[Log] No Quitting
Who: Betegal, Tiriana
When: Day 16, Month 10, Turn 19
Where: Hatching Galleries, High Reaches Weyr
What: Tiriana uses her powers for good.
Hatching Galleries, High Reaches Weyr
Ringing the southwestern side of the hatching sands are ample tiers of carved stone benches, the lowest of which is some six feet off the ground -- just high enough to separate wayward hatchlings from unwary viewers, and vice versa. A metal railing on the outside helps prevent anyone from falling off; it also extends up the stairs that lead the way higher into the galleries. While most of the area is open seating, ropes section off some of the closer tiers when dignitaries are expected; those areas even feature cushions in the Weyr's blue and black.
The higher one climbs, the more apparent the immense scale of the entire cavern becomes. The dragon-sized entrance on the ground is dwarfed by the expansive golden sands that glitter in the light. Everything on them is easily visible from the galleries, whether that's a clutch of eggs and a broody queen, or simply its emptiness and the handful of darker tunnels that lead to more private areas than the bowl. Wherever one sits or looks, however, one thing is constant: the overwhelming, suffocating heat.
Contents:
Betegal
Obvious exits:
Sands Bowl
Iovniath's at it again: since she clutched her sixteen eggs, she's hardly left them alone, turning them, moving them, rearranging them into elaborate patterns by size, color, and other more ephemeral characteristics. Today, while she moves them all around the sands, Tiriana is hanging out in the galleries, with a stack of work. That she's not doing, of course. She's sprawled flat on her back on one of the cushioned benches at the front, her hands behind her head and eyes closed.
Betegal is using some of his free time to take a glance at the eggs that he's more or less mostly avoided looking at except for those couple times when he didn't. It's hard to miss the Weyrwoman as he passes nearby because she's just that sort of person. And, well, anyone in the galleries is going to be looking that way anyway. He seems uncertain about disturbing her, though, so he sits down a little ways away but still on one of the cushiony seats. He has his journal with him and, after a sidelong glance toward Tiriana, he opens it and his gaze shifts to the sands.
Hyperaware of intruders, Iovniath is the first to recognize that someone new has come to join them, and she gives the galleries a brief glance before she goes back to her rearrangements. Tiriana, instead, provides the greeting for Betegal, as she lifts her head up enough to see him, then slides an elbow under herself to raise up. "What do you think you're doing?" she asks, tracking him over to where he takes out his journal.
"Looking at the eggs," Betegal responds in his most neutral tone, turning his head so that he's actually looking at Tiriana when he says it. There's a decided lack of confrontational intensity to him right now but it's always good to be wary and Bety is certainly that. "I can go further back," he says, waving a hand toward behind him as he closes his journal and rises to do just that.
Tiriana frowns, sliding her feet back to the floor as she hauls herself up. She heads down to where Betegal sits, stepping heedlessly on the fancy cushions along the way. "Why, because it's so busy down here?" she scoffs as she flops down again in the seat right beside him. "Sit," she orders as he starts to get up. "Now what are you really doing in here?" And she nods toward his journal.
Betegal has to think about whether or not he'll listen to that order. He glances further back into the galleries almost wistfully now but he does as he's told and sits. "I was going to guess which hatchlings will come out of which eggs," he says, opening the journal back up and flipping nearly to the back, through a lot of other stuff, to find a blank page. "And one of the kids I was watching today begged me to draw her a picture of the 'prettiest egg.'" He lifts up one hand to give air quotes when he speaks the last two words.
"The kids," says Tiriana, snurling up her nose in distaste for that. "They're so annoying. Always in here underfoot, like they've never seen a hatching before. " Of course, some of them probably haven't--and the ones who have, likely don't remember it, anyway, what with it being an interval and all. Tiriana doesn't worry herself about such details, though. "So which one's the prettiest?" she demands of Betegal instead.
Betegal makes sounds of agreement without actually saying any words but the last question makes him look at Tiriana, then toward the dragon overseeing the eggs. "I don't know. She makes it kind of hard to actually see them sometimes. I've never really thought of them in terms of prettiest, anyway," he says the last with a shrug and looks down at his journal, sketching out the form of an egg. "Which do you or she think is the prettiest?" he asks, either trying to turn the question away from himself or simply asking for some female input on the matter.
