Logs:Catching Up With Toren
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| RL Date: 14 March, 2012 |
| Who: Madilla, Toren |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Madilla and Toren catch up. |
| Where: Lake Shore, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 23, Month 3, Turn 28 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Damaris/Mentions, Edeline/Mentions, Pertorin/Mentions, Thedrin/Mentions |
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| Lake Shore, High Reaches Weyr The rest of the bowl may be barren, grass barely surviving at best, but here by the lake, it's brilliantly green in the warmer months: thickening and thriving in the silty, boulder-dotted soil just before it transitions to soft sand and thence to the cool, clear water itself. A large freshwater lake fed by a low waterfall, it not only provides warm-weather bathing space for humans and dragons, but has one end fenced off as a watering hole for the livestock in the feeding grounds. The water there is often muddier than the rest of the clear lake, whose shallows drop off abruptly several yards out into deep water, and whose edge undulates against the coarse-hewn bowl wall: here close enough to just be bramble-covered rocks, there far enough away that a narrow land bridge divides the main lake from a smallish pond. Between are several rocky outcroppings that form excellent makeshift diving points, though only one -- across the bridge -- has a set of narrow, slippery, quite possibly tempting stairs. Wind and snow make for very bad weather today. The visibility is low, making travel dangerous.
Toren comes out dressed up in his cold weather gear and he is trudging out towards the lake. He spots Madilla and he moves over towards her. He gives his best friendliest smile, "Hello there." He looks out at the skaters, "I hope someone doesn't fall through. Although they should be okay if they stay away from the edges." "I think the ice is solid enough," says Madilla, in lieu of a greeting. "But the snow-- it's a little dangerous, I think. I worry about them slipping in it, losing their footing. I suppose I'm overworrying, probably. How are you, Toren?" She turns to glance at him, her smile as warm and friendly as his is. Toren nods, "True who know what dangers lurk beneath the snow, but there is a whole weyr of dragons if something goes wrong if someone falls in and the living cavern is baking, so warming someone up is no problem. Still best to be careful." He hmms softly, "Okay I guess." He sighs softly, "How do you get a girl to stop hating you?" That run-on sentence of Toren has Madilla pausing, frown lines appearing in her forehead as she attempts to parse it all. Slowly, at the end of it, she gives a nod of assent. "Yes, but it's still a matter of getting them safely across the bowl, and I still--" She breaks off. "Would rather not see it happen." The rest of Toren's words draw a frown from the healer, who sucks in a deep breath and then lets it loose again, before answering, "You don't. Not by force, at any rate. If you've apologised, and made it clear that you intended no harm, then there's nothing more you can do but wait." Toren nods a little bit, "I guess that's what I'll have to do..." He looks at Madilla, "Why are girls so complicated? They make some of Master Pertorin's old compositions look like a walk at a gather." He kicks some of the snow. "She's even got some riders against me. Threw onion rings at my the other night while I was trying to perform." Madilla's expression softens further; she gives Toren a fond look. "Why are boys so complicated?" is her return, though there's sympathy in her tone. "It's part of being a teenager, I think: learning how to deal with each other. And growing up, too. It gets easier." She shakes her head as she adds, "I don't know the situation, but from the sounds of it, you really are better off staying away from her. It sounds like she's upset - at this stage, all you can do by pushing her is make it worse." Toren huffs softly, "We aren't complicated, at least I'm not, I just wanted to be her friend." He shrugs, "Oh well. So how have you been? Good I hope." He's happy to try to change the subject away from him and his girl problem. "You are. Just in a different way to girls." Madilla gives Toren a rueful look as she speaks, her expression not wistful, but certainly inclined towards the nostalgic. "Sometimes it's difficult for boys and girls to be friends at your age. Things get complicated. Give her some time. It's not as though there aren't dozens of boys your own age to talk to, right?" Of herself, she agrees, "I've been well, yes. It's turnday season in my family, which is keeping me busy, not to mention late-winter colds, but nothing we can't handle." Toren nods, "If you say so I guess." He smiles, "Yah there are, I just keep