As much trouble as one can be in.
Who: Ownah and J'lor
Where: Outside at Five Mines Hold
When: Post dinner on day 20, month 8, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
What: After a disasterous meeting with M'cay, Ownah finds J'lor by chance and registers her complaint of his behavior. Her beliefs and his clash once more. Or at least create interesting conversation between the two.
4/21/2007
It's after dinner and like any night after dinner Ownah has a choice. Remain somewhere public or hide somewhere and hope no one finds her. It'd be easy enough to retire to the dorm after dinner, but she's not twelve and therefore not going to bed after dinner. Instead, it being summer, she's come outside to get a little fresh air. It's not quite public, not quite private, but it is somewhere she can see anyone coming and plan a route of escape. There's also enough traffic now and again to keep her from having to worry overly much about what might happen. Also? She just likes to be outside over being inside and so has found a spot to sit on the ground and bounce a small pile of gathered rocks off a larger rock several yards away.
One participant in that milling traffic is a long lean man with a brown hair pulled back in a queue. He's finally gained a pair of shoes and clothes that look less rag-tag, but it will take more than a couple sevens to remove eleven turns worth of tan from his skin. Wherever he was headed, he pauses when he spots Ownah and her little-stones-hit-big-stone game. Moving so he stands near her without being -too- near he asks, peering down at the girl, "Are you winning?"
She saw him coming, or must have, since she doesn't appear startled. Or maybe she just has schooled herself to never appear startled even when she has been. "Oh. Been looking for you." Ownah glances up as she tosses the rock, it hits the larger one and bounces twice before settling in the dirt. "Ain't a matter of winning or losing. It's a matter of practice. Practice throwing rocks so if you need to you can. Get your own if you want to practice too. I only have a few."
"Faranth knows, in a mining hold, rocks are very hard to come by," J'lor muses solemnly as he lowers himself into a crouch. "You've found me, if you were looking. What do you need of me?"
Ownah's head tilts as she turns to look at him. "S'not a matter of there being a lot. It's a matter of needing the right size is all. And my having spent almost an hour getting them and stacking them up is all." In other words, it's the principle of the thing, yes? "Don't appreciate men threatening to beat me up at dinner is all. Got enough trouble when there's no meal to protect me, but when I'm just trying to eat and make conversation that was forced on me I don' like it. That's all. Maybe you tell those that came with you to mind their manners."
Blink. "I'm sorry?" J'lor's brows draw down in mild confusion, "I don't...someone was threatening you? One of mine?" As if he still has any claim to call them that. "What do you mean, conversation that was forced on you? What happened?"
"It ain't that he forced himself on me. It's just that I don't appreciate men I don't know asking me personal questions like they got a right to know. Especially those that're only going to turn out to be bad. I lived at a weyr, you know. I know what that sort is like." Ownah knows quite a bit for someone whose lived in so few places and for such a short time. "One of those from the island, right? One that you kidnapped. Makes him one of yours. You steal em you got to be accountable for em is what I say. He said he was going to hit me. Which, had we not been all in the middle of dinner I might have let him try, but we was and I got to lay low. Not give out ideas and all."
"One of my weyrlings. Said he was going to hit you. One of the...A'der? No, he keeps his distance. E'ber would never. Neither would M'cay or..." the bluerider studies his feet as he runs through the list of candidates in his own mind. "None of the ones from the mainland would do such a thing. They all know better. How did this happen?"
Another rock sails towards the target, missing by a few inches. A scowl takes over Ownah's pleasant features as she takes up her next rock and aims more carefully, winging the target. "That's the one. M'cay. I don't know what happened. He just got all mad. I told him that I wasn't going to be taken advantage of and he got mad at me and asked what I'd do if he tried. I told him I'd kick his ass." She stops here to look down at the rock in her hand and let the oncoming night hide the embarrassed blush that creeps over her cheeks. "I didn't mean anything by it. He just had me all mad. I'm supposed to watch what I say, but he shouldn't have stood up like that in front of everyone. 'm the one who'll be in trouble for it anything comes of it."