Tiriana's eyes narrow; she doesn't seem to believe that. She gives Iovniath and her ever-shifting egg patterns another look, echoed in the gold's glance back at them. Eventually, Tiriana declares, prim, "A mother doesn't play favorites." She can't maintain such decorum, however, and is soon peering back down at Betegal's egg-shape. "What terms /do/ you think of them in, then?"
"Eggs," says Betegal, "I think of them in terms of eggs that have little baby dragons inside of them." If he sounds a little sarcastic, he tries to draw less attention to it by lifting a hand to push back through his hair and he continues, "The shells break. They don't really matter as much in the long run." Philosophical? Probably more along the lines of shallow teenaged boy. "Did she ever find any candidates she doesn't hate?" he adds, still striving for neutral, even conversational.
"Well." Tiriana pauses for a moment, then--almost!--smiles. "That's what they are. Eggs." They're really digging deep tonight, aren't they. As for the candidates? Tiriana just blows out a deep breath and leans back, her lips pursed. "Some she'll tolerate, anyway, probably mostly because they've stayed out of her way. Faranth only knows how I'm going to get you out their for touchings. I mean, she says she /has/ to because it's what you do, but..." Shrug.
The ex-smith pauses in his absent sketching to gaze at the dragon on the sands. "She's not going to, like, get pissed if someone she doesn't like attracts a hatchling and stomp on them or something when the time comes, is she?" Betegal doesn't even look all that certain whether or not that's a serious question. "When are those going to start? Touchings, I mean. Do we really need to do that?"
"Hell if I know," says Tiriana, without sounding particularly concerned. A beat later, "Nah, she won't do that--not herself, anyway. She'll arrange some way for Cadejoth to do it accidentally. Maybe finally find a use for him." Her eyes stray to the ledges where the bronze is generally stuck, out of proper, perfectionist Iovniath's way. Tiriana, for the latter question of the candidate, frowns, however, and gives the eggs another long look. "A little longer. Whenever she thinks they're hard enough for it." And she snickers, because, well. That's what she said.
Betegal doesn't look particularly encouraged but he'd be kind of foolish looking for encouragement from this particular woman. "Oh," is all he says to that, glancing sidelong at the Weyrwoman again, then down. He could probably ask his next question to someone else but since Tiriana is here, he ventures, "If a candidate decides they don't want to stand anymore, can they just, y'know, stop?"
Tiriana is probably not the right person to ask that to. She rounds on Betegal at once, scowling at him. "Why would you want to quit?" she demands. "What, Iovniath and the Reaches aren't good enough for you or something?" Because of course this is meant as a personal slight to her dragon and her Weyr.
Betegal scowls back, intense, but then he looks away, glowering at his journal instead. "Don't be like that," he says. "If the Reaches weren't good enough for me, I wouldn't put up with the awful winters." Spoken like a true native. "I just don't want..." he lets his voice trail off and he sighs. "Just," another pause, "Nevermind. I didn't say I wanted to quit."
"I'll be however I want to be," Tiriana answers, mouth tightening at Betegal's chide. She's silent for a moment, just enough to compose herself, even if her words are still testy. "You asked if you could just stop being one," she points out. "That's quitting. What else do you mean, then? What don't you want?"
"Sorry, ma'am" Betegal murmurs, but he shakes his head and closes his journal. He doesn't want to talk about whatever's on his mind, that's pretty clear to anyone with a lick of sense. He mulls over what to say that might satisfy the woman after his poor judgment and finally says, "My da will be really mad if I screw this up. I don't want to stay here for that." He shrugs. See, no big deal.
"Fuck your dad," says Tiriana, with a roll of her eyes for this logic. She's not placated so much as her anger is redirected from Betegal to his father."Doesn't matter a damn what he thinks, if you impress bronze or green or nothing or whatever," is her firm opinion. "You're a grown man, what are you letting him run your life for?"
