Persie's and N'thei's big picnic.
RL Date: 10/3/07
IC Date: 9/??/13
Dragon> Secath senses that Wyaeth's "greeting" is abrupt, like a shotgun blast outta nowhere, all gunsmoke-smell and wood-gleam warmth; << Hey! >>
Secath> Wyaeth senses that Secath isn't about to upset by shotgun blasts, or at least she turns that little ruffle of her confetti into the breath taken before a languid sigh. << Yes? >> she asks.
Dragon> Secath senses that Wyaeth runs an arid wind across the sprinkles of confetti, chases them away to clean-slate his mind, desert bare. << N'thei says y'all should come here. >> 'Here' is further imagined for her: A cold, clear, picturesque sweep of the High Reaches mountains, the spindles of the Weyr far below, the mountain range splayed out to the southwest.
Secath> Wyaeth senses that Secath's unfelt breeze grows still, considering, but the colors sparkle, newly vibrant before the movement picks up again. << The sky? >> she asks, sounding decidedly skeptical but willing to be convinced. There is, however, another surge of saturation that doesn't seem to come from the green herself.
Dragon> Secath senses that Wyaeth answers quickly, with a dry humor to match the arid landscape of his mind; << Unless you wanna walk here, sugar. That's up to you, I reckon. >> A quick pause intercedes, and the warmth turns liquid, the heat of whiskey rather than summer. << It's the closest you can get to where we're going. You coming? >>
Secath> I bespoke Wyaeth with << Yes. >> There's a pause, an exapserated ruffle and sigh again. << She's dressing, but we'll be along. >>
Dragon> Secath senses that Wyaeth hovers there, waits patiently for the green with N'thei all bundled up on his neck. When the green arrives, he attempts to crow a greeting to her, but his actual voice is as gruff and unfettered as his mental tones, and it just comes out as a dryly scratched chuff; << You made it. This way. >>
Secath gives a little extra stretch as she arrives in the chill mountain air, a twist of her neck, a flick of her tail. The slight woman on her back isn't dressed for summer today, but wrapped in a snug leather jacket with a very notable pink-striped scarf waving around her neck. The green as no audible reply for Wyaeth's chuff, but her mental touch flutters against him like leaves. Persie, however, gives a whoop and waves as her lifemate turns to wing down after the bronze.
Wyaeth leads a /fairly/ direct path down through the mountains, along the ravine, and down to the clearing. There, not far from the stream, he lands with a heavy thump against the grassy slope, pretty much just dropping the last foot or two till he's on all fours, neatly jarring N'thei's perch on his neck. "After nearly a turn of flying, you might think I'd be braced for the landings." This good-natured comment flies out in lieu of a greeting as he unbuckles and jumps to the ground.
Secath sets down a good deal more gracefully than Wyaeth and she looks rather meaningfully at him while she does it, just to make sure he notices how gently her little paws hit the ground. She folds her wings and rumbles at him. Persie, meanwhile, unstraps herself and turns on the green's neck, not hopping down just yet. "Hi." She's not skipping the greeting, it seems, grinning at him as she runs her fingers through her blonde hair to make sure it's all nice and straight.
Oh, Wyaeth sees it all right. He watches the green settle down with humor in the whirl of his eyes, humor felt in the back of his mind-- the part open for Secath to know. N'thei twitches his brows at the bronze, nods to Secath importantly, then strips off his own flying gear. Chilly but not cold seems comfortable for him. "Hi. --Does this make you seemingly at my beck and call? Because I could learn to appreciate that." He says nothing, as yet, about the little spread just down the valley from dragon landings, the folded blanket, the basket lunch, all very picturesque.
"You came last time when I called," Persie points out. "So really, we're just even now." She finally does slide down from Secath's little shoulder, landing with both boots in the soft grass. "Oh, I have -got- to take my shoes off. I want to wiggle my toes," she says, flipping the scarf over her shoulder and stepping back and forth to feel the slight give of earth beneath her also-slight weight. Secath starts to do the same, spreading her talons to tickle the grass as she adjusts her stance and starts to settle down. Then, even if N'thei didn't point it out, Persie sees the blanket and basket and all that. "Oh, it looks like someone's here," she says, peering around for these mysterious and invisible people. Her lips purse worriedly. "They probably want to be alone."
N'thei says nothing for a fair space, just entertained eyes cast down toward Persie's feet like he's all set to watch her take off her boots and wiggle the aforementioned toes. Wheeling around to see what Persie's seeing, the basket and what-not, he ahhs and nods and cocks his head to one side toward the bundled picnic. "Probably. Unless you think we ought to invite a party down here, in which case they better bring food. And we could've just had a lunch in the living caverns and saved me a lot of trouble. But." He shrugs; "Your call."
She doesn't take off her boots just yet, but then Persie looks like she might have forgotten about the grass for the moment. She turns back to him and then it might be noticable that she has a raw pink splotch along her jaw and the left side of her chin. Of course, it's only noticeable if the change in her expression doesn't steal his attention. "Wha...at?" It's a drawn-out word because in the middle his observation seems to make some sense to her and she goes from knit-brow confusion to wide-eyed uncertain disbelief.
"I said--" N'thei cuts himself off with a wave of his hand at Persie, head shaking briefly. "The gist is, that's my picnic." Suiting actions to words, he drifts in that direction with another little tilt of his head to indicate that Persie's welcome to follow. "I've never seen you actually eat anything, so I just took a stab in the dark. What's this?" He raises his index finger to the corresponding place on his own jaw.
"You really did this?" Persie asks, so obviously amazed that all she can do is look at him and at the picnic and back again with big round eyes and an open-mouthed smile. It takes her a moment to unstick her feet from their place and then she has to jog a few steps to catch up. "What did you bring? I eat, well... I'll eat anything. Or try it at least. You should have told me. I could have brought, well.. something. Wine or dessert or..." She puts both hands to her throat, balling happy fists around the striped scarf wrapped there. "What's what?" Her pale brows dip again, looking at his jaw.
N'thei's leaned down to catch the corner of the blanket already, has it in two fingers when he straightens back up. Stepping toward Persie with the other hand outstretched, he reaches toward her chin with his thumb set to indicate the splotch. "This." All her offers for food and drink are met with a simple what-can-ya-do shrug.
