Persie kinda-sorta asks to be a permanent assistant weyrlingmaster.
RL Date: 4/25/08
IC Date: 2/26/16
Routine: N'thei and three other men from Glacier occupy one of the booths, shelled peanuts, a forest of empty and half-empty glasses, one pretty red-head leaning on the arm of a chair form the bulk of their companionship. The haze of evening revelry employs most of the Snowasis, ranging from idle chit-chat to a riotously funny drinking contest. By comparison, the four of them, just pushing back from a finished hand with a bit of good-natured grumbling for lost marks, seem pretty tame.
Though the blonde hair might make it a bit easy for Persie to stand out, she has snuck into the Snowasis, ordered her drink and taken up a spot at a table of her own and chatted with a few other patrons until they finished up and headed off, all without much notice. But then, otherwise unoccupied, Persie falls to watching that jovial table on the other side of the room. She chews at her lip and the intermittent glances down at her drink don't really count as 'not staring'.
After another round, it becomes increasingly apparent that four men cannot long ignore the attention of one single blonde. Even if one of those men (not N'thei) has a red-head on hand. Occasional nudges, one or two nods, an inquisitive half-smile, all question Persie's interest, though the weyrleader just plays his hand about like normal. None too quiet, the stakes at the end of the next hand include winner buying drinks; that's the hand N'thei wins, and that's the reason he slides out of his chair, takes a few marks off the top of his pile, and heads toward the bar. It's while his order pends, while he leans his elbow against the edge of the bar, that he resolves to gawk back at Persie. Blatantly.
When her staring is noticed, Persie's eyes get all wide, her head sinks low as if she might hide like some sort of colorful sweater-turtle, but she does return an awkward, self conscious sort of smile. At least for N'thei's companions. When the Weyrleader stands, it's a perfect opportunity for her to tear her gaze away and stare more earnestly down at her drink. She does a decent job of it, too, except for a quick peek toward the bar only to see N'thei staring back at her. She blinks and starts, some impulse to stand quickly aborted.
N'thei's patient. That and it takes a while to make up five drinks. And the game looks like it's on its last leg, as two of his companions have started dropping marks into pockets, draining the last from their current glasses, shading toward the bar to claim already ordered drinks. Meanwhile, unfazed, N'thei continues to lean on his elbow and watch Persie being indecisive with wordless interest.
Tense and awkward and looking and looking away and frowning and yes, generally being indecisive. And just when it seems to have gone on for a stretch of time weird and abnormal even for someone like Persie, her shoulders drop and she gives him a look. A 'you're standing there and I'm having trouble and this just sort of sucks' sort of look. If looks can say those things. It's a look, in other words, of knowing exactly how this is all going. Poorly. And with a sigh, her brows lift hopefully. But who knows what she's hoping for.
Drinks distributed, N'thei breaks the long-and-awkward bout of staring at Persie to shake hands and bid goodnights to the card-players, who disperse to finish their last round and say a few farewells of their own. Eventually, left on his own, N'thei winds up exactly where he was before: watching Persie, but at least now he can do it over the brim of his mug. To her look and all it implies, he answers only the littlest quirk of a smile and a barely-there shrug; sympathetic to her plight, it seems, but unable to offer any viable solution.
And so Persie takes a great big breath, a little smile of her own starting to brighten her features, all self-conscious and awkward, but in that very Persie way somehow just wholly accepting that self-conscious and awkwardness happens. She waves him over.
N'thei stalls. He acknowledges her offer with a nod, be-right-there, but the wait involves ordering a second of whatever he's drinking to bring with him. That's what he sets on the table next to Persie when he arrives, plunks it down resolutely next to the greenrider while he passes around behind her to the next empty chair. "
"What's on your mind, sweetheart?"
The closer he gets the more her smile seems to fade into something sort of... terrified. But Persie swallows it down, even if it seems to infect her with the fidgets. Her shoulders tense, her hips twist a little in her seat. "I... I have a question." But something along those lines was probably obvious. "I don't... Can I..." Going really well. "I want to be an assistant weyrlingmaster."