Betegal doesn't look like he thinks it's such an easily solved problem but he doesn't argue. "He's my dad," is what he does say and that seems like plenty of reason to him. He's not comfortable with the whole talking about his father thing, though, so he tries to change the subject. "Did they find out who's been stealing stuff?" he asks, 'they' likely being no one in particular.
"So? Even more reason to tell him to fuck off," insists the Weyrwoman, vehement on this point. "Sometimes you just have to tell your parents that, and be done with them." And she nods once, decisively; even folds her arms over her chest before she lets him change the subject. It does nothing to improve her mood. "No," she snaps. "We fucking well didn't, all right?"
Betegal still doesn't look convinced that telling his father to fuck off is such a great idea, but the response he gets from the change of subject is plenty to make him seek something else. He comes up short. "Maybe I should go," he suggests quietly. "Is there anything I can do for you?" he asks this in a 'before I go' fashion.
"Maybe you should," and Tiriana's answer has all the earmarks of pouting, her arms crossing and lower lip jutting out. "No. Not unless /you/ know something about what's going down." She snorts, plainly not expecting /that/. And tacked on a beat later is, "I forbid you to quit. And I don't know who the hell your daddy is, but I guarantee I outrank him, so. He messes with you, /I'll/ tell him to fuck off. Nobody messes with my candidates."
"Sorry," Betegal says since he doesn't know a damned thing about anything that has to do with the thefts. He looks a little surprised when she /forbids/ him to quit, though, and a little incredulous, too. Can she do that? He doesn't actually ask, though, and just nods his head and says, "Okay. Uh. Thanks." He gathers himself up but the pouting makes him a little hesitant to actually leave.
"Of course," says Tiriana, as though it's nothing; as though she regularly forbids candidates to quit instead of throwing them out herself. But when Betegal lingers, she focuses on the eggs as much as she can, until she eventually has to glance back over at him. "What now?" she wonders, with a melodramatically exasperated sigh.
Betegal glances away and nearly trips when he steps back. "Nothing," he assures her and takes his much more clear cue to leave. He may mumble something about women on his way, but the tone of it is a shared exasperation rather than anything too strongly felt. He's hasty about the getting gone thing.
When: Day 16, Month 10, Turn 19
Where: Hatching Galleries, High Reaches Weyr
What: Tiriana uses her powers for good.
Hatching Galleries, High Reaches Weyr
Ringing the southwestern side of the hatching sands are ample tiers of carved stone benches, the lowest of which is some six feet off the ground -- just high enough to separate wayward hatchlings from unwary viewers, and vice versa. A metal railing on the outside helps prevent anyone from falling off; it also extends up the stairs that lead the way higher into the galleries. While most of the area is open seating, ropes section off some of the closer tiers when dignitaries are expected; those areas even feature cushions in the Weyr's blue and black.
The higher one climbs, the more apparent the immense scale of the entire cavern becomes. The dragon-sized entrance on the ground is dwarfed by the expansive golden sands that glitter in the light. Everything on them is easily visible from the galleries, whether that's a clutch of eggs and a broody queen, or simply its emptiness and the handful of darker tunnels that lead to more private areas than the bowl. Wherever one sits or looks, however, one thing is constant: the overwhelming, suffocating heat.
Contents:
Betegal
Obvious exits:
Sands Bowl
Iovniath's at it again: since she clutched her sixteen eggs, she's hardly left them alone, turning them, moving them, rearranging them into elaborate patterns by size, color, and other more ephemeral characteristics. Today, while she moves them all around the sands, Tiriana is hanging out in the galleries, with a stack of work. That she's not doing, of course. She's sprawled flat on her back on one of the cushioned benches at the front, her hands behind her head and eyes closed.
Betegal is using some of his free time to take a glance at the eggs that he's more or less mostly avoided looking at except for those couple times when he didn't. It's hard to miss the Weyrwoman as he passes nearby because she's just that sort of person. And, well, anyone in the galleries is going to be looking that way anyway. He seems uncertain about disturbing her, though, so he sits down a little ways away but still on one of the cushiony seats. He has his journal with him and, after a sidelong glance toward Tiriana, he opens it and his gaze shifts to the sands.
