Tip toeing around the animal.
Who: Miniyal and R'vain
Where: Weyrleaders' Office
When: 14:11 on day 28, month 4, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
What: Her first official client earns a visit. Not as random as it seems, but he wouldn't dare actually summon her and she would never appear if he did. Cookies are shared. There is conversation. Some small secrets might have been shared. Oh, and a job is given and another merely suggested.
2/28/2007
At High Reaches Weyr, it is 14:11 on day 28, month 4, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
R'vain spends his afternoons working. Seriously. And that's what he's doing. The office is all but abandoned, though some fabric swatches lie atop a tidy pile of hides on the sandtable's glass cover, and the nature of the fabric suggests ownership of one of the three women who are entitled to the use of this space rather than the one man.
It's just the one man who's actually here using the space, however, just now. Seated at the conference table, he has the stuff of letter-writing stretched out before him; one paw drums useless beats against the table while the other pauses with the pen, waiting for words to come. There sits also with him a box containing a small pile of letters, the topmost one at an angle to those below it, fresher too-- the lower hides have aged a bit. Also, two letters recently opened and refolded with broken seals, elbowed just out of the way of his own effort at correspondence.
He had klah, at one point, just a mug from the caverns below, no tray or pot. It's for show, maybe, getting cold.
Afternoons are made for wandering about. No matter the size, however, in the end the weyr only encompasses so much space. When simply wandering doesn't entertain enough, but it feels too soon to retire for the day, Miniyal wanders over to where she'll find the man attached to the ego running the weyr. A stop by the kitchen earns her something to snack on before dinner so she arrives with a hand busy holding a small stack of cookies. She could knock and announce herself, but that's never as much fun. Although one might argue it would spare her any number of horrid sights she might see someday. Still, until the horror happens there's no convincing herself to knock.
So she steps inside without announcing herself and finishes chewing the cookie in her mouth. Before taking the next cookie to nibble on she tips her head and looks at where the weyrleader sits. "It's Arr apostrophe Vee A Eye En." She's so helpful.
Today, Miniyal's eyes are spared. No promises for the future. "I been thinkin' on just puttin' 'Lord an' Master,' y'think that'd go over a'right?" The pen moves again, while R'vain is for a moment quiet, finishing the thought that held him-- presumably with neither signature suggested-- before looking up with a grin all full of teeth for the woman and her cookies. "Y'want something t'go with those I can likely dig up a pot t'put on or something. Plannin' on stayin'," and while he puts down the pen and stacks up the letter in progress on top of the ones previously opened, the Weyrleader tosses off a green glance toward the Weyrwoman's weyr. "Or just passin' through?"
"I think you couldn't spell those words, but maybe if someone wrote them out ahead of time you might trace them fine." Miniyal answers the first comment, it being more important as it allows her a chance to make a disparaging remark. "Had three pots already today, think I'm fine, thank you." Another bite on her cookie and she wanders farther inside to claim a chair for herself, offering before remembering to swallow, "Cookie?" Holding out the cookie hand she watches to see if he'll take one or not. "Staying, thank you. You know I despair of my life if I don't get to bask in your company. Helps remind me how much worse life could be and all. Got no call to see either of our illustrious weyrwomen. Means distinguished or renowned, that word does."
"Whole pots?" R'vain glances back at his guest, skeptical though grinning. "Y'need t'deal with runoff don't bother excusin' y'self, I'll just figure why y'left." He shoves himself up from his chair, though does not loom entirely upright-- all it takes is for him to lean into one paw crutched on the table so he can swipe a cookie with the other, outstretched hand. "Thanks. And yeah. Bask in my company. Y'know, you do miss out on all m'finer points." He puts the cookie into his mouth. Yes, exactly like that. Cookie, mouth, gone. Chewing, he plops back down into his chair and stares over at her, 'well?' like it wasn't /his/ idea she come here, which since she only /happened/ to wander by obviously it wasn't. Maybe.
Eyes roll as she finishes off the cookie partially chewed. Once it is gone she eyes the last one in her hand and leaves it be for the moment. "I do appreciate it. But I'll be fine, thank you." Head tipping from one side to the other Miniyal studies him a moment before finally giving her head a shake. "Nope. Don't see a one. And I know it's not your personality. Cause I've been subjected to that repeatedly. It's like dealing with a hyper-sexed twelve turn old with some sort of mental deficiency." Smiling now, she must like that description, she just looks back at him. Because it /was/ his idea and she has nowhere else to be and is quite good at waiting him out. No slouching, of course, in her posture, but she appears relaxed none the less. Somewhere along the way he lost the scariness that used to leave her bothered by his presence.
R'vain chews a bit more, swallows, does all the slouching for both of them, and grins back to her smile. It could be thought that her unbotheredness pleases him. It at least doesn't hinder his ability to show off his teeth, freshly-cleaned of cookie-bits by a swipe of carnivore tongue. "Wasn't, y'know. Hyper-sexed. At twelve." Nothing said about now. Or something said, actually, by omission. Still grinning, and with nerve enough to wink. "Speakin' of. Th'Weyrwoman said y'made a chart. Figure I owe y'somethin' on that, ain't exactly seen your invoice."
Breaking the last cookie in half she offers the smaller of the two pieces to him. "Oh, didn't cost me but a few moments of pain where I had to actually discuss with someone the ins and outs of your bed and anywhere else." Miniyal shudders at this, nose wrinkling up at the thought. "Business has been slow enough I had the time. You talked to her since the wedding?" The weyrwoman that is, most likely, and not any of the women on the chart. Well, she /is/ on the chart, but still. "Almost feel like I should be telling you something, but at the same time I really don't feel like being scolded for not keeping someone's secret. Ah, well. Unless you know, of course. In which case it doesn't do me any good to repeat it."
