Not scared of anyone
8-5-2006 (Reyce, Asynnida, Aelan):
Caucus Common Area
The common area between the two barracks has been made over into a sort of lounge area. Several sitting areas have been marked out by the use of cheerful rugs and circles of chairs and couches. Low tables are set in the center of each of these areas, and provide a place to set mugs of klah or reading material. A small hearth has been built at the east end of the room. There are never less than two pots of fresh klah simmering over the fire built within.
Contents:
Asynnida
Obvious Exits:
Caucus Barracks (CB) Dragon Barracks (DB) Out (O)
Cool temperature or not, Reyce has been outside for some time, apparently encouraged by the lack of rain and snow. A touch of red in his cheeks suggests some exercise, but the man has his breathing already under control by the time he reenters the commons, striding quickly across the room to the hearth. Snagging a pot of water - it's meant for tea drinkers, but will serve him just as well - he pours himself a mug of plain, slightly warm water and leans on the hearth while he drinks it.
Asynnida has been out for awhile now, it seems. Caught in the drizzles of rain. No longer completely wet, the somewhat damp runner heads into the commons. Her cheeks flush an apparent shade of red as she enters. "I'm... looking for..." She trails off, blushing and taking to looking through her pack, "Reyce...?" She asks softly, slighly shifting herself in a skittish manner.
A helpful harper sitting by the door looks up at Asynnida's words - Reyce himself is across the room, and out of earshot. The harper gives her a quick, sympathetic smile and points to the Bendenite by the hearth: "Over there, drinkin' his klah. The one with the beat-up jacket, see him?" The harper tries to keep his voice plain as he points Reyce out, but he keeps shooting Asynnida these apologetic looks.
Asynnida looks at the Harper with a look of confusion before she looks towards Reyce, and nodding he rhead a bit. "Thanks..." She says softly, simply turning another shade of red as she makes her way over towards Reyce. "Excuse me...?" She offers softly, flushing another shade of red. "I... You're... Reyce? I have... Something for you..." She stumbles along her words, simply going more red and shuffling herself uneasily.
Reyce is far less helpful than the harper, watching mutely as Asynnida stumbles through her introduction. He makes no effort to put her at ease, but at last he says simply, "I am. Yeah?" His eyes take in her appearance - the dampness, the pack she carries, and the plain resident's knot - but they don't show any reaction as he raises them back to her face.
Asynnida nods her head a bit, slightly smiling though not saying anything else yet. She takes out the large letter, offering it out towards Ryce. "It came... For you... Well... I.. Made sure that... It didn't get wet." She says softly, not offering anything else, simply shifting herself a bit and flushing a darker red.
Reyce's eyes narrow at the sight of that large letter, and his hand snaps out to claim it. He controls himself just before doing so, reining in the sharp motion and instead taking the heavy letter with some dignity. "Thanks." He flips the letter over in his palm, glancing down at it, then looks back at the damp runner who brought said letter. "You can have some klah or something if you're cold. Nobody'll care." Certainly not him, as he moves to drop himself in the nearest chair by the hearth, bringing both the letter and his mug of water with him.
Asynnida watches Ryce quietly, making notes it seems. "It's... No trouble..." She murmurs softly, shifting herself in her spot for a moment. "Thanks..." She murmurs, fetching a bit of klah in silence. Her gaze idly going towards Ryce as she takes her time with the klah.
Reyce ignores the attention she's focused on him, since his own has been diverted to the letter. He balances his mug carefully on the arm of his chair, freeing up his hands, and breaks letter's seal with his thumb. Unfortunately, that seal was the only thing holding the poorly folded bundle together, and when he breaks it, several of the papers escape to go fluttering to the floor. Cursing under his breath, Reyce doubles up to scrap them together and re-collect them.
Asynnida takes her klah, sipping at it a bit and watching Ryce quietly. She idly moves to pick up a letter near her, making sure not to look at it. "Here..." She says softly, handing it over with her eyes not breaking away from Ryce. She has no temptation to read the letter, it seems.
