Doubt and regard.
Who: Miniyal and G'thon
Where: Their room
When: Mid to late afternoon on day 24, month 3, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
What: Chit chat. Lalala. During the clutching, after Miniyal has escaped its. . .umm. ..clutches she returns home to discuss assorted things.
2/13/2007
At High Reaches Weyr, it is late afternoon on day 24, month 3, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
There's no way he could have not heard about it. Even if he was here where there were no hurrying weyrleaders or excited residents. Word would have passed and he would know that right now on the sands Tialith lays her clutch. Her day was interrupted by one thing after another and the quick jaunt she was making has turned into an ordeal of unimaginable proportions. Meaning she had to be social and introduce people and be nice and stand around while that queen deposited her burden on those sands.
Luckily escape came eventually and without a backwards look Miniyal headed for home. She went against the tide as most people were heading to the galleries to check out the happy event. By the time she's reached the door to her room she's ever so slightly annoyed at the whole thing. People. Sheesh. The door opens and she comes inside with a weary sigh, closing the door behind her and leaning against it. Her life is so difficult.
"I take it you were waylaid." Gans almost never chooses a word of more than one syllable accidentally, and the droll humor in his voice is no less than she'd expect it to be. Those words precede him out of the bedroom; he slips out in sweater (black) and slacks (the same) with a book clutched lightly in one slender hand. "Have you eaten? I saved upside-down cake for you." He leaves the book on the table by the covered cake-plate so he can approach her by the door and offer his arms.
Out of all the words she picks up on the important one and brightens considerably. "Cake?" This might make things better. But first she must take advantage of what else will make her feel better and she meets him partway so she can put her arms around him and lay her head against his chest. "I should know better then to go into the living cavern at lunch. I met that girl again. Remember I told you? The one from the hold here for Caucus? Fienne. I had to sit with her while she ate and she wanted to see the eggs and thought she had to meet the weyrleaders and I warned her about that, but she insisted and now it's on her head and it's not my fault."
"Ah, yes - " He remembers this girl from a hold sent to Caucus. He remembers, honestly, all of the young people sent to Caucus, although Fienne's particulars are not so uncommon. But she's hardly the focus of his attention, because the way Miniyal goes on has him raising a single curious brow, eyes twinkling wry as he closes his arms around her. "Ah. No, of course not. But - perhaps you are overreacting just slightly? She met them - in the hatching cavern. I hardly think it can have been an introduction of any moment."
Eyes roll, unseen. "He was practically drooling down her dress is all." Why she cares is anyone's guess. Oh, maybe she'll just explain. Miniyal leans back enough to tip her head up so she can see him. "Her mother is an assistant headwoman at High Reaches. My understanding is the headwoman's daughter is here as well and likely they are both studying for the same position. Only one of them will get it. And if I can keep the weyrleader from scaring her off. . .well, someday Heriet will retire. It's never too early to be thinking of these things. If she'd be interested anyway."
"I see," murmurs Gans in the same tone he used for 'waylaid,' utterly untroubled though he does not bother to let his brows relax - so it's that skeptical-curious expression he's wearing when Miniyal looks up at him, and of course as she leans into his hands he looks down to meet her gaze. "Ah," he says then, a regular -source- of useful rebuttal this evening. Still, he can offer this: "And though you imagine her capable of becoming such an eminence of the Weyr's staff, you think she might not be capable of escaping one bronzerider's appetite, should she so wish?"
"I just think. . .you said there was cake, right?" Hopeful look greets his own and she leans up to let a kiss accompany the look. It has been several hours after all and Miniyal is always aware of how long she has been away. When she pulls away she steps back as well and goes to sit at the table. "I just think she's a little. . .overwhelmed right now. I am not sure yet if she will overcome it. That remains to be seen. Anyway, there's nothing to be done about it now. I told her who to watch out for and the rest is up to her. I've only talked to her a couple times. Did you want to go later and see clumps of sand concealing eggs?" It sounds so exciting when she describes it. Only offering because he might like to go and she is thoughtful.
"There is cake." Gans leans down to meet her kiss, then frees her from his embrace so she can lead the way toward it; he follows bemusedly, taking the route around the tea-cart so he can pick up a knife to section the cake with along the way. "Very late, perhaps. - And did you warn her against our Weyrwoman, too, then?" So dry, this question. He reaches out to unlid the cake, a lovely distraction technique, and cuts a slice of the gooey stuff out onto a plate with half an eye on Miniyal's reactions.
Folding her hands on the table, Miniyal watches for cake. And in the process she watches the fetching of cake for her, smiling for all things cake. As well as the one who will give her cake. "I did, actually." So there, her tone says, an amused expression greeting his watching of her. "I warned her of the headmaster too. But, that is to be expected. I mean, someone who is not taken in by his supposed charms has to. Actually, it's sort of what I said about Roa as well. She does tend to draw people in and sometimes it's really not good for that to happen. Are you having cake too? I can get us wine?"
