.
Cold and dripping is often better than a(nother) punch in the face, too, which, yeah, Devan is still fighting valiantly against, even if he takes his hands off of her when she pulls away. Whitchek can thank him later. Tiriana's confusion makes him grin. Not much louder, but more direct, he /looks/ at her and says, "You promised me." And lifts his eyebrows in a strange way like, remember?
For a moment, freshly released and distracted from attacking Whitchek, Tiriana just looks at Devan, brows furrowing. Finally, she catches on. "Yeah?" she answers, shaking her head. "Doesn't have anything to do with this. /Him/." She even points to Whitchek and glares at him, like there could be any doubt about who 'him' is.
'Him' looks back up again. "I don't know what anything has to do with me," Whitchek suggests, "but I really don't want any more trouble. Honestly."
"Kid has a bloody lip," Devan repeats, in that volume he's reserving just for her. He quirks a little closed-mouth something at her and shrugs a shoulder. Just then Whitchek speaks up again and he has to roll his eyes for a second. But, back to Tiriana, "At least wait 'til it ain't bleedin' anymore."
Another glare for Whitchek, but no attempts to go after him now. Tiriana sinks back down on her stool after a moment, her elbows on the counter. "Fine," she tells Devan, more for his benefit than Whitchek's. "I'm going home." And though she's just sat back down, she's standing again, to pull away toward the exit.
"And," offers up Whitchek, "my partial is bent up something awful. You should see it." He pauses. "Not that you want to. Obviously." But Tiriana is already departing, which ought to be excellent news as far as Whitchek is concerned, but he still seems to have not the faintest idea why it is she's so angry with him, so her leaving just leaves him... confused.
A shift of the eyes, there, to express his mild annoyance or something, but Tiriana's leaving so Devan doesn't say anything else that might be meant to disuade her from hurting Whitchek. Not that her exit makes him happy, even though he lets it happen. No, instead tension lines around his eyes and mouth say otherwise. But when he turns to give the teenager another Look his arms are folded and those lines are magically gone, poof.
And she is gone now, without a backward look. Well, except when she steals her bottle back from the counter where Whitchek left it. And then she really is gone.
Once Tiriana's gone, Whitchek does seem to relax measurably. "Uh, hi," he finally says to Devan. "I don't think we've met. I'm Whitchek. Thanks for, um, that." He holds out the hand that's *not* clasping the wet towel to his face.
It isn't in Devan to be mean or callous. But he doesn't immediately warm to Whitchek, either. There's something mild about the way he moves his attention from the wet towel and the lip that lies underneath it, the hand, the face. Eventually he unfolds to take that hand. Shakes it, maybe a little too firmly, lets it go. "I'm Devan. Thanks for what?" he asks, eyebrows up. Innocent.
"World has it in for me last few days," says Whitchek with a bit of a sigh. He looks at where the bottle used to be. *Really* looks at where it used to be. "It's been a bit rough. I don't know what her problem is."
Devan follows that look, fills in the blank in his head. Bottle. Right. "World never did anything to anybody," he informs. "We do what we do, we deal with what happens next. The world didn't knock you one." Chin jerk for the towel. "And her problem is she's got problems. People're wired different. You're the kinda person that pokes at people. She's the kinda person that doesn't let people poke at 'er." And there's a grin for that. Maybe it's a little merciless, his being amused by Tiriana's brass.
"Don't mean to," mutters Whitchek. "Anyhow, no, it wasn't the world. It was N'thei. And he might as well be a force of nature, so same difference. Ass." He wanders off for a moment, scrounging for more ice at last, and manages to find it and come back. "So she shows up and *he* got on her, wasn't me at all, and suddenly now she wants my neck, too." Well, that's mostly true, anyway.
Oh, there's a story. Well, there's also a counter; Devan takes advantage of it and leans a hip just there. And since Whitchek's making a mess of his towel, he pulls a square of cloth from his back pocket and casually hands it over. "I never understand how it is people get on her bad side. Hell, I like 'er."
The younger man looks in the direction she left in. "Seemed nice when I met her originally," Whitchek says. He waves off the offer. "Nah, I'm fine. Swelling's gone down a lot, see?" Well, not enough to be noticeable to anybody else, anyway. "Something about N'thei. Everybody gets angry."
