Who: Aleis, Madilla, Tiriana
When: Day 25, Month 11, Turn 21
Where: Garden Patio Ledge, High Reaches Weyr
What: Tiriana meets a new transfer.

Garden Patio Ledge, High Reaches Weyr
     Partly sheltered by the curving stone overhang, partly exposed to the weather, the wide stone patio serves as a balcony for socializing or just plain drinking on a sizable scale. The repurposed ledge might once have let two large dragons land, but now there's too much furniture for that: two rustic tables with attendant chairs, plus a couple more in particularly good weather, and a wrought iron bench situated to make the most of the view of the western bowl and the lake beyond.
     Other changes include rough little niches carved out of the stone walls to hold glows in colored bottles at night, the climbing plant that's being trained to grow up along the overhang, and the blue ceramic pots of flowers that dot the edge of the ledge as a colorful reminder not to fall off.
     An archway leads to the Snowasis itself, housed in the ledge's former weyr, while a few wide steps descend along the wall to the bowl.
     The weather today is very pleasant. A few clouds chase each other across the mostly clear skies, and a soft breeze picks up in the afternoon to make for a fine day.

Contents:
Aleis

Obvious exits:
Snowasis Bowl

Aleis
     A slim woman rapidly approaching the wrong side of forty, Aleis is still holding her own against age but there are increasing signs that the battle's doomed to be lost--the hints of crows feet around the eyes, hint of lines starting around her mouth. Her dark hair--mostly straight, it hits somewhere between her ears and her shoulders depending on how recently she's managed a haircut--has gotten a few strands of gray in it, but not that one would notice from a distance. Fair, slightly freckled, a strong chin and a slightly hooked nose, she's not apt to win prizes for her beauty but there are worse folks to look at. She stands a little on the tall side for a woman but not overmuch, slim, leggy, but there's solid muscle there.
     With cold weather approaching, Aleis favors sweaters and crisply-tailored trousers that do a little to accentuate her slight curves. She seems to prefer shades of gray and black, but the fine-knit sweaters are often a heathered shade of blue or green. Her black boots look like they've been through quite a lot, the narrow toes scuffed and re-polished repeatedly.

It's a fair day, a beautiful day by wet, cold, High Reachian standards. No small surprise that plenty of people are out in the bowl enjoying it, or staking out the handful of chairs on the patio. Tiriana, for her part, has one of them occupied with her butt, and another one with her feet, and nobody at present seems to really want to sit down enough to make her surrender one of them.

The shortage of weyrlings makes for a light workload for Aleis at present, if one doesn't count getting moved in, up to speed on The Way Things Are Done Around Here and so on. It leaves her plenty of free time, and a fair amount of that is spent around here. It's getting to know people, that's what it is. Nothing wrong with that. And sociability is a perfect reason to approach an already-occupied table, ask, "That seat taken?"

"Does it /look/ like it's taken?" is Tiriana's idea of a brilliant retort. She glances up, squinting faintly in the light before, grudgingly, she moves her feet out of the extra chair. Her drink, too, is scooted over on the table to make more room for Aleis, and then, resituated, Tiriana hefts a sigh. "What do you want now?"

"You could have been saving it for somebody." Aleis has a carafe and a glass, and sets both down before she brushes off the chair and sits down in it. "Well. Offhand, I'd take a million marks, or at least a house white that doesn't come from Tillek, but we can't be picky in this world, can we?" Which is presumably what's in the carafe, about a half bottle's worth. She fills the glass only halfway. "I'm not entirely convinced they make this stuff with grapes. I think it might be made out of lye soap."

Tiriana, sourly, "I hate people who think they're witty." She pulls her glass closer to her again, as though to protect it, or possibly herself, from this phenomenon. As for the drinks-- "Somebody actually drinks that shit? Huh." The things you learn. "Should stick with the beer. Or the hard stuff, but it's kind of early for that still, isn't it?"

