Who

Azraelle, Maikah

What

Trying to avoid weirdness in the Living Caverns, Maikah creates weirdness ALL OF HIS OWN. Thankfully Azraelle is full of grace.

When

It is evening of the twenty-second day of the fifth month of the nineteenth turn of the 12th pass.

Where

Nighthearth, Southern Weyr

OOC Date 23 Feb 2020 11:00

 

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"I'm glad to be your first time, Maikah,"


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Nighthearth

A comfortable nook, this natural extension of the living room is cozily attired with overstuffed chairs and a couple of well-worn loveseats. All have been covered in various shades of green, giving the very incongruous appeal of a miniature forest hidden away inside… a grove of man-made proportion. Fish stews and spicy white-wherry chili are often kept hot on the minor hearths east and west of the main, for those whose hours defy when meals are kept. Ornate, the largest hearth towers high, rich with carving and utilitarian in fashion: it holds court by providing the weyr with rich klah, the air thick with the scent of cinnamon wafting.



In Southern it's just cold enough to rate a trip to the nighthearth after a rainy day out in sweeps. Azraelle's black hair is drenched: the lean woman is seated by the biggest hearth in a big overstuffed chair - perched at the edge - undoing her thick braid in vain attempt to help dry the wet morass of hair she's carrying around with her. A mug of klah steams on the side table next to her, untouched in the way of a measured pause to allow for more temperate sipping later.

Maikah stumps in from the living caverns with a confused look upon his face. "Not tonight then." He mumbles, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the shenanigans in the other cavern aren't in any danger of following him. Which is probably why he doesn't really notice Azraelle…or that dinky little side table with the klah not yet perfect. "Shit!" He exclaims as he bumps the table, dropping quickly to prevent DISASTER! As it is a little of the klah spills, but not to much because he put his hand in the way of danger. "Ow!" He lifts his hand to his mouth to clear off the still hot liquid. "Sorry." He does do full sentences, but between the stuff in the living caverns and his own klutz he's not quite there yet.

Azraelle pauses mid- shake-out, dark eyes flipping upward to the wiry herder currently bumping into her side-table. "Well, I was planning on drinking that, but you can tell me if it's good or not," she states upwards, somewhere between flippant and waspish but more mellow than either those might seem. "Are you okay?" she inquires after, pausing with her hair now-unbound to bind it back into a thick rope of a different type, leaning over the hearthstones and squeezing the bundle together to drop splatters of water on the tiles below.

Maikah's eyes widen above the hand he still has in his mouth. "Uh. I think I'll live. Thank you for your concern." SEE LOOK! Two sentences! Aware that perhaps now is the time to remove his hand before he seems weird, he does so. "And it was fine. I'd have preferred more sweetener… but I've been told I have a sweet tooth." He rumbles even more sentences in that deep voice of his. "Seeing as I'm already up, and you've got your hands full. Did you want another?" There is still plenty in the mug, but it's the least he can do right?

With her hair unbound, Azraelle's a different creature than the straight-backed hellion that scours the skies: though one has to fight well, being a greenrider of Jaguar. The angular lines of her face are softened, the delicacy of wrist and ankle revealed as she pulls her socked feet out of her boots and up onto the chair-edge in front of her. Thus situated between brought-up knees and a curtain of dark hair curling behind her, it gives perfect time to procure her now-three-quarters-full mug and examine Maikah thoughtfully. "I have to watch my sweetener. A moment on the lips, as they say," she replies, tone both tired and glib. "I think I'll finish this before I go for another," a brief pause, "But thank you." A sip, and then: "I think."

Maikah's hair is still quite bound, for which I'm sure we can all be grateful. "No worries." He even chances a small friendly smile. He's been practicing! Even as he turns his back and gets to making his own mug, he proves he hasn't been practicing enough. "I'm sure your hips will be fine." He's trying to make a compliment. He didn't come out and say 'nice hips', but yeah. "Maikah, herder journeyman." He introduces himself properly as he turns and finds his own seat, avoiding the puddle she has so helpfully created with her hair. It is entirely possible (probable!) he has no clue who he literally stumbled into this evening.

"Azraelle," eponymous woman replies, waiting for him to be close to seating before she drops the comic hammer of her existence otherwise upon him, "Weyrsecond." It's still foreign to speak the title in association with herself, but in the interim since R'zel bestowed the knot upon her, well, she's adjusted. "Thank you," she says whilst lifting her mug again, "Though I don't believe you've seen enough of my hips to remark on them, journeyman." That's not an invitation Maikah! (poor boy.) "Zhivvyrhaelth wishes to inquire as to what beasts you herd?" is a gracious segue and long-suffering tolerance of her lifemate's nosiness.

