[M'try] T'mic: M'try's repeat customer.
RL Date: 1/19/10
IC Date: 10/20/21
Southern Bowl, Fort Weyr(#675RJLs$)
There is a little more grass in this section of the bowl than at the center, though this can be attributed to the lake that's not too far off and not to any improvement to the sandy soil. More weyrs can be seen high along the mountain walls to either side, though there are none in the massive earthworks that spill down the southernmost section of the volcanically created valley.
The sandy lake shore is further to the southwest, creating a vast half-crescent that contains the blue-green waters of the lake proper. More to the west would be the feeding grounds that contain the animals designated for being consumed by both dragons and humans alike. Off toward the distant northeast would be the weyrling barracks, the Weyrleader's complex, the hatching complex, living cavern, and infirmary.
Contrary to popular belief of late, the sun has not gone into an early hibernation. In fact-- there it is! As such, everyone who's been worried they're about to spiral head-first into cabin fever is out and about today, including M'try. What he seems to have forgotten is something useful to do, and is just now kind of kicking aimlessly along the fenceline of the feeding grounds, hands jammed firmly in his pockets, occasionally watching Mohraith dispatch something with his usual << WATCH THIS! >> gusto.
Kicking at grass and gravel /is/ a useful thing to do, and as such, requires an attentive audience. Perhaps that's the reason T'mic makes a VTOL-line straight across the bowl to intercept the weyrling, leaving his green to entertain herself. /She/ thinks whatever Mohraith's doing is pretty interesting, though she can't be bothered to rise from her pool of sunshine to see it from close up. "Hey there," the Istan calls once he's in earshot, grin and wave calling attention. "There you are. Congratulations, if I haven't said so already."
Luckily, Mohraith's unaware that Aath is watching, or things would likely get even more entertaining. Right now, he's just happy occasionally catching his rider's eye while he eats stuff, makes good-loud-crunchy noises, one of which sounds right over the top of the beginning of T'mic's greeting. As such, M'try is a little late in turning toward that call, and then he squints like he's trying to place the face. "I was supposed to draw your weyrmate," as if suddenly deduced, just a smidge of whoops-guilt in there. "Obviously, things got a little waylaid. Thank you," for congratulations.
T'mic waves off the apology with one careless hand, falls into step beside M'try with another of his easy grins. "You can still do it, just going to be a little delayed. He's yours?" A nod over to Mr. Crunching. "What do they call you these days? Mai...M'rey? T'rey? He's handsome." Mohraith again, with a sidelong look to make sure M'try's keeping up in the fluid shifts of topic.
"Or I'm his, depending on your perspective. I think, most often, it's the latter." M'try slows his steps, courteously, until T'mic's fallen in, meanwhile looks from greenrider to dragon, shrugging helplessly at another resounding crunch. "M'try, actually. There's another fellow, Atreyan before he Impressed, and I think I was sub-consciously afraid we'd be M'trey and A'trey forever, so M'try seems like a good compromise. What brings you to Fort this fine--" Questionable, it is still chilly, after all. "--afternoon, sir?"
T'mic's teeth flash at that. "Yeah, know how that goes. Feel like I'm more Aath's than she's mine, even after all this time. M'try's good, though. S'not one of those where you're left scratching your head after, wondering how they got it." As for what he's doing, it probably isn't 'hunching his shoulders and keeping his hands in his pockets', even if that's what a bit of breeze encourages. "Packages to deliver, actually. I thought I'd look up some people too, long as I'm here." A single waggle of eyebrows might just lead M'try to think that he's one of 'those people'. "You lot allowed out on your own yet, or are they still keeping you under wraps?"
M'try, to head-scratching, "At're, the other fellow wound up with At're. A-T-apostrophe-R-E." Here falls another shrug, this one at least not helpless on /his/ part, but still mystified. Packages leads to a quick once-over for T'mic and some eyebrow-moves of his own, not waggling, more questioning; "Yes, you certainly look over-burdened. Please, allow me to help you?" Ha ha. Speaking of shifting subjects-- "Technically, we're required not to leave the Weyr unless we're accompanied by a weyrlingmaster. What is it that you do at Ista, again?"
