| Who | A'ster Ibreily |
|---|---|
| What | Ibreily does not puke her way into candidacy. A'ster's beautiful shoes are not ruined. |
| When | Spring of 2711 |
| Where | Galleries, Fort Weyr |
Fort Weyr - Galleries
The galleries are carved right out of the rock face, the rows and rows of benches rising high up into the air on a slight slant. Stone and wood benches that used to be known for offering little in the way of comfort, are now padded with cushions in Fort Weyr's colors. Placed along the railing at regular intervals are antique looking baskets filled with cheery fabric flowers. The curving walls sport tapestries in warm vibrant colors that seem to add a dash of color to the otherwise dreary stone. Where the galleries curve slightly at the ends, affording those attending hatchings or clutchings a decent view of the sands, shaded laterns offer warm lighting along the rows of benches.
The stands are mostly deserted at this point — a few people linger, or wander in to have a look at the eggs, but the bulk of observers have moved on to the feast. Being carefully ignored by the few observers, somebody isn't having such a merry time of it. Coming from as far behind the stands as she can get are distinctive noises, gurgling and decidedly gross, and Ibreily really looks worse than she sounds. The harper is covered in fresh mud up to her hair on one side of her body, suggesting she's attempted to escape at some point recently, but here she is. Puking, as discretely as she can possibly manage. Charming. The language she's employing between rounds is pretty impressive, too, until she finally straightens a little and leans on a support, blinking owlishly out towards the stands. Truly, a noble event, a clutching.
You know who looks amazing? A'ster. Like, for real serious, y'all thought the uniform was filet mignon? Hoooo, boy, y'all thought wrong. The Weavercraft, while not having forgiven him his cadidacy-related trespasses, do know what they're about, and oh! they do, they do like taking his money. The shirt is blue, bare shades lighter than midnight and woven such that when the light catches — the sheen matches, nay, amplified his eyes. There is a waistcoat, in green so dark it may as well be black, every seam nigh-invisible and the cut doing wonders for a guard's physique that has only been honed by seven turns as a dragonrider besides; the leathers are new too: clearly butter-soft just from a glance alone, dyed to match the highlight-sheen picked out in the shirt. His boots are — well. His boots were polished so high-gloss his youngest sister, in attendance for the clutching, used them to fix her makeup from her seat in the next row down from his. Now? They are rimed with mud, and muck, and mercy only knows what; it's even gone so far as to encroach up one fine-defined pantleg, marring its finish to the ankle. A'ster, affable, adorable, aw-shucks you just confessed right to me, didn't you know that? A'ster is a stormcloud as he swings himself up into the gallery stands, then starts taking the levels in long, loud strides. Stomp. Swing leg over chair back. STOMP. Sometimes, he comes down on wood; sometimes, stone. Sometimes, on an unfortunately-discarded bag of — of. The look he gives his latest encounter is even scowlier, if at all possible. "I'm not searching under the sharding benches, you stumpy, short-assed, clip-winged, ground-bound, TERRIBLE EXCUSE FOR AN INVESTIGATOR." He's shouting at the — sky? The deity no Pernese has believed in since colonist times? The— oh, good lord: the mahogany-hided monstrosity who moves to the edge of his viewing ledge, looms like a gargoyle come to life, a wher write large. "Down?" he shouts again, "what the fresh shelli— " he's still stride-stomping up, toward the top edge of the stands so he can have a better vantage point. He drops from shouting to be heard on the ledges — despite the fact this conversation could be going on silently, to save everyone else their headaches — but the stands are empty. The wretched stands are e — the wretching, because that first moment's peace is near-always a bitter thing made of lies and empty promises and the not-so dry heaved taste of bile. A'ster? Looks down. A'ster? says, "Aw, fuck me," because this is not — this is not. "Don't you even say a word," he threatens the poor wre— oh, no, his lifemate, radiating insufferably smug satisfaction as his beleagured lifemate in his ridiculously expensive new fancy clothes fishes something out of his pocket, and bellies down onto the bench to loom, head and shoulders, over the edge. "Hey. Pukeily. Hey."
