Midnight muffins.
RL Date: 5/11/08
IC Date: 4/19/16 (approx)
Nighttime for the weyrleaders' ledge is a quiet affair; Teonath, Wyaeth, not much sign of life from either of the weyrs that open off that ledge. The bronze snores, the gold doesn't. N'thei's outer weyr has all the cold-and-quiet of disuse, no fire crackling, a little dust over all the fine furniture. The inner weyr glows a little with overnight embers, with the somnolent half-snores of dead-sleep.
The middle of the night is when Secath would like to be asleep, but instead she's standing beside Persie in the dark bowl while the blonde is busily packing muffins into the dragon's pack. "I know he's asleep. Everyone is asleep. Just ask him." And with a short huff, the green obeys. Leaves start to fall in Wyaeth's dreams, turning to shades that no leaf ever bore, royal purples and dusky blues. There is hesitation, though, and in the bowl Persie answers it. "I don't know what you should say. How about... Hello, we'd like you to wake up and come with us?" More grumbling from the green and then the leaves flutter more vibrantly, << Wake up. We're going to watch the sun rise. >> She notably lacks Persie's enthusiasm.
The answer is about as friendly as a handful of dirt right in the eyes. << Like hell we are. >> All those pretty leaves shrivel and die and blow away all crunched and crispy in Wyaeth's dreams, and he has the joy of snorting to see them scatter. << Sun'll be there whether we go watch it or not. >> In case that was ever in question.
Secath is completley unsurprised and while her leaves retract, her attention turns to Persie. The young woman wrinkles her nose, eyes the ledges above as if looking for some other victim for her midnight proposals, but in the end, she says, "Well, ask if N'thei is... Well, I guess he wouldn't be awake. It doesn't look like anyone is awake. Ask if he's alone." There's a pause as Secath tries to refuse, but Persie tap-tap-taps on the dragon's shoulder, encouragement. << I think she intends to make us all go see the sun rise. Is he alone?" >> She sounds increasingly grumpy about the whole thing herself.
The image is stark, blurred with sleep. N'thei, sprawled in bed, boots and clothes scattered across the floor in utter disarray, no one else with him. << What the hell's she doing up at this hour anyways? >> An inkling of sympathy gets into Wyaeth's tone despite his best intentions just to go back to sleep.
<< Baking, >> Secath returns wearily. But then she'll give Wyaeth the chance to go back to sleep, the benefit of whatever time he can sneak in before he's called to wake, or perhaps even the option of sleeping all the way until morning comes. Persie, meanwhile, she takes a muffin with her as a lure and heads up to the ledge. She sneaks past the gold, offers an anxious smile for Wyaeth whether he looks at her or not and then into the weyr she goes, tip toeing as best she can. "Um... N'thei?"
Wyaeth doesn't look, resolutely doesn't look, but the switch of his tail as the greenrider creeps past is betrayal enough. << Baking. >> He snorts and runs with Secath's charity, tries hard-- pretends hard that he's drifted back to sleep. His rider has it easier; an um-N'thei and a tiptoed step just won't rouse him. The details are off a little, boots not where Wyaeth pictured them, feet sticking out from the end of the blanket thrown haphazardly across his person, but the gist is right.
And so Persie pads deeper into the weyr, coming more properly upon the sleeping hulk of a man. She bites her lip and approaches the bed to give his shoulder a tap. "Hey," quiet, but chipper at least. Or seeming so. "N'theeeei?" She steps back quickly, just in case.
N'thei snorts, not so impressive as Wyaeth but he gives it a fighting try, and starts awake; in haste, he braces himself up on his hands and peers into the general gloom and disarray of his weyr. "What? What's wrong? What happened?" Although he's found Persie with his eyes, blinking blearily against sleep-cobwebs, there's no light of recognition in them yet, just startled-awake panic.
Persie looks immediately regretful--there must have been a better way to wake him. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong. Nothing's happened," she attempts to reassure him. But in the wake of all this startled rousing, she begins to lose her nerve a bit, her teeth find her lip. Then she remembers the muffin. "I... I think you should come with me. I'm going to watch the sun rise. Unless you've got, you know, a relaly busy day tomorrow. It's not tomorrow yet. Not quite." And she holds up her paltry little lure, flashing a smile. "I've got muffins."
Immediate peril dismissed, N'thei shakes his head hurriedly like that might clear it; it doesn't. But he is starting to realize who's there, and that makes his expression odd-- confused, relieved a little, increasingly doubtful. "Persie?" His eyes travel from the muffin, up the arm that holds it, to her face, and he blinks. "To do what, again?"
If he's a little relieved, Persie is very much so, letting out a held breath, letting her shoulders down as her smile picks up a bit more strenght. "We're going to watch the sun rise. There'll be klah, too. I have klah. Nice hot klah. And muffins." She gives it a wave, even if most people aren't exactly hungry when they're startled from bed in the wee hours of the night. "Smell it? Smells good, right?" And with a grin, hesitant and hopeful, "Come with me."
N'thei watches. He actually attends Persie's muffin-waving several seconds longer than it lasts, sleepy veil gradually dragged away from his eyes. "D'you know that you're talking to me like I'm a puppy? --What the hell put this idea in your head, anyway?" The latter is asked in a brusque recollection of Wyaeth's clipped questioning, though it's said while he pushes to an upright seat, reaches toward the foot of the bed for a rumpled-looking tunic.
"I'm talking to you like I'm trying to convince a sleepy person that getting up in the middle of the night for sunrise and muffins sounds like a good idea," Persie corrects with a nervous chuckle. She watches him sit, biting her smile again against this rather positive turn of events. Unless he's just getting dressed so he can bodily throw her out and go back to sleep. "I was up. I couldn't sleep and I went down to the kitchens and they let me help bake and now I have muffins... You said I should come back when I didn't have anything serious in mind and I don't know what's less serious than sunrise and muffins." She reaches to snag the tunic and hand it to him. "Will you come with me?"
"Being up." N'thei starts his words emphatically, takes the tunic off Persie's hands with an abbreviated nod of gratitude. It's pulled on before he goes any further. "Being up before the sun is very serious, m'dear. Go and wait outside so I can make myself decent at least." There seems every likelihood that he'll actually oblige this wild hare-- or else just go back to sleep when she's off the scene.
"I know. But... Really?" Oh, that is a big smile. A huge, bright and cheery Persie smile. It's way too early for someone to smile like that. "Ok! I'll be outside. You'd better come, though," just in case that whole going back to sleep thing really is on his mind. "I'll go wake up Wyaeth." Apparently insomniac Persie can be very bold indeed, and off she goes, trotting toward the ledge.
N'thei calls at her back, "I wouldn't." In no hurry, the likelihood that he'll follow her out any time soon is slim, and being left alone with a crankily awakened Wyaeth can't be good for a person's health. Inside, there are sounds of life, the shuffle of bare feet, of clothing, splash of water; outside, Wyaeth forces himself to look out-cold.
Persie heads out ot move around the 'sleeping' bronze, but this time she's extra-special quiet about her rousing, what with the queen not so far away. She rounds on him, finding his head so she can get up close enough. "Wyyyyyaeth," she sing-song whispers. There is, also, a glance back at the weyr and a listen to make sure that the sounds she's hearing aren't snores.
