Yours.
Who: R'vain, Essdara
Where: Kitchen, R'vain's Weyr
Comment: This takes place on Dara's turnday, which technically means before the last few logs. That said, it may have had impact on those, so we'll just ignore any continuity issues around it. R'vain gives Dara turnday presents, and a whole lot to think about. Everything changes, and yet stays the same
Warning: R'vain and Dara. There's innuendo. There's cursing. There are very definate overtones and direct references to the less obvious side of their relationship.
As the days cooking is over for her, Dara has spent the last half hour cleaning up her workstation, and now is focused on her last task of the day - sharpening the cherished knives that her work is so dependant on. Around her, the kitchens are winding down as people prepare for the late evening stragglers and the long-lasting foods they will have out for the night.
"There's somethin' about a girl with knives." Sure, his footfalls, when it's this quiet in here, announce him before his voice. But only the voice-- and maybe the sneaking off of a young woman who somehow has not yet divined that the Weyrlingmaster rarely comes here to paw any of the staff except the one who appreciates it-- makes his identity certain. R'vain prowls around and between and through the various stages of kitchen cleanup toward Essdara, licking his lips once before adding, "A certain girl especially."
Essdara looks up and gives him a bright smile. "Well hello there, Weyrlingmaster. It's good to know my talents are appreciated by the weyr's most valued staff, thank you." Her hands work deftly, running the edge of a well-oiled blade over a whetstone. "Is there soemthing I can get you tonight? Stew, pie, a roll maybe?"
"No. I got a more substantial dish in mind," growls R'vain, a paw shaped exactly right to curve itself perfectly against Essdara's rump pausing perhaps two inches away from said rump as he comes up beside her. She /is/ holding a knife. Slipping would be bad. His hands, for once, behave. "Maybe you could help me get it packed up and ready t'go." A nod toward the whetstone. "You done, after that?"
Essdara nods, and picks up a towel from her bench to wipe the blade down. "At your disposal, of course, Sir." She says with amusement threaded through the phrase. "And I will help pack up anything you like. It's been a long, but good, day so I am quite happy to be gone from here." The knife is carefully slipped into a wooden case before she turns towards him with a grin. "All yours, now, and no more fear of accidental stabbings. once a tuurn is enough for that."
As soon as she's free of the knife his hands are ready-- and when she turns toward him they sling forward like shot, paws open to catch her forearms in his hands. He's grinning like anything. As soon as he has her held, R'vain rumbles, "A'right. Packed up." A quick tug emphasizes his point, and the growl is quite low now, dry and oh-so-pleased: "Want me t'carry my dish, or d'you want t'walk?"
A rippling, amused laugh escapes Dara at his play, and she goes so far as to give playful little tugs towards freedom. "Oh, well." She says, feigning despair with her voice. "A gentleman is always sure to carry the burden for a lady, and I know you are a gentleman, so you will do what you know is right." Eyes sparkle with mirth, the cook ignoring the looks the two of them gather.
He is just /disgusting,/ so some would say. It's written on a few faces. But R'vain could care less, just like she could. He chuckles low and thickly, like he might just eat her alive right there on the spot. "Hardly a burden, pretty thing." Then he lets go her arms-- just so he has hands free so he can bend a little and reach for her. Swoop! She'll be up over his shoulder like a war bride if she doesn't resist, and if he gets /that/ far he'll just carry her right on out of the kitchens.
Essdara squeals as she is hauled up, but it's not an unhappy sound. More laughter as she is upside down over his back, and she even gives a few playful thumps with her fist - just so it looks like she is fighting, of course. "Beast!" She teases as he carries her. "Wherry! Tunnelsnake!" And yet, she doesn't actually ask to be put down.
"Yeah," says R'vain, accepting each of the names he's to be called in turn. "Yeah. Yeah?" The thumping fist rattles one of his iterations. With his arm wrapped around her midsection and the other arm crossed over to stabilize her thighs-- can't hold lower than that, she might not be able to kick!-- he stalks off with his prize.
Not /too/ far to be carried. Down the tunnel to the bowl, where Ruvoth, readied, waits. The bronze lets out a startled whuff to discover that the passenger's in the rider's arms, but he kneels and slinks low to the ground just the same. The Weyrlingmaster, laughing still, slides his hand up from the thighs to the rump, getting the feel he was denied before and warning the woman she's about to be uprighted. Then he uprights her, bending so her feet can just barely tip the ground.
Another of those delicious little squeaks as he claims his feel, but she's grinning ear to ear as she settles down on her feet. "You, dear, are entirely too cute." She teases, then turns towads Ruvoth. "And hello to you, my handsome friend. Where is your rider planning on taking me today, I wonder, and what does he have in mind? Well, other than the obvious?" A glance over her shoulder, "At least you'd give me a straight answer devoid of innuendo!"
Unfortunately, Ruvoth can only rumble, drooping his head low and canting it crookedly so as to regard Essdara's backside with an expression nothing much like what his rider would use for the same view. "You keep squealin' like that and we won't even get there," threatens R'vain, standing back a moment to cool and look over his captured prize, grinning toothwide. "Just home." Which is itself actually somewhat rare. There are so many places around a Weyr and the wilderness surrounding it to-- well, anyway. "I got a couple little somethings special for you. Get on up."
A curious look towards him. "For me?" She asks. Still, she looks back to the bronze and sets abuot hauling herself up onto him, dextrously settling into the place she become accustomed to. "You're up to something, Weyrlingmaster, and I confess to being eager to find out what. SO, for now, I will behave myself and wait!"
"Am I ever not up t'somethin'?" R'vain watches her 'aboard', eyes keen on every angle and curve, then hauls himself up after her, seating as is his wont behind her. He wraps an arm around her, though there's certainly no need for extra security for so short a flight, and Ruvoth lurches to his feet beneath them. He turns, wings unfurling, and leaps.
