Security Check
Location: Hatching Sands (mostly)
Time: Morning on Day 23, Month 4, Turn 3
Players: Roa and Jensen
Scene: The follow up to this scene, Jensen makes sure the sands are secure. All does not go quite according to plan.
The weyrwoman has always been a stickler about keeping her word. So the afternoon of the 23rd finds Roa outside of Jensen's office. She knocks three quick raps on the door and then waits, rocking back and forth on her feet.
"Yeah, yeah." Thump. Click. And there's Jensen, standing in a suddenly open doorway. Without so much as a glance for the little goldrider he looks down at his belt, fiddling with the buckle until satisfied. The knife hangs lopsidedly on his hip, at home. His eyebrows go up and he paints a picture of eager readiness on his face. "/So/." And, simultaneously, starts edging out into the hallway, his hand on the door handle behind him.
"Ready? Hope your shoes have thick soles, because the sands are really hot. Tialith's sleeping, Ruvoth's out getting food. I think it's a good time to go, if you're ready." Roa peers up at the much taller man even as she's already moving down the corridor.
Ready? "Don't reckon I'd be about t'lock my door'n follow you if I wasn't." That was a little snappish. Looking like he smells something bad, Jensen turns and does the first thing he mentioned, the lock clicking into place and the ring of keys stuffed into his pocket. When he turns back he has a ready apology. Well. Explanation. "Riann was up most o'the night." There. Gesturing with one hand, he tries to recapture some of that fake bright-eyedness from before. "Shall we?"
"I'm sorry," Roa offers with a small wince. "I thought they stopped doing that at her age. How much longer until she'll manage a full night?" She takes a couple more steps in the proper direction before pausing to ask, "Do you want to go get some klah along the way?"
"So you're the expert now?" Jen snaps, following along and continuing past her when she pauses. Grumble. "Yeah. Klah'd be good. She sleeps most nights now, just last night... Reckon we all got our bad ones." They're /both/ experts in that department, aren't they.
"Didn't say that," Roa murmurs quietly. "It's just what I'd heard." She picks up her pace to fall into step alongside the captain as they make their way to the living cavern, rather than the hatching grounds. Once there, the weyrwoman only pours herself a cup of juice and tucks a roll of bread into a pocket. Then she leans back an waits patiently for Jensen.
Poor little weyrwoman. Later, really, Jensen will be seven kinds of apologetic about his behavior. For now though she just so happens to be here and he's just comfortable enough with her to know in the back of his head that she won't be mad at him. Her reassurances of similar sentiment help. /His/ drink is definitely klah, a steaming heap of it that he holds close when he's done pouring. Sipping and wincing at the temperature, he turns to lift his eyebrows at his companion.
She lifts her eyebrows in return. "Shall we, or you want to sit a bit and not burn your tongue?"
Pausing and making a face like he just has the best comback in the world, Jensen is quiet for a beat before saying, contritely, "I dithn't burn my thongue." He swallows. "We... shall, uh." Grump. "Let's just go."
The weyrwoman nibbles on her bottom lip, thus chasing of a smile that might send Jensen into yet a deeper spiral of grumpy. With a nod, she heads out of the living cavern, across the bowl, and through the corridor that will lead them to the sands. She pauses at the entrance, the heat already pouring out in waves, and looks back over at the captain. "Perhaps you better tell me, before we head in, what specifically you'd like to be able to do?"
A very good route for Roa to take. Jensen follows her, silent and slightly sullen, one hand around his mug, the other resting lightly on the hilt of his knife. This doesn't change when they stop, when she addresses him. "I'd like t'be able t'make sure all the entrances're still secure'n that nothin' has changed regardin' 'em." His mouth tightens. "Sorta the same thing I told you about when we set up this little meetin'. You havin' second thoughts?"
"I just want to know what you're going to do. I'm not a guard, Jen. I don't know what 'making things secure' entails, and I'd like to." Roa crosses her arms over her chest as best she can with a cup in one hand, tips up her chin, and peers at the captain. "The calmer and more relaxed I am, the less likely Tialith is to get upset someone's on the sands. Brooding queens aren't known for their...rationality."