Maikah brings that scalded hand to shield his scolded eyes. Poor boy indeed! "Sheep." He answers helpfully. Back to the one word answers because those seem to get him in less trouble. "And my apologies Weyrsecond." For looking at her hips and not recognising who she was, all bedraggled in a plump green chair. However the hand soon drops and there is an air of thoughtfulness. "Should I salute? Bow? Curtsy?" That last is accompanied by the slightest glimmer of beer-bred wickedness; he's repentant, but also bolstered by his end-of-work-day visit to the 'Kitten.

"I will fully accept a lady holder curtsey in lieu of any other form of grovelling," Azraelle says with a livelier air than shown up-to-now: she holds her cup out as if to say that yes, please, continue with this mythical curtsy. "And refrain from kicking your ass with these hips," reflectively, "This once." For Zhivvyrhaelth's inquiry, she has a murmur of a response without actually acknowledging that he deals with those woolly balls of chewy goodness. (that's what zhivvy says, IN CLARIFICATION.)

"Oh." Maikah is flummoxed! "Uh, I don't exactly know many Lady Holders." IS ANYONE SURPRISED? "I don't know if I could do it justice." He does bob his head politely though, considering his entrance, it's probably the safest option. The bob turns into a nod however. "Probably could." Kick his ass, he's a softy, he probably would enjoy it too. Just as he enjoys woolly balls of chewy goodness, once the fluff has been removed and the chewy modified by flame. Sheep are versatile like that. Falling silent he sips from his mug, and contemplates the food on offer. "That's a lot of hair." He blurts, it's clearly been on his mind for a while now. BUT they're old friends now right? Well, she's only threatened to kick his ass, she hasn't actually kicked it yet.

"Do you get out much?" Azraelle inquires in response to Maikah's hair statement — because listen, he's not WRONG, she's got a fuckton of hair — with a lift of an eyebrow. "Come on, I'll teach you," she says after a thought, settling aside her mug of klah and pointing her toes out on the far side of her boots, in the dry section not marked by the droplets from her hair. She leverages herself up to a stand, looking markedly leaner and meaner upon being upright: come hither, Maikah, and learn courtly manners from the crow of Southern.

Maikah grumbles. "I get out plenty!" Although going on solo ventures into the jungles of Southern probably isn't what she meant. "Just the other month I went out." And what an adventure that was! A tale for another time as his sense of self-preservation that serves him so well on his outings prompts him to put down his mug on one of those ridiculous tables and propels him upwards with yet another protesting groan. While there is strength there is very little natural grace in his tall lanky frame. But he's standing! So that's a bonus, hopefully his beard disguises that 'well this isn't good' gulp even as he gamely tries to maintain his gaze on her lean mean eyes (Don'tlookatthehips. don'tlookatthehips! DAMMIT!)

"Do you get out around people?" Azraelle's follow-up is slowly enunciated in the way that people do around people who might be a little touched in the head. She doesn't do it exaggeratedly enough for it to be a blatant diss, but, you know. She's kind of a bitch. "Come here. You're going to do a little plie first, make sure you have enough room in the knees to do this. Like so." Her bare feet fan out, first-position staggered, and she gracefully sinks down, both hands at her, er, hips. Her gaze expectantly tracks over to Maikah because SHE WANTS TO SEE THIS DAMMIT.

Maikah scratches at the back of his head, where his own hair is clubbed tidily. "Uh, that'd be a… not so much." He doesn't want to sound like the complete loser he is! "A Pee-lay?" It's like she's speaking honest to Faranth Pernese, but he can't quite follow. Instead he is just going to watch her very carefully, his dark brows knitted together in equal parts confusion and concentration. "Is there a less…" One large hand gestures in her general direction. "Is that how they really do it?" It seems like waaay too much fuss for him. But he'll give it a go. PREPARE YOURSELF, Maikah is about to get his grace on. Hopefully. He has very serious concentrating face now (further confirming the liberal application of a beer or three), and takes a deep breath before trying to go down. RIIIIIIP! It's Maikah, it was practically guaranteed to happen. "Uh."

