Girltalk
Setting: Roa's Weyr
Players: Roa, Ginella
Synopsis: Roa and Ginny get together for an evening of chatting about men, transfers, families, etc.
It's later in the evening and the weyrwoman is home alone, either by coincidence or my machination. The weyr is tidy, the main table set out with crackers, cheese and berries. There is also a bottle of Benden red wine, a bottle of Tillek white, and a third non-alcoholic fruit juice of some kind that's fizzy like champagne. A few candles burn lazily and scent the room pleasantly, and they and the crackling fire offer illumination for the evening's antics. Roa holds a throw blanket which she drapes over one couch, picks up, drapes over the other, and generally can't seem to decide where to put the darn thing. Tialith is coiled on her couch and an invitation has been extended to Ginella via Aneleth.
Aneleth has responded to the invitation, and a little while later, the gold arrives on the ledge, allowing time for her rider to slide down and unpack a bag on the straps as she greets the more senior queen. Then she's back to her own (sort of) ledge, and Ginella is heading into the weyr, sticking her head in for a moment to say, "Roa?" before entering the rest of the way. She has yet another bottle in one hand, and a covered dish in the other which she lifts with a little laugh as she sees the spread the other goldrider has already prepared. "I brought juice and cake," she explains, setting them down, "Do you need a hand with that?"
"Come in," Roa calls as she hears her own name tentatively offered. "You can set the cake and juice down with the little nibbly things, and I'd say we're all set. I wasn't sure if you preferred red or white, so I just grabbed one of each." She glances down to the blanket she holds, and shakes her head. "No. I'm just reorganizing everything. Because I've gone nuts. How're you?"
Ginella comes in, eyeing the other nibbly things as she sets down her own contribution and uncovers the cake. "You found berries this time of year? Impressive," she says, eyeing the blanket and then smiling, "When my sister was having her first, she insisted on making her husband rearrange the furniture a good three or four times, and then paint half of it. Of course she wanted it stripped to the original, once she came to her senses again." She takes off her coat, and drapes it over the arm of the couch as she nods, "I'm well. Glad of a day off. How're you, other than nuts?"
"Nuts is probably most of it," Roa says to the blanket. With a soft snort, she tosses the item down on the couch and forcibly turns away so as not to attempt to do anything more with it. "Your sister let her husband move the furniture? Faranth, I'm almost flinching when Ashwin -sits- on anything, let alone tries to move something for me. I don't...I mean, some part of my mind is totally aware that none of this makes any sense. It's just that all the other parts don't care. Days off are good. Very useful for the night before."
"Well, I'm not sure it was 'let' so much as 'ordered'," Ginella replies with a grin, "Apparently my mother went to visit one day and found her standing there yelling at him as he pushed a chest of drawers back and forth until it was precisely where she wanted it." She eyes the couch a touch warily, and then looks at Roa, "So, is it all right if I sit?" she jokes, before nodding, "Days off are very good. I have an essay to write tomorrow afternoon, but we'll get to sleep in, which is always nice. I haven't had a day since I got back from Benden."
The smaller, rounder weyrwoman groans and hides her face in her hands. "If I ever get that bad, you have to put me out of my misery." She peeks up over her fingers and lets her hands drop. "And yes. Please sit. You've been back from Benden...shells, it's been a bit, hasn't it?"
Ginella grins, "We'll have you put on bedrest, kept in confinement," she agrees, taking a seat once she's been given permission. "It has been a bit," she confirms, running a hand over her hair as she sits, crossing her legs, "Though I took a few days between leaving Benden and coming back," she admits, "We snuck off to the beach, didn't tell anyone. I figure that made up for it."
Roa chuckles. "I noticed when you supposedly left and when you showed up were a bit off. I hope you have a good escape. Tempting sometimes to just take off to somewhere and hide away for a while, isn't it? Would you like anything to eat or a glass of wine?" She gestures vaguely towards the table.
"Right, you were supposed to assume I'd been held back at Benden," Ginella responds with a smile, "And they were supposed to think I'd left already. It was just three days, it was worth it." She nods at the gesture and the spread, and sits forward to pour herself a glass of the white, looking up, "Juice for you?" Some cheese and crackers are snagged also and she sits back again, "I'm always telling Tiv we ought to build a house on the beach and never come back," she says, "Though he sunburns so badly, we probably wouldn't last through a summer."
"Does he? I think there's lotions and things one can put on to help reduce burning. Although T'ral beet red is a painfully amusing thought. Juice for me, pelase." Roa lowers herself into a sit and stretches out her legs. "It worked, your ruse. Well, until just now."
"Well, we both do," Ginella admits, "Him just a bit worse." She chuckles and takes a sip of her wine as she shakes her head, "It sounds like it would be amusing, but then he gets all grumpy and whiny because it hurts and peels and stuff... it stops being funny very quickly." She pours the goldrider some juice and sits back, smiling, "Well, too late to stop me now, isn't it?" A bite of cheese, a sip of wine, and she glances around the weyr, "So, where is Ashwin off to, this evening? Did you kick him out?"
"If you hit him upside the head with a frying pan," Roa offers sagely, "he'll be too focused on the way his noggin hurts to bother with fretting about his sunburn." She accepts the juice with murmured thanks and takes a sip. "He's got a night shift. He takes them now and again, and sometimes he'll relieve one of the other men that are rostered for it, especially if they have a family. I perhaps suggested, if he wanted to do such a thing, tonight might be a fine night for it."
Ginella laughs, "I suppose that's one strategy. I'm not sure I'd prefer to have him leaking brain juice all over the pillows, though." Another sip of wine, and she nods along as Roa explains, "That works out well. T'ral has, I believe, lured D'ven and Br'ce away from their work for an evening. Who knows what that means they're up to. Something disreputable I'd rather not know about, I'm sure."
"Well, they probably both need it, anyhow. You don't have to hit him hard enough that he leaks. Just hard enough to leave a lump and maybe make his eyes cross. I'm sure Darageth won't mind. He seems like an easygoing sort." Roa bites her bottom lip, smiling faintly. "And speaking of T'ral..." she peers over at Ginella, brows lifting.
"I'm sure they do," Ginella agrees, "D'ven especially. Tiv's been a bit worried about him, I think. Br'ce has always been like this, but D'ven... well, it'll be good for them," she agrees, before chuckling, "Well, that's decided then. And Dara is very easy going. Very quiet." A hand through her hair, and she laughs lightly again at Roa's prompt, "I get to go first? Well, what do you know already? I don't want to bore you to death."
Blink. "Dara. Every time someone calls him that, I think of the blueriding weyrling and my head hiccups." Roa has another swallow of juice. "Well, let's see. He was at Benden, now he isn't. He calls you Sunshine and he gave you a ring. And he plays card games that make no sense. And I'm afraid that's mostly it."
Ginella blinks, "Oh. I hadn't thought of that. It's always Darageth, to me. I've known him longer." She listens, taking a few berries and munching as Roa lists the few things she knows. "He does call me Sunshine," she grins, "And he did give me a ring," she remembers, glancing down at it, and grinning again, then laughing, "Yeah, they love that game. It's basically just to confuse people." She brushes a hand over her hair, and takes another long sip of wine, nodding, "Well, okay. So, we both Impressed at Benden. He was the clutch ahead of me, so we were weyrlings together for a while. He and Br'ce and D'ven and Nari and I'sen and the rest; he had a whole crew, of course."
"Of course. His minions and accomplices and children by turn, from what I've seen," Roa says around an easy smile. "The game works. I was wholly confused. So, were you all sneaky as weyrlings? Or did you wait? Or...?"
"They were a bunch of hoodlums," Ginny replies with a fond shake of her head, "They were always causing trouble. I was terrified of them, of course. And one day, about a month in, I'm oiling Aneleth, and he just comes up and starts talking to me. And he helps, and we talk, and that was it. I was sure it was the set-up for some trick for a while," she admits with a grin, "But it just became a regular thing, and we got to be friends. He kept the rest of them from harassing me. Oh, no," she says to the last, shaking her head, "Not exactly either. We were friends, as weyrlings. I was crazy about him, of course, but I'd given up hoping for anything more, especially when he disappeared after graduation, and I didn't see him for six months."
