Logs:Egg Watching
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| RL Date: 3 June, 2013 |
| Who: Dal, Elise, Isyath, Vhaeryth |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Dal and Elise have a more productive conversation, this time. |
| Where: Galleries, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 14, Month 12, Turn 31 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Reesa/Mentions |
| It's night time, right after dinner, a period of time during which the candidates can usually spend washing up or catching up on studying. That sort of thing. Elise has opted for the former, her hair even now is damp and tangled wetly around her shoulders as she sits in the warmth of the galleries and gazes down at the eggs. She's in the front row with her legs folded up with her in her seat, and she idly twirls strands of her hair, one at a time, around her finger. There are a few others in here with her, scattered around, but she sits alone. In the days since the eggs arrived upon the sands, Dal has not been a frequent visitor - indeed, he hasn't been found up here at all, not even once. Tonight, however, with his duties finished for the evening, the tall Candidate can be seen upon the stairs, hesitating not far from the entrance before, finally, crossing the rest of the distance towards that front-most row. It's likely enough that he's aware of Elise, not so distant from his present position, but his attention is on the eggs, albeit in a distant, thoughtful kind of way. Likely enough that he's aware of her, sure, but she is /definitely/ aware of him. There aren't a lot of people coming and going right now, it's easy enough, and she glances over to see who's just come up the stairs and sees who it is. "Hello," she greets, lowly, but then turns her attention back to the eggs out there. "Hello." Dal's response comes a fair few moments after Elise's, right at the moment when he turns his attention from the cluster of eggs towards the girl herself. His forearm drapes itself over the railing, fingers encircling it. Then, "I wasn't mocking you, you know. That time in the kitchen." Nevermind that that was /weeks/ ago. "I just wanted you to know that." He could have, if he wanted, never replied. She wouldn't have noticed or cared. But when Dal /does/ say something she looks up at him and narrows her eyes, a classic 'what?' face. Her mouth even forms a little 'o'. Then she remembers, and the dawn of that remembrance leads to a shrug. "It's fine." Eager to change the subject, she redirects them to the eggs again. "Have you seen these before?" Dal's mouth opens, as though he'd like to argue something - his failures, whatever they are, no doubt. But Elise's redirection leaves him with little polite recourse, and so he glances back in the direction of the clutch. "No," he answers. "This is the first time. I wasn't sure what to expect, except that... do people really spend hours, just staring at them?" "/I/ don't know, but /I've/ been here... maybe an hour. And yes I've been staring at them. They're pretty, in such a strange way. Whenever I've seen them before it's right before they hatch or during, because we're always trying to find seats. So they're all exploding and there's bits of them everywhere. Not like this. Look at that one." Elise points to an egg that looks like it's on fire. Silent, as he follows Elise's pointed fingers to the egg in question, Dal weighs up his answer carefully before letting it out. "I suppose they are pretty," he allows. "I've never seen eggs this colorful before. Or this big. Are you thinking about what's inside them, too?" His tone, as he asks that, is wary, as though he's not sure he wants to know the answer - or perhaps it's just that it's not something /he/ necessarily wants to think about. "I like that long one, the bronze-y one." Elise has another shrug for that as well. "Dragons," she guesses, glancing at him. That could so easily be another of her usual smart-ass comments, but she doesn't bite with it, there's no acid. "Beyond that, no. I don't know anything about the colors other than what's in books and what little I've learned so far here. Mostly I'm afraid of them." A detail she somehow feels comfortable enough to share here, with him. She looks to the one he mentioned and tilts her head. "That one's nice too." From the sands, There's a flash of motion overhead, and Isyath can be seen gliding over from the lake's direction. If a dragon's body language can be interpreted, she could be said to be reluctant, as she wings down onto the sands not far from the eggs. She barely glances at them - her still-wet glistening hide drying quickly in the heat of the sands as she settles down, a an easy rumble of acknowledgement for Vhaeryth's presence. /That/ makes Dal-- well, not laugh, not outright, but crack a smile, at least. A /serious/ smile. "I think we're in an awful lot of trouble if there aren't dragons inside," he supposes, giving the eggs a searching look, just in case. Only the rest of her comments have him turning his head to the side, all the better to regard her for a moment, level and thoughtful. "Afraid of them?" It's a quiet prompt, and not at all dismissive. He might even have said more, but - well, there's /Isyath/, and his head turns, and his eyes go just a little warily wide. Yeah, see, that's pretty much exactly what Elise meant. Isyath's arrival times perfectly with Dal's question and she just /nods/ and shrinks in her seat, hands gripping the arms to either side of her. "See? They just show up." And