[Maitrey] Spends most of this log playing with his pencil. Which is not a euphemism, I swear.
RL Date: 9/5/09
IC Date: 9/4/20
Lakeshore, Fort Weyr
The lake's shore is a broad crescent of golden-hued sand, stretching from the southwest wall near the feeding grounds and arcing toward the southeast and overlooking the blue waters of the lake. Where the lake deepens, that water turns a murkier blue-green, hiding an untold number of perils in its depths. It is an oft-used location for dragons seeking a place to sun or for residents and riders who feel a need to take a stroll; the sand is generally kept pretty clean and while there are no shells, there are periodic bits of obsidian and other volcanic stones to be found if one feels like picking around.
The first days of autumn just work, don't they? At some point this morning, one can assume Maitrey had some sort of industry to bring him out here, evidenced by the sketchbook next to him, the pencil he's twirling in his fingers, but he's settled now into an idle fit for a time. With a tattered blanket under him, with his feet on the edge of it to keep the ends from flapping in that hinted breeze, he lays on his back, squinting at the perfect blue overhead. Not much else has picked up yet down by the lake, most people either waiting for it to warm up or already too far advanced in their own chores.
It might not be cold by Fort's standards, but Xhonya looks like she's freezing already. She's got herself stuffed into a borrowed sweater and somebody's pants. They fit at the waist but had to be rolled up to keep from stepping on them. Despite this over-indulgence in bundling, she's got the handle of a basket in her hands and is heading with determination towards the herb garden. A familiar head catches in her peripheral vision and thus can she not help but drift in that direction rather than her intended one. "Lost your muse again?" teases the cheerful young woman once she's within talking range.
Maitrey tilts his head back far, far, curving up his spine for leverage till he can put a face to the voice, at which point he levels back out and resumes spinning the pencil through his fingers. "On the contrary," he answers, his free hand hitching up to cradle the back of his head, now that he's resigned to being comfortable here. "There's a wealth of it this time of the year. You might say I'm absorbing it for later use." Open invitation in the quick toss of his forehead to the empty swathe of blanket he's got.
Xhonya accepts his silent invitation and settles herself onto the blanket, legs folding one over the other and hands settling lightly on her knees once the basket has been set aside. "Have you drawn me that redfruit yet?" teasingly asked of him as she glances over.
"I haven't seen one to draw, I'm afraid. Would a sandwich with a pickle work instead?" His pencil taps the cover sketchbook next to him, leaving Maitrey to clarify, "There's one in there somewhere, if only incidental." Squinting one eye against the slanted sun, he gives Xhonya a glance, manages to spy the basket, resumes twirling his pencil aimlessly. Which sounds like a euphemism. "What industry are you avoiding, Xhonya, to enjoy this fine day with me instead?"
"You can draw boobs from memory, but not a round, red fruit?" asks Xhonya with a laugh. "A sandwich and a pickle? Tsk tsk, Maitrey, are you trying to make me feel cheap?" A wink is dropped in his direction and then her dark gaze flicks towards the basket, back to him again. With an almost absent air, her hand extends in an attempt to still the pencil twirling. "I was going to go see about the herbs over there." She jerks her chin towards the garden. "But you are far more interesting."
Maitrey's grin is frankly unembarrassed; "I haven't spent nearly as much time discreetly staring at redfruit as breasts." Speaking of boobs-- "What's with the sweater?" The pencil stops, it being impossible to keep spinning with Xhonya's hand involved, and he lifts his head up enough to offer a genuinely flattered answer. "Thank you. That means a lot, coming from a soap-maker. It is ridiculously verdant over there right now, though, until the frost comes, I imagine."
Xhonya's eyebrows draw in together, that crease that forms between them when she does this standing out. "I would /hope/ you wouldn't have to stare discreetly at a redfruit. But if that's your perogative, I could probably find you a redfruit to sit over there coyly while you pretend not to fixate on it." Her hand is removed with the pencil stilled and rested again on her knee. "As I truly hope the frost won't be arriving in the next little while, I think the herbs can wait." She grins at him and lifts her chin to regard the sky. "Did you finish that drawing for the weyrling?"
"I've always preferred to capture a candid moment. The redfruit might try posing if I'm not being discreet, trying to shine enticingly instead of just being natural," Maitrey argues aimlessly. There's about a three-second laps between the retreat of Xhonya's hand and the resumption of the spinning, with absolutely no way to tell if he's doing it on purpose or not. "The drawing is finished, yes, but the painting is underway. Obviously not at this exact moment." Heh. "What's with the sweater?" Echo.
Xhonya rolls her eyes, but in a good-natured way. "That tricky redfruit. It seems odd though, that a man who strives to draw women in provocative and enticing ways should be concerned with a redfruit looking enticing." A flick of tongue across her lips as his pencil begins spinning again is her only concession to annoyance at the persistant gesture. "I'm cold. People wear sweaters when they're cold -- or so I've been told."
Delicate, like he's sorry to have to break this to her, the syllables crisp with apology; "It's not cold yet, Xhonya." Note that Maitrey's wardrobe has not changed in weight at all, and the faintly ruffling breeze still seems welcome to him rather than chilly. "You're talking about two different things," he answers to her musing about the redfruit. "For my unsanctioned work, yes, a little posing wouldn't hurt, though it works itself out in my head most of the time. Women can be incredibly alluring when they want to be, but if they have their clothes on, I would rather catch them being beautiful without trying. Which probably makes about as much sense to you as why you carry around handfuls of berga-whatever-it-was makes to me."
"So I've been told. I'll have to get a thicker sweater." Xhonya has a grimace and a sigh for the news. "I'll take your word for it," assures the soap maker as she pulls her hair over her shoulder, running her fingertips through it thoughtlessly. "Bergamot."
"Yes. That." Berga-whatever. Maitrey's sympathy for the thin-skinned is slim, only as deep as the chuckled, "Layers are really the way to go. Perhaps some that even fit you?" Watching sidelong, it's funny how Xhonya's absent maneuvers with her fingers bring a gradual halt to his own, the pencil winding down till it rests across his knuckles, bridged by index and pink fingers. "Do you think of yourself as vain?" he asks after a spell.
Xhonya just smiles lazily at him, eyelids drooping slightly. A coy look, to be sure. "Layers that fit me? That would be something, wouldn't it?" Unconcerned with the issue she tacks on, "Or I could find a man to keep me warn and forgo layers." The question surprises her, brings about a puzzled look. "Vain? Not particularly, no. I think I'm pretty, but it doesn't please me to ponder upon that prettiness. Why do you ask, Maitrey?"
Another snicker and Maitrey clarifies, "If you have to wear sweaters-- and you will have to wear sweaters, poor girl-- you may as well not swim in them." The part about finding someone to keep her warm meets with a slight shake of his head, attention going back to the blue overhead, then pencil resumed. "Curious, I suppose. You're coy, you seem to be not especially bashful, I wondered if it equated to vanity."
Almost archly, Xhonya drawls, "I had to wear something. I promise I'll get some clothing that fit me better before winter settles in. Will that suffice?" Turning her body towards him, legs curling to the side and tucked around behind her she sets her hands against the blanket and considers him intently. "A woman can be confident without being vain. An artist can draw a self-portrait without being narcisstic, can't he?"
