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 Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 5:12 pm
S'van sputtered, turning various fascinating colors, and trying so very hard not to seem affected by Mal’s words and looks. “That was sneaky of you,” he returned, making an effort to appear unruffled by the admission that he had made. Shardit. While it was true that Vera had once dolled him up in one of her dresses, he had also been a little boy at the time. He hardly thought that it counted. “I’m surprised that she didn’t tell everyone she knew.” As it happened, Vera’s sense of humor seemed to line up quite nicely with Mal’s… and that of just about every Harper he had met.
“After a certain point, I think sharing ceases to be caring, and becomes excessive. Weyrfolk do a lot of sharing during Flights, but as far as I can tell, it doesn’t really come up a lot otherwise. And I’d just as soon not partake in it.” Sharing people was a rather strange concept, really. Especially for a young man who had grown up at a tiny seahold. Somewhat distracted by the ‘innocent’ look, S’van tried to determine what Mal’s next move might be. “You’re welcome?” Was it really all that flattering to know that ‘Van could picture him like that?
Meanwhile, the soup—or was it a stew? – was progressing nicely. He thought that the meat might be cooked at this point, but he decided to give it a little longer to hold the flavor in. “I wish you wouldn’t ask Vera,” he said with a faint sigh. His cousin would be all too delighted to trot out any number of inappropriate stories for Mal’s perusal. Wrinkling his nose, S’van sprinkled some spices into the mixture, smiling slightly as good smells began to arise from the stew (yes, he had decided that it was in fact a stew and not a soup).
Emboldened by Aeron’s squalling, Kia drew herself up onto her haunches, and queeped. The sound was a bit less authoritative, but it held a plaintive note that would surely appease the vanishing dust motes. Perhaps they would come back to play? “Krrii!” The little baby flit noises made a nice counterpoint to the screeching, and several times passersby stopped to cover their ears in obvious enjoyment of the cacophony. Pleased with herself, the Green flitter made a series of happy cheeps, and began to chase her tail.
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Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 9:48 pm
Huh. Well, that was an education. Mal had always vaguely wondered what sorts of colors a human face could turn and S’van just provided him with a whole rainbow of experiences. “Yeah… I know it was sneaky,” he said, without even an ounce of shame. Shame? What’s that? Why, it must be another one of those frivolous things that I never had any time for! “I would say I’m sorry, but I’m really not. You should have seen the look on your face, S’van!”
Why, yes. He would crow about this for some time. As for bringing it up with Vera, well, that was just an idle threat. Harpers couldn’t really laugh at someone else’s crossdressing too often. Besides, it would be much more fun, he decided to hold it endlessly over S’van’s head.
“To be completely honest? I don’t even know how that’s supposed to work! How do people not get jealous or angry or something? I’m not an overly possessive guy, but I do not like sharing.” He shook his head in amazement at the ways of the Weyr, knowing that he’d probably never get used to it. Unless he Impressed, he most certainly wouldn’t have the time or inclination to get used to it. It was also a minor concern about what would happen when Aeron actually chased a female… Faranth, he didn’t even want to think about that.
So he didn’t.
The sad little sigh got to Mal in a way he wished it hadn’t. He didn’t have much shame, but he could occasionally feel sorry for someone else. “Relax. I’m not going to ask Vera about it. It’s much more fun to hold it over your head indefinitely. Besides, this way, I can totally blackmail you for baked goods. It’s also one of my life rules: never annoy the man who’s about to give you soup.”
Aeron was not impressed. The sunbeams refused to cooperate and the dust motes were being even more infuriating. Didn’t they know that he was the best? Didn’t they realize this? And did they not see how adorable Kia was?! Why weren’t they listening?! He screeched again and dodged a small pebble that was idly thrown in his general direction. Clearly, it was a gift. These people were obviously in awe of his amazingness and Kia’s as well. And the rock was sort of shiny, wasn’t it? With a curious churr, Aeron pushed it towards Kia. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her chase her tail; he just didn’t want her to catch it.
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Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 4:33 pm
“You Harpers are never sorry for that kind of thing.”It was perfectly true. S’van happened to know that for a fact. After all, didn’t he have a cousin who was a Harper? Obviously, that made him an expert on Harper behavior. … Never mind that he rarely spent a lot of time in Vera’s company. That wasn’t important. Naturally such things as ‘logic’ and ‘sense’ weren’t important here. He ignored them for the time being. “I think I would just as soon not have seen the look on my face, thanks.”
