Logs:Liars
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| RL Date: 10 June, 2014 |
| Who: Aishani, R'hin |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Aishani and R'hin speak of counting and counting, Monaco's Weyrwoman, and R'hin's new interest in ships. |
| Where: Records Room, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 13, Month 13, Turn 34 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Azaylia/Mentions, K'del/Mentions, Oriane/Mentions |
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| It's a cold winter's night, and this close to the dinner hour the records room is all but deserted -- other than the scribe on duty -- most of the glows half shuttered. Those near one of the tables in the middle are brightly lit, however, casting a glow over the surface which is covered in maps. Maps, mostly, of Pern as a whole, rather than High Reaches in specific, though there is one of the region off to one side, too, half unfurled. Standing by the table, leaning over it, R'hin looks lost in thought, still and thoughtful. Cold enough a night that, when Aishani enters the dim, quiet room, it's not from the bowl, but from the council chambers - the shorter, less exposed walk. That hasn't stopped her from donning her jacket with the huge fur collar attached, nor has the anticipated quiet stopped her from proceeding along with slower steps, not quite silent. R'hin in here with his maps and thoughts aren't anticipated, but she barely pauses, head tilted, before approaching to take a look. Obviously. "The map is not the territory," she says, by way of greeting. This close, she can see the largest map shows wind and sea currents, normally used by sailors and likely kept just for completeness' sake here. The shift of R'hin's weight suggests he notes the approaching footsteps, though he doesn't immediately answer, instead giving the goldrider a sidelong look. "I'm thinking of taking up a hobby. Apparently that's something people do these days." Becoming a sailor? "I haven't seen that one." Aishani peers over with undisguised interest, undoing her jacket - though it's difficult to say whether she knows how to make head or tail of it or not. Traders aren't sailors, and that might account for her arched brows. "Apparently. People need their projects. There's certainly ships enough down the way." The flick of her hand is toward High Reaches Hold on the map, casual. "And here," R'hin's finger passes over Tillek, "Though less so these days if the rumors have any substantiation." Do they? The bronzerider's lilting tone might turn it into an inquiry. With a little shrug, "I make my rounds. I don't count. But. Tillek certainly wasn't embarking on a spree of building last I checked." Aishani glances over R'hin's way, dark eyes curious - but content to see where things go for the moment. "More of the status quo, for all that... something is going on." That -- I don't count -- earns a disbelieving snort from R'hin. "Trying to downplay your role as a weyrwoman is about effective as passing for a drudge. How long are you going to try and continue to fool yourself?" The bland words are accompanied by his usual pale-eyed intentness. Discussion of Tillek, or High Reaches for that matter is put to the side for the time being. Lips quirking faintly, though in amusement or displeasure, it's hard to tell: "Fool myself in which way?" Aishani's raised fine brows again, though her eyes are bright. She's in no rush to continue the discussion otherwise or to get on to... whatever she's here for. "You don't count." R'hin echoes her words with an eerie intonation reminiscent of hers. "I don't take an inventory everywhere I go," Aishani clarifies. "But clever. My role as weyrwoman is to..." She stops herself, smirks, reconsiders. "My role as weyrwoman is to support the senior, and I do what is required exceptionally well. If I tried to downplay my role, I'd dress like a drudge." Perhaps unspoken: like some people. "No one wants me to do anything else. Trust me." "That's the answer you practice in front of the mirror for everyone," R'hin says, dismissively. "And if you keep telling yourself that for long enough, then it'll start to become true. But, the more important question," he straightens, head tipped to better regard her brown eyes with his pale ones, intently serious: "Is what do you want to do?" Aishani looks faintly insulted that R'hin imply she even rehearse. It's not all that often that she has to look up even a little, but she angles her gaze up to meet his, lips pursed. "Why? How does anything good come out of asking that here, poking at my ambition? You know what I want. I took what I wanted, it's just