[LOG] Reunion.

[biteymonster]

Kitchen, Ista Weyr

Double-hinged doors, clearly labeled with large signs reading 'In' and 'Out' bring a person into the kitchens of Ista Weyr. The stone-cut ceiling is fairly low compared with other areas and has heavy beams of wood secured into it. From these seemingly decorative carved rafters hang various pots, pans and other useful kitchen items that sway gently back and forth whenever one is grabbed. The back is occupied by two fairly large sized spits, various cooking hearths and the ovens. A curtain covers a wide passageway leading down to the storage caverns.

Islands of marbled counter space occupy most of the middle of the room, obvious patterns and work triangles starting to indent comfortable wear-marks into the floor. These islands are used for kitchen prep with cabinets built underneath them for organized and labeled storage. On the left are the deep, wide sinks and more cabinets, these with carved wooden fronts bearing common sights of Ista such as intertwining tea leaves and various decorous fruit and flower vines. In whatever free space remains on the right, there's a scattering a small tables for the errant passerby or kitchen worker to sit at and grab a drink or quick bite to eat.

It has been a few days now since she saw him in the infirmary, since she left him the note. There's probably been talk of what happened that day on the docks that landed a dragonrider the only victim in the infirmary. The members of K'aus's wing have been steaming, shooting suspicious glances here and there and talking amongst themselves at meals. He's been holed away, hidden from the world, until tonight, his first time out since the order to stay /in/. And he chooses to spend it here, in the kitchen, at their table. She would have gotten no notes, no word, she'll only find him sitting, facing the way she'd come in with, wearing a black mask over his eyes and part of his nose with a flourish of feathers sprouted from one corner and his hands laced in plain sight.

And she comes to dinner, same time as all the other times. Her meal has already been taken from the living cavern. It's easy enough to spot K'aus and the mask that he's wearing. Even with that on, she knows that it's him. After all, the rest of his body isn't any different visibly than it normally is. Nenita puts the plate down and drops down into the seat across from him. She puts her fork into a piece of meat and then chews on it while staring at him. After swallowing, "This isn't helping your appearance any."

He's staring back evenly, calmly, through the gauzy black material stretched over the eyes of his mask. She'll see a splinted finger and the scabbed cut on his lip for now as the extent of his injuries. And just because K'aus is hiding doesn't mean he's going to be quiet about it. "I just can't make you happy, can I. Damned if I do, damned if I don't."

"Absolutely not. I'm a miserable creature that will never be satisfied." Nenita tells him as she forks some more food into her mouth. She narrows her eyes and tries to see through to him on the other side of the mask. Without a second of hesitation she reaches forward to try and grab a corner of it, "Is this for a medical reason or strictly cosmetic?"

"I might have gone with a different assortment of words," K'aus mutters, watching her as blankly without eyes as he likely would be with them. All of her peering will get her nowhere, there isn't a lot to see beyond the black, and that's probably why she's going to-- yeah, take it off. He was probably expecting that. A very careful lean away from her determined hand keeps him just out of reach. "No, I'm too hideous. No, no."

"Correct assortment of words or not, I'm going to be especially miserable if I fall into this food." Nenita swipes with her hand, basically a snatch at the mask. But her attempts are in vain, since her arms are short and he's leaning away. "Oh well. Since you're so hideous..." She drops back in her chair, picking her fork up again to renew the eaing.

"See this is like a fun game." Listen to all the enthusiasm in his voice. Once she's resumed doing things that don't require him to avoid her, K'aus relaxes and tilts his head, looking a bit like an inquisitive birdy. "So," drawn out, "catch me up. I feel like I hardly know ye."

Nenita eats her food, staring across the table at him. This is maybe very similar to the last time. The attitude anyway. "Well, since the last time I saw you've I've developed a strong aversion to men in masks." And it seems like that's a true statement as her eyes track up the mask, lingering on the featers in particular. "This is a terrible game."

