Logs:Hair and history
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| RL Date: 27 March, 2013 |
| Who: Telavi, K'zin |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: K'zin goes to clean up at the end of the night and finds Telavi trying to get something gross out of her hair. They briefly discuss history, hair care, and weyling exam help. |
| Where: Bat |
| When: Day 6, Month 5, Turn 31 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: K'del/Mentions, Aishani/Mentions, Iolene/Mentions, Tiriana/Mentions, N'thei/Mentions, Satiet/Mentions, C'wlin/Mentions, Vienne/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Just found this log never got posted, so it's back dated quite a bit! |
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| Bathing Pools, High Reaches Weyr Omnipresent clouds of steam slink across the tops of three naturally warm pools, set into the floor of this kidney-shaped cavern. Near the entrance the ceiling is high and polished, gleaming with little mineral specks as it sweeps downward into increasingly ragged, uneven steps. The foremost of the pools is squared off with wide steps leading down into the water and has faucets for bringing in cooler water from a rain-catching cistern. Primarily used for laundry, there's an almost constant film of suds along its surface until the circulating current clears it at the end of the day. Four sinks line the nearest wall and various tubs stored beneath allow for the washing of delicates. Laundry bags can be dropped off in the bins near the door and clean, folded laundry is stacked in rows of tall cubbies for easy pickup. The bend in the cavern leads to a rougher-hewn part of the chamber where the two circular bathing pools welcome those in need of a wash. Towels and washcloths are kept in neat stacks on shelves along the wall, along with sacks of sweetsand and a few bars of precious soap. Stone benches provide a place for sitting to remove shoes and clothing, while a row of gleaming brass hooks stand above, ready to hold clothes and robes.
Everyday is long for weyrlings. Today looks like it's been particularly so for K'zin as he straggles in from the caverns, starting to strip as he heads for the cubbies. He gets his shirt off, but his path diverges, having spotted the other weyrling hard at work. His head tilts quizzically and while he flips his uniform shirt back to the correct side, he moves to the side of the small tub. "Tela? Everything ok?" His expression is perplexed, brown eyes taking in the sight of the woman, the braid and the scrubbing, and clearly not putting it together. "No." Though she's kneeling on the stone, just a folded towel padding her knees, Telavi half-turns to peer under her arm at him. Her eyes are a little red, the tip of her nose flushed. "No, it's awful. Smell that," and she swings the tip of her braid at him like an over-large paintbrush. It's got a mostly-washed-out stain at the tip, and something of the smell still clings, and it isn't good. "And I'm not supposed to be here, I'm supposed to be studying, and I know nothing of this place's history, nothing." The force of her reaction (or perhaps the smell of the hair thrust in his face) has K'zin leaning back away from the woman. "Wow. What happened?" He bites his lower lip, "You could trim it? Sabs is good with her scissors." This is volunteered with a self-conscious run of his fingers through his own now-short hair. "It'd be faster than..." A hand gestures to the tub. His expression shows sympathy for the studying. "That makes two of us. And I've lived here for nine turns." Beat. "So I guess that makes me a little better off, but I'm not so good about world history either. Or anything that happened here before I came. Or grew up, even." Not that he's so old now. "No! No, I don't want to give up." Her eyes have narrowed on him, half-betrayed, how could he say such a thing. "I'll get it out. Just, maybe a different kind of sweetsand? Or maybe oil to loosen it, and then the sweetsand. I got bumped, or maybe somebody pushed me, I don't know, but there was an oil spot on the floor and down I went and of course there would have to be some stuff there. Oh, K'zin." Telavi takes a deep breath, sets her jaw, and gets back to scrubbing, trying to separate out the fine hairs. "So what do you know about what happened since you came? Or grew up, or whatever. One Weyrwoman went crazy and got kicked out and another one got killed, everyone knows that, but what else are they going to care about?" "Okay, okay!" K'zin's hands come up quickly in a gesture of surrender. He doesn't press the point of hair cutting. "Hang on. I know a nanny who-- Well, just a sec." He goes pacing away to the cubbies. He's got to look in a few of the taller ones and then with a quiet "Ah-ha!" He fishes a hand into one and comes back with a hand-sized bottle of oil. "It smells like lavender, but maybe this will work?" He offers it to the female weyrling. "She won't mind." The nanny from whom this item has been procured. "Well, they'll probably care that you know about the meteor that hit the starstones. Maybe a little about the Vijays and the raids? I'm not sure how much of that they expect us to know. Probably the names of the leaders for the past few turns, at least K'del makes that a little easier for us." Since he's been Weyrleader for foooorever. "Are you sure about that?" Telavi, more than a little dubious. But then she murmurs something under her breath, maybe about the other girl probably not finding out, and squeezes some of the oil into her palm. "I rather like lavender, so it's all right. Though some of the flowers at Southern, mm!" Setting down the bottle, careful with the stone, she starts massaging the oil into her hair. If nothing else, at least it's starting to smell a little better down here now. "Meteor... oh right! The big rock? I did hear about that! It crashed into things but managed to not tear the whole place down? Tell me about the Vijays, what can I say that won't get me kicked out because it turns