Who

Ko'an, Igraine

What

It's been awhile since spy and pirate met. It doesn't go over quite as well as it did before.

When

It is evening of the ninth day of the eighth month of the seventh turn of the 12th pass.

Where

Lake Shore, Igen Weyr

OOC Date 11 Apr 2016 04:00

 

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"The man you knew is dead.”


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Lake Shore

Sprawled out beyond the Weyr proper's hustling activity and ambling roads, the cool, blue paradise of the Weyr lake promises escape from the oppressive hammer of Igen summer's cruel climes; the asymmetrical, sandy white shores hook delicately around the deceptively still waters running deep and sure, greedy peninsulas reaching white fingers stretching in crooked lines towards its center. A sturdy shack, weather-beaten and brown as cured leather, resides in isolated splendor upon one such finger, screened shelving offering a variety of brushes and fragrant oils housed in colorful tureens. Out beyond a small and dusty paddock ringed by a white fence, a long rocky pier stabs out into the lake, providing a panoramic view of the Weyr itself, while the southern shores provide varied shrubs and grassed for the massed herds in their pens.


A weyrling, denoted by black and yellow uniform and a sour lack of black leather, sits alone, aside from his Bonded, on the white sands of the lake side. His legs and boots are submerged in the lapping waters, though even it is overly warmed in the baking heats of Igen. Even in the mid hours of evening, when many have finished their meals and some are just finally getting around to them, there is little relent to the summer of the desert. His arms are let to rest casually over his knees propped up before him, and his head is tipped down in thought even if light eyes watch the moving figment in the water with some degree of wicked obsession. Ko'an's gaze is both strict and unfocused in the same breath, lost to nefarious depths of the shared mind he now has. Zodaiyath drifts through the shallows, a young bronze of but barely one meter at the shoulder but already sporting the vastness of ragged black sails in likeness of a ship over seven meters in their length. His movement in the water something of an absolute natural air. Both agile and ghostly in his manner, this corroded copper and verdigris beast's adoration of water would only be in the future rivaled by the air itself.

Evening in Igen is something that Igraine has grown quite fond of. Tis the time when all good little weyrfolk disappear inside and the seedy underbelly of the bazaar and caravan grounds comes up. She'd just been to Igen a mere few days before, and again before that at the hatching. However, both times she'd been denied the reasoning for her visit. Korsan. The first time Igraine can forgive, for all around, because Korsan, now known as Ko'an, had impressed a dragon. That's enough to keep anyone busy. But this last time she'd been denied access, being told that the weyrlings were not allowed to see anyone beyond those teaching the weyrlings and immediate family. She'd be damned if she was thwarted this time. She'd stationed a watcher near the weyrling barracks to tell her when Ko'an might be outside. Perhaps a little stalker-ish. But hey, a girl's gotta get her point across somehow. Right? Right. Slipping through the shadows she makes her way towards the lake, brown eyes scanning her surroundings carefully for other people. She is elated when she finds Ko'an alone. Patting the bag she has hanging from her shoulder, Igraine steps from the shadows to stalk silently up behind Ko'an and his lifemate. "Korsan…" She greets in a velvet soft voice, a small smile lifting the edges of her lips.

In the restriction of the weyrling barracks, and moreso his even more pronounced self-absorption following Impression, that is a name he hasn't heard for some time- has it really only been a month? But his other, his treasured name that so heralded the title he valued so religiously, is not entirely forgotten even if it takes him a few unmoving beats to recognize it. Or, perhaps, for that familiar voice to trickle down to wherever his mind currently resides. Ko'an blinks once, twice, to shake the haze from himself, though a haunted look takes a breath longer to pass him. Zodaiyath is first to visually notice the girl of the shadows, a flicker of red tracing the edges of his faceted eyes that stand out so readily against the darkness of him. Wings draw upwards, waters falling in sheets from them as sails brought up from the coursing sea. Posturing, threatening. The bronze is no amicable young dragon, his first steps on the sands public testament to that. But this. This is one of the first few days they've traveled beyond the protected barracks. And, clearly, by the cold look on the pirate's face, he's had no desire to stray from those rules. It's unfortunate, perhaps, that in all this she's not able to surprise him given that second set of eyes. Ko'an shifts to rise, standing in his self-entitled straight poise as he turns to face her. "M'lady." He tips his head, a semblance of a bow, and reaches to take her hand. If successful, he'd lift it to kiss the back of it. "It has been awhile."