Reflexive, unapologetic; "I think all artists are narcissists." Considering he puts about zero consideration into making himself look pretty, it's safe to assume that Maitrey doesn't mean 'about their looks.' She turns and he looks at her over the horizon of his own elbow, the one bent so his hand stays up behind his head, his eyes twinkling for all he keeps the grin from taking up residence again. "I asked, Xhonya, not accused. You could just say 'no, I'm not vain' and I would accept it."
Xhonya just has to smirk at him. Her hand reaches, perhaps too familiarly now, in once more, but this time not for her pencil. Its goal is to mess up his already messy mop of hair. "Alright then. I am not vain. But! --" And here she lifts a finger to make the distinction, "perhaps I am just a little, in some respects. I keep thinking one of these days you'll ask me if I'll pose for you. I would, you know. Which then makes me think I'm not your type. Which makes me realize I don't even know what your type is. And then, of course, I ask myself why any of it really matters to me." A lengthy thought process, obviously.
If it's a too-familiar gesture, he doesn't raise a complaint for it, just blows a puff of breath across his forehead afterward to get hair off his eyebrows. Maitrey watches her lifted finger afterward, eyeing it intently like that will cover the fact that he flushes again, the whole 'bashful about asking girls to model for him' issue revisited in the pink cheeks. At least it stopped the pencil business again, so good job. "'Type' is a funny concept. What is your /type/, Xhonya?" The stress on it really paints the word in the light of the ridiculous.
Xhonya just smiles at his blush, all too knowing as to the cause. "My type? Gravely misunderstood men. Preferably dark-haired, with soulful eyes and a deep intellect." Critically she regards him and heaves a sigh. "Oh well. I suppose I'd be willing to settle for three of the four." If he's going to be ridiculous, she can be too.
"I never could pull off soulful eyes," Maitrey decides, not unhappily. Twinkling seems to have gotten him this far in life. "Now answer the question in all honesty, if you can. What turns you on?" The inevitability of his profession is spelled out right there in the frank candor of that question; he'll blush that she'd model for him, but no glimmer of shyness to ask something that freaking personal.
As unshy is he is, Xhonya turns back her head and laughs and then sprawls backwards on the blanket, folding her arms behind her head for support. "I'll let you know when I find it." Her head turns to look over at him, nothing reserved on her face. "You're a very odd person."
Maitrey's not really put out by the no-answer, maybe he never expected one to begin with, just watches Xhonya from the corner of his eyes again, those following her though he doesn't turn his head at all. "I'm not. No man meets a pretty girl and doesn't wonder that, I assure you. If you haven't been asked before, it's hardly my fault that they're biting their tongues, is it?"
"Wondering, asking, finding out for onesself, all different things." Xhonya returns to looking at the sky. "Says the man who routinely bites his tongue?"
The grin again. "I'm a pervert, Xhonya. How do you know that wasn't a selfish question?" As in, hearing what turns a woman on might be just the kinda thing that turns Maitrey on. Then again, a stiff breeze probably turns him on, so. "Guilty as charged, but that's more a matter of personal safety, isn't it? I'm not keen to get clobbered because some girl didn't tell me her father would kick down the door and find her in intimate postures with all her clothes off while I sat casually scribbling."
Xhonya grins, the tip of her tongue sticking out through her teeth, very amused. "You are a pervert, yes. But I doubt it was selfish. I think you were just trying to distract me." A single lock of hair is taken between her fingertips and lifted so she can brush the ends against her lower lip idly. "My father is half-way across the world, and I haven't slapped you yet."
"It's a metaphor. For bigger issues, if you prefer." Maitrey twirls the end of the pencil deliberately then, his head-bracing arm shifted with the shrug. An honest question, with a slight squint over at Xhonya-- "Distract you from what?" Which should imply that, no, he wasn't trying to distract her, else why bring it back around to that.
"You're kind of a coward, hiding behind that excuse," points out Xhonya with a slowness to her words. She rolls onto her side to peer into his face squarely, both palms to the blanket to support her weight so she doesn't come crashing down onto her shoulder. "I asked you what your type was. And you never answered."
Maitrey's, "I admitted to that already," comes again without hesitation. "My cowardice and I have gotten very comfortable with each other over the years, and I don't wish to disturb the placidity of our relationship." She shifts, so does he, putting the pencil in between his teeth to lift the sketchbook and lay it across his stomach, to flip open the cover. Pencil from his teeth-- "Pick one, Xhonya. They are all my type. Pages and pages and pages of my type." This would be the sketchbook that he does not leave just randomly laying around, yes.
Xhonya rolls her eyes again -- it's becoming a useful gesture around him. "You could try being bold, for once. It might become you quite strikingly." But there's the temptation of forbidden nudie pictures to be addressed. "In other words, you like naked paper dolls. Ahh, I shall have no hope then." Laughter rings out as she turns her regard on his sketch book. "May I?" In case the permission was not actually implied.
He's got a decent line for everything, this one. "If I was seeking fortune's favor, perhaps I would be." Bold. "But I'm seeking longevity and complacency." Maitrey chuckles at the paper-dolls comment, grants the joke with a dip of his chin of the yeah-kinda variety. "Do you think I put it there just to torment you? The box you're not allowed to open?" he answers her question, taps the butt of the pencil against the top page indicatively. "They're only naked paper dolls, they won't bite." Beat. "Sadly."
Xhonya pulls the sketchpad towards her now that it's clear she's allowed to look. "Weeeeeelll..." The word is drawn out long while she examines the first page and flips it gently before continuing her thought. "Why not? You've draped yourself so tormentingly here before me. What's to stop you from tormenting me with your drawings?" Her eyes are wicked when she looks up at him again. "Do you like that, then? Being bitten?"
In that case, him being draped tormentingly (lazily, by the way, is the real point of the posture), Maitrey answers gamely, "Maybe you ought to take your own advice about boldness to heart." Most of those pictures, especially the ones at the beginning of the book, go back to Harper Hall, though there's not enough evolution in the style to suggest they go back many years-- maybe even many months, considering most pages are filled almost to capacity with everything from full-blown pornographic imaginings to simply draped fingers to curled toes to curls and belly-buttons. "Quid pro quo, Xhonya. You didn't tell me anything worth knowing, what makes you think I'll tell you differently?"
Fingers walking through the corners of the pag*s to flip each one in turn, a long time is spent looking at every bit, whole pieces, scraps, each given due consideration. "Being bold only works when boldness is /wanted/." Xhonya lifts her hand away from the pages absently to pull her hair away and expose the curve of her neck nearest to him. There she strokes her fingertips lightly in the hollow space where the muscle of her shoulder rises towards her jaw line and intersects with her clavicle. "I think I would enjoy it, if someone were to kiss me right there. Do you like being bitten?"
Oh hell, now Maitrey's going to have to bend his knees and let the ends of the blanket get turned up by the wind; he can't just keep laying all sprawled out if his anatomy's going to get all tent-building tell-tale on him just because a girl showed him her damn neck. It's really not easy being a teenage boy, for the record. All of that is accomplished with as much casualness as possible, of course, though there's no pretending his eyes aren't riveted to where Xhonya's finger went. Calmly, "It's never really happened to me before, to tell the truth, but I think, under the right circumstances..." And there are lots and lots of right circumstances on those pages.
Xhonya glances over as he moves, the wind stirring her hair back into place and saving him the agony of having to see her neck for too long. A fingertip traces the arch of an eyebrow, careful not to smudge his work. "Are you..." It might have been a question, but she leaves it dangling to fill in what was implied all on his own. What she would have placed in that blank amuses her though, especially with her fingers now drawing down one of those right circumstances.
