Logs:Reasons
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| RL Date: 22 September, 2014 |
| Who: Katriona, Ulyana |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Ulyana talks with the newly Candidate-knotted Katriona. A departure is thwarted, promises are made, and reasons are given. |
| Where: Resident Quarters, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 17, Month 11, Turn 35 (Interval 10) |
| Six days after her ill-fated encounter with the Weyrleader finds Ulyana in the resident dorms with a pair of bags on her bed, along with the full sum of her worldly goods. Clothes, for the most part, with a couple of prized books and naught else. Her knots - both officially Fortian and unofficially Candidate - are laid out on the bed as well, though they're dangling precariously at the foot of it. The girl's expression is uncharacteristically grim, though it might not be easy to see for anyone looking in; her back's to the entrance of what was a shared dorm and is, by all appearances, soon to be completely empty. Katriona has been trying to balance both her remaining laundry duties and the preparation for Candidacy, a fact which has meant she hasn't really crossed paths with her friend for the better part of a week. So perhaps it's not a surprise, given Kat's personality, that she shows up in the doorway of the dorm she once shared, looking for her friend. In fact, before she even reaches the doorway she calls out, "Hey, Yana, you in?" "Yes," is intoned without a need for a backward look. Kat's voice is plenty familiar by now - and Ulyana has work to do. It's not precisely urgent, but it's a thing that needs to be done and that detail is practically palpable. Her meticulous method of packing might mean it'll take her a while - but it will be perfectly packed when she's done. "I hope you are doing well and that they are not keeping you too busy." This bit is added after a lengthy pause, punctuated by a temporary cessation of her motions. Kat slips into the room proper. She has her white knot fastened in place once more, though her little green firelizard is not in evidence today. "Mostly I still just have laundry work, though they've got me started on a few of the other chores." She looks over Ulyana's packing, and draws entirely the wrong conclusion. "Oh! Are you about ready to move over now, too?" The tip of Ulyana's head is purposeful; it's a glance to the knots that are abandoned at the foot of her bed. But, if that gesture is missed, it's supplemented with a flat, "No." A bag strap is cinched up and then it's moved aside to let her finish up the second. "The Weyrleader made it clear that I had a choice of staying at the Weyr as I was - or leaving." A slight bit of tension winds its way through her jaw, only to dissipate a moment later when she speaks again. "I have decided to leave." There's a moment of stunned silence from Katriona, and then she explodes with, "WHAT? That makes no sense, Yana. It's not fair. Have you gone to talk to anyone about it? They said we all got to stand again, as long as we talked to a rider." She frowns, and then concludes with, "What /happened/?" She persists in her packing despite that exclamation, though it's now down to the books and there's little to be done besides make sure they're well-padded and safe. Ulyana cinches that bag down, too, and sets it aside with the other - which frees her up to turn and sit, hands in her lap and cool, gray gaze fixed on Katriona. Her mouth flattens into a thin a line. "He asked if I had spoken to a rider. I told him I had not, but that I would when I was ready to. I asked him what I was to talk to the rider about and why we had to do so, when the newly Searched would not. He did not answer my questions." Her mouth contorts. "He asked why I wanted to stand. I told him it was out of a duty to do so. He interpreted that as 'just because' and told me I was absolved of that duty." It's there that she pauses, waiting for the words to sink in - or, more likely, steeling herself for the rest. The girl goes a sickly pale and her throat spasms just once, though she doesn't immediately continue. "Yana..." Katriona trails off, watching her friend with clear concern. For a change, the waterfall of words is gone, as she just stands there. After a moment, she seems to find the words once again. "Do /you/ want to Stand? Not just expecting you should, but is this what /you/ want to try doing?" She makes her way over towards Ulyana's bed, and adds, "/I/ think you do, because you seem upset to be leaving." There's a singular, left-right-center shake of her head. "I attempted to leave. His dragon pursued. I panicked." Ulyana's voice draws tight at the memory and she has to swallow hard a few times to get the sensation to pass. "When I came out of it, he offered my knots back, told me I could stay or leave, and that I would still have to talk to a rider." Her shoulders tense a little under the onslaught of questions and her jaw grows tight again. "I was -asked- to Stand - though I have come to question the rider's intentions. I accepted. There is no further desire in me to make the attempt. The beasts are hideously huge and unsettling to be around. How is it that everyone is