"Nothing will come of it, save that I plan to have a word with M'cay and hear his side of the tale. If you should have known better, so should he." J'lor scoops up a small rock that is not belonging to Ownah's pile and idly tosses it at the rock that serves as a target. They collide dead-on. Stupid riders needing to have their stupid aim honed for throwing stupid firestone. "Ownah you know, don't you, that you don't have to speak with anyone you don't wish to speak with. Not when it comes to me and mine."
"If I'd have known saying yes, he could sit at my table would bring about so much talk I'd have just said no." Ownah points this out as she scowls at the target as if it is the rock's fault she still misses and he does not. Taking up another rock she aims carefully and lets fly, grinning when it hits dead center and then lands on the ground with a soft thud. "Easier to play nice when I can. Makes less trouble. That's all. Not going to make waves."
"She says as she takes up target practice," J'lor murmurs amusedly. "How've you been otherwise? Your bad fall all healed up? Have you had any others?" He turns his head to regard Ownah, but in the fading light of dusk, it's a bit hard to tell what's a bruise and what's a shadow.
"Toss rocks. We used to when I was little. At each other when I was young enough. Catch one of the other kids up in your trees you couldn't yell em down. Not if you weren't an adult. So, we tossed rocks at em." Ownah grins fondly at the memory before it fades away with a plunk of tossed rock against stationary rock collision. "When we had trees, yea. Before it was all destroyed. I been fine. Learned from my mistake and stay out of his way now. Works good. Learned his schedule to duck out of the way."
His listens in silence, save for the occasional toss of small stone towards rock. J'lor is less particular about the ones he picks up, and they, in turn, are less particular about going where he wants them to. "If you throw more with your wrist and less with your elbow, you'll get more bullseyes," he offers once Ownah is quiet. "I'm sorry about your trees. You learned to duck. Then you came here."
Only teenagers can manage to make any action seem grudgingly accepted. Which is why she says nothing, but the next toss of the rock takes into account his words while she radiates some sense of doing it only to humor him. "Learned to duck. Learned when it's best not to duck. Sometimes ducking? It just leads to more trouble. You got to take your hits sometimes, that's all. Some folks, they get you once they let it go. You just got to accept it. Learn to make it hurt as little as possible. S'just punches. Some people's place to give em and some people's to take em. That's all." Ownah shrugs her shoulders and tries another throw.
There's so much wrong with Ownah's statements to the bluerider that in the end, it's almost too much. He only shakes his head, picks up another stone and murmurs, "No."
"Ya got strange ideas is all. You got to accept that your ideas ain't the way of it." Ownah spares a sympathetic look towards the older man before she tosses her stone and then another. Three in a row to hit and she'll likely get cocky soon. "Ain't nothing wrong with knowing your place. It makes your life easier. You learn what's expected of you and you do it. Don't cause trouble, behave, don't make waves."
"I think the world could do with a couple waves," J'lor replies. "Those tosses are much better. I don't think anybody's place ought to entail ducking from people, and certainly not from husbands."
Another rock hits and thumps into the dirt. There's no longer fun in just trying to hit the rock it would seem as her thrown rocks seem to be aimed to land in vaguely the same area. "Husband has a right. My father hit my mother when she needed correction. It's how it goes. You have to know when you done wrong." Ownah watches her throwing and doesn't spare more than an occasional glance towards the man near her. Just enough to give the impression she is watching him and he better not try anything. "He only really hit me when he was drunk. The rest was just nothing. Besides, he stopped before I got hurt." Another rock gets tossed. "Learned my lesson once. S'all it took."
"Your tooth," J'lor surmises, his tenor voice still soft. "If wives know they've done wrong when their husbands hit them, how do husbands know when they've done wrong?"
Ownah's head tips back and she laughs. It's too loud, her enthusiastic if short laugh, and so she stifles it with her hand after her rock misses its target entirely. "He didn't do it. No. I fell outta tree. I was just a kid. Parents did beat me for it, but cause it wasn't proper behavior for a girl is all. Not supposed to have been actin' like my brothers. Weren't their fault for treating me that way." Shaking her head she picks up another rock, but doesn't throw it. "Don' know. Husband never done anything wasn't his right. Suppose they do something too bad someone tells someone. Not sure. Didn't have a need to ever know."
"Nobody's right to hurt another person, Ownah. Nobody's. I know they say otherwise. They're wrong. I think, perhaps," J'lor steals another glance at the shadow shape that is his conversation partner, "you understand that more than you let on."
