A Different Look

Writers: Ainsley1, Jane
Date Posted: 25th May 2007

Characters: Evaleine, Rikka
Description: Evaleine finds that Rikka looks a bit different in trousers
Location: Amber Hills Hold
Date: month 4, day 6 of Turn 4

Rikka jogged up the stairs, taking them quickly one booted foot after another and thinking that she was getting much better at stairs since she had moved to Amber Hills Hold. Much of her home Hall had been on one level whereas every job she did lately seemed to involve running up and down stairs somewhere.

At the landing she turned off and walked along to her rooms, glad of the matting on the floor to deaden the sound of her footfalls. It was mostly women in the part of the building she inhabited and she was self-conscious about the sound of her clumping around in boots.

She pushed open the door from the corridor into the living room she now shared with Evaleine and found the other woman in there. "Oh, hello. Not going downstairs for a meal? Or am I very late and you've been?"

Startled, having been engrossed in the piece of music she was studying, Evaleine jumped. She looked up to answer her friend but a puzzled look crossed her features. For just that split second she didn't recognize Rikka in the trousers. Ridiculous really, that it should make such a difference, but it actually took a moment for her brain to process.

Shaking herself, she offered an apology, "I'm sorry to stare, Rikka, it's just, well, I've never seen you in trousers. I haven't eaten yet."

"Good. We'll go down as soon as I've changed, then."
Rikka pulled at the fabric of her trousers. "I wear them sometimes. The work I do sometimes needs it.
Climbing around under things or working in the ceiling space."

"Well, you paint a very different picture in them somehow. Anything interesting today, with the Threadfall and all?" she asked setting aside the music and getting to her feet.

"Not for me. I'm not in the ground crews - which I was at the Hall - so I just work at my bench while the others are out. It was afterwards that we were scrabbling around in the ceiling and that was cold.
Have you been out in the snow?"

"Not this time. Last time we had some, I went out and made snow dragons," she confided without the least bit of embarrassment over her childish behavior, "But today I just stayed in where it was cozy. I am rather ashamed to say, I have not accomplished much of worth."

"What _did_ you do?" Rikka asked, sitting down in the chair opposite and immediately missing her skirts.

Evaleine, sat back down with a sigh. "I sorted through the things Z'brei brought that I had not yet gone through and got everything put away. Tidied my room. I've written a few letters, read through sheet music, and played a bit," she paused to think, "Yes besides eating and a few conversations to and from, I think that was about it. I really need to speak to the Headwoman about a position. I am feeling quite idle these days."

It did sound a little idle to Rikka, but that wasn't what caught her attention. "Is Z'brei and dragonrider?" she asked, thinking that the sound of his name had sounded like the honorific contraction.

"Yes, he is a bluerider. He brought a small trunk full of things for me a few days back. I thought I'd mentioned that to you. Oh, but maybe not because you were having quite the busy run. Z'brei lives at River Bluff Weyr, he's the youngest brother to the Lady Holder of Coral Bay."

"More of your exalted connections," Rikka said with a smile for her new friend. "I didn't realise they included dragonriders, though. I'm envious."

"Oh, how Z'brei would laugh if he heard you call him exalted! He's the most easy-going young man you could ever wish to meet and utterly unassuming. If he had not had to leave so abruptly, I was going to ask if he could spare a restday to take you to visit your family. Perhaps next visit, or maybe I could write him a letter."

"Oh!" Rikka felt heat wash into her face as she stammered. "Oh, thank you." She felt a little uncomfortable that Evaleine was arranging such a large favour for somebody she hardly knew. "You don't have to - he doesn't, I mean. It's not very important."

Realizing she had made her new friend uncomfortable, Evaleine was quick to reassure her, "Oh, I won't pester him, but he's rather like a little brother to me and would be quite happy to do this." Hoping she had not been too forward to suggest such a thing, Evaleine decided a change in topic might relieve the awkwardness of the moment. "If we aren't going to miss the evening meal altogether, we should probably think about heading down."

"I have to change. I don't think the Hold's ready for me the journeywoman and me in trousers, all at the same time. Just give me a moment."

"Perhaps we should really give them a shock and _both_
go in trousers," Evaleine replied with a laugh, then waved Rikka off to go change.

Last updated on the May 25th 2007

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A Different Look