Logs:As Men
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| RL Date: 9 June, 2014 |
| Who: Devaki, H'kon |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr, High Reaches Hold |
| Type: Log |
| What: Some questions have answers. Others... |
| Where: High Reaches Hold |
| When: Day 10, Month 13, Turn 34 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Steady, today's snowfall sticks, creating dunes on the bowl floor. |
| Mentions: Dilan/Mentions, Esiara/Mentions, Lilabet/Mentions, Madilla/Mentions, Raija/Mentions, Vinien/Mentions |
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| High Reaches Hold It's just on dinner hour, and the main hall is filled with the bustle of talking and laughter. There's plenty of discussions around the upcoming Turn's End celebrations, and what special things the Hold might be doing this Turn. When H'kon arrives, he is greeted by the Steward Kiatan, with whom the brownrider would've arranged for this meeting. Kiatan is polite, if not particularly chatty -- leading H'kon though the hall, then into the twists and turns of the passages of the inner Hold. They shortly arrive at a door, and the steward indicates for H'kon to precede him. The interior is plain enough -- a simple looking office that doesn't really befit the stature of a Lord, yet it's graced with a windowed view of the courtyard below. Devaki is seated behind the desk, while a girl who looks perhaps a Turn old, plays with a doll on a rug near the hearth. H'kon is better at ease for a lack of having to make conversation. He turns now and again to take in their environs as they change, but mostly focuses on that steward. Kiatan is thanked with a nod and monosyllabic farewell before the brownrider steps forward. The same gaze that took in those parts of the hall they'd moved through takes in this office, quick, barely a second, before he's lifting his chin in the faintest acknowledgement for Devaki. He surely must have seen that girl; he doesn't watch her. "I appreciate your time," is not the formal greeting that might otherwise have been offered. "Kiatan said you were persistent," comes Devaki's reply, the Lord's eyes flicking towards the steward. With the slightest of nods given to him, Kiatan takes that as a sign and shuts the door behind him. "What he wasn't specific on was the details. I assume this is not a meeting that requires my Guard Captain...?" he cocks his head to look at H'kon, inquisitively. "Hm," is acknowledgement, in time with a shade of a nod. "It is not," comes without much movement, but for that required to form the words, clear, carefully projected. H'kon doesn't even blink yet, all the snow having conveniently melted off his eyelashes and away well before he'd entered the room. A beat of silence, in which the former exile seems to weigh up the truth of the brownrider's careful words. With a nod, he rises from behind the desk, moving over to the sideboard. There's a decanter there, and he pours out a splash of liquid into two glasses, before walking over towards H'kon, offering one. It's when Devaki stands that H'kon spares that little girl a second look, only barely longer than the first. His attention is on the Lord Holder again by the time that glass is being offered; is being taken, with another quick nod from the dragonman. H'kon stays standing, considering the other man a bit more studiously, now. And waiting for a cue. With a twist of lips, as if struck by something amusing, Devaki takes a sip from the glass, then gestures towards a pair of chairs. It puts them closer to where the girl is playing, and when she sees the Lord sit down, she immediately stands up and quickly crawls into his lap. Putting a casual arm around the girl, the holder looks at H'kon expectantly. It is, after all, his meeting. It's the settled location H'kon was waiting for. Once he sits, his own sip is dutiful, small, before the glass finds its own place, clasped between both of the brownrider's hands. He waits, until that little girl looks ready, and then, once again, gives one of those famous nods. "As you might expect," considering Alpine's general Nabol-oriented duties of late, considering H'kon's particular lack of professional contact with this hold, "I've not requested to meet as Weyr representative to Lord Holder." A beat, a twitch at the corner of his mouth. "Better it is not." The girl has the blue eyes and blond hair of her parents, and holds up the doll. "She's thirsty," the girl pronounces, which earns Devaki's thoughtful look. "This is adult drink. She's still a baby, isn't she?" "Uh-huh," the girl nods, then precedes to scold the doll for trying to drink adult drink. While