Cider
Location Weyreleaders' Office
Time: Afternoon on Day 16, Month 6, Turn 3
Players: R'vain, Roa, Katriel
Scene: Roa meets a new assistant that is not hers. Then an idea from Neiran, long forgotten, is finally brought to light.
Weyrleaders' Office
Much of the formal and informal business that concerns the weyrleaders is conducted here. As such, an effort has been made to keep this chamber comfortable out of respect for the long hours of work required to keep the Weyr running. The walls are bright with tapestries and the floors warm with thick rugs. A large sandtable holds pride of place in the center of the room, one half covered with a sheet of glass to serve as a writing surface. A second, smaller table holds whatever writing implements and record hides are needed by the staff. The chairs that ring this area are thickly cushioned but otherwise undecorated.
The stairs that led into the complex from the bowl continue up to the right, taking one into the Weyrleader's weyr. A large tunnel to the left curves down to the senior Weyrwoman's weyr, broken only by the smaller tunnel that leads to one of the junior's weyrs. The last tunnel, opposite the entrance, leads to the second junior's weyr.
Each day is a little better. Each day there are more riders at R'vain's elbows asking about the next 'fall or the last one, or about rumors of experimental formations, or about any of the many everyday issues riders ask about-- and less of them wondering pointedly about the potential of a grouchy guard-turned-bronzer or the femininity of a cook-turned-bluerider. This means R'vain lingers long after lunch and sometimes strays off into the bowl with men from his wing or another, talking. That the rugged red Weyrleader would find that his job requires so much talking was probably unexpected, but among his own kind he takes to it well enough.
So he prowls in a bit later than usual this afternoon, squirming out of his jacket and pawing open buttons as he does so, overwarm instantly as soon as he's out of the summer breeze and into the relatively still air of indoors. "What th'world needs is something t'drink that ain't hot, bitter, and disgusting," he informs the klah-pot which has been waiting, and knocks over a mug with the back of a good-naturedly irritable hand.
"I believe the world has it. We call it 'juice'. Also, sometimes, 'water'. Pitcher at the end of the table." All of this comes from a slight little weyrwoman seated at the sandtable and scribbling away. Her hides, thankfully, look to have more to do with inventory and little to do with blueriders. Though Roa does not look up when she speaks, her words prove true. At the end of the table is a pitcher, the outside dripping with cool condensation, and a small cluster of glasses.
"Yes, sir," Katriel agrees as she steps into the room as though summoned by magic, a tray in hand with a pitcher and mug of what appears to be a fine, golden cider. The tray is set down, the liquid poured into the mug - which appears to be /frosted/, of all things - and the mug offered out within a moment, the motions efficient and practiced. "Afternoon, sir," she concludes, flashing a swift smile. "Ma'am?" she offers as she catches sight of Roa, slipping another such mug from a loop at the back of her belt. Apparently she isn't the sort to be caught unprepared.
"Don't like juice. Tastes funny." You know-- like unfermented fruit. R'vain's nose wrinkles, and he's about to have another word-- probably something unkind about whatever most disgusting feature of water he can think of-- when Katriel's alarmingly good timing stops the words in his breath. "Oh," he grunts, turning. A squint. Cider looks like juice. But the frosted mug is a bit enchanting, or else the girl holding it does a passable bar wench imitation, because the Weyrleader smirks a bit and reaches out to swipe the mug from her hand. "S'you," he notes, where 'Thanks' would have been better fit. Then, "Katriel. Th'Weyrwoman, Roa. Roa, this is Katriel." Whose presence he does not quite yet explain.
Blink. The arrival of another voice has Roa lifting her head and so observing the pouring of cider and frosty mugs with a sort of intrigued and vaguely horrified fascination. Blink, the second. "Afternoon...Katriel," the weyrwoman offers, pausing only briefly to gather up her wits and the girl's name. It is not Katriel she's looking at, however. It is the redheaded weyrleader who dislikes juice. One brow is arched high.
