Logs:People Watching
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| RL Date: 15 August, 2015 |
| Who: Faryn, Irianke |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Faryn and Irianke people watch in the caverns, and have a little Q & A. |
| Where: Inner Caverns, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 18, Month 7, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Edeline/Mentions, Farideh/Mentions, K'del/Mentions, Nimae/Mentions |
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>---< Inner Caverns, High Reaches Weyr(#270RJs) >----------------------------<
Within the labyrinth of interconnected chambers that make up the inner
caverns, this large, long cavern serves both as a crossroads and a
comfortable place for weyrfolk to sit, talk, and keep a nosy eye out for
who's going where. Colorful, seasonal tapestries add warmth to the smooth
walls and reduce echoes, while large niches house clusters of chairs, and
a waist-high stone shelf along one wall provides a perch for drinks or
work for residents on the go. Worn brass hooks often hold jackets or other
outerwear with workboots stationed beneath, the transitory nature of the
cavern lending itself to being treated as a sort of communal foyer where
snowy or muddy gear can be kept outside of living quarters. Smaller,
higher niches at regular intervals hold glowbaskets kept fresh during the
daytime and allowed to dim somewhat at night.
The largest tunnels lead to the main living cavern, to the bowl and to the
Weyr entrance, but it's still easy for the uninitiated to get lost within
this maze.
-----------------------------< Active Players >-----------------------------
Faryn F 23 5'4" lean, long brown hair, brown eyes 0s
Irianke F 38 5'7" slender, dark curly hair, stone blue eyes 1m A resident's schedule - specifically one where a job hasn't quite shaken into place - has left Faryn with plenty more free time than she had in the stables, or the hours are just better. The best part is the fact that she takes meals like a normal person now, not with a roll in her mouth and a cooling mug of klah in her hand as she rushes out to work, but something a little more leisurely before she makes her rounds back to the weyrleader complex to peek in on her new charge. Boss. Whatever. Nothing's settled in yet, after all, so she's just an intermittent presence these days, albeit one who appears with increasing frequency and spends more time with Farideh than anyone might consider healthy. Just now, though, she's alone, curled into a chair with a bowl of porridge and the hard heel of a hunk of bread, spooning bites in her mouth with her eyes tracking the people who move between the hall and the caverns with no particular interest in them. Irianke is one of those people who are moving through the hallways, from living cavern towards destinations unknown, her hand at the elbow of a younger woman, too young to be the Headwoman and not quite young enough to be a new assistant. Their conversation is mostly one-sided, with the Weyrwoman speaking more than the younger woman, and some, the uncharitable, would say down to the woman. "I hope you will reconsider," says the older woman, as she comes within earshot of Faryn's seat, "I think you and Hagor will make lovely offspring and if not now, then when, right?" Closer, the encouraging smile is more obvious and the hand at the woman's elbow seems less possessive and more cajoling. "I see someone I need to catch up with, but please, think about your options before you ask your brother to take you between. And speak to Jounine, she may have some, ah, other suggestions. Ok?" That seems to be the end of that, and the goldrider, releases the other woman, who has continued to walk, but absently now, and turned to smile upon the people watching resident. "New knot?" asks the goldrider congenially, as if she weren't aware. It becomes clear that Faryn's not just looking; she's listening, if not wholly to everything. The handymen that cut out of the bowl with vexed expressions get nothing but a bored spoonful as they pass, but Irianke's voice elicits a small twitch that indicates mental activity and a cessation of her eating, the spoon dipping into her bowl to mix it distractedly. She glances that way - just once - and then goes back to distance, though it may be clear that she is paying some stroke of attention to the conversation, even when its contents prove to be something as silly as marriage and children. Back she goes to eating when Irianke dismisses the caverns woman, her eyes following until -- "Mmm?" Her eyes go up then, and her look is one of confusion. "Yes, ma'am," she confirms, old habits rote, but the smile is new. "For a while, I think. The Craft...didn't suit me so much." "It didn't?" Somehow, Irianke is unsurprised, even as her gaze flicks to where the stables were. Are. "Sometimes," the goldrider confesses, her voice dramatically low, so it's clear it's not really a secret, "I wonder if I'm suited for much else other than dancing and tangling between the sheets with someone interesting. But," the shrug and accompanying smile says alas for her, where she does not actually voice it. "How is your friend doing?" As if Irianke doesn't know. As if Irianke hasn't seen the other goldrider, nay weyrling, daily. But perhaps, the emphasis with the look Niahvth's rider gives Faryn implies she expects a different answer to what someone simply fan see when they look at Farideh. "No," Faryn says evenly at that mock-surprise, an now she breaks a piece of her bread off and soaks it in her porridge with a certain deliberateness. "Oh, I'm sure you're excellent at what you do," the herder says obliquely, still smiling when she turns her attention back, and wouldn't Farideh be proud of her for that? "High Reaches is exceptionally lucky to have you, as it is. She's..." Faryn suffices that with a shrug, and says, "I don't see her as often as you. When I do, though, she's fine. I think it does her good, to have someone to talk to that isn't -- a weyrling, or you, or K'del. No offense, ma'am." "There's being excellent," says Irianke, not denying her excellence, "And just wishing for something else in life. At one point, I thought it was being Weyrwoman, many days now, I won't deny I question my sanity." The Igenite's drawl is humored and light and she sinks herself into one of those inner caverns seats near Faryn. For a spell, she's silent, watching the coming and goings in the hallways of people going this way and that, and smiles when some choice snatches of conversation that clearly aren't meant for her particular ears drift her way. "It's nice sitting here. People barely notice." "It's that bad, is