"Plee-ey," Azraelle corrects, her sea-shanty voice of hoarseness and too-much-yelling husky nature strangely incongruous with the elegant word. She's watching him and his gracefulless motions when the rip is heard and it is a fucking TALENT she shows to not burst out fucking laughing in his FACE. But Azra is a veteran of embarrassing weyrling farts and other detritus of weyrlingmastering, so she doesn't even pause, other than look up to the Herder impassively: "Sounds like you need a new pair of pants, journeyman," without even commenting that it wasn't her hips that broke them, either. Elsewhere: Zhivvyrhaelth wakes herself up by how loud Azraelle's internal laughing is. Does the weyrsecond's face twitch briefly as if in consternation — or constraint?

Maikah's face flushes slowly as that sound is processed in the midst of all this grace and courtesy. "I can honestly say it's the first time I've needed new pants indoors." He attempts to cover the whole debarkle with a little self-deprecating humor. Before not very surreptitiously checking the damage to the seat of his pants and his dignity (he has very little, so it's fine. THIS IS FINE!). Maikah is nothing if not resourceful, so like his grungy ancestors of old, he whips off his plaid shirt ties it about his waist. IT IS LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED! MAGIC!~ "Plee-ay, then?" He really does appreciate her not laughing in his face even if he deserves it. And now, he has sufficient room to attempt the complicated dance step again.

"I'm glad to be your first time, Maikah," Azraelle deadpans in her gravel voice, her lips curving upward in a very on-brand smirk for the woman as she flows from her simple stretch into an actual curtsey. "It's a bow and a bend of the knee together. Like this," as she sinks forward onto her now-leading leg, bowing with one graceful movement of arm going from palm-facing-body to palm-facing-outward: Azraelle's had fucking lessons on this one, there's no way she would otherwise know how to do this, daughter of a sea-wench as she is. She remarks not at all on Maikah's ingenuous shirt-shifting or the fact that HE STILL IS GAME TO GO THROUGH WITH THIS FARCE, emphasis her player's, because holy shit Maikah's in it to win it, even red-faced.

Maikah does not have the social skills to recognize a farce, on account of him being pretty honest. Also the beer is reeeeeally helping here! "I'm not a virgin!" Despite the fact she's answering his initial statement, he is very quick to correct even the hint of such misinformation, or he could be returning some deadpan in kind. Sometimes it is hard to tell. Watching the whole rigmarole again he pulls his lips into an angled line. "This seems entirely… a waste of time." BUT he does grasp one of his dangling shirt tails to lend a bit of assistance to the endeavor. His attempt is a shambles, not going to lie… it resembles her grace only in the fact that some of his limbs went kinda in the same directions at hers. "Hang on!" He is quick to point out, before giving it another go. Bless him, it is a little bit better. "Kinda glad I don't have to do this actually." Ladies got it hard :(

"Good job, Not A Virgin," Azraelle approves of the second time, bringing up her articulate fingers to give a similarly articulate clap: the sound's not quite mocking, but it's not quite in good faith, either. Her smirk winds upwards toward the lad despite herself, and she shakes her head before padding barefooted back to catch her cup and return to the hearth, topping it off to warm it up. "If you were born a woman, you would find there's a great many pieces that are wastes of time pressed upon womanly shoulders to make men feel better about themselves." Her dark eyes look past Maikah and then she shakes her head, returning for her seat to curl in a cascade of hair and lean lines. "Thankfully, since you were born," her cup vaguely circles in his direction to encapsulate 'awkward ass male', "You'll only ever need to give a bow if ever you run into a Lord or Lady Holder."

"Hardly likely to run into one of those in the back end of beyond." Maikah points out helpfully even as he returns to his seat. The lesson is now over! Faranth defend the next Lord or Lady Holder he meets though! "And I can't say I feel better cos of what someone else does. What I do on the other hand…" But he's a lone voice in the chorus or something, and also without clout or ability to make that change. There is a wink to accompany his words, a suggestion of awareness. "I would stay and learn more of your wisdom. But I should probably see to my pants. People might get the wrong idea." I mean teaching an awkward ass male to curtsy probably isn't at the forefront of anyone's mind.

"Good luck, journeyman," Azraelle affirms his path as the correct one, lifting her mug as a salute. Her hair is starting to crackle around her by now, static electricity quite a bitch for these fast-drying environments. "May your next pants-ripping be more intriguing than the one you found today." May your life be interesting is one of Zhivvyrhaelth's more vitriolic adages, and there goes Azra wishing it upon this poor lad! But he'll go on her way, and she'll find the little pot of unguent to start taming the crazy strands of her hair: and just like that the path-crossing is firmly crossed, and both of them back upon the ways they were before. (Except poor Maikah has ripped pants, now, but… he'll live. Hopefully.)

At least he didn't fart!

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