I never.
RL Date: 8/23/08
IC Date: 7/18/17
Tiriana's Weyr, High Reaches Weyr
A short tunnel and a handful of stairs lead up from the ledge to this weyr, its austerity tempered by little touches of welcome added here and there. A thick, sunshine-yellow shag rug before the hearth breaks the monotony of the stone floor and offsets the ruddy tint of the hearth, inlaid with a square pattern of bricks along the floor; they also rise to form a decorative arc around its outline. The mantle boasts two glass ornaments, one at either end, of matched shipfish rising from the surf, while at the edge of the yellow rug sits a older but comfortable-looking dark blue couch. On the opposite side of the room is a stone table and by it, a utilitarian bookshelf that holds a set of hides labeled as the Weyr's history as well as a richly-covered crimson writing box. A tunnel to the east leads down to the Weyrleader's complex.
At the back of the wewyr, bedroom and bath are only made distinct by two walls that rise three quarters of the way to the ceiling. Behind one wall lies a well-crafted canopy bed with furs and sheets and a generous blanket in faded blue; made of fine broomwood, its posts feature carvings that spiral upward into patterned leaves and wooden roses also reflected on the double-doored wardrobe, the decorations clearly the work of an experienced carpenter. A couple of trunks are also set here, beside the wardrobe set against the side wall. Next to the bedroom, and just to the other side of that other wall, is the bathroom, an elevated stone bath built into its back wall. Ancient plumbing ensures hot water when needed, and instead of a vanity, a single shelf is carved out just above the tub. It's filled with baby blue towels and an assortment of ceramic jars of bath oils, shampoo, soaps, and scented soap sand. Hung on the opposite wall is a full-length mirror, slightly warped.
The place's been cleaned up some since the last time N'thei saw it--in fact, since the last time Satiet saw it, as the trunks are put away and all the clothes are unpacked and the scrolls restocked. Iovniath's dozing on her couch and Tiriana on hers, bare feet stretched out over one arm and head propped at the other. The set of straps she's nominally been mending are in a pile on the floor beside her.
N'thei must be counting on it being midday/early evening and thus likely that Tiriana's decent, since he walks in without giving the goldrider so much as a throat-clear for warning. Bottle, shot-glasses, purposeful stride. Whether those things have any relation to the reason he's come to this particular weyr remains to be seen. Six steps into the weyr, time enough to drag a look across her lounging like that, time enough to shake his head and sigh in disappointment; "No wonder."
Footsteps, again; Tiriana props up on her elbows to see who it is. She doesn't apparently expect N'thei, to judge by the uncomprehending expression on her face, and it takes a couple of seconds to regain enough thought to speak up. "Do you people ever knock?" she asks, waspish in tone as she pulls her legs in and then stands up, folding her arms. "What do you want now?"
Time enough for N'thei's eyebrows to raise, his head to cock-- "Knock?" He glances over his shoulder toward the entrance, tries to correlate knocking with coming into a room, fails, and turns back to Tiriana with a dismissive sniff. "Sit back down." While he crosses the room, giving its contents a look that can only be termed possessive; goldrider included.
"Yes, knock." His confusion over that request does little to improve Tiriana's humor; nor does his dismissive order or his poking about. "Don't go getting into my stuff, either," she warns. But she does sit down, flumping heavily down on the couch and staring at the hearth for the whole two seconds she can manage it. Then she's twisting about to look behind her, and watch his progress again.
It being cleaned up, there's not as much stuff to get into, but N'thei stops to poke one of the shipfish-bobbers on the mantel with a bemused expression. Don't go getting into her stuff, "Or else what?" He turns to ask that question with his smile expectant, all primed to hear what threat she might dream up for him. Now to approach Tiriana herself with one of the two glasses held toward her from the tips of his fingers, the command mute this time but still clear: take this now.
"Or--just don't already. You'll break it," Tiriana settles for a flat repetition of that command, voice rising a little when he touches one of the glass ornaments. It's still not much of an answer, so she pulls her feet back up on the couch with her and scowls, even when he offers her the glass, which she holds delicately in two fingers. "What is it?"