Close enough. Wyaeth lifts his head so his muzzle can nudge at Persie's middle, just a little go-away shove at the blondie. There's an appeal to Secath added in grumpily; << Take her out somewhere and drown her or some'n. >>
<< You know that would just make her squeak more, >> Secath joins in, at least pretending to wish drowning on her rider, her commiseration growing amused. And, since it looks like everyone is going to be getting up and hauling off to some sunset, she adds is that raspy sort of voice of hers, << I'll be there, so it's not a total waste you know. >> Meanwhile, Persie is stiffling a surprised giggle as she trips back on her feet. "Don't make me pry your lids open," she threatens impishly, and very very quietly. "Or stick my fingers in your nose." See, N'thei is lucky he woke when he did.
Wyaeth peeks open his lids, takes a glimpse of Persie, then a pointed look angled toward the sleeping Teonath so very nearby. His snort is irritated, explained shortly afterward when N'thei arrives at the edge of his weyr. Quiet; "Rock and a hard place. You start screaming, she wakes up, it all falls to pieces." His whisper is threadbare between tired and oh-my-goodness-be-careful trying not to wake the queen.
Persie is making monster fingers at Wyaeth when N'thei joins them on the ledge, like she might just do something even though she's a good arm or two from reaching the bronze. And she turns to look over at his rider with a grin. "I'm not gonna scream." Still whispering. "Are you ready? I want to go to Red Butte. It should be just about dawn there. I think." She glance at the sky, though here it is just night and thus it could be any old time at all.
"This is mad, you know." N'thei has no better chance of rousing Wyaeth than Persie does, for all he has the bronze's tack slung across his shoulder. "Could be just as nice at noon as it is at dawn. Or we could go back in, I'll light a fire, spread a quilt, cuddle up, eat muffins," go back to sleep. He yawns behind his hand.
"I know," Persie answers for the madness, perfectly aware, but then N'thei has his own suggestions and they do give her pause. She tucks her lips in, thoughtful, thinking. She looks down at the muffin in her hand, over at the stalwart bronze, out at the green in the bowl and back to the Weyrleader. "Well... as long as we eat the muffins, I guess."
That's all it takes? N'thei stops right in the middle of reaching a strap around Wyaeth's reluctant neck, his arms held in that position while he peers back over his shoulder at the hedging Persie. "You want to go back in?" He tries hard to keep the incredulity from getting through to his voice, but it's not helped when Wyaeth utters a caged groan-- why the hell did /he/ wake up for that?!
And so Persie digs a toe at the stone behind her, heel wiggling back and and forth. This, this is the sheepish pose. "Well... I just wanted to do something. And eat the muffins. I don't really care where, I suppose. The sun -is- coming up around Igen, I think, but..." She lifts her brows and her thin shoulders go up and down.
Pained, N'thei and Wyaeth are-- for one shining moment in their antagonistic lives together-- on the same page. With renewed resolution, the dragon lowers his head and insists that he's asleep; N'thei slides the half-on strap back around his shoulder instead and looks toward the dark weyr behind them. "Are you going to be disappointed? This isn't like one of those times when I think everything's fine but really you're crushed inside?" he asks, still whispering.
Persie tries to hold back her smile, caged in her teeth, but there it is anyway. She shakes her head quickly, pale hair swinging. "You do the fire," she hushes back. "I'll get the muffins and the klah and I'll be right back." She starts, then hesitates. "It does seem silly, though," she muses. "Sitting in and eating muffins could happen at any old time. I don't know why I got you up so early..." And N'thei can groan over that too as she trots off down the steps to get the little meal from Secath's pack.
Let's just be grateful that N'thei's not actually homicidal, neh? --Takes time to get a completely cold fire to come to life, an occupation that has him crouched before the big hearth in the outer weyr with a tiny flame started and little bits of kindling to try to coax it along. Meticulous work for this early in the morning; "These better be some damn fine muffins."
She comes wandering back in with the whole pack slung over her shoulder, and this time she stops by the entrance to pulls her boots off; today's socks are bright green. "Are you mad?" Persie asks him, speaking normally now and padding over by the fire. "Waking up to muffins in the middle of the night is supposed to be fun. Or at least, I meant for it to be fun. You know, something that you wouldn't normally do." She's looking around now, though, for the promised quilt.
"I wouldn't normally do a lot of things." N'thei foregoes the list, a tired smile cast Persie-wards while he works his way up to the bigger sticks and the first promise of coal. "Do you think I'd have gotten out of bed at all if I was mad at you?" No quilt, not just yet; most of the room stays wrapped in long shadows while the fire claws for life.
Head turned away, toward the room, Persie slips a look sideways at him, her lips working together as she starts to smile once more, satisfied. "You do like me," she decides, tells him, announces. Whatever, she's certain. The pack gets set down very gently and then she's off for his bed, ready to pull the blankets off of that. Those -are- the blankets he meant, right?
N'thei calls toward the inner weyr, as that's Persie's destination, "Or I just really like muffins." He sits back at that, surveying his blazed work, unlacing his boots, not caring what she's in there doing to his bedclothes. "Occurs to me to wonder why you didn't just drink some warm milk and go back to bed though." Slow-voiced, thoughts still a little scattered at this particularly ridiculous hour.
Persie comes back out with, from the looks of it, the majority of N'thei's bedding. "Well, I don't know. I've done that other nights but tonight I'm just... awake. They did hav klah in the kitchen, though. For the bakers. Maybe I should have skipped that... Anyway, I doubt you like muffins that much." She drops the blankets and starts arranging them on the floor for this little makeshift picnic of sorts. She's a very busy girl and so that probably makes it difficult, pariticularly for N'thei's sleepy brain, to notice that she's not really looking at him much.
At this hour, unless it hits him across the head with a two-by-four, N'thei isn't apt to notice much of anything. He feeds the fire a little more till it gets going cheerfully, not as energetic as Persie but it does what it can, and he stays out of the way while she goes on arranging his blankets on the floor; briefly, his brows knit while he reconciles the whole thing-- blankets... his... on the floor... "What woke you up in the first place?"
"Hm?" Persie queries in return, on her knees now to get the edge of the blankets all straight and pretty. "Oh, I didn't really go to sleep. I mean, I went home and I sat there and I thought about it. And I laid in bed and I thought about sleeping. And then I got tired of thinking about sleeping and not actually sleeping, so I got up. And now I know that I got up to make muffins and surprise you with them." And so she takes a seat, cross-legged on the blanket and pulls her pack over to start unloading breakfast. First is the bag of muffins, open still from her tucking that initial lure back in. She pulls one out for each of them and, in the light, they appear to have some sort of berry baked in. And the out comes the klah in a thick drinking skin. "I didn't bring cups. But we don't really need them, do we? I missed the cream and sweetner in. I bet you don't like that do you. If I'd known I'd be inviting you, I'd have left it black."
N'thei does need a cup, because there is no way he's going to drink klah by itself. He leaves Persie there for a few moments, lets her chatter fill the room while he finds a pair of mugs in the half-shadows over near a table, brings with him something more appropriate than cream or sugar: liquor. Carefully, all lead-fingered and aware of it, he sets the two mugs at the edge of the blankets, the bottle of alcohol next to it, and seems just about to bring himself to a seat next to her when he pauses, frowns. "You got up to make me muffins, but you made klah not knowing you'd be inviting me. Maybe it's just the dead-of-night talking, but which part doesn't add up?"