Hyperaware of intruders, Iovniath is the first to recognize that someone new has come to join them, and she gives the galleries a brief glance before she goes back to her rearrangements. Tiriana, instead, provides the greeting for Betegal, as she lifts her head up enough to see him, then slides an elbow under herself to raise up. "What do you think you're doing?" she asks, tracking him over to where he takes out his journal.
"Looking at the eggs," Betegal responds in his most neutral tone, turning his head so that he's actually looking at Tiriana when he says it. There's a decided lack of confrontational intensity to him right now but it's always good to be wary and Bety is certainly that. "I can go further back," he says, waving a hand toward behind him as he closes his journal and rises to do just that.
Tiriana frowns, sliding her feet back to the floor as she hauls herself up. She heads down to where Betegal sits, stepping heedlessly on the fancy cushions along the way. "Why, because it's so busy down here?" she scoffs as she flops down again in the seat right beside him. "Sit," she orders as he starts to get up. "Now what are you really doing in here?" And she nods toward his journal.
Betegal has to think about whether or not he'll listen to that order. He glances further back into the galleries almost wistfully now but he does as he's told and sits. "I was going to guess which hatchlings will come out of which eggs," he says, opening the journal back up and flipping nearly to the back, through a lot of other stuff, to find a blank page. "And one of the kids I was watching today begged me to draw her a picture of the 'prettiest egg.'" He lifts up one hand to give air quotes when he speaks the last two words.
"The kids," says Tiriana, snurling up her nose in distaste for that. "They're so annoying. Always in here underfoot, like they've never seen a hatching before. " Of course, some of them probably haven't--and the ones who have, likely don't remember it, anyway, what with it being an interval and all. Tiriana doesn't worry herself about such details, though. "So which one's the prettiest?" she demands of Betegal instead.
Betegal makes sounds of agreement without actually saying any words but the last question makes him look at Tiriana, then toward the dragon overseeing the eggs. "I don't know. She makes it kind of hard to actually see them sometimes. I've never really thought of them in terms of prettiest, anyway," he says the last with a shrug and looks down at his journal, sketching out the form of an egg. "Which do you or she think is the prettiest?" he asks, either trying to turn the question away from himself or simply asking for some female input on the matter.
Tiriana's eyes narrow; she doesn't seem to believe that. She gives Iovniath and her ever-shifting egg patterns another look, echoed in the gold's glance back at them. Eventually, Tiriana declares, prim, "A mother doesn't play favorites." She can't maintain such decorum, however, and is soon peering back down at Betegal's egg-shape. "What terms /do/ you think of them in, then?"
"Eggs," says Betegal, "I think of them in terms of eggs that have little baby dragons inside of them." If he sounds a little sarcastic, he tries to draw less attention to it by lifting a hand to push back through his hair and he continues, "The shells break. They don't really matter as much in the long run." Philosophical? Probably more along the lines of shallow teenaged boy. "Did she ever find any candidates she doesn't hate?" he adds, still striving for neutral, even conversational.
"Well." Tiriana pauses for a moment, then--almost!--smiles. "That's what they are. Eggs." They're really digging deep tonight, aren't they. As for the candidates? Tiriana just blows out a deep breath and leans back, her lips pursed. "Some she'll tolerate, anyway, probably mostly because they've stayed out of her way. Faranth only knows how I'm going to get you out their for touchings. I mean, she says she /has/ to because it's what you do, but..." Shrug.
The ex-smith pauses in his absent sketching to gaze at the dragon on the sands. "She's not going to, like, get pissed if someone she doesn't like attracts a hatchling and stomp on them or something when the time comes, is she?" Betegal doesn't even look all that certain whether or not that's a serious question. "When are those going to start? Touchings, I mean. Do we really need to do that?"
"Hell if I know," says Tiriana, without sounding particularly concerned. A beat later, "Nah, she won't do that--not herself, anyway. She'll arrange some way for Cadejoth to do it accidentally. Maybe finally find a use for him." Her eyes stray to the ledges where the bronze is generally stuck, out of proper, perfectionist Iovniath's way. Tiriana, for the latter question of the candidate, frowns, however, and gives the eggs another long look. "A little longer. Whenever she thinks they're hard enough for it." And she snickers, because, well. That's what she said.