The cider, when R'vain drinks, packs just enough of a kick to move it out of juice territory, though not enough to impair judgment without drinking more than the pitcher provided. "Afternoon, weyrwoman," Katriel greets in return, apparently unruffled by the appearance of another higher-up in the room. "Could I interest you in a drink? I have it on good authority there won't be anything to match this this year. Barrels they used got caught in a spring flood, won't be the same again."
R'vain does not, for the moment, sample the cider; he does take a sniff, and fail to wrinkle up his freckled nose, but for now he contents himself with wrapping his paws both around the mug to chill them against the iced glass. Over its frosted rim he replies Roa's arched brow with a lazy grin. While it's the Weyrwoman his eyes address, his question's meant for Katriel. "So did Heriet find you something t'do when you ain't up here lookin' after me? -- Suddenly I got a feeling she must've. Something t'do with th'cellars."
The weyrwoman studies the mug, but only shakes her head at the offer. "No thank you. That's very thoughtful, but I'm all right." There is, for that grin, a small, slow shake of Roa's head. "Looking after you?" Now she does look at Katriel, both brows arched, expression curious.
"Yes, sir," Katriel agrees, grin flashing for a moment as she sets down the second mug with the tray and the pitcher. "Routine checks with the wine steward, some sorting and counting, nothing too unusual. Just the little things that keep things moving. Any messages to go out this afternoon?" she asks, brushing her hands off on her skirt with a questioning quirk of her brow.
"I got a letter t'go out, wrote it last night. I'll get it in a bit." R'vain jerks his chin toward his weyr, indication that the letter is not nearby, then prowls up on a chair across from the little Weyrwoman to put down his jacket over the back of the seat, a business that requires half-unhanding the mug to complete. He leans into that paw then, hand splayed over the jacket, jacket on the chairback, looking at Roa with a grin of many too many teeth. "She's goin' t'spend a little time a week t'help me keep my business in order." Over his shoulder then, to Katriel with more teeth still-- "Records, organization, administration, et cet'ra."
"Oh. Is she." Roa’s gaze flicks from R'vain and back over to Katriel. 'Are you' seems to be the wordless question implied in her study. "You were...forgive me, but you stood for Tialith's clutch, didn't you?"
"Yes, ma'am," Katriel answers Roa, a wry smile extending the answer to both the spoken and unspoken questions. She doesn't appear to be upset about finding no mate on the sands, though, efficiently starting to move around the table and gather up any scraps and trash left behind onto the tray she brought the cider and mug in on. She says nothing else, though the glance split between Roa and R'vain reflects some amusement.
"And she asked me about stayin'," R'vain fills in, since Katriel seems to be content to offer minimal detail herself. He leans a little lower, bending from the waist, forcing strain into his lower back without any sign of protest. Lowered like this he can squint a grin directly at Roa, keen and pointed. "It's been a bit hectic with th'letters and all since th'hatching-- what with her qualifications I couldn't resist. Lucky th'headwoman's willing t'share out a little of her time at all." He says all of this with no emphasis, no lewd inflection, despite the rich opportunities-- isn't his grin enough?
"No, I'm quite sure you couldn't resist," Roa replies blithely before lowering her gaze back down to her own paperwork. A few more small notations are added before Katriel again is studied out of the corner of Roa's eyes. She sighs, shakes her head, and pointedly does not look at R'vain again.
Katriel is either oblivious to the lewd grin or choosing cheerfully to ignore it, finishing the tidying before pulling a small notebook of sorts from the pouch at her belt, a stack of thin, nearly worn out hides sewn together at the top. "Any requests for appointments since last time, sir?" she asks, looking up to scan the room for ink and pen.
