Logs:A Tipping Point
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| RL Date: 25 June, 2015 |
| Who: Hattie, Aislara, Bridget |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Aislara finds out what Hattie's been trying to keep from her. Hattie tries to do good things. |
| Where: Solarium, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 5, Month 2, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Nala/Mentions, N'muir/Mentions |
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| Aislara has been actively involved with the weyrlings, finding any opportunity to work with them and supporting her fellow assistants by stepping in and giving breaks where they may need it. This has allowed her to be too tired to think outside of the day to day and dwell on the sadness that seems to crush her chest in the quieter moments. With an enforced break placed upon her, Aislara heads to the solarium as a means of avoiding the general public. She's got a set of records under her arm and seems intent on reading upon entering. A couch is grabbed and she flops back on it. The records are held against her chest as she stares glassy-eyed up at the ceiling. From the way of the Sanctuary, the healer rumoured to be the one trying to prevent the Weyrwoman from going mad - or trying to subdue the madness - moves through into the solarium and heads straight for the stairs, the brunette's strides purposeful and focus fixed. She doesn't seem to notice any other presences - certainly, she makes no apology for the matter of her heavy footsteps echoing through the quiet in the circular room. A minute or more passes, then Hattie emerges and begins to follow along the same path, in the process of buttoning up her long coat in anticipation of the cold winter air. Aislara's eyes flicker at the sounds of the healer's passing but she doesn't greet nor stop the woman. Her apathy over the arrival and departure of the woman is clear as she returns to staring up at the ceiling. Sounds of another set of footsteps draws her interest again and gives her pause as she notices Hattie. A momentary flicker of doubt falls on the greenrider's face as she remains still and silent. Finally, she pushes past her initial uncertainty to greet Hattie, "Hello, Hattie," she breaks in, though remains laid out on the couch. "I hope you stay warm enough out there." It would seem she'd leave the greeting there as she settles her head back on the cushion to look up. Hattie startles, having not noted the presence of any other, and as she abruptly makes to seek out the source of the voice, fabric drags, dress catching against the slightly rougher lining of her coat, and by the time her now almost non-existent waist has twisted, upper body swivelling so that she can regard the greenrider, wide-eyed, there's no mistaking the bump and that her figure has changed far from the near skinniness the illness affecting her lungs left her with. Her mouth moves at the same time that she reaches to try and close her coat, but she doesn't manage words a first, nor a second time. "...Yes, I'll--" she finally starts to say, trying to swallow down the lump in her throat. Aislara turns at Hattie's startlement and so her eyes are witness to that bump before that coat can close around it. Her stare is blank as she absorbs what she's seen. "I tried that," she tells Hattie, voice sounding foreign even to her own ears in its hollowness, "to hide the pregnancy. It worked for me." She keeps talking in a matter-of-fact way as if she were reporting on the cold winds outside. "I don't think you'll be able to hide it that much longer." She pushes herself up from the couch, the records clung to her chest like a buoy against the sadness threatening to engulf her. "I won't have to for much longer," is a dark, heavy declaration that manages to get free before Hattie can do anything about it, though the moment the words leave her is also the moment that she begins to fumble to button up her coat once again, fingers clumsy in her desperation. "I'm sorry," she tells the floor, as she continues to try and shove buttons through holes. "I'll go," the Weyrwoman insists. "I don't think-- I don't think trying to have this - any - conversation is going to do either of us any good right now." One button just won't co-operate, earning a curse under her breath. "I didn't mean for-- I didn't mean to--" are all only half-statements, offered with an urgency tainted by that desperation, almost panic. "I can't hate other women for their ability to have a child," Aislara's hollowness is slowly ebbing as she shakes her head and focuses on the floor herself. "I'd be a miserable, cold-hearted woman if that were the case." Her hands lift to scrub back through her hair as she lifts her gaze once more to Hattie. "It is a happy thing. Are you well with it?" she asks, pushing herself further in an attempt to show how normal she can be about it. The records that have fallen to her lap are picked up again and set on the table beside her. With her fingers and hands empty, she folds them together and catches herself before her hands begin