[LOG] Makeup.
Southeast Bowl, Ista Weyr
The afternoon light reaches far across the bowl, dancing dust motes captured by its rays. Despite the hard-packed ground and constant traffic, Ista's ever-present greenery still makes a valiant attempt to grow, bright color peeking out of crevasses and angles. High above and to the north the caldera's craggy walls stretch for the sky. Dragons tend to cluster around the entrance to the living cavern in the far southwest corner of the Istan bowl, or along the southern wall where other entrances lead to the infirmary and inner caverns. The bowl continues off to the northwest, stretching nearly half a mile past the queen's ledges and hatching caverns to the corrals at the tip of the bowl.
Afternoon is a busy time for the Weyr. Lunch is being served in the cavern, many people are on break from work to go enjoy it, and those riders who have early sweeps are just coming off-duty. K'aus falls under that last category, just landed from a long morning and still in the process of dismounting. Ehrudith, of course, waits patiently while his rider does that, and still while he strips off his gloves and removes his helmet, those and other things stuffed into a handy carry-bag attached to the straps. Next K'aus unzips his jacket and stands still for a moment to let himself air out before going inside.
It's not unusual, should they have some errand or another at the Weyr, that the girls of The Lucky Seven will stop in the living cavern for a bite to eat. What with June's red 'do and the puff of hair that is Livi, they're hard to miss on this relatively usual errand day, even in among the rest of the weyrfolk filtering leisurely in from across the bowl. Chidiree, that slip of a thing, might be harder to notice, but she sure notices K'aus as they pass as near as they're going to get to him just now, on their way to lunch. She gives him a strange, puzzling sort of look, but then turns back to the conversation her sisters are carrying on, alerting neither of them to the brownrider's presence.
It's with hands on hips and his head down that K'aus somehow manages to find the small group of Lucky girls in the corner of his peripheral. There must be something inherent about him that he can pick things out of left field like that. Normally he would be only too happy to let them go, unwilling for a confrontation to occur, and so it seems he will, despite Chidiree's odd looking at him, a glance he returns with just as much strangeness involved. He's paying so much attention that he misses completely the small group of children being led out of the cavern by their nanny, all like ducks in a row. One of them, a little girl with black pigtails, is straying a little further behind, struggling to keep up with her little stuffed toy in her hands. All at once she takes a little tumble, tripping over her own feet and landing on her knees. A delayed moment, then her face is all squished up and she's wailing. She isn't far from K'aus and the noise pierces his ears, turns his head. Automatically he approaches her, bends to his own knees to right her while the other children all crowd around and the nanny frets.
The piercing wail turns many heads in the surrounding area, and you can count June's among them. Her eyes fall rather indifferently to young girl, gaze softened by a mere mote of concern, but her interest gets a quick boost when she sees who's the one to help her up. The girls will pause to take in the rest of the scene while the fretting and the calming runs its course, and somewhere in there, June tells them to go ahead. There's a little bit of eye-rolling from both of them and meager attempts at arguing the case, but in the end they do just that, leaving June a standing rock in the stream of lunch-going folk that has started up again. She doesn't stare at the brownrider, but her eyes just keep on returning. And when K'aus' nurturing moment is over, her feet seem to be drawn, too; she edges closer and takes it upon herself to break the tense ice between them. "One of yours?" she asks, voice dry but carefullly so, a tiptoe of humor.
Children fall and get hurt, or they just get scared, it's never the end of the world. And though that nanny looks on as if she's ready at any moment to pry the poor child from K'aus's evil hands, there's no call for it. He's gentle, kneeling on one knee before the little girl and straightening her out, tugging on her little dress and wiping hair back from her eyes and tears away from under them. He reaches for the stuffed toy she dropped and folds one of her hands around it, all with a very neutral, disengaged expression on his face that seems to mystify her. When she's set to rights he stands and allows the nanny girl to reach for her hand; the gaggle start moving again, the child looking over her shoulder at him once. June's approach is quiet enough that he doesn't notice, when she speaks he looks over quickly. /He/ has no reason not to reply. Seriously, "It's entirely possible." His hands find his pockets and he stands there and looks at her.
