Logs:Questioning
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| RL Date: 4 August, 2014 |
| Who: C'stian, Ulyana |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Ulyana meets C'stian and Liesanth. Questions are asked and mostly answered. |
| Where: Lake Shore, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 10, Month 6, Turn 35 (Interval 10) |
| Sunset gleams off the bronze hide of the dragon romping through the lake. The dragon seems to be engaged in trying to hurl splashes of water as high as he can with his wings, as if testing his strength against the liquid. There's only one figure watching him, so it follows that the young man standing on the shore with the expression somewhere between bemusement and exasperation is, one assumes, probably his rider. A lone figure treks toward the lake, with a couple of hides tucked under an arm. Ulyana slows just a little at the sight of the dragon splashing about, though it's hard to tell from a distance whether this has any effect on her expression. After a moment or two spent watching, she seems to steel herself and proceeds onward, though the hides end up hugged to her chest with both arms as if to protect them. Her course of approach is seemingly aimless, but will inevitably bring her to cross within conversational range of the rider - or splashing range of the dragon. The rider raises his hand, either to warn off the young woman or as part of some silent communication with the bronze. Unfortunately, either way, it's to little avail; the bronze has already sent a huge, towering spout of water sky-wards with a triumphant cry. Water which rains down on both of the humans on the shore. The rider pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs, then moves to help Ulyana. "I'm so sorry about that; Liesanth's being a brat." The dragon--Liesanth, presumably--does at least look momentarily chastised as he turns his gaze to the damp duo. And, suddenly, it's raining. Ulyana's efforts to shield the hides are marginally successful; at least they aren't entirely soaked, in complete contrast to the girl herself. She stops as soon as the water hits and only takes a moment to study the business side of the hides she holds once the worst of the dragon-borne deluge is past. Her expression slides into well-schooled neutrality by the time C'stian arrives and his apologies are met with a flatly uttered, "There is nothing to apologize for. I knew the risk when I approached." The tiny girl - at least compared to the much taller rider - is from Crom, if he has an ear for accents. "It is only water." "He still should've had more regard for the others around him." The rider glances over at his bronze, who folds his wings and makes his way back towards the shore with his head ducked low as if sheepish. Turning back to Ulyana, he adds, "I'm C'stian; this is Liesanth." The makeshift white candidate's knot that Ulyana wears is clearly noticed, but not commented on. Yet. Gray eyes slant briefly toward the contrite-seeming bronze. A slow blink ensues, with Ulyana looking at the rider once again. There is nothing to say to his first words; the latter, however, earn a straightforward, "Ulyana of Crom Hold." There's a long moment after those words and then an added, "It is a pleasure to meet you." The words are stilted, part of a social script that she's memorized - but hasn't the skill to pull off with genuine emotion. "If I am interrupting something, I can take these elsewhere." 'These' being the hides, which are clearly riddled with ledger-like markings, smeared as they may be. C'stian shakes his head. "No, you're not interrupting anything. Let's see if we can't salvage those, before they're too far gone." He moves to examine the hides, and then adds, "What brings you out by the lake with hides, if I can ask?" Liesanth comes up behind his rider, head looming over C'stian to examine the hides curiously. The curiosity only lasts a brief moment, though; it's not a picture to look at, and Liesanth doesn't read, so he turns his attention to Ulyana instead, regarding her with head tilted. They're not a total loss, fortunately; just in dire need of a lengthy drying session and some minor corrective inking. Nothing will spare them from being boring, though. Ledgers: the least exciting hides. Ulyana displays them for C'stian's scrutiny, holding them up so they're a little easier for him to see. "I was looking for a slightly quieter place to review them," she explains. "I can usually find a place that is not too occupied to sit and study them." The dragon's study of her doesn't go unnoticed. While the hides remain held up, her gaze slides oh-so-slowly toward the dragon again, with a faint knitting of her eyebrows as she returns the observation - sans head-tilt. The bronze lowers his head nearly to Ulyana's eye level, then straightens and flexes his wings once. Look! He is Big and Strong. See? His rider ignores this particular display. "The lake shore's usually not the best spot for that, as you just found," C'stian notes to Ulyana wryly. "Liesanth's far from the only dragon who acts like a child when he's in the water. I learned that one the hard way myself, too, back as a Candidate. They have you working in records right now, then?" The crease between Ulyana's eyebrows only deepens at Liesanth's demonstration. Uncertainty