[Log] Confessions
Who: Sh'drian, Vaelis
When: Day 7, Month 9, Turn 4, 11th Pass
Where: Sh'drian and Eadranth's Weyr, Ierne Weyr
What: Sh'drian and Vaelis share surprising confessions.
Sh'drian's Inner Weyr - Ierne Weyr
The first of subsequent "bubbles" in the Weyrleader's Weyr has been transformed into a small, cozy, and dimly lit sitting area. A pair of chairs matching those in the living cavern sit on opposite sides of a small table bearing a mahogany 'box' and a wooden 'egg'; a third seat is placed before a hide- and paper-crowded desk (accented by a small, dark green 'pouch') that doesn't seem too heavily used despite the clutter. There's a comfortable-looking couch placed on the other side of this area, closer to the separate cavern at the back.
This separate cavern functions as both bedroom and a bathing chamber, both barely lit with glows. Offset to the right in a small alcove is the magma-heated bathing pool, hidden behind a thin white curtain hung from a rod across the doorway. The main area is the spacious bedroom, marked with tapestries similar to those gracing the preceding rooms. The ramshackle bed, covered in a heavy grey 'quilt', is creaky with turns and prone to slight shifts with every movement, though it /seems/ sturdy enough for most activities. Next to the bed, the dresser is well-made and practically new, though almost obscured by the 'cloak' draped over its drawers.
Early evening finds Sh'drian at his desk, bent over a set of papers. Others are scattered around, with a pair of firelizards, one grown green and a very young and small bronze, perched like paperweights on them. When Sh'drian needs another paper, he picks up the bronze, extracts the hide, and sets him back down; the sleeping firelizard never stirring. "Sharding..." murmurs the Weyrleader, returning to his writing. Slowly, he starts inking out another report in tiny scrawl.
With quiet steps, deliberately muffled by cautious placement, Vaelis daringly makes her way up the steps to the Weyrwoman's ledge and then veers to the side along the pathway to the Weyrleader's ledge and subsequently his weyr. Holding her gaze steady on Eadranth, a finger comes to her lips, followed by a slow wink -- silent request for the bronze to not say a thing, and to cement the supposed deal, she reaches over, fingers twiddling along with the mouthed word: 'Later.' Scritches will come later -- after she attempts to spook the bronzerider, and pausing to discard her boots to the ledge, she makes her barefoot way into Sh'drian's weyr, halted at the entrance to wait while holding her breath.
Eadranth perks up from his half-slumber as he hears Vaelis enter; eyes whirl but he makes no noise and instead bobs his head, perhaps a wordless answer. He watches her intently as she progresses through the weyr. Further inside, Sh'drian doesn't look up, only continues covering the hide entirely in his almost illegible writing, pausing periodically to check other papers in cross-reference.
With her feet bare, it's easier to cross the distance at a quicker pace than with her boots on, and gliding rather than stepping, Vae makes her way across after ascertaining the bronzerider hasn't been alerted to her presence. Slipping in behind him, one arm, finger stretched out, extends to almost touch the hardworking shoulder and then retracts. Instead, rethinking her tactics, she brings her face down to the rider's shoulder so the even softness of her breath will first startle him rather than a word, or touch. "You write worse than I do," is finally said, after a measured pause.
Sh'drian's left hand pauses its writing, and his eyes cut sideways toward her, surprise well-hidden. Perhaps he's used to strange women entering his weyr unannounced. "Your point being...?" he drawls lightly, setting down the pencil and leaning back, tilting his head back to regard her. "Come to bring me more cookies? I /did/ enjoy those." For the moment, though, he busies himself shuffling around the papers, stacking them and sliding them away before half-turning to peer at Vaelis.
"Didn't get a tummy ache? I wasn't sure on that egg, and I don't have anymore, so might," Vae turns her head slightly to regard the close profile Sh'drian offers, "Have to filch one later from stores. Think we could finagle a wherry coup from the beastcrafters at some point?" Her request, however silly, is followed by the slow rise to take in the view of the bronzerider's private quarters. Pivoting slowly, her wide-eyed scrutiny is accompanied by a low whistle of appreciation. "I can function in a space about... a bread crumb's size in comparison to this. Do you -really- need all this space? What waste."
Sh'drian shrugs. "I'm fine," he replies easily. "Don't worry about me. Perhaps, though, we can. Sometime." He shrugs and stands himself, pushing the chair back under the desk and surveying his own weyr as if seeing it for the first time. "One of the perks of position. I probably don't /need/ it, but that's not the criterion, now is it?" He shrugs and strolls nonchalantly over to sprawl on his couch, patting the space next to him invitingly. "Anyway, just because I can /function/ in that much space doesn't mean I /want/ to.