Reyce looks up sharply - he hadn't noticed that page slip away from him - and immediately narrows his eyes at Asynnida. No more attempts to play cool: he scans her face carefully, watching her eyes to verify that they're not pointed at his personal mail. "Thanks," he says again, and this time he just snatches it back from her hand. Folding it up with the other papers, he pushes them all into his jacket, tucking them against his ribs.
Aelan strides out of the barracks, looking over her shoulder with an irritated sneer. "Like I'm going to do something just because /she/ said it," she snorts, tugging down on the bottom of her vest and pushing her sleeves up indignantly. "Like I'm /scared/ of her or something. Not scared of anyone. They can't make me do anything." She's still muttering under her breath when she gets to the hearth and pours herself a mug, glaring at Reyce. "Benden, your sister's a-" Ah, but there's someone else, too, and the etiquette classes kick in enough to keep her from finishing that sentence, the scowl vanishing into a tight smile. "Hi."
Asynnida nods her head a bit, "Sorry..." She offers softly, shifting herself a bit and then standing once more. She takes a sip of the klah and then glances over towards Aelan. The runner simply looks at her klah, then towards the entrance and she slightly starts scooting in that direction.
Reyce has no etiquette classes to tie him down, so he finishes for Aelan - "She's a bitch. And not my sister." For a little while, he continues to watch Asynnida, monitoring her slight retreat, and then he looks over at Aelan. Picking up the mug he balanced on his chair arm earlier, he smirks at her before taking a drink. "So?"
"So she's a bitch, and if she keeps being a bitch, she's going to be a bitch with a broken nose," Aelan tosses back, making a face before taking a sip of the klah. "But she'll love that, gettin' blood all over her white coat. What's she doing here, anyhow? Isn't she a little old for this place?" She looks after Asynnida's retreat, a bit perplexed. "Shards, didn't figure I was that frightening."
Asynnida says nothing, shifting herself towards the entrance a bit more. Bot that she's needed or anything. The runner flushes as Aelan looks over at her. "Not... at all..." The runner stutters, turning away from the two in her embarrassment.
Reyce gives Aelan a withering look for her perplexed comment. "You're not," he declares flatly. To Asynnida, he adds, "Leave or don't. Fuck it." This last as he leans forward, grabbing a small chair across the way from him and hauling it towards himself. As he kicks off his boots, that he may put his feet up, Reyce says, "Big words, Keroon. Somehow I don't see you following through." A sneer twitches his features.
Aelan shrugs one shoulder at Reyce. "You don't have to. I've got nothing to prove to you." She drops into a nearby chair, stretching her legs out onto another across from it. "And you seemed friendly enough with her at the Turns End thing," she adds, glancing over her shoulder at Asynnida one more time before turning back to Reyce.
Asynnida lets out a soft eep and then quickly skitters out from the commons without so much as another work.
Asynnida heads up the short tunnel that leads to the bowl.
Asynnida has left.
Reyce scowls at the mention of Turn's End. He's kicking off his last boot as he does so, but his foot slips and pushes the boot harder than he needs to, making it roll a few feet away. Reyce opts not to care as he throws himself back in his chair, stretching out between this one and the other one on which he's now placed his feet. He glares at Aelan, as if she copied the idea, and snaps, "Whatever. Aren't you fucking observant."
Aelan promptly, maturely, sticks her tongue out. "Being a bitch must run in the family. Just don't start ordering me around and I won't have to break your nose." She takes another sip of her klah, glancing one last time over her shoulder towards Asynnida. "Who was that, anyhow?"
Reyce, surprisingly, smirks. "It does," he murmurs quietly, raising his mug for another gulp of the warm water within. "And don't try me." His eyes follow Asynnida out of the room, but he just shrugs at Aelan's question. "Message-runner, I guess. I don't know her."
"What sort of runner's scared of handing off a letter?" Aelan snorts, leaning back in her own chair. "/I'm/ not scared of you," she adds, looking him over before nodding again. She had to make sure, see. She goes quiet for a minute then, frowning into her drink.
