Log: After the Last Lecture
RL: April 24, 2008.
VR: Day 21, month 2, Turn 16, of the Interval. It is a winter evening.
After the final weyrling lecture, Leova and Persie mope.
Garden Patio Ledge, High Reaches Weyr
This ledge is a good size, allowing two large dragons on it at the most, however the furniture and decorations do very little to allow dragons to land. The stone has, through time, become smooth with the sting of High Reaches' biting winter winds. Lacking are the telling talon marks of an occupant at any time within the past decade and the ledge has been weeded and cleared of greenery. Situated along the western bowl, this ledge offers a view of the lake in the distance and has a set of wide steps curving along the bowl wall to the ground.
A stone half-arc shelters half of the ledge from the extreme weathers, where a iron-wrought bench and two patio-like tables have been set up. Little niches, carved out of the stone in a rustic fashion hold glow baskets to provide light at night. The very edge has been decorated with wooden boxes of potted flowers that blossom beautifully in the spring and summer.
The evening is partly cloudy, though when the clouds clear briefly you can see the stars. The smaller Belior is shining brightly as a full moon while Timor sleeps in darkness. A light wind blows and the winter air is cold.
The last lecture's been over for a while now. They got told they did good, got told not to let Thread kill them, got told they'll be tapped by somebody someday, and now a couple of them are just sitting slumped at a table on the garden patio ledge. Only one of them used to be a weyrling, but that's all right. They're both greenriders anyway.
Persie has been just a touch subdued today, but eager enough to share a drink when the idea came up. Now she's half-sitting, half-straddling a chair, her spindly legs bent back on either side, her upper body pitched forward with her elbows propping her up and a bent wrist swiveling as she stirs a drink that doesn't need to be stirred. There's clearly stuff on her mind but she hasn't volunteered anything just yet. Instead she flicks a glance across the table at Leova, like she should start.
Leova's not so helpful. She has one of those same sorts of drinks, only she's got her chin on her hand, elbow propping her up, and she's just sort of moving the stirring stick up and down. And around. And around some more. It might even be enough to make someone dizzy, only not the good dancing sort of way.
Persie's hopeful brows fall and with that she takes a deep breath and lets it out. "I think I should talk to the Weyrleader," she finally uses to break the silence. "But I don't want to." There. Something said.
Leova's head tilts on its support, and she actually focuses on Persie. It takes a few moments for the Weyrleader to sink in. And then she says, "How come?" The stirring stick doesn't stop, but it does slow down.
Persie watches Leova's drink, her mouth twisting to the side before she glances up just for a beat. "I want... I don't want..." No, neither of those quite work. She lifts her hand, dripping stirrer and all, to scratch the side of her nose. "I want to stay I'daur's assistant."
Leova watches Persie's nose for drips. From the stirrer, not the nose itself. And then she looks up at her eyes, still quite focused until her scope broadens to the rest of the other woman's face. "Why?"
Persie seems to get a little shy under that observation, the way her eyes don't quite meet Loeva's, the way her shoulders draw upwards. She plops her stirrer back in her drink. "It makes me feel better. I think." And then those updrawn shoulders roll into a little shrug.
Leova's glance slides away, down to her own drink. She moves the stirrer up and down a few more times, not quite making bubbles, before looking back. And even then it's less directly. "Better," she repeats, a little encouragingly.
Persie just gives a little nod. "I haven't asked I'daur. I should. I could. What do you think is more... professional?" And in direct contrast to that, she takes the stirrer out again and draws it through her lips to suck the drink off of it. Which means that some gets on her face and she smudges it away. Very grown up. So is the way one heel swings from side to side, making her shake just the slightest bit.
"Is someone else, you know? Lultiath." Leova picks her stirrer out of the glass and holds it right above it, letting it drip right back into the drink. "Or Rielsath. Early." The drops get smaller and smaller.
Blink. And then, with brows tucked together... Blink. "Lultiath or Rielsath? Early to... rise? I don't..." But as Persie tries to piece through the connection she does stat to think of something. "Vrianth?"
