Logs:On Top Of It
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| RL Date: 18 September, 2015 |
| Who: Faryn, Quinlys |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: A brief conversation. |
| Where: Lake Shore, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 8, Month 11, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Farideh/Mentions, Irianke/Mentions |
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| It's been raining on and off all day, but the sun is attempting to peek through clouds, now, and that's enough for some locals to head outdoors and make the most of it. One of them is Quinlys, who has spread a blanket out over one of the great boulders and sits atop it, cross-legged, staring out over the choppy, rain-grey lake. A navy-blue wool cap only half-obscures the dark red of her hair; even with it, she's visible enough, easily identifiable even from a distance. Sun is like Faryn's siren's call, and has been since autumn broke. That she can stay busy through the drizzle, a hat pulled down and jacket pulled close, just means that she has more of her work done later to savor even tentative rays of sunlight when they make themselves known. Or, maybe, it's not the sun at all that brings the younger woman to the shore from her conversation with a transport rider, especially given her purposeful strides take her within range of Quinlys rather quickly, if still far enough away to claim incidence. Except, there's, "Hi, Quinlys." "Faryn!" Whatever has been occupying Quinlys thoughts is set aside promptly, and with enthusiasm, as the bluerider turns to acknowledge the one-herder's approach. She waggles a few of her fingers as she does so, fingerless gloves covering her palms in perkily purple wool. "Come to interrupt my solitude, have you?" She is far too cheerful for that to be serious. The weyrlingmaster's enthusiasm is contagious, it would seem, because Faryn's general aloofness dissolves to make way for a grin. "I'm the first of many, sent to prep you for your inevitable future. We will, inexorably, leech away your free time and privacy until you're properly ready for another class of weyrlings." Her attempt is campfire-scary, when she adds, "Two classes." "I hate you," is, at least, fond. Sort of. Quinlys rolls her shoulders back, readjusting her position to allow a better angle for chatting to Faryn. "Two classes. It's like someone has it in for me. Though, well. At least Niahvth kept it all short, you know? Maybe she'll have, like, five eggs, and Roszadyth will have ten, and then it'll be mostly normal-sized, even if they are a few sevens apart." Wishful thinking. "As long as, you know, we have enough candidates. Ugh." "And I, you," Faryn replies blithely, her grin unchanging. Her hands are already in her pockets, and she draws them closer around her middle with her snort of laughter. "Wouldn't that still be just enough to be a pain in the ass? Wouldn't it be...one group flaming and the other group not quite. The drawn out agony of telling them about flights and sex? Everyone in the weyr feels the pain of that lesson." Meaningful, that, with Faryn rolling forward onto the balls of her feet and then falling, flat-footed, at the last. "It's going to be rough, isn't it? Rougher than last time." Quinlys', "Mmm," comes with an exhale that falls just short of an outright sigh. "Iesaryth was about three sevens behind the class she trained with, and yeah, that sucked. It's... do you keep one group behind, or try and move one group ahead? You don't really want to do things twice, that's just painful." The redhead makes a face, and then adds, "But we'll manage. In the pass you'd have clutches of, like, forty, so... it could be worse, right?" "Forty on the same track, though. I don't envy you your job, at any rate." Faryn is looking sidelong at Quinlys though, the choppy water apparently less interesting than the woman on the rock. "It could be, sure," she acknowledges, "but it could be better too. Imagine them rising that close, with forty eggs each." Trust a pessimist to put things into bleaker perspective. "Or, imagine if Irianke and Farideh hated each other. Or," back to the realistic point, and more sober, "if there aren't enough people to stand. I can't see that, though." Rock forward, back onto her toes. One scenario after another lengthens Quinlys' face until she looks all but ready to beg for mercy; but that sober point, that's where her expression twists, wry and awkward and unsure. "Well, if we're not allowed to Search at Tillek... we just have to hope that they do keep the egg numbers down, that's all. It's not like there aren't people to Stand." Beat. "You still want the opportunity, right? So that's one." "Do you think there'll be