"Friends can be nice. Or frustrating. Or both. Six months?" Roa blinks. "What was he off busy with for all that time?"
"It was nice," Ginny replies, with a little shake of her head before she drains the last of her wine, "I never honestly expected that he'd be interested in me, so it was just nice having him as a friend." She leans forward to steal a few more snacks and pour herself some more of the white before shrugging as she sits back, "Oh, who wants to know? Hoodlum-stuff, I'm sure. Drinking, gambling, the same as they're off doing tonight, though probably there were girls involved. Anyways," she goes on, "Then he shows up at my graduation, asks me to go for a walk, and kisses me. I was shocked, but... pleasantly."
The last of the juice is swallowed down, and Roa leans forward to snatch up a few berries of her own. "He was waiting, then. For you to be finished with weyrlinghood. That's...well, that's about right, I suppose." She glances down smiling as she nibbles one of the berried balanced in her palm. "Then what?"
Ginella nods, "That's what he said later," she confirms, "That it was easier to follow the rules and wait if he just didn't see me at all. Of course, I thought he just didn't even want to be friends anymore." She brushes at her hair briefly, and takes another sip of wine, nodding, "Well, then, we managed to figure things out, and were together for about a turn, a turn and a half? A while, anyways. And then right before I came to Caucus, we broke up."
"Just like that? From a turn and a half of being to together to not?" Roa cants her head to the side as she finishes off the berries.
"Well... no, I mean, it wasn't that simple," Ginny admits, leaning forward to carefully pick a couple more crackers and slices of cheese, "We'd had... a lot of problems. I was busy all the time, and he was off with the guys a lot, and... there were some... obstacles," she blushes, lifting her wineglass to distract from it, "That I wasn't really getting around, and he was getting impatient, and then I found out I was getting sent to the Caucus after Ane's first clutch, and we were going to work things out before then, but then her flight came too quickly and afterwards... I couldn't deal with it, and it fell apart."
At the mention of obstacles, Roa's brows tip downwards in confusion, but then they shoot up again as the word 'flight' enters into it. Oh! Ohhhh. "Faranth," she mutters softly, with a small shake of her head. "That must have been...I'm sorry."
Ginella watches Roa's expression change, and doesn't seem entirely certain that the other goldrider has gotten it, but she doesn't seem about the clarify, regardless. "It was awful," she agrees quietly, shaking her head, "I didn't know what to make of it, and with everything else that was going on, I just... I guess coming here was okay, because I didn't have to see him, but I was miserable for a long time."
"Seems like a lot to deal with on top of a move to a new weyr and the expectations of Caucus," Roa agrees with a small nod. "How'd he manage to show up here, then?"
Ginella just nods, another sip of wine, and then glances back up at the question. "He was transferred," she says simply, "He didn't come for me. I think he would have rather been posted as watchrider on some mountain somewhere than been put here with me."
The little weyrwoman rolls that around as she leans forward to pour herself another glass of juice. She considers some more as she leans back. "How'd it get patched, then?"
"We tried being friends," Ginella replies, "But neither of us was very good at it. And then Aneleth had another flight coming up, and that... affected things. And then when I went to Benden, we tried moving on and being just friends, again, and we managed it for a little while when I got back again, but... I couldn't do it," she admits. "And he couldn't really, either. So I begged him, and argued with him, and yelled at him until he agreed to take me back."
"And here we all thought it was Caucus that made you more confident," Roa muses with a little laugh. "I guess it worked, then. He seems to have you back."
Ginella chuckles faintly, and shakes her head, "A lot of it was him," she admits. "The Caucus... has helped me immeasurably, but I don't know that it could have done as much if I hadn't had him. He just makes me better, in every way. Which sounds -so- corny," she laughs, shaking her head and drinking more wine.
"I think it's supposed to. Anyhow, sometimes corny's nice. So, that's the tale then? It's a good one, I think. Thank you for sating my curiosity." Roa takes a deep swallow of juice and chuckles softly. "Wonder why they sent him here."
"It's true," Ginny replies simply, shrugging, "And yep, that's the tale, basically. Not quite as sordid as you'd hoped, I'm sure." She takes another sip of wine, and then gives a little shake of her head, saying, "That's his story. I don't tell that one."
Roa offers a small nod and a soft, "all right," for Ginella's refusal of the last. "It must have been a bother, not getting to see him much with Aneleth was on the sands."
Ginella nods, then a brow goes up at the last, "These last times?" She nods, "It's always a bother. I miss him. I have a few friends at Benden still, though, and he came and visited a couple times, this last clutch, so that was a nice surprise. It's long enough as it is, though," she says, shifting a little, "I don't know how couples do it, living at different weyrs."
"I can't say I'm so sure myself. Just make it work, I suppose. Or don't. Or wrangle transfers." Roa sips from her glass. "M'arik'll be willing to take him back though, you think, after your term at Caucus is done?"
"Don't, mostly, I'd think," Ginella replies, "I certainly couldn't do it." Another sip of her own, and she nods. "He will. T'ral's done well here, there's no reason not to take him back. He'd do it to keep me happy, if nothing else."
"An advantage, I suppose, of being weyrmated to someone who cannot be a weyrleader's political rival," Roa notes with a small, wry smile.
"I'd never thought of it quite like that," Ginella admits, "I suppose that is a benefit." She tilts her glass briefly towards Roa (one point for her!) then takes a sip. There's a silent pause of a moment or so, and then she looks up, and asks, "Has R'vain spoken to you about T'ral and me?"
"Ah. Well," the Reachian weyrwoman glances down at her glass again. "He might have a bit. But I'm under the impression that he wasn't really supposed to so, no." Roa smiles faintly as she looks up to meet Ginella's gaze. "R'vain has something to do with things going on between you and T'ral?"
Ginella raises a brow, looking faintly confused. Then she laughs, "Well, I -am- having his child, of course he's involved!" she jokes, before shaking her head, settling back again, "I didn't mean to say he couldn't discuss it with you. Obviously he would need to."
"He would need to," Roa agrees with a small nod, "at some point. He seemed to be under the impression that point wasn't quite yet. Why do you want to?"
Ginella shrugs, "Well, I don't mind that he did, regardless," she replies, then blinks. "Why do I want to? I'm not even sure I do. It was his idea. He wants T'ral as a his 'second."
"It was..." Roa frowns, brows jerking low. "But -he- said it was..." She shakes her head slowly. "All right, then," she starts carefully. "I suppose you've a turn to figure that out. No. Less, really. More like a few months or so."
Ginella arches a brow, "He said it was my idea?" She frowns, and shakes her head, "No. My idea was that he go ahead and make T'ral his 'second for a turn, and then find another when we leave. He disliked that enough that he seems willing to try to figure something out with M'arik so that I'll stay, so that T'ral will stay." Another sip of wine, and she shakes her head again, "I have about a turn left at Caucus."
"You have a turn left before you're expected to return to Benden," the other weyrwoman agrees, "but I don't imagine M'arik is overly inclined to hand over one of his goldriders. There'll have to be a trade of somesort and likely more besides. In the end, it would probably be best if the whole thing was his idea. And that's going to take work. So. A couple of months. Then we'll all need to decide what we want to do, if anything, about keeping you and T'ral around."
"No, I don't imagine he will be," Ginella replies, "Absolutely not without another gold in trade, I'd assume." She runs a hand through her hair, and nods, "That's also true," about it being M'arik's idea. She just swirls the wine in her glass, now, looking at it without drinking again. "I'd say the sooner that the goal, at least, is decided, the better," she replies. "I don't know what to make of the idea, to be honest. Not returning to Benden had never occured to me."
"Trust me when I say I understand exactly where you are right now, in regards to all of that. It's a decision you'll have to make on your own," Roa draws in a slow breath. "Jannali's likely to step down in a few turns. Returning to Benden means a chance to become senior. Or, even if it's Lamre, you're young enough and she's old enough that in some turns, you still might lead the weyr. I'm your contemporary, and unless something unexpected happens, chances are by the time I step down, Aneleth will be too old to be considered. We have divergent views on a lot of issues, and that can be useful or it can be infuriating. But you'd also have continued access to Caucus and those that attended. You'd have, frankly, more open-minded working partners than at Benden."
