Logs:Anew (Unholy) Arts 2
| |
|---|
| |
| RL Date: 22 February, 2014 |
| Who: Lilabet, Telavi |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Two (really quite grown up) girls take tea. |
| Where: Lower Caverns, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 27, Month 1, Turn 34 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Alida/Mentions, Delinda/Mentions, Delvana/Mentions, Devaki/Mentions, Dilan/Mentions, H'kon/Mentions, Madilla/Mentions, R'hin/Mentions |
  |
| This time, it's not waves in passing, Tela's made the more sparkly so Lilabet can show off before her friends; this time, as happens every few sevens, it's an actual meetup. This time, it's even pre-planned, Telavi having secured them both a small table in the commons. When Lilabet gets there, there are smiles, tea and chatter, but it's not long before Telavi invites, "Show me your needlework? Let's see how you've gotten since last time!" "Mama's not had as much time to show me things," is Lilabet's woeful regret, not that it stops her from drawing her length of fine linen out from the pouch at her waist, and laying it out upon the table (mindful, always, of the teacups). "But Aunt Delinda's helped a bit." She's embroidering abstract patterns onto the fabric, loops and whorls, some rather better defined than others. "I wish I could do the start bit over... I've gotten better." "No? Hasn't the girl grown up yet?" Telavi teases, if with all due sympathy; she gives her fingertips a brief glance for form's sake before leaning forward to look, to touch. "I know, I know. I suppose it's in payment for my teacher's making me rip everything out," and here she gives an eloquent shudder, "but it'll be nice to look back and see how you've come, and it'll make a lovely little pillow for your room when you have one... and you can always decide which corners are up, can't you? How are you finding it, working with this cloth instead of having those little holes to guide your way?" Lilabet lets her fingertips trace idly over the stitches in a way that is half reverent: she's proud of the work, flaws and all. "It's harder, doing it this way," she allows, letting those blue eyes of hers drop towards the linen. "I have to pay a lot more attention. It's kind of more satisfying because of it, though, you know? I suppose I'll have to keep it for always, just to remind myself. It'll be turns before I have my own room." Turns and turns and turns, or so her sighing tone suggests. Tela's fingers slip back, soothing the marks of the hoop without erasing them. "Satisfying, I like that. Believe it or not, there are some people who just want the grid and that's all," and she gives Lilabet a flash of twin dimples. "Would you like to make a little muslin packet of herbs and things, the nice-smelling kind, to put in it? I wonder if they couldn't, oh, curtain off your bed, at the very least... a girl who Impressed in my clutch has that, it's lovely." "Well, that's okay too. I mean, there's nothing wrong with the grid," decides Lilabet, quite firmly, as if making a pronouncement, or Proclamation Of Truth. "I suggested I be allowed to move into the dorms, especially if my mother won't let me go and Apprentice until next turn, but apparently that's not allowed, either. The herbs, though... that's a good idea. Not lavender, though, because that's what mother always uses and I'm tired of it." Such firmness! Telavi's brows may arch, but she manages not to smile, not even for the lavender that brings out her dimples yet again. "In its place," she agrees about the grid in lieu. "Why isn't it allowed? Is it the caverns saying no or your mother saying no? And do you know which scents you do like, or will you have to go about sniffing everyone to see?" Telavi even sniffs for good measure, her tone teasing once more. "Mama thinks I'm too young," exhales Lilabet. "Though I think it's more that she feels guilty? Like... her decision chased me away. But it's not like I wouldn't still visit, you know? I'll be eleven, soon. I'm not that young." Her fingertips have found a loose piece of embroidery silk, and worry at it idly, though her attention is focused very much upon the greenrider. "I'm not sure. I'll have to work out something I like. Roses, maybe. Unless that's too old lady?" "Mmmm." It's considering. Telavi glances at Lilabet, and then down at her work. "I imagine you're quite a help to her, too," she says without particular weight. "Roses are nice, with something else for a little zing; some are old lady, some are 'I will dance! in the moonlight! and all will be dazzled by my beauteousness and fall in love, love, love! and some are just lovely. I remember a girl I grew up with, her father was a wingleader... and so she was able to get some little bottles of this and that and mixed herself a 'signature scent' that seemed like it was just her. She shared out the rest, it was terribly sweet of her," though there at the end, amid that wistfulness is a subtle waft of something else: leftovers. Leftovers. Lilabet, weyr-raised despite being firstborn, is not oblivious to that something else, though her own expression holds mostly that wistfulness, and is accompanied, ultimately, with a sigh. "I wish I had a wingleader for a father, or someone who would buy things like that. I suppose Uncle Devaki could, but..." No. She sets her chin. "One day, maybe. When I'm a famous harper. Maybe I'll have a different scent for every day of the seven!" Dimples again. Just for a moment: wouldn't want Lilabet to become inured. Telavi agrees, "A scent for every girl you want to be. Does he," the Lord, Lord Devaki, "your uncle," Tela finally but smoothly manages, "give you things?" Better, too, Lilabet not become too conscious of the efficacy of properly employed dimples. The question nonetheless has the girl hesitating, her teeth resting