"Can I help? I've never been taken on a picnic. What am I supposed to do?" she asks, watching him tend the blanket. First, though, Persie's going to shuck off her jacket, twisting one shoulder free and then the other and dropping it in the grass right where she stands. "Oh, my chin." There's a smile for him and his outstretched hand. "Stupid ashburn. The wind shifted at the last moment and I tried to lean out of the way but it still caught me." Her smile starts to drop. "Is it really ugly?"
N'thei gingerly lays his thumb just outside the realm of the burn, just a little pressure intended to get her to turn her head so he can get a cleaner view. "Really ugly?" Trailing the blanket, he peers a little closer before his fingertips sweep a little pale hair behind her ear, shaking his head; "All you have to do, my dear, is sit and eat and enjoy. And help me spread this on the grass so we don't get soaked from sitting on it. --How can you never have been on a picnic before? That's somewhere between weird and sad."
Her eyes grow big again as his thumb first touches her face, but then, just as something uncertain seems to flare, her lashes drop. "It was pretty red the first night. Not pretty at all," she says, almost murmurs, as he tucks her hair behind her ear. But the shyness starts to disappear as he gives her something to do. Persie bends to take up another corner of the blanket. "I've been on picnics, I've just never been taken on a picnic where... well... like this." She bites her lower lip as she smile at him. "I think I like it, though."
"Dangers of the profession, I guess. But don't worry. You're still cute." N'thei goes from looking a little distantly at Wyaeth to flashing a newly brightened smile at Persie. He unfolds his half of the blanket then, giving the fairly tattered and tired looking thing a comical, one-shouldered shrug. "The Weyrwoman comes here to pick flowers, I think. It's one of those places that's really too pretty for real life." So saying, he lowers his edge of blanket to the grass.
Persie barely gets the blanket flattened out before she turns to drop her backside onto it. "It really is. I like it. It's the very perfect place to have a picnic. Did she recommend it to you?" She looks around with a big, happy sigh and then turns her attention to her boots, thin fingers pulling the laces loose. "Are you going to take yours off?" She twists her foot up to yank off on of her heavy boots, her bright purple sock half pulled off in the process.
Thoughtfully, "No? You couldn't say she recommended it. Not exactly." N'thei looks around though, gray eyes briefly thoughtful before the smile returns to them. "What did you do before you were a candidate? I've been trying to guess." Notably, his attention is now on the bright purple socks, a grin starting to grow while he reaches for the basket of food. There's just a headshake for his own boots and the brief explanation, "My feet aren't pretty."
She leaves that bright sock dangling, her ankle bone gleaming pale above it, and starts to pull off the second boot. "Oh, just take your shoes off. I don't care what your feet look like." The second boot takes the sock clean with it and so she yanks the first off by the toe and stuffs it in its shoe. Against the grass her toes are terribly white and she wiggles and watches them with her chin on her knees. "I was almost a harper. I wasn't good at classes when I was a kid but they said I had a good voice. They brought me to the Hall to see if, well, they could do anything with me. But I wasn't there long before I went to the Weyr on a visit and then I got searched." She lifts and drops her thin shoulders and turns her cheek to her knee so she can smiles at him. "You brought me on a picnic," she says quietly, as if he didn't already know.
N'thei's eyebrows start to go up so that they wind up hitched about halfway up his forehead, surprise registered plainly on his expression; "Almost a harper." He laughs roughly, shaking his head, and turns his attention to his own boot laces promptly afterward-- doesn't take much prompting, evidently. "I did. Speaking of which." Only halfway through the first boot, he picks up the big basket and plops it on the blanket on Persie's side. "Cold wherry, some cheese, bread that's not exactly fresh. Eat, skinny."
Persie sits up to swing her legs around so that she can straddle that basket - nevermind that she twisted the blanket a bit and is now getting grass on it with her bare feet. She pulls out the container of wherry, giving it a sniff and setting it outsider her knee as she digs around for utensils. Instead she comes up with cheese. "What kind is it?" She sniffs at the cheese too.
"Yellow?" N'thei reaches toward Persie's hand to turn over the cheese she's unearthed, adding a brief nod. "Yep. Yellow. Maybe lightish orange." He strips off his boots, socks, and indeed has very ugly feet, big and calloused and just all-around abused as feet go. "Is there a particular cheese that you were hoping for or...?"
She rolls her eyes. "Lightish orange," she laughs as she shakes her head, trying to sound scolding but failing miserably. The cheese gets set aside, too, and next she comes up with a knife and fork. But in lifting her attention from the basket Persie looks at him again and down to those big bare feet. Utensils still in hand, she braces those hands behind her so she can lean back and streeeeetch her long skinny leg and pale wiggling toes towards his nearer foot. Her grin takes on a rather goofy impishness.
Helplessly, N'thei asks, "What did you expect? Tillekian cheddar? It's Weyr cheese." He makes a face, resigned, and has just managed to ditch his second boot-sock combo when Persie's wiggling her toes at his. "So you're trying to make me feel self-conscious about my shovel feet. Classy." He plunks the one foot nearer to Persie's, little toe against her big one, and increases the spread of his own grin at the contrast. "Damn, you're pale."
Persie lets her toes dance along the side of his foot. "No, I'm tring to make you realize that I don't think your feet are all that scary. You're a guy. All guys have big, beat up feet. Well, except for the girly ones. It would be pretty silly if you had feet like mine," she points out, leaning just a little further, her hip twisting off the blanket, so she can brush the ball of her foot over the top of his. Her teeth catch her smile again and the cheese seems quite forgotten.
"Maybe if I had some purple socks--" N'thei scans over Persie's shoulder to where her socks wound up, laughter leaving him quietly once more. "Ah, pale and pretty and playful feet." He flexes his toes fleetingly, then bends his other leg up to cover the top of her foot with the bottom of his, lightly squishing hers against the blanket.
"Watch what you ask for or you might get some purple socks." She wiggles her toes once more and slips her foot from under his, sitting up again, dropping the knife and fork unceremoniously back in the basket. Then she pushes the whole thing aside so that she can shift around the flop onto her back with her blonde hair toward him. For a moment she just lays there and smiles at up him, as if pleased all over again from this new angle. "What about you? Before you impressed?"