No? He replaces the square and folds his arms. "Never done me harm," he agrees, about Tiriana. But the difference here is, he can still say that. "She's got a lot on her plate, bein' so young. Younger'n me. I fix tables." And he totally undersells his job. "People're always hittin' other people around this place. Wish I could understand it but I can't." Devan shrugs.
"Sure," says Whitchek. "Sure. Sure. I don't blame her for being under stress. Just, uh, wish she'd not take it out on me. I don't like people trying to hit me who I can't hit back, you know?" He finally dumps the leftover ice into a sink and discards the towel into, well, wherever all the dirty towels in a place like this go.
"Are you sayin' you can't hit 'er back?" is all Devan wants to know, which raises the question: is /he/ saying he would?
That just makes Whitchek blink back at Devan for a minute. "Course not!" he says, once over the shock. "That'd be like... like..." He can't even think what it would be like. "Awful. It'd be awful," is all he can manage. "Don't hit women, ladies or otherwise. Don't matter how she behaves."
'Or otherwise'. Something inside Devan's head wonders which category Tiriana falls under in Whitchek's terms, but nothing gets voiced. "Good," he approves. And remembers that there's a plate and a little mess there on the counter from earlier, so he starts to clean that up while carrying on. "So why'd you get hit?"
"'Scomplicated," Whitchek utterly fails to explain. But then he tries. "Doesn't like me. Well, he doesn't like anybody, I don't think. Was gonna end up pounding me anyway. Let him do it once, hopefully he won't do it again." Something about this has the sound of not being the whole truth, but he did say it was complicated, didn't he? He pulls himself up to sit on the table he was formerly hiding under. "You from around here?"
"Hm." Which just about sums up Devan's opinion about the not-all-the-story. "Complicated." Which carries a 'really?' sort of vibe. He's scooping some of the food with a napkin into a rubbish bin when he answers. "Born'n raised my friend. Spent all my life runnin' around this place like a little freak. What about you?"
"Outside Nabol," which explains most likely the weird chivalry and the fact that he keeps getting on everybody's bad side. Whitchek has been repeatedly referred to as the "dumb farm kid" lately. "Not sure about this whole... Weyr business," he admits. "Not what I thought it'd be. And some of that's good, but some of it's... not so much."
"Oh yeah?" Nabol. And 'not so much' makes him grin and laugh a little around, "Oh, I reckon it is what you make of it." After clearing his dishes, Devan comes back to lean and chat some more. "You think anybody has any clue what t'think? Ever? 'Cause I sure don't."
"My mother," starts Whitchek, revising this quickly to, "my *step*mother... would be shocked that there aren't daily orgies in the living cavern. She's always hysterical and so I wasn't expecting that, but mostly people seem very normal. But often drunk. I wasn't expecting quite so much of the drunk."
"People do drink," he agrees, scratching the side of his nose. "And you actually missed the orgies I think by like-- a month or so." And by all appearances Devan isn't joking. "I've known some people from Holds. They all kinda say the same thing. Never been to one o'them myself, I wonder what it's like t'live somewhere small."
This makes Whitchek think for a moment. "Quiet," he says. "And dull. I don't like sheep well enough, don't think. Might not be so bad if I liked the sheep. I figure, a few Turns... just enough so as I don't spend the rest of my life wondering what the rest of the world would be like. Good to get away for a bit."
Devan nods companionably. "Seems like a pretty sound idea. Little travel never hurt anyone." And then he realizes he's talking to a wounded individual, and that makes him grin. "'Less it does." Maybe that was mean, but maybe Whitchek deserves it a little, in Devan's mind. He pushes away from the counter and makes to clap the kid on the shoulder. "Gotta go. I'll see you around."
"Less it does," Whitchek agrees, sounding vaguely forlorn. But he nods to the last. "Seeya," he says. "Good to meet you. And thanks for not letting her kill me."
"Oh, don't thank me. She wanted t'kill you she'd do it." Comforting! Devan's grinning on his way out.
What: Whitchek's in need of some assistance. He doesn't find it in the kitchen. Well, sort of.
Where: Kitchen, HRW.
