[Log] How to Tell a Good Story, or, It's All Shad's Fault
Who: Dziban, K'tag, L'yan
When: Day 24, Month 8, Turn 199
Where: White Sands Beach, Southern Weyr
What: Dziban's and K'tag's discussion of a mysterious friend is interrupted by an irate L'yan.
---| White Sands Beach |---------------------------| Southern Weyr (#630) |---
Fine sand encircles the shore of the lake with only the occasional palm tree to provide shade and break up the blinding whiteness. The lake sparkles with refracted light, the water dancing from the waterfall's plummet to the river far below. As a result mellow waves lap against the shoreline, a smoothing of the sand's natural formations the only hint of where the tidemark lies. As the day progresses, the grains of sand retain the heat from Rukbat's rays, making the beach difficult to walk upon. It is then that the thick green foliage separating the beach from the meadow's edge becomes a favorite, the shade a welcome change.
It's evening, with the stars just starting to reflect against the water, and the winter winds seem to blow with more intensity. Or perhaps it's only that they seem more sharply edged without the ameliorating presence of the winter sun to warm them.
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People: Dziban K'tag
Obvious exits:
Lakeside Meadow PAvilion Southern Weyrs Waterfall Viewing Point White Sands Lake
The beach finds itself almost alone this cool winter night. K'tag, a trail of steady bootprints behind him in the sand, sits near the shore of the water, leaning back into his hands, staring out into the light reflecting off of the water as a logician does a puzzle, a kind of sharp thought without intensity. His outermost shirt is off, discarded to the side, but that still leaves two on, and he still wears his boots and everything else. Perfect rider's uniform - nobody's surprised.
With much less reserve than K'tag, Dziban makes her own appearance on the beach, jauntily striding along and childishly trying to match her footprints to those who had preceded her there. She's failing, of course, but the fun's in trying, right? After a short time, though, her attention starts to wander, and she gives up on this pursuit in favor of eyeing K'tag and drifting toward him as the most potentially interesting thing there tonight. "Hi!" is her enthusiastic greeting.
At the sound of the cheerful greeting behind him, K'tag's eyes flick to the sides, but he does not turn his head just yet. Exhaling out of his nose, but otherwise showing little annoyance, the brownrider slowly rises to his boots, making a scene of dusting his thighs free of sand before he even looks up to the girl. "Good evening. I am... sorry if you came for the sunset, it would seem you just missed it." He gestures out to the water's edge with a sweeping hand, as though his point needs proving. Even as far as K'tag goes, he sounds unusually solemn and quiet this night.
Cocking her head slightly, Dziban peers from man to water and back again before querying, voice mystified, "The sunset?" She pauses to mull this over, then picks up a comfortable, friendly chatter to fill the silence K'tag's apparent solemnity created. "Why would I come out here for that? It's dull. I've seen lots of them before. Did you come out here for it? Is it, like, really different now for some reason that makes it not-boring?"
K'tag apparently didn't anticipate that response, for his eyebrows narrow, perplexed, and he raises one hand to scratch at the back of his neck. "... Yes, that is why I came out here," he decides after a hesitation, as though he needed to put thought into the question. "No, it is the same sunset I have seen every night since I came here. Why is it that you are out this night... ma'am?" A frown follows that last word, and K'tag crosses his arms over his chest.
Dziban makes a decidedly disgusted face at K'tag's use of the title, shaking her head and throwing up her hands, palms out. "Dziban," she corrects him. "Not ma'am. I'm not a ma'am. I'm a... Dziban." She frowns slightly at her lame response, then blazes onward. "So... if it's the same one, why'd you come out here? I'm just out here to be out here, mostly. Been cooped up inside most of the day, and I hate that. Don't you?"
"Dziban," K'tag repeats after the girl, trying it out for himself. It's difficult to gauge from the tones of his voice precisely what he thinks. "I am pleased to meet your acquaintance. I am K'tag. Stormfall's Wingsecond. I came out here to think." He doesn't seem particularly bothered at being interrupted from it. "... Do I mind being cooped up inside? ... Not if there is work to be done. But yes. If I had no other task, I would be..." He inhales here, holds it, and lets his arms drop to his sides. Dull blue eyes glance out to the water. "... Restless, as well."