Reyce snorts derisively, lowering the mug to rest next to him on the chair. "You're not? My pride is deeply cut," he informs her, but in a tone that's absolutely bland and unhurt. During that quietness on her part, Reyce scoots back to a more upright sitting position. Stretching out between two chairs just wasn't working for him, though he still drags the opposite-chair closer so he can at least keep his feet up.
"Don't be silly, you have to /have/ pride, first," Aelan mutters, taking one more sip of her klah before setting the half-empty cup aside, folding her hands over her stomach. Then, out of the blue, "Do you have any friends?" And yet, it sounds curious, rather than accusing.
Reyce concedes the point with the faintest hint of a smirk, one quickly erased behind a drink of his water. He's been gulping the stuff, so by now the mug's almost empty, and he decides just to finish the rest of it so he can go for a refill. Her question earns her a look over his shoulder as he pours, his eyebrows scornfully arched. "Are you kidding me?" Disbelief goes well with the distaste in his tone.
Aelan quirks a brow in return. "If I was /kidding/ you, I'd be smiling." She demonstrates, though it's a fake one. "Like this, see? I know, that's a new one on you." The smile fades to a grimace, though she still watches him. "Yes, I'm serious. Do you have friends?"
Reyce looks back to his mug as the water nears the top, setting the pot back down on the mantle. Some tea drinker's going to be pissed when there's nothing to steep their brew in. "Save it for Carina," Reyce says of her smile, lingering by the hearth for a while longer as he drinks from his mug. "And you can save your questions, too. It's none of your business who I hang out with." Now he goes back to the chair, dropping into it and returning Aelan's gaze with a rude stare.
"Bet you're friends with that healer," Aelan says, apparently unwilling to drop the subject. "The ones you were sharing notes with. They didn't seem like the sort of notes you'd really be interested in, either." She reaches up to ruffle a hand through her hair, only succeeding in pushing her hair into her eyes in a different way.
Reyce narrows his eyes, observing her warily. "Healer's all right. What's with you and that guy? You're always calling him 'that healer I was with.'" He ignores the comments about Neiran's uninteresting notes.
Aelan quirks a brow in return. "I don't think I've talked about him more than twice, or met him more than once," she points out bemusedly. "But I guess twice counts as always if that's all you've got. Frankly, I don't remember his name." She leans over the arm of her chair, retrieving the now-cooler klah.
Reyce shrugs, unphased by the numbers. "That's how I remember you calling him. And I've only talked to you about twice, so that'd be every time you bring him up." Her last comment, however, draws an ungenerous smirk. "Aw. So much for your meeting ten people. Does it still count as meeting someone if you don't really give a shit who they are?"
"Sure it does. That's nine-tenths of meeting people in the part circuit trade," Aelan snorts softly. "Long as you know them /when/ you meet them, it's all good. Besides, people like to talk about themselves. Give them long enough, and they'll give you enough clues to remind you." She wrinkles her nose. "Except for you, but the jury's still out on the human part, too."
Reyce's expression remains unchanged during her joke, no laughter and not even a sympathy snort here. "Well, you're shaping up to be a nice little socialite, aren't you." He says it flatly, then picks up his mug for a drink. "Let me know what the jury decides. I've always wondered."
"Will do," Aelan nods, wrinkling her nose at the former. "And I'm not a socialite. It's just something I have to do. I think I've ruined enough parties and skipped enough audiences that I've figured out how to make up for it the next one."
"You've ruined parties," Reyce repeats, staring at her with as much dullness in his expression as there is in his words. After a moment, he lets out a short, dark breath of laughter. "Excuse me, I didn't realize I was in the presence of a real, balls to the wall rebel."
Aelan smirks, holding back a laugh. "Shove it," she grumbles, looking away. "Pissed everyone else off enough, you'd think I went and turned into a Thread burrow. You try it sometime, see if you don't get a horde of twenty-five women like your sister suddenly shrieking in your face and see how you like it.
"
Reyce's lip curls at the repeated reference to Carina as his sister, but this time he makes no effort to correct. "And why would I want to try that?" he asks simply.
"You don't," Aelan smirks. "That's sort of the /point/." She takes another sip of the cool klah, then a swallow. "How come you stick around here and talk to me? Wait, lemme guess. Because I /keep/ talking, and it's warm here. How'd I do?"
