Logs:Big Girl (Unholy) Arts
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| RL Date: 25 November, 2013 |
| Who: Lilabet, Telavi |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Lilabet meets Telavi, who is amazing. |
| Where: Resident Common Room, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 10, Month 5, Turn 33 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: B'tal/Mentions, Delifa/Mentions, Delvana/Mentions, Madilla/Mentions, Teris/Mentions, Z'ian/Mentions |
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| Resident Common Room, High Reaches Weyr Just off of the main passageway lies the small cavern that forms the hub of the residents' quarters, kept immaculately clean by the headwoman's staff and warmed in cold weather by a stone hearth to the left and well back from the entrance. Comfortable chairs and a plush fur arrayed before the hearth make an inviting spot to curl up with a book or handicraft, or just to sit and chat. Beyond, additional chairs stand in clusters throughout the room, some upholstered with age-softened hide, some plain wood. At the widest point of the cavern, a round table gleams with polish, though its surface is nicked and scarred from Turns of use. Beyond the table, the very back of the cavern often lies in shadow unless the glowbaskets there are unlidded to cast cozy pools of light. The commingled scents of klah, smoke and polish permeate the air along with the sweetness of rosemary and lavender. Tapestries hang across the entrances to dormitories and more private quarters as well as the exit to the outer hall, colorful protections from drafts. Ordinarily Telavi eschews working in the common room-- it's not really her area, after all, is it?-- but a couple free hours find her here instead of off and away. An unshielded glowbasket lights her in profile, glimmering off fancifully-braided blonde hair even as it catches at the knot of the jacket slung over the back of her seat; her needle flashes with its light as she sews, though the details may be obscure to one not looking over her shoulder. She'd been talking animatedly with the other two occupants of the four comfortable chairs, but now the other girls have moved on to babies and the greenrider's drifted off. At least whatever she's thinking about now, it gives her a slight, unthinking curve of a smile. There's a temporary influx of pre-teens from the classroom as lessons are dismissed - temporary, because most of them are quick to abandon even the cozy warmth of the common room in favor of the pleasant spring afternoon. Lilabet is steps behind them, drifting rather than hurrying from the classroom, her thoughts lost to some private dreamland as she meanders towards the hearth. It's the light catching Telavi's hair - or is it her needle? - that draws the leggy, dark-haired girl out of her thoughts, her head tilting up in answer as those big, blue eyes widen in admiration. It's as though the greenrider senses eyes upon her, and perhaps she does; barely twice the younger girl's age, she has the expertise-- or instinct-- to glance up gradually from beneath the thick veil of her lashes, her stitching slowing but not stopping with the curve of a nail for her guide. Were she a weaver, she might not even have to do that. But Tela's a greenrider, and moreover, one who-- when she does spot Lilabet-- widens her own eyes slowly, just a hint of a naughty dimple popping into existence as though they were passing notes in class. Only this classmate has clothing that looks as though it had been made just for her, second- or third-hand though the wool trousers and peachy blouse might have originally been; dangly shell earrings; and what might have been impeccable instead of artistic posture if only she wouldn't slouch. Lilabet, whose clothes are sturdily unremarkable, and whose hair is tightly braided into twin pigtails down either side of her head, opens her eyes wider still, visibly hesitating - like a fluttering butterfly, hovering above sweet nectar - as she catches Tela's glance, before she takes that first step forward. "I'm sorry," she says, low voiced and polite, earnest in her own way. "I don't mean to interrupt. I just--" Her admiration is palpable, if shy; it's a rather different side to the more responsible, grounded persona she wears as older sister and daughter. Is it imaginable that Telavi might have been a girl like that, once? Here and now, that dimple deepens with that first step, as though even a butterfly might have footprints. "You're no interruption," she says, for all that Lilabet surely would have been in a different place or at a different time; the lilt of her voice isn't from around here either. Her lashes sweep lower, but it's only for three stitches, and then she's marking the fourth chair with the tilt of her chin. Those big, expressive eyes shift from Telavi to the chair, taking in the invitation with obvious pleasure. She sits, pressing her hands into the folds of her skirt, and turns her attention back. "You're a greenrider," she says. "Aren't you." It's not really a question - there's no upwards lilting note at the end. And, besides, she doesn't pause before she adds, "I really like your earrings. My mother says maybe when I'm thirteen, but I mayn't even be here then, so perhaps I'll get to have them sooner?" That's what her knot says, and Telavi might even have said as much... if it weren't for how she has no mind to interrupt the flow of words now that the girl's begun. "Thank you," she says gravely, smilingly, as though the girl's mother were there to overhear her manners. "I like them; they go with quite a few things. It's too bad you're having to wait. Surely it won't be much longer? Why ever would you be leaving?" "I like your whole outfit," admits Lily, with an expression that could very nearly be described as 'bashful.' She drops her gaze, focusing intently upon the bundle of hands within the lap of her skirt, and explains, "I'll probably go to Harper Hall, when I'm twelve. My-- well, not cousin, but she's like a cousin?