Xanadu Weyr - Craft Complex
This large area has been painted a soft cream with dark orange trim used as an accent. It's separated into a variety of smaller sitting areas, couches and chairs organized into rings and squares, tables set where they can be used easily. Recessed electric lights in the ceiling provide a warm glow, and a row of angled skylights on the eastern wall above the entrance give some natural light when bleary crafters first emerge. There's often a cart with klah parked off to one side to help with waking up or finishing that important project - or simply to be enjoyed with comfortable seating and good company.
Along the southern edge, an open archway leads to a library of books and records. There's something for every craft, it seems, from tomes of caprine diseases, to Pernese history and law, to gemstone identification, to sheet music, to sea charts and herbal manuals. There's even a few works of fiction, though none of it seems very well organized. Whatever is sought, it's probably here… somewhere. A few desks for studying are tucked in amongst the shelves, each with a lamp to illuminate the reading material. Near that archway, a long table holds a row of computers. They're connected to databases all over Pern, and are available for general use except when the computercraft requires them.
To the north, a pair of double doors open onto a grand hall, the vaulted ceiling designed with acoustics in mind. This space is used for lectures and concerts, rows of benches set up to face the front. Along one wall, instruments hang free or on shelves for anyone with the appropriate skills to use. There are often harpers here, practicing their craft.
A pair of hallways lead back from the western wall, one going to the apprentice dorms and the the private quarters for the ranking crafters posted at the weyr. The other provides access to the various workshops.
It's just a little past sunset, and the day's activity in the craft complex has died down to the last few die-hards, peeling off one at a time as projects are finished or dinner can no longer be deferred. Down in the corner by the library, the electric light glow is augmented by two of the computers, still on and in use. Meion is sitting more or less between them, both their screens turned toward her as she compares documents loaded on both and makes notes in a battered book.
Wrapped in a cloak that doesn't belong in a season such as a Xanadu summer, a man appears from the direction of the library. It's not the first time he's been seen here, but it is only after Rukbat sets that he arrives to work whatever business he's come to do. That cloak is a thread-worn tan, wrapped about him in drapes and folds that shifts with the utterly arrogant swagger that boasts unhurried intentioned stride. Occasionally it shifts enough to reveal the pitch black of the tunic beneath, and the right hand that holds the satchel thrown over a shoulder glints in the light of the complex of silver'd rings. Disheveled hair falls 'cross his brow, darkening further the licks of shadows that create and defines his face, contrasting so-starkly the seablue of those eyes that glow in grim pleasure.. entertainment at something in the eerie cast of the computer's glow. The edge of the rogue's cocksure grin flickers faintly as his attention shifts from screen to screen and then- failing to find familiarity, or more likely something of actual interest- finally the back of the head of the Crafter who sits between them. He's very close when he speaks, just over her shoulder, his voice graveled, touched with a dash of a dark sort of humor, and thickly accented in something that simply drawls, "What is it that keeps you here past meal time?"
That chair jerks backward as Meion half-stands with a start. "You startled me." Which isn't a reply to the question asked, but more of a justification of that sudden, sharp reaction that might have knocked into him a little. "It's the best time to get work done here. S'quiet." A beat. "At least, I thought it would be. What are _you_ doing, anyhow?"
That man straightens a little when she moves so quickly, though that grin only seems to broaden a bit from that faint expression that had been there before. In the same vein as that smirk lends a facade of warmth, those eyes are naught by chilly, flicking down the whole of her.. then back up to her eyes. "My apologies, love." Kaellian's hum feigns genuine, his head tilted just-so just-slightly to one side at her question. "So you don't do anything the rest of the day, I take it. Too.. chaotic, bothersome?" He searches for the word, the way he speaks slow, as if the world is expected to wait for him to finish. It's as if he'd ignore her inquiry, but ever so eventually, he comes back around to it. "To reclaim something that was mine." Sounds ominous, but for once it really isn't. "I left it to be repaired, you see, but a trip of mine took me away sooner.. and longer than anticipated."
Rinian enters from the clearing, absently blinking at the change in light from the dusk outside to the lit room. A few wood shavings are still clinging to her clothing, and one at the end of her long hair where it is forward of her shoulder. She carries a small wood carving in one hand, an apparent work in progress if one were to pay it any attention, and she doesn't really notice the two over in the corner near the library. She is frowning just a little, and obviously has her mind on something else.
It's not that Meion is scared, exactly. But she's pulled late nights more than once, and late nights do bring out the most fascinating people. So while she's listening, she's leaning back to the table, pocketing that notebook she was writing in. "And did you leave it.. here?" She gestures at the row of computers, looking back up at him. She's made aware of the height advantage he has, not to mention the likelihood that he actually knows his way around better than she does, only a few days into her time at the weyr. "I expect you could get help finding it if you came back when there were more folk around."
