Shanlee tries to hand in her knot.
RL Date: 1/26/08
IC Date: 1/2/15 --Time warp log.
Council Chamber, High Reaches Weyr(#770RIJs$)
This cavern, nearly as large as a dragon weyr, is filled with an oval table, surrounded by chairs, at which meetings are held. The chair at the far end of the table is somewhat larger than the rest, the embroidered seat cushion done a little fancier, but not too much so. In the center of the hardwood table the symbol of High Reaches Weyr has been inlaid in colored stones, gleaming in the light from the glowbaskets hung around the room.
A natural alcove is filled with shelves, all piled high with neatly ordered records of past turns. A short passage leads back to the Weyrleaders' ledge.
The second day of the turn finds N'thei holed up in a room he's likely never seen the inside of before now. He looks oddly comfortable amid all the hidework and order though, rests in a chair at the end of the table-- not /the/ chair, just a chair where he can rest with his feet on the arm of the chair next to him, flecks of mud to fall into its lap. He reads, or pretends to read.
Clipped heels to rock herald the arrival of one with a purposeful air about them. They don't slow as the threshold of the large cavern is crossed, likely indicating the one to whom they belong to is well acquainted with this chamber. Only once the distance to the council table is closed do steps halt. Shan's chin lifting, eyes carrying study over N'thei then narrow at the sight of his muddied boots resting on the chair, "Trying to play the part now are you....Weyrleader." that last laced with sarcasm.
"You know how concerned I am with appearances." N'thei's eyes stay trained on the page, his smile a mocking thing that readily reaches to answer Shanlee's sarcasm. He finishes his paragraph, his page, looks up slowly to the greenrider with a may-I-help-you twist to the frost-edged smile. "You seem upset, my lovely. I thought we'd finally parted ways on comfortable terms last time." The lethargy of his current posture is enunciated in the nuances, like the hide is too heavy to hold and must be lowered to rest against his chest, his eyelids are drowsy and droop half-closed.
"That was before your bronze thought stealing Teonath away from Leiventh might be a good idea." Shan responds tightly, disregarding the fact that the bronze named hadn't even been present when the senior gold had risen. Where N'thei is captured in apparent indolence, the greenrider's petite frame is stiff with unnamed tension, "I'll try not to waste anymore of your valuable time than is necessary, Sir." the last carrying a hint of a slur to it. Fingers set nimbly to shoulder knot, slipping it free from its position and tossing it the table top where it slides and comes to rest just a hands breadth away from the hidework piled there. "You might want to rethink that." flat.
N'thei takes the whole thing with remarkable calm, fingers walked across the table to capture a loop of the knot and scrape it across the table, to rest it at the edge just in front of him. "Are you going to be calm or are we going to have to have another row? I'm not really up for the latter, but if you insist..." He pulls his feet down from the chair and scrapes the mud away with the palm of his hand, all ended with a beckon for Shanlee to seat herself thereupon. "Sit." Now.
The look of defiance that flickers behind green eyes, states quite clearly -No- to his last. Tracing a finger along the wooden surface, Shan walks a slow line long the circumference of the table to end up where that slightly larger chair is positioned. Stroking a hand down over its shape, head rest, armrest , fingers draw off and are studied with fake interest, "With great power comes great responsibility." calmly stated, although there blends the notes of a query there too. Anything else N'thei had said on arguments disregarded as eyes lift upward to place a guarded look onto the new Weyrleader.
*.....a slow line along the circumference....
N'thei's annoyed now, a grim set to his lips and a darkened cast to the eyes that fix sternly on Shanlee. Not the Weyrleader that's annoyed; the man himself. "Thank you for that brilliant observation, my love; I would never have figured it out on my own. Now enlighten me." He speaks in a crisp tone, fingers gradually tightened around her discarded knot until it suffers to be crushed in his palm. "Why are you angry that we took that flight? Leiventh /wasn't even there./"
For some strange reason N'thei's anger pleases the greenrider as evidenced in the shine to her eyes , head canting to one side, taking in his demeanor and grim set of mouth, a 'tsking' sound coming up from her throat, "Anger clouds judgment." in a softly chiding tone, "Unless you learn how to make it work for you." Fine features now settled into a bland expression, his crushing of her knot is watched with some macabre interest, "Why? Do you want the truth, or some platitude that will save face?" Whose is left undetermined.