R'vain answers Katriel with the low groan of someone reminded of something unpleasant and pulls back the chair so he can lean around and slump into it. "Four riders out of three-cee. Any afternoon they don't fly-- S'fel, S'fen, H'sef and Sh'ven. Got a hunch what they want t'talk about. Need a couple days t'put together something t'keep 'em focused on what Br'ce is doing instead of whatever they think /I/ think of it." R'vain looks into the cider he's still holding and, after a sigh, ventures a small taste. He winces thereafter but says nothing of it, swallowing only so he can add, "Probably need t'schedule less than t'keep 'em /from/ scheduling quite yet. After th'sixteenth."
Scribble, scribble, scribble. Roa lifts up her hide and sets it a little out of the way to let it dry. Still not looking up, but rather looking at the blank hide now in front of her, she asks, "What happens on the sixteenth?"
Katriel moves to the side of one desk to dip a nib, flipping through the pages of the little notebook and making a note on one of them. "Do you want them together, or would you prefer to split them up?" she asks, looking up with a questioning arch of her brow.
"Threadfall, Keogh," R'vain replies to Roa after a moment's pause, then a soft grin; he looks away a bit quickly and sets down the cider on the table before him. "/Like/ t'split 'em up, they want t'come together, though, and I ain't up t'fighting 'em. Won't take long. They'll have a word and I'll ask 'em if they talked t'their Wingleader and there'll be some lookin' back and forth and some eyeballin' their boots and it'll be done." Snort.
"This is about the formations, then?" Slowly, Roa lifts her head to peer over at R'vain, head canting to the side. "How many new ones have they gotten so far?"
"They don't have to come together," Katriel muses, eyeing the schedule. "Depends on if you want to intimidate and confuse them or if you think they'll fold just like that, though." She shrugs, then scribbles something into the notebook again, falling silent for Roa's question.
"A handful," sends R'vain back to Roa, suddenly wary. "Only such that I can talk Br'ce into. He likes th'-- well." What Br'ce likes about the formations, or likes about something else, gets put aside, ostensibly so the Weyrleader can lean over and put out a boot to shove back a chair near Katriel's spot. "Don't need to intimidate or confuse 'em, girl, siddown," rumbles the Weyrleader, a bit aggressive, brows furrowing. "They'll fold, and if they don't, s'fine, we'll talk. They just got t'know they're goin' over his head. Telgari." Which evidently at least some part of the group must be. Huff.
Up goes that eyebrow again as the chair is shoved out at then her native weyr is used as an epithet. Canting her head a little to the side, Roa only murmurs, "Yes?"
Katriel sits obediently, unruffled still as she crosses her legs and marks another note in the schedule. "About this time the eighteenth, then, unless you anticipate something else taking that slot?" she asks, looking up.
There is something of a crossfire effect happening here, and R'vain is increasingly obviously unhappy about it-- he leans back in his chair, slouching, arms folding over his chest. First, for Roa, "Not you," duh, then for Katriel, "Th'eighteenth's fine. Uh. I think that's it." This would be a better dismissal if he wasn't so observant of his assistant's posture and crossing legs.
"Which one, then?" Roa asks. Crossfire? Pinning the weyrleader? No, surely not. Roa dips stylus into ink again and begins to write on her blank hide. "Neiran had an idea that I keep forgetting to tell you about."
"S'fel and S'fen," rumbles R'vain at Roa, distracted while a maybe-smug Katriel closes up her little notebook and waits for real dismissal-- which she gets in the form of the Weyrleader's pause and remark, "Th'letter's on th'desk." This obliges his assistant-of-sorts to duck into his weyr before she departs, leaving a moment's sub-privacy in which R'vain turns to the Weyrwoman and asks, "Neiran? Th'healer Neiran?"
"The very same." The weyrwoman's attention follows Katriel until she slips out of the office, and her disappearance seems to be a cue for another slow and pained headshake. "He asked me last winter. It's just, it kept getting pushed to the back of my thoughts. He suggested a covered walkway. Around the circumference of the bowl. So people can make their way from place to place without getting buried in snow or rained or or the like."