"That's exactly what I'd rather avoid." Kaellian answers about more folks being around. His left hand, wrapped in a black cloth, reaches to scratch 'neath his earring'd ear. An idle motion. A thoughtful one, though thoughtful doesn't equate to benign. He lingers, or more accurately looms, at the edge of a too-close sort of bubble. He doesn't quite invade, but there is a heavy pressure simply in his presence. "Not quite here." Not helpful. Not meant to be. Seablue eyes, light against the kohl rims and shadows that surround them, have something far deeper within, that feeling of an abyss just-beneath. As if a kraken belies those waves, some blasphemous thing waiting just beyond where Rukbat's light may touch. While he is well aware of the shifting of people coming and going, if he does specifically note Rinian's entrance, he doesn't yet summon her. Everything happens by degree of.. amusement. That intense gaze has left to leave Meion for now, except when he strays for a flick of a glance to that book she pockets before returning to her face. Her lack of an answer to his question doesn't do anything to deter him, rather his study of her only becomes more curious, "And what exactly do you do with these things?" The computers- clearly his taste for them isn't as keen as computer/techcrafters tend to be.
Rinian continues on her way. So it seems Kaellian is going to have to wait even longer for what he's come to fetch. She passes through the hall and on down the hallway to where the apprentices live, not once looking around to see who is about.
A bit of a laugh, as she gets used to the roundabout way conversing with this man goes. "I find lost things." A true answer, if not the most helpful of one. "Though I don't think I'd be much help finding yours, since you lost it so recently. If you come back in a few hundredturns, I might be better prepared to locate it." The screens do little to make the answer clearer, both filled with numbers in neat rows. Meion hops up backward, sitting on the table between the two computers, right where that notebook had been set.
Like the easy ebb and flow of waves, that gentle pull of moons and ocean, Kaellian seems to move forward that half-step of distance Meion's hop up onto the tabletop grants her. To that subtle shift in weight, this close distance bares the whisper of metallic clinking in each of his small movements. The pendant about his neck that lays at his chest 'neath that cloak, the various silvers that decorate him, or the cutlass at his hip- the particular cause of the malevolant symphony could be any, or all. "Do you now." Whatever falsity composed his interest before, there's something different now. As if she spoke some key word. "My artifact may be old, but it isn't exactly lost. One of your-" That wrapped hand in returning to his side flicks a couple of fingers in vague gesture,"friends has it to fix. At least, part of it. It has seen some unfortunate days." Because all of the Crafters are friends, clearly. Damn storm season has been particularly rough where he hails, and it isn't the only thing that has difficult times befall it- just the most mobile thing. "And how do you go about digging such precious things up from your picturebox?" It's hard to tell if he's joking, since that cocksure look of him hasn't moved, his sarcasm a dry thing.
The table creaks with a shift in Meion's weight, as she leans over to look at one of the screens full of numbers. "Well. Like this, pretty much." She gestures, pointing out a column of the numbers. "If I can work out what these mean, then I've probably got a screenful of something recorded when the first settlers were still living. But it's broken, too. Chunks of it are missing, and there's no guarantee that things didn't get changed over all the turns since. So I piece it together." She hops forward again, onto the balls of her feet, countering that intrusion in her personal space with one of her own. "But it sounds like you know what you're looking for, and who has it. So that means I'm not much use, doesn't it?"
The explaination manages to remove that intense study of her to one of the screens with the air of one who is used to scouring texts and maps for something. But to his eyes, these lists mean little to nothing, and there may even be a slight tick to the muscles of his jaw. When Meion shifts forwards, his gaze returns to her, a brow risen when she places herself even closer than he'd come. "Nay, lass, I don't believe that to be true at all. Quite the opposite, really." Kaellian's voice lowers, just above a whisper, making those words even harder to understand in the thickness of that odd accent he owns. "There are a great many things I search for." That's not exactly the truth, but rather close, "Perhaps our paths might cross." A beat, "And should they, I may have some things that would interest you, should you look beyond those screens for your information." In exchange for something of course. Everything comes with a price.
Meion can't help looking curious at that, even as there's a none-too-small part of her mind telling her that maybe business dealings with shadowy men who prowl the weyr past dark are a bad idea. She settles for a noncommital nod. "Well. If you _do_ need something looked up, this is where you'll find me, if you'll find me anywhere at all." She turns the monitors back toward their usual positions, clearing each screen with a small flurry of keystrokes. "There's so much in these old databases, though. Really, it's amazing." She's packing her things, few as they are, even while she talks. Whatever she was doing, she seems to have decided it's over for the night.
"Aye, I'm certain that will be the case. And I will be around again." If not for this mysterious object he's left with a crafter to fix, then for whatever brought him to haunt Xanadu's halls in the first place. Lopsidedly, his grin broadens a bit again, this time seeming to touch those chilly eyes, adding little lines at their edges. Making him seem almost friendly, in a serpentine manner of course. That welcoming grace of his, that honey'd venom that drips from his tongue. Though he makes no attempt to hide the fact that her admittance of her specialized interest of her Craft is of interest to him, even watching as she taps away at the keys- as if maybe it is similar to cracking a lock. It's not the same, though. He doesn't follow. But it doesn't matter, for now. "I've heard story of many a'secret from far before our time. I can only imagine the layers yet to be found, if that is true." Of her databases, of course. But now that pressure waxes, for the man dressed in blacks, the man of the sea, steps back from her. Straight back a step, two. "Next time, I shall bring something with me." Next time? It could be a month, a turn, never. He makes no specifications, doesn't need to. The world is on his timepiece, remember. "Should you wonder of it- should you… remember.., then perhaps we can continue this conversation as entertaining as it is." Then, from that newly granted distance, he bows to her- a flourished thing with that bad hand of his on his chest, his gaze lingering for a heartbeat more, then turns to head back out into the night.