[Log] Not That Terrible
Who: B'tal, Tiriana
When: Day 3, Month 12, Turn 21
Where: Bowl, High Reaches Weyr
What: B'tal's got a request, if he can ever spit it out.
Notes: OMFG I played! So proud~ XD
Western Bowl, High Reaches Weyr
The bowl's vast dirt floor extends in a rough oval from west to east, only sparse clumps of grass surviving between the crisscrossed pathways of daily traffic. To the northwest stand massive gates to the world beyond, allowing people, livestock, and tithes to pass beneath some of the seven jagged spires that stand sentinel over that area of the bowl. In late afternoons, their spindly, fingerlike shadows stretch over that end of the bowl all the way to the living cavern's hulking brass doors in the far north.
Eastward, the bowl sprawls on toward the lake, sloping slightly downward to allow runoff from rain and snowmelt, but to the south it's caged by more cliffs of dark, rough-cut granite. Rocks poke up from the ground here, a few large boulders and many smaller outcroppings worn smooth in spots by time and use. A few ground weyr entrances dot the wall, the most frequented ledge set up like a patio while the largest ledge services the Weyrleaders' complex, directly beside the huge entrance to the hatching sands. A more human-sized entrance, left of that, leads to the galleries.
Heavy rain in the middle of winter only means that the temperature is only a few degrees above freezing; it's more miserable for the soaking torrents.
Contents:
B'tal
Obvious exits:
Living Cavern Inner Caverns Garden Patio Ledge [Sky] Galleries Weyrleader Complex East Bowl Weyr Entrance
B'tal
B'tal is a young man with still somewhat boyish features. His shaggy, dark hair is often ruffled and unkempt. He has dark blue eyes with a subtly brassy cast around the pupil. He has a strong neck that ties into strong shoulders, but his build is leanly muscled rather than bulky.
His clothes are all chosen with practicality in mind. Dark pants and leather boots, a shirt with short or no sleeves layered with a shirt with longer sleeves depending on the weather, color coordinating only because they're pretty much all the same color. He wears the knot of a Glacier greenrider.
B'tal is soaked when Jeibeth lands in the bowl after a lazy descent from above. She waits for him to be on his own feet before moving away, wings unfurling and rising up and down as she watches him start heading for the caverns. Which he's doing a little sluggishly because rain sucks and he probably should have changed before trying to satisfy his stomach.
So it's winter, and evening, and oh, it's raining too. For some people, that's just not enough reason not to be out in the elements, and Tiriana just might be one of them. See her now, strolling leisurely across the bowl, raincoat and hat keeping the worst of the wet off her. It doesn't do much for her feet, but then again, the way she sloshes through snow and puddles, that doesn't seem to be a big concern. The eventual destination looks to be the living cavern, much like B'tal, though she doesn't seem to be in a particular hurry to get there, at least.
Jeibeth watches for another minute or so, then turns to take off for the other end of the bowl. B'tal pauses to glance back and, oh!, there's Tiriana. "Hey!" he says in a moment of excitement that's quickly quelled back to reality. He waits after taking a few steps toward the Weyrwoman just in case she really doesn't want company in the form of, well, him. "I was sort of maybe looking for you. How are you?" He doesn't quite stop trying to head for drier ground, just very slow and sort of backwards.
At the hey, Tiriana pauses, glancing around until her eyes settle on B'tal. Then, she lifts a hand in greeting. "Hey," is her echo, and she adjusts her path to head that way, too. Except, when he starts backing away, she stops. "Sort of maybe? That have anything to do with why you're scuttling away like a crab or something?"
"I'm /not/ scuttling away," B'tal says, stopping and lifting his arms with a little emphasis as if to say '/there/' before putting his hands back in his pockets where it's slightly warmer but not much more dry. "I wasn't really looking right this moment. But there you are. And here I am. And it's raining." In case she hasn't noticed.
