| Who | Sacitca, Thierry, Veresch |
|---|---|
| What | Beware the barbs of little girls, for they are often… amusing? |
| When | It is late night of the nineteenth day of the first month of the first turn of the 12th pass. |
| Where | Igen Central Bazaar |
Central Bazaar
All roads in the weyr ultimately lead here, to this center of commerce. Canvas awnings jut out over time worn, sandy cobblestone, sheltering customers and wares alike from the majority of Igen's elements, and funnel scents both mouthwatering and vomit inducing through the thin streets. Almost all store fronts are open air, delineated by sandstone arches with intricately carved facades. The insides of these stone-shingled buildings act as an amplifier for the salesmens' bawled enticements, and are held up by the chipped swirls of marble pillars.
It's late at night, and really no time for teenagers to be out — if they have good motivations, that is. Veresch, idling in from the side of the bazaar that usually leads to the bowl and thence the riders' weys, has never been accused of having good motivations /or/ good intentions. Still, she makes her way into the maze of night-dark alleys (save the spill of light from carousers and dissidents here and there), slinking into dark, wall-radiated heat as if she's got business there. It's but a short way to the residents' terraces, and she /is/ attempting to slink through the shadows, but she'll have to have more practice at it before she moves like a true guttersnipe does.
… a guttersnipe like Thierry, perhaps? He could teach Veresch a thing or two about hanging out in the shadows - and indeed she may already have received her first lesson, as he steps out of the darkness and into her path. Trademark toke in hand and smoke trickling slowly from his nostrils as he exhales showily, he stands there in front of the younger teen, simply staring down at her with eyes narrowed, even if they're cast in shadow from the overhang of his hair.
While it's still a touch early to be closing shop for the day, there are days that warrant early closing. Today is one of them. With the last of her wares packed, Sacitca hands a box to her little sister, with the warning to go straight home. The younger girl scampers off to obey, and Sacitca steps out from behind her stall, glancing about briefly before her eyes light upon the very person she's looking for. "Ah, good, you're here." Thierry and - is that the girl from the other night - Veresch are eyed, but Sacitca says nothing…yet.
Veresch is sufficiently lost in her memories that it's not the sly flutter of movement in the shadows that alerts her to Thierry's presence, but the nose-scrunching smell of the… whatever that is he's smoking. She pulls up with a hissed perjorative, luckily short of running into him, and even in the lack of lgiht it's easy to see her brows pull down into a frown. "What do you /want/?" That was surly, even snippy, and as that smoke hits her her lip curls. "Don't do that right in my face!" she snaps; this time the kick isn't aimed at her privates, but it's still a pretty blow on the shin, and it allows her to sidestep him and scuttle. Sacitca, as she passes her, is apologetically grimaced to. "Sorry, back soon," she whispers on the way past.
Maybe Thierry anticipated the reaction of sharp-footed little Veresch, as he manages to sidestep quickly - but not quick enough to avoid a glancing blow to his shit. "/Fuck/," he hisses, snarling after the scrappy little girl as she runs off. Her words to Sacitca draw his attention to her, dark eyes warily sizing her up as he tries to act like he hasn't just had his ego bruised by a /girl/, of all people. He draws himself up to his full height, looking down at her. "You waiting for something?"
In all fairness, Thierry's full height is only a scarce inch taller than Sacitca's. His attitude toward her has the woman slowly raising an eyebrow, and a hand resting on her hip. "I think the question is, are you?" Sacitca replies easily. "You should get….that…tended to." Sacitca's lips turn up in amusement, reminding him that not only did it happen…but people saw it. That he's a guard hasn't escaped her notice - Tlatoani take note of such things, after all! But he's also a recruit, which also warrants notice. For all that she's noticed, however, she lingers here, amused smile still easily in place.
"Waiting for thread," Thierry snips sarcastically, puffing smoke towards Sacitca. Get what tended to? He glowers at her for bringing up his fresh injury, as much out of embarassment as animosity. "You wanna bend down and kiss my boo-boos, mommy? Step on into the back there and I'll drop my pants for your pretty lips, no problem." The teen hooks his thumb behind his belt buckle as he jerks his head towards the shadows he's just emerged from, brows challengingly low over his dark eyes.
Sacitca merely continues to look amused at Thierry, and tilts her head to the side slightly. "There aren't enough marks in the world, even if I was in that sort of business." Zing! Challenge accepted? The smoke doesn't really even seem to phase Sacitca - live around here your whole life, and there's a lot that won't surprise you anymore. Apparently tired of teasing the poor recruit, she moves as if to move on, starting to head in the general direction of the Cantina.
Thierry snorts, running the back of his hand across his mouth, under his nose. "You're under the false impression I'd pay for you," he spits after her as she turns to leave. "Wouldn't even fork out a woodchip for what you got, sweetstuff. You oughta be paying /me/." Because he's just /that/ cocky, standing there all puffed up and prideful. "Time of your frickin' life, I'd be!"
Business handled, Veresch has time to come back and rescue Sacitca. Because, of /course/ she needs rescue, right? Right. At least that's the idea. When she returns though, it's to hear that little stunner, and for a moment her mouth gapes as she hides in the shadows a bit from them. It's enough to make her brows go down and her mouth furl tightly, and suddenly there's no thought to concealment as she stomps into viewing range. "You! What the hell are you saying to her? You ought to wash out your mouth with soap!" As Veresch's mother would, if she knew her daughter was cursing.