Leova drops the stirrer. The drink splashes, nearly over the edge. She picks it up again. "No. Not for weyrlings. I mean, what would you do?"
Persie frowns, shakes her head. "I... I don't understand." And this worries her enough that she catches her lip in her teeth.
"If you were his assistant? Still?" Leova's looking confused now. "What would you do all day?"
"I don't know. Whatever he does all day." Persie drops an ear against her shoulder, watching her unmoving drink now with a distant sort of expression. "I clean his weyr. He didn't ask me to or anything. I did it once just to do something nice and then I just.. kept doing it." She looks across to Leova, ready with, "It's weird. I know it is it. It just... There will be more weyrlings. Eventually."
"Someday." Leova's turn to sample the end of the stirring stick, lift her shoulders, and settle it back into the drink again. "Is it real messy? The weyr."
Zunaeth senses Vrianth reaches silently out for that familiar hearthfire, her thoughts a quiet current that nearly question but don't, quite. Not until she knows whether he's still awake.
"Not really." Persie gives a little shrug. "I just.. tidy it up. I'm not really a neat person, though. I don't... I guess it's just easier to clean up someone else's stuff. She drops the stick to the table and picks up her glass, considering it, though her head is still bent to the side.
Vrianth senses that Zunaeth reaches out slowly, responding to that half-question with his usual fires. They're low now in the evening, a steady smoldering when he answers, << Yeah? >>
"Can be." Leova glances over at Persie's abandoned stick, not bothering to move her own. "Least, if they don't make it real messy between times. Then it's more, what's the point."
Zunaeth senses Vrianth makes as though to settle in, the way she likes to, but tonight she doesn't: it's more a slow sort of pacing, not so much close and away but more around. << You have someone come to touch your things. >> Straps, she imagines, hung high instead of a crumpled pool on stone.
"Yeah. No, he doesn't make a big mess. I don't. I guess it just makes me feel... useful." Persie slips a glance off to the side, a simple glance around, and then she pushes herself up a little straighter. "I should ask, right? Just in case?"
Lack of understanding heats up Zunaeth's mind like friction, warmth rising quickly when it's stirred up. << What? >> he questions, turning the image over in his thoughts, though the temperature quickly melts the straps back into a puddle on the floor, where they belong. (Zunaeth to Vrianth)
Leova's eyes lift, but don't hold too hard. "You're saying, you would clean somebody's weyr, Persie. While the rest of us go off and fight 'Fall." She doesn't put weight behind it, either, just lets it hang there in the air while she finally drinks.
Funny how that straps-puddle develops little amused sparks within it, stars reflected in the lake. Unrelated is a distant flavor of something orangish-pink, stirred and stirred and stirred, barely tasted. In between is Vrianth. << My Secath's rider comes sometimes to clean, she says. Perhaps she will clean ours also. But my Leova refuses to ask. >>
<< Oh. >> Zuaneth's mind sparks again, arcs from though to thought more like Vrianth than his own steady fires. << Yeah, >> he agrees. << She picks it up. Sleeps in the bed. Faranth knows why, we damn well don't. Wouldn't ask her, myself. >> (Zunaeth to Vrianth)
Zunaeth senses Vrianth mulls this over, the current of electricity moving slightly faster now, more than slightly more focused. << Do things not go back in the right places? >> A ghost of the straps reappears, hung up, before melting away again. << She might fit in our bed. But I do not think so. My Secath always has blues with her, >> and there's a sense that while Vrianth might be willing to share her weyr under the right circumstances, random strangers don't cut it.
Secath would rather fight. I..." Though the green isn't visible from here, Persie looks out toward the bowl anyway. A breath deflates her. "I should. I should want to. I did. I used to. But I feel... almost like... someone."
Zunaeth bespoke Vrianth with << Not really. >> A mental shrug. << Or not where we leave 'em, anyway. >> He's not too fussed about it, used to it by now probably. He adds, << She don't have blues when she's with us. >>
Leova looks out too, but slower, more at a crossed angle. "Almost like? Someone." She drinks, then finally puts the stirring stick back in, and tugs at the collar of her jacket. It still doesn't have the greenrider's knot. Just the weyrling's.