they're big. "And they make noises. Our watchdragon was always so high up I never heard him. But these." /These/. From the sands, Isyath doesn't /look/ all that unsettled about the visitors in the galleries - in fact, she pays them just about as much mind as she does the eggs, that is to say - none at all. "Hey," says Dal, hastily, abruptly abandoning his position against the railing so that he can go and sit near Elise. "They won't hurt you, though, even if they /are/ huge. Look - she's not even paying us any attention. My boy thinks they're amazing." Dal doesn't seem /quite/ as enthusiastic, but then... when is he ever? "Why did you say yes, then? If they scare you?" True. Isyath seems harmless enough down there, with her big wings and her teeth. Elise doesn't seem terribly convinced though, even with Dal's help. She swallows tensely and looks over at him, her eyes wider than normal. She looks her age. "Even if they won't hurt me, they could." But she is relaxing by small degrees, and is hardly freaking out to begin with. Mention of his son earns him a sidelong look, but instead of touching on that she replies, "Because I always do the things that scare me the most. Why did /you/ say yes?" "/I/ could hurt you," points out Dal in response, hastily following it up with a, "Though I wouldn't, either. Any more than they would. Most things in this world /could/ hurt you." Still, his expression is solicitous; he doesn't seem to be trying to make her uncomfortable. He's even slouching, even more than ever, as if appearing smaller will make him less threatening. "Duty," is his answer to her last. "Holds tithe to the Weyr, and we also provide Candidates as required. It wouldn't be right to say no." And then there's the unspoken answer: the one that has him staring out at the eggs so very thoughtfully. Yeah, she /looks/ at him for that, with her wide eyes and a hand held delicately to her heart. "/Excuse/ me-" But he fixes it, sort of, and she steps down from what could have been a bad thing for Dal. "Well /I'm/ quite used to having people around me all the time whose job it is to protect me from those things. Not here." Elise watches him while he replies, this time her gaze narrows very slightly. "What a very /appropriate/ thing to say." She doesn't make that sound all too positive. But he's holding something back and she's aware enough to realize it. "What?" Progress! Dal looks suitably abashed for it, too, if only for a few seconds: he didn't /mean/ to do that. "No," he allows. "I suppose you wouldn't here. We're all considered the same, here." It's hard to know if he believes that, or not - or if it's too far out of his own world view. "Is there something wrong with appropriate? I know my place." There's a hesitant pause, after that, before he finally adds, "It's hard to go home, after you've... been or done something different. It didn't feel like home anymore." 'The same'. Elise considers that. Then shrugs. "I'm not the same. I never will be." Even if she is here, instead of where she belongs. A misfit in any location, and when Dal says something similar, or at least similar enough that she seems to think it similar, she lifts her eyebrow and stares at the eggs again. "There's nothing wrong with appropriate if it's the truth. But I kind of thought maybe it wasn't the /whole/ truth. And I was right. I know what you mean. I think. I can't go home either." "If you Impress," is Dal's opinion, "Then you become just another dragonrider, don't you? Unless one of those eggs is a Queen egg, and you become a Weyrwoman. Or is it not like that?" /He/ doesn't actually know, and thinking about it has his nose scrunching up in thought. Too polite to actually probe her for more details in her situation, Dal instead casts her a side-long glance, and nods. "It's a good enough truth, though. It /is/ true. I would still be here even if - I suspect, at least. It feels like it would be rude to Khiabeth to admit that I don't think I'm dragonrider material." "That's a pretty big 'if'. But yes I suppose." She doesn't elaborate on that any further, about what it's like, because she doesn't know, which she expresses with a shrug. "Hm. She got you too, then. She was the one who got me." Not 'Searched', she hasn't really grasped the right vocabulary yet, at least not all the way. "And I thought Reesa was joking, but she really wasn't." /Really/. "What about you then? What if /you/ Impress?" Dal admits, "Reesa seemed really unhappy, when Khiabeth showed an interest in me. She's - uh." Evidently, he doesn't have an appropriate word to finish that sentence with, because he leaves it hanging, and turns his gaze towards his knees instead. "I haven't really thought about it, not properly. I don't know if I can imagine it. I think I might stay here if I don't, though. Build a life. A Weyr always needs people to help out, right?" Elise is still just staring out at the eggs when Dal's sentence hangs there like that, and her eyebrows furrow together; she gives him another one of those sharp, intense /looks/. "She's what?" He doesn't get to let that lie, unfortunately. She shrugs again, more not knowing, about the Weyr always needs people. "I don't know, there seem to be a lot here already. But there's always a lot to do. I guess they do need the bodies. I never put much thought into who did the work before it was me." Dal wilts beneath that look. Never mind that he's some seven turns older, the father of a toddler, and more than half a foot taller: that /look/ is plenty powerful. "Confusing," he