June, too, hides her hands, hers disappearing beneath crossed arms at her waist. His answer, serious as it is, conjures an amused smile to the redhead's expression, though it's a bit wan and easily displaced. He looks at her and she, after a meager beat of meeting the gaze, looks elsewhere. With a fair chunk of the Weyr's population coming and going, she has plenty to distract herself with, enough so that she hasn't yet exhausted her options by the time she speaks again. "I feel bad," she states evenly to the air she faces, tucking her lips in tight after she says it. He gets a quick glance, just a check to see his expression or if he's still listening, then her gaze falls groundward. It may be a sheepish as June gets.
When she checks she'll see he is in fact still listening and, for her admission, he's allowed the barest hint of patient acceptance to come into his expression in the form of his slightly furrowed brow and forced mouth-line. While she looks at other things and indeed anything else, K'aus looks at her. Considers her, even, and all her apologetic mannerisms. A lesser man would probably take advantage of this opportunity, possibly remind her of why she should feel bad. Surprising then maybe that he turns out not to be that guy. "I don't want you to feel bad."
Surprising then, definitely. June's lashes flash up, bringing her green gaze with them; it lands squarely on his face and stays there. "It sure seemed like you did the other day," she counters, leaving the bite that might be there entirely somewhere else for now; her tone is carefully modulated, tuned to be a trifle softer than usual. She's still tiptoeing.
A tiptoe around K'aus is not a tiptoe wasted. But whatever has him in such an easy if not good mood, be it just an okay day or exhaustion, almost negates the reason for her careful manner. In that same emotionless voice, "Look sister, if you wanna call me on reacting in the moment then go right ahead. Truth is, I was pissed off. I was freaking out. Maybe I did want you to feel it then, but now? There's no reason you should still feel like shit."
June shifts uncomfortably as soon as he reaches that 'sister' address, pulling her arms even closer to her, folding them even tighter. "I guess not," she mutters, seeming entirely unconvinced, looking away again. It's a moment more before her gaze finds its way back. "I thought you'd still be pissed at me," she comments, ever-so-slight emphasis placed on the 'still.' Her stare probes with curious little flicks; is he?
If he inspired that shift in her stature then so be it, K'aus isn't repentant. Of course it's also entirely possible that he doesn't even realize, and anyway, she's looking at him again so he tries to focus. "Oh I get it." Does he? It's really become too hot for his jacket so he starts shrugging out of it, all the while preparing his next words. "Maybe I would be if I was a different person, I can't say. But being me, knowing what I know about life, grudges are a waste of time. Total fucking waste. But if you want me to be pissed, I'll be pissed."
"No," June answers readily, that same shadowed hint of amusement surfacing again and sticking around this time instead of being buried beneath a pile of earnestness. "No, I think I like you better this way." Her eyes track idly down to follow the loss of the jacket, but return to meet his when the task is over. Perhaps it's this new indifference of his that's made the next thing that comes out of her mouth possible. Not that it's effortless; there's still a hitch of reluctance before she says, "I am sorry."
"Yeah well." She likes him better this way, K'aus was never trying to oblige her so he can't take the credit. His jacket falls down his arms and he holds it, paused by what she says next, her apology. Since he wasn't expecting it, hadn't everything else been apology enough?, he doesn't react right away. Instead he sidles by her to the bag hanging from Ehrudith's body, to stow away his jacket for now, but he turns to say, "That's fine." Because maybe he isn't used to being on the receiving end of a sorry, maybe he doesn't feel he deserves one, or maybe he's just feeling a little awkward. Hopefully it isn't all of the above, poor man.
A tiny smile perks the corners of June's mouth, though, with his back turned now and her beginning to drift away from him, he may only catch a vague impression of it in her voice as she speaks a lighter, "Good." She takes a few meandering steps, but pauses again, turns on some whim. "Oh. Danta's doing fine," she tells him. She seems to think better of that impulse a second later, though, eyes darting away from him again as she gives her head a tiny shake. "If you... wanted to know." With one last, semi-squinted glance, she resumes her slow pace.
She's leaving. He's letting her. It's entirely possible he had an agenda for the rest of his day, she too, and they've both said what they wanted to say, or in K'aus's case what they were expected to say, so there should be a nice tidy little bow on the whole thing. But when she adds the bit about Danta he pauses in his turn, stares at her. Beyond that, she'd never know how hearing that news impacted him. He's as calm as ever when he replies, "I'm glad to hear it." Maybe 'glad' is a stretch, maybe he's never been 'glad' about anything, but there it is. He has nothing else to say so he does turn, to go into the cavern for the lunch he's been waiting for all day.