The look Jen gives Roa now is somewhat amused and suspicious. It's a strange combination. "You threatenin' me, little Roa?" There isn't much seriousness to the accusation, even calling it that would be a little much. "You wanna know what I'm gonna do, fine. I'm gonna poke around. I'm gonna keep to the sides, away from 'er eggs, and I'm gonna look. And if she gets ornery, you're hopefully gonna warn me, else things're gonna get interesting. I don't like bein' near them anymore'n they want me near, so I'm gonna make it quick."
"Yes. A very deadly threat. Behave, or Tia will sit on you." But Roa's smirking and she nods slowly to Jensen's plan. "All right. Let me head in first, then you follow and poke as you need. I'll warn you. If she gets fussy." And then Roa slips onto the sands and takes a few steps back, giving Jensen space to skulk about.
.
Jensen does just that, maybe returning Roa's smirk. You know. As much as a surly, sleepy Captain can. And when she steps back he glances at her, then out at the sands and, a little warily, steps out there. "Things're, uh," he calls over his shoulder, "little different with stuff out here." Stuff like eggs and a dragon. "I'm just gonna--" He trails off, points in a direction, starts moving along the wall of the cavern while keeping a fraction of his attention on the nearby mother.
The nearby mother is sleeping, her sides rising and falling with slow, lazy breaths. "Yes," Roa agrees. "Harder to see clearly to the other side. Watch your feet. Hot." She leans up against the cavern wall and sips from her glass.
"Oh I'm watchin'." Well. He's not. He's actually watching /Tialith/. Still asleep? Yes? Good. Jen has a hand on the wall of the cavern, his palm passing over the warm stone, skimming, while he walks. He might wince once or twice, heat you know, but other than that he seems fine. Those boots must be good enough. After several minutes he comes up on a little sidecave and disappears into it only to reappear several more minutes later.
Sip. Siip. Either Roa is wearing tick boots herself, or she's just used to having her feet scalded by now. Tialith shifts a little in her sleep, but she remains sleeping for the moment. "Just...careful," Roa calls. "She's moved a few of the eggs around. There might be a couple along the edge."
Jensen waves a hand above his head - yeah, yeah - and keeps going. There's only one other exit off the sands and he checks that one too. It's the tunnel leading to Roa's weyr though, so how far he goes is, well, not far at all. On his way out he feels the edges of the arched opening and inspects the walls for /something/. Then, meeting Roa's eyes from across the cavern, he gives her a one-shouldered shrug and starts heading back. This time though, he takes a less roundabout route. Maybe he's curious or maybe he just doesn't want to go all the way around again, either way he's coming up on an egg by taking this new way, slowing when he nears it.
Roa shrugs back and arches a brow as Jensen heads partways up to her weyr and then returns. She polishes off her juice and opens her mouth to warn him about the egg he's approaching...only he sees it. So, the weyrwoman closes her mouth again. At just about the same time Tialith cracks open a single eye. The one facing Jensen.
Not seeing that one big eye, Jensen tilts his head and comes to a stop by that egg. It's like he doesn't notice /anything/ else just now, his eyebrows furrowed deeply and his mouth set at an odd angle. When else is he gonna get this kind of opportunity? For someone born in a little cothold, being this close to a dragon egg has to be some kind of thrilling. So maybe he doesn't realize he's lifting his hand and putting it out there to lay his palm against the warm shell, to brush his thumb just there.
Somebody notices. A low warning rumble may announce what that glowing eye did not, and Tialith slowly lifts her head to direct her snout, rather than her gaze, onto the guard captain Behold, Jensen, dragon teeth at very close range. "Jen!" Roa takes a few quick steps forward. "Don't /touch/ them. Move your hand away. Step back. Slowly." She cants her head to regard her golden lifemate. "And you can just stop that this minute."
Moving his head very slowly so he can put on eye on the queen behind him, or what of her he can see, Jensen lifts his chin and opens his mouth and starts pulling his hand away very, very carefully. And, just like Roa told him, he moves away too, one step back at a time, and puts the other hand, or rather his mug, up in the air. See? No touching. Good dragon.
There is another low and ornery rumble, but then Tialith jerks her head away and coiled up into a tight ball. Both eyes are open, gleaming and watchful, as Jensen retreats. "You're all right. Everything's fine," the weyrwoman soothes as she moves to settle a tiny hand on a large champagne flank. The gold sighs and relaxes a little. "Jen, if you'd seen everything you need, you may want to head back out to the bowl. I'll follow in a moment."
