Logs:Little Good
| |
|---|
| |
| RL Date: 17 October, 2015 |
| Who: Hattie, N'rov |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Discussion of a soon to be posted Harper and the fate of M'kris. |
| Where: Records Room, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 2, Month 1, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Suireh/Mentions, R'hin/Mentions, E'dre/Mentions, M'vyn/Mentions, Ebeny/Mentions, N'muir/Mentions, Kyouri/Mentions, M'kris/Mentions |
  |
| The second day of the Turn finds N'rov in the records room, of all places; it's crowded, so the wingsecond either got up early or displaced someone else to get himself an alcove, even though it means no beer. His sleeves are rolled up, and he's jotting notes in a steady hand. Between searching along one aisle and another, Hattie has been in the records for a while now, keeping herself to herself as she makes notations on the clipboard that she balances against shelves every now and then. When she reaches the end of one row, her steps take her closer to N'rov's alcove, where she pauses and watches him for a moment before asking, "Reports?" "Indeed." N'rov finishes the word before putting his pen aside, his smile unhurried but quite present. "Yours? I trust that your recordskeepers did not enjoy the Turn too much, to have to have it put to rights." "In all honesty, I think that some of them would be the first to complain if this place suffered at the hands of a celebration," Hattie answers dryly, wandering a step or so to snag a nearby chair and move it a little closer. "Just making note of some volumes that could do with copying and replacing. We've a Harper Master being posted soon and I suppose I don't want her looking down on this place." "Are you positive? I can see them," and N'rov cups his hand to his eyes as though to do just that, "crawling atop the shelving when they get bored of under the tables, drinks in hand." With the acting Weyrwoman making herself at home, he wipes off his pen and covers the inkwell. "I hope she isn't too much of a despot, waving a cane at every faded page. Makes me wonder what we did to rate her." Amused gray eyes rest on Hattie, as though checking for clues. "Perhaps the Hall isn't happy that we have a greenrider Weyrharper," Hattie considers, the twitch of her shoulder one that suggests that it's not a particularly serious concern. "Or perhaps they think we need cheering up. Word is that she specialises in performance." Another shrug. "It'll be an interesting experience, I'm sure." "That must be it. They heard about his immoral and provocative tunes that entice us into iniquity, thoroughly unlike those of harpers who don't have so much as a second glass of wine." It rolls so glibly off the bronzerider's tongue, accentuating the otherwise subtle contrast to, "Cheering wouldn't be bad. Performance, and a master. Time to break out those high standards." After a brief moment, casually, "What's her name?" "Suireh." If Hattie knows more of her than that, there's no indication of it, the name offered over like she might any other. "Whatever happens, I hope there won't be conflict between her and M'vyn, or the Weyrlingmaster - not that I've seen her performing in... months?" With a sigh and the roll of her shoulders, she murmurs, "I've had quite enough of conflict, recently." "Suireh." N'rov's baritone complicates that name; he leans back in his seat, rubbing his palm from scruffy cheekbone to forehead. "Well, well, well. Be careful of what... well." One gray eye peers at her, out from behind his hand. "I don't expect conflict, not from her end. She's good at working the crowd." She doesn't rush to enquire, yet there's a edge to Hattie's voice that wasn't there a moment and more ago when she questions, "Be careful of what...?" Dark eyes don't so much stare as study in the seconds before she adds, "I'm to understand that you know her then?" N'rov returns her look in silence, a slow flex of shoulders his solitary shrug. "She is an accomplished singer," he says finally, "You need have no doubt about that. Just..." His drawl draws out into nothingness, and past. "Take care, should you ask about her father. She is," also, "recently bereaved." "You can rest assured that I won't be asking about her father, and not only because I can't claim to know her well enough to be so forward about her family." There's something there, some faint measure of chastisement for the very thought. "Though I do wonder at the... timing," Hattie admits. "Not of her being posted to us, but of her being posted anywhere at all in the wake of..." "I sit reproved," N'rov says easily. "If everyone were so polite, I wonder where we'd be." He doesn't seek to speculate himself, but rather agree, "There is that. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of postings, nor how the negotiations went: how well we can afford her." "If there's a reason that we can and should afford her that will do her some good as well as us, I see no cause to question it too deeply." Hattie glances across the records and the low-key milling about of its current visitors. "I imagine there are those other than you that she knows here. If being here will help her... It's that it might not that concerns me. Still, I hardly think that she'll want her emotional state interrogated." "Who would?" is N'rov's complete agreement, though then he catches his breath just shy of interrupting himself with other names, who would all too well. He does ask, all of a sudden, "What would you do with M'kris if you had him?" "If he's all that he's made out to be, I'd take no issue with ensuring that he lost either his freedom or his life," Hattie answers bluntly. "However, it's not so simple when there's his dragon to consider too, not that any of us should count on our lifemates to be what prevents anyone from doing what should be done." She shrugs. "But I don't have him. Kyouri does. So, what would you do?" N'rov meets that last question with a wry look, a hooked-up brow. "Throw myself on Kyouri's mercy, that she might decide for me," he drawls. The sardonic quality subsides for the one brief sentence, "I'll miss her." He doesn't play with his pen, doesn't even look stunningly pensive, just gets to analysis. "I wouldn't kill his dragon, no." Definite. "They're saying it's a scuffle, those who aren't saying M'kris planned it. I'd want to find out. No matter what, it's a tragedy." "...You don't have to miss her if you don't choose to," Hattie says with a gentleness at odds with the severity of her expression. What she means - or what she doesn't - isn't something that she opts to elaborate about. "Regardless, I've heard little good about the man. Perhaps it should be that his story ends now, one way or another. As I've said, I'm growing rather tired of conflict." Nor does he ask, or argue. "How to end his story," is N'rov's different question. "The other way?" "It would be too much, I suppose, to hope that he might end things of his own volition." Hattie gives a slight shake of her head. "Not that that would make the matter of his dragon any less of one." She smoothes her skirts over her knees and stands, returning the chair to where she's moved it from. "Can I do anything for you, N'rov?" she asks, as she pauses at his chair once more. "I'd like to think," N'rov says carefully, "that if there were an accident and a man and dragon dead, that E'dre or N'muir wouldn't be given up so easily. Or any of us." He, too, stands. With it, his tone lightens. "I'd say, get our stipends back to usual, but I'd wager you're working on that. At least, I'd wager if that wouldn't be the next thing taxed... I do keep getting asked about it, though, so if you ever have an ETA." "You and N'muir and E'dre don't have the same reputation as the man in question," Hattie says flatly, unrepentant in that insistence. "When I know that adjustments can be made to pay without it causing further issues, I'll let you know," she assures. "Funny that I didn't have marks down at the top of your list..." A shrug, then the Weyrwoman turns and begins to head towards the spiral staircase. His brows lift in real surprise. "Was it that open an offer?" That real an offer? "Keep in mind, the marks aren't so much mine." N'rov stays standing to see her out. "What do you think?" She'll let him make his own assumptions, about both the nature and longevity of the offer, that question called over her shoulder as Hattie vanishes from sight. |
Leave A Comment