R'vain blinks, his gaze drawn down by the broken cookie half offered out. Only a split-second and he understands, and puts out his paw to take it. Peace. "Ain't 'cept in passin'. She was pretty peaked at th'wedding. Or after, rather. Brought 'er home." He pauses, elbow bent, hand lifted, the cookie-half halfway to his mouth, mouth opened to receive it-- and closes his mouth for a moment, grin vanishing, gaze going a little sharp as it refocuses on the woman rather than the treat. "What."
Miniyal's gaze drops down after the cookie is taken and she busies herself with consuming her half. Normally she might lick the last bit of sugar from her fingers, but it seems she's not going to do that in this company. In this company she just brushes it off on her skirt. "You don't tell her I told you." She's firm sounding on this and her head lifts back up. Watching him intently to measure his response not just in words, but in any physical movement. "Need your word on that. No lying."
"A'right. I probably tell 'er I guessed," the Weyrleader replies with a lazy shrug, or what was meant to be a lazy shrug, but is a bit tightly wound across the yoke of the shoulders for the ease his slouch should promote. "Or don't mention it at all. But you got t'tell me how you know."
"She's expecting. I assume it's Ashwin's. I've heard nothing to say otherwise." Well, he said he'd not tell. Basically. And if he does there's going to be such trouble for him. "I assume she'll let people know eventually. I'm not sure if he knows. I'm guessing Neiran does." How does she know? Well, at least this time Miniyal doesn't have to own up to any snooping. It was all luck. "Ran into her late one night in the living cavern. Her and Neiran. She was talking about some troubles she'd had, this was the 15th, and I was just mostly hassling her saying she might be pregnant. Turns out I have this amazing drunken intuition. She confirmed it for me at the wedding. I wonder if she thought I'd remember. I may have had more than my share at the wedding as well."
R'vain, quiet, absorbs all that Miniyal has to tell him; midway through he does stuff the half-cookie into his mouth so he can chew and use /that/ as a new excuse for silence until his informant's run out of information she cares to provide. It will be a very well-chewed cookie. He swallows in the ensuing silence, then notes, "She'd've told me, pretty sure. Or stopped it, and said nothing." The Weyrleader makes these comments with a sober kind of certainty and a hard indifference; it's imperfect, but adequately obscures whatever else he might think on that 'if' they're not discussing directly. "Shouldn't've gone t'th'wedding. Think she was sick after. Could've excused out, ain't good t'travel, hard on 'er." His tongue goes up over his teeth and comes back down; the *tschk* is soft, but present, and then he winds up his little moment of thinking-out-loud with, "She'd've had t'say though. Stubborn. Ain't goin' t'be good."
Head tilting to one side as she takes a bite of her half of the last cookie it is Miniyal's turn to listen. When he finishes she shakes her head. "No, been too long to have been. She'd have known before now if it was." It's. . .somewhere around reassurance. It's not something she's real good at, especially with this man. But she tries. Then stuffs the last of her cookie into her mouth and is silent while she chews and then swallows. "Can't imagine it's going to be good for her at all. She's not exactly built properly to have an easy time of it. Still, I imagine she wants to keep it so she'll figure out how to make it work. She won't be able to hide it overly long. Some can and some can't and she'll show. If it were someone else I'd say she'd be likely to say before she does, but it's Roa and she's got a lack of common sense in a lot of ways. She's more like her dad than she wants to admit I imagine."
"She is, I imagine," says R'vain, reflectively, as though he is only half-with the conversation and the half of him that /is/ with it is attending to the Weyrwoman's similarities to her father in only the most slow and thoughtful way-- academically. And he is not an academic man, mostly, so there should be relatively little surprise that the other half of his mind is going forward with notes like what comes next. "You workin' f'her directly again yet?"
"I've no interest in being in her employ in any manner." Said firmly if with no real emotion other than that firmness. "It doesn't work. There are some people I know better than to offer to assist. Besides, I've enough work to keep me busy enough some days. The rest of the time I have for myself and my projects." Her undefined projects that Miniyal will go on about doing without ever really telling most people what they are. Perhaps she's cultivating an air of mystery. More likely half the time they're not really anything at all, but it does sound better than 'I wander around and read and waste time.' Hands folding in her lap since they are entirely free of cookie she shrugs. "As much as anyone can be, I am my own boss. I prefer it that way."
"Always th'best posts t'have," R'vain agrees, or inasmuch as agrees, through implication and a flash of toothy grin. "S'y'/can't/ work f'Roa, that th'general idea? Ain't no conflict of interest then, y'keep me posted what she's up to." A beat, and the grin grows, assisted by a poke and swipe of tongue at the corner of his mouth. "Stubborn. Got t'keep an eye on her somehow, now she's in a family way." Right, he is purely good-hearted and thinking of Roa's health.
Blinking twice, Miniyal stares for a moment through narrowed eyes at him. "You want me to spy on the weyrwoman?" Because he might be thinking of something else entirely and she is just interpreting what he wants incorrectly. That is entirely possible, of course. But judging by the look she gives him, she doesn't think it very probable a situation. "I do believe it was that act that led up to my being fired as her assistant in the first place." Well, not so much really, but one sticks with the story presented to the public no matter what. Well, no one said that exactly, but she was 'fired' after all. "I get caught or she suspects and she's likely to guess who asked me to do it. She asks me directly and your name doesn't come into it, of course, but I'm not looking to add friction to my life. Makes it hard she wanders over for tea sometime and is all pissed at me. Then I have to explain to him."
