Leova did not make soup for Alex.
RL Date: 3/6/09
IC Date: 2/15/19
Nighthearth, High Reaches Weyr
With its entrance located between the kitchen and the living cavern, this tiny bubble cavern is cozy, always kept warm and is filled with comfortable chairs and a small round table. At the far end, there's a hearth, outlined in ruddy, aging bricks, where a pot of stew simmers in the evening hours. Generally quiet, the nighthearth is the haunt of insomniacs and those seeking quiet from the bustle of daily Weyr life.
The Snowasis has the fancy drinks, the elaborate bets, and the racket (possibly of the extortion variety as well as the noise, who's to say?). The kitchen has the food that's freshest out of the oven. The nighthearth has... soup that isn't too old, klah that hasn't had anything exciting mixed into it lately, and for excitement, an uncle who's gurgling in his sleep. Also a greenrider, not so much seated as sprawled in an overstuffed chair that makes the most of the hearth, her booted feet dangling in the air.
And a Starsmith, who pops his head in briefly, realizes this cavern does not lead anywhere useful-- or, erm, anywhere at all-- and starts to duck back out the way he came. But it's quiet here, and the gurgling uncle is ignorable, and the greenrider seems harmless, so he winds up shuffling into the room with a beg-your-pardon glance to the only other conscious entity. "So can anyone eat this, or is it...?" Voice lowered, he sidesteps till he's right in line-of-sight for Leova's sprawl.
And her rusty head tips up, up, up from examining her... buttons? Something. Something involving something that could have been sleep. Now she's looking, narrow-eyed but not precisely displeased, at the man who's appeared out of nowhere beyond her feet. Slowly, cautiously, "Eat. Not my boots." Their toes wag. "Yes? The soup."
Bear with him. "Your boots?" Alex takes another shuffled step backward, drops briefly out of sight so he can peer at the boots in question, then rocks onto his toes and back into sight-line. "I have a feeling I missed the joke. But thank you." Off he goes, only a brief pause when the uncle snorts like he's about to wake up, and then he's scrabbling around to find a bowl or... "I'm confused," he admits abruptly.
"Welcome. Quite." Leova sits up some, blinking, with a murmur along the lines of had he missed a meal, too. No love for the uncle: he can snort all he likes, it's a free nighthearth. "About what? Confused."
With the tip of his own inedible boot, Alex nudges the stewpot where it hangs over the fire, just barely tapping it, a muted thud where his foot taps metal. "Well, first about the way you talk, which seems-- backward? Quite." His foot back on the floor, he adds, "Also, I'm going to need a bowl, and I'm fresh out," while he pats down his pockets. Which contain a variety of things, but none of them are liable to hold soup for very long.
"Hm?" and then a breath later, "Ah." Leova sits up even further with what would have been a wince, had he tapped that pot much louder. "Too much time spent with runners," she says offhandedly, much as though it were the source of an everyday but mostly survivable sort of contagion like drippy noses or gurgles: what can you do. Not that she inspects where a bowl could be, but, "Could use a mug. Don't reckon anyone would come after you."
--"Wait. What?" Alex was just about to accept the bit about the runners unquestioningly, his preoccupation with how he's supposed to eat this soup so great that he nearly overlooks it. But it penetrates, and he cocks his head uncertainly, eyeing Leova like /she's/ the one missing some pieces. Which is a rare bit of turnabout for him.
"Mug," the greenrider repeats so-helpfully, never mind the runners at all. "Don't need a spoon that way. Just ladle," and she shifts up an elbow to demonstrate with the aforementioned tool which just happens to be invisible, but then it's pouring into an invisible cup in her other hand, and at least the soup's invisible too, so there shouldn't be much with the staining. "And drink." Up tips the nonexistent cup, over whose top she looks at Aleczir: see?
To clarify, "No, runners. I know what you said about mugs." Alex waves that aside with a flip of his fingers, dismissive-like. "You said you... spent too much time with runners and it messed up the way you talk. Which doesn't strictly make sense?"
