[Log] Played
Who: Aivey, Donavon (NPC)
When: Day 24, Month 8, Turn 3, 7th Pass
Where: Courtyard, Five Mines Hold
What: Donavon gets played badly.
Loitering around just outside the main hall, Donavon is alone, leaning up against a wall idly as he studies those going on around him. It's late, but he hasn't retreated to the residents' dorm, or K'tric's weyr, or wherever he's staying currently, preferring instead to remain right there as time wears on.
Time does wear on. Enough that it finds Aivey heading into the area, a cloth-cap worn around her head, it's squared tail draped over both shoulders. Done work for the day, one would think she'd look happier than she does. But she doesn't, and she isn't. Happy, that is, because the frown she pins on Donavon is anything but happy. Which makes her chipper-sounding statement all the more troublesome. "Donny old boy, how're you?"
"Aivey," says Donavon, watching the woman for a long time before she gets close enough to speak. "I'm all right. You? Him? Awful late for you to be wandering around now, isn't it?" His eyes narrow slightly, suspicious already of her motives.
"Him who?" Aivey asks, continuing her stalk - like a train headed for a damsel tied to the tracks, a messy collision is imminent. It sounds with the hollow knock of an elbow against stone as Aivey drops right atop him, her arm propped just over his shoulder, forearm parallel to the wall she rests it against. "E'sere? Dunno, really. Have you seen him around lately?" Her lips tilt into an amused smile that's purely mocking.
"E'sere," confirms Donavon with a nod and a shrug. "Haven't, actually. You, neither? He's probably found the only damn mirror in this place and can't tear himself away," he drawls, smirking himself in amusement. "Been a long time for him, you know?"
"Not today, no. Last night, sure." Aivey parts from the close proximity with Donavon, but only to give him a full head-to-toe sweep of her eyes, "He's like a little baby brought back home. It'd be cute if it weren't so sickening. Been a long time for you too, though, hasn't it?" Aivey's eyes rest upon Donavon's, and it's clear enough that there's anger there. In the whole of her expression.
"Not quite so hung up on it as he is," replies the older man. Donavon gives Aivey that same appraising look in return, definitely still leery of that anger. "But yeah. First good look I got of my new nose," he adds after a moment, rubbing it idly. "Think it's pretty dashing, myself."
"Men and mirrors. You're more vain than he is. I meant," Aivey draws in closer again, and doesn't stop until her lips are directly alongside his ear. A whisper is offered. "He's leaving you behind. Just like he's left me." And there in is an excuse for her anger. Aivey draws the hand closest to him up, trailing it across his side until she finds the old wound she'd gifted him, "Will leave me, I mean. I have orders. Did you know?"
Donavon straightens slightly, eyeing Aivey again. "Orders?" he asks simply.
"Orders," Aivey repeats, "You know how E'sere is, Donny old boy. Better than me, I'd think. And if I can see it, surely you can too." The hand on that scar remains there, Aivey's eyes upon his.
The continued hands on him make Donavon even stiffer as he stares at her, brows furrowed deeply. "He's not for just me or you--he's bigger than that," he finally says slowly, as though well-aware he's walking into a trap. "Can't expect him to hang around forever with people like us. Not the way it was back home, not the way it's going to be again."
"I'm thrilled - absolutely thrilled - that you're okay with that." Aivey says with a cant of her head and a smile, "He's already got your replacement picked out. Has, for a while, actually." The hand on his old wound slides upward and only her fingertips trail a path along his side. "Thing is, I don't think I can bring myself to do it. I'd much, much rather do something else but I'll make it your call, Donny. What'll it be?" The hand? It's now touching the underside of his jaw. Saying Donavon hasn't moved or blocked any such attempt.
"Who's that?" says Donavon, lips pursing slightly. He doesn't move away, exactly, but he's definitely not encouraging her as he just stands there, and makes no move at all to touch her--but neither to push her away again.
"Mm. What fun would it be if I just told you?" Aivey asks with another taunting smile, "I - well, I don't appreciate that he's so willing to have you decommissioned. He didn't say how and that leaves the possibilities wide open - I do like exploring them..." The hand on his jaw draws away and Aivey pulls back, breaking that closeness yet again. "Are you the pansy you're making yourself out to be, Donny or do you measure up to the balls you've always shown?"
Donavon eyes Aivey with a frown, shoulders steeling at her taunting. "You like your games, don't you," he retorts. "Don't go trying to fuck with me, Aivey, not over this--not over him. What do you want?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Aivey asks, now quite serious. "Do I need to be a little more clearer? Speak slower? Try harder?"
"I think you'd better," says Donavon coolly, frowning at Aivey.
Aivey does, then. The space separating them, what little remains, is closed as Aivey presses back against him. Her hands find purchase - one upon his shoulder, the other on the side of his face. It's a kiss that follows and continues to follow should she not be refused.
Donavon stiffens, starts to pull back, but in the end he's just a man and never completes that move. Instead, he gives in, returning the kiss in full before she pulls away. "You can just do this to him," he accuses, but ineffectually.
"You can let him-" Aivey's question is interrupted by another kiss she initiates, one that slips along to the side of his neck before another whisper is delivered, "You're going to let him decide your fate?" She draws back enough to look at him, enough to give him the conviction of an earnest expression when she says, "He's doing it to you. Think of yourself for once. Take what you want, not what he says you can have."
"You're putting me in the middle of your little spat," says Donavon accusatively. "You're going to go running straight back to him, tell him what I did to you and suddenly you're in and I'm back out again." But there's an undercurrent of uncertainty in his voice; he's not entirely assured of this.
"He wants me around. Still needs me because as long as he has me he thinks he's safe from my father. You already fulfilled your end. Thank you for that, by the way." Aivey says, attempting to sneak in one last kiss before pulling back. "If you're not interested, though, then I really don't have a reason to keep you around."
The kiss is accepted, returned, and then broken off quickly as Donavon's conscience gets to him again. "Keep me around," he tells her flatly. "What, you going to kill me if I don't sleep with you? I can't--I'm not like you, can't do that to him." But he's definitely not certain now, not certain at all.
"I'll make you wish I had killed you," Aivey replies softly, "E'sere thinks enough of you that he doesn't want you outright killed - mostly because I think he might want the option of using you in the future." She pulls a face and shrugs, lightly dismissive of Donavon's predicament, "Don't, then. Maybe you're not the man I thought you were. Bowing and scraping to E'sere. It's pathetic. No wonder he says the things he does about you."
Even Donavon, somewhere under his subservience to E'sere, has an ego somewhere, and Aivey's hit it. Finally, finally he reaches to grab her, pull her back, and kiss her again, on his own initiative.
Aivey doesn't immediately give, though doesn't outright refuse him either. That ego wouldn't take the bashing, after all. But when the kiss runs enough of a course that there won't be any loss in breaking it, Aivey does, if only to whisper something in his ear - summons to join her, discretely, at a place not so in the open. She withdraws, but not without running a hand down his side and offering a slight smile. Then she heads away - away from Donavon and the entrance to the clearing where she'd otherwise meet up with Morelenth.
When Aivey leaves, Donavon takes a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. But he's in too deep already, and after letting her meander off for the destination, he follows, semi-discretely.
Aivey isn't toying with him, and is waiting where she said she'd be waiting. And it's about as discreet a place as can be found. Donavon's arrival is met with a kiss and Aivey leading Donavon further back into the abandoned 'weyr'. Only when it becomes an obvious and a certainty - that Donavon isn't going to change his mind - does Aivey stop leading and allow him the dubious honor.