Off in a different World (Kaemi

[Marnark]

She was drawing. And in so doing, appeared to be lost to the world around her, no matter how busy and bustling the place seemed to get. It appeared as if she was just so very focused on what she was doing that the area of table right in front of her was all that existed to her. That bit of parchment, the bit of charcoal in one hand, and her charcoal-smudged thumb on the other that she smeared the black stuff around with.

But in reality, when looking at something so intently and so closely, Toyi's world really was that small. Her peripheral vision told her the world was still there, but other than vague flashes of motion and the thumps she could feel through the table she was leaning on, it was hardly distracting.

Her point of art was actually an exercise in bonding that she was executing on a whim. Everyone said Thread was coming. Toyi had read once that the closer a rider was bonded to their dragon, the better chance they had at surviving threadfall unscored. Toyi was terrified at the concept of being eaten alive as if by acid. So, even though she was already pretty close to Alyrath, she wanted it better. More. Closer.

There were facets to the pair that were already inseparable. But this was a facet that wasn't terribly good. So, Toyi was practicing it. She was drawing what Alyrath could see. Of course, Alyrath was being helpful and focusing on one thing in particular. One thing that wasn't moving, and she didn't move either. Just watching.

Which meant, really, she was watching a tree. Not terribly interesting material to stare at for a few hours, as it didn't do anything interesting. But it was something that held still long enough that Toyi could draw it.

Straightening from being hunched over for as long as she had, Toyi blew at a strand of hair that fell across her face. She was terrible at art, she decided. That, or her ability to see through Alyrath was just that fuzzy. Or, she had a fat thumb. She couldn't decide which. But at least it was recognizable as a tree in full leaf?

Reaching over for her mug and not finding it, Toyi looked up to actually look for it instead of blindly groping at where it should have been.

Shardit ... someone had run off with her mug! Sometimes the kitchen crew was just too thorough.

[kaemi]

There was an excessive amount of noise in the dining hall... well, no there wasn't, but it was still a little too loud for L'res's taste. He was attempting to focus on the Record he was reading intently, but he continually became distracted by the stomping of feet and the raucous riders and weyrfolk sitting around the table. The only one who had the decency to be quiet was the greenrider, Toyi, sitting opposite him. And she was working intently on... something... and was obviously an outlier in the string of people, and was to be discounted.

The Record he was reading was actually quite- dull. The bluerider wasn't used to finding information, any information, lackluster. It was all of interest to him somehow. But no, this didn't do anything for him whatsoever. It was all about the berries found on the far eastern side of the Weyr, and which ones were edible and which ones weren't. Fascinating... if he ever planned to pick berries on the far eastern side of the Weyr. Which, frankly, he didn't. Sighing, L'res absentmindedly reached out and picked up a mug, sipping down the familiar contents before shaking his head and putting the Record aside.

Wait... he hadn't had a mug. He had been drinking a glass of juice because, shardit, he liked a good glass of berry juice. (Berry juice, actually, which he assumed may have come from the far eastern side of the Weyr. Amusing.) Holding the offending mug close to his eyes, he rolled them, and then looked around for the person whose drink he had inadvertently stolen. The large, burly man to his right was holding aloft a larger mug, and the younger man to his left was obviously content with his own. Toyi, across from him, seemed to be perplexed as she looked around for something... shells, it was probably hers. He'd rather it have been some obnoxious man's that wouldn't have noticed.

Awkwardly, he nudged her mug over towards her. “My apologies,” L'res said, “I had forgotten what I was drinking, and accidentally picked your mug up. I can go get you another one, if you'd like.” He had no real opinion of the greenrider, other than the fact that he didn't dislike her, and that she was a decent flier in his own Wing. But she wasn't the kind of person that he sat down and conversed with- he didn't do that with many people, actually.

Before her response came, he was standing and walking over to the kitchen staff, requesting another mug of Toyi's desired substance, and within a few minutes he had returned, offering the drink to her. “Sorry, again,” L'res told her, smiling a little bit wryly as he brushed the Record further away, still. In spite of the possible connection to his juice, he still didn't care about the edibility of the berries on the Eastern side of the Weyr. He just hoped the berry-pickers did.

[Marnark]

Toyi's attention was grabbed when she saw her mug being nudged back toward her by ... her gaze flicked upward and locked on the bluerider's face with a startling intensity that was actually normal for her. L'res. L'res! He'd stolen her drink? How ... odd. He was talking, and if it were at all possible her gaze on his face looked even more intense as he did so.

When he stopped talking, she opened her mouth to reply, but didn't get a chance to form the words before he was up and away. Well ... okay. She looked at her mug, shrugged, scooped it up, and took a hit off it. Who cared? It was quite possible that quite a lot of the riders all shared germs on a regular basis. Thankyou dragon hormones! She set the mug down again and glanced up and down the table, before looking around the room, twiddling her charcoal between two fingers idly.