When: 5/2/2009
5/2/2009
Kitchen, High Reaches Weyr(#267RJs)
Polished marble and granite surfaces, gleaming metalwork and pale woods characterize the vaulted fastness of the kitchen. Several large hearths gape red-mouthed against the outer wall of the cavern, their fires almost always stoked for the constant cooking the Weyr requires to feed its denizens. Sinks line the wall to one side of the hearths, providing ample space to wash large quantities of dishes, while to the other, cabinetry and a deep pantry provide storage space for items commonly needed on a day-to-day basis.
The remaining wall space is taken up by passageways and extra seating: swinging doors that lead variously to the main living cavern, the inner caverns and the storage rooms, a counter-height pass-through for food service to the Snowasis, and a series of nooks equipped with tables and benches for quick, out-of-the-way meals any time of day.
It's early to get drunk, and hell, who does that in the middle of the kitchens when there's the Snowasis or your own weyr to do it in? But here's Tiriana, perched on a stool by the counter, stealing nips of brandy straight out of the bottle, while the cook who's trying to make a sauce of some sort with it pretends not to see.
Ice. Now that Whitchek has obtained a shirt that isn't covered in his own blood, he needs ice, because his lip looks like somebody just punched him in the fact, which is true. But the moment he sees Tiriana in the kitchen, he nearly heads back in the other direction. Only--pain. Swelling. Right, the lip. He tries to edge around outside her field of vision.
It's early for a lot of things. Like stealing dinner from the kitchen staff, or whatever members of it like you enough to hand feed you. Devan, over there, is taking a few rolls as they're passed to him by one of the cooks, but his hands are a little full from the plate she passed him with the meat and the veggies on it, so he drops one or two. And chokes on his laughter, because it wouldn't be good to laugh at dropped rolls. Bending to pick them up, and trying so very hard not to drop /everything/, he scrambles a little and backs up so as not to be within arm's reach. Those rolling pins are dangerous. He bumps back into Tiriana's counter, turns with a wince to set the plate down. Grins. "Hi." Whitchek succeeds in sort-of hiding from /him/ at least.
"Hi," says Tiriana, not slurred yet; getting sips while the cook's back is nominally turned is apparently slowing her down that much, at least. "What do you want?" Nothing like getting straight to the point. The mild, fat old cook takes advantage of the distraction to surreptitiously put away the liquor. And Whitchek--well. For the moment, he succeeds too, Tiriana not noticing one more slinking figure in the kitchens yet.
Thankfully, Whitchek gets discovered by one of the kitchen women, a maternal type of middle age who takes one look at him, starts clucking and doing all those mothery things, and gets him a chunk of ice in a towel to hold on his face. It helps. But she makes a fuss at the same time, and that doesn't help his invisibility level. "No--no, thanks, I'm fine, really. I just--" Fell on somebody's fist? "It was nothing, I'm okay, honest." He turns to try to escape from a gathering knot of ladies very interested in his well-being.
"Nothin'." If Devan sounds a little distracted, it's because he's noticed the bottle. And maybe a little something-- off, about the Weyrwoman. It amuses him; he's grinning more, now. "Don't people say hi when they see other people?" he wants to know, putting one roll then the next right there next to his plate. And if /he/ acts as a distraction for the cook to take advantage of, then Whitchek's wellbeing and the commotion it causes makes for a fine one for Devan, who saw where that bottle went and reaches to steal it back and hide it behind the wall of shoulders and back that he is.
"Not to me, I don't think," says Tiriana with a lift of her shoulders. The bottle's no longer on the counter and she frowns, but before she can put it all together, there's a growing group of cooks off to the side. And there goes Tiriana's attention toward that fuss: the women, and in the middle of them, Whitchek. Her eyes narrow. "Stop that. Leave him alone," she snaps at once. And you can bet that isn't for Whitchek's peace, either, because she adds a spiteful, "And don't you dare give him any ice or /any/ thing."
The poor Whitchek clutches at his towel like a drowning man clutches a life preserver. He might not be getting any more, but he's keeping what he has, thanks. The dispersement is an improvement, the presence of Tiriana is not. "Look," he says, or starts to say, because he doesn't seem to be able to come up with anything really good to follow it with. So, in response to Devan's comment, the best he can manage is: "Hi?"