"You can help me any way you like," Mic invites brightly, "Except I already delivered them. Sorry." He isn't. "I could go fetch them back, though, and you could tell me who all these people are?" Poor confused greenrider, all alone in the big Weyr. But the question earns M'try another eyebrow waggle. "Assistant weyrlingmaster. When we have weyrlings. Which we don't." Lift of his knotted shoulder, which only sports the simple knot of a rider. "Wouldn't want to get you in trouble, though. Weyrlingmasters scare me. And my weyrmate -is- one."
"That might come across strangely," M'try muses, attention tipped skyward for a spell while he indulges the thought. "If you were to try to take back all your deliveries. No, best leave well enough alone in that regard." Not exactly the type to volunteer his truancy, he answers that new brow waggling with a sigh. "Ah well, perhaps I'll have to make the effort to actually come to Ista some time, then. The weather here ought to be just horrible enough in a few weeks to make it wholly desirable. And I would actually like to make good on that drawing. Things like that haunt me." Or he likes to pretend they do, anyway.
Actually do, pretend they do - it's all the same in the wash. "Love to see you at Ista," Mic agrees, "And yes, the weather here is just this side of horrible. I'm half-surprised it isn't snowing." He shivers pointedly and casts an eye up to the sky, just in case yards of the stuff are bucketing down as they speak. "Just have your boy - Mohraith, right? - bespeak either Aath or Jekzith when you're there. They usually give you a little time to enjoy the weather after going *between*. More so in the winter." Another shiver.
Weather. Riveting. "It's a little early yet for snow. If you're especially lucky, though, we might get a bit of cold, miserable drizzling this evening? Worth sticking around for, that is." M'try tries to make that sound impressive, desirable, even. But cold-miserable-drizzling likely speaks for itself. Rounding the corner in the fence; "Mohraith, yes. I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Should Aath start complaining of an /extremely/ loud brown who doesn't like to shut up... well, you'll know we made it to Ista without dying. Which is apparently quite a concern."
The look Mic shoots M'try is not amused. Horrified, yes. "Far as I'm concerned, the only excuse for snow is thick warm blankets and someone to share them with." Is M'try volunteering? He shivers deeper into his sweater, takes the corner with ease to say, "Aath doesn't complain about males. Or even to them. But noted. And it is, yes." Dangerous. "But if your weyrlingmasters are anything like me, they won't let you try if they aren't certain you'll make it. Like your straps."
"I believe it's actually caused by water droplets freezing as they fall, but I could be mistaken. Perhaps they do have warm-blankets as an ulterior motive." M'try squints upward again, questioning the ideas of condensation, winds up looking back over at T'mic with a pretty-sure-not shake of his head. "That's a good philosophy, sir, and one that certainly makes those of us with an intense cowardice quite a bit more comfortable. I confess, though, that part of me still contemplates whether or not I could get by without actually going *between* at all. I've managed it for most of the past twenty years."
Poor Istan, being tortured so. "Hard to get places you want to go without it, though. I'd only been a few times before Aath; now I can't imagine not being able to go wherever I want, whenever. But being afraid of *between* isn't all that, um... uncommon? Trust Mohraith, if you don't trust yourself." He waits for a beat before inquiring carefully, "You do trust him, don't you?"
Let's assume M'try is joking. He answers that question with a sketchy smile and a bland, "You clearly don't know Mohraith very well." Followed by a resounding, << I HEARD THAT. >> Which at least puts a stop to all the crunching and guts-eating when the dragon in question goes thumping off to splash around in the lake, ruining a fresh coat of oil. Blind eye turned; "Should we go inside? Now that the scenery's gotten that much less riveting."
"No," Mic agrees, "I don't. But I'm not the one...." He trails off when the brown abandons his meal to go floundering, turns to M'try with raised eyebrows, amused. "Still wants you with him to watch him eat, hmm?" Which could sound patronizing, and from another's mouth, might. "Your choice, weyrling. I'm done with my official business here, remember? --Ah," he remembers, voice dropping. "What about -your- unofficial business? Any more stories? Pictures?"