"Jannali will step down in such a way that Lamre is assured of becoming Senior," Ginella replies when Roa has finished, "That's how things are done, at Benden. Lamre is next, and she comes with I'lyan as the almost guaranteed Weyrleader. I'm a wildcard, they won't want that. Lamre is older, but still young enough that she could lead for a decade or two, long enough for the gold that's just hatched to grow up and earn her place, long enough that by the time she's done, the weyr will have had forty turns of old seniors and aging queens. I will be old, and Aneleth's daughter will be young, and there is a very real chance that she will be preferred." A hand across her forehead, and Ginella smiles faintly, "I have given this some thought also, you see. That part, at least." The hand continues through her head, and she nods, "If I were here, I would be giving up any hope of ever being Senior, whereas at Benden, I have some hope, though not much. The question is whether I would prefer to be a Junior at Benden, or here. It seems..." She hesitates, then shrugs a little, "My first instinct is that it would suit me better here. I don't know, though," she says again, "I'm trying to talk myself into it, and ignore the feeling that I'm betraying Benden."
"I suppose the question is whether, in a weyr with three other queens and likely a fourth one offered in your stead, where you believe none of the current leadership wish for you to be senior, if your choosing the place that will best suit would be betraying anybody." Roa shrugs, unable, really, to answer that question herself. "I'll be honest. It would be nice to have a weyrwoman here who was more interested in current events than in next spring's fashions and who doesn't require carefully evaluating of each word that comes out of my mouth every time we speak. But." Shrug, again.
"I don't know whether they actively wish for me to not be Senior," Ginella qualifies, "Well. They don't want me to be next, anyways. I don't know," she admits, then tilts her head, "I'm assuming Miniyal is the latter?" She nods, "I mean, I know we seem not to agree on everything," she allows, "But we seem capable of disagreeing respectfully, at least. Even when I don't like what you're saying, I assume you have good reason for believing it. I'd think we could work together?" It's sort of a question, and then she's shaking her head again, "And, it's not just me, either. T'ral won't get an opportunity like this at Benden. And his face, when I told him..." She looks down, and shakes her head. "I don't know if I can take this away from him, if I have a choice."
"Miniyal," Roa agrees, "does not display very much interest in the world of fashion." She glances down at her juice as Ginella continues to speak, and at her question about working together, Roa nods. "Yes. I think we could." But after that, something else the Bendenite says has the Reachian shaking her head and smiling fondly. "Irresistible, aren't they, when they get eager about something."
"I'm not shocked to hear that," Ginella replies with a faint smile, then nods again as Roa agrees. The last, though, has her smiling and shaking her head, "Completely. I wasn't sure about it, I was leaning away from it, but his face just lit up. I wasn't prepared for it at all. And now I think I have to try to find a way. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out, but I've always put Benden and my future ahead of him and his, and I don't think I can do it to him again this time."
"Well, let that sit and simmer for a seven or two. If you still feel the same way, tell me and I'll talk with R'vain and then we'll probably all three sit down and talk together. All four, maybe, depending." Roa lifts her gaze. "There's time. Be sure."
Ginella nods, "That's what I'll do, then," she agrees, "I would like, also, if the two of us could talk about how it would work, if I were here," she says, "What my role would be. That's a big factor in deciding between the two. We don't have to do that now, though," she says, "Another day, when we've each had more time to think about it. Right now, you can hold up your end of the deal and tell me about Ashwin, how about?"
"That seems fair," Roa says, but then Ashwin is brought into it and she smiles shyly, her gaze dropping again. "My end of the bargain, I suppose. Well. I'd been here about six months and the Headmaster was sending me on a Caucus assignment to Boll for a couple of sevens. The time difference meant I was loading up Tialith in the bowl in the middle of the night, and this tall pale guard sort of comes drifting past on his rounds, and feels obliged to say hello since his course brought him within speaking distance of a weyrwoman. We managed, in the twenty-minutes it took to get my bags settled, to get into a debate about whether friendship was possible between two people of divergent rank."
Ginella refills her glass and cuts a small piece of cake, curling one foot up under herself as she settles back onto the couch. She listens with interest, nibbling quietly, and then a brow rises, "Really? I thought he barely spoke at all. I guess from the beginning you were different," she sort-of-jokes with a smile. "What did you decide?"
"The funny thing was, at that point, I wasn't much for talking to strangers either. I still have no idea what happened." Roa smirks, fingers tapping against her glass. "We decided that it was, perhaps, possibly possible, and also that he'd be willing to call me 'Roa' instead of 'weyrwoman' or 'ma'am'. In honor of said decision, I included him among the group of people to get gifts for and gave him a vest when I got home. Which he liked and refused to take, and I made him take anyhow."
"Sounds like an awful lot accomplished in one conversation," Ginny replies with a smile, taking another bite of cake. She swallows, then gestures with her wine glass, "So were you two friends for a while after you got back, before it became more?"
"Six months," Roa says with a nod. "I had no idea he was even remotely interested. Ashwin...well, he's just himself. You need to know how to read him or you miss nearly everything he's tryng to say, because most of what actually matters doesn't come from his words. So, I did my best to try and get him to talk more and he did his best to put up with me, despite it. About a month after we met was Turn's End, where I broke my leg. He's the one that got me to the infirmary, and he ended up being one of the guards on my detail, so we ended up spending a good amount of time together. And then one night, around four months after we met, he and Jensen and acouple of the men went to a bar and got into a brawl. Ashwin was hit upside the head and came back concussed. Morley, one of the guards, decided it would be smarter to wake me up and have me look at it, rather than get an actual healer. Since it's not very manly to say you hurt your head when a woman hit you with a frying pan. And since, apparently, being a dragonhealer equips one to deal with concussed humans. Oh, and also, I'd recently hit my own head so clearly I knew all about it." She rolls her eyes.
"That I can sympathize with," Ginny says with a grin, "Though not the difficulty communicating. Tiv just talks and talks, as I'm sure you've noticed." The last gets a laugh, and she shakes her head, "Men. Their take on healers is baffling. And how would it be less embarrassing for him to tell -you- he'd got hit upside the head by a woman with a frying pan?" She chuckles, and shakes her head again, "So, did he confess all sorts of interesting things while concussed?"
"Well, he was concussed. And I think it was Morley's idea. He was another gaurd posted to my detail, so I suppose bringing Ashwin to me sort of kept it 'all in the family' so to speak. He..." Roa smirks and shakes her head. "Faranth, -all- sorts of interesting things. Not the least was that he quite liked me but seemed to be convinced that I was involved with Jensen, which no longer made me an acceptable pursuit. I had no idea how much he'd recall come morning, but I knew him well enough by that point to realize that whatever he did remember would likely lead to him avoiding me at all costs, from now on."
Ginny's brows go up: "You were involved with Jensen?" she asks, adding quickly, "Or was that just something he'd guessed?" Cake is finished, washed down with wine, and she curls the other leg up, as well. "So what did you do?"
No," Roa says with a small shake of her head, "I wasn't. We were friends and he was going through a tough time. And I ended up spending a lot of late nights in his office with him, talking, which led to everybody presuming we were sleeping together." She smirks. "I gave Ashwin my knot. I told him he had to return it to me himself. It took two months and multiple attempts of having the gaurds on my detail try to hand it off to me, but, finally, he sucked it up and brought it to me in person. So I kidnapped him and took him fishing."
"Ah," Ginny replies simply, with regards to Jensen. Then she laughs. "That's ingenious. But two months? Wow. I guess he knew you were going to try to make him talk about it, huh." She shakes her head a little, "So, fishing?"
"I was a bit desperate. He -talked-, you know? And now I was going to lose that. So, fishing was awful at first. I tried to just sort of be quiet and let him bring things up. We seemed to be leaning towards probably not doing much other than being formal around one another. And then I caught a fish, we threw it back, and, uhm, found ourselves in the cave behind the waterfall peeling off one another's clothing." She swallows down the last of her juice.
Ginella blinks at the end, reddening very faintly, and smiling, "Well. I guess that fixed that, then? So it was straight on after that? How long have you been together?"
