Navigating a mine field is easier than this.
Who: Miniyal and R'vain
Where: Hatching galleries
When: 15:15 on day 28, month 2, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
What: Miniyal sends R'vain a letter. This letter. And afterwards he tracks her down and they have a conversation. Devoid of yelling, foot stomping, storming off, and crying. Clearly it is the calm before the storm. Oh, and some business is discussed. Yeeees.
1/31/2007 & 2/1/2007
At High Reaches Weyr, it is 15:15 on day 28, month 2, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
This time of day finds those who have some honest employment doing it. The afternoon wanes on, but there's still too much left to get away with doing nothing. Unless doing nothing is what you do. If you spend the day doing what you please then this time of day is likely the same as any other. While there will soon be reasons to bring people here to the galleries, those reasons have not yet arrived. This means that other than an occasional visitor it remains a decent place to get away from everyone and get some quality time alone. Where it is warm and one does not need a coat although having one on the trip to here wouldn't be a bad idea.
Good idea or no, Miniyal is not likely to change her habits anytime soon. Most people who come here tend to leave the others alone it being recognized as a place to pretend to have some time alone in the weyr where anything done alone can be hard to come by. So she has found a spot a decent distance from the entrance and sits with a book. Likely she is reading it although the pages turn slowly as if she has to consider each written word on its own and then together with the others and only then move on to the next part. She sits at the edge of her bench, using the one below to rest her feet on, ankles crossed as the book rests in her lap, propped up.
She'd have all kinds of time to escape, if she looked up. But for once R'vain moves quietly, his bootsteps barely whispers that fail to ring echoes out violent against the cavern walls. He emerges from the tunnel on the far side of the sands and prowls close to the wall around the cavern's perimeter, and it's the sand itself that grants him such stealth as is not his natural gift. Along the way he shrugs loose of his jacket, paws open a couple of the top buttons of his shirt, and becomes even so a little damp at the temples. Then even the whisper of the grains shifting beneath his heavy steps might be audible, barely, as he comes around to the foot of the stairs; and as soon as he sets a boot on the first step there's a soft, characteristic *clump,* signature of the Weyrleader's gait. A few more take him up into the galleries, and then on a path unerring toward a onetime recordskeeper, evidently his target since he first caught a squint of her from so far across the heated cavern.
If she had looked up she likely would be happier. Unfortunately she really is engrossed in what she reads or at least trying to make sense of it enough that it causes her to devote all her attention to it. Until that first placement of boot on steps. Then she shifts some, peering about with her eyes while her head remains down. Oh. Look who it is. There is a tension that appears then, not so easy to notice from a distance other than the way her feet fall from the bench and she gathers herself in, no longer relaxed looking. She could still flee and there is a soft tap of one foot that might hint at that, but in the end she remains where she is seated. However, she does return her attention to her book. Look. She is reading. No sense bothering her now! With her head down, buried in her book and hair providing a safe curtain where it tumbles out from behind her ears she can surreptitiously watch his approach. Trying to gauge his mood so she knows if she must be prepared to flee once he arrives.
His mood, for once, is not too tellable. Or else there's not much of a mood to tell-- this might be more likely. He just prowls along between the first row of seats and the rail until he comes to the aisle nearest the rank of seats Miniyal's in; then he ascends to her row, and then slips in between the rows. A few more steps and he turns to face the sands, having stopped four seats or so from Miniyal's. R'vain tosses the jacket down over the back of the chair in front of him, then crosses his arms and stares out into the cavern, thoughtful enough that it might, for a moment, seem like the former Weyrleader's lover has become miraculously, thankfully invisible.
"Gotcher note," he rumbles then, spoiling the illusion.
Still no look up from her book. It is terribly interesting surely and that is why Miniyal continues the charade that there is no one else here and certainly no one walking towards her. A glance is all he gets when he sits down, from behind that curtain of hair, the barest movement of her head. Then it is back to her reading and since he allows her the illusion for a short while longer she takes it, clings to it like it will save her. Of course, he ruins it. So with not entirely steady breath she closes her book and sets it in her lap so she might truly look over at him for a moment, just a moment and no longer. "I, ummm. Good." If the last word sounds somewhat like a question it still manages to not be by the slimmest of margins.
R'vain sprawls in his selected seat, knees-wide, boots sliding under the row before them; he unfolds his arms and relaxes them, elbows and paws splayed all over the armrests. "It was good," he says next, voice still a gravel-barrel rolling downhill, focus still given to the sands below-- as if there's something there to see, something only he /can/ see.
