[Log] No One's Fortunate Son
Who: Aivey, E'sere
When: Day 2, Month 7, Turn 375
Where: E'sere and Aivey's Weyr, Benden Weyr
What: E'sere returns home after Feliath's flight. He and Aivey are twisted together.
Notes: Backdated.
E'sere takes his time in returning home from his morning with Jedja: he's plainly had a bath and cleaned himself up, and eaten lunch too, before he ever makes his way back with Morelenth. The bronze lands heavily on the ledge, rumbling his own homecoming welcome as he crouches to let E'sere dismounth. The bronzerider himself is smiling, with a jaunt in his step not seen in a while as he starts inside, pausing to pick up Aivey's discarded clothes and fold them neatly. "Hello, Aivey," he offers a smug greeting.
A grunt and the hollow scrape of rock over rock is what greets dragon and rider. There's no confetti, no shout of surprise/congratulations/yay for you... just the scrape of rock, the huff of Aivey's breath and then the sound of the rock settling into place atop another. In short enough time she spares a moment to look him over, to note what's new and what's not before gesturing toward her work. "Think I might get this done soon. End of the month at the latest." Clapping a hand against the back of her neck and turning from him, she adds, "Depends on if they've got me doing anything here."
E'sere's initial smile stiffens and fades into sourness at the lack of confetti, or the lack of pretty much any kind of greeting, as he turns away with a haughty lift of his chin to head toward a chair. "Well. Good for you," he tells her, regarding her own project. "I'm so proud of you, of course. The project of a lifetime, such as it were," he gestures dismissively to her.
"Could be if I get the right things," Aivey says, acting unaffected by his response. "Dunno what I'm going to put in it, but I figure that'll become obvious once we figure out what we're doing here." He might see it, he might not. But there's a tightening of her shoulders, one that comes when Aivey typically prepares herself for action and it matches the expression she regards him with upon turning to face him. Cool neutrality surrounds an empty smile; her eyes carrying all the sharpness of knife... unflinching as it is assessing for when she finally congratulates him. "Congratulations. I've never been so proud."
"It doesn't mean anything," E'sere says at once, venting a frustration that's been half the morning building, underneath the politeness and even the gloating. "She belongs to S'dric, and he won't get out of my way. And no one knows me," he complains, scowling as he stands back up, sliding the chair back noisily as he does so. "We have to do something about him."
"We." Aivey repeats with a displeased cant of her head, "And if it meant nothing then /we/ would not have gotten involved. We can't get involved," Aivey stressed of her last while falling a step back and crossing her arms over her chest. "If anything needs to be done, it's controlling a certain urge of a certain someone." If that certain someone is the bronze or his rider is up for debate... and what a fun debate it will be.
E'sere paces a few step, frowning. "Right," he agrees finally, grudgingly. "We can't kill him. We can't hurt him. They'd suspect us right away, Feliath would question Morelenth, and--" A shrug. He, apparently, takes that certain urge to mean something entirely different. "I have to beat him on my terms, not yours. Politics, it's all politics again."
"But dearest," Aivey cajoles sweetly, "If we played by my terms, we wouldn't have any issues." Dirt encrusted though she may be, the look sent to the bronze is by far dirtier. She rubs her face as he paces, and long before answering, drops down into a crouch with her hands clasped behind her neck and her head bowed. "Why do you need to even beat him, E'sere? Why?"
"You'd just get us sent back to the islands," retorts E'sere, lip curling as he stops and looks at Aivey. "And we can't expect this sort of chance to fall into our laps again. And--because." He turns back, making another pass across the weyr, restless. "I am going to be Weyrleader, I don't care if it's High Reaches, Benden, or a hundred turns from now if I have to go. And that slimey, smiling, S'l--S'dric, he is not standing in my way."
"S'lien. S'lien is not - I'd like to strangle him as much as the next girl, but-" Aivey's hands fist within her hair and to keep from responding in a more volatile manner, she bites into her knee. Moments pass, then, "You go then. We'll have a nice, big huge fight or whatever it is that'll work.. I'll deal with your new S'lien and get myself sent back then you can go ahead. Be Weyrleader with Ms. Fancy Knot."
E'sere hesitates, turning to face Aivey again with a less certain expression as she volunteers to sacrifice herself. "They'd still blame me. Send me away," he tells her. "And--what if I need you for someone in the future? We can't, we can't hurt him. Do anything physical to him."
"Then I'll accidentally not manage to finish you off," Aivey says, "Again. Third time isn't a charm, apparently." She shrugs helplessly, but continues with, "You'll come up with some story to cover while I was with you... you're good at that... and I'll do the rest." She drops her chin into her hands, her elbows still resting atop her knees. "I'm useless to you, then. That's all I know how to do. We'll get caught, again." Hesitating and with obvious conflict, she offers, "You know I hate it...hate them...but I won't stand in your way."
