[Log] Paperweights
Who: E'sere, Jedja
When: Day 2, Month 7, Turn 375
Where: Ground Weyr, Benden Weyr
What: E'sere and Jedja get to know each other a little better the morning after the flight.
Jedja is still fast asleep come morning, and still well entangled within sheets and half the bronzerider beside her. It's with too much familiarity that she turns toward the source of warmth and in what's sure to be a wake up call to remember, explores the lines of said bronzerider. The wake up call is rather short lived too, for as the lines are unfamiliar, as is the face she finds herself looking at when she finally opens her eyes, Jedja's hand snatches away from the man beside her and around the top of the blanket she seeks to pull over herself. A very abashed apology is offered, "I didn't... sorry."
E'sere is already awake himself, though his eyes are closed still as he rests that last little bit before the day must start. It's Jedja's touch, her scooting closer to him, that rouses him from that as well, as he flicks open his greenish eyes to offer her a crooked smile. He does not pull away, and in fact shifts a little closer, companionably. "Good morning, Weyrwoman," he offers, at ease even if she's not. "I hope I don't, ah, disappoint you too badly?"
Jedja isn't wholly new to this cuddling thing, it's just cuddling with someone as new as E'sere. And so she's stiff for a moment, but within a short while, manages a smile. "Afternoon, I think. But a good one to you, all the same." Turning onto her back to stare at the ceiling - in apparent contemplation of his question - she soon answers, "No. No you didn't disappoint." Emphasis you, with a strange little shake of her head.
E'sere agrees easily, "Afternoon." He's silent a moment himself, studying the woman at his side while she looks upward. He catches her meaning, of course, and it makes him turn his smile wry. "My Morelenth has sired a clutch once before, on the Reaches' then-junior," he tells her then, his tone reassuring. "A very healthy one, for my time--there was even a bronze." Which is, by his very proud tone, quite impressive a feat. He continues, "So if I do not... quite meet your expectations, Weyrwoman, then let us at least hope that he will meet Benden's."
"There's a saying.... what happens has happened and cannot be undone. Granted we can travel and all, but-" She looks aside to him with a smile more helpless than wry. But there is a genuine one to replace it, and again Jedja reaches toward him. Her intent now is to touch the side of his face. "I am not disappointed. Your Morelenth... Feliath would not be caught by any but the best." Her hand falls as her words do, though Jedja adds, "I can't speak of you, but I think we've time now."
"Granted," agrees E'sere, tone very serious for all his mouth twitches back into that lopsided smile of his. When she rests her hand against his face, he slides his own hand up to cover hers. "Thank you, Weyrwoman," he tells her, plainly pleased by her reassurances. "What would you have of me now?"
Jedja blinks once as if in surprise, "Me.." The tone trails into that of confusion, before pleasant amusement. "You kid me, Weyrleader." Returning the title for title, Jedja pauses just long enough to allow acknowledgement, "It's your decision... I'm not... you're the Weyrleader and I'll stand by your decisions."
And if her praise of his bronze pleased him, that's nothing compared to how he feels to have that long-sought title applied to him. "Weyrleader," he repeats then, savoring the syllables of it with a slow smile. Then, recovering, he tells Jedja, "Yes. I, I am more used to a... very different sort of Weyrwoman than you--an unpleasant sort, who makes life difficult for those under her. I am glad to meet a better one now." That smile brightens then, as he takes in her deference to him. "But I /am/, my Weyrwoman, still a foreigner of sorts to this place, this time as it were; so I'd appreciate your knowledge in the matters all the same. But your support--you're quite generous, Weyrwoman, to offer it to me so freely. Thank you."
"Jedja," Jedja says, apparently as undesirous of the title as E'sere is desirous of his. "And you'll come to find I do make life difficult... ask S'dric, he'll be the first to tell you." Jedja's smile turns wane, "He'll also be the best to approach if you have questions. I'd like... I'd like very much for that." Jedja doesn't press a reply or the need for one, she simply glances away. "We've much to do," she says after an appropriate enough pause.
E'sere hesitates and then concedes, this once in privacy, "Jedja." He smiles at her again, and then nods once, moving to sit up in bed as he does so. "Then I will, then. I expect I will need much of his advice in the coming days, as we all adjust now." He nods again, decisive. "I suppose we should begin our day, then."
