Logs:Mixed Feelings
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| RL Date: 17 November, 2010 |
| Who: Adiel, Madilla |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Madilla and Adiel get to know each other a little. |
| Where: Healer Workroom, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 6, Month 2, Turn 24 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: B'tal/Mentions, Lilabet/Mentions, Varens/Mentions, W'chek/Mentions |
| Healer Workroom, High Reaches Weyr The Healer workroom is a decent-sized cavern, if considerably longer than it is wide, dead-ending in three narrow glassed-in windows above a long, shared desk. It's primarily a working space, taken up by wide tables that are spacious enough to allow several healers to work on several different projects at the same time without running into each other. Supporting this, the remaining walls are lined with storage, storage and more storage, punctuated only by the hallway door opposite the windows, the stone basin and pump to one side, and the two hearths unevenly spaced along the longer walls. Ceiling-height cupboards line one of the walls, all the way from one end of the room to the other. Wide shelves fill the first, storing general equipment, while the others contain places for empty jars as well as finished products. The final cupboard contains several shelves worth of liquids in jars, above a set of dozens of little drawers that each contain herbs of all kinds. Below these is a locked cupboard for controlled substances. Adiel is leaning against the counter in the workroom with a few leaves spread out in front of him. It's late afternoon, but Adiel is not ready to close up for dinner yet it seems. A notebook is references as he touches each of the leaves, mouthing a name and then checking for accuracy in his notes. It's been a quiet, cozy sort of afternoon, made all the better by the fact that there's been no need to head out into the miserable, windy, snowy weather outside. Madilla's spent much of her time preparing cough syrup; now, though, she pauses just behind Adiel's shoulder, then drops a particularly unusual-looking leaf on the counter in front of the Apprentice. "Any ideas?" Adiel stares at that leaf for a moment. He picks it up, turning it over to look at the other side and even takes a careful sniff of it. "Huh." He flips back to his notebook for a moment before looking back to the leaf. "Looks kind of like Goldenseal." He states, lifting it again for a closer look at the backside. Approvingly; "Nicely done, Adiel." Madilla leaves the leaf where it is, shifting her position so that she can lean up against the bench nearby, considering the Apprentice and his work. "Next step, for two additional points: name me four things we use it for." Adiel looks back down to the leaf for a moment, but not to his notes, even though the answer must be written in there. "On the skin for fungus and infections." He pauses for just a moment before giving the second. "As a weaker tea for upset stomach. It can be used for sores in the mouth." He gets through three before he pauses. Adiel scrunches up his forehead for a second and then sighs. "I can't get a fourth without the notes." The apprentice admits, looking down to add, "Oh, yeah, it can help stop bleeding." Madilla counts the uses off on her fingers, one by one, and smiles. "Three's pretty good, all the same. I've always liked that one, simple herb can be used for so much. Internally, externally - for digestion, for skin complaints, even antiseptic. A good all-rounder." She holds the counter with both hands, just barely propping herself up, as she adds, unrelatedly, "Settling in all right?" "But not quite perfect." Adiel /might/ be joking there before his flips the leaf gently in his fingers again. "It is a good one. It's amazing that one plant can do so many things for us." The apprentice pauses before he looks over. "I suppose so. I'm finding my way around better. It just /feels/ different than the Hall. I've never lived in a weyr before." "Now, if only there were one single plant that did /everything/, then we'd really be in a good situation," jokes Madilla, stretching against the counter edge. She's silent for a moment, after that, but nods evenly. "I /do/ understand that. It was enormously strange for me, too, when I first arrived. You don't-- that is to say, you don't mind having come here? Being sent?" "But then we'd have a rather boring greenhouse. All full of the same plant." Adiel notes with a smile that fades out a bit at that last question. "I-" He pauses before he just shrugs and answers honestly. "Sometimes. I guess I really have mixed feelings about the whole thing. It feels rather like leaving home. I spent a lot of my childhood living at the Hall. Not just the two turns I was apprenticed." Madilla accepts this reasoning with a grin, but it's not one that lasts. She hesitates visibly before responding to the rest of it. "I-- yes. I can imagine that. Leaving home is-- difficult. Would it have been easier if Journeyman Varens had simply punished you?" Her glance is appraising, as though she's looking for the answer in his expression as much as in whatever he says next. There's a second's hesitation there before Adiel shakes his head. "No. I mean, in some ways it would have been. But I know my father, my family would have heard all about it. I know they'll question the move, but, well, I'm not quite sure I'm ready for that whole conversation yet." Adiel looks back