it? Being weyrwoman? It seems like a lot of diplomacy and paperwork, biting your tongue when you want to lash someone with it. That's Farideh's problem, isn't it?" Bread soaked, she'll lift it for a bit, chewing as Irianke settles and the silence hangs over them. "Rumor mill says, you have plenty of fun anyways, you know. Being Weyrwoman - acting Weyrwoman - hasn't stopped you any." And of the people she takes a deep breath with her shrug, sighs it out. "They don't. You hear lots of things, and nobody ever stops to look. I've never spent much time in here; it's...peaceful, in a way." Irianke watches a pair of riders who seem unable to let go of each other, so entwined are their arms as they move like one new monster, the Romancophalus. Her eyes are glazed with a sick fascination, before she's shaking her head sharply and looking at Faryn, her brain catching up with what her ears have surely heard in spite of where she's been looking. "Farideh is young. We were all young once. Some of us still are," says the goldrider with a glance at Faryn, "Though some people forget that being young has very little to do with what age you actually are. And if I didn't have the fun I did, I would die inside. Shrivel up and go through the motions and I think, I think, it's better for everyone if that didn't happen, least of all, all the lovely stuff between my legs." The last, so deadpan, so nonchalant is capped off with a teasing wink. "Pretend I didn't say that." Faryn is still getting used to this gossiping, this watching without intruding, though chances are she'll get good at it if she keeps it up. It's admirable, the way she follows Irianke's gaze and sits in bemused silence waiting for the goldrider to catch up, and by the second one half of her nose wrinkles and one side of her lip curls in disgust. "Get a room," she says, not quite loud enough to be heard, and they're probably on their way to a room anyways, so point for her that they listen on their merry way. Her mouth settles down into a smile, still touched with that disgust as she says, taking up her spoon to wash out the taste of all the gross things this morning, "Glad to." But for the rest, after she swallows her spoonful and tips the utensil away thoughtfully, she starts, "I've never -- " then stops, and considers her words without ever finishing. "You didn't answer my question. Is it really that bad? That demanding? Even now that you're doing it, and well by most estimations, on your own terms?" The incredulity is in her tone, not her face, and she's not looking at Irianke, following one of the laundresses with her eyes as the traffic picks up from the caverns. The acting Weyrwoman does not answer for a while, silent in her people watching for so long it might seem she has forgotten to answer. When it's clear Faryn won't interrupt this silence, Irianke exhales an audibly low hissing sound as if the air is passing through her teeth. "I live, eat, drink the Weyr. I, alone, am responsible for what someone, long ago, deemed a woman's role of caring for, seeing to, feeding, nurturing a Weyr full of dragons and people who have not dropped enough in numbers, particularly for an Interval, for one person to do. I have my staff that assists, but much of the time," the goldrider looks at Faryn, her head turning away from the people so she's actually looking at the new resident rather than that side long glance stuff, "I will be glad to have a colleague to share the burdens with, who does not have other duties as a weyrling to fulfill." Suddenly, Irianke looks tired, a weariness she'd kept at bay seeming sharper about her eyes. It disappears momentarily. "I fear our tithes from Tillek will be light this year unless K'del or I can sway Lady Edeline's decisive mind as to how she feels about this arrangement of Hold and Weyr." Faryn's patience seems infinite as she waits for Irianke to answer her; she's got all morning now, with only Farideh to check, and any imposition of time limits on that is sitting right beside her just now. She waits, and when the answer comes she listens, the only sound from her the spoon scraping into the bottom of her bowl for a spoonful she immediately dumps right back out, her appetite suspended or spoiled. She dangles her arm over the side of her chair to set it down on the table there, stuffing her hands in her lap and meeting Irianke's gaze evenly. "I'm sorry to have wondered," Faryn says, even in the face of her weariness, her smile going a little distant. There is no delving into Edeline's nature or the tithes; the weyr manages, doesn't it? Or Irianke will manage for them, as the case is. "She looks up to you, you know," of course she knows. "She's not much of a colleague if she would kiss the ground you walk on, if her every move is comparing herself to you, and how she might do. You may prepare yourself to be disappointed, if a colleague is what you're after. She's still young, like you said." "She'll learn," says Irianke, the warmth in her voice receding, that weariness retreating and in its place a cooler, more calculating sort of woman that would be the product of Nimae's vast training and learning experiences. "We all do, sooner or later and if she becomes Weyrwoman, then," the goldrider looks at Faryn, "We'll manage. Is she more than a friend to you?" "We can hope," the younger woman says softly, chewing her lower lip slightly before her gaze cuts back again, sharper. "I'm not sure how you mean," Faryn intones, sounding careful enough to suggest she has at least a vague idea. "Are you lovers?" asks Irianke, though the dry smile suggests she knows that isn't a real question. Faryn scoffs at the question outright, one very mobile eyebrow arching up. "No. I'm sure you would have noticed me coming and going all the odd hours if we were." Perhaps she's reading into it when she says, "This arrangement is because I want her safe and happy, and nothing else." "Then you do that for her," says Irianke, not explicitly asking the question she must comprehend by now. "Friends are a necessary part of living and be her friend in whatever capacity you can figure. I'll leave you to this," she waves her hand about the hallway, "And return to my life of diplomacy." Faryn has a rigidity to her shoulders as she regards Irianke, apparently waiting for a question that will never come. Her smile, somewhere in this, disappeared. "Trust me, I will. You have a wonderful day. Keep being excellent, ma'am." Her smile for that is slow - and cynical - but fleeting, as she turns for the rest of her breakfast and uncurls from the chair, apparently not terribly keen on the hallway anymore, anyhow. |
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