Xanadu Weyr - Forest
In sharp contrast to the treeless, carefully manicured look of the main clearing, the forest is full of trees, and maintains most of its natural look. Wild flowers grow in their seasons, bordering the road leading from the main clearing as weaves its way between the stands of trees - wide enough for traffic of all types, even draconic. Leading off are several smaller, less worn trails, which branch outwards, making their way to private residences and other attractions - the theater for example. The road, though, continues on eastward, to the feeding grounds and the mine, and beyond that, to the coastal road out of Xanadu's territory.
Delenn has settled just inside the forest's edge with a blanket and a book, shading himself from the heat of the summer's sun. It was a break in all the rain that the weyr had been having, and now that the ground was drying and the heat was returning, the nanny had taken refuge from his cavern of littles in a sanctuary of fresh green grass, soft yellow flowers and the heady aroma of the trees surrounding. He'd stripped off his infamous red coat, folded it beside him, wearing now his simply tied purple long sleeved top and left his hair unbound.
This breaks of rain are indeed watched out for those people tired of being held up in their weyrs. No less for Laeraana and as someone as fidgety as this young woman really can not stay cooped up for long, not without driving everyone around her batty. She is wearing just a light sundress and sandles on this walk through the forests close to the weyr, a small swinging on her arm with her jaunty step. She looks to be on that awkward cusp of womanhood, just having hit a growth spurt but waiting on the rest of her to slowly catch up, curves just starting to form. As she walks up to the edge she notices the colourfully arrayed man there and grins. "Hey there.."
As of late, the womanly beauty that had made Delenn so appealing as a prostitute, had started to finally develop into a more masculine version. The baby fat that clung in the right places was replaced with muscle, but he still clung vicariously to the kind of looks that would certainly distract someone now and then and cause more than a few collisions. "Oh, hello." comes the soft tenor that undoubtably belonged to a man, though aging had been kind to the nanny, and though he was edging precariously towards nineteen, he could easily pass for someone Learaana's age. Offering the girl a friendly smile, he pats the blanket after closing his book. "Come and join me if you'd like."
At the offer Laeraana looks down the path to the forest briefly and screwing her lips in thought before she finally just shrugs and nods, "Sure if you will have me, just was gonna pick some flowers for Risa, but she don't like going into the forest." She says in a flurry of words before she sets down, neatly folding her legs beneath her and setting the basket before her. "Says Ma will have a fit, but really what can happen so close to the weyr?" She gives a shrug and extends out her hand to the man, "Seen you bout the place, in the nursery? You wear those outfits for them kids?" She asks quite frankly of his elegant outfits she has seen him about in, "But my don't it look comfortable and soft.." She says extending a hand out to touch the nice purple shirt of his. Ok so we are not shy.
Lifting a hand, attached to those delicate slender fingers of his are nails perhaps better suited on a woman. Slightly longer than the tips, they've been manicured round in their thickness, and given a coating of clear polish to seal in the moisture and keep them from splitting. As she shakes his hand, she'd notice the softness of skin, the lack of callous and the firm but somehow feminine way in which he holds hers. "Actually, it's just that I'm used to them." he says with a pretty laugh, retracting his hand from hers and returning it to lay flat over the book on his lap. "Before I came to Xanadu, I worked in a brothel." There's a smile suddenly on his face, despite his words. "They are quite comfortable, and as I take good care of them they'll last longer than something hastily bought." And good to his word, when Laeraana's feels the fabric, it is indeed silk, with a gorgeous genuine gold brocade. Same as the jacket there to the left of his knee. Save for the difference in pattern and color. "I'm Delenn."
Laeraana gives the hand a firm shake with overlong fingers of her own. One day her body will all catch up and make sense, but at fourteen whose does? "A brothel! Well my that is a different kind of job, Ma told me she spent a mark or two at one once. She had herself a right old time she reckons, said she would take me for my sixteenth iffin I wanted to, but Mommytoo had a right fit on that." She rolls her eyes at that as she retracts her own hand at that, "So where does a man go from doing that which makes babes to taken care of em, now that I reckon is an interesting story." So we have no shame as well as no shyness. She picks a few of the flowers she has in her basket and absently starts working them together in a garland as she speaks with the man. "Well right fine fabric, I got one silk gather dress, feels mighty nice it does." She grins as he gives his name, "Laeraana, you can call me Lae though if you like, most do."
Delenn laughs softly at that story, shaking his head lightly before setting his book atop that rather expensive looking jacket of his. "I've never been attracted to women, and so it's not likely I'd ever have any children of my own. So I suppose I live vicariously through the copulation of others." he muses, giving the girl a wink before he works a shrug up his slender shoulders. "I have always loved children. Some, friends, of mine have given me the honor of fostering their daughters. I like to think of them as my own." That said he smiles gently at the young girl, giving her his undivided attention. "I have to admit I prefer the feel of silk and satin against my skin far more than anything else. I rather miss the suite that the madam had set up for me. Silk sheets, silk coverlets on all the padded furniture." Another smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you Laeraana."
Laeraana just plows ahead, usually by this time she has heard her name gasped in horror or recrimination by some adult. But Ma taught her to tell it like it is and well she does. "I don't reckon ma ever did make up her mind on that score till Mommytoo came along, remember when I was younger she brought all manner of folk to the weyr." And from the sounds of it was quite open about her life with her daughter, "Uncle Kris got Ma pregnant with Mommytoo's kid so thats how I got myself a little sis, perhaps you just need to find a gal who don't really want the kid and ..make a deposit." She says quite matter of factly. She tilts her head in thought, "Well I ain't ever slept on silky sheets, but I reckon you would slide right the way off! Especially if you were doing the rumpy pumpy." There is an actual thought process going on behind her eyes as she tries to work out the technical difficulties of that.