...for a moment. N'thei drinks to fill a space, to master the momentary wash of surprise that drenched his expression, to give himself a convenient distraction. Then; "Good. Haven't you been assisting the weyrlingmaster all this time?" Clearly, two and two are only adding up to three right now, and he looks inquisitively at Persie to locate the missing fourth.
"But..." See, Persie is very accepting of math not adding up quite right, it happens to her all the time. In fact, it seems to put her a bit more at ease, enough that she can take a peek at him. Just a peek, then she hurries her eyes back down to the table. "Soon there won't be any weyrlings." She reaches for the drink he's set beside her. "Is this for me?"
Kind of a yes? "I'll drink it if you don't." Not that he's reaching for it right now, with his own drink to keep him occupied. N'thei lets her earlier comment stew a bit, lets it roll around while he chases a drink across his tongue and down his throat. "That's true, soon there won't be any. Tapping under way. Don't want to go back and join a fighting wing properly?" To her skittishness, there's his mellowness, his slack posture and right-down-the-barrel level gaze.
"They're excited," she mentions, likely of those weyrlings. "And nervous." She draws the drink in front of her, beside her own mostly finished one. "I think... I'd rather stay." Surely Persie can feel that direct gaze on her, it draws her eyes up again, another quick peek at him that makes her again stare at the table, now with a rather determined look. "I haven't asked I'daur, though, if he wants me. If he doesn't, I don't want him to have to tell me." She peeks again, too quick to actually make eye contact. "Or, I don't want to hear it from him." Now her shoulders are inching up again and she hides in a long drink from her glass.
N'thei, drink. It's what he does. Afterwards, "I'm not going to ask him for you." He says it flatly, matter-of-factly, brooks-no-argumently. "Just so that we get that out of the way now. I won't stand against it if you both decide that's for the best, but you'll have to go at it yourself." Now his smile broadens, his eyes brighten, and he pronounces with satisfaction, "Might be easier to risk life and limb than possible insult to your already small ego, neh?"
"I didn't know if you'd... if it would be all right." Persie's set her drink down now because holding a drink is hard when you're twisting your arms together under the table. "I didn't know who to ask. You or him. And I just... I thought maybe it would be right to ask you. I thought maybe I should do it this way." And for his teasing she tells the table. "It would have been easier to ask him." A pause and then she nods her pale head. "I will. Ask him."
N'thei puts down his empty glass resoundingly, now able to lean back in his chair, to slouch even further, empty-handed. "Good girl. Think of it this way." His attention goes briefly to her fidgeting arms, his expression quite pleasant in its smiling brightness. "You've already got through the hard part, I'daur ought to be a cake-walk by comparison. --I don't remember you like this, for what it's worth, not quite so small." The gravity on that last word, small, lends it importance, nothing to do with physical stature.
Persie just gives a little nod for the hard part being done, a nervous quick little nod. But, if possible, that heavy, important word seems to deflate her a little more, or at least make give a reprieve from the fidgeting. "I'm trying," she tells him quietly. "I..." Frustrated with her own poor ability to express herself, she lets out a breath, and then her glance lifts finally, not surely but steadily, toward him. "How do you remember me?"
"Brighter." Though the words come to N'thei quickly, they're uttered with precise deliberation. He's not slurring, not precisely, but there's crispness to his speech that's not part of his sober pattern. Still, clear-eyed enough to look cleanly back at Persie. "Less like a little bird, more like a little flower. Memory's failed before though. Be a weyrlingmaster if that's what makes you happy."
"And it's... better when I'm a flower," Persie takes from that statement, looking down again, beyond the table, into her lap and still-entwined arms. But slowly a hand draws up to take hold of her drink and just hold it. "Are you happy?" she asks quietly, looking to him again with a sad sweep of her eyes.