Her attention is diverted, so is Devan's. Isn't hard to see over Tiriana's head, she's sitting, and he furrows his brow at the noise over there and in the same turn sets the bottle of brandy down between himself and the Weyrwoman, out of sight unless someone's looking real hard. "Why's he need ice--" Oh. "Kid's got a bloody lip." Curious. Whitchek's 'hi' earns him a chin jerk and a grin from Devan, who goes on to tell Tiriana, "I say hi to you." So there.
"Yeah, but you're--" Whatever. Tiriana doesn't know, doesn't spend long trying to categorize Devan in the end. She waves him off, in favor of eyeing Whitchek again. "Look /what/?" she prompts him when he breaks off. At least that crowd disappears, all the cooks returning to their work, though many of them are still half-listening in to the conversation between the Weyrwoman and her current target of ire.
There's not that much to say at this point that wouldn't make Whitchek sound like a petulant five-year-old complaining about how a sibling wouldn't share his toys. "Thank you," he says to Devan witheringly, or as witheringly as you can get with a towel full of ice pressed on half your mouth, "as if that weren't obvious." He takes the towel away, finally says to the Weyrwoman, "What do you want me to say? He was a boor. That wasn't my fault. And you were... very rude back, actually." Weyrwoman or not, facts are facts. "Can we just forget it all ever happened, please?"
Sarcasm. In this Weyr, Devan's never heard of it! Truly, his grin does fade a little when he's... spoken to, a little hurt maybe. And since he doesn't see any happy thoughts coming his way from either of them, he turns sort of to take great big bites of food and wash them down with that bottle he stole for Tiriana but just nevermind, anyway. Sulk.
"Lay off him," Tiriana is quick to jump to Devan's defense, her hands balling up at Whitchek's words to the handyman. His to her--that only worsens her already ill humor, and her feet find the floor though she doesn't quite slide off that stool just yet. "Oh, was I?" asks the Weyrwoman, her brows lifting. "But I'm a lady. I can't possibly have been /rude/ to somebody. That's beyond my worries, isn't it?"
At least part of that is deserved. Whitchek gives Devan a sort of sheepish smile before he bothers to respond to Tiriana. "I didn't mean to--I'm just not having a good day. Obviously." And then he should be responding to Tiriana, but he seems to be weighing those words extremely carefully. "I would certainly give a woman of your elevated position the benefit of the doubt, Weyrwoman. I would rather think you a lady than not. But what you are or aren't... how could that be up to me?"
In a break from completely devouring his meal, Devan gives the situation a quick once over out of the corner of his eye. Nobody's punched anyone, but Whitchek's giving him sheepish smiles and Tiriana's looking like she might pounce. The word 'lady' has been dropped twice in too soon, so he wipes his mouth off on the back of his hand and adds, "She is a lady." And seriously, too. But less seriously, and with a grin and a lean on his elbow, "Too good for the likes of us." His hand reaches around to present the bottle to the Weyrwoman. If she's thirsty.
"Then do not," Tiriana says, words clipped and cold, "presume to tell me what is and is not my business in my own damn Weyr." And she looks, ofr a moment, like she'd like to say or do more to Whitchek, but Devan is pressing the bottle back on her and that takes precedence. For just a moment, her eyes flick from bottle to Whitchek's head and back in rather ominous fashion, but then she settles back on her stool and steals another drink. To Devan, "Thanks."
"I'd like to believe that," replies Whitchek to Devan at first. Then, to Tiriana, he adds, "And if you're no lady, then what do you care about it? Some things, women ought to stay out of. Men ought to stay out of if we had any sense but--" eyes go to Devan "present company possibly excepted since I don't know you, most of us evidently don't." He eyes the bottle with a little wistfulness but doesn't bother asking because, well, whatever he'd get would probably be more pain than it would cure.
"Don't mention it," replies the handyman with a fond little half-smile. And, leaning like he is, Devan is sort of protectively looming at Tiriana's back, though whether he means to or not is anyone's guess. Whitchek's comment makes him have to bite down on his lip, either to keep from grinning again or to keep from saying the first thing that comes into his head. Instead, in a sort of muttering voice, with his eyes downcast and his eyebrows lifted, "Aaand some of us should stop talkin'." Helpful!