An empty one, no less. "It's a glass." N'thei, standing not so far from Tiriana, does a tremendous job of looking down at her like she's a little idiot, his smile returning to disappointment. "Haven't decided if I trust you here yet, already know you don't like me. Two birds, one bottle. Hold this." The bottle, the base of which he extends toward her while he holds on to the neck. "And invite me to sit down."
Defensively, "I know that. I meant--why. Or something." Tiriana draws up further, folding one arm back over her stomach with glass in hand; the other hand reaches out to take the bottle mechanically. "Fine. Sit, then," she grates out, with effort; that disappointed smile sits unhappily on her. "Is this supposed to make me like you, or vice versa?"
Fine. N'thei sits, then. At the far end of the sofa, a little gingerly till he's sure it's sturdily made and there won't be some sort of catastrophe once his weight's settled. Ah, very good. "Pour." He holds out his glass toward the bottle, whiskey, easy as it gets, and he actually answers her question this time. "Going to get to know each other, my newest darling. Did you ever play I-Never?"
Tiriana has to lean over to pour, very carefully; retreating back to her end of the sofa, she fills hero own as well. "I've heard of it," she admits, this time more leery than outright hostile. "Never played. My family doesn't waste time playing games when we want to drink. --I'm not your darling, either."
"Your family." N'thei brushes his his thumbnail across his lower lip a second, files that fact away to be later paraded out and used against her in a court of law-- quart of whisky. "Simple game, love. You say something true that you've never done that you think I have. If I've done it, I'll have a drink. If I haven't, I skip. And vice versa. Easy enough?" Settled, one arm over the arm of the sofa, drink held by a triangle of fingers, he smiles almost pleasantly at poor poor poor Tiriana.
Tiriana shuts up right quickly about her family, mouth a thin line as she regards him and finally nods, just barely. "Simple enough," she repeats then, and glances down at her drink with a wrinkle of her nose. "Who wins, whoever's soberest at the end? You start, I'm not starting." And she sneaks a glance back sideways at him, expectant.
Oh; "I'll win. But it's nice to get-to-know-you." So N'thei purses his lips like he's actually thinking of a question, looks directly at Tiriana for all her sidelong glances, and poses, "I never... had to be adopted by another Weyr because my first one didn't want me any more." Whee~
"Bastard." And they're off to such a great start. She glares and she flushes, just a little but, but Tiriana drinks big, a girl with little concept of moderation. At least she doesn't start choking or coughing on the whiskey. "I never got caught stealing from another Weyr," she retorts then, with a sniff.
N'thei drinks none, counters with a big smile, "Hold. Got caught stealing from a Hold." The glass tibbles between his fingers, untouched, and he casts a look toward the ceiling as if for inspiration. "I never thought I was important because my daddy was a Weyrleader."
"It was our hold," is Tiriana's answer to that, with a challenging look. "Cheater." She drinks anyway, with another glower for the second point off of her. "/I/ never got scored 'cause I was such a shitty rider." Also didn't fight thread, but forget that part for now.
N'thei thinks longer than he really should get to about that, hedges back and forth on whether or not to count it on the technicality, then tips the glass and swallows with his teeth on edge only a moment. He holds the glass out to be refilled dutifully with a sniff to clear his nose after the drink goes down. "I never had a ride on a gold dragon. --This is easy."
"You better--" Tiriana starts to warn when N'thei hesitates, but he drinks and she's placated for the moment. Just a moment, before she's staring at him, mouth opening in apparent outrage. "That's pathetic," she says of his last question. "Three questions in and that's all you can come up with?" With a roll of her eyes, she drinks, and then refills her glass again before she gets around to doing his, too.
"Do you want me to go again?" N'thei looks pointedly at Tiriana's glass, emptied three times, and then his own. One time.
She doesn't answer, just gives him a withering look. "I still never spent time in jail." She'll get him for that Crom thing yet.
