Test Pattern
Location: Weyreleaders' Office
Time: Evening on Day 16, Month 11, Turn 2
Players: Roa and R'vain
Scene: Just when Roa thought it was safe to do a little experimenting...
After dinner but before bed, the Weyrleader's Office is quiet and empty. Except for one small dark-haired figure sitting at the sand table and using the glass surface as a means to lay out a hide. Just a single blank hide that Roa bends over and works on in silence. There is the scritch-scritch of her pen and the soft pauses when it dips for more ink, but no other sounds.
Typically, R'vain visits J'cor on the wing; Ruvoth lands the Weyrleader's dragon's ledge and his rider goes in that way. Today, however, he comes on foot, through the council chamber he's loathe to visit, up the long and narrow corridor he's even more loathe to visit, and out into the office. It could be /presumed/ he visits J'cor. He does have this folded and flattened hide in one paw, its edge punched in a slate-back binder sort of pattern. He moves swiftly into the office, fleeing the awful tunnel that leads up to it with a heavy, relieved breath. His footsteps are quick, and he seems to realize who he's approaching only after he's actually doing so. "Lil'Weyrwoman."
Perhaps she is expecting somebody. There is, at any rate, a faint fleeting smile as footsteps get closer, although she doesn't lift her head. It does lift at that greeting, her head shooting up, eyes wide, hide very quickly yanked towards herself. Yanked quickly enough, in fact, that it crinkles and the freshest ink smears. Roa clears her throat faintly, squares her jaw, tips up her chin. Way up, because she's seated and she wishes to meet R'vain's eyes. "Weyrlingmaster," she murmurs.
A couple more steps and he comes to a stop the other side of the sandtable, pushing the unfettered hand into his jacket pocket. "Ain't seen you in forever." Slight exaggeration. No grin. Serious tone, maybe a little put out, but certainly completely unashamed about it if so. R'vain holds her eyes for a moment, then looks down-- how can he help it, after the antics going on with the hide? "Workin'?"
The hide's current semi-scrunched state means that it's mostly obscured. What can be seen, however, are a few of the small symbols that usually denote riders in a wing pattern, each one with some writing beneath. The only one easily visible is a squiggle denoting a brownrider with the name 'J'vestan' written underneath. Roa presses her lips together before she answers. "I've been pretty busy," she explains by way of why she's been scarce. "Yeah. A bit of work. Nothing too exciting. Did you need something?"
His gaze remains downturned, a green squint measured out for that lone name he can read. "Was comin' t'see th'Weyrleader." He flicks a glance up at Roa herself, green eyes offered for blue ones. "Nothing too exciting?" R'vain has never hesitated to be physical. Hesitation would rarely even occur to him. He bends at the waist and tosses out a paw, ready to flatten the palm over even the least corner of the hide if he can manage it. "Show me."
She moves quickly, but not quick enough to avoid that big, red paw catching a corner of the hide. So it becomes yank away or tear. Roa squares her jaw, again, before moving her hand away, crossing her arms over her chest, and letting R'vain examine the rumpled hide. What he will find is that, for the most part, it's one of his wing formations for weyrlings from turns past, complete with names. But, added to it, are more squiggles, each one demarking a blue or green rider. There are ten of these unknown riders so far, each placed above or below the wing formation and in ideal positions to jockey around and between the riders of the original formation easily.
R'vain drags the hide backward, the crinkles loosening as he pulls. It takes him a few heartbeats to recognize the formation; her additions and the turns gone by camouflage the original. But in a moment the Weyrlingmaster's green eyes become red-rimmed slits of emerald and a harsh sneer twists his mouth, curling his upper lip away from his teeth. "You," he says, a spit, unable to get more out, and pulls faster, harsher, to swipe the hide off the desk as he straightens, dropping the hide he brought in with him to the floor so he can get both paws on this one. "What th'fuck's this."
The little weyrwoman's own eyes narrow in response, her gaze holding his. "Well," she begins, "obviously it's one of your old weyrling formations with some extra riders tacked on. I was thinking about something, I just wanted to put into onto paper. Just fiddling. I wasn't going to show it to anybody." She holds her arm out, hand tilted to the palm is up. An unspoken request for her hide back, please.
But R'vain is already straightening the hide before him, making it a shield between his body and hers. "Aw, lil'weyrwoman. You're a right wingleader y'are," he says, then looks up over the edge of the chart at the woman on the other side of the desk. Now he can find the grin, toothy and gleaming; his eyes unnarrow a little, brows quirking asymmetrically. "Y'fleshed it out real nice." He's folding it as fast as he unfolded it, only more neatly. Halved once, quartered then, and eighthed last. Then R'vain gestures with it, a quick shake of the hide he now holds, his eyes still on hers, fierce and fiery now. Again he spits. "But how'd y'/get/ it?"