There's a bottomless moment where the stomach wants to drop out, and then the bronze catches himself on his sails and wingbeats up, angling sharp toward his ledge. Behind Essdara, R'vain rumbles wickedness into her ear, teeth playing at the rim between promises, between threats. But the ride is short and there's only so much time for his sport before he's obliged to loosen his arm. Ruvoth's talons dig into the stone, leaving another of countless sets of ruts where his and those of dragons before him have done just that. "Down you go," breathes the Weyrlingmaster.
During the trip, she gives small little laughs and teases of her own, the tilt of her neck or the brush of a lock of hair behind an ear meant to tease the man behind her. As they land, she slips down from the great bronze's back and onto the ledge, turning to wait patiently for R'vain's arrival. "It occurs to me I haven't often been here." She says, with amusement. "Is that my present, a rare chance into your life?"
Wait patiently she must. He's an extra moment getting down from the bronze, and even once he's afoot on the ledge he's still obliged to keep a thumb tucked into the pocket of his trousers. Leather pants. Enough said. "No. Kinda. Not yet," he grunts carelessly, starting toward her with the unencumbered paw out to take her hand. The answer is weird and R'vain seems to realize it after a moment, appending, "I ain't /that/ vain. But it's private an' it's mine." This still doesn't fix the weird, but he shrugs and lets it go. Then he'll lead her in, through the drape-- Ruvoth stays outside as a matter of practice in cases like these.
Essdara is lead by the hand, R'vain's weird answer earning him a quizzical look. "You? Vain? I can't picture that." It could be a tease, but it also could not; it's hard to read her tone. Into the weyr they pass, a smile coming out of her as they pass beyond the veil and into his quarters. "Cleaner than I recall it." She says, softly.
"I cleaned." Pretty simple. Also, it displays exactly how /skilled/ he is at cleaning. All of the clutter, mess and debris is, admittedly, without a speck of dust, grime, or mildew. But all of the clutter, mess and debris is also /still there./ It's a very clean sort of disorganization.
"C'mon in. It won't bite." So R'vain leads her in, a glance of his going up to the mantel-- all those wineglasses, but between two of them, jammed in and out of place, there's a small flat box of some sort of burgundy wood. He looks away from it just as fast as he looked /at/ it. "I'd offer you wine, but. Got water if y'want it. And somethin', uh, for you t'see. First." He's making no sense and knows it, so draws a paw up the back of his head, ruffling the short-cropped hair pointlessly. "I mean, when y'want."
"Says you." Is her very, very quiet reaction to his comment about the weyr not biting. Louder, "R'vain, uh, if you ever want a hand..." She lets it go at that; there's no polite way to offer to clean his weyr just then. Because, after all, he's doing that almost shy, uncertain, cute-R'vain thing and it draws a smile out from her. "Water is fine, always. Better for you than wine, too. And whatever it is... I'm quite eager to see it."
"...I'd get a drudge t'do it. You got better stuff ahead of you." That much, he can convey with a certainty nearly fierce burning in his voice, with a jerk of his head that has him looking at her sharply. For a moment. Until he's obliged to push his thumb down against the pocket of his pants. "Water," he agrees, and after a squeeze of his paw around her fingers lets her go to her own devices. He starts at first toward the mantel-- but that's a fake, just a maneuver, just going around this end table here and instead over to the shelves. He finds a glass there (go figure) and a skin, no, not that skin. Puts that one back down. This skin contains water. He unstoppers it and pours and puts the skin back so he can stalk Dara back down with the water held out for her. "S'in th'other room," he admits with a jerk of his head. He runs his tongue over his upper teeth, distorting the shape of his lip with the motion. "Go on, look." Beat. Rasping a bit, then-- "I could carry you in there, but I don't figure you'd get t'see much."
His ferocity catches her off-guard. "Better stuff?" She queries, confused. And then she is left to herself while he hunts down and kills the vicious waterskin, and it clearly takes all of her will not to use that freedom to clean - she's a girl who like tidiness, after all. She takes the water from him and listens to his order while she sips at it. "I think I can find my way." She agrees, with a crooked smile. She moves in the indicated direction, curiosity written on her expression.
"I bet you can," he growls after her, the growl naturally lascivious enough to balance some of the struggle he's been having with finding words otherwise. R'vain rounds the broad table to lean against the end of it, watching her into his bedchamber, then just waiting.
It's a tiny bit of a room carved into the cave, and the least of changes in its necessarily sparing decor would be glaring. The first thing, then, of note is the new spread that covers the bed. It's about time, really, for that. There's still his old fur-- a literal fur that sprawls over the toe of the bed, ready to provide extra warmth-- but the new spread is /new/, quilted and thick and luxurious in a golden-wheat hue. That's probably not what he's sent her in to see, though. There's at the foot of the bed a chest, as wide as the bedframe. It leaves barely a narrow path between its latching front and the wall, barely room to get to the corner where the brazier sits. It's new. And on top of it, also new, curious things-- vast, fluffy robe of quilted material matching the bedspread. Nightgown, floor-length, modest but warm. And another item of nightclothing nothing like either of these except in color, silky, not much to it.
The latch of the chest bears a shining little lock.
She moves into the sleeping area, and towards the new additions with an uncertain air. The clothing is carefully lifted; she's assuming that was the goal, since R'vain doesn't seem the dress-wearing type. The nightdress gets an approving smile, and the other - well, it's still approval, but laced with a heavy dose of amusement and sensuality. "One for here, one for not?" She asks, her teasing voice carrying out to him.
Her voice summons him as if he'd been waiting just for that, for her first words. He's immediately there in the doorway, the gauzy curtain that separates that chamber from this draped over one of his shoulders. "All for here," R'vain replies, voice rough. "If you agree. Two nights together a seven, and any time you're not working between 'em, with me, here or whereever I am. Here at night. If you'd do that, you can keep 'em here, and I'll give you a key." He must mean the chest. Weyrs don't exactly lock. But that emerald regard's on /her/, not the chest before her, so there's not much cue to go on.