"Someone will have to start meeting these people so they can warn them against you, I suppose," muses Gans, sliding the generous cut of cake across the table with a graceful bend and a reach of long arm. "I can get wine. You sit and relax. - And it's perfectly appropriate for a weyrwoman to draw people in; she requires only a little expertise with their treatment once they're within her reach." He slivers off some cake onto another plate for himself. Since there was some of the cake gone already it may be assumed this constitutes seconds. "Something light, I assume?" He leaves the knife with the cake and loosely relids it before strolling over to collect a bottle.
"Likely someone should. But until they do the new people will just have to suffer through me." Ohhh, cake! Miniyal doesn't say anything else because she has to try a bite of her cake. "Ohhh. This is good. Yes, please. I could get it. You don't have to do it all." She chides gently because she enjoys him doing things for her even if she feels guilty about it. A wee bit guilty. "Yes, but taking in the naive is just wrong. If she wants to be drawn in that's fine, but she deserves to know what's going on. I didn't say anything bad. I just told her that she was a charismatic woman and to watch herself around her. That's all. I didn't do anything wrong." Hmph.
"I've had a few hours to do as I like. I'm pleased to spend a little while doing for you now you're home." Gans selects a bottle, a sweet but lightweight white, and turns from the shelf to come back to the tray so he can open it and overturn glasses and all. "-Is- she naive, then, this hold's headwoman's assistant's daughter, Miniyal?"
Shoulders shrug as more cake is consumed. "Still deciding. Doesn't hurt to treat her that way if it's what she wants, right? Let her think she's got me fooled. I'm going to make a few inquiries in the next few days and see what I turn up. Might go to the hold. Want to come?" Miniyal shakes her head after all of that and sets her fork down. "You never let me do for you. It's always 'I can do it.' But then you want me to sit and let you do for me. It doesn't seem fair. Anyway, enough of all of that. I'm sorry I took so long. I really did plan on just visiting Bothal and you know I had no desire to wind up in the galleries. We did bring them juice. And pastries. To be nice."
"You're - " Gans pauses, the bottle tipped in his hand, the foot of a wineglass steadied between slim fingers. He just looks at her while she fusses over him doing for her; he just looks at her, still, while she talkes about Bothal and the galleries and the refreshments brought to the Weyrleaders there. She could probably move on to discussing interstellar spacecraft at this point and he'd still be waiting patiently, eyes twinklingly bemused, for the silence that cues his chance to draw her back to this: "You are going to High Reaches Hold to make inquiries regarding the daughter of an assistant headwoman you have met twice and suspect might - might! - be of some value in an hypothetical void left by Heriet's not-overly-anticipated retirement?"
It sounds silly when he puts it that way, doesn't it? Well, it likely sounded silly to her from the beginning, but Miniyal just rolls her eyes. "Wine. You're distracted and my cake is almost gone." Well, that is entirely a lie, but still. "Anyway, I'm bored. I've only got two clients and they basically want to hear the same things I imagine so I can't even make much of it. And, of course, no one's bothered to tell /me/ how things went at Clery's even if I was the one who made it all happen and if there's more I need to do in that I don't know of it although I did send Kazimir a note asking. Besides, I like getting away every now and again. We could spend the night and go prowling through their records room." See how innocent it sounds? Entirely. It's only past experiences that make it seem less than that. "Also, it will help me to have an in at all the different holds and such. If she might serve I should know now." A pause and then she blinks. "Do you really think people should be warned about me?"
"I'm distracted," murmurs the former weyrleader in a tone suggesting that -she- is the distracted one, his mouth quirked in his everlasting half-smile. But he shakes his head in a moment and tends to his task, so she'll have her wine and he, his, too. When both glasses are poured he sets the bottle down, corking it loosely, then reaches across to hand off his lover's glass to her. "There's more cake," he mildly notes, before seating himself and letting a little silence in before getting on to real reply, his own glass lofted in slender fingertips while he thinks on his words. "I think you are most effective as long as they're not." All of the business about the Hold is going to go - by the wayside? Perhaps for now: "I think you might keep in mind that those who are wary of you may consider it timely, eventually, to make others wary as well."
"I cannot imagine anyone being wary of me. Besides, that's the whole point to knowing about people. So they know it's in their best interest to leave you be." Miniyal's head tilts to the side and she takes up her glass for a drink. "I've been doing this awhile, you know. It's not like I haven't. . .I am being careful. Distracted about what?" What, did he mean something else? Well, either way her question is vague enough he can answer it how he will. While he answers or not she busies herself with cake and wine. If she watches him from beneath her lashes the whole time she appears busy with that cake and wine, well, that is just the way of it, yes? There's nothing else that needs saying right now from her it seems.
Her lash-lowered looks win from Gans a mildly wry rendition of his one-sided smile, though he puts it away so he can tip up the glass for a sip, his own little bit of cake waiting for the time being. "I would suspect," he says then, "that Kazimir has his hands - and mind - quite full trying to make sense of what he's heard and seen. It is no small thing, what he's been asked to consider." The man once weyrleader at Reaches leans back, drawing his focus inward onto the rim of his wineglass, brows sinking in thought. "It could be his sacrifice, if he pressed on it, you understand."