N'thei answers her wisdom with a cold-hard-look, an eye partially closed and twitched to betray the carefully checked fume. Measured; "The truth." If Shanlee does get her knot back at the end of this, it's going to be in no fit state to wear after the brutal treatment it suffers in his white-knuckled hand.
Moving away from that chair of 'power' with a small shrug of inevitability, Shan plants both hands onto the tabletop, "Because I don't believe you're capable of putting the Weyr before anything that -you- want. Before your own life in Fall and before the lives of those that now look to you for leadership." spoken with deliberate calm as N'thei's anger mounts. Pausing and straightening in that short span once again, "Do you know -why- R'hin appointed me as weyrsecond?" lips cut into a hard smile as she answers before he has chance to ask, "Because he knew I wouldn't lie to him, even at the risk of my job and his wrath." With a sharp intake of breath, "You, on the other hand don't seem to like to hear it and I'm afraid the position you now hold doesn't afford you the luxury of discarding it out of hand." Arms now fold about herself as the bronzerider is afforded an assessing study, his hand crushing over her knot, "I can only serve where I'm needed." a fine brow arcing up in a pointed manner.
His empty hand smacks hard on the wooden table, probably stings his palm terribly while it succeeds in making a loud clap and rattles the table. N'thei objects to talk of R'hin; "I don't care why. Don't misjudge me. You can speak your mind as freely as you like, but I'm not in the business of justifying myself. If you don't trust me, that's your own problem but I will not accept your resignation. --So damn careful to keep your knot while A'son and I rot in a cell for you for a week, weren't you? But things don't go your way for an instant and you throw it in my face." And that's as long a speech as he's apt to give, delivered full of self-righteous fervor that reflects in steel-gray eyes. "Don't you question my selflessness, not /you/ of all people."
Brows jerk upward as palm slaps against table surface, "My, my, my. You really do need to work on that anger of yours or its going to be more than just one pissed off Lord Crom we'll be trying to work damage control over." Point made, Shan face closes into an impenetrable veil, "I don't need to justify myself to you either for actions occurring before you had a right to question me." Stepping right up to N'thei now to place one hand on the chairback and the other onto the table's surface, Shan lowers her head enough to respond with low warning, "-Where- do you think those marks came from that paid for bribes and the silence of guards, hmmm?" continuing on, "I gave you someone with experience and you discarded his warning out of hand, as is your custom to do. You landed your -own- ass in jail because of your own stubborness." point made she steps back a cold smile appearing, "Yes, yes. That's me, the selfish one looking out for herself and -not- the reputation of the Weyr in its entirity. The one that took a literal risk to life to get those marks for you. Your perception of people astounds me." Hands spread outward, tone darkly amused now, "You won't accept my resignation." soft the snort that appears, "And why is that, hmm?"
"I won't argue about Crom with you. You believe what you want, and so will I." N'thei finds blandness, accusing even in its sudden calm. "I will not because of the very reasons you stated. If you really believe that I will bring this Weyr nothing but loss, isn't it your duty to see that I have someone capable at my back? If I am so selfish and glutton, isn't that all the more reason the Reaches needs you?" He may still be fuming, but he's mastered his temper to the capacity to sound reasonable. Occasionally, he must still flick a look to her throat-- if only to imagine choking it!