"Right," Jen agrees, low, and, after eyeing Tialith another second, turns and does just that, taking the wall route once more.
It is a couple minutes before Roa comes up the tunnel and out into the cooler air, her cup dangling from her hand. "You all right?" she asks, her eyes darting over Jensen as if he might suddenly begin bleeding from henceforth unnoticed injuries.
Jensen does not bleed. He stands outside, his hand on his knife, and sips his klah like nothing happened. And when Roa comes out to join him he turns to quirk his mouth at her and shrug again. "'M fine. Why?" He didn't just almost become dragon food.
"Because. You..." then Roa stops and shakes her head. "Never mind. Just don't...touch them again, okay? You're really not supposed to."
"Oh. Yeah. Sure. I, uh." Jensen lifts his eyebrows and looks down at his mug, at the wibbly dark surface of his klah that reflects a wibbly reflection back at him. "Ain't even all that sure why I did at all." If the fact that he's grinning suddenly is odd, well. "She mad at me?"
"Not at you, specifically. At anyone who would wake her up and poke about. She was just cranky. It's all right now. I don't..." arching a brow, Roa shakes her head, "...really know why you did it, either. It's not really appropriate to do, unless one is a candidate."
"Huh. Well. Won't happen again." Jensen takes another big gulp and swipes the back of his hand across his forehead. "Hot out there," he remarks absently, inspecting his knuckles, the sweat on them, "Mighta messed with my head a little." Indeed, some of his hair is sticking to parts of his face, though out here in the cool air it's bound to dry up within seconds.
"Must have been it," Roa muses quietly, though her study of Jensen is no less intent. "Well, thanks for checking and all. Let me know if you need anything else. I'm due to meet with R'vain in a few minutes. Anything else you need from me before I go?"
Jensen is probably used to intent studying. From her, anyway. So that hand only slips around to the back of his neck to massage the knotted muscle there; a wordless nod precedes the, "Nope," he gives her. "That'll do. Uh. Thanks for... lettin' me out there. Have fun with your meetin'." And, just like that, he turns from her and starts off. Towards the lake, maybe, or somewhere else secluded enough that he can pick apart his own brain and ask why oh why touch?
Time: Morning on Day 23, Month 4, Turn 3
Players: Roa and Jensen
Scene: The follow up to this scene, Jensen makes sure the sands are secure. All does not go quite according to plan.
The weyrwoman has always been a stickler about keeping her word. So the afternoon of the 23rd finds Roa outside of Jensen's office. She knocks three quick raps on the door and then waits, rocking back and forth on her feet.
"Yeah, yeah." Thump. Click. And there's Jensen, standing in a suddenly open doorway. Without so much as a glance for the little goldrider he looks down at his belt, fiddling with the buckle until satisfied. The knife hangs lopsidedly on his hip, at home. His eyebrows go up and he paints a picture of eager readiness on his face. "/So/." And, simultaneously, starts edging out into the hallway, his hand on the door handle behind him.
"Ready? Hope your shoes have thick soles, because the sands are really hot. Tialith's sleeping, Ruvoth's out getting food. I think it's a good time to go, if you're ready." Roa peers up at the much taller man even as she's already moving down the corridor.
Ready? "Don't reckon I'd be about t'lock my door'n follow you if I wasn't." That was a little snappish. Looking like he smells something bad, Jensen turns and does the first thing he mentioned, the lock clicking into place and the ring of keys stuffed into his pocket. When he turns back he has a ready apology. Well. Explanation. "Riann was up most o'the night." There. Gesturing with one hand, he tries to recapture some of that fake bright-eyedness from before. "Shall we?"
"I'm sorry," Roa offers with a small wince. "I thought they stopped doing that at her age. How much longer until she'll manage a full night?" She takes a couple more steps in the proper direction before pausing to ask, "Do you want to go get some klah along the way?"
"So you're the expert now?" Jen snaps, following along and continuing past her when she pauses. Grumble. "Yeah. Klah'd be good. She sleeps most nights now, just last night... Reckon we all got our bad ones." They're /both/ experts in that department, aren't they.
"Didn't say that," Roa murmurs quietly. "It's just what I'd heard." She picks up her pace to fall into step alongside the captain as they make their way to the living cavern, rather than the hatching grounds. Once there, the weyrwoman only pours herself a cup of juice and tucks a roll of bread into a pocket. Then she leans back an waits patiently for Jensen.