There goes the first little spark that's out in the open air, that information happy at least. No strangers! << Do you have her every night? >> Really, she might do better to consult her Secath about their schedule, but she isn't. (Vrianth to Zunaeth)
Zunaeth bespoke Vrianth with << Sometimes? >> He's not really sure, not really concerned. << Whenever they turn up. >> He pauses, several long several of poking fires and sending up ash. Then, half to himself: << S'how it happened last time, too. >>
Zunaeth senses Vrianth listens and learns, minute sparks flying up with the ash, rising only to disappear and be reborn. << Last time? >> she prompts, gravelly voice soft as sand, dark as coal.
"I'daur probably doesn't need someone to help him sit around empty barracks," Persie mumbles into the cup she's finally lifting, finally sucking heartily from. "Anyway. Are you nervous? You don't have to be nervous. It's not... it's good to be in a wing. To be flying and fighting. It is."
"Sure it is," Leova supposes, though not exactly enthusiastically. Vrianth gets to be enthusiastic, and has been in drills, ever since she got over that issue with flaming and got caught up with the rest. "Doesn't much matter if I want to or not, though, does it? Got to get it done anyway."
A flash of black-and-white dress, greying blonde hair--Zunaeth's got nothing more distinct than that. What he remembers better is the olive-colored green. Anouka's. << Last time. >> (Zunaeth to Vrianth)
Zunaeth senses Vrianth bats minute sparks at that particular shade, only these are the searing kind. Her color. Hers. << It is very peculiar. Does this often happen so? Ours ask first. >> There's a dim warm sense that might have to do with Bremuth's serenity, Zechoth's calculation gone companionable just for her. << But they do not clean. >>
Another shrug; Zunaeth's not saying. He pulls away again, retreating back to himself. << Ask lotta questions, >> he observes, not unkindly. (Zunaeth to Vrianth)
"I shouldn't have brought it up. I should be a better role model." Persie grimaces sharply, head ducking down to hide it as best she can. And then in a frenzy of movement, she gets all resituated on her chair, legs bent up in front of her, knees up under her chin. She's schooled the grimace away. "How are you doing?"
"Fine." Which is why Leova's moping around just like Persie. She holds up her drink, barely touched. "See? Fine."
Zunaeth senses Vrianth stays where she is for the moment. The others vanish as though they had never been. << I do, Zunaeth, >> comes that thought, rippled and soft and warm, warm, electric and warm. << You are kind to answer. >> After a moment, << You may always ask us, you know. >>
And as if she didn't hear 'fine' at all, Persie asks, "What's wrong?"
"I said fine," Leova repeats, only then she sinks back in her seat, hugging her jacket to her, glass left on the table. "Don't know. Should be exciting, hm? Spring coming. All the world's our... whatever."
"Yeah," Persie agrees with a big breath and a big sigh. "I guess." Instead she's sucking down more of her drink, making up for her delayed start.
A sidelong look. "Don't suppose you know which wings we'll get in?" Leova does lean forward for her drink too, but it's only to get the stirring stick and lean back to first lick it off and then start trying to balance it on the end of her finger.
Vrianth senses that Zunaeth agrees, warm to match the green, << All right. >> But he doesn't, not tonight.
Zunaeth senses Vrianth curls into that warmth of his, all supple muscle and nearly, nearly contented thought. Wistfully, << Must you sleep now? >>
Vrianth senses that Zunaeth sends another little tendril out, absently. << You need something? >>
Zunaeth senses Vrianth's sending is quiet, nearly unthinking. << Do not leave us. >> Empty echoing barracks. Dragons scattered to the winds.
Vrianth senses that Zunaeth, well. For that, he'll linger, send some more of his warmth down the line to her, a steady presence even if he doesn't say anything.
Persie shakes her head. "I don't. Is there a wing you want to be in? Do you just want to go into a wing with... you know, what's his name." Names aren't usually Persie's strong suit, even ones she knows.