She blinks at those words and, for the first time, pushes hair off her face so she can really look over at him. More blinking as Miniyal analyzes what was said, how it was said, why it was said. Not that on that last one she will ever have a clue. Her focus on him can only last so long and then she seeks refuge looking down at her hands, folded so nicely atop her book. "I-oh. I wasn't sure. If it was. Or if you would want to see it." Why would he want to see it? It's not as if they've ever gotten along. Infuriating man.
A loose shrug jerks and ripples the broad man's broad shoulders. "Glad y'sent it." R'vain allows silence to punctuate this affirmation before he goes on, twisting his tongue quietly up over his front teeth before he does so. "I shouldn't've made it sound like I disapprove of you. Not personally. M'sorry f'that." His eyes narrow a little. "Don't mind fightin'," he offers amiably. "Don't aim t'make you cry, or anything, though. Just say what I think. You do th'same." Another careless shrug. There's certainly no accusatory tone in these words. Just saying what he thinks.
"You piss me off." Simple, direct, to the point. "I mean, you don't mean to it's just the way you are. And we just are too much alike and not alike at the same time and it leaves me off balance." Head tilting to the side, Miniyal shakes it briefly. "And you made a horrid first impression. I mean, I make bad ones so I can say with some authority that yours was one of the worst I've ever seen. As for, well." Now she has to stop a moment and let her fingers curl more tightly around each other in her lap. "People don't mean to make me cry. They just do. It's not. . .not anything." Nothing at all.
He grins his twisted, toothy grin as soon as she starts, and stays grinning-- eyes on the sand-- until she gets back to the topic of tears. R'vain can manage a little solemnity for that. "You like it better they try not to, or just get on like normal?"
It is an interesting question and it requires some thought. So she pulls her gaze away from her hands and sends it roaming around the galleries, finding nothing to focus on she eventually winds up back at those hands. "I don't want to be treated like I'm some. . .delicate or pathetic person everyone has to tip toe around. That's not who I am. If it's not done intentional." Miniyal does another stop here and frowns at her hands, twisting at her ring absently. "If it's an accident it happens. You can't help it. I don't even know when something will only make me mad or make me upset." Another stop to allow her voice time to lower and become more hesitant. "I don't think you do it on purpose. I wouldn't be talking to you if I thought you did."
"I know," says R'vain, still not looking at her. But he slips a little bit of his signature grin around those words-- maybe not signature as Miniyal would think of it, as it lacks hunger, threat, aggression. It's just a little self-satisfied, a little jaunty-sly, and it's brief, because this next bit has to sound appropriately serious. "And I didn't." /Now/ he glances over, just a flash of narrow green glinted her way before he looks out over the sands again, chin coming up a little like as to get a new perspective on the cavern's emptiness.
"You're just not really good with people. Unless you want to. You have to have a reason." Miniyal, expert in her own mind at reading other people. Well, she certainly can't figure herself out so may as well look at others. Although without looking. Because while she gives up on her hands she merely joins him in staring out at nothing at all. There is no look his way or attempt to even more hair so she might. "When you want to, you can be really persuasive and charming and. . .sincere. But if you don't think about it I think you're more like. . .like what you are. Which is not exactly those things. Not in a way that makes it easy to get along with you." This, of course, opens her up whatever he might want to diagnose her as, but so be it.
No; he's either too thoughtful, too aware that he had his turn already and earned her misery and her letter for his efforts-- or else he's too self-centered to have another whack at telling Miniyal what she is. He shrugs instead, as if her estimation of him doesn't bother him in the least; he even grins a bit, weakly, like he might like parts of it. "Ain't a fault, necessarily, bein' up-front. I know there's more you're onto than that. Just sayin'. Charm ain't th'best a man can do." R'vain's shoulders jerk up and fall again, another careless shrug-- if the statement he's made is loaded, he's not punctuating it like it was meant to be. "Never claimed t'be easy t'get along with. You want t'come talk any time, though, y'welcome. Y'always got somethin' t'say and I appreciate that."
His words earn him a laugh, quiet and only bordering on wry. Hovering at the border. "It's not exactly a virtue either. Being up front. Not in a way most people would see one." If sounds like she might laugh again but he doesn't get to hear it. Any mirth, no matter the reason, Miniyal internalizes. He's barely earned the first laugh. "Just because I always have something to say doesn't mean I should be saying it. Or that it's worth hearing." A statement of fact, no self-pity in it, she might say it about anyone and mean it just the same. Sitting up to correct the slightest of slouches she found herself in one hand brushes her hair back behind her ears, carefully tucking strands away. "If, well. If you ever need anything from me. I mean, within reason. I mean, understand Roa's still pretty pissed at me so will likely not want to hear about my helping you and all. But if there's something I can do." She casts a little tiny look his way, eyes back out staring at nothing before this least trace of teasing enters her next words. "I might. Help. If I am not too busy. And you don't act like an ass when asking. Which, likely, you can't manage."
