Who

Dione, El'ai

What

On a quiet evening, in the hours before dawn, Dione and El'ai find themselves sharing the same sandy cove beneath the same starry night sky. Introspection occurs, with some rabble rousing.

When

It is before dawn of the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the third turn of the 12th pass.

In Southern:
It is the twenty-fifth day of Summer and 90 degrees. The night is clear and humid.

Where

Cove, Southern Weyr

OOC Date 01 Feb 2015 08:00

 

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"…I doubt virtue would come close to that smile."


cove.jpg

Cove

A saber's curl along the coast of the Azov Sea, the cove is a clash of green and black; where deeply forested jungles encroach upon the curving expanse of this tiny cove, found only past the rocky barrier that serves as demarcation between cove and beach. Lacking the softly ground sand of the beach, the cove is made up of dark, volcanic pebbles, making it trickier to navigate than the beach itself. Yet, what a surprise is given if one braves the less comfortable path that curves around a long-forgotten cinder cone to find the quiet tranquility of seclusion. Brilliant against the black pebbled beach, greenery is only enhanced by the purest of turquoise waters, warmed by a deep volcanic vent and churned by hidden currents that further feeds into the relative calm of the sea itself. A small school of rainbow fish and yellowfish swims around here.


Timor: moon4.jpg
Belior: moon1.jpg

Dark, darker, darkest… it's always darkest right before dawn, and coldest, but that doesn't mean anything to Southern, really. There's a veritable river of stars in the sky, shedding their cool light, and summer here wouldn't tolerate cold. It's sultry instead, warm enough that sleeping is uncomfortable and riddled with sweat. Here, however, there's a little breeze going, and a pocket of quiet where Dione can close her eyes and shut down the past shift at the Kitten, try to get her equilibrium back. Clad simply in a sleeveless shirt and shorts, she's got her feet in the water, sitting right at the edge to let it lap over her feet as the breeze airs the scent of booze and drunken bodies out of her hair.

In the hour of shadows, there exist many reasons for some folk to be up and about beneath the starry night skies that hovers on the cusp of dawn. Whatever the reason is, El'ai's steps have carried him far down the length of the Azov shoreline to this quaint saber's curve of a cove, hands tucked into the pockets of black trousers that blend well within the shadows of night. It is only the flash of fair skin that catches Belior and Timor's light that marks his passage for the dark shirt he wears, unbuttoned and left to flutter in the breeze, blends well with the pants and the espresso darkness of hair. Bare feet very nearly trod right into Dione's space, which pulls El'ai from his reverie. "Oh shit!" The expletive uttered before steps back pedal a bit, "Sorry, didn't see you." All the way down on the ground.

Normally, in Kantra of Fort's books, there's a dashing secret holder lord and any moonlight meetings in coves turn out steamy. Dione's luck, however, is Not In; when she looks sideways at the shush-shush-shush of pants there's a guy almost on top of her and then he's over there and there's cursing involved. Kantra would be so disappointed. "Hey," she mumbles, creating little flicks of water as her feet rotate in the shallow water. "Don't come too close. Someone vomited on me tonight." There's enough light to see tiredness pressed onto her features, and in the graceless backwards flop she gives to stare up at the sky. Then, slowly, "You're the guy with the diary. Right?"

And normally, El'ai doesn't nearly walk over girls on the beach in the dark of night, but this is clearly a much different sort of night. "You look - oh gross." About to reconsider his position next to Dione, the mention of vomit has him stalling in the wake of that, that he's suddenly drawing in his brows and pulling one hand free of his pocket to point a finger in Dione's general direction. His head twitches to the side to give her an incredulous look, at the same time he's rotating his finger in a half circle. "A what? A diary?" Perhaps it's the asshole in him that brings this question to the table with more than a dollop of humor or maybe he truly is confused: the end result is a rascal's smile and a few steps closer. Does he surreptitiously sniff?

Luckily for him, most of what got splattered is soaking in the bay now; good eyes might see the ripple of wet material soaking underneath a foot. The rest of her just smells like salt ocean and the Kitten, an uneasy bouquet of scents that'll hopefully get less as the breeze picks up. She twists her head, eyes him with arched brows. "A diary," she repeats, firm. "Or… no. You're the guy with the bandaged hand, sorry." With her lips curving into a twitchy smile, the flash of merriment enlivens her for a moment, much as summer lightning splits the night sky. "Not that there is anything wrong with a guy with a diary. So sensitive!" Alright, even she can't keep her face straight on that last one. "How's the hand?"

El'ai lifts up a hand and flexes it before presenting the smooth expanse of his palm to the moon's light. Perhaps it is so that he notices the cloth beneath her feet, which allows him to venture closer. "It's not a diary and the hand's fine." He doesn't immediately continue on to say anything further mind, just drops that little nugget for her to pick up. "I've traded the bandaged hand for a bandaged dragon." It's stated with a wolfish smile, but something jaded and sharp glimmers behind such pale eyes that even the dark does little to darken their color, but rather washes the vibrancy away into a formless steel-grey. Easier to see when he invites himself to the ground next to the bartender. "You? You enjoy working as a barmaid?" Does he quirk his brow at that, head tilted to give her a cocky smile.