One doesn't spend 95% of one's life bumbling around Harper Hall without developing at least some resistance to patronization, especially when it's not quite manifest. Which is to say, M'try takes absolutely no offense, only explains, "Really, it's to watch him do just about anything. Mohraith has the exact opposite of stage fright." Witness the splashy show the brown's putting on for some laundresses out airing blankets (likely for the last time before winter). There's no one around to hear, no one who would care to eavesdrop anyway, but the practiced undertone applies itself with or without M'try's permission. "Nothing from the past few weeks. Months, actually. But I've still got a cache you're welcome to peruse?"
T'mic hahs, grins. "Sounds like Aath. Only...," his eyes search out the brown, "more," and promptly roll. Someone's getting an earful. More seriously, though, "I'd love to see whatever you've got." /That/ could be taken in so many ways too, but Mic only looks sincerely eager - they're talking about written materials, right. "--Months? That because of," no name, just a nod after the big brown show-off.
"I give her credit for maintaining the pretense of dignity, at least?" M'try offers, since Aath's not out there flolloping around (if it's not a word, it should be). "Just general writer's block, sir, and hoping it will pass when there's nothing better to do all winter," he answers for the cause, hazily since now he's trying to argue all that flolloping to a stop so he can actually go retrieve whatever-he's-got for the showing. Since M'try prefers to take it one specific way. Idly, "I like this business of having returning customers. It certainly gets around the awkward parts of introducing the subject."
"Dignity," a nod to the bit of bowl where his green's collected a brown and blue of her own to fawn over her, "she has." Take notes, Mohraith! Flolloping is not dignified. "Nothing better to do? Or no one better?" He lets that go with another flash of teeth to pursue a different path: "There's another reason to learn *between*: you can make deliveries to your clients, and cut out the middle man."
M'try follows the look to Aath and her entourage, grinning in turn a moment to add, "And followers, apparently." Mohraith, soaking wet, kind of peers that way a second, likely to get distracted were it not for a certain insistence on the part of his rider. Business is business, bub. Nothing/no one gets only a no-comment kinda clear of his throat while he heads over to cut the brown off, to help sheet some water off with a pass of his palm. "Speaking of dignity. I prefer having the middle-man, actually. Anonymity is easier to maintain with that one degree of separation. Further, I'm less likely to get the crap beat out of me if no one knows who precisely has been drawing their sister, daughter, girlfriend, whatever, you see. Wait here?"
T'mic traipses after M'try gamely, offers both an upturned palm and smile for Mohraith to investigate (preferably the former, thanks). "Hello, Mohraith. --So tell them you're just the delivery boy. No one needs to know -you're- the one who draws them, right? You've got a friend in the Harper Hall, he's shy...." He backs up with a nod, though, drawing his arms across his middle to grumble cheerfully, "Wait here, he says. I can think of half a dozen -warmer- places, and he wants me to stand in the middle of the bowl. Doesn't even offer to keep my fingers warm." Mostly because he's using them to shoo the pair off - are they still here? - before clamping them into armpits again.
Mohraith investigates! (Weeknights at 8pm.) After a time, he nudges T'mic's hand aside, satisfied, and waits to be made useful. "Yes, because no one would ever assume I was the artist-type," M'try counters, his own one-hand gestured to indicate the whole aura that might as well be flashing neon: Pervy Artist. Clamoring up between damp neckridges, he offers the lame excuse, "I'd invite you up, sir, but I don't pick up after myself, and it's a mess." So he just goes and retrieves his wares himself, thereby avoiding any 'M'try had a guy up in his weyr' rumors. Which his love-life definitely wouldn't benefit from.
T'mic's got as much of a grin for the burly brown as he does his Pervy Artist rider, but lets the pair make their escape and return before picking up the thread of the discussion - not argument! - again. By which time he's made his own retreat and return to add a scarf to his ensemble, and tears himself away from admiring the washerwomen with easy-going chit-chat. "So you're an artist. Still doesn't mean that -you- drew them. Anyway, couple more turns of riding, and you'll bulk up a little. How many times've you been beaten up for your work, anyway?"
