Logs:An Opportunity for Honesty
| |
|---|
| |
| RL Date: 14 November, 2015 |
| Who: Irianke, K'del |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Following the weyr council meeting, K'del and Irianke decompress. |
| Where: Weyrleader's Weyr, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 10, Month 4, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Cora/Mentions, Dahlia/Mentions, Farideh/Mentions, Hattie/Mentions, Tevrane/Mentions |
  |
| Niahvth alights onto, not her ledge, but Cadejoth's, and her rider vaults down a wearied, gloved hand to her face. Irianke removes the goggles and her flight helmet, her curls crushed beneath and makes her way into K'del's weyr ahead of its owner. "Terrible business that Weyr council. Terrible. I can't understand Cora for doing it now." Irianke tosses her flight gear onto a nearby couch and looks around. "Where do you keep your brandy?" It's been a long, exhausting day (and that's ignoring the whole 'reports of plague within our coverage area' part of the business), but K'del follows close behind his weyrwoman. Perhaps it's because it's still chilly, this early in spring. Or maybe he needs a drink just as much as she does. "Up on the mantle," is his answer. "I'll get the glasses. It does feel... pre-emptive. Too soon. Haven't we all enough on our own plates?" But there's something else in his expression, too; something torn. Irianke moves with purpose to the hearth and the mantle, stretching up to grab the decanter and bringing it down easily. "Benden doesn't," responds the goldrider, a bleak morbidity deep in her voice. "They're so far removed that... global strategy indeed." Disgusted with the whole situation, High Reaches's Weyrwoman holds out the bottle tipped slightly to indicate her desire to pour it out once glasses are in range. "And now Nabol is in crisis and Tevrane is hiding." One glass in each hand, K'del holds them up in readiness for Irianke and the bottle. "Not sure I much like it, people jumping in to interfere like that," he admits. "We're all supposed to be autonomous." More immediately pressing, however, is Nabol itself. "Hiding. She never used to be so timid. Not that I think she needs to be on the front lines, tending to the sick, but... what kind of message does it send?" Still stuck on the subject of Fort: "Their new queenrider, Dahlia, she may very well die from everything I hear." Irianke muses, the slosh of pouring heard just under her words. Two glasses poured, she puts the bottle down on a nearby table and sinks into the couch. A hand reaches up for one glass while the other pats the spot next to her. "We shouldn't be so timid. This is an opportunity, much like the Comet Pass, to remind the Holds why dragonriders are not obsolete during any time. Thread or no Thread." K'del's wince at direct mention of Dahlia is in no way disguised, but all he says is, "She's a sweet girl, but so young. Not ready to be weyrwoman." He hands Irianke her glass, taking up his position beside her, his own glass transferred from one hand to the other. "How, exactly, do you want to play it?" is, for the rest, rather more cautious. "A wing. Volunteers." Irianke says words succinctly, sounding out a train of thought that's stilted, as if she's still thinking a few moments before doling out one word at a time. "Help healers track the progression in our borders, ferry supplies as needed. Try to get a handle on this thing before... before," the goldrider's face, blanched now disappears behind a knock back of her brandy as it disappears in one go. K'del reaches for the bottle, silently offering a refill as he mulls over Irianke's suggestion. "Volunteers," he repeats. "They'd be taking a big risk. We'd compensate them for that? Or their families, if they..." If in the course of this duty, they contract the illness. "Imagine any former healers we have could be... we'd encourage them back into the field, as best they can be." "Compensate, sure." This is not the part of thinking Irianke does well. "But they'd understand the risks and there'd be honor, whatever good honor is when you're heaving your guts inside out on your death's bed." The Weyrwoman accepts the refill, lifting her glass to K'del and looking at him, her eyes glassy with liquid shininess. "Have a few more and I'll tell you a secret." "We'd make them heroes," is not, whatever K'del is so often inclined towards, actually intended at face-value. After all these turns, he can acknowledge the ridiculousness, at