Logs:Family and Blood
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| RL Date: 1 July, 2011 |
| Who: Beven, Devaki, Madilla, Tantaran |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: There's a spirited discussion over the notion of 'family', and not everyone sees eye to eye. |
| Where: Living Cavern, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 8, Month 2, Turn 26 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Lilabet/Mentions |
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| Madilla seems, somehow, to be uncomfortable with that chuckling; her gaze flicks towards Beven warily, for all that she nods. "I hope they're safe," she says, finally. "All the same." She, Beven and Tantaran are sitting at a table together, while a storm rages outside; it's dinner time. The healer pushes food around her plate, and adds, "I must sound so silly. All these turns, and I've still not completely gotten used to winter storms." Normally Devaki would be scarce at this hour -- with the caverns brimming with chatty folk, he, like many of the former exiles, seems to shy away from big crowds. But, sadly or not, the storm outside has prevented his usual evening walk, and the scent of dinner has drawn him in. He carries a gnarled walking stick, and that -- combined with the bare feet -- is enough to mark him as distinct from many of the occupants. The crowd over by the food tables seems to deter him, however, as he hesitates, gaze sweeping across the caverns in a perhaps vein search for a familiar face. Beven is sitting down at a table, not at the serving area, eating quietly as he looks over at Madilla, "It's always different each winter. Madilla lets out a low sigh, but nods, agreeing, "I know it is. I think I just miss summer." The healer sets down her fork again, turning to glance around the caverns - as if in search of something more comforting. It's conveniently timed, really: she catches sight of Devaki across the room, and smiles at him, though whether her face is recognisable through the throngs of people, well, that's another question. To her companions, "It's the one downside of the Complex, really. We have all those lovely facilities, but a long, cold walk across the bowl to get to them." Devaki appears to hesitate for a few beats longer, especially once Madilla's face catches his gaze. There's a faint flicker of a smile for the healer and, with another look at the food tables, he makes his way, deliberately and slowly, towards the group's table. "Room for one more?" he asks, gesturing towards an empty seat with a pause, polite enough, awaiting a response. Tantaran has been involved with his food while the others talked, but he looks up at the arrival of Davaki. He gives the young man a smile and a nod and indicates the empty seat. "There's always room for one more," he says. Beven blinks a little bit and he frowns at the sight of shorts in the middle of winter, "Aren't you a little cold?" he asks Devaki before nodding at Madilla, "That's true, but it could be worse, least in the summer the walk is rather nice." "Always," echoes Madilla, firmly, having watched Devaki's approach with an apparently genuine smile. She'll even shift her plate closer to her, as though this will make all the difference. "We were just talking about how awful the weather is, this turn. We might be stuck over here for the night: the complex is too far." Beven's point is met with an easy nod: he's right, but she doesn't have word-space to answer it. Instead; "This is Beven, and--" her brows raise, just barely, in Tantaran's direction. "I'm sorry, I don't think I asked. I'm Madilla, and you are?" Devaki bestows a grateful smile on Tantaran, takes a step as if to move towards the seat, though rocks to a halt at Beven's abrupt manner, hands resting on his stick and regarding the younger man with a mixture of surprise and puzzlement. "No," he responds a hint of dryness and a flicker of a smile touching his lips, "But thank you for the enquiry into my personal well being." The talk of the weather doesn't seem to interest him too much, though he offers a grateful smile to Madilla and nods to her table companions in turn, still standing as if awaiting further acceptance-- or questioning, judging by the lingering look he bestows on Beven. "Devaki," he adds his own name. "Lily's not with you?" he adds to Madilla, a hint of disappointment visible. Tantaran looks up when he hears Madilla asking for his name. "Oh, hi," he says somewhat apolgetically. "I'm Tantarn, Harper Apprentice and," he pauses to look at the ink stains on his hands, "seemingly full-time scribe. Only been here since the Turnover celebration so I wouldn't know what a warm day here would be like." He shrugs. "But if it's anything like the Hold," meaning High Reaches Hold, "I bet it's nice." Beven hms a bit and he shrugs a bit, nodding next after a moment, "Feel free to join us, and like she said, 'm Beven." Yeah he thinks with his stomach at his age and he doesn't always think before he talks, "Sorry I insert my feet sometimes." Madilla's gaze shoots sharply between Beven and Devaki, though the only comment she makes is a silent one: be nice. Slightly more loudly than she needs to, she