Logs:Crafts and Standing
| |
|---|
| |
| RL Date: 16 April, 2015 |
| Who: Faryn, Keysi |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: The candidates discuss reasons for standing while egg watching |
| Where: Hatching Galleries, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 19, Month 7, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
  |
>---< Hatching Galleries, High Reaches Weyr(#290RJs) >-----------------------<
Ringing the southwestern side of the hatching sands are ample tiers of
carved stone benches, the lowest of which is some six feet off the ground
-- just high enough to separate wayward hatchlings from unwary viewers,
and vice versa. A metal railing on the outside helps prevent anyone from
falling off; it also extends up the stairs that lead the way higher into
the galleries. While most of the area is open seating, ropes section off
some of the closer tiers when dignitaries are expected; those areas even
feature cushions in the Weyr's blue and black.
The higher one climbs, the more apparent the immense scale of the entire
cavern becomes. The dragon-sized entrance on the ground is dwarfed by the
expansive golden sands that glitter in the light. Everything on them is
easily visible from the galleries, whether that's a clutch of eggs and a
broody queen, or simply its emptiness and the handful of darker tunnels
that lead to more private areas than the bowl. Wherever one sits or looks,
however, one thing is constant: the overwhelming, suffocating heat. It's increasingly common to see the white knots in the galleries, as the weeks have progressed. With such a small quantity of candidates, it's odd that there seems to always be at least one, somewhere, all the time. No exception today, except perhaps because of who that knot's attached to at this particular moment: a face that's been rare, since not long after the clutching. Several rows from the front, with plenty of seating in a circumference around her, Faryn is picking at the recently reclaimed delicacy that is a meatroll. Her eyes are glossed with distant thought, unfocused, though her gaze is turned towards the eggs and the queen attending them. Another face who has been just as rare, if not rarer, appears this evening up within the seats. Maybe something peculiar is in the air, or else it's the fact that the time is getting closer. The steps which take her into the galleries are slow. Nothing about the girl is ever really 'unsure,' but there's certainly an aspect about her that makes Keysi less than comfortable here as she rises higher into the seats step after step. Intense storm-grey eyes look beyond the sparse gathering to the sands below, noting the new positionings of the eggs as last rotated by their Queenly mother. Those eyes, they narrow slightly as unspoken thoughts threaten to display themselves on her otherwise neutral face. Eventually she drops her focus to look for a place to sit- the closest and perhaps most familiar being near Faryn. "'ey." Is said simply, evenly, as she moves to sit near the fellow-candidate. A blink and Faryn's eyes flicker back to the here. Her pupils adjust and focus, and she tilts her head just enough to check the source of the voice, deciding it at least worthy of a quiet, "Hey," that sounds like she hasn't spoken in a while. They are the liveliest of crowds, it seems. Her courtesy isn't entirely gone, it seems; the other girl tacitly offers up her meatroll to share, should Keysi care to indulge. It seems they might sit in silence, brooding alone together, when she asks, "Have you touched them?" Keysi settles silently next to Faryn, her elbows falling to her knees, hands laying limply between them. One hand raises ever so briefly to indicate a polite decline of the meatroll. She stares forwards as if she's waiting for something- anything- to happen upon the sands themselves. But there's nothing readable upon her. Indifferent perhaps, or utterly controlled. The question almost seems as though it will go unanswered until she sighs quietly. "No." Is her answer, finally, "No I have not. I haven't-" She stops herself from completing her sentence, perhaps thinking better of it or just not looking to reveal it. She looks to Faryn with a sidelong view, "Have you?" Faryn gives a brisk shake of the head to the negative, clarifying, "Not yet. I keep thinking I might, but when they go..." She shrugs a bit, placing the meatroll back in her lap and picking at it again, still not eating. "Probably, we should, at some point. It just seems too much like how you might pet a canine, and then get attached, even though it's not yours." Her brows furrow. She leans back, slow, controlled, until she is mostly reclined, resting her elbows on the seat directly behind her. All the better to study Keysi's unreadable expression, and maybe even finish reading into that long silence before answering and the prefacing quiet sigh. "I'm uncertain I would grow attached." Keysi's studious, stern gaze travels back