Jedja nods to his nod, and when he moves she does as well. Snaking the topmost blanket for herself and wrapping it securely around herself before standing, Jedja then slowly picks her way across the weyr to gather her clothes. "I... I think, perhaps for today, we should try and... figure out what /we'll/ do," a wince is concealed as she kneels to retrieve a shirt she then turns to offer to him.
E'sere, unlike Jedja, is unshy as he rises from bed and accepts the shirt, laying it out neatly on the bed while he turns to find the rest of his garments, underwear and pants and shoes, all of them set out likewise before he moves to get dressed. He wrinkles his nose as they're profoundly wrinkled, and he tries vainly to smooth out the worst of it with a grimace. "I suppose we should. I suppose the wingleader S'dric's wing is considered the Weyrleader's? I shall have to speak to him about that. I don't wish to offend him of course, but he would make a very valuable second, yes?"
With her attention focused mostly chest-level and up, Jedja's features remain locked in a mask of complacency as she regards E'sere. "I'm afraid," Jedja says at length, "That's one of those things I've no mind for. If you want a suggestion-" She glances aside and reaches for, what at first would seem to be a boot, turns out to be an empty and cracked mug. She frowns but rather quickly gets over whatever disappointment was had. With no further adeiu, the mug is tossed against the backwall of the hearth just before her and the shards studied.
"No, no. By all means, I'd appreciate that, Weyrwoman," says E'sere, already back to her title. He perches on the edge of the bed to slide his feet into his boots and lean down to lace them up, about the time the mug hits the wall. He jerks around, off the bed to stare at her and the shards, eyes widening. "Weyrwoman?" he asks, very warily, as he stands where he is.
"Jedja," Jedja says with her back to the wary looking bronzerider, "And just a moment, if you'd please." She brushes a hand across the shards, cants her head and clucks her tongue before one piece is singled out from the rest. With it in hand, and her other hand still cinching the blanket around herself, Jedja stands and turns to offer it to him. "Rocks do not bleed, fish do not walk and humans do not make good paperweights."
E'sere settles slightly, smooting his hair back as Jedja doesn't come after him--apparently, he's well-conditioned by now. He steps around the bed to approach her, peering over her shoulder at the shards, and then at the goldrider as he reaches one hand out mutely to take the shard. "Ah. Thank you, Weyrwoman. That... illuminates the issue quite well." Assuming the issue is the question of Jedja's sanity, of course.
"It's hard," Jedja says with a small, put-upon smile, "To.... you cannot expect one thing to be something else other than what it is." Canting her head and looking at him in the eye, she adds, "S'dric's valuable no matter where he is. I think the question should be how valuable do you wish him to be?" She smiles before turning away, "You'll come visit me, I hope, as I'd like to get to know you better. I'll admit I've been a little busy, lately, otherwise I'd have tried before now."
"Of course, Weyrwoman," E'sere agrees again, nodding as though he understands exactly what's going on. "I should like to visit you--we should certainly get to know each other better, since we will be working together. Perhaps we can have lunch one day, as a start? To get to know each other on a less--professional level, too. I should like that, at least." The question of S'dric's usefulness is filed away for later.
"I think," Jedja, with the utmost of professionalism to her tone, "I think it'd be best if we kept things professional, Weyrleader. When they're not, they tend to get confusing. Reckless, even." Finding the last few bits of her clothes, Jedja turns toward him again, "Perhaps tea... tonight, if you will. That way we can get an idea of what needs to be worked on. Where we stand."
"Tea," confirms E'sere with a nod, "sounds lovely, Weyrwoman. Thank you. I look forward to it already." He glances at the doorway then, and then back to the goldrider in front of him. He offers her a bemused smile for her modesty as he adds, "I'll just slip out and let you, ah, finish up, then, Weyrwoman."
"Jedja," Jedja says again, though with more emphasis, "Titles - they're so... demanding, I think." Her smile is lopsided and only half a smile, but it grows in force with E'sere's offer. "Thank you. And please do feel free to have your Morelenth contact Feliath if he has any questions or... anything, really. She'll let me know and I'll do what I can to help."
"I feel so... brazen, to not use them," admits E'sere, sheepishly. "So let me offer you my apologies for my inability to lay aside a well-ingrained habit. And I will, of course--Morelenth will be in touch. I think he's rather taken with your Feliath, at least for the moment. Good day, W--Jedja," he uses her name, with effort and a smile, as he turns to slip back out into the bowl of the, his, Weyr.