"Don't judge what's worth hearing. Sometimes stuff's worth saying even if no one hears it." R'vain shrugs again, his signal gesture for today's meeting-- indifference, casual, careless, an effort to keep her as much as she can be, at ease. It seems to be working so far, so he keeps at it-- when she looks over, he doesn't look back. Let her have his profile, let her have her moment to check on him, to see him just sitting there all sprawled out, taking up a great deal of room but being about as unthreatening as he can ever manage. "Y'don't keep jobs much," he observes then, grinning but with no teeth in his tone. "Don't figure you're getting at wanting one, exactly. There a deal in this-- or just an offer?"
"I'm not looking for a job. I couldn't be desperate enough to work for you. Got other options." Miniyal leans back the barest amount so she can stretch her legs out again and rest her feet in front of her on the next bench once more. "I hear things. I see things. Sometimes they're worth passing on. But I have to support myself. I'm not looking to have someone do that for me." She's not comfortable being kept, unspoken but said in those words. "And I might be willing sometime to find something in particular out. I'm very good at that." She shifts in her seat, turning so she can look at him now, whether she wants to not. "But I do it my way. You don't come whining to me later you find out how I did it. My methods work. I get caught doing something I shouldn't be doing I get caught. It doesn't get back to anyone else. But catching me's hard." Something else has to be said, but it comes after a pause to consider how to say it. "He doesn't know. Who asks me for things. I might need him, I'm telling you up front, to get at some stuff. But he doesn't know who for. And I don't tell anymore than I have to. You kind of have to trust me."
R'vain laughs, low and soft. "I don't trust you all open and true, Min'yal. But I'd trust you t'do th'job, if I asked you t'do it. That what you askin' for?" He pushes forward all of a sudden in the seat, knees coming only a little closer together as his boots draw back so he can crutch elbows on thighs and, bent over, turn his head to finally gaze on the former recordskeeper head-on. "And if it is-- would you be willin' t'talk to or do a job f'someone not me, s'much as I recommend you to'im?"
He gets the faintest of smiles. The briefest flicker of one that amounts to just a slight upturn of her lips. "I'm not asking you trust me with your life. I'm not. . .I don't want that. I can't take that from anyone. And I'm not saying I trust you all that much either. All things considered I think our working relationship will be a nightmare at times. But I need the work. And you still need me." Miniyal doesn't smile again, just allows her eyes to twinkle with amusement before she shuts it down with a shake of her head. "You're just the first person I've talked to. Not my only client. Just the first. Keep me on retainer so to speak. And I'll bring anything interesting I hear to you. Trust me to do the job. And I'll trust you to not tell anyone I do it for you. Not Roa although she's likely to wonder depending on what I bring to you. Not any of your drinking buddies. Not to the floozies without the self-esteem to stay out of your bed. I fuck up in the spotlight, keep me out of it. As for working for others on your recommendation? I'm willing to consider it. Depends on the name of the person."
R'vain snorts again, another laugh expressed through a breathing flare of nostrils, and looks away from Miniyal so the flash of amusement that brightens the shade of his eyes is the sands' to enjoy, not hers. "On retainer," he huffs, the words nearly sarcastic. "What's y'retaining cost? - And don't get too excited yet. I got terms. Say I ask you f'something, tell you three things I don't want you t'do t'get it. Don't mind if you turn th'job down, but if you ain't willing t'take some jobs with parameters I can't use you. Too risky."
"You're paying me, you tell me how you want it done I do it. Just might take longer if I have to figure out how to do it someway other than mine. I'm not adverse to following direction." Here Miniyal pauses a moment to consider what she has said. No, it seems ok with one addition. "So long as it's not stupid directions. I don't do stupid. Unless it's my own. And if I think you want me to do something in a stupid way I'll tell you. Your choice if you listen to my suggestion on another way or get someone else to do it." Idly leafing through the pages of her book she tilts her head down to look at random words on random pages. "You don't lie about why you want something found out. You don't want to tell me, fine. But don't lie. As for cost. To be honest I haven't thought of it. I figure you give me a job or two, see if I can do it the way you want. Decide to keep me on we can haggle. Want to give me something for the work I do as thanks for dealing with the run through I won't object."
