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Blackstone Foundry and Forge; Monday [09/23].

You know, as far as weekends went, as far as Amaya was concerned, that one actually wasn't too bad. She was clearly out of her gourd, obviously, but at least she'd very much been herself physically, and when she woke up that morning without any romantic longings or inclinations, only the need for coffee, at the forefront of her mind, well, she was feeling pretty darn good about it. Finally, she could go and get some work done! That was easily the worst of it. Is that what it was like in the heads of people who liked all that mushy stuff all the time? How did they manage to get anything done? The whole experience was markedly unpleasant, and she was glad to finally be rid of it.

Of course, if she was honest with herself (which, of course she wasn't), she recognize the fact that not all of what she was so obsessed with this last weekend was entirely off the mark, that it was all sprouted from a seed of something buried deep inside her brain, but that was the beauty of being back to normal. It could stay buried back there and it was back to good old trustworthy repression and blatant dismissal! And it felt great! Good to be back to normal and stubbornly ignoring even the slightest hint of that kind of thinking!

And she was making excellent progress on the new curvy short sword she'd decided to fix up for the wall, too. Just her and a brain full of metal and fire. Just as it should be!

The Forge is open!

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Seivarden had postponed showing up at the forge, so it wasn't until the afternoon she stepped through the door.

"Amaya?"

She wasn't sure about what reaction she would get about her reason for coming here.

And Amaya, by that point in the day, had made excellent progress on the short sword, as she'd been absolutely reveling in each and every second of blissful, uninterrupted-by-foolish-notions-and-sighing-and-swooning work and was admiring just the nice way a soild piece like that reflected the glow of the forge when it was all polished up and ready for the wall, and she looked up from the blade toward the door.

"Oh, hey, there, Captain," she greeted Seivarden cheerfully, testing the weight and balance of the sword for a second with an idle little spin before resting the flat of it on one shoulder, her other hand resting against her hip. "What can I d..." She faltered a little once she actually got an eyeful of how Seivarden actually looked. "...do for you?"

She'd ask if she was doing alright, but, well, that'd like just veer toward emotional stuff, and, besides, it was pretty clear to see that she wasn't without needing to go so far as to ask.

At least Seivarden had had several cups of tea and was now wearing clothes.

"I have a job for you," she said, looking awkward. "But if you want to I can make you some tea first."

Seivarden had probably had enough tea for today.

Oof. It had to be bad if Seivarden had had enough tea.

Amaya's brow creased a little with concern at that awkwardness, but she wasn't about to mention it. "Well, you know me," she said. "I'll never let anything stand between me and a new project, not even tea. What've you got in mind? And then we'll see about the tea."

"The door needs to be repaired. I think it can be repaired."

Seivarden wished she had a cup of tea now.

And now those furrowed brows were lifting. "Another door?" shevasked. "What happened with this one?"

"This weekend..." she began, uneasy. Then she sighed, leaning against the wall. "Rosa kicked it on her way out. You know she's good at that."

She just wanted to forget the whole thing. No, that wasn't completely true. She wanted to forget about it after telling Amaya about it, and the get completely pissed for two days straight. And throw in something more than booze if she could find it.

"I hate this island. Locking people in closets."

Amaya took that in, acknowledged that there was probably a whole lot more to the story than just that, and then just shook her head.

"You have got to keep that woman away from your doors," she noted. Although she realized, with the weekend, there might not have been a whole choice in the matter, but then that begged the question of how they'd managed to be in the same room together, much less the same closet, but those were probably questions she didn't quite care to have the answer to.

Then she sighed, giving Seivarden a sympathetic sort of look. "But I can swing by, check out the damange, see what might need doing..."

She trailed off a bit, seeming to hesitate on something else.

"Honestly, though," she said, since she never was one to mince words, "if the only casualty in that situation's a door, I'd say you got out pretty lucky."

Bit surprised there were even any survivors with that one.

"I... well, it was probably a good thing I gave the axe back to you."

That was an attempt at a joke.

"Thank you. I really appreciate it. Tea?"

She had a feeling 'and how was your weekend?' might not be a good question.

Edited 2019-09-23 17:22 (UTC)

It was a good attempt! Amaya thought it was, anyway, and she snorted a small laugh.

"Would it be terribly uncivilized of me," she asked, "if I were to suggest maybe we take that tea with a little something extra tapped into it?"

"I almost feel like propriety demands it," Seivarden replied, laughing back, relieved that she didn't have to be the one to suggest it. "And then we can forget all about that weekend except the door that needs to get fixed."

