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 Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 3:33 pm
Aww... so Marko hadn’t been naked? At first when Mirelle burst out laughing, Xeran had gotten his hopes up. Well, sort of hopes; since the night before was still pretty murky, he half hoped that the taller Harper hadn’t been naked. If Marko was ever naked, shard it all, Xeran wanted to be able to remember it so he could laugh at it later!
A tunic huh? Well, that was practically naked for Marko anyway. Xeran opened his mouth to comment on this---very little went through his brain without it being voiced and a crowded kitchen seemed like a perfectly appropriate setting for this sort of conversation----but then Mirelle exploded at him. Even Xeran was forced to take a step back. Since Marko was right behind him, this didn’t go over all too well. (Hey, at least he could feel a bit of sympathy for Cordel now, right?)
Quickly, his mind whirred, trying to find a peaceable solution here. Unfortunately, the only thing he could really focus on was, ‘what, I was only half naked? Then why does my head feel like something died in it? And I woke up naked!’ It was strangely disappointing to learn that he had only been half-naked level drunk.
Xeran was about to comment on that, but then he glanced over his shoulder at Marko. Up to that moment, escape had been his primary plan, but a look at the rather desperate Harper changed his mind. Someone had to stand up to Mirelle, right? Besides, all of the noise was making Xeran’s headache worse. Right. So he had an upset Marko behind him, a headache over him, and an angry Mirelle in front of him. Clearly, something had to be done.
“We’re both deeply sorry for our behavior. Marko doesn’t handle his alcohol very well. Could we please have some hot water? He needs it for his headache.” Hopefully, Marko was looking extra pathetic right about now.
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Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 8:29 pm
The anger was just making Marko more and more uncomfortable. When Xeran bumped into him, Marko yelped and tried to scoot backward, nearly upending himself in his uncoordinated efforts. Grabbing onto Xeran's shoulders to support himself for a moment, he managed to stand upright and less unbalanced again and peered at Mirelle.
Shards, he had known she was frightening, but he hadn't known she was this frightening. Although she looked like she was trying to calm herself, sort of...wait. Xeran was apologizing? He was going to make things better? Really? ...That almost elicited a very tiny, contented sigh from the taller Harper, but he bit it back because that would just be awkward and Mirelle would probably beat him with a spoon or something.
"Thank you," he muttered into Xeran's ear instead, still peering over the other man's shoulder at the irate journeywoman.
---
Mirelle, having more or less calmed herself, watched with simmering anger as Xeran tried to escape, and continued to watch him as he actually spoke. Well. He was apologizing. That, at least, was nice. She sniffed and shook her head but turned nonetheless and gestured to a drudge, who brought over two cups of hot water. Taking them, she set them down on an empty patch of the ledge that passed as extra counter space and turned to the two men again.
"You will have bread and water for a sevenday. One cup of klah in the morning. One piece of meat at night. No exceptions," she said, and her expression could have frozen dragonfire.
---
Marko gaped at her words. "But," he began, but a furious glare from the woman stopped him short. Glancing down and nodding, he slowly approached the cups, avoiding making eye contact with Mirelle, and emptied the two cloth packets into the cups of water.
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 1:44 pm
Yeah. Xeran really was just that awesome. Xeran had to resist the urge to smirk when he managed to disarm the angry lady of the kitchens with a few honeyed words. But, then again, he was a Harper… even the news that he and Marko had been put on severely restricted diets failed to pop Xeran’s ego; if he hadn’t stepped in, they wouldn’t have even gotten that! Ok. So… yeah. Technically, the whole situation was his fault… if he hadn’t insisted that Marko come out drinking with him, then they wouldn’t have pissed off Mirelle.
But, shard it all, Xeran was awesome anyway! While Marko avoided eye contact, Xeran attempted to avoid grinning in a downright irritating way. He achieved this by studying the ceiling or the floor or the cups of water. “Thank you, Mirelle,” he said, sounding very grateful even as he was celebrating inside. Taking one of the cups, he briefly considered asking for a spoon. But he was a man! And men didn’t ask for spoons! They swirled their drinks, like real men.
Unfortunately, swirling also resulted in some slight spilling of very hot water on Xeran’s fingers. He resisted the urge to yelp in a very unmanly way and put the cup down very quickly. “Just… going to let that cool,” he said in an off-handed way. Burns weren’t very manly and certainly weren’t going to impress Marko.