"No." R'vain is thinking of something else. "I'm wantin' you t'tell me what you know. I ain't askin' you t'find out anything especial. But you ain't me, and I got a hunch she tells us different things, or f'that matter tells us th'same things different. I want t'know how she comes across t'you. Just like you told me this just now, only t'th'enth degree." There, he's explained, and tosses off a careless waggle of one paw to cast off any importance the explanation had. "You ain't willin', I don't mind. But if me askin' you t'do it's liable t'make you more probable t'do it, don't hurt me t'ask, right?" Another beat, in which his hand goes down, and now he grins a little-- weirdly. Crookedly. Like he hates to be grinning at all, but hasn't quite formulated a better expression for this yet. "Y'have t'explain t'him, in this hypothetical mess that ain't goin' t'happen, why?"
"She sees things differently than I do. I see this news I shared as just that. Doing the job I told you I would do. She might not see it that way. Trust, you know. She's got more issues with it than I do and that's saying something momentous there." Miniyal grimaces a bit at her words, but brushes them away the same way she lifts a hand to brush away hair from her face. Said and done, no taking the words back now. "We're not chatty, her and I. We're not. . .there's been trouble between us since we met almost. Lately it's like we're creeping around some big animal in a room trying to pretend neither of us sees it and not wanting to disturb it. Tip toeing around so we don't set each other off. Doesn't exactly build a confidence sharing atmosphere." His question at the end takes longer to answer, the explanation having to be worked out in her head so as not to sound too bad. "Can't be sure she finds out I do something like that she won't go to him anyway. They're close enough she might. Then he brings it up or just waits. Some people, they have a way of waiting that tells you they're waiting for you to come clean. It borders on the personal, her and I. I can separate the work from the personal and keep the one from him, but the other? I can't." She comes to a stop here because those words appear to have come out wrong. "I don't want to." There, that's better. If a little farther from the truth.
"F'get I asked, then. S'not a big point." This, he slips in while she's working out that larger, second explanation, with another flip of careless paw. His interest lies with what she'll say next, and he draws back his hands along the arms of the chair, slumping lower, knees going out wide while his feet find someplace to prop beneath the table, watching. "Just waits, huh." A little like disapproval, that, though he dismisses it with a singular jerk of his head and a revival of his grin. "Where'd y'come across th'want t'stand, b'th'way?" Yeah. By the way. Separate topic. "Probably ain't y'last chance. Just a guess."
It would be wisest to forget he did ask, but Miniyal's wisdom is not exactly well-revered. It being almost entirely lacking at times. "I didn't say I wouldn't do it. I just said there could be trouble from it. It's your right to know up front about what that trouble could be. Since you're the one asking and all. It's doable." Her doubts she keeps to herself and only lets out to play when alone or in her room when there is someone to soothe them away. For the public she does try that confident thing. It may not always be believable, but she tries. "I'll just need to think on it a bit. Find a way to not seem obvious about talking to her." Nodding once she drifts into silence, likely giving the first thirty thoughts in her head as to how their due attention. Plans always come up right away. Not usually good ones, but they appear. When they've been shuffled off she blinks. The look he gets is considering, comes through narrowed eyes, and ends with a quiet snort. Disapproval. How dare he. "I'll be twenty-four in a few months. The rate the queens rise around here it very well could be." Her words end abruptly as if she was going to add something, but recalled at the last minute whom she was speaking with so thought better of it.
"Min'yal." A command made out of her name. He tips his head down and stares at her from beneath the fray of riotous lashes, eyes glinting. "I can give you better things t'do. Ain't no good t'me you piss off my Weyrwoman on my account, whether she knows I'm behind it or not. So don't put yourself out." His tongue goes up under his upper lip then, curling and withdrawing in silence. "Th'rate th'queens rise. Yeah. Point." And he drops his gaze first, head shaking. "Ain't usual, t'glare at a man f'suggesting you're young, by th'way." Grumbled, and yet he does look apologetic. Not that he's apologizing. Or looking at her. Maybe the table understands that he's sorry, though.
"You probably can." Give her better things to do. "But they might not interest me so much. Still, if you don't want me to I will dismiss it from my thoughts." Simple as that. Miniyal appears to have no interest either way in the task. He doesn't want it done she won't do it. "And for the record? I would never put myself out for you. I don't get paid enough." Shaking her head slowly at the not-apology she grins as he stares at the table. It's gone by the time he might look up again. "You were implying something. About why I decided to. You think it was his idea."
"I think he might've had something to do with it," allows R'vain at length, dragging his emerald focus back up from the table to the woman across it, and if this is a thought of some seriousness to him, well, the fact that he lets all those much richer chances to make naughty jokes go by unexplored would be the best clue.
"Why don't you like him?" Because, as he once pointed out, he's known the former weyrleader much longer than her. Miniyal studies the current weyrleader without quite looking at him. No chance of eye contact, just glances upwards from a head tilted slightly downwards. If she's aware the question is asked as she worries at her ring it doesn't make her able to stop the action.
R'vain is less subtle about the avoiding-of-eye-contact-- he slumps deeper yet in his chair and tucks his head down. If he slouched deeper his chin would rest on his chest and he could sleep, maybe, like so, and wake up with a hell of a crick in his neck. But he just stares at the edge of the table instead. "I dunno." His brows draw after that; of course it's an idiotic answer, no answer at all. "Put me out of th'first wing t'learn me something. Thought I might've had a clue what that was, besides just t'keep me out of his hair, out've Vasyath's flights." A little heat flushes across the bridge of his nose and apples of his cheeks, swallowing freckles, but his voice stays low and bland. "Things were all screwed up after he came back from Fort. Bad turn or two there. Everything since, been worse. Feel like some of it's personal. S'all."
Miniyal listens with an objective sort of air about her. As if she's not emotionally involved at all with the man being talked about. When it's apparent he's going to stare down as he talks she gives up the pretense of not watching him. "He's. . ." Something, but what she might have said she does not say. Not to him. "He brought it up. When we were on vacation. We were at Harper when the news arrived. When we were at Southern Boll discussing our upcoming, possible, wedding." Before the eggs were clutched. Before he knew about any gold egg on the sands. Those thoughts are left unspoken. "I didn't like him. I was furious at him. Not then. Before. When he used me to run his message to G'mal. The past. I suppose he did have something to do with my decision, but he did not- it's not as if it were a thought that had never occurred to me in the past. I just couldn't."
