Logs:Impressions of Impression
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| RL Date: 13 June, 2015 |
| Who: Dee, G'vri, Tovriath |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Dee picks G'vri's brain about Impression and other things. |
| Where: Hot Springs, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 25, Month 13, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Gavrik/Mentions, Jemizen/Mentions, S'dellan/Mentions, Zennia/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Back-dated. |
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>---< Hot Springs, Fort Weyr >-----------------------------------------------<
The Hot Springs are contained within a high domed cavern, the walls
perpetually glistening with a combination of condensation and mica. Steam
drifts through the cavern from the surface of four different-sized pools.
The largest takes up most of the cavern, big enough to hold three
full-grown dragons and is easily reached through the archway from the
Bowl. Three smaller pools, more suited for human use, are clustered near
the entrance leading toward the Inner Cavern. A set of shelves and benches
line the wall nearest the Inner Cavern, fully stocked with pots of
soapsand and towels for those without the foresight -- or means -- to
bring their own.
While the dragon pool is a natural creation, the human pools are the
result of Ancient ingenuity and have been constructed with hewn steps and
seating. The water in all of the pools is warm to hot, and are a perfect
place to bathe young weyrling dragons or for residents to relax after a
long day of work. G'vri hasn't taken especially well to the Fortian winter. The lack of sun is depressing and the cold is just... cold. He can at least deal with the latter to some extent in various way at Fort, however, and that's what he's trying to do right now. Tovriath is settled lazily on one end of the dragon pool, his head resting on the stone that leads toward the people pools so he can watch the few people that way with slowly whirling eyes. G'vri is sitting near his head but facing the other way, legs hanging into the water. He's missing a shirt and he's been at least fully submerged at some point, judging by his wet hair. Dee looks to have worked hard today. This is probably why she makes an appearance in the hot springs rather than the ancient baths that she finds so fascinating (and odd). The heat from the pools might help break up some of the grime collected on her face. It's dirt, it's dust, it's everything that means Dee was, once again and unsurprisingly, a dutiful apprentice-slash-candidate. She probably would head toward the human pools after stopping for towels, but catching sight of the bronze and his familiar rider, she veers their way, already working at the buttons of her coveralls. "Hey G'vri," she greets him with a smile. The candidate doesn't need an excuse to talk to him, for she offers none, but she does add a, "Hey Tovriath," to the bronze as if he were as much her friend, as if either of them were. "Long day?" The sound of his name makes G'vri turn his head toward the familiar voice. He smiles at Dee around the same moment that Tovriath rumbles an acknowledgement of her greeting. "Hey, kid," he returns as though she's many turns his junior and not just five and some change. "It's been a day, anyway. We're thinking about taking a trip back home on our next rest day. Or at least to the beach. Any beach." Any warm beach, he probably means to say. "You look like you've had a day, too." "Want to take me with?" Dee asks cheerfully, as if she might not be asking to be an imposition. "I've been trying to write a letter to my mother about how I'm doing, about how Jem's doing, and I just can't find the words." This is probably why she's requesting to come. "I don't want to tell her how I feel about the green and about Standing still." All this, as if they were good friends. Maybe they are - or maybe he's just naturally a mentor figure, given his knot back at Southern and his 'brother's friend's big brother' status. She certainly doesn't seem to slow the clothes shucking process just because he's there, and soon enough she's moving to slide into the pool at whose edge Tovriath is perched, clothes abandoned. "More work. Feels like it's never really ending. Always more to be done. I think I could keep busy here my whole life and still have the work unfinished." "I could take you, sure. So long as no one minds. And you promise not to run off and never let me find you again to bring you back." He's probably teasing. G'vri isn't giving her any particular privacy as her clothes come off, but there's also no real sense that he's giving the view any extra thought. "I think that's how most work goes. Even if you do finish something, there's something else to take its place." The bronzerider reaches out to touch his dragon's head as Tovriath sighs out a heavy breath and closes his eyes. "How do you feel about the green?" is gently ventured. If she doesn't want to answer, he probably won't press. "Promise," Dee offers easily. Either there are no plans to escape the snow and candidacy on the whole, or she's exceptionally crafty (ha). Her hazel eyes drop to the water, the much more pleasant topic of work foregone for a quiet sigh. "Like she might have been meant for me, only maybe I was too closed to let Impression happen." She flicks her eyes up to the bronzerider's face and the flush of her cheeks is telling, "I know that's stupidly self-absorbed. This whole experience has been making me think about me-me-me when I should be thinking about them," the nebulous them, that she