Logs:Leadership Material
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| RL Date: 1 September, 2011 |
| Who: Jaques, Meara |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Jaques doesn't want in on the leadership program. That's okay: Meara doesn't want him, anyway. |
| Where: Weyrlingmaster's Office, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 25, Month 8, Turn 26 (Interval 10) |
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| It's a quiet knock at the door, one afternoon after lessons are finished for the day. Jaques hesitates only a moment longer before peeking around the door for Meara. "Weyrlingmaster?" Meara's standing, not sitting: busying herself with the tea-trolley, pouring herself (yet another) cup. She looks up when Jaques knocks, and beckons him in when his head appears around the door; "Jaques. Come in. Tea?" Tea? "If I'm not interrupting," Jaques says, with a nod toward the set-up. All the same, he steps inside a little further, shifting his weight a moment before he notes, "I was hoping you had a moment. It's about the leadership program?" "There's plenty," is Meara's reply, made as she pours a second cup, waving Jaques towards the seats around that round table. "Grab a chair. Milk? Sugar?" If she's surprised by the reason for his visit - and there are hints about it, certainly, in her expression - she doesn't seem inclined to voice it. "No, thank you," Jaques waves off the additives, happy to enjoy the still-foreign taste of tea entirely on its own. He seats himself when indicated, his shifting turning into a more characteristic stillness, though more watchful than usual, perhaps. "I don't want to be a part of it," he says at length. Into her own, Meara adds a dollop of milk; then, she brings both cups to the table, going back after she's set them down to add the ever-present plate of cookies. It's not until she's dropped into her seat and wrapped both small hands about her own cup that she really seems to concentrate on what Jaques has to say. Her mouth sucks in; she seems... surprised. Even discomforted. "Do you see yourself as leadership material, Jaques?" As much as Meara, Jaques registers some quiet surprise: his is mostly found in his shoulders, which stiffen slightly as he sits a little straighter. His cup is held very still, undrunk. And he does not, notably, answer the question--clearly a trick of some sort--that's put to him. Now that she's taken charge, by asking the question, Meara is back on solid ground: she'll wait as long as she needs to, brows just barely raised, mouth twisted into what can just barely be called a smile. She takes a careful sip from her tea. Jaques, finally, "I did tell you I wasn't interested." He's still not drinking, though. Meara nods, just once. "That you did. Which is good to know, and yet--" She leans back in her seat, drumming the fingers of her left hand - the hand that isn't holding her tea-cup - upon the table. "I'm curious, that's all. To be honest? You weren't on my list. I expect you'll be a solid rider, one day, but I admit that /I/ don't see you as leadership material." More surprise, though Jaques is decent at downplaying it. And really, the only question on his mind is more befuddled than anything else: "Why not?" Meara opens her mouth to respond, and then pauses, giving Jaques a lengthy look. "Because you don't lead, Jaques. You follow. You want to avoid the difficult questions." Beat. "It's not a criticism. It's not a character flaw. It just is what it is. And since you don't /want/ it, I think that makes things work out nicely, don't you?" Again, silence on Jaques' end, while he works through this critique of himself; at least he doesn't get mad or defensive about it. "Only, when leading's all that's expected, it just becomes following," he begins, slowly. "Which means that true leading is sometimes following, doesn't it?" "Does it?" There's no conclusion in Meara's question: she's neither supporting nor denying Jaques' theory of leadership. Instead, her hands are both wrapping about the tea cup again, and she's lifting it towards her mouth. "There's always a place for following. Sometimes, leading is about knowing when - and whom - to follow." Her question inspires Jaques to take a long sip of his cooling tea himself, the cup swirled thoughtfully for a momet afterward. "Which is not me," he supplies in the end, though still troubled. "We're--agreed. ... I must seem so foolish now." "Foolish? No." Meara shakes her head for emphasis: back and forth, back and forth. "You know what you want, what you don't. That's important. Is it... that you feel like you ought to be leadership material? Even though you don't want it?" She nudges the plate of cookies towards him, encouragingly. Jaques, simply, "We believe in the Blood." The cookies are eyed, and out of obligation he takes one, nibbling at it idly. "It must seem crazy to you weyrfolk, but Blood's no crazier than letting dragons choose, and it's a good deal more reliable at the least." He shrugs. "Don't you have Weyrleaders, Weyrwomen, that regret it?" "Ah, the Blood." Meara lets that hang, shaking her head like any good weyrbred person so often does. "It does seem crazy. To be honest, I suspect the only system that truly works is that of the crafts-- merit alone. But to answer your question... No. I don't think we do. They grow into the role, if they need to. I don't believe dragons choose wrongly." Jaques spreads his hands then, as if to say, 'there's your answer.' "Any more than we believe the Blood doesn't run true." Meara considers Jaques over her tea-cup, her mouth curled as though she finds that idea distasteful and is trying to overcome the idea. "Our leaders, though, are chosen by something more concrete than an accident of birth," she points out, slowly. But: "Well. It is what it is." "What is it that makes them suitable for dragons, if not Blood?" is Jaques' counter, interested without pushing. "If eight of us could be chosen at once--." "The dragons choose who they choose," returns Meara, firmly, even as she's reaching to take a cookie for herself, nibbling at the edge of it. Then; "We can't predict it. But the children of goldriders don't necessarily Impress at all; the Weyrleader is the only dragonrider in his family, for example, and there's no Blood there. Dragons don't care who you are, or who your family is, or where you come from: they pick /you/." Jaques does not look convinced, really, but true to form, he doesn't argue the point, either. Instead, he nods and continues to eat his cookie and finish his tea, like any good guest. "I should return to Greshaith. Thank you for your time, ma'am." It really does look as though there's more Meara would like to say-- but she doesn't. She has a mouth full of cookie with the brownrider excuses himself, but she puts a hand up to her mouth as she hastily swallows, telling him, firmly, "Any time, Jaques. My door is always open." |
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