Log: Almost Goodbye
RL: May 21, 2008.
VR: Day 16, month 6, Turn 16 of the Interval. It is a summer morning before dawn.
Leova's soaking in the hot springs. But why is Shanlee there?
Hot Spring, High Reaches Weyr (#420RAIJs)
Tucked away against the unrelenting rock of one of the mountains of the High Reaches range is a large hot spring surrounded by trees. The pool resulting from the spring is several dragonslengths accross providing space for perhaps a half-dozen people and their lifemates. Apparently accessible only from the air, a nearby clearing is large enough for a small number of dragons to land. Some distance below the spring, at the abrupt end of a steep trail is another, larger clearing. Heated by a natural geothermal vent, the lightly bubbling spring maintains a comfortably hot temperature all Turn, even when there is snow almost up to the edge of the hot pool.
Rukbat hasn't fully broken over the mountains, though the eastern sky is warmed by the palest gold within the lightening grey, and this being summer means it's very early indeed. There's even a nip in the air, enough to make the hot springs welcome instead of tolerable or worse. Though Vrianth is nowhere to be seen, her rider soaks on the far side of the trail, a pile of towels and clothes behind her, along with crumbs from her bacon-wrapped-in-pancake breakfast.
Kaylith drifts in overhead silent as an early morning breeze, circling a few times before coming to a soft landing well back from the springs themselves. Shanlee is fully kitted out in riding gear and by the alert set to features has been up and about for a while yet. No towel gets pulled from the bulging carrysack at her green's side, in fact she appears surprised to find the springs inhabited so early in the morning. Her approach to where Leova soaks almost silent save for the crack of a twig a few steps back. Sardonic, "Mother said never to swim on a full stomach," fingers flicker in the direction of the tell-tale crumbs.
Which means that Leova just lolls her head back, not with particular surprise, and says, "Then don't tell your mother."
"Mmm," the sound one of indifference from Shanlee. From where she's come to a stop just behind Leova, "Usually eat your breakfast on the float?"
"Now and then." Shanlee. Right behind her. Leova doesn't turn, though, just sinks a little deeper so her head can rest against the edge, and if she can't see all of the other greenrider, no worries. "More often these days, on the fly. Shanlee. Right behind her. Without a towel. "What's got you here?"
On places Leova chooses to breakfast, "Interesting." And perhaps Shanlee is quite happy to be right where she is, out of direct line of sight. There's a smirk to her tone, "Wanted to go skinny dipping, maybe?"
Leova's own shoulders are visible just as an outline in the dim light, just above the water. Hard to tell whether they're bare, but if there are straps, they're a brown close to her skin. "You tell me," and that dryly. There are no audible wingbeats above, behind them. But there is now a dragon floating, gliding, very high.
Wryly, "Was rhetorical," and so not answered. Whether or not Leova is suited up or not must be of little consequence to the weyrsecond for her eyes don't linger on trying to figure that one out. From the way Shanlee's light tone changes direction it's likely easy to tell she's moved from standing to crouching, asking idly, "Seen much of Laylia lately?"
Leova shifts in response, a slow unhurried motion to the side, the better to look up at Shanlee now that things have changed. "My original question wasn't," but then comes Leova's laugh, just as slow. Low. Letting it go. "Here and there. We're busy." A pause. "Seeing as much of her as you want to?"
"Which was?" acting dumb or just mind elsewhere and forgotten? Shanlee meets Leova's look from within an expression of placidness, slow the blink of green eyes. As to her sibling, there follows a light shrug of shoulders and fingers that dangle between her knees toy with the unsheathed belt knife, skewering a few leaves onto it in idle action. Her response is simple, "See her enough."
"Fine." If it's a game, it's one Leova won't play, though she's calm enough about it. She keeps looking for a little while, not missing the knife, but she doesn't linger there. Back to the green eyes, a little while longer. And then she turns back around, slides in a little deeper, lets her lids fall a little further. High, high above them, Vrianth circles. Sunrise is almost here.
