Who

Br'er, Q'fex

What

Br'er and Q'fex descend upon the Art Fair ongoing at Southern Barrier Hold. They are awful, unsurprisingly.

sexual innuendo

When

It is sunset of the seventh day of the seventh month of the third turn of the 12th pass.
In Southern Mountains:
It is the sixty-seventh day of Winter and 7 degrees. It's really damn cold out.

Where

Art Fair, Southern Barrier Hold

OOC Date 07 Dec 2014 06:00

 

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Art Fair

Colors and fabric assault the eyes as the warmth of the Atrium replaces the frigid chill of the courtyard. Tables have been assembled and bear the burdens of all kinds of art. From more homespun kitted scarves and pot holders to extravagant paintings shipped in from 'round Pern, stepping into this room envelops one in culture. Some things are easy to pocket, others would look rather strange carried away. There is something here for any taste.


Here is something Q'fex knows about Br'er: he is a SUCKER for fairs, festivals and gathers, especially if they're the type with some pretension of class. An art fair? Br'er can't draw past crude (by multiple definitions) stick figures, but he is totally into an art fair. It's been an hour since they got here. The greenrider hasn't even managed to make a half-circuit of the tables yet. This is partially because he's been affably chatting with a Holder woman for, like, fifteen minutes now. She's not even selling anything GOOD - it's all potholders and lumpy cozies for household items. But she's a wealth of gossip about the OTHER tableholders, and Br'er is RAPT. Sorry, Q'fex, it turns out you actually have a seventy-turn-old woman for a weyrmate, we're sorry you had to find out this way.

Oh yes, Q'fex knows it very well. The only reason he's here with Br'er is because it helps him get laid, really; I mean, come on. Oh, and well — the keeping-the-weyrmate-happy part, maybe. Maybe. It was lovely to FLY here, on Kraakenaeth, whose wings are approved for quick ascents and ::between::, but not long stretches of straight flight — he may never get that last bit back, and his leave of Threadfall status has been confirmed as indefinite. That said, Q'fex has been patiently waiting for the last fifteen minutes, but that is about to change: the bronzerider leans over his weyrmate's impeccably accoutred shoulder, scruffy and smirky, to straighten his face and inquire quite seriously to the holder woman, "Do you make padded handcuffs?"

Well. Yeah. That's true. And it's conciliatory getting laid, too, because there's always a point during these ordeals where Br'er remembers Q'fex doesn't really like this kind of thing and has been manfully enduring it for his sake, and is suitably appreciative. And that point is… not now, because Br'er is shooting his weyrmate an injured look. Possibly it's because his comment came mere seconds after the holder woman finishes saying "- and that's why Kemoriel and Jhova have their tables on opposite sides of the atrium, because that way there's less chance Jhova will see them flirting, and anyway even if she does it's too far for her to hit him with one of her sour dough ornaments." (See, that's why Br'er likes Holder gossip.) The greenrider looks about to intervene after his weyrmate's QUESTIONABLE BEHAVIOR, but the holder woman reacts first. Specifically, with: "Well, not on me, but I could take a special commission…" Cool as a CUCUMBER. Br'er doesn't even give Q'fex a chance, after that. "I'llcomebacklaterwe'regoingtogolookatthosetapestries." FORCED DRAG DOWN THE HALL. Once they're out of immediate earshot, he adds, "Honestly, Q'fex."

If only it were a fashion show. Q'fex is always game to see the latest out of Boll — even for the women. He's such a clotheshorse. But in these things, he's left to find his own amusements, which in this case means he shoots the Holder a very thoughtful look. "Well, that's som…" he manages before Br'er rides ALL over him, and not even in th … nevermind. Q'fex even manages a surprised face as Br'er drags him down the row of exhibitors, having to take a couple of skipping steps to catch up to the greenrider's marching pace. Faranth. "Yes, honeyd…ew?" He masterfully catches himself before the entirely-wrong-word issues forth before all of these easily-scandalized Holder ears.

The aforementioned tapestries are several tables down. You know, out of earshot to the nice holder lady. "Did you see how shabby her turns were?" Br'er sounds actually scandalized by this. Scandalized by knitting. He doesn't even know HOW to knit. "I don't want such shoddy construction in our weyr." Judgey! "If you're getting padded handcuffs, for Faranth's sake, at least get silk ones." Snobby! Q'fex is shot a LOOK, before Br'er's gaze shifts to the tapestries. After a moment: "Huh." Q'fex's well-tailored sleeve gets a tug, his attention directed towards one particular display. "Do you think that's supposed to be the Oldtimers arriving?"