N'thei looks equally pleased. And quite a bit smitten from this angle. He's just settled to smoothing the very edges of Persie's hair against the blanket with one hand, resting his weight on the other one. There's a brief trick at the edge of his smile, providing a pause, and he looks at the greenrider's toes instead of her eyes. "I played cards, professionally."
"You can do that?" Persie asks with a laugh. "Well, I guess, I mean... I don't know that I've heard someone say they play professionally. How do you know when you're a professional?" Surely there's nothing but a smile from her. She brings a hand up so that his attention to the shiny pale ends of her hair might just get caught by her slim pale fingers.
"Mm. Yes. If you're good at it. Or you cheat." N'thei had just set to twirling a few strands around his index finger when Persie's hand intervenes, and he carefully unravels the twirl so as not to tug on her hair too strictly. "I Impressed with someone who Impressed like you, when she was young. Do you ever wish you'd had a few turns for yourself first?"
"Time to do what?" Persie asks, though her smile soften and her brows drop down --a certain sign that she's giving his question some thought. Her fingers twist with his. "What would I have done? Even if the Hall had wanted me... what would it have mattered if I was just going to leave it all and be a rider? I doubt they would have." Her smile fades a little more. "I doubt the Harpers would have wanted to keep me."
N'thei threads his fingers back with Persie's, his smile warming by degrees even as hers slips away. "Just time to do something else," he explains with a light shrug. He brings his other hand around presently, putting it down not far from her head, shifting his weight to lean over her more; "If it makes you feel any better, they didn't want to keep me either."
"They didn't..." Persie looks at him and then grows frustrated that he's at such a strange angle and tries to turn her head so she can see him a little better. "You were a harper? Before you played cards? Why didn't they want you? What did you do?" But before he can decide that she assumes he was kicked out, she follows up that question with: "Like, did you sing or write or?" A finger sneaks from his to make a smooth pass across his palm.
N'thei's answer is a while in coming, eventually set to the tune of a little chuckle; "I was an apprentice for a bit, but I developed a gambling addiction and..." He shrugs carelessly, even keeps a smile in his eyes while he relates his little tale of woe, brightened at finger-palm play. "I mostly played the gitar. --Do you know I won't tell anyone else this? About the cards and harper and I'm uncannily comfortable with you. Why do you think that is?" Honest question.
Persie presses her lips together, the light of her eyes softening, knowing despite his shrug and before he all but confirms it with words, that the brief story is a troubling one. "An addiction," she repeats quietly. "Do you still play?" But playiing -what- isn't specified before he has questions of his own. Her teeth start working her lip again and her lashes drop a little. Shy. "I don't know. Does it bother you?" She lifts her gaze to him again, something hopeful and timid there.
"No. 'Strikes me' is more the appropriate term." N'thei answers the question about his continued play with a brief but affirmative lift of his eyebrows and a chagrined smile. "So which is worse? Never getting in to Harper Hall, or leaving because you gamble too much? Sit up and eat some lunch, Persie, before the sun goes down and this little valley gets too cold for soul-baring."
"I guess it depends on how much you want to be a harper?" Persie replies, her own smile growing a little brighter. She reaches her free hand up to his face and just brushes his chin with her forefinger before letting her hand fall to her chest. A teasing twist pulling at her lips. "Is all this talking making you hungry? Where's the part where I lay here while you feed me grapes?" She taps her teeth together and grins broadly.
N'thei laughs broadly at both questions; "I can't keep waxing intellectual if I don't have sustenance." He quirks his chin upward after the tapping then reaches half-across Persie to drag the basket over. "It hasn't got quite the same romantic bend, but you lay there and I'll feed you cold wherry. Just try not to choke to death." And he does actually intend on plunking little bites of food in her mouth for her; they've both been weyrlings at one point, so at least they've had practice?
And so the meal progressed with food shared between them. For all her rather scrawny build, Persie has a healthy appetite and eventually there's just one piece of wherry left. Sitting with her legs swept to the side and her weight propped on a stiff stick of an arm, the greenrider reaches for the last bit and holds it up to N'thei's mouth. "And this one is for you," she declares with every intention of feeding it to him. Her lips are curled in a rather impish smile. And just in case he wants to deny her offer, "I'm stuffed."
N'thei just eats a lot. He's a big guy, so maybe it's understandable? Between the two of them, finishing off one picnic basket about makes sense, and he's just set to loosening a notch on his belt when Persie's got the last piece there, dangling temptation. A chomp later and he snags that last bite, chews slowly slowly slowly. Around half a mouthful, "You should be stuffed. You ate enough for three or four people."
Persie grins back at him, reclaiming her fingers to suck the last bits of wherry juice from their tips one by one. "No, that was you," she tells him. "I just ate enough for one person." Even if that one person might be a body larger than hers. Fingers clean, she wraps her fingers around her striped scarf. "So what do we do now? Try to walk off this meal?" she wonders, wiggling her bare toes.
"I hadn't thought that far in advance." N'thei chews a little longer, really just keeping that piece around because he's got precious little room left in his gut once he swallows it. Which he does, eventually. "But, really, you're going to have to walk pretty damn far if you mean to shed this entire meal." He doesn't seem similarly inclined, winds up leaning back on his own palms with his legs tailor style. "Aren't your feet cold?" Now that he's looking at Persie's toes like he's just noticed them.
"A little," Persie admits, biting her lips in together in an anxious little smile. She swings her feet around in front of her and slides them towards the bronzerider, wiggling her toes again. But the movement makes her grimace and then laugh, "Oof, I -am- full. Why did you make me eat so much?" An empty accusation as it's surely not his fault. "Are you cold?" she asks, frowning a little. "Do you need to get back?"
N'thei, calmly curious, "Do you always worry so much?" After taking a few moments to chafe his palms together, he curls them around Persie's toes, heat-transfer style. "Relax already. Digest. If I was cold or needed to get back, I'd let you know. Don't worry."
Persie cannot help but grin as he wraps his hands around her toes, a grin that turns into a barely-withheld little giggle. "I don't know. Am I being worrisome? Is that the right words? Or is that something that you worry -about-?" She wrinkles her nose and laughs those thoughts away, choosing instead to wrap her arms under her thighs and drop her chin to her knees. "Oh, so full," she groans, reminded of it again as she takes this stomach-pinching position. "I like the picnic," she tells him, her lashes low as she watches his hands instead of his face.