Catching a glance from N'thei to her throat, low mocking laughter spills out from Shan, "Go on. You know you want to do it." challenge made for setting his hands around her throat. Dismissing the threat out of hand, "You don't scare me, Weyrleader. Never have, never will. I've survived far worse than you." Rolling shoulders and setting them to a straight line of pride, there's simply silence for his words on why she should keep her rank. Responding slowly, with a light smirk attached, "Alright. I'll keep it. But only because it suits -me- to for the moment. That, and because there are not many that would put up with your bullshit." blunt confidence in her own abilities. Leaning forward, fingers extend toward that crushed tangle of loops, "Weyrleader and weyrsecond. Nothing more, nothing less." new terms of relationship put out there. "Learn to trust that sometimes I -do- know what I'm talking about."
N'thei smiles around his bitter pill, the scarred side of his nose turned up against his distaste; "When you learn to trust me, miss, then I'll be happy to return the favor." Presently all he returns is her knot, places it delicately on the table an arm's length away from him. She can retrieve it herself without plucking it from his fingers. There it sits, a crumpled bundle of blue and black loops. Business; "I intend to give Snowstrike to B'yan. I thought you should know. As I'm incompetent in 'fall, you'll want to drill Glacier with them as soon as possible." He's a clipboard short of friendless efficiency.
Taking up the knot and returning it not to shoulder but slipping it into a pocket, Shan's expression is bland on topics of trust. N'thei's last draws a lift of brows and then another tight expression once again, "And what makes you think he'll even -take- that knot from you. Or anything, for that matter?" To the order, there's curt nod from the greenriding still weyrsecond, "As you wish."
*....there's a curt nod from the....
"Because he's not a petulant woman who can't learn to separate personal differences from professional ones." N'thei stands to deliver this line, collects the hides he'd been pretending to work on when Shanlee interrupted him. His head cocked, he does her the courtesy of waiting for a response before he'll be off to file his work appropriately.
Shanlee's eyes narrow to slits against N'thei's return, but her lack of biting comeback is almost worthy of applause, offering instead a dry, "Good luck with that." followed by a short, "Clear skies." And without further ado the clipped pace that her brought her into the chamber now carries her out, back ramrod stiff and head held high. Woe, the person that crosses the woman's path this day.
IC Date: 1/2/15 --Time warp log.
Council Chamber, High Reaches Weyr(#770RIJs$)
This cavern, nearly as large as a dragon weyr, is filled with an oval table, surrounded by chairs, at which meetings are held. The chair at the far end of the table is somewhat larger than the rest, the embroidered seat cushion done a little fancier, but not too much so. In the center of the hardwood table the symbol of High Reaches Weyr has been inlaid in colored stones, gleaming in the light from the glowbaskets hung around the room.
A natural alcove is filled with shelves, all piled high with neatly ordered records of past turns. A short passage leads back to the Weyrleaders' ledge.
The second day of the turn finds N'thei holed up in a room he's likely never seen the inside of before now. He looks oddly comfortable amid all the hidework and order though, rests in a chair at the end of the table-- not /the/ chair, just a chair where he can rest with his feet on the arm of the chair next to him, flecks of mud to fall into its lap. He reads, or pretends to read.
Clipped heels to rock herald the arrival of one with a purposeful air about them. They don't slow as the threshold of the large cavern is crossed, likely indicating the one to whom they belong to is well acquainted with this chamber. Only once the distance to the council table is closed do steps halt. Shan's chin lifting, eyes carrying study over N'thei then narrow at the sight of his muddied boots resting on the chair, "Trying to play the part now are you....Weyrleader." that last laced with sarcasm.
"You know how concerned I am with appearances." N'thei's eyes stay trained on the page, his smile a mocking thing that readily reaches to answer Shanlee's sarcasm. He finishes his paragraph, his page, looks up slowly to the greenrider with a may-I-help-you twist to the frost-edged smile. "You seem upset, my lovely. I thought we'd finally parted ways on comfortable terms last time." The lethargy of his current posture is enunciated in the nuances, like the hide is too heavy to hold and must be lowered to rest against his chest, his eyelids are drowsy and droop half-closed.