just gently upon her lower lip. "We're not spoiled like his proper children are," she says. "I mean... the ones with his wife. I shouldn't say proper, should I? Dee's still his son. Mama says we shouldn't make too much of the connection, though." "Of course he is," Telavi declares. "Just not born in wedlock," without much more than a slight emphasis on the lock. "I hope Vinien," she says his name quietly, but then, the whole sentence is quiet, "behaves better to you. Especially as he starts growing up. At least Sealene likes you, even if she's...." Her little shrug sums it up. "It sucks, being so much older than all of them," sighs Lilabet, with a sigh, flopping backwards in her chair. "Except that I guess I'll get to go away and grow up sooner, and then they really won't be able to just think of me as one of the kids. Sometimes... is it bad that sometimes I think everything was simpler when it was just Mama and Dilan and me? Not that," she's quick to add, "I don't like having H'kon around." "You will, and then they'll be envious," Tela agrees, with the sense of poor, poor Lilabet, who'll have to swan around before the adoring masses. She peeks at Lilabet, taking up the embroidery to examine it further. As she does, "Why would it be bad? It was, after all." Lilabet, Harper prodigy. Lilabet, so grand and fine. Lilabet... Lilabet, all grown up. "Because then I feel bad, because now Dee has a father, and I know Uncle Devaki is glad to know about it, and it was a terrible lie. And... Raija's better off with us, even though she's making things miserable. It feels selfish." She sighs the over-dramatic sigh of a pre-teen, blue-eyed gaze turned more thoughtful onto Telavi. "Was it complicated for you, too? All this growing up stuff, I mean." "But 'simpler' is different than if you said 'less annoying,'" Telavi points out seriously, though then a fleeting smile emerges when she looks up from the needlework-- and yes, she has looked at the reverse side. "Even if that's what you meant.... Oh, it wasn't complicated with brothers and sisters, anyway, it was just me and my uncle and all the very many other girls in the caverns," but the way she draws that out suggests a multiplicity of complications. The reverse side is not quite as tidy as it should be, and Lilabet's cheeks go faintly pink for it. Still, "Girls can be awful to each other, can't they? We say horrible things, but... I don't know that I mean them all. I don't really think Reba smells like dragon dung, even though she does kind of have a problem with sweat." Her expression is, just for a moment, utterly guilty. "I wish Vana wasn't at Healer. I mean, I know she's happy there, but she's so busy, and I see even less of her than I used to. It was always so cool, having a friend who was older." "We do," and Telavi even manages to sound more regretful and less as though she's quite enjoyed it in the past; after a pause to point out areas that need improvement-- not in words, just with a touch of fingertip where Lilabet can see and surmise-- blue-today eyes hold steady on the younger girl. "I'm sorry about Vana. It is hard. I had a little of that too... friends apprenticing, Impressing, all sorts of things. For Reba, is it the 'doesn't wash' problem with sweat, or something else?" she inquires with what might well be solicitude. Lilabet, her own eyes having dropped to follow that fingertip, nods - just once. She can see it. "And then you ended up here," she remembers. "All the way across the continent from everyone. Though I suppose nowhere's so very far when you've a dragon to take you. Vana's happy, and I'm glad for that. I think it's easier for her to be somewhere where she wasn't with her mom, even if her mom used to be there, so still belongs." For Reba, she shrugs, gaze lifting as she shakes her head: no idea. "Yes. And of course I'd been Searched the night before the hatching, or maybe the early morning of, and so there wasn't time to know anybody, and they all knew each other or mostly," and Telavi makes a little face. Abandoning Reba's issues in favor of Vana's, "It's-- 'nice' isn't the right word, quite-- that you understand these things, well enough that you can explain them, even. Even if there's still that... pang." "But you made friends pretty quickly," prompts Lilabet, eager for the confirmation. "Even if it was hard to begin with." She's slower to answer the rest, though the abrupt pink in her cheeks - so reminiscent of her mother's inclination towards blushes - suggests she's thinking about it. "I try," she says. "Mama always said we should try and understand people, and I do. I think it's an especially good skill for a harper, of course." "I did," Telavi confirms, just like Lilabet wants, and it even happens to be true. While she doesn't elaborate, it gives Lilabet time to think, and time for Telavi to consider her and that little blush, too. "I'd think so too," she says. "Not just a harper liking to listen to the sound of his own voice," this with a crinkle of her nose. "Good for a rider, too... Do you think you would Stand anywhere other than here?" "I hope I will, when I go to the hall." Lilabet lets that hang for a few seconds, sounding not quite worried, but certainly thoughtful about the prospect: it's a whole new thing, being in a different place with different people. She's nonetheless pleased by the rest of what Telavi has to say, turning a smile up to the greenrider. "I suppose I might, if I were asked. I'm not... I know Mama chooses to stay here, and chose, and it was partly for me. And High Reaches is home. But I think I could find home, elsewhere. It's not like I'd be likely posted here as a harper, either." Telavi looks at her in return, a long, speculative moment. Then she changes course, setting the needlework back on the table in favor of bending to root around in the raffia