"Aivey," begins E'sere, and rakes a hand through his hair. He takes a long deep breath before he finally nods. "I--I know. You're not the one in the way now. There's nothing you can do to help now," he agrees with that much. "We're back to my game, but I can't... We just can't do it the same way again. And I don't--I don't have any support to draw on now. Not in the lower caverns, you, Mother--it's just... me."
Aivey's silence is likely far from helpful or supportive. But after a time, she does nod in apparent agreement with something he's said. And after another short span of time, she holds a hand out to him, palm downturned and fingers loosely curled, "I'm sorry," she'll offer upon their hands contacting, "I didn't mean to ruin your...good news." There's little positive in those last few words, certainly not enough to convey any amount of belief that his news was indeed good or welcome.
E'sere reaches to take her head, reluctantly. "Yes, you did," he tells her dryly, though without any apparent anger. He's letting her go again a second later in favor of pacing toward the bed in the back corner, and seating himself on the edge of it, hands gripping the edge. "Well. It's not much of good news, anyway," he concedes then, disgusted himself.
Aivey watches him go, though remains standing with both hands once more wrapped around herself. At his disgust, she attempts a comforting, "Not yet, no. But with time it can be. We need... we need a plan, first. We need to decide what to do, how we're going to handle these people and..." Aivey's eyes close and she tilts her head back, taking several long minutes to collect her thoughts before sharing them. "We're playing a game, dearest. Have you ever played this game...? It's fun, but not exactly without its risks." Approaching him, Aivey holds out her hands again, both palms facing up with the smallest of nods to indicate him to follow along.
Playing games with Aivey, even after living with her a year, is not something E'sere seems to look upon fondly, his eyes narrowing as he glances up at her again. However, after a moment he lifts his hands to hers with a long-suffering sigh. "I'm going to... have to meet with S'dric, tomorrow morning. I need to figure out what people are saying, though, tonight, what I need to be doing. You--you can act innocuous, unnoticeable again," he offers after a moment, with a faint frown of thought. "So they'd talk in front of you. And then you report back to me what you find out." Like she's a common spy.
Patiently and quite like she's actually listening to him, Aivey smiles and nods. But at the end, all she requests is, "Point of the game is to not get hit. 'course, when I played we used---not our hands, let's just say that." Her smile is a half one, but full of teeth and a mischievous glint to her eyes, "Learned faster that way, but anyways, try and pull your hands away 'fore I hit them. But if you wuss out you still get hit." She cants her head just enough to search his expression for understanding, and in the same instant she finds it she brings her hands up to slap his.
E'sere doesn't even really try to move his hands staring at Aivey's face with a sneer twisting at his mouth. "Children's game. I'm trying to plan the takeover of a Weyr and you want to play children's games," he says flatly, and pulls his hands back to himself, balling them as he flops back on the bed and lays down. "Go--oh, go find a weyrbrat to play with already, if you're not going to actually /try/ to be useful."
E'sere will find no safety in laying on the bed. Aivey drops upon him, pinning her knees against either side of his chest and her hands over his shoulders. "Watch yourself, Eseren - you might care about not returning but I'm of no mind on the matter." She emphasizes her next by digging her nails into his shoulders and leveraging her weight against his chest to make breathing just a little more difficult. "The point was flinching. That is the game. Who will flinch first and what attack will it take to make them flinch. Now do you want to be the one getting slapped or do you want to be the one slapping?"
"I'm fixing to slap you," threatens E'sere, his hands reaching for her wrists. She might be on top, but he has the advantage in size and brute strength, if not fighting skills, as he moves to flip her over quickly so he can be on top of her, and pin her down in return as they roll dangerously close to the edge of the bed again. "This has nothing to do with me. I told you, we can't get physical--it's not that kind of game, Aivey."
Aivey's tossed and pinned, and by the end of it there's a cruel laugh for his efforts. "You can't get physical, you might get dirty. I can get physical. I like physical." She emphasizes the last three words with the tinniest of squints and a delighted, anticipatory tone. While she's restrained from touching, she's not quite prevented from a lecherous look or the shifting of her hips, "Seriously, though," she adds scarcely a second later, her expression and manner now rather sober, "It's flinching... you don't /have/ to get physical to make them flinch. Would you like an example, dearest?"
E'sere doesn't seem terribly interested in Aivey's examples, because on the heels of her offer he's leaning down to kiss her roughly, in exchange for that look and her shifting under him. "I can get dirty, just not physically," he tells her a few moments later, doing his best to keep his hold on her. "Politics is always dirty. I know that game. It's just... been a while."
E'sere's rough kiss is returned in force and Aivey isn't the least bit shy about having to sacrifice comfort in order to manage it. But with the later of his words, and his attempts at maintaining hold, she drops back against the bed with an audible, heaving sigh. "I hate politics. It's so boring. I'll go mad if I sit on the sidelines doing nothing, dearest." she affords him an unamused look before taking the fact that they /are/ on the edge of the bed to advantage. Another shift and roll of her hips with a carbon-copy of the earlier look provide the bait, and if E'sere bites, Aivey's response won't be to kiss back so much as it will be forcing them both off the bed.
