Seeking Interest and Answers

[Invisible]

The non-weyrbrat showed no annoyance at the joining of the rider to their table. Genet didn’t know what to say to S’bron so she just smiled brightly at him and scooted over a bit to indicate he was welcome to as much space as he wanted.

Emeni’s question was answered with a chipper, “No, I haven’t met him. I’ve only met some of the riders in the wing with G’tet. It’s nice to meet you, S’bron.” She completely ignored Emeni’s attempt to upset either her or the rider with the flirting comment. There wasn’t much she thought to say right now since they had been making fun of the weyrleader and she was not going to continue that now. Besides, Emeni had already asked the question she wanted to know about. What was he doing here?

[Omnia Munda]

Stoic as he was, S'bron's disappointment at being allowed to join the girls did not show on his even features. He sank into the chair and murmured a thanks to Genet for the extra room, surrendering his lunch plate and wine to the table so his hands were free at last. Even so, there was no way he could pick up a sandwich and get a bite into his mouth fast enough to excuse himself from answering Emeni's questions.

"No, we don't," he replied about knowing or not knowing Genet, buying time with poor coin and failing to explain in the least how he knew the former candidate's name. "I guess I'm just looking for lunch company."

It sounded a little bit like a question and, therefore, a little bit ridiculous. He tried to play it off with a lift of one shoulder, then picked up the sandwich and took a bite. So there.

[Slim]

Emeni sat there for a moment between two suddenly untalkative people with her eyebrows raised. Awkwaaard. Too awkward not to laugh. "Well, you found some!" she said brightly, masking her amusement behind a drink of water. While she drank, she let her eyes wander around the room, looking for snickering pranksters who might have put S'bron up to this. It had not slipped her notice that he inexplicably knew Genet's name, but she decided not to keep hounding him about it.

"Genet and I were just talking about the missing riders. You know, like Wingleader Th'ane and the rest - and her brother's with them, see. I don't guess you know anything about it?" He was, after all, the new Weyrleader's man now. Emeni smiled at him, but there was a gimlet glint in her eyes know. Whatever S'bron was too tactful to say, his expression might accidentally hint at, and she was going to pick it up if at all she could.

[Invisible]

It was not that Genet had nothing to say so much as she was not sure if any of it was the right thing to say. She really wanted to know why he had chosen this table. How he knew her name. No one knew her name around here. Back home everyone knew her, but here she was just a faceless lower caverns resident and failed candidate. Oh! Maybe that was it? Well, whatever the case there was conversation now.

“G’tet,” she offered with a sunny smile for the mention of her brother. “He rides green Kalpeth,” because maybe he knew her brother? They were twins and he might have recognized her that way? “It’s very strange. They left around the time of the hatching. Maybe during even. I know he was not there afterwards because I looked for him.”

[Omnia Munda]

S'bron did not seem to have noticed the awkward. Or else he was accustomed to long silences blossoming in his presence, and had so long ago grown used to them that they no longer seemed strange. He chewed his sandwich in peace.

Alas, peace was not long for him. He swallowed and reached with the non-sandwich hand for the wine. "I guess I don't," he told Emeni, a smile somewhat less than earnest at the edges of his mouth. "Aside from that they're gone. B'nek's 'second, too."

He knew of G'tet, and nodded to Genet to indicate as much; though he didn't know him well enough to have remembered his face reflected in his twin's, he was content to let her assume whatever might let him off that particular hook. "He hasn't written?"

[Slim]

Denied an opportunity to guess what was going on from S'bron's expression, Emeni nevertheless looked satisfied. At least she smiled back at him, and her smile was more sincere than the one the brownrider summoned up. "Too bad. I didn't think so, though. Nobody seems to know anything."

[Invisible]

It felt to Genet like there were undercurrents to the conversation she was missing out on. If the other two knew each other, she decided, that must be what it was. Dismissing further concerns she shook her head rapidly at S’bron’s remark.

“He has not written or sent me a message from someone or anything!” she says with rising excitable worry once more. It did not take much to get her going on this subject and a pair of willing ears was twice what she might normally need. “It’s just I’m so worried. He wouldn’t have gone somewhere if he’d have known it would mean leaving me here all alone for so long.”

[Omnia Munda]

"I bet you're worried," S'bron told Genet, empathetic - though not so much so he couldn't take another chew of sandwich, washed down with wine. But while he ate and drank, the brownrider's brows started to sink. He switched his gaze from the greenrider's twin to the old weyrleader's daughter.

That didn't help. S'bron was decidedly frowning by the time he spoke again. "It's not the only thing no one knows anything about," he told Emeni, and though he instantly wished he hadn't, he also instantly felt more at ease, more honest in himself. It showed in the angle of his shoulders and the relaxation of his narrow mouth.

His next was aimed at Genet, in earnest curiosity now. "He at least told you farewell before he went, right?"

[Slim]

Emeni liked to think she was sly, which was why it frustrated her when someone said something whose meaning she could not place - as S'bron just had. So she squinted at him, trying to puzzle him out. Did he wonder what his old Weyrleader was up to? If so, she could agree with him, because S'lyn never told her anything.