nearly everyone here is too much of a... bitch to know I was right. I am right." Always. Still, right now. She lets out a breath before she shows more actual emotion, adding evenly, "I want my family to be successful. I want to crush people who have wronged me. That's fine for now." A beat of silence, before a dark, sympathetic sort of chuckle escapes the bronzerider at the last. He's not laughing at her, though -- that much is obvious. "You were right. About which part?" R'hin asks, voice low. "I wasn't here for that," he reminds her, as if he couldn't have possibly heard, though it's obvious he wants to hear from her. Annoyed - though likewise, not with him - with herself, with the Weyr, with everyone - "About the tithes, probably. Or something else. Everything. The fact that I lied to a whole lot of people does not make me incapable of sound judgement. It was rather my opinion that already being a terrible person just saved other people from getting there, but try to tell them that." Aishani's tone is low, but still threaded through with the intensity that time hasn't yet dimmed. Putting fist to table lightly, looking at both, "I know. I don't know if it would have mattered." There's a long beat before, with difficulty, "I shouldn't have walked away." "Yet it makes everyone question you, your motivations." It's not an accusation, but a statement. "Rather than try and determine if a liar is telling the truth, it is easier to assume they are lying. I should know," R'hin says, with a low laugh. His gaze flickers to that fist of hers when she puts it against the table, then flickers back towards her face. "Think of it like this: if you'd stayed, and Cadejoth had caught -- the two of you would have been miserable. Perhaps it's for the best for all involved." "Wouldn't you rather that though? Than people knowing? I suppose arguing that the lying was specifically to destroy people's lives wouldn't help much, would it?" Aishani glances back up as she lets her hand loose, drums her immaculate nails on the tabletop once, twice. Arching fine brows, "What makes you such a liar? Is there some great injustice committed that I'm too young to know about and should have hunted down by now? And I suppose that's possible, Cadejoth. But if I'd kept the knot as long as possible, I could have made everyone miserable for the interim." Fun times! "Sometimes, to make people believe you -- they have to believe your motivations, to believe you are telling the truth. You, I think, are not in the habit of doing that. As difficult as it is, that is your dilemna. Share yourself, or be the liar." R'hin spreads his hands at her question, chortling briefly, "I'm a bronzerider," as if that is sufficient answer. After a considering beat, he says, "Have you considered, that making everyone else miserable does you no favors? And don't tell me you don't care; that's the facade, and I don't buy it. You went and spoke to Oriane." That last is added as if that is a point of favor on his side. "I tell the truth more often than people would like to believe." Aishani gives a little shrug - it's not entirely her fault. "Truth is a matter of perspective, though, in the end. My story certainly isn't K'del's." R'hin's answer is hardly sufficient. She gives him a look and a smirk before correcting, "Weasel." But she can't hide the brightness in her eyes; at least she's entertained. Over a little sigh, "Yes. And perhaps that's why I left my knot. But I've never liked... quitting." Losing. "I did, yes. Wouldn't you, if you were me?" "My point exactly," R'hin counters. At the accusation of being a weasel, his grin widens: knowingly and deliberately cocky. "Mmmhmm," he doesn't disagree. And yet: "For Turns I was telling you were welcome there, but you only went after Savannah came here. Have I done so wrong by you that you couldn't ask me?" He plays it up, of course -- the poor, innocent, misunderstood Monacoan exile -- and yet the glint of pale eyes suggests amusement, since he knows she won't fall for that. Rolling her eyes, "I have been to see her before. Granted, at times, to tell her off, but I have been to see her. And Oriane did tell me the same thing. Monaco, to its eternal credit, has been more welcome to me at times than Reaches has." Perhaps understandably, but Aishani takes that as a personal insult, of course. "I also speak to many weyrwomen as the world seems to be determined to attack and kill them over the last few turns." Considering R'hin and his act for a moment, "I told her if I were the Weyrleaders, I would have assumed it was some plan of hers to back door Hraedhyth's flight. I'm sure no one brought that up." It'd be hard for R'hin