"What are you...?" But he comes back with fixings and Persie blinks. "Oh, I -mixed- the sweetner and stuff in," she laugh at her own mispeaking. "I'd have thought you liked your klah black. You know, big touch guys always like to show off how tough they are by drinking their klah all bitter. But maybe I didn't add enough. And what are you doing with that?" She takes the bottle he's set down and sets it aside, off the blanket where it no longer exists. "I didn't know when I started baking that I was making muffins for you. I was just making them. But they're for you now. Sit."
Look. Let's get something straight. Persie's not the boss of N'thei. He sits completely of his own volition and not because she just told him to-- "Again with the puppy-thing." No sooner has he lowered himself down than he has to go stretching across Persie to the edge of the blanket for a bottle that most certainly does exist. "I don't like my klah black," by means of explanation.
"Was I doing it again? The puppy-thing?" Persie asks with an innocent blink. "I... Hey!" She turns to swat at his hand. "You can't have booze with your muffins. What kind of breakfast is that? And the klah isn't black. It's delicious. I had some." But she does acquiese, not the boss after all. "Fine," handing the bottle over. "Add some to mine too."
Long distance to N'thei: Persie attempts to pose without messing up or omitting words. Yes. *sagenod*
Emphatic; "Not breakfast, it's the middle of the night, so what's the problem." N'thei takes the bottle with happy aplomb, with a smile that tries to look sweet but still comes across kind of grim despite his best efforts. Courtesy dictates that the line the bottom of the mugs before he takes a side-swig out of the bottle's mouth, chases his thumb across his lip to get rid of any telling drops. "So what's wrong?"
"Fine fine," Persie says, indulging him in another smile, though it catches when she sees his looking all grim and such. She goes back to unloading the meal, a pot of butter and two little springs of grapes. There, all done. She puts her hands on her knees, looking down at the meal with a touch of satisfaction. But his question makes her blink up at him. "What do you mean?"
N'thei answers in a word; "Insomnia." He watches everything coming out of the pack, again not really recognizing the lot of it for what it is: a very nice breakfast. Usefully, he pours from the skin of klah into the mugs, sets the bladder near to the fireplace where it will keep marginally warm, then it's back to looking tranquilly curious at Persie.
"Oh, that. Well I don't know, I just think too much sometimes I guess. You know when you lay down and everything is still and you think you might fall asleep but instead your mind just keeps... going." Persie just rolls a shoulder. She pops off a grape off the sprig, "Were you dreaming? When I woke you up?" and then stuffs it in her mouth.
...going. "No." Might even be the truth, as bluntly as N'thei lays it out there like he's never suffered the same. Muffin, butter, bite, big one. "Dunno," he answers around his mouthful, shrugs right back at her; same gesture, totally different in its lazy-and-heavy way. "Don't remember dreams so much. You?"
"I do, normally. Well, when I haven't been drinking, I dream." But Persie's words turn distracted as he lifts that muffin, watching his face closely, waiting for the reaction, for any hint in his expression. As she pauses, an excited grin starts to takes over. "How is it?"
N'thei starts to ask along the line of dreams while he slicks extra butter into the bite he's taken out of the muffin, his mouth open to probe, but then it's a quick look up. Briefly, warily, his eyes catch Persie's, roam up to very fair hair, and a smile blooms. "It's good, thank you. Made them yourself, eh?" He eats more to validate his praise.
Persie lets out another relieved sigh. Still grinning broadly and happily, she takes her muffin and flops down on the blanket, rolling onto her back with her head toward the fire and the light on her hair. She breaks the muffin in half and has to fish a crumb off her neck. "Well, I had help. I'm not a baker or anything. And you're welcome." Grin. Maybe she caught those small hints that he had more to ask because she drifts back to that topic. "If I'm too tired when I go to sleep, I don't dream then either. Then I just... sleep."
"So tell me your dreams. And I'll play mindhealer and tell you what's wrong with your head." N'thei leans back the other way, against some spare piece of furniture that faces the fireplace, chair or something useful. Legs stretched out in front of him, toes toward the heat, he reclines behind his mug with his eyes resting mostly on the reflection of flames against blonde.
"One time I had a dream, one time, that I had a baby, but she was really slippery, like she was covered with oil or something." Persie begins, a knee swaying from side to side as she breaks her muffin into pieces and rests them on her stomach while eating others. "And we were flying and I kept dropping her and we'd have to dive down and catch her. That dream was pretty weird." She tips her head to look over at him, which does shift the lay of that blonde hair he's watching. "Is the klah alright? See, this isn't fair, you should have dreams to tell me about, too."
N'thei, callous without thinking about it; "Easy-- because you wouldn't be able to take care of a baby properly." From a man who can't even drink klah when it's not spiked, that's not really saying much. "Don't know what I dream about, not really. I used to dream about farming, growing these grapes that had really tough skins that didn't get damaged by frost, but not any more." He shrugs helplessly in light of his own lack of subconscious and eats another muffin.
Persie's knee grows still at N'thei's words, her attention returning to her muffin. "You mean because I'm a rider?" she wonders quietly. "Or because I'm not smart enough." A berry drops out of her muffin as she breaks it and eats, left on her shirt though she doesn't seem to notice. "You dreamt about grape skins? It sounds like you were working too hard." Pause. "You -were- farming grapes at the time, right?" Not that she isn't a little subdued by his previous judgement on her parenting abilities.
Oh dear. "Do you think you're not smart enough?" N'thei's not going to answer other than that, even to the matter of his grape-farming adventures. He just waves his hand, crumbs falling off onto his quilts, to dismiss the whole subject as uninteresting.
There's some muffin chewing and some lip chewing, but eventually Persie does answer. "I don't think so. I don't... I don't think I'm not smart enough." Not that she sounds real certain about it. "So your grape dreams, those were after you left the Hall?" She must have thought the hand wave was more about the crumbs.
N'thei prompts gingerly, "Then why would you say that I think you're not smart enough?" Eyebrows lifted, frown lowered, he finishes the second muffin quietly, chases it away with the rest of what's in his mug, and laughs a mellow denial of her guess at the timeline of things. "I forget you don't know that I don't like to talk about all that. --Mostly while everything at Crom was happening. Would dream about being a farmer. Simple life and all."
"I don't know. I do a lot of dumb things, I guess. Like waking up the Weyrleader in the middle of the night to make him try my muffins." Persie slips another glance over at him, putting the last bite in her mouth while she puts on a awkward smile. "You didn't forget. I know you don't talk about a lot of things. You dreamed while you were... -at- Crom? About the grapes?"
"That doesn't make you not-smart. Just..." There's no nice way to say it-- crazy, weird, bit off?-- so N'thei leaves it unsaid and tries a drowsy-fond smile at Persie instead. "No, not /at/ Crom, just during all that. At Crom, I dreamt about--" Either he's forgotten, what with the way he narrows his eyes thoughtfully, or he's just remembered that he's drinkless. Bottle, meet mug, no klah this time. "Why don't you have any babies?"