"Mhm," Dione mutters, giving the pale hand a look. "So I see — trading down a bit, are you?" After all, more riders are worried about their dragons than their hands, though it's a fetching sample. With a crunch of belly and a twitch of hips she rolls around to splay like a starfish on her stomach. "Some nights I can't get enough of it. There's a kind of energy, you know? I can't bear sitting still for long. Other nights, when I have to scrub twice just to be remotely tolerable — not so much." She grins sideways. "You're taking your life into your hands sitting that close, ser rider. "D'you enjoy being a rider? Pretty, tight leathers, girls flocking…"

El'ai leaves the topic of his journal to the winds, bending his knees and making sure that he's not too close to Dione and her possible vomit-y self. "Sekhaenkath will be fine and heal up right and proper and we got the score in the midst of battle." The lift and drop of his brows, complete with the wolfish grin hints to what he thinks about that. Still, it doesn't quite dispel the hint of jaded cynicism that shades the paleness of starkly blue eyes. "Do I enjoy it… I believe so. I've been a dragon rider now for a third of my life," the young man muses, looping his arms around bent knees, grains of sand clinging to the material, lost as black sand would be except for the way they catch the moonlight. More of this dusting of pebbled sand can be found along one side of his forearm. "Only now can I appreciate it, and no, not in the way you meant, but in the way of… coming to terms with what my life is now, but what it can also never be." He pulls his eyes from the girl, head dipping in thought before his gaze traces over the waters of the sea, the cove's hidden underwater vent churning them here where the vast majority of the sea is calm. "It's been a long road," is all he says next, fitting her with another half-smile that's as cock-sure as a bronze rider's would be. "Yeah, I know what kind of energy's in a bar. S'one of my favorite places, drinking my friends under the table."

Dione closes her eyes slowly, intent instead on listening to the slight shift of his body against sand than stare at cheekbones and stuff. "Unfair," she declares tiredly. "I'm normally the one that passes out before they're done drinking, and on some nights you don't want to pass out underneath the table." Because yuck. Luckily they clean the place thoroughly after each night's revelry. "You must've impressed at a really early age then," comes the lazy, thready murmur. "You're … what. Maybe a turn or two older than I am?" Her eyes flicker open slightly to stare at his side, and her mouth curves at the speckled, night-sky look the sand lends to the material there. "Was it tough?"

"You're a girl and a small one at that." El'ai's unrepentant about that remark for it is true. "I tend to do my passing out in the bushes," his voice holds a thick humor, laden with memories of nights out with the guys, drifting from bar to bar. "Assuming I make it that far. Sometimes I try to get my dragon take me to the next place, but he's a stubborn fool," more like El'ai's the fool for if Sekhaenkath listened, they'd've betweened into a mountain by now. "I did. I impressed when I was fourteen. Barely more than a child." Something nostalgic touches on the smoothness of his baritone, toning down the trickster and letting the weight of memories fall into words given. "It's hard to grow up, but even harder when you've got a dragon and one that's got the potential for leadership. No one takes you seriously." That last is grated through the cheese grater of bitterness, pulling forth that jaded cynicism to the forefront, but also the cause of El'ai's voice drifting off into silence, his profile given to Dione and for once, it is not hidden behind the highwayman's smile.

Dione has been gifted — or perhaps afflicted — with the bartender's gene, which confers an ability to listen. So, listen she does, tracing the emotional mutation of his profile through its sharp, quirky smiles before negativity soaks it. It prompts her to sit up and flop down somewhat close so that one shoulder can bump at his. "Hey. I've got a question. If you had the chance to open up a Weyr somewhere, where would you open it up, and what would it be like?" She dips her head to catch his gaze. "What would you the Weyrleader be like? Come to think of it, what does a weyrleader do all day? Fly sweeps and train and… um." No, no clue whatsoever.

Pulled from his dark reverie by Dione's shoulder bump, El'ai's visage is pulled away from the churning waters of the cove to the bartender, his brows shooting up at her question. "You know, before I am here, I would have said anywhere that wasn't on the northern continent. I envisioned some place in the Western Isles where my sister and I would could be free to be who we are. Of course, I was younger and more idealistic back then." Stated with the roll of his eyes, eyes that then narrow in thought. "But it would have been our place, but now that we're here? I couldn't imagine not being here. I've seen my sister happy, and that means — well family is everything to me." The smile that touches his lips carries not the rascal's edge nor the wolfish slant, but something softer. Fleeting. "What does a Weyrleader do? When I Impressed, they took all the boys aside for special lessons, those that bonded to bronze and brown dragons. I was too young to appreciate them then, but there's a lot of diplomatic negotiations and other equally boring things. Weyrleaders are charged with the running of all the wings, coordinating of every sweep and position during Threadfall. It's something I'm not sure I ever want, but at the same time, when Sekhaenkath's chasing, well I want just about anything he can catch." Now that is surely said with the cock-sure grin and the confidence of a young man secure in his position in life.

