Logs:Not Deathly Ill
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| RL Date: 19 October, 2009 |
| Who: Isobel, Kash |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Kash wishes she could still Stand; Isobel wishes she didn't have to. Despite enormous differences, they actually get along relatively well this time. |
| Where: Herb Garden, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 21, Month 13, Turn 20 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: T'rev/Mentions |
| It's quite cold, but nonetheless Isobel has decided that now is the time for a stroll in the herb garden. It does have the benefit that the cold has driven most people inside, so it's a good place to be alone and think. She's well bundled up in a cloak and hat and gloves and looks reasonably comfortable, given the weather. It's that same thinking that has drawn Nakasha out here, presumably, bundled up against the cold until she's little more than a tall, wide figure trudging alone through the snow. She very nearly turns around and heads in the other direction at sight of another person out here, but after a visible deep breath, and a straightening of her shoulders, she continues onwards. Perhaps Isobel won't notice her, or won't want to talk. Surely two people can coexist in a space like the garden without needing to communicate... Theoretically. But Isobel's last experience with running into someone in the herb garden has got her a little paranoid about being watched, and who knows what else. When she notices Nakasha, she adjusts her path to bring her near the other girl, and offers a polite greeting. "Hello." Foiled. Not that you'd see it from Nakasha's face - then again, most of her face is covered by the enormous scarf she's wound around herself. She comes to a halt, lifting her gaze to consider Isobel for a moment, then lifts a hand to draw the scarf away from her mouth. "Hello, Isobel," she says, in a tired, beleaguered kind of tone. "Oh. Nakasha!" Isobel is, at the very least, not displeased to see Nakasha. She even smiles at her. "I thought you had gone away, some people said - well, nevermind. It's good to see you. How are you?" Nakasha... brightens? At least a little bit. It's hard to tell, but it looks like maybe that's the case. "No," she says, carefully. "It's not that I've /gone away/. I won't go home, I told my brother that and caused an awful argument, apparently... But. I'm... as well as is to be expected. How're you? Not been sent home or anything, yet?" Isobel laughs wryly. "No, not yet," she says with a shake of her head. "Though I suppose some people would not be sorry if I were, given... recent events. Now, I won't pretend I'm not terribly curious why you are not a candidate anymore but I'm not going to go asking nosy questions, only - you /are/ alright, I hope? You don't look deathly ill, anyhow." Nakasha wraps her arms around her mid-section, somehow protectively, as she nods. "You... shouldn't be tarred with any of that. As if anyone could seriously think /you/ were tied up in any kind of shady business." /You/ of all people. "I'm not deathly ill, no. I'm..." Kash looks as though she's deliberating, seriously, and finally says, "Pregnant. So. There you go. Tell the world, if you must." She sounds bitter. Isobel's mouth opens, and she looks every bit as shocked and scandalized as you might expect. But after a long moment, she manages to get a handle on it, and shakes her head. "I won't, unless you want me to. It would stop people spreading those /other/ rumors, I suppose, but if you don't want people to know, well, it's hardly my business to tell them. I don't think I'd want the news spread around either, if it were me - not that I - well." Not that Isobel Does Things Like That. It's exactly what Kash seems to expect, at any rate, but what comes after that expression seems to surprise her at least a little. She lets out a long, low breath, watching the white cloud dissipate in front of her, and then shrugs. "Not sure it matters. People'll see it soon enough, won't they? Can't exactly hide." She adds, then, "It's not as though I sleep around or anything. I'm not like that. I know who the father is. Apparently there are ways to avoid getting knocked up in the first place. Wish I'd known that." Isobel blinks a number of times, looking dumbfounded. This is news to her as well. "There... are?" she says. "How - who told you that?" Nakasha looks kind of relieved, perhaps, that she's not the only one who managed to get this far without knowing about this. "The healers did," she explains, promptly. "Not that they told me exactly what... I guess it's a bit late on that one. But. Apparently. And, of course, they've got methods for getting rid of babies, too... so long as you're not as far along as /I/ am, apparently." So unfair: /that/ much is plainly visible in her expression. "Getting rid of babies???" Isobel repeats, bewildered, and not at all certain that this sounds like a good thing. "Before