"Icicle." Leova can say it more confidently now, given how many times she's been asked it, even if she isn't necessarily signing on. But. "What's his, who?"
"You know. Not E'dro. The other one. Or, well..." Persie just wrinkles her nose and shakes her head, giving up. "Maybe if I have to go back, we'll be in the same wing. That would be nice. Why Icicle?"
Just her saying that much is enough to get Leova reddening some. "Well, whoever. Not just going to go into a wing for some man." She pokes at the stirring stick on her knuckle but can't quite get it to spin without starting to fall off. "But you in it too? That would be nice. Icicle, it just seems like a good place for a green to be, you know? Right in the middle, not just tagging along."
"I was in Glacier. Before. With Shanlee." Persie sucks her lip into her mouth, working her teeth back and forth over it. "I don't know if they'd even put me back there, if I went back. It's been a while now after all. I doubt the Weyrleader even remembers. Shanlee would, though," she tries to convince herself.
"Shanlee probably would," Leova agrees about her mentor, and finally gives up and puts the stick back into the glass, right after she goes for another drink. "But. If you don't want to be in a wing with him?" Him. The Weyrleader. That. "Think she'd understand."
Persie gives only a tiny smile, not weak exactly, but mild at best. "He's not bad. He's not a bad a guy." Even if she does seem to ward a chill from the back of her neck with a twist of her shoulders. "It's a good wing, too." And she smiles, she does, and she's not going to say she doesn't want to fly with the wings. No she's not.
"Maybe not to you," Leova remarks, but quietly: she hasn't had so much to drink as to make that loud, at least. And she looks at Persie and the smile she's trying on, and finally she wonders, "So how do you know P'draig, anyway?"
Whatever curiosity raises Persie's brows is all lost when Leova's question follows. Her eyes get round, a heel slips from her chair. "I... I didn't impress here. I was at Fort for a long time. He was my weyrlingmaster. My friend. I haven't seen him, though. Not since I moved. Not really."
"Too bad. Hard to lose track of friends," Leova murmurs. Not lose friends: lose track of them. "Seen him a couple times lately, mostly in there," and she tilts her head towards the Snowasis itself. "But it's just passing through, you know?"
Persie makes a face, the sort of face a person might make when they're trying to swallow something and not having much luck. "Yeah. His family is here. I've... -seen- him. I just haven't spent any time with him." That look is still on her face, pulling her lip slightly askew.
Leova mentions into her drink, with the barest glance hidden through her lashes, "Someone was saying how his face still changes when your name comes up. Made me wonder, is all."
Persie just starts shaking her head. Not big refusing shakes but the little quick ones that make her look just a touch crazy. "It doesn't. It's not... It's nothing." But she does get both her boots on the floor and she does slip her chair out a bit.
Leova doesn't say anything, right at first. She just stirs the little stick into her drink again, around and around and around.
"He's a nice guy," Persie gets out, though it takes her a moment. "Everyone likes Paddy. We used to spend a lot of time together." Staring down at the table, her breath starts to pick up and then, abruptly. "How's your weyr?"
"Seems nice enough," but that's all Leova has to say about that. She keeps stirring. Stirring and stirring and stirring. If the drink ever had any fizz, it's long gone. "And it's fine," she says. "Well, not really. Got things to move around still. Should get back maybe, before Vrianth goes the rest of the way to sleep. Stop by sometime, Persie?"
"Oh." Persie says with a blink, a realization. "Right." And then she does put on a smile, a big smile that doesn't match the sort of panicked look in her eyes at all. "I... I'm sorry. I've just been... You know. I..." The sentences, they aren't coming together very easily for her. "I'm sorry. I will stop by. I'd like that. If you want me to. I can bring something, if you need something. You know, to make your weyr more homey."
Leova had started to rise, but now she sinks back enough to wait, at least. Not staring, just waiting, giving Persie that time. Finally, "Just let Vrianth know." And she smiles too, slow, warm, friendly. No hurry at all. "Won't even make you clean. Night, Persie." Even then, she stays a moment or two before she goes.