"Mostly straight, after that," Roa agrees with a faint smile. "I'm weyrbred and Ashwin's...well, his background's a bit unique, so we just sort of fell into it." Literally. "We kept it quiet at first. I don't think he really liked the idea of people knowing he was with a weyrwoman, let alone the one that was thought to be sleeping with his captain. And then that whole mess happened with Aivey and he and Jensen vanished for a while. But since that ended, I suppose it's mostly just been us figuring things out."
"That would make it easier, I imagine," Ginny replies, smile twisting a little ruefully, "Being holdbred sort of causes problems, I've found. I think it must always be hard for them at first, the idea of being with a weyrwoman," she agrees. "T'ral always seemed a little weird about it, too. Which I thought was weird, since I didn't think of myself that way at all." The mess with Aivey and Jensen draws a blink, and eyes widen, "Oh yeah, I'd totally forgotten about that! That must've been hard, on both of you. He was gone for months, wasn't he?"
"Yeh. It was wretched. And no one even knew we were anything, so I just couldn't say. So." Roa shrugs. "Wretched. I think it's still hard for him, sometimes, my being a weyrwoman. Titles mean a lot to him. After the masquerade, I actually had to convince him that it would, in fact, be appropriate for him to dance with me at Reaches functions."
Ginella shakes her head, lips pressing together before she speaks, "I can't imagine," she says, "It must have been such a relief when he got back." Another sip of wine, and she nods, "We've had that discussion, before. It wasn't too hard to convince T'ral that a couple dances with him would be completely appropriate and even expected, in among the Lords and Weyrleaders on my card. Of course, he threatened to spend all night dancing with low-ranking floozies if I neglected him," she adds with a grin.
Laughing, Roa shakes her head. "Ashwin would just rather watch what everyone else is doing, rather than being expected to always participate. Inappopriate to dance with me. When I'm...and we're...Faranth." Her eyes roll again.
Ginella smiles and shakes her head, "It's crazy," she agrees, "But I'd imagine he'll come around in time, when he's more used to it. I half think T'ral enjoys that he's with a goldrider, sometimes," she says, "Now that I've convinced him that I don't think he's damaging my reputation or anything."
"Maybe he does. He seems the sort that genuine enjoys attention. Ashwin's the opposite. It's been rough on him, especially with all the rumors." She snatches up a few crackers and nibbles thoughtfully. "He had an incredibly hard time with Tialith to start."
"He's never avoided it," Ginny agrees, "It doesn't really bother him much, most of the time." She cuts some more cake, and sits back again with the napkin cupped in one hand, picking at it. "Not used to dragons?" she asks, "Where is he from, originally?"
"Not used to them at all. Hated the idea that she could peek inside his head, if she wanted. Could I have a slice of that?" The last is about that cake. "Mostly, Ashwin's from Tillek."
"Of course, stop me from eating all of it, please," Ginny smiles, leaning forward to cut Roa a piece and pass it over. "Peek inside his head? Boy, I'm glad that never occured to me when I first got to the weyr. I probably would've run away before I ever made it onto the sands, and who knows where I'd be now." Another bite of cake, "Mostly? You said he was holdbred, exactly? Craft family?"
"Not crafter. He's..." Roa pauses to take a bite of cake, her brows arching up as she chews and swallows. "Shells, that's really good. "His father's a sailor. His mother runs a bar at Tillek, and that's where he grew up until he joined the guard. Which is a bit different than the average holder's life."
Ginella grins, "It is good, isn't it?" she agrees, "I got the kitchens to make me some." She takes another bite of her own, and then listens, a brow rising again as she chuckles, "No, not really like the average holder's life at all. A sailor and a bar-owner. That would definitely be different. And probably interesting. Have you met his family?"
With an emphatic nod for her immediate reply, Roa chews on another bite of cake. "And how. And you? Ever gotten to meet T'ral's family?"
Ginella nods, "Lots of times, when we were at Benden," she says, "They're lovely people. His mum is a sweetheart. We haven't been to see them together in a while, actually, we'll have to go soon."
"His family's...his family," Roa murmurs after finishing her cake. "Very welcoming, if they maybe take a bit of getting used to. It's a neat place."
"Are they as quiet as he is?" Ginny asks, with a hint of a joking smile, before finally setting down her cake-free napkin. "What's the bar called? I bet T'ral and the boys have been there before. They've been to Tillek, I know." A hand through her hair, as she sips her wine slowly, "Have you taken him to meet your family? I found that harder than meeting his."
"His mother," Roa smiles, "it's where he gets it from. The rest of them...not even a little bit. But he knows them. You can see bits and pieces of himself unwind when he's there. Here, he's 'the Captain'. There, he's just family. It's called...um, you know, I don't even know. We've always just called it 'the bar'." She bends down to select a few crackers as she adds, casually, "I don't really have a family for him to meet. I was fostered at Telgar, but it wasn't really...it was just different."
"I think Tiv gets his charm from his mother," Ginny smiles back, "And the economics from his father. It is fun to see them altogether, isn't it? I'll have to remind him we should visit. I miss them, now you've reminded me." She smiles again, and then blinks, and the smile flattens apologetically, "I'm sorry, I didn't know that."
"Nothing to be sorry about. I know it's a bit unusual, but I didn't mind it at the time. It's only, explaining it now always makes people assume things, so I avoid it when I can." Roa crunches another cracker. "Why was it harder for T'ral to meet your family?"
Ginella nods, "That makes sense," she allows easily, toying with her glass before glancing up at the question, "Why-- oh, well, I mean, we're not married, are we?" She shrugs, "It's been rough, adjusting to me being a rider, especially a goldrider."
"Ahh," Roa nods slowly. "So it was sort of...presenting the man you'd be sharing a bed with without ever marrying ever to your very holdbred family."
Ginella flushes faintly, "Well... yeah," she confirms with a shrug, "And not just the man I haven't married, but the man I will never be marrying. I didn't tell them for a long time. I finally told my sister, and she advised me not to tell my parents, but... Tiv finally insisted. It was awkward, but somehow, he managed to win them over. I don't think they're completely -thrilled- with it, but... they invited us back."
"There's nothing to be done about it really," of the pair of them, Roa seems to be the more pragmatic when it comes to matters of coitus. "Besides flights, your relationship's the same. It's just that flights seem to be a bit of a sticking point to the Harpers."
Ginella shrugs, "I know," she agrees, "And I've gotten over it. I know he'd marry me if he could, and that's enough. It's just harder for my parents to get used to. I think they expected I'd just be celibate forever. They'll come around, the more they see of us, I think. It's getting better. The ring will definitely make them happy," she adds with a smile.
Roa snickers. "We riders. Celibate forever. Just ask the dragons," she says solemnly. "People adapt to more that we credit them with, really. I suspect they'll come around in time."
"They -definitely- try not to think about that part," Ginny replies dryly, "As do I, most of the time." She rubs a finger over an eyebrow, and nods, "I think they will. I hope they will by the time we have kids."
"I'm sure they'll melt for kids. I wouldn't worry. Faranth," Roa yawns, "what time is it, do you think?"
"I bet they will," Ginny agrees with a smile, then blinks, "Oh, goodness, I've no idea," she admits with a laugh, "Late, I think. I should get going, let you rest," she says, rising.
"Sorry. Sleeping when it's dark has gotten more interesting with the downstairs neighbor awake at odd hours. Thank you for visiting, Ginny. This was, well, it was really nice." Roa leans forward and pushes up into a stand. "You want to take the rest of the berries with you, or anyhting?"
Ginella smiles, and shakes her head, "I don't look forward to that part," she agrees, before smiling again, "Thank you, for suggesting it. It was very nice." At the offer of berries, she eyes, them, then grins, "If you don't want them, I will," she says, "I'll leave you the rest of the cake, in trade." She gathers them up, and picks up her coat. "We'll talk soon?"
"A fair exchange and just remember, if you find yourslef in my situation and it ever gets too awful, you can always start screaming at T'ral to move furniture about." Roa smiles and nods slowly. "Yeh. We'll talk soon. Good night and rest well, when you get there."
Ginella laughs, "Something to look forward to," she grins, before nodding as she tugs her coat on. "You, too. Good night." She smiles, and heads out.
