Logs:Braiding Hair
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| RL Date: 10 February, 2014 |
| Who: Finne, Hattie |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Finne and Hattie speak about Impression and where lines are drawn. Finne also braids Hattie's hair. |
| Where: Hatching Galleries, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 17, Month 13, Turn 33 (Interval 10) |
| It's a quintessential winter outside: bleak, grey, gloomy, and cold. Among the clusters of people who are in the hatching galleries escaping the cold and finding possible hope in staring at the eggs on the sands, is Finne, alone. But the congenial teenager seems lost in her own doings, even going so far as to ignore a fellow candidate who says hi. Ignore, didn't hear. The end result is still the same: he's walking away to the back with a basket of laundry to fold and Finne's left sitting at the front doodling aimlessly at a notepad, only to look up and realize five minutes too late, someone was trying to speak to her. "Damn." Then, "Oh well." Though Elaruth is in a state that appears most commonly meditatively peaceful, curled nose to tail around her precious eggs, her rider is the very picture of her opposite, hair and coat soaked, and boots making a discomforting squelching, squeaky noise. The Weyrwoman's progress up into the galleries is slow, hampered by the fact that she's clearly favouring one leg, and her expression might as well embody those grey skies overhead. Slowly, slowly, Hattie inches her way along the first row of seating, until she can reach the Sands themselves, where she takes off her coat and slings it over the railing to dry in the heat. Boots are next to go, and a much more awkward affair, the nearness of Finne eyed with the dark look of one determined not to be embarrassed. The belated realization has allowed Finne to observe her surroundings once more, blue eyes skittering past the clusters of people closest to her candidate friend at the top folding laundry at the top of the galleries, and then back to the discomforted noise coming up from the gallery entrance. Large eyes widen ever so incrementally more at Hattie's limping walk; the objects she was gathering up to go hang out with her friend dropping to the bench and floor as she takes a step forward and then pauses, uncertain. For once in her life, she looks indecisive until Hattie's awkward boots encounter and then the look of determination. Suddenly, she founds other things to be interested in: Oh look, there's a bug! "Did you know," she shares in a loud, changing subject sort of intonation, "Vtols can't fly when it rains?" After speaking, Finne ventures a quick grin sidelong at the dragonrider. One boot hits stone and is unceremoniously kicked towards the edge of the Sands, so far away from Elaruth and her eggs that it doesn't bother her (or her rider is simply trusted not to kick the boot /at/ them). The next follows, far more slowly, eased off and then punted after the other by an uninjured foot. The footwear lies there, right in the way of anyone who wants to get to the Sands, both boots toppled over and likely to let sand right in as they dry off. "Why would anyone /want/ to fly when it rains?" Hattie mutters under her breath as she carefully eases herself down into a seat, though her reply is not without a vaguely amused sort of half-smile. "Is that really true?" The quick grin fades into sheepishness and Finne's scratching the back of her head. "I don't know really. It seems true though. They fly directly up and if there's rain coming directly down, it might be harder to fly, don't you think? But I guess that's not as true for dragons. Except, the rain is such a tiny thing compared to dragon wings, that maybe if there was a torrential /flood/," her arms lift expansively to emphasize the extent of how much of a flood she's thinking of, "Dragons might have a hard time lifting off the ground too." The dark haired girl looks down at the boots and then passes her glance a little less briefly over Hattie's feet. "Do you need something to wrap your foot? Ankle? Toe? Did you slice the toe off?" When in doubt, go for the ludicrous. "Blizzards are enough to ground them," Hattie answers, of dragons, adjusting her posture to allow for one foot to balance on its heel, rather than apply pressure to it. "Storms. Surely a /food/," she agrees, voice dry. She watches Finne rather closely for one who was so conscious of company so short a time ago, and schools her features into absolute, deadpan seriousness to answer, "Yes, I sliced the toe off. Three, actually. They say I'll never to able to balance again, really, but then I /am/ the Weyrwoman and I can simply get people to carry me wherever I need to go." A nonchalant twitch of her shoulders follows. Such is life. "I'll live, for now, but if the suffering gets too much, you'll have to run and get someone to put me out of my misery." "/Three/?" Finne