VR: Day 21, month 2, Turn 16, of the Interval. It is a winter evening.
After the final weyrling lecture, Leova and Persie mope.
Garden Patio Ledge, High Reaches Weyr
This ledge is a good size, allowing two large dragons on it at the most, however the furniture and decorations do very little to allow dragons to land. The stone has, through time, become smooth with the sting of High Reaches' biting winter winds. Lacking are the telling talon marks of an occupant at any time within the past decade and the ledge has been weeded and cleared of greenery. Situated along the western bowl, this ledge offers a view of the lake in the distance and has a set of wide steps curving along the bowl wall to the ground.
A stone half-arc shelters half of the ledge from the extreme weathers, where a iron-wrought bench and two patio-like tables have been set up. Little niches, carved out of the stone in a rustic fashion hold glow baskets to provide light at night. The very edge has been decorated with wooden boxes of potted flowers that blossom beautifully in the spring and summer.
The evening is partly cloudy, though when the clouds clear briefly you can see the stars. The smaller Belior is shining brightly as a full moon while Timor sleeps in darkness. A light wind blows and the winter air is cold.
The last lecture's been over for a while now. They got told they did good, got told not to let Thread kill them, got told they'll be tapped by somebody someday, and now a couple of them are just sitting slumped at a table on the garden patio ledge. Only one of them used to be a weyrling, but that's all right. They're both greenriders anyway.
Persie has been just a touch subdued today, but eager enough to share a drink when the idea came up. Now she's half-sitting, half-straddling a chair, her spindly legs bent back on either side, her upper body pitched forward with her elbows propping her up and a bent wrist swiveling as she stirs a drink that doesn't need to be stirred. There's clearly stuff on her mind but she hasn't volunteered anything just yet. Instead she flicks a glance across the table at Leova, like she should start.
Leova's not so helpful. She has one of those same sorts of drinks, only she's got her chin on her hand, elbow propping her up, and she's just sort of moving the stirring stick up and down. And around. And around some more. It might even be enough to make someone dizzy, only not the good dancing sort of way.
Persie's hopeful brows fall and with that she takes a deep breath and lets it out. "I think I should talk to the Weyrleader," she finally uses to break the silence. "But I don't want to." There. Something said.
Leova's head tilts on its support, and she actually focuses on Persie. It takes a few moments for the Weyrleader to sink in. And then she says, "How come?" The stirring stick doesn't stop, but it does slow down.
Persie watches Leova's drink, her mouth twisting to the side before she glances up just for a beat. "I want... I don't want..." No, neither of those quite work. She lifts her hand, dripping stirrer and all, to scratch the side of her nose. "I want to stay I'daur's assistant."
Leova watches Persie's nose for drips. From the stirrer, not the nose itself. And then she looks up at her eyes, still quite focused until her scope broadens to the rest of the other woman's face. "Why?"
Persie seems to get a little shy under that observation, the way her eyes don't quite meet Loeva's, the way her shoulders draw upwards. She plops her stirrer back in her drink. "It makes me feel better. I think." And then those updrawn shoulders roll into a little shrug.
Leova's glance slides away, down to her own drink. She moves the stirrer up and down a few more times, not quite making bubbles, before looking back. And even then it's less directly. "Better," she repeats, a little encouragingly.
Persie just gives a little nod. "I haven't asked I'daur. I should. I could. What do you think is more... professional?" And in direct contrast to that, she takes the stirrer out again and draws it through her lips to suck the drink off of it. Which means that some gets on her face and she smudges it away. Very grown up. So is the way one heel swings from side to side, making her shake just the slightest bit.
"Is someone else, you know? Lultiath." Leova picks her stirrer out of the glass and holds it right above it, letting it drip right back into the drink. "Or Rielsath. Early." The drops get smaller and smaller.
Blink. And then, with brows tucked together... Blink. "Lultiath or Rielsath? Early to... rise? I don't..." But as Persie tries to piece through the connection she does stat to think of something. "Vrianth?"