…
Not that he was ever trying to impress the taller Harper, of course. Of course not! Although… “Err… I hate to bother you again, Mirelle, but do you remember anything else about last night? About us, I mean? We’re trying to piece together things so we can apologize to anyone that we inconvenienced.” Lie, lie, lie. Really, he just wanted to know for his own peace of mind.
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:22 pm
Marko looked despondently at his cup as Xeran swirled the drink, and glanced nervously back at Mirelle. He thought about asking for a spoon, but then decided that looking as pathetic as possible would be a better way to achieve the same means, and end in less yelling. It wasn't hard; he was fundamentally a stomach on legs to begin with, and his food had just been taken away from him for a sevenday. He failed to notice Xeran's pride in his depression over the lack of food, and instead merely stared despondently at his cup.
---
It took about two minutes for Mirelle to throw her hands up in exasperation and fetch a spoon for the tall one. "You are truly pathetic," she snapped, thrusting the spoon into his hand and scowling at the pair of them. Xeran's question made her snort, and she shook her head. "Wherever you went or came from is your own business, certainly. Someone mentioned something about a healer shortly before you left, and if it's that healer," though Mirelle had no mistake about whom she was speaking, it wasn't entirely clear who 'that healer' was to someone who couldn't read her mind, "your taste in company is even worse than your taste in places to spend your time under the influence of too much alcohol."
"You," she jerked her head at Marko, who was gingerly sipping the lemongrass infusion and trying his hardest to look inconspicuous, "had an egg in a jar, and the words 'dragonpoker' came up." She paused for a moment, and her desire to be genuinely helpful to the stomach-on-legs made her snort and add gruffly, "that greenrider pair runs dragonpoker games some nights."
---
OH SHARDS.
Marko almost dropped his cup when Mirelle said the words 'that greenrider pair' in conjunction with 'dragonpoker'. Oh, shards. They hadn't gotten themselves smashed and gone to play cards with C'ren and F'sey. There was no way. Marko tried even harder to shrink into nothingness. The one time he had actually talked to F'sey had ended dreadfully, and he had been living in fear of coming across either the man or his just-as-terrifying ...roommate ever since.
"Shards shards shards shards," he muttered, drinking more lemongrass and wishing that the drink had a more instant effect. But he would have to be patient for that. Not that the idea of C'ren and F'sey and drunken dragonpoker was conducive to thinking calmly and rationally. At all.
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Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 4:22 pm
Once again, Xeran took the news in quite the opposite way. Ok, at first he was merely confused about who ‘that healer’ was, but he figured it didn’t matter much. If it didn’t affect him or Vera or Marko, so it didn’t really matter much. Since Marko was obviously in Mirelle’s good graces----he got a spoon! Without asking even!----Xeran decided to let him handle this and just sip his tea.
…
Wait. He had gotten Marko drunk enough to play dragonpoker with the Greenriders?! That was so awesome! Xeran’s ego promptly bloated to about three times its normal size, even as Marko began to panic three times more than he normally did. And that was quite an accomplishment, on both fronts. Unlike Marko, Xeran was actually on… well, not exactly ‘good’ terms with the Greenriders. More like, ‘they don’t completely want to kill him all the time’ terms. Which reminded him, he’d have to talk to F’sey about that gay Healer.
Anyway, the important part was that they were almost at the bottom of this mystery! Xeran flashed a bright grin at Marko and only just realized that his companion might not be entirely pleased with this news. Utter confusion took over Xeran’s mind or at least the parts of it that weren’t throbbing with pain.
“Well… thank you very much, Mirelle,” he said, giving her another winning smile that was probably wasted on her. “I guess we’re off to apologize to C’ren and F’sey then. I hope they have our clothes too…” now there was a concern. Apparently, he and Marko had already been underdressed when they got down to the kitchen. “Hey, do you think we were playing strip poker?” he asked suddenly, ignorant to the fact that this would send Marko into another panic.
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Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 11:21 pm
Marko had been trying to gulp the last of the infusion when the words 'strip poker' came out of Xeran's mouth, and instead of draining the cup he merely choked. It took him about a minute of coughing and sputtering before he could manage to breathe normally, and as he wiped his watering eyes, he glared at Xeran. FARANTH NO. THERE WAS NO WAY HE WOULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING LIKE THAT.