Maitrey lifts his chin long enough to see around the edge of the page, whatever's captivating her at the moment, at what point in his perversion has she paused, then he tucks back with the pencil spinning anew. "Am I...? Stupid enough to try to fill in that blank on my own?" His eyes narrow, his head shakes, his attention fixes back on the nothing overhead. "Absolutely not."
Xhonya laughs at his answer and exhales. "They're good drawings," she tells him quietly. It's a good thing there's nothing tell-tale on her though she does shift her leg just slightly. "Are you a virgin?" clarifies the soap maker, turning another page. Not shy, not shy at all.
"Thank you. I'm told I have talent," Maitrey demures, content enough with the compliment not to worry about where she pauses now. There is, after all, a blue overhead that's worth a few hours of study at the very least. "No. For all the crafthall would like to believe we apprentices are strictly chaste, things happen. I told you I write poems?" Which fits somehow into his lack of virginity. "Are you?"
"You did, but I've never had a chance to read any of your writing," Xhonya remarks even as she nears the end of the sketchpad. "Not...quite." Licking her lips again she passes back the book with a last caress to the cover, as if she's simply wiping away some bit of dust. "There was one boy, once. We fooled around a little."
Maitrey adjusts the book only enough to tuck it against his stomach again, the pencil tapping briefly in the process, then he's satisfied it's safe and he goes back to his idleness with dedication. "Strictly speaking," he begins, small amusement in his voice, "it's a black-and-white question and not one that lends to 'not quite' as an answer. You and this boy either did or you didn't." There's a questioning lilt in there; did they or didn't they?
"I think it's a not-quite thing. But I guess we didn't, no." A slow inhale leads to a slower exhale. Xhonya nibbles on her lower lip rather than answer, at least right away. "We never took all our clothes off. Some touching but never...penetration." That seems direct enough. "He was afraid he'd get me pregnant." She has a disappointed snort at the memory, looking over at him again.
In the fraternity of young men who've done things with girls they weren't married to... "It's a reasonable thing to be worried about." Never mind that Maitrey's laying sprawled on his back with a whole book full of ways to get girls knocked up balanced on his stomach. "Are you sorry that it didn't happen with him, or just sorry that it hasn't happened at all?" he asks to her snort, brows climbing.
"There's herbs for that," replies Xhonya dismissively. "And nobody would have ever blinked twice at me getting ahold of them, either." Brushing bangs aside she pushes up with her elbows into a sitting position, drawing her knees up to her chest. "The second, most assuredly."
Quiet; "Of course there are herbs. Which weigh horribly light when you're thinking about the possibility of your entire future being buried under a mountain of dirty diapers." Maybe his arms finally getting tired, maybe it's just time to change it up, but Maitrey puts the pencil into his teeth again to switch over and prop his head with his other hand, the pencil-trick not quite as smooth on the left as the right but it resumes pretty quickly once he's resettled. To her last; "Why?"
Xhonya shrugs her shoulders once and doesn't answer. The maneuver is watched out of the corner of her eye with interest for a moment. Then she heaves a sigh. "Never mind, I would think I wouldn't have to explain the desire to have sex to someone with a whole book full of it." Reluctantly she lifts her basket, but only to pull it closer and trace the weave of the hardened wicker as it twirls through the handle. "Because who'd want to fool around with a virgin? It's either too precious to throw away or just a black mark on your head. Either way, nobody wants it."
"It's fantasy, though. The beginnings of fiction. There are things in here that I wouldn't actually do. They're just things that sell, things that other people wish they were doing." Maitrey defends the fuzzy line between having a dirty mind and putting it to use with helpless apology. Then end of his pencil hooks toward one of Xhonya's pant-cuffs, seeks to pry at it a little; if it was a skirt, the gesture would be comically blatant. "A virgin in clothes three sizes too big for her? Perhaps not so many people. But, having seen you in clothes that fit, I'm confident that your technical virginity wouldn't be a deal-breaker."
Xhonya threatens to take his pencil with a snatching motion of her hand. "Maybe I should just go ask B'kaiv then. He seems nice enough." One of those nicely arched eyebrows lifts simply, seeing what he has to say on that. And then she's laughing, shaking her hair back out of her face and wiggling one foot at him to show that cuff off again. "I'll get them hemmed, okay?"
Maitrey really shouldn't be giving people grief about their clothes, and the fact that he is? Should be an indicator of how badly attired Xhonya really is. "You could," he answers to seems-nice-enough. He looks around for a square-shouldered greenrider-- not that they've met, but one doesn't spend half one's time loitering where there are girls without overhearing bits of their gossip. "There's nothing to stop you from going to find him right now. You could also stay here and deal with what you've done to my lap."
"One works with what they have, I suppose." Perhaps she means her clothing, the way she sighs it wistfully. But the way her eyes now look at him, then again maybe not. "What I've done to your lap?" Xhonya prompts, now looking there. Perhaps she spilled some ink somehow on him. She doubts it.
Maitrey twirls the pencil a couple more times, a new maneuver that spins it around his thumb and back under his index finger, his patience evidently limitless to suffer her trying to figure this out by sight alone. Considering he went to all the trouble of bending his knees a few minutes ago, and he's been dealing with 'issues' like this since puberty, it's actually kind of gratifying that it's not immediately obvious. "How long will you look, I wonder. Will curiosity get the better of you eventually?"
Obvious it may not be, but Xhonya has imagination and intuition to spare. She leans in near his ear, gone the primness of her carefully contrived speech in favor of the softness of Neratian burr. "Cou' look. Cou' feel betteh tho'. If'n you don' min'."
A short burst of laughter meets the accent, the first time in a while that anyone's bothered to look their way coming when someone down by the shore glances over to see what's so funny. But teenagers on the verge of making out is /so/ not news that he doesn't bother beyond the glance, and Maitrey can answer without scrutiny, "I think it's safe to say that I don't mind, Xhonya."
Xhonya has a grin for his laughter, so easy to come by. "Hmm. Lucky for you, I don't have a roommate to mind." Pushing to her feet and reaching her hand down to offer him aid up to his own, there's a fleeting glance given down to the rest of the lake. It's brief before her basket is taken up in her other hand.
Yeah, give him a minute, because walking across the bowl in this state? Not happening. Maitrey can at least busy himself with little tasks, stowing his pencil in the binding of his notebook, tapping that against his knees a couple seconds, and then eventually taking Xhonya's hand to half-let her help him up. Mostly, he accomplishes it under his own power. Blanket to fold, too. "How did you pull off that trick? No roommate."
Boundless patience, that's her. Xhonya wraps both hands around the handle of the basket and watches each of his little tasks in turn. "Oh, I just haven't found someone who wants to share my room yet. They gave me a triple, it's very... airy." Which means it's a step up from a closet, in other words.
"You're exciting my envy now," admits Maitrey, stressing /envy/ just a little bit to make the point about the other things that've been excited to date. "I am under the impression that they gave my roommate and me a shoebox with a door cut into it and some cots wedged inside." Shaking out some gravel, he folds the blanket and tosses it heedlessly over his shoulder, all set.
"Don't get too excited," drawls the petite soap maker, so very amused by all of this. "Honestly, it's not that big. It just seems bigger because they let me convert the third space into a spot for my supplies. Well, come on then." With a wicked little smile tossed over her shoulder at him, she strikes out across the Bowl.
