Rain
Location: Outside the Weyr and Weyr Bowl
Time: Afternoon on Day 1, Month 7, Turn 2
Players: T'ral and Roa
Scene: Two riders bump into one another during a downpour.
It's raining. More, really, it's pouring. Heavy thick drops that soak as they fall, and boy do they fall. Just outside the weyr, along the gently winding path that will take one to a small clearing with a collection of very large boulders, a small figure is settled off to the side and out of the way of foot traffic. Seated crossed legged, hands resting in her lap, and utterly drenched, is the little Telgari weyrwoman. Her eyes are closed, her face blank and she just....sits. Dripping and breathing slowly.
T'ral has been somewhere further down the mountain. The first sign that he's coming is a bellow, that might herald the fact that he's collided with something. After that, a series of cracks as he steps over a drenched branch, breaking it in the process. Finally, a pebble comes skittering out into the clearing to roll to a stop just short of Roa, kicked by a big brown boot. All these portents herald the coming of T'ral himself, the big brownrider soaked to the skin -- curls are plastered down to the side of his head, and although his riding jacket is giving him some protection, it's clearly not enough. He nearly makes it past Roa before something draws his attention. He tilts his head sideways, spots her, and diverts without slowing he changes course to continue striding until he's standing before her. And then he drops to a crouch, one hand going out to balance himself against the ground, tilting his head to one side.
The bellows and cracks and kicks can't *actually* be ignored. Even with the drum of the rain, they're loud. And if one were watching they might note slight twitches of dark eyebrows at each new and unexpected noise, though there's little more sign that she notes it. And then, after a bit, the sound stops and there is just a sense. Prickles on the side of her neck. Breathing that isn't her own. Roa doesn't open her eyes. She only asks, simply, "Yes?"
T'ral is silent for a moment after that question, and then suddenly his broad grin appears. She won't see that, but she'll hear him when he begins to laugh. He's laughing good and hard, head thrown back as he begins to peel off his riding jacket. Within seconds of it coming off his shirt is beginning to soak through, but that doesn't dampen (no pun intended) his laughter. He reaches up with both hands, suspending his jacket above her head so it'll act as a shield between her and the rain. Of course, if her eyes stay closed, only a sudden halt in the raindrops will register.
They do. Those eyes. Stay closed. It's a mental exercise and despite T'ral's jovial attempts to mess with her mojo, Roa's doing her best to hang on to...huh...whatever it is she's doing. Brows do jerk downward as, suddenly, she's still dripping but nothing much is falling on her. And there's the dull thud-thud-thud-thud of raindrops pummelling a suspended jacket. "Seems a bit redundant, don't you think?"
"A bit," T'ral agrees, holding the jacket up in place nevertheless. He looks up at it for a moment, then tilts it slightly to one side so that the water can run down off it rather than pooling in the middle. What's gathered there already slides off with a small splash. He's grinning still, looking her over with a sort of amused curiosity. He's spent enough time loitering outside classes, waiting for Ginella to appear. Her identity can't be a mystery.
And perhaps he is known as well, his laughter at least, a somewhat common sound as she's moving from classroom to classroom. It's maybe three minutes more before eyes open, blink a few times, and her head turns to regard that soaked and beaming brownrider. "All right," she sighs, "you win. I'm going inside." One arm reaches up, her hand nudging the coat-roof away from her head.
T'ral waits it out patiently, wobbling only a couple of times as he crouches before her, a faint smile playing over his lips as she continues her silent meditation. "Aw, what?" His nose wrinkles, grin turning more playful now. "We're just getting properly wet, and you're giving up now?" The coat is obediently withdrawn, but he makes no move to put it back on. He's soaked through, shirt plastered to him, and contents himself with slinging his coat over one arm. "No dedication, I say."
"This from someone who can't even make it from one end of a path to the other without getting distracted." But there's a tiny smile hiding in the corner of the Telgari's mouth as she pushes herself up. She is soaked to the skin, clothing clinging in ways it really shouldn't, though she hasn't quite noticed. The hem of her skirt is gathered up and squeezed out, but the rest of the soggy is simply accepted. It was her own doing, after all.