they are born? What do you mean?" Definitely nobody's clued the sheltered holder girl in on these things. "Sometimes women miscarry but that - you make it sound as if it's on /purpose/." Nakasha straightens once more, sounding entirely too knowledgeable as she talks, especially given her own predicament. "Right, an intention miscarriage. You can do it with herbs, apparently, and also, by taking a really long jump Between. Or sometimes just a normal jump, only apparently that doesn't always work, because I've been a couple times, and it obviously did nothing for me." She drops her arms from her middle, twisting her hands within each other. "Women in weyrs don't need to carry unless they want to. Makes you think, doesn't it? The way they subjugate us, in the holds. Make us too scared to go out and enjoy ourselves." Isobel's mouth drops open. "You mean they - but that's awful! The poor baby, it doesn't even get to be born, and... and they do it on purpose?" She's horrified. "My aunt had a miscarriage and was in bed for two weeks. That's just - that's terrible!" When Fort Hold's heir approaches the line of women, it's Isobel he picks out and leads to the dance floor, and her face lights up as though the sun had come out from behind a cloud, for all that he's younger and shorter than she is. He leads her through a waltz: simple, sedate, not at all risky. Nakasha seems distinctly less upset by the whole concept; envious, even, might be a better term. "Unwanted babies can ruin people's lives," she says, stoutly, with feeling. "Believe me. It isn't right, that women should end up having /nine/ children, or /more/, just because they don't know how to avoid it. It's not as though babies know what's happening. They don't even look like babies, I think, when you do it." "Well, if she doesn't want a baby, then she shouldn't --" Isobel starts to say, then stops short as she realizes too late that it's hardly the kindest thing to say to someone in Nakasha's position. She shuts her mouth and has the grace to look embarrassed; her ears are turning red. Nakasha's lips draw together, as though she's fighting back something: anger, or maybe embarrassment of her own. In the end, she sounds outright imperious as she tells Isobel, "If you say that, you've never felt what it's like to really want someone. To /love/ someone. It's-- I don't regret that. Not /ever/. It's more than just about having babies, you know." Isobel frowns. "You don't know what I've felt," she points out to Nakasha. "But there are things that... people can't just go around doing whatever they like, willy nilly, or all Pern would fall into chaos. I suppose for some people it matters less than for others." Believe it or not, she's not actually trying to be rude, though it could certainly be taken that way. "Why didn't you - you had a young man, didn't you? I'm assuming that's who you - love." A pause. "Couldn't you marry him?" By the way Nakasha stands, so stiff, not to mention her snort as Isobel speaks, she's taken what the other girl has said as being enormously rude. She ignores most of it, though, in order to say, "No, I can't. He's-- his mother wouldn't approve. I wouldn't be good enough for her son. Besides, I still want to Impress, and I can't, if I get married." Isobel actually looks sympathetic. "That is too bad. Of course it happens sometimes. But if he couldn't get permission to marry you he shouldn't have dishonored you - that was ill-done, and unkind." Now suddenly it's the boy's fault and not Nakasha's? Well, Isobel never claimed to be consistent. Her lips press together at the notion of Impressing. "I suppose if you impress, you can do as you like." This time, she does sound a bit snotty. Nakasha snorts outright this time, her cheeks pink with more than just the cold of the outdoors air. "He didn't /dishonour/ me. We both wanted to. We knew it probably couldn't last. I never wanted to just get married and settle down; my virginity didn't mean /that/ much." But enough, evidently, that she waited for him. "Even if I don't, I can. I can stay at the Weyr - T'rev said so. So I'll have this stupid baby, and then I'll stand again next time, you see if I don't." Isobel is quiet while Nakasha talks, lips thinned, but she's doing her best to be patient. Finally, she heaves a sigh and relaxes from her stiffened, disapproving posture. "It sounds as though you belong here. Things at the weyr are... so very, very different from how things are in a hold. One can't do such things in a hold but... it's different here, and nobody cares. You /should/ impress. I hope you do." She looks away, and sighs again, quietly. Nakasha's irritation sort of... slips away, silently, and in an instant, as Isobel turns away. Her mouth half opens, and she reaches forward with one hand as if intending to rest it on the other candidate's shoulder. Instead, she lets it hover, and, finally, "Why are you here, Isobel? It must be... such an adjustment." "There are a lot of