their nervous wringing. Hattie finally manages to do up enough of the buttons of her coat for it to conceal much of her figure, if only thanks to its length and tailoring. Shaking hands fall away from where she was trying so hard to get one side to knit together with the other, and are promptly shoved into her pockets to stop them from betraying her. "You could hate me," she suggests, not a pitiful, self-absorbed remark, but seemingly what she'd prefer right now, so encouraging of it does she sound. Still, she attempts to answer Aislara's question as honestly as she possibly can, even if that honesty can only be, "...I might be. Sooner or later." She doesn't dare move towards her, nor sit; not yet. Aislara does not move from her position either which seems to keep more distance between them than her words may bring. "I don't want to hate you," she clarifies on the end of that suggestion, trying for a smile that twitches into a frown. "You're not well?" she presses, hands finally succumbing to her nervous habit. "That isn't good. Please don't go. Come and sit," she offers, seeking to close part of that distance as she shifts on the couch. "I can listen," she explains, "or we can talk of other things. But..," she reaches out a hand towards Hattie, adding to that earlier request by directly seeking contact, "just don't go. Not right now." The Weyrwoman studies Aislara with an intensity that doesn't last, given how unsettled she is, and it's debatable whether she hears a single word she says up until the reaching of her hand gives her something else to surrender her attention to. Without it, she might have fled, yet, after another short span of staring, she moves towards the greenrider, her hand gripped momentarily before she uneasily sits herself down next to her. "It's not that," Hattie begins to declare, of being ill, but it's a weak protest. "It doesn't matter." She shakes her head. "...I couldn't tell you," she murmurs, staring down at her knees. "For your sake and mine. And I'm not-- going to sit here and talk to you about it, for the same reasons. I should've been there for you, and I couldn't. ...I kept suggesting you try again or try a flight, and-- I shouldn't have done it. I should've left it alone." "It does matter," Aislara counters, frowning and still holding on to Hattie's hand. "I understand why you wouldn't have told me. I'm sorry you didn't make the active decision know for me to know but..," she shrugs, "I know." It serves Aislara well that Hattie is looking at her knees rather than her gaze for she's struggling to blink back tears and school her features from betraying her. "You were being supportive," she finally says, voice low so as to not press it too loud and fall into a shakier response. "I needed that. I wanted to try. It's.., I won't try again. I've hurt Nala in trying," she lets out a long, shaky, sigh as she releases Hattie's hand to lean back into the couch's cushions. "I've hurt myself. Sometimes, I'm young and foolish and don't think things through. I guess.. some dreams just can't come true." No, it doesn't, is plain enough in the determined, if shadowed, cast of the Weyrwoman's features, even if she doesn't argue aloud. "...I haven't made the active decision for anyone to know, unless I've desperately needed them to," Hattie murmurs, her grip perhaps a little too tight before it fades and her hand is surrendered back to her. She keeps staring at fabric cascading over her knees as she says, "Hurting Nala is inconsequential in the bigger picture, if it was something you had to do." She swallows hard again and only turns her head when Aislara moves away, her gaze too intense to betray any one, single thing. Moments pass, then, without making it clear whether she's breaking from the subject at hand or not, she tells her, "I need you to answer me this without asking questions." She doesn't wait for an affirmative. "Is there anything I can do for you - anything that you want - that I have the authority to do? A better weyr. Rank. Time off. Stipend." It's not the right time, and she must know it, yet something drives her on. "...To foster?" Aislara does not know what to think of the questions she is given to answer. Her brows lift and she blinks a few times in an attempt to gather her wits about her and digest what has been said. Her brows then scoot down in confusion as she frowns at Hattie. "I want to ask questions," she tells her, "I can't answer any of that with knowing why you want me to answer them. But I know you," she folds her arms in front of her chest and leans back to stare at Hattie. "I know that stubbornness." She tries for a joke though it falls flat in delivery as her uncertainty shows, "I want it all." She shakes her head, grin faltering as she speaks on, answering the questions out of her respect for the Weyrwoman, "I would like a bigger weyr. And more rank. And no time off. I hate not being busy. I hate not being here, working, doing.. contributing.. making a difference. Stipend? I don't know how to spend the marks I have." She takes a breath, trying to see if Hattie will react to all