tries to return the absolute seriousness Hattie evinces but only manages it for a short period before letting out a bright laugh. It draws attention from people, including the candidate up back who wrinkles his nose and goes back to his laundry. "Well, here's hoping the other foot decides it's unhappy at the unfair treatment and decides to loose three toes of its own." But really, the energy-packed girl reaches down into the sack at her foot and pulls out another of her random scarves. "I picked this up out near Igen way. They have a lot of scarves out there. Pretty ones too and some of the women there dance with them and it's all mysterious looking and beautiful. I wanted to learn. Someday, I hope to. But," for now, "Here. Winding it around your foot might help keep it still long enough for you to walk somewhere. Or I guess... I could get a healer." The last is tacked on with a baffled touch to her face: the idea that healers are so easily fetchable. "What, just to even it all out?" Hattie's smirk is a reluctant one, but she can't fight it back for any longer than she's managed so far. "If the healers are forced to amputate, I'll request that they make sure it's three and not an even four." For a moment, it seems like she's going to protest the proffering of another scarf, but then she's too busy trying to follow and process where Finne's explanation leads, and by then it's a little too late to remember or find the words with which to politely refuse. "Thank you," she says instead, and, after running said scarf through her fingers, she leans down to begin to bind up her ankle and foot, wet sock and all. "Do your family make a trade in these, or...?" Asked as she slants an awkward, almost upside down look at the Candidate. "You could go back to Igen anytime, if you Impress." As for healers? That idea is rejected with a scrunching of her nose and a firm shake of her head. "Could I? Would there be time to learn all their interesting scarf dances you think? Zhivka said there's freedom if you were a dragonrider. To travel and explore. But," Finne hesitates, the bon vivant joy disappearing from her expression momentarily. "It seems most riders I've met are quite busy. See, for instance, today I have a rest day." Which would explain the dawdling in the galleries. "And I plan to rest, and sit here and write. I want to watch people and listen in on conversations and explore the lower caverns more. There's so many interesting things to see and interact with and not enough time in the world to do them all. What do you do on your rest days? Do you get any as Weyrwoman?" "As long as a rider completes their duties and drills, their free time is theirs to do with as they please," Hattie replies, her voice somewhat smothered by the curtain of frizzy hair that falls toward as she keeps on weaving the scarf around her ankle and beneath the arch of her foot. "Within reason," she adds, never mind that her face is nearly almost obscured by her hair. A muffled sound of what could be pain escapes her as she yanks on the ends of the scarf to draw it tight and finish tying it up, the result being one that does, in-fact, keep her foot almost perfectly still. "I get rest days," she confirms, sitting back up and drawing her hair back. "...Whether I /use/ them or not is another matter. There's not much point in being idle for the sake of it." Impulsive to the end, Finne is quick to scramble over and put a hand on Hattie's shoulder at the muffled pain. A bracing, surprisingly strong gripped hand. "Are you ok? You must've twisted it really badly, or maybe a fourth toe fell off. Oh, and here," from her sack of /things/, she takes out a fine comb. "If that helps. Papa says I should always be prepared for anything and to wear anything I would need at all times. I also have string to floss teeth with and an extra pair of socks, when the rain soaks through my shoes." In case, you know, Hattie needs any of those things. Hattie jumps at the unexpected contact, and though it's not exactly protest, across the Sands, Elaruth slowly unfurls her wings and refolds them little by little, like an electric current has passed from rider to dragon. "I just fell on the ice," she offers in explanation, after that initial, quiet gasp of shock. She doesn't move away, nor shrug Finne off, that twitch of hers ignored as quickly as it occurred, and when the comb enters her line of vision, she hesitates to reach for it, choosing to ask instead, "Are you going to braid my hair now?" through a lopsided, rueful smile. Her gaze swings out to her queen, who now lies with her wings folded tight to her back, as she asks, "...Will it help your family? For you to Impress?" The jump reminds Finne of personal space bubbles and the hand quickly retracts, but natural reactions of embarrassment or shame seem over her pretty head. "I could. I'm pretty good at it. You'd look cute with two braids or more matter of fact, but