"Worrisome is both. Someone who worries, and something you worry ab--" N'thei stops and raises a hand to Persie when she supplies her own answer, head dipped in a partial nod, there-you-go. "Good. The idea was that you'd like the picnic. It didn't seem like we ought to keep meeting in bars or quick-hellos on lake shores." He returns to warming Persie's feet, just barely chafing the tops of them with his palms; "And it's a good excuse to be around you. I like you. You're not complicated."
For his last words, Persie peers up at him looking indeed a little worried. As she sits up a bit, a hand comes up to pull the loose loop of her scarf up over her nose, hiding her mouth like a veil for a moment. Her pale brows start to pinch together and she lowers the scarf but still holds it, ready to hide again. "Would you like me less then? If I was complicated?" It's a quiet, thoughtful question, but somehow sounds a touch sad as well.
N'thei begins with a questioning, "I don't know?" He pats her feet a couple of times, then resumes resting on his palms with a sideways look at the half-veiled Persie. "Is that a not-so-clever way of letting me know that you're actually a big bundle of crazy and I should get while the getting's good?" He plays it poker-faced except for the amusement tricking the corner of his mouth half-upward.
Now she does look pained: the curve of her eyebrows and the hard press of her teeth into her lip. Persie catches her chin in her scraf and bows her head enough to sheild the rest of her expression. "Probably," she answers, missing the hint of amusement on his mouth. She lifts and drops a thin shoulder, seems to start to say something else but just falls quiet.
With eyebrows climbing, N'thei gradually goes from wholly amused to a tint of intrigue. "So what's the complication?" He reaches over with that question, intent on moving the pale hair back behind Persie's ear again, to follow through with a finger hooked under her chin, none of this lowered eyes and hidden expression business.
Persie lifts her chin, letting the scarf fall away, though her eyes take another moment before they look up at him. Her expression is plainly lost and miserable and while she doesn't have an answer, errant twitches about her brows, eyes and mouth imply that she's trying to think of something to say. In the end she just pushes a weak and lopsided smile onto her lips. "Now I'm ruining our lovely picnic," she tells him softly.
N'thei shakes his head calmly, unfazed, and brushes the pad of his thumb across the line of Persie's jaw before he withdraws his hand. "You're not. But if you don't want to talk about it, I won't make you." With an inviting tone, certainly still open for discussion. "Just-- I'll take my chances that it's a tolerable complication."
With a slow breath, Persie seems at least mildly more at ease, though her eyes are still big and round. "Okay," she says, a bit breathless. But she hugs her legs again. "You're so nice to me," she tells him. "With the tequilla and the scarf and this picnic." And yet she seems troubled by it anyway. She takes a long, rallying inhale and sits up again, always shifting it seems. "You're sure I haven't ruined our picnic? I do like it so much. No one's ever done this for me before." She smiles then, and if it isn't her usual perky smile it is at least genuine and warm, affectionate.
"I'm sure. But I think our picnic is at an end anyway." This as N'thei looks up, watching the sun slink behind the rim of the valley, the shadows steadily deepening in the very early twilight. "It gets cold quick once the sun's gone. If your toes were cold before..." He chatters his teeth pointedly and reaches for his own socks, apparently okay with Persie's whole troubled undertone. Or at least pretending very well. "There'll be more scarves or tequila or picnics, but not if we wind up with pneumonia."
"You're right," Persie answerly easily, twisting to reach behind her for her own socks. She gives them each a shake before slipping them on and then she's up on her knees, attempting to pack up the remnants of the picnic, spent containers and empty wrappings. During it all she chances only little peeks at her untroubled host. "I..." she starts to say, but then, well, she doesn't.
N'thei gets his own shoes and socks on with only minor difficulties, mainly in that his fingers have acquired a chill and his boots still have knots in the laces, but it all works out in the end. He's just pulled the second one on when Persie fails to finish another sentence, and he's looking over with a crooked brow; "You...? Have a tendency not to complete your thoughts?" Cheeky smile.
"I guess so," she answers, swinging her blonde hair out of the way as she looks up to smile at him. She reaches a hand out, apparently ready to stand with the basket. "I don't..." But when she does it again, Persie can only laugh at herself. "You'll just have to learn how to read my mind, I guess."
Taking the obvious joke, N'thei asks happily, "A quick read but a pleasant one?" Unraveling from his own seat, he reaches down a hand to help haul Persie to her feet-- such an effort on his part, too-- with the plan to take the basket shortly thereafter. "And thank you for coming to keep me company. It would have been a stupid amount of food for one person."
Persie lets out a bright scoff, or a nearly-bright one at least, for his joke, but at least she's smiling as he helps her up. She may pass him the basket but her hand keeps his and she looks up at him, obviously weighing and considering... something. She steps a little closer and hesitates again. When her fingers release him, her arms reach up tenatively as if they might like to wind over his shoulders, as if they might dare to hug him.
N'thei is huggable. It's part and parcel of being oversized. It only really takes one arm to adequately enfold Persie anyway, so the other hangs slack at his side with the basket while he leans down enough to rest his cheek against the top of her pale head a moment.
Persie is up on her toes when she presses herself against him, her cheek resting on the warmth of his chest. She lingers there for a moment, enough to let the rise and fall of breaths pass before she steps back. The breath she takes then shakes a little and she lets it out heavily, like a weight lifted. Her smile, complete with that giddy, impish touch, comes back and she steps off the blanket and into her boots, snagging the blanket's edge while she's down there and her jacket as well. The former, while neatly folded on their arrival is just sort of wound up into a ball before she hands it to him. "Thank you," she says, perhaps a touch shy but grinning widely anyway.
"You said that already." N'thei nods sagely, slowly, and takes the blanket simply to loop it across his shoulders for now. Whatever reaction he has to the whole hug-factor is similarly subdued; apparently, overt reactions aren't his forte. He just smooths a hand down the front of his shirt, smiling mildly as he starts pacing backward toward Wyaeth-- who probably wasn't waiting there the whole time, since that would be way too considerate and convenient. "I'll see you, Persie." Statement of fact!