"What, now?" T'ral feigns outrage, his good cheer completely undercutting any real attempt at indignation. "Who says my aim was to get back to the weyr in the first place? I was looking for a distraction, and I put my mind to the task, and here you are." A righteous nod confirms his success, and he tilts his head back to look up at her, that open grin still in place. "What's your excuse for being here?"
"I thought I'd try my hand at clearing my head and washing my clothes all at the same time." Roa begins squishing up along the path towards the weyr, despite protestations that T'ral's not so much interested in heading that way. "I'm still trying to figure out how to incorporate the soap."
"Spoilsport. I suppose you're going to want to go get dry, next." T'ral falls into step behind her, slinging his jacket over one shoulder and squishing considerably more loudly -- weighing about three times as much as her, as he does. "The soap's the easy part. What you do is you grind it down, then rub it into your clothes. It'll sort of get ingrained. Then next time you're out in the rain, suds everywhere." A brief, reflective pause and then cheerfully: "Good party trick, too."
"Getting dry *is* usually what one does after getting wet," muses Roa as she slogs along, out-squished by the heftier man. "Hmm. I can see you've thought about this a considerable amount. Do you speak from experience, then?"
"Well, yes, but I think you're leaving out the essential part of the experience," T'ral explains, ducking under a branch that hangs low across the path, laden with drops of rain. "I don't speak from experience, but I'm certainly thinking about giving it a try now. I have a keen intellectual interest, you know."
"Yes. And a wandering eye for giant kettles." Because she and Ginella share a barracks too. "What, then, is the essential part that I've been lacking?" The final crest takes them into the bowl and Roa is angling her way towards the Dragon Barracks.
"Ah, I see the dawn of my day has been in your ear," T'ral observes sagely, coming up and falling into step with her as the path gives way to the tunnel to the bowl, and there's room to do so. "Don't believe everything you hear, Weyrwoman." He casts a glance over his shoulder before he replies to her question. "You've left it behind, now. Mud. Vital ingredient in any cleaning experience is plenty of dirt. I'd have thought they'd teach you all how to run a proper experiment in those classes of yours."
"I suppose the trouble of having a..." and here Roa stalls because she's not quite sure *what* they are. Weyrmates? Lovers? Significant others? "...dawn of your day and your own weyr is that the evenings she's sleeping in the barracks seem to be the ones she's not all together pleased with you. And inclined to be in people's ears. My bunk just happned to be beside hers." Her pace slows as mud is introduced to the thesis. "Mmm, I think that's more for observers than participants." Is she smirking? No, can't be.
T'ral doesn't step in to fill in the blank, simply waiting it out until Roa picks up his own phrase. "Mmm, point," he concedes. "Unfortunate, that." Still, there's nothing downcast about the brownrider, who's found a pebble to kick at, and pauses to nudge it out of the mud with his toe before sending it skittering ahead. "All I'm saying is, mud is vital. You can't say you've properly experimented with any sort of advanced cleaning process if you don't attack the thing in the proper spirit. You should ask Ginny about this stuff, she's an expert on laundry."
"Is she? I never knew." Squish squash squish, Roa trundles along through the southern bowl. There is, at this point, a consisten drip coming off her nose and a fair amount of blinking to keep water from her eyes. Not that the girl much seems to mind. "But setting aside wayward cleaning experiments, what had you walking through the rain?"
"All sorts of hidden talents, my Ginny," T'ral observes, lifting one hand to slick back wet curls out of his eyes, then giving his head a shake that sends droplets flying horizontally for a moment, to clash mid-air with those falling vertically. "I was just out for a walk and a think, stretch my legs." A quick shrug from the brownrider -- that's all on that subject, for he's moving on. "You?"
"Gathering my thoughts," is Roa's equally simple reply. "It was helping actually. I wasn't enirely sure it would but..." shoulders lift and then fall.
"And then I came along and interrupted." T'ral is contrite, looking over to her and missing the chance to kick his pebble again. "I'm sorry, that was thoughtless."