After taking the lay of the land, Vae's gaze strays to the hides he was working on again and her lips twisting into a mocking smirk. "I never thought I'd see a day with someone who writes worse'n I do. You give hope to those of us who don't hold much in written learning. If," she glances around back to the magma-heated pool with a flicker of understandable human envy, "You call this success." His invitation is noted, but she takes her own time to cross to the couch, easily distracted by various attractions along the way: the wooden egg, the box etc... "You have so many things."
Sh'drian smirks, shrugging. "Never cared much for harpers' lessons," he explains. "And anyway, they were always trying to get me to use my other hand, write it this way and don't make my letters like that and... I don't take well to orders." A pause. He watches her with slightly narrowed eyes as she investigates his weyr. "Success. It's Eadranth's success, anyway," he notes at last, lightly. "Little things, really, picked up over the turns. Gifts from people, most of them from back at Southern." He finishes with a shrug.
Instead of taking the invited seat, Vaelis leans forward against the couch's backing, using her arms to prop herself up. Her face comes up again behind Sh'drian's shoulder, maybe too close. "It's such a lovely little hidey-hole. Much neater than I'd expected of you somehow." Another glance crosses her shoulder, an assessment frank on her lips. "Lots of things, nothing very personal. You hide from even your living space. What can I tell of you here except that you're the Weyrleader who rides a bronze. Oh," she smiles wryly, "And that you enjoy dim lighting."
Sh'drian smirks at that, inclining his head to view Vaelis behind him. "I like things in their place," he notes. "Besides, how can you destroy the place when you're upset if it already looks destroyed?" It's a rhetorical question, answered only by his smug smirk and a challenge: "What else is there to me?"
"You like dark colors," Vaelis continues, sliding her arms down the length of the couch and rocking back and forth. "And the weyr's cozier than someone with your temperament might have, well, from what I thought at least. It's... nice." She sounds surprised, and tries to mask the wonderment with one of her trademark dimpled smiles for the bronzerider. "What else would you have me know since you leave such little in the way of clues laying around?"
"Nice, right," agrees Sh'drian. "Well, it's not my fault. It was Jaeni and Tirya and Mother and my sister--seems like every woman I know wants to change something around to suit her, not that I give a damn what they do. I just live here; it doesn't have to be homey. It's just a place to sleep at night. Some nights." He shrugs, quirks a brow. "You think there's more to know?" he asks. "You think there's more to me?"
Vae hangs herself along the couch's back and drops to her knees so her chin barely catches on the back. "Mmm. Well, I mean, I don't know. I guess I expected there to be more. Aren't you going to ask why I'm here anyway? Or did you expect it?" Accusation in dark eyes flies to consider the ledge without, though she makes no voiced statement yet. Sliding back up, she rolls her shoulders back, lifting the bottom hem of her tunic to expose the still faintly tanned tummy, but more importantly a beat up flask. "I got a cookie recipe from my mother, and this as inheritance from my father. Well, the container, not what's inside." Easily, agile limbs straddle the couch one leg at a time before she slides into the soft cushions next to the bronzerider, "Want a sip?"
"I merely assumed," answers Sh'drian easily, "that you'd tell me when you were ready." He shrugs, adds, "Eadranth didn't clue me in, if you're wondering. He rarely bothers these days--always somebody wandering in and out, after all." As she settles down next to him, he scoots closer and dares even to lean in--all to inspect the flask of course. "My father didn't leave me anything. Of course I want some. More than a sip, too."
"A friend of mine brews 'shine. It's nothing like Dunix... D'nan's concoctions." The slip and correction still Vaelis' frame to the point she doesn't flinch or move back when Sh'drian leans closer. Nor does she bring the flask closer to his nose for his inspection, and it's not until there's a faint shake of her head, the unusual looseness of her long blonde hair rustled out of place, that she startles out of whatever reverie and overcompensates in a jerky movement to allow him to smell. "Still, it's lethal. Smelling it gets me toasted." The reasons as to why she's ventured up here are left unvoiced.
"D'nan's brews are something else entirely," agrees Sh'drian with a nod, looking down at the flask. Eyes cut upward to Vaelis' face without raising his head. He takes a wary sniff, then nods. "It should suffice, I think," he notes. "Especially if it's as strong as you say. Not that you're a good judge--I saw you today, after just those couple of sips from D'ven's skin." He leers, leans back after a moment to study her expectantly.
