Remembrance (tag Max)

[archenstone]

"Sowhat you think Fiona? The waterfall is sooo nice here." Kalina said to the empty space in front her. She sat alone at the table with a bottle of wine. Normally it wouldn't be a bad thing except the bottle was only a quarter of the way full. As she took another drink she vaguely noticed how far she needed to tip it. "Did you drink all the wine Tr'esn? I twaas full just a minute ago..." Her gaze shifted to the left at yet another empty seat. "You were supposed to shaaare" She blinked, trying to focus on the two people sitting with her.

It had been a long day for Kalina. First she was woken up three hours earlier than normal by Arcturius and Raziel squabbling. Then she had a patrol that lasted into the afternoon. She had somehow missed lunch and had to scrung up something to eat when Uminth accidently smacked her tail into something that hurt. So she had dropped what she was eating and went to comfort Uminth and make her feel better. Then through out the day she had run crazy trying to get all the tasks done that people kept giving her. By the time evening came around and she had dinner she needed to relax. So she had grabbed a couple bottles of wine and found a quiet place to drink. One thing led to another until she was back at the dining hall with only one bottle.

"You think so too Fiona? Shards if only things had worked differently... damn Wastelanders! I wish I killed them all! If one was in front of me right I would tear..." Her voice had been rising and she suddenly stopped talking. She looked to one of the empty seats in front of her and said, "Oh". With a glum look on her face she took another drink. In a much quieter tone she said, "By the Golden Egg.....I miss you all so much...why wasn't I there with you? We could have fought them....maybe even get out together. Maybe we would all be together between, who knows? But I am such a coward.." Her head tilted down slowly. She blinked, feeling the lull of passing out over her. Not ready to give up though she blinked and jerked up. Almost spilling wine on her dark blue shirt.

"What was that V'kir? You like my hair? Thanks...I braid it every day now thats its so looong." After another drink she said, "You can touch it if you want."

[Aftershock]

Max was nursing his cup of klah between bites of his breakfast, hoping the concoction would help remove the weights that kept attempting to pull his eyelids down. Since Nefertiti was approaching maturity (according to those other razorclaw owners he had questioned when everything had begun), she was beginning to become much more active during the day, apparently in preparation for her first mating, and it wasn't doing well for Max's (or Maximisk's) sleep schedule.

Snorting and lifting his head from nearly falling face-first into his eggs, he heard a voice nearby, and turned to see it's source. An attractive raven-haired rider (green, from her knots) was sitting a few tables over with a mostly-empty bottle of wine, talking to... someone? He shook his head to try to clear the sleep from his brain, and narrowed his eyes at the young woman's table, still seeing no one else she might be speaking to.

Blinking in confusion, he scraped the last few forkfuls of food into his mouth, then took his plate to the kitchens before refreshing his cup of klah and moving over to slip into a seat across from the intoxicated greenrider. "Hello, there. I don't mean to interrupt your... er... conversation, but my eyelids seem to be fighting to close on me, and I thought perhaps you might enjoy some company from someone more visible," Max began, a friendly smile on his face.

[archenstone]

Kalina straightened and looked at Max. "Fiona was just....." She blinked. With the smaller man sitting in front of her she realized there was no one sitting there. She was too drunk to question the past half hour....or any other part of the evening though. She was quiet for a moment as she studies his form. It didn't seem to want to stay still long enough for her to really see him, but she realized he was smiling and his tone was friendly. Kalina smiled back and relaxed with her elbows on the table. "That maaight be a good ideaa." She agreed, glancing from him to the bottle. The bottle was so close to empty she set it aside with over exaggerated caution as if afraid to let go. The bottle managed to make it safely out of her hands though and she rested with both elbows on the table.

"I'm Kalina, greenrider to Uminth. I'd offferr youu a drink but I'd have to wwalk to the kitcheen."

[Aftershock]

Glad to have gotten the woman's attention without anger at dispelling the illusions in her mind she was speaking with, Max smiled wider and put his own elbow on the table, surreptitiously flexing his bicep as he said, "Max, of blue Maximisk. I appreciate your offer, my lovely greenriding conversational partner, but alcohol is the last thing I need before I go on patrol this evening." Gesturing at the bottle, he added, "Besides, you seem to have claimed the majority of it yourself anyway."

Smirking playfully, he says, "So, are you going to introduce me to your friends? It seems it would be rude not to."