"Only thinkin' I might have cause t'tell you how not t'do something, not how /to/ do it. You can't find any good options 'cept th'ones I cross out, s'your call t'bag it." His shoulders rise and fall, a careless shrug, forced. "Why're you so fussed over earnin' a livin' anyway? Ain't like you need to. And it ain't like 'bein' kept' is th'whole deal or you'd just idle away in th'records room pretendin' t'like it. You want somethin' else. If it ain't marks-- what is it? A hand on me? A hand on influence? Influence all y'own?"
The rifling of pages stops and hands fold once more over the cover of the book. Miniyal doesn't answer for awhile, turning in her seat so she can stare out at the sands again. In the end she settles on a simple answer, the truth. If not spelled out for him. "To take what I was too scared to when conventional means were open to me. I don't want. . .I /have/ influence. Just not so known as all that. I want- it's not important." Well, not the complete truth.
R'vain is unconvinced, if the *tschk* of his tooth-sucking tongue is any cue. "Consider it important t'me."
Miniyal turns to face him head on again. "Why? Why should it matter? I've no intention of doing anything to harm either your authority or the place you hold it over. My motives are my own and I'm not sure why one civil conversation would make you think you're entitled to hear what it is I want." Defensive then, hands folding tighter together on her book and relaxed posture sent away in favor or a more rigid set to her.
"Because you're askin' me t'help you get it," replies R'vain with a shrug, careless, but not forced. He pushes up out of the seat on that, flattening paws to knees to shove himself upward, swinging forward in one motion so he can lean low over the seatback in front and stare with unreasonable intensity at the empty sands.
"I want to make things right. For the people who have no chance of it being so. The ones who are forgotten and taken advantage of and ignored until someone more powerful then them needs something." There is little intensity in her words. It's so casual as to almost not be believed, that she means what she says. But she's saying it and it's enough words past what needs saying for it to mean Miniyal must mean what she says. "Things are broken. I want to fix them. I don't want to change them all up and make things so different we toss aside what we've had. But there's people who need someone willing to take risks for them. Someone with the luxury to be able to. The first step, you're right. I need you for it. Because I need to get you to want to listen to me. And that means first I make it worth your while to at least hear me out when I come to you with an idea. It's not. . .I won't have something for nothing. I need to be trusted down the line when I come to you with a problem. So I earn your trust by being useful. I don't know how else to explain it. It may not seem like the way any reasonable or normal person would go about things. But I have to do things my way in this. Because it's a two way street. If I expect you to help me it means I help you. So, for now that's what I do."
"Min'yal." R'vain turns rather suddenly, going from leaning low over the row in front to putting his back to the sands, hitching a hip onto the seatback now behind him. "If you came t'me and said y'need my help, or you got an idea and you want me t'listen to it? That'd be enough. Better trust out of me than you can get by bein' some kind of spy. Not that I won't ever ask you t'do what you say you do. But-- " He splits a grin, a game and a little bit wry one, one that might look goofy or shy on less impressive teeth. "Askin' me'd be enough. So y'know."
All his words earn him is a shrug. Well, and a slight shake of her head. And silence for a few minutes. "Not the way I work. I told you. It's not so normal, but it's how I operate." Once more Miniyal tucks her hair back behind her ears and looks at him. "It's what I am, R'vain. A spy. And I'll earn your trust being what I am or I won't ever have it. Makes no difference to me. I can't get your help I find another way. There's always another way. It's enough for you, my coming to you and asking. It's not enough for me. Puts us on uneven footing. Gives you an advantage, knowing I've come to ask for something without having given anything in return. Makes me nervous."
R'vain grins. Or continues grinning, really. "I don't see it that way, knowin' what your motives are." But he tips her a nod, affirmation enough that her perspective, abnormal as it is, is fine by him, and straightens, one paw sweeping up the jacket from behind him. "Welcome any time, Min'yal. Anything else I ought t'know?"
Miniyal shrugs again and reopens her book. If it's not the place she was before it'll do it seems. "Think I'd dance naked out during threadfall if I thought we saw things the same way. Would mean I'd sunk about as low as I could." Her head tips up and she grins, fleetingly. "I'm pretty sure I've said enough." He's dismissed then, her eyes focusing on her book. She just listens for him to walk away, letting him get more than a few paces away before she lets a word follow him out, just loud enough to be heard. "Thanks."
He does as she expects-- though he jaunts her half a bow, sarcastic, one-arm-swept-out, while she focuses on her book and before he starts down the row of the seats. "Any time," he rumbles, far less quiet than she is-- but quieter than /he/ usually is. And then the Weyrleader's off the steps up the aisle and down the passageway that leads to the bowl.