His words cause her to go still, looking at the garment in her hands with a renewed wariness. She's thinking, and it's obvious she is doing so even if she isn't much moving. She doesn't turn to face him, yet, as she considers the offer. "And the other nights, when we're not together?" She asks, her voice hesitant. She leaves the words at that, without embellishment or sidetracking or the distraction of flirting.
His shoulders lift and fall, but there's something of relief in the grin she can't see. The grin itself, of course, is audible in the tone of his voice. "You got other nightgowns, I assume. You want one t'have somewhere else, just say so. I'll get you one." There ends the grinning; there ends the easy part. The rest of what he says is delivered after a breath, lower-spoken, rougher around the edges. "I ain't tryin' t'pin you down. Well, not like that."
Dara turns towards him, and offers a little smile. "I think it sounds workable, R'vain. I... Well, I don't think either of us is thinking the other is only theirs. I just want to be sure that isn't a problem. Explicitly sure." A glance around. "And you may have to accept that, if I spend any large amount of time up here, it .will. get cleaned up. Working in the kitchens has given me a very deep appreciation for order." Carefully, she folds the garment in her hand and lays it on top of the chest, before moving over towards him. "We're agreed?"
He's grinning again as soon as she sounds like she's going to go along with this proposition. "I ain't invested in th'cleaning," shrugs R'vain. No shit, right? "Do whatever y'want, but if it's goin' t'be a big chore for you better make a list of what you want done and I'll get it done." By someone who's not her. As she comes over to him he puts his arms out wide, a space for her to come into, if she chooses. "Explicitly agreed."
Essdara smiles and accepts the offered arms, nestling against him. "It won't be too big a chore. I'll just get a broom and sove everything off the ledge, let whoever is under you deal with it." A soft giggle, and she looks up at him. The laughter fades, though the smile remains. "Why? Why this, and why now?"
"Now, that ain't-- " She's not serious. It comes to him a bit belatedly, cutting off his protest. So he just grins, and shakes his head, and bends his neck so he can reach down to kiss the tip of her nose. His lips are full, his mouth broad; it's hilariously done. "Because I never have enough time t'do everything I need t'do." It sounds sort of serious, what he's saying, and R'vain bears seriousness not well; he shakes his head upward and curls his lip. A beat, and he explains. "I need t'let you get out your teasing and your actin' up and I need t'make you so you can't sit for 'em. I need t'talk t'you. I need t'show you things. I need t'train you a bit, like a-- " Beat. His word choice changes. "--weyrling. And I need-- " Well, a rock of his hips and a slide of one heated hand down her back explains that well enough. He grins back down at her, steps back to clear himself from her ever-so-distracting closeness, and reiterates, "Need more time. If we set aside a day and two nights, ought t'be enough. I hope. And it's easier t'work around, for our other-- affairs. Want t'come sit down?" Back out in the main chamber, he implies, with a wave of one hand.
Essdara nods, slowly. His seriousness has caught her off-guard again, the very fact of missing her tease reiterating that. She passes by him back out to the main chamber after reclaiming her water, and moving to claim one of the seats that he has arranged for. "Need." She says, in a questioning tone. "Lots of need in there, and not much cause for it. Not that I am complaining... I love our time togehter, the clean and the not alike." She settles into the chair and looks at him. "But there is logic in your words, and that is good." A small smile. "Though I don't know I could ever /not/ tease you. You... Brign out the worst in me, in that area."
"What, should I not need?" He prowls after her, letting her have several paces before he moves. "Y'don't know me well enough if y'think there's a faucet t'be closed and that'll stop th'stream." Lightly put, a tease in reply to what she's said. He prowls /past/ her, to the mantel, and there reaches up to take down the flat wooden box. "I don't expect y't'ever learn t'behave, girl." Then he's hauling the chair over so it's close to the settee, so he can sit /right/ in front of her, his butt barely on the edge of the seat with his knees wide and his elbows propped on them, the box dwarfed in his paws between. "If you did I'd have t'come up with different excuses t'warm your rump and stripe your thighs."
"Which you do very well." Dara agrees, with an impish smile. "But you spoke of more than just that one need, and that has me curious. I'd agree that you enjoy training me as you do, but I don't know that /need/ is a word I would have thought of it." She leans forward, elbows on her knees and propping her chin on her hands as she watches him. "What's that?"
"Th'rest of your gift." He's quiet for a moment, his eyes upon her. Their facets glint green, thoughtful, keen. "Happy birthday," R'vain rumbles then, very low.
Essdara looks surprised, to say the least. "How'd you know?" She asks, expression mixing wonder and surprise. Hesitantly she reaches for it. "I haven't told anyone about it this year, I was planning my own ways of celebrating it."
Nooo, that's not how he's playing. He draws back his paws, taking the box along with them, just enough to make it clear her reach isn't what it'll take to get the gift from him. "I knew it was somewhere around here. Your dad gave me th'exact day." R'vain smirks a bit. Can't help it. He's just too clever for his own good. Then his hands move, one of them covering the top of the box. Fingers curl, catching the half-hidden clasp sunk into the wood's surface. He plucks back the lid, and only then does he put it out for her inspection.
There's a necklace inside. A choker, specifically, laid out in a circle. Carved cylindrical beads of jet alternate with silvery pearls; the pearls increase in size from the outside toward the middle, eight in total. Between the two largest pearls hangs a small pendant. A weird pendant. A jeweled key.
A soft snort. "Should have known he'd squeal. But that's fine, it won't detract from my... Plans..." Dara's voice trails off and her eyes are impossibly wide as he draws out the choker, and her hand stays carefully away from it. "R'vain." She says, softly. "That... I can't accept that, it must have cost you a fortune... It's... I've never seen anything like it, it is truly beautiful." She looks up at him with those eyes, and there is adoration for him in them as well. "You can't give me something like this..."