Before he drinks, N'thei points out the obvious fact-- "Yet. Give us time, darling." Down the hatch, extend the arm. "I never had to move away from someone I love without the chance to say goodbye." Briefly. "Because I was too chickenshit to put up a fight."
Stung, Tiriana only half-registers to arm extended for a refill; this time, she just shoves the whole bottle at him and turns away. "I never--" she begins, sullenly; intro to a question or perhaps a protest to his. She drinks anyway, a quick gulp before she crosses her arms back. "I don't want to play anymore."
N'thei takes the bottle quickly, a sin to let it fall, and follows through the same motion to try and pull the glass from her fingers at the sudden sullenness. "No one asked you what you want," he says, strumming the running theme of Tiriana's deportment.
Tiriana, letting him take the glass and bottle from her, shrugs her shoulders. "Nobody ever does," she grumbles then, more to herself than him. With her martyr's mantle taken up, she sniffs ones more and then comes up with, "I never did a girl."
"Oh, you poor little girl, all pinned down and abused. At least give me the humor of a stubborn tear or two." N'thei shoves the glass back toward Tiriana once it's full, a splash over the rim, a drop down the outside. He just uses the bottle for his drinks now, shotglass on the arm of her sofa, teeth once more edgy while it goes down. I-never-- "No? Shame. Never fucked a man myself. Drink it."
"Flights count," Tiriana throws that addendum in there, turning back just a little bit to eye him, see if that changes the outcome. Regardless, she drinks herself, with a little grimace, while the glass is promptly held back out again afterward. She'll probably need it again right fast, after all. Eyes narrowing, a considering look; "Never loved a girl, either."
N'thei shakes his head firmly, volunteers, "All golds. Well, and Vrianth, but we don't count that. --Have to find some pretty brownrider to cozy up to Iovniath, thought could keep me busy for weeks." Drip drip to fill the glass to the brim before the bottle comes back. He stops it partway to his mouth again, tilted a little to the side, ready for the drink but not there yet. "/A/ girl sort of implies only one at a time, neh?"
"Aren't you lucky," Tiriana answers, and then snorts at the idea of a brownrider. "She'd never. She has better standards than that," she says, firm on her dragon's opinions. As for his clarification, she shrugs, rolls her eyes again. At least the sulkiness is somewhat past. "Fine. Never loved /any/ girls in any amount at any time," she elaborates her question, exasperated. "Just drink the damn stuff already."
N'thei, surprised or playing that he is; "Do you really believe that." About the brown, the girl, his cozy fantasy. Hmph, "Shame." Swig. Where's this put them? Five to four? Six to five? "I never... I never never never..." Had to stop and think of a good challenge. "I never got slapped by Satiet." Which is a lie, but at least he has the grace to set the bottle against his lower lip like he'll take his once she takes hers. "What did she hit you for anyway."
Once more, Tiriana doesn't look quite like she believes it, her mouth tightening as she regards him. She drinks anyway. "I punched A'son," she answers, curt at best. Quickly, moving along. "Never had to pay for sex." Out of good questions, time for shots in the dark.
To be fair, N'thei drinks for his-- not hers. Hers catches him with the drink still in his mouth, makes him cough while it runs down the wrong pipe. "Neither have I. Used to be damn handsome, thanks." He does take umbrage, though his voice is raw from the wrong-pipe issue. After mumbling pay-for-sex, he counters crossly, "I never punched A'son." Another thought to keep him warm at night though!
Tiriana snorts, a definite yeah-right response to that--both previous handsomeness and never having actually done it. She does raise the glass up to her mouth, but quickly stops, lowering it again. "Technically," she admits, "it was more /trying/ to punch A'son than actually doing it." No drink after all, win! "I never got myself permanently fucked up in a fight. Still pretty," she points out with a definitely smug smirk.
N'thei drinks, but not before commenting, "Can change that." Bottle tucked against his chest after that, fingers held around the neck, he eyes Tiriana suspiciously; if he's this drunk, outweighs her two-to-one at least... "Wait. Why would try and punch A'son. Everyone loves A'son."