is writ on her face, only to be quickly wiped out when the rider speaks again. "I do not usually sit that close to the water," is her rationale, though it's dismissed with a one-shouldered shrug. "Most dragons I see out here are not so prone to splashing, either. Yours seems to enjoy himself more than most in the water." Like a child, of course, but there's no judgment in her tone. Another slow blink, then a shallow nod that involves little more than her chin. "More often than not. Sometimes I assist in taking inventory in other places. It is comforting work. Familiar." A pause, then: "What did they have you doing while you were a Candidate?" "Mostly copying records, or helping organize supplies for the infirmary. I was born and raised at Healer Hall," C'stian adds, as if this explains everything. And now his gaze slips to the knot Ulyana wears once again, and the bronzerider adds, "I honestly though I'd be heading back there afterwards; I didn't really expect to Impress." "I see," says she, and the hides are drawn back to her chest again. "I have only known Crom Hold. This is what I have always done." Ulyana's expression cracks just a little as C'stian's attention strays to the second knot - but only to allow a sour little twist at one corner of her mouth. Still, despite that contortion of her face, her tone remains curiously flat as she replies, "I expected to Stand - and go home after it was done." This time, both shoulders rise and fall in a mechanical 'what can you do?' shrug. "Do you regret not returning to the Healer Hall?" "No." C'stian smiles, despite himself, as he rests a hand on the bronze dragon's hide. "I suppose there's part of me that regrets not walking the tables as a Healer, but I wouldn't Liesanth for anything. Besides, I'm training as a dragonhealer as well, so my training hardly went to waste." His attention turns back to Ulyana's statement, and he adds, "If you expected to go home afterwards... why did you stay, if you don't mind my asking?" His response elicits another of those barely there nods of acknowledgement. Ulyana glances at the bronze again, her expression inscrutable, before her attention settles once more on C'stian. "I suppose healing is healing, no matter what you are stitching up or patching together." Then comes the inevitable question and her response is one of obvious confusion. "I was asked to Stand. I told the rider I would. I do not break my promises." There's a peculiar weight to those words, with much implied and nothing said. Perhaps nothing needs to be said. "I will Stand at the next clutch - and then I will go home." This matter-of-fact, flat assessment earns raised eyebrows from C'stian. "Hm. And if you Impress, after Standing?" Raised eyebrows are mirrored - and Ulyana's head tilts, just so, to one side. "Then my home would be here, would it not?" Her head straightens a moment later. "Home is where I belong - but this is not home." Not yet, not now, perhaps not ever - but those distinctions are left to the wayside. "Don't you have any preference yourself, though?" C'stian asks, not quite giving up yet. "Would you miss people at Crom Hold? Do you hope to Impress a dragon, and stay here?" The questions conspire to pull Ulyana's mouth into a tight, flat line - and make it difficult for answers to escape. "I miss the Healers at Crom. I miss the records keepers. But, I would probably miss the Candidates here, too." Should there be more? She moves on and her mouth pulls to one side, wrinkling her nose in the process. Her words come slowly: "I do not know the minds of dragons - so I cannot say whether they would want me or not. It seems wrong to hope for something like that." "It's never wrong to hope for something. Whether it's learning a skill, or winning a competition, or making friends, or Impressing a dragon," C'stian points out. After a moment, he adds, "If you have no wishes for yourself -- no hopes or dreams at all -- you may find it hard to keep hold of who you are if you /do/ Impress. Those first weeks, when you and your dragon are one mind, one living thing, extensions of each other... it's easier to find yourself again if there's something you want, some things that are just /you/, and not your dragon, to hold onto." "The things I hope for are things I can try to attain. Things that can be done." Ulyana picks just a little at the edge of one hide while she looks up at the rider. "I do not hope for things that are beyond my control. That seems as silly as wishing to be a firelizard." And, of course, the hypothetical Impression - at least as far as she's concerned. "It is not worth thinking about right now, anyway," she adds in that flatly pragmatic way of hers. "There are no eggs." "No... there aren't, unfortunately." And as C'stian says this, Liesanth's neck droops slightly; the bronze has felt his sister's grief and loss for the children she thought she would have, and perhaps the memory of trying to brighten her mood weighs on the normally-lighthearted young dragon. "But I'm sure there will be another flight soon enough, and a clutch." "Perhaps they should have waited before gathering us." Ulyana cants a look to the partially wilting bronze, only to tilt it back to C'stian. "Soon or not, I am not holding my breath." Nor does she seem intent on lingering much longer with the topic; she