"I just did." He pushes the gift forward in his hand, pushes it upon her. "Th'most of it, anyway. Th'key-- you're just borrowing." His eyes narrow, but there's nothing but wicked warmth in their keenness.
Her hand moves so that R'vain can lay it on her palm as the looks down at it. "But..." She says, softly. "This belongs on a Lady's neck, or a Weyrwoman. Not some cook. I could never wear anything that would compare." The index figner of her other hand slides over the pearls, and traces around the pendant, the key. "And... Why a key? It seems a very odd thing to have on such a beautiful necklace..." She looks up at R'vain, and for a moment there is the briefest flicker of a frown. "What are you up to?"
"Th'key goes to the chest." Now that she has it in her hand, he has paws free to put aside the box-- as nice as it is, it just gets tossed lightly onto the settee. Then he can take the choker back from her hand and reach up around her neck, one hand on either side, one part of the necklace's clasp in either hand. "It opens when you're here, and if you let me take this off of you so I can use it. Th'choker's for looks. You'll-- " He fumbles a bit with the clasp; it's dainty and his fingers, not so much. But he has some experience with this sort of thing, with locks and chains and knots and buckles. The necklace closes and he leans back to admire it. "You'll settle into it."
Essdara's fingers reach up to touch it, a shifting in her position showing that, indeed, the tight feeling around her neck isn't a comfort to her. Then something in what he has said sinks in a bit and she looks up sharply. "Take it off? You mean, I'm supposed to wear this...?" It's a question, the answer one she is clearly uncomfortable with. "And you may take it off as you see fit, but... Why the lock at all? I have no need to keep you out of there, no need to hide anything from you. I never have before, and I don't much plan on starting." A small smirk, a ghost of mischief, "Or are you afraid the lure of my night things would be too much while I am gone? You can try them on, if you like..." And still, it's a hollow tease as she strokes the key lightly.
"You don't know what's in the chest," R'vain says, quite simply, eyes drifting from the choker to her face. "And you can take it off. I assume y'can, anyway. But you wear it when you come t'me." For the nightclothes-- well. Just a little sly grin and a shake of his head.
"What's in the chest, then, R'vain?" She asks curiously. "I will wear it... When I can. I don't know it will be all the time, but around you at the least. But it seems the safest place for it, I've nowhere to keep something like this safe." A small smile. "And... Thank you. It is beautiful, and while I can't imagine I deserve it... I will treasure that you do."
"If y'need t'keep it somewhere, bring it t'me. Or I'll get you a case for your press?" R'vain's brows furrow ruddy and low over his eyes, shadowing them. The expression is disconcerted, but his words are serious, rough and earnest. "You say it, it's done."
"What's in the chest?" Dara repeats, more firmly. "Or am I not allowed to know that yet? And... I'll take care of it, never fear. I can always get a sturdy lock for my press, or something similar." And again her fingers rise to her neck, tracing pearls; it's definately a new sensation she's adjusting to.
His mouth curves in a grin as her fingers move; his eyes watch them for a moment, then come back to her face. He adjusts the lean of his elbows on his knees and lets out a little sigh. "In general. There's things I've used, or will use. In tryin' t'keep you in line," and here R'vain grins a little more toothily, "and mostly failed, y'got t'admit. There's some other stuff too." He pauses. Here he must break eye contact, and does so by shoving himself up and stalking over to the waterskin. "You want t'learn defense. Y'want t'learn what weyrlings learn. And I want you t'learn some other things." He stalks back, looking at the skin rather than at her. "Everything I'm keeping for you I'll keep in there. But you want t'come here and just talk, or just be held, or just fuck-- well, you don't give me the key, and I know."
"Defence seems... Less important, now." Dara admits, though it seems to be something to say while she processes the rest of his words. "I understand." She says, finally. She presses harder against the choker, as if feeling it in an entirely new way. "Formality. This, your 'needs', my coming here... It makes it all formal, set. It makes me, for that time..." A pause; not to find the word - she knows it very well. But to say it, that's a different thing. And when she does, it's riddled with uncertainty. "Yours."
He stands there, holding the waterskin. He looks down at her, unsmiling, and listens as she comes to the end of her speech. There is warmth-- warmth, not just heat-- in his eyes, but he doesn't summon one of his grins, lascivious or sneering or smug. Instead R'vain just nods one time. Then he puts out his paw for her water glass.
Essdara looks down at the glass a moment, and then back at the skin. "Wine? Just this once? This... Is a lot to take in." She admits, quietly. Then her eyes move up to meet his. In her face is uncertainty, yes. But there is also no small amount of pleasure, and determination as well. "This will work." She says. "It will be... Interesting. But it will work. I assume you won't tell me why? Other than that you need it?"
He nods. "Wine." But he still needs her glass, so takes it, and carries it to the shelf. There he releases the waterskin to its home and gets one of the others-- then puts it down and picks up instead a bottle. Something better, for the girl he's put those jewels on. "Because I want it?" That's a throwaway offered with a grin over his shoulder while he uncorks the bottle and refills her glass, his humor revived.
And his humor sparks her, and the laugh it sparks relaxes her. "Of course, how silly of me. Fine, for tonight, I will stop asking. But I will figure it out someday, I promise you." She stands and follows him over to the shelf, watching as he pours. And a question almost slips out, but is bitten back; she'll keep to not asking. "And after a drink, I'll make sure your other presents fit... And after, that I do." Her turn for the lascivious smile, a promise for the evening.
"After a drink," agrees R'vain, kindly if not gently. He corks the bottle and puts it up, then turns with the glass in his hand to face her. "I look forward to you figuring it out," he rumbles, the words so low that they seem to come from his belly. And then he's raising the wine, tipping the rim to her lips. Whether she drinks and he kisses her, or whether they spill and laugh and make sport of the spill-- their part of this evening has begun.