At his words she frowns and lowers her head to contemplate her cake. The fork spears into it and wrestles a piece off, but this piece just gets picked apart in the same manner. Eventually it is reduced to crumbs and she lets out a little sigh. "Sometimes you have to sacrifice. Some things you have to stand up for." Blinking, Miniyal looks up and over for just a moment before she takes up her wine and empties the glass. Setting it back down carefully she resumes turning her slice of cake into a mess of crumbs. "I'll be very disappointed if he does not come to that same conclusion. But I cannot expect everyone to see things the way I do. It is out of my hands I suppose. I shall just turn my attention to other things."
"There is often more than one path to the correct solution," Gans observes, a little wry. Another sip from his wine and he surrenders the glass to the table, taking -his- turn now to cast up lovers' eyes at Miniyal, head tilted down, gaze up. "Have a little faith in the Masterharper to find a few and try them."
Nose wrinkling up the cake mutilation is abandoned so she can push her plate away and fold her hands in her lap. "I lack faith in most people. It's a trend I'm pretty sure you've been aware of for some time now, Gans. A couple of conversations and someone else's assurances are not going to change my mind. I said I would see what happened." It's like he has any cause at all to disbelieve she might now simply step aside and let someone else handle something. It's not like Miniyal has ever shown the belief that no one can accomplish things properly but her. Ever. The one thing she does not do is pace. Just sits there, abandoning the cake she wanted so much a short time ago.
"Ah," responds Gans. Of course. Dry, bemused, affectionate, even a little bit rebuffed. "I suppose it is a bit presumptuous for me to assume he ranks among your allies, my dear. Still - " Drier yet, that unfinished objection; he swallows it with a hastily-acquired sip from regathered wineglass, and gains a moment to collect himself and a superior topic, one she's perhaps been -trying- to angle for anyway. "Do you intend to speak to her mother, then? Or to the Headwoman?"
"I wouldn't presume to think he was. It's not. . .It's not that way. It's not easy for me to trust people is all. Well, I seem to keep saying things everyone in this room is already aware of." Eyeing the cake she picks up her fork, but doesn't do more than stab at the crumbs and mess on her plate. "I don't know. It was really only a passing thought. It would be a chance to get away from the insanity here for at least a day or two. I mean, if I'm going to be forced to deal with a bunch of holders at least it wouldn't be ones who stared at every little thing as if it were entirely different then what they are used to. As if we're all illiterate and bite and the like. Besides, if I went I wouldn't talk to either of them. I'm still debating the merits of going. I might just watch her a bit first. See if it is worth my time."
Gans leans forward, putting an elbow (!) on the table so he can let the stem of the wineglass hang between two fingertips and rest his chin on the very edge of his palm. He regards his lover then as if she is his most fascinating object of study (which perhaps she is), eyes as bemused as his half-smiling, droll mouth. "You want to get away from the candidates," he observes, in the fullness of time.
She is fascinating! Perhaps only to him, but still. "They'll start coming in any day now. They are so annoying. I swear I will never get used to it." Miniyal peers at her plate again and drops her fork onto it, wincing at the little clatter it makes. Reaching for the bottle of wine she refills her glass (only for the first time even) and then takes a drink. Someone else might appear so weary and sick of it all by slouching, but her posture remains as perfect as it might be. There is just a quiet sigh and another sip of wine. "It's fine. I don't have to run off. I just want to. It doesn't mean I will. I guess."
A little murmured note escapes Gans' thoughtful mouth. He unprops his chin and straightens his spine, letting the wineglass slip back into a proper grip so he might drink from it before putting it back down on the table. "If you have a purpose at the hold, by all means go; I would be delighted to accompany you. But if avoiding candidates is your only goal - " He overturns the hand that held the wine, then takes up his fork, to pretend something having to do with his cake. "I imagine there are other ways. You aren't obliged, any more, to work with the public."
"I can find a purpose. I can always find a purpose if I need one." Here she takes up her fork again, releasing her own wine glass to the table more quietly than that same fork was let go. Well, there is wine in it after all. Can't spill it, that's a crime. The cake she massacred is given another taste before she says anything else. "I am obliged to be out /in/ public. I can't. . .hide in here. It's not proper." Maybe proper is not the right word, but Miniyal clearly thinks it works. "Speaking of candidates." Licking her fork she sets it down again and looks, oh, not at him. Where? Well, anywhere not at him.
"Perhaps not," says Gans, to 'It's not proper,' and there's a suggestion of laughter in the ripple of his voice, no doubt likely as to what he might think improper about her holing up forever in their shared quarters. He can even manage a bite of cake for how much the idea tickles him; so he's chewing, pleasantly, when she speaks of - or doesn't speak of - candidates. "Mm," he provides, only. Cake in his mouth, you know.
Her eyes roll, but she's clearly amused. It lasts for a brief moment and then flickers away as she takes up her wine glass and empties it. "I just am not sure I should be one. After all." Miniyal holds onto her glass even if it is empty. Psychological support there. "I just. . .I don't want to create problems when I don't have to. And you said, well. You said part of your problem before was that she was a rider. And I'd just rather not create a potential issue when it's easy enough to not even have it ever come up."