-- She went to Healer Hall, a few months ago. She'll be thirteen, this turn. I'm going to be a Harper and write stories, unless I get to be a Greenrider." And isn't there such reverence to the way she says that! Even from so young and unstudied a girl-- or perhaps especially so, given Lily's openness, how she doesn't seem to play the game-- Telavi can color charmingly at the compliment; her gaze follows the girl's, her notice of what she can see of skin and nails automatic, and the fit of the girl's cuffs to her wrists. Tela has a soft acknowledging murmur for understanding that like a cousin, for the harper and-- then someone who knows her well might see the bemusement in more than the soft curve of her mouth, as though she's never ever heard a greenrider spoken of that way before. "At least if you're a harper first, you can be both," she part-offers, part-sympathizes, part-- something else. As plain as Lilabet's clothes are, it is certainly true that they're well-fitted, and that a careful needle has made adjustments here and there. It's also obvious that she takes care of herself, physically, albeit in that scrubbed-hard-and-often, wholesome kind of way. "I'd like that," says the girl, smiling in a way that lights her whole face. "I want to be a Harper so that I can learn, but it does seem that anyone can write stories, if they want to. I feel like it's important to try something else first, too. Like... you can't Impress, and then change your mind. This way, I can know for sure that it's what I want, and not just because of my Dad. Did you do something else, first?" "No, you really can't," Telavi murmurs without particular affect. "Your... father wants you to be a greenrider?" holds a different sort of bemusement before, "I was a seamstress. Am, really, in my spare time." She adjusts her work so the other girl can see, though it isn't much to speak of just now: a curving paisley teardrop of shimmering deeper-than-royal blue, about the size of the back of her hand, that her tiny stitches have partially appliqu?d to an even deeper green. "You can call me Tela, by the way. Telavi, for long. What's your name?" Lilabet's oh is one of pure, genuine pleasure and delight; her eyes widen, yet again, as she leans in to see Telavi's work. "Oh, how lovely. I help Mama with her quilts, sometimes, but..." They don't have her entranced, not quite like this. "I'm Lily. Lilabet. I don't really know if my father would want me to be a Greenrider or not." It's such an obvious capital letter, so reverent. "He died when I was a little girl. But he was one, so it feels... I'd like to. I suppose you must have liked being a seamstress, if you still do it." "I do, and I'm good at it," Telavi says, with more than a hint of dimple in lieu of modesty. And since she'd gotten a look at the girl's hands, why not, she flips just the very edge up so Lilabet may feel it if she likes. Both are finely woven, the blue smooth, the green shot with slubs for effect. "The blue's left over from making a dress, can you imagine? and the green's the lining for a waistcoat, I think the journeyman said. Do you know the sorts of things your father wore, did he like anything like that? And... do you want to be Lily, or Lilabet? They're both pretty." Grinning, Lilabet seems somehow extra pleased at the other girl's lack of modesty. She lets her fingertips graze the fabric, just barely in contact with her skin; her eyes flutter closed for a moment as she does so, butterfly-like all over again. "I don't know if I did. I don't remember him doing so, but... he's been gone a very long time. My Aunt is a weyrwoman, though, so she has lots of pretty things. Do you..." She hesitates, gaze lifting so that she can give Tela a hopeful glance. "Would you mind calling me Lilabet? It's just that everyone says 'Lily', and it is pretty, but it's such a little girl's name." That reaction can only lighten Tela's mood, less a matter of dimples than a subtly relaxed quality to the tilt of her head, to the way she waits so very still as though that butterfly might shy away. If she has sisters, cousins, she hasn't spoken of them to anyone here. Her mmm is empathetic, and she adds just a touch of playful wistfulness-- or it escapes-- to, "I can only imagine she does! Do you-- why, I'd be pleased to, Lilabet. I can't promise I always will," there, finally, is the naughty dimple again, "but I'd certainly like to." Since Lilabet is such a big girl now. And since she has apprentice ambitions, "What do you think of the harpers posted here?" Lilabet, too, is wistful: wistful for that faraway aunt, and wistful, too, for the clothes she wears. Wistfulness, however, is oh-so-easily replaced by more delight; her posture straightens in an instant, and her hands uncurl. Lilabet is, indeed, a big girl. "It's all right if you don't always," she agrees. "Sometimes I still call myself Lily, because I think maybe it's easier? But." But. Of the harpers, she hesitates. "Journeyman Kharven says I dream too much, sometimes, and that if I really, truly want to be a Harper, I need to pay attention even to things I don't like as much. He likes my stories, though, and he's been teaching me how to write poetry." "It's certainly shorter," Tela agrees. "I'm glad we don't have to change our names when we Impress, it's not like the boys; I could've, but--" she has a prettily eloquent shrug: so many more important things in life, aren't there? "Though I wish we could that way, if we wanted." But that last's even more offhand, interest brighter by far in how she listens to Lilabet, even in her reply, "Poetry, my. It sounds like he thinks you're worth working with-- and that he