Players: Roa, Ginella
Synopsis: Roa and Ginny get together for an evening of chatting about men, transfers, families, etc.
It's later in the evening and the weyrwoman is home alone, either by coincidence or my machination. The weyr is tidy, the main table set out with crackers, cheese and berries. There is also a bottle of Benden red wine, a bottle of Tillek white, and a third non-alcoholic fruit juice of some kind that's fizzy like champagne. A few candles burn lazily and scent the room pleasantly, and they and the crackling fire offer illumination for the evening's antics. Roa holds a throw blanket which she drapes over one couch, picks up, drapes over the other, and generally can't seem to decide where to put the darn thing. Tialith is coiled on her couch and an invitation has been extended to Ginella via Aneleth.
Aneleth has responded to the invitation, and a little while later, the gold arrives on the ledge, allowing time for her rider to slide down and unpack a bag on the straps as she greets the more senior queen. Then she's back to her own (sort of) ledge, and Ginella is heading into the weyr, sticking her head in for a moment to say, "Roa?" before entering the rest of the way. She has yet another bottle in one hand, and a covered dish in the other which she lifts with a little laugh as she sees the spread the other goldrider has already prepared. "I brought juice and cake," she explains, setting them down, "Do you need a hand with that?"
"Come in," Roa calls as she hears her own name tentatively offered. "You can set the cake and juice down with the little nibbly things, and I'd say we're all set. I wasn't sure if you preferred red or white, so I just grabbed one of each." She glances down to the blanket she holds, and shakes her head. "No. I'm just reorganizing everything. Because I've gone nuts. How're you?"
Ginella comes in, eyeing the other nibbly things as she sets down her own contribution and uncovers the cake. "You found berries this time of year? Impressive," she says, eyeing the blanket and then smiling, "When my sister was having her first, she insisted on making her husband rearrange the furniture a good three or four times, and then paint half of it. Of course she wanted it stripped to the original, once she came to her senses again." She takes off her coat, and drapes it over the arm of the couch as she nods, "I'm well. Glad of a day off. How're you, other than nuts?"
"Nuts is probably most of it," Roa says to the blanket. With a soft snort, she tosses the item down on the couch and forcibly turns away so as not to attempt to do anything more with it. "Your sister let her husband move the furniture? Faranth, I'm almost flinching when Ashwin -sits- on anything, let alone tries to move something for me. I don't...I mean, some part of my mind is totally aware that none of this makes any sense. It's just that all the other parts don't care. Days off are good. Very useful for the night before."
"Well, I'm not sure it was 'let' so much as 'ordered'," Ginella replies with a grin, "Apparently my mother went to visit one day and found her standing there yelling at him as he pushed a chest of drawers back and forth until it was precisely where she wanted it." She eyes the couch a touch warily, and then looks at Roa, "So, is it all right if I sit?" she jokes, before nodding, "Days off are very good. I have an essay to write tomorrow afternoon, but we'll get to sleep in, which is always nice. I haven't had a day since I got back from Benden."
The smaller, rounder weyrwoman groans and hides her face in her hands. "If I ever get that bad, you have to put me out of my misery." She peeks up over her fingers and lets her hands drop. "And yes. Please sit. You've been back from Benden...shells, it's been a bit, hasn't it?"
Ginella grins, "We'll have you put on bedrest, kept in confinement," she agrees, taking a seat once she's been given permission. "It has been a bit," she confirms, running a hand over her hair as she sits, crossing her legs, "Though I took a few days between leaving Benden and coming back," she admits, "We snuck off to the beach, didn't tell anyone. I figure that made up for it."
Roa chuckles. "I noticed when you supposedly left and when you showed up were a bit off. I hope you have a good escape. Tempting sometimes to just take off to somewhere and hide away for a while, isn't it? Would you like anything to eat or a glass of wine?" She gestures vaguely towards the table.
"Right, you were supposed to assume I'd been held back at Benden," Ginella responds with a smile, "And they were supposed to think I'd left already. It was just three days, it was worth it." She nods at the gesture and the spread, and sits forward to pour herself a glass of the white, looking up, "Juice for you?" Some cheese and crackers are snagged also and she sits back again, "I'm always telling Tiv we ought to build a house on the beach and never come back," she says, "Though he sunburns so badly, we probably wouldn't last through a summer."
"Does he? I think there's lotions and things one can put on to help reduce burning. Although T'ral beet red is a painfully amusing thought. Juice for me, pelase." Roa lowers herself into a sit and stretches out her legs. "It worked, your ruse. Well, until just now."
"Well, we both do," Ginella admits, "Him just a bit worse." She chuckles and takes a sip of her wine as she shakes her head, "It sounds like it would be amusing, but then he gets all grumpy and whiny because it hurts and peels and stuff... it stops being funny very quickly." She pours the goldrider some juice and sits back, smiling, "Well, too late to stop me now, isn't it?" A bite of cheese, a sip of wine, and she glances around the weyr, "So, where is Ashwin off to, this evening? Did you kick him out?"
"If you hit him upside the head with a frying pan," Roa offers sagely, "he'll be too focused on the way his noggin hurts to bother with fretting about his sunburn." She accepts the juice with murmured thanks and takes a sip. "He's got a night shift. He takes them now and again, and sometimes he'll relieve one of the other men that are rostered for it, especially if they have a family. I perhaps suggested, if he wanted to do such a thing, tonight might be a fine night for it."
Ginella laughs, "I suppose that's one strategy. I'm not sure I'd prefer to have him leaking brain juice all over the pillows, though." Another sip of wine, and she nods along as Roa explains, "That works out well. T'ral has, I believe, lured D'ven and Br'ce away from their work for an evening. Who knows what that means they're up to. Something disreputable I'd rather not know about, I'm sure."
"Well, they probably both need it, anyhow. You don't have to hit him hard enough that he leaks. Just hard enough to leave a lump and maybe make his eyes cross. I'm sure Darageth won't mind. He seems like an easygoing sort." Roa bites her bottom lip, smiling faintly. "And speaking of T'ral..." she peers over at Ginella, brows lifting.
"I'm sure they do," Ginella agrees, "D'ven especially. Tiv's been a bit worried about him, I think. Br'ce has always been like this, but D'ven... well, it'll be good for them," she agrees, before chuckling, "Well, that's decided then. And Dara is very easy going. Very quiet." A hand through her hair, and she laughs lightly again at Roa's prompt, "I get to go first? Well, what do you know already? I don't want to bore you to death."
Blink. "Dara. Every time someone calls him that, I think of the blueriding weyrling and my head hiccups." Roa has another swallow of juice. "Well, let's see. He was at Benden, now he isn't. He calls you Sunshine and he gave you a ring. And he plays card games that make no sense. And I'm afraid that's mostly it."
Ginella blinks, "Oh. I hadn't thought of that. It's always Darageth, to me. I've known him longer." She listens, taking a few berries and munching as Roa lists the few things she knows. "He does call me Sunshine," she grins, "And he did give me a ring," she remembers, glancing down at it, and grinning again, then laughing, "Yeah, they love that game. It's basically just to confuse people." She brushes a hand over her hair, and takes another long sip of wine, nodding, "Well, okay. So, we both Impressed at Benden. He was the clutch ahead of me, so we were weyrlings together for a while. He and Br'ce and D'ven and Nari and I'sen and the rest; he had a whole crew, of course."
"Of course. His minions and accomplices and children by turn, from what I've seen," Roa says around an easy smile. "The game works. I was wholly confused. So, were you all sneaky as weyrlings? Or did you wait? Or...?"
"They were a bunch of hoodlums," Ginny replies with a fond shake of her head, "They were always causing trouble. I was terrified of them, of course. And one day, about a month in, I'm oiling Aneleth, and he just comes up and starts talking to me. And he helps, and we talk, and that was it. I was sure it was the set-up for some trick for a while," she admits with a grin, "But it just became a regular thing, and we got to be friends. He kept the rest of them from harassing me. Oh, no," she says to the last, shaking her head, "Not exactly either. We were friends, as weyrlings. I was crazy about him, of course, but I'd given up hoping for anything more, especially when he disappeared after graduation, and I didn't see him for six months."