Her glass poured, Aleis picks it up, regards it, takes a sip anyway. "I'm not a beer drinker, these days. The wine at Benden was decent. I suppose I might have to take it up--or does this half of the continent make beer as badly as they make wine?" Another sip and she sets the glass down. "Not that early, is it? Afraid I've had a little trouble adjusting to the earlier time zone. I'm still falling sleep at half past eight and waking up at four in the morning."

Sure, everybody knows Tillek's wines are inferior, but you can't really expect Tiriana to sit and take too much of that--especially when it becomes apparent that Aleis isn't a local at all. "I'm quite sorry, of course, if my Weyr doesn't live up to its billing," the goldrider answers snidely. "I'll be sure to write Lord Tillek and let him know your thoughts, how's that?"

There's a moment of blinking for that, like Aleis isn't totally sure if she's serious or not. "Well--not just yours. I mean--" The knot. She does finally register the knot, just a flick of the eyes in that direction. Not that it adds any particular measure of deference to her voice. "Of course not. Place has got a lot going for it. Just... maybe not this." She takes another drink anyway. See? Can't be that unbearable if she's drinking it. "I do live here now, it seems. Calls for certain adjustments to expectations."

Tiriana's brows lift when Aleis backtracks that little bit. "You mean what? Because that seemed pretty plain to /me/," she points out. "If you're going to insult a place, might as well stand by it." She takes a sip of her own drink and sets it back down on the table this time, as though she's not trying to lecture a woman nearly twice her age. "What are you doing here?"

"I mean I live here," Aleis clarifies. She has a wine glass. And a carafe partially full of the same, which is probably what's with the place-insulting here. "Tillek wines may be what they are, but I do live here. At the moment, what I'm doing is having a drink. As a general rule--don't you have to approve these things? I'm the transfer. Out of Benden? I suppose that might have been the Weyrleader. Such as, ah, he is." She sits back in the chair by Tiriana, takes another drink, picks up the carafe to freshen up her glass.

Likely utterly unaware of anything she might be dropping herself into, Madilla makes her entrance from the Snowasis, carrying her mug-of-something in both hands, and walking exceptionally carefully: it's hot /and/ full. She gets a fair few steps out the door before the fairly unmistakable sound of one of Tiriana's lectures, apparently, catches her attention - and then she freezes, not, by her expression, out of any particular nervousness, but probably more likely out of silent interest. Her thoughts are otherwise hard to gauge, her silent contemplation continuing throughout Aleis' speech.

"Yes, I got that," Tiriana answers, rather more snippily this time. "And now you insult my Weyrleader?" Nevermind she does so on a daily basis. "You must just make friends wherever you go. Yes, he handles rider transfers, what with the wings and all; I handle the lower caverns." Their audience of one is not noticed at present, Tiriana too busy trying to size up the older woman.

Dragon> There's a sense of feeling out, of mist that creeps in around one's toes, sends tendrils upward to investigate. Iovniath is certainly the more welcoming of the pair, her presence a slowly brightening white against the brown's mind. << Galbreth. >> (Iovniath to Galbreth)

Only a hint of a smile there. "Didn't say anything, did I? Perfectly nice young man, I'm quite sure. Your young man? No reason to be so prickly." Aleis raises her glass, looking at it before she drinks again, this time a slightly longer draught. "Different everywhere, I imagine." She's the one to notice the audience in question. "Looking for a chair? Sure there's another one around here somewhere... or other. S'pose they weren't ready for so many folks outside, nice day or not."

Dragon> A nice sunbeam on his ledge, and Galbreth's been drowsing in it since he returned there after dropping Aleis down there. That brightness finds hard passage in his thoughts. Dark, but not an unwelcome sort of darkness. << Yes? I apologize. I was... asleep... did you need something? >> Hints of grogginess, a slight lack of clarity in his thoughts, fuzzy around the edges with the clinging remains of somnolence. (Galbreth to Iovniath)

Being addressed sends a pink flush to Madilla's cheeks, and for a moment, she looks more inclined to stammer her excuses than to approach. But as her mouth opens, she pauses, and then, adjusting her mug, she takes a few more steps further. "I didn't mean to interrupt. But if there is a--" free chair somewhere, apparently, though immediate casting around leaves her more awkward again. Then, hurriedly, "Weyrwoman. Rider. I should leave you to it. Your--" Argument? Discussion? "Conversation."