still charming if I wound them around the crown of your head like a braid headband. My mom used to do that for me when I was little, before my hair become too hard to manage." Her head tilts, expectant, now waiting at least for an affirmation before digging in with the comb. "I don't think so. I don't know if I'll be able to find them again, don't rightly know where they've drifted off to." The young woman skips a beat, the misstep letting a grimace mar her looks before she's attempting light hearted and neutral again. "I guess that woman was right. Vagrants." She sinks back onto her knees and looks down at the sands and then up at the reacting queen. "Didn't mean to startle her. You. Her? Where's the line between a dragon and her rider?" It might have started out as a joke, and Hattie looks about ready to dismiss it as one, one corner of her mouth beginning to curl, but then she relaxes her shoulders and folds her hands in her lap. "Go on then," she invites, certain not to look around at the others in the galleries and catch any glimpse of what they might think of the whole thing. She's patient and submits so far as keeping her head still and trusting herself to Finne's care, but then /not/ moving her head makes sure she won't see anyone but Elaruth, and Finne in the periphery of her vision. "...You have to excuse Vash. I don't think she means half of what she says the way that it /sounds/," she says gently. "But as far as /lines/ are concerned... I'm not sure I can tell you. Sometimes they're very clear and sometimes they blur. Depends on the rider and dragon, too." Finne squeals. For a woman her age it could come off overly cutesy, but with Finne, it somehow wraps up the package of pure joy she is with a bow. She eases closer, with a glance to Elaruth, now aware of how her actions to the rider might reflect to the dragon, and works with her fingers first in a gentle, if insistent manner that works against rain and humidity. "I have baby sisters and ma only has two hands," she explains, the slightest dip in her voice happening when Hattie addresses the subject of Vash. It and a lengthier pause than normal are her only acknowledgement of that issue. "You two seem very bonded. I might like that. I'm not sure. Did you get any say at all? I mean... I don't know. Did a lot of them talk to you before Elaruth and your mind's met and were ... perfect?" Eyes widen a little when Finne squeals, yet Hattie doesn't draw away and does her best to keep still and not look back at her (and her /only/). She's quiet as the braiding begins, and, if anything, she seems to relax as it goes on, not a single note of complaint made even if there should be any occasion when her hair is tugged into place where it doesn't immediately want to go. "My Mam used to braid my hair," the Weyrwoman offers in return, voice soft. "Sometimes. She wasn't very... involved." Where once there might have been judgement, now there's nothing but acceptance. As she starts to answer about her lifemate, she begins to shake her head, but soon remembers not to and goes still with a murmur of apology. "I've never heard any of them but her," she admits. "Not directly. I loved her from the very start. ...That isn't to say that it's been perfect. I had to learn; learn /her/ too. Maybe it /is/ perfect for some, and easy." A deep breath, then: "What would you want it to be like?" These aren't braids that start off tight at near the scalp, but instead are loose and start right around her ear. "You have to keep it loose around here, so it's more pliable when it wraps around the crown of your head," explains the candidate. She must have a lot of sisters with long hair. "I don't rightly know what I'd like it to be like." Finne's confession lacks shame, and is mostly bewilderment. "A dragonrider during the Pass seems exciting and so purposeful. But right now, I've talked to some riders and I get that what the Weyrs do now is important, but it's hard to figure out something that breaks the monotony of life, y'know? Like you. You should take more vacations. For fun. Learning how to dance Igen scarf dances isn't idle. It's... it's...," at a brief loss for words, Finne searches the air and the sands and finally Elaruth's side for that perfect description, "It's /living/." And that's what she ends up with. "Joy. Doing something just for you, y'know? If I Impress, I'll take you to that camp and we'll learn how to do the dances together. Our secret, natch. Promise." This may or may not be a tease. It certainly sounds like one. "I've never seen a 'Fall as a dragonrider." For it might not be so clear exactly how old Elaruth is, even if her rider's age is pretty easy to estimate. "I have to think that we're here as more than a stopgap, not that making sure the Weyr is still here for the next Pass is any less important than anything else, even if, by then, our territory isn't exactly how it was when we inherited it." Hattie gives