Noise. Loud, stomping noises. Ibreily groans, clutching the sides of her head and leaning a little further into the nearest brace. She doesn't set back to harking up her toenails, but — it's a close thing, complete with muttered swearing. Something about tail-fork-smelling wherry-brained ash-heap-whers who can't walk a little quieter. "Shhhhhhh." The harper whispers, but it's not terribly helpful, since it comes out barely audible even down here. And — ah yes, there she is, back at the barfing. This, apparently, is at least enough to draw the attention of her ears' attacker, and when the returned swearing reaches Ibreily's ears the journeyman throws up a hand to make a rude gesture blindly over her head. Emphatically repeating the gesture for good measure, Rei sways and returns to clutching the closest support. "Could you." Gross noise. "Please stomp a little quieter." A few coughs, and Ibby staggers away from the growing puddle of gross, going back to her leaning on the stands. This time she's glaring, beady-eyed and pale as a sheet, up through. Ah, look. "Oh. It's you." Eyes narrow, take in the outfit with something that might be envy. Nice. But, hold on: "Pukeily." Beat. The start of a smirk twitches, but then disappears as she settles her face on a cross-brace. "What." Eloquent, a severely hungover Ibreily is not. At least she seems to have stopped puking for now?
It isn't pity. It isn't. It's practicality: from his other pocket, always-prepared perennial boyscout A'ster pulls a small pocket-safe drink container out, and elbow-walks his way over so he's more directly above her, then hooooooolds it out at the full extension of his arm. It dangles. It's gonna fall in a minute, here. "Water," he says, to draw her attention and also, "because Pukeily is so much more effortless than Dryheavily. What," he sounds aggrieved. He sounds put-upon. He sounds pretty fuckin' baffled, let's be real. "You know the party's after they squat out the eggs, right? Free booze? Cake. THERE HAD BETTER STILL BE CAKE, BIRD FOR BRAINS." It's a kindness, that he does turn to direct the shout up, up and away; it's not nearly enough of one, given the state of her head.
It's probably entirely safest that A'ster holds that bottle out so far, because when Ibby lifts her head, she looks a little like she's going to sway and crash. Or start upchucking last year's turnover again. Blessedly, the harper gets it under control, squinting warily instead and accepting the bottle. "Thank you." Prim, proper, never mind the puke breath or anything else. Prim for all of five seconds, until she reels back to glare again, cranking open the bottle and taking a sip. The bafflement, the WOE-IS-Me of it all are completely lost on the harper, who takes a moment to contemplate whether that water is going to stay down or not. It — Rei gags, looks for a terrifying moment like she might puke right on poor A'ster's shoes. "You don't know my cousins, do you." Clearly. Because pre-celebrating is the only way to go. Or maybe they were celebrating something else entirely, or just kind of accidentally wandered into it. "WHO ARE YOU —" oh no. No. Indignantly rebutting offense, Ibreily pales, and yep. If he doesn't dodge, there go the rider's previously-shiny boots. Blessedly, she's mostly wrung out, but the harper doesn't even look too sorry. "Calling bird-brained." She concludes, tipping her head to squint haughtily at the rider. NOT HER, THAT'S WHO. She'll show you, compadre. "Obviously there's still cake, it just…started…." Actually, she's not sure how long ago. Ibby winces.
A'ster dodges, because he's had his share of dealing with drunk and disorderlies early in his career; he doesn't dodge fast enough, because water just to keep the heaves from being dry has a splash radius like a mother-fudgebucketer. "Him," is announced with all the vitriol of someone who in this moment loathes, utterly, their best friend in the universe; he jabs an accusatory finger upward, and then, oh, Faranth's fu— "-uck's sake, no, what are you doing— " What Akleteyth is doing is what no dragon is meant to do: he takes advantage of the fact that he's sized more like a blue or a very ambitious green to fly i— okay, no, hang on, that's highly misrepresentative. Akleteyth, Kle, Stumpy does not fly, when down is the intention: he drops like a ton of bricks, a ton of bricks and that feeling, that gut-wrenching brace yourselves we're all gonna die abruptness of a jetliner flinginging up its wingflaps to wrench itself to a halt. That, that, is Akleteyth descending; for all that, he is light on his feet once landed; he stays sure to only set his weight on stone, rather than wood, and approaches the tragicomic pair like a creature bound to the earth. "I don't care," A'ster shouts at his lifemate, waving both arms above his head to signal WHAT THE SHIT, YOU MONDO WEIRDO, STOP. Either that, or he's waving a flag of surrender: white lightens the blur of one fist as it waves, and then he conceeds. "Ugh. You," this, to Ibreily, who he rounds on and shoves the contents of his fist into the middle of her chest. "Are a candidate. You don't want to be a candidate? Fine, I don't want you to be a candidate. But? You're stuck taking it up with him, not me. I'm out." He lets go of the knot, turns on his heel and stops off— only to wheel around a few steps away, and wait.
