Logs:Last Days
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| RL Date: 21 March, 2009 |
| Who: Leova, Satiet |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Leova checks in on Satiet. |
| Where: Weyrwoman's Weyr, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 4, Month 4, Turn 19 (Interval 10) |
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| As the days pass and winter turns to spring, Satiet's schedule has become increasingly inconsistent: skipped or canceled meetings, days she's absent from the Weyr or holed up in her quarters, and somewhere midst this, she gets work done, likely sacrificing sleep in the process. Or is it that she can't sleep? Though there are neat stacks of work to be done on her stone table, a letter half-finished directly before the pulled out chair, the weyrwoman is reclined in the single cot that's been pulled closer to the open tapestry, where the warm sunlight and the spring breeze drift through. Dark circles trace beneath closed eyes only half-obscured by the thin arm slung over her forehead. Her appearance of sleep is marred by the sporadic pulls of her face and drop of her teeth to her lips in a swallowed cry, or the rasping coughs that break the peaceful silence of her weyr. Careful footsteps mount the stairs towards the weyrleaders' complex of ledges. It's around the right time for lunch, or what passes for lunch these days. They're even footsteps, steady and unhurried, and there will be several more before the drudge gets here with what food can be digested and soft, warm, soothing cloths. Except, the woman who's bringing them first brought Satiet a meal almost exactly five Turns ago, and there were no cloths then. Tossing and turning. Unable to get comfortable and clearly, to the vtols that watch from her walls, in some amount of pain. But it's those footsteps that approach, steady and unhurried, that finally summons any bit of strength she has, to bring herself up to sit and pause, then to slowly stand, leaning against the cool wall. For a drudge, it would be easy to not notice the weyrwoman's coloring or see anything beyond the fear of the cold dismissal of pale eyes. But Leova's no drudge and when Satiet's owlish eyes lift to meet the arrival, with a gesture-in-motion to put the tray on the table, all movement, including the rise and fall of her chest in ragged breathing, stops short. There's an indecisive moment, before she straightens and forces normalcy throughout her limbs. Leova must see her do it, the way the greenrider shivers, once. And then she says, steady and calm as her footsteps were, "Good morning," in that way that doesn't require a response. It is still morning, if just barely, and one of fewer and fewer that may be left. She does put the tray on the table, as composed as she can. Pulls out the chair, standing behind it. Gauges the distance to the other woman, the distance between them: of course Satiet can cross this far, but what would it take out of her? "I might," she says in much the same tone, "Move the other chair over, by the cot. As a sort of end table." As though all they were doing was considering the opportunities for redecorating. Instead. Leova greeting her. Leova moving in. Leova setting the tray down and observing the furniture situation of her outer room. All of it merely serves to buy Satiet those precious moments to bring her slight frame that much taller, and her chin lifted that much prouder and only marginally successful. In the end though, her largest success comes in not leaning against the wall anymore. "Please?" It's an abrupt response: too quick to not be completely desperate, but not quick enough, implying some measure of control exhibited. "I would appreciate that. I've heard-," the older woman hesitates, casting a glance to the open ledge bringing in sunshine, warmth, and spring into her weyr, "That something's been going around lately." A beat. "Have you so little to do that you do a drudge's work once more?" Leova leaving the tray where it is, for now. Leova leaving the first chair pulled out, in case it should prove helpful later. Leova picking up the second chair and carrying it, rather than dragging it in a way that might hurt its legs or else sensitive ears, to settle it next to the cot. Satiet may sit on the chair, or else Satiet may sit on the cot next to it, and either way Leova's already turned her back and headed, not too quickly, back towards the table to, presumably, retrieve the tray. Which should also mean that Satiet may do any such sitting in relative peace. "Glacier doesn't drill as often as all that," she says amiably enough. And, just an over-the-shoulder glance from the table proper, just enough to reveal a glimpse of quarter-profile and something of the smile that her voice aims for, "People keep saying we have to find jobs for Interval. Reckon I should get ambitious, or they'll fill all the fetch-and-carry jobs already." Now she's got the tray again. Now she can bring it back. Satiet, bless her heart, is more fixated on the fact that Leova appears to mean to stay and that the greenrider is delivering her lunch to do more than continue to stand and watch. In fact, if she weren't working so intently to seem normal, she might watch in dismay, ignoring the quarter-profile and the smile aimed her way. And what the other woman says? Certainly not really penetrating her head, other than at the most peripheral level, "Right. Jobs for the Interval." Her 'you're not supposed to be here' look