By way of helping his focus, "You're Millie's starsmith, aren't you. Welcome to the 'Reaches, and all that," Leova tacks on belatedly. "What don't make sense about it?" Stew. Her nostrils flare. At least, presumably it's that, and not anything to do with the uncle.
Aleczir's "Thanks" comes too quickly for him to have given her greeting much thought. He starts, with a breath, with his mouth open, with a listing step in her direction, but then his feet scrape to a stop and he evidently rethinks whatever he was going to say. "So where would a person like myself." Make of that what you will. "Find a mug?"
In that case, Leova can let the runners go too, complete to a mild, "Over there." Shelves. He gets a questioning look then: surely he'd have seen them? If he can see stars? But what she actually asks is, even as she levers herself up to go looking, "Person like yourself. What's he like?"
Aleczir sees stars. Through a telescope. "Ah." He starts that way, hands folded behind his back like he needs to keep them out of harm's way, and he reviews the selection of mugs with a studious air. In search of just the right one. What's he like? "That's a complicated question for a first meeting, don't you think? Who are you?"
Obviously the nighthearth should be equipped with more telescopes. Thing is, Leova's headed for: look at that! Mugs. It takes her moments to reach past him, claim a wide-mouthed number with a cracked-and-repaired handle, and it shouldn't take much longer to get back to the hearth. "Is it? You asked. Me, I'm Leova. Vrianth's."
Aleczir watches, idly fascinated with the mundania of taking a cup and heading toward the nighthearth, no move to follow her except a slight pivot to track Leova's movements. "I don't remember asking," he admits, unable to downright deny it but a little mystified by the implication, his eyebrows creeping while he reshuffles the conversation thus far. "And, Leova, you always assign possession to people? Who-owns-whom? It's... odd."
There's ladling to do from there, which Leova manages without burning herself, or at least doing any leaps-and-squeaks that might be a clue to the same. "It was a little while ago," she notes. "Asked about a man-like-you, or some such, and since I don't /know/ you..." she can trail off, too, set down the mug and slice some cheese atop it from the blue-checked napkin nearby. Besides, "Do I? Hadn't noticed. If it helps any, Vrianth's mine too. Traditional that way."
"...in relation to the location of a mug," Alex continues where she trailed off, unfolds his hands and rolls his fingers in a carry-on gesture. "Is that for me?"
"Yes. Not," Leova points out, "That you have since explained." It's a question of timing as to whether her assent makes this next confusing: "And no. This one's for me: you reminded me, I'm hungry." And with that, she pokes at the soup with one finger, the better to stake her claim or at least gauge its temperature, and winds up blowing on it instead. Hot pot. Fire, and all.
Lips pressed together then twisted aslant, Alex accepts the not-his with a register of disappointment. Cheese, soup, it was worth hoping for. Steps sliding backward, he turns toward the mugs again, now tugging thoughtfully on his earlobe; "Is it very late? It feels like it must be very late."
A few more breaths, and Leova tests again, nodding in satisfaction before licking off her finger and calling it good. Even if it does let him go after the mugs on his own devices. She doesn't have to get that also-traditional distant look to say, "Pretty late. Dark, Timor new like that. But cloudy down /here/, of course."
Aleczir answers thoughtfully, "I thought so. I was going somewhere." Somewhere that did not involve mugs, somewhere that he half-remembers only once he's retrieved one of them and peered inside it, confirmed that it's clean-enough. Then he puts it back, straightens up with a look around the room like he's only just realized that this? This is not where he was headed; Leova and the uncle aren't part of his plans. "And I got distracted. Tell Milani that I'm very sorry I thought she was especially strange, won't you? Apparently, it's... not uncommon?"
He gets a sideways look early on, though not one that lasts, Leova being busy drinking down that soup with one hip leaned against the stone of the hearth. She'll swallow again at his suggestion, though not look up, "Sorry, Starsmith. Reckon a body ought to be making his apologies himself." And however tempting it must be, she doesn't even make it into a question.
"Reckon," repeats Alex with a benign humor. He will probably never remember where he was going originally, but he sets off with high hopes of... accomplishing something. With the rest of his night.
