7/21/2011
12:14 AM
Logfile from Flandynn.
Xanadu Weyr - Exotic Forest Sanctuary(#4458RJh)
A thick outcropping of trees gives way to a deceptively simple brown-sided cottage nestled among them. Off to one side is a wallow, simple in its depression, but with a wide canvas structure akin to a tent with no walls. It's been pitched above to give some shelter from the elements. The cottage itself has ornately carved white shutters around the windows, the most predominate of which takes up nearly the entirety of one side. The front door is white as well, with a weathered brass handle that can be locked. Landscaping is simplistic, with a few bushes in front that flower in early spring and carry on into the fall. There is also a small artificial pond, that is thick with lily pads and delicate pink flowers when the season is right, colorful fish can be seen just under its murky surface.
Stepping through pristine white doors the room within is, at first a glance, one wide and open space. Well placed archways and insets not only give the area function and style, but also break the space up into several well defined areas. The walls have been painted a rich dark pink, edged with thick boarders of white. Doorways and windows are decorated with intricate scrollwork in white, bold and stark against the background. Wide pillars have been wrapped at their base with white and gold accents. Inviting the forest inside, the room's largest window stretches the majority of one wall, beneath which a single step up takes one onto a bench nestled against it. This thickly padded seating is decidedly comfortable; a sanctuary of rich fabric covered pillows, each one unique and hand stitched with silken floss in an array of patterns and details. The floor is constructed in large tiles of polished ivory stone with an almost mirror like sheen to them. The tiles have been fit together so well, there is practically no visible seam between them. It has been scattered with stunning oriental rugs in rich jewel tones, some with a fringe of gold, others not.
The ceiling above has been painted a lighter shade of pink, with the darker tone brought back in a double hand span thickness of line that forms a single square in each of the sectioned areas, as if to define them further. There is a ceiling fan in the middle, centered along a pillared archway that transects and divides the entire room in half. On either side of this are several light fixtures that closely resemble gold and violet hued berries. There is a bed made up with ethnically patterned blankets and pillows, varying in shape, color, and accents. Furniture is sparse and all with function, including low tables, a single floor screen painted with scenic mountains cast in fine mist.
Contents:
Briana
Sahazyth
Obvious exits:
Forest
Briana is a teenage girl, her height average for her age. Her long brown curly hair is usually held in a runner's tail that hangs to her waist. Her skin has a somewhat dusky tone denoting that perhaps her father might have been dark skinned. Briana's eyes are a golden flecked hazel colour, often wide as they look upon the world around her. She is slender, but not to the point of malnutrition. Clothes often hang from slim shoulders, hand me downs mostly. Sturdy clothes often given to children who will cause some great wear to them. Most often she is seen in rugged boots upon her feet or sandles depending on the weather.
It is middle of the day at the weyr on a warm and humid misty day. Briana's cottage is deep in the forest, though she gave some landmarks for Fl'ynn to follow. All the windows are open to allow whatever breeze might come through. The cottage oddly seems to suit Briana. A little isolated, a little exotic. Sahazyth is content in her wallow, piles of dirt pushed aside from making it to her satisfaction. Briana can be seen through the windows at a small cook stove preparing a meal no doubt for her and her expected guest.
It is a trip! An adventure! And we have Fl'ynn here who isn't so much known for knowing where he is off to, or how to get there. It was pure chance he even got onto this continent. "Briana~" he calls out, something of a sing-song. Okay, maybe it is a lot of a sing-song. "Briana, is this…" He steps out to spy a gold and a home of sorts. "Hey, there we go." His hand waves, hailing to Sahazyth. "Hey, girl. Looking good. I'd join you in that dirt but your girl may just be waiting for me. Next time, k?"
The gold lifts her head at the greeting and gives a light warble to the bluerider. Between that and the calling of her name, Briana is alerted to his arrival and she peeks out a window, "Hey Fl'ynn!" She calls outs before moving to the door and opening it up for him. "You got to come see this place…it is amazing. I still can't believe its mine and all mine. What is your place like?" She asks as she moves back to her little cookfire and the food she has cooking there. Fit for an Indian princess. Exotic hangings and draperies here and there.
Fl'ynn pounces closer, another broad grin for the blue, and then he is moving through the doors. "So shells, how did you rate to get a place like this? Must be that silly thread of gold to have in your knot -or your bright smile." He comes up into the room, head turning this way and that. "There is more than enough room for me to move in here too." He pauses, and then dimples with a grin. "Oh, I've got myself a hole in the wall and a scummy pond."