Tiriana lifts her brows. "You gonna melt or something?" she asks, glancing skyward for a moment. Of course, this just means she gets raindrops in her eyes, too, which sort of ruins the impervious affectation, but whatever. Dashing the water away, she steps toward him again, on path to the caverns again. "That your way of getting asked to dinner?"
"No," B'tal admits with the hint of a frown as he glances up, too. "Probably be more comfortable to just stay out here if it wasn't cold. Been on watch in Nabol till, uh, just a bit ago." He waits for her to get closer, then turns to walk with her, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips, "Are you asking me to dinner?"
"Wouldn't call it /comfortable/, exactly," begins Tiriana with another glance upward. "Unless there's some particular reason you don't want to be inside, in the warm, like normal people. --No." The latter, in answer to his returned question, as she does not look at him and instead continues purposefully past, toward the door. Except, expectantly, "Are you coming?"
"I'm wet," B'tal explains. "Not going to be very comfortable in the normal warm, either." He pauses at the no, eyeing the Weyrwoman as she continues. His brows furrow at her question but then he pushes forward to jog a step or two to catch up to her without an actual answer.
It's a short trip to the door, Tiriana walking purposefully now until she can stop just inside the cavern door and strip off her soaked outerwear to the somewhat drier garments underneath. "So," she says then, glancing to B'tal as her coat's hung up on one of the provided hooks. "What'd you kinda sorta want, then?"
B'tal peels himself out of his own jacket and soaked accessories, scarf, hat and gloves hung up as well as he can manage. "Oh, well, uh," is how he begins, which might not be very inspiring. "Um. Well. I was going to-- I mean, I wanted to ask you about, uh, weyrs."
Of all the dramatic things going on lately, that is not one that Tiriana expects. She stops, turns, looks at B'tal and blinks. "About weyrs?" As though she didn't quite catch that. "What about 'em?"
The greenrider takes a step back when Tiriana turns to look at him and he gropes for words again before managing, "Uh. Weyrs." This is really not how he probably would have dreamed about going about this. But this is where they are. He swallows back enough of his insecurity to continue, "I was wondering if there might be any available that are, um, big enough for two people. I mean, I love my weyr, it's perfect except that it's small and only really perfect just for me."
The stepping back earns more raised brows from Tiriana, though she at least doesn't stare him down further. Instead, she busies her hands with putting her damp hair up, getting it out of her face and off her neck before it manages to wet down whats marginally dry clothes. "So... what? Was this supposed to be something... scary? Embarrassing? Something?" she wonders, when B'tal finally gets his request out.
"Um," says B'tal, which might very well be answer enough. "Maybe. And, well, still could be, I guess. But." He pauses and glances further into the cavern. "I just... I think it'd be a good idea, too." And since she hasn't given him an answer yet, "I'll owe you. Seriously. I really want this, Tiriana, a decent place for me and Whit. Please?" That expression is kind of pathetic even for B'tal. The being wet probably doesn't help.
"Ugh," says Tiriana feelingly. "That asswipe. Really? Faranth, I'd mumble all around the subject too, in that case." She even wrinkles up her nose now at the thought, but with her hair fixed best as it can be, she turns to head further in, toward the food tables set up in the hall. Apparently expecting B'tal to follow, she continues, "And what, his place isn't big enough either? Isn't it the one that's all set up for ki... Oh. Right."
B'tal does follow right along like a good little greenrider. But he doesn't seem entirely sure what else he wants to say when they get to the tables and he helps himself along after the Weyrwoman. But finally, "Maybe he'd be better, even, if he thought-- I mean, he's really not that horrible of a guy. And Jeibeth doesn't like being all cramped with Zhikath all the time." Maybe that's not an all the time sort of thing but it sounds better that way.
"So wait," Tiriana summarizes. "Let me see if I've got this straight. You want to move in, and presumably love, or want to love, or at least want to entrap, some guy that, when pressed, the best thing you can come up with to say about him, is that 'he's not really that horrible'?" She shakes her head while tacking herself onto the tail end of the buffet line. "Faranth. Oh, sure, go find yourselves a nice new weyr; sounds like a perfect match to me."