Igraine hadn't really expected to sneak up on Kor, knowing he has a dragon. Sneaking up on S'ayde never happened anymore either…not that it happened much in the first place. She watches Ko'an in his stillness for a moment, thinking he might ignore her, but then he's shifting, and standing. HIs lifemate's threat filled posturing is noticed too, though not payed attention to. Igraine can handle herself…mostly. Ko'an is most definitely allowed to pick up that hand and brush his iss against it, for it was one of the things Igraine missed about him most. "I believe some congratulations are in order…." She says, gesturing at the bronze in the water.

Ko'an releases her hand in turn after the welcome is granted. But the warm, rum-smoothed seaman doesn't appear to be present as he once was. His hair lies messily over his head, though still kept short for the sake of what he's been thrust into, and the messiness is not helped by the wrinkled, soaken uniform he's forced to bare. His complexion is paler in spite of his scruff-lined face, giving more contrast to the shadows from those heavy brows of his over his ice-touched eyes. Although his blood may not be entirely clean of alcohol like it's supposed to be, he is not the drunkenly entertained man of the bazaar that courted her 'tween draconic ice sculptures. It's delayed, his smile, but when it comes it broadens crookedly- that manner that plays between debonair and dangerous. "That's what some say. Others believe much differently. What do you really think, love?" His voice is darker, too, treading the old suave alluring tones with perhaps playfully threatening ones. Zodaiyath's teeth show in the snarling of his darkened muzzle, head lowering as he takes a couple of crouched, stalking steps to the water's edge inches from where Ko'an once sat. But he moves not farther from there, sinking his copper-touched keel into the cool softness of the lake's bottom.

Ko'an's more haggard appearance is of course, concerning to Igraine. But the changes in the pirate also facinate her. The pale complexion causes her some concern, but she idly wonders what his scruff would feel like under her hands. His smile is answered with one of Igraine's own as she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and takes a look around. The change in his voice however, sends a chill down Igraine's spine that is an odd mixture of caution and sexual tension. If only Ko'an knew just how attracted to darkness the Zingari spy is, so much so, that she can't keep the husk and shadow out of her own voice when she replies. "I think… that a mixture of congratulations and commiseration is due." Igraine pats the bag at her side. "I come bearing gifts…if you don't mind my company, that is." Igraine flashes a nervous, but pretty smile at the ex-pirate/bronze rider, whom she knows by now is well out of her reach, destined for gold flights and bigger things. Zodaiyath is watched wearily, like a feline in the distance. It may leave you alone, it may not. Either way, Igraine is on guard, and perfectly capable of protecting herself should the need arise.

It's difficult to say if he has such returned feelings, so still in his arrogant aloofness as he stands. Once a pirate, always a pirate- it's unlikely that the rules he's supposed to be bound to keep him from pursuing sexual interests. The culprit is by far more the one that watches them through those irritated whirling facets. Zodaiyath makes no more effort to send Igraine away, apparently his Bonded having- for now- set some sort of line, hazy as they tend to be with this pair. "Commiseration." Ko'an echoes, the smile flinching into more that devilish grin of amusement he tends to keep. "I do not, lass, but my time away from the barracks is still brief. I don't believe you've come for the sights, not in this heat. Couldn’t bare not seeing my face for so long, I take it." It should be a tease, if his voice didn't carry a cruel edge to it that's not entirely his own. "Your presence is a gift." He offers with a curious cant of his head, fingers brushing the insides of the silver bands he still dawns, "But I cannot say no to gifts."

Rules or no rules, Igraine can no longer tell how Ko'an feels towards her, and getting a reading off him would be harder, as she doesn't know this side of him very well. To be honest, she knows very little about the man beyond what the spylings discovered in the beginning. Beyond learning he was a pirate, Igraine hasn't dug too much deeper, not wanting to offend Ko'an, or get herself in trouble she can't get out of. "I know…my unseen eyes tell me much… I wouldn't have come tonight if I had been allowed to visit elsewhere. So, I thought I'd take the chance while I had it." Ko'an's quip about Igraine not being able to bear not seeing him may be truer than the newly minted bronzerider knows. She's watched his whole candidacy from afar, and watched what she could of his weyrlinghood so far. She's been fascinated with him since she met him, and it may show in the way she flinches when he asks her that question. "Well, it's so pretty, how could I resist?" Her response is much more casual than the words storming through her head. Ko'an's next words sooth the small hurt a bit. "Good. That's a relief… I know not what I would have done with them had you not wanted gifts." She drops a wink at Ko'an and finds a place to sit, the bag resting in her lap. "The gathers were much less fun after you were snagged up by the weyr…"

