Logs:Paths to Greatness
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| RL Date: 1 May, 2015 |
| Who: Faryn, R'hin |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: R'hin warned her he was a bad tablemate, but Faryn just doesn't listen. |
| Where: Garden Patio Ledge, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 8, Month 9, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Z'kiel/Mentions |
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>---< Garden Patio Ledge, High Reaches Weyr(#634RJ) >------------------------< Partly sheltered by the curving stone overhang, partly exposed to the weather, the wide stone patio serves as a balcony for socializing or just plain drinking on a sizable scale. The repurposed ledge might once have let two large dragons land, but now there's too much furniture for that: two rustic tables with attendant chairs, plus a couple more in particularly good weather, and a wrought iron bench situated to make the most of the view of the western bowl and the lake beyond. Other changes include rough little niches carved out of the stone walls to hold glows in colored bottles at night, the climbing plant that's being trained to grow up along the overhang, and the blue ceramic pots of flowers that dot the edge of the ledge as a colorful reminder not to fall off. An archway leads to the Snowasis itself, housed in the ledge's former weyr, while a few wide steps descend along the wall to the bowl. Fog begins to coalesce in the very early morning hours and lingers throughout the day, soft and still and clammy. -----------------------------< Active Players >----------------------------- Faryn F 22 5'4" lean, brown hair, brown eyes 0s R'hin M 53 6'1 lean, sandy hair, pale blue eyes 47s Despite the recent snow, it's not quite cold enough to keep people indoors and protected, and the day has been comparitively nice; the patio ledge, then, is crowded with people, murmuring and milling with one another. The majority of the tables and benches are stuffed full of people engaged in any number of tasks: a card game in the corner, and a rather raucous conversation at another. The crowd is what gives Faryn pause, the beastcraft apprentice slipping out the door with a drink in hand to settle in the balmy evening, and her eyes rove for a seat, nearly continuously nursing a tumbler of dark amber as she does. There are spots here and there; squeezed in near those two tables of obnoxious apprentices from miner and smith, on the fringes of that card game, or at the edge of the ledge, where the hints of the day's fog clings low the ground and distorts sound in an odd way. Perhaps that's why the table near the edge is (mostly) empty, or perhaps it's the way in which R'hin's seated, one arm slung over an empty chair, foot propped up on another, like he's waiting for the rest of his party to arrive. However, given the smattering of empty glasses and the nearly-empty pitcher it would seem on closer inspection that the party's departed, leaving the Wingleader regarding the evening view. It's not long before Faryn's ambling around the perimeter, slow and easy, spotting those free seats and evaluating them summarily, coming to her own quick conclusions: too stupid, too loud, too - wait. That R'hin's got a table all his own should spark some sort of concern in the woman, but a cast down the rest of her trajectory reveals nothing much better. A quick glance of the table, of the bronzerider's spread out posture, and Faryn shrugs anyways, stepping forward and knocking the legs of the last free chair gently with a boot and, "Can I sit here? Pickings are slim." "Really?" R'hin's attention shifts to the herder, pale eyes taking her in from head to toe, then drifting past her. "You mean, you'd pick me," with a hand to his chest, "Over them?" that same hand is flung dramatically in the direction of the apprentices, who are starting some version of fuck, marry, kill, using examples in their immediate vicinity. "I must be moving up in the world," the bronzerider concludes with a low-throated chuckle, gesturing towards one of the empty seats in apparent invitation, dropping his foot off a spare one to lean forward and refill his glass. "I'm not sure you've had the...pleasure of talking with them," says Faryn with a tight-lipped smile, her gaze following his gesture. Her brows go up with their new antics, but since he didn't say no, she hooks the chair with her ankle and pulls it out, dropping into it with the heaviness of one who has been on their feet all day. It's just in time to hear her own name from the vicinity of the other apprentices, but she doesn't acknowledge it - much. Just a slight gritting of teeth and a swallow of her own drink to drown whatever their answer might be, since there aren't any winning options there. "Children," she grumbles impatiently, but then it crosses her mind to wonder, "And what about you? Why would you be worse than that?" "Perhaps not. Yet I was once a teenage boy too," R'hin replies. "Once," with an amused twist of lips. If he hears what the answer is, it's hidden behind lightly amused expression. Faryn's question refocuses his attention on the girl in front of him, with a tip of head. "Mm. You know, the usual. Puppies getting drowned, and holder girls' virtues in question, toppling budding regimes, and there may have been something about staking people out in Thread, but," with a gallant wave of his hand as if to wipe it all away, "That was