Gans civilly forks apart another little bit of cake and lifts it, but it pauses before his lips as she goes from candidacy-avoidance into rider-avoidance into personal issues. His mouth closes and the fork goes back down onto the plate, sticky little bit of cake still on the tines. "Miniyal," he murmurs, so gently, rueful but not reproachful. "There - " No, it's not quite that easy. He pauses, a sigh pressed between thin lips, and tries again, obviously with some struggle. "I have - considered that. I think - " Abruptly, he smiles; just as abruptly, he glances down, as if he could hide that smile. "This would be different."
"I won't- I mean, I can't." Biting her lip she clenches the wine glass in her hand and resists the overwhelming desire to refill it and empty it once more. It would be so easy for her to reach for the bottle, fill her glass, but she won't do it. Yet. Miniyal keeps her head down, releasing her glass reluctantly and taking up her fork to stab at the cake on her plate. "Nothing is worth losing you. No possibility, no. . .consideration. None of it matters to me above you. Some risks I'm just not willing to take."
No: Gans will lean forward, collect the bottle, and use it as his excuse to rise from the chair and round the table to take his place at her shoulder; but he does not yet pour. "A dragon I know from her hatching," he murmurs, bending, the hand not holding the bottle trying for a spot on her opposite shoulder, "would be different. I imagine it might give us a chance to be closer, in some ways." -Then- he'll reach past her to refill her glass.
He is such an enabler. His hand on her shoulder earns him a look through a curtain of hair that's been waiting to conceal her since she first tilted her head downwards. She sweeps it aside just enough that a kiss can land on his hand. When her glass is full she does not reach for it. Instead she keeps her hands in her lap as she considers what to say. "I'm just not sure. I don't want to. . .There are so many ways I can make things worse that I cannot avoid. This is something I might avoid. That's all. Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," murmurs Gans, light emphasis on the 'I'm'. "I only must remember to take care to keep D'ven in mind, as I should like to have some part of the access to your quarters," as if she's a weyrling already, "that I once did; I would like to meet her, should there be a her, as soon as you'll have me." He bends a little lower then, the bottle settled and the hand that tipped it withdrawn, so with a turn of his head he can return the kiss she gave his hand with one for her cheek.
Reaching for her glass a small drink is taken from it before she sets it back down and smiles. "If there is a her I would expect to see you the very next day." Miniyal tilts her head up after her cheek is kissed and smiles once more so he might see. "And D'ven be damned. Because really, what's the worst he could do? And he's not scary. My /mother/ has painted him." This is followed by her taking up her glass again for another drink. "So I guess. I mean. I just want you to know one thing." She pauses here to set down the glass and shift just enough in her chair to be able to see him better.
"The worst he could do would be to deny me," Gans points out, very simply, though his bemused tone suggests the very remoteness of the probability he attaches to such an outcome. Miniyal wants him to know one thing, though, and this takes priority over his own wry wit; her lover pauses beside her, and when she moves her chair he goes down quite easily into the straight-backed, one-knee-down presentation he uses to sit beside her when she's seated. "Yes," he muses as such, putting up his hand now upon her knee.
"He could try." This likely is not what Miniyal wants him to be sure of. But she sounds as convinced in her own way of this fact as he did of his own a moment before. "He can't keep us apart." This is not it either. What she has to say waits until her hand is atop his and she uses the other to cup his cheek. "I won't lose you. No matter what. You need to understand that right now. When I do that. My intention is not to allow you any space to get free of me. No matter how I walk away from it. So. . .well. Just don't be thinking otherwise." A pause so her thumb might stroke his cheek once. "Ever." It could have been some elaborate way to try to get rid of her after all. Or an attempt at least.
That head is a lovely place to rest a hand; no hair interrupts such a simple caress, and he leans into her touch as surely as he would if she stroked his neck or his shoulders. "I would not," he says, simply, gravely. What it is she's suggesting that he would not do goes, in all its many possible implications, wholly without saying; whichever of them is the thing he means, it is unthinkable enough to remain also, unspoken. "Miniyal." Gans raises his hand from her knee to cover her fingers against his cheek. This is a whisper, a promise, lovingly spoken without reproach or plead; it is the gentlest of commands, the sweetest of desires. "Think better of me."
Even with no reproach meant she might find a little of it surely although she keeps it to herself as well as she is able. "It is only because I doubt myself and it spreads. I /do/ think better of you. I think the world of you. Come on. Let me show you." With what little space she has she rises to her feet. It is only when he has responded to the gentle upward tug of her hands that she kisses him. It is only when that kiss has ended that she gives those same hands another tug to bring him with her to the bedroom. And it is only much later in the evening, when she has convinced them both of her regard for him, that she bothers to speak again on the subject. "I have to see the idiot tomorrow anyway. I suppose I may as well add one more topic to it. This is going to wreck my business for awhile I fear." Once those words are spoken she will pull him again with her, this time back to the table. For more cake.
