Logs:A Bit of Vertigo
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| RL Date: 1 April, 2015 |
| Who: Leova, Tomic |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Leova borrows Tomic from the nurseries so that she and Vrianth can test him. |
| Where: Nursery, Outside the Weyr, Bowl, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 2, Month 6, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Warm sunshine and cloudless skies make for a beautiful day. A breeze tempers the heat with no humidity lingering in the air. |
| Mentions: Edyis/Mentions, Faryn/Mentions, Fremena/Mentions, Giorda/Mentions, V'ros/Mentions |
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| Mid-morning, when the little ones have settled down for a snack, Leova eases in the door to the nursery. She'd dropped the twins off that morning, four and a half they are now, and the trick is to catch the supervisor's eye without being spotted by her offspring. It's easier without Via, though Veylin has a knack for spotting those who don't want to be seen and then telling her brother what to do. This time, she manages, barely. This time, though, the supervisor nods Tomic towards the entrance: apparently he's wanted. The dragonhealer's expression is calm and otherwise unhelpful. Tomic is cross-legged with on the floor, with a little girl who prefers to eat there - at least, has done for the last half a month or so - and takes a moment to notice that supervisor. Even when he does notice the look, discussions of why food should be on plates instead of the floor need to be finished. To his credit, when the nanny does rise up from his seated position and turn his back, that little girl's veggie sticks remain on her plate. He's rubbing his palms on his thighs as he approaches, as if to clean off crumbs that may or may not be there. "Hi," in a hushed voice, though not a whisper. A beat later, "You're Veylin and Varian's mom." And that recognition draws a smile out of him. Perhaps, make that likely, the supervisor notices. Leova does not wait for it. "Yes," she agrees briskly. "Come with me, please. Before they see." Before they hear, Varian all too good with voices. As she leads them through the tunnels, heading for the infirmary, "How are you, Tomic?" Tomic does look over his shoulder to the supervisor, before he'll follow Leova out. There's no wailing or screaming; it's probably a good time. "Umm... good. Ma'am." The formality of the Weyr still sits strangely with him, most when he's been around kids, even after having lived here so long. But he's trying. Long limbs stretch into an easy step, moving slow, but keeping him in pace. "How are you?" "Well enough." Leova's given the young man the odd deliberative look over the past sevenday, but she's not observing him now. Nor is she, after all, stopping at the infirmary. She bypasses it instead, striding out of the Weyr's mouth and past an unloading wagon without pause. "You have twenty Turns, as I understand, Tomic?" There's something about that change from indoors to out that has Tomic looking back over his shoulder, hesitating a little. He does follow Leova out, but a few steps behind her now, and has to speed the next couple to catch up. "Yes, ma'am?" Leova walks well out into the sunlight before she stops, turning to look at Tomic rather than up at him. "Don't be concerned. I've leave to borrow you until lunchtime." Her smile is brief but there. Until it isn't. "Cold?" Despite the summer's day. "Oh." Tomic's isn't the voice of a young man entirely put at ease, but he doesn't look over his shoulder again. "Okay." An idle tug goes to one of his sleeves, not enough to unroll it from where it sits just above his elbow. "Not really, ma'am. I'm usually warm." The ma'am, at least, is coming more easily now he's said it a few times. "Glad." The greenrider rolls her muscular shoulders, and then she's the twins' mother again. Sort of. "Does it bother you, the out-of-doors? Know it's been a while since the Comet Pass. But." Children get raised to be wary, some of them, whether their raisers intend it or not. Tomic watches that greenrider carefully, listens carefully. And, when asked that question, shakes his head. "Nah, I'm not bothered. My dad's a gardener, spent lots of time outside with him when I was a kid." Remembered, as an easy partway shrug rolls off his right shoulder, "Ma'am." She pays attention. She's listening. Her nod recognizes what he says, recognizes