The only part of his face she's allowed is his mouth; it flattens expressively for all her comments. He tsks at her. "You certainly are complaining a lot for someone with no broken bones currently actually /in/ their body. Am I to believe nothing of note has occured since I saw you last, what about that kid that annoys you all the time."

Nenita lifts her eyebrows. Asked very seriously, "K'aus, have you ever met anyone with broken bones that they keep /outside/ of their body? We're not insects." She picks away at the rest of the meal and eventually pushes it aside. "Ch'son? He's been quiet recently." So nothing to note, at least not in the arena of her clutchmates. She gets up, dragging her chair over to his side, fingers reaching again for the mask. "You can make me happy, very happy, by letting me see. If you don't let me see I'm going to start acting childish and probably leave."

While Nenita's sarcasm might offend or annoy someone else, K'aus's reaction is a small, tolerant smile and he puts his chin in his hand. Isn't she precious. "You're really letting me down here," he'll have her know, and soon after she's moving. He straightens in his chair to watch her, turns a little bit in it so that when she sits next to him he's facing her more than he would have been. This time when she reaches for his mask he doesn't budge, he doesn't say anything either. He just lets her remove the only thing existing between him and her. There is a line of maybe five stitches curved up over his cheekbone, a vague wrongness in the bridge of his nose and there's still some faint bruising there and around his eye.

"Yeah," Nenita starts with a scoff, "I'll try harder next time." It's without any really meaning to it as she's far too busy now pulling this thing off of his face. The mask is dropped without ceremony into her lap and with eyes slightly widened she takes in the sight before her. There's some rearrangement of her legs now, she tucks them under her so tha she can be moe height appropriate with his face. Kneeling now more than sitting on the chair. Her fingers come out to trace all of the places that are wrong, the stitches and bruising. She's careful around that part of his nose that seems out of place. The breath she was holding in gets exhaled. "You look better. You look a lot less like shit."

Apparently she can have the mask without any objections but K'aus does look like he wants to say something when her hands move for his face. It might have been a word of caution, please don't hurt him, but more likely he would have said something to stop her for entirely different reasons. He doesn't though, and his lips are no longer parted while her fingers wander and he breathes evenly. His eyes undergo a subtle narrowing when she delivers her verdict. "You know you really shouldn't sweet talk me."

"Oh?" Nenita is busy still with her fingers, going back to the original places and then to his jaw, tracing and feeling. She presses carefully, a silent request for him to turn his head just a little so that she can make sure no damage has escaped her eye. "Next time I'll be more brutal." Finally she takes her hands away from his face, dropping them into her lap as she settles into the chair again. She touches his knee, evidentally loathe to break that physical contact yet. "What happened?"

She'll meet no resistance in any of her silent urgings this way or that, he is exercising quite a rare show of patience. When she's finished he adjusts to meet her eyes and keeps his voice low for their closeness, as if they're sharing secrets. "Apparently I'm kind of an asshole. Who knew. It's no big deal, I was out of line, said the wrong thing. I'll know better next time." K'aus takes a deep breath in and traces /her/ face with his eyes. "You were there with me."

"That doesn't sound like the truth. That doesn't sound like what I've been hearing." Nenita says in turn, searching his face thoughtfully. Maybe she's looking for something that'll betray the truth to her, but it's unlikely there's anything there. She wiggles her legs, scooting further on the chair until she can press her knees onto his legs. When he brings up her visitation there's a matter of fact, "Of course." in response.

Oh, really? say K'aus's eyebrows, which have gone up mildly like he's oh so interested in the alternative to his story. She might find something there to be suspicious about, in his passive expression, but beyond the most subtle of gives he isn't big on tells. When she moves closer he curls a smirk and tilts his head. "Of course." She might miss or notice the wince when he bends to take her legs in his hands and pull on them. If he has his way he'll have one for either hip and she'll practically be in his lap. Maybe more than practically.

