[Log] Damn Telgari Invader
Who: Elijah, Tiriana
When: Day 20, Month 10, Turn 21
Where: Living Cavern, High Reaches Weyr
What: Elijah is going to write a song about Tiriana. There will be swords. And bosoms.
Living Cavern, High Reaches Weyr
Stalactites hang high above this enormous cavern like a jagged chandelier or an inversion of the Spires themselves, but shadows cling to them instead of light. Below lie great tables arranged in rows, each large enough to serve a fighting wing, while in the nooks and alcoves around the cavern's edge sit more sensibly-sized tables, from six- and eight-seaters down to intimate spots for just a couple of diners. The only really open space is around the kitchen entrance, smelling of food and rarely quiet, and by the nearby serving tables with their long buffet of the day's offerings.
Tapestries on the smooth walls -- some faded and others newly woven -- only slightly mute the sea of sound when a meal is in full swing, but they add cheerfulness augmented by the glowlight from wall sconces and the centerpieces of each table. Still, shadows always creep along the ceiling and into the mouths of the exits -- the myriad small hallways at one end of the cavern and, at the other, the twisting tunnel to the bowl near an array of coathooks and and hatracks -- and late at night, when the glows are allowed to dim, the chamber can seem very dark indeed.
Contents:
Elijah
Obvious exits:
Inner Caverns Kitchen Bowl
Elijah
The slightly tousled brush of sloe-black hair tickles at the nape of this teenager's neck just as the dark and straight fringe cascades over his forehead to oft overshadow his gaze. Irises of a murky mahogany are set in almond-shaped eyes and framed with lashes just as dark as his hair. Youthful features are harshly angled, the strict lines drawn with the descendant of the same native blood that grants his skin its dusky cast. With his ethnic features and despite an almost gaunt appearance, a lithe grace characterizes this youth's slightly less than average height as the low swell of toned muscles leave his wiry form svelte.
Perched upon his nose is a set of wire rim spectacles, mostly used for close work but often enough he forgets that they are even there.
Simple dark trousers draw down his legs, fitting loose and comfortable. They are left to drop down to a pair of simple wherhide boots in a shade just a little bit lighter. With a string-laced neckline, the off-white shirt he wears drop over the beltline of those dark trousers, a rather plain wherhide belt attempts to keep him all together even as is barely hangs from his hips. Often enough, he tends to wear a buff-colored vest.
Glowlight illuminated, swindled, stolen, procured, just plain plucked from that dark sconce over there and set onto the table Elijah is currently enjoying. Basket open and angled so that the light spills brilliantly upon his work, the teen is settled upon his seat, hunched if you will with head in hands as he stares down at whatever is before him with intensity. Or, you know, it could be the light. It sets bright the spectacles perched upon his nose that just threaten to slip right off the tip. A sniff, and they dip lower.
With things still in a state of flux, though settling down more as the Weyr gets used to the new jagged edge of the bowl, Tiriana is looking only marginally less tired these days. As such, when she takes her meal in the living cavern, she seeks out a quieter corner, lit by just one pilfered glow that draws her in. She pauses at the seat opposite Elijah, tray of dinner hovering above it. "Anybody using this one?" she asks him.
As his head lifts, this spectales drop right off of the teens nose and clatter to the rustle of hides before him. Elijah blinks at the woman, and rather belatedly startles at the sound of his own glasses. "Uhm. No. No. Nobody there," he manages, quickly picking the spectacles back and resettling them upon his nose with wires about his ears. Dark eyes fall to the tray, and the food upon it, so it is with a nudge he gives his hides, closer to him.
The tumbling glasses just make Tiriana lift her brows, and she eyes her prospective table companion for a long moment before she finally takes him up on the offer and sets her tray down on the table. She follows suit, sliding into the chair she's claimed and arranging her food, silverware, and drink to suit. "Must be pretty fascinating stuff," she says of his hides, with a chin jerk to indicate them.
Elijah glances between the woman and his work, and the woman and his work, and then one more time just because. Eventually though, he does end up looking at her. "Oh, uhm... not really. Mostly because you can't see it." The teen leans back some, allowing the glowlight to flash over the hide upon the table, showing faded lettering and the vague impression of numbers. "See?" Or possibly not, it is rather blurred and pale.
Tiriana's brows knit, and she leans over, elbows on the table, to eye the book closer herself. "What's it supposed to be?" she asks, mouth pulling into a frown. "Are you recopying it or something? Might as well throw it out--no point storing something in records that's so old it looks like that. Obviously it's not important enough to recopy before it gets to looking like /that/."
Elijah's mouth opens, but there is a distinctive lack of sound coming from it. Dark eyes flick beyond his spectacles, uncertainty showing despite the downturn of eyebrows in what can only be shock. "I... but, uhm..." Confusion draws upon his features in this moment of fluster. A breath, and he finds articulation, "But this could hold the key to something important. Like the key to miner's rights? Or some great Weyrleader's last thoughts during a time of great history? Or-" He glances down at the paper, blinks, and coughs, his head tilting a touch the side, much as a canine's would to look at something new. "Oh. No. I'm wrong. It's just an old tithe manifest."