Tiriana eyes the bottle when he pulls it in, her lips pursing poutily. Just when she was starting to come back on him, too! The question earns a shrug, though, and she turns sideways on the couch to face him, her back propped up on the armrest and legs pulled up to her chest. "I never liked him," is her sulky answer. "He was a jerk to me. Him and his whole family, that brother I met the other day, and wasn't there another jerk brother. And his sister that searched me, all of them. Jerks."
N'thei muses, "Brother... brother... The stable kid? Oz-something. Jolak's the other one. Didn't know he had a sister." Or knew and didn't care enough to retain the knowledge. If she's still upwardly mobile-- he reaches across to splash her glass full again and casts about for whose turn. Ah yes; "I never wanted something I couldn't get." On the limb.
Tiriana shrugs regarding the brother; the sister, "Carys. Bluerider back home." This time, her glass is eyed longer, and she makes a face before she leans to rest her chin on her knees, arms loose around them. "Try again," she tells him. "'N' I don't believe you, either."
Eyebrows up. "So you want me to believe it's true for you." Perfectly. Clean. Enunciation. "But it can't be true for me?" N'thei issues a short, derisive chuckle. "Believe it. Don't believe it. Still a fact. Go."
"Got everything I ever wanted," Tiriana answers, with a tiny little shake of her head. "Iovniath. You--" She doesn't finish up how he's different from her there. Instead, "I don't know. I don't want to know anything else. Can't be anything else worth knowing."
N'thei puts his teeth across his lip for a second, thinks with one eye squinted. Everything she ever wanted; "What's his name? R'uen? A'zan's little friend, neh?" One elbow rests heavily on the arm of the chair, his chin propped on his hand for a second before he takes a sudden, sharp breath. "There isn't. You're not going to choke on your tongue or anything when I go, are you."
"I got him, too," Tiriana answers, defensively; her hands tighten around her legs. "In fact, he'll be here soon and he'll be pissed you got me drunk. You /should/ go. Now."
"Or else what?" N'thei likes that question.
"Or else what do you think?" Tiriana grows more agitated with the continued use of that question and her continued lack of a snappy retort. "He'll kick the shit out of you and make you even uglier. He would, too, for me. So there."
That gets a laugh, so good for Tiriana. N'thei sloooouuuches in to the cushions like he's got no intentions on going anywhere, still snickering. "I've seen your boy." /Boy./ "Help me up. Far be it for me to start a lover's quarrel when you two have more than enough to drive you apart already."
"Get yourself up," retorts Tiriana, hurt flashing across her face at his laughter, anger draining into sullenness. She starts to stand herself, gets as far as sliding her feet to the floor before she thinks better of it. "Get yourself up," repeated as she settles for nestling deeper back into the corner of the couch, far away from him. "We're fine. We'll make it. Nobody ever writes songs about the ones that come easy," she answers, with a shake of her head and a very definite, very miserable sniff in her voice.
Dammit, getting up was not part of the master plan here. N'thei fires a hateful look to her refusal of assistance while he wraps a hand around the front side of the sofa-arm. "Yeah they do," he says, a groan in his voice while he pries himself to his feet. "Call them songs like... 'Actually happy and not just deluding ourselves' or 'still together and not halfway across the continent from each other.'" Generously, he turns the bottle toward Tiriana; not so generously, he simply must ask, "Do you cry when you're drunk. Would like to see that."
"Then go tell Satiet, she told me first," snaps Tiriana, who ignores the bottle pointed her way and instead slides lower down on the couch, feet pulled up again now that she's got the whole thing to herself again. She insists, "I'm not crying," although she doesn't look at him and her voice is tight with the threat of it. "Just--get out of my weyr."