these answers. "Foster?" that one she can't even pretend to say anything about. "I wouldn't know where to begin." She leans forward then, moving to rest a hand on Hattie's knee. "I don't need anything," she continues. "What's wrong? You're not telling me everything and I'm frightened for you." Aislara is right in that much. Answers are not forthcoming, nor does Hattie lose that unsettling edge of intensity, though she makes a fragile effort to try and smile at her joke. "...I can get you moved into a bigger weyr," she confirms, low-voiced. "You've had the rank and experience to be in a better one for a while, as it is." The other matter that she addresses gives her pause, time taken to consider. "Would you want to train as a wingsecond? I can talk to N'muir. I don't think the Weyrlingmaster is going anywhere, but we could look to seeing that you're in charge when she's unavailable. You've logged more consistent hours in your role than others." She half-jumps, not expecting further physical contact, yet she doesn't nudge Aislara away. "Everything's going to be fine," she says gently. "You don't need to be frightened; not for me." "I need the distraction more work would provide, but I'm not entirely sure I should be a wingsecond when my passion lies with the weyrlings," Aislara confesses, looking more concerned about Hattie than any of what she's currently discussing. There's a lack of enthusiasm to her tone as she continues, "I don't need a bigger weyr, it's really just me. I was.., I don't know. I shouldn't have answered!" She shakes her head and blushes, "I'm just unclear where all this came from. I don't complain.. and I have nothing to complain for.. I just. You'd tell me if something was wrong?" she pursues, frowning further as her lips screw to the side slightly as a borderline scowl. "I feel like you don't share many things with anyone. I come to you with all my endless problems. You can trust me." "Do you want a bigger weyr?" Hattie presses, her stress on that word not subtle at all. "I'm not asking if you need one. Would you like more space for you and Ryerith-- and I suppose Nala and whatever else could be in your future?" She's more gentle when she, a breath or so later, tells her, "I'm not asking because I think you complain. Maybe it's because you don't complain." And perhaps it's not. The Weyrwoman instinctively, defensively, looks away from Aislara's scowl, quickly enough for it to be out of some sense of self-preservation, or even for the greenrider's sake. She listens, that's for sure, though it takes her some time to find her voice again, raspy with the weight of her words and the awful understanding that she has no better way to say what she does. "...Would you give up on something you love for something you love more?" Aislara relents at Hattie's pressing, "I would like more space for Ryerith to share more easily with another dragon." The rest she doesn't comment on, the pain that flashes across her face not easily hidden at the mention of a future reason for growth. She waits for Hattie's response, intent on getting some form of an answer from the Weyrwoman. The question catches Aislara off-guard and she takes a moment to consider her answer. "I think.. it would depend on what it was that you loved more. The 'more' is a tipping point, it's clear you've already made a choice. You just have to.. be prepared to say goodbye to that other love." She must take some sort of her answer internally for her own purposes as she simply loses the ability to hide the sadness that descends on her features. "Life is always so complicated. You never get it all." "...Already made a choice," Hattie sighs out, not so much bitter as wondering. "You're not the first to say that." Hunching her shoulders, she folds in on herself for a fraction of a second, then she turns abruptly, reaching with the intention of drawing Aislara into a tight embrace, her figure angled awkwardly to keep that bump from becoming apparent again. She lingers a little, long enough to tilt her head a touch and murmur, "I'm so sorry," while her arms are warmly around her, then she moves to press a kiss to her cheek and draw away entirely, her balance a little unsteady as she finds her feet. "Start packing your things," she insists, her strength better for the certainty there. "You'll have a new weyr the day after tomorrow." Aislara returns that hug with as much warmth and affection as she can. "I will," she answers, knowing not to argue. Her cheeks are marked with her embarrassment. "Thank you, Hattie. For everything." She doesn't seem inclined to read those reports now that Hattie has gone. She rises and leaves herself, in search of a brunette healer to see what answers she may receive. Whether or not she gets more information, in the coming days she will find excuses to seek Hattie out. To keep an eye on her - and offer whatever support she can. It offers her enough of a distraction a small her sadness is buried a little deeper each day. |
Comments
Cass (15:13, 26 June 2015 (MDT)) said...
Yooouuuuuuuuu! (<3)
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