a shallow shrug of one shoulder. "But I don't think life can really /be/ monotonous with a dragon in your life. You can try and have a set routine, but they won't necessarily let you just get on with living it." She manages a smile for the idea of more vacations, but it's little more than something meant to humour the thought without outright rejecting it, speaking on the subject avoided entirely, sidestepped around. "Deal," she says, for the promise or tease, "as long as you promise that it doesn't involve winding up drunk and half-dressed in the middle of nowhere." "Why, I'd /never/," Finne responds immediately. That twinkle in her eye says otherwise though. "Here, let me ..." she rummages one-handedly in her pockets and comes out with a few hair pins and ties. Of course she does. "Ok, one side done, the second side usually goes much more quickly." Her promise proves to be true as her fingers seem to be a lot more adept at coming through, parting and using that fine tooth comb through Hattie's hair the second round. "Daddy says people who get drunk are fools and those who don't drink can't be trusted. So where's the middle line there, I ask you?" Rhetorical, she forges on ahead. "What did you hope for when you said you'd Stand?" Where's the middle line there? "About half a bottle of whiskey," Hattie hazards dryly, quirking a little smirk. She falls silent as she considers the more personal and less rhetorical question and winds up not speaking for longer than she might have expected or meant to, either looking for the right words or lulled by the combing and braiding of her hair. Perhaps both. "...I'm not sure that I know," she has to say in the end. "I was more worried about it being /wrong/ and having to spend the rest of my life with someone I couldn't get on with. /My/ Weyrwoman described it as falling in love. She wasn't wrong." Tilting her head a little, she seeks to bring Finne into just the edge of her line of sight. "But loving someone doesn't mean you immediately fit or that it doesn't require work." Finne blanches, something Hattie might not be able to see given the girl's moved to work on that second side. "That's... I worry about that too. What if we just hate each other. What if a dragon that wants me is only doing it to be funny and realizes it's not funny after the fact? What if... Ahhhhhhhh." She can't quite explain all the what if scenarios that have overrun her head and just ends with that very audible, frazzled sigh. "Ok, done, just have to... one second." More rummaging and more pins and suddenly Finne is standing in front of Hattie, in her line of vision to Elaruth, and sticking her tongue out as she brings the two braids together to the crown of the woman's head. "Ok, I think that's about right. One second..." A pin here. A pin there. Another pin here. Another pin there. "Done!" "I don't know that you /can/ hate them," Hattie says slowly, fingers knotting together a little more tightly. "I think you can dislike some of the things they do, or find them frustrating... but /hate/ them? They know who they want. Somehow. They see what we don't, or that we see and don't want to." Her dark-eyed gaze tracks Finne as she moves to stand in-front of her, and it might be that her eyes just about cross as she tries to follow all that pinning and where the braids are being settled. When the work is announced as finished, she reaches up to touch careful hands to her hair, not having a mirror or anything of the sort to hand, trusting her hands to give her an idea of what it looks like (and that Finne hasn't made a fool of her). Her, "Thank you," is quiet and genuine, the smile that follows on its heels rueful. "I'm going to owe you about a packet of pins, aren't I?" she jokes. "Nah, I'll find more. People lose pins all the time. Particularly girls. You just have to be on the look out for them on the ground, in between sheets, in the laundry." Finne is breezy, waving her hand magnanimously. What's a few pins between friends? "I hope your ankle feels better and you don't get that snotty nastiness that's making its rounds in our barracks. Felled two girls near my cot earlier today. I'm trying to avoid the barracks. It /sounds/ disgusting in there. Oh, and I should go see to Freid up there. He's getting annoyed that I'm kissing up to the Weyrwoman and not coming to keep him company." She flicks a finger over her nose, as if to wipe away something. "Plus, he doesn't know how to fold shirts properly. /Men/!" She reaches down for her satchel and then takes a few backward steps to retrieve a few other things that dropped from before. "Have a good rest of your day! Let's hope it stops being so yucky outside!" She's then tripping up the stairs to plonk beside the laundry folding candidate. Her chatter is kind of audible, if in an indistinct fashion, from up there: as prattle, but not discernible words. |
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