He had good reasons. When all else failed, Emeni had all the subtlety of a drunken sailor in a women's privy. "Well, what else d'you wanna know about, S'bron?" she asked directly. She'd noticed him relaxing a bit, though, and wanted to keep him in that state of mind. To that end, she flashed him another smile, setting her elbows on the table and adopting a more informal posture. She even leaned sideways a bit, directing her friendly attention toward Genet when the brownrider questioned her, for all the world quite happy to hear her answer first.

[Invisible]

Finding herself wishing she still had food or had at least thought to get a drink Genet looked from S’bron to Emeni. It almost felt like there was still an entire conversation going on around her. That did not normally bother Genet, but today it did. Probably she was still just overly agitated about her brother’s disappearance and the lack of care some of his so-called friends seemed to have with that fact.

She started to answer, but Emeni spoke and so Genet closed her mouth and waited. Once she had asked her question Genet could speak again. “I waited for him. I waited as long as I could but I had to go out. He never showed up to say goodbye and he wasn’t in the stands because I looked and even if I didn’t see him I know I would have been able to see Kalpeth.” Well, she believed she would have been able to see Kalpeth. Maybe it was not the same thing in the reality outside her head.

Standing up she smiled, “Excuse me. I forgot to get a drink. I will be right back.” Heading for the table with klah she didn’t worry herself with what they might say before she returned.

(OOC: Genet will reappear after two rounds. Just because! Expect her back after Slim’s second post!)

[Omnia Munda]

Emeni's question earned a rather sudden look from S'bron, sharp and suspicious. He covered it - badly and belatedly - with another drink of his wine. It kept him occupied while Genet spoke and excused herself, too. The brownrider watched her go, brows sunken.

"The usual," he said at last, sounding more guarded than he looked. He turned slowly back to Emeni, shaking his head. "Travelers and holdless pay tithe to no one. I'm no bean-counter, but I can't help but wonder how it adds up."

S'bron paused a beat, frowning ever more deeply. He was increasingly certain that the territory he tread was dangerous indeed; yet he could not seem to stop his feet - well, literally, his mouth - from moving. It was an addicting thing, feeling listened to - and though he'd had a good fix of the stuff from J'fel, the weyrleader had departed him a little prematurely.

Just the same, he was starting to wonder if it hadn't been Genet he was supposed to keep company with, at all. Fixing up a sheepish grin on his face, S'bron gestured a shrug with his sandwich. "Enh. I suppose you hear enough of that kind of complaining."

[Slim]

Emeni hadn't heard that part of Genet's parting with her brother - hadn't even thought to ask - and could not help but feel a little sheepish for the oversight. She pulled her smile back, making it a touch more sympathetic, but before she could express any of that sympathy Genet was off to get a drink. "Poor girl," she said anyway.

Then turned back to S'bron. Realizing she'd been a little callous with Genet did not make her any less so with the brownrider - after all, he was a big boy. He could take it. "What, 'cause of my job or 'cause of my Pop? He doesn't complain. But I count beans for a living these days, and I can tell ya, it sure doesn't add up. They're running out of stuff to trade same as we are stuff to keep 'em. What're you gonna do about it?" Merely a rhetorical question, as her shrug indicated.

[Omnia Munda]

Both a big boy and capable of taking it, S'bron shook his head, the sheepish grin sliding easily into a wan smile. "Push them to solve their own problem," he offered, though the question Emeni had leveled was arguably rhetorical.

It did occur to him, however, that he might have spoken too quickly and too freely. To prevent more of the same, the brownrider attended once more to his sandwich, and with gusto.

[Slim]

Emeni made it hard for S'bron to back away from his words, because she'd greeted them with a big grin. She stuck her hand out across the table, same as she'd done with Genet earlier, demanding a handshake that would tear him away from his sandwich. "You 'n me, S'bron, let's go out there and drag their wagons back on the road. One by one if we have to!"

She waited for her handshake, but whether she got it or not, she soon drew the hand back to rustle up her hair. "I mean, I'm kidding with ya, obviously, but that's the right idea, ain't it? I think if they've got problems with the holds, we're not helping letting them hide up here like criminals or somethin'." Emeni made a face.

[Invisible]

Genet had taken her time getting her drink because she required a lot of sweetener in her klah. Also, the kitchen staff had just brought out fresh bread and who didn’t love fresh bread spread with lots of preserves? Two big pieces and her mug were carried back with her and she caught the tail end of Emeni’s words which made her frown.

“We’re not helping them at all,” she said with a shake of her head as she sat down. “If they want our help we should be giving it instead of looking like we’re just letting them sit here and hide. As long as they’ve been here I haven’t seen a single child out of place.” Genet rather liked the exotic Caminar. Out on the road, she imagined, life was a lot more exciting.

“If we cared at all someone would be looking for those children instead of just casting blame on the easiest targets.” Genet took a big bite of her bread and after washing it down added, “Just like bullies. That’s what everyone is being like. Pick on those unable to defend themselves against a bigger attacker. It’s a disgrace.”