"Dziban," she repeats one more time for K'tag's benefit, before unceremoniously dropping to a seat on the sand. She hugs her knees up to her chest while she peers up at the brownrider. "I hate being stuck inside even if I do have something I'm supposed to be doing," she admits. "S'why I'm a hunter, so I can always have a nice, outdoorsy job." Pause. "So what are you thinking about?" is her next nosy question.
"... Somebody I knew once," comes K'tag's vague response, shrugged off as though it is of no importance. He casts a glance out of the girl out of the corner of his eye, a little too quick to hop onto this next topic change. "You say you are a hunter?" Turning his head, he now looks the girl down on the sand over, head to toe, his expression unreadable even as he finishes, turning his eyes back to the water. "I have a friend who was a hunter. ... Had." He pauses once more, opens his mouth again as though to correct himself yet again, then closes his eyes and shakes his head, deciding against it.
With some amount of interest, Dziban cocks her head and beams up at K'tag. "Oh? Who's that? Do I know them? Is it somebody from the past? You /are/ from the past, aren't you? 'Cuz I went there and met people, but not you." Duh. She pauses to readjust her position, fidgeting and sprawling out her legs, weight resting on her forearms as she half-lies down. "But yeah. I'm a hunter. So's my sister -- she's teaching me, actually. I'm still not, um, very good, I guess." She blushes at the admission, shifting slightly again. "Maybe I know your friend. Your old friend. What happened with him?"
K'tag pulls his cheeks back into what is either a grin or a grimace, though it's difficult to gauge which since he turns away fairly quickly. "... No, I do not think you had the opportunity to talk to her." Instead of answering one of the other questions posed, K'tag just moves right along, only now glancing back at the girl. "... Where is he now, or what happened to our relationship? Likely, he is..." The man shrugs his shoulders here, too light to be particularly bitter. "Taking some stranger up to his weyr as we speak. I merely misgauged who he was, that is all, and it is..." It trails off into a 'mm', and he shakes his head very slightly. "I am sure," he speaks up, voice slightly lighter now. "That given time, you will improve. Practice."
"Oh," Dziban replies, momentarily crest-fallen at K'tag's first words. However, she soon bounces back, offering him a faintly puzzled look. "But... What do you mean? Misgau--You think so? I mean, I've only been doing it a few turns now, and Dabih -- that's my sister -- says it took her /forever/ to get good, too. Do you know anything about hunting?" She's easily distracted, Dziban is.
After he realizes where the girl's interest is heading, the frown that slowly grows on K'tag's face is immediately wiped away the moment Dziban, seemingly without a breath's pause, moves right on into a completely different topic, leaving the poor brownrider to all but peer at her, perplexed. Recovering himself swiftly enough, K'tag fakes a smile, shoves his hands into his pockets, and shakes his head. "Aidryth seems rather good at it, but no, I could scarcely catch a redfruit." Is that a joke? It's delivered so blandly and seriously it's difficult to tell. "... I have little skill with weapons of any kind. What sorts do you use?"
Dziban blinks, peering blankly at K'tag in return for his 'joke'. "You... what?" She shakes her head, then answers the brownrider's question. "Oh, all sorts of things. Mostly bows. Don't they teach all you riders self-defense? Or do they not do that where you're from?"
K'tag shifts his gaze to the side, mumbling a "Never mind" under his breath when the 'joke' goes sailing over the girl's head. His right boot scuffs at the sand with its tip, kicking a little back before he glances up. "I had a difficult time getting a hold of the lessons," K'tag admits, almost expressionless in his confession. "... But yes. Come to think of it, one such lesson led me to first believe I had misjudged, ah, my friend." Instead of being helpful and elaborating, however, K'tag merely stands there, half of his time looking out on the water, the other half scanning the beach.