Stilling her action of stabbing the leaves onto the long narrow blade and then slooowly pulling them off one by one, Shanlee's mouth pulls into a deep smirk and then flattens out again. Weight shifts from one bent leg to the other, boots crunching over the ground in the half-swivel. Eyes track over her shoulder and come to rest briefly on her own green then track upward to where Vrianth circles and Rukbat is almost unveiled. Silence stretches out. Not the brooding kind. Until finally in one lithe movement the weyrsecond stands and cants a glance down to the top of Leova's head, "Right then. I'll be off." Apparently not one for conversational deaths and lingering silences.
Circling, circling, circling Vrianth. Rukbat's light touches one wing. She flies on. "We talked more freely," her rider says into the air, the same air that Vrianth touches at her distance, that Shanlee and Kaylith do. "Before." It isn't a question. It might become goodbye.
Shanlee's body already half-turned back to where Kaylith waits in watchful repose, she swings it slowly back Leova's way and cants a quizzical look down onto her, "Before what?"
"Not sure," Leova finally says out over the water. "Don't think it was just the Hatching." She won't blame Vrianth, not even a little, not even her-with-Vrianth. "After, sometime after, I think. Don't know why."
At first more puzzled than ever Shanlee does little but fix a long stare onto Leova. Mind likely racing a mile a minute to try and figure this one out. Realization dawns as slow and clear as her tone is low and pointed, "You're pissed because there's some questions I won't answer, aren't you?" blunt.
"Not mad," Leova says to the water, letting it warm her, her low voice quietly truthful. "More like, I don't know. Regret's sort of a big word but maybe it's that. Just seems like we're sparring a lot, and I don't know why."
From an expression of blandness, fine brows creep upward and then low laughter almost spills from where it thrums in Shanlee's throat. Dropping back into that crouch and fixing a dryly amused look onto Leova, "Sparring? You and me?" a finger waves between the two, more sounds of trapped chuckling, "Believe me. If we were sparring, you'd know all about it," as an afterthought, "Just ask Laylia." With more sincerity filtering through in a rueful manner now, "Look. My life and what I do after hours isn't an open book for all to read, aye? There's just..." stop, turn it onto the other greenrider, "You mean to tell me you'd answer anything I asked you, openly and honestly?" green eyes turn an intent look onto the tawny-skinned woman.
"Shanlee." Leova does look back, now, as the other woman drops back. And she says slowly, with pauses here and there, "Does it have to be all or nothing, with you? It doesn't. With me. Not looking to deceive you. You want to ask me things, because we're friends, because it's part of, I don't know, fitting lives together? I'd want to answer. If somebody's asking me questions like he's got a list, like he's judging, forget it. But it's all right if you say, look, I don't want to talk about this or that. Don't need to know each other all the way down to get along, friends-wise. And you got a secret, I don't tell the next woman who asks me either."
Shanlee's quiet throughout as Leova speaks. With her belt knife sheathed she takes to scratching doodles in the dirt with a stick. Leova stops talking, she stops doodling and looks out over the springs jaw flexing and contracting. Then tipping her chin fractionally down toward the soaking woman there's nothing but flat truth in the next, "Everyone has secrets best left untold." A small shake of head and her free hand palms down over her face, "I don't pry into others lives and they don't poke into mine. Figure you'll tell me what you want me to know." Standing once again there comes from the weyrsecond a low, "Besides. Everyone leaves. It's only a matter of time."
Agreement: Leova's simple nod. Clarification: "If I want, if I really want you to know, I'll tell you. But sharing. S'not prying or announcing. It's in the middle of that. Helps to know what sorts of things you like to hear, things that are easy to talk about, maybe even fun." Explanation, up to the now standing woman, just as quiet and calm, "Better some than none at all, is what I figure. Better than leaving them first." And at the end, invitation, maybe: "Think about it. Clear skies, Shanlee."
Taking all that from Leova with a slow nod at one point, a frown at another, Shanlee offers at the end a levelly voiced, "The one that leaves first isn't the one left behind." A slender hand lifts and falls in a semblance of a half-hearted wave to skies being clear and a dull, "Aye," to thinking about it all.
"She still misses her." Leova lifts her own hand, water sliding down her palm, her wrist, her arm, into the pool again. And then she settles back into the water's warmth herself, looking after Shanlee for some moments, seeing her to Kaylith before letting her eyes close for the few minutes she can still afford. Nabol is waiting. But it can't have her yet.
Furrows of confusion touch Shanlee's forehead for Leova's first, but she leaves well enough alone, mounts up and the two wheel off toward the east.