Leova drops the stirrer. The drink splashes, nearly over the edge. She picks it up again. "No. Not for weyrlings. I mean, what would you do?"
Persie frowns, shakes her head. "I... I don't understand." And this worries her enough that she catches her lip in her teeth.
"If you were his assistant? Still?" Leova's looking confused now. "What would you do all day?"
"I don't know. Whatever he does all day." Persie drops an ear against her shoulder, watching her unmoving drink now with a distant sort of expression. "I clean his weyr. He didn't ask me to or anything. I did it once just to do something nice and then I just.. kept doing it." She looks across to Leova, ready with, "It's weird. I know it is it. It just... There will be more weyrlings. Eventually."
"Someday." Leova's turn to sample the end of the stirring stick, lift her shoulders, and settle it back into the drink again. "Is it real messy? The weyr."
Zunaeth senses Vrianth reaches silently out for that familiar hearthfire, her thoughts a quiet current that nearly question but don't, quite. Not until she knows whether he's still awake.
"Not really." Persie gives a little shrug. "I just.. tidy it up. I'm not really a neat person, though. I don't... I guess it's just easier to clean up someone else's stuff. She drops the stick to the table and picks up her glass, considering it, though her head is still bent to the side.
Vrianth senses that Zunaeth reaches out slowly, responding to that half-question with his usual fires. They're low now in the evening, a steady smoldering when he answers, << Yeah? >>
"Can be." Leova glances over at Persie's abandoned stick, not bothering to move her own. "Least, if they don't make it real messy between times. Then it's more, what's the point."
Zunaeth senses Vrianth makes as though to settle in, the way she likes to, but tonight she doesn't: it's more a slow sort of pacing, not so much close and away but more around. << You have someone come to touch your things. >> Straps, she imagines, hung high instead of a crumpled pool on stone.
"Yeah. No, he doesn't make a big mess. I don't. I guess it just makes me feel... useful." Persie slips a glance off to the side, a simple glance around, and then she pushes herself up a little straighter. "I should ask, right? Just in case?"
Lack of understanding heats up Zunaeth's mind like friction, warmth rising quickly when it's stirred up. << What? >> he questions, turning the image over in his thoughts, though the temperature quickly melts the straps back into a puddle on the floor, where they belong. (Zunaeth to Vrianth)
Leova's eyes lift, but don't hold too hard. "You're saying, you would clean somebody's weyr, Persie. While the rest of us go off and fight 'Fall." She doesn't put weight behind it, either, just lets it hang there in the air while she finally drinks.
Funny how that straps-puddle develops little amused sparks within it, stars reflected in the lake. Unrelated is a distant flavor of something orangish-pink, stirred and stirred and stirred, barely tasted. In between is Vrianth. << My Secath's rider comes sometimes to clean, she says. Perhaps she will clean ours also. But my Leova refuses to ask. >>
<< Oh. >> Zuaneth's mind sparks again, arcs from though to thought more like Vrianth than his own steady fires. << Yeah, >> he agrees. << She picks it up. Sleeps in the bed. Faranth knows why, we damn well don't. Wouldn't ask her, myself. >> (Zunaeth to Vrianth)
Zunaeth senses Vrianth mulls this over, the current of electricity moving slightly faster now, more than slightly more focused. << Do things not go back in the right places? >> A ghost of the straps reappears, hung up, before melting away again. << She might fit in our bed. But I do not think so. My Secath always has blues with her, >> and there's a sense that while Vrianth might be willing to share her weyr under the right circumstances, random strangers don't cut it.
Secath would rather fight. I..." Though the green isn't visible from here, Persie looks out toward the bowl anyway. A breath deflates her. "I should. I should want to. I did. I used to. But I feel... almost like... someone."
Zunaeth bespoke Vrianth with << Not really. >> A mental shrug. << Or not where we leave 'em, anyway. >> He's not too fussed about it, used to it by now probably. He adds, << She don't have blues when she's with us. >>
Leova looks out too, but slower, more at a crossed angle. "Almost like? Someone." She drinks, then finally puts the stirring stick back in, and tugs at the collar of her jacket. It still doesn't have the greenrider's knot. Just the weyrling's.