IC Date: 2/15/19
Nighthearth, High Reaches Weyr
With its entrance located between the kitchen and the living cavern, this tiny bubble cavern is cozy, always kept warm and is filled with comfortable chairs and a small round table. At the far end, there's a hearth, outlined in ruddy, aging bricks, where a pot of stew simmers in the evening hours. Generally quiet, the nighthearth is the haunt of insomniacs and those seeking quiet from the bustle of daily Weyr life.
The Snowasis has the fancy drinks, the elaborate bets, and the racket (possibly of the extortion variety as well as the noise, who's to say?). The kitchen has the food that's freshest out of the oven. The nighthearth has... soup that isn't too old, klah that hasn't had anything exciting mixed into it lately, and for excitement, an uncle who's gurgling in his sleep. Also a greenrider, not so much seated as sprawled in an overstuffed chair that makes the most of the hearth, her booted feet dangling in the air.
And a Starsmith, who pops his head in briefly, realizes this cavern does not lead anywhere useful-- or, erm, anywhere at all-- and starts to duck back out the way he came. But it's quiet here, and the gurgling uncle is ignorable, and the greenrider seems harmless, so he winds up shuffling into the room with a beg-your-pardon glance to the only other conscious entity. "So can anyone eat this, or is it...?" Voice lowered, he sidesteps till he's right in line-of-sight for Leova's sprawl.
And her rusty head tips up, up, up from examining her... buttons? Something. Something involving something that could have been sleep. Now she's looking, narrow-eyed but not precisely displeased, at the man who's appeared out of nowhere beyond her feet. Slowly, cautiously, "Eat. Not my boots." Their toes wag. "Yes? The soup."
Bear with him. "Your boots?" Alex takes another shuffled step backward, drops briefly out of sight so he can peer at the boots in question, then rocks onto his toes and back into sight-line. "I have a feeling I missed the joke. But thank you." Off he goes, only a brief pause when the uncle snorts like he's about to wake up, and then he's scrabbling around to find a bowl or... "I'm confused," he admits abruptly.
"Welcome. Quite." Leova sits up some, blinking, with a murmur along the lines of had he missed a meal, too. No love for the uncle: he can snort all he likes, it's a free nighthearth. "About what? Confused."
With the tip of his own inedible boot, Alex nudges the stewpot where it hangs over the fire, just barely tapping it, a muted thud where his foot taps metal. "Well, first about the way you talk, which seems-- backward? Quite." His foot back on the floor, he adds, "Also, I'm going to need a bowl, and I'm fresh out," while he pats down his pockets. Which contain a variety of things, but none of them are liable to hold soup for very long.
"Hm?" and then a breath later, "Ah." Leova sits up even further with what would have been a wince, had he tapped that pot much louder. "Too much time spent with runners," she says offhandedly, much as though it were the source of an everyday but mostly survivable sort of contagion like drippy noses or gurgles: what can you do. Not that she inspects where a bowl could be, but, "Could use a mug. Don't reckon anyone would come after you."
--"Wait. What?" Alex was just about to accept the bit about the runners unquestioningly, his preoccupation with how he's supposed to eat this soup so great that he nearly overlooks it. But it penetrates, and he cocks his head uncertainly, eyeing Leova like /she's/ the one missing some pieces. Which is a rare bit of turnabout for him.
"Mug," the greenrider repeats so-helpfully, never mind the runners at all. "Don't need a spoon that way. Just ladle," and she shifts up an elbow to demonstrate with the aforementioned tool which just happens to be invisible, but then it's pouring into an invisible cup in her other hand, and at least the soup's invisible too, so there shouldn't be much with the staining. "And drink." Up tips the nonexistent cup, over whose top she looks at Aleczir: see?
To clarify, "No, runners. I know what you said about mugs." Alex waves that aside with a flip of his fingers, dismissive-like. "You said you... spent too much time with runners and it messed up the way you talk. Which doesn't strictly make sense?"