Reyce just shrugs, looking away as he raises the mug to his lips again. "Then I don't see why you're bragging about doing it." Her second comment, and the answer she fills in for him, brings his gaze back to her again with eyebrows arched. "Sure, I like that one. You did fine." A thin, hard smile appears for a moment at the edge of his mug, then he interrupts it for a drink.
"Faranth, you're a pain to talk to. I should get extra credit or something," Aelan muses, draining the last of her klah before lightly tossing the mug between her hands. "How come you're so miserable?"
Reyce's little smile reappears again as he lowers the mug, cradling it in his lap. His eyes glint with cynical amusement as he looks at her. "I'm a laugh and a half, Keroon. You don't agree?"
"You're more amusing when you're pissing someone off," Aelan decides, looking around the common area as though searching for a victim. "I guess I should be grateful you're not making too much fun of me, though. Not that I'd care if you did, of course."
Reyce gives a small snort, allowing his eyes to wander through the common room as well, though he seems less interested in finding a new victim. "Of course," he repeats absently while he scans the place; eventually, he returns to her with a little sneer. "'Cause /you're/ not scared of me, I know."
"What's there to be scared of?" Aelan asks with a shrug of one shoulder. "What're you going to do, cut me with your razor wit?" she asks, with the supreme unconcern of one who's never had to face anyone who'd /really/ do her harm.
"Nothing at all," Reyce assures her blandly, letting his sneer fade into a smirk. He sinks further back against his chair, sinking into it. His eyes, still on her face, remain glitteringly alert. Now that the conversation has turned to hurting things, he's far more interested than he was when the topic was friendship. "My wit, I'm told, is not so sharp. Too bad."
"But at least you don't pretend," Aelan decides, looking away with a grimace as she starts to watch a pair of weavers in one corner, a pair of distant Bloods in another. "Well. You don't pretend to be nice, at least. Everyone pretends here."
Reyce narrows his eyes at that answer, at first, though the correction that follows prompts a small snort as he looks away - in his case, not towards the other people in the room, but towards the hearth fire. "Something tells me you're not in a real place to criticize, Keroon," he answers in a low voice shot through with dour dislike. Still watching the fireplace, he takes another drink.
"Criticize whom?" Aelan asks, looking over with a quirk of her brow. "You, or the pretenders?" She shrugs one shoulder as she looks away again, dismissive. "I said everyone pretends. I didn't say there was anything wrong with it."
"At least this, at least that." Reyce shrugs, sliding his feet off the chair across from him so he can get more comfortable in his own, single chair. He turns himself slightly sideways, one leg going up over the chair-arm as he sprawls in the seat. "Everyone pretends /here/. You sure make it sound like you've got a problem."
"You mean aside from being in a frozen cave?" Aelan asks with a wry smirk. "It's a nice enough place. It'd be a lot nicer if I was taking some /interesting/ classes, or if it was warm enough or I had the space to get out a little more often."
Reyce shrugs, tilting his mug towards him to eye the level of water remaining. "So put on a fucking jacket and take better classes. You're the only person here who cares what you're whining about." He tosses the mug back, gulping down the water's last remains.
"Was that an attempt to be mean?" Aelan smirks broader. "Because, really, as attempts to be an ass go, it was kind of half-hearted. You want to try again?"
Reyce looks back at her, his brows drawn together in a look of crinkled disdain. "You want to shut up? That's all I'm attempting to say."
"Oh." Aelan seems to consider it for a moment, looking up towards the ceiling and tapping her fingers on her thigh. One, two, three, four, five..."No, not really," she decides, looking back down and flashing a swift smile. "Wouldn't be out here if that was my plan."
Reyce shrugs. He watches that swift smile impassively, then gets up and heads over to a small end table where dirty klah mugs have been gathered, adding his to the group and not commenting on anything.
Aelan wrinkles her nose at Reyce's back, passing the mug between her hands as she watches him. But at least she /does/ get quiet.
Reyce has won silence - only to relinquish it. He turns away from the mugs and walks out to the bowl without so much as a word of farewell.