Tiriana sets the bottle down and slides it back over toward Devan for safekeeping for the time being. And then she's standing up, taking a step toward Whitchek and away from stool and counter. "And you think I should stay out of this?" she asks, eyes narrowing.
"I think," says Whitchek, with a sort of abashed look, "that I should have stayed out of it, too. He's very..." The young man pauses for a moment. Lots of words that would fit there, with regards to N'thei. Large. Violent. Frightening. "...intense," is the word Whit goes with for some reason. "If there were anything you *could* do about him, you would have done more than just walking off and basically telling him to have fun killing me, okay? So why should you want to be involved?" He follows the track of the bottle over towards Devan, and and he does sort of a hopeful raising of eyebrows in the man's direction.
Maybe 'protective of' covers both Tiriana /and/ Whitchek right about now. Because while he's certainly physically on her side, Devan is also on the side that could potentially reach out and maybe take hold of one of the Weyrwoman's arms in case it unsprings. So he keeps those dark eyes peeled for danger signs, which means he sees those eyebrows and takes a deep, acquiescent breath. Yeah, right. Bottle's passed, long arm stretched.
Poor Whitchek. At least there's some sort of honor in having large-violent-frightening N'thei beat you up; how much is there in having a lady now aiming her best uppercut at your jaw? Let's hope Devan really does move fast. "It's my fucking Weyr," she growls, in any case. "It's /all/ my business. How many hits to the head you taken, you can't understand that?"
See, this is what Whitchek should have done the last time--because it turns out the boy really *can* move out of the way when he's trying to. And save the bottle at the same time. Barely. Something to do with having spent a few Turns rousting inebriated Holdless folk; he's got reflexes if nothing else. He ends up cradling the bottle like an infant and cowering almost under a table. "I didn't say it's not your Weyr. I asked why you care. Great fucking Faranth." This whole Weyr business is having an impact on Whitchek's language already. "They aren't the same thing. A million things happen here every day that you don't care about. You don't care if I clean my teeth and you don't care how I tie my shoes, so why this?"
Well, he /does/ move fast. To Devan's credit, his hand is around Tiriana's elbow and tugging back towards himself maybe a second after her fist flies. Luckily Whitchek knows how to move fast too. There's a loud clatter when /his/ elbow hits his plate and knocks it around, somehow, but he just tugtugs back gently on the goldrider's body and positions himself between her and Whitchek's... table. He aims another hint at the kid. "Man, shut up already, would ya?"
Between Whitchek dancing back and Devan pulling her the other way, Tiriana gets off-balance; but at least she doesn't actually connect with anyway. "Let go of me. Get out of the way," she orders Devan, with an attempt at elbowing him away from her so she can get at Whitchek. "It's my Weyr," she repeats to that man, still furious, and like he hasn't gotten that point yet; she doesn't seem to have any other way to describe the feeling. "I care."
"And you're going to do what, then?" asks Whitchek, but at least a little quieter this time. He manages to get the bottle open again and take a long drink, which at least keeps his mouth too busy to keep talking. Then he sets it aside, just in case she gets loose; he's sort of backed into a corner, here. He looks up at Tiriana past Devan, finally taking the latter's advice to just shut up.
Okay, bony elbows! One of them catches Devan in the ribs area and he winces, but it isn't gonna be that easy to get him out of the way. He's big, and he doesn't wanna. Whitchek's next, and thankfully last for the time being, poke at Tiriana's temper receives at least a Look cast over his shoulder, then he's turning fully towards the Weyrwoman and leaning to murmur something at her.
You whisper "You promised." to Tiriana .
Tiriana looks very much like she still wants to hit Whitchek, so it's a good thing Devan doesn't let go even when he suffers collateral damage. She still pulls away, though, even as he tries to mutter to her; at least whatever he says pulls her up for a moment. Confused, "What?"
Without actually having heard any of the good bits, of course, Whitchek is just left sitting under a table. He does, now that she's somewhat distracted, finally get up again and into a position where he's not actually totally trapped. But, while he could run off, he opts not to. He grabs his towel of ice from the table again... but the ice at this point has just rendeed the towel cold and dripping. It's still better than nothing.