him. "Do you get motion sick?" Leova asks Tomic now. "Um." That makes him nearly laugh, though it's an uncertain sort of thing. "Like riding wagons, you mean, ma'am?" That big head shakes again. "Once, when I was six and it was really hot out, and I was facing backwards, and the road was bumpy. But my mom said that was probably all the sweets my uncle fed us. Took me a while to get over the smell of hot runners, ma'am, but my dad made me stand with them in the summer and drink cool water and now I'm fine. Ma'am." As he talks, even Leova's formidable concentration warms, one corner of her mouth tipping up. "Good," she says, and resumes walking. "Tell me about the last time you rode a dragon." If ever. There happens to be, in the not-so-distant distance, a dark-sparred dragon waiting for them right now. Waiting, or sunning by sheer unlikely coincidence. This time, Tomic does laugh a little, though it quickly stps as he starts up after her. "Just when I came here, ma'am." Why, asks his face. But not his lips. "With my uncle. But I was thinking of asking someone for a ride home soon. Just to visit." One longer stride, to even bring him a bit ahead of the dragonrider, so he can look down at her with as polite a query as he can make, "No one mentioned that, did they, ma'am?" "Not to me," Leova says briefly. The rangy dragon's long stretch shortens the distance between them, her talons pressing into the packed earth that's more sun-dried than truly muddy by now. "Hm. All right. Vrianth," her eyes are only for her green, "this is Tomic. He's helped with our three. His supervisor recommends him for reliability and hard work. Tomic, this is my Vrianth." Who's staring at him with great whirling eyes, intense enough to be sifting right through him. It's when Vrianth starts to stretch that Tomic stops walking, bringing his head back to straight over his shoulders, and blinking at that dragon. It's not the fear or awed expression of someone who's new to dragons. He's seen them, certainly. But it's not old hat. "Oh." Dark eyes flit to Leova, who isn't looking so much like Varian and Veylin's mom just now. Or even Via's. Even mentioning them. "She's..." A big hand comes to scratch at the back of his neck. "Hi?" Vrianth doesn't sniff at him. She doesn't even lean over to look more closely. She doesn't have to. Vrianth settles, a movement of her body that shifts the angle of her head not at all, enough for Leova to clap Tomic on the shoulder and say, "Come on. Want to see how you are with heights." Tomic can't be said to appear comfortable, even when the green settles. "Oh. Okay." His steps are slow, though. Cautious. "I mean, yes, ma'am." This time, when his hands go to his sleeves (each in turn), they do get rolled back down to his wrists. Leova's short and specific with her instructions as to how to climb onto Vrianth, and assured: if he follows her instructions, all will be well. It's just that Vrianth has this way of... being. Intelligence is in her eyes, and nothing human. Her hide, even, smells subtly of dragon rather than runner or canine or even that box of kittens. Touching her directly, not just the leather of straps, threatens to intensify the sense of presence. She's paying attention. Instructions without ambiguity, Tomic is quite adept at. He does as he's bidden, with only the slightest hesitation when reaching for the green's straps, in which the thought to lay his hand against her hide is clearly there. But when he looks over, back to those eyes, he doesn't have a read of the dragon. Instead, those big hands grip and lift him. He's not graceful or practiced, but, in this moment at least, he's very aware of what he's doing with his limbs. There's no kicking or flailing. And when he sits, it's with a clenching of his jaw. He's paying attention, too. That serves, it seems. For now. Vrianth rumbles, lower than truly audible, and in the next breath her rider swings up to her own familiar place. It's been two decades and then some, but Leova's not heavy with child now, nor has the dragonrider's joint-ail set in. The weather's not bad. She fastens Tomic's straps unless he's moved to make a break for it, just slowly enough that he can see what she's doing if he looks. "Up now," she says. Smiles. Straightens forward and Vrianth leaps and the air presses into them and muscle flexes beneath them and just as they might fall her wings beat and all earth drops away. Tomic watches, lifting his arms a bit out to the sides so that Leova has ample workspace, so that he can see, and so that it makes him look more like an oversized version of one of his charges than a young man of twenty turns. 