"S'th'kind of thing he does," remarks R'vain. Maybe he means G'thon's involvement with her decision to stand. Maybe he means sending her to G'mal. Maybe he means whatever the former Weyrleader said at Southern Boll or at Harper. But the words lack malice. They are flat from a pain long since confronted-- and embraced. One freckled finger taps softly and slowly against the arm of the chair while the flush fades from ruddy cheeks. "So he-- enabled you, I guess. S'all. A little confidence."
"I know." To his first statement, spoken as a near whispered, resigned, agreement. It's not always Miniyal is blind to what goes on. Just when she wants to be which is, granted, /most/ of the time. "I've no reason to defend his actions. To me or anyone else. They were his to do and I accept that even if I do not always agree with what he might have done. The rest is none of your business." The ring on her finger is twisted around once more before she folds her hands in her lap and is still again. "But I suppose that's close enough." Another moment of silence and her next words were likely not meant to be said out loud at all. "He has an answer for everything." Shaking her head she studies her hands.
"Yeah. Well." R'vain glances up, at last, and now has the weakest of his grins for Miniyal to see, if she'll look up from that ring she worries. "Don't have t'accept his answers. I never could." He tries to wish away the grin with a wipe of his tongue over his teeth-- thorough, this lash, and slow-- and fails, but adds anyway, "Didn't mean t'ask that serious a question."
She does look up, eventually, and frowns at the grin. Because that is what she does. Frown when he grins. "Yea, well, I forgive you for thinking you could have a serious conversation. I'm surprised you lasted that long." Miniyal doesn't comment further on answers. She has, likely, said more than enough and some small amount more than she might have intended. "So, was chatting up your weyrwoman all you wanted to discuss then? Or was that all you could remember? Probably need to make notes. Your age, as much as you've abused yourself, you're lucky to have any memory at all."
Except, see, the serious aspect seems not quite that willing to depart. R'vain grins-- sure, he's had lots of practice, it's easy to do-- but his voice is all gravel and salt. "Yeah. There was another thing." Long pause while he looks over at the box of unopened letters, then down at the opened ones and his work in progress, then over at a single tiny crumb of cookie that dropped when she held out the broken smaller half for him to take. "I want reports on D'ven. You got t'tell me how well y'can do that. Like y'said, you wouldn't put yourself out f'me." Oh, right, that's meant to be a /joke./ So he glances up at her and grins a little better, lamely.
Oh, trouble. Not that a hint of it appears on her face. There is just a glance downward at her hands as Miniyal draws in a slow breath. When she looks up again she's found a suitably neutral expression. "That is- I've occasion to speak to him recently a few times." Frowning again she lets out a sigh. "I can do it easily enough." More fiddling of the ring and she studies it without speaking for some time. "I need to know what sort of reports you want exactly before I can agree to this." Looking up she shakes her head, but meets his eyes for the briefest of moments before glancing away.
"Personal." R'vain's gaze is steady now, though the grin he affixed hasn't moved; it sprawls comfortably over his mouth while his eyes don't do anything like smiling at all. "I can get information 'bout how he handles his program. I can go see th'weyrlings m'self if I want. I want t'know what he does personally, how he's doin' it. Who he meets with, what he does, anything that ain't weyrlings." A pause, and the grin finally glints in his eyes, too, brightening. "Don't need a chart, though. Y'can skip that part of th'detail."
"Personal." The word is repeated quietly as Miniyal shifts in her chair some and sits up straighter. Like she slouches, but still, sometimes she has to pull herself up a bit. It comes with a tilt of her chin upwards. "I'll do what I can." Aaaaaaand more quiet from her as thoughts attempt to get spoken she doesn't want to say. "You could, sometime, want to know something easy. I don't believe it's required you make my life a pain in the ass all the time." Shaking her head she just asks, "Anything else?"
"Nothin' that won't be a pain in your ass." But the grin despairs, falters, and departs. He pushes himself sort of upward-- not straight, just up-- in his chair and curls forward, gaze intense. "Y'asked f'this work," R'vain rumbles, low. "You don't /need/ t'do it. You don't /need/ th'marks. You don't even charge f'special assignment. So-- why?"
Chewing on her lower lip, Miniyal doesn't move from her chosen firmly upright position. "Haven't we had this conversation? I believe I've answered this question already." She has, indeed. Still, for whatever reason she will answer it again. And completely ignores any grin or comment that might be suggestive. "I do it because I need to be doing something. Because I'm good at it. I prefer not to- to gather information on certain people. And I prefer not to appear as if I am tying myself too much to one person. However, for now I can do what you ask. Because I would be doing it anyway. Finding things out. It's what I do even when I don't want to. It's wrong. To be able to contribute and not do it just because it's difficult sometimes."
R'vain's gaze remains intense, but he slumps back into his chair all over again. "Yeah," he replies, voice gravelly again. "It is." His jaw shifts, the joint stretching, and he blinks once before adding, "That's all from me."
Having shared enough those last words are gratefully taken as a dismissal. So, Miniyal rises to her feet and bobs her head once. "Good. I need a drink." Doesn't she always? Smoothing down her sweater with an absent brush of her hand she turns to head for the door. "You're an ass, but you're High Reaches' ass. That earns you my support. And somewhat more leeway than I might give my other clients. Just don't fuck up too much. I can't handle working for a fuck up. I won't."
His farewell's nothing more than a wave of a paw, and he leans forward then to draw over his letter and pen. He doesn't start up right away, though; it's an illusion. "I didn't," says the Weyrleader, but it is spoken in his quietest range, and she might miss it.