Briana can't help but laugh at the question and looks around, "Apparently not because of the gold, but because of my background. The former occupant left particular instructions to give it to someone who came with nothing…apparently I qualified." She shakes her head at that and removes the food from the fire and sets them on a tiled covered counter top. She cants her head up to him as he explains his own, "From the look on your face, I reckon its more interesting than that."
"I don't know. I think that smile is worth quite a bit," Fl'ynn counters with a good-natured grin. The teen moves along, his hand reaching out to follow the scrollwork designs along a doorframe. He pauses and turns a bit to look back at her, "It is draft. It has bugs. There is mold everywhere. I'm pretty sure an entire generation of whersports lived there at one point… and I have no doubt it was once used as a meeting place for a couple of, uhm… lovers."
At his comment about her smile, Briana's features darken a bit, "Much better flirting then before." She finally says as she recovers from it. Indeed she looks relaxed here, laughing and smiling. "As much as I like looking at the sky and stars…most of my life has been in caves and under tree canopies." She looks around the room for a moment, "Something comforting about that familiarity." Deep in the woods surrounding by trees, where the rain falls not from the sky but the leaves of the canopy above. As he explains his own place she raises her brows, "Oh dear…sounds…interesting."
Fl'ynn breaks out into a bright grin at her first words, even outright laughing. His eyes lift some at her ceiling at the mention of a roof. He lets out a slow breath, glances to her, and almost seems to startle. "Oh! Hey. I brought you something." With that said, he lifts his other hand, brandishing a fat skin. "Weyr warming! Of sorts. I'm told it tastes like spring in Benden just after a cool morning rain. I've never been to Benden. I have no sharding idea how it tastes, but supposedly this is it." As for his place, that puckish grin might be the key to a tad bit of exaggeration. "A fixer-upper."
The meal looks simple, wherry steaks and mashed tubors, but there seems to be a myriad of spices used to give them flavour. "Well hopefully it will go with what I cooked. I hope you are hungry." She says as she sets the plates on a low table then hunts around in the cabinets for some glasses. It takes her a few goes, "Still trying to figure out where everything is." She explains before she sets them on the table and takes a seat motioning for him to join her. At the look on his face as he speaks of his weyr she narrows her gaze, "Indeed…run down to the ground it is? Not fit for a drudge?" She says in a lightly teasing tone.
"I knew there was a reason it smelled so amazing in here… I was starting to wonder if the smell just came with the place and I'd be just that much more jealous." Fl'ynn slides right on into the seat offered, not shy at all. He nearly bumps his knees in the process, but it is all done with a grin. "Like I said, a complete hole in the wall. Completely. The bugs…. I mentioned the bugs, right? So many. Not fit for man or beast -other than those whersports." Without a qualm, he seizes those glasses, pouring the white wine into each -and a generous amount at that.
"And You and yours are loving every bit of it, I take it." Briana says with a half smile for the bluerider as she waits for him to fill the glasses. Once done she reaches out for her own and gives it a sniff, "Smells nice at least…" She starts before holding up her glass towards him, "A toast…to all of us surviving Weyrlinghood." She says with a grin as she looks to the bluerider, "And the headaches we are likely to have in the morning."
"To survival," Fl'ynn agrees, his smile true. Glass lifts, and then the teen is taking a long drink from his glass. He gives up an audible exhale, blinks for a moment, and then shrugs his shoulders, "Tastes like wine to me." Food has been set before the teen, and food he shall happily eat. "We need to make the headache worth it. Drink every last drop, eat every last crumb. You have to tell me at least two secrets, and I'll do the same."
Briana clinks her glass to his before taking a tentative sip of the drink, "Yep…wine." She agrees with a smile then sets the wine glass down to start cutting up her meat. "Well I have paperwork in the morning, I suppose I can manage that with a bit of a headache." She says taking a bite of her steak with a look of something analyzing the flavours before she gives a nod, "Could have used a little more pepper." She murmurs before she looks up to him in surprise, "Oh…um…you go first. You tell me one, then I will tell you one. Have to think about it."
Fl'ynn cringes some at the mention of paperwork. He flicks a look back up and across to her, all dark eyes. "Paperwork. Such an exciting life." So very dry, not the food though. Mouth full, his head shakes from side to side following her critique. After a swallow, he manages, "Not at all. It is good. I'm gonna come by more often, and you will cook for me, and it will be perfect." Wine to wash it down. Noticing that Briana's is a little low, he leans right on across to refill. "My parents don't know I'm a dragonrider. Last letter I sent to them had me… uhm… I think I was at Boll."