Shoulders lift and shoulders fall. Roa swallows once, this little gesture the only sign of her discomfort. "I peeked," she says lightly. As if it was nothing.
"Y'peeked." That's a snort. "Y'had my notes," is a little more thoughtful, voice narrow and rough around the edges. R'vain retracts the folded hide in one hand, the other paw splitting apart the lapels of his jacket. He pulls back his lips, gritting these words through his teeth. "How'd you get 'em?"
Her arms cross again, and now Roa's gaze drops down to the sand beneath the table's glass. There's a slow exhalation through her nose and the gradual building of tension around her shoulders, but the weyrwoman says nothing. Not a single word.
"I see." So he slips the folded hide into his jacket. Then, since his paws are empty now, he bends and scoops up the one he dropped on the floor, too. "You won't mind, then, if I review y'work and send it back t'you with notes."
"I wasn't finished," Roa notes coolly, "so if that was a genuine request, I'd prefer to get the full idea down before you go marking it up and saying it's awful." Her hands curl around to squeeze at her elbows, eyes glaring at the sand and the glows' reflection in the glass covering.
"How do I know I'll ever see it again?" R'vain's turn to fold his arms over his chest. "Besides, you're a pretty presumptuous little thing if you're goin' t'go assumin' I'd be all over it with 'awful.' What if I like it? Y'added to it. Can't be all bad." The tongue thing. He does it now, *tschk.* "Why'd y'start with what I had, anyway? S'been turns since these riders were kids in my wing." His wing. The weyrling wing. But his wing.
"I just said I'd give it back, didn't I?" Dark blue eyes dart upwards, towards those emeralds fringed in fire. "Or if I didn't, I'm saying it now. If you want to see what I was doing, let me do it." And in Roa's gaze, there is, briefly, a small spark of her own. "It was a good formation for the idea I had. A nice mix of colors, the wing was widely spread out. The pattern was basic, seemed a good way to start. Fiddling."
"Y'want t'tell me what your idea was?" R'vain lifts the other folded hide, slipping it into his jacket on the side that wasn't the one where he put the formation diagram. But then his hand slips across the buttons of his shirt s l o w l y into the other side. Fingers drum against the hide secreted there as his eyes narrow against her blue regard. "Lil'weyrwoman. Maybe you'd be willin' t'talk about it, when y'got it done?" Whip. The hide comes out, an offer pinched between two fingers, held close to his chest and thus obviously well out of her reach.
Oh, wretched choices. Let him peruse over an unfinished diagram or meet with him with the completed version. Roa's jaw works slowly as she contemplates these options. "Give it back and let me finish. We'll see if you can tell what it is when I'm done. If not, I probably haven't done it right anyhow." Her arms unfold from her chest so that Roa can again hold a hand out for 'her' formation. "Give it back," she says again quietly, "and when I finish, I'll let you see and we can..." a quick clenching of her jaw before the sentence is completed, "discuss it."
As soon as she's answered R'vain steps forward, putting the meat of his thighs right up against the edge of the sandtable. He drops one hand to his hip pocket, latching the thumb into it, curving his paw against his upper thigh. "Deal," he rumbles, and bends a little at the waist, unbending his arm at the elbow so the folded hide's proffered neatly, even politely, for Roa to take in her outstretched hand.
The urge to snatch is repressed enough to that the folded hide is taken with actual civility. "Thank you," Roa says quietly as it's returned and settled in her lap. "I'll tell J'cor you were looking for him, if I see him first."
"J'cor?" R'vain smirks. "Oh. J'cor." The smirk turns into a wide, gleaming grin. The Weyrlingmaster straightens and looks off to the left, toward the weyr that is neither Roa's, nor J'cor's, nor vacant. His gaze comes back to Roa after that. "Sure. Tell 'im I was by. That'd be real nice of you, weyrwoman." He backsteps, leaving the immediate quarters of the desk, then half-turns. "Anything else, ma'am?" Now he's just plain screwing with her, and he knows it, and he expects she knows it, and yet-- it's not malicious, per se. His eyes are glinting, his teeth are showing, but the aggressive posture's gone. He's ready, in fact, to turn tail and flee.
She's quiet as he remembers, after a moment, who he originally came for, and at that tease a smile almost comes unbidden to her lips. Roa must bite down on her inner cheek to stop it, and her eyes tip upwards, rolling even as the rest of her face expresses bemusement. As R'vain asks that final question, she shakes her head and only calls back, that amusement leaking into her voice, "Get the shells out of here."
Which he does, with pleasure, and with speed, and with low laughter that persists even well down that awful narrow corridor that leads off away from the office, and echoes back for her to hear some time after he's left.