N'thei puts the bottle down on the floor beside the couch, a risky move what with the requirement that he bend over and then straighten up afterward. Still standing! "Sounds like something she'd say." Parting words, since he strolls out on that note, happily drunk and having made someone else miserable. What a productive day for him~
IC Date: 7/18/17
Tiriana's Weyr, High Reaches Weyr
A short tunnel and a handful of stairs lead up from the ledge to this weyr, its austerity tempered by little touches of welcome added here and there. A thick, sunshine-yellow shag rug before the hearth breaks the monotony of the stone floor and offsets the ruddy tint of the hearth, inlaid with a square pattern of bricks along the floor; they also rise to form a decorative arc around its outline. The mantle boasts two glass ornaments, one at either end, of matched shipfish rising from the surf, while at the edge of the yellow rug sits a older but comfortable-looking dark blue couch. On the opposite side of the room is a stone table and by it, a utilitarian bookshelf that holds a set of hides labeled as the Weyr's history as well as a richly-covered crimson writing box. A tunnel to the east leads down to the Weyrleader's complex.
At the back of the wewyr, bedroom and bath are only made distinct by two walls that rise three quarters of the way to the ceiling. Behind one wall lies a well-crafted canopy bed with furs and sheets and a generous blanket in faded blue; made of fine broomwood, its posts feature carvings that spiral upward into patterned leaves and wooden roses also reflected on the double-doored wardrobe, the decorations clearly the work of an experienced carpenter. A couple of trunks are also set here, beside the wardrobe set against the side wall. Next to the bedroom, and just to the other side of that other wall, is the bathroom, an elevated stone bath built into its back wall. Ancient plumbing ensures hot water when needed, and instead of a vanity, a single shelf is carved out just above the tub. It's filled with baby blue towels and an assortment of ceramic jars of bath oils, shampoo, soaps, and scented soap sand. Hung on the opposite wall is a full-length mirror, slightly warped.
The place's been cleaned up some since the last time N'thei saw it--in fact, since the last time Satiet saw it, as the trunks are put away and all the clothes are unpacked and the scrolls restocked. Iovniath's dozing on her couch and Tiriana on hers, bare feet stretched out over one arm and head propped at the other. The set of straps she's nominally been mending are in a pile on the floor beside her.
N'thei must be counting on it being midday/early evening and thus likely that Tiriana's decent, since he walks in without giving the goldrider so much as a throat-clear for warning. Bottle, shot-glasses, purposeful stride. Whether those things have any relation to the reason he's come to this particular weyr remains to be seen. Six steps into the weyr, time enough to drag a look across her lounging like that, time enough to shake his head and sigh in disappointment; "No wonder."
Footsteps, again; Tiriana props up on her elbows to see who it is. She doesn't apparently expect N'thei, to judge by the uncomprehending expression on her face, and it takes a couple of seconds to regain enough thought to speak up. "Do you people ever knock?" she asks, waspish in tone as she pulls her legs in and then stands up, folding her arms. "What do you want now?"
Time enough for N'thei's eyebrows to raise, his head to cock-- "Knock?" He glances over his shoulder toward the entrance, tries to correlate knocking with coming into a room, fails, and turns back to Tiriana with a dismissive sniff. "Sit back down." While he crosses the room, giving its contents a look that can only be termed possessive; goldrider included.
"Yes, knock." His confusion over that request does little to improve Tiriana's humor; nor does his dismissive order or his poking about. "Don't go getting into my stuff, either," she warns. But she does sit down, flumping heavily down on the couch and staring at the hearth for the whole two seconds she can manage it. Then she's twisting about to look behind her, and watch his progress again.
It being cleaned up, there's not as much stuff to get into, but N'thei stops to poke one of the shipfish-bobbers on the mantel with a bemused expression. Don't go getting into her stuff, "Or else what?" He turns to ask that question with his smile expectant, all primed to hear what threat she might dream up for him. Now to approach Tiriana herself with one of the two glasses held toward her from the tips of his fingers, the command mute this time but still clear: take this now.
"Or--just don't already. You'll break it," Tiriana settles for a flat repetition of that command, voice rising a little when he touches one of the glass ornaments. It's still not much of an answer, so she pulls her feet back up on the couch with her and scowls, even when he offers her the glass, which she holds delicately in two fingers. "What is it?"
