Who

Veresch, Threvobek

What

Picks up after part II, still in the cave and passing time.

When

It is the eighty-eighth day of Summer and 107 degrees.

Where

Igen Desert

OOC Date

 

veresch_default.jpg threvobek_default.jpg


Igen Desert

There is lots of sand. The cave is small, but sufficient.


"Socks?" Threvobek about trips over the word with disbelief. "You can do better than that." A pause is performed, seeing if he can check on the status of the storm by sound alone. No change, its ravages are still current. Threvobek sheds a one-shouldered shrug and leads his mind back to the game. "If I win, hm." Drawing this out for something good. Or at least better than socks. If they have holes he wears them the other way. "Put in a good word with your father about my overall conduct," which should speak for itself but extra accolades never hurt anyone. "And wear this," gesturing, "proper attire for a month." Eyebrows make their stand high on his forehead to see if those criteria will be met before dealing cards. Or! "How many marks you have?"

Veresch leans back on her bit of rocky-sandy wall, more interested in getting comfortable around, between and below her firelizards. The cave isn't conducive to it, but luckily too small to fold felines. That is, of course, until she hears the terms that he sets, and almost splutters. "My normal clothes are perfectly okay and proper! I'm covered up just as much as most!" Fine, so she doesn't really wear the headwrap-scarf thing often, but the rest of her is covered. Seconds later though, her eyes narrow, and she leans closer to watch him with the cards. "If I win, you'll wear clothes like these for a month as well." No mention of marks.

Threvobek tuts, arms also folding imperiously across his chest, card deck still within his grasp. "You wear pants too often. And," leaning forward at the hip, "layers of robes aren't suitable to what I do. They'd be torn and ruined before the first day's out and believe you me, those you wouldn't want to mend." Blood, dung, sweat are his ever present wardrobe accessories. Keep trying, girlie. Off to the side Valmai stirs to patrol for rock mites and other native invertebrates.
Threvobek has Impressed brown Valmai.

Ignoring the cuteness that is a tiny firelizard pouncing on moving things, Veresch has her gaze firmly fixed on Threvobek, smile slowly growing. "Don't try that on me," she says idly. "You're not in the pens the whole day. Put them on after you're done with your day job and it'll be enough. I'll do the same. Either that, or think something else to start betting. I work too hard for my marks to want to squander them on this; I'm still building up my stash after trading for this year's round of birthday presents."

Threvobek stares Veresch down without sharing a shred on his face of what he's thinking. It's a blank if calculating stare, a cat wondering if it can launch itself that far, a fisher cat speculating how to roll that porcupine onto its back. "Done. Let's get this going." He deals the required amount of cards each, and places his in the customary fan without grouping them. Let her wonder what they are and aren't. Glance flicks up, eyes steady, "just so you're aware, I never got one." Color him hurt.

Well then. Let's get this game started. "I got you one," Veresch says idly as she shuffles her cards. Compulsively so, getting them into one pattern, then the other, then a third before she agrees mentally with what's in her hand. "But you pissed me off that day, so I didn't give it to you. I still have it." Her gaze lifts to pin on his face in the dark cave, merry and threatening and narrow. "You've been a pain in the ass on this trip, but you did me a huge favour, so I had thought about giving it to you after we get back to the Weyr. But that was before you knocked me up. Speaking of…" Grimacing, she puts her cards down face-down and reaches down to take the impromptu pregnancy bump off, no matter how handy a table it makes for things. "Faranth. The damn beans weigh a ton." Pause. "We could celebrate, but I only have dried biscuits and that sharding awful cactus jam left over that's free."

Threvobek's back slouches and both hands cup the cards to thwart cheating. Valmai could be a double agent, Faranth knows he's easy enough to bribe with food. "Ladies first." Then his arms sink at the elbows, expression thunderstruck. "You did?" His mouth stops being slightly agape. THEN he plants an elbow on the side of his knee. "But when did I tell you my birthday?" He isn't really sure of it himself, was usually lumped with other Weyrbrats. "If it's beans, keep 'em," grinning so none of his teeth are shown. "That was nice touch, creative." Pseudo pregnancies for the win.

"My daddy's still going to kill you for knocking his little girl up, even if it is just with beans," Veresch teases back. If there's one thing she's learnt this trip, it's when Rev is being ornery to irritate her, and when he's just teasing. Grunting as she turns about, she shoves the baby bump bag in behind her lower back and stretches her feet out, bracing her ankles on his closest leg. "So was that foot rub I conned out of you in front of the other women." Good times, good times. "I asked around. Most of the aunties at the Weyr can size people up, say more or less how old they are, and I snooped a little in the records. Between those two, I made an educated guess." This is what happens when you teach a girl spycraft. They become proactive. "Whatcha got?"

Threvobek has a solid spine but after multiple pregnancy references he's showing the accumulation of a little embarrassment on his cheeks. "He likes me I think." Veschan can be difficult to read between the lines though they both have responsibilities to the stables and are frequently in one another's company. "Besides, he knows how you are." All puckish and stuff. At another subject he's hooked through the gills. "What else did you see in the records about me?" Rev's game hand spreads before the leather canvas between them, conceding a two-pair of fives, a three-pair if he'll get his way… "Didn't I mentioned dragons were wild?"

With little wiggles Veresch has made herself comfortable. "Of course he likes you," she says idly as she achieves a state of tired, supported bliss with her feet up and her eyes squinting down at her cards. "You work hard, and you're not cruel to the animals." She's seen that as well the past few days. "But I'm still his little girl." The man definitely knows how his daughter is; he'd likely just groan and buy Rev a drink in apology. "Can't mention wild cards after the draw," she says laconically, a little irritated, since she only has a pair, and that a set of two. "Not that you seem to need it anyway with this hand." Pause. "Again? And I look for much more. I wasn't there to snoop." Okay. So she was, but she's got standards. Only snoop enough to find out what you want.