the girl fusses, Devaki's gaze lifts to listen to H'kon. "I'd intuited that, from the lack of greeting due my position." If it's a scolding, it's not one followed by an expectation of the same, he is blandly straightforward: "This is about my son." First, H'kon waits. "Hm," again, once the conversation is as adult as the drinks they hold, deliberate confirmation for the omitted greeting, and certainly no sense of apology. "In large part," follows afterwards. "Your illegitimate son, Madilla's son, who will be joining you soon." Devaki sets the glass on the edge of the chair's arm. "I fail to see why my son," a slight emphasis omitting the illegitimate, "And where he chooses to go concerns you. If you're worried -- I'll not prevent you visiting. In fact, I encourage it, just as I've encouraged Maddy to introduce us. I think she felt it was not the time." Another nod. Always. H'kon's fingers tighten on the glass, ease. It's given a turn, though only by a few degrees. "Your ties to him are through blood. Mine, through my dragon, and his mother. It is my concern." Those few degrees are taken back, the other direction. He still doesn't raise that glass a second time. He still doesn't look away from Devaki. "Not a worry." That is left to sit out, barely a moment. "I do wonder what you would have him take from this Turn." The Lord's expression suggests that Devaki doesn't believe either of the things H'kon suggests are of concern, and yet it's not voiced aloud. Instead, the silence after the brownrider's question stretches, and he looks down at the girl in his lap. "Esi, honey. Are you looking forward to having Dilan here?" The girl immediately brightens, "Dee! Dee!" With a grin in response, her father says, "It'll be good to have him around, won't it?" Esiara nods brightly. "He's not as mean as Vini," she declares. With that, Devaki looks back over at H'kon, as if that's all the answer that's needed, as far as he's concerned. A jaw muscle twitches. H'kon glances down to the little girl, back up to Devaki. "It is likewise of concern to me," and there's nothing in his voice to suggest that the brownrider considers his first inquiry closed, "what it is you would have with my daughter." "Your daughter?" That earns a blank, inquistive stare from Devaki. Unblinking: "Yes." "Ahh. You must mean Raija." As if he's only now just realized that the brownrider has claimed the girl as his own, and is surprised by it. "Well, your adopted daughter is a member of Maddy's family. By which, I consider her to be an extended member of mine. It doesn't seem fair that, when Dilan visits, or you visit Dilan, that she should miss out. My children are, in a way, her half-siblings, just as Lily is." In his lap, Esiara visibly perks at the mention of Lily, craning her neck around. Kindly, her father murmurs, "No, honey. She's not here. She's busy at the Weyr, studying for harper hall. She'll come down with Dee soon, though. And hopefully their young sister, too." "Her half-siblings," H'kon repeats, "through a mother with whom they share no blood ties; simply one link between families. Yours and mine. Let me ask again, then," and his eyebrows lift, a relatively subtle movement, "what it is you hope Dilan will learn while he is here?" That earns a brief, if not very humored smile from Devaki. "Yet your earlier implication indicated that you thought your own, non-blood ties were somehow more of weight than my blood ties to my son. I'm not quite sure what I did to deserve your ire, since, as far as I'm aware, we've never met before. Perhaps you can elaborate on your hostility? Then, perhaps, I'll feel more comfortable answering demanding questions from a stranger who -- by rights -- has no say in the matter." Esiara twists a little, uncomfortable, and slides off her father's lap, resuming her place on the rug, patting her doll's hair. As that little girl slides down, careful and controlled, H'kon leans back, opening the space between them. "No." Simple, clean. "My earlier implication was that my ties were of significant weight to justify my interest. You have made it clear - then, and again now - that you do not agree." He turns that glass again, a few degrees more than the first time, one wrist bent slightly back, the other, forward. "Perhaps we ought come to an understanding on this matter first." "I don't disagree. I was the one that suggested Maddy bring you along on the playdates," Devaki says, easily, truthfully. "What I disagree with is the implication that I have to justify wanting to spend time with my son, to you. I owe that justification to Maddy, and I've given it to her. Does she--" he stops a moment, cocks his head