Caucus Common Area
The common area between the two barracks has been made over into a sort of lounge area. Several sitting areas have been marked out by the use of cheerful rugs and circles of chairs and couches. Low tables are set in the center of each of these areas, and provide a place to set mugs of klah or reading material. A small hearth has been built at the east end of the room. There are never less than two pots of fresh klah simmering over the fire built within.
Contents:
Asynnida
Obvious Exits:
Caucus Barracks (CB) Dragon Barracks (DB) Out (O)
Cool temperature or not, Reyce has been outside for some time, apparently encouraged by the lack of rain and snow. A touch of red in his cheeks suggests some exercise, but the man has his breathing already under control by the time he reenters the commons, striding quickly across the room to the hearth. Snagging a pot of water - it's meant for tea drinkers, but will serve him just as well - he pours himself a mug of plain, slightly warm water and leans on the hearth while he drinks it.
Asynnida has been out for awhile now, it seems. Caught in the drizzles of rain. No longer completely wet, the somewhat damp runner heads into the commons. Her cheeks flush an apparent shade of red as she enters. "I'm... looking for..." She trails off, blushing and taking to looking through her pack, "Reyce...?" She asks softly, slighly shifting herself in a skittish manner.
A helpful harper sitting by the door looks up at Asynnida's words - Reyce himself is across the room, and out of earshot. The harper gives her a quick, sympathetic smile and points to the Bendenite by the hearth: "Over there, drinkin' his klah. The one with the beat-up jacket, see him?" The harper tries to keep his voice plain as he points Reyce out, but he keeps shooting Asynnida these apologetic looks.
Asynnida looks at the Harper with a look of confusion before she looks towards Reyce, and nodding he rhead a bit. "Thanks..." She says softly, simply turning another shade of red as she makes her way over towards Reyce. "Excuse me...?" She offers softly, flushing another shade of red. "I... You're... Reyce? I have... Something for you..." She stumbles along her words, simply going more red and shuffling herself uneasily.
Reyce is far less helpful than the harper, watching mutely as Asynnida stumbles through her introduction. He makes no effort to put her at ease, but at last he says simply, "I am. Yeah?" His eyes take in her appearance - the dampness, the pack she carries, and the plain resident's knot - but they don't show any reaction as he raises them back to her face.
Asynnida nods her head a bit, slightly smiling though not saying anything else yet. She takes out the large letter, offering it out towards Ryce. "It came... For you... Well... I.. Made sure that... It didn't get wet." She says softly, not offering anything else, simply shifting herself a bit and flushing a darker red.
Reyce's eyes narrow at the sight of that large letter, and his hand snaps out to claim it. He controls himself just before doing so, reining in the sharp motion and instead taking the heavy letter with some dignity. "Thanks." He flips the letter over in his palm, glancing down at it, then looks back at the damp runner who brought said letter. "You can have some klah or something if you're cold. Nobody'll care." Certainly not him, as he moves to drop himself in the nearest chair by the hearth, bringing both the letter and his mug of water with him.
Asynnida watches Ryce quietly, making notes it seems. "It's... No trouble..." She murmurs softly, shifting herself in her spot for a moment. "Thanks..." She murmurs, fetching a bit of klah in silence. Her gaze idly going towards Ryce as she takes her time with the klah.
Reyce ignores the attention she's focused on him, since his own has been diverted to the letter. He balances his mug carefully on the arm of his chair, freeing up his hands, and breaks letter's seal with his thumb. Unfortunately, that seal was the only thing holding the poorly folded bundle together, and when he breaks it, several of the papers escape to go fluttering to the floor. Cursing under his breath, Reyce doubles up to scrap them together and re-collect them.
Asynnida takes her klah, sipping at it a bit and watching Ryce quietly. She idly moves to pick up a letter near her, making sure not to look at it. "Here..." She says softly, handing it over with her eyes not breaking away from Ryce. She has no temptation to read the letter, it seems.