"I don't understand any more than I have to," are Ownah's words as she continues to hold onto her rock. "You don't get in trouble that way. That's all. I don't want to get in trouble. Just want to do my work is all. Maybe I got something to prove, but I don't mean to- I just know my place. Ain't gonna make trouble."
"And yet here you are at Five Mines with an ousted Lord, a collection of criminals and a wing of exiled dragonriders. If you ask me," which of course, Ownah didn't, "you're in about as much trouble as a body can get. You may as well stand up for yourself while you're at it." J'lor shrugs. It's no big.
The rock drops and Ownah wipes her hands off on her pants. "Ain't here cause I want to be. Here cause I couldn't stay where I was and I couldn't go home. Had to go somewhere. From Nabol. Why should I leave my own home?" Taking up her rock she throws it, but it misses by a considerable distance. "Standing up for myself will only make trouble. S'what I was told. Men don't like it. Ducking out of the way? They let that be. Fighting back just makes em come back with friends."
"We're not all like that," the bluerider notes quietly, head tipping downward as he finally settles from crouch to sit. "I thought you lived in a weyr now. Not a hold."
"Grew up outside Nabol. Family orchard." Ownah tries again, nicking the larger rock barely. The magic is gone. "When I married I went to the hold proper cause it's where Urbann worked. When the weyr had to be tithed with guards we went there is all. But, I left. And I came here." Silence but for scrape of one rock against the other as she holds one in each hand now. "No way to know til you're on the wrong end of too many fists. And I can take a beating, but I ain't gonna if I don't have to."
"You don't have to." The words are carefully spoken and clearly punctuated by the bluerider. He drapes his arms over his knees. "Getting dark," J'lor notes idly. "We could get stepped on."
Her eyes blink and Ownah peers around as if she's lost track of the time. "Oh. S'why I haven't hit nothing." Dropping her rocks she dusts off her hands. "I'd best be gettin' then. Sorry I took up your time and all." Head cocking to one side she peers into the growing dark, not looking over at him. "Sometimes you do. Got to take one."
"Not anymore." There is the faint sound of movement as J'lor moves back into a crouch and then upright, onto his feet. "May I walk you to the hold?" The hold that is all of a quarter mile away.
"Gotta not be afraid," Ownah offers as she stands up and wipes off the seat of her pants. "Of being hit, I mean. Got to accept it might happen so when it comes you can think past it. That's the trick. Thinkin' past it to what you're gonna do." Hesitating she nods before thinking the encroaching dark might keep him from seeing that. "I guess. So long as you don' walk too close."
"I shall be sure to keep out of your punching range," J'lor says sincerely. "I'm not quite so good at managing getting hit as you are." He begins moving when she does, keeping the width of a full other person between them. "I suppose if you want to...that is, if a profession requires getting hit, well, that's different. A man shouldn't have to hurt somebody to prove himself."
"Ain't gonna punch you unless you give me cause to," Ownah says with quiet sincerity. "Ain't like that sort. Don' got no need to hit no one that doesn't have it coming." She moves steadily towards the hold, her hands finding their way into the pockets of her pants. "No, a man shouldn't. But they do. Nothing to be done for it. Men sometimes do what they shouldn't. Just got to hold to the faith that someone'll stop em. That's all."
"Stop them yourself. Or work towards a world where it's not seen as acceptable. Both." J'lor trudges along beside her, hands in his own pockets as they reach the door to the hold and the pale glowlight that illuminates the space within. "Well. Here we are."
"S'not my place to stop 'em. It's just not. It's my place to do the laundry and clean up after the meals. That's all." Ownah shakes her head and pulls her hands from her pockets. "Can't stop nothing. Can just keep em off me. The best I can. That's all. I'll see you around, I guess."
"Can," the tall man counters. "Should. You make your own place." J'lor takes a couple small steps back. "Sleep well."
"Easier for some than others. S'all I'm saying. Got a place. Can't risk losing it." Ownah shrugs and turns to go inside. "G'night." Inside to make her way safely to her bed.
"Oh my dear," J'lor sighs softly, allowing himself the use of the nickname only after Ownah is too far away to hear it. "I think that place is already lost." But he turns to make his own way through the darkness and towards his weyr, where Vellath waits.