Katriel's last departure, out of his weyr and off, gets a lingering glance from the Weyrleader; then he's all attention for Roa, grinning, eyes a little sharper than they ought to be. "Hey, gettin' rained on and snowed on's and havin' folks dump snowdrifts off their ledges onto y'head's part of th'charm of livin' up here." His grin twists with a curl of lip. "Sounds /just/ like th'kind of thing folks out of Caucus would suggest. S'a'sign he's a good fellow, maybe, that we ain't had seven little Lords up here demanding it."
"He mentioned it from the standpoint of being a healer and the sorts of injuries he tended to see in the winter. It might not be a bad idea." Roa cants her head and studies the weyrleader. "We'd need to bring folks in from outweyr to build it. I figure we'd contract the smithhall to oversee, but the actual construction could be done by men from various holds around the coverage area. With an emphasis on Nabol, perhaps. I imagine some of the families there could do with a few extra marks." She glances back down to her hide before noting, quietly, "and we could do with the news."
R'vain slumps a little deeper in his chair, but unfolds an arm so he can reach out to play the tips of a couple fingers in the condensation melting down the side of the cider-mug Katriel brought him. "Work from Nabol, sure. Maybe trade it out t'Lord Sorel and save him another mark or two in tithe. But contracting th'smiths--" Eyes on the cider, the Weyrleader lets out a slow and thoughtful rumble in lieu of actually expressing an opinion. "Wind up with a couple masters here t'deal with postings for, handful of journeymen, s'my bet anyway." Why he thinks this might be of issue he does not yet present for her inspection; he looks up instead, head down, gaze raised, to look on Roa for her response.
"Well," the weyrwoman considers, her fingers tapping on the mostly-blank hide, "As I understand it, we have a few journeymen already here. I can ask the Headmaster if he wouldn't allow them some sort of credit for the task. That drops it down to a pair of Masters." She peers back at R'vain. The question remains unasked, but her expression is curious. Quizzical.
It takes the Weyrleader a moment to formulate a reply; his fingers hold steady on the side of the mug and he watches Roa with that brow-furrowed expression in silence while he thinks. "S'long as you think there ain't no problem in raising th'ranking smithcraft population," R'vain offers at last, then shoves back his chair, unhanding the cider, leaning forward with paws curled on the armrests-- ready to get up. "Think we should talk feasibility, 'specially against drifts and icefall off th'walls, t'someone before we put out for bid?"
Her brows draw down and then, carefully, Roa asks, "Are you worried about Derien?" For the rest, Roa nods. "Seems an intelligent thing to do. I'd like to ask Penny, if you don't mind. She's designed structural things for me before, I trust her, and she could use the approval of a pair of high-ranking people, considering where she's trying to get to."
R'vain answers the question immediately with a rumble, noncommittal-- but as Roa goes on talking his mouth sprawls in a lazy grin. "I ain't worried now," he says, after the Weyrwoman's finished her say, and pushes himself up from the chair. "If y'can, have her in t'see us both? I ain't fussed if you get to it before me. You got time on th'ground." That's almost apologetic, with the rue twist of his grin he applies to it. "But I'd like t'hear what she has t'say at some point." A beat, a glance down-- "Ain't awful, have it, y'want it." The cider. That suffices for his good-bye-- R'vain prowls off for the passage that leads to the council chamber, after that.
Another small nod from Roa. "I will do. I'll find her when I can and send her your way. Try not to leer too terribly much, could you?" But there is a smirk and a sort of weary resignation to her words. He's awful. She knows. It's been noted and accepted. She studies R'vain's back as he rises and prowls, and then looks down to the slightly imbibed mug of cider. She draws it over and lowers her head to take a tentative sniff. With a small wrinkle of her nose, Roa pushes it away again. "No alcohol, no caffeine, no spicy things," she hums under her breath before picking up her stylus and returning to the hides patiently waiting for her attention.