"Friends can be nice. Or frustrating. Or both. Six months?" Roa blinks. "What was he off busy with for all that time?"
"It was nice," Ginny replies, with a little shake of her head before she drains the last of her wine, "I never honestly expected that he'd be interested in me, so it was just nice having him as a friend." She leans forward to steal a few more snacks and pour herself some more of the white before shrugging as she sits back, "Oh, who wants to know? Hoodlum-stuff, I'm sure. Drinking, gambling, the same as they're off doing tonight, though probably there were girls involved. Anyways," she goes on, "Then he shows up at my graduation, asks me to go for a walk, and kisses me. I was shocked, but... pleasantly."
The last of the juice is swallowed down, and Roa leans forward to snatch up a few berries of her own. "He was waiting, then. For you to be finished with weyrlinghood. That's...well, that's about right, I suppose." She glances down smiling as she nibbles one of the berried balanced in her palm. "Then what?"
Ginella nods, "That's what he said later," she confirms, "That it was easier to follow the rules and wait if he just didn't see me at all. Of course, I thought he just didn't even want to be friends anymore." She brushes at her hair briefly, and takes another sip of wine, nodding, "Well, then, we managed to figure things out, and were together for about a turn, a turn and a half? A while, anyways. And then right before I came to Caucus, we broke up."
"Just like that? From a turn and a half of being to together to not?" Roa cants her head to the side as she finishes off the berries.
"Well... no, I mean, it wasn't that simple," Ginny admits, leaning forward to carefully pick a couple more crackers and slices of cheese, "We'd had... a lot of problems. I was busy all the time, and he was off with the guys a lot, and... there were some... obstacles," she blushes, lifting her wineglass to distract from it, "That I wasn't really getting around, and he was getting impatient, and then I found out I was getting sent to the Caucus after Ane's first clutch, and we were going to work things out before then, but then her flight came too quickly and afterwards... I couldn't deal with it, and it fell apart."
At the mention of obstacles, Roa's brows tip downwards in confusion, but then they shoot up again as the word 'flight' enters into it. Oh! Ohhhh. "Faranth," she mutters softly, with a small shake of her head. "That must have been...I'm sorry."
Ginella watches Roa's expression change, and doesn't seem entirely certain that the other goldrider has gotten it, but she doesn't seem about the clarify, regardless. "It was awful," she agrees quietly, shaking her head, "I didn't know what to make of it, and with everything else that was going on, I just... I guess coming here was okay, because I didn't have to see him, but I was miserable for a long time."
"Seems like a lot to deal with on top of a move to a new weyr and the expectations of Caucus," Roa agrees with a small nod. "How'd he manage to show up here, then?"
Ginella just nods, another sip of wine, and then glances back up at the question. "He was transferred," she says simply, "He didn't come for me. I think he would have rather been posted as watchrider on some mountain somewhere than been put here with me."
The little weyrwoman rolls that around as she leans forward to pour herself another glass of juice. She considers some more as she leans back. "How'd it get patched, then?"
"We tried being friends," Ginella replies, "But neither of us was very good at it. And then Aneleth had another flight coming up, and that... affected things. And then when I went to Benden, we tried moving on and being just friends, again, and we managed it for a little while when I got back again, but... I couldn't do it," she admits. "And he couldn't really, either. So I begged him, and argued with him, and yelled at him until he agreed to take me back."
"And here we all thought it was Caucus that made you more confident," Roa muses with a little laugh. "I guess it worked, then. He seems to have you back."
Ginella chuckles faintly, and shakes her head, "A lot of it was him," she admits. "The Caucus... has helped me immeasurably, but I don't know that it could have done as much if I hadn't had him. He just makes me better, in every way. Which sounds -so- corny," she laughs, shaking her head and drinking more wine.
"I think it's supposed to. Anyhow, sometimes corny's nice. So, that's the tale then? It's a good one, I think. Thank you for sating my curiosity." Roa takes a deep swallow of juice and chuckles softly. "Wonder why they sent him here."
"It's true," Ginny replies simply, shrugging, "And yep, that's the tale, basically. Not quite as sordid as you'd hoped, I'm sure." She takes another sip of wine, and then gives a little shake of her head, saying, "That's his story. I don't tell that one."
Roa offers a small nod and a soft, "all right," for Ginella's refusal of the last. "It must have been a bother, not getting to see him much with Aneleth was on the sands."
Ginella nods, then a brow goes up at the last, "These last times?" She nods, "It's always a bother. I miss him. I have a few friends at Benden still, though, and he came and visited a couple times, this last clutch, so that was a nice surprise. It's long enough as it is, though," she says, shifting a little, "I don't know how couples do it, living at different weyrs."
"I can't say I'm so sure myself. Just make it work, I suppose. Or don't. Or wrangle transfers." Roa sips from her glass. "M'arik'll be willing to take him back though, you think, after your term at Caucus is done?"
"Don't, mostly, I'd think," Ginella replies, "I certainly couldn't do it." Another sip of her own, and she nods. "He will. T'ral's done well here, there's no reason not to take him back. He'd do it to keep me happy, if nothing else."
"An advantage, I suppose, of being weyrmated to someone who cannot be a weyrleader's political rival," Roa notes with a small, wry smile.
"I'd never thought of it quite like that," Ginella admits, "I suppose that is a benefit." She tilts her glass briefly towards Roa (one point for her!) then takes a sip. There's a silent pause of a moment or so, and then she looks up, and asks, "Has R'vain spoken to you about T'ral and me?"
"Ah. Well," the Reachian weyrwoman glances down at her glass again. "He might have a bit. But I'm under the impression that he wasn't really supposed to so, no." Roa smiles faintly as she looks up to meet Ginella's gaze. "R'vain has something to do with things going on between you and T'ral?"
Ginella raises a brow, looking faintly confused. Then she laughs, "Well, I -am- having his child, of course he's involved!" she jokes, before shaking her head, settling back again, "I didn't mean to say he couldn't discuss it with you. Obviously he would need to."
"He would need to," Roa agrees with a small nod, "at some point. He seemed to be under the impression that point wasn't quite yet. Why do you want to?"
Ginella shrugs, "Well, I don't mind that he did, regardless," she replies, then blinks. "Why do I want to? I'm not even sure I do. It was his idea. He wants T'ral as a his 'second."
"It was..." Roa frowns, brows jerking low. "But -he- said it was..." She shakes her head slowly. "All right, then," she starts carefully. "I suppose you've a turn to figure that out. No. Less, really. More like a few months or so."
Ginella arches a brow, "He said it was my idea?" She frowns, and shakes her head, "No. My idea was that he go ahead and make T'ral his 'second for a turn, and then find another when we leave. He disliked that enough that he seems willing to try to figure something out with M'arik so that I'll stay, so that T'ral will stay." Another sip of wine, and she shakes her head again, "I have about a turn left at Caucus."
"You have a turn left before you're expected to return to Benden," the other weyrwoman agrees, "but I don't imagine M'arik is overly inclined to hand over one of his goldriders. There'll have to be a trade of somesort and likely more besides. In the end, it would probably be best if the whole thing was his idea. And that's going to take work. So. A couple of months. Then we'll all need to decide what we want to do, if anything, about keeping you and T'ral around."
"No, I don't imagine he will be," Ginella replies, "Absolutely not without another gold in trade, I'd assume." She runs a hand through her hair, and nods, "That's also true," about it being M'arik's idea. She just swirls the wine in her glass, now, looking at it without drinking again. "I'd say the sooner that the goal, at least, is decided, the better," she replies. "I don't know what to make of the idea, to be honest. Not returning to Benden had never occured to me."
"Trust me when I say I understand exactly where you are right now, in regards to all of that. It's a decision you'll have to make on your own," Roa draws in a slow breath. "Jannali's likely to step down in a few turns. Returning to Benden means a chance to become senior. Or, even if it's Lamre, you're young enough and she's old enough that in some turns, you still might lead the weyr. I'm your contemporary, and unless something unexpected happens, chances are by the time I step down, Aneleth will be too old to be considered. We have divergent views on a lot of issues, and that can be useful or it can be infuriating. But you'd also have continued access to Caucus and those that attended. You'd have, frankly, more open-minded working partners than at Benden."