Her gaze fell to the scroll that L'res had left behind in his haste, and her curiosity was piqued. What had he been reading, and had he deliberately abandoned it. Or was that accident? She was just contemplating snatching it over for a quick peek when L'res suddenly returned to his seat, with a fresh mug. Like a shard of metal drawn to a magnet, her gaze flicked back to his face again.

Toyi then laughed, and shook her head slightly. "It's okay." She said, quietly. "Doesn't bother me. Thank you." She accepted the mug from him, though she really didn't want that much drink. Two mugs? People were going to think she was a lush! "Do you want one of them?" She offered with a grin, even as his brushing the scroll aside did not escape her notice either. "Do you normally not wait for confirmation of orders before you act upon them?" She teased, lightly.

[kaemi]

Toyi didn't seem to appreciate the new mug- oh well. L'res shrugged and gave her a little smile. What else was he supposed to do? He wouldn't have wanted a cup which someone else had dipped into; a mere matter of sanitation. "Certainly, as I don't have my own drink," he replied, before picking up his cup of juice. The only hint to give away his dry sarcasm (other than the obvious presence of the juice in his hands) was the quirk to his lips, quick to fade. As usual, he expected his company to understand and respond accordingly to his sarcasm. He became annoyed very quickly with those that couldn't register when even the most blatant sarcasm was employed... Toyi was smarter than that.

He thought.

Then she began to tease him, and L'res took another sip of his juice before bringing down the mug to huff at her, his lips fighting to stay in a line. "It is the mark of the motivated to take their own considerations and employ them in others' lives, so as to save time and earn the respect of those around and above you," he responded. He didn't like being teased, but he did like like Toyi, and thus, he showed her a smile before his eyes caught on the art she had been working on. Hah! Now he could return the favor.

"A tree? Is that where your expertise lies?" It actually was a pretty tree... much better than he could do, at the very least... but still a little odd. They were in the middle of the weyrhall, and she was working diligently on drawing a tree. Wouldn't it be easier to do outside? Although, why anyone would want to draw a tree, in the first place, was beyond him.

[Marnark]

Toyi glanced at his glass of juice and then went back to staring at his face, a grin slowly spreading across her face. Finally she chuckled a little bit, and shrugged. "Okay. If you insist." she answered. "We don't want people thinking you're a lush now do we?" She teased, all over again. Snickering, she stuck her nose into her mug again to finish off her original mug of klah. Setting that down on the table, she pretended like she was going to take a hit off the second one too. But she didn't, instead grinning again and shrugging. "Or I could overshadow that for you with my own drinking habits, eh?"

"Aw, who cares about respect these days?" Toyi answered, with a huff that might have been theatrical or genuine, it was hard to tell on face value. Really, though, for her respect was pretty much out of reach. She'd been kicked out of every craft she'd ever tried her hand at, barring dragonriding. And she strongly suspected that the only reason she was still in this occupation was ... well ... it was mighty hard to kick a body out of dragonriding. Mighty hard.

Her brows went up at his question, and she tore her gaze off his face long enough to glance back at her smudgy charcoal picture, rubbing her blackened thumb across the other fingertips of that hand. "Hm." She answered, merely, before looking back up at him with that same intense, never wavering gaze. "Actually, no. I'm a terrible artist, as you can see." She gestured across the image with one hand without really looking at it, instead watching him. "Alyrath is watching the tree because I asked her to, so I could try to draw it." She explained. There was, after all, a method to the madness. Really really. Even if it didn't really ... often ... look like it. Toyi heaved a light sigh. "Thus the fuzzy nature of the image." The parchment, as much as she hated to admit it, was a blatant and prime example of just how closely she was bonded to her dragon ... or not bonded, as the case might be. How sucky of a dragonrider she was, just like everything else she ever tried in life. Naturally, she didn't factor in the bit where she wasn't exactly the best artist around, but it hardly mattered to her. Details, details. The point of the exercise was the details, after all.

[kaemi]

Even with his sarcasm, she insisted on teasing him! L'res huffed a little. “That would be... bad,” he said, trying and failing to come up with some clever retort. He'd have to work on that. What was Toyi doing, anyways? Was she really going to drink that?! And teasing him for being a lush- oh. Unable to contain it, he began laughing a little. “That would be most helpful. Hide my dirty, non-existent secrets by sharing yours with the world.”

The bluerider wasn't entirely sure whether she was entirely serious with her words on respect, and therefore, he felt it was his duty to inform her fully. “If respect is unnecessary, then our society will gradually crumble and fall, as there will be no leaders and neither humans nor dragons are solitary creatures by nature, nor are they all independent leaders. The leaders need someone to lead, and if you don't have the necessary qualities to be a leader, respect is something to appreciate,” he told her solemnly, having apparently missed the fun tone that Toyi had instilled in her voice.