out the Weyrwoman's one of them?" Weyrwoman, Acting Weyrwoman, it doesn't seem to matter just now. "So there was Iolene and before her Tiriana and before her..." She turns hopeful eyes on K'zin. Fill in the blanks. "Yeah, she said I could use it whenever I wanted. Back when I had long hair to use it on." K'zin shrugs his shoulders. "Southern? I've never been. What's it like?" Once the bottle is handed over, he moves to a nearby cubby and puts his shirt in it. His brows are knitted as he shucks off his boots, socks and trousers. He's weyrbred and therefore there's no shame, though no inappropriate extra display either, as he moves from cubbies to the side of the pool, sits and then slides in, reaching for the nearby soapsand. All this before getting back to the history lesson. "I'm trying to remember what I know." He explains sheepishly. If she only knew what a mistake it was to ask this one to get the facts right. "Um. I think Satiet was before Tiriana? Or maybe before the one before Tiriana. All I know is she got sick and died." He chews on his lower lip. "The meteor, yeah. That's how the craft complex ended up getting rebuilt so nice. That's when I moved here. I don't really know much of anything about the Vijays. K'del said that back when..." He pauses, struggling. It really looks as though smoke might appear from his ears at any moment. He ducks beneath the water and wets a hand of sand. When he bursts back out from below the surface, he's remembered: "N'thei. I think that was his name. K'del said that when N'thei was Weyrleader the Vijays were using the caverns for bad stuff and then scapegoated one of their own and then left. And then later they raided the Weyr and the Weyr raided them back and that's when Aishani's dad was hung. I guess. I'm not really sure. I'm-- I'm really bad at history, Tela. I'm probably telling you all the wrong stuff." By now, his short hair has been sudsed into a comedic tangle of dark hair in all directions. "This is sort of like your hair," Telavi decides, "except it's without bothering to put it on yours and then scrape it off onto mine first, which would be icky anyway. Unless maybe yours is terrifically clean. And Southern? It's like in the stories, all jungly and flowery and warm, only it also has the biting bugs that nobody ever sings about except when they're drinking." She's Weyrbred too, for all that she's still clad in trousers and dark undershirt and really everything but sweater and coat, but it's been long enough that she steals a glance or two while he's changing. Especially if it involves anything awkward like hopping on one foot to deal with a sock. More importantly, though, "What did she get sick of? Do we have to know that?" Tela pauses to rinse her hands and then change the tie of her braid so it fastens further up, leaving more room to work with, getting her hair good and coated. "That must be nice, something new and not handed down and handed down and handed down. 'Craft complex.' It's enough to give a girl a complex." Time to switch, with a little smile, from oil to sweetsand... and then scrubbing commences, again. Only then there's all that history and, "Wait, wait, hold on." She squeezes her eyes shut, like somehow that would hold all the stories in. "Well, you're better than me," she decides. "At least calculations aren't so hard. I like those. And writing, I could write for hours if my hand wouldn't cramp. How about you?" There's no embarrassing sock-hopping, but the view is not bad, if Tela's a fan of well-muscled, dusky-skinned former Smiths. "Southern sounds really nice. I don't really like to travel." Not that he's ever actually tried. "But I don't know that I'd mind going somewhere that sounds as nice as all that. I like the flowers here in summer, but they're not as colorful as the kinds of things you hear stories about." K'zin ducks beneath the water to slosh out the suds. Then he's starting on his body. He makes short work of it as he talks. "I don't know. And I don't know. What she got sick of, and if we have to know it. I'm going to fail the history part. And then the Harpers are going to give up on me. That's why I went Smith. I was no good at Harper lessons. Maybe C'wlin can help us? He's a Harper. Was. Or Vienne. She knows all about the geography of places and stuff. Also was a Harper." He rinses quickly, and then pulls himself out of the pool, dripping as he goes to pluck up a fresh towel. Facing away from the other weyrling, he towels off with efficiency. Stall talking all the while. A grin is directed over his shoulder to the other. "Calculations are my strong suit, too. I'm alright with reading and writing. But looks like we'll be in history classes together." Once dry, he's donning his uniform again. He tugs on his boots before offering a smile to Tela, "Just put the oil back in this cubby," He taps the one in question, "When you're done? Good luck with it. Ras is awake again." Then he's off. "You don't like to travel?" Only Tela punctuates it with audible dashes: you don't-- like-- to travel?! "K'zin, I'm disappointed in you. They're wonderfully colorful, I've made several skirts to remember them by, and a shirt..." and then she's laughing, soft and liquid and altogether too close to a giggle. When has failure ever been so funny? "I know who C'wlin is," she's pretty sure, whereas the other name skims right past, "I'll look into it, if I still care that much." When he looks back at her, she's rinsing the end of her braid and giving it a cautious sniff that blossoms into a smile. Classes or no classes. And if he's just put the same clothes back on again... she's carefully not checking too closely. The tap does have her glancing over, agreeing with a swift nod, "Check. And, K'zin? Thanks." Telavi stays a little longer, the better to take care of a few other things, and yes, to actually put the oil into the correct cubby before pattering off. There's that drink she'd saved from dinner, after all. She's owed. |
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