pyr min solemnly swears he is up to no good (twinclaws) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-08-30 23:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, morgayne falk, pyr min |
Who: Morgayne Falk & Pyr Min
What: Cleaning armor, and gossip
Where: Hellwyrm Hall
When: Today
Rating: PG
Status: Complete
The day’s punishment included a visit to Hellwyrm Hall—his first visit to that guildhall, as he’d never attended classes or done tasks there. Pyr had been volunteered to polish armor there, a task that was usually carried out by the squires living in that hall. Cleaning armor was tedious, but at least it wasn’t stable duty—he’d seen enough chocobo dung to last him a lifetime—and if he worked fast, he could rest for a bit before his next lesson. The silver lining here was Pyr at least had company. He hadn’t had much chance to talk to Morgayne so far, but she seemed nice and much more easygoing than, say, Juliette. The two were apparently friends, but Pyr was pretty sure Morgayne knew nothing about Sky, so he wasn’t particularly worried about her rattling him off to Juliette. She was nice to be around, and if she wasn’t there to chat with him, Pyr couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t have dozed off to sleep without meaning to. He finished polishing the set of spaulders he’d been working on and fetched a new piece of armor, a chestplate this time. He was about to start on it, but couldn’t find his rag—hadn’t he left it on the table? He picked up the chestplate to check he hadn’t placed it on top of the rag, but it wasn’t there either. “Hey, Morgayne, can you help me find my rag?” he asked, eyes scanning the room. What was punishment for Pyr was routine for Morgayne, who took up the task of armor polishing twice a week at Hellwyrm, rotating with the other squires who lived there. Today, she had started early in the morning, and had been well absorbed by the time Pyr arrived, dropped off by a gruff-looking knight. Morgayne usually worked alone, and she didn’t mind it per se, but she couldn’t deny it was much nicer with company. Pyr, especially, had a lot to say, and Morgayne was glad for the opportunity to get to know him better. At his query, she looked up from the cuirass she’d held in her lap for far too long, thanks to a particularly stubborn spot. “Let’s see,” she said, relishing the brief distraction from the tedium that stretched before them. Her eyes joined his in sweeping the room, and snagged on a greying piece of cloth, atop the looming pile of armor that still awaited them. It blended in quite neatly, thanks to the dingy color. “Oh, right there! By the rusting gauntlets.” Pyr followed the direction of Morgayne's gaze, but it took a couple of seconds for him to locate the rag, which was the same rusty shade as the gauntlets underneath, perhaps because it was only ever used to scrub away rust. "Thanks." He flashed Morgayne an easy grin and fetched the scrap of cloth, then returned to work. As he scrubbed away at the chestplate, he began to wonder what the point of this even was. Surely most of the armor here didn't belong to anybody in particular—what sort of fighter would put off polishing his armor long enough for rust to appear, like in the case of those gauntlets? Yet no matter how silly this task seemed, there was no getting out of it—even if he managed to shirk his duties, he had no doubt Councilor Cassul would find out, and as Pyr had recently discovered, her usual manner with the squires was gentle but her anger was a terrifying thing to provoke. He'd rather polish dirty armor than find out what other punishments she could come up with. "Do you live in this hall?" He knew Morgayne roomed in one of the guildhalls just like he did, but it wasn't Lindwyrm, or he would have seen her around. "It must be pretty dull to do this stuff every week." “Mmhmm,” Morgayne hummed in reply, finally finishing with the cuirass. She gave it one last once-over, and, satisfied, walked it to the other end of the room, where she and Pyr had stacked their finished pieces. “And you’re right -- it’s not much fun, but it’s not the worst.” Morgayne grabbed the gauntlets now, wrinkling her nose in distaste. Clearly they were a training pair, probably neglected by squires and young knights for weeks before someone had thought to toss it into the weekly pile of poorly-kept armor. “I mean, I’d rather be polishing all this than cleaning pots, or mucking out the stables.” “Mucking out the stables, ew,” Pyr agreed. The memory was still fresh in his mind. “Cleaning pots, also ew. I haven’t had to do that one yet, thankfully.” And he wasn’t eager to do it any time soon, either. “As for best task, kitchen duty. There’s food left over sometimes and you can grab a bite while you work! It’s especially good when Finch was cooking in there earlier.” Juliette’s mentor was really grumpy, but his cooking was wonderful and more than made up for the constant scowling. Pyr scrubbed at a stain that just refused to go away. Stubborn little speck of dirt. Pyr wondered if he could get away with spitting on it to help scrub it away, but he’d feel awkward if Morgayne saw. “What’s your favourite task, then?” he asked her. Morgayne nodded her assent. Kitchen duty was one of the better ones. She didn’t have the heart or the mind for cooking, but it was always interesting to see those who did work their magic, throwing in a pinch of this, a pinch of that, and giving a final stir to whip up something delicious. Her early attempts to replicate her father’s cooking had been disastrous, and Morgayne had ceased her efforts since. She mulled over Pyr’s question while continuing her polishing, finally answering with: “Running errands, I suppose? Or delivering messages. I like the