[Log] Getting Even, or, What R'uen Deserves
Who: Ephara, Tiriana
When: Day 12, Month 12, Turn 15
Where: Bowl, Telgar Weyr
What: R'uen's demise? So not plotted. Really.
Southern Bowl, Telgar Weyr
Towering above, the bowl wall rises in a curving three-pointed arc as it shelters this southernmost point of Telgar Weyr's great caldera. Sloping down to the north to a slight degree, the floor of the bowl has been channeled so that runoff might drain down to the lake beyond. There are several strategically placed evergreens that serve to baffle the biting mountain winds away from the southern entrance into the Living Caverns. Drifts of snow and the heavy tracks of large dragon feet and bellies cross the expanse of the bowl. Rocks and crags are hung with the purest white. Northward, the center of the bowl spreads hugely, leading to the feeding pens, hatching grounds, weyrling barracks, the Telgar Weyr lake. The ground-level weyrs of the queenriders dot the mountain to the northwest. The murmur of voices and the clatter of pots and chairs drifts from the Living Cavern, where the evening meal is being served. (+view available)
The evening is clear, not a cloud to be seen, giving you a perfect view of the stars. The smaller Belior winks as a waning crescent while Timor shines in half moon. A light wind blows and the winter air is freezing against you.
Contents:
Ephara
Obvious exits:
Living Cavern Central Bowl Records Room Outer Infirmary Guest Weyr Work Room
With winter onset, evening comes early, and by the time Tiriana finishes the day's chores and cleans up, it's nearly full dark, the sun well below the bowl's rim. While many other residents are getting dinner about this time, she's forgoing the crowd, too, by loitering outside, leaned up against the wall just a little ways past the living cavern entrance.
Don't ask her why she's outside, at night, in the cold, but Ephara is. And she doesn't look pleased much either. Stomping across the bowl in her boots with her jacket pulled up tight against her cheeks and her arms crossed across her chest, she looks to be the epitome of misery.
And it's such a peaceful night, too; even Tiriana looks mostly at rest for those few moments. And then she sees Ephara, the other girl moping her way across the bowl, and there all hope of further quiet goes. Tiriana calls out, "What happened, somebody kill your dog or something?"
Ephara lifts her head from it's happy shelter and gives Tiriana the evil eye for a moment. "No, I just ain't used to it being so sharding cold yet. I was at Ista for the last winter." She drops the grouchiness though to ask, "How are you?"
"Didn't you live here?" Tiriana counters again, skeptically; she folds her arms over her chest and shoots a look up at the clear sky. A snort ensues. "Istans," she disdains. "It's still early and you're already complaining. I'm fine, of course--not so delicate as some, apparently." With a smug little smile. A beat later, though, she's curious enough to ask, "What were you doing in /Ista/?"
Ephara presses her lips together for a moment as if tempted to snap back at the woman, and then lets it go, "I did, I did some traveling though. I kinda felt really cooped up after Standing the last time, you know. Ain't easy for someone who's used to walking all over the place to take to one spot." She rubs the back of her neck. "Can't blame me for complaining too much. It's been nearly two Turns since I saw any snow on the ground. It takes some acclimation." Ooh, big word. "My brother lives at Ista, I was visiting him for a time. Getting a new perspective on life."
"Embarrassed?" Tiriana can't resist asking, with a lift of her brow; but she's quick to ditch that subject herself, in favor of others. "I wouldn't go to Ista for somebody. They can just come here and see me if they want to. Same as I told 'em at Southern--I wasn't going to stay there, either," she remarks, nose wrinkling. "They don't even have seasons. Just hot and wet and hot and even wetter."
Ephara grins, "Ah, I didn't go just to see him. I went to see another part of the world. I've never seen the ocean before I went there. It's very beautiful. I know you probably don't understand, growing up down there." She shrugs. "T'rev took me there, once. It's beautiful too. Kinda like Ista, only even more tropical. Anyways, if you really had someone you wanted to see, you wouldn't say that. Everyone you love's right here at Telgar." Providing Tiriana actually loves anyone.. a dubious condition, that.