M'try + portfolio. It's just like old times. Only there didn't used to be a 'show him that one picture with that one girl' going on in the background to account for him moving /away/ from Mohraith once he's back on his feet again. "None, but ask me how many people I've actually told about my work?" Five fingers, should be an easy guess. "One of the other weyrlings, not pictured, didn't take kindly to the fact, if that tells you anything." Using the top rail of the fence as a platform for balancing his portfolio isn't ideal, but neither is taking this into the living cavern, so it'll do.
The greenrider shakes his head, clicks tongue against teeth for the cowardice of youth. Or of M'try. "To you selling pictures? Or selling pictures of her?" Safe guess, considering M'try's oeuvre. Settling beside the taller man, one foot up on the bottom rail, he folds his arms and lets M'try pick and choose what he'll offer today, thanks. Absently, "Would you draw her, if you had the chance?"
M'try, coward, it's been covered. "I didn't technically confess that I'd sold any pictures of her, so I think it was mostly the idea that they existed at all. Something to do with taking away her right to choose?" Confused, or pretending it, he shrugs without looking up from his rummaging, thumbing through some things to find those that might resonate for T'mic. "Who? The weyrling in question? I have drawn her, but I'm not about to start doing it again. Ah, these ones are a bit old now, probably from around the time we first did business, but they don't sell well on the open market. Whether or not they might actually be attracted to it, most men just won't buy gay porn." Porn because it's just pictures, no erotic-fiction to go with it, sorry.
T'mic tries to process that strangeness, can't, shakes his head. "You'd think she'd be happy to have so many people thinking about... oh, wait." He's got it now! "Holdbred." That's got to be it. He's not shy about reaching for what's offered, though, with a cheerful, "Their loss. How about any red-heads?" with a crane of his neck to try and see what's in there. "You really do need to come to Ista, if you need more inspiration. You haven't seen what's on our beaches yet."
"Probably, though things in color will cost you more." M'try adds that with a little bit of apology, having not made T'mic for a man of means, sadly. "They're not real girls, I'm sorry to say. The only red-head I really know is one of the other weyrlings, and she's just not... the type." Certainly not The Type decorating the front page of the pamphlet he adds to the stack. With a laugh, distracted by his rummaging, he answers, "I'll assume you're not talking about sand, sir."
T'mic says, "I've got the marks now; might as well spend 'em." Traders must love him. "But I don't really care if they're real or not, you know? Might even be easier if they aren't - if you can draw that way?" He pauses, fingers frozen delicately over the stack, to consider the brownrider. "Knew one Harper, she was genius about doing landscapes, but she couldn't draw a person unless he was standing right there. And no, not sand. Unless you have clients with some -very- odd fetishes. No, I'm talking about the people. Wearing as little as possible, too.""
With a stern tone and merry eyes, M'try answers to the fetishes of his clients; "We don't cast judgment, sir, we just look to provide a little harmless entertainment." He goes on to look briefly enlightened, ahhhh, about what happens on the Istan beaches, adding, "If I get up the courage to make that life-threatening jump, then I'll see for myself. In the meantime, I'll make you a deal. Pick five for..." Just about the same price T'mic paid last time.
Mic bows his head to that wisdom, gestures acknowledgement for all the people with a sand-fetish (scratchy!) who would love for M'try to go to Ista, please. "Might even be able to find you some models - /willing/ models - if you want." All for the low, low price of eight seconds in frozen blackness! Back his hand comes to pick through what's offered, distracted nod for the deal. He hardly ogles at all - no stealing mental material for later! - but hesitates over the fifth drawing, finally tossing in another bit just so he can take both five and six. After that it's enough chit-chat so M'try doesn't feel used before the greenrider excuses himself to go hunt out those other people he claimed to be visiting - and Aath doesn't leave the bowl for another couple of hours, so maybe he wasn't fibbing.