"My Weyrleader," which is about as claimy as Tiriana's going to get, for K'del. Still, he ought to know by now he's going to have to take what he can get. She continues to eye Aleis with suspicion, though Madilla's voice is enough to pull her attention away, at least. Tiriana peers at her, offers, "Madilla. Do /you/ need something?" It's all so very long-suffering.

"Your Weyrleader. Of course." Casting about for a moment, Aleis finally does catch sight of a chair, and sets her glass down long enough to go over there and pull it over to the table. "Think nothing of it. Here we are." There may be something missing in the chain of authority, here. The brownrider sits again, wraps fingers around where the bowl of the glass meets the stem.

Dragon> << I did not mean to wake you, >> Iovniath answers, the apology only half-so: it's regrettable he was asleep when her curiosity needed satisfaction. << I only wished to greet you, and welcome you to High Reaches. My rider-->> She closes that thread of conversation off behind ice, and smoothly returns to the brown. << Do you enjoy our Weyr? >> With the same possessiveness, if not agressiveness, as her rider. (Iovniath to Galbreth)

Madilla looks... confused, mostly, glancing from one woman to the other, particularly as Aleis heads over to get that chair. "Thank you," she says, finally, though her gaze drifts rapidly back towards Tiriana as though making sure she has permission to join the pair. Or perhaps just determining whether she wants to. While she's looking at the Weyrwoman, though, she has the opportunity to say, "Need something?" She frowns. "No? Does no one ever... say hello without needing something?"

"Not... so much, no?" Tiriana cocks her head as though this idea is completely foreign to her. She even glances to Aleis to see what she makes of this--except no, they're not really friends so she ends up just frowning at the other rider. "Or if they do, they seem to spend the rest of it trying to insult all my people, but. So. Er... how are you, Madilla?" Small talk is so hard.

Dragon> There's no sense of a lingering grudge fot it at any rate. << It was snowing when we got here. >> Galbreth seems to actually consider this an answer. There's the clear impression of it, too, the wisps of those first snowflakes in night air. << Aleis says there will be more snow another day. It gives me a twinge, but not so bad as when it rains... >> He trails off into shifting shadows. << Do you? >> (Galbreth to Iovniath)

A quirk of the brow in Tiriana's direction. "I didn't insult anybody, unless you count the wine, and you're the one who called it *shit*, so I feel pretty comfortable on that score." Aleis holds the glass aloft, sniffs it. "Which is a sight worse than it really calls for. It may be a bit... acrid, but it's a long way from excrement. And it does what it needs to do. So it's Madilla, is it?" The older woman's eye then falls on the healer. "Nice to meet you. Aleis."

Madilla looks genuinely horrified at this idea, that no one ever just wants to say hello, never mind that it's entirely possible she wouldn't have done so herself, had she not been noticed. Shaking her head sadly, she sets down her mug, then takes the helpfully provided seat, hands returning to the mug as soon as she's seated. What she says, regardless of expression is a quiet, but nonetheless sincere, "I'm very well, thank you. And you, Weyrwoman?" Her gaze slides off towards Aleis as she adds, "Madilla, yes. Journeyman Healer. Well met, Aleis. I do apologise for the-- interruption." Shit wine or no. Which /definitely/ gets no comment.

"I'm fine," is Tiriana's short answer to Madilla. It is, apparently, the last thing they're going to get out of her for now, because she finishes off the last sip or so of her drink and stands. "I'm going to get a refill," the Weyrwoman announces then, as she turns to disappear inside.