That first comment earns a grin, has Maitrey looking down toward his lap for a second then up with twitched brows. No? Really? Then, "As if to imply that a painter and a tanner hardly need room for their supplies. I can certainly see the logic there." His sarcasm is pointedly, perfectly bland. "Yes'm," to her come-on-then, something about the situation leaving him with a deliberate amusement in his eyes while he trails into step.
Xhonya tucks the basket behind her back while she walks. "I'm still in need of a roommate." So very slyly murmured, grinning cheerfully back at him.
"I come tandem with a tanner," Maitrey points out in response, though glib. Really, in the coin-toss between tanner and girl, girl inevitably, invariably, unquestioningly wins out. "Not even a little vain?" he pursues amusedly, catches up the few steps to catch ahold of her basket-handle and slow her steps thusly. "You're quite sure?"
"Oh, is he a pretty tanner?" teases Xhonya with a giggle. She pauses when he grabs her basket, half turning. "Everyone is a little vain. Didn't I ask you to draw me? Isn't /that/ vanity?" Her head tilts, bangs falling across one eye. "Sure of what? If I'm not vain. Or...this?"
Tapping his hip with the sketchbook where it's tucked into his hand, Maitrey answers, "If I had the fit-for-company drawings with me, you could decide for yourself if he's pretty. I don't suppose he is, but he's an all right fellow to have as a roommate, so I can't complain." She pauses and he does step closer then, lowers his head just a little, not quite kissably close but certainly more into her personal space than he's tread so far. "If you're not vain, but since you brought it up. Of this." Because he is a decent young man at the end of the day, so it occurs to him to worry a touch.
Xhonya smiles idly at him, but this smile is thinner than most. "Do you think I'm vain?" But his concern thins her smile even more. "You're having second thoughts." A soft sigh. "I knew you would." Which may mean she has not. Then she grins sheepishly while turning to face him fully. "Is the sweater really that bad?"
"It has nothing to do with the sweater or whether or not you're vain, Xhonya." To prove it, Maitrey reaches to take a handful of that sweater at the hem, leaving off the basket-handle now, seeks to gather up the knitting at her hip. "And I'm not having second thoughts, not in the way that you think I am. I've done well for myself to this point, I think, in not being something girls look back on with a regretful sigh. I would like to keep up the track record, if possible."
Xhonya has to lift her chin to see into his face when he stands so close. One hand releases the basket, lifts to settle lightly against his chest. In restraint, in longing, whichever you prefer. "I may do foolish things, but I learn from them so as best to not make them again. How could I regret an opportunity to learn?" Her teeth glide along her lower lip in some approximation of false shyness. "I'm not precisely some blushing innocent, I know what I'm getting myself into."
Maitrey glances down at the hand on his chest, raises his eyes again with one brow hiked upwards; "How could I regret an opportunity to be someone's foolish-thing, her learning experience?" So flattered, except not really. Her lip-biting makes him snort gracelessly, leaves him explaining, "I assure you, Xhonya, I have not for a moment assigned you to the category of the blushing innocent, but the point needed to be made. I'm a pervert, not a predator."
Xhonya hesitates and then curls her fingers into his shirt lightly, just enough to define the weave between her fingertips. "I didn't just pick you because it was convienent, you know. I was...hoping you would want to. Once you got to know me better. We can wait -- we don't even have to, ever, if you would prefer. But I trust you. And I don't think this is foolish."
Honest; "We covered the fact that I want to back on the blanket in pretty strict terms, I think." Terms that boiled down to 'pitching a tent.' And, leaning down, catching the smell of her hair, Maitrey's confronting the physiological issue all over again, only, "People will think I'm strange if I wind up sitting in the bowl with my legs crossed ever so casually. I believe you were leading the way before I let my conscience start having a say?"
Xhonya giggles at his words, removing her hand from his chest with a sharp nod. "People already think you're strange. Let's go." The last two words she breaths out eagerly and then turns. If he thought she was quick before, now she springs lithely to cross the bowl towards the inner caverns, stretching her stride to its fullest.
"That's not fair," Maitrey argues lightly, raises his finger to counter the point. "These people," Weyr people, "generally think I'm a polite young man who likes drawing pictures and teaching children to finger paint. The only ones who have reason to think I'm even a bit off are, thus far, either paying customers or pliant virgins." That last said while she lengthens her strides and he actually has to pick up his pace a little from the usual no-real-hurry stroll he prefers.
"A pliant virgin now, hm?" Xhonya looks at him sidelong, a lopsided cock to her grin. "I like that." The distance is eaten with that stride and it's little time before she's entering the shadow of the inner caverns. "I don't think you're strange, I think you're charming."
Admittedly, "I've just always liked the term. I've never brought it around in a story, at least partially because I don't write about virgins." There's a pause, a knitting of Maitrey's brows while he realizes that about himself, humn. Moving on-- "I think you're charming, too," he confesses quietly, put with a how-do-you-do nod to one of those aunties who thinks he's a polite young man. Oh, if only they knew.
"Nobody likes virgins, you see?" Xhonya rolls her hand in a circle as she extrapolates, "It's all a one-shot commodity. The whole appeal to it is the Holderish regard for purity. And let's face it, people who read porn probably lack a Holderish regard for purity... or much sense of romance." His confession has her looking up again, slowing with the traffic they have to move through. "I'm glad to know that."
Maitrey says this a lot-- "On the contrary." So there's no fodder for gossip, he doesn't reach for a hand or crowd her steps or anything, and keeps up conversation that could almost as easily be overheard. At least, snippets of it could be, without anyone getting the wrong idea. "I think a lot of the men that purchase my wares are very much bound by holder morals, by fidelity and chastity, and that's probably why they wind up looking for fantasy girls. Their wives are familiar to them, mothers for their children, but the passion is spent. Aside from the hairy, horny ones who just can't get laid, admittedly."
Xhonya leads him through the maze, though she's not, admittedly, the best person to be leading. At least she can get herself through the major routes without incident, and the path back to her room has become a familiar one. "You think so?" It's not really a question, even though it's coached as one. "I'll take your word for it. Do you always sell to men?"
Maitrey shrugs at the not-really-question, supplies a not-really-answer. For the actual question; "I don't sell it myself usually. I sell it to a man who sells it for me. On the few occasions I've done my own distributing, it was to some of the fellows back at the Hall, and lately to a few men that expressed an interest." Which still strikes him as oddly humorous. "One said he was going to read it to his weyrmate, also a man, the other said he would read it to a girl he knows. So." The answer's in there somewhere.
"I see." Down the much less populated hallway leading to the rooms and the dormitory. Here, Xhonya pauses, laying her hand on one of the doors. "Last chance to change your mind," she offers quietly, grinning like she knows he won't take that chance.
Fingertips on the panel of the door nearest the frame, Maitrey takes a step toward that frame slightly, his shoulder finding purchase against it briefly. "Thankfully, I won't say the same thing to you. There's still time on the other side of that door for you to change yours." Open sesame.
Xhonya turns the doornob, pushes the door open. "I won't. I never do, once I've made it up." And in she goes, into a room that smells heavily of herbs and flowers and soap wax in a heady, but not overpowering, way.
"Nicer than mine," Maitrey concedes, his nostrils flaring at the smell-- entirely different from the leather-and-paint that pervades his own domicile. He stays at the door for a moment, taking in the scale of Xhonya's room compared to his own, the utter lack of masculinity, no men's socks, no unfinished pamphlets... "All to yourself, I am in fact jealous now."