"No, it's fine. Truly..." oh dear. It's so much easier to hold snappy banter when the other party's snapping back. Contrite? Contrite is much harder. "I imagine it looked very odd, anyhow. I need to find an out of the way place for such things."
"Well, depends, really." T'ral's tone is philosophical now, but the change has come so quickly that it's unlikely to be genuine. "Wet meditation will get you so far -- and believe me, I do see the merit, I do it myself from time to time -- and then I think a conversation's called for."
"In which case, one could say you arrived just in time." And now they're standing at the entrance of the dragon barracks. "I'm afraid my dry clothes are in there." One of Roa's hands lifts and dribbling fingers gesture towards the interior.
"Quite right I did," T'ral agrees with a nod. "Next time, you'll be sure to fill your pockets with soapsand before you head out, too." He shows no inclination to hold her up, one large hand coming up to gesture towards the mouth of the barracks. "Go get dry, Weyrwoman." There's an easy familiarity in the title, and another grin. "Things do sort themselves out, eventually."
The small smile that appears on Roa's lips has no happiness in it. It's just...there. A little flat and a little squashed. "Sure," she murmurs. "Thank you, T'ral."
For a moment he hovers on the edge of prompting her for more, but that opportunity hangs on the air for only a second. Then he's tipping her a salute, his grin diminished not at all. "Come and play cards with us some time. I bet Ginny'd like the company." The invitation, though jovial, is gentle too.
Another blink. Slow. Languid. But this one's tripped something, a small part of interest that lights up, hidden in the shadows of Roa's musing. "Ginella...plays cards?"
"Well, she doesn't play so much herself," T'ral concedes with a shrug, giving the jacket over his shoulder a shake as it begins to accumulate water in the folds of leather. "She knows how, but generally..." One shoulder lifts in a shrug, as that sentence ends prematurely. "If you'd like a night off, is all. Now go in and get dry."
"I'll think on it." Roa seems to maybe be about to say something else, but finally she only gives another one of those nods, though this one is more...something. Certain, maybe. Resolute. "Get dry yourself." And then she ducks into the cavern, leaving wet footprints behind as she moves towards her cot.
Time: Afternoon on Day 1, Month 7, Turn 2
Players: T'ral and Roa
Scene: Two riders bump into one another during a downpour.
It's raining. More, really, it's pouring. Heavy thick drops that soak as they fall, and boy do they fall. Just outside the weyr, along the gently winding path that will take one to a small clearing with a collection of very large boulders, a small figure is settled off to the side and out of the way of foot traffic. Seated crossed legged, hands resting in her lap, and utterly drenched, is the little Telgari weyrwoman. Her eyes are closed, her face blank and she just....sits. Dripping and breathing slowly.
T'ral has been somewhere further down the mountain. The first sign that he's coming is a bellow, that might herald the fact that he's collided with something. After that, a series of cracks as he steps over a drenched branch, breaking it in the process. Finally, a pebble comes skittering out into the clearing to roll to a stop just short of Roa, kicked by a big brown boot. All these portents herald the coming of T'ral himself, the big brownrider soaked to the skin -- curls are plastered down to the side of his head, and although his riding jacket is giving him some protection, it's clearly not enough. He nearly makes it past Roa before something draws his attention. He tilts his head sideways, spots her, and diverts without slowing he changes course to continue striding until he's standing before her. And then he drops to a crouch, one hand going out to balance himself against the ground, tilting his head to one side.
The bellows and cracks and kicks can't *actually* be ignored. Even with the drum of the rain, they're loud. And if one were watching they might note slight twitches of dark eyebrows at each new and unexpected noise, though there's little more sign that she notes it. And then, after a bit, the sound stops and there is just a sense. Prickles on the side of her neck. Breathing that isn't her own. Roa doesn't open her eyes. She only asks, simply, "Yes?"
T'ral is silent for a moment after that question, and then suddenly his broad grin appears. She won't see that, but she'll hear him when he begins to laugh. He's laughing good and hard, head thrown back as he begins to peel off his riding jacket. Within seconds of it coming off his shirt is beginning to soak through, but that doesn't dampen (no pun intended) his laughter. He reaches up with both hands, suspending his jacket above her head so it'll act as a shield between her and the rain. Of course, if her eyes stay closed, only a sudden halt in the raindrops will register.