"Mmhmm." Tiriana does not believe those claims for a moment, and she shakes her head as she slides back into her chair. "I'm pretty sure neither K'del nor N'thei have enough thoughts past 'I'm horny' and 'I need a drink' to leave anything this size," she drawls, flicking at the old pages with one finger. "And if it's from before that, I really don't care. And--miners' rights? What's /that/ supposed to be about, kid?"
Elijah looks after Tiriana with a decidedly owlish expression, dark eyes and attentiveness. His finger drags over the hide, a fingernail marking lines where there is a hint of writing. "Oh, this is older. I think... how old is K'del? Can't be more than a hundred, or two. Maybe." He blinks down at his reading work, then towards her with a touch of a frown. "Uhm, maybe it could have been about a leathercrafter's lady love? I don't know. It was merely a guess."
"Um." How old is K'del? That makes Tiriana stop a moment, tick a couple of turns off on her fingers, and decide, "Nine...teen?" See how well she knows her Weyrleader. As for guessing-- "Yeah, but miners' rights? Faranth, don't go giving them ideas; the prissy little things are going to be enough trouble already. They'll be wanting our rocks and an arm and a leg on top of it--and then we won't even know if the new stones are going to work for another hundred turns."
Elijah immediately wrinkles his nose. "Oh, that's it? Then something like that definintely wouldn't be from him," he dismisses with a bit of a sigh, and a downward glance to his vexing work. "If they want rocks so bad, I can show one a bump in the wall of my room that I keep banging my head on when I lay down -and get up." He muses over that for a moment before glancing back across to the woman, "New stones? Firestone?"
"You... do realize K'del is my Weyrleader?" Tiriana doublechecks to be sure, pausing with her fork poised over her food. She gives Elijah an odd look. "And--star stones. The new star stones. Where'd you say you were from?" Nevermind he didn't.
"Oh yes. Yes." Elijah bobbles his head enough so that it just might seem the thing could come off and go tumbling away, so insistant he is for her to understand his own understanding. Dark eyes focus upon her again, repeating, "Starstones." He looks about to say something more, but abruptly stops, dark eyebrows coming down in confusion. "What? I..." There is a blink, and he almost seems to go crosseyed focusing upon a point somewhere upon his nose. "Oh shells." Reading glasses are plucked off, his vision clears and realization finds a new focus upon Tiriana, "Oh. Hello." Awkward. "Ma'am."
Tiriana will never get tired of that look; one could guess that's the whole reason for not announcing herself at once. Now, as Elijah catches on, she breaks into a smug little smile, leaning back in her chair to regard him. "Tiriana," she offers the name, at least. "And you are...? Not totally clueless after all." It's a compliment. Sort of.
Elijah, International Teen of Mystery. "Oh, no, ma'am. I am clueless. Lost as a newborn babe without a teat to suck on. I should probably start crying about now, wailing, but I figure that'd probably make this conversation even more awkward for me. No. I'm Elijah, harper." Tack on. "Apprentice." He makes a point of tucking his glasses into a pocket, so they don't inadvertantly show up on his nose again.
Her eyes narrow, not in anger so much as pure trying-to-understand. "I think," she says delicately, "saying all that made it awkward enough on its own." A shake of her head, and she turns to eating her dinner for a moment. "So, Harper Elijah. Are you really new here, or just more interested in these old things--" she flicks a finger at his tome "--than current events?"
Elijah bobs his head in understanding to her, an abreviated motion born of something with a bit more steadiness. "Alas, my knot means I need to tbe interested in these 'old things', ma'am. And they are interesting, especially when I can see what they say. After all, wouldn't you be interested in..." He trails off looking down to the hide, only frown. Yep, here come the spectacles again, back upon his nose so he can read a barely legible line, "... interested in how many barrels of salted redfin were given by Tillek Hold?" He glances back up to her, careful to look beyond the rims of his glances to keep his focus upon her free and clear. "Or maybe not." He exhales, and adds, "Yes, ma'am, with the current events." Another pause before he speaks, voice lowered to a more serios tone, "I'm sorry for your loses out there that evening."
"Oh, yes," drawls Tiriana. "That's just fascinating stuff there. Dunno how I made it this long without knowing that." She snorts, poking at her dinner and eating slowly. The latter words only elicit a nod from her, lips pursing slightly. "Thank you," she says, and clears her throat. Time for a safer subject again. "So--you're an archivist?"