Time: Afternoon on Day 16, Month 6, Turn 3
Players: R'vain, Roa, Katriel
Scene: Roa meets a new assistant that is not hers. Then an idea from Neiran, long forgotten, is finally brought to light.
Weyrleaders' Office
Much of the formal and informal business that concerns the weyrleaders is conducted here. As such, an effort has been made to keep this chamber comfortable out of respect for the long hours of work required to keep the Weyr running. The walls are bright with tapestries and the floors warm with thick rugs. A large sandtable holds pride of place in the center of the room, one half covered with a sheet of glass to serve as a writing surface. A second, smaller table holds whatever writing implements and record hides are needed by the staff. The chairs that ring this area are thickly cushioned but otherwise undecorated.
The stairs that led into the complex from the bowl continue up to the right, taking one into the Weyrleader's weyr. A large tunnel to the left curves down to the senior Weyrwoman's weyr, broken only by the smaller tunnel that leads to one of the junior's weyrs. The last tunnel, opposite the entrance, leads to the second junior's weyr.
Each day is a little better. Each day there are more riders at R'vain's elbows asking about the next 'fall or the last one, or about rumors of experimental formations, or about any of the many everyday issues riders ask about-- and less of them wondering pointedly about the potential of a grouchy guard-turned-bronzer or the femininity of a cook-turned-bluerider. This means R'vain lingers long after lunch and sometimes strays off into the bowl with men from his wing or another, talking. That the rugged red Weyrleader would find that his job requires so much talking was probably unexpected, but among his own kind he takes to it well enough.
So he prowls in a bit later than usual this afternoon, squirming out of his jacket and pawing open buttons as he does so, overwarm instantly as soon as he's out of the summer breeze and into the relatively still air of indoors. "What th'world needs is something t'drink that ain't hot, bitter, and disgusting," he informs the klah-pot which has been waiting, and knocks over a mug with the back of a good-naturedly irritable hand.
"I believe the world has it. We call it 'juice'. Also, sometimes, 'water'. Pitcher at the end of the table." All of this comes from a slight little weyrwoman seated at the sandtable and scribbling away. Her hides, thankfully, look to have more to do with inventory and little to do with blueriders. Though Roa does not look up when she speaks, her words prove true. At the end of the table is a pitcher, the outside dripping with cool condensation, and a small cluster of glasses.
"Yes, sir," Katriel agrees as she steps into the room as though summoned by magic, a tray in hand with a pitcher and mug of what appears to be a fine, golden cider. The tray is set down, the liquid poured into the mug - which appears to be /frosted/, of all things - and the mug offered out within a moment, the motions efficient and practiced. "Afternoon, sir," she concludes, flashing a swift smile. "Ma'am?" she offers as she catches sight of Roa, slipping another such mug from a loop at the back of her belt. Apparently she isn't the sort to be caught unprepared.
"Don't like juice. Tastes funny." You know-- like unfermented fruit. R'vain's nose wrinkles, and he's about to have another word-- probably something unkind about whatever most disgusting feature of water he can think of-- when Katriel's alarmingly good timing stops the words in his breath. "Oh," he grunts, turning. A squint. Cider looks like juice. But the frosted mug is a bit enchanting, or else the girl holding it does a passable bar wench imitation, because the Weyrleader smirks a bit and reaches out to swipe the mug from her hand. "S'you," he notes, where 'Thanks' would have been better fit. Then, "Katriel. Th'Weyrwoman, Roa. Roa, this is Katriel." Whose presence he does not quite yet explain.
Blink. The arrival of another voice has Roa lifting her head and so observing the pouring of cider and frosty mugs with a sort of intrigued and vaguely horrified fascination. Blink, the second. "Afternoon...Katriel," the weyrwoman offers, pausing only briefly to gather up her wits and the girl's name. It is not Katriel she's looking at, however. It is the redheaded weyrleader who dislikes juice. One brow is arched high.