Dziban tilts her head slightly and resettles into her first position, eyeing K'tag with an abundance of rapt attention. "Really? I like the fighting--I mean, the self-defense. Yeah, that's it. I'm always self-defending myself, thought not as much as when I was littler, but anyway. Tell me about it. I love stories." She looks hopeful as she makes her request.
K'tag, maybe getting used to the girl bouncing from thought to thought, waits quite patiently for her to allow him a chance to speak, nodding once or twice at intervals but otherwise remaining silent. "... There was honestly not much to it, Dziban," he replies to the girl. Looks like the name stuck. "People thought he was one way, I thought he was another, was certain of it for Turns, and now I believe I have been deluding myself. I thought I would fight him, make him listen to me, but he bested me when another... friend interfered, and... that is all." Not one much for the descriptions, this man.
"That's a /terrible/ story," Dziban protests. "I mean, who is this friend? What'd you think he was like? What made you change your mind? That sort of thing. You have to include the details, man. Make it interesting. Embellish things, you know what I mean. Now why don't you try again?" She expectantly stares at the brownrider after thus enlightening him.
L'yan enters from the rustling meadow grasses and flowers.
L'yan has arrived.
K'tag all but peers at Dziban at her response, slowly raising up one hand to scratch at the back of his neck. "... It is my father who was the storyteller, not I, Dziban," he informs her, not quite cross but certainly a touch bothered, a low frown crossing his face. "He... I... Others thought he was a terrible person, had few if any redeeming qualities around him, whilst I admired his strength. His strength may have been only his selfishness, but come, why do you find this so interesting?" Aw, is somebody getting embarrassed at being criticized?
"Well, it's not that interesting, the way you tell it," Dziban admits, definitely not picking up on the fact that K'tag might be less than comfortable with this subject. "I mean, it sounds like it could be a really juicy story or something, with the proper... you know what I mean. I mean, not everybody's a harper, but you could at least /try/. So do I know this guy? Maybe he'll gimme s'more of the details."
A large dark shadow blocks out the sunset-dyed clouds suddenly, but only momentarily. It circles once, then the dragon glides into a shallow dive, the path of which leads straight to the nearby meadow. It's not long afterwards that a thin figure comes stalking away from the meadow and down towards the beach. Pulling at the fastenings of his riding jacket and shucking off gloves, L'yan seems to have a purpose in mind despite no longer belonging to Southern. Lost in his own thoughts, he doesn't notice the pair speaking on the beach until he's close enough to identify the rider. He stops, aghast, then growls, throwing his hands up in the air, "I just can't win, can I?"
K'tag? Be uninteresting? As shocking a development this may be, K'tag doesn't seem particularly inclined to disagree with the girl, shrugging nonchalantly as he turns his whole body back to the water like a defiant weyrbrat. "It is not my place to divulge his name, Dziban. It is not fair to him." He hesitates for a moment or two, shoots a glance to her, frowns gently, and adds, voice soft by comparison, genuine, "... I am sorry." It's about now that L'yan storms his way into the area and shouts, leaving K'tag to just sort of peer at him. His hesitation is long, very long. "... Good evening, L'yan. What seems to be the matter?"
"Um." Dziban, distracted by L'yan's words, peers over at the brownrider and offers up that single intelligent syllable, blinking in surprise. "I dunno? I mean, what are you losing, to start with?" she prompts after a moment, offering him an unhelpful shrug and adjusting her position on the sand so that she can better regard both brownriders. Sulkily, she gives K'tag a Look and declares defiantly, "Well, it's a Weyr, so gossip gets around easily. I'll just have to--to find somebody who /will/ tell me. I bet I can figure it out before long."
L'yan clenches his jaw, the grinding of teeth audible even over the gentle sound of the waves lapping onto the shore. He flushes when K'tag greets him hesitantly, then chooses to respond to the stranger instead. "Everything! Nothing! I don't know!" he exclaims, then turns and kicks a rock that's oh-so-offensively sitting nearby. Hard, judging by the look of pain that spreads over the distraught rider's face, though it's replaced by renewed rage again soon enough as he curses the innocent rock under his breath.
