Xanadu Weyr - Harpers' Workshop
Through the labeled double doors is this spacious cavern set aside for the Harper craft. It's been completely sound proofed inside and out, but even after hours sometimes you can just pick up muffled voices in song, or instruments being practiced of someone burning the midnight oil. Inside, the large area has been divided up into several smaller places, also behind doors and have been sound proofed. A library of books and records stand upon the many shelves to the left, containing such content as music and Pernese history, law, and even sheet music. There are several access points at the long tables here for laptops to connect to data bases all over Pern, as well as to plug them in for a recharge. Long rows of chairs are pushed up against them. Silence here, is required.
Along the back wall is yet another space, and behind the double doors is a classroom for the practice of Storytelling. The chairs here are comfortable and upholstered, pillows are available as well for sitting on the floor. A projector is available for visual aid, with a white screen that pulls down should anyone need it.
The final space to the right of the entrance is likely the largest. All along the longest wall instruments hang free or on shelves for anyone of the craft to use. Guitars (both acoustic and base), flutes (including recorder and reed), violins, and lap harps. There is a few drum sets, and some standing harps as well. There are stands for music, benches for sitting, and even a corner where repair and maintenance supplies can be found.
Darkness has fallen. The hour is sometime after dinner in Xanadu. With the weather continues cold and mostly rainy turning whatever snow there had been into slush during the day, freezing temperatures at night freezing that slush, icy conditions still prevail. Although most of the ice storm accumulation has by now melted, it's being the sort raw biting cold that draws most people indoors if they don't have to be outside. Thus spots like the caverns, the crafters complex, the Wandering Wherry and the Treetop Cafe are packed with crowds. The harpers area is fairly quiet now that classes, dismissed before dinner, are finished for the day. The archives remain open, however and a few people peruse the books. Darsce is among them, back by one of the shelves that look to contain legal tomes, one elegant finger tracing titles as her lips move soundlessly.
Cold. Wet. Refreezing. Not Ka'el's favored weather at all, and it's fallen even lower on his totem pole of favored things now that he knows what it's like to do sweeps in it. Inclement weather hardly ever halts Search and Rescue. This is, after all, what they're here for. To be able to get to where they need to be no matter what the outside world throws at them! So after candlemarks of practice, Ka'el has finally found his end of watch and, after tending to Kanekith and himself with dinner and a bath, finds himself in the lesser traveled area of the Harper's workshop. The jacketed young man carries with him an object wrapped up in a blanket and bound with a rope of sorts. It's very guitar-shaped, and it's likely unsurprising when, upon moving to the large instrument area of the shop, it's an acoustic that's produced. One with a rather broken string. He leans the thing against the wall and looks around. Now whereabouts would one find replacements? Mmmaybe that way? He heads towards the archives, pulling off the wool cap from his head in the process. Books. Books. And more books. He makes a slight face, knowing he's on the wrong track. But curiosity keeps him moving forward as he eyes the tomes that line the shelves, footfalls leading him towards a particular blonde head without realizing that he's moving towards anyone in particular. Fate works like that sometimes.
That particular blonde is not fond of this weather either. For one thing the form-fitting soft sweater-dress adds a whole sixteenth inch to her figure. Y'know, staying warm takes priority over looking slim so she'll just have to deal with looking like a heifer. At least the rose-pink compliments her complexion and matches her suede knee boots and manicure. Maybe that's why she's not basking in the crowds? Maybe. The headwoman ahahs softly to herself and nimble fingers tip the spine of a certain law book towards her. Gravity does the rest and the heavy volume drops into her waiting arms. "Oph, gaw!" She staggers with the unexpected weight, barely manages not to drop the thing, hefts it more securely in her arms and pivots towards where the stack of books await her at a nearby table. In doing so, she finds herself face to face with Ka'el. She freezes. The urge to run is suppressed, moment of panic swallowed and she adopts a cool expression. "Oh. Hi." Aaaand she'll just go this- no that- no this- "Excuse me." She won't barge right by, but rather wait. Politely.
What do harpers read about anyway? Music theory. THe history of music. Poems and dramatic plays. Ka'el's eyes skim over the worn spines as he moves, pausing not to look at any one in great detail. That's not his purpose here, and it's obvious that these archives are not going to help him to reach his goal, for the titles soon turn boring. From music to law. Rules and protocol and many types of informational text with small print and big words. He's going the wrong way, and he's about to right himself by doing an about face before.. Ack! Someone is suddenly in his face! He stops in a jerked motion to keep him from crashing into the book-bound girl. "Sor-.." Oh. The apology freezes on his tongue and shatters from his voice upon realizing just who's in front of him. His expression of apology shifts, twisting into a slight scowl that lasts not long on his face before melting into a practicedly more neutral look, eyes shifting briefly to her headwoman's knot, if she is indeed wearing it. Her greeting fails to entice any return of one, and he shifts to move around her. Er, no the other way. Erk, she's going that way too! And so he stops moving altogether, lips tugging downward as he opts to stand and wait til she goes so that he can go too without any further dancing with one another. He stands and waits. She stands and waits. This isn't too productive, now is it? "Well?" he says, waving an arm semi-impatiently in gesture for her to go by.
