Logs:Justifiable (un)Happiness
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| RL Date: 5 May, 2015 |
| Who: Faryn, Irianke |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Post-meeting, weyrwoman and herder share lunch and conversation. |
| Where: Council Chambers, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 20, Month 9, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
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>---< Council Chambers, High Reaches Weyr(#364RIJs) >------------------------< At the heart of this oblong cavern is its meeting table: a long hardwood oval with a mirror's dark shine, High Reaches' sigil picked out in lapis and onyx at its center. Twenty chairs surround it, each softened by an embroidered cushion that's just a little too stiff for complete comfort -- meetings need to be kept short, after all -- with the chair at the table's head, facing the ledge, being somewhat larger than the rest. Interspersed between glowsconces upon the smooth walls, ancient tapestries depict the territories High Reaches protects in a particularly pastoral fashion, all fluffy clouds and fluffier llamas, or else fishing crafts sailing merrily out to sea. Among them is also a natural alcove, its several wooden shelves primarily stocking fine wines and liquors as well as the glasses to serve them, though the lower shelves also hold whatever hidework requires particularly frequent attention. A narrow wooden door leads to the Records room, while the tunnel that extends to the weyrleaders' ledge is wide enough for three men to walk abreast, with just enough kink in it to block the wind. -----------------------------< Active Players >----------------------------- Faryn F 22 5'4" lean, brown hair, brown eyes 0s Irianke F 37 5'7" slender, dark curly hair, stone blue eyes 12s It was a productive meeting, the signs of it still remaining in the council chambers where a large chalkboard delineates the Weyr's five turn plan for both beasts of burden and beasts of food, as well as the what if situations and possible solutions in large criss-crossed referenced charts. Exhaustive for a first meeting with the new Weyrwoman but positive nonetheless. It can only have been a handful of minutes since the herders departed, but Irianke is standing in front of that large chalkboard stretching in yoga-like poses, her eyes fixed to one section of it. Sun salutations. Minutes is accurate. Just enough minutes for someone in the small group of crafters, busy divvying up tasks and responsibilities while they're still fresh in their minds, to realize someone's taken much more in the way of documentation than they really meant to. The progress of the pile of papers is quick, through many hands, nobody exactly ready to go back into the council chambers after spending so much time there already; that quickly, it becomes a matter of rank, and it's Faryn who is shooed back in with the papers, looking disgruntled. She is sorting them back into order, her eyes down, and she announces herself as she crosses the threshold, not realizing how quickly the goldrider has settled down. "Someone took your copies," she's explaining pre-emptively, then looks up. "Uh, sorry." For the papers, for interrupting, for both. Irianke has her arms in the air in a stretch that pulls her lean, business attired body up and up and up. Used to being interrupted throughout her life, the woman doesn't startle at Faryn's arrival, but she does stop one this stretch is complete, her arms resting on the same hip as she turns to look at the apprentice. "Thank you, just over there by my other stacks, please." The hands shift to the other hip and she turns to follow the movement and flashes the herder a quick smile. "Faryn, was it?" "That's it, yes, ma'am," Faryn agrees, scanning the table. She puts the last couple pages in proper order, taps them on the table and aligns it carefully alongside the others. "Here's okay?" Just to be safe. "Lovely." Irianke wiggles her body, a roll taking it, shaking it up, and leaving it loose just in time for lunch. A team of drudges enters, one of them with a cart of food and the others move to start tidying up the chambers, picking up litter and putting away all the accroutrements of meetings. "Care to join me? I have an hour and the kitchens always send up far more food than I could eat in two lifetimes. It's hard to tell whether they mean well or have more nefarious plans for my waistline. Sit, please." Even with the niceties this does not sound much like a request and more like a directive. A very nice and warmly spoken directive, but one nonetheless. Faryn watches the weyrwoman's movements with interest, her smile perplexed while she settles the