K'tag glances at Dziban out of the corner of his eye, but his attention quickly refocuses on the other brownrider - not, however, before the man mutters under his breath, "Not unless they wrote it in the history hides, you won't." His voice is quiet, and with a touch of luck he won't be heard over L'yan's banter. It's right as L'yan kicks the rock that K'tag "springs" into action, taking a small step forward and announcing, louder than he's spoken all night, "L'yan, that's enough. Calm yourself, now." He won't say another word until L'yan has at least managed to quench some of his anger. If the younger brownrider does manage to chill, K'tag will asks, much gentler, "Now what happened?" If L'yan keeps up his fury, K'tag will do little more than glare very disapprovingly. Tsk.
"Oh, boy. That's helpful," Dziban observes, shaking her head vaguely at L'yan's angry words. "So what happened? And, more importantly, do you know who's his friend?" She gestures to K'tag, blinks, then clarifies: "The one that's not his friend anymore. Because he wasn't what he was supposed to be, or something like that." She waves a hand haphazardly as she tries to explain to the newly arrived brownrider.
"You! This is all your fault! You and Shad's!" L'yan snarls, shaking a fist angrily in K'tag's direction. How Sh'drian fits into all this is anyone's guess, especially with the words that come next. "If it hadn't been for you, for whatever we did, I wouldn't have been confused! Then he wouldn't have been able to beguile me with those pretty eyes and make me think he cared for me, only to go off with that, that /greenrider,/" he spits out the word as if it's a dirty one. Whatever else he might have had to say, his train of thought is broken by Dziban's entirely unrelated questions. "I don't know," he grumbles. "The only person I can think of seeing him around frequently off the top of my head is Sh'drian, and you can't help but know that he's lower than a dragonet's dung."
K'tag, thanks to L'yan's continued ranting, doesn't get to ask L'yan again what's wrong, but he receives the answer anyway. "My fault?" the brownrider inquires, rather calmly, his voice a shocking contrast to L'yan's snarl. The brunt of the rest of L'yan's words sinks in, and K'tag raises one eyebrow, now suddenly becoming curious. "... L'yan, I cannot say I follow you," the stoic one responds, voice slow. "I was under the impression that nothing occured, and that we would... Shards, L'yan, you are not..." And just then, it really sinks in. "L'yan, what in Faranth's name are you talking about here?"
Dziban blinks at L'yan's sudden invective, tilting her head in curiousity. "Sh'drian?" she tests out the name, glancing to K'tag to try to judge his reaction. "I don't think I know him. How much lower than dragon dung can you get? What's so bad about him?" She peers between the pair again, as most of the conversation drifts right on over her head, rather like with poor K'tag.
As suddenly as infection seeps out of a lanced wound, L'yan's anger drains from him. As if his legs can't hold him up anymore, he sinks to the sands, pulling his knees up to his chest and hiding his face in them. "There's this guy that K'rien brought around. Kept making all these comments about...keeping each other warm. It was really embarrassing," L'yan's voice is soft, muffled almost to the point of inaudibility. "It was embarrassing," he repeats, "so I tried to stay away from him. But he kept following me around! And then he cornered me and he wouldn't let me leave unless I hit him or kissed him, and I didn't know what I wanted to do, because he's prettier than a lot of girls. And I was feeling bad anyway because I don't know what's going on with Winter and then...," he trails off, then sniffles. "And then tonight he wouldn't even talk to me, but he talked to that greenrider, and then they left together. Holding hands!" While normally L'yan would be quite happy to rail about Sh'drian's imperfections, Dziban's further questions go ignored for the moment.