"That was before your bronze thought stealing Teonath away from Leiventh might be a good idea." Shan responds tightly, disregarding the fact that the bronze named hadn't even been present when the senior gold had risen. Where N'thei is captured in apparent indolence, the greenrider's petite frame is stiff with unnamed tension, "I'll try not to waste anymore of your valuable time than is necessary, Sir." the last carrying a hint of a slur to it. Fingers set nimbly to shoulder knot, slipping it free from its position and tossing it the table top where it slides and comes to rest just a hands breadth away from the hidework piled there. "You might want to rethink that." flat.
N'thei takes the whole thing with remarkable calm, fingers walked across the table to capture a loop of the knot and scrape it across the table, to rest it at the edge just in front of him. "Are you going to be calm or are we going to have to have another row? I'm not really up for the latter, but if you insist..." He pulls his feet down from the chair and scrapes the mud away with the palm of his hand, all ended with a beckon for Shanlee to seat herself thereupon. "Sit." Now.
The look of defiance that flickers behind green eyes, states quite clearly -No- to his last. Tracing a finger along the wooden surface, Shan walks a slow line long the circumference of the table to end up where that slightly larger chair is positioned. Stroking a hand down over its shape, head rest, armrest , fingers draw off and are studied with fake interest, "With great power comes great responsibility." calmly stated, although there blends the notes of a query there too. Anything else N'thei had said on arguments disregarded as eyes lift upward to place a guarded look onto the new Weyrleader.
*.....a slow line along the circumference....
N'thei's annoyed now, a grim set to his lips and a darkened cast to the eyes that fix sternly on Shanlee. Not the Weyrleader that's annoyed; the man himself. "Thank you for that brilliant observation, my love; I would never have figured it out on my own. Now enlighten me." He speaks in a crisp tone, fingers gradually tightened around her discarded knot until it suffers to be crushed in his palm. "Why are you angry that we took that flight? Leiventh /wasn't even there./"
For some strange reason N'thei's anger pleases the greenrider as evidenced in the shine to her eyes , head canting to one side, taking in his demeanor and grim set of mouth, a 'tsking' sound coming up from her throat, "Anger clouds judgment." in a softly chiding tone, "Unless you learn how to make it work for you." Fine features now settled into a bland expression, his crushing of her knot is watched with some macabre interest, "Why? Do you want the truth, or some platitude that will save face?" Whose is left undetermined.
N'thei answers her wisdom with a cold-hard-look, an eye partially closed and twitched to betray the carefully checked fume. Measured; "The truth." If Shanlee does get her knot back at the end of this, it's going to be in no fit state to wear after the brutal treatment it suffers in his white-knuckled hand.
Moving away from that chair of 'power' with a small shrug of inevitability, Shan plants both hands onto the tabletop, "Because I don't believe you're capable of putting the Weyr before anything that -you- want. Before your own life in Fall and before the lives of those that now look to you for leadership." spoken with deliberate calm as N'thei's anger mounts. Pausing and straightening in that short span once again, "Do you know -why- R'hin appointed me as weyrsecond?" lips cut into a hard smile as she answers before he has chance to ask, "Because he knew I wouldn't lie to him, even at the risk of my job and his wrath." With a sharp intake of breath, "You, on the other hand don't seem to like to hear it and I'm afraid the position you now hold doesn't afford you the luxury of discarding it out of hand." Arms now fold about herself as the bronzerider is afforded an assessing study, his hand crushing over her knot, "I can only serve where I'm needed." a fine brow arcing up in a pointed manner.
His empty hand smacks hard on the wooden table, probably stings his palm terribly while it succeeds in making a loud clap and rattles the table. N'thei objects to talk of R'hin; "I don't care why. Don't misjudge me. You can speak your mind as freely as you like, but I'm not in the business of justifying myself. If you don't trust me, that's your own problem but I will not accept your resignation. --So damn careful to keep your knot while A'son and I rot in a cell for you for a week, weren't you? But things don't go your way for an instant and you throw it in my face." And that's as long a speech as he's apt to give, delivered full of self-righteous fervor that reflects in steel-gray eyes. "Don't you question my selflessness, not /you/ of all people."