When he winces, she winces and bats his hands away. Her legs come into place easily and she moves forward. It's enough to be considered exceptionally close but not enough for anyone in the kitchens to drop dead of shock, hopefully. If not, well, they probably had it coming. "I want to know what happened." Nenita insists again, even as she gets herself comfortable and rests her hands on his legs. "The rules start changing this month." As if this is maybe something of an important sidenote.

It's certainly not in K'aus of all people to worry about what anyone else thinks, even if it's more Nenita's reputation at risk than his own by far. The kitchen is a perfectly fine place to be seen with a girl in your lap or just outside of it and nobody can tell him different. He's lifting his chin when she's talking, looking down his nose at her until suddenly he isn't anymore and he's meeting her eyes directly. "I told you what happened. Which rules?" There's so many. For her.

"Don't treat me that way. Giving me some shit abbreviated version, abridged as it is." Nenita continues to keep herself balanced by leaning her hands into his legs, finding a firm grip there on his thighs. "I'm not the general public." Now that their eyes are meeting directly, she's on level with all of those other things. Dark eyes land on his stitches, examining them before answering the other bit. "These rules." The ones about sitting on other peoples laps in public. Like leaning in to brush your lips onto another person's mouth. Which is what she's doing.

He's giving her a faintly appraising sort of look while she finds that bit of his anatomy to grab onto and then narrowing his eyes at her while she looks him over again. She isn't the general public. No, the general public often don't sit in his lap and kiss him... Oh, wait. Perhaps if he wasn't a little big concerned about her falling right out he would do more with his hands than simply keep hold of her legs but he isn't too preoccupied to press his mouth into hers and turn what might have been just an innocent little nothing into an anything-but something.

When he presses his lips into hers, maybe she can't help it if there's just a little delighted noise from the back of her throat. Nenita squeezes his legs again before letting go just so she can loop her arms around his neck, obviously for safety precautious. She'll indulge in his lips for just a little while before breaking the contact so that she can lean away from him. Simple she utters, "So." and looks on at him, waiting for a response.

That little noise might have ruined the whole thing if K'aus had less self control over himself. Instead of laughing like he might have he only grins wolfishly into their kiss and leans into her when she puts her arms around his neck. Unfortunately he isn't as responsive beyond that, maybe he's anticipating when she can speak again and-- expects a response. When they've come to that part he takes a deep breath and regards her with hooded eyes. "What difference does it make? What's the answer you're expecting?"

With her arms looped around his neck, she plays idly with the hairs on the back of his neck. They're flipped around by her fingertips while her eyes remain on him. What he says, whether or not it really is a dodge, certainly seems to come across as one to her. Her expectant face changes, lips pursing together now before speaking. "I don't know what difference it's going to make. I'm not looking for a certain kind of answer other than what really happened." Her hands stop playing, "You don't have to tell me anything. But I'd like you to, because I thought we'd moved past this. Avoiding talking about a subject. You didn't like it when I pulled it on you."

How is he supposed to keep resisting when she's being all logical and remembering things? He doesn't notice that she was playing with his hair until she isn't anymore; his eyebrows tilt downward. "What really happened... hm." She makes it sound so easy. K'aus removes a hand from the task of keeping her balanced and uses it to play with some of /her/ hair, rolling a strand between his fingers and tugging on it very gently. "I did something bad and I was punished. And I can't tell you everything. I don't want to. There's too much."

When he pulls on her hair, she glances down at the strand very briefly. "Break it apart, tell me some of it now. Just a bit of it." Nenita looks at him again, leaning in to press her lips against his forehead. In a quiet voice, "Tell me the rest later in pieces. Then it won't be so much, it won't overwhelm any one time that we're together." None of it is posed as a question or a request like it normally would. She moves away again as her fingers pick up the air playing from before.

The tension that was building there on his brow eases beneath the gentle press of that kiss and K'aus's eyes drift closed. Just like pressing a button. While she's close he nudges the tip of his nose up into her chin. Her proposal does sound appealing, and so easy, and it really shouldn't be hard. If what he had to say was uncomplicated. His extreme reluctance suggests it isn't. "I don't know where to start," he confesses after a great and lingering silence within the core of the kitchen's bustling, or not, activity. But, "Someone did something. Something very bad. And I got very angry. But not as angry as everyone else got."