to miss the sentiment in the goldrider's tone. It makes him look at her intently for a moment, and exhale, strangely without addressing it. "You make it sound as if weyrwomen being targeted is new. It is not. Normally Weyrs play it cautious and quiet. Lately..." that has not been the case, although R'hin doesn't linger on it. It's the latter that catches him by surprise, chortling. "Oh, ho. That's a good one. But off base: Oriane knows well the last thing I want is to be Weyrleader. Here, or there. Next theory?" That intent look makes Aishani blink once, head tilting to one side, glossy curls spilling over one shoulder. She considers before she offers, seemingly out of nowhere, "It took me over two turns to be able to sleep here without having some nightmare. Rock closing in, choking..." There's a shudder at the memory, then; "Yes, clearly you're the only viable option that she could sneak in. I wouldn't put it past me. My only theories have to do with everyone's favorite new Weyrleader, but Oriane 'couldn't speak to Savannah's motivations or thoughts'. Or similar." There's a passable impression at the end. "Everyone has to adjust. Not just goldriders. For the first Turn at Monaco I barely slept. Being so out in the open -- exposed -- after fighting Thread was... an instinct that was hard to overcome. Dragons are fortunate in their lack of long term memory." R'hin says that last with a heated sentiment. "If Monaco wanted to fix the flight, they'd have sent bronzes, regardless of the closed status of a flight," he points out. Just like Ista, Igen and Telgar strangely showed up in time for Evielth's. It's the last that makes him laugh, strangely fondly, at Aishani's recitation of Oriane's words, "I do miss her way of phrasing things. She'd have been a harper, I think, if she hadn't been a Weyrwoman." "It's..." Aishani starts and stops, again reconsidering, but more thoughtfully than her previous rewording. "It was the worst place I could imagine as a child," she says, and leaves it at that. "And I suppose if you want to be obvious about it and make everyone angry. But I get the point, there are easier ways." Ruefully, "Not many. But easier ways." With a quirk of her lips, amused, "It's difficult for me to imagine Oriane as a harper, but I think it's difficult for me to imagine her as anything but a Weyrwoman. She's quite good at saying very little though, yes." "Once, Oriane was a girl with dreams and hopes, desires and anger, too. She has been molded by her situation, and let herself be molded by it -- and it has made her better and stronger for it." Is it a pointed statement? Perhaps, but the Savannah Wingleader doesn't linger on it, despite a tone that sounds both admiring and sympathetic to Monaco's Weyrwoman. His gaze is now on the maps, distantly, picking up a thread of conversation earlier dismissed: "Tillek, and the Seacraft has plenty of ships already. High Reaches Hold stopped production after--" he pauses, briefly. "They have reason to be building." Aishani snorts in an entirely ladylike manner, folding her arms. "Thus speaks the sage old hermit of the spires," she pronounces in low tones. "Putting a young woman on the righteous path." She wrinkles her nose, but refrains from further non-verbal comment, instead looking back to the map like she's supposed to. "Grand plans, there. When I saw the shipbuilding - some time ago, granted - it was quite the operation." "I have no idea what a righteous path is, nor what yours is. I wouldn't presume to know." R'hin says that with enough sentiment that it is probably honest, despite the brief flicker of a smile. "Oriane made her own way. I imagine you will, too." With a grunt, he begins rolling up the maps, the largest first. "It still is," the bronzerider replies, of the Hold's shipbuilding operation. Waving a hand diffidently, "It's just in tone, it doesn't really mean -- never mind." Not important. Aishani has something of a smile for R'hin's flicker, noting lightly, "Always have. And that's no surprise. I suppose I don't have to tell you not to do anything obvious." She slides hands into her pockets, stepping away from the table, closer to the shelves. There's a bemused look from R'hin at Aishani's warning -- though at her back, as she's retreating. Aloud, though, he murmurs, "As you wish, weyrwoman," even if it has more than a hint of amusement to it. There's the sounds of more rustling, as he carefully rolls up the remainder of the maps, disappearing into the shelves to return them, the sound of his movement fading as he does. At some point he must have left, out past that all-but-asleep scribe. |
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