trouble anywhere else?" Read: the crafts, and there's a guilty twist of her own mouth. "Tillek is one thing, but there's still Crom, and High Reaches, and Nabol." Faryn's recall of the areas is a little slow, but she gets them eventually. "And yes, me," is wan. "I can't be the only one who'd give my left tit for another chance. Or a first chance." Quinlys' gaze lowers to the aforementioned tit, appraisingly, as if to decide whether she wants to take up this bargain; and there's that smug smile, even if it doesn't linger. She lifts one hand to her head, tugging off that hat and scrunching it up between her fingers as she shrugs. "Hope so," is what she ultimately goes with. "Convince your friends-- well, anyone you know who hasn't Impressed already. We'll manage. There hasn't been trouble elsewhere yet, so hopefully we get in before there is." Hope. Lots of hope. Faryn probably doesn't realize she shifts her shoulders and closes off at that shift of gaze, however temporary, but she does, and she keeps rocking. "I'm going to hunt you down the moment Niahvth clutches, anyways. My multitude of imaginary, unimpressed friends may be a little harder to come by, but I'll try, if I can." She sucks the back of her teeth, considering. "Couldn't you start now? I mean, there'll be eggs soon. It wouldn't be so amiss to start before they're here, just in case it...spreads." Quinlys realises. She doesn't comment on it, however, and instead presses her lips together, tight and then tighter still. "We could," she allows. "But then we'd need to feed and house people for longer than we need to, and there's the chance that it would offend people; we're stealing their young people, taking their workers, when we don't really need them just yet." "We will," Faryn huffs, irritated. "They know we will. If it were between clutches, maybe, I'd understand them being up in arms, but..." But. But shrug, or a sigh that lifts her shoulders, or some nice combination of the two. "I guess you're right," of course she is, "but it's so stupid. Maybe," lighter, with a sardonic touch to her slowly wilting smile, "I can go alone and Impress all the dragons. All of them. Even the bronze ones. Like a children's story." With that, despite the seriousness of the topic, Quinlys begins to laugh. And laugh. "I can just imagine a whole train of them following you around," she says, as the laughter dies back. "Like ducklings. But then you'd have to feed and oil them, and they'd probably get jealous of each other, and... can you even imagine?" Beat. "Besides all this, Faryn, things are okay?" "I always was good at big groups of animals," sounds perfectly reasonable, coming as it is from her. She schools her expression to neutral, all the better for a perfectly deadpan delivery as, "I could stable them, if they love me all that much. It'd be just fine, until one - or any - or all of them want to rise or chase. What if one chased another and..." That, if nothing else, earns a shudder and a disgusted little sound. "Nevermind, I take it back. One, maybe, will do." Her next shrug is gentler, not committed and abbreviated. "I'm alright. I don't owe the craft anything, and I'm there now that Farideh needs me even though she's not senior, and I'll be able to collect my knot from you soon enough and move forward. Everything else will smooth over, given time." Quinlys' choked snort of laughter is in no way muffled. A moment later, she jams that hat back on her head, lopsidedly, and draws her hands back towards her lap. "Irianke slept with someone other than K'del," she points out. "You'd be fine." Those blue eyes study Faryn, however, serious despite the smile she's kept in play. "I hope so," is genuine. "I hope everything works out for you, in the best way possible. It's... mm. Do you enjoy working for Farideh? Truthfully, mind." "Word is, Irianke does that anyways," is again perfectly neutral, even if the twitch of Faryn's nose isn't. But she, perhaps more than anyone, doesn't want to talk about their (lack of) romantic engagement. "Most days, yes. Now that Roszadyth is on the ground, I get out a lot. I keep busy. I see places that aren't the inside of the stables, or the resident's dorm." These, by any estimation, are good. "And she's different now. Mellower? I don't have anything else I can do, anyhow, unless I want to be slotted with stupid chores. I'm not her maid, at least." "Do you begrudge her that? I have my fair share of partners, too, and then some. Sometimes." The line of Quinlys' brows is arch, but her smile remains cheerful and doesn't seem to seek to probe. "Mellower. That's good. She... well." The bluerider nods. "That's good, anyway. I mean, the parts about you. It's not for much longer-- she'll need to train