Where: Outside at Five Mines Hold
When: Post dinner on day 20, month 8, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
What: After a disasterous meeting with M'cay, Ownah finds J'lor by chance and registers her complaint of his behavior. Her beliefs and his clash once more. Or at least create interesting conversation between the two.
4/21/2007
It's after dinner and like any night after dinner Ownah has a choice. Remain somewhere public or hide somewhere and hope no one finds her. It'd be easy enough to retire to the dorm after dinner, but she's not twelve and therefore not going to bed after dinner. Instead, it being summer, she's come outside to get a little fresh air. It's not quite public, not quite private, but it is somewhere she can see anyone coming and plan a route of escape. There's also enough traffic now and again to keep her from having to worry overly much about what might happen. Also? She just likes to be outside over being inside and so has found a spot to sit on the ground and bounce a small pile of gathered rocks off a larger rock several yards away.
One participant in that milling traffic is a long lean man with a brown hair pulled back in a queue. He's finally gained a pair of shoes and clothes that look less rag-tag, but it will take more than a couple sevens to remove eleven turns worth of tan from his skin. Wherever he was headed, he pauses when he spots Ownah and her little-stones-hit-big-stone game. Moving so he stands near her without being -too- near he asks, peering down at the girl, "Are you winning?"
She saw him coming, or must have, since she doesn't appear startled. Or maybe she just has schooled herself to never appear startled even when she has been. "Oh. Been looking for you." Ownah glances up as she tosses the rock, it hits the larger one and bounces twice before settling in the dirt. "Ain't a matter of winning or losing. It's a matter of practice. Practice throwing rocks so if you need to you can. Get your own if you want to practice too. I only have a few."
"Faranth knows, in a mining hold, rocks are very hard to come by," J'lor muses solemnly as he lowers himself into a crouch. "You've found me, if you were looking. What do you need of me?"
Ownah's head tilts as she turns to look at him. "S'not a matter of there being a lot. It's a matter of needing the right size is all. And my having spent almost an hour getting them and stacking them up is all." In other words, it's the principle of the thing, yes? "Don't appreciate men threatening to beat me up at dinner is all. Got enough trouble when there's no meal to protect me, but when I'm just trying to eat and make conversation that was forced on me I don' like it. That's all. Maybe you tell those that came with you to mind their manners."
Blink. "I'm sorry?" J'lor's brows draw down in mild confusion, "I don't...someone was threatening you? One of mine?" As if he still has any claim to call them that. "What do you mean, conversation that was forced on you? What happened?"
"It ain't that he forced himself on me. It's just that I don't appreciate men I don't know asking me personal questions like they got a right to know. Especially those that're only going to turn out to be bad. I lived at a weyr, you know. I know what that sort is like." Ownah knows quite a bit for someone whose lived in so few places and for such a short time. "One of those from the island, right? One that you kidnapped. Makes him one of yours. You steal em you got to be accountable for em is what I say. He said he was going to hit me. Which, had we not been all in the middle of dinner I might have let him try, but we was and I got to lay low. Not give out ideas and all."
"One of my weyrlings. Said he was going to hit you. One of the...A'der? No, he keeps his distance. E'ber would never. Neither would M'cay or..." the bluerider studies his feet as he runs through the list of candidates in his own mind. "None of the ones from the mainland would do such a thing. They all know better. How did this happen?"
Another rock sails towards the target, missing by a few inches. A scowl takes over Ownah's pleasant features as she takes up her next rock and aims more carefully, winging the target. "That's the one. M'cay. I don't know what happened. He just got all mad. I told him that I wasn't going to be taken advantage of and he got mad at me and asked what I'd do if he tried. I told him I'd kick his ass." She stops here to look down at the rock in her hand and let the oncoming night hide the embarrassed blush that creeps over her cheeks. "I didn't mean anything by it. He just had me all mad. I'm supposed to watch what I say, but he shouldn't have stood up like that in front of everyone. 'm the one who'll be in trouble for it anything comes of it."
"Nothing will come of it, save that I plan to have a word with M'cay and hear his side of the tale. If you should have known better, so should he." J'lor scoops up a small rock that is not belonging to Ownah's pile and idly tosses it at the rock that serves as a target. They collide dead-on. Stupid riders needing to have their stupid aim honed for throwing stupid firestone. "Ownah you know, don't you, that you don't have to speak with anyone you don't wish to speak with. Not when it comes to me and mine."