takes a half step away and reaches up to push one of her braids back over her shoulder. "If there are none at all, then I suppose this will turn into home by default." A detail she's neither excited - nor horrified - by. While he tries not to be a judgmental sort, C'stian is perhaps starting to wonder if there's something mildly wrong with this particular would-be Candidate. "Huh." Evidently deciding to drop the topic, he turns his attention back to the hides. "Would you like help getting those back to somewhere they can dry off? I'd almost recommend the sunning area; it's warm up there, even this late in the day, so they'd dry quickly." Of course, it pretty much requires riding on dragonback to get up that high. The hides are given a lengthy consideration - the suggestion, an even lengthier one. Eventually: "That is probably best." Ulyana offers them for him to take, though it's clear that her mental gears are struggling along some conundrum or another. "I will need to fix them afterward, but they are not really important. Copies, mostly. I was trying to find a pattern in them." Perhaps there's a hint of relief in the shifting of topics, though it's difficult to discern at first - her relative eagerness to speak might be the biggest clue. "How long do you think it will take for them to dry?" C'stian runs a finger along the blank portion of one hide. "Maybe half an hour?" he ventures finally. "They're not that bad. And what patterns were you looking for?" As a Candidate, weyrling, and now rider who spends a fair amount of time in Records himself, this is a topic C'stian can engage in fairly directly. "Hnh." Ulyana looks at the hides as they're tested and finally nods at the assessment of drying time. "Different things. Nothing. Anything." One shoulder rises and falls. "Sometimes there aren't any patterns at all. I just like to look and see what the numbers say." Her head cocks, avian-like, as she studies C'stian. "Did you look for patterns when you worked with the Healer records? Did you find any interesting ones?" "Sometimes, yes. You could find interesting correlations, like when a particular herb was harder to find, certain ailments were more common, even if the herb wasn't related to treating the ailment at all. Not because one was a cause of the other," C'stian notes, even as he hands the hides back for a moment, and produces his riding straps. "But because -- for example -- a breathing ailment might happen if there was more dust in the air, and the herb didn't grow well when it was dry. So if you saw both in the records for a year, you could guess that year was probably a dry one." The bronze dragon crouches beside his rider, and C'stian turns to look at Ulyana. "If you want to catch the sun while there's still enough to dry these hides, we should probably get them up into the sunlight." All of which is genuinely fascinating to the girl, going by her rapt expression. "These are not so interesting," she admits while C'stian tends to the matter of riding straps and so forth. "Clothing, mostly. Cloth." Her forehead creases just a little. "Colors are a funny thing," but no elaboration is given - mostly owing to the new, confounding distraction of a crouching bronze. "I am not sure what you want me to do." She has a firm grip on the hides, but, now, there's a layer of confusion present. Confusion and a new addition to her emotional repetoire: anxiety. "Do I need to go with you?" "I can take them up to dry for you and bring them down later, if you'd prefer not to fly," C'stian answers. "But if you want to come along, Liesanth can carry you without much effort." He pauses to tilt his head slightly towards the dragon, clearly hearing some remark from the bronze that Ulyana isn't privy to. It earns a bit of an amused grin. "I'm sorry, he says he can carry you without /any/ effort at all." Thus is the line drawn, at least for the Candidate-that-kind-of-wasn't. "I will find some means to repay you if you would take them. I will wait in the work rooms, if that is acceptable." Ulyana holds them up again when he's ready to take them, but there's just a slight tremble to her hand that's obvious enough. Her gaze slants to the bronze, to the rider, and back again at the interplay - ending with her intoning, "The Healers at Crom have said a firelizard could carry me without effort." Matter-of-factness all over again - as if jokes were doomed to fall flat on her ears. "Thank you." The former/future Candidate is given a thoughtful look, as if C'stian's uncertain whether she might not be /afraid/ of the dragon on some level. But he decides he'll leave it for another time, and so simply takes the hides with a nod. "I'll bring them to the workrooms soon." And then he places the straps and mounts his dragon, waiting for Ulyana to move clear before they take to the air. Fear might be a factor, but anxiety is certainly first and foremost. "Thank you," is repeated with a confirming nod - just in case the first wasn't sufficient to grease the wheels of sociability. She does far more than just move clear, though. Once the bronze is strapped up and mounted, Ulyana doesn't waste any time in walking away - and then continuing to walk at that brisk, slightly ungainly pace, toward the Weyr itself. She does not look back. |
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