Delenn coughs softly, flushing a bit of a red color before he shakes his head a bit and looks down. "I was with a woman once. I don't think though that I have enough deposit to leave, to get anyone with child." he says somewhat sadly, but he lifts his shoulders gently and then drops them again in a delicate shrug. He tilts his head and glances over with his startling green eyes at the garland the girl is making, busying himself with that before he lifts his gaze to her face. "It's manageable. Especially if your used to all the rumpy pumpy as you put it."
Mission accomplished, make the whore blush! "Well you should talk to Uncle Kris, he helps women get pregnant all the time." And how that must come out without much explanation that 'Uncle Kris' is the Masterhealer of Pern and whose speciality is gynecology and obsetetrics. "I suppose its harder when you ain't much like what you are sleeping with." During this conversation she continues to make the delicate garland of flowers, something so feminine and delicate to be at odds with her crass and bold speech. She nods seriously at the last, "I suppose if you had it all practiced and such you could manage it…I just reckon I would slide clean off leaving whoever behind! Now wouldn't that be a sight." She laughs at this.
Delenn shakes his head again, "It simply wasn't meant to be is all. I've come to accept my lot, and that's fine by me." he says gently, admiring the work of the garland again before shifting his legs out from under him and to pull the silken slipper shoes from his feet, showing off manicured perfect little feet. It was if he had been bred to do the job he so recently departed. "So you have two mothers do you?" he asks, and tips his head to the side. "One of my little brother's foster parents has two fathers. I'm afraid that's as closely as I can relate. My mother passed a few months ago, and my father…" he laughs and flips his hair, on what might be considered a flirtatious gesture but for Delenn was much closer based in irritation or nervousness. "He's really only interested in one thing, and then he disappears until he gets the itch again." Whatever that means. "Well I certainly hope that someday you have a chance to sleep on silk sheets sweetling."
"Well mommytoo reckoned that as well she said, always wanted to have a kid, but she got broke hips or somesuch, but then she met Ma.." She says with a grin and with the implication of 'the rest is history'. "Well once I had a dad I reckon, sorta have to to get made, and Ma just can't reckon on who I resembled most of who she was with at the time so she just named me for a friend of hers. Never did settle down till she met mommytoo and well outside of flights she is right faithful." Laeraana says with a shrug and raises her completed garland in the air with an air of pride of some great work, before neatly coiling it up and setting in the basket again. "Yeah ma gets the itch too, so always travels this way and that, but she is always home at night. Sometimes she takes me with her, sometimes just leaves me with Mommytoo, but gets so stiffling at the Hall I usually just hitch up here most of the time." Definately a free spirit and perhaps many would be upset at their mom's for such frankness about her upbringing but it seems to Lae just a part of the tale.
Delenn listens to all that, fingering the leather binding of his tome before he smiles and nods now and then, absorbing the information relayed to him without question or judgment of how the young lady before him was raised. After all his own mother had brought him up in a brothel, saw how pretty he was, and set him to work in the same profession she'd settled upon without much care about how her son felt about it. Lucky for her it had more or less worked out for the best, even in those turns that most teenagers rebelled against authority and what their parents thought best. He does smile some when the comment he made in passing, and had not meant to leave the rushings of his mind, is taken out of the context upon which he had laid it out. Perhaps though that was for the best. "Yes well, we all learn these things eventually. I suppose some would prefer to shelter their younglings rather then expose them to those happenings that naturally occur." he says with a nod.
"I guess Mommytoo means well..its just…well..I like the dolphins and all that…just don't reckon its for me and both of em were hoping I would take it up, the dolphining and such, but well so much else out there to sort through that I ain't ready to settle on just one." She says offhandedly before looking up at the man, open curiosity in her gaze, "So what is like working in a brothel…sides the satin sheets…sounds luxurious." And if this open minded girl does not end up pregnant by fifteen it will be a miracle if her mother didn't already have her on the herbs. Definatly her mother's daughter and nothing her stepmother has tried to do has improved that. She looks like she will have the good looks to get away with it to once her curves settle in.
Delenn blinks once at the question all of a sudden, and the nanny laughs prettily again. "It's not as glamorous as you make it seem. All the finery is really only to attract and keep customer's marks flowing in your direction, because that's basically all that they care about. It's hard work too. The maintenance of keeping yourself fit and healthy involved is nearly as exhausting as the work is. Dressed in fine clothing and all the silk sheets usually took a huge bite out of your salary, as well as food and rent. It's not a career I would recommend to anyone, sweetling. I can only say that now, because I have a choice. It's never pleasent to have to sleep with someone regardless of how you feel about them. Reserve yourself to fits of passion and most of all love, and leave the brothel life to those that must live it hmmm?" he says friendly enough, even reaching over to lightly pat the girl's hand. "I should be heading back. My break has long since been over. It was, however, an absolute pleasure sharing this time with you Laeraana. I look forward to next time."
The girl almost looks disapointed as he explains the life of a prostitute, neatly bursting the little bubble. She gives a shy and a shrug , "Oh well, but I reckon I will see I can get Ma to buy me a set of fancy sheets anyhow." She responds with a quirk of a grin on her lips, "Well glad you are here now anyhow. Most people don't like speaking things outright and it can be frustrating." She responds and rises up just as graceful as she sat down as he readies to go, "Definatly a pleasure.." She says though there is a thoughtful look on her face as she watches the man prepare to leave.
Gathering up his coat, blanket and book, Delenn offers the girl another pretty smile before he steps free of the forest's soothing shelter and into the unforgiving embrace of the sun beating down above. "You take care of yourself darling." he says before he departs, heading back towards the weyr proper.