never gets voiced, though surely there's a moment it almost did in a caught breath that turns silent, or in the tired turn of her body to find respite against the wall. But sit? No, not yet. "I'm not very hungry yet. I had a late breakfast." "Let's just see how this turned out, then," Leova says, skimming right past all the might-have-been buts and would-be dismay in favor of crouching by the chair and setting the tray atop it, giving it a poke to make sure it doesn't wobble. It doesn't. So she continues, setting out the spoon, removing the lids for the savory broth in its cup, the warm gruel, the stewed golden apricots. Steam still rises from the heated cloths, so she covers them back up again. "Don't have to eat yet. Just see how it is," she says to the curved lid and the distorted reflection it gives, rather than have to look up just yet. It would be so easy to be petulant. To throw that fit that's just on the tip of her tongue and push the tray off the chair and rail at Leova to just leave her the fuck alone. How easy it would be - and such sentiments shine briefly in Satiet's ever-pale eyes. What a relief it would be. But at what cost? How irreparable would the damage be? In the end, the slight woman loses in light of 'better judgment' and Satiet sinks onto the pillow at the end of that cot. "Leova." Better judgment presses her lips thin and closes one question and rephrases it into: "You don't have to do this." "I know," Leova says very gently, very carefully, and sinks back enough that she's sitting, now, her legs folded up. Her arms tucked around them. Her head on her knees. In an unintended reflection of Leova, Satiet's own legs draw up, bent at the knees with her arms holding them loosely. It's when the greenrider responds that Satiet realizes, and the unmentionable truth hangs heavy in the air. With the supposedly unknown known, some pretenses can be shed (though not all), and slowly unfolding from her curl, the dark-haired woman scoots and leans forward, stretching to reach for the covered broth with both hands. "Tiriana will be back soon." Leova swallows once, a hard pulse of tension in her jaw before she stretches her neck, making it all go away. Almost all. "You said... to watch out for her." She remembers. Aye, she did. Satiet doesn't voice that. She just sips from the mug slowly, pausing long enough to allow the broth's steam to mist her face, but somehow, without voicing, the acknowledgement hangs in the air, coexisting quite well with the other unspoken truths. Simply, to fill in the oh-so awkward silence, "I'm sorry." It lifts her head all at once, the breath stolen from her on, "/You're/..." Leova stops, then, still looking at Satiet. "I wish... Wish all sorts of things." Her head lowers, not looking, now. Her voice is lower, too. "Wasn't sure, did you mean watching out for what she might do. Or for her, on her behalf. So I figured, both." "Both," Satiet agrees. The broth is only half finished when the mug is set back on that tray on that chair. A cursory look glances over the rest of the food, causing those pale eyes to disappear and her thin body to lean back once more. If she hurled in between all that, it shouldn't be a surprise given the tensely held back would-be contortions of her face, but thankfully, for all parties, she doesn't. "I'm very tired." Today is not one of her better days. Tonight is not one of the nights she indulges in her latest, last addiction. "Can you take the tray with you?" Good thing, given that Leova's rusty head is probably right in target range. "I'll do that," she says after a deep breath's resignation: she might have hoped for one or the other, or a change. Satiet might have hoped for her to take the cue immediately. As it is, "What else may I," will you let me, "do for you?" Will you not keep me from doing for you? "I'm fine." She's not. "I just need to-," To what? Rest? Sleep? Be put out of her misery already? One hand splays across her face, her fingers working to pinch the bridge of her nose between her knuckles before spreading once more to cover her eyes. Or mostly cover her eyes. The fact that she's crying is heard, moreso than seen, in the request, "Can you unhook the tapestry when you go?" Eventually, should Leova stay longer than Satiet would like, she'll be privy to sobs unsobbed, cries unvoiced, and thin shoulders somehow holding it all in except those damnable tears. "I will." Quietly. Leova rises. Quietly. The sound of her footsteps recedes, and there's the sound of the tapestry unhooked, of its falling shut. She must have forgotten the tray after all. Unless... from that juncture, if she can hear, if the sobs don't already shake her too much, there's the shifting of a woman resettling somewhere further off. On this side of the tapestry, or the other? And then there's silence for few moments more, and gradually, hesitantly, something that might get the lids lobbed at her head, or the whole thing, apricots and tray and all. Singing, an soft old Tillek tune, an audible tapestry between Satiet and the rest of the world. Between Satiet and Leova herself, perhaps, if that's what she needs. Who can be heard, crying, over that, if her voice is given time to deepen and enrichen and swell? If she isn't conked over the head, first. |
Comments
Satiet (Satiet) left a comment on Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:12:27 GMT.
I know I'm dumb, but rereading this made me all sad again.
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