VR: Day 16, month 6, Turn 16 of the Interval. It is a summer morning before dawn.
Leova's soaking in the hot springs. But why is Shanlee there?
Hot Spring, High Reaches Weyr (#420RAIJs)
Tucked away against the unrelenting rock of one of the mountains of the High Reaches range is a large hot spring surrounded by trees. The pool resulting from the spring is several dragonslengths accross providing space for perhaps a half-dozen people and their lifemates. Apparently accessible only from the air, a nearby clearing is large enough for a small number of dragons to land. Some distance below the spring, at the abrupt end of a steep trail is another, larger clearing. Heated by a natural geothermal vent, the lightly bubbling spring maintains a comfortably hot temperature all Turn, even when there is snow almost up to the edge of the hot pool.
Rukbat hasn't fully broken over the mountains, though the eastern sky is warmed by the palest gold within the lightening grey, and this being summer means it's very early indeed. There's even a nip in the air, enough to make the hot springs welcome instead of tolerable or worse. Though Vrianth is nowhere to be seen, her rider soaks on the far side of the trail, a pile of towels and clothes behind her, along with crumbs from her bacon-wrapped-in-pancake breakfast.
Kaylith drifts in overhead silent as an early morning breeze, circling a few times before coming to a soft landing well back from the springs themselves. Shanlee is fully kitted out in riding gear and by the alert set to features has been up and about for a while yet. No towel gets pulled from the bulging carrysack at her green's side, in fact she appears surprised to find the springs inhabited so early in the morning. Her approach to where Leova soaks almost silent save for the crack of a twig a few steps back. Sardonic, "Mother said never to swim on a full stomach," fingers flicker in the direction of the tell-tale crumbs.
Which means that Leova just lolls her head back, not with particular surprise, and says, "Then don't tell your mother."
"Mmm," the sound one of indifference from Shanlee. From where she's come to a stop just behind Leova, "Usually eat your breakfast on the float?"
"Now and then." Shanlee. Right behind her. Leova doesn't turn, though, just sinks a little deeper so her head can rest against the edge, and if she can't see all of the other greenrider, no worries. "More often these days, on the fly. Shanlee. Right behind her. Without a towel. "What's got you here?"
On places Leova chooses to breakfast, "Interesting." And perhaps Shanlee is quite happy to be right where she is, out of direct line of sight. There's a smirk to her tone, "Wanted to go skinny dipping, maybe?"
Leova's own shoulders are visible just as an outline in the dim light, just above the water. Hard to tell whether they're bare, but if there are straps, they're a brown close to her skin. "You tell me," and that dryly. There are no audible wingbeats above, behind them. But there is now a dragon floating, gliding, very high.
Wryly, "Was rhetorical," and so not answered. Whether or not Leova is suited up or not must be of little consequence to the weyrsecond for her eyes don't linger on trying to figure that one out. From the way Shanlee's light tone changes direction it's likely easy to tell she's moved from standing to crouching, asking idly, "Seen much of Laylia lately?"
Leova shifts in response, a slow unhurried motion to the side, the better to look up at Shanlee now that things have changed. "My original question wasn't," but then comes Leova's laugh, just as slow. Low. Letting it go. "Here and there. We're busy." A pause. "Seeing as much of her as you want to?"
"Which was?" acting dumb or just mind elsewhere and forgotten? Shanlee meets Leova's look from within an expression of placidness, slow the blink of green eyes. As to her sibling, there follows a light shrug of shoulders and fingers that dangle between her knees toy with the unsheathed belt knife, skewering a few leaves onto it in idle action. Her response is simple, "See her enough."
"Fine." If it's a game, it's one Leova won't play, though she's calm enough about it. She keeps looking for a little while, not missing the knife, but she doesn't linger there. Back to the green eyes, a little while longer. And then she turns back around, slides in a little deeper, lets her lids fall a little further. High, high above them, Vrianth circles. Sunrise is almost here.
Stilling her action of stabbing the leaves onto the long narrow blade and then slooowly pulling them off one by one, Shanlee's mouth pulls into a deep smirk and then flattens out again. Weight shifts from one bent leg to the other, boots crunching over the ground in the half-swivel. Eyes track over her shoulder and come to rest briefly on her own green then track upward to where Vrianth circles and Rukbat is almost unveiled. Silence stretches out. Not the brooding kind. Until finally in one lithe movement the weyrsecond stands and cants a glance down to the top of Leova's head, "Right then. I'll be off." Apparently not one for conversational deaths and lingering silences.