"I could never handle liquor well, don't really like the taste much, but it makes you feel more relaxed. A few sips. I've never actually been drunk off my feet though," Vaelis confesses, the wide set of her eyes both innocent with a swirl of challenge touching in sienna highlights induced by the flicker of a dying glow. "It's a nice feeling, to lose that mechanism somewhere that prevents us from saying what we really think." The beat up flask lifts in silent toast and then thrust at the bronzerider. Besides her eyes, always telling of some emotion or other, a study of her face reveals the slight flush to her cheeks, the headiness of the brew already affecting her physical features, and with weariness she tips her head back against the plush cushions. "What's a girl to do to get her own room around here?"
Sh'drian shrugs mildly. "Nothing like it," he agrees. "The best feeling in the world is being so drunk you can't think anymore. Worst feeling is the first thought the next morning." He accepts the flash with a smirk, raising it in his own mock-toast before taking a gulp. "Good stuff. Sleep with the people that matter, I suppose. Or get married, have a family. They're more generous then. Me, I just got a dragon, but that's the slow route."
"Well, I suppose," Vaelis cracks one eye open to spare the Weyrleader a tiny smirk, "That leaves me with one option. How to convince Winter to sleep with me."
Sh'drian's eyes close gleefully at that, presumably imagining the scene. "Mm. Go ahead. Much as I hate her--" A shrug. He opens his eyes to regard Vaelis again, wryly smirking. "I could always put in a good word for you myself," he volunteers.
Unthinkingly, Vae's fist flies for Sh'drian's shoulder, the punch of a friend to friend, or at least someone chummy to dare so. Should it hit, it'll be a hefty punch, though not painful. "You're awful!" exclaims the slender hunter. "Or I can just sleep with the assistant steward the Weyrwoman's purportedly weyrmates with. Or...," she lifts a brow, the slender line arcing in suggestion as she studies the Weyrleader.
Sh'drian doesn't flinch away, only smirking stoically as Vaelis punches him. "Really now. That idiot? Come on now, there's better option. Or what?" he prompts.
"Well, I'd say you, under any other circumstance, but you know I loathe you." The insult is at odds with the flattery in her flirtation and the drop of Vaelis' eyes. "And you're absolutely loyal to that Southern girl of yours. So the idiot will have to do. Or Winter, and as much as my pants like seeing the inside of weyrs, they've yet to find a female weyr to find favorable."
"Of course you do," agrees Sh'drian lightly, nodding. "And of course I am." He pauses, brows arching, and adds after a moment, "You probably just haven't found the right one, then. I hear there's some good ones out there. I knew this one girl--" Wistfully, he trails off, then shrugs. "Anyway. You're here, so you must not loathe me that much. Unless you're just here to gloat over not putting out for me?"
"Not putting out for you?" It's hard to tell what's more amusing, the state of Vaelis' initial surprise at the wistfulness of the bronzerider, or the laughter that flushes her face completely. "Oh, I don't know if you even realize just how funny you are sometimes. Putting out for you means there's reciprocation. That you'd put out for me, and that's something you're not capable of, right? I've met the right one anyway," she goes on airily, gesticulating in midair to cover the expanse of the Weyr with one sweeping arm. "Them."
Sh'drian arches a brow. "I can reciprocate. Sex is better if everybody enjoys it," he remarks easily. "I wouldn't get many bedmates if it got around I wasn't very good. Anyway, who's this right one? Can't see you settling down like that. Not D'thor, is it? Hmm."
About to answer, Vaelis stares at Sh'drian, "But with your loyalty, I can't imagine you'd want to bed just anyone. And I'm not a one night stand. Not for you." Conceit dips her chin, the slanted profile almost disdainful for the bronzerider. "And why can't you see me settling down? I'm as capable of it as someone like you. D'thor," the blonde hesitates, "Is very nice."
"Oh, you're not?" Sh'drian challenges, brows arching curiously. "What are you, then?"
"More than you can handle." Vae, challenge made, gives Sh'drian a passing glance that's calculatingly apathetic in its dismissal, and shakes the flask once. "Have some. You might like the common stuff."
Sh'drian shrugs. "Can't say you're in any position to judge that," he notes idly, accepting the flask. He takes a brief sip, lowers the flask and studies her. "I do like the common stuff," he agrees.
"I believe, sir," Vaelis returns, the lofty look of a woman in the process of scorning an other consistent on her features, "That I am in a very good position to judge." The double entendre of his comment, the insult that could be construed, just draws out a feral smile on the huntress' lips. "Oh?"
Sh'drian smirks slightly, inclining his head toward Vaelis. "How is that?" he counters. Then, matter-of-factly: "Yes."