says to Tantaran, "It's a pleasure to meet you, then, Tantaran. Welcome to the weyr. They really are much like the Hold's, I think-- just lovely." In all this talking, her food has been even further abandoned; she doesn't spare it a glance, instead adding to Devaki, "No, she's with the nannies for a little while longer. She may have to stay overnight, if the weather keeps up." Devaki turns his gaze on Tantaran, head tipping. "You're from High Reaches Hold?" he asks, with a distinct note of interest. "Born there? Or just there recently?" He seems content to remain standing for the time being, despite -- or perhaps because of -- the pointed invitation. There's a faint frown at the idea of the girl with the nannies, but he nods, slowly. "I'm told-- a lot of the Weyr's children are brought up by nannies and live together rather than with their parents." He tries, mostly, to keep his distaste at that idea from his voice, but can't quite manage it. Beven blinks a bit at Devaki and he shrugs a bit, "It's not much different than a craft taking in apprentices, riders are busy people, they don't have the time to raise kids a lot of the times, doesn't mean the kids don't know love, a lot of the lower caverns folk will take in kids to foster, to make sure they know love." clearly he doen't like the distaste in Devaki's voive. Tantaran's eyebrows immediately kiss his hairline before settling down. "I wasn't born in 'Reaches," he explains. "I was fostered there with my aunt and uncle and," his expression darkens and the smile fades from his lips, "my cousins." Apparently this talk of fostering has hit a sore spot with him, and he silently turns to scrape his plate clean with his fork. Madilla's cheeks turn pink in response to Devaki's words, and she turns her gaze towards her plate. "Most people," she puts in, as firmly as she can, "do the best they can for their children, and use the nannies as-- support, I suppose. To help. Lily has a more permanent carer who helps out while I'm at work, and on night-shifts. It's not perfect, but it works." Her gaze flicks towards Tantaran, measuring, but before she has time to say anything more, her gaze is caught by someone else, across the room. Whoever it is, and whatever it means, she rises: "I'm sorry. You'll have to excuse me." Duty, it seems, calls. "The difference is," Devaki's quick to disagree, though there's an evenness in his tone to suggest he doesn't take Beven's opposition personally, "That apprentices are of an age where they can make their own choices, more or less. And it is not about love so much as it is about-- family." He smiles, and spreads a hand as if to diffuse his words, "But I suppose family meant a lot more to us, out on the island." He gaze shifts, sidelong, to Tantaran, and he nods, slowly. He notes, too, the sudden change of Tantaran's mood, and politely refrains from inquiring further. His gaze is drawn to Madilla, and he looks about to answer, when the woman's attention is drawn away. "Good evening, Madilla." Tantaran looks over to Devaki, a faint smile flickering on his face. "I was with my family until I was twelve, then she sent me off to 'Reaches. It was good and bad both," he shrugs. "Went from spoiled rotten to teased rotten." And one look at him will hint as to what he was so relentlessly teased about -- he's not exactly what anyone would call tall. Beven hms softly and he shakes his head a bit, "It's not always better with one's family." "From one extreme to the other. Did you then, end up somewhere in the middle?" Devaki asks, a twitch of lips and a gleam of eye giving hint to the light tone he offers Tantaran. "I'd like to talk to you, if you're amenable, about your time at High Reaches Hold. My family -- once, long ago -- hailed from that region." Beven's words, once more, draw the islander's gaze with surprise. "Family is family. Blood is Blood." It's as if he considers those words counter argument enough, sliding into the chair Madilla vacated. And, too, taking advantage of her mostly full plate, leaning over to fold some meat over before chewing with obvious relish. Tantaran's expression warms somewhat at Devaki's comment. "Right you are," he replies. "But Harpercraft gave me a place in the middle -- and I'm very happy with it." He collects his plate and mug and stands up. "Excuse me, but I have to go now -- no rest for the weary." He leaves quietly, but not before giving Devaki a nod. "We can talk about High Reaches Hold sometime," he says. "Just not right now." Beven shrugs a little bit, "Being with family isn't always better than being fostered. My da trained me from my being old enough to walk to be a beastcrafter, and any choice to be anything other than that was frowned on." Tantaran pages: Since Tam's a Harper and more than knowledgable about the Hold's history, this could be a really nice scene for the two of us. Give me a chance to get a better feel for my character. "I'd appreciate that," Devaki says, giving a respectful nod towards the harper as he rises to leave. "Nice to meet you." Then, his gaze falls on Beven again, in between chewing on some of the vegetables on the abandoned plate. "Even if it is not what you wished, you can't deny that your father