bag at her feet. "I have something for you," she says, but what comes out may not be as exciting as all that; it is a riding jacket... but certainly larger than Lilabet's current build and more curvily cut, too. At least the light brown leather looks to have been quite good, once; it's a pity that it's strained about the seams and there are scuff-marks at the long peplum, the latter in a vertical line that suggests having been abraded by a neckridge. Telavi holds it up so Lilabet can see, and all her expression gives away is a smile. Is it surprising that Lilabet's eyes light with near-avaricious excitement at the possibility of a gift? Is it any less surprising that her expression shades from that to something more speculative, managing not to give in to disappointment, though there are definite shades of hesitation. "Telavi?" she begins, her tone asking rather more of a question than the actual word. Telavi gives her a glorious smile. "Your face didn't completely fall. I'm proud. This, this is a project. Feel... here, this part of the leather," the part not strained, not scratched, "It's the good stuff, see the grain, and the way it was tanned? And it's enough to make you something very nice with... if you're up for that." If she dares. "That would be rude," is Lilabet's answer, abruptly sunny. She's picked up on Telavi's plan quickly enough, now, that she can lean forward without hesitation, to feel the leather and really begin considering the possibilities. "Of course I'm up for it. I like a challenge. What would you do with it? Perhaps if it were cut off shorter... and something done about the seams." "For you? Also a riding jacket," Telavi assures, sitting back to let the girl examine it. "Not bulky, the way you would for Threadfighting," that last word said while making a bit of a face for their lack of it, "jumping and jumping and jumping between; this is more something to just keep you warm through a time or two... and perhaps add a little panache when you're at the Hall, hmm? We'll take it apart-- I'll show you what to look for when we do-- trim off those seams, move pieces around, and generally make something that will last you for a couple of Turns, hopefully." If Lilabet doesn't develop her mother's figure too quickly. "It would be longer, but then you'd be swimming in it now, leather just can't be let in and out the way good cloth can. And that," Tela says with satisfaction, "is making something good out of something that only used to be." The jacket gets laid out carefully upon the table, Lilabet's slender fingers smoothing the leather and inspecting the lining, one piece at a time. If she's not got an expert's eye for it, she's certainly the picture of an enthusiastic amateur, nodding along with everything Telavi has to say. Her smile threatens to split her face in two, even when she says, "It's perfect, Telavi. Truly. I mean, it will be. It'll be the nicest of anyone's, I bet." Eyes shining, she looks up to meet the greenrider's gaze. "Thank you. Dilan's always showing off about the riding belt H'kon helped him make, but this will be far more amazing than that." And then Telavi says that the sky's going to be purple-- well, no; the greenrider's smile is warm, right back to Lilabet, with just a slight lift of her brows from the matching surprise of H'kon and the belt. "You are most welcome. In fact, if you ever feel a great need, you can even mention that Wingleader R'hin and I picked it out when we picked out his jacket... of course, the man doesn't ride brown, so it mightn't be as impressive as it ordinarily would." Alas! says Telavi's moue before she breaks back into her smile. The smugness of Lilabet's smile suggests she may well do just that, though, of course, she has to agree, "Apparently only brownriders count as worthwhile. I'm not sure what he'll do if he grows up and Impresses, I don't know, a blue or something. I suppose he'll stop minding, then, but it'll be funny, you know?" Lilabet does, at least, sound affectionate when she talks of her little brother, though her words are idle in a way that suggests she's still much more focused on the feel of the leather beneath her fingers. "And you won't let him forget, will you," Telavi teases. "Now, for next time..." her brows go up in playful exaggeration: is Lilabet ready for her list? "Before we leave, we'll get a better idea of how it fits on, but then I'd like you to take it all apart, keep all the pieces-- especially the hardware-- and clean them, condition the leather, and sketch out several ideas of how it could look. When you're done... you can let me know. Think about texture a little, too; I've a tanner friend," of course she does, "we can talk to, about tooling in some accents." "Never," admits Lilabet, undaunted and utterly amused. Not that that amusement lingers: her shoulders are straightening, and if Telavi's brows are up in playful exaggeration, well, that doesn't mean her pre-teen companion is not taking it very seriously indeed. "I will," she says, with all the determined intent of the young and enthusiastic. "I'll have to start looking at how other people's look, for ideas. I never paid enough attention, before." But now... Was Telavi ever that young and that serious? "Do," she says. "Think practical, too-- there will be pockets-- but..." here her smile reemerges, luminous. "Sketch a few, too, that are absolutely for fun and not practical in the least. Would you like some more tea?" She is, it seems, happy to pour. After that... why, there's people-watching, or maybe jacket-watching, and the aforementioned to-do list in what time is left. Again, Lilabet's eyes gleam: pockets! It's enough to make her bubbly and giggly for some time to come, through tea and conversation, and even after she skips away, precious cargo in hand. She has work to do! |
Leave A Comment