Where: Hatching galleries
When: 15:15 on day 28, month 2, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
What: Miniyal sends R'vain a letter. This letter. And afterwards he tracks her down and they have a conversation. Devoid of yelling, foot stomping, storming off, and crying. Clearly it is the calm before the storm. Oh, and some business is discussed. Yeeees.
1/31/2007 & 2/1/2007
At High Reaches Weyr, it is 15:15 on day 28, month 2, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
This time of day finds those who have some honest employment doing it. The afternoon wanes on, but there's still too much left to get away with doing nothing. Unless doing nothing is what you do. If you spend the day doing what you please then this time of day is likely the same as any other. While there will soon be reasons to bring people here to the galleries, those reasons have not yet arrived. This means that other than an occasional visitor it remains a decent place to get away from everyone and get some quality time alone. Where it is warm and one does not need a coat although having one on the trip to here wouldn't be a bad idea.
Good idea or no, Miniyal is not likely to change her habits anytime soon. Most people who come here tend to leave the others alone it being recognized as a place to pretend to have some time alone in the weyr where anything done alone can be hard to come by. So she has found a spot a decent distance from the entrance and sits with a book. Likely she is reading it although the pages turn slowly as if she has to consider each written word on its own and then together with the others and only then move on to the next part. She sits at the edge of her bench, using the one below to rest her feet on, ankles crossed as the book rests in her lap, propped up.
She'd have all kinds of time to escape, if she looked up. But for once R'vain moves quietly, his bootsteps barely whispers that fail to ring echoes out violent against the cavern walls. He emerges from the tunnel on the far side of the sands and prowls close to the wall around the cavern's perimeter, and it's the sand itself that grants him such stealth as is not his natural gift. Along the way he shrugs loose of his jacket, paws open a couple of the top buttons of his shirt, and becomes even so a little damp at the temples. Then even the whisper of the grains shifting beneath his heavy steps might be audible, barely, as he comes around to the foot of the stairs; and as soon as he sets a boot on the first step there's a soft, characteristic *clump,* signature of the Weyrleader's gait. A few more take him up into the galleries, and then on a path unerring toward a onetime recordskeeper, evidently his target since he first caught a squint of her from so far across the heated cavern.
If she had looked up she likely would be happier. Unfortunately she really is engrossed in what she reads or at least trying to make sense of it enough that it causes her to devote all her attention to it. Until that first placement of boot on steps. Then she shifts some, peering about with her eyes while her head remains down. Oh. Look who it is. There is a tension that appears then, not so easy to notice from a distance other than the way her feet fall from the bench and she gathers herself in, no longer relaxed looking. She could still flee and there is a soft tap of one foot that might hint at that, but in the end she remains where she is seated. However, she does return her attention to her book. Look. She is reading. No sense bothering her now! With her head down, buried in her book and hair providing a safe curtain where it tumbles out from behind her ears she can surreptitiously watch his approach. Trying to gauge his mood so she knows if she must be prepared to flee once he arrives.
His mood, for once, is not too tellable. Or else there's not much of a mood to tell-- this might be more likely. He just prowls along between the first row of seats and the rail until he comes to the aisle nearest the rank of seats Miniyal's in; then he ascends to her row, and then slips in between the rows. A few more steps and he turns to face the sands, having stopped four seats or so from Miniyal's. R'vain tosses the jacket down over the back of the chair in front of him, then crosses his arms and stares out into the cavern, thoughtful enough that it might, for a moment, seem like the former Weyrleader's lover has become miraculously, thankfully invisible.
"Gotcher note," he rumbles then, spoiling the illusion.
Still no look up from her book. It is terribly interesting surely and that is why Miniyal continues the charade that there is no one else here and certainly no one walking towards her. A glance is all he gets when he sits down, from behind that curtain of hair, the barest movement of her head. Then it is back to her reading and since he allows her the illusion for a short while longer she takes it, clings to it like it will save her. Of course, he ruins it. So with not entirely steady breath she closes her book and sets it in her lap so she might truly look over at him for a moment, just a moment and no longer. "I, ummm. Good." If the last word sounds somewhat like a question it still manages to not be by the slimmest of margins.
R'vain sprawls in his selected seat, knees-wide, boots sliding under the row before them; he unfolds his arms and relaxes them, elbows and paws splayed all over the armrests. "It was good," he says next, voice still a gravel-barrel rolling downhill, focus still given to the sands below-- as if there's something there to see, something only he /can/ see.