E'sere takes the bait, of course, leaning down to kiss her again, and then finding himself unceremoniously rolling off the bed, the fall destroying his neatly made covers. Momentum carries him over to land flat on his back, hard, with Aivey more on top of him. The breath's knocked well out of him by the stone as he lies there a little dazed, his hands on hers slackening. "Fuck," he finally wheezes out, pushing himself up to his elbows and rubbing the back of his head. "Bitch. Go get yourself killed, then; I don't care." Even as he's reaching for her shirt again to pull her over to him for another kiss--a little lacking in fervor, admittedly, but he still hasn't quite got his wind back.
Aivey prepares for such a landing when it's obvious one's coming, and so when E'sere lands and she with him, the loose contact he holds on her wrists is quickly broken before she rolls a short distance away. Coming up in a crouch and grinning with nothing short of total amusement at his 'go get yourself killed' statement. The kiss he seeks isn't immediately granted, either, for Aivey's hand closes around his wrist - loosely, so as not to invoke another round - "Flattery, my dearest bronzerider, will get you everywhere." Wrist released and kiss offered, Aivey moves against him with the express intent on forcing him back to his back. Sure, he's winded but she's just getting started. "My story, dearest, is what? When all the knots start asking me who I am and why I'm here and why I have such a devastatingly charming bronzerider... what am I to tell them?"
E'sere lets Aivey go when he gets his kiss, leaning back down onto the stone floor and closing his eyes. "We were escaping the political situation at the Reaches," he answers her. "A violent Weyrleader intent on destroying any opposition to himself, which foremost includes me. Although we'll keep it quiet that he's my cousin, and my mother his predecessor, as much as we can. As to how you got me--tell them the truth. There's no accounting for true love," he tells her, looking back her way with a smirk.
"Oh, right." Aivey slaps a hand against her forehead, performs a dramatic half twirl to drop down against his side, "There I was, I say, just washin' 'n dryin' 'n foldin' that laundry which piles up all day long. Didn't you know it, he walked on in, dropped his whities on my head and we was in love right then and there." She snorts and slaps a hand against his chest... like she would pat the head of a dog.
"Close enough," E'sere answers, reaching to catch her hand again. "Though as I recall, you tried to break my neck with your mopping first. My whities did not enter into it until much later."
"Mm, that was a pure accident. Fortunate, but accidental." Aivey glances aside, "You know, there's nothing wrong with a bit of obvious lying." Trickling a hand against his chest to unbutton the top most buttons, Aivey plays at distraction from the other hand sneaking toward his side and if left uncaught, she'll give quite the vicious poke before attempting to once more straddle his chest. "I am nothing more than your assistant. Your laundress, your helper, your go get me this, girl." Another half smile, "Naturally we're not going to be exactly perfect at covering the torrid little lust fest this is, but oh will we try our best to hide it."
"Fortunate," repeats E'sere, mouth quirking wryly as Aivey clambers on top of him again, after a twitch from her prodding fingers. "I suspect they've already figured out more than that, without even my admitting it. I didn't think you knew words like torrid--can you manage to read my books after all?" He tilts his head slightly as he looks up at her.
"Define read." Aivey requests rather pleasantly, "Though I wouldn't exactly call them books... and sure, they've found out more than we've intended, but look at the bright side." Her suddenly sunny smile is not the bright side she speaks of... it, in fact, is not even spoken of at all. "Just you remember, while you're out there being everyone's cherished son... that you're still /mine/ and I won't take too kindly to anyone messing with that."
"I'm no one's cherished son here," says E'sere, frown settling back along his mouth, despite Aivey's smile. It's short-lived, though, as he suppressed such thoughts in favor of reaching for her collar, to pull her back down to him. "You going to fix the Weyrwoman for me now, are you?" he wonders, raising a brow. "Because that's my new ticket."
"I'm no one's cherished son here," says E'sere, frown settling back along his mouth, despite Aivey's smile. It's short-lived, though, as he suppressed such thoughts in favor of reaching for her collar, to pull her back down to him. "You going to fix the Weyrwoman for me now, are you?" he wonders, raising a brow. "Because that's my new ticket."
"Exactly." Aivey says, obscurely enough, of his first. His later actions aren't in vain as Aivey draws back against him, her hands rising to play idly with his hair and when it amuses her, his face. "I am not allowed to /fix/ anyone. Fixing means permanent." After a kiss, she thinks to add, "I don't know what to do yet, E'sere but I promise I'll figure something out. Something that'll work." Meaningful, promised to an almost frightening depth is that and her last, "I promise."
"Good enough," murmurs E'sere in return, and doesn't try to waste more time with words, as he leans forward to begin to kiss her again.
Aivey's idle play becomes a little more focused with that kiss. She returns it along with many others, switching the focus of her hands toward the shirt she'd partially unbuttoned to complete the job. Come the shirt being shed, Aivey can't help but quip, "So much for not christening Benden, dearest." She gives little time for him to reply, what with smothering him in kisses before attempting just that.