IC Date: 10/20/21
Southern Bowl, Fort Weyr(#675RJLs$)
There is a little more grass in this section of the bowl than at the center, though this can be attributed to the lake that's not too far off and not to any improvement to the sandy soil. More weyrs can be seen high along the mountain walls to either side, though there are none in the massive earthworks that spill down the southernmost section of the volcanically created valley.
The sandy lake shore is further to the southwest, creating a vast half-crescent that contains the blue-green waters of the lake proper. More to the west would be the feeding grounds that contain the animals designated for being consumed by both dragons and humans alike. Off toward the distant northeast would be the weyrling barracks, the Weyrleader's complex, the hatching complex, living cavern, and infirmary.
Contrary to popular belief of late, the sun has not gone into an early hibernation. In fact-- there it is! As such, everyone who's been worried they're about to spiral head-first into cabin fever is out and about today, including M'try. What he seems to have forgotten is something useful to do, and is just now kind of kicking aimlessly along the fenceline of the feeding grounds, hands jammed firmly in his pockets, occasionally watching Mohraith dispatch something with his usual << WATCH THIS! >> gusto.
Kicking at grass and gravel /is/ a useful thing to do, and as such, requires an attentive audience. Perhaps that's the reason T'mic makes a VTOL-line straight across the bowl to intercept the weyrling, leaving his green to entertain herself. /She/ thinks whatever Mohraith's doing is pretty interesting, though she can't be bothered to rise from her pool of sunshine to see it from close up. "Hey there," the Istan calls once he's in earshot, grin and wave calling attention. "There you are. Congratulations, if I haven't said so already."
Luckily, Mohraith's unaware that Aath is watching, or things would likely get even more entertaining. Right now, he's just happy occasionally catching his rider's eye while he eats stuff, makes good-loud-crunchy noises, one of which sounds right over the top of the beginning of T'mic's greeting. As such, M'try is a little late in turning toward that call, and then he squints like he's trying to place the face. "I was supposed to draw your weyrmate," as if suddenly deduced, just a smidge of whoops-guilt in there. "Obviously, things got a little waylaid. Thank you," for congratulations.
T'mic waves off the apology with one careless hand, falls into step beside M'try with another of his easy grins. "You can still do it, just going to be a little delayed. He's yours?" A nod over to Mr. Crunching. "What do they call you these days? Mai...M'rey? T'rey? He's handsome." Mohraith again, with a sidelong look to make sure M'try's keeping up in the fluid shifts of topic.
"Or I'm his, depending on your perspective. I think, most often, it's the latter." M'try slows his steps, courteously, until T'mic's fallen in, meanwhile looks from greenrider to dragon, shrugging helplessly at another resounding crunch. "M'try, actually. There's another fellow, Atreyan before he Impressed, and I think I was sub-consciously afraid we'd be M'trey and A'trey forever, so M'try seems like a good compromise. What brings you to Fort this fine--" Questionable, it is still chilly, after all. "--afternoon, sir?"
T'mic's teeth flash at that. "Yeah, know how that goes. Feel like I'm more Aath's than she's mine, even after all this time. M'try's good, though. S'not one of those where you're left scratching your head after, wondering how they got it." As for what he's doing, it probably isn't 'hunching his shoulders and keeping his hands in his pockets', even if that's what a bit of breeze encourages. "Packages to deliver, actually. I thought I'd look up some people too, long as I'm here." A single waggle of eyebrows might just lead M'try to think that he's one of 'those people'. "You lot allowed out on your own yet, or are they still keeping you under wraps?"
M'try, to head-scratching, "At're, the other fellow wound up with At're. A-T-apostrophe-R-E." Here falls another shrug, this one at least not helpless on /his/ part, but still mystified. Packages leads to a quick once-over for T'mic and some eyebrow-moves of his own, not waggling, more questioning; "Yes, you certainly look over-burdened. Please, allow me to help you?" Ha ha. Speaking of shifting subjects-- "Technically, we're required not to leave the Weyr unless we're accompanied by a weyrlingmaster. What is it that you do at Ista, again?"