Even though his distraction, K'tag glances Dziban's way, though he quickly turns away the moment he realizes a reaction is precisely what the girl wants. Besides, there are more... pressing matters. "We will talk about him later," the brownrider tells the hunter out of the corner of his mouth, teeth gritted as though trying to hide it from L'yan. His arms come up and cross his chest as he listens to L'yan's response, posture adamant, mouth locked. This pose fades away immediately at the 'kissed him' line, and the look on the former Tanner's face is absolutely priceless when he mentions prettier. And finally, K'tag speaks, summoning up all the anger L'yan leaked out. "By Faranth's first egg, L'yan, are you mad or just daft?!" Wow. "Daxmer? You are kissing Daxmer and coming to me in a fury when he leaves you for another rider? Even though you have slept with a woman I love? Shardit, L'yan, absolutely not, I am assuming -no- responsibility for this, absolutely -not-. No. Take your troubles away from me, I've nothing to do with them." And he backs away, boots sinking in the wet sand, as though to prove this point.
Dziban eyes L'yan, gawking a bit as he speaks. Finally, she decides, "You should've hit 'im. I would've. I mean, guys are idiots." Pause. "No offense, of course. But they are." That seems to be the sum of her wisdom on the subject, for, perhaps surprisingly, she falls subsequently silent, though she does look a bit smug as K'tag confirms her suspicions with that look.
"It was more than kissing," slips out of L'yan's mouth before he can help it. Though his face isn't visible, what can be seen of his neck under his shaggy hair turns a red that matches the sunset rather nicely. "I wasn't coming to you on purpose," he says sullenly. "I was coming to swim where it's actually warm and I wouldn't risk seeing /him/," he doesn't specify which him he's referring to. Then some of K'tag's words sink in, and L'yan raises surprised, red-rimmed eyes. "You're in love with Winter, too?" he asks incredulously, then drops his head back to his knees with a groan. "It figures. Yes, we're idiots, at least I am," he says, raising his voice a bit to make sure it carries to Dziban.
K'tag's slow backwards walk comes to a complete stop upon L'yan's response. If the first look was priceless, this has gone beyond that. "... You wherry-br..." K'tag stops himself before the insult is out. Perhaps realizing his lack of composure, the man clears his throat, stands up straight, and brings his arms up, crossing his chest in a stern but not tense maneuver. "No, L'yan," he replies, voice purely genuine. "I did love Winter at the time, but have since moved on." There's a faint emphasis on the last two words, complete with a nod of a gesture. He glances back to Dziban, frowns just a little, and nods, clearing his throat once more. "Yes, I suppose that is so, Dziban. My behavior was inexcusable. L'yan, if you would accept my apologies?" Head cants to one side, quite innocently.
"I don't like winter," Dziban observes, continuning her helpful comments tonight. "Too cold, most places. Well, here it's not, but everyone else?" She shudders expressively, then starts as K'tag addresses her. She offers him a grin. "Hey, I didn't mean you had to apologize or anything. I was just statin' a fact," she notes.
L'yan, unfortunately, didn't get a look at either of K'tag's priceless expressions, and as Pern still doesn't possess cameras, they are lost forever. Too bad. The boy's shoulder's shudder momentarily, then his muffled voice raises again. "There's no need to apologize," he says wearily. "You're both right. I'm daft, I'm mad, I'm an idiot, I'm a wherry-brain. All that and more. Alina was right-it's not worth it to even mess with this stuff. But if it makes you feel better, I accept your apology. I shouldn't have yelled at you either."
K'tag is probably waiting for the other shoe to drop, but in actions and facial expression, however, he seems more than willing to accept L'yan's comparative docility. "Do not be so hard on yourself, L'yan. I am certain all will turn out just fine. Now. Have you met Dziban? She is a hunter around the weyr," he adds, gesturing faintly to her with his hand. Oh, how peaceful. Even K'tag can't fully hide the fact that he's simmering for an argument underneath the words to keep the peace.
Dziban shakes her head in utter confusion, then stands and announces, "Yeah, yeah. Nice to meet you, 'n' all that. You two are just... confusing. I'm gonna go find something else to do. Night!" And she offers them a vague, already distracted wave as she turns and starts off toward the meadow.