“It isn't... entirely... terrible,” L'res told her, intending his words to be comforting. “Better than I could do.” That made everything better, of course. He was admitting a flaw. Apocalyptic sign! “Anyways, of course it isn't as good as it could be... dragons see differently than we do; their eyes are faceted, whereas ours are not. So if you want a decent picture of a tree, I suggest you look at it yourself, even if you might not be as close to refills of klah when your neighbor steals your own.”

[Marnark]

Toyi grinned openly, and tilted her head a little to the side. He was finally laughing. Wow, he was a hard one to liven up. But then some people were just that way. Not knowing how to live a little until it beat them over the head. Giving a firm nod, she grinned again. "Works that way, actually." She offered, with a small laugh.

But he started off on another lecture again on some small word to tangent. Toyi waggled her head and flicked a hand at him. "Whatever. I'll leave the analysis to you." She assured him before pausing thoughtfully for a moment, tugging on a pursed bottom lip. "Though ... I have to say I spend a lot of my time alone ..." Her brows jumped upwards before settling back to their normal location. "I do fine. Why can't others do the same without having apron strings to hang on?"

She considered her artwork for a moment before shrugging, and setting the bit of charcoal off to the side. Flicking the parchment up off the tabletop Toyi considered it before looking at him again. "I suppose so. If they see this fuzzy though, it's amazing they ever spot anything at a distance."

I do not see fuzzy. It's perfectly clear. Alyrath protested, but Toyi ignored her. Rolling the picture up, Toyi held it out to L'res. "Want it?" She offered. "Since I didn't let you keep the klah?" She tilted her head slightly in the other direction as the corner of her mouth twitched upwards. "Since you like it so much?"

[kaemi]

“Not all people are loners; those who are 'disrupt the system'.” L'res made a bit of a face. “I am told that I can be one of those people,” he added with a shrug. He didn't necessarily like that fact, but fact it was. Or, at least, it was a fact that people thought he could disrupt things. He didn't agree with the idea that he did. “Ask someone, sometime, why they require all of the technical leadership aspects.”

The bluerider paused for a moment, taking another sip of his juice. He liked juice. “I suppose they get used to it, or maybe they process it differently than we do. The latter's probably correct,” he amended. Even as he continued this one-sided discussion, L'res accepted the drawing. “I appreciate it.” Looking around for something else to return the favor, all that he found were the Records he had been observing earlier.

He was pretty sure that she wouldn't appreciate the boring text, so instead he put his cup down and tucked the drawing in his lap. “I'll hang it in a spot of honor in my room,” he promised. In all reality, he'd probably forget about it and it'd sit in a random corner of his weyr. Eventually he'd find it, remember his promise, and hang it somewhere, but it may take a Turn or two.

[Marnark]

Toyi watched him a moment, then giggled again. "You like to talk don't you? You could at least put together words that make some sense? Or are at least interesting in their combination? I mean ... all this talk of the technicalities and specifics and definitions of leadership and blah blah ..." She waved a hand limp on her wrist, before returning it to its original position with the other.

Of course, she was teasing him again, not at all concerned about what he may or may not be interested in talking about. Toyi really, honestly, didn't care. She was just glad someone was talking to her and not reminding her what a failure she was at everything she turned her hand to.

She was somewhat touched, though, at the way he took the scribbled drawing. Was he really serious? About hanging it on his wall? "You don't have to do that." Toyi protested, blushing slightly. "I mean ... it's not even a very good drawing." She paused a moment, and then shrugged. "But I'm glad you like it?"

[kaemi]

L'res couldn't resist: he grinned wryly at the greenrider. "I do, I must admit. I also enjoy stringing my words together with intelligence." Should he stop being so pretentious? Because, of course, he realized that that was what he was doing. Oh well, it was amusing for him, and he didn't TRULY mind her attention. Even if she was teasing, or being serious, or whatever the hell she was trying to accomplish.

Still, he shrugged. "Fine, if you take offense to it... what would you prefer we discuss? If not the technicalities of leadership, nor those of subordination, then I'll let you choose." Of course, Toyi could get up and leave, but until she did that, he would assume that she didn't mind his company. Maybe she didn't enjoy it with a vast range of emotions, but that was fine.

"I do like it, and I'll keep it. In fact, I feel a little guilty about not giving you something in return." He was uncomfortable with the blush on her cheeks, so he shoved that aside, and opened the picture again to look at it again, all the while shrugging at her. He really did feel bad about not returning gifts. L'res had been raised to say 'please' and 'thank you', and to give in return.