"You can help me any way you like," Mic invites brightly, "Except I already delivered them. Sorry." He isn't. "I could go fetch them back, though, and you could tell me who all these people are?" Poor confused greenrider, all alone in the big Weyr. But the question earns M'try another eyebrow waggle. "Assistant weyrlingmaster. When we have weyrlings. Which we don't." Lift of his knotted shoulder, which only sports the simple knot of a rider. "Wouldn't want to get you in trouble, though. Weyrlingmasters scare me. And my weyrmate -is- one."
"That might come across strangely," M'try muses, attention tipped skyward for a spell while he indulges the thought. "If you were to try to take back all your deliveries. No, best leave well enough alone in that regard." Not exactly the type to volunteer his truancy, he answers that new brow waggling with a sigh. "Ah well, perhaps I'll have to make the effort to actually come to Ista some time, then. The weather here ought to be just horrible enough in a few weeks to make it wholly desirable. And I would actually like to make good on that drawing. Things like that haunt me." Or he likes to pretend they do, anyway.
Actually do, pretend they do - it's all the same in the wash. "Love to see you at Ista," Mic agrees, "And yes, the weather here is just this side of horrible. I'm half-surprised it isn't snowing." He shivers pointedly and casts an eye up to the sky, just in case yards of the stuff are bucketing down as they speak. "Just have your boy - Mohraith, right? - bespeak either Aath or Jekzith when you're there. They usually give you a little time to enjoy the weather after going *between*. More so in the winter." Another shiver.
Weather. Riveting. "It's a little early yet for snow. If you're especially lucky, though, we might get a bit of cold, miserable drizzling this evening? Worth sticking around for, that is." M'try tries to make that sound impressive, desirable, even. But cold-miserable-drizzling likely speaks for itself. Rounding the corner in the fence; "Mohraith, yes. I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Should Aath start complaining of an /extremely/ loud brown who doesn't like to shut up... well, you'll know we made it to Ista without dying. Which is apparently quite a concern."
The look Mic shoots M'try is not amused. Horrified, yes. "Far as I'm concerned, the only excuse for snow is thick warm blankets and someone to share them with." Is M'try volunteering? He shivers deeper into his sweater, takes the corner with ease to say, "Aath doesn't complain about males. Or even to them. But noted. And it is, yes." Dangerous. "But if your weyrlingmasters are anything like me, they won't let you try if they aren't certain you'll make it. Like your straps."
"I believe it's actually caused by water droplets freezing as they fall, but I could be mistaken. Perhaps they do have warm-blankets as an ulterior motive." M'try squints upward again, questioning the ideas of condensation, winds up looking back over at T'mic with a pretty-sure-not shake of his head. "That's a good philosophy, sir, and one that certainly makes those of us with an intense cowardice quite a bit more comfortable. I confess, though, that part of me still contemplates whether or not I could get by without actually going *between* at all. I've managed it for most of the past twenty years."
Poor Istan, being tortured so. "Hard to get places you want to go without it, though. I'd only been a few times before Aath; now I can't imagine not being able to go wherever I want, whenever. But being afraid of *between* isn't all that, um... uncommon? Trust Mohraith, if you don't trust yourself." He waits for a beat before inquiring carefully, "You do trust him, don't you?"
Let's assume M'try is joking. He answers that question with a sketchy smile and a bland, "You clearly don't know Mohraith very well." Followed by a resounding, << I HEARD THAT. >> Which at least puts a stop to all the crunching and guts-eating when the dragon in question goes thumping off to splash around in the lake, ruining a fresh coat of oil. Blind eye turned; "Should we go inside? Now that the scenery's gotten that much less riveting."
"No," Mic agrees, "I don't. But I'm not the one...." He trails off when the brown abandons his meal to go floundering, turns to M'try with raised eyebrows, amused. "Still wants you with him to watch him eat, hmm?" Which could sound patronizing, and from another's mouth, might. "Your choice, weyrling. I'm done with my official business here, remember? --Ah," he remembers, voice dropping. "What about -your- unofficial business? Any more stories? Pictures?"