...Except, well. He had been very drunk. And he had never been good with alcohol consumption. It made him do stupid things that were very, very un-Marko-like. Which was why he never drank. "Shardit, Xeran," he said, still out-of-breath. "That's not funny." It wasn't even his normal panic, it was just...oh Faranth, if he had done anything stupid near F'sey (and he was drunk; he might have), he would probably end up dead. Or something. That man was terrifying.
"We'll just talk to him and offer him the egg back. Get whatever clothes you left behind."
He refused to believe he had removed any clothing in the presence of anyone.
"And then we can leave."
Sounded like a good plan to him.
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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 1:33 pm
Awwwr… look at that! He had made Marko laugh so hard that tea came out of his nose! Xeran spared a few moments to mentally preen and strut a little. It wasn’t until Marko turned the glarebeams on that the younger Harper realized he might not have said the right thing. Was it possible that Marko hoped that the Greenriders wouldn’t have their clothes? Awwwr… did he want to keep seeing Xeran shirtless? How adorable!
No… wait. It probably was just the strip poker thing that had tipped Marko over the edge, Xeran belatedly realized. Yeah. That made more sense. At least the dark-haired Harper looked properly ashamed of himself, blue eyes all big and innocent. “Mirelle did say you weren’t wearing a tunic when you came down here,” he muttered into his cup of tea before draining it. “Right. Well, let’s go see if they’re home. Lucky they have a weyr that’s actually connected to a hallway, huh?”
While waiting for Marko to finish up his tea, Xeran continued to talk. “So… why get rid of the egg? Vera has a firelizard. You know Bell. He’s very good, except for the whole ‘attacking you in the face thing’. I’m thinking I might want to get one… as close to a wher as I can get, I suppose.” Oh… right. Marko had that fear of most things draconic and a definite dislike of things that flamed. The only thing that could get him over that second fear was food. “Are you done yet? We’ve got dragonriders to harass.”
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Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 11:56 am
Marko drained his cup and gave Xeran the most doleful glare he could manage. Unlike the other Harper, he was in no way looking forward to the mess that was going to go down. He wondered briefly if he should stop in Xeran's room and pick up the egg again so he could give it to C'ren right away, but that would probably end up being counter-intuitive.
Yeah, lucky their room was accessible. Shards and shells. Marko sighed heavily and set down his cup, shaking his head and giving Xeran another annoyed look. "I have no desire for a flitt. They get in the way, they're in your head, and they cause trouble." He had met a few of Ista's more....forthright flitts (as well as Bell), and he was beginning to think it would be a very stupid idea indeed to try and keep one for himself.
The fact that they were dragon-shaped had nothing to do with it at all, nope.
"If you want one, take the egg," he said as he started out of the kitchen. "Then we can just not talk to the dragonriders and everything will be all right." ...Except that whole clothing thing. Oh yeah.
Right.
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Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 11:20 pm
Hmm… Marko with a flit. It was possibly one of Xeran’s first complicated thoughts in this particular morning. Perhaps the tea was helping with that, because his mind definitely felt clearer. The idea rolled itself around in his mind for a little while, much like a dog in something distasteful only… only this was actually a pretty good idea. Sure, Marko had that fear of all things draconic and fiery, but a firelizard was very different. The man was already going through an… an awkward time----which was probably why he had accepted Xeran’s invite to drinks anyway---so maybe a change was just what he needed.
Also, Xeran most definitely did not want a firelizard. Backpedaling at the offer, he tried to think of a good reason not to accept Marko’s generous offer. “I’ve already got Vera to look after,” he said lamely, as if she wasn’t a grown woman. “And Bell. Bell needs looking after too.” Translation: I haven’t quite gotten him to launch himself at the faces of Vera’s admirers yet. At least, not completely.
Confident as ever, it was only a few strides before Xeran overtook Marko and began to lead the other Harper towards the weyr. He knew its location better than Marko anyway, so it made sense. Occasionally, Xeran stopped to think about which way to go next----and to allow the other man to catch up----but the two men found themselves at the weyr door soon enough.
Xeran thought that, perhaps, one day, F’sey and C’ren ought to get someone to carve a little message over the door. Something like, ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Actually, if you’re here at all, you probably don’t have any at all, so disregard the previous message’. With a shrug to his companion, Marko knocked on the door or rather pounded on it. “HEY! Wake up in there!”
~.~
Actually, C’ren was one of those men who was designed by nature to wake up early, perhaps leaving reproachful little notes all around the office to let them know that, while they were asleep, he was awake and Getting Things Done. In this case, that meant cleaning the Weyr. Searchriders were all off-duty, officially, which made him more than a little antsy.