She stretches out a leg, her foot aiming for his stomach, just to rest there if he'll allow it and perhaps getting in the way of his pouring just a little bit. "About?" Persie's watching him now, her head canted to the side against the blankets.
N'thei tweaks Persie's foot now that it's in range, a gesture that ends by setting the appendage more comfortable across his lap than his guts. And nothing, not even feet, can get in the way of him pouring. "About none of your business, so just never you mind. We were talking about babies, your lack thereof." Held by the neck, the bottle stretches from his fingers toward hers invitingly.
Persie props up to an elbow to reach for the bottle. "You shouldn't be like that," she tells him, sounding a little sad again. Maybe she's just getting tired. Finally. "You brought it up anyway." She rubs her toes against his side, smile a little, encouraging.
"Do you remember the woman I told you about? The thumbs?" Free of the bottle, N'thei wiggles that particular thumb just now before he uses it to pry at toes against his sides. Very not ticklish. "That's what I dreamt about at Crom, about kissing her." And there's a question beneath his raised eyebrow; happy?
"Satiet?" Persie returns, smirking a little. "I think just about everyone knows, you know. You don't have to be shy about it." She wiggles her toes against his hand. And for his answer, she doesn't look particularly unhappy.
Patient; "Yes, I know that everyone knows it now, but you didn't know it then, and that's the point." N'thei plays this-little-piggy with the toes just to keep them occupied, just to keep himself occupied, scowls at them for a spell during which he neglects to further the conversation.
She lets the conversation fall away too, watching his scowl as he toys with her feet, still twiddling those toes to make a game of his occupation: evading his fingers, dancing in them, brushing his palm now and then. And Persie still just holds the bottle, not yet having taken a swig.
N'thei takes a pinch of Persie's big toe and holds on to it, a thought occurring to him in the middle of the toe-game. "It's not because your chaste. Clearly." Clearly? "Do you go *between*? Heard that's how women handle it. That's why you dream of lost babies?"
Let's go ahead and say that aloud. "Clearly?" Persie asks, her brows going up, face brightening. A quiet chuckle bounces in her shoulders and she does, finally take that drink. "I don't think it's really a baby," she tells him of the dream, wiping her lip with the back of her hand.
"Clearly." N'thei nods happily, that's all straightened out, everyone in agreement, good show. He curls his fingers round the end of her toes and holds them still for a time, asking naturally, "No? What do you think it is then?"
"She did start rising again, finally, though not as regular as before." Persie will give him that. "But mostly... she has a preference for blues with girls for riders. Sometimes she gets tripped up in a flight, or there's a surprise, but mostly..." She lifts a shoulder, drops it again, her eyes on his hand over her foot. Slowly she starts to chew her lip again, masking the beginnings of a quiet sort of smile.
N'thei remarks absently, "I didn't know she'd stopped rising. Or I forgot that I knew." A few drinks, midnight creeping toward dawn, he's lucky he remembers his name let alone the details of Secath's prowess. "So what's the baby?" One, two, three, four, five; his index finger rests triumphantly on Persie's little toe now, good for her to have a full set.
"Me." Persie sets the bottle aside and finally spots the berry that fell out of her muffin; it gets plucked up and eaten. "That's how dreams usually go, isn't it? It's some weird symbol-y thing. So I think the baby is me." She drops back down, a hand flopping to the side and finding the grapes again inadvertantly. "Well, we weren't really talking," she points out, "So I don't know why you would have heard that she stopped going up. I think it was just the move maybe." She tugs a grape free and holds it up. "Open up."
N'thei quirks his littlest smile; "I don't care for grapes." He must agree about symbol-y things, no words to the subject, then he leans his head back against the chair-or-whatever behind him with his mouth dropped open. Let's test Persie's aim.
"You're no fun," Persie tells him, grinning impishly again. "You can dream about grapes, but you don't like them?" It doesn't stop her from giving the grape a toss; unless he moves his head, it'll be hitting him in the cheek.
N'thei, hit in the cheek. "See what little bastards they are. Any wonder I don't like them?" Left where it lands, lost in the folds of his bedclothes. "And don't you--" He makes a show of belligerence in his voice, brings a finger up and around to point it accusingly at Persie. "Don't you call me no-fun, I got up in the middle of the night and ate muffins and talked about oily babies, didn't I."
Persie's eyes go wide, just for beat until she discerns the nature of that showy belligerence and then she's smirking quite happily, a barely containable smile. "You do like me. I'm going to remember that." As if it's some sort of threat. She twists a little turned at an odd angle but better for see him while she's laying back. Her hand drops with a nudge of knuckles again his leg. "Have you had fun? Getting up in the middle of the night to eat muffins with me?"
N'thei smiles a question back at Persie's deduction; does he? Reminded he has legs, he stretches them closer to the fire with his toes gathering up heat and his eyes gathering up slumber behind heavier-and-heavier lids. "Can't say that I wouldn't have had more fun sleeping through the night. You?"
"You can't say you would not..." Persie has to puzzle that out, the double negative, but in the end she just turn her cheek against the blanket. "No, I'm glad we did this instead of sleeping. I've had fun, even if we skipped the sunrise. I'm sorry, though," she tacks on for his preference to be in bed. She rolls onto her side, reaching put the lid on the butter and tuck it back in the bag, grapes too. And then she's reaching behind her to tug the blanket over her shoulder. And then, leaping way back, "That was before the flight, when you at Crom."
N'thei lost the whole thread of conversation way back there, and Persie tugging at the frayed ends of it only further unravels his coherency. He tries, for a time, to reconcile her comment; or maybe he's just half-awake watching all her flailing and scrambling with weary amusement. Eventually-- "What?"
She seems rather comfortably settled now, at least for the moment, and arm under her head, the other pulling the blanket up under her chin. "Kissing the Weyrwoman. It was before the flight," she clarifies at least a little, though with her cheek against her shoulder, Persie is sounding sleepy too. "Was it everything you dreamed it would be?"
"Now what..." Drowsy drowsy, N'thei spreads a slow grin to find its way lazily across the room toward the lounging blonde. "...makes you think I'm going to answer that question, my dear."
Persie quirks a grin right back, her lashes hanging low. "Because I'm me."
N'thei pats Persie's ankle, something in reach, and shakes his head to answer the question in a because-he's-him type of response. "It's late."
"Scaredy cat," Persie tells him. But she twists her head on her arm to look over at the bag. "It's late and you want me and my muffins to clear out?" she asks with a lopsided smile, whether she's actually rallying to move or not.
Clarification; "It's late and I don't want you prying at my love-life. You can leave the muffins." N'thei smiles like he's being generous here, just not cute enough to pull off lopsided in mirror of Persie's.
"Well, I didn't ask for details," Persie points out, mastering her own little combination of sleepy-smug. "It was a yes or no question. Though knowing you," she swivels her foot in his lap, "You'd have said 'yes and no' anyway."
N'thei mmmhhhhmms lengthily, shifts her foot a mite so it lands more comfortably across his legs once she's done using it as an illustrative tool, and lets his eyes fall closed resolutely. "Morning soon. No time for details anyway."
"Are you gonna fall asleep right there? Sitting up?" Persie asks, the bare hint of a laugh in her voice that she's now too lazy to put any effort behind. "Pooor sleepy Weyrleader."