Where: Weyrleaders' Office
When: 14:11 on day 28, month 4, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
What: Her first official client earns a visit. Not as random as it seems, but he wouldn't dare actually summon her and she would never appear if he did. Cookies are shared. There is conversation. Some small secrets might have been shared. Oh, and a job is given and another merely suggested.
2/28/2007
At High Reaches Weyr, it is 14:11 on day 28, month 4, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
R'vain spends his afternoons working. Seriously. And that's what he's doing. The office is all but abandoned, though some fabric swatches lie atop a tidy pile of hides on the sandtable's glass cover, and the nature of the fabric suggests ownership of one of the three women who are entitled to the use of this space rather than the one man.
It's just the one man who's actually here using the space, however, just now. Seated at the conference table, he has the stuff of letter-writing stretched out before him; one paw drums useless beats against the table while the other pauses with the pen, waiting for words to come. There sits also with him a box containing a small pile of letters, the topmost one at an angle to those below it, fresher too-- the lower hides have aged a bit. Also, two letters recently opened and refolded with broken seals, elbowed just out of the way of his own effort at correspondence.
He had klah, at one point, just a mug from the caverns below, no tray or pot. It's for show, maybe, getting cold.
Afternoons are made for wandering about. No matter the size, however, in the end the weyr only encompasses so much space. When simply wandering doesn't entertain enough, but it feels too soon to retire for the day, Miniyal wanders over to where she'll find the man attached to the ego running the weyr. A stop by the kitchen earns her something to snack on before dinner so she arrives with a hand busy holding a small stack of cookies. She could knock and announce herself, but that's never as much fun. Although one might argue it would spare her any number of horrid sights she might see someday. Still, until the horror happens there's no convincing herself to knock.
So she steps inside without announcing herself and finishes chewing the cookie in her mouth. Before taking the next cookie to nibble on she tips her head and looks at where the weyrleader sits. "It's Arr apostrophe Vee A Eye En." She's so helpful.
Today, Miniyal's eyes are spared. No promises for the future. "I been thinkin' on just puttin' 'Lord an' Master,' y'think that'd go over a'right?" The pen moves again, while R'vain is for a moment quiet, finishing the thought that held him-- presumably with neither signature suggested-- before looking up with a grin all full of teeth for the woman and her cookies. "Y'want something t'go with those I can likely dig up a pot t'put on or something. Plannin' on stayin'," and while he puts down the pen and stacks up the letter in progress on top of the ones previously opened, the Weyrleader tosses off a green glance toward the Weyrwoman's weyr. "Or just passin' through?"
"I think you couldn't spell those words, but maybe if someone wrote them out ahead of time you might trace them fine." Miniyal answers the first comment, it being more important as it allows her a chance to make a disparaging remark. "Had three pots already today, think I'm fine, thank you." Another bite on her cookie and she wanders farther inside to claim a chair for herself, offering before remembering to swallow, "Cookie?" Holding out the cookie hand she watches to see if he'll take one or not. "Staying, thank you. You know I despair of my life if I don't get to bask in your company. Helps remind me how much worse life could be and all. Got no call to see either of our illustrious weyrwomen. Means distinguished or renowned, that word does."
"Whole pots?" R'vain glances back at his guest, skeptical though grinning. "Y'need t'deal with runoff don't bother excusin' y'self, I'll just figure why y'left." He shoves himself up from his chair, though does not loom entirely upright-- all it takes is for him to lean into one paw crutched on the table so he can swipe a cookie with the other, outstretched hand. "Thanks. And yeah. Bask in my company. Y'know, you do miss out on all m'finer points." He puts the cookie into his mouth. Yes, exactly like that. Cookie, mouth, gone. Chewing, he plops back down into his chair and stares over at her, 'well?' like it wasn't /his/ idea she come here, which since she only /happened/ to wander by obviously it wasn't. Maybe.
Eyes roll as she finishes off the cookie partially chewed. Once it is gone she eyes the last one in her hand and leaves it be for the moment. "I do appreciate it. But I'll be fine, thank you." Head tipping from one side to the other Miniyal studies him a moment before finally giving her head a shake. "Nope. Don't see a one. And I know it's not your personality. Cause I've been subjected to that repeatedly. It's like dealing with a hyper-sexed twelve turn old with some sort of mental deficiency." Smiling now, she must like that description, she just looks back at him. Because it /was/ his idea and she has nowhere else to be and is quite good at waiting him out. No slouching, of course, in her posture, but she appears relaxed none the less. Somewhere along the way he lost the scariness that used to leave her bothered by his presence.
R'vain chews a bit more, swallows, does all the slouching for both of them, and grins back to her smile. It could be thought that her unbotheredness pleases him. It at least doesn't hinder his ability to show off his teeth, freshly-cleaned of cookie-bits by a swipe of carnivore tongue. "Wasn't, y'know. Hyper-sexed. At twelve." Nothing said about now. Or something said, actually, by omission. Still grinning, and with nerve enough to wink. "Speakin' of. Th'Weyrwoman said y'made a chart. Figure I owe y'somethin' on that, ain't exactly seen your invoice."
Breaking the last cookie in half she offers the smaller of the two pieces to him. "Oh, didn't cost me but a few moments of pain where I had to actually discuss with someone the ins and outs of your bed and anywhere else." Miniyal shudders at this, nose wrinkling up at the thought. "Business has been slow enough I had the time. You talked to her since the wedding?" The weyrwoman that is, most likely, and not any of the women on the chart. Well, she /is/ on the chart, but still. "Almost feel like I should be telling you something, but at the same time I really don't feel like being scolded for not keeping someone's secret. Ah, well. Unless you know, of course. In which case it doesn't do me any good to repeat it."
