Log: Icky / Cruel
One could spend days in this jungle and never come across another living soul if one were to travel very far from the inhabited regions of the island. Fortunately, in a testament to her sanity, Evaly has done no such thing - at least, not at this precise moment. Instead, traveling one of the more well-worn paths, she's headed from the overgrowth toward the beach, looking a bit worse for the wear, sweaty and red-faced, pausing to catch her breath where her side path joins the main path.
She on her way out that direction, and what a lucky coincidence, there Halsten is on his way back. Alone, though perhaps it hasn't been so particularly long. Not worse for wear, exactly. Rumpled, sure. A little, as he comes up from the beach, comes around a stand of particularly close trees to catch sight of a certain blonde coming the other direction. "Hey, there," he calls. And of course detours closer to her direction. "If just walking wears you out so much, I have to question whether you're really cut out for being a dragonrider. Doesn't that still involve a lot of throwing huge bags of rocks around?"
There are people that Evaly might not mind happening across in her less than put together state, and then there's Halsten, whose presence is greeted with a further exhale, though this one is a sigh more than a puff. "Hey there," she answers, the back of her hand brought to swipe at her forehead, that then rubbed on the side of her pants to dry it. "Forget to pick up your laundry on time?" With a pointed look at his rumpled attire, the whole thing about throwing huge bags of rocks answered with a 'yeah and?' shrug.
"Your Searching," Halsten explains without even missing a beat, "has left me so utterly distraught at the prospect that you might not return to the market that I find myself unable to dress properly. I may have to seek counseling." He's all smirky, but when is he not? "Or else I'm just trying for a more casual look today. I forget which. How's it been going? I'm not interrupting some official chore, am I?"
"Awwww," with large, sad eyes turned on Halsten, taking in his appearance in a new light. "Gosh, if only I'd known at the time, I might have given a different answer. Or else taken pleasure in your misery. I forget which." Evaly dismisses the notion of an official chore with a quick shake of her head, a press of her lips while she finds her way into the shade at the edge of the path; if she's going to be waylaid by Smokey McSmirk, she may as well do it some place relatively cool. "How's what been going, precisely? --And you? Business still booming?"
One probably shouldn't beam at the notion at someone else taking pleasure in their misery. At least, certainly not if really miserable. "Booming, absolutely. Doing great. Kev's still insufferable but he does a good job and he's got a pretty sister. Candidacy, I meant. Or anything else." He's not currently smoking, that should be a plus, shouldn't it? Hal does follow off to the side, so clearly there is an intent to waylay going on here. "Although I was under the impression that candidacy precluded most of the potential for anything elses."
Evaly's, "Excellent," almost sounds genuine, so perhaps it is? "Then you shall be happy to give me seed money when I come and ask you for it." So perhaps it is, indeed. Evaly casts about for a few seconds until she finds a good, solid, old tree with big roots where she can take up roost, half-leaning, half-sitting, her weight resting on her hands beneath and behind her. "Oh, I'm sure that it's meant to, but I'm finding it to be a tedious morass of chores with only occasional glimpses of the light at the end of the tunnel. You weren't going somewhere?" When he looks to be tagging along, coupled to a sniff in his direction; not smoking at the moment, but has he been lately? That's relevant.
Probably more 'women's perfume' than 'tobacco', despite long-ago protestations about not actually being particularly fond of the former. Of course, there's no getting rid of the tobacco completely when you're regularly indulging, but. "Nowhere urgently," Halsten replies with good cheer. "The morass of chores would not be to my taste. What do you want seed money for? If it were a good idea, well, maybe I could. But you might have to be sweet to me, and I don't think you can manage that. You're a bit of a shrew." Matter-of-factly, or trying to be, humor still in it.
Ah, well, women's perfume? Evaly can live with, though she does have to cant her head a second and point out, "It's a bit femme for you, don't you think? Or. Well." She eyes him through narrowed eyes, reconsidering, "I suppose not." Looking upward, to the canopy of leaves for inspiration, she answers, "When I'm ready to plant the seed in question, I'll be sure to provide the necessary details. Until then - doesn't it get tiring, having to pay women to be sweet to you? Are you quite sure you want to cast our relationship in that particular light?" Because she can't really deny the shrew-bit, true.
A faint frown, a blink; perhaps Halsten didn't actually notice the sniffing. "What?" Beat. Then a turn of his head, sniffing at his own shoulder for a second. "You don't like it? It smelled better on the original wearer." More smirking, like surely she's going to be enraged with jealous at this or something. "Purely a business transaction, or maybe I wouldn't be paying for sweetness. But if we're going to be in business, you'll have to be nicer. Or else I won't be able to tell the difference between business and you coming on to me."