Reyce looks up sharply - he hadn't noticed that page slip away from him - and immediately narrows his eyes at Asynnida. No more attempts to play cool: he scans her face carefully, watching her eyes to verify that they're not pointed at his personal mail. "Thanks," he says again, and this time he just snatches it back from her hand. Folding it up with the other papers, he pushes them all into his jacket, tucking them against his ribs.
Aelan strides out of the barracks, looking over her shoulder with an irritated sneer. "Like I'm going to do something just because /she/ said it," she snorts, tugging down on the bottom of her vest and pushing her sleeves up indignantly. "Like I'm /scared/ of her or something. Not scared of anyone. They can't make me do anything." She's still muttering under her breath when she gets to the hearth and pours herself a mug, glaring at Reyce. "Benden, your sister's a-" Ah, but there's someone else, too, and the etiquette classes kick in enough to keep her from finishing that sentence, the scowl vanishing into a tight smile. "Hi."
Asynnida nods her head a bit, "Sorry..." She offers softly, shifting herself a bit and then standing once more. She takes a sip of the klah and then glances over towards Aelan. The runner simply looks at her klah, then towards the entrance and she slightly starts scooting in that direction.
Reyce has no etiquette classes to tie him down, so he finishes for Aelan - "She's a bitch. And not my sister." For a little while, he continues to watch Asynnida, monitoring her slight retreat, and then he looks over at Aelan. Picking up the mug he balanced on his chair arm earlier, he smirks at her before taking a drink. "So?"
"So she's a bitch, and if she keeps being a bitch, she's going to be a bitch with a broken nose," Aelan tosses back, making a face before taking a sip of the klah. "But she'll love that, gettin' blood all over her white coat. What's she doing here, anyhow? Isn't she a little old for this place?" She looks after Asynnida's retreat, a bit perplexed. "Shards, didn't figure I was that frightening."
Asynnida says nothing, shifting herself towards the entrance a bit more. Bot that she's needed or anything. The runner flushes as Aelan looks over at her. "Not... at all..." The runner stutters, turning away from the two in her embarrassment.
Reyce gives Aelan a withering look for her perplexed comment. "You're not," he declares flatly. To Asynnida, he adds, "Leave or don't. Fuck it." This last as he leans forward, grabbing a small chair across the way from him and hauling it towards himself. As he kicks off his boots, that he may put his feet up, Reyce says, "Big words, Keroon. Somehow I don't see you following through." A sneer twitches his features.
Aelan shrugs one shoulder at Reyce. "You don't have to. I've got nothing to prove to you." She drops into a nearby chair, stretching her legs out onto another across from it. "And you seemed friendly enough with her at the Turns End thing," she adds, glancing over her shoulder at Asynnida one more time before turning back to Reyce.
Asynnida lets out a soft eep and then quickly skitters out from the commons without so much as another work.
Asynnida heads up the short tunnel that leads to the bowl.
Asynnida has left.
Reyce scowls at the mention of Turn's End. He's kicking off his last boot as he does so, but his foot slips and pushes the boot harder than he needs to, making it roll a few feet away. Reyce opts not to care as he throws himself back in his chair, stretching out between this one and the other one on which he's now placed his feet. He glares at Aelan, as if she copied the idea, and snaps, "Whatever. Aren't you fucking observant."
Aelan promptly, maturely, sticks her tongue out. "Being a bitch must run in the family. Just don't start ordering me around and I won't have to break your nose." She takes another sip of her klah, glancing one last time over her shoulder towards Asynnida. "Who was that, anyhow?"
Reyce, surprisingly, smirks. "It does," he murmurs quietly, raising his mug for another gulp of the warm water within. "And don't try me." His eyes follow Asynnida out of the room, but he just shrugs at Aelan's question. "Message-runner, I guess. I don't know her."
"What sort of runner's scared of handing off a letter?" Aelan snorts, leaning back in her own chair. "/I'm/ not scared of you," she adds, looking him over before nodding again. She had to make sure, see. She goes quiet for a minute then, frowning into her drink.
Reyce snorts derisively, lowering the mug to rest next to him on the chair. "You're not? My pride is deeply cut," he informs her, but in a tone that's absolutely bland and unhurt. During that quietness on her part, Reyce scoots back to a more upright sitting position. Stretching out between two chairs just wasn't working for him, though he still drags the opposite-chair closer so he can at least keep his feet up.