"Not even if you were the last man on Pern." Sacitca pauses again, glancing over her shoulder at him. "Not even if you bathed in a thousand flowers." She wrinkles her nose expressively, apparently to prove a point! And then Sacitca is championed by Veresch's sudden return, and a smile crosses the woman's face, even as she turns slightly to make sure the girl doesn't end up harmed for it. "Veresch, he's not worth it. He's just posturing to…compensate." Badumcsh!
Oh look, the little one's back. Thierry gives Veresch an incredulous look, flicking a hand dismissively at her. "Really? /Really/? Is that the best you can do?" His tone is oh-so-patronising as he looks down at her… almost pitifully. "Go home and play with your dollies, little shit." He's got bigger fish to fry, as Sacitca is /far/ more interesting than a little brat. Thierry breezes past Veresch, keeping out of range of her feet, to saunter a little closer to Sacitca. "Don't go knocking the goods 'til you've seen them. You've got a stall, you oughta know that."
If there's one thing teenaged girls adore, and that's being treated as kids. Forgettable, nonimportant kids for a double-win scenario. "I.." she starts to inform him, and her eyes widen incredulously as he just brushes past, the '../am fifteen/…' dying in her mind. He's got longer legs too, so she has to give quite a few steps to gain access to poor Sacitca, where she turns to stand shoulder to shoulder with her, eyes narrowed in pique. "You're a guard, you should know better! Guards are supposed to… to protect people and make them feel safe!" See that Oldtimer idealism come shining through! She even takes one of Sacitca's hands, ostensibly to support her (but perfumed hands would be wonderful!) and tries the glaring thing again. "Besides, she's too nice for you." Wait, what? "And gracious. And that thing stinks."
The hand-seizing catches Sacitca off-guard more than Thierry's advance toward her, and the woman raises an eyebrow slowly at him. "I've spent enough time amongst the merchants and their goods to know when to 'knock the goods' as you say." She smiles politely, and inclines a head. "Don't get your hopes too far up about the guards, Veresch." She murmurs something to the other girl, and promptly turns her back upon Thierry and his…anarchy. "Come along, Veresch. I think you and I have something very important to discuss." And yet again, Sacitca acts as if she is simply…not afraid of Thierry or what he may do in the slightest. And maybe she's not - there always seem to be Tlatoani just about everywhere, after all.
"Gracious! It's so bad! You're such a bad man! Waaah!" Thierry mimics Veresch's tone in his best high-pitched girly voice, flinging his hands up and wiggling his fingers in the air in a bad imitation of a flailing girl. Then the act's dropped suddenly, his surly expression returning with brows low over his glowering eyes. "Take a fucking /hike/, kid. Where the fuck've you been?" How can she /not/ know what guards are like? "Go get yourself a sharding husband to keep you safe while you pop out his litter. That's for /both/ of you." Because bah, shouldn't they be home nursing tots at their breast, or something like that? There's a pebble in the path in front of him and Thierry half-heartedly kicks it after them, before taking a pull on his toke and puffing silvery-blue smoke into the night air.
For a moment, a long moment, Veresch is urged to placidness by Sacitca, and seems to be calming down. "Sure, I can talk," she says agreeably, with a trace of pretty mood shining through. "I wanted to talk about…" There's dead silence as Thierry mocks them to their backs, and a fine tremble that starts in her hands. It transmits up to her body, her shoulders, her nose that flares slightly. She's not yet learnt to moderate her rages, and this one catches her, particularly because a secret idol of hers is being propositioned and, well, it's pretty-flippy-hair-boy Thierry doing it. In a flash of the kind of grace that normally deserts her, she drops Sacitca's hand, spins on one heel and is in Thierry's face. "Take that back!" she snarls. "Take that back, you… you…" What's worse is she's making a grab for his toke too, and if he's not quick she'll succeed.
There's a moment at which Tlatoani step in, and there's moments in which they stand back and let someone learn the lesson they need to. Who's learning what lesson…that's what Sacitca's uncertain of at the moment. But either way, her expression has gone from amused to resigned - and she's not stepping in to stop Veresch. Not just yet.
Impulsive children do not amuse Thierry, who glowers down at Veresch with a look of dark amusement. He lets her get her shouting in, but when she reaches for his toke, she'll find it's not there; he holds it up and out of her reach… and flicks it to rain ash down on her pretty little head. Thi leans down a little to get into her face - not /too/ much so, but he's there. Closer than may be comfortable. "Stop trying to play with the big boys, kid. You won't win." And he's tensed up, ready to dodge wherever those quick little feet might try to land a blow.
"You," Veresch grates out with dreadful intensity (or as dreadful as she can imagine), "are a surly, rude /boy/. Just a boy that's pulling at the pigtails of a girl he likes, nevermind that Sacitca is really pretty. If you can't do any better than /that/ you're going to be a surly old man too. Stay away from her." She reaches up to dust her head off and turns - trying to get an elbow into his solar plexus as she does - and walks away to Sacitca's side. Stomps, really, snarling a word over her shoulder that Cha'el provided and that she really doesn't know the meaning too. Still, it sounded nasty. "Can I walk you home, Sacitca? I really would like to talk." There she goes, ignoring Thierry.
"I had a different local in mind," Sacitca says placatingly, a hand resting on the younger girl's shoulder. "But yes, we'll talk. There's much we have to talk about." Thierry's only glanced at once, a look that screams 'you're being watched', otherwise Sacitca merely seems eager to put this altercation behind her. "Really, you don't need to worry so much…" She can be heard telling Veresch as they walk.
It might be the shock of hearing someone speak to him in the way Veresch does, but Thierry… well, he laughs. Long, and hard - hard enough that, even as he watches them go and turns to stumble back to his own home, he has to clutch at his stomach and take a pause leaning up against a wall to catch his breath.
Ha! Loved it.