Logs:Quiet But Not Solitude
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| RL Date: 28 February, 2013 |
| Who: H'kon, Madilla |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Madilla stumbles across H'kon out walking. They talk. And don't talk. |
| Where: Lake Shore, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 12, Month 2, Turn 31 (Interval 10) |
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| Lake Shore, High Reaches Weyr The rest of the bowl may be barren, grass barely surviving at best, but here by the lake, it's brilliantly green in the warmer months: thickening and thriving in the silty, boulder-dotted soil just before it transitions to soft sand and thence to the cool, clear water itself. A large freshwater lake fed by a low waterfall, it not only provides warm-weather bathing space for humans and dragons, but has one end fenced off as a watering hole for the livestock in the feeding grounds. The water there is often muddier than the rest of the clear lake, whose shallows drop off abruptly several yards out into deep water, and whose edge undulates against the coarse-hewn bowl wall: here close enough to just be bramble-covered rocks, there far enough away that a narrow land bridge divides the main lake from a smallish pond. Between are several rocky outcroppings that form excellent makeshift diving points, though only one -- across the bridge -- has a set of narrow, slippery, quite possibly tempting stairs. Steady, today's snowfall sticks, creating dunes on the bowl floor. Days and heads so full as these cannot always be confined to singular weyrs, even when the head belongs to the hermittest of hermits. The inhospitable chill in the night air, the clouds that brought snowfall earlier having long since disappeared and let any daytime heat escape, at least works in hermitting favour; the cold has kept a good many indoors, and has kept the lakeshore quiet. Just to be sure, though, H'kon has gone out onto that little land bridge, only now coming back toward the main lakeshore, treading carefully, head scrunched down to peer over the edge of the scarf wrapped about his neck to watch his footing on icy terrain as he goes, gloved hands extended to either side lest he require self-catching. It has long been Madilla's habit to walk of an evening, if she's not needed in the infirmary, and if the children are safely in bed and asleep. She's probably a little later in the evening that would be her usual, and crosses from the Craft complex rather faster than she might otherwise as if to make up for lost time; at least, however, there are paths to wander down, formed beneath the impressions of hundreds of other pairs of boots. Though rugged up against the chill, she's a recognisable figure - especially as she approaches lake, bright eyes examining the frozen landscape under Belior's waxing light. Finding even-slightly-stamped fresh-fallen snow beneath his boots is a relief - H'kon can walk a more natural step, can straighten up, can look first out over the water, then up to the sky lights - moon, brighter stars, maybe even a planet or two - that it reflects. As he gets moving again (Faranth knows how long he'd been standing still out on the land bridge), he gets heating. And apparently, loosening that scarf requires him to look ahead again. Seeing another figure first brings a frown. There's a bit of squinting before he makes out more detail, and his posture relaxes. A gloved hand even lifts in salutation. It takes Madilla no time at all to recognise H'kon after his lifted hand first attracts her attention; she smiles, brilliantly, returning his gesture with a definite wave, even as she veers off to head more directly towards him. "Shall I throw a snowball at you?" she wonders, in lieu of a verbal greeting, once she's close enough to talk at a conversational tone. "If it would make you smile, anyway. It's beautiful out, this evening, don't you think? There's something about moonlight and fresh snow." "I'd think that would make me cold," H'kon offers. Barely a moment, and something akin to a cough catches once in his throat before he can keep it down, turning to look out over the lake again. He's quick to glance back to the healer, to mark her trajectory, his own steps slowing, ready to accommodate as required now she's near enough. "And the water," he tacks on to the end of her assessment of the evening, quiet, half-hidden in one of his cheeks. "I won't deny the truth in that," laughs Madilla, though her expression has already turned concerned, the very sound of that cough rousing her healer-y attentions. "And the water," she agrees. "I find the combination irresistible on quiet nights like this one. Are you well, H'kon?" Maybe it was that near-cough; maybe it's just him in general. The situation in general. And, though she's come to a halt now that she's close enough, "Will you walk with me?" The hunching over her shoulders, the mostly-suppressed shiver seem to suggest that she's determined to keep walking for warmth; her smile is inviting. "Well e-" doesn't get finished. He breaks off instead, offering one of those smiles that doesn't really work. Instead, a