"Jannali will step down in such a way that Lamre is assured of becoming Senior," Ginella replies when Roa has finished, "That's how things are done, at Benden. Lamre is next, and she comes with I'lyan as the almost guaranteed Weyrleader. I'm a wildcard, they won't want that. Lamre is older, but still young enough that she could lead for a decade or two, long enough for the gold that's just hatched to grow up and earn her place, long enough that by the time she's done, the weyr will have had forty turns of old seniors and aging queens. I will be old, and Aneleth's daughter will be young, and there is a very real chance that she will be preferred." A hand across her forehead, and Ginella smiles faintly, "I have given this some thought also, you see. That part, at least." The hand continues through her head, and she nods, "If I were here, I would be giving up any hope of ever being Senior, whereas at Benden, I have some hope, though not much. The question is whether I would prefer to be a Junior at Benden, or here. It seems..." She hesitates, then shrugs a little, "My first instinct is that it would suit me better here. I don't know, though," she says again, "I'm trying to talk myself into it, and ignore the feeling that I'm betraying Benden."
"I suppose the question is whether, in a weyr with three other queens and likely a fourth one offered in your stead, where you believe none of the current leadership wish for you to be senior, if your choosing the place that will best suit would be betraying anybody." Roa shrugs, unable, really, to answer that question herself. "I'll be honest. It would be nice to have a weyrwoman here who was more interested in current events than in next spring's fashions and who doesn't require carefully evaluating of each word that comes out of my mouth every time we speak. But." Shrug, again.
"I don't know whether they actively wish for me to not be Senior," Ginella qualifies, "Well. They don't want me to be next, anyways. I don't know," she admits, then tilts her head, "I'm assuming Miniyal is the latter?" She nods, "I mean, I know we seem not to agree on everything," she allows, "But we seem capable of disagreeing respectfully, at least. Even when I don't like what you're saying, I assume you have good reason for believing it. I'd think we could work together?" It's sort of a question, and then she's shaking her head again, "And, it's not just me, either. T'ral won't get an opportunity like this at Benden. And his face, when I told him..." She looks down, and shakes her head. "I don't know if I can take this away from him, if I have a choice."
"Miniyal," Roa agrees, "does not display very much interest in the world of fashion." She glances down at her juice as Ginella continues to speak, and at her question about working together, Roa nods. "Yes. I think we could." But after that, something else the Bendenite says has the Reachian shaking her head and smiling fondly. "Irresistible, aren't they, when they get eager about something."
"I'm not shocked to hear that," Ginella replies with a faint smile, then nods again as Roa agrees. The last, though, has her smiling and shaking her head, "Completely. I wasn't sure about it, I was leaning away from it, but his face just lit up. I wasn't prepared for it at all. And now I think I have to try to find a way. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out, but I've always put Benden and my future ahead of him and his, and I don't think I can do it to him again this time."
"Well, let that sit and simmer for a seven or two. If you still feel the same way, tell me and I'll talk with R'vain and then we'll probably all three sit down and talk together. All four, maybe, depending." Roa lifts her gaze. "There's time. Be sure."
Ginella nods, "That's what I'll do, then," she agrees, "I would like, also, if the two of us could talk about how it would work, if I were here," she says, "What my role would be. That's a big factor in deciding between the two. We don't have to do that now, though," she says, "Another day, when we've each had more time to think about it. Right now, you can hold up your end of the deal and tell me about Ashwin, how about?"
"That seems fair," Roa says, but then Ashwin is brought into it and she smiles shyly, her gaze dropping again. "My end of the bargain, I suppose. Well. I'd been here about six months and the Headmaster was sending me on a Caucus assignment to Boll for a couple of sevens. The time difference meant I was loading up Tialith in the bowl in the middle of the night, and this tall pale guard sort of comes drifting past on his rounds, and feels obliged to say hello since his course brought him within speaking distance of a weyrwoman. We managed, in the twenty-minutes it took to get my bags settled, to get into a debate about whether friendship was possible between two people of divergent rank."
Ginella refills her glass and cuts a small piece of cake, curling one foot up under herself as she settles back onto the couch. She listens with interest, nibbling quietly, and then a brow rises, "Really? I thought he barely spoke at all. I guess from the beginning you were different," she sort-of-jokes with a smile. "What did you decide?"
"The funny thing was, at that point, I wasn't much for talking to strangers either. I still have no idea what happened." Roa smirks, fingers tapping against her glass. "We decided that it was, perhaps, possibly possible, and also that he'd be willing to call me 'Roa' instead of 'weyrwoman' or 'ma'am'. In honor of said decision, I included him among the group of people to get gifts for and gave him a vest when I got home. Which he liked and refused to take, and I made him take anyhow."
"Sounds like an awful lot accomplished in one conversation," Ginny replies with a smile, taking another bite of cake. She swallows, then gestures with her wine glass, "So were you two friends for a while after you got back, before it became more?"
"Six months," Roa says with a nod. "I had no idea he was even remotely interested. Ashwin...well, he's just himself. You need to know how to read him or you miss nearly everything he's tryng to say, because most of what actually matters doesn't come from his words. So, I did my best to try and get him to talk more and he did his best to put up with me, despite it. About a month after we met was Turn's End, where I broke my leg. He's the one that got me to the infirmary, and he ended up being one of the guards on my detail, so we ended up spending a good amount of time together. And then one night, around four months after we met, he and Jensen and acouple of the men went to a bar and got into a brawl. Ashwin was hit upside the head and came back concussed. Morley, one of the guards, decided it would be smarter to wake me up and have me look at it, rather than get an actual healer. Since it's not very manly to say you hurt your head when a woman hit you with a frying pan. And since, apparently, being a dragonhealer equips one to deal with concussed humans. Oh, and also, I'd recently hit my own head so clearly I knew all about it." She rolls her eyes.
"That I can sympathize with," Ginny says with a grin, "Though not the difficulty communicating. Tiv just talks and talks, as I'm sure you've noticed." The last gets a laugh, and she shakes her head, "Men. Their take on healers is baffling. And how would it be less embarrassing for him to tell -you- he'd got hit upside the head by a woman with a frying pan?" She chuckles, and shakes her head again, "So, did he confess all sorts of interesting things while concussed?"
"Well, he was concussed. And I think it was Morley's idea. He was another gaurd posted to my detail, so I suppose bringing Ashwin to me sort of kept it 'all in the family' so to speak. He..." Roa smirks and shakes her head. "Faranth, -all- sorts of interesting things. Not the least was that he quite liked me but seemed to be convinced that I was involved with Jensen, which no longer made me an acceptable pursuit. I had no idea how much he'd recall come morning, but I knew him well enough by that point to realize that whatever he did remember would likely lead to him avoiding me at all costs, from now on."
Ginny's brows go up: "You were involved with Jensen?" she asks, adding quickly, "Or was that just something he'd guessed?" Cake is finished, washed down with wine, and she curls the other leg up, as well. "So what did you do?"
No," Roa says with a small shake of her head, "I wasn't. We were friends and he was going through a tough time. And I ended up spending a lot of late nights in his office with him, talking, which led to everybody presuming we were sleeping together." She smirks. "I gave Ashwin my knot. I told him he had to return it to me himself. It took two months and multiple attempts of having the gaurds on my detail try to hand it off to me, but, finally, he sucked it up and brought it to me in person. So I kidnapped him and took him fishing."
"Ah," Ginny replies simply, with regards to Jensen. Then she laughs. "That's ingenious. But two months? Wow. I guess he knew you were going to try to make him talk about it, huh." She shakes her head a little, "So, fishing?"
"I was a bit desperate. He -talked-, you know? And now I was going to lose that. So, fishing was awful at first. I tried to just sort of be quiet and let him bring things up. We seemed to be leaning towards probably not doing much other than being formal around one another. And then I caught a fish, we threw it back, and, uhm, found ourselves in the cave behind the waterfall peeling off one another's clothing." She swallows down the last of her juice.
Ginella blinks at the end, reddening very faintly, and smiling, "Well. I guess that fixed that, then? So it was straight on after that? How long have you been together?"