S’van dearly wished that he had not allowed Mal to pull that particular truth out of him. It was embarrassing. It wasn’t like he’d been old enough to know that he was crossdressing at the time, anyway. If Mal made a point of bringing that up, he was liable to find that S’van would get more and more sour as time went on. There were few things that irritated him more than being put into a feminine role.
“I don’t think I’d like having a harem at all… or being in one.” S’van sharding well knew that that kind of thing would eventually grate on him. The idea of being a part of a harem was a rather… unpleasant one. The thing was, he knew people who would like it. At least one person… and, well, it didn’t suit him, so what did it matter? “I know people who like the idea of having more than one lover, but I think it’s kind of odd to keep them all around, you know?” And sort of… wasteful? Excessive?
‘Dragonmen avoid excess, Greed will bring the Weyr distress’. They even had a teaching Ballad that covered that, didn’t they? Granted, that was probably about food, but the same really ought to apply to, uhh. That. Yes. That. “Dragonriders sleep where they will, but… I’ve never heard of one having a lot of lovers at once. Holders, though, Holders I’ve heard can sometimes have many lovers. … I wonder what they call them.” Not lovers, surely? They were far too prudish for that, he thought. Ladies, maybe?
Glancing hopefully at Mal, S’van leaned forward a little. “Really? You won’t ask Vera? Promise?” Why he would have asked her to begin with, he didn’t know, but the idea was a frightful one. There were a great many secrets that he did not want to be revealed, and she was in a prime position to be doing that revealing. Best to make sure that not a word would pass between the two about it. “You would hold it over my head,” he said ruefully and sighed again. Oh well. No helping that. “You’d get more baked goods if you didn’t black mail me.”
“Queep!” A toy! Kia rolled the rock around, tail twitching excitedly as she pushed it along. It indeed was shiny… not as shiny as the dust motes, but shiny enough to captivate the little firelizard hatchling. Her tail shot up straight in the air as she readied herself to pounce it. “Keer!” POUNCE! Tumble, tumble, tumble. Head over tail, she went queeping along the ground, rock accompanying her graciously. “Krrikrrriii…” Flop. In an inelegant heap, she landed and waited for the rock… which had landed inches away. “Krrikri!” It wasn’t getting any closer, despite her request that it do so! Oh dear.
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Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 10:04 pm
“If we started feeling sorry for things like that, S’van, then we’d never have time for anything else. And what sort of world would that be, eh?” Probably a much quieter one, Mal reflected, since all the Harpers would be too busy feeling ashamed about things to do anything else like make noise. Perhaps all the Harpers would then feel inclined to wear black a lot and loom around in corners. Oh! And bad poetry! There would have to be some bad poetry being written, since it was impossible for a Harper to feel ashamed of himself----or herself---without writing some bad poetry.
Fully distracted by this idea, he barely noticed much of anything and merely nodded along. Thankfully, he was used to being distracted around S’van by now. The trick was to change your expression frequently! Oh wait, S’van was talking about harems! Now that got Mal’s attention and he stopped himself before he embarrassed himself too much. “I dunno,” he frowned a little, trying not to think too deeply about this.
There were… well… lots of words for women who took on many male lovers, he knew. Most of them were negative, and his mother had received quite a few of them. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant memory, even though Mal, at the time, had been too young to really understand why all these people were so angry…
It didn’t interest him overly much, so he was prepared to jump on the next floe of conversation as it drifted past. In this case, food and how to get it. “Well, shards. In that case, I’ve just contracted a tragic case of Dramatis Forgettitittitus. I can’t remember anything that happened in the last few minutes, but everything before that is crystal clear. How very curious! I do remember a mention of something of a non-specific pastry-like nature?”
Hmm… he had to wonder just what sorts of stories Vera could tell. Since he didn’t have any relatives growing up, he felt like he had missed out on something there. Mostly chances to have embarrassing secrets told later, it seemed. Score for him!
Speaking of scores… Aeron perched proudly on his hind legs as Kia made her first ‘kill’. Well, maybe it wasn’t her first. But, to the Bronze, everything the Green did was a ‘first’. He waited patiently for the pebble to roll back to Kia, as was so obviously required of it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t listening. That meant it would have to deal with Aeron instead. Puffing himself up, the Bronze tried to make himself look as scary as possible. The pebble had a heart of stone and ignored the firelizard’s huffing and puffing.
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