nod, and he turns to redirect himself along the path it seems Madilla is on. "I would like that," takes a while to surmount whatever other block was installed in his throat there. "It is no sea," is halfway directed out over the lake, to which he's looked back, trusting peripheral vision to keep him in step with the healer, "but it has come... familiar." Madilla's glance is meaningful, disbelieving without being so impolite as to press for a fuller answer, and yet she doesn't let that look linger, not when she can smile, and resume her walk around the periphery of the lake. "I was at least fourteen or fifteen before I saw the sea for the first time," she remembers. "We lived inland. I arrived at Healer Hall about this time of Turn, though, and it was my first experience of snow. It took some time to get used to it, but now... it has become familiar, too." Moving along beside her, H'kon's head eventually turns back to watching his step, brow twisting toward the pensive. "Snow and sea. It must have felt lonely." He shifts his hands behind his back, lets a few steps go past before he's willing to offer up, "Until being here, I could not remember a day I did not see it." "I don't know about lonely," muses Madilla. "Perhaps. I had a very-- different childhood. There were a lot of things that troubled me, when I first arrived at the Hall. And, indeed, when I first arrived here. I'm glad to have seen so many more places, now." She turns her head to glance at him, and then further out over the lake, and the steep bowl wall beyond. "It must have been disconcerting, for you. I don't suppose even the breezes from high above the Weyr are the same as a proper sea breeze. And nothing would smell the same." H'kon's lips pressing into a line is the best he can give for confirmation of Madilla's assumption. "I imagine even if Arekoth had hatched at Tillek, nothing would have looked or smelled quite the same. He... kept me busy, at the least. But it was sudden. Connections all cut. Even in name." That warrants another look out to the lake for a moment. And, too, a slight fuzzing of features when his dragon touches his mind. "How different?" is thus abrupt. "Your childhood..." Madilla lets out a low breath that is something akin to a sigh, though whether it is wistful, or simply thoughtful, is rather up for interpretation. "It's such a strange thought," she admits. "The idea of one's life being changed so thoroughly, just like that. In the space of an instant." She's slow, cautiously slow, in answering his question. "Strict. Conservative. My Uncle holds all the power, in our family; he makes all the decisions. I was to be married at sixteen, my husband was picked out. My life was pre-ordained. I was supposed to train, and then return home, but... they found me too changed." She exhales again, and this time there can be no question that she's sorry for it. "It never bothered me, to do as I was told. It was all I knew. I don't think I realised how much I had changed until... they were afraid I would give my sisters, cousins and nieces ideas." H'kon's nod, and the dropping frown that goes with it, is not so much sad as nostalgic and pensive. He says no more on the topic, intent instead on hearing the woman's explanation, even slowly turning to her, incrementally, with each word. "Hm," comes first, a place-holder only while he processes. That same frown deepens a moment in his thoughts, but lifts when he lifts his chin, leaving him looking almost quizzical - for all that can be seen in moonlight. "Do you miss it, nonetheless? Your home?" Madilla seems inclined to watch her feet as she talks, but she glances up soon after finishing, in time to catch that quizzical look, and the question that accompanies it. "Every day," she confirms, quietly, and without hesitation. The trouble it brings to the brownrider's face is tinged with a remarkable amount of sympathy, and H'kon's gloved hand nearest Madilla even ceases the swing that accompanies a walk, twitches its fingers a moment, before he catches it, flat up against his thigh with a dull 'thump' sound. A grimace goes to the path before them as they move about the lake, and by the time his arm is let free from his side, he can offer, "We are very much what we were from young, I think. Nothing, craft, dragon, Weyr, what-have-you, can change it." Head turned as it is, Madilla can read that sympathy in H'kon's expression. She may even note the travails of his hand, though if she does, she draws no attention to it. Instead, there's gratitude in her expression, as she allows herself to accept sympathy, without mentally turning it in to pity. "I believe you're probably right," she says, the corners of her mouth turning up. "Our foundations are set. The rest are-- just details, shifting and changing as necessary. And whatever I've seen since... I love my family. My home. They made me." "We carry them, at least," H'kon decides. "Though I think, also, this can make it more difficult." Where the trodden path narrows, he shifts readily to the side, to the slightly deeper snow, to leave the more compacted for the healer. Knee-lifting strides might look almost comical on a small