Where: Kitchen, R'vain's Weyr
Comment: This takes place on Dara's turnday, which technically means before the last few logs. That said, it may have had impact on those, so we'll just ignore any continuity issues around it. R'vain gives Dara turnday presents, and a whole lot to think about. Everything changes, and yet stays the same
Warning: R'vain and Dara. There's innuendo. There's cursing. There are very definate overtones and direct references to the less obvious side of their relationship.
As the days cooking is over for her, Dara has spent the last half hour cleaning up her workstation, and now is focused on her last task of the day - sharpening the cherished knives that her work is so dependant on. Around her, the kitchens are winding down as people prepare for the late evening stragglers and the long-lasting foods they will have out for the night.
"There's somethin' about a girl with knives." Sure, his footfalls, when it's this quiet in here, announce him before his voice. But only the voice-- and maybe the sneaking off of a young woman who somehow has not yet divined that the Weyrlingmaster rarely comes here to paw any of the staff except the one who appreciates it-- makes his identity certain. R'vain prowls around and between and through the various stages of kitchen cleanup toward Essdara, licking his lips once before adding, "A certain girl especially."
Essdara looks up and gives him a bright smile. "Well hello there, Weyrlingmaster. It's good to know my talents are appreciated by the weyr's most valued staff, thank you." Her hands work deftly, running the edge of a well-oiled blade over a whetstone. "Is there soemthing I can get you tonight? Stew, pie, a roll maybe?"
"No. I got a more substantial dish in mind," growls R'vain, a paw shaped exactly right to curve itself perfectly against Essdara's rump pausing perhaps two inches away from said rump as he comes up beside her. She /is/ holding a knife. Slipping would be bad. His hands, for once, behave. "Maybe you could help me get it packed up and ready t'go." A nod toward the whetstone. "You done, after that?"
Essdara nods, and picks up a towel from her bench to wipe the blade down. "At your disposal, of course, Sir." She says with amusement threaded through the phrase. "And I will help pack up anything you like. It's been a long, but good, day so I am quite happy to be gone from here." The knife is carefully slipped into a wooden case before she turns towards him with a grin. "All yours, now, and no more fear of accidental stabbings. once a tuurn is enough for that."
As soon as she's free of the knife his hands are ready-- and when she turns toward him they sling forward like shot, paws open to catch her forearms in his hands. He's grinning like anything. As soon as he has her held, R'vain rumbles, "A'right. Packed up." A quick tug emphasizes his point, and the growl is quite low now, dry and oh-so-pleased: "Want me t'carry my dish, or d'you want t'walk?"
A rippling, amused laugh escapes Dara at his play, and she goes so far as to give playful little tugs towards freedom. "Oh, well." She says, feigning despair with her voice. "A gentleman is always sure to carry the burden for a lady, and I know you are a gentleman, so you will do what you know is right." Eyes sparkle with mirth, the cook ignoring the looks the two of them gather.
He is just /disgusting,/ so some would say. It's written on a few faces. But R'vain could care less, just like she could. He chuckles low and thickly, like he might just eat her alive right there on the spot. "Hardly a burden, pretty thing." Then he lets go her arms-- just so he has hands free so he can bend a little and reach for her. Swoop! She'll be up over his shoulder like a war bride if she doesn't resist, and if he gets /that/ far he'll just carry her right on out of the kitchens.
Essdara squeals as she is hauled up, but it's not an unhappy sound. More laughter as she is upside down over his back, and she even gives a few playful thumps with her fist - just so it looks like she is fighting, of course. "Beast!" She teases as he carries her. "Wherry! Tunnelsnake!" And yet, she doesn't actually ask to be put down.
"Yeah," says R'vain, accepting each of the names he's to be called in turn. "Yeah. Yeah?" The thumping fist rattles one of his iterations. With his arm wrapped around her midsection and the other arm crossed over to stabilize her thighs-- can't hold lower than that, she might not be able to kick!-- he stalks off with his prize.
Not /too/ far to be carried. Down the tunnel to the bowl, where Ruvoth, readied, waits. The bronze lets out a startled whuff to discover that the passenger's in the rider's arms, but he kneels and slinks low to the ground just the same. The Weyrlingmaster, laughing still, slides his hand up from the thighs to the rump, getting the feel he was denied before and warning the woman she's about to be uprighted. Then he uprights her, bending so her feet can just barely tip the ground.
Another of those delicious little squeaks as he claims his feel, but she's grinning ear to ear as she settles down on her feet. "You, dear, are entirely too cute." She teases, then turns towads Ruvoth. "And hello to you, my handsome friend. Where is your rider planning on taking me today, I wonder, and what does he have in mind? Well, other than the obvious?" A glance over her shoulder, "At least you'd give me a straight answer devoid of innuendo!"
Unfortunately, Ruvoth can only rumble, drooping his head low and canting it crookedly so as to regard Essdara's backside with an expression nothing much like what his rider would use for the same view. "You keep squealin' like that and we won't even get there," threatens R'vain, standing back a moment to cool and look over his captured prize, grinning toothwide. "Just home." Which is itself actually somewhat rare. There are so many places around a Weyr and the wilderness surrounding it to-- well, anyway. "I got a couple little somethings special for you. Get on up."
A curious look towards him. "For me?" She asks. Still, she looks back to the bronze and sets abuot hauling herself up onto him, dextrously settling into the place she become accustomed to. "You're up to something, Weyrlingmaster, and I confess to being eager to find out what. SO, for now, I will behave myself and wait!"
"Am I ever not up t'somethin'?" R'vain watches her 'aboard', eyes keen on every angle and curve, then hauls himself up after her, seating as is his wont behind her. He wraps an arm around her, though there's certainly no need for extra security for so short a flight, and Ruvoth lurches to his feet beneath them. He turns, wings unfurling, and leaps.