"If I'd have known saying yes, he could sit at my table would bring about so much talk I'd have just said no." Ownah points this out as she scowls at the target as if it is the rock's fault she still misses and he does not. Taking up another rock she aims carefully and lets fly, grinning when it hits dead center and then lands on the ground with a soft thud. "Easier to play nice when I can. Makes less trouble. That's all. Not going to make waves."
"She says as she takes up target practice," J'lor murmurs amusedly. "How've you been otherwise? Your bad fall all healed up? Have you had any others?" He turns his head to regard Ownah, but in the fading light of dusk, it's a bit hard to tell what's a bruise and what's a shadow.
"Toss rocks. We used to when I was little. At each other when I was young enough. Catch one of the other kids up in your trees you couldn't yell em down. Not if you weren't an adult. So, we tossed rocks at em." Ownah grins fondly at the memory before it fades away with a plunk of tossed rock against stationary rock collision. "When we had trees, yea. Before it was all destroyed. I been fine. Learned from my mistake and stay out of his way now. Works good. Learned his schedule to duck out of the way."
His listens in silence, save for the occasional toss of small stone towards rock. J'lor is less particular about the ones he picks up, and they, in turn, are less particular about going where he wants them to. "If you throw more with your wrist and less with your elbow, you'll get more bullseyes," he offers once Ownah is quiet. "I'm sorry about your trees. You learned to duck. Then you came here."
Only teenagers can manage to make any action seem grudgingly accepted. Which is why she says nothing, but the next toss of the rock takes into account his words while she radiates some sense of doing it only to humor him. "Learned to duck. Learned when it's best not to duck. Sometimes ducking? It just leads to more trouble. You got to take your hits sometimes, that's all. Some folks, they get you once they let it go. You just got to accept it. Learn to make it hurt as little as possible. S'just punches. Some people's place to give em and some people's to take em. That's all." Ownah shrugs her shoulders and tries another throw.
There's so much wrong with Ownah's statements to the bluerider that in the end, it's almost too much. He only shakes his head, picks up another stone and murmurs, "No."
"Ya got strange ideas is all. You got to accept that your ideas ain't the way of it." Ownah spares a sympathetic look towards the older man before she tosses her stone and then another. Three in a row to hit and she'll likely get cocky soon. "Ain't nothing wrong with knowing your place. It makes your life easier. You learn what's expected of you and you do it. Don't cause trouble, behave, don't make waves."
"I think the world could do with a couple waves," J'lor replies. "Those tosses are much better. I don't think anybody's place ought to entail ducking from people, and certainly not from husbands."
Another rock hits and thumps into the dirt. There's no longer fun in just trying to hit the rock it would seem as her thrown rocks seem to be aimed to land in vaguely the same area. "Husband has a right. My father hit my mother when she needed correction. It's how it goes. You have to know when you done wrong." Ownah watches her throwing and doesn't spare more than an occasional glance towards the man near her. Just enough to give the impression she is watching him and he better not try anything. "He only really hit me when he was drunk. The rest was just nothing. Besides, he stopped before I got hurt." Another rock gets tossed. "Learned my lesson once. S'all it took."
"Your tooth," J'lor surmises, his tenor voice still soft. "If wives know they've done wrong when their husbands hit them, how do husbands know when they've done wrong?"
Ownah's head tips back and she laughs. It's too loud, her enthusiastic if short laugh, and so she stifles it with her hand after her rock misses its target entirely. "He didn't do it. No. I fell outta tree. I was just a kid. Parents did beat me for it, but cause it wasn't proper behavior for a girl is all. Not supposed to have been actin' like my brothers. Weren't their fault for treating me that way." Shaking her head she picks up another rock, but doesn't throw it. "Don' know. Husband never done anything wasn't his right. Suppose they do something too bad someone tells someone. Not sure. Didn't have a need to ever know."
"Nobody's right to hurt another person, Ownah. Nobody's. I know they say otherwise. They're wrong. I think, perhaps," J'lor steals another glance at the shadow shape that is his conversation partner, "you understand that more than you let on."