least. He takes a sip from his own glass, and then another. "A secret?" Irianke indicates his glass. "You're drinking too slowly for a night like this. I'll decide based on how much you drink. See?" The goldrider closes her eyes, swallows, and shoots back her glass, wincing when she comes up for air. Oh, the burning! "See," she croaks out. "You make it look so appealing," is K'del's reply, so amusedly wry. Not that it prevents him from following suit, draining his glass with not much less of a wince-- and then refilling both. "We can drink, while the world burns. While we try to prevent it from burning. Bottoms up." Silently, Irianke toasts his words, a tremble at her lips betraying the emotions she keeps locked up. This one, this third one, she sips first, before blurting out, "Did you see Hattie? Oh, K'del. We can't let this thing get so deep into High Reaches." K'del's eyes immediately close, squeezed shut. "I saw," he says, heartbreak in his tone. "How... shells. Losing a child. If it were my child..." If it were Ali's child... "We'll do everything we can to prevent that, Irianke. Everything." Steely resolve, now, as he drains his second glass' worth. Irianke nurses this one, at least initially, and then drinks half of it in one gulp and looks down into the glass. It's swirled and shook and all sorts of physical things are done to get the liquid to move. "I'm 40 now." A beat. "Maybe even almost 41." Pause. "I'm not sure." "I don't--" K'del breaks off, glances up from the now-empty glass he'd been staring at, those blue eyes focusing intently, and with surprise, on Irianke's face. "What do you mean?" "Pour yourself another," Irianke advises. K'del watches Irianke, silently, for several more seconds before he complies. He pours another, erring on the side of 'generous,' and then offers the bottle towards the weyrwomen. "Go on," he says. Irianke holds out her glass to be topped off and then brings it close to her mouth once it is. "I timed it. To age Niahvth. To age myself. I timed it." Such simple words for such a weighty confession. "To..." K'del breaks off, the furrow of his brow showing how intently he's thinking this through. "So that she would rise first. So that you could... so that you would be Weyrwoman." He may have worked his way through to that but he's plainly still processing the implications. The whole of it. Irianke says nothing. What he says requires no response except to drink some more. Her lashes flutter, falling down to catch sight of her lap and then back up to look anywhere else but K'del until she finally has to just look at him mutely, waiting for something more. K'del's silence lingers, one second after another. He's still looking at Irianke, but it's difficult to tell whether he really is focusing, or if his thoughts are somewhere else altogether. "It mattered that much to-- no." No, that's not what he wants to say. Abruptly, his eyes focus. "Why are you telling me? Why now?" "Drink?" Before, this might be an encouraging command. Now, there's a quizzical lilt, almost hesitant, and Irianke listens and waits while he tries to work out the reasons. Her mouth parts as if to interject or explain and then he's moved on and she stops. "The meeting... The meeting made me realize this is not something you shouldn't know. That it is something I needed to confess to you in regards to. I have no intention of resigning to Farideh, but... oh, fuck if I know. It seemed to be the right moment to tell you." Midst death and doom, here have some more doom! Dryly, "The last thing we would need, right now, is for you to resign to Farideh." The rest may still be something K'del is working through, piece by piece, but that he is sure of. His eyes close, and then, abruptly, open again. He doesn't drink; instead, he twists the glass within his hand, and exhales sharply. "Thank you for telling me. For being honest. Now, more than ever, we do need to be a team." Relieved to not have to deal with yelling, reproof, or worse, tears, Irianke sinks into the couch to drink some more with one burden unladen. "Yes. About that volunteer wing?" The question leading towards more discussion and decisions and thoughts. She might even end up curling to fall asleep on his couch, falling asleep after another drink. Perhaps. He'll even put a blanket atop her, and press a gentle, fraternal kiss upon her temple before he retreats to bed. Aww. |
Comments
Farideh (08:38, 14 November 2015 (PST)) said...
Leave A Comment