There's a bottomless moment where the stomach wants to drop out, and then the bronze catches himself on his sails and wingbeats up, angling sharp toward his ledge. Behind Essdara, R'vain rumbles wickedness into her ear, teeth playing at the rim between promises, between threats. But the ride is short and there's only so much time for his sport before he's obliged to loosen his arm. Ruvoth's talons dig into the stone, leaving another of countless sets of ruts where his and those of dragons before him have done just that. "Down you go," breathes the Weyrlingmaster.
During the trip, she gives small little laughs and teases of her own, the tilt of her neck or the brush of a lock of hair behind an ear meant to tease the man behind her. As they land, she slips down from the great bronze's back and onto the ledge, turning to wait patiently for R'vain's arrival. "It occurs to me I haven't often been here." She says, with amusement. "Is that my present, a rare chance into your life?"
Wait patiently she must. He's an extra moment getting down from the bronze, and even once he's afoot on the ledge he's still obliged to keep a thumb tucked into the pocket of his trousers. Leather pants. Enough said. "No. Kinda. Not yet," he grunts carelessly, starting toward her with the unencumbered paw out to take her hand. The answer is weird and R'vain seems to realize it after a moment, appending, "I ain't /that/ vain. But it's private an' it's mine." This still doesn't fix the weird, but he shrugs and lets it go. Then he'll lead her in, through the drape-- Ruvoth stays outside as a matter of practice in cases like these.
Essdara is lead by the hand, R'vain's weird answer earning him a quizzical look. "You? Vain? I can't picture that." It could be a tease, but it also could not; it's hard to read her tone. Into the weyr they pass, a smile coming out of her as they pass beyond the veil and into his quarters. "Cleaner than I recall it." She says, softly.
"I cleaned." Pretty simple. Also, it displays exactly how /skilled/ he is at cleaning. All of the clutter, mess and debris is, admittedly, without a speck of dust, grime, or mildew. But all of the clutter, mess and debris is also /still there./ It's a very clean sort of disorganization.
"C'mon in. It won't bite." So R'vain leads her in, a glance of his going up to the mantel-- all those wineglasses, but between two of them, jammed in and out of place, there's a small flat box of some sort of burgundy wood. He looks away from it just as fast as he looked /at/ it. "I'd offer you wine, but. Got water if y'want it. And somethin', uh, for you t'see. First." He's making no sense and knows it, so draws a paw up the back of his head, ruffling the short-cropped hair pointlessly. "I mean, when y'want."
"Says you." Is her very, very quiet reaction to his comment about the weyr not biting. Louder, "R'vain, uh, if you ever want a hand..." She lets it go at that; there's no polite way to offer to clean his weyr just then. Because, after all, he's doing that almost shy, uncertain, cute-R'vain thing and it draws a smile out from her. "Water is fine, always. Better for you than wine, too. And whatever it is... I'm quite eager to see it."
"...I'd get a drudge t'do it. You got better stuff ahead of you." That much, he can convey with a certainty nearly fierce burning in his voice, with a jerk of his head that has him looking at her sharply. For a moment. Until he's obliged to push his thumb down against the pocket of his pants. "Water," he agrees, and after a squeeze of his paw around her fingers lets her go to her own devices. He starts at first toward the mantel-- but that's a fake, just a maneuver, just going around this end table here and instead over to the shelves. He finds a glass there (go figure) and a skin, no, not that skin. Puts that one back down. This skin contains water. He unstoppers it and pours and puts the skin back so he can stalk Dara back down with the water held out for her. "S'in th'other room," he admits with a jerk of his head. He runs his tongue over his upper teeth, distorting the shape of his lip with the motion. "Go on, look." Beat. Rasping a bit, then-- "I could carry you in there, but I don't figure you'd get t'see much."
His ferocity catches her off-guard. "Better stuff?" She queries, confused. And then she is left to herself while he hunts down and kills the vicious waterskin, and it clearly takes all of her will not to use that freedom to clean - she's a girl who like tidiness, after all. She takes the water from him and listens to his order while she sips at it. "I think I can find my way." She agrees, with a crooked smile. She moves in the indicated direction, curiosity written on her expression.
"I bet you can," he growls after her, the growl naturally lascivious enough to balance some of the struggle he's been having with finding words otherwise. R'vain rounds the broad table to lean against the end of it, watching her into his bedchamber, then just waiting.
It's a tiny bit of a room carved into the cave, and the least of changes in its necessarily sparing decor would be glaring. The first thing, then, of note is the new spread that covers the bed. It's about time, really, for that. There's still his old fur-- a literal fur that sprawls over the toe of the bed, ready to provide extra warmth-- but the new spread is /new/, quilted and thick and luxurious in a golden-wheat hue. That's probably not what he's sent her in to see, though. There's at the foot of the bed a chest, as wide as the bedframe. It leaves barely a narrow path between its latching front and the wall, barely room to get to the corner where the brazier sits. It's new. And on top of it, also new, curious things-- vast, fluffy robe of quilted material matching the bedspread. Nightgown, floor-length, modest but warm. And another item of nightclothing nothing like either of these except in color, silky, not much to it.
The latch of the chest bears a shining little lock.
She moves into the sleeping area, and towards the new additions with an uncertain air. The clothing is carefully lifted; she's assuming that was the goal, since R'vain doesn't seem the dress-wearing type. The nightdress gets an approving smile, and the other - well, it's still approval, but laced with a heavy dose of amusement and sensuality. "One for here, one for not?" She asks, her teasing voice carrying out to him.
Her voice summons him as if he'd been waiting just for that, for her first words. He's immediately there in the doorway, the gauzy curtain that separates that chamber from this draped over one of his shoulders. "All for here," R'vain replies, voice rough. "If you agree. Two nights together a seven, and any time you're not working between 'em, with me, here or whereever I am. Here at night. If you'd do that, you can keep 'em here, and I'll give you a key." He must mean the chest. Weyrs don't exactly lock. But that emerald regard's on /her/, not the chest before her, so there's not much cue to go on.