someone else up, if she's gotten used to you." "I don't begrudge her that, no. I don't begrudge anybody who they land in bed with, especially here. I take to it better than some of your weyrlings, in fact. I just...am still on the fence about Irianke on the whole." To say the least. "It's not, no. I'd like to stay on with her when I'm a candidate, if I can. Just to keep things steady. Keep it together, for her. If she's out on the hatching grounds with Roszadyth she won't have time. And also, stupid chores." But there's a quirk of Faryn's lips for the end there, and an eyeroll to boot. "What's that even mean, used to me? I've gotten used to her. As will her next assistant." Quinlys hesitates, and then admits, quietly, "I'm still not Irianke's greatest fan. We'll never be friends. I wish, more than anything, we had a born and bred weyrwoman. But she's good at her job; even I can't deny that. And for now... well, she's here to stay." That is all serious enough that she can't quite slide out of it as she adds, "You've both gotten used to each other. It's true. Someone else will do things differently and change her routine, and she'll hate it." "It's the diplomacy. She's too hard to read. I know it's a requisite of the job, or whatever, but she doesn't seem...real, the times I've talked to her. I suppose it could have been Farideh. It was close, so I'll count us lucky it's not Farideh, and carry on." Faryn's snicker for the assessment is light. "Touche. Regardless, she's a lot less maintenance than I thought she'd be. Even sick, she wants to do so much more than she probably should. She'll adapt. She's learned that much." "She's not real... and Farideh is too real." Quinlys shakes her head, smiling wryly. "Maybe they'll rub off on each other. But-- right. A few sevens more and it could have been Farideh, and that'd be a disaster. So." Blessings, counted. "So she is sick?" If the confirmation is meant to be comforting, it's not. Faryn's mouth tips into frown territory, a good accompaniment to her nod. "A few days now. I accidentally made her throw up in a vase." But, more importantly, "She gets around fine, though, and the healers gave her something worth drinking the make her feel better. Shitty weather, shitty colds." Quinlys makes a face of her own, though it's more for Farideh than for Irianke. "Shitty, shitty weather," she agrees. "Hopefully she'll feel completely better soon. Better now than later, though, right? Can you imagine sitting with your big-ass gold dragon on the sands when you're feeling cruddy?" Beat. "You'll pass on my-- I'd say well wishes, but that sounds fake, doesn't it? You know what I mean, though." "If I could get her to stay in bed for once, it'd be a lot faster. But she's still so sharding stubborn." Faryn turns her gaze at the sky, evaluating whether the sun is planning to stay. She doesn't seem to like her odds. "I can't imagine sitting there any longer than I'll have to for that knot. Even if it is the most comfortably warm place in the winter." And for the rest, the ex-crafter nods agreeably. "I'll tell her. I've learned my own diplomacy for her, most of it ignoring her when she's being mulish and suspicious. I think she'll appreciate it, even if she acts like she doesn't." Quinlys tucks her hands beneath her knees, stretching them flatter as she does so. "Better the galleries than the sands," she acknowledges. "Especially in winter. In summer it's more... why waste the nice weather? Anyway," she shakes her head, curls bobbling over her shoulders. "Farideh's lucky to have you. Don't let her forget it." Faryn makes a little nnh sound, running a hand over her ear like she's tucking a stray piece of hair away, even if there's not a real one to manage. "Thanks, Quinlys. I'll remind her, in a few minutes, when she huffs and puffs at me for being a little late. If you need to be eased into your lack of time and privacy again, let me know and I'll pop up at literally the most inopportune moment I can manage. Gotta condition you. Gotta be ready." She bounces onto her toes a moment, shadowboxes in Quinlys' general direction for a couple quick jabs, and flashes her another smile as she pivots back, to make headway for the bowl again. "Enjoy the sun while it lasts." Quinlys sticks her tongue out by way of answer; she's laughing, though. "Look after yourself," she calls after Faryn, cheerful enough. "And don't worry about me. I am on top of it." Truly! |
Comments
Squishy (00:34, 19 September 2015 (PDT)) said...
I loved this. So much.
Tela (13:29, 19 September 2015 (PDT)) said...
Wouldn't fifteen be nice? Faryn is mean (so mean!) to tease Quinlys like that. :O
At least Q's icon has that darling fur hat!
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