Where: Their room
When: Mid to late afternoon on day 24, month 3, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
What: Chit chat. Lalala. During the clutching, after Miniyal has escaped its. . .umm. ..clutches she returns home to discuss assorted things.
2/13/2007
At High Reaches Weyr, it is late afternoon on day 24, month 3, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
There's no way he could have not heard about it. Even if he was here where there were no hurrying weyrleaders or excited residents. Word would have passed and he would know that right now on the sands Tialith lays her clutch. Her day was interrupted by one thing after another and the quick jaunt she was making has turned into an ordeal of unimaginable proportions. Meaning she had to be social and introduce people and be nice and stand around while that queen deposited her burden on those sands.
Luckily escape came eventually and without a backwards look Miniyal headed for home. She went against the tide as most people were heading to the galleries to check out the happy event. By the time she's reached the door to her room she's ever so slightly annoyed at the whole thing. People. Sheesh. The door opens and she comes inside with a weary sigh, closing the door behind her and leaning against it. Her life is so difficult.
"I take it you were waylaid." Gans almost never chooses a word of more than one syllable accidentally, and the droll humor in his voice is no less than she'd expect it to be. Those words precede him out of the bedroom; he slips out in sweater (black) and slacks (the same) with a book clutched lightly in one slender hand. "Have you eaten? I saved upside-down cake for you." He leaves the book on the table by the covered cake-plate so he can approach her by the door and offer his arms.
Out of all the words she picks up on the important one and brightens considerably. "Cake?" This might make things better. But first she must take advantage of what else will make her feel better and she meets him partway so she can put her arms around him and lay her head against his chest. "I should know better then to go into the living cavern at lunch. I met that girl again. Remember I told you? The one from the hold here for Caucus? Fienne. I had to sit with her while she ate and she wanted to see the eggs and thought she had to meet the weyrleaders and I warned her about that, but she insisted and now it's on her head and it's not my fault."
"Ah, yes - " He remembers this girl from a hold sent to Caucus. He remembers, honestly, all of the young people sent to Caucus, although Fienne's particulars are not so uncommon. But she's hardly the focus of his attention, because the way Miniyal goes on has him raising a single curious brow, eyes twinkling wry as he closes his arms around her. "Ah. No, of course not. But - perhaps you are overreacting just slightly? She met them - in the hatching cavern. I hardly think it can have been an introduction of any moment."
Eyes roll, unseen. "He was practically drooling down her dress is all." Why she cares is anyone's guess. Oh, maybe she'll just explain. Miniyal leans back enough to tip her head up so she can see him. "Her mother is an assistant headwoman at High Reaches. My understanding is the headwoman's daughter is here as well and likely they are both studying for the same position. Only one of them will get it. And if I can keep the weyrleader from scaring her off. . .well, someday Heriet will retire. It's never too early to be thinking of these things. If she'd be interested anyway."
"I see," murmurs Gans in the same tone he used for 'waylaid,' utterly untroubled though he does not bother to let his brows relax - so it's that skeptical-curious expression he's wearing when Miniyal looks up at him, and of course as she leans into his hands he looks down to meet her gaze. "Ah," he says then, a regular -source- of useful rebuttal this evening. Still, he can offer this: "And though you imagine her capable of becoming such an eminence of the Weyr's staff, you think she might not be capable of escaping one bronzerider's appetite, should she so wish?"
"I just think. . .you said there was cake, right?" Hopeful look greets his own and she leans up to let a kiss accompany the look. It has been several hours after all and Miniyal is always aware of how long she has been away. When she pulls away she steps back as well and goes to sit at the table. "I just think she's a little. . .overwhelmed right now. I am not sure yet if she will overcome it. That remains to be seen. Anyway, there's nothing to be done about it now. I told her who to watch out for and the rest is up to her. I've only talked to her a couple times. Did you want to go later and see clumps of sand concealing eggs?" It sounds so exciting when she describes it. Only offering because he might like to go and she is thoughtful.
"There is cake." Gans leans down to meet her kiss, then frees her from his embrace so she can lead the way toward it; he follows bemusedly, taking the route around the tea-cart so he can pick up a knife to section the cake with along the way. "Very late, perhaps. - And did you warn her against our Weyrwoman, too, then?" So dry, this question. He reaches out to unlid the cake, a lovely distraction technique, and cuts a slice of the gooey stuff out onto a plate with half an eye on Miniyal's reactions.
Folding her hands on the table, Miniyal watches for cake. And in the process she watches the fetching of cake for her, smiling for all things cake. As well as the one who will give her cake. "I did, actually." So there, her tone says, an amused expression greeting his watching of her. "I warned her of the headmaster too. But, that is to be expected. I mean, someone who is not taken in by his supposed charms has to. Actually, it's sort of what I said about Roa as well. She does tend to draw people in and sometimes it's really not good for that to happen. Are you having cake too? I can get us wine?"