Veresch should feel pressure from the leg under her feet, something of an absent 'look what I can do.' So this win is received quietly and with decorum, it's a feat he's not strutting on one leg, arms fanning 'alleluias' to the sky. "I still feel bad for him." But then, who lets their daughter run near wild? The man has it coming. Irregardless Threvobek accepts Veresch's story about the records as he gathers the cards. "Sure. Any different stakes? I'm going to go check outside first," already at a stance to stand, slipping past the glowlight into a story of shadow and beast smell. The runner and bovine are complacent, even their dung piles are tidy.

Veresch winces as her legs slip off from his, thudding heels into the dusty cave ground. The momentary spasm of disgruntlement covers up the slight injury to her feelings. It's always like this between them. Just as she gets comfortable he runs down her upbringing, or criticizes her appearance or job. It's easy enough in the gloomy lack of light to control her features, and her hands are steady as she scoops up the cards. "You know," she says carefully. "This time isn't any better than where I originally come from. I wish you would stop treating me as if I were stupid and ill-trained and a little girl. I'm not. I choose not to settle down and rot by having a baby every single year of my life. That does not mean I am less, somehow, than what you'd term 'respectful' women here are."

Threvobek parts the scrap of canvas filling the gaps between their cart and still sees a blur of wind-chucked sand. "I think it's looking better!" He calls out with some manner of enthusiasm. It's starting to get stuffy in the small structure. Oh, and the herdbeast poop in a confined space doesn't help. "Sorry, it's a force of habit." At this distance sincerity is undetermined. The protective canvas is replaced as it was, animal silhouettes checked, and his spot has barely cooled. "If anything, you definitely leave an impression." Comes the voice from behind, his canteen suddenly offered over Resh's shoulder.

The lack of good apology is noted, and the canteen refused. "No thanks. I've drunk enough water for the moment." She is not going to pee in the back of the cave, even if it's already filling up with eau de bovine poop. Taking the cards, she examines them slowly and carefully, obviously looking for signs of a marked deck. "Another hand?" She doesn't wait for an answer. Instead, she slowly starts to shuffle the cards, taking her time about the action.

Threvobek is aware they seem to suffer in each other's presence to some degree, the temptation to lock horns avoidable if either was not so headstrong. But they are and this cave will have to hold their combined pride for a while yet. He treads around her, not carefully, but neither does he tromp on her toes, sitting closer than before as a sure-fire Space Hogger. A couple sips from the canteen and it's assigned a spot again by his side. He hasn't replied but has enough game to take what he's dealt. "They're clean." Reading those tell-tale suspicions on her mind with knack.

Veresch is not the kind of dealer that would, in another time, have hands worthy of a Reno casino, but neither is she bad at it. She shuffles the deck with quick motions of her hands, dextrous fingers dealing out a hand each with surefire certainty. The rest of the deck gets placed face side down next to her as she moves up to avoid touching him, and she peeks at her hand of cards, tilting them closer to the glow on her side of the small cavern.

"C'mon Master Conclave," invoking the highest and hardest hands one can be dealt. Needless to say Threvobek doesn't have that instant, glorious hand. While they're mentally assembling cards in this abbreviated version of dragon poker, a set of hazel eyes, dark without proper lighting, peek experimentally at Veresch. The weak light doesn't quite conquer all the attributes of her face. It highlights the apples of her cheeks, nose bridge and lips but ignores the tops of her eyebrows, visible side of the nose and strains through some shorter strands of hair to draw a fringe of shadows. He shelters some air in his chest and lets it come out a sigh. A card is rejected and a new one drawn from the public pile.

Those shadows move and play over her features as she moves to order her cards again and again, shuffling as if the motion soothes her somehow. She smiles thinly at his repeated chanting, but when it comes down to the bare bones of this particular hand of cards, there's nothing that he's going to get that beats her. She doesn't even rub it in his face. Instead she stands, making for the thin curtain and peering past it. "The light seems to be brightening," she mentions dully seconds later. "These storms are unpredictable. Hopefully it's over and we can move on."

Threvobek finds small bit of hominess to Timbo burping a bit of methane. "I had your hand from last time, see," a pair of fours are cast to the leather covering between them, in fact the whole hand falls with it. Valmai only found and ate a husk of something recently dead and his blue orbs of eyeshine follow Veresch from his vantage point. Threvobek, pushing off on his knee to stand, comes up behind Veresch to offer a second opinion. "I say we make a break for it. We're about one and one half hour away from the Weyr. If we notify the watchrider we could maybe have some coverage."

Veresch's fair, eyes not quite so blue, skitter up as she twists back, tacking the curtain up again so that the sand doesn't whistle in immediately. "We should still wait for a while," she mutters, shooting the idea down. "It might be getting thinner, but it's still strong enough to strip the skin off flesh." Wandering to the point of the cave as far from the bovine hell-beast as possible, she curls up amidst the stacked packs instead, using her face baby bump as a pillow. "Wake me when it blows over, please." She closes her eyes with determination, and soon enough her breathing evens out.

Threvobek stays by the entrance a while yet, closing his eyes to usher a command for Valmai. Does the storm cover the Weyr too? A mind route of firelizards takes almost a minute but he has his answer. The storm has either already passed over their home base or it was an isolated enough condition to not have effected it to begin with. "Alright." Sleep would be nice and would happen if he got comfortable so the task of filling their cart is undertaken, working around Veresch until the time comes to rouse her.

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