Cold and dripping is often better than a(nother) punch in the face, too, which, yeah, Devan is still fighting valiantly against, even if he takes his hands off of her when she pulls away. Whitchek can thank him later. Tiriana's confusion makes him grin. Not much louder, but more direct, he /looks/ at her and says, "You promised me." And lifts his eyebrows in a strange way like, remember?
For a moment, freshly released and distracted from attacking Whitchek, Tiriana just looks at Devan, brows furrowing. Finally, she catches on. "Yeah?" she answers, shaking her head. "Doesn't have anything to do with this. /Him/." She even points to Whitchek and glares at him, like there could be any doubt about who 'him' is.
'Him' looks back up again. "I don't know what anything has to do with me," Whitchek suggests, "but I really don't want any more trouble. Honestly."
"Kid has a bloody lip," Devan repeats, in that volume he's reserving just for her. He quirks a little closed-mouth something at her and shrugs a shoulder. Just then Whitchek speaks up again and he has to roll his eyes for a second. But, back to Tiriana, "At least wait 'til it ain't bleedin' anymore."
Another glare for Whitchek, but no attempts to go after him now. Tiriana sinks back down on her stool after a moment, her elbows on the counter. "Fine," she tells Devan, more for his benefit than Whitchek's. "I'm going home." And though she's just sat back down, she's standing again, to pull away toward the exit.
"And," offers up Whitchek, "my partial is bent up something awful. You should see it." He pauses. "Not that you want to. Obviously." But Tiriana is already departing, which ought to be excellent news as far as Whitchek is concerned, but he still seems to have not the faintest idea why it is she's so angry with him, so her leaving just leaves him... confused.
A shift of the eyes, there, to express his mild annoyance or something, but Tiriana's leaving so Devan doesn't say anything else that might be meant to disuade her from hurting Whitchek. Not that her exit makes him happy, even though he lets it happen. No, instead tension lines around his eyes and mouth say otherwise. But when he turns to give the teenager another Look his arms are folded and those lines are magically gone, poof.
And she is gone now, without a backward look. Well, except when she steals her bottle back from the counter where Whitchek left it. And then she really is gone.
Once Tiriana's gone, Whitchek does seem to relax measurably. "Uh, hi," he finally says to Devan. "I don't think we've met. I'm Whitchek. Thanks for, um, that." He holds out the hand that's *not* clasping the wet towel to his face.
It isn't in Devan to be mean or callous. But he doesn't immediately warm to Whitchek, either. There's something mild about the way he moves his attention from the wet towel and the lip that lies underneath it, the hand, the face. Eventually he unfolds to take that hand. Shakes it, maybe a little too firmly, lets it go. "I'm Devan. Thanks for what?" he asks, eyebrows up. Innocent.
"World has it in for me last few days," says Whitchek with a bit of a sigh. He looks at where the bottle used to be. *Really* looks at where it used to be. "It's been a bit rough. I don't know what her problem is."
Devan follows that look, fills in the blank in his head. Bottle. Right. "World never did anything to anybody," he informs. "We do what we do, we deal with what happens next. The world didn't knock you one." Chin jerk for the towel. "And her problem is she's got problems. People're wired different. You're the kinda person that pokes at people. She's the kinda person that doesn't let people poke at 'er." And there's a grin for that. Maybe it's a little merciless, his being amused by Tiriana's brass.
"Don't mean to," mutters Whitchek. "Anyhow, no, it wasn't the world. It was N'thei. And he might as well be a force of nature, so same difference. Ass." He wanders off for a moment, scrounging for more ice at last, and manages to find it and come back. "So she shows up and *he* got on her, wasn't me at all, and suddenly now she wants my neck, too." Well, that's mostly true, anyway.
Oh, there's a story. Well, there's also a counter; Devan takes advantage of it and leans a hip just there. And since Whitchek's making a mess of his towel, he pulls a square of cloth from his back pocket and casually hands it over. "I never understand how it is people get on her bad side. Hell, I like 'er."