man, though he seems mostly unaware of them, still watching Madilla, a moment longer... "When details shift or change or keep us or- well. Details." And that's where he turns to inspect the lake once more. Madilla's smile acknowledges H'kon's gesture in leaving the clearer path for her; she certainly doesn't laugh at the almost-comical stride he is forced to employ as a result. "Details," she agrees. "It would be easier, sometimes, to let parts of ourselves go, to be better suited to what is required of us now. But we can't: we are who we are. Would you be different, if you could? Is there anything you wish you could change about yourself?" "Be different?" It's repeated in an odd, almost light tone. H'kon keeps trudging, eventually comes back to the path where it goes wider once more. He thinks on it a good while, certainly not bothered by the silence. "If anything of me changed, then... wouldn't it all change? The details would affect me differently, the- well, everything. Living in the same way would mean different things with a different foundation." Her word is settled on quite contentedly, and H'kon shakes his head. "It is details might be changed." Eyes back on her: "And you, Madilla?" Madilla turns her head, as H'kon talks, her smile broadening with amusement, for all that she does accept his explanation with a bob of her head. "I suppose you're right," she says. "Even in fantasy, it is difficult to tease out the little things. I often wished I was better able to speak my mind, up front and without reservation, but I find it bothers me less, now - or perhaps I've simply found ways I am more comfortable with, to communicate. But there are still times when I look at other people and think life would be so much simpler if I were more-- if I were different." H'kon's surprise translates as a little backward pull of his head as it cants, and nothing more. At first, no explanation is given. "I do not think life would be easier. We live as we must, with what we're given. If what we're given changes, then that does not change how we live. Perhaps the same is true of details, in the end. Other things would provide challenge, different, but..." His head receives a shake. It's only after a few paces he adds, more softly, "I'd not have thought you had such difficulties. At least, it seems to me you've always spoken plainly enough." Madilla's cheeks are already flushed from the cold air, but they flush more deeply, now. "Is that your way of saying I've been asking probing questions?" she wonders, though not in a way that suggests she's taking offense. "There are still things I would say to people, sometimes, that I... can't. I find I care a great deal about how I'm perceived. I admit," she glances sidelong at him, for a moment, before her gaze drops, "You're surprisingly easy to talk to." "No," is quick, if not entirely mortified - whether Madilla sounds offended or not. H'kon watches her a moment, tottering on a neat little precipice of uncertainty before finally taking the leap for, "Though you do." The smile behind that one is somewhat more real, though it's only turned on the healer a short time. This time, the quasi-cough isn't halted, managing its way fully into a bark of something almost like a laugh, just one, short-lived. He looks up in time only to catch, maybe, in the periphery, the changing of her focal point. "Now that is not a thing I hear from many." "I'm sorry," she says, glancing up again, though she's smiling: she's not really sorry, from the sounds of it. His words leave the healer without any obvious answer, at least immediately, and on she walks, gaze primarily focused on the well-trod path in front of her, and wandering, every so often, off towards the lake. "Well," she says, finally. "I suppose you don't make it traditionally easy. But once we've begun talking, I find it easy to continue. I wouldn't seek you out, if I weren't interested in what you have to say." H'kon walks on in silence beside her, still content with it, even when it's not of his own making. The smile that comes whens he does speak is nothing showy, indeed barely noticeable at all, as he dips his head, looks at his feet. "Well," signals the turn for his blood to make a rush for chilled cheeks, "I'm pleased that you do. I almost came- well, I'm pleased." That quiet smile from before is mostly gone when he looks up again, and a puff of air goes as expression enough. At least, for H'kon. Madilla, luckily, seems well able to read subtleties in H'kon's expression, and in his words. She smiles, holding her gaze in his direction for only a few seconds before she drops it again. "Good," she says, with a teasing laugh. "Then we'll just have to keep talking, I'm afraid. There's simply nothing for it. Dare I suggest that this is one good thing that has come out of the present mess? Not that I am saying it makes it all worthwhile." "Hm," is agreement, to 'one good thing', surely. "It makes it... more bearable," comes as revision. "Temporary harbour." And H'kon is again looking out across the lake, arms drawing up to cross over his chest as he keeps on walking, shoulders taking a bit more of the swing. Looking