so last... Turn." Faryn squints at him, tilting her head, trying to imagine it. "Sure," she eventually agrees, "Once. Maybe. Long ago and far away." Someone hasn't learned that you don't poke fun at unfamiliar bronzeriders, obviously. She ticks his transgressions off on her fingers, keeping track, wearing a small smile that segues into a low snort of amusement at his final point. "Drowning puppies, sad but sometimes necessary," she says, and one finger closes into her hand. "Holder girls and their virtues are given far too much esteem, and why not top a regime when it's new? Saves you all the hard work." Two more fingers down, and she wiggles that remaining finger thoughtfully. "Thread. Nobody'd do that to a person, so that's a lie," she says, confidently. It's perhaps apparent that, just as she's humoring him, R'hin is humoring her in turn, first nodding, then chuckling, then offering an agreeable, "Mmmhmm," to her points. It's the last one, however, that earns a more direct look, less humored and somehow oddly serious. "Everyone has the capability of doing terrible things to others, for the right cause. If people you were responsible for were in jeopardy. Friends. Loved ones. Your mother, your brother, your lover, your son," he snaps his fingers in time to the last four, before dropping fingers to tap at the table. "Thread destroys many of the rules of civilized society. You ought to ask your mother, some time," he says, more casually. Well, that got heavy fast. Faryn's smile melts away slowly as he speaks, her eyes sobering, focused enough that when he snaps, the first one makes her shoulders twitch slightly in startlement. "Wouldn't that be a character flaw," she asks, "when your enemy isn't people?" The question is earnest and fierce, quietly so. "You're supposed to do better, not worse. You're supposed to - to unify." The mention of her mother earns a sharp intake between her teeth, a pensive consideration of the contents of her glass, and eventually, "My mum doesn't talk about her feelings. And as far as I know, she didn't..." but there is a hesitation there, the fingers that were jittering on the rim of her glass going still as she stops to really consider how much truth is in her words. "Not everyone becomes...whatever you're talking about." "The supposed to, and the reality differs quite a bit when it comes to life and death. That's what Fax tried to do," R'hin throws out there, with a flick of his wrist, echoing her tone almost precisely: "Unify." Her reaction to the mention of her mother earns considerable interest from the Savannah rider, pale eyes taking it in with a tip of head. He reaches for his glass, gulps down a couple of mouthfuls, and says, "Mothers -- and fathers -- do their best to protect their children from the world. There's more than one reason why riders who fought Thread hate to speak of it," there's a self-directed derision in the guttural laugh that follows for a moment, before he grows silent, for three beats. Then: "Do you speak often?" He's observant. He'll note the way her jaw clenches when her words are thrown back at her, the way it twitches when she relaxes it in stages as he carries on. Once, her lips part, like a retort is ready, and then she closes it again, and so he is allowed to finish that thought without interruption by an upstart of a herder. The silence stretches beyond that, though, and well beyond his question. Certainly more than three beats. "Not really," she says. "We're not exactly close. Not," she acknowledges, "that most rider parents are close with their kids." "Most aren't," R'hin acknowledges, easily enough, his expression little betraying what he saw in hers. "Not through, perhaps, a lack of desire to be. Having a dragon changes your priorities. It puts other things forever second, third, sometimes fourth. Friends. Lovers. Children. It's not a path everyone can -- should -- take." His fingers tap, again. "She was a Weyrsecond at Ista, was she not?" "Maybe they should chew firestone then," Faryn suggests, half-joking with a small, slightly bitter laugh and another very long swallow of her drink. "She did what she could. Fostered me in Tillek, with my father. It's easier having a dragonrider parent in a weyr, though, I imagine." One shoulder rises in a dismissive little shrug, one that encompasses his assessment of dragonriding without solid contribution. "She was," a hint of unbidden pride, "for a while. And Weyrlingmaster, before that. It was the path for her, I think." With a gesture towards her, R'hin says laughingly, "And look how you turned out." Whether he means this in a positive light or otherwise isn't precisely clear. The twitch of lips suggests he hears that note of pride. "One should follow one's dreams." A beat. "Is that what you wish, Faryn? To ride like your mother, serve the Weyr?" There's an almost undetectable emphasis on the last. "Oh, yes. I am the ideal of daughterhood, as she is the pinnacle of motherhood." Faryn narrows her eyes at him, shifts uncomfortably at the question. "I thought it might be something to consider," the herder concedes slowly, each word chosen very carefully. "But that isn't really my choice, is it? I won't be like Z'kiel, going weyr to weyr looking for a lifemate. I don't feel it pulling me in one direction, constantly. I stopped dreaming of dragons when I was very young. I want to stay here, as long as I can, though." A pause. "And to...do something. Better than what I am now." "And