They do. Those eyes. Stay closed. It's a mental exercise and despite T'ral's jovial attempts to mess with her mojo, Roa's doing her best to hang on to...huh...whatever it is she's doing. Brows do jerk downward as, suddenly, she's still dripping but nothing much is falling on her. And there's the dull thud-thud-thud-thud of raindrops pummelling a suspended jacket. "Seems a bit redundant, don't you think?"
"A bit," T'ral agrees, holding the jacket up in place nevertheless. He looks up at it for a moment, then tilts it slightly to one side so that the water can run down off it rather than pooling in the middle. What's gathered there already slides off with a small splash. He's grinning still, looking her over with a sort of amused curiosity. He's spent enough time loitering outside classes, waiting for Ginella to appear. Her identity can't be a mystery.
And perhaps he is known as well, his laughter at least, a somewhat common sound as she's moving from classroom to classroom. It's maybe three minutes more before eyes open, blink a few times, and her head turns to regard that soaked and beaming brownrider. "All right," she sighs, "you win. I'm going inside." One arm reaches up, her hand nudging the coat-roof away from her head.
T'ral waits it out patiently, wobbling only a couple of times as he crouches before her, a faint smile playing over his lips as she continues her silent meditation. "Aw, what?" His nose wrinkles, grin turning more playful now. "We're just getting properly wet, and you're giving up now?" The coat is obediently withdrawn, but he makes no move to put it back on. He's soaked through, shirt plastered to him, and contents himself with slinging his coat over one arm. "No dedication, I say."
"This from someone who can't even make it from one end of a path to the other without getting distracted." But there's a tiny smile hiding in the corner of the Telgari's mouth as she pushes herself up. She is soaked to the skin, clothing clinging in ways it really shouldn't, though she hasn't quite noticed. The hem of her skirt is gathered up and squeezed out, but the rest of the soggy is simply accepted. It was her own doing, after all.
"What, now?" T'ral feigns outrage, his good cheer completely undercutting any real attempt at indignation. "Who says my aim was to get back to the weyr in the first place? I was looking for a distraction, and I put my mind to the task, and here you are." A righteous nod confirms his success, and he tilts his head back to look up at her, that open grin still in place. "What's your excuse for being here?"
"I thought I'd try my hand at clearing my head and washing my clothes all at the same time." Roa begins squishing up along the path towards the weyr, despite protestations that T'ral's not so much interested in heading that way. "I'm still trying to figure out how to incorporate the soap."
"Spoilsport. I suppose you're going to want to go get dry, next." T'ral falls into step behind her, slinging his jacket over one shoulder and squishing considerably more loudly -- weighing about three times as much as her, as he does. "The soap's the easy part. What you do is you grind it down, then rub it into your clothes. It'll sort of get ingrained. Then next time you're out in the rain, suds everywhere." A brief, reflective pause and then cheerfully: "Good party trick, too."
"Getting dry *is* usually what one does after getting wet," muses Roa as she slogs along, out-squished by the heftier man. "Hmm. I can see you've thought about this a considerable amount. Do you speak from experience, then?"
"Well, yes, but I think you're leaving out the essential part of the experience," T'ral explains, ducking under a branch that hangs low across the path, laden with drops of rain. "I don't speak from experience, but I'm certainly thinking about giving it a try now. I have a keen intellectual interest, you know."
"Yes. And a wandering eye for giant kettles." Because she and Ginella share a barracks too. "What, then, is the essential part that I've been lacking?" The final crest takes them into the bowl and Roa is angling her way towards the Dragon Barracks.
"Ah, I see the dawn of my day has been in your ear," T'ral observes sagely, coming up and falling into step with her as the path gives way to the tunnel to the bowl, and there's room to do so. "Don't believe everything you hear, Weyrwoman." He casts a glance over his shoulder before he replies to her question. "You've left it behind, now. Mud. Vital ingredient in any cleaning experience is plenty of dirt. I'd have thought they'd teach you all how to run a proper experiment in those classes of yours."