His words cause her to go still, looking at the garment in her hands with a renewed wariness. She's thinking, and it's obvious she is doing so even if she isn't much moving. She doesn't turn to face him, yet, as she considers the offer. "And the other nights, when we're not together?" She asks, her voice hesitant. She leaves the words at that, without embellishment or sidetracking or the distraction of flirting.
His shoulders lift and fall, but there's something of relief in the grin she can't see. The grin itself, of course, is audible in the tone of his voice. "You got other nightgowns, I assume. You want one t'have somewhere else, just say so. I'll get you one." There ends the grinning; there ends the easy part. The rest of what he says is delivered after a breath, lower-spoken, rougher around the edges. "I ain't tryin' t'pin you down. Well, not like that."
Dara turns towards him, and offers a little smile. "I think it sounds workable, R'vain. I... Well, I don't think either of us is thinking the other is only theirs. I just want to be sure that isn't a problem. Explicitly sure." A glance around. "And you may have to accept that, if I spend any large amount of time up here, it .will. get cleaned up. Working in the kitchens has given me a very deep appreciation for order." Carefully, she folds the garment in her hand and lays it on top of the chest, before moving over towards him. "We're agreed?"
He's grinning again as soon as she sounds like she's going to go along with this proposition. "I ain't invested in th'cleaning," shrugs R'vain. No shit, right? "Do whatever y'want, but if it's goin' t'be a big chore for you better make a list of what you want done and I'll get it done." By someone who's not her. As she comes over to him he puts his arms out wide, a space for her to come into, if she chooses. "Explicitly agreed."
Essdara smiles and accepts the offered arms, nestling against him. "It won't be too big a chore. I'll just get a broom and sove everything off the ledge, let whoever is under you deal with it." A soft giggle, and she looks up at him. The laughter fades, though the smile remains. "Why? Why this, and why now?"
"Now, that ain't-- " She's not serious. It comes to him a bit belatedly, cutting off his protest. So he just grins, and shakes his head, and bends his neck so he can reach down to kiss the tip of her nose. His lips are full, his mouth broad; it's hilariously done. "Because I never have enough time t'do everything I need t'do." It sounds sort of serious, what he's saying, and R'vain bears seriousness not well; he shakes his head upward and curls his lip. A beat, and he explains. "I need t'let you get out your teasing and your actin' up and I need t'make you so you can't sit for 'em. I need t'talk t'you. I need t'show you things. I need t'train you a bit, like a-- " Beat. His word choice changes. "--weyrling. And I need-- " Well, a rock of his hips and a slide of one heated hand down her back explains that well enough. He grins back down at her, steps back to clear himself from her ever-so-distracting closeness, and reiterates, "Need more time. If we set aside a day and two nights, ought t'be enough. I hope. And it's easier t'work around, for our other-- affairs. Want t'come sit down?" Back out in the main chamber, he implies, with a wave of one hand.
Essdara nods, slowly. His seriousness has caught her off-guard again, the very fact of missing her tease reiterating that. She passes by him back out to the main chamber after reclaiming her water, and moving to claim one of the seats that he has arranged for. "Need." She says, in a questioning tone. "Lots of need in there, and not much cause for it. Not that I am complaining... I love our time togehter, the clean and the not alike." She settles into the chair and looks at him. "But there is logic in your words, and that is good." A small smile. "Though I don't know I could ever /not/ tease you. You... Brign out the worst in me, in that area."
"What, should I not need?" He prowls after her, letting her have several paces before he moves. "Y'don't know me well enough if y'think there's a faucet t'be closed and that'll stop th'stream." Lightly put, a tease in reply to what she's said. He prowls /past/ her, to the mantel, and there reaches up to take down the flat wooden box. "I don't expect y't'ever learn t'behave, girl." Then he's hauling the chair over so it's close to the settee, so he can sit /right/ in front of her, his butt barely on the edge of the seat with his knees wide and his elbows propped on them, the box dwarfed in his paws between. "If you did I'd have t'come up with different excuses t'warm your rump and stripe your thighs."
"Which you do very well." Dara agrees, with an impish smile. "But you spoke of more than just that one need, and that has me curious. I'd agree that you enjoy training me as you do, but I don't know that /need/ is a word I would have thought of it." She leans forward, elbows on her knees and propping her chin on her hands as she watches him. "What's that?"
"Th'rest of your gift." He's quiet for a moment, his eyes upon her. Their facets glint green, thoughtful, keen. "Happy birthday," R'vain rumbles then, very low.
Essdara looks surprised, to say the least. "How'd you know?" She asks, expression mixing wonder and surprise. Hesitantly she reaches for it. "I haven't told anyone about it this year, I was planning my own ways of celebrating it."
Nooo, that's not how he's playing. He draws back his paws, taking the box along with them, just enough to make it clear her reach isn't what it'll take to get the gift from him. "I knew it was somewhere around here. Your dad gave me th'exact day." R'vain smirks a bit. Can't help it. He's just too clever for his own good. Then his hands move, one of them covering the top of the box. Fingers curl, catching the half-hidden clasp sunk into the wood's surface. He plucks back the lid, and only then does he put it out for her inspection.
There's a necklace inside. A choker, specifically, laid out in a circle. Carved cylindrical beads of jet alternate with silvery pearls; the pearls increase in size from the outside toward the middle, eight in total. Between the two largest pearls hangs a small pendant. A weird pendant. A jeweled key.
A soft snort. "Should have known he'd squeal. But that's fine, it won't detract from my... Plans..." Dara's voice trails off and her eyes are impossibly wide as he draws out the choker, and her hand stays carefully away from it. "R'vain." She says, softly. "That... I can't accept that, it must have cost you a fortune... It's... I've never seen anything like it, it is truly beautiful." She looks up at him with those eyes, and there is adoration for him in them as well. "You can't give me something like this..."