IC Date: 9/4/20
Lakeshore, Fort Weyr
The lake's shore is a broad crescent of golden-hued sand, stretching from the southwest wall near the feeding grounds and arcing toward the southeast and overlooking the blue waters of the lake. Where the lake deepens, that water turns a murkier blue-green, hiding an untold number of perils in its depths. It is an oft-used location for dragons seeking a place to sun or for residents and riders who feel a need to take a stroll; the sand is generally kept pretty clean and while there are no shells, there are periodic bits of obsidian and other volcanic stones to be found if one feels like picking around.
The first days of autumn just work, don't they? At some point this morning, one can assume Maitrey had some sort of industry to bring him out here, evidenced by the sketchbook next to him, the pencil he's twirling in his fingers, but he's settled now into an idle fit for a time. With a tattered blanket under him, with his feet on the edge of it to keep the ends from flapping in that hinted breeze, he lays on his back, squinting at the perfect blue overhead. Not much else has picked up yet down by the lake, most people either waiting for it to warm up or already too far advanced in their own chores.
It might not be cold by Fort's standards, but Xhonya looks like she's freezing already. She's got herself stuffed into a borrowed sweater and somebody's pants. They fit at the waist but had to be rolled up to keep from stepping on them. Despite this over-indulgence in bundling, she's got the handle of a basket in her hands and is heading with determination towards the herb garden. A familiar head catches in her peripheral vision and thus can she not help but drift in that direction rather than her intended one. "Lost your muse again?" teases the cheerful young woman once she's within talking range.
Maitrey tilts his head back far, far, curving up his spine for leverage till he can put a face to the voice, at which point he levels back out and resumes spinning the pencil through his fingers. "On the contrary," he answers, his free hand hitching up to cradle the back of his head, now that he's resigned to being comfortable here. "There's a wealth of it this time of the year. You might say I'm absorbing it for later use." Open invitation in the quick toss of his forehead to the empty swathe of blanket he's got.
Xhonya accepts his silent invitation and settles herself onto the blanket, legs folding one over the other and hands settling lightly on her knees once the basket has been set aside. "Have you drawn me that redfruit yet?" teasingly asked of him as she glances over.
"I haven't seen one to draw, I'm afraid. Would a sandwich with a pickle work instead?" His pencil taps the cover sketchbook next to him, leaving Maitrey to clarify, "There's one in there somewhere, if only incidental." Squinting one eye against the slanted sun, he gives Xhonya a glance, manages to spy the basket, resumes twirling his pencil aimlessly. Which sounds like a euphemism. "What industry are you avoiding, Xhonya, to enjoy this fine day with me instead?"
"You can draw boobs from memory, but not a round, red fruit?" asks Xhonya with a laugh. "A sandwich and a pickle? Tsk tsk, Maitrey, are you trying to make me feel cheap?" A wink is dropped in his direction and then her dark gaze flicks towards the basket, back to him again. With an almost absent air, her hand extends in an attempt to still the pencil twirling. "I was going to go see about the herbs over there." She jerks her chin towards the garden. "But you are far more interesting."
Maitrey's grin is frankly unembarrassed; "I haven't spent nearly as much time discreetly staring at redfruit as breasts." Speaking of boobs-- "What's with the sweater?" The pencil stops, it being impossible to keep spinning with Xhonya's hand involved, and he lifts his head up enough to offer a genuinely flattered answer. "Thank you. That means a lot, coming from a soap-maker. It is ridiculously verdant over there right now, though, until the frost comes, I imagine."
Xhonya's eyebrows draw in together, that crease that forms between them when she does this standing out. "I would /hope/ you wouldn't have to stare discreetly at a redfruit. But if that's your perogative, I could probably find you a redfruit to sit over there coyly while you pretend not to fixate on it." Her hand is removed with the pencil stilled and rested again on her knee. "As I truly hope the frost won't be arriving in the next little while, I think the herbs can wait." She grins at him and lifts her chin to regard the sky. "Did you finish that drawing for the weyrling?"
"I've always preferred to capture a candid moment. The redfruit might try posing if I'm not being discreet, trying to shine enticingly instead of just being natural," Maitrey argues aimlessly. There's about a three-second laps between the retreat of Xhonya's hand and the resumption of the spinning, with absolutely no way to tell if he's doing it on purpose or not. "The drawing is finished, yes, but the painting is underway. Obviously not at this exact moment." Heh. "What's with the sweater?" Echo.
Xhonya rolls her eyes, but in a good-natured way. "That tricky redfruit. It seems odd though, that a man who strives to draw women in provocative and enticing ways should be concerned with a redfruit looking enticing." A flick of tongue across her lips as his pencil begins spinning again is her only concession to annoyance at the persistant gesture. "I'm cold. People wear sweaters when they're cold -- or so I've been told."
Delicate, like he's sorry to have to break this to her, the syllables crisp with apology; "It's not cold yet, Xhonya." Note that Maitrey's wardrobe has not changed in weight at all, and the faintly ruffling breeze still seems welcome to him rather than chilly. "You're talking about two different things," he answers to her musing about the redfruit. "For my unsanctioned work, yes, a little posing wouldn't hurt, though it works itself out in my head most of the time. Women can be incredibly alluring when they want to be, but if they have their clothes on, I would rather catch them being beautiful without trying. Which probably makes about as much sense to you as why you carry around handfuls of berga-whatever-it-was makes to me."
"So I've been told. I'll have to get a thicker sweater." Xhonya has a grimace and a sigh for the news. "I'll take your word for it," assures the soap maker as she pulls her hair over her shoulder, running her fingertips through it thoughtlessly. "Bergamot."
"Yes. That." Berga-whatever. Maitrey's sympathy for the thin-skinned is slim, only as deep as the chuckled, "Layers are really the way to go. Perhaps some that even fit you?" Watching sidelong, it's funny how Xhonya's absent maneuvers with her fingers bring a gradual halt to his own, the pencil winding down till it rests across his knuckles, bridged by index and pink fingers. "Do you think of yourself as vain?" he asks after a spell.
Xhonya just smiles lazily at him, eyelids drooping slightly. A coy look, to be sure. "Layers that fit me? That would be something, wouldn't it?" Unconcerned with the issue she tacks on, "Or I could find a man to keep me warn and forgo layers." The question surprises her, brings about a puzzled look. "Vain? Not particularly, no. I think I'm pretty, but it doesn't please me to ponder upon that prettiness. Why do you ask, Maitrey?"
Another snicker and Maitrey clarifies, "If you have to wear sweaters-- and you will have to wear sweaters, poor girl-- you may as well not swim in them." The part about finding someone to keep her warm meets with a slight shake of his head, attention going back to the blue overhead, then pencil resumed. "Curious, I suppose. You're coy, you seem to be not especially bashful, I wondered if it equated to vanity."
Almost archly, Xhonya drawls, "I had to wear something. I promise I'll get some clothing that fit me better before winter settles in. Will that suffice?" Turning her body towards him, legs curling to the side and tucked around behind her she sets her hands against the blanket and considers him intently. "A woman can be confident without being vain. An artist can draw a self-portrait without being narcisstic, can't he?"
Reflexive, unapologetic; "I think all artists are narcissists." Considering he puts about zero consideration into making himself look pretty, it's safe to assume that Maitrey doesn't mean 'about their looks.' She turns and he looks at her over the horizon of his own elbow, the one bent so his hand stays up behind his head, his eyes twinkling for all he keeps the grin from taking up residence again. "I asked, Xhonya, not accused. You could just say 'no, I'm not vain' and I would accept it."