"Ha." Then, "Ha." Dione's even wrinkling her nose, but she's grinning too, as if she's heard something funny and heartwarming. "I'm sure he chases plenty to make up for, you know, seven years of not being taken seriously. Even if he does have a name like a hammer hitting an anvil." Sharp and ringing, unapologetically masculine in its syllables. "Although I can't imagine anyone setting up on the Western Continent after being here, yeah. This place is practically texbook-perfect, even if it does mean you're still sweating at the third hour of the morning. I hate the cold." She'd shrivel up and die at the Hold. Carefully, slowly, she reaches out to twitch at his sleeve, shaking off the constellation-dust there in little shivers and auroras of glittering mica. "If a girl impresses a brown, do they get those lessons as well?" Her brow furrows at the thought of a female Weyrleader. Somehow … no. Still too patriarchal for that thought to be comfortable. "Who's your sister?"

"He chases, but no more than others. He is," and El'ai too, by the velvet sound of his voice, "quite proud of the fact that he sired a gold egg off of an old-timer gold dragon." The slow smile, uplift of brows, and slight turn of his head towards Dione shows just how proud that bronze dragon is. And his rider. "I'm ambivalent. It's nice here, yeah, but it could be as frozen as that Hold and I'd still say it's perfect because of the freedom we have hear. The politics of the northern weyrs…" Again, solemnity weighs heavily upon features cast in an expression wrought by time. "Anyway," he's drawn again from his reverie when Dione shakes off the clinging grit of sand, lips quirked in a tricky half-smile, "the cold has it's uses." Here, the bronzerider hesitates, taking a breath before letting it out on a decision made. "Bailey's my sister." Beat. "And no, female brown riders aren't given the same lessons. Female brown riders cannot become Weyrleaders."

"Ah." There's no more than that for the acknowledgement of a goldriding sister, no loud surprise, just a kind of queer, quiet understanding. Freedom, even as a concept, isn't something metallic riders tend to have much of. There's a moment of silence, uncomfortable understanding, before she shifts away again, leaving the poor man's sleeve alone. "Congratulations," she murmurs quietly as she pulls up her knees to her chest so that she can rest her chin on them. "I can hear that you're very proud of him. They're so much bigger, he must really have worked for it." Her palms flutter across the sand, smoothing it out. "I stood as a candidate a few clutches ago. It was … strange. It's easier being a bartender. How do you know what's better, making people happy or keeping people safe?"

It is the silence that's most telling, that draws the choking vines of the jaded cynic of a young man who's stood in the shadows of his older sister for far too long. But he is not so young anymore and not so without his own agenda and purpose, though it's been a long time coming, it is etched across his very demeanor in the self-depreciating smile and the rabble-rousing lift and drop of his dark brows. "He did, but he is sly, my Sekhaenkath." The name rolls so easily off the tongue when one is not inebriated. "You don't." Simply stated, the bronzerider turns his eyes when Dione shifts, letting the full weight of his attention fall on her. "If you do it again, you just got to come to terms with the fact that you could walk off the sands bonded to a dragon and in this age… that means becoming one of the many soldiers in the Weyrleader's Threadfighting machine. It is our purpose, outside of all of this." Unwinding one arm from around bent knees enough to sweep his hand to indicate the quiet night, the twinkling stars, the gentle churn of water and the solitude of the cove. "But this is also what you protect so that you can come back to it. S'not easy."

Dione grins outright at that. "Sly dragon, sly rider? If he had your eyebrows, he'd be unstoppable." They are, above all else, extremely expressive eyebrows. Still, her tolerance for quiet reflection has been reached, and she stands in a smooth sweep of limbs, bending down to dust off the sandy bits before she wades into the water to rescue her dirty top. "Given that I still have to go and scrub myself twice, I'll take my leave of you now, ser rider, and go and sleep the sleep of the virtuous." Her expression as she grins down at him is devlish. "And you… just go and sleep, perhaps, as I doubt virtue would come close to that smile." Cheerfully said, she scoots off back to the weyr, wiggling a finger over her shoulder in goodbye. "My greetings to him!" She's away then, disappearing onto the path and leaving him there with his thoughts.

El'ai outright laughs at her words and fixes her with the leering lean of playful rascal, "Be careful, they might just crawl off my forehead and wander off on their own." Leaning back, the bronzerider falls back onto first his elbows as she fish out her top and starts to give her parting comments. "Alas, I lost my virtue a long time ago in a place in the middle of the desert weyr of north. Since then…" With that, his weight falls securely on his back when he holds out his arms in mock supplication, the quirked half-smile lending a devilish air in return for hers. "I shall convey them so," the last is yelled from El'ai's now prone position as he stacks his hands behind his head and turns his eyes away from the parting girl to the skies above. And there he lies, his shirt falling open and his knees still bent, until dawn forces him to seek out Sekhaenkath and sweeps. Another all-nighter, another mark. Let's just hope Yules doesn't notice the rough look El'ai sports.

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