An empty one, no less. "It's a glass." N'thei, standing not so far from Tiriana, does a tremendous job of looking down at her like she's a little idiot, his smile returning to disappointment. "Haven't decided if I trust you here yet, already know you don't like me. Two birds, one bottle. Hold this." The bottle, the base of which he extends toward her while he holds on to the neck. "And invite me to sit down."
Defensively, "I know that. I meant--why. Or something." Tiriana draws up further, folding one arm back over her stomach with glass in hand; the other hand reaches out to take the bottle mechanically. "Fine. Sit, then," she grates out, with effort; that disappointed smile sits unhappily on her. "Is this supposed to make me like you, or vice versa?"
Fine. N'thei sits, then. At the far end of the sofa, a little gingerly till he's sure it's sturdily made and there won't be some sort of catastrophe once his weight's settled. Ah, very good. "Pour." He holds out his glass toward the bottle, whiskey, easy as it gets, and he actually answers her question this time. "Going to get to know each other, my newest darling. Did you ever play I-Never?"
Tiriana has to lean over to pour, very carefully; retreating back to her end of the sofa, she fills hero own as well. "I've heard of it," she admits, this time more leery than outright hostile. "Never played. My family doesn't waste time playing games when we want to drink. --I'm not your darling, either."
"Your family." N'thei brushes his his thumbnail across his lower lip a second, files that fact away to be later paraded out and used against her in a court of law-- quart of whisky. "Simple game, love. You say something true that you've never done that you think I have. If I've done it, I'll have a drink. If I haven't, I skip. And vice versa. Easy enough?" Settled, one arm over the arm of the sofa, drink held by a triangle of fingers, he smiles almost pleasantly at poor poor poor Tiriana.
Tiriana shuts up right quickly about her family, mouth a thin line as she regards him and finally nods, just barely. "Simple enough," she repeats then, and glances down at her drink with a wrinkle of her nose. "Who wins, whoever's soberest at the end? You start, I'm not starting." And she sneaks a glance back sideways at him, expectant.
Oh; "I'll win. But it's nice to get-to-know-you." So N'thei purses his lips like he's actually thinking of a question, looks directly at Tiriana for all her sidelong glances, and poses, "I never... had to be adopted by another Weyr because my first one didn't want me any more." Whee~
"Bastard." And they're off to such a great start. She glares and she flushes, just a little but, but Tiriana drinks big, a girl with little concept of moderation. At least she doesn't start choking or coughing on the whiskey. "I never got caught stealing from another Weyr," she retorts then, with a sniff.
N'thei drinks none, counters with a big smile, "Hold. Got caught stealing from a Hold." The glass tibbles between his fingers, untouched, and he casts a look toward the ceiling as if for inspiration. "I never thought I was important because my daddy was a Weyrleader."
"It was our hold," is Tiriana's answer to that, with a challenging look. "Cheater." She drinks anyway, with another glower for the second point off of her. "/I/ never got scored 'cause I was such a shitty rider." Also didn't fight thread, but forget that part for now.
N'thei thinks longer than he really should get to about that, hedges back and forth on whether or not to count it on the technicality, then tips the glass and swallows with his teeth on edge only a moment. He holds the glass out to be refilled dutifully with a sniff to clear his nose after the drink goes down. "I never had a ride on a gold dragon. --This is easy."
"You better--" Tiriana starts to warn when N'thei hesitates, but he drinks and she's placated for the moment. Just a moment, before she's staring at him, mouth opening in apparent outrage. "That's pathetic," she says of his last question. "Three questions in and that's all you can come up with?" With a roll of her eyes, she drinks, and then refills her glass again before she gets around to doing his, too.
"Do you want me to go again?" N'thei looks pointedly at Tiriana's glass, emptied three times, and then his own. One time.
She doesn't answer, just gives him a withering look. "I still never spent time in jail." She'll get him for that Crom thing yet.