Betegal doesn't look particularly encouraged but he'd be kind of foolish looking for encouragement from this particular woman. "Oh," is all he says to that, glancing sidelong at the Weyrwoman again, then down. He could probably ask his next question to someone else but since Tiriana is here, he ventures, "If a candidate decides they don't want to stand anymore, can they just, y'know, stop?"
Tiriana is probably not the right person to ask that to. She rounds on Betegal at once, scowling at him. "Why would you want to quit?" she demands. "What, Iovniath and the Reaches aren't good enough for you or something?" Because of course this is meant as a personal slight to her dragon and her Weyr.
Betegal scowls back, intense, but then he looks away, glowering at his journal instead. "Don't be like that," he says. "If the Reaches weren't good enough for me, I wouldn't put up with the awful winters." Spoken like a true native. "I just don't want..." he lets his voice trail off and he sighs. "Just," another pause, "Nevermind. I didn't say I wanted to quit."
"I'll be however I want to be," Tiriana answers, mouth tightening at Betegal's chide. She's silent for a moment, just enough to compose herself, even if her words are still testy. "You asked if you could just stop being one," she points out. "That's quitting. What else do you mean, then? What don't you want?"
"Sorry, ma'am" Betegal murmurs, but he shakes his head and closes his journal. He doesn't want to talk about whatever's on his mind, that's pretty clear to anyone with a lick of sense. He mulls over what to say that might satisfy the woman after his poor judgment and finally says, "My da will be really mad if I screw this up. I don't want to stay here for that." He shrugs. See, no big deal.
"Fuck your dad," says Tiriana, with a roll of her eyes for this logic. She's not placated so much as her anger is redirected from Betegal to his father."Doesn't matter a damn what he thinks, if you impress bronze or green or nothing or whatever," is her firm opinion. "You're a grown man, what are you letting him run your life for?"
Betegal doesn't look like he thinks it's such an easily solved problem but he doesn't argue. "He's my dad," is what he does say and that seems like plenty of reason to him. He's not comfortable with the whole talking about his father thing, though, so he tries to change the subject. "Did they find out who's been stealing stuff?" he asks, 'they' likely being no one in particular.
"So? Even more reason to tell him to fuck off," insists the Weyrwoman, vehement on this point. "Sometimes you just have to tell your parents that, and be done with them." And she nods once, decisively; even folds her arms over her chest before she lets him change the subject. It does nothing to improve her mood. "No," she snaps. "We fucking well didn't, all right?"
Betegal still doesn't look convinced that telling his father to fuck off is such a great idea, but the response he gets from the change of subject is plenty to make him seek something else. He comes up short. "Maybe I should go," he suggests quietly. "Is there anything I can do for you?" he asks this in a 'before I go' fashion.
"Maybe you should," and Tiriana's answer has all the earmarks of pouting, her arms crossing and lower lip jutting out. "No. Not unless /you/ know something about what's going down." She snorts, plainly not expecting /that/. And tacked on a beat later is, "I forbid you to quit. And I don't know who the hell your daddy is, but I guarantee I outrank him, so. He messes with you, /I'll/ tell him to fuck off. Nobody messes with my candidates."
"Sorry," Betegal says since he doesn't know a damned thing about anything that has to do with the thefts. He looks a little surprised when she /forbids/ him to quit, though, and a little incredulous, too. Can she do that? He doesn't actually ask, though, and just nods his head and says, "Okay. Uh. Thanks." He gathers himself up but the pouting makes him a little hesitant to actually leave.
"Of course," says Tiriana, as though it's nothing; as though she regularly forbids candidates to quit instead of throwing them out herself. But when Betegal lingers, she focuses on the eggs as much as she can, until she eventually has to glance back over at him. "What now?" she wonders, with a melodramatically exasperated sigh.
Betegal glances away and nearly trips when he steps back. "Nothing," he assures her and takes his much more clear cue to leave. He may mumble something about women on his way, but the tone of it is a shared exasperation rather than anything too strongly felt. He's hasty about the getting gone thing.