R'vain blinks, his gaze drawn down by the broken cookie half offered out. Only a split-second and he understands, and puts out his paw to take it. Peace. "Ain't 'cept in passin'. She was pretty peaked at th'wedding. Or after, rather. Brought 'er home." He pauses, elbow bent, hand lifted, the cookie-half halfway to his mouth, mouth opened to receive it-- and closes his mouth for a moment, grin vanishing, gaze going a little sharp as it refocuses on the woman rather than the treat. "What."
Miniyal's gaze drops down after the cookie is taken and she busies herself with consuming her half. Normally she might lick the last bit of sugar from her fingers, but it seems she's not going to do that in this company. In this company she just brushes it off on her skirt. "You don't tell her I told you." She's firm sounding on this and her head lifts back up. Watching him intently to measure his response not just in words, but in any physical movement. "Need your word on that. No lying."
"A'right. I probably tell 'er I guessed," the Weyrleader replies with a lazy shrug, or what was meant to be a lazy shrug, but is a bit tightly wound across the yoke of the shoulders for the ease his slouch should promote. "Or don't mention it at all. But you got t'tell me how you know."
"She's expecting. I assume it's Ashwin's. I've heard nothing to say otherwise." Well, he said he'd not tell. Basically. And if he does there's going to be such trouble for him. "I assume she'll let people know eventually. I'm not sure if he knows. I'm guessing Neiran does." How does she know? Well, at least this time Miniyal doesn't have to own up to any snooping. It was all luck. "Ran into her late one night in the living cavern. Her and Neiran. She was talking about some troubles she'd had, this was the 15th, and I was just mostly hassling her saying she might be pregnant. Turns out I have this amazing drunken intuition. She confirmed it for me at the wedding. I wonder if she thought I'd remember. I may have had more than my share at the wedding as well."
R'vain, quiet, absorbs all that Miniyal has to tell him; midway through he does stuff the half-cookie into his mouth so he can chew and use /that/ as a new excuse for silence until his informant's run out of information she cares to provide. It will be a very well-chewed cookie. He swallows in the ensuing silence, then notes, "She'd've told me, pretty sure. Or stopped it, and said nothing." The Weyrleader makes these comments with a sober kind of certainty and a hard indifference; it's imperfect, but adequately obscures whatever else he might think on that 'if' they're not discussing directly. "Shouldn't've gone t'th'wedding. Think she was sick after. Could've excused out, ain't good t'travel, hard on 'er." His tongue goes up over his teeth and comes back down; the *tschk* is soft, but present, and then he winds up his little moment of thinking-out-loud with, "She'd've had t'say though. Stubborn. Ain't goin' t'be good."
Head tilting to one side as she takes a bite of her half of the last cookie it is Miniyal's turn to listen. When he finishes she shakes her head. "No, been too long to have been. She'd have known before now if it was." It's. . .somewhere around reassurance. It's not something she's real good at, especially with this man. But she tries. Then stuffs the last of her cookie into her mouth and is silent while she chews and then swallows. "Can't imagine it's going to be good for her at all. She's not exactly built properly to have an easy time of it. Still, I imagine she wants to keep it so she'll figure out how to make it work. She won't be able to hide it overly long. Some can and some can't and she'll show. If it were someone else I'd say she'd be likely to say before she does, but it's Roa and she's got a lack of common sense in a lot of ways. She's more like her dad than she wants to admit I imagine."
"She is, I imagine," says R'vain, reflectively, as though he is only half-with the conversation and the half of him that /is/ with it is attending to the Weyrwoman's similarities to her father in only the most slow and thoughtful way-- academically. And he is not an academic man, mostly, so there should be relatively little surprise that the other half of his mind is going forward with notes like what comes next. "You workin' f'her directly again yet?"
"I've no interest in being in her employ in any manner." Said firmly if with no real emotion other than that firmness. "It doesn't work. There are some people I know better than to offer to assist. Besides, I've enough work to keep me busy enough some days. The rest of the time I have for myself and my projects." Her undefined projects that Miniyal will go on about doing without ever really telling most people what they are. Perhaps she's cultivating an air of mystery. More likely half the time they're not really anything at all, but it does sound better than 'I wander around and read and waste time.' Hands folding in her lap since they are entirely free of cookie she shrugs. "As much as anyone can be, I am my own boss. I prefer it that way."
"Always th'best posts t'have," R'vain agrees, or inasmuch as agrees, through implication and a flash of toothy grin. "S'y'/can't/ work f'Roa, that th'general idea? Ain't no conflict of interest then, y'keep me posted what she's up to." A beat, and the grin grows, assisted by a poke and swipe of tongue at the corner of his mouth. "Stubborn. Got t'keep an eye on her somehow, now she's in a family way." Right, he is purely good-hearted and thinking of Roa's health.
Blinking twice, Miniyal stares for a moment through narrowed eyes at him. "You want me to spy on the weyrwoman?" Because he might be thinking of something else entirely and she is just interpreting what he wants incorrectly. That is entirely possible, of course. But judging by the look she gives him, she doesn't think it very probable a situation. "I do believe it was that act that led up to my being fired as her assistant in the first place." Well, not so much really, but one sticks with the story presented to the public no matter what. Well, no one said that exactly, but she was 'fired' after all. "I get caught or she suspects and she's likely to guess who asked me to do it. She asks me directly and your name doesn't come into it, of course, but I'm not looking to add friction to my life. Makes it hard she wanders over for tea sometime and is all pissed at me. Then I have to explain to him."