Before he drinks, N'thei points out the obvious fact-- "Yet. Give us time, darling." Down the hatch, extend the arm. "I never had to move away from someone I love without the chance to say goodbye." Briefly. "Because I was too chickenshit to put up a fight."
Stung, Tiriana only half-registers to arm extended for a refill; this time, she just shoves the whole bottle at him and turns away. "I never--" she begins, sullenly; intro to a question or perhaps a protest to his. She drinks anyway, a quick gulp before she crosses her arms back. "I don't want to play anymore."
N'thei takes the bottle quickly, a sin to let it fall, and follows through the same motion to try and pull the glass from her fingers at the sudden sullenness. "No one asked you what you want," he says, strumming the running theme of Tiriana's deportment.
Tiriana, letting him take the glass and bottle from her, shrugs her shoulders. "Nobody ever does," she grumbles then, more to herself than him. With her martyr's mantle taken up, she sniffs ones more and then comes up with, "I never did a girl."
"Oh, you poor little girl, all pinned down and abused. At least give me the humor of a stubborn tear or two." N'thei shoves the glass back toward Tiriana once it's full, a splash over the rim, a drop down the outside. He just uses the bottle for his drinks now, shotglass on the arm of her sofa, teeth once more edgy while it goes down. I-never-- "No? Shame. Never fucked a man myself. Drink it."
"Flights count," Tiriana throws that addendum in there, turning back just a little bit to eye him, see if that changes the outcome. Regardless, she drinks herself, with a little grimace, while the glass is promptly held back out again afterward. She'll probably need it again right fast, after all. Eyes narrowing, a considering look; "Never loved a girl, either."
N'thei shakes his head firmly, volunteers, "All golds. Well, and Vrianth, but we don't count that. --Have to find some pretty brownrider to cozy up to Iovniath, thought could keep me busy for weeks." Drip drip to fill the glass to the brim before the bottle comes back. He stops it partway to his mouth again, tilted a little to the side, ready for the drink but not there yet. "/A/ girl sort of implies only one at a time, neh?"
"Aren't you lucky," Tiriana answers, and then snorts at the idea of a brownrider. "She'd never. She has better standards than that," she says, firm on her dragon's opinions. As for his clarification, she shrugs, rolls her eyes again. At least the sulkiness is somewhat past. "Fine. Never loved /any/ girls in any amount at any time," she elaborates her question, exasperated. "Just drink the damn stuff already."
N'thei, surprised or playing that he is; "Do you really believe that." About the brown, the girl, his cozy fantasy. Hmph, "Shame." Swig. Where's this put them? Five to four? Six to five? "I never... I never never never..." Had to stop and think of a good challenge. "I never got slapped by Satiet." Which is a lie, but at least he has the grace to set the bottle against his lower lip like he'll take his once she takes hers. "What did she hit you for anyway."
Once more, Tiriana doesn't look quite like she believes it, her mouth tightening as she regards him. She drinks anyway. "I punched A'son," she answers, curt at best. Quickly, moving along. "Never had to pay for sex." Out of good questions, time for shots in the dark.
To be fair, N'thei drinks for his-- not hers. Hers catches him with the drink still in his mouth, makes him cough while it runs down the wrong pipe. "Neither have I. Used to be damn handsome, thanks." He does take umbrage, though his voice is raw from the wrong-pipe issue. After mumbling pay-for-sex, he counters crossly, "I never punched A'son." Another thought to keep him warm at night though!
Tiriana snorts, a definite yeah-right response to that--both previous handsomeness and never having actually done it. She does raise the glass up to her mouth, but quickly stops, lowering it again. "Technically," she admits, "it was more /trying/ to punch A'son than actually doing it." No drink after all, win! "I never got myself permanently fucked up in a fight. Still pretty," she points out with a definitely smug smirk.
N'thei drinks, but not before commenting, "Can change that." Bottle tucked against his chest after that, fingers held around the neck, he eyes Tiriana suspiciously; if he's this drunk, outweighs her two-to-one at least... "Wait. Why would try and punch A'son. Everyone loves A'son."