'Up,' is mouthed, and he grips at those straps in preparation, trying to remember what it was he'd been told so long ago when that brown brought him and his uncle to the Weyr, and more than likely holding himself a bit too tensely. But he won't fall off, or jerk into Leova, at the least. As long as his breakfast doesn't fall out. Once Vrianth's reached such height as she deems sufficient, she levels out into, "A glide. This is gliding," Leova turns her head to call back. "Smooth, hm?" It's just a glance from her. Vrianth, though, Vrianth is checking. Oh, it would be a lie to say that Tomic's belly's not churning a little bit. He doesn't attempt to make that claim, speaking no words, even giving a sheepishly accepting smile of the fact that his face is, probably, a bit pale. But there's no fear of meals coming up, not even what he had of the midmorning snack with the kids. This is a nervous belly, an excited belly, and a belly that is far too aware of the dragon's being right there. "Smooth," the young man finally agrees, daring to peer away from what he's been looking at most of the time - the dragonrider and dragon's hide - to glance off to the side, and below. The dragon, right there, is all that's holding them up. Slowly, imperceptibly at first and then all too apparent, Vrianth turns. That side he's looking off to, that goes down. The other side goes up. Gravity pushes aslant. The straps hold. "Turning," Leova says, the obvious. Slow. Easy. Steepening. It doesn't hit his vocal chords; it's just a huff of air, stopped halfway before it empties his lungs. He wasn't expecting the perspective to change. Tomic grips the straps, and shifts his weight to lean up and away from, you know, not-entirely-imminent, but certainly-possible, doom. "Right." Late. What he gets for saying it: Vrianth not only levels out but, now, leans 'right' instead of left. "The other way," explains Leova along the way as it becomes a gradual back and forth and back and forth. "Higher?" It might be a test, but Leova says it casual as anything. It's the repetition that starts to work in Tomic's favour. Those butterflies in his stomach haven't left, but any dizziness brought on by the heights, and his attempted changes of his own weight on the green's neck, starts to dissipate as they go back and forth again, again, as he starts to get a feel for it. The question finds the young man hesitating; he looks off one green shoulder, off the other. "I guess," and this time his fingertips drop past the straps, unconscious and unquestioned, and seek to touch Vrianth's hide, "we could?" The downsweep of Vrianth's silver-sailed wings strike question into answer. Her hide is warm, far warmer than the air. Her muscles work powerfully, those wings a regular beat, that wind cool and then cold as they rise. Soon that wagon is just a speck, and even the Weyr is becoming small. Tomic is normally warm, but there is wind here, and altitude. As they rise higher, his elbows tuck into his sides. The fingertips on Vrianth's hide at once become a hand, linking him to something warmer. He only breaks from his low crouch now and again to look down. There might be a bit of vertigo, if she's paying attention, maybe the dragon will sense it, but still, no food comes up out of his belly. Vertigo. A bit of vertigo. It could become a lot more vertigo. Vrianth refrains from going between, at least. From diving. From more than climbing... and then coasting, level at first and then a gradual descent, angled to keep Rukbat behind and above and beyond them. The Weyr is in their shadow. It's only upon return to the caldera that she begins to spiral, tracing the Bowl down. Tomic does his best to show that he won't let the vertigo stop him from looking down - sparingly - or let it make him tense up - though he does a little. He tries to relax into it and learn it. He winds up simply letting the muscles in his hand flex against the dragon hide. Even as they descend and he has to remember what it was he had almost figured out about how to centre himself on the dragon when she turns. She could land over the lake. She could land in the lake. She could, and does, land by... the weyrling barracks. Leova turns, but doesn't move to unstrap herself or Tomic yet. Vrianth