variety, and it’s nice to get out of the guildhall from time to time.” Since she lived and trained at Hellwyrm, Morgayne more or less never left, unless there was reason to. “You deliver messages?” No one had ever asked Pyr to deliver a message, and he’d been in Emillion longer than Morgayne had. “Do you ever take a peek at them?” He probably would, which, in hindsight, may be why he never got that task. He finally managed to scrub that stubborn speck of dirt off, and he placed the clean chestplate with the rest. A helm was next. Property of someone with a small head, thankfully. “I had kitchen duty with Juliette the other day. She made a salad after. It was pretty good.” After a beat, he asked, “Did you know Juliette cooked?” The two girls seemed close, so this probably wouldn’t surprise Morgayne as it had Pyr. “No!” Morgayne replied, with a bark of a laugh. “Going out and getting some fresh air is good enough for me.” A pause. “Although I have thought about it,” she admitted. “But I wouldn’t know how to reseal the envelope.” Morgayne doubted any of the messages had contents worth snooping around for anyway. Those who gave her things to deliver surely did so only for the sake of convenience (or laziness). None of the older guild members knew her well enough to trust her. To Pyr’s next question, Morgayne responded with enthusiasm, leaving the gauntlets neglected for the moment. “Oh, yes -- I think she started when Lord Finch became her mentor.” Hopefully Juli wouldn’t mind Morgayne giving up the detail. She didn’t think it was something terribly private, but her friend had quite a different outlook on what was personal, and what was not. "Right." Pyr hesitated a moment— there was something he wanted to know, but he had no idea whether Morgayne would tell him, if she even knew. He decided to go for it anyway. "Well, she made that salad the other day, and she made three bowls. One for me, one for herself, and the other she took with her. I didn't ask her who it was for." He would have forgotten about the matter entirely, if it hadn't been for what had happened the day after. "Then the day after that, Councilor Liu posted to the network saying someone had delivered a bowl of salad to his office while he was out. Maybe it was a coincidence, I don't know." Perhaps he shouldn't be gossiping behind Juliette's back, but gossip was one of the few sources of entertainment left to him at the moment. "What do you think, Morgayne?" New traveled fast in Emillion, and even faster among the squires. Even if she swore Pyr to secrecy, Morgayne was sure this tidbit of information would travel down the grapevine by the end of the week. And yet, she didn’t want to claim ignorance either. She didn’t know much of Pyr, but she did know that he was curious -- the mischievous type. And mischievous people had a knack for putting two and two together. He would reach his own conclusions, with or without her help. Morgayne sighed, and put the gauntlets aside. “I know it wasn’t a coincidence,” she said softly, almost mumbling. “Because I asked Juli to make it for me. I can't cook to save my life." She thought of the most embarrassing memories she had, willing a blush to bloom on her cheeks. Looking Pyr straight in the eyes, Morgayne gave her best mortified expression. "I really like him," she whispered. "Please don’t tell anyone! It's so embarrassing ." Morgayne was a good liar, but feigning a crush was something that was a bit out of her wheelhouse. Luckily, Pyr didn't know her well enough for the "confession" to be beyond belief, and the kernel of gossip was juicy enough that he wouldn't interrogate her further. Or so she hoped. Pyr stared at her—if there was one thing he hadn’t expected Morgayne to say, it was this! Unless she knew for a fact Juliette had made the salad for Drake, and didn’t want to say, so she was trying to make him believe she was the one with the crush. If so, Morgayne was really good at lying—she was even blushing. Was she telling the truth, then? It seemed far likelier that Juliette would be the one with the crush, as she trained with Drake a lot more regularly, though Pyr supposed it wouldn’t be entirely unreasonable for Morgayne to have those feelings. Drake was pretty cool, after all. Ah, he couldn’t figure it out. He decided to take Morgayne at face value. If she was acting, well, she was great at it, and Pyr could respect a good performance. “I won’t tell anyone,” he told her. After a beat, he suggested, “Maybe you should ask him to train with you more often. He’s very nice, he wouldn’t say no.” Well, he didn’t think Drake would date a squire, that would be pretty weird, but Pyr wasn’t one to criticize others for harboring aspirational crushes. “Ah -- perhaps I will,” Morgayne replied, although she planned on doing no such thing. After giving the gauntlets one last polish, she rose and added them to the ‘finished’ pile. "Are you hungry?" she asked Pyr. "I was thinking of grabbing a sandwich from the kitchen." Morgayne herself was starving, but she also hoped food would distract Pyr from the topic at hand. It seemed to work well with most boys. Well, they’d been polishing armor for a long while already, and a sandwich did sound pretty good. He gave the helm he was working on a last once-over with the rag and dumped it in the pile. “Let’s go to the kitchen, then!” he agreed, enthusiastic. “We’ve earned a sandwich or two.” And yes, maybe there were a few pieces of armor that still looked like they’d seen much better days, but if they’d been unused long enough to gather such amounts of dirt and grime, they could wait a little while longer, couldn’t they? So Pyr put down the rag and followed Morgayne to the kitchen, already choosing the ingredients for his sandwich in his head. |