She blinks at those words and, for the first time, pushes hair off her face so she can really look over at him. More blinking as Miniyal analyzes what was said, how it was said, why it was said. Not that on that last one she will ever have a clue. Her focus on him can only last so long and then she seeks refuge looking down at her hands, folded so nicely atop her book. "I-oh. I wasn't sure. If it was. Or if you would want to see it." Why would he want to see it? It's not as if they've ever gotten along. Infuriating man.
A loose shrug jerks and ripples the broad man's broad shoulders. "Glad y'sent it." R'vain allows silence to punctuate this affirmation before he goes on, twisting his tongue quietly up over his front teeth before he does so. "I shouldn't've made it sound like I disapprove of you. Not personally. M'sorry f'that." His eyes narrow a little. "Don't mind fightin'," he offers amiably. "Don't aim t'make you cry, or anything, though. Just say what I think. You do th'same." Another careless shrug. There's certainly no accusatory tone in these words. Just saying what he thinks.
"You piss me off." Simple, direct, to the point. "I mean, you don't mean to it's just the way you are. And we just are too much alike and not alike at the same time and it leaves me off balance." Head tilting to the side, Miniyal shakes it briefly. "And you made a horrid first impression. I mean, I make bad ones so I can say with some authority that yours was one of the worst I've ever seen. As for, well." Now she has to stop a moment and let her fingers curl more tightly around each other in her lap. "People don't mean to make me cry. They just do. It's not. . .not anything." Nothing at all.
He grins his twisted, toothy grin as soon as she starts, and stays grinning-- eyes on the sand-- until she gets back to the topic of tears. R'vain can manage a little solemnity for that. "You like it better they try not to, or just get on like normal?"
It is an interesting question and it requires some thought. So she pulls her gaze away from her hands and sends it roaming around the galleries, finding nothing to focus on she eventually winds up back at those hands. "I don't want to be treated like I'm some. . .delicate or pathetic person everyone has to tip toe around. That's not who I am. If it's not done intentional." Miniyal does another stop here and frowns at her hands, twisting at her ring absently. "If it's an accident it happens. You can't help it. I don't even know when something will only make me mad or make me upset." Another stop to allow her voice time to lower and become more hesitant. "I don't think you do it on purpose. I wouldn't be talking to you if I thought you did."
"I know," says R'vain, still not looking at her. But he slips a little bit of his signature grin around those words-- maybe not signature as Miniyal would think of it, as it lacks hunger, threat, aggression. It's just a little self-satisfied, a little jaunty-sly, and it's brief, because this next bit has to sound appropriately serious. "And I didn't." /Now/ he glances over, just a flash of narrow green glinted her way before he looks out over the sands again, chin coming up a little like as to get a new perspective on the cavern's emptiness.
"You're just not really good with people. Unless you want to. You have to have a reason." Miniyal, expert in her own mind at reading other people. Well, she certainly can't figure herself out so may as well look at others. Although without looking. Because while she gives up on her hands she merely joins him in staring out at nothing at all. There is no look his way or attempt to even more hair so she might. "When you want to, you can be really persuasive and charming and. . .sincere. But if you don't think about it I think you're more like. . .like what you are. Which is not exactly those things. Not in a way that makes it easy to get along with you." This, of course, opens her up whatever he might want to diagnose her as, but so be it.
No; he's either too thoughtful, too aware that he had his turn already and earned her misery and her letter for his efforts-- or else he's too self-centered to have another whack at telling Miniyal what she is. He shrugs instead, as if her estimation of him doesn't bother him in the least; he even grins a bit, weakly, like he might like parts of it. "Ain't a fault, necessarily, bein' up-front. I know there's more you're onto than that. Just sayin'. Charm ain't th'best a man can do." R'vain's shoulders jerk up and fall again, another careless shrug-- if the statement he's made is loaded, he's not punctuating it like it was meant to be. "Never claimed t'be easy t'get along with. You want t'come talk any time, though, y'welcome. Y'always got somethin' t'say and I appreciate that."
His words earn him a laugh, quiet and only bordering on wry. Hovering at the border. "It's not exactly a virtue either. Being up front. Not in a way most people would see one." If sounds like she might laugh again but he doesn't get to hear it. Any mirth, no matter the reason, Miniyal internalizes. He's barely earned the first laugh. "Just because I always have something to say doesn't mean I should be saying it. Or that it's worth hearing." A statement of fact, no self-pity in it, she might say it about anyone and mean it just the same. Sitting up to correct the slightest of slouches she found herself in one hand brushes her hair back behind her ears, carefully tucking strands away. "If, well. If you ever need anything from me. I mean, within reason. I mean, understand Roa's still pretty pissed at me so will likely not want to hear about my helping you and all. But if there's something I can do." She casts a little tiny look his way, eyes back out staring at nothing before this least trace of teasing enters her next words. "I might. Help. If I am not too busy. And you don't act like an ass when asking. Which, likely, you can't manage."