and regards the brownrider, "Does she know you're here, now?" He looks like he suspects the answer to that already. "You misunderstand me again. I have not come for justification." The glass turns back, H'kons hands and wrists straight again. Devaki's question is ignored. He turns the glass the other way, then back. Symmetry. "I have come simply that I might know what it is I have asked." "And yet..." Devaki disagrees: "You have asked what I want him to learn, like he is a student. What I want is for him to know his family -- the other half of his family. He has learnt what it is to be of the Weyr; he has the right to learn what it is to be of the Hold. The right to meet uncles and cousins and great uncles who are kin to him." H'kon's eyebrows draw together, not a heavy frown, but the slightest uncertainty. "And over a Turn he will certainly come to know his family. But you are Lord over a major hold. He may not look forward to a part in that, but surely it could do him only good to know it." "Is that a statement, or a question?" Devaki wonders. H'kon has been watching him most of this meeting. He is, still, but his gaze sharpens. "Do you disagree with any part?" That, at least, is a question. A question that, like some of those Devaki has asked the rider, is ignored. "I don't anticipate a place for him in the managing of the Hold in the future. If he wants it, I will oblige him. But he has made his current plans to be a.... brownrider... well known. And I will respect his wishes. And I hope, you will, too." "Plans he made on his own," is the nearest H'kon comes to an answer to that last hope. He considers Devaki a moment, silent, then at length lifts that glass, not fully to his mouth, but still a few fingers' widths from its previous position. "And knowing Weyr and wing structure, or to work leather, or even tend an injured dragon, might well prove useful to any other number of positions in a craft or a hold." The contents of the glass are swirled. H'kon lowers his hands, and the glass with them. Green eyes finding Devaki again: "This is an opportunity for him that other children at the Weyr will never have." A quirk of lips turns into a genuine smile, the first the Lord has displayed. "I think we both hope, and trust Dilan will be his own man." Strangely it is only now that he reaches for his glass, taking a sip, gaze flickering to Esiara, before the latter comment draws attention back to the brownrider. "That's hardly true. If a Weyr resident wanted to foster their child with us, we'd do so, as we do with other Holds. None ask." A beat. "Lily's set on going to harper, but if you and Maddy wish Raija to have the same opportunity one day, I'd more than welcome her into my home for a Turn. I'm sure that, just as Dilan's learned skills at the Weyr, experiences at the Hold would benefit her as much." There's a pause, and it's only as Devaki is taking that sip that H'kon gives, "Indeed." His own glass is given another swirl. The offer made for Raija, in the end, is met only with a furrowed brow, and at long last, a sip of that adult drink he's been warming since they sat down. The reaction -- the furrowing of brow -- isn't much of a surprise to the Lord. Devaki waits, a posture of polite expectation that, no doubt, has been used on countless of supplicants, staff, and other Lords alike. The glass is raised a second time, another sip taken. When it's lowered, H'kon sits forward, a quick glance going to check the position of the little girl. "I expect, then, there is little point in asking more." "You can ask," Devaki allows, though his tone indicates an answer is not necessarily guaranteed. "Equally, I might ask Dilan over our visits in the coming Turn." A reminder, as H'kon gets to his feet. A tip of the Lord's head, since that's not a question. "You are welcome to ask him. Though if I learn you are using him to find out anything I consider... privileged information on the Hold, we'll have another conversation. And not just as men." Devaki rises after H'kon does, more slowly, and Esiara hurries over to cling to his leg, peering shyly around at the rider. "I would not," is simple, sincere. "I will be encouraging him to make the most of his time here." Eyes flit to the girl when she moves, and, again, do not stay on her. "Any questions he has for you will be his own." And the dragonrider holds the glass back out to his host. And that is a surprise, and it earns a genuine sentiment from Devaki in return: "I appreciate that, H'kon." And, when he reaches for the empty glass with one hand, he stretches out the other, to shake -- as men do. Just as. |
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