"No," B'tal says quickly and a little awkwardly, especially when he repeats it, "No. That's not the best thing. I just figured you didn't want me to go on about how much I love him and want to be with him forever and how good he is in bed." Which is B'tal having maybe a few vertebrae of spine somewhere before it dissolves. "We did break up you know." Except maybe she doesn't. "For awhile-- Oh! Do you mean it?" The last is said with uncertain hope and the hint of a beam.
More feelingly, "Ugh." Even with a little shudder this time! But, "Yeah, and when you break up again? Move out, move in, move out, move in again? Hope you don't throw away the boxes or anything. But yes. Fine, go find a weyr. I think we had a diagram thingy with most of the empties marked, except--hell if I know where they put it."
That 'ugh' at least earns a small smile from the greenrider. Of course, Tiriana could probably be saying just about anything to B'tal right now and he'd be smiling about it so long as she was still serious about the weyr. His excitement is near palpable and he makes an embarrassing little sound of happiness before forcibly trying to calm himself so he doesn't end up doing something silly like trying to hug the Weyrwoman. "Thank you, Tiriana! You're the best!"
Warily, Tiriana regards B'tal: no hugging, right? Right. "Y'know, most people, they just... y'know. Move. Or talk to the headwoman. Or my assistant--fucking assistant," she grumbles on that last. "Anyway, not like we're really going to say no."
A blush creeps into B'tal's cheeks for what he probably considers admonishment. But then he clears his throat and returns, "Think you already established I'm not normal or most people." He's still too happy to actually grumble, though. "Besides, I like you more." Beat. "What's wrong with your assistant?"
That, of course, earns B'tal a long, suspicious look, but Tiriana lets it slide in the end. Instead, she just shrugs. "Bitch quit," she says shortly. "Like she didn't know what she was getting into when she signed on. Got to find a new one, somewhere, I think."
"What... do your assistants do?" B'tal asks uncertainly, like he's not really entirely sure that it's a line of questioning he wants to be pursuing. "Sure there's lots of people to pick from, at any rate. Shouldn't be too hard to replace, right?" He'll probably be rather agreeable for awhile yet.
Another shrug. "I don't know; stuff?" she says, frowning. "Whatever I tell her to do, mostly. Schedule things, keep track of paperwork, tell people to go screw themselves if I don't feel like dealing with them. I think it's pretty easy, but." Obviously, others do not agree.
That all makes B'tal laugh a little, which might not be quite the response most people would have to that sort of thing. "Sorry," he says a moment later, clearing the laugh out of his throat and trying to look more stoic or something. "Just thinking of someone that might actually like that sort of thing. Anyway." He glances at the food because the smell of it is starting to make his stomach growl.
Somebody might like that? It earns Tiriana's albeit dubious attention. "Who's that?" she asks.
"Oh. Uh." B'tal is stammering again. He wasn't expecting that question and it takes him a moment to remember his thoughts. "My sister, uh, Teris... she might especially like the telling people to screw themselves and stuff."
"Your sister?" And that /definitely/ earns B'tal an appraising look up and down. Tiriana does not look convinced. "Really." Flat, that. But, with a sigh, she shrugs. "Not like I've got a line to throw their names in the ring. Send her to me, then. Tomorrow?"
B'tal just stares at Tiriana for a moment, not sure what else to do. Then he starts nodding his head and eventually there's even words. "Um. Okay." Not terribly convincing, though. But his sister can't really say no to the Weyrwoman, right? Hopefully. "I'll do that," he adds, nodding more firmly twice.
"Good. You do that," confirms Tiriana. And with that settled, she's turning away, waving at her weyrmate across the cavern. "There's R'uen. I promised him dinner, so good thing you weren't inviting yourself along," she tells B'tal, with a smirk. "See you later. And--good luck, I guess. With that weyr and all." And then she's taking her leave, heading off to meet the aforementioned bronzerider.