Circling, circling, circling Vrianth. Rukbat's light touches one wing. She flies on. "We talked more freely," her rider says into the air, the same air that Vrianth touches at her distance, that Shanlee and Kaylith do. "Before." It isn't a question. It might become goodbye.
Shanlee's body already half-turned back to where Kaylith waits in watchful repose, she swings it slowly back Leova's way and cants a quizzical look down onto her, "Before what?"
"Not sure," Leova finally says out over the water. "Don't think it was just the Hatching." She won't blame Vrianth, not even a little, not even her-with-Vrianth. "After, sometime after, I think. Don't know why."
At first more puzzled than ever Shanlee does little but fix a long stare onto Leova. Mind likely racing a mile a minute to try and figure this one out. Realization dawns as slow and clear as her tone is low and pointed, "You're pissed because there's some questions I won't answer, aren't you?" blunt.
"Not mad," Leova says to the water, letting it warm her, her low voice quietly truthful. "More like, I don't know. Regret's sort of a big word but maybe it's that. Just seems like we're sparring a lot, and I don't know why."
From an expression of blandness, fine brows creep upward and then low laughter almost spills from where it thrums in Shanlee's throat. Dropping back into that crouch and fixing a dryly amused look onto Leova, "Sparring? You and me?" a finger waves between the two, more sounds of trapped chuckling, "Believe me. If we were sparring, you'd know all about it," as an afterthought, "Just ask Laylia." With more sincerity filtering through in a rueful manner now, "Look. My life and what I do after hours isn't an open book for all to read, aye? There's just..." stop, turn it onto the other greenrider, "You mean to tell me you'd answer anything I asked you, openly and honestly?" green eyes turn an intent look onto the tawny-skinned woman.
"Shanlee." Leova does look back, now, as the other woman drops back. And she says slowly, with pauses here and there, "Does it have to be all or nothing, with you? It doesn't. With me. Not looking to deceive you. You want to ask me things, because we're friends, because it's part of, I don't know, fitting lives together? I'd want to answer. If somebody's asking me questions like he's got a list, like he's judging, forget it. But it's all right if you say, look, I don't want to talk about this or that. Don't need to know each other all the way down to get along, friends-wise. And you got a secret, I don't tell the next woman who asks me either."
Shanlee's quiet throughout as Leova speaks. With her belt knife sheathed she takes to scratching doodles in the dirt with a stick. Leova stops talking, she stops doodling and looks out over the springs jaw flexing and contracting. Then tipping her chin fractionally down toward the soaking woman there's nothing but flat truth in the next, "Everyone has secrets best left untold." A small shake of head and her free hand palms down over her face, "I don't pry into others lives and they don't poke into mine. Figure you'll tell me what you want me to know." Standing once again there comes from the weyrsecond a low, "Besides. Everyone leaves. It's only a matter of time."
Agreement: Leova's simple nod. Clarification: "If I want, if I really want you to know, I'll tell you. But sharing. S'not prying or announcing. It's in the middle of that. Helps to know what sorts of things you like to hear, things that are easy to talk about, maybe even fun." Explanation, up to the now standing woman, just as quiet and calm, "Better some than none at all, is what I figure. Better than leaving them first." And at the end, invitation, maybe: "Think about it. Clear skies, Shanlee."
Taking all that from Leova with a slow nod at one point, a frown at another, Shanlee offers at the end a levelly voiced, "The one that leaves first isn't the one left behind." A slender hand lifts and falls in a semblance of a half-hearted wave to skies being clear and a dull, "Aye," to thinking about it all.
"She still misses her." Leova lifts her own hand, water sliding down her palm, her wrist, her arm, into the pool again. And then she settles back into the water's warmth herself, looking after Shanlee for some moments, seeing her to Kaylith before letting her eyes close for the few minutes she can still afford. Nabol is waiting. But it can't have her yet.
Furrows of confusion touch Shanlee's forehead for Leova's first, but she leaves well enough alone, mounts up and the two wheel off toward the east.