thinks you can do it," so there's a lot right there, her voice implies. "T'avi," says Lilabet, testing it out. "T'lav? T'la?" Her giggle comes accompanied with a wrinkled nose: no, thank you! "L'bet isn't any better. Or L'la." "T'li," Telavi offers-- only to laugh in her own right. "Wonderful for a harper, wouldn't it be? La-la-la!" That makes Lilabet laugh all the more. "La-la-la the Harper. I'm sure it would go down well... I hope it means he thinks I can. Mama says he's probably harder on me than most, because he knows what I want, and that makes sense? But it's hard." "Not to be practical," Telavi says, but there's the cheeky dimple and the sweet dimple both, "but it seems like he must, else he'd just steer you to something else, wouldn't he? Or is he the type who doesn't want to 'hurt someone's feelings' and pretend?" She glances down at her work briefly, then back to Lilabet. "It does make sense, and sound hard, at the very same time." Lilabet's expression suggests she's not thought about the situation in quite these terms before, though that brow-furrowing consideration shades back into pleasure moments later. "I don't think he'd just let me get my hopes up, if there were no chance. So... that's positive, then." Her smile turns brilliant, albeit dimple-free. "It is." Telavi beams right back at her, reflecting the other girl's glow with pleasure. "Very. And, you know, it's nicer to Impress when you've gotten a chance to do other things, I think-- I remember hearing from Z'ian," only the name comes with sudden somberness, with respect, and also with a steady look at Lilabet, as though considering whether to continue. The former(?) Weyrleader's name widens Lilabet's eyes and tightens her mouth; she's solemn, biting down on her lower lip until she murmurs, "I hope he's doing well, down south. That he didn't go down there to-- well." Something in her expression suggests she's thinking, now, of someone else. "To--?" is Telavi's quiet question, the first reticence she's yet voiced. Lilabet flushes. "I only... my not-really-aunt went south because she was unwell, but she never came back again." Her tone is mournful, and also embarrassed. "But she was sick, not injured, and I'm sure he's fine." Tela bites her lip, though habit lets her do even that prettily; blue-today eyes are wide, soulful. "I'm sorry," she says. And, "I think-- I've heard he's getting to be fine. And he was my wingleader, you know," so if she doesn't really know, maybe it'll be enough cred to pass with a ten-Turn-old. Who isn't Rhey. Abruptly, the sun comes back out again in Lilabet's expression; smiling, earnest and hopeful, she says, "I'm so glad to hear that. I liked him. Everyone said that things would be better, and I thought maybe they were, though it's hard to tell sometimes? I'm sorry. If he were your Wingleader, you must have known him really well." Diffidence can be pretty, too, with Telavi's little shrug. "I don't know about really well? He wasn't my wingleader for as long as-- well, as long as anyone here would like. But what he did say, back when I talked to him back before he was Weyrleader or my wingleader... he was looking for riders with some knowhow under their belts. But if your dragon is shelled..." she doesn't quite dimple here but it's close, so close. By Lilabet's expression, she's rather handwaving the realities of Telavi's relationship with the former Weyrleader, and building it up to something rather more; she's a little awe-struck. "I suppose that makes sense," she confirms, smiling still (or is it again?). "It's the Interval, after all. My mother just hopes that if I am to Impress, it isn't when I'm twelve or thirteen or even... I think she'd prefer me to be older. I suppose that's fair." "Sensible, even," Telavi says, but wait for it, "for you to see that. In a good way," and that last is just a touch teasing again. Though... "I've got to get this put back-- it's for a friend, you see-- and then it's off to weyrlings," and the greenrider makes a show of rolling her shoulders and putting her chin up, all formations-ready, gung-ho! "But I'll see you around, Lilabet? Don't be a stranger." Eyes widening, again, Lilabet's obviously very impressed by this reference to the weyrlings-- and clearly delighted by the prospect of seeing the greenrider again. "Oh, of course," she enthuses. "I wouldn't want to keep you. But I'd like, very much, to get to talk to you again. When you have time. I know I need to not bother you. It was lovely to meet you, Telavi. Truly. Will you... give your green a pat for me?" Telavi's already been gathering her things, slipping them into the soft sling bag with its outline embroidery, but now she looks up, the still-dimmed light catching the surprise in her eyes-- surprise that softens. "Her name's Solith," she says, and the name's softer yet when she says it to Lilabet. "I will." Her smile appears, and then she lids the glows and the light goes low; she's gone. "Solith," repeats Lilabet, caught between yearning and admiration - and either way, so full of pleasure. It doesn't matter that Telavi is leaving, though she's staring after the greenrider, and exhaling; a happy, contented sigh. |
Comments
Edyis (Edyis (talk)) left a comment on Thu, 28 Nov 2013 02:22:15 GMT.
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I love Lilabet's constant enthusiasm and Telavi's cheerfulness. Too cute!
Edyis (Edyis (talk)) left a comment on Thu, 28 Nov 2013 02:22:16 GMT.
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I love Lilabet's constant enthusiasm and Telavi's cheerfulness. Too cute!
H'kon (H'kon (talk)) left a comment on Thu, 28 Nov 2013 07:56:01 GMT.
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Ahah. Telavi to Lilabet is sort of like Arekoth to Dilan, only... in the same species and stuff.
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