running into her." He smiles, "Well that's good. I hate getting colds, I'm lucky in that I'm very healthy, I rarely get sick. Anything else interesting going around?" Madilla digs her hands deeper into the voluminous pockets of her coat, and nods. "It's hard sometimes," she agrees. "There are a few people it can be difficult to deal with, sometimes," her expression turns briefly sad as she speaks, "and it's just as though I can't help but see them. Too often. I'm glad to hear that you're healthy - I wish there were more like you! I hope you mean 'interesting news' and not 'interesting illnesses'." She smiles, rising up onto her toes then back down. "Not a great deal, I don't think. You've settled in, I hope?" Toren nods a little bit, "Yes so have my parents. It's a shame about that young boy that was found dead. It makes me sad to think of a life cut short like that before the full potential can be realized." That rapid shift in conversation, from settling in to dead children, leaves Madilla looking stricken and unhappy. "I cannot imagine," she says, after taking a moment to take in a few deep breaths, "how Lady Edeline must be feeling right now. To lose a child like that..." It's only after she's taken another breath, and then swallowed, audibly, that she seems to be able to bring herself to say anything more. "The poor boy, yes." Toren nods a little bit, "Hopefully they'll be able to recover and hopefully the relations between Crom and Tillek will get better, but it doesn't look like it." He wrinkles his nose, "I really don't like politics, it's so complicated and messy and really no one wins in the end." "No, it doesn't, does it? And High Reaches Hold is involved, too, and that just makes it--" Madilla doesn't seem to have a good word to conclude that statement with, and, finally, makes do with, simply, "worse. I'm afraid politics are simply a fact of life, but no, I don't really like them any more than you do. I've always been grateful that I'm not in a position to have to deal with them, on a personal level. NOt that kind, anyway. I suppose as a Harper, you've no choice but to pay attention, though." Toren nods, "Yes especially with my father. He gets all sort of news and those that he can share with me he can, and than he quizzes me on it so that I have it straight and can repeat it back as he told me so that I am not mixing up the news." He shrugs, "And I have to tell him anything I hear." Madilla's nod is slow and thoughtful. "Well, that would seem to make sense. A Harper who doesn't have the facts straight is not a terribly effective Harper, I should think." She twists her mouth into a quirked smile, allowing, "But hard work, too, I'm sure." Toren smiles, "Yah, but it can be fun too cause I get to hear all sorts of stuff from all over. I'm used to hard work, learning drum codes, learning music, memorizing songs and all sorts of knowledge." "And that's why you're a Harper, and I am not," concludes Madilla, shaking her head with amusement. "That sounds terribly difficult, to my ears. I imagine a lot of what /I/ had to learn as an Apprentice would sound difficult and unpleasant to you, too, of course. We're all different." Toren smiles, "Yah, but it shows how amazing the human mind is, that two people can learn two amazingly different things. It's it just grand." Madilla's smile is genuine, and about as warm as the afternoon air is cold. "Indeed," she agrees, firmly. "It's a wonderful thing. Where would we be, if everyone wanted to be a Harper, and no one wanted to be a healer?" Out on the lake, one of the skaters takes a tumble, as if it emphasise the point she's making; thankfully, he's up and about again a moment later, no harm done. Toren winces a bit as he sees the skater go down and he whews softly as he sees the skater get back up. He nods, "Yah it would be boring hearing everyone singing all the time, even I get tired of singing sometimes." Madilla's concern doesn't abate, not even once the skater is back up and moving again: her gaze has narrowed in upon the group all the more intently. "No," she says, distractedly, "that all Harpers have to sing. Any more than all Healers must deliver babies. But the point stands, I'm sure." She gives Toren another glance, if only briefly, then, with audible reluctance, adds, "I ought to get indoors; it's cold out here, and I have things to do. You'll look after yourself?" Beat. "And avoid that girl?" Toren nods, 'True if every harper sang who'd play the instruments or teach the children." He nods as he looks down at the lake, "Okay I'll take care of myself and avoid that girl." He says as he starts to had down to the lake to do some skating. Madilla watches Toren a moment more, and then turns to begin stamping through the snow back towards the caverns - and /warmth/. |
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