The wolfish hint fades into smug satisfaction as Sh'drian, with the incline of his head, nears. "Because. I am. I always am." Vaelis levels dark eyes to meet the blue-greys of the Weyrleader and then drops to catch a glimpse of the tarnished metal of her flask. "I'll be sure to tell Giamed then, that his brew pleased the Weyrleader. I'm sure," a hint of snark slivers loosely around her words, "That he'll be overjoyed."
"Of course you are," Sh'drian replies patronizingly. Then, drawing away from Vaelis, he stands and strolls over to rest his forearms on the back of his desk chair. "And of course he will," adds the man, reaching mildly for a couple of hides, apparently planning on returning to work.
Even with Sh'drian's return to work, Vae doesn't seem to take it as an indication to leave, instead curling into one corner of the couch, twisting at the waist to watch the Weyrleader work. "What is it you do, if you delegate everything to peons?"
"No more than I have to," answers Sh'drian shortly, sliding into his chair and pulling out the first paper. He does little more than fidget with his pencil, however, and regard Vaelis out of the corner of one eye. "Review reports, make assignments, that sort of thing."
The fold of Vae's arms provide a cradle of her hands flat along the couch's back for her sharp chin to rest on. "Mmmm. Why even bother with that? Or is that the fun part of leadership? Bossing others around." More statement than query, she's already made up her mind and interest scans the thickness of his hides as opposed to what's written on them. The fact that he's moved away, dismissing her, bothers her so little, the effort to feign frustration is far more than the laziness that embodies her languidly reclined figure is capable of. "I don't have a right one. At least, not just one," she remarks, answering the question of minutes prior. "It's no fun to settle for less, and no one really holds anything that'll keep me interested very long. So," she shrugs, self-effacingly, "Might as well cater to all and enjoy the ride."
Sh'drian shrugs idly. "Something to do, and anyway, who else can I trust with it? There's no one else competent, and after my last experience with a weyrsecond..." He shrugs, his smirk humorless. "Settling. Nothing good comes of that," he remarks after a moment, turning back to his papers. He eyes them a moment, then pushes them away toward the slumbering pair of firelizards. "Enjoy the ride, right," agrees the man, pushing his chair back and turning it to face Vaelis.
"You don't agree? Besides being completely whipped into shape by a girl?" Vaelis asks, studying her nails and working some dirt out from beneath them.
"Settling for less, I meant," clarifies Sh'drian. "Do you think I've been entirely whipped?"
Vaelis eyes Sh'drian for a long moment, silent. "I'm spending the night."
Sh'drian nods mildly, as if he expected no less. "Suit yourself," he tells her. "That couch is comfortable enough."
"You can have the couch," Vaelis counters, "I'll take the bed and bake you another batch of cookies sometime this sevenday."
Sh'drian shakes his head. "I'm sleeping in my bed, one way or another," he declares flatly.
"Suit yourself," and with an easy heave and saunter, Vaelis passes by the table where the Weyrleader works and towards the bed alcove.
Sh'drian, smirking, runs a hand across the back of his neck and follows.
"My side," Vaelis delineates one side of the bed, a narrow strip that leaves the bulk of the bed for the bronzerider. "Yours. Go to work, I won't bother you." But a gentle bounce tests the strength of the bed, lifting a row at the creak she elicits. "Better lay off the cookies myself."
Sh'drian shrugs mildly. "Take what you want from me; I'm not stingy," he tells her as he settles across his half.
Vaelis remains seated, another bounce causing the bedframe to complain in response. "Can't you afford something nicer? It's embarrassing that the Weyrleader of our Weyr should have such a... cobbled together bed."
"It's better than my old one, from before I came here. Forward,," Sh'drian remarks, leaning over to unlace his boots and pull them off. "And anyway, I like it. I have a lot of memories in this bed."
"I'm sure you do," Vae returns dryly, already barefoot, so shedding her pants leaving only the loose and large tunic to hang to her hips. "It's awfully sweet of you to let me spend the night. I can tell the girls what the inside of the Weyrleader's weyr is like." Smirking, she eases back onto the pillows, curling immediately to her side, arms beneath her head to study Sh'drian. "You're not going to finish your reports?"
"Why bother?" wonders Sh'drian idly. "Anyway, a lot of those girls already know. I doubt you could enthrall most people with tales from my weyr." He shrugs his shirt over his head and tosses it on top of his dresser, then stands to remove his pants as well before sliding into the bed. "When have I ever turned away a pretty girl who wants to sleep in my bed?" he wonders after a moment.