IC Date: 9/??/13
Dragon> Secath senses that Wyaeth's "greeting" is abrupt, like a shotgun blast outta nowhere, all gunsmoke-smell and wood-gleam warmth; << Hey! >>
Secath> Wyaeth senses that Secath isn't about to upset by shotgun blasts, or at least she turns that little ruffle of her confetti into the breath taken before a languid sigh. << Yes? >> she asks.
Dragon> Secath senses that Wyaeth runs an arid wind across the sprinkles of confetti, chases them away to clean-slate his mind, desert bare. << N'thei says y'all should come here. >> 'Here' is further imagined for her: A cold, clear, picturesque sweep of the High Reaches mountains, the spindles of the Weyr far below, the mountain range splayed out to the southwest.
Secath> Wyaeth senses that Secath's unfelt breeze grows still, considering, but the colors sparkle, newly vibrant before the movement picks up again. << The sky? >> she asks, sounding decidedly skeptical but willing to be convinced. There is, however, another surge of saturation that doesn't seem to come from the green herself.
Dragon> Secath senses that Wyaeth answers quickly, with a dry humor to match the arid landscape of his mind; << Unless you wanna walk here, sugar. That's up to you, I reckon. >> A quick pause intercedes, and the warmth turns liquid, the heat of whiskey rather than summer. << It's the closest you can get to where we're going. You coming? >>
Secath> I bespoke Wyaeth with << Yes. >> There's a pause, an exapserated ruffle and sigh again. << She's dressing, but we'll be along. >>
Dragon> Secath senses that Wyaeth hovers there, waits patiently for the green with N'thei all bundled up on his neck. When the green arrives, he attempts to crow a greeting to her, but his actual voice is as gruff and unfettered as his mental tones, and it just comes out as a dryly scratched chuff; << You made it. This way. >>
Secath gives a little extra stretch as she arrives in the chill mountain air, a twist of her neck, a flick of her tail. The slight woman on her back isn't dressed for summer today, but wrapped in a snug leather jacket with a very notable pink-striped scarf waving around her neck. The green as no audible reply for Wyaeth's chuff, but her mental touch flutters against him like leaves. Persie, however, gives a whoop and waves as her lifemate turns to wing down after the bronze.
Wyaeth leads a /fairly/ direct path down through the mountains, along the ravine, and down to the clearing. There, not far from the stream, he lands with a heavy thump against the grassy slope, pretty much just dropping the last foot or two till he's on all fours, neatly jarring N'thei's perch on his neck. "After nearly a turn of flying, you might think I'd be braced for the landings." This good-natured comment flies out in lieu of a greeting as he unbuckles and jumps to the ground.
Secath sets down a good deal more gracefully than Wyaeth and she looks rather meaningfully at him while she does it, just to make sure he notices how gently her little paws hit the ground. She folds her wings and rumbles at him. Persie, meanwhile, unstraps herself and turns on the green's neck, not hopping down just yet. "Hi." She's not skipping the greeting, it seems, grinning at him as she runs her fingers through her blonde hair to make sure it's all nice and straight.
Oh, Wyaeth sees it all right. He watches the green settle down with humor in the whirl of his eyes, humor felt in the back of his mind-- the part open for Secath to know. N'thei twitches his brows at the bronze, nods to Secath importantly, then strips off his own flying gear. Chilly but not cold seems comfortable for him. "Hi. --Does this make you seemingly at my beck and call? Because I could learn to appreciate that." He says nothing, as yet, about the little spread just down the valley from dragon landings, the folded blanket, the basket lunch, all very picturesque.
"You came last time when I called," Persie points out. "So really, we're just even now." She finally does slide down from Secath's little shoulder, landing with both boots in the soft grass. "Oh, I have -got- to take my shoes off. I want to wiggle my toes," she says, flipping the scarf over her shoulder and stepping back and forth to feel the slight give of earth beneath her also-slight weight. Secath starts to do the same, spreading her talons to tickle the grass as she adjusts her stance and starts to settle down. Then, even if N'thei didn't point it out, Persie sees the blanket and basket and all that. "Oh, it looks like someone's here," she says, peering around for these mysterious and invisible people. Her lips purse worriedly. "They probably want to be alone."
N'thei says nothing for a fair space, just entertained eyes cast down toward Persie's feet like he's all set to watch her take off her boots and wiggle the aforementioned toes. Wheeling around to see what Persie's seeing, the basket and what-not, he ahhs and nods and cocks his head to one side toward the bundled picnic. "Probably. Unless you think we ought to invite a party down here, in which case they better bring food. And we could've just had a lunch in the living caverns and saved me a lot of trouble. But." He shrugs; "Your call."
She doesn't take off her boots just yet, but then Persie looks like she might have forgotten about the grass for the moment. She turns back to him and then it might be noticable that she has a raw pink splotch along her jaw and the left side of her chin. Of course, it's only noticeable if the change in her expression doesn't steal his attention. "Wha...at?" It's a drawn-out word because in the middle his observation seems to make some sense to her and she goes from knit-brow confusion to wide-eyed uncertain disbelief.
"I said--" N'thei cuts himself off with a wave of his hand at Persie, head shaking briefly. "The gist is, that's my picnic." Suiting actions to words, he drifts in that direction with another little tilt of his head to indicate that Persie's welcome to follow. "I've never seen you actually eat anything, so I just took a stab in the dark. What's this?" He raises his index finger to the corresponding place on his own jaw.
"You really did this?" Persie asks, so obviously amazed that all she can do is look at him and at the picnic and back again with big round eyes and an open-mouthed smile. It takes her a moment to unstick her feet from their place and then she has to jog a few steps to catch up. "What did you bring? I eat, well... I'll eat anything. Or try it at least. You should have told me. I could have brought, well.. something. Wine or dessert or..." She puts both hands to her throat, balling happy fists around the striped scarf wrapped there. "What's what?" Her pale brows dip again, looking at his jaw.
N'thei's leaned down to catch the corner of the blanket already, has it in two fingers when he straightens back up. Stepping toward Persie with the other hand outstretched, he reaches toward her chin with his thumb set to indicate the splotch. "This." All her offers for food and drink are met with a simple what-can-ya-do shrug.