Xhonya just has to smirk at him. Her hand reaches, perhaps too familiarly now, in once more, but this time not for her pencil. Its goal is to mess up his already messy mop of hair. "Alright then. I am not vain. But! --" And here she lifts a finger to make the distinction, "perhaps I am just a little, in some respects. I keep thinking one of these days you'll ask me if I'll pose for you. I would, you know. Which then makes me think I'm not your type. Which makes me realize I don't even know what your type is. And then, of course, I ask myself why any of it really matters to me." A lengthy thought process, obviously.
If it's a too-familiar gesture, he doesn't raise a complaint for it, just blows a puff of breath across his forehead afterward to get hair off his eyebrows. Maitrey watches her lifted finger afterward, eyeing it intently like that will cover the fact that he flushes again, the whole 'bashful about asking girls to model for him' issue revisited in the pink cheeks. At least it stopped the pencil business again, so good job. "'Type' is a funny concept. What is your /type/, Xhonya?" The stress on it really paints the word in the light of the ridiculous.
Xhonya just smiles at his blush, all too knowing as to the cause. "My type? Gravely misunderstood men. Preferably dark-haired, with soulful eyes and a deep intellect." Critically she regards him and heaves a sigh. "Oh well. I suppose I'd be willing to settle for three of the four." If he's going to be ridiculous, she can be too.
"I never could pull off soulful eyes," Maitrey decides, not unhappily. Twinkling seems to have gotten him this far in life. "Now answer the question in all honesty, if you can. What turns you on?" The inevitability of his profession is spelled out right there in the frank candor of that question; he'll blush that she'd model for him, but no glimmer of shyness to ask something that freaking personal.
As unshy is he is, Xhonya turns back her head and laughs and then sprawls backwards on the blanket, folding her arms behind her head for support. "I'll let you know when I find it." Her head turns to look over at him, nothing reserved on her face. "You're a very odd person."
Maitrey's not really put out by the no-answer, maybe he never expected one to begin with, just watches Xhonya from the corner of his eyes again, those following her though he doesn't turn his head at all. "I'm not. No man meets a pretty girl and doesn't wonder that, I assure you. If you haven't been asked before, it's hardly my fault that they're biting their tongues, is it?"
"Wondering, asking, finding out for onesself, all different things." Xhonya returns to looking at the sky. "Says the man who routinely bites his tongue?"
The grin again. "I'm a pervert, Xhonya. How do you know that wasn't a selfish question?" As in, hearing what turns a woman on might be just the kinda thing that turns Maitrey on. Then again, a stiff breeze probably turns him on, so. "Guilty as charged, but that's more a matter of personal safety, isn't it? I'm not keen to get clobbered because some girl didn't tell me her father would kick down the door and find her in intimate postures with all her clothes off while I sat casually scribbling."
Xhonya grins, the tip of her tongue sticking out through her teeth, very amused. "You are a pervert, yes. But I doubt it was selfish. I think you were just trying to distract me." A single lock of hair is taken between her fingertips and lifted so she can brush the ends against her lower lip idly. "My father is half-way across the world, and I haven't slapped you yet."
"It's a metaphor. For bigger issues, if you prefer." Maitrey twirls the end of the pencil deliberately then, his head-bracing arm shifted with the shrug. An honest question, with a slight squint over at Xhonya-- "Distract you from what?" Which should imply that, no, he wasn't trying to distract her, else why bring it back around to that.
"You're kind of a coward, hiding behind that excuse," points out Xhonya with a slowness to her words. She rolls onto her side to peer into his face squarely, both palms to the blanket to support her weight so she doesn't come crashing down onto her shoulder. "I asked you what your type was. And you never answered."
Maitrey's, "I admitted to that already," comes again without hesitation. "My cowardice and I have gotten very comfortable with each other over the years, and I don't wish to disturb the placidity of our relationship." She shifts, so does he, putting the pencil in between his teeth to lift the sketchbook and lay it across his stomach, to flip open the cover. Pencil from his teeth-- "Pick one, Xhonya. They are all my type. Pages and pages and pages of my type." This would be the sketchbook that he does not leave just randomly laying around, yes.
Xhonya rolls her eyes again -- it's becoming a useful gesture around him. "You could try being bold, for once. It might become you quite strikingly." But there's the temptation of forbidden nudie pictures to be addressed. "In other words, you like naked paper dolls. Ahh, I shall have no hope then." Laughter rings out as she turns her regard on his sketch book. "May I?" In case the permission was not actually implied.
He's got a decent line for everything, this one. "If I was seeking fortune's favor, perhaps I would be." Bold. "But I'm seeking longevity and complacency." Maitrey chuckles at the paper-dolls comment, grants the joke with a dip of his chin of the yeah-kinda variety. "Do you think I put it there just to torment you? The box you're not allowed to open?" he answers her question, taps the butt of the pencil against the top page indicatively. "They're only naked paper dolls, they won't bite." Beat. "Sadly."
Xhonya pulls the sketchpad towards her now that it's clear she's allowed to look. "Weeeeeelll..." The word is drawn out long while she examines the first page and flips it gently before continuing her thought. "Why not? You've draped yourself so tormentingly here before me. What's to stop you from tormenting me with your drawings?" Her eyes are wicked when she looks up at him again. "Do you like that, then? Being bitten?"
In that case, him being draped tormentingly (lazily, by the way, is the real point of the posture), Maitrey answers gamely, "Maybe you ought to take your own advice about boldness to heart." Most of those pictures, especially the ones at the beginning of the book, go back to Harper Hall, though there's not enough evolution in the style to suggest they go back many years-- maybe even many months, considering most pages are filled almost to capacity with everything from full-blown pornographic imaginings to simply draped fingers to curled toes to curls and belly-buttons. "Quid pro quo, Xhonya. You didn't tell me anything worth knowing, what makes you think I'll tell you differently?"
Fingers walking through the corners of the pag*s to flip each one in turn, a long time is spent looking at every bit, whole pieces, scraps, each given due consideration. "Being bold only works when boldness is /wanted/." Xhonya lifts her hand away from the pages absently to pull her hair away and expose the curve of her neck nearest to him. There she strokes her fingertips lightly in the hollow space where the muscle of her shoulder rises towards her jaw line and intersects with her clavicle. "I think I would enjoy it, if someone were to kiss me right there. Do you like being bitten?"
Oh hell, now Maitrey's going to have to bend his knees and let the ends of the blanket get turned up by the wind; he can't just keep laying all sprawled out if his anatomy's going to get all tent-building tell-tale on him just because a girl showed him her damn neck. It's really not easy being a teenage boy, for the record. All of that is accomplished with as much casualness as possible, of course, though there's no pretending his eyes aren't riveted to where Xhonya's finger went. Calmly, "It's never really happened to me before, to tell the truth, but I think, under the right circumstances..." And there are lots and lots of right circumstances on those pages.
Xhonya glances over as he moves, the wind stirring her hair back into place and saving him the agony of having to see her neck for too long. A fingertip traces the arch of an eyebrow, careful not to smudge his work. "Are you..." It might have been a question, but she leaves it dangling to fill in what was implied all on his own. What she would have placed in that blank amuses her though, especially with her fingers now drawing down one of those right circumstances.