Briana leans over and gives him an elbow in the side, "It is not that bad. I actually enjoy it. It also helps me learn a bit quicker about all the things I need to know. I am really nervous about meeting the Lords around here. What if I say the wrong thing? Reading the reports at least I can get a feel of what they like and don't like, what other holdings they are alligned with or not." She reaches for her wine glass then grins, "I would love to. Not quite ready to give up on my cooking." At the secret he gives, she blinks, "Seriously? Why haven't you told them? Everyone makes it seem like quite an honour?"
Fl'ynn hitches at that elbow, groaning loud, and then laughing. "Still sounds boring. Sitting and reading and thinking about what you are going to say before you say it. So happy you impressed gold instead of me." His shoulders rise and fall with a shrug, looking to her from beyond the rim of his cup, "Because I swore to my parents that I'd come back with my wanderlust exhausted and happily farm. I didn't have the guts to tell them. Boy are they gonna be surprised." He takes a long drink, licking his lips afterwards. As for the cooking, "Good, because I'm always hungry. Now your turn."
"Reckon we get chosen for what we are suited for…at least I hope so." Briana says looking towards the wallow through the large doors on one side. Sahazyth gives a little warble as she settles her head on her foreclaws. Bri smiles before looking back to Fl'ynn, "Well you can hardly turn down a rider, surely they will understand that. Really you should tell them." She says with urgency to her voice before leaning back in her seat to ponder her own secret. "I saw my mother after graduation."
Fl'ynn happily chews away at his meal, washing it down with another long drink from the wine. Refills again! His shoulders rise and fall in a shrug following, "I'll get around to it." Coward. His head comes up at her words, his look curious, "I don't think I know much about your parents. I mean, people and their rumors and whatever. Who am I to talk… but, what happened?"
Briana looks over to Fl'ynn for a moment, "How much do you want to know Fl'ynn? How much can I trust you with? Ers'lan knows my history and he doesn't hate me for it, but others only know part of it and have turned their gaze away. I don't want to lose you as a friend Fl'ynn." She says with a worry to her tone.
"However much you want to tell me," Fl'ynn replies with a bit of a nod. He shifts a bit on the seat, leaning back some with that glass still in his hands. "If you want to tell me tales, I'll believe them. If you want to open your heart out, I'll cover it back up again. If you want to feed me crumbs, I'll eat them. I won't press, unless you want me to." Fl'ynn takes another long drink, his eyes showing a little bright despite their darkness. "It is your secret to tell. I'll still flirt with you in the morning."
Briana takes a sip of her wine and looks toward her lifemate, the merriment gone from her features for the time. "I was born in a renegade camp. My ..father was one of the Elite and my mother a recent captive. She had little choice in the matter. The women in camp were for breeding for the most part." She says with a shrug. "When I was a couple turns old, I was taken by a couple of renegades to here. For a couple turns I lived here with them until they were both searched and Impressed and sent back to the caves. When I was about nine or so…our camp got raided by Ista Weyr and most taken captive. I enjoyed that time at Ista…a couple of us younger kids were allowed out and about with a guard. First time I remembered really seeing sky." She shakes her head, "The elites and some of the others including my Ma escaped. I and my brothers stayed on for awhile but finally was taken back. Ma…she just didn't feel part of that world anymore."
Fl'ynn makes sure their glasses are still full of wine as she speaks. He leans over to add some more to her glass, listening with an ear tilted Briana-wards. Leaning back, he watches her from beyond the black fringe of his hair, "Shit, and I thought whenever my brother would try to lock me in the root cellar it was the end of the world." He exhales slowly, considering, "So how did you finally end up here?"
Briana takes the newly filled glass, taking a few more sips before she looks down to a scar on her right arm from shoulder to Elbow. "Well…Given who my father was and my uncle…I was mostly left alone. It was not all bad a life, in some ways not much different from a weyr. Everyone has their job and they do it, just…well the punishments were worse and the risks of getting noticed greater. I was fourteen and got noticed. Some trainee thought …well he wanted to do what was done to my mother. I resisted and he cut my arm, luckily my Ma found us and dealt with things and got me out. I made my way back to Ista Weyr. A few months later, I got searched for here…and well you more or less know the rest."
"And now you told me your story, and I don't think you have suddenly grown three heads and tentacles and are some big, bad and awful thing. I'm looking at the Briana with the smile and the dark blushes right now. We don't choose our childhood. Shells knows, I'd have been the son of a Master Smith with an amazing workshop and a pastry chef. Instead, I'm a farm kid." Fl'ynn enjoys his wine, smiling after the vintage, "So what happened with seeing your ma?"
Briana can't help but smile at his response and her dark skin darkens again showing her blush. "I wish more thought as you. It was good, Ers'lan found a place neither of us would recognize and we got to talk and spend some time together. I think Thea would be upset…but she is my mother and I needed that. She is just a crafter who was taken captive and settled into life there such as it is." She shrugs at that, "Your second secret?"