The cider, when R'vain drinks, packs just enough of a kick to move it out of juice territory, though not enough to impair judgment without drinking more than the pitcher provided. "Afternoon, weyrwoman," Katriel greets in return, apparently unruffled by the appearance of another higher-up in the room. "Could I interest you in a drink? I have it on good authority there won't be anything to match this this year. Barrels they used got caught in a spring flood, won't be the same again."
R'vain does not, for the moment, sample the cider; he does take a sniff, and fail to wrinkle up his freckled nose, but for now he contents himself with wrapping his paws both around the mug to chill them against the iced glass. Over its frosted rim he replies Roa's arched brow with a lazy grin. While it's the Weyrwoman his eyes address, his question's meant for Katriel. "So did Heriet find you something t'do when you ain't up here lookin' after me? -- Suddenly I got a feeling she must've. Something t'do with th'cellars."
The weyrwoman studies the mug, but only shakes her head at the offer. "No thank you. That's very thoughtful, but I'm all right." There is, for that grin, a small, slow shake of Roa's head. "Looking after you?" Now she does look at Katriel, both brows arched, expression curious.
"Yes, sir," Katriel agrees, grin flashing for a moment as she sets down the second mug with the tray and the pitcher. "Routine checks with the wine steward, some sorting and counting, nothing too unusual. Just the little things that keep things moving. Any messages to go out this afternoon?" she asks, brushing her hands off on her skirt with a questioning quirk of her brow.
"I got a letter t'go out, wrote it last night. I'll get it in a bit." R'vain jerks his chin toward his weyr, indication that the letter is not nearby, then prowls up on a chair across from the little Weyrwoman to put down his jacket over the back of the seat, a business that requires half-unhanding the mug to complete. He leans into that paw then, hand splayed over the jacket, jacket on the chairback, looking at Roa with a grin of many too many teeth. "She's goin' t'spend a little time a week t'help me keep my business in order." Over his shoulder then, to Katriel with more teeth still-- "Records, organization, administration, et cet'ra."
"Oh. Is she." Roa’s gaze flicks from R'vain and back over to Katriel. 'Are you' seems to be the wordless question implied in her study. "You were...forgive me, but you stood for Tialith's clutch, didn't you?"
"Yes, ma'am," Katriel answers Roa, a wry smile extending the answer to both the spoken and unspoken questions. She doesn't appear to be upset about finding no mate on the sands, though, efficiently starting to move around the table and gather up any scraps and trash left behind onto the tray she brought the cider and mug in on. She says nothing else, though the glance split between Roa and R'vain reflects some amusement.
"And she asked me about stayin'," R'vain fills in, since Katriel seems to be content to offer minimal detail herself. He leans a little lower, bending from the waist, forcing strain into his lower back without any sign of protest. Lowered like this he can squint a grin directly at Roa, keen and pointed. "It's been a bit hectic with th'letters and all since th'hatching-- what with her qualifications I couldn't resist. Lucky th'headwoman's willing t'share out a little of her time at all." He says all of this with no emphasis, no lewd inflection, despite the rich opportunities-- isn't his grin enough?
"No, I'm quite sure you couldn't resist," Roa replies blithely before lowering her gaze back down to her own paperwork. A few more small notations are added before Katriel again is studied out of the corner of Roa's eyes. She sighs, shakes her head, and pointedly does not look at R'vain again.
Katriel is either oblivious to the lewd grin or choosing cheerfully to ignore it, finishing the tidying before pulling a small notebook of sorts from the pouch at her belt, a stack of thin, nearly worn out hides sewn together at the top. "Any requests for appointments since last time, sir?" she asks, looking up to scan the room for ink and pen.