N'thei shrugs, better, worse, flower, bird. Happy? "Are we talking in general? Or right at this exact moment?" No sooner has he asked than he shakes his head just a little bit, dismisses her questions and his all at once. "Bought and paid for, you know, ought to drink it and not use it as decoration." Renewed gravity while he looks emphatically at Persie's ornamental cup.
Persie glances down at the drink in her hand and nods, but her eyes return to him, still waiting for the answer. After a beat she says, "I thought you could be, once. That you wanted to be."
"Wanted to be bought and-- no, we're back to happy, aren't we?" N'thei's smile, brief, is evidence enough that he was probably following along just fine despite his dumb-play. Doubtful; "Are you?"
Persie lifts her drink, a toast, "To being happy," though she sounds anything but, instead sad and rather sourly wry with her look to the glass. Then she starts drinking it down, as far as she can get in a breath, which is somewhat considerable. She sets the glass, unfinished, by him. "I should go. But thank you, sir. For the drink. For... I'll talk to I'daur," already starting to stand.
N'thei says with a nod, "Didn't think so." He watches her drink and drink, kind of smiling, then raises a quick thumbs-up in response to her guzzling prowess. "Sir is it?" Food for thought, that. "Let me know how it turns out, interested to hear if he thinks it's a piss-poor idea. Good luck though." He'll probably be here a while yet, claim staked to the table Persie's abandoning.
Persie gives a nod as she gets to her feet and slings her jacket from the back of her chair and on to her shoulders. She offers him a smile, and turns to go. But she only gets a few paces away before she turns back. It's a sad look that she gives him, but unlike so many other quick glances, it sees him.
N'thei raises his eyebrows up gradually under the weight of the sad look that lands on him, his own expression settled headlong into tranquility within the last few moments. He's not sad, not happy, just content-right-now. "Don't look at me like that, sweetheart, no response for it in me. Go and bother I'daur." Words may be brisk, but tone is fond.
Persie's mouth sort of moves, just barely, but all she does is nod, a decisive swing of her blonde hair, and then she goes.
IC Date: 2/26/16
Routine: N'thei and three other men from Glacier occupy one of the booths, shelled peanuts, a forest of empty and half-empty glasses, one pretty red-head leaning on the arm of a chair form the bulk of their companionship. The haze of evening revelry employs most of the Snowasis, ranging from idle chit-chat to a riotously funny drinking contest. By comparison, the four of them, just pushing back from a finished hand with a bit of good-natured grumbling for lost marks, seem pretty tame.
Though the blonde hair might make it a bit easy for Persie to stand out, she has snuck into the Snowasis, ordered her drink and taken up a spot at a table of her own and chatted with a few other patrons until they finished up and headed off, all without much notice. But then, otherwise unoccupied, Persie falls to watching that jovial table on the other side of the room. She chews at her lip and the intermittent glances down at her drink don't really count as 'not staring'.
After another round, it becomes increasingly apparent that four men cannot long ignore the attention of one single blonde. Even if one of those men (not N'thei) has a red-head on hand. Occasional nudges, one or two nods, an inquisitive half-smile, all question Persie's interest, though the weyrleader just plays his hand about like normal. None too quiet, the stakes at the end of the next hand include winner buying drinks; that's the hand N'thei wins, and that's the reason he slides out of his chair, takes a few marks off the top of his pile, and heads toward the bar. It's while his order pends, while he leans his elbow against the edge of the bar, that he resolves to gawk back at Persie. Blatantly.
When her staring is noticed, Persie's eyes get all wide, her head sinks low as if she might hide like some sort of colorful sweater-turtle, but she does return an awkward, self conscious sort of smile. At least for N'thei's companions. When the Weyrleader stands, it's a perfect opportunity for her to tear her gaze away and stare more earnestly down at her drink. She does a decent job of it, too, except for a quick peek toward the bar only to see N'thei staring back at her. She blinks and starts, some impulse to stand quickly aborted.