Tiriana eyes the bottle when he pulls it in, her lips pursing poutily. Just when she was starting to come back on him, too! The question earns a shrug, though, and she turns sideways on the couch to face him, her back propped up on the armrest and legs pulled up to her chest. "I never liked him," is her sulky answer. "He was a jerk to me. Him and his whole family, that brother I met the other day, and wasn't there another jerk brother. And his sister that searched me, all of them. Jerks."
N'thei muses, "Brother... brother... The stable kid? Oz-something. Jolak's the other one. Didn't know he had a sister." Or knew and didn't care enough to retain the knowledge. If she's still upwardly mobile-- he reaches across to splash her glass full again and casts about for whose turn. Ah yes; "I never wanted something I couldn't get." On the limb.
Tiriana shrugs regarding the brother; the sister, "Carys. Bluerider back home." This time, her glass is eyed longer, and she makes a face before she leans to rest her chin on her knees, arms loose around them. "Try again," she tells him. "'N' I don't believe you, either."
Eyebrows up. "So you want me to believe it's true for you." Perfectly. Clean. Enunciation. "But it can't be true for me?" N'thei issues a short, derisive chuckle. "Believe it. Don't believe it. Still a fact. Go."
"Got everything I ever wanted," Tiriana answers, with a tiny little shake of her head. "Iovniath. You--" She doesn't finish up how he's different from her there. Instead, "I don't know. I don't want to know anything else. Can't be anything else worth knowing."
N'thei puts his teeth across his lip for a second, thinks with one eye squinted. Everything she ever wanted; "What's his name? R'uen? A'zan's little friend, neh?" One elbow rests heavily on the arm of the chair, his chin propped on his hand for a second before he takes a sudden, sharp breath. "There isn't. You're not going to choke on your tongue or anything when I go, are you."
"I got him, too," Tiriana answers, defensively; her hands tighten around her legs. "In fact, he'll be here soon and he'll be pissed you got me drunk. You /should/ go. Now."
"Or else what?" N'thei likes that question.
"Or else what do you think?" Tiriana grows more agitated with the continued use of that question and her continued lack of a snappy retort. "He'll kick the shit out of you and make you even uglier. He would, too, for me. So there."
That gets a laugh, so good for Tiriana. N'thei sloooouuuches in to the cushions like he's got no intentions on going anywhere, still snickering. "I've seen your boy." /Boy./ "Help me up. Far be it for me to start a lover's quarrel when you two have more than enough to drive you apart already."
"Get yourself up," retorts Tiriana, hurt flashing across her face at his laughter, anger draining into sullenness. She starts to stand herself, gets as far as sliding her feet to the floor before she thinks better of it. "Get yourself up," repeated as she settles for nestling deeper back into the corner of the couch, far away from him. "We're fine. We'll make it. Nobody ever writes songs about the ones that come easy," she answers, with a shake of her head and a very definite, very miserable sniff in her voice.
Dammit, getting up was not part of the master plan here. N'thei fires a hateful look to her refusal of assistance while he wraps a hand around the front side of the sofa-arm. "Yeah they do," he says, a groan in his voice while he pries himself to his feet. "Call them songs like... 'Actually happy and not just deluding ourselves' or 'still together and not halfway across the continent from each other.'" Generously, he turns the bottle toward Tiriana; not so generously, he simply must ask, "Do you cry when you're drunk. Would like to see that."
"Then go tell Satiet, she told me first," snaps Tiriana, who ignores the bottle pointed her way and instead slides lower down on the couch, feet pulled up again now that she's got the whole thing to herself again. She insists, "I'm not crying," although she doesn't look at him and her voice is tight with the threat of it. "Just--get out of my weyr."
N'thei puts the bottle down on the floor beside the couch, a risky move what with the requirement that he bend over and then straighten up afterward. Still standing! "Sounds like something she'd say." Parting words, since he strolls out on that note, happily drunk and having made someone else miserable. What a productive day for him~