Ko'an notes her flinch, his light eyes narrowing faintly in the wake of it. "Aye, it is." Comes with a broadening of his sinister smile at the note of his face, lines touching the edges of his eyes. "But I'm not sure how I feel about all these eyes keeping tabs on me. Can't be having that." Not later, anyway. Now? There are eyes on them at every turn; young dragons and their weyrlings have no privacy. He follows her to where she sits, joining in her with only the delay caused by his overly confident swagger. Whatever he feels, whatever he is, it strikes resemblance to that pirate he only hinted at to her before, dredged up from the oceanic basin it had been drowned in, hidden upon coming to these Faranth forsaken sands. "Snagged up is not quite how I would phrase it." He corrects in vague amusement, one brow raised as he watches her before allowing his attention to fall briefly to her bag. "But, aye, it has not been quite as wrought with my.. particular brands of enjoyment as I would have liked. So many rules, so many people to enforce them." There's a sigh, curled into a breathy, devilish chuckle that rocks his chest as he leans back slightly. "And as much as I don't doubt my effect on your parties, you bring plenty of fun in your own way. Surely your gathers were not so lacking in their entertainments.

Igraine chuckles, tucking her hair back, a habit she seems to only have around those that make her nervous, and that list is very short. "My eyes only watch because you are here where I have them watching." It's true, Igraine had the training grounds watched, but that ws for this reason, the rest of the time those eyes were elsewhere. "I could have them look the other way when you come past…" Igraine grins, some of her usual self peeking out from behind her lrge brown eyes. "Too many rules…." She agrees with Ko'an. There were members of her people far less available now because of duty to the weyr. Ko'an's last words drag a laugh from the woman who swipes at her own face with her hand before letting it drop. "Oh, they did not lack for entertainment… not at all. But there were far less entertaining people there, particularly none that speak as candidly as you…" Ko'an's roughness, his secrets, his darker side…. they all fascinate the spy, who finds so few people akin to herself.

Ko'an looks down at his hands, the smile faded as eyes glaze. Whatever's exchanged is brief, but it makes him set his jaw, and exhale heavily. "You shouldn't be here." The attempted playfulness gone, the cold ugly side of the seathief etched clearer. "Not for me. You are one of few that know enough about me to know what I want. The man you knew is dead." The one who hid behind the fighting pits, behind the girls at Rosie's, behind candidacy. All those things, meant to stalk around the shadows looking for avenues of revenge with the bonus of the security of not being alone. "There is nothing I can give you now, Igraine. And a turn from now I'll be-" His sentence fades, a breath of an unamused sound given through his nose. Anger flits across piercing eyes that remain away from her. It's highly unlikely anything beyond his revenge is on his mind. But her last comment, somehow, manages to regain a flicker of a smirk at the edges of his thinned lips. "You must have an interesting definition of honesty."

Igraine knows that look all too well, has seen it in the eyes of S'ayde and her brother. She's respectfully silent while Ko'an and his lifemate confer, his reaction when he comes back however, throws the normally perceptive woman off. Shock, anger and a bit of hurt manage to wash across her face before she can school her features into blandness. Each word is a dagger, meant to pierce and wound, Igraine is sure…and not all entirely sure that it's all Ko'an either. "Korsan…." She starts softly.. and then shakes her head, anger threading through her brown eyes. "I don't want anything beyond congratulating you…" And now even that is debatable. She looks down to the precious bundle in her lap, the gifts she'd painstakingly picked out to what she thought the pirate's tastes were. A flask etched with a ship caught in a storm, filled with rum, of course (Igraine is meant for breaking the rules!), and a sextant she'd found in a quaint little shop at the sea hold. Her cheeks flaming, Igraine answer's Ko'an's last words as she holds the bag out for Ko'an. "You did not bother hiding yourself when I discovered what you were…" Her eyes meet Ko'an's, boiling with unwelcome emotion. "We are not so different… you and I." She nearly hisses, "Our lives not so different as you think." Igraine likes Ko'an, yes, has a fascination with him even. But it was the kinship, the shadows they both lived in, that she had wanted. A friend mostly. "I had only thought we could be friends…" A daggered look is sent towards the bronze in the water as Igraine stands and drops the sack into Ko'an's lap instead of waiting for him to take it. "But if you really don't want me here…" She takes a couple of steps towards leaving. "I could help you get what you want… you know." She looks a bit longingly over her shoulder. Spies were good in the revenge business.