"Oh no, it's quite lovely. You ought to make a habit of wearing it, it would at least keep things very clear." Evaly fails to go tearing off in a jealous huff, indeed fails to look moved beyond a very faint creasing at her brows. "I do recall having a conversation about perfume once, but the details are escaping me, so never mind. How about, then, to save you having to try to puzzle through such an obviously complicated conundrum, we just keep things strictly business, you and me? Then, the next time you start thinking I'm coming on to you, you can immediately remember the way things really are, yes? I hate to crush your delusions, true, as you seem so happy with them, but..." Taking one for the team.
Other people have no such memory issues. "I told you I don't like it, which I don't, but sometimes beggars can't be choosers." Which does seem to have just cast Halsten in the role of the beggar, possibly less than ideal. "If I were trying to attract the sort of men who like men, it would seem counterproductive to smell like a woman. I don't think this would do much except possibly attract lesbians. Now, there's a thought." That he may be delusional isn't even dignified with a response. "I would love to indulge you, but if you won't even hint to me about your proposal, well, then what would we have to talk about?"
Helpful; "Perhaps if you had, say, breasts?" With the lesbians. Evaly surveys Halsten for a moment like she's pondering this thought, finally clears her throat to clear away the fact that it's pretty damn funny, and moves on presently. "What do we have to talk about as it is? Your distaste of perfume and pleasure in fine hands? Thinking back, I really can't recall what we talk about except those delusions of yours. What do you /do/ with yourself aside from occasionally pretending to peddle things and smoking and - " She looks down the path toward the Seven, forehead lowered in an indicative nod.
"I knew I was missing something," with a forlorn sigh. Then Halsten's eyes drift off in the direction of that nod, and then back to her, suddenly lacking a bit of that merriment. "I make my living convincing people to buy things they don't need. And when the day's done, I smoke and I drink and I take women to bed who're long on looks and short on sense... and every now and then I try to amuse a pretty girl just for the sake of amusement, to remind myself that I am not a wholly bad person." Head canted in her direction, now. "Am I supposed to do more? I can juggle, if you prefer that for entertainment." Absolutely earnest. Maybe he can.
Evaly doesn't miss the diminished humor, her own expression sobering while she straightens up somewhat, not really giving up the half-lean on the root but not exactly standing, either, more just correcting her posture like a chastised child would. "So, what you're saying is that I wasn't really all that far off the mark. Why get so serious about it?" As if it might defuse any potential sobriety that's brewing, she nudges at the earth to try to uncover some decent-sized stones, juggling-sized stones, though they're mossy and uneven. "Oh, please. I haven't seen a decent juggler in ages. I'll even clap like a happy girl when it's all done, and you can feel like a not wholly bad person."
"Being right," Halsten informs her, still possibly sober, "doesn't mean you have to be a shrew about it." He pokes at the rocks in question, picks them up at last, tries to get three of approximately the same size, pick the worst of the undergrowth away from them. "I don't know that I can lay claim to being decent anymore. I'm out of practice. It's not one of my more... in-demand talents." Still, he straightens, tosses one of them up experimentally, judging the weight of it. "If I hit myself in the head and end up unconscious, try to get me one of the less crazy healers," then he manages to get first one in the air, then the second, then the third, in slow overlapping arcs.
Possibly sober in turn, though hers is delivered with a bright smile, Evaly answers, "If you keep calling me a shrew, being hit in the head with rocks will be the least of your worries, my darling." Sliding back into her earlier posture, shoulders slackened, she adds, "If that does happen, I'm going through your pockets and looking for loose marks. Then maybe I'll send for a healer. If there's enough in there to make me feel charitable." With her eyes on the rocks now, actually interested in a little way so that her tone comes across distracted, "I didn't mean to honestly offend you just now, by the way. I'm sorry if I did."
"There's more than enough there for you to be charitable." Rusty or not, Halsten can manage to keep up both the conversation and the not-getting-hit-on-the-head for at least a certain pace. No rush. It's impressive even if he's not lofting them quite as high as they could go, right? "I don't offend that easily. I just can't have you laboring under the impression that I'm secretly in love with you. That's very ineffective, as secrets go. And if you wanted to be something other than a shrew, you would be. I am simply observing the current state of affairs."
With a wrinkle in her forehead, her head leaning farther and farther to the side as the question forms in her mind before her lips - "Do you think I think you're secretly in love with you?" But then Evaly straightens her head again and shakes it hurriedly, waving away the question in a flutter of her hand. "You see, it gets very confusing when we try to talk straight. Where were we before all that? Your perfume?" She never does stop watching the rocks, perhaps keeping up conversation if only to see how well he manages the juggling and the talking together. "You're good at it. If I had any money, I'd throw some at your feet."