Ibreily is, contrary to ambiguousness physically, not a him, and so she's baffled for a long moment. The vitriol, the sheer loathing, processes through and eventually the harper gets it. It might have something to with Akleteyth. Having puked on somebody's shoes for no reason other than mis-hearing, the woman looks surprisingly unrepentant, watching the dragon drop to the ground. The noise of it, however, sets her reeling. Hands clap up over her ears, and the harper gurgles, sounding terrible and like she'd very much like to just carry on puking. Holding it together stubbornly, Ibby eyes Kle, eyebrows just slightly lifted towards her wild-messy hair. "We were never properly introduced, you and I." She greets, weakly, trying for a smirk and ignoring A'ster's flailing. She might have continued, introducing herself grandly to the dragon, except wait just one second. Wait. "Me?" Indignant again, Ibreily scowls, automatically going to grab the thing shoved at her, waving it threateningly like she might put the cranky (…understandably) rider's eye out with it. It takes a moment to catch up, and when it does, Rei groans dramatically. Belches, too, good and loud and maybe a little exasperatedly. "Oh, come on!" He's stomping off, loud and obnoxious, and the journeyman looks for a very long moment like she might like to spitefully leave him there, leave her sulking in a possibly-still-drunk fit. "Fine. Fine, you know what? Your dragon, he's smart." HUFF. Apparently the shock has worn off some of the nausea, or at least she's forgotten to be sick some more. It's for the best, probably. Mutter mutter undignified smelling like puke mutter, but here she comes.
"Akleteyth, Pukeily. Ibreily, Stumpy the Wonderfuck," A'ster jabs at each when introducing them, then says, "No, you don't get to be smug until we see the outcome on the sands," to his lifemate, who shakes out green-laced wings that — really, genuinely do look like they might be too truncated to allow him full flight; if Pern's native insectoids hadn't held their turf against the invasive species so well, philosophers and scientists would have both Akleteyth and bumblebees to debate the flightworthiness of. "You," he jabs a finger at Ibreily, blessedly free of more surprises, "walk in front, so I can see what I'm avoiding stepping in. We're making a detour for cake." He gets a real, good look at her for the fi— okay, no. A'ster, aggrieved, acknowledges the state of her, and appends, "Then the baths, I'd say the laundry could take care of that," his gesture encompasses so much. Oh, no — his gesture encompasses so much of her. "But I think you might be better off just having it burned. Then, the barracks."
"Well that's just rude." Ibreily sniffs, hoarsely, like the offense against Stumpy the Wonderfuck — Akleteyth, that is — is a personal affront. "Of course you can be smug, handsome. Look at me." Another belch. Mmmm. Beat. "When did I have ice cream?" Ah, this is good. This is probably going to go real well for A'ster's rep. Bringing in the pukey, hungoverly-filterless one. Those wings merit a thoughtful look, past the haze of another bout of let's-not-puke, but Ibby waves it off imperiously. Clearly, Kle is perfect. Being ordered around for a long moment looks like it might not go well, but then the journeyman's brains catch up and she huffs another string of rude invectives under her breath. "Wouldn't want to puke on that outfit. You'll tell me where it came from?" It's a question, see. Mostly. Look. She's wearing pukey, salt-bleached clothes to which the mud is probably an improvement, and that is clearly unacceptable. "Cake, bath. Priorities." Sass, drawled, only interrupted vaguely by a hiccup-burp combo. "Yours need work." Still, she can't complain too much, just continues grumbling as she picks her way delicately towards the cake. And the liquor, Faranth willing and A'ster forgets she's been searched.
This log is so goooood. XD