"I don't understand any more than I have to," are Ownah's words as she continues to hold onto her rock. "You don't get in trouble that way. That's all. I don't want to get in trouble. Just want to do my work is all. Maybe I got something to prove, but I don't mean to- I just know my place. Ain't gonna make trouble."
"And yet here you are at Five Mines with an ousted Lord, a collection of criminals and a wing of exiled dragonriders. If you ask me," which of course, Ownah didn't, "you're in about as much trouble as a body can get. You may as well stand up for yourself while you're at it." J'lor shrugs. It's no big.
The rock drops and Ownah wipes her hands off on her pants. "Ain't here cause I want to be. Here cause I couldn't stay where I was and I couldn't go home. Had to go somewhere. From Nabol. Why should I leave my own home?" Taking up her rock she throws it, but it misses by a considerable distance. "Standing up for myself will only make trouble. S'what I was told. Men don't like it. Ducking out of the way? They let that be. Fighting back just makes em come back with friends."
"We're not all like that," the bluerider notes quietly, head tipping downward as he finally settles from crouch to sit. "I thought you lived in a weyr now. Not a hold."
"Grew up outside Nabol. Family orchard." Ownah tries again, nicking the larger rock barely. The magic is gone. "When I married I went to the hold proper cause it's where Urbann worked. When the weyr had to be tithed with guards we went there is all. But, I left. And I came here." Silence but for scrape of one rock against the other as she holds one in each hand now. "No way to know til you're on the wrong end of too many fists. And I can take a beating, but I ain't gonna if I don't have to."
"You don't have to." The words are carefully spoken and clearly punctuated by the bluerider. He drapes his arms over his knees. "Getting dark," J'lor notes idly. "We could get stepped on."
Her eyes blink and Ownah peers around as if she's lost track of the time. "Oh. S'why I haven't hit nothing." Dropping her rocks she dusts off her hands. "I'd best be gettin' then. Sorry I took up your time and all." Head cocking to one side she peers into the growing dark, not looking over at him. "Sometimes you do. Got to take one."
"Not anymore." There is the faint sound of movement as J'lor moves back into a crouch and then upright, onto his feet. "May I walk you to the hold?" The hold that is all of a quarter mile away.
"Gotta not be afraid," Ownah offers as she stands up and wipes off the seat of her pants. "Of being hit, I mean. Got to accept it might happen so when it comes you can think past it. That's the trick. Thinkin' past it to what you're gonna do." Hesitating she nods before thinking the encroaching dark might keep him from seeing that. "I guess. So long as you don' walk too close."
"I shall be sure to keep out of your punching range," J'lor says sincerely. "I'm not quite so good at managing getting hit as you are." He begins moving when she does, keeping the width of a full other person between them. "I suppose if you want to...that is, if a profession requires getting hit, well, that's different. A man shouldn't have to hurt somebody to prove himself."
"Ain't gonna punch you unless you give me cause to," Ownah says with quiet sincerity. "Ain't like that sort. Don' got no need to hit no one that doesn't have it coming." She moves steadily towards the hold, her hands finding their way into the pockets of her pants. "No, a man shouldn't. But they do. Nothing to be done for it. Men sometimes do what they shouldn't. Just got to hold to the faith that someone'll stop em. That's all."
"Stop them yourself. Or work towards a world where it's not seen as acceptable. Both." J'lor trudges along beside her, hands in his own pockets as they reach the door to the hold and the pale glowlight that illuminates the space within. "Well. Here we are."
"S'not my place to stop 'em. It's just not. It's my place to do the laundry and clean up after the meals. That's all." Ownah shakes her head and pulls her hands from her pockets. "Can't stop nothing. Can just keep em off me. The best I can. That's all. I'll see you around, I guess."
"Can," the tall man counters. "Should. You make your own place." J'lor takes a couple small steps back. "Sleep well."
"Easier for some than others. S'all I'm saying. Got a place. Can't risk losing it." Ownah shrugs and turns to go inside. "G'night." Inside to make her way safely to her bed.
"Oh my dear," J'lor sighs softly, allowing himself the use of the nickname only after Ownah is too far away to hear it. "I think that place is already lost." But he turns to make his own way through the darkness and towards his weyr, where Vellath waits.