"I…" Q'fex can't EVEN. His hooded, dark eyes are filled with laughter for the greenrider's judgment. "Br'er. When you learn to chain a single crochet line, you can talk about someone's turns. That would be like me judging a woman for taking eight hours in labor." Because apparently Br'er is so incapable of knitting as for it to be as alien as bearing a child? Q'fex. Really. He tilts his head at the tapestry Br'er indicates, though, his attention swinging around almost ponderously-slow. "It could be, I suppose. By an oldtimer, of course. Look how the dragons aloft are shinier, brighter than the ones on the ground." Q'fex snorts — he remembers how grey their dragons were when they returned, how dull and wearied. "If they only knew." Damned holder-crafters, trying to put their own spin on the realities of the world.

"No, it's like you telling the Weyr Weavers to redo the tailoring on one of your shirts because the sleeves were last turn's fashion." Br'er gives the bronzerider a look of good-humored malice, before adding, "Like childbirth, Q'fex? Really?" He falls silent for a moment after this, absentmindedly running a finger along the glimmering threads of the Oldtimer golds. They're all there, in miniature, and some (probably golds the Weaver had personally seen) are even roughly the right shades. The counts on the other colors are of variable accuracy - there are FAR fewer greens and blues depicted than flew in reality. Limitations of space, no doubt. Abruptly: "Do you think anyone will remember the part we played in all that?" Br'er leans against his weyrmate's shoulder, frowning. "I wonder, sometimes."

"Very different," Q'fex defends himself. "I know when something's out-of-dat… fah, nevermind, it got you away from that gossipy old biddy." He lifts an arm to swing over Br'er's shoulders, grinning despite himself — or maybe grinning because of this little bitchery. It's good to be with someone who understands. The bronzerider glances at the tapestry again, his eyes going quieter and darker at his weyrmate's question. "I don't know," he returns, his voice low. "There are few of us, now. Fewer since W'rin." Ri'enn, Q'fex, Br'er — a handful more. "But we changed the world. It wouldn't be the same if we hadn't done what we did."

Br'er's sigh is a full-body affair, easily felt. "Poor W'rin." It's hard to view a dead man poorly. "It's strange how much the world has changed," the greenrider continues, eyebrows still furrowed. "Not as fast as I'd like. But - all this was wilderness. And here we are, nice and warm inside a carved hall, with me dragging you to an art fair. There are actual cornhusk dolls two tables down." They have cheerful little corn bonnets! "And we're from a Weyr that didn't exist. One where greenriders can lead wings and women can be Crafters." He sounds almost… puzzled. "All because one goldrider mistimed a jump."

"He was an asshole," now THAT isn't a pot-calling at all, is it, ha, "But he was our asshole." The old Igen crew. The one that existed before everything … changed. The salt-and-pepper-haired Q'fex shakes his head and moves forwards at a low stroll, his arm still about Br'er's shoulders impetus to drag the greenrider along with him. "Art fairs and dumb Blooded blondes." He speaks, of course, of the airheaded girl from Ruatha River, just up the way, tittering behind a fan — a Faranth-bedamned fan — and batting her lashes at some overmuscled, underbrained Telgari lad. "Well. Watching Aevryscienth fall in from nowhere was slightly amusing." But Br'er would know more about that than he would, honestly. Q'fex was too busy being drunk and (not-really) running Sandblast, at the time.

Br'er gives the tapestry a last look - he is so obviously ITCHY to stare at it some more - before placidly permitting Q'fex to move them along. At this rate, they might actually complete the whole circuit before dawn. "Well, can't blame her parents for sending her here," the greenrider observes. Possibly a touch maliciously. JUST POSSIBLY loud enough for her to hear him. "Southern seems to be getting the wastrel children of Northern Holders." Whatever, peasant. Br'er slows - but mercifully does not actually STOP - at a display of half-decent watercolors, before dismissing them as continuing no interesting landscapes and/or nudes. "Do you know, Inlayraith still REMEMBERS ducking out of the way when she fell? She mentioned it to me the other day, out of the blue. Usually she forgets her traumas -" or she would have murdered Kraaken by now "- but not that one."

"She was a big-ass gold," is what Q'fex has to say. Aevryscienth may not have been so big as Dhiammarath, but after never seeing any dragon that size before that moment — well, the memory has become larger-than-life. "I don't blame her for it being scarred on her consciousness." His smile for that is rueful and amused and light and devilish, as if he'd say something else about things scarred on Inlayraith's poor, poor rabbity consciousness, but he knows what's going to get him punched in the balls. As out of the blue as Inlayraith's memories: "Did you really just say wastrel?" It's time for him to slow, glancing over a display of wall art: 'fashionably' aged maps. They are horribly inaccurate.