down toward the leaves before he continues. "The Hall is home, but it wasn't always the easiest place to live. Maybe here people will see me as more than the perfect little teacher's pet." "Most people here won't know who your family is-- or care," agrees Madilla, firmly, apparently at least partially relieved, though her gaze doesn't leave the Apprentice. "Most of us do have to leave our homes, eventually. One way or another. It doesn't make it easy, though. And-- if this doesn't work? If you do want to go back? I won't object. But I think this might be a good opportunity for you, and maybe that means it's for the best." Adiel finally actually looks over to Madilla giving her a quick smile. "And that will be such a nice change. Honestly." Adiel says about the first before the apprentice nods his head. "I think it might be. I wouldn't have stayed at the Hall forever anyway. And I might well have been eyeing a posting to a weyr in the future anyway, because, well." He's not even going to say it, but at least he doesn't look away from Madilla. Madilla returns the smile, apparently pleased. Still; "There's that, too." That, presumably, is to his last remark, answered without seeking more information - though no doubt she does know the whole story. "I hope you find things more... comfortable here. Though, of course, all those rules do still apply." Theoretically. As no doubt some of the other Apprentices migh have mentioned already. Adiel blushes a bit at that, tucking long arms awkwardly about his waist. "Yeah, well, I don't think you need to worry about that. Apparently my luck is too horrible to even try breaking the rules again." At least until more teenage hormones kick in. "So, uh, you've been at Reaches for turns now, huh?" Despite herself, Madilla's expression is sympathetic. She'll leave that topic alone, though. "Mm, yes. Since I was a little older than you, I suspect. Seven turns, come summer. I only spent a turn and a half at the Hall before I came here, when Delifa was posted." "That is a long time. Enough to be really settled here. Longer than I've ever lived in a place." Adiel notes before adding, "I heard that you have a baby?" Apparently he's either been listening to the gossip mill or asking around. It's easier to ask questions than to answer them, after all. Madilla's nod to the first is somewhat wary, as though the idea of it causes some concern, though mention of her baby makes her whole expression melt into something gooey and warm. "I worry that I'll get /too/ settled, and then I'll be posted elsewhere," she admits. "Particularly as Lily gets older. She's just short of a turn, now, my little girl. Her--" she hesitates, then barrels on. "Her father's weyrmate is my former fiancee. It's complicated, but it works." That gooey expressions get a grin in return from Adiel though he does blink at the mention of the father, weyrmate, former fiancee thing. "That, uh, sounds complicated. Almost a turn. So I bet she's learning a lot of fun things, saying any words yet?" He actually seems to be interested in the baby. "I bet she's adorable." Madilla turns faintly pink, probably because she doesn't seem to have gotten across quite what, perhaps, she intended to. Oh well. "Rather," she agrees, quietly. "But it works. Things in weyrs /do/ get rather complicated sometimes, unfortunately." Or possibly fortunately. Of Lilabet, she beams, saying, "No words, yet, but lots of sounds. Her father and I are both-- quiet. She'll get there in time. She is /utterly/ adorable." So says the adoring mother, anyway. "I think it's hard to be that age and not be utterly adorable." Adiel admits with a grin still on his face. "At least if the baby isn't screaming incessantly." He adds with a quick laugh. Maybe the apprentice isn't serious /all/ the time. "Faranth," says Madilla, with the kind of long-suffering-but-still-utterly-devoted sigh that mothers often tend to sport. "Lily isn't /too/ bad, but sometimes... No, she's beautiful. I'm just sorry to watch her leave babyhood. Some of the time, anyway. You have siblings, don't you, Adiel?" That sigh gets a laugh out of Adiel. "And then she'll be walking and getting into everything possible. I bet she'll be a curious one." Adiel predicts, despite having never met the kid. He nods, grin still intact. "I do. I'm the oldest, so there's a whole passel of them. The littlest is more than two now. Hard to believe. I still think of him as the little baby he was when I became an apprentice." Madilla seems cheerful, at least, as she nods. "True enough. Hide everything delicate, breakable, or dangerous: Lily's on the loose." She seems genuinely interested in Adiel's description of his family, nodding hurriedly. "They grow up so fast. Particularly if you're away from them. But-- that's the way it goes I suppose." She pauses for a beat, and then adds, "I ought to go pick Lily up, before it gets too late. And you should be cleaning up for dinner." Adiel laughs a bit more at that description of Lily. Then he nods. "It was good to have a chance to talk to you." He tells Madilla genuinely before adding, Have a good dinner." And then he'll get started on making sure the workroom is cleaned up before taking off to clean up himself. "You, too, Adiel," says Madilla, firmly. "It's important, if we're going to be working together, after all." And then she's gone: off to battle the snows in search of daughter and food, probably in that order. |
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