She is indeed wearing it. Darsce's duties are over for the evening but she hasn't been back to her room yet or something. Maybe she's forgotten. She remains there, hugging the book as if it's a shield (maybe it is), one corner of her mouth forms a half-smirk at his bitten off apology but there's no amusement in her iceblue eyes. Oh she's being traffic-directed and she's more than happy to end the awkward. As she ducks by him, there's a flicker of something - uneasiness? perplexity? vulnerability? in the glance she directs his way but her face is hard and her manner deliberately casual as she moves to the table and thumps her book down onto the surface. She sits. Research time!
That was easy. Did he accidentally step on the Easy button back there somewhere in his search for strings? Ka'el watches as Darsce moves on by without her usual anything. No off-hand insult laced within falsely innocent words and insincere smile. No sharp look. A noise is made in his throat. Something caught between a snort and chuckle as he looks ahead again. "Excuse me.." He catches an apprentice to ask for strings, and he's pointed in the right directed before the kid shuffles off, nearly dropping his armful of music sheets. Wouldn't you know he has to go back towards Darsce's table to junk in order to get what he seeks? Eyes briefly meet the ceiling before he turns and heads that way, looking suspiciously as if he's heading right at her. Closer. Closer. And finally he's there, his path bringing him to and likely past her table. And as he passes that aforementioned table, he can't help but shift his eyes to her book-heavy table. A brow inches up, and the words escape his mouth without him wanting them to. "You read?"
If he did, he doesn't appreciate Easy enough. What a waste! Where's Darsce's Easy button today? She's bent over the book eyes scanning down the topics on the complex title page when the question is asked. Her spine straightens slowly and she turns her head over her shoulder to eye Ka'el. No smile insincere or otherwise. "Why," is drawled with syrupy sarcasm, "did you need me to read something for you?" No, she didn't think so. She turns back to her reading. Sheesh! Does the bronzerider not have enough to do that he must stand there and heckle her?! Yes, she remembers his name but she's trying not to. Just. Go away. Her teeth clench. Bite your tongue, Darsce.
Funny, Ka'el's mind is coaching him to do the same thing. Just go. It's been blissful, blissful months since their paths last crossed, just walk away and hope for more of them. But it's difficult now to listen to the good advice of his mind when seeing her reminds him of why he's aggravated by her in the first place. Like an old painting brought back to life by a fresh coat of colors, the details resurface from the recesses of his mind, and they cause the downward pull of his mouth to tug marginally harder. That peice of artwork was not the cheerful sort. "I prefer my books be the type with more words than pictures." Just walk away, urgers his brain! Be quiet and /go/. "But the primers in the nursery may enjoy hearin' someone read more on their level've understanding." He's paused in his walk now, hovering near her table, eyes betraying an expression of dislike before they shift from her, dancing to the exit. Oh, now he wants to listen? His jaw works in a slow rotation before he gets to moving again, his pace a walk.
Darsce makes no comment to Ka'el's jibe. Though she does throw something back into his face, something she doesn't have to search her memory for because it still hurts. "Grow up," she says. Because he's not acting like it. She flips to the page indicated in the table of contents and starts searching in the legalese. Who writes this sh- Ah! She finds it. And begins reading. Aloud. But quietly. Maybe to drown out anymore sarcasm. Maybe to bore him into leaving.
He's started moving already, but the phrase gives Ka'el reason to pause though he does not immediately turn towards her. He looks ahead, past the archive area, to his guitar still waiting to be mended, and then to the assortment of various strings that are on neat display in the area the apprentice pointed him towards. The one he needs is there, he's sure, but.. instead he turns, the action done without hurry and only halfway so before he pauses, glancing her way. "Already done. It's what makes it so easy to speak above you." Or down to her. Mean. He remembers her word as easily as she does his, and likely, it stings just the same. He watches her, his eyes quiet, yet smoldering. But she soon gets what it is they both want, and he turns back around to continue to distance himself from her, heading back to his instrument to retrieve as well as a replacement string for it to pay for, leaving no further reason for him to linger. And so, he doesn't.
"Fine, be an ass," Darsce mutters under her breath. She could be talking to the book and all that convoluted print. She's not going to go running after Ka'el or beg him to be nice to her. What's the point? She tried once before to tell him how she felt and he threw it in her teeth. So… yeah. Not going to be vulnerable again.