N'thei's patient. That and it takes a while to make up five drinks. And the game looks like it's on its last leg, as two of his companions have started dropping marks into pockets, draining the last from their current glasses, shading toward the bar to claim already ordered drinks. Meanwhile, unfazed, N'thei continues to lean on his elbow and watch Persie being indecisive with wordless interest.
Tense and awkward and looking and looking away and frowning and yes, generally being indecisive. And just when it seems to have gone on for a stretch of time weird and abnormal even for someone like Persie, her shoulders drop and she gives him a look. A 'you're standing there and I'm having trouble and this just sort of sucks' sort of look. If looks can say those things. It's a look, in other words, of knowing exactly how this is all going. Poorly. And with a sigh, her brows lift hopefully. But who knows what she's hoping for.
Drinks distributed, N'thei breaks the long-and-awkward bout of staring at Persie to shake hands and bid goodnights to the card-players, who disperse to finish their last round and say a few farewells of their own. Eventually, left on his own, N'thei winds up exactly where he was before: watching Persie, but at least now he can do it over the brim of his mug. To her look and all it implies, he answers only the littlest quirk of a smile and a barely-there shrug; sympathetic to her plight, it seems, but unable to offer any viable solution.
And so Persie takes a great big breath, a little smile of her own starting to brighten her features, all self-conscious and awkward, but in that very Persie way somehow just wholly accepting that self-conscious and awkwardness happens. She waves him over.
N'thei stalls. He acknowledges her offer with a nod, be-right-there, but the wait involves ordering a second of whatever he's drinking to bring with him. That's what he sets on the table next to Persie when he arrives, plunks it down resolutely next to the greenrider while he passes around behind her to the next empty chair. "
"What's on your mind, sweetheart?"
The closer he gets the more her smile seems to fade into something sort of... terrified. But Persie swallows it down, even if it seems to infect her with the fidgets. Her shoulders tense, her hips twist a little in her seat. "I... I have a question." But something along those lines was probably obvious. "I don't... Can I..." Going really well. "I want to be an assistant weyrlingmaster."
...for a moment. N'thei drinks to fill a space, to master the momentary wash of surprise that drenched his expression, to give himself a convenient distraction. Then; "Good. Haven't you been assisting the weyrlingmaster all this time?" Clearly, two and two are only adding up to three right now, and he looks inquisitively at Persie to locate the missing fourth.
"But..." See, Persie is very accepting of math not adding up quite right, it happens to her all the time. In fact, it seems to put her a bit more at ease, enough that she can take a peek at him. Just a peek, then she hurries her eyes back down to the table. "Soon there won't be any weyrlings." She reaches for the drink he's set beside her. "Is this for me?"
Kind of a yes? "I'll drink it if you don't." Not that he's reaching for it right now, with his own drink to keep him occupied. N'thei lets her earlier comment stew a bit, lets it roll around while he chases a drink across his tongue and down his throat. "That's true, soon there won't be any. Tapping under way. Don't want to go back and join a fighting wing properly?" To her skittishness, there's his mellowness, his slack posture and right-down-the-barrel level gaze.
"They're excited," she mentions, likely of those weyrlings. "And nervous." She draws the drink in front of her, beside her own mostly finished one. "I think... I'd rather stay." Surely Persie can feel that direct gaze on her, it draws her eyes up again, another quick peek at him that makes her again stare at the table, now with a rather determined look. "I haven't asked I'daur, though, if he wants me. If he doesn't, I don't want him to have to tell me." She peeks again, too quick to actually make eye contact. "Or, I don't want to hear it from him." Now her shoulders are inching up again and she hides in a long drink from her glass.
N'thei, drink. It's what he does. Afterwards, "I'm not going to ask him for you." He says it flatly, matter-of-factly, brooks-no-argumently. "Just so that we get that out of the way now. I won't stand against it if you both decide that's for the best, but you'll have to go at it yourself." Now his smile broadens, his eyes brighten, and he pronounces with satisfaction, "Might be easier to risk life and limb than possible insult to your already small ego, neh?"