R'vain answers Katriel with the low groan of someone reminded of something unpleasant and pulls back the chair so he can lean around and slump into it. "Four riders out of three-cee. Any afternoon they don't fly-- S'fel, S'fen, H'sef and Sh'ven. Got a hunch what they want t'talk about. Need a couple days t'put together something t'keep 'em focused on what Br'ce is doing instead of whatever they think /I/ think of it." R'vain looks into the cider he's still holding and, after a sigh, ventures a small taste. He winces thereafter but says nothing of it, swallowing only so he can add, "Probably need t'schedule less than t'keep 'em /from/ scheduling quite yet. After th'sixteenth."
Scribble, scribble, scribble. Roa lifts up her hide and sets it a little out of the way to let it dry. Still not looking up, but rather looking at the blank hide now in front of her, she asks, "What happens on the sixteenth?"
Katriel moves to the side of one desk to dip a nib, flipping through the pages of the little notebook and making a note on one of them. "Do you want them together, or would you prefer to split them up?" she asks, looking up with a questioning arch of her brow.
"Threadfall, Keogh," R'vain replies to Roa after a moment's pause, then a soft grin; he looks away a bit quickly and sets down the cider on the table before him. "/Like/ t'split 'em up, they want t'come together, though, and I ain't up t'fighting 'em. Won't take long. They'll have a word and I'll ask 'em if they talked t'their Wingleader and there'll be some lookin' back and forth and some eyeballin' their boots and it'll be done." Snort.
"This is about the formations, then?" Slowly, Roa lifts her head to peer over at R'vain, head canting to the side. "How many new ones have they gotten so far?"
"They don't have to come together," Katriel muses, eyeing the schedule. "Depends on if you want to intimidate and confuse them or if you think they'll fold just like that, though." She shrugs, then scribbles something into the notebook again, falling silent for Roa's question.
"A handful," sends R'vain back to Roa, suddenly wary. "Only such that I can talk Br'ce into. He likes th'-- well." What Br'ce likes about the formations, or likes about something else, gets put aside, ostensibly so the Weyrleader can lean over and put out a boot to shove back a chair near Katriel's spot. "Don't need to intimidate or confuse 'em, girl, siddown," rumbles the Weyrleader, a bit aggressive, brows furrowing. "They'll fold, and if they don't, s'fine, we'll talk. They just got t'know they're goin' over his head. Telgari." Which evidently at least some part of the group must be. Huff.
Up goes that eyebrow again as the chair is shoved out at then her native weyr is used as an epithet. Canting her head a little to the side, Roa only murmurs, "Yes?"
Katriel sits obediently, unruffled still as she crosses her legs and marks another note in the schedule. "About this time the eighteenth, then, unless you anticipate something else taking that slot?" she asks, looking up.
There is something of a crossfire effect happening here, and R'vain is increasingly obviously unhappy about it-- he leans back in his chair, slouching, arms folding over his chest. First, for Roa, "Not you," duh, then for Katriel, "Th'eighteenth's fine. Uh. I think that's it." This would be a better dismissal if he wasn't so observant of his assistant's posture and crossing legs.
"Which one, then?" Roa asks. Crossfire? Pinning the weyrleader? No, surely not. Roa dips stylus into ink again and begins to write on her blank hide. "Neiran had an idea that I keep forgetting to tell you about."
"S'fel and S'fen," rumbles R'vain at Roa, distracted while a maybe-smug Katriel closes up her little notebook and waits for real dismissal-- which she gets in the form of the Weyrleader's pause and remark, "Th'letter's on th'desk." This obliges his assistant-of-sorts to duck into his weyr before she departs, leaving a moment's sub-privacy in which R'vain turns to the Weyrwoman and asks, "Neiran? Th'healer Neiran?"
"The very same." The weyrwoman's attention follows Katriel until she slips out of the office, and her disappearance seems to be a cue for another slow and pained headshake. "He asked me last winter. It's just, it kept getting pushed to the back of my thoughts. He suggested a covered walkway. Around the circumference of the bowl. So people can make their way from place to place without getting buried in snow or rained or or the like."