N'thei: "Not if you keep running your mouth."
IC Date: 4/19/16 (approx)
Nighttime for the weyrleaders' ledge is a quiet affair; Teonath, Wyaeth, not much sign of life from either of the weyrs that open off that ledge. The bronze snores, the gold doesn't. N'thei's outer weyr has all the cold-and-quiet of disuse, no fire crackling, a little dust over all the fine furniture. The inner weyr glows a little with overnight embers, with the somnolent half-snores of dead-sleep.
The middle of the night is when Secath would like to be asleep, but instead she's standing beside Persie in the dark bowl while the blonde is busily packing muffins into the dragon's pack. "I know he's asleep. Everyone is asleep. Just ask him." And with a short huff, the green obeys. Leaves start to fall in Wyaeth's dreams, turning to shades that no leaf ever bore, royal purples and dusky blues. There is hesitation, though, and in the bowl Persie answers it. "I don't know what you should say. How about... Hello, we'd like you to wake up and come with us?" More grumbling from the green and then the leaves flutter more vibrantly, << Wake up. We're going to watch the sun rise. >> She notably lacks Persie's enthusiasm.
The answer is about as friendly as a handful of dirt right in the eyes. << Like hell we are. >> All those pretty leaves shrivel and die and blow away all crunched and crispy in Wyaeth's dreams, and he has the joy of snorting to see them scatter. << Sun'll be there whether we go watch it or not. >> In case that was ever in question.
Secath is completley unsurprised and while her leaves retract, her attention turns to Persie. The young woman wrinkles her nose, eyes the ledges above as if looking for some other victim for her midnight proposals, but in the end, she says, "Well, ask if N'thei is... Well, I guess he wouldn't be awake. It doesn't look like anyone is awake. Ask if he's alone." There's a pause as Secath tries to refuse, but Persie tap-tap-taps on the dragon's shoulder, encouragement. << I think she intends to make us all go see the sun rise. Is he alone?" >> She sounds increasingly grumpy about the whole thing herself.
The image is stark, blurred with sleep. N'thei, sprawled in bed, boots and clothes scattered across the floor in utter disarray, no one else with him. << What the hell's she doing up at this hour anyways? >> An inkling of sympathy gets into Wyaeth's tone despite his best intentions just to go back to sleep.
<< Baking, >> Secath returns wearily. But then she'll give Wyaeth the chance to go back to sleep, the benefit of whatever time he can sneak in before he's called to wake, or perhaps even the option of sleeping all the way until morning comes. Persie, meanwhile, she takes a muffin with her as a lure and heads up to the ledge. She sneaks past the gold, offers an anxious smile for Wyaeth whether he looks at her or not and then into the weyr she goes, tip toeing as best she can. "Um... N'thei?"
Wyaeth doesn't look, resolutely doesn't look, but the switch of his tail as the greenrider creeps past is betrayal enough. << Baking. >> He snorts and runs with Secath's charity, tries hard-- pretends hard that he's drifted back to sleep. His rider has it easier; an um-N'thei and a tiptoed step just won't rouse him. The details are off a little, boots not where Wyaeth pictured them, feet sticking out from the end of the blanket thrown haphazardly across his person, but the gist is right.
And so Persie pads deeper into the weyr, coming more properly upon the sleeping hulk of a man. She bites her lip and approaches the bed to give his shoulder a tap. "Hey," quiet, but chipper at least. Or seeming so. "N'theeeei?" She steps back quickly, just in case.
N'thei snorts, not so impressive as Wyaeth but he gives it a fighting try, and starts awake; in haste, he braces himself up on his hands and peers into the general gloom and disarray of his weyr. "What? What's wrong? What happened?" Although he's found Persie with his eyes, blinking blearily against sleep-cobwebs, there's no light of recognition in them yet, just startled-awake panic.
Persie looks immediately regretful--there must have been a better way to wake him. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong. Nothing's happened," she attempts to reassure him. But in the wake of all this startled rousing, she begins to lose her nerve a bit, her teeth find her lip. Then she remembers the muffin. "I... I think you should come with me. I'm going to watch the sun rise. Unless you've got, you know, a relaly busy day tomorrow. It's not tomorrow yet. Not quite." And she holds up her paltry little lure, flashing a smile. "I've got muffins."
Immediate peril dismissed, N'thei shakes his head hurriedly like that might clear it; it doesn't. But he is starting to realize who's there, and that makes his expression odd-- confused, relieved a little, increasingly doubtful. "Persie?" His eyes travel from the muffin, up the arm that holds it, to her face, and he blinks. "To do what, again?"
If he's a little relieved, Persie is very much so, letting out a held breath, letting her shoulders down as her smile picks up a bit more strenght. "We're going to watch the sun rise. There'll be klah, too. I have klah. Nice hot klah. And muffins." She gives it a wave, even if most people aren't exactly hungry when they're startled from bed in the wee hours of the night. "Smell it? Smells good, right?" And with a grin, hesitant and hopeful, "Come with me."
N'thei watches. He actually attends Persie's muffin-waving several seconds longer than it lasts, sleepy veil gradually dragged away from his eyes. "D'you know that you're talking to me like I'm a puppy? --What the hell put this idea in your head, anyway?" The latter is asked in a brusque recollection of Wyaeth's clipped questioning, though it's said while he pushes to an upright seat, reaches toward the foot of the bed for a rumpled-looking tunic.
"I'm talking to you like I'm trying to convince a sleepy person that getting up in the middle of the night for sunrise and muffins sounds like a good idea," Persie corrects with a nervous chuckle. She watches him sit, biting her smile again against this rather positive turn of events. Unless he's just getting dressed so he can bodily throw her out and go back to sleep. "I was up. I couldn't sleep and I went down to the kitchens and they let me help bake and now I have muffins... You said I should come back when I didn't have anything serious in mind and I don't know what's less serious than sunrise and muffins." She reaches to snag the tunic and hand it to him. "Will you come with me?"
"Being up." N'thei starts his words emphatically, takes the tunic off Persie's hands with an abbreviated nod of gratitude. It's pulled on before he goes any further. "Being up before the sun is very serious, m'dear. Go and wait outside so I can make myself decent at least." There seems every likelihood that he'll actually oblige this wild hare-- or else just go back to sleep when she's off the scene.
"I know. But... Really?" Oh, that is a big smile. A huge, bright and cheery Persie smile. It's way too early for someone to smile like that. "Ok! I'll be outside. You'd better come, though," just in case that whole going back to sleep thing really is on his mind. "I'll go wake up Wyaeth." Apparently insomniac Persie can be very bold indeed, and off she goes, trotting toward the ledge.
N'thei calls at her back, "I wouldn't." In no hurry, the likelihood that he'll follow her out any time soon is slim, and being left alone with a crankily awakened Wyaeth can't be good for a person's health. Inside, there are sounds of life, the shuffle of bare feet, of clothing, splash of water; outside, Wyaeth forces himself to look out-cold.
Persie heads out ot move around the 'sleeping' bronze, but this time she's extra-special quiet about her rousing, what with the queen not so far away. She rounds on him, finding his head so she can get up close enough. "Wyyyyyaeth," she sing-song whispers. There is, also, a glance back at the weyr and a listen to make sure that the sounds she's hearing aren't snores.