"Someone will have to start meeting these people so they can warn them against you, I suppose," muses Gans, sliding the generous cut of cake across the table with a graceful bend and a reach of long arm. "I can get wine. You sit and relax. - And it's perfectly appropriate for a weyrwoman to draw people in; she requires only a little expertise with their treatment once they're within her reach." He slivers off some cake onto another plate for himself. Since there was some of the cake gone already it may be assumed this constitutes seconds. "Something light, I assume?" He leaves the knife with the cake and loosely relids it before strolling over to collect a bottle.
"Likely someone should. But until they do the new people will just have to suffer through me." Ohhh, cake! Miniyal doesn't say anything else because she has to try a bite of her cake. "Ohhh. This is good. Yes, please. I could get it. You don't have to do it all." She chides gently because she enjoys him doing things for her even if she feels guilty about it. A wee bit guilty. "Yes, but taking in the naive is just wrong. If she wants to be drawn in that's fine, but she deserves to know what's going on. I didn't say anything bad. I just told her that she was a charismatic woman and to watch herself around her. That's all. I didn't do anything wrong." Hmph.
"I've had a few hours to do as I like. I'm pleased to spend a little while doing for you now you're home." Gans selects a bottle, a sweet but lightweight white, and turns from the shelf to come back to the tray so he can open it and overturn glasses and all. "-Is- she naive, then, this hold's headwoman's assistant's daughter, Miniyal?"
Shoulders shrug as more cake is consumed. "Still deciding. Doesn't hurt to treat her that way if it's what she wants, right? Let her think she's got me fooled. I'm going to make a few inquiries in the next few days and see what I turn up. Might go to the hold. Want to come?" Miniyal shakes her head after all of that and sets her fork down. "You never let me do for you. It's always 'I can do it.' But then you want me to sit and let you do for me. It doesn't seem fair. Anyway, enough of all of that. I'm sorry I took so long. I really did plan on just visiting Bothal and you know I had no desire to wind up in the galleries. We did bring them juice. And pastries. To be nice."
"You're - " Gans pauses, the bottle tipped in his hand, the foot of a wineglass steadied between slim fingers. He just looks at her while she fusses over him doing for her; he just looks at her, still, while she talkes about Bothal and the galleries and the refreshments brought to the Weyrleaders there. She could probably move on to discussing interstellar spacecraft at this point and he'd still be waiting patiently, eyes twinklingly bemused, for the silence that cues his chance to draw her back to this: "You are going to High Reaches Hold to make inquiries regarding the daughter of an assistant headwoman you have met twice and suspect might - might! - be of some value in an hypothetical void left by Heriet's not-overly-anticipated retirement?"
It sounds silly when he puts it that way, doesn't it? Well, it likely sounded silly to her from the beginning, but Miniyal just rolls her eyes. "Wine. You're distracted and my cake is almost gone." Well, that is entirely a lie, but still. "Anyway, I'm bored. I've only got two clients and they basically want to hear the same things I imagine so I can't even make much of it. And, of course, no one's bothered to tell /me/ how things went at Clery's even if I was the one who made it all happen and if there's more I need to do in that I don't know of it although I did send Kazimir a note asking. Besides, I like getting away every now and again. We could spend the night and go prowling through their records room." See how innocent it sounds? Entirely. It's only past experiences that make it seem less than that. "Also, it will help me to have an in at all the different holds and such. If she might serve I should know now." A pause and then she blinks. "Do you really think people should be warned about me?"
"I'm distracted," murmurs the former weyrleader in a tone suggesting that -she- is the distracted one, his mouth quirked in his everlasting half-smile. But he shakes his head in a moment and tends to his task, so she'll have her wine and he, his, too. When both glasses are poured he sets the bottle down, corking it loosely, then reaches across to hand off his lover's glass to her. "There's more cake," he mildly notes, before seating himself and letting a little silence in before getting on to real reply, his own glass lofted in slender fingertips while he thinks on his words. "I think you are most effective as long as they're not." All of the business about the Hold is going to go - by the wayside? Perhaps for now: "I think you might keep in mind that those who are wary of you may consider it timely, eventually, to make others wary as well."
"I cannot imagine anyone being wary of me. Besides, that's the whole point to knowing about people. So they know it's in their best interest to leave you be." Miniyal's head tilts to the side and she takes up her glass for a drink. "I've been doing this awhile, you know. It's not like I haven't. . .I am being careful. Distracted about what?" What, did he mean something else? Well, either way her question is vague enough he can answer it how he will. While he answers or not she busies herself with cake and wine. If she watches him from beneath her lashes the whole time she appears busy with that cake and wine, well, that is just the way of it, yes? There's nothing else that needs saying right now from her it seems.
Her lash-lowered looks win from Gans a mildly wry rendition of his one-sided smile, though he puts it away so he can tip up the glass for a sip, his own little bit of cake waiting for the time being. "I would suspect," he says then, "that Kazimir has his hands - and mind - quite full trying to make sense of what he's heard and seen. It is no small thing, what he's been asked to consider." The man once weyrleader at Reaches leans back, drawing his focus inward onto the rim of his wineglass, brows sinking in thought. "It could be his sacrifice, if he pressed on it, you understand."