The afternoon light reaches far across the bowl, dancing dust motes captured by its rays. Despite the hard-packed ground and constant traffic, Ista's ever-present greenery still makes a valiant attempt to grow, bright color peeking out of crevasses and angles. High above and to the north the caldera's craggy walls stretch for the sky. Dragons tend to cluster around the entrance to the living cavern in the far southwest corner of the Istan bowl, or along the southern wall where other entrances lead to the infirmary and inner caverns. The bowl continues off to the northwest, stretching nearly half a mile past the queen's ledges and hatching caverns to the corrals at the tip of the bowl.
Afternoon is a busy time for the Weyr. Lunch is being served in the cavern, many people are on break from work to go enjoy it, and those riders who have early sweeps are just coming off-duty. K'aus falls under that last category, just landed from a long morning and still in the process of dismounting. Ehrudith, of course, waits patiently while his rider does that, and still while he strips off his gloves and removes his helmet, those and other things stuffed into a handy carry-bag attached to the straps. Next K'aus unzips his jacket and stands still for a moment to let himself air out before going inside.
It's not unusual, should they have some errand or another at the Weyr, that the girls of The Lucky Seven will stop in the living cavern for a bite to eat. What with June's red 'do and the puff of hair that is Livi, they're hard to miss on this relatively usual errand day, even in among the rest of the weyrfolk filtering leisurely in from across the bowl. Chidiree, that slip of a thing, might be harder to notice, but she sure notices K'aus as they pass as near as they're going to get to him just now, on their way to lunch. She gives him a strange, puzzling sort of look, but then turns back to the conversation her sisters are carrying on, alerting neither of them to the brownrider's presence.
It's with hands on hips and his head down that K'aus somehow manages to find the small group of Lucky girls in the corner of his peripheral. There must be something inherent about him that he can pick things out of left field like that. Normally he would be only too happy to let them go, unwilling for a confrontation to occur, and so it seems he will, despite Chidiree's odd looking at him, a glance he returns with just as much strangeness involved. He's paying so much attention that he misses completely the small group of children being led out of the cavern by their nanny, all like ducks in a row. One of them, a little girl with black pigtails, is straying a little further behind, struggling to keep up with her little stuffed toy in her hands. All at once she takes a little tumble, tripping over her own feet and landing on her knees. A delayed moment, then her face is all squished up and she's wailing. She isn't far from K'aus and the noise pierces his ears, turns his head. Automatically he approaches her, bends to his own knees to right her while the other children all crowd around and the nanny frets.
The piercing wail turns many heads in the surrounding area, and you can count June's among them. Her eyes fall rather indifferently to young girl, gaze softened by a mere mote of concern, but her interest gets a quick boost when she sees who's the one to help her up. The girls will pause to take in the rest of the scene while the fretting and the calming runs its course, and somewhere in there, June tells them to go ahead. There's a little bit of eye-rolling from both of them and meager attempts at arguing the case, but in the end they do just that, leaving June a standing rock in the stream of lunch-going folk that has started up again. She doesn't stare at the brownrider, but her eyes just keep on returning. And when K'aus' nurturing moment is over, her feet seem to be drawn, too; she edges closer and takes it upon herself to break the tense ice between them. "One of yours?" she asks, voice dry but carefullly so, a tiptoe of humor.
Children fall and get hurt, or they just get scared, it's never the end of the world. And though that nanny looks on as if she's ready at any moment to pry the poor child from K'aus's evil hands, there's no call for it. He's gentle, kneeling on one knee before the little girl and straightening her out, tugging on her little dress and wiping hair back from her eyes and tears away from under them. He reaches for the stuffed toy she dropped and folds one of her hands around it, all with a very neutral, disengaged expression on his face that seems to mystify her. When she's set to rights he stands and allows the nanny girl to reach for her hand; the gaggle start moving again, the child looking over her shoulder at him once. June's approach is quiet enough that he doesn't notice, when she speaks he looks over quickly. /He/ has no reason not to reply. Seriously, "It's entirely possible." His hands find his pockets and he stands there and looks at her.