at the lake, though that's probably not rightly what he's seeing. Madilla opens her mouth, as though she intends to say something, but closes it again a moment later. Instead, she gives H'kon a long, thoughtful glance, and finally nods. It's several steps later when she says, "Well. Good. I'm glad. I'll try and stop saying things that require emotional responses, now, I promise." H'kon draws his attention back from the waters he's watching, turning his head back to his walking companion. An attempt at something of a gracious smile remains that, and he dips his head. It's a few more steps before the rider must stop, and take a moment to close his eyes, lift his shoulders by way of a deep breath, and lower them slowly as he moves it out. Arms are brought out of the hug around his chest almost stiffly. "I'll see you home - if that's where you're heading next." Which is nothing at all like explanation. All of this Madilla watches, her expression neutral enough to avoid making it clear exactly what she thinks. When H'kon finally does speak again, she smiles, tilting her head towards the not-so-very distance Craft Complex. "It is," she agrees. "Thank you. I suppose we'd better both get inside before we freeze. I won't have you getting sick." H'kon gives one nod, and starts up again, walking the first few paces quickly, as if making up for time lost. He finds the original pace in time. And it's several steps into that where he stumbles upon his words once more. "So much a healer. By foundation or detail." But it's far less open than as easy a question as it might have been earlier on. And H'kon is concentrating on the rhythm of his step. "It was because of my cousin that I became a Healer," remembers Madilla, after biting on her lip for several seconds, so conscious of the shift in conversational comfort, and her role in that. She aims for levity, and keeps her own stride level to H'kon's. "It was purely by accident that my affinity for it was discovered. He died, but I'd been noticed by the Healer who was called in. By now... it's so much part of my identity, I can't imagine myself without it. I suppose that makes it part of my foundation. I'm afraid I can't turn it off. Like motherhood, I suppose." H'kon is content to listen to the story - backstory - as he goes, pace unchanging now he's locked in once more. "I would not have you turn it off," is more musing than anything. Still studied on his step, he offers nothing more, specification or further thought. Eyes rove from path to crafter's complex, up to the sky, over to Madilla... but not back to the lake. Again, she opens her mouth to say something, but seems to think better of it. Instead, she smiles, aiming it directly towards H'kon, if only he'll glance her way to see it in time. "Good," she says. "I don't know that I'd want to, really. I don't think I'd feel like me." This thought, so linked back to the lengthier conversation at hand, seems to make her especially thoughtful. "Just the way we are." Musing, but also pleased, she lapses into thoughtful silence. Silence is H'kon's friend; Madilla, too. He's happy to proceed in both their company, for so long as he can, toward the complex, another definition of 'home' for one of them at least. And it's only when they're nearing that he sends silence on its way, leaving just the two of them once more. "To this point at least," and he lets his step slow slightly, "I don't believe I've become sick. And winter will have to break sometime soon." Conciliatory, even. "Perhaps I radiate health," Madilla says in reply, letting her own steps slow - and then, coming to a halt, so that she can half-turn and more or less face the brownrider. "And have thus made certain that you will not come down with anything. You'd better keep talking to me, just in case." Her pause is only for a beat or so; she smiles. "More seriously, I am glad to hear it. I'd rather not see you in a professional capacity. Nonetheless, you've clearly been out-of-doors too long, tonight." "Hm," is a bit rounder in tone, deeper, some sort of acknowledgement of the blatant humour, for all he doesn't manage another cough-laugh or anything of the sort. "Perhaps," H'kon allows, tilting his head back to peer up into the clear sky. "But the cold offers a quiet that has been," and the corner of his mouth pulls sideways, "difficult to come by. Of late." His head tilts back down, green eyes settling now on the woman in front of him, studious now, to see her reaction, to see comprehension. Madilla's comprehension is certainly easy enough to see: it starts in the sudden widening of her eyes, and extends through the line of her mouth, as her lips part to expel a low, frosty breath. "Of course," she says, in a low, sad voice. "It can be so peaceful out there, of an evening, in winter. One cannot stay holed up in one's private quarters all the time, I suppose." And then, even more quietly: "I'm sorry." H'kon is partway through, "Well, it is no sea, bu-" and the 't' stays quiet, cut off where Madilla offers that apology. It might be the volume of it that has him tilting his head forward, slightly, fingers of one hand reaching at the air. Bewilderment