There goes the first little spark that's out in the open air, that information happy at least. No strangers! << Do you have her every night? >> Really, she might do better to consult her Secath about their schedule, but she isn't. (Vrianth to Zunaeth)
Zunaeth bespoke Vrianth with << Sometimes? >> He's not really sure, not really concerned. << Whenever they turn up. >> He pauses, several long several of poking fires and sending up ash. Then, half to himself: << S'how it happened last time, too. >>
Zunaeth senses Vrianth listens and learns, minute sparks flying up with the ash, rising only to disappear and be reborn. << Last time? >> she prompts, gravelly voice soft as sand, dark as coal.
"I'daur probably doesn't need someone to help him sit around empty barracks," Persie mumbles into the cup she's finally lifting, finally sucking heartily from. "Anyway. Are you nervous? You don't have to be nervous. It's not... it's good to be in a wing. To be flying and fighting. It is."
"Sure it is," Leova supposes, though not exactly enthusiastically. Vrianth gets to be enthusiastic, and has been in drills, ever since she got over that issue with flaming and got caught up with the rest. "Doesn't much matter if I want to or not, though, does it? Got to get it done anyway."
A flash of black-and-white dress, greying blonde hair--Zunaeth's got nothing more distinct than that. What he remembers better is the olive-colored green. Anouka's. << Last time. >> (Zunaeth to Vrianth)
Zunaeth senses Vrianth bats minute sparks at that particular shade, only these are the searing kind. Her color. Hers. << It is very peculiar. Does this often happen so? Ours ask first. >> There's a dim warm sense that might have to do with Bremuth's serenity, Zechoth's calculation gone companionable just for her. << But they do not clean. >>
Another shrug; Zunaeth's not saying. He pulls away again, retreating back to himself. << Ask lotta questions, >> he observes, not unkindly. (Zunaeth to Vrianth)
"I shouldn't have brought it up. I should be a better role model." Persie grimaces sharply, head ducking down to hide it as best she can. And then in a frenzy of movement, she gets all resituated on her chair, legs bent up in front of her, knees up under her chin. She's schooled the grimace away. "How are you doing?"
"Fine." Which is why Leova's moping around just like Persie. She holds up her drink, barely touched. "See? Fine."
Zunaeth senses Vrianth stays where she is for the moment. The others vanish as though they had never been. << I do, Zunaeth, >> comes that thought, rippled and soft and warm, warm, electric and warm. << You are kind to answer. >> After a moment, << You may always ask us, you know. >>
And as if she didn't hear 'fine' at all, Persie asks, "What's wrong?"
"I said fine," Leova repeats, only then she sinks back in her seat, hugging her jacket to her, glass left on the table. "Don't know. Should be exciting, hm? Spring coming. All the world's our... whatever."
"Yeah," Persie agrees with a big breath and a big sigh. "I guess." Instead she's sucking down more of her drink, making up for her delayed start.
A sidelong look. "Don't suppose you know which wings we'll get in?" Leova does lean forward for her drink too, but it's only to get the stirring stick and lean back to first lick it off and then start trying to balance it on the end of her finger.
Vrianth senses that Zunaeth agrees, warm to match the green, << All right. >> But he doesn't, not tonight.
Zunaeth senses Vrianth curls into that warmth of his, all supple muscle and nearly, nearly contented thought. Wistfully, << Must you sleep now? >>
Vrianth senses that Zunaeth sends another little tendril out, absently. << You need something? >>
Zunaeth senses Vrianth's sending is quiet, nearly unthinking. << Do not leave us. >> Empty echoing barracks. Dragons scattered to the winds.
Vrianth senses that Zunaeth, well. For that, he'll linger, send some more of his warmth down the line to her, a steady presence even if he doesn't say anything.
Persie shakes her head. "I don't. Is there a wing you want to be in? Do you just want to go into a wing with... you know, what's his name." Names aren't usually Persie's strong suit, even ones she knows.