Tiriana shrugs. "Not that special," she remarks, indeed sounding quite over the ocean. "Anyway, Ierne's is better than Southern's--with the black sand, and rocks, and it's just... better. Ierne pretty much is, over anywhere." Proud, she lifts her chin slightly, straightens, as though she's daring some kind of challenge to that fact. But her lips purse at Ephara's latter words; even her brows knit. "Told Daddy that already--he wants to see me, he can come here," she volunteers slowly, in answer to that claim.
Ephara tilts her head, "You don't love your Pa?" She asks, equally slow and thoughtful on this. "It seems to me like your father has other duties that he might need to attend to.. while you seem largely unoccupied. Could it hurt so much to go home? Especially if he misses you."
In return for that question, Ephara earns herself a look, and not a particularly pleasant one. "Don't put words in my mouth," Tiriana replies, her voice clipped. "He doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do, and anyway, he owes me. I went home last time, and that was turns ago." She pauses for a half-second; then, "Besides, couldn't get R'uen there without him knowing what was going on first, and that's not fair."
"If it's his turn, makes sense then!" offers Epha brightly. Then she pauses, brows knitting together, "Wait, without who knowing what? R'uen knowing about your father or your father knowing about you and Rev? Anyways, why would he care. You're a grown woman, you're allowed to have relationships."
"No, no," Tiriana says, with an exasperated sigh--the sort that says Ephara is missing something completely obvious. "Nobody gets to know about anybody--Daddy just shows up and gets to meet him. And then kill him like he deserves." Only Tiriana would be quite so excited about that proposition, the way her smug smirk stretches across her mouth just imagining it. Hastily, though, she adds, with a glower, "And I swear if you warn him somehow--well. You just better not."
Ephara blinks a few times, "Why would you want R'uen dead?" Inch inch. Oh Gaaaaay, we've got a nutter in the Weyr. "I have a moral obligation to, you know, report any threats of violance. Plotting to have someone murdered, especially a dragonrider is.. you know.. not good. Especially when Liabeth will be rising any day now.." Sage nod.
Tiriana rolls her eyes. "Okay, how about beat him to within an inch of his life?" she amends herself. "Or should I say they'll just hug like normal people and go back to just imagining Daddy suffocating him?" Disdainful, she just shakes her head at Ephara's reluctance, her moral obligations. "What's Liabeth got to do with anything, anyway? You think Zaiventh--" Her intial condescending tone pulls up short, and she stops altogether then.
Ephara shrugs, "With E'tyn gone, it's hard to say who will be the next weyrleader. I still don't know why you want to see R'uen hurt. If you don't like him, you should just break up with him." Teenagers, they think simply.
And this time, that sigh's almost pitying for that innocence, the simplicity Ephara brings to the problem. "It's not about not /liking/ him," Tiriana notes. "It's about getting /even/. You wouldn't understand." Pause. Blink. Her usual disclaimer is tacked on then, though almost mechanically, no conviction behind it: "Not that I do like him, or there's anything to break up, or... anything. Yeah."
Ephara looks cynical, staring Tiriana down. "i'm not stupid. Everyone knows you're screwing like bunnies in heat. You don't have to announce an official weyrmating to be together. You'd pound me into the ground if I even looked at him the wrong way or hit on him. If that doesn't spell out your affection for him, I'm a fardling wherry." Ever to the point, this one. "And I don't see how you need to get even with him. He doesn't do anything to you that you don't deserve, except break your nose. You definitely deserve that." Well, she can only be nice so long. This /is/ her Standmate, after all.
For once, Tiriana doesn't seem to know what to say. Her mouth opens, and shuts, and opens again, rather fish-like. "It could be just sex, you know!" she finds her voice and retorts, tone rising, much as a flush does up her neck. Fortunately, it's dark enough to hide most of that. "And you wouldn't know /what/ he does to deserve it or not, so don't try to tell /me/ he doesn't." She tries so hard to sound lofty, distant, in that; she doesn't manage it. She does manage to scowl and turn about, stalking toward the living cavern at last.