One doesn't spend 95% of one's life bumbling around Harper Hall without developing at least some resistance to patronization, especially when it's not quite manifest. Which is to say, M'try takes absolutely no offense, only explains, "Really, it's to watch him do just about anything. Mohraith has the exact opposite of stage fright." Witness the splashy show the brown's putting on for some laundresses out airing blankets (likely for the last time before winter). There's no one around to hear, no one who would care to eavesdrop anyway, but the practiced undertone applies itself with or without M'try's permission. "Nothing from the past few weeks. Months, actually. But I've still got a cache you're welcome to peruse?"
T'mic hahs, grins. "Sounds like Aath. Only...," his eyes search out the brown, "more," and promptly roll. Someone's getting an earful. More seriously, though, "I'd love to see whatever you've got." /That/ could be taken in so many ways too, but Mic only looks sincerely eager - they're talking about written materials, right. "--Months? That because of," no name, just a nod after the big brown show-off.
"I give her credit for maintaining the pretense of dignity, at least?" M'try offers, since Aath's not out there flolloping around (if it's not a word, it should be). "Just general writer's block, sir, and hoping it will pass when there's nothing better to do all winter," he answers for the cause, hazily since now he's trying to argue all that flolloping to a stop so he can actually go retrieve whatever-he's-got for the showing. Since M'try prefers to take it one specific way. Idly, "I like this business of having returning customers. It certainly gets around the awkward parts of introducing the subject."
"Dignity," a nod to the bit of bowl where his green's collected a brown and blue of her own to fawn over her, "she has." Take notes, Mohraith! Flolloping is not dignified. "Nothing better to do? Or no one better?" He lets that go with another flash of teeth to pursue a different path: "There's another reason to learn *between*: you can make deliveries to your clients, and cut out the middle man."
M'try follows the look to Aath and her entourage, grinning in turn a moment to add, "And followers, apparently." Mohraith, soaking wet, kind of peers that way a second, likely to get distracted were it not for a certain insistence on the part of his rider. Business is business, bub. Nothing/no one gets only a no-comment kinda clear of his throat while he heads over to cut the brown off, to help sheet some water off with a pass of his palm. "Speaking of dignity. I prefer having the middle-man, actually. Anonymity is easier to maintain with that one degree of separation. Further, I'm less likely to get the crap beat out of me if no one knows who precisely has been drawing their sister, daughter, girlfriend, whatever, you see. Wait here?"
T'mic traipses after M'try gamely, offers both an upturned palm and smile for Mohraith to investigate (preferably the former, thanks). "Hello, Mohraith. --So tell them you're just the delivery boy. No one needs to know -you're- the one who draws them, right? You've got a friend in the Harper Hall, he's shy...." He backs up with a nod, though, drawing his arms across his middle to grumble cheerfully, "Wait here, he says. I can think of half a dozen -warmer- places, and he wants me to stand in the middle of the bowl. Doesn't even offer to keep my fingers warm." Mostly because he's using them to shoo the pair off - are they still here? - before clamping them into armpits again.
Mohraith investigates! (Weeknights at 8pm.) After a time, he nudges T'mic's hand aside, satisfied, and waits to be made useful. "Yes, because no one would ever assume I was the artist-type," M'try counters, his own one-hand gestured to indicate the whole aura that might as well be flashing neon: Pervy Artist. Clamoring up between damp neckridges, he offers the lame excuse, "I'd invite you up, sir, but I don't pick up after myself, and it's a mess." So he just goes and retrieves his wares himself, thereby avoiding any 'M'try had a guy up in his weyr' rumors. Which his love-life definitely wouldn't benefit from.
T'mic's got as much of a grin for the burly brown as he does his Pervy Artist rider, but lets the pair make their escape and return before picking up the thread of the discussion - not argument! - again. By which time he's made his own retreat and return to add a scarf to his ensemble, and tears himself away from admiring the washerwomen with easy-going chit-chat. "So you're an artist. Still doesn't mean that -you- drew them. Anyway, couple more turns of riding, and you'll bulk up a little. How many times've you been beaten up for your work, anyway?"