The younger man looks in the direction she left in. "Seemed nice when I met her originally," Whitchek says. He waves off the offer. "Nah, I'm fine. Swelling's gone down a lot, see?" Well, not enough to be noticeable to anybody else, anyway. "Something about N'thei. Everybody gets angry."
No? He replaces the square and folds his arms. "Never done me harm," he agrees, about Tiriana. But the difference here is, he can still say that. "She's got a lot on her plate, bein' so young. Younger'n me. I fix tables." And he totally undersells his job. "People're always hittin' other people around this place. Wish I could understand it but I can't." Devan shrugs.
"Sure," says Whitchek. "Sure. Sure. I don't blame her for being under stress. Just, uh, wish she'd not take it out on me. I don't like people trying to hit me who I can't hit back, you know?" He finally dumps the leftover ice into a sink and discards the towel into, well, wherever all the dirty towels in a place like this go.
"Are you sayin' you can't hit 'er back?" is all Devan wants to know, which raises the question: is /he/ saying he would?
That just makes Whitchek blink back at Devan for a minute. "Course not!" he says, once over the shock. "That'd be like... like..." He can't even think what it would be like. "Awful. It'd be awful," is all he can manage. "Don't hit women, ladies or otherwise. Don't matter how she behaves."
'Or otherwise'. Something inside Devan's head wonders which category Tiriana falls under in Whitchek's terms, but nothing gets voiced. "Good," he approves. And remembers that there's a plate and a little mess there on the counter from earlier, so he starts to clean that up while carrying on. "So why'd you get hit?"
"'Scomplicated," Whitchek utterly fails to explain. But then he tries. "Doesn't like me. Well, he doesn't like anybody, I don't think. Was gonna end up pounding me anyway. Let him do it once, hopefully he won't do it again." Something about this has the sound of not being the whole truth, but he did say it was complicated, didn't he? He pulls himself up to sit on the table he was formerly hiding under. "You from around here?"
"Hm." Which just about sums up Devan's opinion about the not-all-the-story. "Complicated." Which carries a 'really?' sort of vibe. He's scooping some of the food with a napkin into a rubbish bin when he answers. "Born'n raised my friend. Spent all my life runnin' around this place like a little freak. What about you?"
"Outside Nabol," which explains most likely the weird chivalry and the fact that he keeps getting on everybody's bad side. Whitchek has been repeatedly referred to as the "dumb farm kid" lately. "Not sure about this whole... Weyr business," he admits. "Not what I thought it'd be. And some of that's good, but some of it's... not so much."
"Oh yeah?" Nabol. And 'not so much' makes him grin and laugh a little around, "Oh, I reckon it is what you make of it." After clearing his dishes, Devan comes back to lean and chat some more. "You think anybody has any clue what t'think? Ever? 'Cause I sure don't."
"My mother," starts Whitchek, revising this quickly to, "my *step*mother... would be shocked that there aren't daily orgies in the living cavern. She's always hysterical and so I wasn't expecting that, but mostly people seem very normal. But often drunk. I wasn't expecting quite so much of the drunk."
"People do drink," he agrees, scratching the side of his nose. "And you actually missed the orgies I think by like-- a month or so." And by all appearances Devan isn't joking. "I've known some people from Holds. They all kinda say the same thing. Never been to one o'them myself, I wonder what it's like t'live somewhere small."
This makes Whitchek think for a moment. "Quiet," he says. "And dull. I don't like sheep well enough, don't think. Might not be so bad if I liked the sheep. I figure, a few Turns... just enough so as I don't spend the rest of my life wondering what the rest of the world would be like. Good to get away for a bit."
Devan nods companionably. "Seems like a pretty sound idea. Little travel never hurt anyone." And then he realizes he's talking to a wounded individual, and that makes him grin. "'Less it does." Maybe that was mean, but maybe Whitchek deserves it a little, in Devan's mind. He pushes away from the counter and makes to clap the kid on the shoulder. "Gotta go. I'll see you around."
"Less it does," Whitchek agrees, sounding vaguely forlorn. But he nods to the last. "Seeya," he says. "Good to meet you. And thanks for not letting her kill me."
"Oh, don't thank me. She wanted t'kill you she'd do it." Comforting! Devan's grinning on his way out.