The press of his nose to the underneathe of her chin results in her dipping her mouth down. She touches her lips very carefully to the bridge of his, careful not to apply too much pressure to that likely sore area. In the end, her forehead ends up against his where she closes her eyes during the silence and listens when the little bit comes. At 'everyone else' her fingers tighten in his hair a little, an involuntary reaction. But what he says at least sounds more in line with what she's likely been hearing from gossip. "Did they do something bad that day or did it happen before?"

So then they will remain very close. He won't complain. It might be very soothing indeed and a welcome change, all this gentle niceness after-- well. Did they do something bad? "It wasn't... them. It-- ah." That's a breath, and K'aus shifts beneath her very carefully. It might seem like he won't say anything more after that, his eyes have closed again, but if she's lulled into that assumption he'll surprise her. "There isn't any right or good way to tell you without telling you everything. Everything I say sounds so fucking insane."

She's silent then too, like she's done with demanding anything else from him for the evening. Nenita just moves forward and wraps her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder. And she'll stay that way for a bit, "It hasn't sounded insane so far, just very vague." There's a pause again before she pulls away, giving him some space before this maybe becomes too sappy and cloying an experience. "You don't have to say anything else tonight, not if you don't want to. But I want to know the rest, later."

What a relief when she isn't looking at him anymore, when she's done asking questions, even if only for now. Maybe it's that even more than that she's being so sweet that K'aus appreciates by putting his hands on her hips and his mouth to her shoulder. His eyes are open over it and focused on nothing. "I know," is muffled and close. Right after, he looks up at her and leans back in his chair; his mouth twitches at the corner. "Hm." His gaze slides to the side once he's realized or remembered something and he reaches for the mask that fell from her lap to be stuck between his leg and the arm of the chair. He reapplies it to his face and tilts another look up at her.

That terrible mask is back on his face again. "Damnit." Nenita mutters under her breath. And that sweet, caring version of her fades. Instead her eyebrows draw together and she bats at the feathers now poking out over his head, her expression an mixture of amusement and fatigue. With an exasperated sigh she rolls her eyes and unhooks her arms. She puts her hands down on the chair and works on pushing herself away. To get herself in a position where her legs are together and not sprawled so carelessly around his hips.

Her displeasure amuses him, so says the sly smile. She can't see it but his eyebrows have lifted, as have his eyes, as if he could watch her playing around with those feathers. Except he can't. Giving up, he focuses instead on trying to make it as difficult as possible for her by remaining absolutely still. She's on her own. But whenever she does manage to gather herself he murmurs, "Where are you going?"

Luckily for Nenita she's at least marginally coordinated, so him refusing to move doesn't hinder her anyway. "A girl has to make an exit sometime. And since the dashing brownrider I was talking to moments ago has been replaced by this masked bandit, I think now is as an appropriate time as any." He's spared at least a little smile before she pushes her seat back and gets up, leaning over the table to pick up her dishes.

"I see." She's allowed her space, he doesn't follow her or stop her, doesn't try to make life more difficult for her. Maybe he isn't bored enough. While she's busy with her dishes and that kind of thing he hopes to get up himself without attracting her attention. There is a fair amount of wincing and one breathed syllable of ow but other than that it's a quick affair and he's standing straight and tall and trailing his fingers along the table while he approaches her; they stop when he does. "Night," he offers.

If she glances behind her and sees that brief struggle, she'll never say. She's allowed her space and he's allowed his pride, isn't he? The dishes are gathered and by the time that she too is straightened up, he's gotten to his feet. Nenita lets one little finger come out to brush his hand before taking it back to hold her plate in a better grasp. "Good night." She turns to go, but pauses just once to shoot out, "Don't disappear again. I might have missed you." If there's no move to stop her, she'll make her exit out the swinging kitchen doors.