Close enough. Wyaeth lifts his head so his muzzle can nudge at Persie's middle, just a little go-away shove at the blondie. There's an appeal to Secath added in grumpily; << Take her out somewhere and drown her or some'n. >>
<< You know that would just make her squeak more, >> Secath joins in, at least pretending to wish drowning on her rider, her commiseration growing amused. And, since it looks like everyone is going to be getting up and hauling off to some sunset, she adds is that raspy sort of voice of hers, << I'll be there, so it's not a total waste you know. >> Meanwhile, Persie is stiffling a surprised giggle as she trips back on her feet. "Don't make me pry your lids open," she threatens impishly, and very very quietly. "Or stick my fingers in your nose." See, N'thei is lucky he woke when he did.
Wyaeth peeks open his lids, takes a glimpse of Persie, then a pointed look angled toward the sleeping Teonath so very nearby. His snort is irritated, explained shortly afterward when N'thei arrives at the edge of his weyr. Quiet; "Rock and a hard place. You start screaming, she wakes up, it all falls to pieces." His whisper is threadbare between tired and oh-my-goodness-be-careful trying not to wake the queen.
Persie is making monster fingers at Wyaeth when N'thei joins them on the ledge, like she might just do something even though she's a good arm or two from reaching the bronze. And she turns to look over at his rider with a grin. "I'm not gonna scream." Still whispering. "Are you ready? I want to go to Red Butte. It should be just about dawn there. I think." She glance at the sky, though here it is just night and thus it could be any old time at all.
"This is mad, you know." N'thei has no better chance of rousing Wyaeth than Persie does, for all he has the bronze's tack slung across his shoulder. "Could be just as nice at noon as it is at dawn. Or we could go back in, I'll light a fire, spread a quilt, cuddle up, eat muffins," go back to sleep. He yawns behind his hand.
"I know," Persie answers for the madness, perfectly aware, but then N'thei has his own suggestions and they do give her pause. She tucks her lips in, thoughtful, thinking. She looks down at the muffin in her hand, over at the stalwart bronze, out at the green in the bowl and back to the Weyrleader. "Well... as long as we eat the muffins, I guess."
That's all it takes? N'thei stops right in the middle of reaching a strap around Wyaeth's reluctant neck, his arms held in that position while he peers back over his shoulder at the hedging Persie. "You want to go back in?" He tries hard to keep the incredulity from getting through to his voice, but it's not helped when Wyaeth utters a caged groan-- why the hell did /he/ wake up for that?!
And so Persie digs a toe at the stone behind her, heel wiggling back and and forth. This, this is the sheepish pose. "Well... I just wanted to do something. And eat the muffins. I don't really care where, I suppose. The sun -is- coming up around Igen, I think, but..." She lifts her brows and her thin shoulders go up and down.
Pained, N'thei and Wyaeth are-- for one shining moment in their antagonistic lives together-- on the same page. With renewed resolution, the dragon lowers his head and insists that he's asleep; N'thei slides the half-on strap back around his shoulder instead and looks toward the dark weyr behind them. "Are you going to be disappointed? This isn't like one of those times when I think everything's fine but really you're crushed inside?" he asks, still whispering.
Persie tries to hold back her smile, caged in her teeth, but there it is anyway. She shakes her head quickly, pale hair swinging. "You do the fire," she hushes back. "I'll get the muffins and the klah and I'll be right back." She starts, then hesitates. "It does seem silly, though," she muses. "Sitting in and eating muffins could happen at any old time. I don't know why I got you up so early..." And N'thei can groan over that too as she trots off down the steps to get the little meal from Secath's pack.
Let's just be grateful that N'thei's not actually homicidal, neh? --Takes time to get a completely cold fire to come to life, an occupation that has him crouched before the big hearth in the outer weyr with a tiny flame started and little bits of kindling to try to coax it along. Meticulous work for this early in the morning; "These better be some damn fine muffins."
She comes wandering back in with the whole pack slung over her shoulder, and this time she stops by the entrance to pulls her boots off; today's socks are bright green. "Are you mad?" Persie asks him, speaking normally now and padding over by the fire. "Waking up to muffins in the middle of the night is supposed to be fun. Or at least, I meant for it to be fun. You know, something that you wouldn't normally do." She's looking around now, though, for the promised quilt.
"I wouldn't normally do a lot of things." N'thei foregoes the list, a tired smile cast Persie-wards while he works his way up to the bigger sticks and the first promise of coal. "Do you think I'd have gotten out of bed at all if I was mad at you?" No quilt, not just yet; most of the room stays wrapped in long shadows while the fire claws for life.
Head turned away, toward the room, Persie slips a look sideways at him, her lips working together as she starts to smile once more, satisfied. "You do like me," she decides, tells him, announces. Whatever, she's certain. The pack gets set down very gently and then she's off for his bed, ready to pull the blankets off of that. Those -are- the blankets he meant, right?
N'thei calls toward the inner weyr, as that's Persie's destination, "Or I just really like muffins." He sits back at that, surveying his blazed work, unlacing his boots, not caring what she's in there doing to his bedclothes. "Occurs to me to wonder why you didn't just drink some warm milk and go back to bed though." Slow-voiced, thoughts still a little scattered at this particularly ridiculous hour.
Persie comes back out with, from the looks of it, the majority of N'thei's bedding. "Well, I don't know. I've done that other nights but tonight I'm just... awake. They did hav klah in the kitchen, though. For the bakers. Maybe I should have skipped that... Anyway, I doubt you like muffins that much." She drops the blankets and starts arranging them on the floor for this little makeshift picnic of sorts. She's a very busy girl and so that probably makes it difficult, pariticularly for N'thei's sleepy brain, to notice that she's not really looking at him much.
At this hour, unless it hits him across the head with a two-by-four, N'thei isn't apt to notice much of anything. He feeds the fire a little more till it gets going cheerfully, not as energetic as Persie but it does what it can, and he stays out of the way while she goes on arranging his blankets on the floor; briefly, his brows knit while he reconciles the whole thing-- blankets... his... on the floor... "What woke you up in the first place?"
"Hm?" Persie queries in return, on her knees now to get the edge of the blankets all straight and pretty. "Oh, I didn't really go to sleep. I mean, I went home and I sat there and I thought about it. And I laid in bed and I thought about sleeping. And then I got tired of thinking about sleeping and not actually sleeping, so I got up. And now I know that I got up to make muffins and surprise you with them." And so she takes a seat, cross-legged on the blanket and pulls her pack over to start unloading breakfast. First is the bag of muffins, open still from her tucking that initial lure back in. She pulls one out for each of them and, in the light, they appear to have some sort of berry baked in. And the out comes the klah in a thick drinking skin. "I didn't bring cups. But we don't really need them, do we? I missed the cream and sweetner in. I bet you don't like that do you. If I'd known I'd be inviting you, I'd have left it black."
N'thei does need a cup, because there is no way he's going to drink klah by itself. He leaves Persie there for a few moments, lets her chatter fill the room while he finds a pair of mugs in the half-shadows over near a table, brings with him something more appropriate than cream or sugar: liquor. Carefully, all lead-fingered and aware of it, he sets the two mugs at the edge of the blankets, the bottle of alcohol next to it, and seems just about to bring himself to a seat next to her when he pauses, frowns. "You got up to make me muffins, but you made klah not knowing you'd be inviting me. Maybe it's just the dead-of-night talking, but which part doesn't add up?"