Poor little weyrwoman. Later, really, Jensen will be seven kinds of apologetic about his behavior. For now though she just so happens to be here and he's just comfortable enough with her to know in the back of his head that she won't be mad at him. Her reassurances of similar sentiment help. /His/ drink is definitely klah, a steaming heap of it that he holds close when he's done pouring. Sipping and wincing at the temperature, he turns to lift his eyebrows at his companion.
She lifts her eyebrows in return. "Shall we, or you want to sit a bit and not burn your tongue?"
Pausing and making a face like he just has the best comback in the world, Jensen is quiet for a beat before saying, contritely, "I dithn't burn my thongue." He swallows. "We... shall, uh." Grump. "Let's just go."
The weyrwoman nibbles on her bottom lip, thus chasing of a smile that might send Jensen into yet a deeper spiral of grumpy. With a nod, she heads out of the living cavern, across the bowl, and through the corridor that will lead them to the sands. She pauses at the entrance, the heat already pouring out in waves, and looks back over at the captain. "Perhaps you better tell me, before we head in, what specifically you'd like to be able to do?"
A very good route for Roa to take. Jensen follows her, silent and slightly sullen, one hand around his mug, the other resting lightly on the hilt of his knife. This doesn't change when they stop, when she addresses him. "I'd like t'be able t'make sure all the entrances're still secure'n that nothin' has changed regardin' 'em." His mouth tightens. "Sorta the same thing I told you about when we set up this little meetin'. You havin' second thoughts?"
"I just want to know what you're going to do. I'm not a guard, Jen. I don't know what 'making things secure' entails, and I'd like to." Roa crosses her arms over her chest as best she can with a cup in one hand, tips up her chin, and peers at the captain. "The calmer and more relaxed I am, the less likely Tialith is to get upset someone's on the sands. Brooding queens aren't known for their...rationality."
The look Jen gives Roa now is somewhat amused and suspicious. It's a strange combination. "You threatenin' me, little Roa?" There isn't much seriousness to the accusation, even calling it that would be a little much. "You wanna know what I'm gonna do, fine. I'm gonna poke around. I'm gonna keep to the sides, away from 'er eggs, and I'm gonna look. And if she gets ornery, you're hopefully gonna warn me, else things're gonna get interesting. I don't like bein' near them anymore'n they want me near, so I'm gonna make it quick."
"Yes. A very deadly threat. Behave, or Tia will sit on you." But Roa's smirking and she nods slowly to Jensen's plan. "All right. Let me head in first, then you follow and poke as you need. I'll warn you. If she gets fussy." And then Roa slips onto the sands and takes a few steps back, giving Jensen space to skulk about.
.
Jensen does just that, maybe returning Roa's smirk. You know. As much as a surly, sleepy Captain can. And when she steps back he glances at her, then out at the sands and, a little warily, steps out there. "Things're, uh," he calls over his shoulder, "little different with stuff out here." Stuff like eggs and a dragon. "I'm just gonna--" He trails off, points in a direction, starts moving along the wall of the cavern while keeping a fraction of his attention on the nearby mother.
The nearby mother is sleeping, her sides rising and falling with slow, lazy breaths. "Yes," Roa agrees. "Harder to see clearly to the other side. Watch your feet. Hot." She leans up against the cavern wall and sips from her glass.
"Oh I'm watchin'." Well. He's not. He's actually watching /Tialith/. Still asleep? Yes? Good. Jen has a hand on the wall of the cavern, his palm passing over the warm stone, skimming, while he walks. He might wince once or twice, heat you know, but other than that he seems fine. Those boots must be good enough. After several minutes he comes up on a little sidecave and disappears into it only to reappear several more minutes later.
Sip. Siip. Either Roa is wearing tick boots herself, or she's just used to having her feet scalded by now. Tialith shifts a little in her sleep, but she remains sleeping for the moment. "Just...careful," Roa calls. "She's moved a few of the eggs around. There might be a couple along the edge."