He doesn't even have to say it. Br'er knows where his thoughts are tending, and digs his elbow into Q'fex's side just a tinnnnny bit in defense of his dragon's honor. Poor Inlayraith can't help it, okay :( The immature weyrmate-abuse contrasts sharply with his tone, which is quiet and serious. "I hope she got back alright. Although I suppose with those ballads, she'd have had to…" He might still be talking about Aevryscienth, but he could also be thinking about Rhaeyn. It's not clear, but Br'er's references to the Oldtimer rarely are. (If nothing else, it would be a bit poor taste to mention his past crush to his current weyrmate.) In a brighter voice: "Wastrel is a perfectly good word. I like wastrel." Of the maps: "What the - Black Rock Hold isn't even on that side of Nerat."

Poor Inlayraith. :( "Hmmm," is all Q'fex has to say about Rhaeyn, neutral. Maybe a little undertone of possessiveness there — he knows what the goldrider was to Br'er, even if some many others don't. It's hard to not know these things when you have lived with one another as long as Br'er and Q'fex have tolerated one another's snoring and sexual dysfunctions. "Wastrel. I'm trying to think of how many people we know who fit under that definition." Besides THEMSELVES, that is. Q'fex pensively stares at the map, tilting his head. "Look how Azov looks like…" Well. It looks DIRTY.

Excuse me, Q'FEX is the snorer. Br'er does not snore. (Inlayraith does. But it's cute little ha-shoo ha-shoos, that doesn't count.) He will concede the sexual dysfunctions, though. He will also concede to Q'fex's possessive instincts - there's a subtle little push up into the bronzerider's arm, a brief brush of chin against shoulder. Questionable past romantic decisions are in the past; Q'fex is his CURRENT questionable romantic decision. "Pretty much all our friends are wastrels," says Br'er, contentedly. Being of equally dirty mind, the greenrider is quick to spot the object of his weyrmate's attentions. Slowly, he says, "Huh. So it does."

Q'fex is the snorer. Shamelessly. Kraakenaeth, surprisingly, doesn't snore too badly any more — though he used to, a few turns back. The bronzerider gives an absent, maybe-not-all-there smile to the greenrider, and shakes his head at the… "Do we know anyone who isn't a wastrel?" It's a sudden question, his eyebrow furrowing sharply. "Well. Who isn't a wastrel or an utter twit." Or twat, but. That's something completely … in the same realm of all the things, right? "It does." He turns, then, and gently wheels them down the way. MAYBE BY DAWN. Maybe.

Br'er gives a raspy laugh. "Maybe Hannah? She's neither a wastrel nor a twit." And Br'er values his continued existence too much to call her a TWAT. "Or Yules, or - well, I suppose the real question is whose definition of 'wastrel' we're using, I suppose all our female friends are wastrels to some just by default…" Some terrible people. Br'er manages to keep up the pace past a whole FOUR stalls before the inevitable happens. "Oh! Ceramics!" Q'fex is EARNING that eventual night of debauchery. Or, at this rate, more of a 'morning delight' kind of thing.

"Hannah." Q'fex's face has a special kind of softness for the mention of Southern's senior weyrwoman. "She's very much a wastrel, just a different sort than you and I are thinking." His voice is quiet, and he shakes off talk of Hannah much as Br'er did of Rhaeyn. This pair and their strange attachments to senior weyrwoman — whoever would have imagined? "Oh, not ceramics," comes the quite overblown GROAN of are-you-even-serious-right-now-Br'er. It may be a little over the top. He may draw a few eyes from how loud it is. "We don't need any more things for the dog to knock over." His voice is so fond, even though his words aren't.

What a pair. Much as Q'fex had the sense to not linger on the subject of Rhaeyn, Br'er equally lets the conversation move smoothly away from Hannah. Besides, he's much too distracted by VASES. "That's precisely why we need ceramics." Though his voice sort of suggests that ceramics don't actually NEED a reason. "She broke the loose-ends dish on the table," the last breakable object at dog height to survive Hurricane Tiny, "yesterday, remember? Fucking dog." His voice, too, is fond. "I'm thinking if we just get something really sturdy…" There are at least TWENTY small dishes suitable for the task on display right here, and the salesman is perking up like flowers in April. RUN, Q'FEX.

"No. Sturdy doesn't exist in our weyr, Br'er. It could be made of metal and she would… eat it, and shit shrapnel for a week." Again: fond, but fond exasperation. Much like the look Q'fex is pinning upon Br'er at the moment. "They are going to be the most expensive shards ever. Don't look at the painted blue ones." He can see the mark-signs all the way over HERE, Q'fex can, slightly pained. "Besides. This one is lopsided." Sorry sales guy, Fexian logic (and keen eye) is pointing out the errant edge of one particular shallow dish.