And she was definitely going to work hard at forgetting the more enjoyable parts.

Zounds, between these two, Amaya was already having a feeling she, at least, would be in for a good week of booze.

"Let me just close up the shop real quick," said Amaya, already moving to shut the door and the big shutter for the big window. "It's been a pretty slow day, anyway, and if anyone needs anything, they can ring."

Amaya wouldn't be the only one to need that amount of booze.

"I should have brought a bottle," Seivarden said. "I'll get you one later."

Maybe she could make a good deal with Duke.

She looked around the forge to get an idea what Amaya was working on. "Nice..." then she saw what it was, "...sword."

Amaya had to snort again at that. "Thanks," she said. "It's a real beaut, if I do say so myself. You interested? You know I can get you a good price on it.

"And don't worry about the bottle," said Amaya. "I've got plenty."

Once everything was set and the sign was out on the door, she cocked her head toward the stairs and started heading that way. "Come on, let's head on up, get you that tea."

"You know it would be a waste on me," Seivarden pointed out, following Amaya up the stairs. "Doors, on the other hand..."

"You've got me rolling in door business!" Amaya confirmed, heading on into the kitchen, where, with a sideways glance at that nice new table of hers, made her wonder if she should just amend that to carpentry in general.

"I'd say keep it up," she went to get get the tea started and then to the cabinet to consider the selection of booze, "but...well...I'm sure you'd rather not if you can help it."

"I... prefer some people to stay away from my doors. Or Peter's doors, I suppose."

She tried laughing.

And with that attempted laugh, Amaya's hand moved from the bottle she was about to grab and went for the much stronger one next to it instead.

"Did...." she ventured, reluctantly, "you...want to taa--"

She cleared her throat.

"Did you want to taaaa--"

Come on, Amaya. Almost there.

"Did you want to...taaaaaalk," atta girl, "about it?"

"We can talk about the door when you see it," Seivarden said in another attempt at joking, while her gaze followed Amaya's hand.

Then she slumped down on a chair by the table and buried her face in her hands.

"I wasn't myself and I called the Trooper Station about some noise in my closet, and Rosa showed up, and... we got locked in the closet. All weekend."

She spoke really quickly, hoping Amaya would have those drinks ready soon.

Ah, zards! She actually took her up on it! Amaya was not prepared for this; she'd sort of just thrown it out because it seemed like the nice thing to do, expecting Seivarden to just wave it off or not want to talk about it at all herself.

And now that they were both hoping that water would heat up good and quick, it was going to take its sweet, sweet time, wasn't it?

"Err," she said, succinctly. "Well...hey!" She gave her fist an encouraging pump. "At least you survived, right? That's quite the accomplishment!"

No, seriously, how was it even possible she was still breathing right now? It was sort of a miracle, really.

"But," she stated, "the important thing is...it's over. Best thing you can do with these little bouts of Fandom Weirdness is just scratch them from the record, forget about them completely, and move on."

...which was sort of her advice with most things, really, but it especially applied here.

She was trying, okay?

"That's true," Seivarden said, doing her best to sound cheerful. "I think tea with a little from that bottle in it will help a lot."

"Sure you don't just want some from the bottle without the tea?" asked Amaya, who, of course, was kidding, because of course she would. In fact, Amaya already had some poured and was setting it in front of Seivarden on the table.

Because of course that tea was taking forever.

"That's a good idea," Seivarden said, reaching for the glass and downing it.

"Always a good start."

Ohhh, Amaya thought, as she watched Seivarden just down the drink, she was going to go through a lot of booze this week, indeed. And she'd be drinking the least of it.

"Good a start as any."

But hey! The tea was finally ready, so she busied herself with pouring that and the whiskey, and then expertly balanced the two cups and the bottle on her way to join Seivarden at the table.

"Theeeere we go."

One couldn't down the tea of course, as it could burn the throat and be quite improper. Seivarden took a sip.

"So, any plans for the week? Apart from the sword?"

That couldn't take all week, could it?

Considering it was mostly already done?

Amaya had a lot of hard work to catch up on after the weekend.

She shrugged a little, took a sip of her own tea. "Not particularly," she admitted. "Just more work, I guess. Might do an axe after the sword, then maybe a mace. Ooh, I haven't done a katar in a while, maybe I'll do one of those...."

So. Basically....work. Work. And then some more work.

It was going to be great! She had so much lost time to make up for!

....you know. A...weekend. Two days.

SO much lost time.