says, carefully, a moment later. "Very confusing. I'm not used to women like that. What will /you/ do, if you don't Impress? Since you say you can't go home. Go back to the kitchens?" She regards him with half-lidded eyes, then must decide that it's fine if he thinks Reesa to be confusing. "I don't see what's so confusing about her. I thought you were going to say something mean or petty. I would have had you then." Had him... for what? Elise doesn't elaborate, and there's still a vaguely protective tenseness in her jaw when he goes on. "We're no more confusing than men, just in different ways. /I/ imagine that I /will/ go home. I'll have to eventually, unless I can't. Because I have a dragon. Then they would have to let me go." There's a wistful note to that, and she draws her knees up under her chin. "I wouldn't." Say something mean or petty, presumably. Dal seems to mean that: he's quite serious about it. More quietly, he adds, "My wife wasn't confusing. But you are, and Reesa is. I understand the Junior Weyrwoman, at least." It's his turn to turn his head to give her a glance, studying her expression with knitted eyebrows. "Is it so terrible, your home? Going back?" For whatever reason, when he lumps she and Reesa together, Elise's mouth turns up at the corners. It isn't exactly a smile, more like a smug smirk. "Good." For some reason. She isn't going to explain that either apparently. His question earns him another of her glances, though not a fierce one like before, poor Dal. "Not terrible, no, not the place. It's quite pretty, and I knew it by heart. But my family... my life. The only point to it being to marry off and have lots and lots of babies and then /die/. That part's terrible. Where is your wife?" And though Dal gives Elise a wary glance, he doesn't seem to intend to ask, either. Or maybe that's because she's carried on talking, and, instead, he has to wince - and stare resolutely off into the distance. "She died." End of story, if he has anything to say about it because he adds, then, "I love Fort Hold. I miss it. I know it's not far, and I've even been back to visit, but it's... different. It's not the /place/ I was unhappy with. Like you." "Oh." It comes out quickly, before she has the chance to stop it, and then Elise shows a side of herself that would be very new indeed. Her eyebrows knit together again but beneath, instead of angry or vexed or irritated, her eyes are wide and deep and /feeling/. Clearly she's been caught off guard, and she tries to recover. "I'm sorry," she says, lamely, feels lame, sounds lame. "I..." Whatever she would say she doesn't, and instead bites her lip and turns her attention out to the eggs again, her fingers in her hair. From the sands, The eggs just sit there, mostly, until by happenstance or the influence of a long reddish-bronze tail, one tips over and slides down its little hill as though it just can't handle that depth of lameness anymore. But nothing breaks, so it can't be /that/ lame. Dal's discomfort with the topic is palpable, but his discomfort with the fact that he's made /Elise/ uncomfortable? That's something else again. "No, no," he says. "You couldn't have known. It's fine." He's not /unemotional/, but he's not about to cry or otherwise embarrass himself; instead, he lapses into silence for a few seconds, and then adds, "And so, here we are. Escaping our personal discomforts for the chance at one of those eggs. Even if we're not sure we want-- oh, he's moving." That's /both/ dragons who have, now. Dal straightens, accordingly. Elise slides a glance to the corner of her eye so she doesn't have to look at Dal directly while he tries to make her feel better. "I should know better than to ask those sorts of questions. Clearly if she isn't here with you or you with her, it can't be /good/." And she's kicking herself for it, with a tasteful little shoe, on the inside. They're silent together until he speaks again, but sadly what he says is lost on her because yeah, a tail moved, and that egg is sliding to its doom. She gasps! and covers her mouth. But nothing breaks, and she relaxes all at once. Whew. Vhaeryth's (or is it the egg's!) timing is pretty good, really, since it gives Dal every excuse to avoid saying anything more about his tragic past. He even /almost/ smiles, catching Elise's reaction to the sliding egg out of the corner of his eye. "I wonder how much they're aware of, inside those eggs. Babies can respond to you, a bit. I don't know much about eggs, though." From the sands, Nothing breaks yet, anyway. Give Vhaeryth time. At the moment, as long as Isyath's ignoring the eggs, he starts shifting them into what's gradually becoming a long line. It might be the letter 'I' but sometimes, a line really is just a line. "The Weyrwoman was saying that we might get to go out there with them at some point. Maybe you should talk to one." Elise smirks again in that same wry fashion, then all at once unfolds her legs and stands. "I have to go now, I have a few things to do before bed. But... thank you. For talking to me." As if that in itself would be such a chore. And then with a nod she makes her exit, out and using those same stairs to get there. She does give the eggs a strange look, is that an 'I'?, on her way. /Dragons/. "Thank /you/," is Dal's rejoiner, though it may be for more than the talking. Though, really, who can tell? /He/ won't stay much longer, himself, though he gives Vhaeryth's patterns a peculiar glance. /Dragons/, indeed. |
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