"It's not my perfume. Kev has this sister. Very pretty. You wouldn't know it to look at him. Maybe he's adopted." Hal very carefully tries to get them a little higher, his eyes focused on the peak of the arc and not on her. "I believe, when I learned how to do this at thirteen, I was hoping girls like you would throw themselves at my feet over it, but it never did work out that way. It's a little easier with more uniform objects. This one--" Just as one is leaving his left hand. "--is heavier than the other two. Have to keep track of where it is."
"Define 'girls like me,' please. Presently, not in terms of your thirteen-year-old self, if you would." Evaly may well know she's asking for it on that one, but c'mon; girls like you? She tracks the off-size rock now that he's brought it to light, her eyes doing circles that will probably be dizzying if she tries to keep it up too long, so she blinks them hard, often, to break the trance property inherent in juggling. "Have you tried oranges? It seems like those might be your best bet. Afterward, you could be a gentleman and peel them for your audience and everything."
A faint smile settles on Halsten's features, but it doesn't seem to be totally for her sake. At least, he's still not looking at her. "Young, attractive. I'm afraid at thirteen I didn't think much past that. My standards now are a little different than they were, then. You get older and you realize more things matter." This from the man who mere minutes ago said something about how one of his major hobbies is women who have more looks than sense. "Oranges would be a good idea. Maybe do another round with bananas. I can be a travelling fruit salad."
Pardon her for sounding doubtful, but she does it anyway. "Are they? Added in 'nice hands and/or accepts payment?'" Evaly pitches forward on her makeshift bench once more, looking beyond him toward that Seveny path once more, then rocks back with a look at the man and not the stones. "So, where are you failing? If, as you say, more things matter, why are you spending your time with girls with - how did you put it? Big breasts, small brains? No no, good looks, not so bright?" She knows it was something like that, anyway. "I'd like to see pineapples, if you're taking requests. You might need to toughen up your hands first, though."
Halsten falters, almost manages to drop one of the stones, but manages at the last minute to catch it properly and get it back going with the others. "I don't pay for it, as a rule." Not that most rules don't have exceptions. "Do you think I'm failing? I may not always get what I want, but not a lot of people can really say that they do." He's a bit more modest about the juggling now, it's easier to pay attention when they're kept lower and closer to his hands. "Long on looks, short on sense. I'm not usually that concerned with breast size." And he's thankfully got other things to look at that aren't hers, there. A grin, though, to go with it. "But as to who I'm spending my time with, well." There, he does spare her a look, eyebrows lifted.
"Sorry. That's 'time.'" She lifts her hands, twitches her fingers to put quotes around the word, drops them back where they were behind her. "Not - " Evaly dips her forehead to indicate the two of them, making some sort of distinction. "You have, however, completely failed to address the question. If you don't care for these girls, if they're not even what you want, /why/?" Have they had this conversation before? "Oh, stop already," finally, picking up a pile of half-composted leaves and throwing them in a damp but loose handful at Halsten, meaning to break his focus more than hit him. "You're making me dizzy."
A laugh, but then there's flying dirt-and-whatever and falling rocks and he's shaking one hand like he's hurt it, if not badly, and then briefly sucking on the knuckle. "Ow," as though that needed more clarification. "We don't always get what we want. And sometimes it's simpler not to. They--" These nebulous women he doesn't care about or want, presumably. "--generally do not throw things at me," Hal says pointedly with a bit of a glower he has a hard time keeping up. "And I don't think I recall seeing you hanging about with some love-mad young... person, or I would have laid off. So who are you to talk, exactly?" A cheery, good-natured question, not an accusation.
"Do you need me to go and get that healer for you now?" Evaly asks as if his 'ow' was more serious than just a possibly scraped knuckle, even going so far as to feign a gasp on his behalf. Oh no! "Well, that's a helluva selling point, isn't it?" That they don't throw things at him. "And, if you don't want to answer, just say so, for goodness sake. Quit finding creative ways to avoid the questions," with disappointed accusation, a very thin tolerance in her expression. "I'm one to talk because I have the moral high ground. I'm disheveled from tramping around in the jungles, not fooling around with someone I'm not really interested in. See how that works?"