Brows jerk upward as palm slaps against table surface, "My, my, my. You really do need to work on that anger of yours or its going to be more than just one pissed off Lord Crom we'll be trying to work damage control over." Point made, Shan face closes into an impenetrable veil, "I don't need to justify myself to you either for actions occurring before you had a right to question me." Stepping right up to N'thei now to place one hand on the chairback and the other onto the table's surface, Shan lowers her head enough to respond with low warning, "-Where- do you think those marks came from that paid for bribes and the silence of guards, hmmm?" continuing on, "I gave you someone with experience and you discarded his warning out of hand, as is your custom to do. You landed your -own- ass in jail because of your own stubborness." point made she steps back a cold smile appearing, "Yes, yes. That's me, the selfish one looking out for herself and -not- the reputation of the Weyr in its entirity. The one that took a literal risk to life to get those marks for you. Your perception of people astounds me." Hands spread outward, tone darkly amused now, "You won't accept my resignation." soft the snort that appears, "And why is that, hmm?"
"I won't argue about Crom with you. You believe what you want, and so will I." N'thei finds blandness, accusing even in its sudden calm. "I will not because of the very reasons you stated. If you really believe that I will bring this Weyr nothing but loss, isn't it your duty to see that I have someone capable at my back? If I am so selfish and glutton, isn't that all the more reason the Reaches needs you?" He may still be fuming, but he's mastered his temper to the capacity to sound reasonable. Occasionally, he must still flick a look to her throat-- if only to imagine choking it!
Catching a glance from N'thei to her throat, low mocking laughter spills out from Shan, "Go on. You know you want to do it." challenge made for setting his hands around her throat. Dismissing the threat out of hand, "You don't scare me, Weyrleader. Never have, never will. I've survived far worse than you." Rolling shoulders and setting them to a straight line of pride, there's simply silence for his words on why she should keep her rank. Responding slowly, with a light smirk attached, "Alright. I'll keep it. But only because it suits -me- to for the moment. That, and because there are not many that would put up with your bullshit." blunt confidence in her own abilities. Leaning forward, fingers extend toward that crushed tangle of loops, "Weyrleader and weyrsecond. Nothing more, nothing less." new terms of relationship put out there. "Learn to trust that sometimes I -do- know what I'm talking about."
N'thei smiles around his bitter pill, the scarred side of his nose turned up against his distaste; "When you learn to trust me, miss, then I'll be happy to return the favor." Presently all he returns is her knot, places it delicately on the table an arm's length away from him. She can retrieve it herself without plucking it from his fingers. There it sits, a crumpled bundle of blue and black loops. Business; "I intend to give Snowstrike to B'yan. I thought you should know. As I'm incompetent in 'fall, you'll want to drill Glacier with them as soon as possible." He's a clipboard short of friendless efficiency.
Taking up the knot and returning it not to shoulder but slipping it into a pocket, Shan's expression is bland on topics of trust. N'thei's last draws a lift of brows and then another tight expression once again, "And what makes you think he'll even -take- that knot from you. Or anything, for that matter?" To the order, there's curt nod from the greenriding still weyrsecond, "As you wish."
*....there's a curt nod from the....
"Because he's not a petulant woman who can't learn to separate personal differences from professional ones." N'thei stands to deliver this line, collects the hides he'd been pretending to work on when Shanlee interrupted him. His head cocked, he does her the courtesy of waiting for a response before he'll be off to file his work appropriately.
Shanlee's eyes narrow to slits against N'thei's return, but her lack of biting comeback is almost worthy of applause, offering instead a dry, "Good luck with that." followed by a short, "Clear skies." And without further ado the clipped pace that her brought her into the chamber now carries her out, back ramrod stiff and head held high. Woe, the person that crosses the woman's path this day.