"Don't be silly, you have to /have/ pride, first," Aelan mutters, taking one more sip of her klah before setting the half-empty cup aside, folding her hands over her stomach. Then, out of the blue, "Do you have any friends?" And yet, it sounds curious, rather than accusing.
Reyce concedes the point with the faintest hint of a smirk, one quickly erased behind a drink of his water. He's been gulping the stuff, so by now the mug's almost empty, and he decides just to finish the rest of it so he can go for a refill. Her question earns her a look over his shoulder as he pours, his eyebrows scornfully arched. "Are you kidding me?" Disbelief goes well with the distaste in his tone.
Aelan quirks a brow in return. "If I was /kidding/ you, I'd be smiling." She demonstrates, though it's a fake one. "Like this, see? I know, that's a new one on you." The smile fades to a grimace, though she still watches him. "Yes, I'm serious. Do you have friends?"
Reyce looks back to his mug as the water nears the top, setting the pot back down on the mantle. Some tea drinker's going to be pissed when there's nothing to steep their brew in. "Save it for Carina," Reyce says of her smile, lingering by the hearth for a while longer as he drinks from his mug. "And you can save your questions, too. It's none of your business who I hang out with." Now he goes back to the chair, dropping into it and returning Aelan's gaze with a rude stare.
"Bet you're friends with that healer," Aelan says, apparently unwilling to drop the subject. "The ones you were sharing notes with. They didn't seem like the sort of notes you'd really be interested in, either." She reaches up to ruffle a hand through her hair, only succeeding in pushing her hair into her eyes in a different way.
Reyce narrows his eyes, observing her warily. "Healer's all right. What's with you and that guy? You're always calling him 'that healer I was with.'" He ignores the comments about Neiran's uninteresting notes.
Aelan quirks a brow in return. "I don't think I've talked about him more than twice, or met him more than once," she points out bemusedly. "But I guess twice counts as always if that's all you've got. Frankly, I don't remember his name." She leans over the arm of her chair, retrieving the now-cooler klah.
Reyce shrugs, unphased by the numbers. "That's how I remember you calling him. And I've only talked to you about twice, so that'd be every time you bring him up." Her last comment, however, draws an ungenerous smirk. "Aw. So much for your meeting ten people. Does it still count as meeting someone if you don't really give a shit who they are?"
"Sure it does. That's nine-tenths of meeting people in the part circuit trade," Aelan snorts softly. "Long as you know them /when/ you meet them, it's all good. Besides, people like to talk about themselves. Give them long enough, and they'll give you enough clues to remind you." She wrinkles her nose. "Except for you, but the jury's still out on the human part, too."
Reyce's expression remains unchanged during her joke, no laughter and not even a sympathy snort here. "Well, you're shaping up to be a nice little socialite, aren't you." He says it flatly, then picks up his mug for a drink. "Let me know what the jury decides. I've always wondered."
"Will do," Aelan nods, wrinkling her nose at the former. "And I'm not a socialite. It's just something I have to do. I think I've ruined enough parties and skipped enough audiences that I've figured out how to make up for it the next one."
"You've ruined parties," Reyce repeats, staring at her with as much dullness in his expression as there is in his words. After a moment, he lets out a short, dark breath of laughter. "Excuse me, I didn't realize I was in the presence of a real, balls to the wall rebel."
Aelan smirks, holding back a laugh. "Shove it," she grumbles, looking away. "Pissed everyone else off enough, you'd think I went and turned into a Thread burrow. You try it sometime, see if you don't get a horde of twenty-five women like your sister suddenly shrieking in your face and see how you like it.
"
Reyce's lip curls at the repeated reference to Carina as his sister, but this time he makes no effort to correct. "And why would I want to try that?" he asks simply.
"You don't," Aelan smirks. "That's sort of the /point/." She takes another sip of the cool klah, then a swallow. "How come you stick around here and talk to me? Wait, lemme guess. Because I /keep/ talking, and it's warm here. How'd I do?"