Jensen waves a hand above his head - yeah, yeah - and keeps going. There's only one other exit off the sands and he checks that one too. It's the tunnel leading to Roa's weyr though, so how far he goes is, well, not far at all. On his way out he feels the edges of the arched opening and inspects the walls for /something/. Then, meeting Roa's eyes from across the cavern, he gives her a one-shouldered shrug and starts heading back. This time though, he takes a less roundabout route. Maybe he's curious or maybe he just doesn't want to go all the way around again, either way he's coming up on an egg by taking this new way, slowing when he nears it.
Roa shrugs back and arches a brow as Jensen heads partways up to her weyr and then returns. She polishes off her juice and opens her mouth to warn him about the egg he's approaching...only he sees it. So, the weyrwoman closes her mouth again. At just about the same time Tialith cracks open a single eye. The one facing Jensen.
Not seeing that one big eye, Jensen tilts his head and comes to a stop by that egg. It's like he doesn't notice /anything/ else just now, his eyebrows furrowed deeply and his mouth set at an odd angle. When else is he gonna get this kind of opportunity? For someone born in a little cothold, being this close to a dragon egg has to be some kind of thrilling. So maybe he doesn't realize he's lifting his hand and putting it out there to lay his palm against the warm shell, to brush his thumb just there.
Somebody notices. A low warning rumble may announce what that glowing eye did not, and Tialith slowly lifts her head to direct her snout, rather than her gaze, onto the guard captain Behold, Jensen, dragon teeth at very close range. "Jen!" Roa takes a few quick steps forward. "Don't /touch/ them. Move your hand away. Step back. Slowly." She cants her head to regard her golden lifemate. "And you can just stop that this minute."
Moving his head very slowly so he can put on eye on the queen behind him, or what of her he can see, Jensen lifts his chin and opens his mouth and starts pulling his hand away very, very carefully. And, just like Roa told him, he moves away too, one step back at a time, and puts the other hand, or rather his mug, up in the air. See? No touching. Good dragon.
There is another low and ornery rumble, but then Tialith jerks her head away and coiled up into a tight ball. Both eyes are open, gleaming and watchful, as Jensen retreats. "You're all right. Everything's fine," the weyrwoman soothes as she moves to settle a tiny hand on a large champagne flank. The gold sighs and relaxes a little. "Jen, if you'd seen everything you need, you may want to head back out to the bowl. I'll follow in a moment."
"Right," Jen agrees, low, and, after eyeing Tialith another second, turns and does just that, taking the wall route once more.
It is a couple minutes before Roa comes up the tunnel and out into the cooler air, her cup dangling from her hand. "You all right?" she asks, her eyes darting over Jensen as if he might suddenly begin bleeding from henceforth unnoticed injuries.
Jensen does not bleed. He stands outside, his hand on his knife, and sips his klah like nothing happened. And when Roa comes out to join him he turns to quirk his mouth at her and shrug again. "'M fine. Why?" He didn't just almost become dragon food.
"Because. You..." then Roa stops and shakes her head. "Never mind. Just don't...touch them again, okay? You're really not supposed to."
"Oh. Yeah. Sure. I, uh." Jensen lifts his eyebrows and looks down at his mug, at the wibbly dark surface of his klah that reflects a wibbly reflection back at him. "Ain't even all that sure why I did at all." If the fact that he's grinning suddenly is odd, well. "She mad at me?"
"Not at you, specifically. At anyone who would wake her up and poke about. She was just cranky. It's all right now. I don't..." arching a brow, Roa shakes her head, "...really know why you did it, either. It's not really appropriate to do, unless one is a candidate."
"Huh. Well. Won't happen again." Jensen takes another big gulp and swipes the back of his hand across his forehead. "Hot out there," he remarks absently, inspecting his knuckles, the sweat on them, "Mighta messed with my head a little." Indeed, some of his hair is sticking to parts of his face, though out here in the cool air it's bound to dry up within seconds.
"Must have been it," Roa muses quietly, though her study of Jensen is no less intent. "Well, thanks for checking and all. Let me know if you need anything else. I'm due to meet with R'vain in a few minutes. Anything else you need from me before I go?"
Jensen is probably used to intent studying. From her, anyway. So that hand only slips around to the back of his neck to massage the knotted muscle there; a wordless nod precedes the, "Nope," he gives her. "That'll do. Uh. Thanks for... lettin' me out there. Have fun with your meetin'." And, just like that, he turns from her and starts off. Towards the lake, maybe, or somewhere else secluded enough that he can pick apart his own brain and ask why oh why touch?