"What are you...?" But he comes back with fixings and Persie blinks. "Oh, I -mixed- the sweetner and stuff in," she laugh at her own mispeaking. "I'd have thought you liked your klah black. You know, big touch guys always like to show off how tough they are by drinking their klah all bitter. But maybe I didn't add enough. And what are you doing with that?" She takes the bottle he's set down and sets it aside, off the blanket where it no longer exists. "I didn't know when I started baking that I was making muffins for you. I was just making them. But they're for you now. Sit."
Look. Let's get something straight. Persie's not the boss of N'thei. He sits completely of his own volition and not because she just told him to-- "Again with the puppy-thing." No sooner has he lowered himself down than he has to go stretching across Persie to the edge of the blanket for a bottle that most certainly does exist. "I don't like my klah black," by means of explanation.
"Was I doing it again? The puppy-thing?" Persie asks with an innocent blink. "I... Hey!" She turns to swat at his hand. "You can't have booze with your muffins. What kind of breakfast is that? And the klah isn't black. It's delicious. I had some." But she does acquiese, not the boss after all. "Fine," handing the bottle over. "Add some to mine too."
Long distance to N'thei: Persie attempts to pose without messing up or omitting words. Yes. *sagenod*
Emphatic; "Not breakfast, it's the middle of the night, so what's the problem." N'thei takes the bottle with happy aplomb, with a smile that tries to look sweet but still comes across kind of grim despite his best efforts. Courtesy dictates that the line the bottom of the mugs before he takes a side-swig out of the bottle's mouth, chases his thumb across his lip to get rid of any telling drops. "So what's wrong?"
"Fine fine," Persie says, indulging him in another smile, though it catches when she sees his looking all grim and such. She goes back to unloading the meal, a pot of butter and two little springs of grapes. There, all done. She puts her hands on her knees, looking down at the meal with a touch of satisfaction. But his question makes her blink up at him. "What do you mean?"
N'thei answers in a word; "Insomnia." He watches everything coming out of the pack, again not really recognizing the lot of it for what it is: a very nice breakfast. Usefully, he pours from the skin of klah into the mugs, sets the bladder near to the fireplace where it will keep marginally warm, then it's back to looking tranquilly curious at Persie.
"Oh, that. Well I don't know, I just think too much sometimes I guess. You know when you lay down and everything is still and you think you might fall asleep but instead your mind just keeps... going." Persie just rolls a shoulder. She pops off a grape off the sprig, "Were you dreaming? When I woke you up?" and then stuffs it in her mouth.
...going. "No." Might even be the truth, as bluntly as N'thei lays it out there like he's never suffered the same. Muffin, butter, bite, big one. "Dunno," he answers around his mouthful, shrugs right back at her; same gesture, totally different in its lazy-and-heavy way. "Don't remember dreams so much. You?"
"I do, normally. Well, when I haven't been drinking, I dream." But Persie's words turn distracted as he lifts that muffin, watching his face closely, waiting for the reaction, for any hint in his expression. As she pauses, an excited grin starts to takes over. "How is it?"
N'thei starts to ask along the line of dreams while he slicks extra butter into the bite he's taken out of the muffin, his mouth open to probe, but then it's a quick look up. Briefly, warily, his eyes catch Persie's, roam up to very fair hair, and a smile blooms. "It's good, thank you. Made them yourself, eh?" He eats more to validate his praise.
Persie lets out another relieved sigh. Still grinning broadly and happily, she takes her muffin and flops down on the blanket, rolling onto her back with her head toward the fire and the light on her hair. She breaks the muffin in half and has to fish a crumb off her neck. "Well, I had help. I'm not a baker or anything. And you're welcome." Grin. Maybe she caught those small hints that he had more to ask because she drifts back to that topic. "If I'm too tired when I go to sleep, I don't dream then either. Then I just... sleep."
"So tell me your dreams. And I'll play mindhealer and tell you what's wrong with your head." N'thei leans back the other way, against some spare piece of furniture that faces the fireplace, chair or something useful. Legs stretched out in front of him, toes toward the heat, he reclines behind his mug with his eyes resting mostly on the reflection of flames against blonde.
"One time I had a dream, one time, that I had a baby, but she was really slippery, like she was covered with oil or something." Persie begins, a knee swaying from side to side as she breaks her muffin into pieces and rests them on her stomach while eating others. "And we were flying and I kept dropping her and we'd have to dive down and catch her. That dream was pretty weird." She tips her head to look over at him, which does shift the lay of that blonde hair he's watching. "Is the klah alright? See, this isn't fair, you should have dreams to tell me about, too."
N'thei, callous without thinking about it; "Easy-- because you wouldn't be able to take care of a baby properly." From a man who can't even drink klah when it's not spiked, that's not really saying much. "Don't know what I dream about, not really. I used to dream about farming, growing these grapes that had really tough skins that didn't get damaged by frost, but not any more." He shrugs helplessly in light of his own lack of subconscious and eats another muffin.
Persie's knee grows still at N'thei's words, her attention returning to her muffin. "You mean because I'm a rider?" she wonders quietly. "Or because I'm not smart enough." A berry drops out of her muffin as she breaks it and eats, left on her shirt though she doesn't seem to notice. "You dreamt about grape skins? It sounds like you were working too hard." Pause. "You -were- farming grapes at the time, right?" Not that she isn't a little subdued by his previous judgement on her parenting abilities.
Oh dear. "Do you think you're not smart enough?" N'thei's not going to answer other than that, even to the matter of his grape-farming adventures. He just waves his hand, crumbs falling off onto his quilts, to dismiss the whole subject as uninteresting.
There's some muffin chewing and some lip chewing, but eventually Persie does answer. "I don't think so. I don't... I don't think I'm not smart enough." Not that she sounds real certain about it. "So your grape dreams, those were after you left the Hall?" She must have thought the hand wave was more about the crumbs.
N'thei prompts gingerly, "Then why would you say that I think you're not smart enough?" Eyebrows lifted, frown lowered, he finishes the second muffin quietly, chases it away with the rest of what's in his mug, and laughs a mellow denial of her guess at the timeline of things. "I forget you don't know that I don't like to talk about all that. --Mostly while everything at Crom was happening. Would dream about being a farmer. Simple life and all."
"I don't know. I do a lot of dumb things, I guess. Like waking up the Weyrleader in the middle of the night to make him try my muffins." Persie slips another glance over at him, putting the last bite in her mouth while she puts on a awkward smile. "You didn't forget. I know you don't talk about a lot of things. You dreamed while you were... -at- Crom? About the grapes?"
"That doesn't make you not-smart. Just..." There's no nice way to say it-- crazy, weird, bit off?-- so N'thei leaves it unsaid and tries a drowsy-fond smile at Persie instead. "No, not /at/ Crom, just during all that. At Crom, I dreamt about--" Either he's forgotten, what with the way he narrows his eyes thoughtfully, or he's just remembered that he's drinkless. Bottle, meet mug, no klah this time. "Why don't you have any babies?"