Reyce just shrugs, looking away as he raises the mug to his lips again. "Then I don't see why you're bragging about doing it." Her second comment, and the answer she fills in for him, brings his gaze back to her again with eyebrows arched. "Sure, I like that one. You did fine." A thin, hard smile appears for a moment at the edge of his mug, then he interrupts it for a drink.
"Faranth, you're a pain to talk to. I should get extra credit or something," Aelan muses, draining the last of her klah before lightly tossing the mug between her hands. "How come you're so miserable?"
Reyce's little smile reappears again as he lowers the mug, cradling it in his lap. His eyes glint with cynical amusement as he looks at her. "I'm a laugh and a half, Keroon. You don't agree?"
"You're more amusing when you're pissing someone off," Aelan decides, looking around the common area as though searching for a victim. "I guess I should be grateful you're not making too much fun of me, though. Not that I'd care if you did, of course."
Reyce gives a small snort, allowing his eyes to wander through the common room as well, though he seems less interested in finding a new victim. "Of course," he repeats absently while he scans the place; eventually, he returns to her with a little sneer. "'Cause /you're/ not scared of me, I know."
"What's there to be scared of?" Aelan asks with a shrug of one shoulder. "What're you going to do, cut me with your razor wit?" she asks, with the supreme unconcern of one who's never had to face anyone who'd /really/ do her harm.
"Nothing at all," Reyce assures her blandly, letting his sneer fade into a smirk. He sinks further back against his chair, sinking into it. His eyes, still on her face, remain glitteringly alert. Now that the conversation has turned to hurting things, he's far more interested than he was when the topic was friendship. "My wit, I'm told, is not so sharp. Too bad."
"But at least you don't pretend," Aelan decides, looking away with a grimace as she starts to watch a pair of weavers in one corner, a pair of distant Bloods in another. "Well. You don't pretend to be nice, at least. Everyone pretends here."
Reyce narrows his eyes at that answer, at first, though the correction that follows prompts a small snort as he looks away - in his case, not towards the other people in the room, but towards the hearth fire. "Something tells me you're not in a real place to criticize, Keroon," he answers in a low voice shot through with dour dislike. Still watching the fireplace, he takes another drink.
"Criticize whom?" Aelan asks, looking over with a quirk of her brow. "You, or the pretenders?" She shrugs one shoulder as she looks away again, dismissive. "I said everyone pretends. I didn't say there was anything wrong with it."
"At least this, at least that." Reyce shrugs, sliding his feet off the chair across from him so he can get more comfortable in his own, single chair. He turns himself slightly sideways, one leg going up over the chair-arm as he sprawls in the seat. "Everyone pretends /here/. You sure make it sound like you've got a problem."
"You mean aside from being in a frozen cave?" Aelan asks with a wry smirk. "It's a nice enough place. It'd be a lot nicer if I was taking some /interesting/ classes, or if it was warm enough or I had the space to get out a little more often."
Reyce shrugs, tilting his mug towards him to eye the level of water remaining. "So put on a fucking jacket and take better classes. You're the only person here who cares what you're whining about." He tosses the mug back, gulping down the water's last remains.
"Was that an attempt to be mean?" Aelan smirks broader. "Because, really, as attempts to be an ass go, it was kind of half-hearted. You want to try again?"
Reyce looks back at her, his brows drawn together in a look of crinkled disdain. "You want to shut up? That's all I'm attempting to say."
"Oh." Aelan seems to consider it for a moment, looking up towards the ceiling and tapping her fingers on her thigh. One, two, three, four, five..."No, not really," she decides, looking back down and flashing a swift smile. "Wouldn't be out here if that was my plan."
Reyce shrugs. He watches that swift smile impassively, then gets up and heads over to a small end table where dirty klah mugs have been gathered, adding his to the group and not commenting on anything.
Aelan wrinkles her nose at Reyce's back, passing the mug between her hands as she watches him. But at least she /does/ get quiet.
Reyce has won silence - only to relinquish it. He turns away from the mugs and walks out to the bowl without so much as a word of farewell.