"I didn't know if you'd... if it would be all right." Persie's set her drink down now because holding a drink is hard when you're twisting your arms together under the table. "I didn't know who to ask. You or him. And I just... I thought maybe it would be right to ask you. I thought maybe I should do it this way." And for his teasing she tells the table. "It would have been easier to ask him." A pause and then she nods her pale head. "I will. Ask him."
N'thei puts down his empty glass resoundingly, now able to lean back in his chair, to slouch even further, empty-handed. "Good girl. Think of it this way." His attention goes briefly to her fidgeting arms, his expression quite pleasant in its smiling brightness. "You've already got through the hard part, I'daur ought to be a cake-walk by comparison. --I don't remember you like this, for what it's worth, not quite so small." The gravity on that last word, small, lends it importance, nothing to do with physical stature.
Persie just gives a little nod for the hard part being done, a nervous quick little nod. But, if possible, that heavy, important word seems to deflate her a little more, or at least make give a reprieve from the fidgeting. "I'm trying," she tells him quietly. "I..." Frustrated with her own poor ability to express herself, she lets out a breath, and then her glance lifts finally, not surely but steadily, toward him. "How do you remember me?"
"Brighter." Though the words come to N'thei quickly, they're uttered with precise deliberation. He's not slurring, not precisely, but there's crispness to his speech that's not part of his sober pattern. Still, clear-eyed enough to look cleanly back at Persie. "Less like a little bird, more like a little flower. Memory's failed before though. Be a weyrlingmaster if that's what makes you happy."
"And it's... better when I'm a flower," Persie takes from that statement, looking down again, beyond the table, into her lap and still-entwined arms. But slowly a hand draws up to take hold of her drink and just hold it. "Are you happy?" she asks quietly, looking to him again with a sad sweep of her eyes.
N'thei shrugs, better, worse, flower, bird. Happy? "Are we talking in general? Or right at this exact moment?" No sooner has he asked than he shakes his head just a little bit, dismisses her questions and his all at once. "Bought and paid for, you know, ought to drink it and not use it as decoration." Renewed gravity while he looks emphatically at Persie's ornamental cup.
Persie glances down at the drink in her hand and nods, but her eyes return to him, still waiting for the answer. After a beat she says, "I thought you could be, once. That you wanted to be."
"Wanted to be bought and-- no, we're back to happy, aren't we?" N'thei's smile, brief, is evidence enough that he was probably following along just fine despite his dumb-play. Doubtful; "Are you?"
Persie lifts her drink, a toast, "To being happy," though she sounds anything but, instead sad and rather sourly wry with her look to the glass. Then she starts drinking it down, as far as she can get in a breath, which is somewhat considerable. She sets the glass, unfinished, by him. "I should go. But thank you, sir. For the drink. For... I'll talk to I'daur," already starting to stand.
N'thei says with a nod, "Didn't think so." He watches her drink and drink, kind of smiling, then raises a quick thumbs-up in response to her guzzling prowess. "Sir is it?" Food for thought, that. "Let me know how it turns out, interested to hear if he thinks it's a piss-poor idea. Good luck though." He'll probably be here a while yet, claim staked to the table Persie's abandoning.
Persie gives a nod as she gets to her feet and slings her jacket from the back of her chair and on to her shoulders. She offers him a smile, and turns to go. But she only gets a few paces away before she turns back. It's a sad look that she gives him, but unlike so many other quick glances, it sees him.
N'thei raises his eyebrows up gradually under the weight of the sad look that lands on him, his own expression settled headlong into tranquility within the last few moments. He's not sad, not happy, just content-right-now. "Don't look at me like that, sweetheart, no response for it in me. Go and bother I'daur." Words may be brisk, but tone is fond.
Persie's mouth sort of moves, just barely, but all she does is nod, a decisive swing of her blonde hair, and then she goes.