Vaelis looks disappointed only for a moment, though arced brows betrays little actual surprise. "I spend so little time listening to gossip, I suppose I've missed it. The tales of your bed. How many have ever rejected your advances," is asked, the sound somewhat muffled by the shrimp curl she affects.
Sh'drian glances over at Vaelis, folding his arms behind his head. "Oh, a few, for a time. They usually give up in the end, though: I can be pretty persuasive, when I want something. Or persistant, it's all the same. Tirya's sister Teather gave me trouble for a while, but she came around, eventually. Most of them don't last long," he remarks, shoulders lifting in an awkward half-shrug.
"You've never had a girl you've gotten close to that's never become a bedmate, eh?" Her voice bland, Vaelis muses this aloud in wonderment, before knowledge of the man at her side catches up to her common sense, and in amusement she continues, "That's not difficult to believe, I suppose."
Sh'drian quirks a brow, turning his head to peer at Vaelis. "No, I suppose not. The closest was Jaeni, but really, she only was delaying the inevitable for, oh, three turns or so," he answers with a shrug. A pause, then: "She was the first. The first that I ever really... kept around." He frowns at that description of the relationship, eyes flickering closed for a few seconds. "You certainly seem awfully curious about me. Why don't /you/ spill a few things now?"
"What's there to know?" There's no self-deprecation in her quick reply, mere honesty that reflects in her dark eyes that widen naively, genuine. "Seriously, what would you like to know?" Vae's fidgets subside to nonexistent as she shifts a few more times to adjust the height of her arm cradle. She's a creature of habit though, as appraising eyes quickly cut down to catch sight of the bronzerider's chest, fixated a beat too long on his tummy before lifting back up.
Sh'drian smirks, noting Vaelis' appraising eyes, and he makes no move to avoid such looks. "Oh, I don't know. I've told you about my conquests, so why don't you--what was the word?--reciprocate." He leers as he references her earlier wording, self-satisfied.
"I've known D'thor for turns. I saw him Impress too," Vaelis begins at the obvious choice, the answer ready for his inevitable query; she understood, buying herself time with innocence. "My first?" Long lashes drop, closing pale lids over her dark eyes in lost thought, memories too long ago to recall, or deliberately forgotten. "Fifteen. Late for most of the lower caverns girls, but I don't like to rush things, and Iselain was worth it. And then he Impressed." She rolls over onto her back, considering the ceiling. "You didn't spill much, just your first. And Tirya. Perhaps," the grin, seen lifting one corner of her mouth up broadly, is also heard in her tease, "D'ven too?"
"My first?" wonders Sh'drian, brows knitting. "Jaeni wasn't my first /ever/. Just, the first that I, well. I suppose it was almost a relationship. She loved me, anyway, but... There was always Tirya." He shrugs, frowns. "The first ever was... Oh, shards. I don't even remember her name now. It's been... Oh, thirteen, fourteen turns now. And after that, it was just one long succession." Her last words, however, startle him around; he props himself up on his elbows to regard her. "D'ven?"
The grin transforms into an open mouth that emits delighted laughter, only belatedly covered by the back of her hand. "Just seeing if you were paying attention." Vaelis returns to curling on her side, the roll bringing her nearer Sh'drian. "That's unfair to Jaeni. You shouldn't commit half-heartedly to anything. I've never had a relati... relationship." Her hesitation is marked by a quirk of her lips. "I've already told you my thoughts on them."
Sh'drian relaxes, lying back down and smirking. "Uh-huh, sure," he agrees mildly. "In my defense, I didn't know that then. And I tried, at least--I did try." He sobers then, frowning and fixing eyes on the ceiling. "Mine, too. I never expected--well." A wry smirk slides into place on his lips then.
Mildly surprised, Vaelis just considers Sh'drian, the presence of an eternal cold determination only noticed by the softness on her sharp features that melts it - thus drawing attention to it. But she's trained far too long, in her mind if not formally, to allow it to linger very long, and while his eyes fixate on the ceiling, it disappears, her nominal good cheer returning in a split second. "Strange. I almost believe you did try. I just don't bother trying, and well, no one expects me to try anymore." A long pause, where unblinking eyes study the bronzerider, is broken by a quietly spoken, "You really love her, don't you?"
At Vaelis' question, Sh'drian's smirk fades, his face growing expressionless. Without moving, without looking at her, he simply replies, "Yeah, I do."
With eyes that see everything, far more than she herself betrays they do, Vaelis watches. His statement needs no reply, and she has nothing to banter against it, so instead allows the silence and the dim light of the glows to allow the atmosphere of confidences to linger. It's only after a long time, she remarks, "Good night then," turning to her other side, affecting the even breathing of one asleep, though her eyes remain open.