Katriel's last departure, out of his weyr and off, gets a lingering glance from the Weyrleader; then he's all attention for Roa, grinning, eyes a little sharper than they ought to be. "Hey, gettin' rained on and snowed on's and havin' folks dump snowdrifts off their ledges onto y'head's part of th'charm of livin' up here." His grin twists with a curl of lip. "Sounds /just/ like th'kind of thing folks out of Caucus would suggest. S'a'sign he's a good fellow, maybe, that we ain't had seven little Lords up here demanding it."
"He mentioned it from the standpoint of being a healer and the sorts of injuries he tended to see in the winter. It might not be a bad idea." Roa cants her head and studies the weyrleader. "We'd need to bring folks in from outweyr to build it. I figure we'd contract the smithhall to oversee, but the actual construction could be done by men from various holds around the coverage area. With an emphasis on Nabol, perhaps. I imagine some of the families there could do with a few extra marks." She glances back down to her hide before noting, quietly, "and we could do with the news."
R'vain slumps a little deeper in his chair, but unfolds an arm so he can reach out to play the tips of a couple fingers in the condensation melting down the side of the cider-mug Katriel brought him. "Work from Nabol, sure. Maybe trade it out t'Lord Sorel and save him another mark or two in tithe. But contracting th'smiths--" Eyes on the cider, the Weyrleader lets out a slow and thoughtful rumble in lieu of actually expressing an opinion. "Wind up with a couple masters here t'deal with postings for, handful of journeymen, s'my bet anyway." Why he thinks this might be of issue he does not yet present for her inspection; he looks up instead, head down, gaze raised, to look on Roa for her response.
"Well," the weyrwoman considers, her fingers tapping on the mostly-blank hide, "As I understand it, we have a few journeymen already here. I can ask the Headmaster if he wouldn't allow them some sort of credit for the task. That drops it down to a pair of Masters." She peers back at R'vain. The question remains unasked, but her expression is curious. Quizzical.
It takes the Weyrleader a moment to formulate a reply; his fingers hold steady on the side of the mug and he watches Roa with that brow-furrowed expression in silence while he thinks. "S'long as you think there ain't no problem in raising th'ranking smithcraft population," R'vain offers at last, then shoves back his chair, unhanding the cider, leaning forward with paws curled on the armrests-- ready to get up. "Think we should talk feasibility, 'specially against drifts and icefall off th'walls, t'someone before we put out for bid?"
Her brows draw down and then, carefully, Roa asks, "Are you worried about Derien?" For the rest, Roa nods. "Seems an intelligent thing to do. I'd like to ask Penny, if you don't mind. She's designed structural things for me before, I trust her, and she could use the approval of a pair of high-ranking people, considering where she's trying to get to."
R'vain answers the question immediately with a rumble, noncommittal-- but as Roa goes on talking his mouth sprawls in a lazy grin. "I ain't worried now," he says, after the Weyrwoman's finished her say, and pushes himself up from the chair. "If y'can, have her in t'see us both? I ain't fussed if you get to it before me. You got time on th'ground." That's almost apologetic, with the rue twist of his grin he applies to it. "But I'd like t'hear what she has t'say at some point." A beat, a glance down-- "Ain't awful, have it, y'want it." The cider. That suffices for his good-bye-- R'vain prowls off for the passage that leads to the council chamber, after that.
Another small nod from Roa. "I will do. I'll find her when I can and send her your way. Try not to leer too terribly much, could you?" But there is a smirk and a sort of weary resignation to her words. He's awful. She knows. It's been noted and accepted. She studies R'vain's back as he rises and prowls, and then looks down to the slightly imbibed mug of cider. She draws it over and lowers her head to take a tentative sniff. With a small wrinkle of her nose, Roa pushes it away again. "No alcohol, no caffeine, no spicy things," she hums under her breath before picking up her stylus and returning to the hides patiently waiting for her attention.