"I just did." He pushes the gift forward in his hand, pushes it upon her. "Th'most of it, anyway. Th'key-- you're just borrowing." His eyes narrow, but there's nothing but wicked warmth in their keenness.
Her hand moves so that R'vain can lay it on her palm as the looks down at it. "But..." She says, softly. "This belongs on a Lady's neck, or a Weyrwoman. Not some cook. I could never wear anything that would compare." The index figner of her other hand slides over the pearls, and traces around the pendant, the key. "And... Why a key? It seems a very odd thing to have on such a beautiful necklace..." She looks up at R'vain, and for a moment there is the briefest flicker of a frown. "What are you up to?"
"Th'key goes to the chest." Now that she has it in her hand, he has paws free to put aside the box-- as nice as it is, it just gets tossed lightly onto the settee. Then he can take the choker back from her hand and reach up around her neck, one hand on either side, one part of the necklace's clasp in either hand. "It opens when you're here, and if you let me take this off of you so I can use it. Th'choker's for looks. You'll-- " He fumbles a bit with the clasp; it's dainty and his fingers, not so much. But he has some experience with this sort of thing, with locks and chains and knots and buckles. The necklace closes and he leans back to admire it. "You'll settle into it."
Essdara's fingers reach up to touch it, a shifting in her position showing that, indeed, the tight feeling around her neck isn't a comfort to her. Then something in what he has said sinks in a bit and she looks up sharply. "Take it off? You mean, I'm supposed to wear this...?" It's a question, the answer one she is clearly uncomfortable with. "And you may take it off as you see fit, but... Why the lock at all? I have no need to keep you out of there, no need to hide anything from you. I never have before, and I don't much plan on starting." A small smirk, a ghost of mischief, "Or are you afraid the lure of my night things would be too much while I am gone? You can try them on, if you like..." And still, it's a hollow tease as she strokes the key lightly.
"You don't know what's in the chest," R'vain says, quite simply, eyes drifting from the choker to her face. "And you can take it off. I assume y'can, anyway. But you wear it when you come t'me." For the nightclothes-- well. Just a little sly grin and a shake of his head.
"What's in the chest, then, R'vain?" She asks curiously. "I will wear it... When I can. I don't know it will be all the time, but around you at the least. But it seems the safest place for it, I've nowhere to keep something like this safe." A small smile. "And... Thank you. It is beautiful, and while I can't imagine I deserve it... I will treasure that you do."
"If y'need t'keep it somewhere, bring it t'me. Or I'll get you a case for your press?" R'vain's brows furrow ruddy and low over his eyes, shadowing them. The expression is disconcerted, but his words are serious, rough and earnest. "You say it, it's done."
"What's in the chest?" Dara repeats, more firmly. "Or am I not allowed to know that yet? And... I'll take care of it, never fear. I can always get a sturdy lock for my press, or something similar." And again her fingers rise to her neck, tracing pearls; it's definately a new sensation she's adjusting to.
His mouth curves in a grin as her fingers move; his eyes watch them for a moment, then come back to her face. He adjusts the lean of his elbows on his knees and lets out a little sigh. "In general. There's things I've used, or will use. In tryin' t'keep you in line," and here R'vain grins a little more toothily, "and mostly failed, y'got t'admit. There's some other stuff too." He pauses. Here he must break eye contact, and does so by shoving himself up and stalking over to the waterskin. "You want t'learn defense. Y'want t'learn what weyrlings learn. And I want you t'learn some other things." He stalks back, looking at the skin rather than at her. "Everything I'm keeping for you I'll keep in there. But you want t'come here and just talk, or just be held, or just fuck-- well, you don't give me the key, and I know."
"Defence seems... Less important, now." Dara admits, though it seems to be something to say while she processes the rest of his words. "I understand." She says, finally. She presses harder against the choker, as if feeling it in an entirely new way. "Formality. This, your 'needs', my coming here... It makes it all formal, set. It makes me, for that time..." A pause; not to find the word - she knows it very well. But to say it, that's a different thing. And when she does, it's riddled with uncertainty. "Yours."
He stands there, holding the waterskin. He looks down at her, unsmiling, and listens as she comes to the end of her speech. There is warmth-- warmth, not just heat-- in his eyes, but he doesn't summon one of his grins, lascivious or sneering or smug. Instead R'vain just nods one time. Then he puts out his paw for her water glass.
Essdara looks down at the glass a moment, and then back at the skin. "Wine? Just this once? This... Is a lot to take in." She admits, quietly. Then her eyes move up to meet his. In her face is uncertainty, yes. But there is also no small amount of pleasure, and determination as well. "This will work." She says. "It will be... Interesting. But it will work. I assume you won't tell me why? Other than that you need it?"
He nods. "Wine." But he still needs her glass, so takes it, and carries it to the shelf. There he releases the waterskin to its home and gets one of the others-- then puts it down and picks up instead a bottle. Something better, for the girl he's put those jewels on. "Because I want it?" That's a throwaway offered with a grin over his shoulder while he uncorks the bottle and refills her glass, his humor revived.
And his humor sparks her, and the laugh it sparks relaxes her. "Of course, how silly of me. Fine, for tonight, I will stop asking. But I will figure it out someday, I promise you." She stands and follows him over to the shelf, watching as he pours. And a question almost slips out, but is bitten back; she'll keep to not asking. "And after a drink, I'll make sure your other presents fit... And after, that I do." Her turn for the lascivious smile, a promise for the evening.
"After a drink," agrees R'vain, kindly if not gently. He corks the bottle and puts it up, then turns with the glass in his hand to face her. "I look forward to you figuring it out," he rumbles, the words so low that they seem to come from his belly. And then he's raising the wine, tipping the rim to her lips. Whether she drinks and he kisses her, or whether they spill and laugh and make sport of the spill-- their part of this evening has begun.