"Don't judge what's worth hearing. Sometimes stuff's worth saying even if no one hears it." R'vain shrugs again, his signal gesture for today's meeting-- indifference, casual, careless, an effort to keep her as much as she can be, at ease. It seems to be working so far, so he keeps at it-- when she looks over, he doesn't look back. Let her have his profile, let her have her moment to check on him, to see him just sitting there all sprawled out, taking up a great deal of room but being about as unthreatening as he can ever manage. "Y'don't keep jobs much," he observes then, grinning but with no teeth in his tone. "Don't figure you're getting at wanting one, exactly. There a deal in this-- or just an offer?"
"I'm not looking for a job. I couldn't be desperate enough to work for you. Got other options." Miniyal leans back the barest amount so she can stretch her legs out again and rest her feet in front of her on the next bench once more. "I hear things. I see things. Sometimes they're worth passing on. But I have to support myself. I'm not looking to have someone do that for me." She's not comfortable being kept, unspoken but said in those words. "And I might be willing sometime to find something in particular out. I'm very good at that." She shifts in her seat, turning so she can look at him now, whether she wants to not. "But I do it my way. You don't come whining to me later you find out how I did it. My methods work. I get caught doing something I shouldn't be doing I get caught. It doesn't get back to anyone else. But catching me's hard." Something else has to be said, but it comes after a pause to consider how to say it. "He doesn't know. Who asks me for things. I might need him, I'm telling you up front, to get at some stuff. But he doesn't know who for. And I don't tell anymore than I have to. You kind of have to trust me."
R'vain laughs, low and soft. "I don't trust you all open and true, Min'yal. But I'd trust you t'do th'job, if I asked you t'do it. That what you askin' for?" He pushes forward all of a sudden in the seat, knees coming only a little closer together as his boots draw back so he can crutch elbows on thighs and, bent over, turn his head to finally gaze on the former recordskeeper head-on. "And if it is-- would you be willin' t'talk to or do a job f'someone not me, s'much as I recommend you to'im?"
He gets the faintest of smiles. The briefest flicker of one that amounts to just a slight upturn of her lips. "I'm not asking you trust me with your life. I'm not. . .I don't want that. I can't take that from anyone. And I'm not saying I trust you all that much either. All things considered I think our working relationship will be a nightmare at times. But I need the work. And you still need me." Miniyal doesn't smile again, just allows her eyes to twinkle with amusement before she shuts it down with a shake of her head. "You're just the first person I've talked to. Not my only client. Just the first. Keep me on retainer so to speak. And I'll bring anything interesting I hear to you. Trust me to do the job. And I'll trust you to not tell anyone I do it for you. Not Roa although she's likely to wonder depending on what I bring to you. Not any of your drinking buddies. Not to the floozies without the self-esteem to stay out of your bed. I fuck up in the spotlight, keep me out of it. As for working for others on your recommendation? I'm willing to consider it. Depends on the name of the person."
R'vain snorts again, another laugh expressed through a breathing flare of nostrils, and looks away from Miniyal so the flash of amusement that brightens the shade of his eyes is the sands' to enjoy, not hers. "On retainer," he huffs, the words nearly sarcastic. "What's y'retaining cost? - And don't get too excited yet. I got terms. Say I ask you f'something, tell you three things I don't want you t'do t'get it. Don't mind if you turn th'job down, but if you ain't willing t'take some jobs with parameters I can't use you. Too risky."
"You're paying me, you tell me how you want it done I do it. Just might take longer if I have to figure out how to do it someway other than mine. I'm not adverse to following direction." Here Miniyal pauses a moment to consider what she has said. No, it seems ok with one addition. "So long as it's not stupid directions. I don't do stupid. Unless it's my own. And if I think you want me to do something in a stupid way I'll tell you. Your choice if you listen to my suggestion on another way or get someone else to do it." Idly leafing through the pages of her book she tilts her head down to look at random words on random pages. "You don't lie about why you want something found out. You don't want to tell me, fine. But don't lie. As for cost. To be honest I haven't thought of it. I figure you give me a job or two, see if I can do it the way you want. Decide to keep me on we can haggle. Want to give me something for the work I do as thanks for dealing with the run through I won't object."