papers in their new home. The drudges set her moving, to the door if she'll be allowed, because intruding wasn't on the schedule. She seems even ready to voice it, starting, "The journeymen...," as some form of excuse, then stops, because Irianke's tone brooks no room for anything. "If you'd like," she says, pulling a chair, settling into it a little stiffly, looking at the food as it's laid. "I'm sure they just want to make sure you're happy. It seems like...it might be easier to do more nefarious things than make you plump." "I wonder what exactly Lycinea told them before she left. A girl brings me tea precisely two hours before dinner, someone brings me my meals if no one sees me in the living cavern. I'm afraid my assistant has placed spies around the Weyr to anticipate my every whim." Irianke waxes a moment on the departed girl, a head shake bringing her out of maudlin sentiment and back to refocus on Faryn. "What did you make of our meeting? The projections your superiors suggested." Faryn listens attentively, and though perhaps it's not her place to comment, but she does supply, "It sounds like she cared for you very much, if she does. But I did always think that was just the way of things; we can't have our weyrwoman wasting away." Her narrow brows raise at the inquiry, shoulders stiffening slightly, because she wasn't doodling on her own notes the whole time, just enough that maybe her, "I don't know it's my place to have an opinion on them," is simply a deflection. "They've trained for these things; I'd say they've earned their knots and proven they deserve to keep them. Even through the shortages." A smile curves Irianke's mouth, but, for now, she refrains from speaking. From the platters set on the table, she scoops a few spoonfuls of some cold lentil salad, some late summer corn salad. "A wise answer," she responds, only after she's got some food on her own personal spoon. "But you'll only make it further in your craft if you learn how to interject opinions at opportune moments and now would be an opportune moment." "I don't say it out of caution. I say it because it's true, and because, honestly, ma'am, I don't have any better solutions than they do." Irianke's serving herself warrants at least a glass of water from the younger woman, poured and then held a few extra seconds with an indicative glass: one for her, as well? Faryn's looking at the platters, but only perfunctory examinations because they're present. "I'm not even sure progressing is right. Presuming I pass my testing." "How old are you, Faryn?" asks Irianke, between bites of her lunch. "You were young enough to Stand for Niahvth's clutch," this she remembers, a tacit acknowledgement of the other girl's most recent past. "Have you felt your craft treats you differently after you accepted Search?" "Twenty-two. Twenty-three in...what? A month?" The corners of her mouth twitch down for that. Twenty-three, the end of the world. There and gone, schooled into submission. "No, ma'am," she's quick to acknowledge. "Not at all. They've been very supportive, as far as they can. If anything, I feel differently." Irianke pauses her fork, looking to Faryn quizzically. The lifted brow invites the herder apprentice to continue. Reluctance is plain on Faryn's face and she shakes her head shortly, a small decline that she doesn't adhere to, probably because she's not sure Irianke would let her. That gentle, polite, inarguable way she demands. The herder considers over her glass, then considers the glass itself, thinking. "I don't know anything about you, really," she admits, "so I don't know if you were in a craft or anything. I can't say it would even matter, because you have Niahvth now." A glance up, a quick smile. "It should have felt easier, going back into what I did, right? Not Impressing, and nothing stops while you're waiting for those eggs to hatch, and even my duties were pretty much the same. So I don't know why it feels so - " and she struggles for a word, her hands and fingers moving impatiently, until - "so pointless now." "Because you realized that what you are doing was a placeholder while you figured something else out." Irianke, as warm voiced as she might be, is a pragmatist in the end, saying what seems obvious to her quietly. "You are unhappy?" Part question, part statement, the goldrider looks to Faryn to decide which way to take it. "It didn't feel that way," Faryn says, sounding almost defensive. "And it still shouldn't, because I haven't got anything to do to replace it." She apparently needs something to do with her hands, and serving herself a small amount of that salad is what she chooses, though once done all she does is poke the lentils with her fork, like