"Can I help? I've never been taken on a picnic. What am I supposed to do?" she asks, watching him tend the blanket. First, though, Persie's going to shuck off her jacket, twisting one shoulder free and then the other and dropping it in the grass right where she stands. "Oh, my chin." There's a smile for him and his outstretched hand. "Stupid ashburn. The wind shifted at the last moment and I tried to lean out of the way but it still caught me." Her smile starts to drop. "Is it really ugly?"
N'thei gingerly lays his thumb just outside the realm of the burn, just a little pressure intended to get her to turn her head so he can get a cleaner view. "Really ugly?" Trailing the blanket, he peers a little closer before his fingertips sweep a little pale hair behind her ear, shaking his head; "All you have to do, my dear, is sit and eat and enjoy. And help me spread this on the grass so we don't get soaked from sitting on it. --How can you never have been on a picnic before? That's somewhere between weird and sad."
Her eyes grow big again as his thumb first touches her face, but then, just as something uncertain seems to flare, her lashes drop. "It was pretty red the first night. Not pretty at all," she says, almost murmurs, as he tucks her hair behind her ear. But the shyness starts to disappear as he gives her something to do. Persie bends to take up another corner of the blanket. "I've been on picnics, I've just never been taken on a picnic where... well... like this." She bites her lower lip as she smile at him. "I think I like it, though."
"Dangers of the profession, I guess. But don't worry. You're still cute." N'thei goes from looking a little distantly at Wyaeth to flashing a newly brightened smile at Persie. He unfolds his half of the blanket then, giving the fairly tattered and tired looking thing a comical, one-shouldered shrug. "The Weyrwoman comes here to pick flowers, I think. It's one of those places that's really too pretty for real life." So saying, he lowers his edge of blanket to the grass.
Persie barely gets the blanket flattened out before she turns to drop her backside onto it. "It really is. I like it. It's the very perfect place to have a picnic. Did she recommend it to you?" She looks around with a big, happy sigh and then turns her attention to her boots, thin fingers pulling the laces loose. "Are you going to take yours off?" She twists her foot up to yank off on of her heavy boots, her bright purple sock half pulled off in the process.
Thoughtfully, "No? You couldn't say she recommended it. Not exactly." N'thei looks around though, gray eyes briefly thoughtful before the smile returns to them. "What did you do before you were a candidate? I've been trying to guess." Notably, his attention is now on the bright purple socks, a grin starting to grow while he reaches for the basket of food. There's just a headshake for his own boots and the brief explanation, "My feet aren't pretty."
She leaves that bright sock dangling, her ankle bone gleaming pale above it, and starts to pull off the second boot. "Oh, just take your shoes off. I don't care what your feet look like." The second boot takes the sock clean with it and so she yanks the first off by the toe and stuffs it in its shoe. Against the grass her toes are terribly white and she wiggles and watches them with her chin on her knees. "I was almost a harper. I wasn't good at classes when I was a kid but they said I had a good voice. They brought me to the Hall to see if, well, they could do anything with me. But I wasn't there long before I went to the Weyr on a visit and then I got searched." She lifts and drops her thin shoulders and turns her cheek to her knee so she can smiles at him. "You brought me on a picnic," she says quietly, as if he didn't already know.
N'thei's eyebrows start to go up so that they wind up hitched about halfway up his forehead, surprise registered plainly on his expression; "Almost a harper." He laughs roughly, shaking his head, and turns his attention to his own boot laces promptly afterward-- doesn't take much prompting, evidently. "I did. Speaking of which." Only halfway through the first boot, he picks up the big basket and plops it on the blanket on Persie's side. "Cold wherry, some cheese, bread that's not exactly fresh. Eat, skinny."
Persie sits up to swing her legs around so that she can straddle that basket - nevermind that she twisted the blanket a bit and is now getting grass on it with her bare feet. She pulls out the container of wherry, giving it a sniff and setting it outsider her knee as she digs around for utensils. Instead she comes up with cheese. "What kind is it?" She sniffs at the cheese too.
"Yellow?" N'thei reaches toward Persie's hand to turn over the cheese she's unearthed, adding a brief nod. "Yep. Yellow. Maybe lightish orange." He strips off his boots, socks, and indeed has very ugly feet, big and calloused and just all-around abused as feet go. "Is there a particular cheese that you were hoping for or...?"
She rolls her eyes. "Lightish orange," she laughs as she shakes her head, trying to sound scolding but failing miserably. The cheese gets set aside, too, and next she comes up with a knife and fork. But in lifting her attention from the basket Persie looks at him again and down to those big bare feet. Utensils still in hand, she braces those hands behind her so she can lean back and streeeeetch her long skinny leg and pale wiggling toes towards his nearer foot. Her grin takes on a rather goofy impishness.
Helplessly, N'thei asks, "What did you expect? Tillekian cheddar? It's Weyr cheese." He makes a face, resigned, and has just managed to ditch his second boot-sock combo when Persie's wiggling her toes at his. "So you're trying to make me feel self-conscious about my shovel feet. Classy." He plunks the one foot nearer to Persie's, little toe against her big one, and increases the spread of his own grin at the contrast. "Damn, you're pale."
Persie lets her toes dance along the side of his foot. "No, I'm tring to make you realize that I don't think your feet are all that scary. You're a guy. All guys have big, beat up feet. Well, except for the girly ones. It would be pretty silly if you had feet like mine," she points out, leaning just a little further, her hip twisting off the blanket, so she can brush the ball of her foot over the top of his. Her teeth catch her smile again and the cheese seems quite forgotten.
"Maybe if I had some purple socks--" N'thei scans over Persie's shoulder to where her socks wound up, laughter leaving him quietly once more. "Ah, pale and pretty and playful feet." He flexes his toes fleetingly, then bends his other leg up to cover the top of her foot with the bottom of his, lightly squishing hers against the blanket.
"Watch what you ask for or you might get some purple socks." She wiggles her toes once more and slips her foot from under his, sitting up again, dropping the knife and fork unceremoniously back in the basket. Then she pushes the whole thing aside so that she can shift around the flop onto her back with her blonde hair toward him. For a moment she just lays there and smiles at up him, as if pleased all over again from this new angle. "What about you? Before you impressed?"