"Not much work done during the weekend?"

Seivarden took a sip of tea. It wasn't like she was drunk after just one drink, so she knew better than to ask directly how Amaya's weekend had been, even if she was curious.

"Not much at all!" Amaya answered witn a complaining sort of snort into her tea. "And not for lack of trying! I was just too..."

Hm. What's the most not-terrible way to describe the whole experience?

"...distracted."

"Well," Seivarden said, reaching for the bottle and adding a bit to both cups of tea. "Hopefully this week will be better."

And, slowly, those cups would become progressively less tea and more whiskey, weren't that? Amaya took a moment to get up and bring the teapot over as well. She did have a class to teach in the morning, after all, and that class involved handling incredibly hot liquid metals...

"Off to a good start so far!" she offered, with a hopefully optomistic sort of smile. "Though I'm gonna be honest, if the island's decided to go back to that whole 'something new and terrible each and every week' thing, there's gonna be issues. I think we're good, though. I think it's probably back to the whole 'once in a while, just when you start to actually get sort of comfortable' thing again."

"I get that impression too," Seivarden said, taking another sip.

The whiskey quantity was definitely going to increase unless Amaya stopped her.

"How's your garden coming along?"

Let's just wait and see if that increased amount of whiskey lead to an increased amount of feelings before Amaya decided on whether or not to put up a dam on Seivarden drowning away her weekend.

"Oh, it's great!" she said, not as eager to talk about plants as she was weapons, but it was a fairly close thing, especially since the plants didn't get nearly enough attention in that regard. "You'll have to go have a look, but mind the snapdragons. They're still a bit moody even after moving them in there from the kitchen. The petunias are coming in nicely, too, but I really should swing by the flower shop and pick up a few more things to really round out the whole thing, figure out which seeds might be good to plant for some produce, especially with winter right around the corner. Also got those milkweeds in, too, so when they're ripe I can equip you with a few bottles for those days when the plants at Covent Garden are being particularly fussy at you."

"Oh, I'd appreciate that," Seivarden said. "And if you stop by I'll make you tea, of course."

Perhaps that wasn't even something she needed to tell Amaya by now.

Yeah, that pretty much went without saying at this point.

"With or without the whiskey?"

"Well, I'm supposed to work," she said. "I mean, it's usually not busy, but..."

Her boss was also her landlord.

"Oh, by the way, did I tell you about the Radchaai kid?"

See, there were benefits to being an independant business owner with her own place. Amaya could take a break for boozy tea whenever she darn well pleased!

And she took a sip of hers just then before tilting her head with wary curiousity. "Radchaai kid?" she asked. "One of the new students?"

Zards, she hoped so. She was already breaking into a slight sweat over the idea of one of those weekends popping up again, convinced as she was that, the longer she stayed here, the closer she'd get to being able to put together a whole army of inexplicable offspring.

If they all didn't wind up killing each other first.

"New student," Seivarden confirmed, unaware of Amaya's fears. "A poor baby lieutenant who accidentally got sent here to go to school. She's not in your class then?"

"No," said Amaya, shaking her head a little as she considered her current crop of students under that particular light, "I don't think so. That'd be at least one student I probably have wouldn't have to lecture about the importance of work gloves, though."

Not that she really had to lecture anyone about that. They were all good kids, her students.

Seivarden smiled. "No, you wouldn't. I hope she's doing ok though, it can't be easy living in the dorms for her. With, you know, people eating, what do they call it, finger food?"

Tisarwat might not be from a prominent family, but she was definitely civilized.

"Finger food, yes," said Amaya, grinning faintly with an amused sip from her cup. "Aptly named, because....well, you don't need me to say it!"

Lest she put Seivarden off her tea.

"But," she offered, "I imagine, at the very least, do you think she'll at least have decent tea?" She asked this, of course, feeling like there really wasn't anything wrong with most teas, but she knew what was up, especially after all those Radchaai entertainments they'd been watching. Which, she might add, meant she paid attention to more than just the explosions and ships. "I know mine's at least passable, if think we should send some her way?"

"Oh, she has tea. Very good tea. She brought it from home."

Seivarden sounded slightly envious.

"I might have to ask you to see about maybe getting a little for me, then," Amaya noted. "So I can finally see what all the fuss is all about."

"You should," Seivarden said. "Although it's not something you buy, I think. Not that quality."

She had actually wondered where Tisarwat had got it, or whether she was from a better family than Seivarden had the impression of.

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Blackstone Foundry and Forge; Monday [09/23].

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