obviously loved you and wished the best for you -- and perhaps thought that lay in the beastcraft?" Beven shrugs, "Newver said he didn't, just pointing out that sometimes family isn't the answer to everything." he says before finishing his meal. "Sometimes it isn't," Devaki does concede, "But that doesn't mean that everything else is better. Family will always look out for you no matter what. Blood tells." He seems firm, on this. Beven arcs an eyebrow a bit and he shakes his head just a little bit, "You can't say that, if Tantaran is to go by, his aunt and uncle should have protected him from the teasing, if blood tells, since they were his family." he says but he shrugs a little and takes a sip of his klah. "And people call us exiles naive." Devaki mutters under his breath, though he takes a moment to chew through another mouthful of food before responding. "You can't, and shouldn't protect children from everything. What did you expect them to do? Follow him around while he had his harper lessons? Trace him every step of every task he did to protect him from harm? No," the islander runs a hand through his hair. "Of course, I don't know how they behaved but, the fact of the matter is they provided him shelter, and food, and he found his way to a craft." Beven shakes his head a bit and he snorts softly, "There is more to being loved than having shelter and food. You can get shelter and food and have the crap beaten out of you, does that make the person giving you food and shelter a good person because they gave those to you?" he says in a firm tone, "You can't give an absolute of blood tells and blood is best for everyone, just as the Weyr doesn't say that fostering or being raised by nannies is best for every child." he says before taking a deep breath and he falls silent. "And you can just as easily get the same from a stranger. More likely, if anything," Devaki answers, unperturbed. "But we were not talking about children who were ill treated. You brought that up all of your own." The islander rises a brow, and looks at Beven with a tip of head, his voice light, nothing but intrigued. "Personal experience?" Beven shakes his head, "Not me, one of my friends, his da used to beat him something terrible, Nik's ma was a rider that left his da, and his da blamed it on Nik." he says with a faint frown, I'm not saying that blood doesn't hold strong for a number of people, but it can just as easily be no better than being taken care of by a stranger, absolutes don't exist, therefore there is a chanse to be wrong on both sides of the argument, and there are just as many that support having nannies and fostering, as there are that support being raised by your family. What works outside the weyr doesn't always work In the Weyr." "We had fostering, of course. Many of the older folk -- our parents, grandparents -- died on the island. But the fostering was almost always to existing Blood, where possible. Family ties, for us, are -- everything." Devaki's voice is gentle, like he's carefully treating a spooked runner. "I don't know any of us who wouldn't give... a lot, to have their parents back. To be with their Blood." Beven shrugs a bit, "Families in the Weyr arent' quite as tight knit as you all are, however that's cause everyone in the Weyr is considered to be part of a large family, if that makes sense, we are all part of a huge extended family, not tied by blood, but by a common purpose, and a common need and a common residence. While you all might not see it as a strong tie, for us it is. If one of us is searched for instance, by another Weyr, we go to see if that one impresses and we cheer them on and are happy, or sad for that one depending on what happens." he says with a shrug of his shoulders again, "Things aren't like what you are used to on your island, but that doesnt mean that we are all that much different, aside from what we value, we do have different values, but that's because what we have to do, what we see, and what we experience is different from what you do." "A large family? Of thousands of people?" Devaki is openly skeptical, now. "Could you name everyone in this room right now?" Beven hmms a bit and he tilts his head, "If they come from here and not somewhere else, I could probably name 90% of the people in here." He says as he looks around, pointing out the folks around, naming all but 4 people since it's not that busy. "Just because I don't know everyone on a first name basis, doesn't mean they aren't part of the family, keep in mind that the majority of my day is spent in the craft complex, I can name everyone there." "You must have an exceptional memory," Devaki says, clearly disbelieving, despite Beven's display. With a shake of his head, he rises. "In any case, I'm going to seek quieter quarters. This place is too packed for my liking." Beven shrugs a bit and he hmms, "Nice meeting you." he says with a tilt of his head, sipping at his klah again, holding it between his hands, rolling the mug back and forth a bit. A flick of fingers seems to serve for farewell from the islander, as Devaki makes his way slowly out of the caverns, resting on the stick as he goes. |
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