N'thei looks equally pleased. And quite a bit smitten from this angle. He's just settled to smoothing the very edges of Persie's hair against the blanket with one hand, resting his weight on the other one. There's a brief trick at the edge of his smile, providing a pause, and he looks at the greenrider's toes instead of her eyes. "I played cards, professionally."
"You can do that?" Persie asks with a laugh. "Well, I guess, I mean... I don't know that I've heard someone say they play professionally. How do you know when you're a professional?" Surely there's nothing but a smile from her. She brings a hand up so that his attention to the shiny pale ends of her hair might just get caught by her slim pale fingers.
"Mm. Yes. If you're good at it. Or you cheat." N'thei had just set to twirling a few strands around his index finger when Persie's hand intervenes, and he carefully unravels the twirl so as not to tug on her hair too strictly. "I Impressed with someone who Impressed like you, when she was young. Do you ever wish you'd had a few turns for yourself first?"
"Time to do what?" Persie asks, though her smile soften and her brows drop down --a certain sign that she's giving his question some thought. Her fingers twist with his. "What would I have done? Even if the Hall had wanted me... what would it have mattered if I was just going to leave it all and be a rider? I doubt they would have." Her smile fades a little more. "I doubt the Harpers would have wanted to keep me."
N'thei threads his fingers back with Persie's, his smile warming by degrees even as hers slips away. "Just time to do something else," he explains with a light shrug. He brings his other hand around presently, putting it down not far from her head, shifting his weight to lean over her more; "If it makes you feel any better, they didn't want to keep me either."
"They didn't..." Persie looks at him and then grows frustrated that he's at such a strange angle and tries to turn her head so she can see him a little better. "You were a harper? Before you played cards? Why didn't they want you? What did you do?" But before he can decide that she assumes he was kicked out, she follows up that question with: "Like, did you sing or write or?" A finger sneaks from his to make a smooth pass across his palm.
N'thei's answer is a while in coming, eventually set to the tune of a little chuckle; "I was an apprentice for a bit, but I developed a gambling addiction and..." He shrugs carelessly, even keeps a smile in his eyes while he relates his little tale of woe, brightened at finger-palm play. "I mostly played the gitar. --Do you know I won't tell anyone else this? About the cards and harper and I'm uncannily comfortable with you. Why do you think that is?" Honest question.
Persie presses her lips together, the light of her eyes softening, knowing despite his shrug and before he all but confirms it with words, that the brief story is a troubling one. "An addiction," she repeats quietly. "Do you still play?" But playiing -what- isn't specified before he has questions of his own. Her teeth start working her lip again and her lashes drop a little. Shy. "I don't know. Does it bother you?" She lifts her gaze to him again, something hopeful and timid there.
"No. 'Strikes me' is more the appropriate term." N'thei answers the question about his continued play with a brief but affirmative lift of his eyebrows and a chagrined smile. "So which is worse? Never getting in to Harper Hall, or leaving because you gamble too much? Sit up and eat some lunch, Persie, before the sun goes down and this little valley gets too cold for soul-baring."
"I guess it depends on how much you want to be a harper?" Persie replies, her own smile growing a little brighter. She reaches her free hand up to his face and just brushes his chin with her forefinger before letting her hand fall to her chest. A teasing twist pulling at her lips. "Is all this talking making you hungry? Where's the part where I lay here while you feed me grapes?" She taps her teeth together and grins broadly.
N'thei laughs broadly at both questions; "I can't keep waxing intellectual if I don't have sustenance." He quirks his chin upward after the tapping then reaches half-across Persie to drag the basket over. "It hasn't got quite the same romantic bend, but you lay there and I'll feed you cold wherry. Just try not to choke to death." And he does actually intend on plunking little bites of food in her mouth for her; they've both been weyrlings at one point, so at least they've had practice?
And so the meal progressed with food shared between them. For all her rather scrawny build, Persie has a healthy appetite and eventually there's just one piece of wherry left. Sitting with her legs swept to the side and her weight propped on a stiff stick of an arm, the greenrider reaches for the last bit and holds it up to N'thei's mouth. "And this one is for you," she declares with every intention of feeding it to him. Her lips are curled in a rather impish smile. And just in case he wants to deny her offer, "I'm stuffed."
N'thei just eats a lot. He's a big guy, so maybe it's understandable? Between the two of them, finishing off one picnic basket about makes sense, and he's just set to loosening a notch on his belt when Persie's got the last piece there, dangling temptation. A chomp later and he snags that last bite, chews slowly slowly slowly. Around half a mouthful, "You should be stuffed. You ate enough for three or four people."
Persie grins back at him, reclaiming her fingers to suck the last bits of wherry juice from their tips one by one. "No, that was you," she tells him. "I just ate enough for one person." Even if that one person might be a body larger than hers. Fingers clean, she wraps her fingers around her striped scarf. "So what do we do now? Try to walk off this meal?" she wonders, wiggling her bare toes.
"I hadn't thought that far in advance." N'thei chews a little longer, really just keeping that piece around because he's got precious little room left in his gut once he swallows it. Which he does, eventually. "But, really, you're going to have to walk pretty damn far if you mean to shed this entire meal." He doesn't seem similarly inclined, winds up leaning back on his own palms with his legs tailor style. "Aren't your feet cold?" Now that he's looking at Persie's toes like he's just noticed them.
"A little," Persie admits, biting her lips in together in an anxious little smile. She swings her feet around in front of her and slides them towards the bronzerider, wiggling her toes again. But the movement makes her grimace and then laugh, "Oof, I -am- full. Why did you make me eat so much?" An empty accusation as it's surely not his fault. "Are you cold?" she asks, frowning a little. "Do you need to get back?"
N'thei, calmly curious, "Do you always worry so much?" After taking a few moments to chafe his palms together, he curls them around Persie's toes, heat-transfer style. "Relax already. Digest. If I was cold or needed to get back, I'd let you know. Don't worry."
Persie cannot help but grin as he wraps his hands around her toes, a grin that turns into a barely-withheld little giggle. "I don't know. Am I being worrisome? Is that the right words? Or is that something that you worry -about-?" She wrinkles her nose and laughs those thoughts away, choosing instead to wrap her arms under her thighs and drop her chin to her knees. "Oh, so full," she groans, reminded of it again as she takes this stomach-pinching position. "I like the picnic," she tells him, her lashes low as she watches his hands instead of his face.