"No." R'vain is thinking of something else. "I'm wantin' you t'tell me what you know. I ain't askin' you t'find out anything especial. But you ain't me, and I got a hunch she tells us different things, or f'that matter tells us th'same things different. I want t'know how she comes across t'you. Just like you told me this just now, only t'th'enth degree." There, he's explained, and tosses off a careless waggle of one paw to cast off any importance the explanation had. "You ain't willin', I don't mind. But if me askin' you t'do it's liable t'make you more probable t'do it, don't hurt me t'ask, right?" Another beat, in which his hand goes down, and now he grins a little-- weirdly. Crookedly. Like he hates to be grinning at all, but hasn't quite formulated a better expression for this yet. "Y'have t'explain t'him, in this hypothetical mess that ain't goin' t'happen, why?"
"She sees things differently than I do. I see this news I shared as just that. Doing the job I told you I would do. She might not see it that way. Trust, you know. She's got more issues with it than I do and that's saying something momentous there." Miniyal grimaces a bit at her words, but brushes them away the same way she lifts a hand to brush away hair from her face. Said and done, no taking the words back now. "We're not chatty, her and I. We're not. . .there's been trouble between us since we met almost. Lately it's like we're creeping around some big animal in a room trying to pretend neither of us sees it and not wanting to disturb it. Tip toeing around so we don't set each other off. Doesn't exactly build a confidence sharing atmosphere." His question at the end takes longer to answer, the explanation having to be worked out in her head so as not to sound too bad. "Can't be sure she finds out I do something like that she won't go to him anyway. They're close enough she might. Then he brings it up or just waits. Some people, they have a way of waiting that tells you they're waiting for you to come clean. It borders on the personal, her and I. I can separate the work from the personal and keep the one from him, but the other? I can't." She comes to a stop here because those words appear to have come out wrong. "I don't want to." There, that's better. If a little farther from the truth.
"F'get I asked, then. S'not a big point." This, he slips in while she's working out that larger, second explanation, with another flip of careless paw. His interest lies with what she'll say next, and he draws back his hands along the arms of the chair, slumping lower, knees going out wide while his feet find someplace to prop beneath the table, watching. "Just waits, huh." A little like disapproval, that, though he dismisses it with a singular jerk of his head and a revival of his grin. "Where'd y'come across th'want t'stand, b'th'way?" Yeah. By the way. Separate topic. "Probably ain't y'last chance. Just a guess."
It would be wisest to forget he did ask, but Miniyal's wisdom is not exactly well-revered. It being almost entirely lacking at times. "I didn't say I wouldn't do it. I just said there could be trouble from it. It's your right to know up front about what that trouble could be. Since you're the one asking and all. It's doable." Her doubts she keeps to herself and only lets out to play when alone or in her room when there is someone to soothe them away. For the public she does try that confident thing. It may not always be believable, but she tries. "I'll just need to think on it a bit. Find a way to not seem obvious about talking to her." Nodding once she drifts into silence, likely giving the first thirty thoughts in her head as to how their due attention. Plans always come up right away. Not usually good ones, but they appear. When they've been shuffled off she blinks. The look he gets is considering, comes through narrowed eyes, and ends with a quiet snort. Disapproval. How dare he. "I'll be twenty-four in a few months. The rate the queens rise around here it very well could be." Her words end abruptly as if she was going to add something, but recalled at the last minute whom she was speaking with so thought better of it.
"Min'yal." A command made out of her name. He tips his head down and stares at her from beneath the fray of riotous lashes, eyes glinting. "I can give you better things t'do. Ain't no good t'me you piss off my Weyrwoman on my account, whether she knows I'm behind it or not. So don't put yourself out." His tongue goes up under his upper lip then, curling and withdrawing in silence. "Th'rate th'queens rise. Yeah. Point." And he drops his gaze first, head shaking. "Ain't usual, t'glare at a man f'suggesting you're young, by th'way." Grumbled, and yet he does look apologetic. Not that he's apologizing. Or looking at her. Maybe the table understands that he's sorry, though.
"You probably can." Give her better things to do. "But they might not interest me so much. Still, if you don't want me to I will dismiss it from my thoughts." Simple as that. Miniyal appears to have no interest either way in the task. He doesn't want it done she won't do it. "And for the record? I would never put myself out for you. I don't get paid enough." Shaking her head slowly at the not-apology she grins as he stares at the table. It's gone by the time he might look up again. "You were implying something. About why I decided to. You think it was his idea."
"I think he might've had something to do with it," allows R'vain at length, dragging his emerald focus back up from the table to the woman across it, and if this is a thought of some seriousness to him, well, the fact that he lets all those much richer chances to make naughty jokes go by unexplored would be the best clue.
"Why don't you like him?" Because, as he once pointed out, he's known the former weyrleader much longer than her. Miniyal studies the current weyrleader without quite looking at him. No chance of eye contact, just glances upwards from a head tilted slightly downwards. If she's aware the question is asked as she worries at her ring it doesn't make her able to stop the action.
R'vain is less subtle about the avoiding-of-eye-contact-- he slumps deeper yet in his chair and tucks his head down. If he slouched deeper his chin would rest on his chest and he could sleep, maybe, like so, and wake up with a hell of a crick in his neck. But he just stares at the edge of the table instead. "I dunno." His brows draw after that; of course it's an idiotic answer, no answer at all. "Put me out of th'first wing t'learn me something. Thought I might've had a clue what that was, besides just t'keep me out of his hair, out've Vasyath's flights." A little heat flushes across the bridge of his nose and apples of his cheeks, swallowing freckles, but his voice stays low and bland. "Things were all screwed up after he came back from Fort. Bad turn or two there. Everything since, been worse. Feel like some of it's personal. S'all."
Miniyal listens with an objective sort of air about her. As if she's not emotionally involved at all with the man being talked about. When it's apparent he's going to stare down as he talks she gives up the pretense of not watching him. "He's. . ." Something, but what she might have said she does not say. Not to him. "He brought it up. When we were on vacation. We were at Harper when the news arrived. When we were at Southern Boll discussing our upcoming, possible, wedding." Before the eggs were clutched. Before he knew about any gold egg on the sands. Those thoughts are left unspoken. "I didn't like him. I was furious at him. Not then. Before. When he used me to run his message to G'mal. The past. I suppose he did have something to do with my decision, but he did not- it's not as if it were a thought that had never occurred to me in the past. I just couldn't."