Time: Evening on Day 16, Month 11, Turn 2
Players: Roa and R'vain
Scene: Just when Roa thought it was safe to do a little experimenting...
After dinner but before bed, the Weyrleader's Office is quiet and empty. Except for one small dark-haired figure sitting at the sand table and using the glass surface as a means to lay out a hide. Just a single blank hide that Roa bends over and works on in silence. There is the scritch-scritch of her pen and the soft pauses when it dips for more ink, but no other sounds.
Typically, R'vain visits J'cor on the wing; Ruvoth lands the Weyrleader's dragon's ledge and his rider goes in that way. Today, however, he comes on foot, through the council chamber he's loathe to visit, up the long and narrow corridor he's even more loathe to visit, and out into the office. It could be /presumed/ he visits J'cor. He does have this folded and flattened hide in one paw, its edge punched in a slate-back binder sort of pattern. He moves swiftly into the office, fleeing the awful tunnel that leads up to it with a heavy, relieved breath. His footsteps are quick, and he seems to realize who he's approaching only after he's actually doing so. "Lil'Weyrwoman."
Perhaps she is expecting somebody. There is, at any rate, a faint fleeting smile as footsteps get closer, although she doesn't lift her head. It does lift at that greeting, her head shooting up, eyes wide, hide very quickly yanked towards herself. Yanked quickly enough, in fact, that it crinkles and the freshest ink smears. Roa clears her throat faintly, squares her jaw, tips up her chin. Way up, because she's seated and she wishes to meet R'vain's eyes. "Weyrlingmaster," she murmurs.
A couple more steps and he comes to a stop the other side of the sandtable, pushing the unfettered hand into his jacket pocket. "Ain't seen you in forever." Slight exaggeration. No grin. Serious tone, maybe a little put out, but certainly completely unashamed about it if so. R'vain holds her eyes for a moment, then looks down-- how can he help it, after the antics going on with the hide? "Workin'?"
The hide's current semi-scrunched state means that it's mostly obscured. What can be seen, however, are a few of the small symbols that usually denote riders in a wing pattern, each one with some writing beneath. The only one easily visible is a squiggle denoting a brownrider with the name 'J'vestan' written underneath. Roa presses her lips together before she answers. "I've been pretty busy," she explains by way of why she's been scarce. "Yeah. A bit of work. Nothing too exciting. Did you need something?"
His gaze remains downturned, a green squint measured out for that lone name he can read. "Was comin' t'see th'Weyrleader." He flicks a glance up at Roa herself, green eyes offered for blue ones. "Nothing too exciting?" R'vain has never hesitated to be physical. Hesitation would rarely even occur to him. He bends at the waist and tosses out a paw, ready to flatten the palm over even the least corner of the hide if he can manage it. "Show me."
She moves quickly, but not quick enough to avoid that big, red paw catching a corner of the hide. So it becomes yank away or tear. Roa squares her jaw, again, before moving her hand away, crossing her arms over her chest, and letting R'vain examine the rumpled hide. What he will find is that, for the most part, it's one of his wing formations for weyrlings from turns past, complete with names. But, added to it, are more squiggles, each one demarking a blue or green rider. There are ten of these unknown riders so far, each placed above or below the wing formation and in ideal positions to jockey around and between the riders of the original formation easily.
R'vain drags the hide backward, the crinkles loosening as he pulls. It takes him a few heartbeats to recognize the formation; her additions and the turns gone by camouflage the original. But in a moment the Weyrlingmaster's green eyes become red-rimmed slits of emerald and a harsh sneer twists his mouth, curling his upper lip away from his teeth. "You," he says, a spit, unable to get more out, and pulls faster, harsher, to swipe the hide off the desk as he straightens, dropping the hide he brought in with him to the floor so he can get both paws on this one. "What th'fuck's this."
The little weyrwoman's own eyes narrow in response, her gaze holding his. "Well," she begins, "obviously it's one of your old weyrling formations with some extra riders tacked on. I was thinking about something, I just wanted to put into onto paper. Just fiddling. I wasn't going to show it to anybody." She holds her arm out, hand tilted to the palm is up. An unspoken request for her hide back, please.
But R'vain is already straightening the hide before him, making it a shield between his body and hers. "Aw, lil'weyrwoman. You're a right wingleader y'are," he says, then looks up over the edge of the chart at the woman on the other side of the desk. Now he can find the grin, toothy and gleaming; his eyes unnarrow a little, brows quirking asymmetrically. "Y'fleshed it out real nice." He's folding it as fast as he unfolded it, only more neatly. Halved once, quartered then, and eighthed last. Then R'vain gestures with it, a quick shake of the hide he now holds, his eyes still on hers, fierce and fiery now. Again he spits. "But how'd y'/get/ it?"