some day Turns from now you will joyfully run across an open field of flowers into each others arms--" R'hin pauses, taps a finger against his lips, "--or was that some silly harper's tale I read? It all gets so confusing." He shakes his head, amusement plain in the gleam of pale eyes. "It's nice to find someone that wants to do more than what they are," the Savannah rider says, like it's a rare occurrence, chuckling under his breath. "Why here?" That earns a laugh, a genuine one from her, quick and bright and fleeting. "I've never heard that one. Maybe you're losing your mind a little."" She taps her temple, indicative. "It's a low bar, R'hin," she says, seriously. "I exercise runners and shovel their shit and rake the feeding grounds. Sometimes I get to do reports when the Journeymen decide they don't want to. Being more than that shouldn't be hard." The last part is harder, has her chewing her lower lip while she tries to figure it out. "Because. I can't think of a place I'd like to go besides it. And I like it here. I don't think I need a better reason." "More than likely," R'hin concedes, as to losing his mind, as he drains off the rest of his glass, clinking it against one of its brethren as he sets it down. "You've spent turns learning a craft, you pass on knowledge, and maybe one day you could be the Master, rather than the apprentice. That seems to be an enviable position to many who have wasted their youth." He gestures, vaguely, then lets out a noise almost like a snort of breath. "Maybe you do; maybe you should have a better reason. If you commit to the Weyr... she has a way of sinking her claws into you and not letting go." Perhaps it's an affectation, the way he speaks of the Weyr as if she were a living being. Then again, he seems genuine and knowing about it at the same time. Faryn is shaking her head as he speaks, back and forth, no no no. "Wasted is the key word there. Who wants to waste? I'm good at it, and I enjoy the beasts, but I don't aspire to that. I know my chances. I'm average at best." She suddenly puts her glass down, rests her arms on the table, stares at him, like she's looking for something. "Maybe it's already got them in me," she admits, no personification here. "Can you tell me why everyone thinks it's so very easy to commit to something? To set a path for their lives without wondering about all the others they might have taken?" "You'll have to ask them," R'hin says, with a low-throated laugh. "Me, I was never that good at commitment." He does, however, lean forward, towards Faryn, his voice dropping after a moment, "You want to be more than an average herder. You want to be great, no matter what it is, how far it takes you from what was meant to be your path?" Faryn is very briefly disappointed by his answer, at least initially. It shows, because someone's got to know. But then, "Yes," because it's as close to what she's been trying to articulate this whole time as anyone's gotten. "Well," R'hin leans back, considering her for a moment, pale eyes evaluating as if he's sizing her up again. Surely such an old, wizened bronzerider has some helpful direction for her. He leans forward, expression serious. "You're fucked." Silence. Low and heavy and definitely tense, because Faryn is glaring at him very fiercely, like she might hit him - like mother, like daughter - or throw drink in his face. She does neither, her fingers closing back around the glass, dragging it closer, all the better to sigh and lean back in her chair, looking dismayed and resigned. "Shit," she says at length. "That's what I thought." And then, as an afterthought, "You're an asshole." His laughter is genuine, shying away from cruel by dint of the fact that his hands are out, as if to soothe her anger. "I am," R'hin concedes to her accusation. "What, though, do you think makes a great person? How do you think the Lessa's or Moreta's of the world got to be great? Because things were fucked up, and they were at the right place at the right time. Great people are rarely born. They are made, through sacrifice or use." His laughter brings a flush of embarrassment to her cheeks and the tips of her ears, and she does not laugh with him. Liquid courage, down the hatch. "I don't even know what I want to do in the next month - or the next sevenday. I don't presume to think I'm going to be legendary. I don't want harper tales about me. I said it earlier: I just want to be doing something better than I am. Something different, somehow. And you can think me a fool for it, I don't care what you think." Obviously. "I can think you a fool, as long as I think you a great one?" R'hin is, clearly, enjoying this. Faryn's had enough of that. "I said you can think whatever you want," she says, rising abruptly, clearly not enjoying it. "It's no consequence to me." She swallows the rest of her drink, setting the glass among the rest with admirable control. She evaluates the exits, and chooses the Snowasis as her escape, leaving him with, "Don't fall of the ledge when you go, it's foggy." Which is to say: walk off a cliff, R'hin. R'hin watches her go, his throaty, low laugh trailing her as she departs. |
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Comments
Jolie (02:39, 2 May 2015 (EDT)) said...
A very interesting scene. <3
Edyis (03:40, 2 May 2015 (EDT)) said...
<3 This was a good read.
Alida (04:24, 2 May 2015 (EDT)) said...
Nice scene :)
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