"S'th'kind of thing he does," remarks R'vain. Maybe he means G'thon's involvement with her decision to stand. Maybe he means sending her to G'mal. Maybe he means whatever the former Weyrleader said at Southern Boll or at Harper. But the words lack malice. They are flat from a pain long since confronted-- and embraced. One freckled finger taps softly and slowly against the arm of the chair while the flush fades from ruddy cheeks. "So he-- enabled you, I guess. S'all. A little confidence."
"I know." To his first statement, spoken as a near whispered, resigned, agreement. It's not always Miniyal is blind to what goes on. Just when she wants to be which is, granted, /most/ of the time. "I've no reason to defend his actions. To me or anyone else. They were his to do and I accept that even if I do not always agree with what he might have done. The rest is none of your business." The ring on her finger is twisted around once more before she folds her hands in her lap and is still again. "But I suppose that's close enough." Another moment of silence and her next words were likely not meant to be said out loud at all. "He has an answer for everything." Shaking her head she studies her hands.
"Yeah. Well." R'vain glances up, at last, and now has the weakest of his grins for Miniyal to see, if she'll look up from that ring she worries. "Don't have t'accept his answers. I never could." He tries to wish away the grin with a wipe of his tongue over his teeth-- thorough, this lash, and slow-- and fails, but adds anyway, "Didn't mean t'ask that serious a question."
She does look up, eventually, and frowns at the grin. Because that is what she does. Frown when he grins. "Yea, well, I forgive you for thinking you could have a serious conversation. I'm surprised you lasted that long." Miniyal doesn't comment further on answers. She has, likely, said more than enough and some small amount more than she might have intended. "So, was chatting up your weyrwoman all you wanted to discuss then? Or was that all you could remember? Probably need to make notes. Your age, as much as you've abused yourself, you're lucky to have any memory at all."
Except, see, the serious aspect seems not quite that willing to depart. R'vain grins-- sure, he's had lots of practice, it's easy to do-- but his voice is all gravel and salt. "Yeah. There was another thing." Long pause while he looks over at the box of unopened letters, then down at the opened ones and his work in progress, then over at a single tiny crumb of cookie that dropped when she held out the broken smaller half for him to take. "I want reports on D'ven. You got t'tell me how well y'can do that. Like y'said, you wouldn't put yourself out f'me." Oh, right, that's meant to be a /joke./ So he glances up at her and grins a little better, lamely.
Oh, trouble. Not that a hint of it appears on her face. There is just a glance downward at her hands as Miniyal draws in a slow breath. When she looks up again she's found a suitably neutral expression. "That is- I've occasion to speak to him recently a few times." Frowning again she lets out a sigh. "I can do it easily enough." More fiddling of the ring and she studies it without speaking for some time. "I need to know what sort of reports you want exactly before I can agree to this." Looking up she shakes her head, but meets his eyes for the briefest of moments before glancing away.
"Personal." R'vain's gaze is steady now, though the grin he affixed hasn't moved; it sprawls comfortably over his mouth while his eyes don't do anything like smiling at all. "I can get information 'bout how he handles his program. I can go see th'weyrlings m'self if I want. I want t'know what he does personally, how he's doin' it. Who he meets with, what he does, anything that ain't weyrlings." A pause, and the grin finally glints in his eyes, too, brightening. "Don't need a chart, though. Y'can skip that part of th'detail."
"Personal." The word is repeated quietly as Miniyal shifts in her chair some and sits up straighter. Like she slouches, but still, sometimes she has to pull herself up a bit. It comes with a tilt of her chin upwards. "I'll do what I can." Aaaaaaand more quiet from her as thoughts attempt to get spoken she doesn't want to say. "You could, sometime, want to know something easy. I don't believe it's required you make my life a pain in the ass all the time." Shaking her head she just asks, "Anything else?"
"Nothin' that won't be a pain in your ass." But the grin despairs, falters, and departs. He pushes himself sort of upward-- not straight, just up-- in his chair and curls forward, gaze intense. "Y'asked f'this work," R'vain rumbles, low. "You don't /need/ t'do it. You don't /need/ th'marks. You don't even charge f'special assignment. So-- why?"
Chewing on her lower lip, Miniyal doesn't move from her chosen firmly upright position. "Haven't we had this conversation? I believe I've answered this question already." She has, indeed. Still, for whatever reason she will answer it again. And completely ignores any grin or comment that might be suggestive. "I do it because I need to be doing something. Because I'm good at it. I prefer not to- to gather information on certain people. And I prefer not to appear as if I am tying myself too much to one person. However, for now I can do what you ask. Because I would be doing it anyway. Finding things out. It's what I do even when I don't want to. It's wrong. To be able to contribute and not do it just because it's difficult sometimes."
R'vain's gaze remains intense, but he slumps back into his chair all over again. "Yeah," he replies, voice gravelly again. "It is." His jaw shifts, the joint stretching, and he blinks once before adding, "That's all from me."
Having shared enough those last words are gratefully taken as a dismissal. So, Miniyal rises to her feet and bobs her head once. "Good. I need a drink." Doesn't she always? Smoothing down her sweater with an absent brush of her hand she turns to head for the door. "You're an ass, but you're High Reaches' ass. That earns you my support. And somewhat more leeway than I might give my other clients. Just don't fuck up too much. I can't handle working for a fuck up. I won't."
His farewell's nothing more than a wave of a paw, and he leans forward then to draw over his letter and pen. He doesn't start up right away, though; it's an illusion. "I didn't," says the Weyrleader, but it is spoken in his quietest range, and she might miss it.