to the sands before them, "It is more the reality of it, I believe." Is admitted to the one beside her, her voice unchanging, neutral, barren of anything that would suggest her feelings on the matter beyond the content of her words, "Most of this.. this candidacy.. has been continuing on in the infirmary with some new chores in the morning to start the days." The obvious tragedies aside. "To step on the sands, to realize they are almost ready.." She pauses, as if her thoughts are only intermittently being allowed to pass to Faryn, "I have never seen a hatching. Have you stood before?" "Mmm." Faryn is very still, following Keysi's gaze out onto the sands, chewing her lower lip with a tight expression while she think. "Not attached to the eggs, maybe, or even the dragons," she concedes, "but maybe to the hope they represent? Maybe that's it. I realize now, I might want something from this, and it's enough without assigning specifics." The return inquiry draws a grimace and another shake of the head: no. "Almost didn't Stand now, either. For that same reason. Everything is still stables and runners and tending the herds. And I really do like it." It sounds like she's convincing herself. She clicks her tongue. "Do you ever just feel like you could be happier than you are? Even when you like something and do it well?" "They do represent that." Keysi says after awhile of letting Faryn's words sit, weighing them. "Some call a curse on the sands." She names no names, but the severity of her eyes darkens, "It's more than a want. They must hatch, for the Weyr's sake. I've not been down there, but I'm attached to that concept." One of her shoulders rises in what may be a shrug, "Aye. Healing. Although it is not in and of itself separate from riding as I've been told, it will change if I do not leave the sands alone. It may even change if I do. But it is more than that, as well. This group, I feel will have a number of challenges before them. It was a challenge I could not leave unattempted once asked." She looks to Faryn, gauging her response, intense and burningly stern, "Is it just happiness you're seeking?" Faryn mulls that, letting her gaze slip from the eggs, to the queen, and then beyond that, into whatever distance she finds when her eyes unfocus. Her stillness dissolves into a pensive movement that sits her upright, and maybe her face is stuck in that frown now, from using it so much. "It might be. I don't know. I thought I knew when I came here. Shit, I thought I knew three weeks ago. Sometimes I think all I want is to go down there and walk off with a lifemate, and sometimes I think I want to go back to someone and tell them I am backing out, so I don't taint whatever happiness I've got already. I was at peace with not being a dragonrider, you know. I thought if it happened, I would Stand for Ista and my mum's dragon. When he didn't Search me, I came to terms with it. I didn't hope for it anymore." "You cannot give it up now." The healer makes no movement, no change. It is said as fact at the notion of backing out. "Do you believe you would be 'happy' if you turned away before finding out if yours is to come out of one of those? It is hard to lose good crafters." The added comment is said on a different level, the severity lessening but never dissolving. "Sounds as though you have a passion for herding. Even harder to lose those who have that quality. I imagine your journeymen were not pleased?" Keys is a bit wordy today, but she's still no less guarded of the thoughts she does allow to form into words. "It is not yet possible for me to imagine not being in the infirmary. Or seeing the land as I have before this." "I could," corrects Faryn, "But I won't. That feeling passes. The regret wouldn't, I don't think." A hand comes up in a dismissive wave - about the regret, maybe, or the happiness, or more likely about the Journeyman, because she metes, "No, probably not. They did give me permission, since it's easier to lose an apprentice than a Journeyman. They still have me anyways, at least until the hatching. And maybe after." Her smile for Keysi is slanted, slow to cross her face. "Do you think it will make you happy? Even if you can't imagine not being in the infirmary?" "Not as easy to lose a good apprentice." Keysi corrects in turn, a hint of a change in her lips that may suggest the start of a grin, but it never progresses and soon enough dissolves. "I'm not sure about 'happy.' Complete, maybe, a different concept. But, I do not know what it is like to Impress, so I suppose I have no answer." She stands then, still considering the sands, considering Faryn's question. A very difficult question. The ever-serious girl turns to the herder-turned-candidate and tilts her head in a brief but respectful nod, "I must be getting back, speaking of the infirmary." Sudden, perhaps, but she would offer her reason before turning back down the stairs with a light, but grounded, confident step. |
Leave A Comment