At his words she frowns and lowers her head to contemplate her cake. The fork spears into it and wrestles a piece off, but this piece just gets picked apart in the same manner. Eventually it is reduced to crumbs and she lets out a little sigh. "Sometimes you have to sacrifice. Some things you have to stand up for." Blinking, Miniyal looks up and over for just a moment before she takes up her wine and empties the glass. Setting it back down carefully she resumes turning her slice of cake into a mess of crumbs. "I'll be very disappointed if he does not come to that same conclusion. But I cannot expect everyone to see things the way I do. It is out of my hands I suppose. I shall just turn my attention to other things."
"There is often more than one path to the correct solution," Gans observes, a little wry. Another sip from his wine and he surrenders the glass to the table, taking -his- turn now to cast up lovers' eyes at Miniyal, head tilted down, gaze up. "Have a little faith in the Masterharper to find a few and try them."
Nose wrinkling up the cake mutilation is abandoned so she can push her plate away and fold her hands in her lap. "I lack faith in most people. It's a trend I'm pretty sure you've been aware of for some time now, Gans. A couple of conversations and someone else's assurances are not going to change my mind. I said I would see what happened." It's like he has any cause at all to disbelieve she might now simply step aside and let someone else handle something. It's not like Miniyal has ever shown the belief that no one can accomplish things properly but her. Ever. The one thing she does not do is pace. Just sits there, abandoning the cake she wanted so much a short time ago.
"Ah," responds Gans. Of course. Dry, bemused, affectionate, even a little bit rebuffed. "I suppose it is a bit presumptuous for me to assume he ranks among your allies, my dear. Still - " Drier yet, that unfinished objection; he swallows it with a hastily-acquired sip from regathered wineglass, and gains a moment to collect himself and a superior topic, one she's perhaps been -trying- to angle for anyway. "Do you intend to speak to her mother, then? Or to the Headwoman?"
"I wouldn't presume to think he was. It's not. . .It's not that way. It's not easy for me to trust people is all. Well, I seem to keep saying things everyone in this room is already aware of." Eyeing the cake she picks up her fork, but doesn't do more than stab at the crumbs and mess on her plate. "I don't know. It was really only a passing thought. It would be a chance to get away from the insanity here for at least a day or two. I mean, if I'm going to be forced to deal with a bunch of holders at least it wouldn't be ones who stared at every little thing as if it were entirely different then what they are used to. As if we're all illiterate and bite and the like. Besides, if I went I wouldn't talk to either of them. I'm still debating the merits of going. I might just watch her a bit first. See if it is worth my time."
Gans leans forward, putting an elbow (!) on the table so he can let the stem of the wineglass hang between two fingertips and rest his chin on the very edge of his palm. He regards his lover then as if she is his most fascinating object of study (which perhaps she is), eyes as bemused as his half-smiling, droll mouth. "You want to get away from the candidates," he observes, in the fullness of time.
She is fascinating! Perhaps only to him, but still. "They'll start coming in any day now. They are so annoying. I swear I will never get used to it." Miniyal peers at her plate again and drops her fork onto it, wincing at the little clatter it makes. Reaching for the bottle of wine she refills her glass (only for the first time even) and then takes a drink. Someone else might appear so weary and sick of it all by slouching, but her posture remains as perfect as it might be. There is just a quiet sigh and another sip of wine. "It's fine. I don't have to run off. I just want to. It doesn't mean I will. I guess."
A little murmured note escapes Gans' thoughtful mouth. He unprops his chin and straightens his spine, letting the wineglass slip back into a proper grip so he might drink from it before putting it back down on the table. "If you have a purpose at the hold, by all means go; I would be delighted to accompany you. But if avoiding candidates is your only goal - " He overturns the hand that held the wine, then takes up his fork, to pretend something having to do with his cake. "I imagine there are other ways. You aren't obliged, any more, to work with the public."
"I can find a purpose. I can always find a purpose if I need one." Here she takes up her fork again, releasing her own wine glass to the table more quietly than that same fork was let go. Well, there is wine in it after all. Can't spill it, that's a crime. The cake she massacred is given another taste before she says anything else. "I am obliged to be out /in/ public. I can't. . .hide in here. It's not proper." Maybe proper is not the right word, but Miniyal clearly thinks it works. "Speaking of candidates." Licking her fork she sets it down again and looks, oh, not at him. Where? Well, anywhere not at him.
"Perhaps not," says Gans, to 'It's not proper,' and there's a suggestion of laughter in the ripple of his voice, no doubt likely as to what he might think improper about her holing up forever in their shared quarters. He can even manage a bite of cake for how much the idea tickles him; so he's chewing, pleasantly, when she speaks of - or doesn't speak of - candidates. "Mm," he provides, only. Cake in his mouth, you know.
Her eyes roll, but she's clearly amused. It lasts for a brief moment and then flickers away as she takes up her wine glass and empties it. "I just am not sure I should be one. After all." Miniyal holds onto her glass even if it is empty. Psychological support there. "I just. . .I don't want to create problems when I don't have to. And you said, well. You said part of your problem before was that she was a rider. And I'd just rather not create a potential issue when it's easy enough to not even have it ever come up."