they've caused her personal offense. "I'm not happy," is what she suffices, "but that's not all the time." "No," Irianke shakes her head, a note of sympathy mild in her voice. "No one can be happy or unhappy all the time. Sometimes the brightest smiles hide the deepest pain." The salads suddenly lose her interest and her fork is set down just about the time Faryn's is lifted. "Trader born. Bred too, if it matters. Igen Weyr is the place I've called home for the longest in my life and sometimes," she adds, her small smile belying her words, "I am unhappy too." It had truly just been a statement, and Faryn's clearly bemused to have Irianke supplying even a little of her history. She even stops poking her salad, but doesn't put the fork down, just in case it starts to get uppity again. "I know it's impossible to be happy all the time. I don't expect that. I figure the ratio will balance out one day, though. I'm doing my job while I wonder about the rest of Pern and what I could be doing." Drily, then, so drily it speaks to what she might feel on the matter, "You're an interloper far from home. It's justifiable that you might be unhappy now and then." Irianke laughs at Faryn's response, giving up on lunch and standing so she might walk laps around the table. "I think anyone is justified to be unhappy with life on occasion or unhappy in general." She looks at the chalkboard and draws her own bubbles with figures in them, question marks for some of the herder projections and then a very random drawing of a cow saying 'MOO'. "You should think about what you want to do with life but it is never so cut and dry. I can never leave my duties or responsibilities. My dragon ties me to them for life. So I find pleasures elsewhere. The things that well," she shrugs, aware of her reputation, "Bring me a moment of happiness." Faryn tracks Irianke's movements patiently, her head tilting as she leans to watch the weyrwoman draw on the chalkboard. There's a small appreciative snort at the declarative cow, and then, "The difference is, I think I still could." She scratches the side of her nose, then decides to at least try the food, an act she engages without much relish. "I used to race, in Tillek. I'm good at it, and the runners too." But still, "Nobody here does. You've got very officious journeymen." "Thank you." What else do you say to such a comment? But Irianke doesn't bother hiding her smile. The weyrwoman picks up a clipboard and makes notations on it reflective of the changes she made on the chalkboard and then reaches for the top few sheets of the notes Faryn brought back to her. "They are quite meticulous in their work, something I appreciate. I've ridden runners before. I can't think of a trader who hasn't at least once. I can't say I'm much good at it. Is that what you'd like to do?" "For fun, maybe. I had this grand plan once, that I would head to Bitra and just race and race until I had all the marks I could want. Then I realized how stupid it was. Immature." The lentils don't agree with her palette, because Faryn places her fork down and pushes the plate away, sighing and standing. "With all due respect, ma'am, if I knew what I wanted to do, I'd be doing it." "As depressing as it sounds," Irianke asks, "Have you ever thought that no one really knows what they want to do and only a few do what they want?" She's no longer writing on her clipboard and it has been set on the table, her hands resting on the edge as she looks to Faryn. "Why don't you take a seven off, go race down in Tillek and see how that feels? I'm afraid we don't really have much room for runner racing on a cliffside, but I'd love to see you ride." "I have. R'hin was even kind enough to tell me, if not in so many words, that it's stupid. I'm not quite ready to believe I've got to be one of those people, who does what they must instead of what they'd like. Sometimes it even overlaps." She cuts a gaze at Irianke, wary. "If you'll sanction it," is a slow acceptance of the suggestion. "Or, if it's an order. I am very good." There's a brief twitch of a smile. "I should be going, ma'am. They should really know if my duties are to change for a seven." She tips her head a bit as she moves to the exit. "Thank you, for lunch. I hope you have a good afternoon." Irianke watches Faryn's expression switch from wariness to a twitchy smile and returns with a kinder smile of her own. "It isn't an order. You may decline. But if you would like to, I will speak to who needs to be spoken to." What she'll say is not shared, but given she has no personal jurisdiction over the crafts, it's all up to her powers of persuasion. "Have a good afternoon." |
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