Maitrey lifts his chin long enough to see around the edge of the page, whatever's captivating her at the moment, at what point in his perversion has she paused, then he tucks back with the pencil spinning anew. "Am I...? Stupid enough to try to fill in that blank on my own?" His eyes narrow, his head shakes, his attention fixes back on the nothing overhead. "Absolutely not."
Xhonya laughs at his answer and exhales. "They're good drawings," she tells him quietly. It's a good thing there's nothing tell-tale on her though she does shift her leg just slightly. "Are you a virgin?" clarifies the soap maker, turning another page. Not shy, not shy at all.
"Thank you. I'm told I have talent," Maitrey demures, content enough with the compliment not to worry about where she pauses now. There is, after all, a blue overhead that's worth a few hours of study at the very least. "No. For all the crafthall would like to believe we apprentices are strictly chaste, things happen. I told you I write poems?" Which fits somehow into his lack of virginity. "Are you?"
"You did, but I've never had a chance to read any of your writing," Xhonya remarks even as she nears the end of the sketchpad. "Not...quite." Licking her lips again she passes back the book with a last caress to the cover, as if she's simply wiping away some bit of dust. "There was one boy, once. We fooled around a little."
Maitrey adjusts the book only enough to tuck it against his stomach again, the pencil tapping briefly in the process, then he's satisfied it's safe and he goes back to his idleness with dedication. "Strictly speaking," he begins, small amusement in his voice, "it's a black-and-white question and not one that lends to 'not quite' as an answer. You and this boy either did or you didn't." There's a questioning lilt in there; did they or didn't they?
"I think it's a not-quite thing. But I guess we didn't, no." A slow inhale leads to a slower exhale. Xhonya nibbles on her lower lip rather than answer, at least right away. "We never took all our clothes off. Some touching but never...penetration." That seems direct enough. "He was afraid he'd get me pregnant." She has a disappointed snort at the memory, looking over at him again.
In the fraternity of young men who've done things with girls they weren't married to... "It's a reasonable thing to be worried about." Never mind that Maitrey's laying sprawled on his back with a whole book full of ways to get girls knocked up balanced on his stomach. "Are you sorry that it didn't happen with him, or just sorry that it hasn't happened at all?" he asks to her snort, brows climbing.
"There's herbs for that," replies Xhonya dismissively. "And nobody would have ever blinked twice at me getting ahold of them, either." Brushing bangs aside she pushes up with her elbows into a sitting position, drawing her knees up to her chest. "The second, most assuredly."
Quiet; "Of course there are herbs. Which weigh horribly light when you're thinking about the possibility of your entire future being buried under a mountain of dirty diapers." Maybe his arms finally getting tired, maybe it's just time to change it up, but Maitrey puts the pencil into his teeth again to switch over and prop his head with his other hand, the pencil-trick not quite as smooth on the left as the right but it resumes pretty quickly once he's resettled. To her last; "Why?"
Xhonya shrugs her shoulders once and doesn't answer. The maneuver is watched out of the corner of her eye with interest for a moment. Then she heaves a sigh. "Never mind, I would think I wouldn't have to explain the desire to have sex to someone with a whole book full of it." Reluctantly she lifts her basket, but only to pull it closer and trace the weave of the hardened wicker as it twirls through the handle. "Because who'd want to fool around with a virgin? It's either too precious to throw away or just a black mark on your head. Either way, nobody wants it."
"It's fantasy, though. The beginnings of fiction. There are things in here that I wouldn't actually do. They're just things that sell, things that other people wish they were doing." Maitrey defends the fuzzy line between having a dirty mind and putting it to use with helpless apology. Then end of his pencil hooks toward one of Xhonya's pant-cuffs, seeks to pry at it a little; if it was a skirt, the gesture would be comically blatant. "A virgin in clothes three sizes too big for her? Perhaps not so many people. But, having seen you in clothes that fit, I'm confident that your technical virginity wouldn't be a deal-breaker."
Xhonya threatens to take his pencil with a snatching motion of her hand. "Maybe I should just go ask B'kaiv then. He seems nice enough." One of those nicely arched eyebrows lifts simply, seeing what he has to say on that. And then she's laughing, shaking her hair back out of her face and wiggling one foot at him to show that cuff off again. "I'll get them hemmed, okay?"
Maitrey really shouldn't be giving people grief about their clothes, and the fact that he is? Should be an indicator of how badly attired Xhonya really is. "You could," he answers to seems-nice-enough. He looks around for a square-shouldered greenrider-- not that they've met, but one doesn't spend half one's time loitering where there are girls without overhearing bits of their gossip. "There's nothing to stop you from going to find him right now. You could also stay here and deal with what you've done to my lap."
"One works with what they have, I suppose." Perhaps she means her clothing, the way she sighs it wistfully. But the way her eyes now look at him, then again maybe not. "What I've done to your lap?" Xhonya prompts, now looking there. Perhaps she spilled some ink somehow on him. She doubts it.
Maitrey twirls the pencil a couple more times, a new maneuver that spins it around his thumb and back under his index finger, his patience evidently limitless to suffer her trying to figure this out by sight alone. Considering he went to all the trouble of bending his knees a few minutes ago, and he's been dealing with 'issues' like this since puberty, it's actually kind of gratifying that it's not immediately obvious. "How long will you look, I wonder. Will curiosity get the better of you eventually?"
Obvious it may not be, but Xhonya has imagination and intuition to spare. She leans in near his ear, gone the primness of her carefully contrived speech in favor of the softness of Neratian burr. "Cou' look. Cou' feel betteh tho'. If'n you don' min'."
A short burst of laughter meets the accent, the first time in a while that anyone's bothered to look their way coming when someone down by the shore glances over to see what's so funny. But teenagers on the verge of making out is /so/ not news that he doesn't bother beyond the glance, and Maitrey can answer without scrutiny, "I think it's safe to say that I don't mind, Xhonya."
Xhonya has a grin for his laughter, so easy to come by. "Hmm. Lucky for you, I don't have a roommate to mind." Pushing to her feet and reaching her hand down to offer him aid up to his own, there's a fleeting glance given down to the rest of the lake. It's brief before her basket is taken up in her other hand.
Yeah, give him a minute, because walking across the bowl in this state? Not happening. Maitrey can at least busy himself with little tasks, stowing his pencil in the binding of his notebook, tapping that against his knees a couple seconds, and then eventually taking Xhonya's hand to half-let her help him up. Mostly, he accomplishes it under his own power. Blanket to fold, too. "How did you pull off that trick? No roommate."
Boundless patience, that's her. Xhonya wraps both hands around the handle of the basket and watches each of his little tasks in turn. "Oh, I just haven't found someone who wants to share my room yet. They gave me a triple, it's very... airy." Which means it's a step up from a closet, in other words.
"You're exciting my envy now," admits Maitrey, stressing /envy/ just a little bit to make the point about the other things that've been excited to date. "I am under the impression that they gave my roommate and me a shoebox with a door cut into it and some cots wedged inside." Shaking out some gravel, he folds the blanket and tosses it heedlessly over his shoulder, all set.
"Don't get too excited," drawls the petite soap maker, so very amused by all of this. "Honestly, it's not that big. It just seems bigger because they let me convert the third space into a spot for my supplies. Well, come on then." With a wicked little smile tossed over her shoulder at him, she strikes out across the Bowl.