carries, "Why would you be sorry?" spoken at the same volume as she had used, if only by unconscious matching. Rueful and self-conscious, Madilla makes a face, and then says, "Why wouldn't I be? Sorry that quiet is so difficult to come by, sorry that you need seek out it out, sorry for--" She breaks off, biting her lip, and gives H'kon an intense glance. "I hope you found something of what you needed, tonight. In the quiet. With or without my interruption." Beat. "I should go in." Not that she's moved, yet. H'kon's eyes start to move, in observation or in thought, back and forth as she speaks, brow finding its furrows again. "Madilla," finally is the first thing to present itself, and so what he gives out, bringing with it a reach for - something - a sleeve. His fingers don't close tight, but he does find focus at least, gaze settling, words steady if with a hint of something nearing mournful just behind them. "I would have you speak plainly to me. You aren't now." And so she doesn't move, though her gaze falls towards his fingers, closing in on them as surely as they're closing in on that sleeve: not tightly, but present. She takes a deep breath, then breathes it out again, long and slow, as she lifts green eyes back towards his face. "You would tell me, if I were interrupting your solitude, wouldn't you? There's a difference between appreciating my friendship, and-- you will just tell me to go away, if you want me to?" The look H'kon sends to her fingers when he feels them is borderline adolescent; he can't help it. "Ah." Still looking down. "No, it's-" and he presses his lips together for the duration of pushing a breath out, "Quiet is separate from solitude." He looks up, issues a few quick nods. "And I would not have you leave," comes only with his eyes more on her shoulder than on hers, and jaw tense even through speaking. Madilla watches, likely reading as much from his actions and expression as from the actual words he says. Her nod is faint, and a little uncertain, but it's followed by a shy little smile. "Then I won't leave," she says. "Thank you." This nod is grateful, even if the motions remain minimal. H'kon makes another attempt at holding her gaze, this one lasting maybe a second before his forehead has those lines again, and he's glancing off once more. And for all that uncertainty that's seen him at a loss and full of nerves, he finally offers up, "It has been difficult. Strange." The smile is apologetic, the push at her fingers, minute. It may only last for a second, but during that second, Madilla's gaze seems determined to convey something... though what, exactly, is more difficult to discern. "I know," she says, instead, in answer to his words. "Of course it has. It must be." Three thoughts, probably separate. Three attempts, maybe. She squeezes at his fingers. "Go home, H'kon. Rest. You know where to find me, if you need-- quiet, but not solitude." H'kon closes his eyes on that third version, for the second time in the night, taking a breath, working to gather himself. "Yes." When eyes are opened, it's the more experienced brownrider once again. "Better tonight I should go." And so the push to her fingers ends, and he steps back. "Stay warm, Madilla." And here he does look to her, square on. "Perhaps we can walk again, soon." Madilla draws her hand back in, gloved fingers nestling in against her other hand's worth of gloved fingers. "I'd like that," she says, meeting his gaze. "Look after yourself, H'kon. And--" She smiles, breaking the serious determination that's been playing out upon her features. "Sleep well." She takes one hesitating step towards the complex, not yet looking away, but certainly making an attempt to depart. The dip of his head is a promise, at least. H'kon will try. He seems intent to watch her go, though, when she pauses, finds the tip of his tongue catching between his teeth. There's hesitation on his part, as well, a build-up that, when released, sends his head jerking away with a hard look in the general direction of the sands. Arekoth is called, and H'kon waits until he's sure the brown is about to take to the air before hazarding a glance back toward the complex. It's cold, and getting colder, and Madilla should really be safely inside with her sleeping children, but it's not until H'kon's head jerks that way that she makes any further attempts to leave. "Good night, H'kon," she says, looking over her shoulder until she disappears within. Luckily, she can walk without seeing where she's going. H'kon's nod to that 'good night' is quick, and he doesn't watch Madilla's retreat long. A man so careful with self-discipline is well aware of how best to keep himself in check. And so it's with a rigid posture, and no further glances, that he waits until Arekoth has arrived. And by the time they're airborne, a glance back will reveal nothing but snow. |
Comments
Azaylia (Dragonshy (talk)) left a comment on Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:51:07 GMT.
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Once again, Madilla is the ultimate H'kon tamer. Good scene you guys.
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