[archenstone]

Kalina listened to him and tried to remember if she knew him. It dawned on her that he was a Wherhandler like Piden, and if if she could trust her judgement he seemed rather cute. His words flowed smoothly and she had to focus to listen to his words instead of his voice. She nodded as said, "I suppoose you'rre right." When he mentioned her friends her brows furrowed.

"I was..." She felt confused. Did he mean her friends in the Weyr or who she was talking to? Who was she talking to? The struggle to put all the pieces together was evident on her face but after several moments she put it together. "I can't....they're dead." She pursed her lips together in a frown. "All dead." Her expression shifted from angry to sad, as if unable to pick an emotion.

[Aftershock]

Max's smile drooped when she mentioned the death of her friends, and he reached forward to place a calloused hand on one of Kalina's own as he said, "I'm sorry to hear that. I lost a few friends myself, recently. This life can certainly be a dangerous one."

Trying to raise the mood, he forced a small smile back to his face after a moment of silence for those who were lost, and said, "Well, life is for the living, right? Our friends might no longer be with us, but I'm sure they wouldn't want us spending all the time we still have feeling sad about them and wasting our lives in sorrow and pity." Raising his cup of klah, he indicated the mostly-empty bottle of wine with a gesture as he exlaimed, "Come on, then, with me: a toast to friends, may we live our lives twice as much, to enjoy the time they couldn't enjoy themselves!"

[archenstone]

Kalina almost shied away from the unexpected touch but managed not to move. It felt comforting to feel a solid real hand. She tilted her head back up and gave him a tentative smile. "It scertainly caan be. I don't thinnk about it often but today's just beenn...one of thosse dayss." His offer of a toast gave Kalina an unexpected flicker of amusement which broadened her smile. She picked up her nearly empty bottle to toast with them. "Too friendss, may we rejooice that we knew them, so thay live forevver in our hearts. And also to neww friendss, and a good fun time!" She toasted with him and finished off the bottle, setting down wobbly but up. "I knoww you have duties soon. But would you mind a short walk? I nneed to sober up and go sleep before I have any more....misadventuuures." She gave him one of her classic smirks and fluttered her lashes slightly.

[Aftershock]

Max grinned openly once he saw Kalina react positively to his words and offer of a toast, clinking his cup off her bottle and draining the klah as she drained her wine. Placing the cup down, he smile more openly at Kalina as she requested to have a walk with him. "I would be foolish indeed to refuse a walk with so lovely a lady, duties or not. I've got plenty of time to walk you back to your weyr, or wherever else you might wish to go." Standing up, he leaped over once he saw Kalina stumble a bit from her inebriated state, not trusting his short stride, though he did not remove his hand from her lower back once she was stable once more. "Shall we? Would you like an escort back to your weyr, or perhaps a walk through some of the more unexplored areas of the Weyr that I've found during my patrols with Maximisk?"

[archenstone]

As Kalina stood she stumbled back a little. Max's leap across the table was probably the only thing saving her from falling on her butt. She instinctively placed a hand on his shoulders. They where the only thing stable in her wobbly world. She didn't protest his hand on her lower back and wasn't inclined to immediately move her hand either. She chuckled, finding the situation amusing and when she heard the word unexplored she looked at him with keen interest. For the moment her eyes lit up in curiosity. "I love a little adventure. As long as you promise to get me back into explored territory once we are done.[/i] The last part was said playfully and Kalina seemed to have a perma-smile. Exploring? Drunk? Comrade in arms? She was good to go!

[Aftershock]

Max smiled up at Kalina as she put her hand on his shoulder, saying, "Oh, you enjoy adventures, do you? Well, then, off to adventure we go!" He let his hand drift a couple inches lower as he lead the greenrider forward with him, careful not to walk too fast and upset her delicate balance.

Grabbing a glowbasket on the way, he began to walk with Kalina down past the normally-traveled sections of the Weyr, into the tunnels normally only he and the other wherhandlers traveled. As they explored dusty side corridors and long-empty weyrs, he said, "There are miles of tunnels like this, you know. This place obviously supported a much larger population than we have now, back when it was first made... makes you wonder where they all went."

[archenstone]

Kalina didn't seem to notice where Max's hand had wandered to, or if she did, she did not care. She was a little wobbly and kept a hand on his shoulder, sure she would teeter off if she let go. The excitement of going deeper into the Weyr than she had before helped her focus and they went off.