That first comment earns a grin, has Maitrey looking down toward his lap for a second then up with twitched brows. No? Really? Then, "As if to imply that a painter and a tanner hardly need room for their supplies. I can certainly see the logic there." His sarcasm is pointedly, perfectly bland. "Yes'm," to her come-on-then, something about the situation leaving him with a deliberate amusement in his eyes while he trails into step.
Xhonya tucks the basket behind her back while she walks. "I'm still in need of a roommate." So very slyly murmured, grinning cheerfully back at him.
"I come tandem with a tanner," Maitrey points out in response, though glib. Really, in the coin-toss between tanner and girl, girl inevitably, invariably, unquestioningly wins out. "Not even a little vain?" he pursues amusedly, catches up the few steps to catch ahold of her basket-handle and slow her steps thusly. "You're quite sure?"
"Oh, is he a pretty tanner?" teases Xhonya with a giggle. She pauses when he grabs her basket, half turning. "Everyone is a little vain. Didn't I ask you to draw me? Isn't /that/ vanity?" Her head tilts, bangs falling across one eye. "Sure of what? If I'm not vain. Or...this?"
Tapping his hip with the sketchbook where it's tucked into his hand, Maitrey answers, "If I had the fit-for-company drawings with me, you could decide for yourself if he's pretty. I don't suppose he is, but he's an all right fellow to have as a roommate, so I can't complain." She pauses and he does step closer then, lowers his head just a little, not quite kissably close but certainly more into her personal space than he's tread so far. "If you're not vain, but since you brought it up. Of this." Because he is a decent young man at the end of the day, so it occurs to him to worry a touch.
Xhonya smiles idly at him, but this smile is thinner than most. "Do you think I'm vain?" But his concern thins her smile even more. "You're having second thoughts." A soft sigh. "I knew you would." Which may mean she has not. Then she grins sheepishly while turning to face him fully. "Is the sweater really that bad?"
"It has nothing to do with the sweater or whether or not you're vain, Xhonya." To prove it, Maitrey reaches to take a handful of that sweater at the hem, leaving off the basket-handle now, seeks to gather up the knitting at her hip. "And I'm not having second thoughts, not in the way that you think I am. I've done well for myself to this point, I think, in not being something girls look back on with a regretful sigh. I would like to keep up the track record, if possible."
Xhonya has to lift her chin to see into his face when he stands so close. One hand releases the basket, lifts to settle lightly against his chest. In restraint, in longing, whichever you prefer. "I may do foolish things, but I learn from them so as best to not make them again. How could I regret an opportunity to learn?" Her teeth glide along her lower lip in some approximation of false shyness. "I'm not precisely some blushing innocent, I know what I'm getting myself into."
Maitrey glances down at the hand on his chest, raises his eyes again with one brow hiked upwards; "How could I regret an opportunity to be someone's foolish-thing, her learning experience?" So flattered, except not really. Her lip-biting makes him snort gracelessly, leaves him explaining, "I assure you, Xhonya, I have not for a moment assigned you to the category of the blushing innocent, but the point needed to be made. I'm a pervert, not a predator."
Xhonya hesitates and then curls her fingers into his shirt lightly, just enough to define the weave between her fingertips. "I didn't just pick you because it was convienent, you know. I was...hoping you would want to. Once you got to know me better. We can wait -- we don't even have to, ever, if you would prefer. But I trust you. And I don't think this is foolish."
Honest; "We covered the fact that I want to back on the blanket in pretty strict terms, I think." Terms that boiled down to 'pitching a tent.' And, leaning down, catching the smell of her hair, Maitrey's confronting the physiological issue all over again, only, "People will think I'm strange if I wind up sitting in the bowl with my legs crossed ever so casually. I believe you were leading the way before I let my conscience start having a say?"
Xhonya giggles at his words, removing her hand from his chest with a sharp nod. "People already think you're strange. Let's go." The last two words she breaths out eagerly and then turns. If he thought she was quick before, now she springs lithely to cross the bowl towards the inner caverns, stretching her stride to its fullest.
"That's not fair," Maitrey argues lightly, raises his finger to counter the point. "These people," Weyr people, "generally think I'm a polite young man who likes drawing pictures and teaching children to finger paint. The only ones who have reason to think I'm even a bit off are, thus far, either paying customers or pliant virgins." That last said while she lengthens her strides and he actually has to pick up his pace a little from the usual no-real-hurry stroll he prefers.
"A pliant virgin now, hm?" Xhonya looks at him sidelong, a lopsided cock to her grin. "I like that." The distance is eaten with that stride and it's little time before she's entering the shadow of the inner caverns. "I don't think you're strange, I think you're charming."
Admittedly, "I've just always liked the term. I've never brought it around in a story, at least partially because I don't write about virgins." There's a pause, a knitting of Maitrey's brows while he realizes that about himself, humn. Moving on-- "I think you're charming, too," he confesses quietly, put with a how-do-you-do nod to one of those aunties who thinks he's a polite young man. Oh, if only they knew.
"Nobody likes virgins, you see?" Xhonya rolls her hand in a circle as she extrapolates, "It's all a one-shot commodity. The whole appeal to it is the Holderish regard for purity. And let's face it, people who read porn probably lack a Holderish regard for purity... or much sense of romance." His confession has her looking up again, slowing with the traffic they have to move through. "I'm glad to know that."
Maitrey says this a lot-- "On the contrary." So there's no fodder for gossip, he doesn't reach for a hand or crowd her steps or anything, and keeps up conversation that could almost as easily be overheard. At least, snippets of it could be, without anyone getting the wrong idea. "I think a lot of the men that purchase my wares are very much bound by holder morals, by fidelity and chastity, and that's probably why they wind up looking for fantasy girls. Their wives are familiar to them, mothers for their children, but the passion is spent. Aside from the hairy, horny ones who just can't get laid, admittedly."
Xhonya leads him through the maze, though she's not, admittedly, the best person to be leading. At least she can get herself through the major routes without incident, and the path back to her room has become a familiar one. "You think so?" It's not really a question, even though it's coached as one. "I'll take your word for it. Do you always sell to men?"
Maitrey shrugs at the not-really-question, supplies a not-really-answer. For the actual question; "I don't sell it myself usually. I sell it to a man who sells it for me. On the few occasions I've done my own distributing, it was to some of the fellows back at the Hall, and lately to a few men that expressed an interest." Which still strikes him as oddly humorous. "One said he was going to read it to his weyrmate, also a man, the other said he would read it to a girl he knows. So." The answer's in there somewhere.
"I see." Down the much less populated hallway leading to the rooms and the dormitory. Here, Xhonya pauses, laying her hand on one of the doors. "Last chance to change your mind," she offers quietly, grinning like she knows he won't take that chance.
Fingertips on the panel of the door nearest the frame, Maitrey takes a step toward that frame slightly, his shoulder finding purchase against it briefly. "Thankfully, I won't say the same thing to you. There's still time on the other side of that door for you to change yours." Open sesame.
Xhonya turns the doornob, pushes the door open. "I won't. I never do, once I've made it up." And in she goes, into a room that smells heavily of herbs and flowers and soap wax in a heady, but not overpowering, way.
"Nicer than mine," Maitrey concedes, his nostrils flaring at the smell-- entirely different from the leather-and-paint that pervades his own domicile. He stays at the door for a moment, taking in the scale of Xhonya's room compared to his own, the utter lack of masculinity, no men's socks, no unfinished pamphlets... "All to yourself, I am in fact jealous now."