June, too, hides her hands, hers disappearing beneath crossed arms at her waist. His answer, serious as it is, conjures an amused smile to the redhead's expression, though it's a bit wan and easily displaced. He looks at her and she, after a meager beat of meeting the gaze, looks elsewhere. With a fair chunk of the Weyr's population coming and going, she has plenty to distract herself with, enough so that she hasn't yet exhausted her options by the time she speaks again. "I feel bad," she states evenly to the air she faces, tucking her lips in tight after she says it. He gets a quick glance, just a check to see his expression or if he's still listening, then her gaze falls groundward. It may be a sheepish as June gets.
When she checks she'll see he is in fact still listening and, for her admission, he's allowed the barest hint of patient acceptance to come into his expression in the form of his slightly furrowed brow and forced mouth-line. While she looks at other things and indeed anything else, K'aus looks at her. Considers her, even, and all her apologetic mannerisms. A lesser man would probably take advantage of this opportunity, possibly remind her of why she should feel bad. Surprising then maybe that he turns out not to be that guy. "I don't want you to feel bad."
Surprising then, definitely. June's lashes flash up, bringing her green gaze with them; it lands squarely on his face and stays there. "It sure seemed like you did the other day," she counters, leaving the bite that might be there entirely somewhere else for now; her tone is carefully modulated, tuned to be a trifle softer than usual. She's still tiptoeing.
A tiptoe around K'aus is not a tiptoe wasted. But whatever has him in such an easy if not good mood, be it just an okay day or exhaustion, almost negates the reason for her careful manner. In that same emotionless voice, "Look sister, if you wanna call me on reacting in the moment then go right ahead. Truth is, I was pissed off. I was freaking out. Maybe I did want you to feel it then, but now? There's no reason you should still feel like shit."
June shifts uncomfortably as soon as he reaches that 'sister' address, pulling her arms even closer to her, folding them even tighter. "I guess not," she mutters, seeming entirely unconvinced, looking away again. It's a moment more before her gaze finds its way back. "I thought you'd still be pissed at me," she comments, ever-so-slight emphasis placed on the 'still.' Her stare probes with curious little flicks; is he?
If he inspired that shift in her stature then so be it, K'aus isn't repentant. Of course it's also entirely possible that he doesn't even realize, and anyway, she's looking at him again so he tries to focus. "Oh I get it." Does he? It's really become too hot for his jacket so he starts shrugging out of it, all the while preparing his next words. "Maybe I would be if I was a different person, I can't say. But being me, knowing what I know about life, grudges are a waste of time. Total fucking waste. But if you want me to be pissed, I'll be pissed."
"No," June answers readily, that same shadowed hint of amusement surfacing again and sticking around this time instead of being buried beneath a pile of earnestness. "No, I think I like you better this way." Her eyes track idly down to follow the loss of the jacket, but return to meet his when the task is over. Perhaps it's this new indifference of his that's made the next thing that comes out of her mouth possible. Not that it's effortless; there's still a hitch of reluctance before she says, "I am sorry."
"Yeah well." She likes him better this way, K'aus was never trying to oblige her so he can't take the credit. His jacket falls down his arms and he holds it, paused by what she says next, her apology. Since he wasn't expecting it, hadn't everything else been apology enough?, he doesn't react right away. Instead he sidles by her to the bag hanging from Ehrudith's body, to stow away his jacket for now, but he turns to say, "That's fine." Because maybe he isn't used to being on the receiving end of a sorry, maybe he doesn't feel he deserves one, or maybe he's just feeling a little awkward. Hopefully it isn't all of the above, poor man.
A tiny smile perks the corners of June's mouth, though, with his back turned now and her beginning to drift away from him, he may only catch a vague impression of it in her voice as she speaks a lighter, "Good." She takes a few meandering steps, but pauses again, turns on some whim. "Oh. Danta's doing fine," she tells him. She seems to think better of that impulse a second later, though, eyes darting away from him again as she gives her head a tiny shake. "If you... wanted to know." With one last, semi-squinted glance, she resumes her slow pace.
She's leaving. He's letting her. It's entirely possible he had an agenda for the rest of his day, she too, and they've both said what they wanted to say, or in K'aus's case what they were expected to say, so there should be a nice tidy little bow on the whole thing. But when she adds the bit about Danta he pauses in his turn, stares at her. Beyond that, she'd never know how hearing that news impacted him. He's as calm as ever when he replies, "I'm glad to hear it." Maybe 'glad' is a stretch, maybe he's never been 'glad' about anything, but there it is. He has nothing else to say so he does turn, to go into the cavern for the lunch he's been waiting for all day.