"I-" Ko'an clenches his teeth, swallows, closes his eyes for a moment in a faint shake of his head that seems more to ward off something else than Igraine or her words, "I am proud of what I came from. But you know not what I've done." Or, more, he seems to imply, what he's been through immediately prior to his arrival at Igen.. not a sevenday before he'd attended that Gather. "My honesty is limited. Something you should be very, very familiar with, little spy." Is cruel, indeed. If he seems to care that he hurt her feelings, it would have to be assumed from the way his cold blue eyes flick back up to her from beneath his dark brows. Where Ko'an ends and the red-whirling shipwrecked bronze begins is utterly unclear. But as she cannot hear the private bond, all these words come from his mouth alone. "We are very different." Despite her temper, he is too calm in the face of it. Each word unkind, but unboiled. "My dealings in friends come with prices, lass. And your spies could indeed be of utter value to me. My ship is only one thing that I require." His tones, dark, harsh and lowered in volume in his heavy accent that seems all the heavier now, for the sake of the privacy that is in such terrible short supply. At times, the thickness of that accent makes him almost difficult to understand. "But I am not.. ready.. for debts." Whether meant to be paid or to be owed. There's a grimace there, anger apparent in the way he flexes his jaw and then sits up straight again in attempt to relieve the creeping tension. The look she gives the bronze incites immediate reaction. The young dragon rises from his lake floor like a ghost ship rising from Davy Jone's Locker to surface, to take the souls owed to him in the absolutely abysmal gaze he carries. Instead of an anticipated hiss or growl, there's a haunting curl of sound that draws into a chuff of draconic laughter- if a dragon could have an evil laugh, it would be this. "Igraine." Is a low, quiet warning.

"Neither of us know just exactly what the other has done Kor!" Igraine hisses, eyes narrowing. After all, the secrecy had been half the fun. "I could have just as easily killed you with the herbs I used on your wounds than healed you!" Igraine's list of bodies left behind is not a short one. "I'm quite familiar with limited honesty, yes. But have I ever asked you for anything more than what I gained??" Igraine shakes her head, eyes narrowing further at the bronze emerges from his watery depths. "And I am not scared of you!" Igraine hisses turning to face them once more, eyes pinning Ko'an. "I never asked anything of you, and I never will! I thought I saw someone who…." Igraine breathes in deeply, her nostrils flaring. "Someone who would understand." SOmeone who would understand how alone she could be. How just sometimes a flicker of kinship could help, when one lived their life not trusting anyone, never getting close…Ko'an's warning is ignored. "Enjoy your gifts." Igraine snorts and turns, beginning to walk away, part of her hoping Ko'an calls her back.

"Aye, I do understand." Ko'an says, blunt in that earnest statement, meeting her gaze in this fury of emotion of the spy. But his frigid manner is inhospitable, feelings either utterly suppressed or absent. Inciting more from the young dragonet seems to have made the pirate's response to her worsen. "You could have, lass. You had many chances to kill me, but if you wish appreciation for your…" There's a callous little smirk that twitches at the edge of his lips at his choice of words, "kindness, I'm afraid that's not in the cards." He rises as her statements rile further, his eyes narrowing in something inhumanely harsh. But his voice manages to creep by bare degrees slightly warmer as she turns to leave, lifting the satchel of gifts she'd left for him in her affectionate, or perhaps indeed simply friendly, gesture. "You know where to find me. Time changes many things." Even in death, there is decay and return of new life- would he really throw that line of hope out when his expression clearly has none to give? Zodaiyath arrives at his knee- still so small- curling corroded hue-enraveled tail 'round his soaked boots. "Thank you, m'lady." He mutters in the sad ghost of his manners to her last statement of the presents; his farewell to her retreating back. For all that he used to chase women, this would not be one of those times.

Igraine stills, Kor's words salt in an already open wound. Her fists ball at her sides, nails biting into the flesh of her palm. She bites back a response and takes a deep breath, shoving all those heavy emotions into a box, left to collect dust most likely. She counts to five, slowly uncurling her fingers and opening her hands. Blood pools in crescent shaped digits as a cold, distant air falls over the Zingari spy. When she turns to look at rider and bronze again, nothing warm is left in her expression. Then, as silently as she had come, she leaves, melting into the shadows and disappearing into the night.

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