By way of helping his focus, "You're Millie's starsmith, aren't you. Welcome to the 'Reaches, and all that," Leova tacks on belatedly. "What don't make sense about it?" Stew. Her nostrils flare. At least, presumably it's that, and not anything to do with the uncle.
Aleczir's "Thanks" comes too quickly for him to have given her greeting much thought. He starts, with a breath, with his mouth open, with a listing step in her direction, but then his feet scrape to a stop and he evidently rethinks whatever he was going to say. "So where would a person like myself." Make of that what you will. "Find a mug?"
In that case, Leova can let the runners go too, complete to a mild, "Over there." Shelves. He gets a questioning look then: surely he'd have seen them? If he can see stars? But what she actually asks is, even as she levers herself up to go looking, "Person like yourself. What's he like?"
Aleczir sees stars. Through a telescope. "Ah." He starts that way, hands folded behind his back like he needs to keep them out of harm's way, and he reviews the selection of mugs with a studious air. In search of just the right one. What's he like? "That's a complicated question for a first meeting, don't you think? Who are you?"
Obviously the nighthearth should be equipped with more telescopes. Thing is, Leova's headed for: look at that! Mugs. It takes her moments to reach past him, claim a wide-mouthed number with a cracked-and-repaired handle, and it shouldn't take much longer to get back to the hearth. "Is it? You asked. Me, I'm Leova. Vrianth's."
Aleczir watches, idly fascinated with the mundania of taking a cup and heading toward the nighthearth, no move to follow her except a slight pivot to track Leova's movements. "I don't remember asking," he admits, unable to downright deny it but a little mystified by the implication, his eyebrows creeping while he reshuffles the conversation thus far. "And, Leova, you always assign possession to people? Who-owns-whom? It's... odd."
There's ladling to do from there, which Leova manages without burning herself, or at least doing any leaps-and-squeaks that might be a clue to the same. "It was a little while ago," she notes. "Asked about a man-like-you, or some such, and since I don't /know/ you..." she can trail off, too, set down the mug and slice some cheese atop it from the blue-checked napkin nearby. Besides, "Do I? Hadn't noticed. If it helps any, Vrianth's mine too. Traditional that way."
"...in relation to the location of a mug," Alex continues where she trailed off, unfolds his hands and rolls his fingers in a carry-on gesture. "Is that for me?"
"Yes. Not," Leova points out, "That you have since explained." It's a question of timing as to whether her assent makes this next confusing: "And no. This one's for me: you reminded me, I'm hungry." And with that, she pokes at the soup with one finger, the better to stake her claim or at least gauge its temperature, and winds up blowing on it instead. Hot pot. Fire, and all.
Lips pressed together then twisted aslant, Alex accepts the not-his with a register of disappointment. Cheese, soup, it was worth hoping for. Steps sliding backward, he turns toward the mugs again, now tugging thoughtfully on his earlobe; "Is it very late? It feels like it must be very late."
A few more breaths, and Leova tests again, nodding in satisfaction before licking off her finger and calling it good. Even if it does let him go after the mugs on his own devices. She doesn't have to get that also-traditional distant look to say, "Pretty late. Dark, Timor new like that. But cloudy down /here/, of course."
Aleczir answers thoughtfully, "I thought so. I was going somewhere." Somewhere that did not involve mugs, somewhere that he half-remembers only once he's retrieved one of them and peered inside it, confirmed that it's clean-enough. Then he puts it back, straightens up with a look around the room like he's only just realized that this? This is not where he was headed; Leova and the uncle aren't part of his plans. "And I got distracted. Tell Milani that I'm very sorry I thought she was especially strange, won't you? Apparently, it's... not uncommon?"
He gets a sideways look early on, though not one that lasts, Leova being busy drinking down that soup with one hip leaned against the stone of the hearth. She'll swallow again at his suggestion, though not look up, "Sorry, Starsmith. Reckon a body ought to be making his apologies himself." And however tempting it must be, she doesn't even make it into a question.
"Reckon," repeats Alex with a benign humor. He will probably never remember where he was going originally, but he sets off with high hopes of... accomplishing something. With the rest of his night.