turns, looking down over them. "I think you should Stand, Tomic." By the time they do land, Tomic is shivering, just a little bit, a mix of the warmth he's lost and not yet regained up high, and the experience of flying. And this before Leova even turns to him. Those big hands clamp together on the straps, both of them. He flexes his shoulders and arms to slow the shivering. He takes a moment, eyes falling off Leova while he searches through his head, and when he finds the thought he wants, looks back up to present it: "Why?" Beat. "Ma'am?" "Be a good fit," Leova says plainly. She doesn't wait for the 'why.' "Work hard. Healthy. Patient. Careful. Kind." She has her jacket, unclasped. Perhaps not offering him more warmth is part of it. "More, too, we think. Than what meets the eye." "Oh," says Tomic, and flexes his fingers on the straps, and watches them when he flexes them another time. His eyebrows draw together, though, and he brings that big head of his up, tilts it slightly. "Who's 'we'?" "Vrianth would also have me add that you don't get airsick," Leova says like it's an answer. But also, with something of a smile. "Oh," says Tomic again, this time with a blush, and a glance up to the green dragon, which will last longer, if she's still looking back at them. "Does it... Do you know when the dragons are going to be born?" Amended after a bit of thought, "Hatch?" And, softer, and finally giving in to tucking his arms around his chest, even if it means letting go of the straps, "I've heard lots of different guesses from other people. But not dragonriders." She is. She very definitely is. "Roughly," Vrianth's rider says, and gives an approximate date. "Likely they'll have you doing your same job, most of the time, try others for the rest. Going to explain: what's going to happen on the Sands, what to wear, what to do when." "Most of the time," repeats Tomic, frowning a little. He's not shivering, or even having to try not to shiver, now. One arm unlinks, and goes to brush at Vrianth's hide again, with his eyes on that dragon. "They're not all like her, are they? Like... this." It's not a thing he can explain. He shakes his head slowly. "I don't remember the brown being," is almost a whisper, "like this." Vrianth curves into that touch, because she decides to. Leova's along for the ride. "No, they aren't," she agrees for them both, with fondness and with quiet pride. Tomic presses his hand a bit more firmly against green hide, a silly little smile on his face as, once again, he manages to resemble those weyrbrats he helps care for. "Right." Thoughtful. "Lots of people asked me if I thought about it before, you know. Since she laid all those eggs." Her equally low rumble might bespeak humor, this time. "Mm." Leova doesn't ask. Does let him know she's heard. She's listening. They are. Tomic slowly swishes his fingertips back and forth over Vrianth's hide now, directing the movement from his elbow. "I guess... I don't want to tell you an answer and then find out later maybe I was lying? On accident. Ma'am," finally remembered. He squints up at Vrianth again, halfway holding his breath. Vrianth puffs out a breath: that'll show him to hold it. "Can change your mind," Leova says with a one-shouldered shrug. "For a while yet. Lying, that you got to do on purpose, tell an untruth on purpose. Changing your mind isn't it." Tomic lets his out, in a cough. A sleeve is brought up to wipe at his mouth, though if anything, spittle was fairly minimal. "Right," the young man nods. "I guess so. That's okay?" Just to be sure. And then, "Could you... do you think you," looking to the dragon again, "two could maybe... Is it okay to ask you to take me to Benden first, though? And then I can start?" "Reckon so." No surprise, either. Leova glances skyward, checking. "Not today. Tomorrow early, and I'll talk to Fremena and get it sorted You report in to one of Giorda's helpers right now, they'll get you situated, and there should still be lunch." She nods to the buckles. "Done for now." She'll help Tomic if he needs it. Vrianth won't. Vrianth will keep looking at him. Don't disappoint her. "I will," promises Tomic, with big eyes and full earnest intention. "And maybe see if I can finish my shift?" And those buckles? He'll work them out on his own. |
Comments
Edyis (02:42, 2 April 2015 (EDT)) said...
Aww. I loved reading this. Tomic is so straightforward.
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