could be helping, if she weren't so preoccupied with her own unreasonable feelings. "It's a very personal experience. Even if a dragon looks at you and decides to move on, it's personal." G'vri's hand moves over the bronze's hide up toward his eyeridge. "But I'll guarantee you that if you'd been suitable for her, she wouldn't have cared if you were closed off or not. They have a way of getting into your head." This is obviously all meant to be comforting. The bronzerider isn't judging Dee for her admissions. Dee's nod is slow but agreeing. "I didn't really expect that." It's said with a tone that suggests the words come as a surprise to her. "I sort of thought I could go onto the Sands and be the same Dee when I came off. Even if the green hadn't been lost, I think that wouldn't have been true." She looks to the bronzerider, cocking her head slightly. "I can't remember, did you Stand times before Tovriath found you?" This all seems perfectly reasonable to G'vri and he nods along without adding any further input about the green or the fact that Dee was left on the sands. He even almost seems hesitant to admit, "Tovriath found me the first time." "I think I'd prefer not to Stand again," Dee confesses quietly, "all things being equal, but I don't think they are equal, and might never be again. I can't imagine not Standing if I were asked after what happened. I'm glad, though, that there are people who never find a lifemate." Is she? The words are out before she can think and immediately she looks embarrassed. "That came out wrong," is admitted, and then by way of trying to quickly distract, "What was it like for you when you Impressed? Did he change you? You-him?" She looks to Tovriath as if inviting him to answer as much as his rider. G'vri still isn't judging Dee, but there's something like sympathy for her as he studies her face after that comment. "Do you really not want to Impress, Doll?" There's no teasing in the way he says that nickname now. He may not be her big brother, but he's sort of one at heart. The other questions will apparently have to wait. Dee hesitates at the question put to her. "I'm not really sure, I never have been." She shifts a little in the water, to come nearer to where the rider and his dragon are settled, leaning her front against the wall of the pool, so her arms can fold on it's edge. She's not looking at him now and really, it's harder from this vantage for her to do so, but that might make it easier for her to go on. "It's almost like asking me if I'd like to be in love before I know what being in love is, or what it feels like or means for my life. I can imagine a lot of great ways for my life to go without a dragon, but there might be more and better with one. It's just... not something you can give back as easily as a knot or a boyfriend." She taps her fingers, the energy escaping through the touch to the tympanic stone. "I've never been in love," G'vri tells Dee as if this is somehow important. "Not until Tovriath. But I don't think it's the same as it is with other people. People who aren't your family, I guess. It's a little like the way I love Gavrik. Except he's not in my head, not part of me the way Tovriath is." He watches Dee, then answers, "I don't know if I changed him. And I don't think he's changed me very much. We fit together. We always have. When it happened, it was like pouring whiskey into a glass of ice. He filled all the empty spaces and the ice melted and now we're just... watered down whiskey." Okay, so it's maybe not the best metaphor, but he seems to find it amusing. The flash of a smile that Dee directs up at that awkward angle toward G'vri is one born of the commonality that causes her to say, "Me either," of love, though obviously it ceases to apply to her in its entirety when he begins to speak of his lifemate. "Watered down whiskey doesn't sound very appealing," she notes of his metaphor, the smile vanished into a wrinkle of her nose, though there's an edge of teasing to her alto as her fingertips begin to draw patterns on the rock using water. "The thing is, I guess, I'm not really in a hurry to be part of someone else. To be in love. Or any of that. I'm not certain I want to ever be part of someone else. I mean, everyone says it's wonderful to find love of that or any other kind, but what if it just... complicates everything? What if it means I can't keep my dreams?" She cranes her neck again to look up at him when she inquires, "Did you have to give anything up when you Impressed?" "Relationships aren't very appealing. They're not always pretty, even with dragons. You don't always get along or like each other." G'vri has to think about the rest of what Dee is saying before he can come up with an answer. And even as he says it, he doesn't sound sure it's right, "I wasn't a crafter or anything. I was just kind of waiting around to Stand. I don't honestly know what I would have done with myself if I hadn't Impressed eventually. I'd be twenty five and have no useful skills beyond getting menial chores done." He grins, just a little bit of pride, "But look at me. I've been a wingsecond. And Tovriath has been a clutchsire. And I'm still not twenty five yet. If you're happy with what you're doing, Dee, even Impressing a dragon doesn't mean you have to stop. It's a different time now than it used to be. You can have a dragon and keep your dreams. Or make new ones." "Aren't they?" Dee queries, curious. "It's practically all some people talk about in the barracks, other than getting dragons. Who likes whom and who gives whom the time of day." She shrugs her shoulders in relative disinterest. "Have