Elijah's dark eyes follow her movements, even if they become lost behind the glowlight that reflects off of his glasses. He licks his lips, nodding to the woman and following her lead after a breath, "Of sorts. I do like scribing, admittedly." He pauses for a moment, considers, and then twist around to reach for a hide that is settled onto a chair near to him. He picks it up with a rustle, sliding it onto the table and twisting it around so that the woman can read it. Nothing more than the lines to The Duty Song, those lines are dark and thick with artfully formed words. And in the corner is the starting of a calligraphied title, broad letters intricate in detail and unerring in line. "I appreciate what is on these, and I appreciate how they should be preserved, ma'am."
"Fancy," is Tiriana's opinion on the subject, as she looks over his work. "So kind of an archivist, kind of a... something else. Sounds--useful." That last part, she seems not terribly convinced of, but she shrugs anyway and lets it stand as it is. "You harpers, you kind of do a little of everything. Everybody else seems to just stick to one thing or another, more or less."
Elijah brings his work back, retreving it and keeping it well from Tiriana's meal. He carefully settles the hide away, bending to the side as he speaks, voice careful with enunciation, "Yes, ma'am. I've been knocked about the quad by a weapon's master, cast before a drum 'til I could pound out my heartbeat, had the joy of hearing my voice crack before all and sundry at a turn's end celebration, and had my knuckles wrapped numerous times by a difficult Master bound and determined I could recite the Charter forwards, backwards, and in an Igenite accent." He straightens back up, looking for all the word as serious as his words, misfallen hair and all.
And all that recitation just causes Tiriana to make a face. "Sounds like a pain in the ass," is her take on all that. "Well, except for the weapons part; that part sounds fun. Like what's it matter what your accent is? If you sound like the Reaches or wherever. I don't think I even have one anymore," she notes, nose wrinkling. "Spent a dozen turns at Ierne, five at Telgar, and now about five more here, so."
"Mine is originally from... well, Benden area." At just the mention, Elijah's voice reverts back to that accent, losing the more general hints that he came away with from Fort and the Harper's. "Everything has its purpose, as a Master was fond of repeating," he notes, his voice lost in the rustle of hide and paper and whatnot as the teen begins to gather together his things, as gentle with the aged documents as he is with those newer. "It can matter, accents. Quite a bit to the locals. Often it is a matter of trust, bretheren of an area."
The idea makes Tiriana furrow up her brows. "Really," she says, skeptical to the end. "It's just an accent. So if I just go around and start talking like I grew up at some disgusting fishy little seahold in Tillek, the holders around here will like me and stop talking about that damn Telgari invader?" A shake of her head, and she pushes her cleared plate away from her. "I like my accent. And where I came from. So they can just deal."
Elijah listens to her, stilling in his movements as his head cocks to the side in thought, "Ma'am, with all do respect, I wouldn't take you as a fishwife. Accent or not, you haven't the teeth for it. Or the smell. But I know one of my roommates would, easily. Even if he does have balls. Although, some of those fishwives..." He blinks out of that thought, hurridly casting a glance back to Tiriana, "Damn Telgari Invader. Sounds like an excellent beginning to a comical ballad. 'She came forth from high Telgar land, with dragon fangs and a sword in hand'." Beat. "No. No. Something with more flash."
"More flash? But I have a /sword/!" The idea plainly delights Tiriana, and she laughs at the idea; not a sound often heard, ever, and certainly not with things as they are now. "Not bad, for on the spot. What could you do with some time to work on it? You should write me a song, maybe. Or one of those epic poems you people do. Wouldn't mind /that/ being preserved for the ages."
Elijah reaches a hand up, scratching at his head to further disrupt dark hair. A thoughtful gesture, purposeful and intended to outwardly show just that, thought. "Uhm. I could. I don't suppose it would be very good though. I am an apprentice. And while I admit that I can turn a pretty word or design upon a hide, my musicality is sufficient, at best. But I will try, and it will have a sword. You don't mind if I mention your bossoms as well, do you? It's like standard procedure, especially if it'll be mentioned to Tillekian fishers. They do like their sea chanties."
The suggestion makes Tiriana choke, and she coughs to try to cover it up. Whatever she was expecting was probably not along those lines. Still-- "Oh, fine, go ahead," she tells him. "K'del will love this, I bet. We had a bunch of songs like that, down at Ierne; not like I don't still know all the words to them." She just shakes her head once more, then moves to stand, loading empty plates onto her tray again. "Should get back to work. Have fun with your redfin counting, or whatever that is, harper."
Elijah bobs his head to her, looking for all the world his mere fifteen turns with the eagerness to please a pretty woman. "Yes, ma'am. I will do my best. Thank you for talking with me. I wish you well on your... on your work." Not a smile throughout the entire conversation, his lips are just as drawn with the serious touch, eyes lost behind his forgotten glasses (again) and a fall of a dark forelock. "Well met and clear skies."
That eagerness, and the turn of the conversation, seems to bemuse Tiriana, who cocks a quick smirk his way before soberness overtakes again. With a lift of her hand in parting, she's off to dump her dishes, then return to more serious matters of work.