She stretches out a leg, her foot aiming for his stomach, just to rest there if he'll allow it and perhaps getting in the way of his pouring just a little bit. "About?" Persie's watching him now, her head canted to the side against the blankets.
N'thei tweaks Persie's foot now that it's in range, a gesture that ends by setting the appendage more comfortable across his lap than his guts. And nothing, not even feet, can get in the way of him pouring. "About none of your business, so just never you mind. We were talking about babies, your lack thereof." Held by the neck, the bottle stretches from his fingers toward hers invitingly.
Persie props up to an elbow to reach for the bottle. "You shouldn't be like that," she tells him, sounding a little sad again. Maybe she's just getting tired. Finally. "You brought it up anyway." She rubs her toes against his side, smile a little, encouraging.
"Do you remember the woman I told you about? The thumbs?" Free of the bottle, N'thei wiggles that particular thumb just now before he uses it to pry at toes against his sides. Very not ticklish. "That's what I dreamt about at Crom, about kissing her." And there's a question beneath his raised eyebrow; happy?
"Satiet?" Persie returns, smirking a little. "I think just about everyone knows, you know. You don't have to be shy about it." She wiggles her toes against his hand. And for his answer, she doesn't look particularly unhappy.
Patient; "Yes, I know that everyone knows it now, but you didn't know it then, and that's the point." N'thei plays this-little-piggy with the toes just to keep them occupied, just to keep himself occupied, scowls at them for a spell during which he neglects to further the conversation.
She lets the conversation fall away too, watching his scowl as he toys with her feet, still twiddling those toes to make a game of his occupation: evading his fingers, dancing in them, brushing his palm now and then. And Persie still just holds the bottle, not yet having taken a swig.
N'thei takes a pinch of Persie's big toe and holds on to it, a thought occurring to him in the middle of the toe-game. "It's not because your chaste. Clearly." Clearly? "Do you go *between*? Heard that's how women handle it. That's why you dream of lost babies?"
Let's go ahead and say that aloud. "Clearly?" Persie asks, her brows going up, face brightening. A quiet chuckle bounces in her shoulders and she does, finally take that drink. "I don't think it's really a baby," she tells him of the dream, wiping her lip with the back of her hand.
"Clearly." N'thei nods happily, that's all straightened out, everyone in agreement, good show. He curls his fingers round the end of her toes and holds them still for a time, asking naturally, "No? What do you think it is then?"
"She did start rising again, finally, though not as regular as before." Persie will give him that. "But mostly... she has a preference for blues with girls for riders. Sometimes she gets tripped up in a flight, or there's a surprise, but mostly..." She lifts a shoulder, drops it again, her eyes on his hand over her foot. Slowly she starts to chew her lip again, masking the beginnings of a quiet sort of smile.
N'thei remarks absently, "I didn't know she'd stopped rising. Or I forgot that I knew." A few drinks, midnight creeping toward dawn, he's lucky he remembers his name let alone the details of Secath's prowess. "So what's the baby?" One, two, three, four, five; his index finger rests triumphantly on Persie's little toe now, good for her to have a full set.
"Me." Persie sets the bottle aside and finally spots the berry that fell out of her muffin; it gets plucked up and eaten. "That's how dreams usually go, isn't it? It's some weird symbol-y thing. So I think the baby is me." She drops back down, a hand flopping to the side and finding the grapes again inadvertantly. "Well, we weren't really talking," she points out, "So I don't know why you would have heard that she stopped going up. I think it was just the move maybe." She tugs a grape free and holds it up. "Open up."
N'thei quirks his littlest smile; "I don't care for grapes." He must agree about symbol-y things, no words to the subject, then he leans his head back against the chair-or-whatever behind him with his mouth dropped open. Let's test Persie's aim.
"You're no fun," Persie tells him, grinning impishly again. "You can dream about grapes, but you don't like them?" It doesn't stop her from giving the grape a toss; unless he moves his head, it'll be hitting him in the cheek.
N'thei, hit in the cheek. "See what little bastards they are. Any wonder I don't like them?" Left where it lands, lost in the folds of his bedclothes. "And don't you--" He makes a show of belligerence in his voice, brings a finger up and around to point it accusingly at Persie. "Don't you call me no-fun, I got up in the middle of the night and ate muffins and talked about oily babies, didn't I."
Persie's eyes go wide, just for beat until she discerns the nature of that showy belligerence and then she's smirking quite happily, a barely containable smile. "You do like me. I'm going to remember that." As if it's some sort of threat. She twists a little turned at an odd angle but better for see him while she's laying back. Her hand drops with a nudge of knuckles again his leg. "Have you had fun? Getting up in the middle of the night to eat muffins with me?"
N'thei smiles a question back at Persie's deduction; does he? Reminded he has legs, he stretches them closer to the fire with his toes gathering up heat and his eyes gathering up slumber behind heavier-and-heavier lids. "Can't say that I wouldn't have had more fun sleeping through the night. You?"
"You can't say you would not..." Persie has to puzzle that out, the double negative, but in the end she just turn her cheek against the blanket. "No, I'm glad we did this instead of sleeping. I've had fun, even if we skipped the sunrise. I'm sorry, though," she tacks on for his preference to be in bed. She rolls onto her side, reaching put the lid on the butter and tuck it back in the bag, grapes too. And then she's reaching behind her to tug the blanket over her shoulder. And then, leaping way back, "That was before the flight, when you at Crom."
N'thei lost the whole thread of conversation way back there, and Persie tugging at the frayed ends of it only further unravels his coherency. He tries, for a time, to reconcile her comment; or maybe he's just half-awake watching all her flailing and scrambling with weary amusement. Eventually-- "What?"
She seems rather comfortably settled now, at least for the moment, and arm under her head, the other pulling the blanket up under her chin. "Kissing the Weyrwoman. It was before the flight," she clarifies at least a little, though with her cheek against her shoulder, Persie is sounding sleepy too. "Was it everything you dreamed it would be?"
"Now what..." Drowsy drowsy, N'thei spreads a slow grin to find its way lazily across the room toward the lounging blonde. "...makes you think I'm going to answer that question, my dear."
Persie quirks a grin right back, her lashes hanging low. "Because I'm me."
N'thei pats Persie's ankle, something in reach, and shakes his head to answer the question in a because-he's-him type of response. "It's late."
"Scaredy cat," Persie tells him. But she twists her head on her arm to look over at the bag. "It's late and you want me and my muffins to clear out?" she asks with a lopsided smile, whether she's actually rallying to move or not.
Clarification; "It's late and I don't want you prying at my love-life. You can leave the muffins." N'thei smiles like he's being generous here, just not cute enough to pull off lopsided in mirror of Persie's.
"Well, I didn't ask for details," Persie points out, mastering her own little combination of sleepy-smug. "It was a yes or no question. Though knowing you," she swivels her foot in his lap, "You'd have said 'yes and no' anyway."
N'thei mmmhhhhmms lengthily, shifts her foot a mite so it lands more comfortably across his legs once she's done using it as an illustrative tool, and lets his eyes fall closed resolutely. "Morning soon. No time for details anyway."
"Are you gonna fall asleep right there? Sitting up?" Persie asks, the bare hint of a laugh in her voice that she's now too lazy to put any effort behind. "Pooor sleepy Weyrleader."
N'thei: "Not if you keep running your mouth."