Fl'ynn smiles faintly, shaking his head, "Don't wish that. If too many people had the same thoughts as me, it'd be a scary place." The wine in his glass sloshes about with a turn of his wrist. "Ahhh, spending time together, huh?" The teen's grin turns upwards just the slightest, the knowing sort of thing. "Mmmmm, uhm. I once stole a pie that was cooling on the windowsil at home and I blamed it on the canine?"
Briana can not help but smile at the first, "Ya ain't too bad Fl'ynn." She comments sipping from her wine glass, enjoying this company and talk despite the seriousness of her own story. Her eyes are bright from her consumption of the wine. Her features more relaxed than usual. "Was it at least worth the theft?" She cannot help but ask of his thievery before thinking about her own next secret, "I ain't a virgin.." She says before clapping her hand over her mouth.
"I had the worst stomach ache. Sure tasted good 'til I got halfway through," Fl'ynn admits. Of course, his plate is very much clean, with only a scattering of fallen spices and a few crumbs remaining. "You don't say!" Gasp. Shock! "So who was it? Male… Female? If it is female I'm gonna be regretting not bring a second skin of wine, because I'd definitely need it." Fl'ynn's smile returns bright and true.
"Oh dear! You ate the whole thing? That would give anyone a belly ache no matter how good the pie was." Briana says with her voice light and softly slurring. Her own plate is only half finished, her conversation focusing on her wine. "Nah, it was a Male over at Ista. He made me feel safe…we are still friends but we sorta grew apart otherwise with me being in candidacy then weyrlinghood. Never been with a girl..so we should be fine with one skin. How about you?"
"My eyes have always been bigger than my stomach. But I still try to fill up my stomach anyway," Fl'ynn admits with a chuckle, mostly at his own expense. His dimples slowly disappear as his features slide into something a tad more musing, dark eyes drifting away in thought, "He was a neighbor. His wife took the kids to visit her parents and he needed some help at the holdstead. It was a very… busy few days." Slowly, he brings his eyes back to look across to Briana. "I knew what I was getting myself into when he came over to ask for some help. Calving season."
Briana leans forward as he speaks of his own tale, little surprise nor judgement in her gaze as he mentions it was male. Well she has noticed his looks at Ers'lan as well as her and no doubt she saw more than a few things at the caves. "Did he make you? Or.." She asks, uncertain by his tone the ending of the story, "Was it ok?"
Fl'ynn blinks suddenly, and then breaks out into a grin, "Oh shells, I was curious. No doubt to that." His gaze slides a little to the side, taking a brief moment to drink from his wine glass. As he pulls it away, the smile upon his lips is pure devilry, but the good-natured sort. "Two seven-days later I tipped his daughter in our beasthold. We used to play hide and seek there all the time." He looks back to Briana, for all the world appearing helpless. "I am what I am. I like my… opportunities." He flashes her a wink, then abruptly leans over, offering up more wine. "Drink up! Still plenty here. Not a drop to waste."
Briana finally relaxes as she sees the grin, "I bet…" She murmurs before taking a sip of her drink and shaking her head at the next bit of information. "I never really thought about it I suppose…" She sets down her drink as he leans over to her. "Me too…" She says and making a bold gesture to lean forward and kiss him.
Fl'ynn, the flirt, sure wasn't expecting that, strangely enough. He almost startles enough to spill his glass of wine, and that would be a travesty. It is good wine and he just spoke about not losing a drop. "I just-" Any further discussion pauses as lips meet lips, stilling his thoughts. His eyes open wide at the smooch, it startling enough that poor Briana is going to get the after-effects of a hiccup for her actions. Wine-breath. He blinks again, watches her, and then breaks out into laughter. "Sorry. I'm a sharding cheap date."
At the hiccup, Briana jerks back with a look of surprise on her face, "Oh…I think I am as well. I didn't…well…I mean.." Oh dear. She suddenly looks down to her food as he starts to laugh. A look of consternation on her features, "It wasn't that bad was it?" She can't help but ask as she looks up at him, her voice slurred and eyes unfocused more with drink than dragon.
Fl'ynn's smile grows warm. As she leans back, he actually leans forward as if to set his forehead against her's. His eyes are dark, close, and nearly crossed at such a proximity, "You think too much." Never a good thing as far as Fl'ynn is concerned. "You're my favorite goldrider, and you just kissed me enough to startle all of the thoughts from my head. That was good…. and I drank too much wine. So I am pretty useless now. Pretty fardling useless." Beat. "Can I sleep here tonight? I'm pretty sure I won't be able to find my way back home."