reasons." Isobel shakes her head slightly; she doesn't seem all that happy about being here. Certainly, if it's true that Nakasha should be, it's equally true that Isobel shouldn't be. "It's all very complicated, and... I can't really leave without causing offense. It's all rather awkward." Crunching some snow on the ground under her boot, she adds, "I hope you won't tell anyone I said that." Nakasha lets her hand drop back to her side, and nods. "I won't," she promises. "I-- hope you don't Impress, then? And then you can go home." She seems uncomfortable saying that; she ultimately shakes her head, as though she can't quite believe that that's what someone would want. "Wish I could pretend to be you, and get on the sands anyway," she adds, laughing, not at all serious. "I know!" Isobel says, laughing too. "So do I. Isn't it ridiculous? You want to be, and I don't, and yet neither of us really has a choice." She wrinkles her nose. "But at least you will get another chance. There is that." She tries to be reassuring. Shaking her head, Nakasha laughs again; she looks more relaxed, less offended by her companion. "I hope so. I do. There /ought/ to be another clutch before I'm too old, and hopefully my dragon will be there." She sounds determined. "There's lots more candidates than there are eggs, so you'll probably be all right." "Yes, I hope so." Isobel's expression has a faint hint of dread in it. "Well, any dragon in its right mind would know I'm all wrong for it. You'd think?" She laughs once more, drily this time. There's more crunching of snow beneath her feet, and her mouth opens, and then closes again, as she decides not to say whatever it was that was in her head. [Fort Weyr] Isobel: Huh. I've seen people boil water in a pot to get something unstuck off the bottom, but it doesn't seem to work for me. Does anyone know if there's anything more to that trick? Nakasha's expression is sympathetic - as long as you ignore the longing she can't quite manage to bury. "I'm sure you'll be fine," she insists, and then... "What? What were you going to say?" "Oh nothing, it was really nosey," Isobel says with a shake of her head. "I think it will work out though. One way or another." It's unclear whether she's talking about her situation, or Nakasha's, or both. Nakasha looks, for a moment, distinctly mulish, as though she'd really like an answer on that one, but though her mouth opens, the question, in the end, doesn't come out. Finally, she shrugs, instead. "Yes. Of course it should. It'll all be fine." "What's wrong? Did I offend you?" Isobel was trying to be polite by NOT asking her nosey question. She tips her head up at the sky and says, "Oh - it's going to snow again." It /is/ snowing, just a little; a few snowflakes land on her face, and she puts out her tongue to try to catch them. "No, no," says Nakasha, hastily. "You just-- I kind of hate it when people have a question they don't ask. It makes me so-- /curious/, I guess. But don't worry, I'm over it." She extends a hand, open palmed, into the distance to let the snow fall on top of it, admitting, "I kind of like the snow. It's so /clean/." "Yes, I know the feeling," Isobel says with a laugh. She watches Nakasha catch the snow with a smile. "It's fun to watch it fall, but it isn't at /all/ fun to shovel paths. I shall never take them for granted again." Nakasha examines the snowflakes melting onto her gloved hand with obvious interest. "We don't really get much by way of snow at home," she explains. "Some, but not anything like this. I'd rather shovel paths than look after the kids, or the old people! I like being outdoors." "Ah, I'd much rather be inside," Isobel says. "But there is a lot of work here that I am... not really used to." Everything that's not sitting around talking and laughing and doing embroidery, actually, though she doesn't come right out and say it. "You and I," laughs Nakasha, merrily. "Complete and utter opposites. At least now that I'm not a candidate I don't have to do all the really awful chores. I think I want to work out here in the gardens, in spring, though I guess I might be too big by then to do much." "When will you have the baby?" Isobel asks, tentatively. Of course this isn't a baby Nakasha wants, but still, it's one of those things that one asks. Nakasha makes a face, but she answers the question readily enough. "The healers seem to think month six or seven. It's a bit hard to tell how far along I am, I guess... I don't know. I'm like three months along, maybe a bit more, now." "Oh, not so very far along, then," Isobel says with a nod. "Perhaps you will have a little boy, and he will look like your young man," she suggests. She seems to think that would be a good thing - a comfort, perhaps? Nakasha does not seem to see this as much of a comfort, given her dubious expression. In the end, she shrugs. "Maybe. I don't know. I don't know that I'll care all that much... I think I'll probably foster it, so I can get on with my own