"Only thinkin' I might have cause t'tell you how not t'do something, not how /to/ do it. You can't find any good options 'cept th'ones I cross out, s'your call t'bag it." His shoulders rise and fall, a careless shrug, forced. "Why're you so fussed over earnin' a livin' anyway? Ain't like you need to. And it ain't like 'bein' kept' is th'whole deal or you'd just idle away in th'records room pretendin' t'like it. You want somethin' else. If it ain't marks-- what is it? A hand on me? A hand on influence? Influence all y'own?"
The rifling of pages stops and hands fold once more over the cover of the book. Miniyal doesn't answer for awhile, turning in her seat so she can stare out at the sands again. In the end she settles on a simple answer, the truth. If not spelled out for him. "To take what I was too scared to when conventional means were open to me. I don't want. . .I /have/ influence. Just not so known as all that. I want- it's not important." Well, not the complete truth.
R'vain is unconvinced, if the *tschk* of his tooth-sucking tongue is any cue. "Consider it important t'me."
Miniyal turns to face him head on again. "Why? Why should it matter? I've no intention of doing anything to harm either your authority or the place you hold it over. My motives are my own and I'm not sure why one civil conversation would make you think you're entitled to hear what it is I want." Defensive then, hands folding tighter together on her book and relaxed posture sent away in favor or a more rigid set to her.
"Because you're askin' me t'help you get it," replies R'vain with a shrug, careless, but not forced. He pushes up out of the seat on that, flattening paws to knees to shove himself upward, swinging forward in one motion so he can lean low over the seatback in front and stare with unreasonable intensity at the empty sands.
"I want to make things right. For the people who have no chance of it being so. The ones who are forgotten and taken advantage of and ignored until someone more powerful then them needs something." There is little intensity in her words. It's so casual as to almost not be believed, that she means what she says. But she's saying it and it's enough words past what needs saying for it to mean Miniyal must mean what she says. "Things are broken. I want to fix them. I don't want to change them all up and make things so different we toss aside what we've had. But there's people who need someone willing to take risks for them. Someone with the luxury to be able to. The first step, you're right. I need you for it. Because I need to get you to want to listen to me. And that means first I make it worth your while to at least hear me out when I come to you with an idea. It's not. . .I won't have something for nothing. I need to be trusted down the line when I come to you with a problem. So I earn your trust by being useful. I don't know how else to explain it. It may not seem like the way any reasonable or normal person would go about things. But I have to do things my way in this. Because it's a two way street. If I expect you to help me it means I help you. So, for now that's what I do."
"Min'yal." R'vain turns rather suddenly, going from leaning low over the row in front to putting his back to the sands, hitching a hip onto the seatback now behind him. "If you came t'me and said y'need my help, or you got an idea and you want me t'listen to it? That'd be enough. Better trust out of me than you can get by bein' some kind of spy. Not that I won't ever ask you t'do what you say you do. But-- " He splits a grin, a game and a little bit wry one, one that might look goofy or shy on less impressive teeth. "Askin' me'd be enough. So y'know."
All his words earn him is a shrug. Well, and a slight shake of her head. And silence for a few minutes. "Not the way I work. I told you. It's not so normal, but it's how I operate." Once more Miniyal tucks her hair back behind her ears and looks at him. "It's what I am, R'vain. A spy. And I'll earn your trust being what I am or I won't ever have it. Makes no difference to me. I can't get your help I find another way. There's always another way. It's enough for you, my coming to you and asking. It's not enough for me. Puts us on uneven footing. Gives you an advantage, knowing I've come to ask for something without having given anything in return. Makes me nervous."
R'vain grins. Or continues grinning, really. "I don't see it that way, knowin' what your motives are." But he tips her a nod, affirmation enough that her perspective, abnormal as it is, is fine by him, and straightens, one paw sweeping up the jacket from behind him. "Welcome any time, Min'yal. Anything else I ought t'know?"
Miniyal shrugs again and reopens her book. If it's not the place she was before it'll do it seems. "Think I'd dance naked out during threadfall if I thought we saw things the same way. Would mean I'd sunk about as low as I could." Her head tips up and she grins, fleetingly. "I'm pretty sure I've said enough." He's dismissed then, her eyes focusing on her book. She just listens for him to walk away, letting him get more than a few paces away before she lets a word follow him out, just loud enough to be heard. "Thanks."
He does as she expects-- though he jaunts her half a bow, sarcastic, one-arm-swept-out, while she focuses on her book and before he starts down the row of the seats. "Any time," he rumbles, far less quiet than she is-- but quieter than /he/ usually is. And then the Weyrleader's off the steps up the aisle and down the passageway that leads to the bowl.