"Worrisome is both. Someone who worries, and something you worry ab--" N'thei stops and raises a hand to Persie when she supplies her own answer, head dipped in a partial nod, there-you-go. "Good. The idea was that you'd like the picnic. It didn't seem like we ought to keep meeting in bars or quick-hellos on lake shores." He returns to warming Persie's feet, just barely chafing the tops of them with his palms; "And it's a good excuse to be around you. I like you. You're not complicated."
For his last words, Persie peers up at him looking indeed a little worried. As she sits up a bit, a hand comes up to pull the loose loop of her scarf up over her nose, hiding her mouth like a veil for a moment. Her pale brows start to pinch together and she lowers the scarf but still holds it, ready to hide again. "Would you like me less then? If I was complicated?" It's a quiet, thoughtful question, but somehow sounds a touch sad as well.
N'thei begins with a questioning, "I don't know?" He pats her feet a couple of times, then resumes resting on his palms with a sideways look at the half-veiled Persie. "Is that a not-so-clever way of letting me know that you're actually a big bundle of crazy and I should get while the getting's good?" He plays it poker-faced except for the amusement tricking the corner of his mouth half-upward.
Now she does look pained: the curve of her eyebrows and the hard press of her teeth into her lip. Persie catches her chin in her scraf and bows her head enough to sheild the rest of her expression. "Probably," she answers, missing the hint of amusement on his mouth. She lifts and drops a thin shoulder, seems to start to say something else but just falls quiet.
With eyebrows climbing, N'thei gradually goes from wholly amused to a tint of intrigue. "So what's the complication?" He reaches over with that question, intent on moving the pale hair back behind Persie's ear again, to follow through with a finger hooked under her chin, none of this lowered eyes and hidden expression business.
Persie lifts her chin, letting the scarf fall away, though her eyes take another moment before they look up at him. Her expression is plainly lost and miserable and while she doesn't have an answer, errant twitches about her brows, eyes and mouth imply that she's trying to think of something to say. In the end she just pushes a weak and lopsided smile onto her lips. "Now I'm ruining our lovely picnic," she tells him softly.
N'thei shakes his head calmly, unfazed, and brushes the pad of his thumb across the line of Persie's jaw before he withdraws his hand. "You're not. But if you don't want to talk about it, I won't make you." With an inviting tone, certainly still open for discussion. "Just-- I'll take my chances that it's a tolerable complication."
With a slow breath, Persie seems at least mildly more at ease, though her eyes are still big and round. "Okay," she says, a bit breathless. But she hugs her legs again. "You're so nice to me," she tells him. "With the tequilla and the scarf and this picnic." And yet she seems troubled by it anyway. She takes a long, rallying inhale and sits up again, always shifting it seems. "You're sure I haven't ruined our picnic? I do like it so much. No one's ever done this for me before." She smiles then, and if it isn't her usual perky smile it is at least genuine and warm, affectionate.
"I'm sure. But I think our picnic is at an end anyway." This as N'thei looks up, watching the sun slink behind the rim of the valley, the shadows steadily deepening in the very early twilight. "It gets cold quick once the sun's gone. If your toes were cold before..." He chatters his teeth pointedly and reaches for his own socks, apparently okay with Persie's whole troubled undertone. Or at least pretending very well. "There'll be more scarves or tequila or picnics, but not if we wind up with pneumonia."
"You're right," Persie answerly easily, twisting to reach behind her for her own socks. She gives them each a shake before slipping them on and then she's up on her knees, attempting to pack up the remnants of the picnic, spent containers and empty wrappings. During it all she chances only little peeks at her untroubled host. "I..." she starts to say, but then, well, she doesn't.
N'thei gets his own shoes and socks on with only minor difficulties, mainly in that his fingers have acquired a chill and his boots still have knots in the laces, but it all works out in the end. He's just pulled the second one on when Persie fails to finish another sentence, and he's looking over with a crooked brow; "You...? Have a tendency not to complete your thoughts?" Cheeky smile.
"I guess so," she answers, swinging her blonde hair out of the way as she looks up to smile at him. She reaches a hand out, apparently ready to stand with the basket. "I don't..." But when she does it again, Persie can only laugh at herself. "You'll just have to learn how to read my mind, I guess."
Taking the obvious joke, N'thei asks happily, "A quick read but a pleasant one?" Unraveling from his own seat, he reaches down a hand to help haul Persie to her feet-- such an effort on his part, too-- with the plan to take the basket shortly thereafter. "And thank you for coming to keep me company. It would have been a stupid amount of food for one person."
Persie lets out a bright scoff, or a nearly-bright one at least, for his joke, but at least she's smiling as he helps her up. She may pass him the basket but her hand keeps his and she looks up at him, obviously weighing and considering... something. She steps a little closer and hesitates again. When her fingers release him, her arms reach up tenatively as if they might like to wind over his shoulders, as if they might dare to hug him.
N'thei is huggable. It's part and parcel of being oversized. It only really takes one arm to adequately enfold Persie anyway, so the other hangs slack at his side with the basket while he leans down enough to rest his cheek against the top of her pale head a moment.
Persie is up on her toes when she presses herself against him, her cheek resting on the warmth of his chest. She lingers there for a moment, enough to let the rise and fall of breaths pass before she steps back. The breath she takes then shakes a little and she lets it out heavily, like a weight lifted. Her smile, complete with that giddy, impish touch, comes back and she steps off the blanket and into her boots, snagging the blanket's edge while she's down there and her jacket as well. The former, while neatly folded on their arrival is just sort of wound up into a ball before she hands it to him. "Thank you," she says, perhaps a touch shy but grinning widely anyway.
"You said that already." N'thei nods sagely, slowly, and takes the blanket simply to loop it across his shoulders for now. Whatever reaction he has to the whole hug-factor is similarly subdued; apparently, overt reactions aren't his forte. He just smooths a hand down the front of his shirt, smiling mildly as he starts pacing backward toward Wyaeth-- who probably wasn't waiting there the whole time, since that would be way too considerate and convenient. "I'll see you, Persie." Statement of fact!