life." Isobel finds this idea, too, hard to fathom. "Really? Oh, but you'll feel differently when the baby is born - that's what they say, that people do," she says earnestly, trying to reassure. "It's different, when the baby is /right there/." "My sister-in-law though she'd adore her baby, and then it was a girl, and she... didn't seem to care much at all." Nakasha wrinkles her nose in remembrance, hugging her arms around herself against the chill. "But maybe I will. I don't know. I just... frankly, I resent it. I wanted it to die, when I found out." Her voice sounds pretty cold as she says that. "And that's awful, but it's true." Isobel winces. "Well, yes, I can see why, but... if it did, you'd feel even worse, wouldn't you, for thinking things like that?" she says, almost pleading. "Anyhow, if you do become a rider, well. Everything changes." Nakasha exhales lengthily, but finally nods. "Suppose so," she says, sounding moody, gaze sliding over Isobel under the weight of that pleading. "I don't know. It just ruined everything. Just when I thought things were going in the right direction... Will you miss anything about the weyr, when you go home?" "Oh yes," Isobel says right away. "There are some... very nice people here. I'll miss them." Her expression goes a bit distant, wistful, even, in a way that suggests she might just have someone particular in mind. Nakasha, to no one's surprise, probably, narrows straight in on that wistfulness. "Who? Who in particular, Isobel? Come on... I told you what was going on with /me/." Isobel tips her head up to the sky and laughs. "Who said there was anyone in particular? /I/ didn't. And even if there were it would be so improper that..." that she couldn't possibly confess. "No. But I will go home afterwards and everything will go back to normal and... and it won't matter then, anyway." If there WERE anyone, that is. Nakasha? Does not look convinced. She even sticks one hand on her hip so that she can stare down at Isobel meaningfully, with her eyebrows raised. "There's nothing improper about having an interest in someone, Isobel. Even if it doesn't /go/ anywhere." Despite her stance, she doesn't push it too hard, instead adding, "'Normal'. Such a strange term, really." "Different people certainly define it very differently," Isobel observes. "It's almost easier being in a hold because then you just /know/ what normal is, and you don't even have to ask." Nakasha, letting her hand drop again, laughs merrily. "I bet weyr people going to a hold would have to ask, though. I think they find a lot of hold things really weird." Her expression turns distinctly thoughtful as she adds, then, "I'm not sure I'd fit in, in a hold, anymore. I'm not sure I ever really did." "Maybe so. I don't know. It seems like a lot of weyr people just don't /care/ what normal is." Isobel sounds a bit put out about the inconvenience of this. But the look she turns on Nakasha is thoughtful. "Maybe you wouldn't. Has your family put up a fuss about you staying?" "I think it's more that their idea of normal is different to yours, that's all. More... flexible." Easier. /Better/, maybe, though Kash doesn't actually say that out loud. "A bit. My mother's really upset, apparently. Poor K'del got the brunt of it. I won't go, though, because if I do, they'll never let me come back here. Besides, I want to see the eggs hatch, even if I can't be on the sands." "Maybe," Isobel says, and shrugs, though she doesn't seem convinced. She laughs a little at Nakasha's tale of her family. "Your brother, right? And he wasn't even here. Not to mention, it happened before you came, didn't it? Mothers are funny." She grins to herself. "It will be nice to see them hatch," she agrees. "I've never seen a hatching before." Nakasha's nod is firm: her brother, yes. "It's all his fault, because I must've followed his example, or something," she explains, with a shake of her head illustrating that honestly, she has no idea what her mother is on about, here. "Right. I got knocked up in a /hold/, so, really, it's not the weyr's fault at all. It /will/. I haven't, either." She looks utterly wistful again, and has to shut her eyes, and then force herself to smile before she opens them again. "And you'll have an incredible seat to watch." One she doesn't even want! But Isobel isn't going to rub it in. "I hope the dragons don't scratch anyone. I've heard that sometimes they do that," she says. "I'm sure they won't," says Nakasha, firmly. "I can't imagine any dragon with Elaruth and Mikhuth as parents could ever do anything like that, can you?" She shivers, adding, then, "It's getting really cold out here. Let's go in, get warmed up." "Yes, let's," Isobel agrees. "Earlier they had some hot cider out in the living cavern, we should see if there's any left." And in they go, to chatter more about inconsequentials, companionable overall despite their rather remarkable differences. |
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