"At least she hasn't figured out how to open doors," says Br'er, ever the optimist. Either that, or Tiny HAS figured out how to open doors… and just realizes that getting into the wardrobe and gnawing at their clothes is a bad, bad idea. Some lines you just don't cross. The greenrider looks up from an attractive set of brown dishes to eyeball the subject of Q'fex's scrutiny. "Hm." He looks back down at the dish in his own hand. "But if we don't have an odds-and-ends dish, where do we keep our odds-and-ends?" He's mostly really talking about his own odds and ends. Was it growing up in poverty that made Br'er such a habitual hoarder?

"Yet," Q'fex intones gloomily about the idea of the puppy (she's really not a puppy anymore, but Q'fex is in DENIAL) opening doors. "Tiny's smart enough to figure it out." Why again did Br'er feel compelled to get a terrier, knowing they are TERRORiers? Oh, right. Because he's Br'er. Br'er. :( "Where do we keep them now?" MAYBE Q'fex slips a hand down Br'er's closest pants pocket. MAYBE it's to allegedly look for these supposed odds-and-ends. What. Don't look at him like that. Totally legit.

Look, when you get a dog so your depressed and traumatized weyrmate gets some slobbery canine therapy, you break out the BIG GUNS. The TERRIER guns. "Piled up on the bureau. I don't like it. Looks sloppy." A hand down (part of) his pants makes Br'er grin, toothily, and move into a light hipcheck. The salesman does NOT grin: he looks a little queasy, actually. And Br'er, a terrible person, promptly proceeds to make a show of leaning into Q'fex's side, whilst pointedly saying, "I suppose I don't mind her breaking it. I liked the one we had before better - remember, the one I broke when you had me up against the table that one time?" TOOTHY GRIN.

"Was that the time you skinned your knees on the rug? No, wait, that was a different time." Q'fex's hand burrows deeper into Br'er's pocket and he leeeeeans into that hipcheck, dropping his chin on his weyrmate's shoulder for good measure. He's trying to see if Br'er has anything of interest in that damn pocket, hello. (He surely has something of interest just past it, but they don't REALLY want the poor shopkeeper to have an apoplectic fit, do they?) "Fine, fine. But not the blue." He retrieves his hand and his chin — after pressing a most-devoted (and mostly chaste) kiss to Br'er's cheek. "Maybe white. It'd be easy to see the pieces on the floor."

"Oh, that's happened a couple of times," says Br'er, happily. The salesman is going to turn into a tomato at this rate. And he's not even getting a sale out of it, because as soon as Pern's Worst PDAers have detangled themselves, the greenrider abruptly sets the brown dish down and decides, "Maybe we should get a wooden bowl. I'm worried she'll hurt herself if she eats the pottery shards, you know? At least with wood she'd get some fiber in her diet." Dogs, man. "Reimana - the knitting woman? - said there's a good Woodcrafter table by the doors, maybe we should head there…" Maybe they'll get out of here before MIDNIGHT.

Midnight tomorrow, of course.

Well, obviously. Let's not be unreasonable, now.

"A wooden bowl," Q'fex tastes the thought of it and then abruptly nods. "You know, I think I could get behind one of those." He could also get behind — oh, right, public place. And not public gardens at Fort Complex. "Maybe I'll get one too. If it's wood, she may just chew the edges, and that could add character, if it's rustic enough…" If anyone was ever questioning the validity of Q'fex being with Br'er, that sentence right there should be enough to justify all of it. Who else would put up with that? (No one, that's who.)

They're a matched set, really. A matched set of mildly terrible people, but a matched set. Br'er doesn't even question Q'fex's logic: he's nodding agreement even before his weyrmate has finished talking. And then: "You know, I've thought about that before - how would you feel about redoing the weyr to have a more rustic feel?" As they walk towards the Woodcrafter's booth, Br'er slips one arm around Q'fex's waist, while the other gestures enthusiastically. "I was thinking some earthy browns and greens, deliberately mismatched chairs… a few wooden accent pieces…"

"Hmmm," Q'fex sounds PENSIVE on this discussion of likely weyr remodeling. Watch out, this could turn into an episode of Love It or List It, if they aren't super careful. "As long as we don't get rid of the maps I won't mind." Pause. "And the red leather chair." Beat. "And the coffee table." >.> "And th…" This could take a little longer than expected, and as they drift away fully from the ceramic merchant, the man can breathe a little easier. As luck would have it, a matched pair of wooden bowls are in their future, and a leaving at an entirely respectable hour. Such moderate and model citizens, Br'er and Q'fex, not even shutting down the ba… uh, craft fair.

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