"I'm not avoiding the question!" Hal protests, raising his hands as though to ward off anything else possibly going to get thrown in his direction. "S'truth. Is it so hard to believe? That I might want something and not be able to have it. I suppose I should take that as a compliment, that you think so highly of my ability to obtain the unobtainable." Pause. "And no, I don't need a healer." Though he shakes his hand out again like it still stings. "Though here you are, still steadfastly disinterested yourself. You didn't even clap. You assaulted me instead."
Explaining with particular patience; "The question, dear heart, was why are you wasting time with these other girls? Not whether or not you could get the ones you'd rather have. Frankly, it's not all that surprising that you're in over your head there. Though witty, you're also rather sleazy." He called her shrewish, let's not forget. Evaly exhales roughly afterward, pushing up from her hands and putting weight back on her feet so she can stand up properly and use her palms for something other than bracing herself. "Sorry, I forgot about the fragility of your ego." Clap. Clap. Clap. The bit about the happy girl must have been hyperbole.
"Logic," Halsten says, after the clapping, "would dictate that in the absence of whatever it is I do want, I have two choices. Make do with what I can get, or go without. And it's a good time either way, isn't it? Not worth giving up for celibacy." He shrugs. Smiles anyway. "You say sleazy. We live in a Weyr. I prefer to think of myself as... open-minded." Not that this explains the insult. If it was an insult. Maybe he likes small mammals. It's possible. "But with a fragile ego. Yes. And if I'm horrible enough to ensure that I know the answer is no, it's considerably easier than wondering if it could be otherwise." Big incongruous grin.
Evaly can't really argue the logic, which is obviously a source of frustration for her, resulting in her lips twisting and her nose twitching. "Open-minded. Slutty. Six of one, half-dozen of another, I guess." Already up, there seems to be less reason motivation to go back to sitting the way she was, possibly because she's starting to lose this argument - and no one likes that. "You're not horrible," she adds. Charitably? "Just - " Oh, how she wants this to be more eloquent than what she winds up with. " - icky."
"No?" to that business of being not-horrible. A moue of disappointment. Too much of one, really. "I was trying for horrible." Which is a tacit acknowledgment or a fib, one or the other. "I don't think anybody's ever actually called me a slut before. I mean, that I know of." Halsten pauses, muses over it with a hand to his mouth, which also does fairly well at covering up the smile. Not so good at covering up the little snicker that goes with it. "Can't go changing the past now, anyway. Guess I'm stuck with being what I am, until something better comes along."
"Do you deny it? I mean, if I'm wrong - " She'll be surprised. " - I'd like to know. Since we're going to be in business together soon, it seems like I ought to at least have you pegged right." Evaly dusts her palms off, swiping them busily against the outside of her legs to get the remnants of the leaf-junk off, the momentum of the action enough to start her back on the path she abandoned however long ago. "I'm guessing you're going that way." As in, the other way, the way she's not going, the way toward the Seven and not the Weyr. "Otherwise, we could hold hands and skip all the way back to the caverns. Alas." Big sigh.
"You can peg me however you like," Halsten says blithely. "I'll do my best to live up to it." One look down towards the Seven, the other back towards the Weyr. "I'm really not very good at skipping. And I'm afraid none of my leisure pursuits are up there, so long as you're off-limits." Well, granted, the Weyr probably has plenty of booze and available women, too, but never mind that. "And I have a card game I'm supposed to be getting to, anyway. The hand-holding, I'm afraid, will have to wait for another day."
Evaly, prompt, "Chaste, then." But she doesn't let long enough pause for there to be any response to pegging him thusly, moving right along with a a couple of quick blinks, head cocked questioningly. "Do you think it's that I'm off-limits? Because, really, in the interests of being forthright, /never going to happen/." Though utterly certain, that promise, there's also a certain levity behind the words, as if she's well aware that she's not telling him anything he doesn't already know. "We can still hold hands, though. I don't want you to feel hopeless or anything. --Try not to blow all my investment capital, please?" This last delivered while she starts up the path, walking backward to catch any parting cleverness on his part.
Halsten stands still as she starts to back away. "You'd have me chaste, and then tell me never? That, Evaly, would just be cruel." Like he might actually consider it otherwise. "I intend to leave tonight with more than I arrive with, so your capital should be safe. But dooming me to nights alone is a bad start to a partnership. How about I promise if I'm not, I won't tell you." Hopefully. "Have a good evening," before she goes, and lingering perhaps a bit longer than he should there before he turns to go himself.
That would be cruel, he says. And she laughs with wicked mirth, calling back happily, "Yeah. Pretty much," as if that's exactly what she was going for, yep. "Likewise," over her shoulder, then Evaly picks up her pace, around the corner without a backward glance, so at least he'll get to linger longer than he should without anyone pestering him about it later.