"I suppose the trouble of having a..." and here Roa stalls because she's not quite sure *what* they are. Weyrmates? Lovers? Significant others? "...dawn of your day and your own weyr is that the evenings she's sleeping in the barracks seem to be the ones she's not all together pleased with you. And inclined to be in people's ears. My bunk just happned to be beside hers." Her pace slows as mud is introduced to the thesis. "Mmm, I think that's more for observers than participants." Is she smirking? No, can't be.
T'ral doesn't step in to fill in the blank, simply waiting it out until Roa picks up his own phrase. "Mmm, point," he concedes. "Unfortunate, that." Still, there's nothing downcast about the brownrider, who's found a pebble to kick at, and pauses to nudge it out of the mud with his toe before sending it skittering ahead. "All I'm saying is, mud is vital. You can't say you've properly experimented with any sort of advanced cleaning process if you don't attack the thing in the proper spirit. You should ask Ginny about this stuff, she's an expert on laundry."
"Is she? I never knew." Squish squash squish, Roa trundles along through the southern bowl. There is, at this point, a consisten drip coming off her nose and a fair amount of blinking to keep water from her eyes. Not that the girl much seems to mind. "But setting aside wayward cleaning experiments, what had you walking through the rain?"
"All sorts of hidden talents, my Ginny," T'ral observes, lifting one hand to slick back wet curls out of his eyes, then giving his head a shake that sends droplets flying horizontally for a moment, to clash mid-air with those falling vertically. "I was just out for a walk and a think, stretch my legs." A quick shrug from the brownrider -- that's all on that subject, for he's moving on. "You?"
"Gathering my thoughts," is Roa's equally simple reply. "It was helping actually. I wasn't enirely sure it would but..." shoulders lift and then fall.
"And then I came along and interrupted." T'ral is contrite, looking over to her and missing the chance to kick his pebble again. "I'm sorry, that was thoughtless."
"No, it's fine. Truly..." oh dear. It's so much easier to hold snappy banter when the other party's snapping back. Contrite? Contrite is much harder. "I imagine it looked very odd, anyhow. I need to find an out of the way place for such things."
"Well, depends, really." T'ral's tone is philosophical now, but the change has come so quickly that it's unlikely to be genuine. "Wet meditation will get you so far -- and believe me, I do see the merit, I do it myself from time to time -- and then I think a conversation's called for."
"In which case, one could say you arrived just in time." And now they're standing at the entrance of the dragon barracks. "I'm afraid my dry clothes are in there." One of Roa's hands lifts and dribbling fingers gesture towards the interior.
"Quite right I did," T'ral agrees with a nod. "Next time, you'll be sure to fill your pockets with soapsand before you head out, too." He shows no inclination to hold her up, one large hand coming up to gesture towards the mouth of the barracks. "Go get dry, Weyrwoman." There's an easy familiarity in the title, and another grin. "Things do sort themselves out, eventually."
The small smile that appears on Roa's lips has no happiness in it. It's just...there. A little flat and a little squashed. "Sure," she murmurs. "Thank you, T'ral."
For a moment he hovers on the edge of prompting her for more, but that opportunity hangs on the air for only a second. Then he's tipping her a salute, his grin diminished not at all. "Come and play cards with us some time. I bet Ginny'd like the company." The invitation, though jovial, is gentle too.
Another blink. Slow. Languid. But this one's tripped something, a small part of interest that lights up, hidden in the shadows of Roa's musing. "Ginella...plays cards?"
"Well, she doesn't play so much herself," T'ral concedes with a shrug, giving the jacket over his shoulder a shake as it begins to accumulate water in the folds of leather. "She knows how, but generally..." One shoulder lifts in a shrug, as that sentence ends prematurely. "If you'd like a night off, is all. Now go in and get dry."
"I'll think on it." Roa seems to maybe be about to say something else, but finally she only gives another one of those nods, though this one is more...something. Certain, maybe. Resolute. "Get dry yourself." And then she ducks into the cavern, leaving wet footprints behind as she moves towards her cot.