M'try + portfolio. It's just like old times. Only there didn't used to be a 'show him that one picture with that one girl' going on in the background to account for him moving /away/ from Mohraith once he's back on his feet again. "None, but ask me how many people I've actually told about my work?" Five fingers, should be an easy guess. "One of the other weyrlings, not pictured, didn't take kindly to the fact, if that tells you anything." Using the top rail of the fence as a platform for balancing his portfolio isn't ideal, but neither is taking this into the living cavern, so it'll do.
The greenrider shakes his head, clicks tongue against teeth for the cowardice of youth. Or of M'try. "To you selling pictures? Or selling pictures of her?" Safe guess, considering M'try's oeuvre. Settling beside the taller man, one foot up on the bottom rail, he folds his arms and lets M'try pick and choose what he'll offer today, thanks. Absently, "Would you draw her, if you had the chance?"
M'try, coward, it's been covered. "I didn't technically confess that I'd sold any pictures of her, so I think it was mostly the idea that they existed at all. Something to do with taking away her right to choose?" Confused, or pretending it, he shrugs without looking up from his rummaging, thumbing through some things to find those that might resonate for T'mic. "Who? The weyrling in question? I have drawn her, but I'm not about to start doing it again. Ah, these ones are a bit old now, probably from around the time we first did business, but they don't sell well on the open market. Whether or not they might actually be attracted to it, most men just won't buy gay porn." Porn because it's just pictures, no erotic-fiction to go with it, sorry.
T'mic tries to process that strangeness, can't, shakes his head. "You'd think she'd be happy to have so many people thinking about... oh, wait." He's got it now! "Holdbred." That's got to be it. He's not shy about reaching for what's offered, though, with a cheerful, "Their loss. How about any red-heads?" with a crane of his neck to try and see what's in there. "You really do need to come to Ista, if you need more inspiration. You haven't seen what's on our beaches yet."
"Probably, though things in color will cost you more." M'try adds that with a little bit of apology, having not made T'mic for a man of means, sadly. "They're not real girls, I'm sorry to say. The only red-head I really know is one of the other weyrlings, and she's just not... the type." Certainly not The Type decorating the front page of the pamphlet he adds to the stack. With a laugh, distracted by his rummaging, he answers, "I'll assume you're not talking about sand, sir."
T'mic says, "I've got the marks now; might as well spend 'em." Traders must love him. "But I don't really care if they're real or not, you know? Might even be easier if they aren't - if you can draw that way?" He pauses, fingers frozen delicately over the stack, to consider the brownrider. "Knew one Harper, she was genius about doing landscapes, but she couldn't draw a person unless he was standing right there. And no, not sand. Unless you have clients with some -very- odd fetishes. No, I'm talking about the people. Wearing as little as possible, too.""
With a stern tone and merry eyes, M'try answers to the fetishes of his clients; "We don't cast judgment, sir, we just look to provide a little harmless entertainment." He goes on to look briefly enlightened, ahhhh, about what happens on the Istan beaches, adding, "If I get up the courage to make that life-threatening jump, then I'll see for myself. In the meantime, I'll make you a deal. Pick five for..." Just about the same price T'mic paid last time.
Mic bows his head to that wisdom, gestures acknowledgement for all the people with a sand-fetish (scratchy!) who would love for M'try to go to Ista, please. "Might even be able to find you some models - /willing/ models - if you want." All for the low, low price of eight seconds in frozen blackness! Back his hand comes to pick through what's offered, distracted nod for the deal. He hardly ogles at all - no stealing mental material for later! - but hesitates over the fifth drawing, finally tossing in another bit just so he can take both five and six. After that it's enough chit-chat so M'try doesn't feel used before the greenrider excuses himself to go hunt out those other people he claimed to be visiting - and Aath doesn't leave the bowl for another couple of hours, so maybe he wasn't fibbing.