"Icicle." Leova can say it more confidently now, given how many times she's been asked it, even if she isn't necessarily signing on. But. "What's his, who?"
"You know. Not E'dro. The other one. Or, well..." Persie just wrinkles her nose and shakes her head, giving up. "Maybe if I have to go back, we'll be in the same wing. That would be nice. Why Icicle?"
Just her saying that much is enough to get Leova reddening some. "Well, whoever. Not just going to go into a wing for some man." She pokes at the stirring stick on her knuckle but can't quite get it to spin without starting to fall off. "But you in it too? That would be nice. Icicle, it just seems like a good place for a green to be, you know? Right in the middle, not just tagging along."
"I was in Glacier. Before. With Shanlee." Persie sucks her lip into her mouth, working her teeth back and forth over it. "I don't know if they'd even put me back there, if I went back. It's been a while now after all. I doubt the Weyrleader even remembers. Shanlee would, though," she tries to convince herself.
"Shanlee probably would," Leova agrees about her mentor, and finally gives up and puts the stick back into the glass, right after she goes for another drink. "But. If you don't want to be in a wing with him?" Him. The Weyrleader. That. "Think she'd understand."
Persie gives only a tiny smile, not weak exactly, but mild at best. "He's not bad. He's not a bad a guy." Even if she does seem to ward a chill from the back of her neck with a twist of her shoulders. "It's a good wing, too." And she smiles, she does, and she's not going to say she doesn't want to fly with the wings. No she's not.
"Maybe not to you," Leova remarks, but quietly: she hasn't had so much to drink as to make that loud, at least. And she looks at Persie and the smile she's trying on, and finally she wonders, "So how do you know P'draig, anyway?"
Whatever curiosity raises Persie's brows is all lost when Leova's question follows. Her eyes get round, a heel slips from her chair. "I... I didn't impress here. I was at Fort for a long time. He was my weyrlingmaster. My friend. I haven't seen him, though. Not since I moved. Not really."
"Too bad. Hard to lose track of friends," Leova murmurs. Not lose friends: lose track of them. "Seen him a couple times lately, mostly in there," and she tilts her head towards the Snowasis itself. "But it's just passing through, you know?"
Persie makes a face, the sort of face a person might make when they're trying to swallow something and not having much luck. "Yeah. His family is here. I've... -seen- him. I just haven't spent any time with him." That look is still on her face, pulling her lip slightly askew.
Leova mentions into her drink, with the barest glance hidden through her lashes, "Someone was saying how his face still changes when your name comes up. Made me wonder, is all."
Persie just starts shaking her head. Not big refusing shakes but the little quick ones that make her look just a touch crazy. "It doesn't. It's not... It's nothing." But she does get both her boots on the floor and she does slip her chair out a bit.
Leova doesn't say anything, right at first. She just stirs the little stick into her drink again, around and around and around.
"He's a nice guy," Persie gets out, though it takes her a moment. "Everyone likes Paddy. We used to spend a lot of time together." Staring down at the table, her breath starts to pick up and then, abruptly. "How's your weyr?"
"Seems nice enough," but that's all Leova has to say about that. She keeps stirring. Stirring and stirring and stirring. If the drink ever had any fizz, it's long gone. "And it's fine," she says. "Well, not really. Got things to move around still. Should get back maybe, before Vrianth goes the rest of the way to sleep. Stop by sometime, Persie?"
"Oh." Persie says with a blink, a realization. "Right." And then she does put on a smile, a big smile that doesn't match the sort of panicked look in her eyes at all. "I... I'm sorry. I've just been... You know. I..." The sentences, they aren't coming together very easily for her. "I'm sorry. I will stop by. I'd like that. If you want me to. I can bring something, if you need something. You know, to make your weyr more homey."
Leova had started to rise, but now she sinks back enough to wait, at least. Not staring, just waiting, giving Persie that time. Finally, "Just let Vrianth know." And she smiles too, slow, warm, friendly. No hurry at all. "Won't even make you clean. Night, Persie." Even then, she stays a moment or two before she goes.