Oh, do stop fussing over that! Ceylith said softly from her couch. Can’t you at least pretend to relax? For me? The Green took on a different tone at the sound of someone at the door, one far more cheerful. Visitors! Oh, mine, we have visitors! Wai… where are you going?! C’ren… stop hiding behind the couch! MIIIIINE! If you don’t stop right now, I will make this noise all day in your head! Aaaaaaaaaahahhhahhaaaa~
That wouldn’t have been so bad, except Vox and Pyrite decided to join in. If the big firelizard was doing it, it was certainly alright for them, right? The Gold firelizard was especially good at high-pitched piercing noises. Needless to say, it was only two minutes before a thoroughly harassed-looking C’ren answered the door. “What is it this time?” If he had been anyone else, his voice would have been described as ‘snappy’.
But, since he was C’ren, it could only be described as C’renish. “Oh. You two. What do you want?”
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Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:34 pm
Well, if a change was what Marko needed, he'd have to be dragged through it kicking and screaming. And dragging a six-six Harper wasn't going to be a picnic. When Xeran refused the flitt (for good reasons, but still!), Marko gave him a morose look but said nothing. If Xeran wouldn't take it, then he'd just give it back to C'ren (ohshards, he hoped it was from C'ren and not F'sey, because that would be, uh, 'messy' was a good way to put it), no questions asked. Easy as that.
He let Xeran walk ahead of him half because he didn't know the way and half because he wanted something solid between himself and potential death if either he or Xeran had done something inexcusably stupid, which was seeming to be the case, the night before.
Xeran's ever-charming method of knocking sent Marko cringing back against the opposite wall of the corridor, but soon enough it was opened and he really had no choice but to creep up behind Xer again and look nervously at C'ren. Oh, shards. There were 'lizards. Noisy 'lizards. Giving Xeran a Look that could only have been explained by using capital letters (and probably said something along the lines of 'You see? THIS is why I do not need one of these sharding beasts!), he looked briefly at C'ren and then coughed.
"Um....I think I took something of yours by mistake last night," he said.
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Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 9:50 pm
C’ren, let them in! I want to see them! Ceylith fussed over the visitors, even from where she was lying down. Well, sitting up now; as soon as the door had opened, she made an effort to make herself presentable, which in turn meant sitting up. Oh! She recognized those two! Well… sort of… at least vaguely. The Green at least knew that they had been here rather recently and that they were here now.
C’ren did his very best to ignore the extra voices. He squinted at the other two men----somewhere in his cleaning frenzy, the glasses had been lost and they weren’t just a fashion accessory----until he recognized them. “Pyrite, Vox! Shut up, will you?” he demanded bad-temperedly, and to little effect. The only affect it had on Vox was to encourage the fat firelizard to waddle up to Marko and Xeran and sniff their feet. In particular, he took a liking to Marko’s feet and began to try to climb up his boots. Pyrite’s reaction was to look profoundly offended. She daintily fluttered her wings and pointedly looked away from C’ren.
“Something of mine? No… not that I recall. You two left clothes here, though, I know that.” Not that they were there now, of course! As if C’ren would allow something like that to stay in his Weyr… no, those clothes were now enjoying a nice sun in the Weyrbowl, or wherever they had landed.
It wasn’t very nice of you to throw the clothes off of our ledge, Mine, Ceylith said, her good mood dampened a little by this memory.
“What is this about anyway? If this is about the alcohol you two drank, no thanks. You can keep it.”
Meanwhile, Xeran was perfectly enchanted by Vox. The loudmouthed Gold was pretty, yes, but there was something adorable about a firelizard who was so fat that he could barely fly. This was doubly-so when the firelizard in question was attempting to climb up someone’s pantleg. “Aww… Marko, look at that. He likes you! Are you sure you want to give up that firelizard egg?”
“Firelizard egg? Oh, no. I’m not taking that back! You won it, Marko. Fair and square…” C’ren grinned. It was sort of frightening, even without his glasses.
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Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 9:13 pm
Marko looked with alarm at the small animal trying to climb his leg and just barely managed to resist the urge to yelp in surprise. It was on him. Why was it on him? "Um...hello. Please go away," he said, looking profoundly traumatized by Vox's forwardness. He stood stock-still, resisting the urge to shake his leg with every fiber of his being. Please go away, small animal, please go away, small animal, please go away....