you ever had a someone? Or just Tovriath?" She shifts a little and it becomes obvious that she's kicking her feet away from the wall under the water in idle fashion. "Do you like being a dragonrider? Did you like being a wingsecond? Did he like being a clutchsire?" "Not really any someones, no. Maybe some that I've spent more time with than others, but nothing very serious." G'vri isn't going to tell her about any of the details of his relationships, either. "I love being a dragonrider. I can't see myself being anything else. And I liked being a wingsecond, sure. I like being... adequate at my job. It's kind of a lot of responsibility. I think I prefer just being a wingrider, honestly." The bronzerider glances at Tovriath, who's started to drift back slightly so he can lift his head and peer at Dee. "He likes catching. He's not the most doting of mates after the fact, but he was kind of proud and protective of his eggs." "It might be hard to fall in love if you don't spend much time with some someones that might be the ones," plural, Dee ruminates, but doesn't seem overly inclined to needle him about the names and details of his private affairs. She flashes him a smile for his love of his profession, nodding her acknowledgement of the difference between wingseconding and wingriding. "I feel like it's a bit like the difference between stopping at journeyman because it makes you happy and no one wants to be an apprentice forever, and going on to being a master where you inevitably have to do more than just the 'do' of your craft. Have to manage people and be responsible for 'big things' sometimes." She rolls her shoulder a little bit in a shrug. "What did you like most about wingseconding?" She shifts to lift up an arm to offer a hand to the bronze in case he'd like some scritches from not-his-rider. "Does he still keep up with those that shelled? Or does it not matter so much to him now?" "I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually. Maybe we should spend more time together." The fact that G'vri is teasing the girl who is almost certainly way too young for his tastes is readily apparent in the way he grins at her. "I think that sounds about right. I mostly liked the idea that S'dellan thought I was worthy of doing the job." Except now he's not even in S'dellan's Weyr anymore, let alone his windsecond. "Tovriath likes some of them. More as friends, I think, than children now. He's kind of interested when they first hatch, but thinks they're pretty boring again until they're more grown up." "Gavrik and Jemizen would simultaneously die," Dee declares with an impish sort of smile for G'vri, though no real intention in her words. "I suppose I like them alive." She says it as if she had to consider the matter. "That makes sense," is given without judgment. "It's nice to know people trust you and think well enough of you to have you work with them." She has a grin for Tovriath. "What kinds of things does he like best about them? As friends, I mean." "They have their uses," G'vri will allow with a chuckle. "Why are you asking so many questions? You must have better things to do, hmm?" The young bronzerider is hardly very interesting. "I suppose their relationships developed from him being more interested in them because they were his for awhile. And now it just... is. He's even caught a couple of the greens." "No, actually," Dee admits with an innocent sort of impishness. "We all got this list of things to do, and there's a chance to win two days off with a ride to the destination of our choice, if it's not too close to hatching." She shifts in the water, looking like she's finally going to get around to bathing herself, if that's what she came her to do. "One of the tasks is to talk to a rider about their Impression. But I did want to know anyway." She adds, just in case he thought otherwise. "Will you sign my sheet?" She flashes him a smile that borders on impudence. It's the sort that a younger brother's friend's sister should flash, pleasant and playful. "Oooh," says G'vri in that long, drawn out way of someone realizing they've been conned. "Sure, I'll sign it. You could've just asked for me to sign it in the first place." He's willing to cheat for her, apparently. "You have it with you?" He glances toward where she left her clothes. "Where are you going if you win?" "It's with my clothes," Dee nods in their general direction. "And if I'd asked you just to sign it, I wouldn't have gotten to have this lovely conversation with you, would I." She's teasing him, somehow, though certainly she's seemed to genuinely enjoy the discourse. "I don't know yet. I don't really want to win, but I think it's interesting to do. Maybe they'd let me give it away if I did." She shrugs her shoulders a little before setting about with that bath. G'vri is terribly unconvinced about the sincerity of Dee's enjoyment of their conversation, but that fact doesn't seem to bother him very much. He pulls himself away from the edge of the pool so he can rise up to his feet. "I'll sign it on my way out if you don't mind me going through your things." And so he turns to do that and probably get dressed before he continues on his way. Tovriath will linger awhile longer, though. The water is nice and no one's making noises at him to make room. "I've nothing to hide," Dee tells him with a smile that loses luster as soon as she has a chance to think about it, biting her lip instead. Then with a sigh, she sets to the task of bathing, worry making fresh lines on her face, any traces of carefree enjoyment wiped away. |
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