Shoulders lift and shoulders fall. Roa swallows once, this little gesture the only sign of her discomfort. "I peeked," she says lightly. As if it was nothing.
"Y'peeked." That's a snort. "Y'had my notes," is a little more thoughtful, voice narrow and rough around the edges. R'vain retracts the folded hide in one hand, the other paw splitting apart the lapels of his jacket. He pulls back his lips, gritting these words through his teeth. "How'd you get 'em?"
Her arms cross again, and now Roa's gaze drops down to the sand beneath the table's glass. There's a slow exhalation through her nose and the gradual building of tension around her shoulders, but the weyrwoman says nothing. Not a single word.
"I see." So he slips the folded hide into his jacket. Then, since his paws are empty now, he bends and scoops up the one he dropped on the floor, too. "You won't mind, then, if I review y'work and send it back t'you with notes."
"I wasn't finished," Roa notes coolly, "so if that was a genuine request, I'd prefer to get the full idea down before you go marking it up and saying it's awful." Her hands curl around to squeeze at her elbows, eyes glaring at the sand and the glows' reflection in the glass covering.
"How do I know I'll ever see it again?" R'vain's turn to fold his arms over his chest. "Besides, you're a pretty presumptuous little thing if you're goin' t'go assumin' I'd be all over it with 'awful.' What if I like it? Y'added to it. Can't be all bad." The tongue thing. He does it now, *tschk.* "Why'd y'start with what I had, anyway? S'been turns since these riders were kids in my wing." His wing. The weyrling wing. But his wing.
"I just said I'd give it back, didn't I?" Dark blue eyes dart upwards, towards those emeralds fringed in fire. "Or if I didn't, I'm saying it now. If you want to see what I was doing, let me do it." And in Roa's gaze, there is, briefly, a small spark of her own. "It was a good formation for the idea I had. A nice mix of colors, the wing was widely spread out. The pattern was basic, seemed a good way to start. Fiddling."
"Y'want t'tell me what your idea was?" R'vain lifts the other folded hide, slipping it into his jacket on the side that wasn't the one where he put the formation diagram. But then his hand slips across the buttons of his shirt s l o w l y into the other side. Fingers drum against the hide secreted there as his eyes narrow against her blue regard. "Lil'weyrwoman. Maybe you'd be willin' t'talk about it, when y'got it done?" Whip. The hide comes out, an offer pinched between two fingers, held close to his chest and thus obviously well out of her reach.
Oh, wretched choices. Let him peruse over an unfinished diagram or meet with him with the completed version. Roa's jaw works slowly as she contemplates these options. "Give it back and let me finish. We'll see if you can tell what it is when I'm done. If not, I probably haven't done it right anyhow." Her arms unfold from her chest so that Roa can again hold a hand out for 'her' formation. "Give it back," she says again quietly, "and when I finish, I'll let you see and we can..." a quick clenching of her jaw before the sentence is completed, "discuss it."
As soon as she's answered R'vain steps forward, putting the meat of his thighs right up against the edge of the sandtable. He drops one hand to his hip pocket, latching the thumb into it, curving his paw against his upper thigh. "Deal," he rumbles, and bends a little at the waist, unbending his arm at the elbow so the folded hide's proffered neatly, even politely, for Roa to take in her outstretched hand.
The urge to snatch is repressed enough to that the folded hide is taken with actual civility. "Thank you," Roa says quietly as it's returned and settled in her lap. "I'll tell J'cor you were looking for him, if I see him first."
"J'cor?" R'vain smirks. "Oh. J'cor." The smirk turns into a wide, gleaming grin. The Weyrlingmaster straightens and looks off to the left, toward the weyr that is neither Roa's, nor J'cor's, nor vacant. His gaze comes back to Roa after that. "Sure. Tell 'im I was by. That'd be real nice of you, weyrwoman." He backsteps, leaving the immediate quarters of the desk, then half-turns. "Anything else, ma'am?" Now he's just plain screwing with her, and he knows it, and he expects she knows it, and yet-- it's not malicious, per se. His eyes are glinting, his teeth are showing, but the aggressive posture's gone. He's ready, in fact, to turn tail and flee.
She's quiet as he remembers, after a moment, who he originally came for, and at that tease a smile almost comes unbidden to her lips. Roa must bite down on her inner cheek to stop it, and her eyes tip upwards, rolling even as the rest of her face expresses bemusement. As R'vain asks that final question, she shakes her head and only calls back, that amusement leaking into her voice, "Get the shells out of here."
Which he does, with pleasure, and with speed, and with low laughter that persists even well down that awful narrow corridor that leads off away from the office, and echoes back for her to hear some time after he's left.