What? Wait, what? What had C'ren said? Marko hadn't been paying attention to anything at all, so engrossed had he been in staring with horror at Vox's advancement up his leg. C'ren was grinning. In a scary sort of way. It was scary.
But at least it wasn't F'sey. Marko was perfectly willing to try and reason with C'ren. "Honestly, I don't know what came over me. I don't play dragonpoker for keeps, ever. I'm horribly sorry, and you can certainly have it back. I don't mind at all." Please take it. Please.
Somewhere around this point in time, he realized that Xeran thought the small animal encroaching on his personal space was very cute, and elected to give him a Look.
"And...you said you had our clothes?" he asked, looking at C'ren and somehow managing to resist the urge to shake Vox off. He wondered if he had something he could throw to make Vox chase it and go away.
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Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 2:12 pm
Now, C’ren supposed that the good thing to do would be to call Vox back, since the fat firelizard was clearly distressing Marko. It would be the right thing to do. But the thing was, C’ren really didn’t want to talk to these people----no matter how many funny faces Marko made-----and he was all for anything that would get him out of this conversation more quickly. To achieve this, he mentally suggested to Vox that Marko had many treats hidden in his shirt.
Vox squeaked excitedly. He tended to do that anyway, but he squeaked even more now and continued his climb. Any attempt to shake him off was met with wing-flapping as he fought to keep his balance. One thing was for sure: if there were treats, he would find them! Slowly, but surely, the firelizard started climbing up.
“No. I don’t want the egg back.” Blunt, yes, but C’ren hoped it would be effective enough. “And I had your clothes.” Emphasis noticeably on the past-tense.
Xeran, however, didn’t notice it on the basis that Vox was more amusing than C’ren. Although, he felt he really ought to do something before Marko started flailing... The man patiently waited for C’ren to continue, waiting for a moment that would never happen. “…And can we have those back at least?”
“You might. It depends on how quickly you can get to the bottom of the Weyrbowl. They were accidentally knocked out when I was cleaning.” Yes. ‘Accidentally’. What a good word.
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Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 10:51 pm
...That wasn't a good sign. Marko had been about to ask C'ren nicely (with the word 'please'!) if he would take the egg back, but then Vox got suddenly very persistent and Marko squeaked in alarm, reaching down and trying to dislodge the firelizard as gently as possible.
"I don't have anything for you, please leave me alone," he said, completely oblivious to everything else. "Please, stop climbing on me. I'm boring. I don't have anything you could possibly want, I promise."
After a moment, he looked up at C'ren. "All right, I'll keep the egg, I can see I don't have a choice, but....why is he climbing me?" He just barely managed to keep his composure and recall that most people didn't approve of calling firelizards 'it' any more than people approved of using the pronoun for dragons. And it wasn't like the colour was ambiguous on this one or anything...
"Please go away, little firelizard," he added to Vox one more time, for good measure.
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Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 7:08 pm
Completely misunderstanding Marko’s attention for actually liking him, Vox squeaked back up at the tall man. The firelizard’s eyes swirled rapidly with green and blue; this was all just a grand game for Vox! And the best part was he just had to cling tightly and not let go at any cost. Besides, there was food to be had… right? Right? Please?
C’ren looked down at Vox then up again at Marko a few times before saying, quite simply, “He likes you. Course, Vox likes everyone…” Oh good! They were leaving, or so the Greenrider gathered. It was about time so he could get back to cleaning or doing something at least. “Vox, come here.”
Vox, however, was insistent on this. C’ren said there was a treat and, by Faranth, he would find this treat! Maybe it was in a pocket? Or… orr… he cheeped at the man piteously and tried to suck in his gut, an exercise that was doomed to failure before it even entered his little mind. Maybe he would get some treats if he looked skinnier?
The Greenrider barely resisted the urge to facepalm or sigh or do anything at the thoughts filtering through Vox’s mind. “Vox… you’ll get a treat in a moment. Just leave the man alone so he can leave.” Finally, with a last look towards Marko, the blue firelizard scrambled back over to C’ren with a cheep. “Good day to you both.”
“Right. See you later.” Xeran was conflicted. On one hand, he honestly felt like a firelizard would be a good thing for Marko, just something for him to focus on instead of just being neurotic. But, on the other, Marko hadn’t been particularly… uhh… he had freaked out over a fat and lazy firelizard like Vox! “You know, Vera might be willing to take the egg.”
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