Gans civilly forks apart another little bit of cake and lifts it, but it pauses before his lips as she goes from candidacy-avoidance into rider-avoidance into personal issues. His mouth closes and the fork goes back down onto the plate, sticky little bit of cake still on the tines. "Miniyal," he murmurs, so gently, rueful but not reproachful. "There - " No, it's not quite that easy. He pauses, a sigh pressed between thin lips, and tries again, obviously with some struggle. "I have - considered that. I think - " Abruptly, he smiles; just as abruptly, he glances down, as if he could hide that smile. "This would be different."
"I won't- I mean, I can't." Biting her lip she clenches the wine glass in her hand and resists the overwhelming desire to refill it and empty it once more. It would be so easy for her to reach for the bottle, fill her glass, but she won't do it. Yet. Miniyal keeps her head down, releasing her glass reluctantly and taking up her fork to stab at the cake on her plate. "Nothing is worth losing you. No possibility, no. . .consideration. None of it matters to me above you. Some risks I'm just not willing to take."
No: Gans will lean forward, collect the bottle, and use it as his excuse to rise from the chair and round the table to take his place at her shoulder; but he does not yet pour. "A dragon I know from her hatching," he murmurs, bending, the hand not holding the bottle trying for a spot on her opposite shoulder, "would be different. I imagine it might give us a chance to be closer, in some ways." -Then- he'll reach past her to refill her glass.
He is such an enabler. His hand on her shoulder earns him a look through a curtain of hair that's been waiting to conceal her since she first tilted her head downwards. She sweeps it aside just enough that a kiss can land on his hand. When her glass is full she does not reach for it. Instead she keeps her hands in her lap as she considers what to say. "I'm just not sure. I don't want to. . .There are so many ways I can make things worse that I cannot avoid. This is something I might avoid. That's all. Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," murmurs Gans, light emphasis on the 'I'm'. "I only must remember to take care to keep D'ven in mind, as I should like to have some part of the access to your quarters," as if she's a weyrling already, "that I once did; I would like to meet her, should there be a her, as soon as you'll have me." He bends a little lower then, the bottle settled and the hand that tipped it withdrawn, so with a turn of his head he can return the kiss she gave his hand with one for her cheek.
Reaching for her glass a small drink is taken from it before she sets it back down and smiles. "If there is a her I would expect to see you the very next day." Miniyal tilts her head up after her cheek is kissed and smiles once more so he might see. "And D'ven be damned. Because really, what's the worst he could do? And he's not scary. My /mother/ has painted him." This is followed by her taking up her glass again for another drink. "So I guess. I mean. I just want you to know one thing." She pauses here to set down the glass and shift just enough in her chair to be able to see him better.
"The worst he could do would be to deny me," Gans points out, very simply, though his bemused tone suggests the very remoteness of the probability he attaches to such an outcome. Miniyal wants him to know one thing, though, and this takes priority over his own wry wit; her lover pauses beside her, and when she moves her chair he goes down quite easily into the straight-backed, one-knee-down presentation he uses to sit beside her when she's seated. "Yes," he muses as such, putting up his hand now upon her knee.
"He could try." This likely is not what Miniyal wants him to be sure of. But she sounds as convinced in her own way of this fact as he did of his own a moment before. "He can't keep us apart." This is not it either. What she has to say waits until her hand is atop his and she uses the other to cup his cheek. "I won't lose you. No matter what. You need to understand that right now. When I do that. My intention is not to allow you any space to get free of me. No matter how I walk away from it. So. . .well. Just don't be thinking otherwise." A pause so her thumb might stroke his cheek once. "Ever." It could have been some elaborate way to try to get rid of her after all. Or an attempt at least.
That head is a lovely place to rest a hand; no hair interrupts such a simple caress, and he leans into her touch as surely as he would if she stroked his neck or his shoulders. "I would not," he says, simply, gravely. What it is she's suggesting that he would not do goes, in all its many possible implications, wholly without saying; whichever of them is the thing he means, it is unthinkable enough to remain also, unspoken. "Miniyal." Gans raises his hand from her knee to cover her fingers against his cheek. This is a whisper, a promise, lovingly spoken without reproach or plead; it is the gentlest of commands, the sweetest of desires. "Think better of me."
Even with no reproach meant she might find a little of it surely although she keeps it to herself as well as she is able. "It is only because I doubt myself and it spreads. I /do/ think better of you. I think the world of you. Come on. Let me show you." With what little space she has she rises to her feet. It is only when he has responded to the gentle upward tug of her hands that she kisses him. It is only when that kiss has ended that she gives those same hands another tug to bring him with her to the bedroom. And it is only much later in the evening, when she has convinced them both of her regard for him, that she bothers to speak again on the subject. "I have to see the idiot tomorrow anyway. I suppose I may as well add one more topic to it. This is going to wreck my business for awhile I fear." Once those words are spoken she will pull him again with her, this time back to the table. For more cake.