"Mostly straight, after that," Roa agrees with a faint smile. "I'm weyrbred and Ashwin's...well, his background's a bit unique, so we just sort of fell into it." Literally. "We kept it quiet at first. I don't think he really liked the idea of people knowing he was with a weyrwoman, let alone the one that was thought to be sleeping with his captain. And then that whole mess happened with Aivey and he and Jensen vanished for a while. But since that ended, I suppose it's mostly just been us figuring things out."
"That would make it easier, I imagine," Ginny replies, smile twisting a little ruefully, "Being holdbred sort of causes problems, I've found. I think it must always be hard for them at first, the idea of being with a weyrwoman," she agrees. "T'ral always seemed a little weird about it, too. Which I thought was weird, since I didn't think of myself that way at all." The mess with Aivey and Jensen draws a blink, and eyes widen, "Oh yeah, I'd totally forgotten about that! That must've been hard, on both of you. He was gone for months, wasn't he?"
"Yeh. It was wretched. And no one even knew we were anything, so I just couldn't say. So." Roa shrugs. "Wretched. I think it's still hard for him, sometimes, my being a weyrwoman. Titles mean a lot to him. After the masquerade, I actually had to convince him that it would, in fact, be appropriate for him to dance with me at Reaches functions."
Ginella shakes her head, lips pressing together before she speaks, "I can't imagine," she says, "It must have been such a relief when he got back." Another sip of wine, and she nods, "We've had that discussion, before. It wasn't too hard to convince T'ral that a couple dances with him would be completely appropriate and even expected, in among the Lords and Weyrleaders on my card. Of course, he threatened to spend all night dancing with low-ranking floozies if I neglected him," she adds with a grin.
Laughing, Roa shakes her head. "Ashwin would just rather watch what everyone else is doing, rather than being expected to always participate. Inappopriate to dance with me. When I'm...and we're...Faranth." Her eyes roll again.
Ginella smiles and shakes her head, "It's crazy," she agrees, "But I'd imagine he'll come around in time, when he's more used to it. I half think T'ral enjoys that he's with a goldrider, sometimes," she says, "Now that I've convinced him that I don't think he's damaging my reputation or anything."
"Maybe he does. He seems the sort that genuine enjoys attention. Ashwin's the opposite. It's been rough on him, especially with all the rumors." She snatches up a few crackers and nibbles thoughtfully. "He had an incredibly hard time with Tialith to start."
"He's never avoided it," Ginny agrees, "It doesn't really bother him much, most of the time." She cuts some more cake, and sits back again with the napkin cupped in one hand, picking at it. "Not used to dragons?" she asks, "Where is he from, originally?"
"Not used to them at all. Hated the idea that she could peek inside his head, if she wanted. Could I have a slice of that?" The last is about that cake. "Mostly, Ashwin's from Tillek."
"Of course, stop me from eating all of it, please," Ginny smiles, leaning forward to cut Roa a piece and pass it over. "Peek inside his head? Boy, I'm glad that never occured to me when I first got to the weyr. I probably would've run away before I ever made it onto the sands, and who knows where I'd be now." Another bite of cake, "Mostly? You said he was holdbred, exactly? Craft family?"
"Not crafter. He's..." Roa pauses to take a bite of cake, her brows arching up as she chews and swallows. "Shells, that's really good. "His father's a sailor. His mother runs a bar at Tillek, and that's where he grew up until he joined the guard. Which is a bit different than the average holder's life."
Ginella grins, "It is good, isn't it?" she agrees, "I got the kitchens to make me some." She takes another bite of her own, and then listens, a brow rising again as she chuckles, "No, not really like the average holder's life at all. A sailor and a bar-owner. That would definitely be different. And probably interesting. Have you met his family?"
With an emphatic nod for her immediate reply, Roa chews on another bite of cake. "And how. And you? Ever gotten to meet T'ral's family?"
Ginella nods, "Lots of times, when we were at Benden," she says, "They're lovely people. His mum is a sweetheart. We haven't been to see them together in a while, actually, we'll have to go soon."
"His family's...his family," Roa murmurs after finishing her cake. "Very welcoming, if they maybe take a bit of getting used to. It's a neat place."
"Are they as quiet as he is?" Ginny asks, with a hint of a joking smile, before finally setting down her cake-free napkin. "What's the bar called? I bet T'ral and the boys have been there before. They've been to Tillek, I know." A hand through her hair, as she sips her wine slowly, "Have you taken him to meet your family? I found that harder than meeting his."
"His mother," Roa smiles, "it's where he gets it from. The rest of them...not even a little bit. But he knows them. You can see bits and pieces of himself unwind when he's there. Here, he's 'the Captain'. There, he's just family. It's called...um, you know, I don't even know. We've always just called it 'the bar'." She bends down to select a few crackers as she adds, casually, "I don't really have a family for him to meet. I was fostered at Telgar, but it wasn't really...it was just different."
"I think Tiv gets his charm from his mother," Ginny smiles back, "And the economics from his father. It is fun to see them altogether, isn't it? I'll have to remind him we should visit. I miss them, now you've reminded me." She smiles again, and then blinks, and the smile flattens apologetically, "I'm sorry, I didn't know that."
"Nothing to be sorry about. I know it's a bit unusual, but I didn't mind it at the time. It's only, explaining it now always makes people assume things, so I avoid it when I can." Roa crunches another cracker. "Why was it harder for T'ral to meet your family?"
Ginella nods, "That makes sense," she allows easily, toying with her glass before glancing up at the question, "Why-- oh, well, I mean, we're not married, are we?" She shrugs, "It's been rough, adjusting to me being a rider, especially a goldrider."
"Ahh," Roa nods slowly. "So it was sort of...presenting the man you'd be sharing a bed with without ever marrying ever to your very holdbred family."
Ginella flushes faintly, "Well... yeah," she confirms with a shrug, "And not just the man I haven't married, but the man I will never be marrying. I didn't tell them for a long time. I finally told my sister, and she advised me not to tell my parents, but... Tiv finally insisted. It was awkward, but somehow, he managed to win them over. I don't think they're completely -thrilled- with it, but... they invited us back."
"There's nothing to be done about it really," of the pair of them, Roa seems to be the more pragmatic when it comes to matters of coitus. "Besides flights, your relationship's the same. It's just that flights seem to be a bit of a sticking point to the Harpers."
Ginella shrugs, "I know," she agrees, "And I've gotten over it. I know he'd marry me if he could, and that's enough. It's just harder for my parents to get used to. I think they expected I'd just be celibate forever. They'll come around, the more they see of us, I think. It's getting better. The ring will definitely make them happy," she adds with a smile.
Roa snickers. "We riders. Celibate forever. Just ask the dragons," she says solemnly. "People adapt to more that we credit them with, really. I suspect they'll come around in time."
"They -definitely- try not to think about that part," Ginny replies dryly, "As do I, most of the time." She rubs a finger over an eyebrow, and nods, "I think they will. I hope they will by the time we have kids."
"I'm sure they'll melt for kids. I wouldn't worry. Faranth," Roa yawns, "what time is it, do you think?"
"I bet they will," Ginny agrees with a smile, then blinks, "Oh, goodness, I've no idea," she admits with a laugh, "Late, I think. I should get going, let you rest," she says, rising.
"Sorry. Sleeping when it's dark has gotten more interesting with the downstairs neighbor awake at odd hours. Thank you for visiting, Ginny. This was, well, it was really nice." Roa leans forward and pushes up into a stand. "You want to take the rest of the berries with you, or anyhting?"
Ginella smiles, and shakes her head, "I don't look forward to that part," she agrees, before smiling again, "Thank you, for suggesting it. It was very nice." At the offer of berries, she eyes, them, then grins, "If you don't want them, I will," she says, "I'll leave you the rest of the cake, in trade." She gathers them up, and picks up her coat. "We'll talk soon?"
"A fair exchange and just remember, if you find yourslef in my situation and it ever gets too awful, you can always start screaming at T'ral to move furniture about." Roa smiles and nods slowly. "Yeh. We'll talk soon. Good night and rest well, when you get there."
Ginella laughs, "Something to look forward to," she grins, before nodding as she tugs her coat on. "You, too. Good night." She smiles, and heads out.