"It's sooo big here. You're right, there's room for hundreds if not more to live here. There are so many abanded Weyrs and then a huge one like this.....I'd like to know what happened too." After a moment she said, "I'd like to meet the people who could carve this. The walls are so smoooth." As if to emphasize her point she reached out and let her fingertips slide against the wall as they walked for several moments. "I wonder what lies lower....beneath all this." She suddenly felt a little dizzy and paused, the hand on his shoulder tightening for stability.

[Aftershock]

Max smiled as Kalina spoke, enjoying the lilting sound of her voice as it echoed in the abandoned byways of the Weyr. He was usually down here with no one else but Maximisk... it was nice to have some attractive company to show off the interesting little nooks and crannies usually only seen with wher-enhanced eyes.

As Kalina spoke of the smoothness of the walls and wanting to meet who lived here before, Max nodded, saying, "It would be most interesting to see how they pulled off such fine detail, what tools they might have had. However, I have the next best thing to meeting them..."

Just then, Kalina stopped and squeezed his shoulder more firmly, and he looked up at her, smiling, but making sure she was all right. Once she seemed stabilized, he moved his hand from her buttocks and took her hand, saying, "Follow me, I've got something to show you..."

[archenstone]

Once the dizziness passed she giggled at herself and the situation in general. She was having a good time and there where not enough of those these days. As Max took her hand and led her off she followed, teetering a little but not enough to yank his hand. "Something to show me?" She grinned. She wasn't quiet sure where they where in the Weyr but that didn't bother her as Max led on. "What is it? Will you tell me or is it a kind of surprise?"

[Aftershock]

Max led the young woman by the hand through another hallway, and then through a doorway into another room of the Weyr. Grinning, he said, "We might not be able to talk to who made the Weyr, but you can find out a lot about someone by what they leave behind..." Lifting his glowbasket, he illuminated the room, revealing a veritable time-capsule of a weyr... almost all the furniture lay exactly where it would have were someone still living there, everything covered in over a hundred years of dust. Some of the wooden furniture was somewhat rotted, but still mostly in once piece, untouched by human hands since the original owners abandoned it back when the weyr was first left behind.

Leading Kalina over to the bed, which was the only object in the room not covered in dust, Max sat her carefully down on the furs there, and joined her, saying, "Don't worry, these furs are somewhat fresh... they were mostly rotted to nothing when I first found this place, so I have been slowly bringing some in when I was on a patrol in this area ever since, so I would have somewhere to sit down without being enveloped in a dust cloud." Smirking, he continued, "Sometimes I sit here and try to imagine what the people who lived here were like... were they riders, or just normal folks? Were they the original makers of the Weyr, or just another set of people who found it, like we did? What caused them to leave everything behind like this?" As he spoke, he casually re-took Kalina's hand, wrapping it in his own work-calloused hand and placing it subtly on his own small, but muscular, thigh.

[archenstone]

She followed, her interest piqued at the prospect of seeing what he had in mind. When he illuminated the room they went into she gasped, amazed by how complete the room was. If not for the dust she could picture some one coming in here and demanding them to get out. She let him lead her to the bed which was the only thing fresh in the room and sat down with him. Looking around in curiosity as he placed her hand his thigh, thumb rubbing the fabric idly while she took in everything there. "Was the rest of Weyr furnished when the others found this place? Its so.....much like our own Weyrs but different. I bet if we looked deeper in there would be even more rooms just like this, only waiting for someone to find them."

A few moments of silence passed before she continued, "I bet it's nice to come down here away from the bustle of everything and think. It's so quiet down here. Uminth couldn't follow down here. She's so afraid of tight spaces that she still sneaks outside at times to sleep." The rambling came naturally to Kalina who's inebriated state only played on her habit of talking.

In a spontaneous burst of appreciation she took the hand on his thigh and hugged him. "Thanks for showing me this. We should come down more often. I'd like to see what else is in here..." As she took a breath his dark hair tickled her nose and she winkled her face to keep from sneezing. Before she new what she doing she playfully nuzzled his hair, giggling. "You're hair tickles!" She felt greatly amused all of sudden and with a playful cry of "Revenge!" She wiggled her fingers along his sides in an attempt to tickle him back!