expected to be comfortable and in awe of them?" "Wait, question the rider's intentions? What do you mean?" Kat doesn't reach out to actually touch her friend -- she's a touchy-feely sort, but she's learned Ulyana's quirks enough not to breach the other girl's personal space. "And... I don't know. Some people don't like dragons. For me, they..." She trails off, evidently deciding /her/ opinion of dragons isn't necessarily immediately relevant. "It is unimportant, now." Ulyana shifts slightly on the bed, scooting closer to her bags and leaving more room on the bed for Katriona to claim, if she's inclined. The gesture is subtle, but likely as familiar as her other peculiarities. Though the Candidate might not think her opinion is important, the not-Candidate disagrees in her way with a flatly queried: "What are they to you?" "Freedom," Kat says finally, as she takes the offered seat on the bed beside her onetime dorm-mate. "With a dragon, once I'm a rider, I can go anywhere in the world. I can go see anything I want, anyone I want. I'll never be /trapped/ somewhere." "Despite the responsibilities you would be tied to." It's half-question, half-statement. Ulyana rolls a shoulder, hands still resting in her lap and back still impossibly straight. Her head tilts, allowing her to consider Kat from the corner of an eye. "How is that a more appropriate reason to stand than out of duty or obligation?" The notion is, at least to her, truly a confounding one. "What else should I do?" Kat asks, looking at Ulyana curiously. "Just do laundry for the rest of my life? Compared to the freedom of a dragon..." There's another of those mechanical headshakes and a renewed flattening of Ulyana's mouth for something or another. "It is not unreasonable," she expresses slowly, "to consider what you will do if you never Impress." Her gaze shifts away and fixes on nothing at all - it settles into the middle-distance, unfocused and strange. "What would you do if the dragons never chose you? It seems strange to pin the entirety of your life on the whims of beasts that have no sense until after they've chosen." "Then I stay here, and I keep trying until they make me stop," Katriona says, determination in her tone. "And if that's what happens... then maybe I /do/ just keep doing laundry. But I'm not going to just give up without /trying/." "I see." Even if Ulyana doesn't - or can't, really. A slow blink follows, along with a focusing of her eyes - even if that focus is fixed on the opposing wall. "Then I will hope that you do not have to do laundry again after this, Katriona. I will hope that you get what you want when that day comes." Never mind that dull monotone that the words are offered up in; they're earnest and that should be meaningful enough. "Are you really going back to Boll?" Katriona asks, watching her friend. "You could stay here and work in the records room. You seem to like that." There's a newly melancholy note to her voice now; for all that she's cheerful and happy and outgoing, she doesn't have a lot of true /friends/ around the Weyr. "Crom," is a mild correction, one made as if it had been made a hundred times before to twice as many people. Ulyana's lips twist into a mockery of a smile, only to wither and die into neutrality. "There is no home for me there. Nor here, really. I do not fit in a place with dragons, Katriona. I should not have accepted in the first place." Her hands spread, palm up, on her lap. It's a strange and helpless gesture, one which her eyes are inexorably drawn to, as if even she were unsure how to interpret it. "I will humor the Weyrleader and speak to a rider, but I would need to do so anyway." "I'll miss you," Katriona says finally, if with faint resignation. Then, she says, more fiercely, "But if I become a rider and I can go anywhere I want, then I'll come to Crom and visit you!" "You will forget," might sound unfair, but it's spoken with just a faint cracking of her voice - and face. Ulyana's features twist a little and she lifts her hands to pass them over her face in a dry scrubbing motion, as if to manually remedy the temporary disfigurement. "Everyone does, after a while." The addition is muffled, coupled with a slow drawing in of breath. It's released in a slow hiss before her hands are able to drop to her lap again, lifeless as ever. "I am not sure where I will go, anyway. Perhaps that is what I will ask. I am sorry," her head tips just a little toward Kat, catching the Candidate in the corner of her vision. "But, if standing out of duty is not a sufficient reason to Stand, I can offer them nothing more - and it is clear that was not reason enough for the Weyrleader." "No. If you leave, I won't forget you. I /don't/ forget people. And I don't forget promises." Katriona says this with an uncharacteristically hard edge to her tone, as if this is /deeply/ important to her for some reason. "Talk to a rider. But if you leave, if you don't go to Crom, send me a message saying where you /do/ go. Okay?" That vehemence is met with familiar impassivity - but Ulyana raises no protest. She considers her hands again, loosely curled as they are in her lap, then looks to Katriona with a slow, slow blink. Intense scrutiny dissolves a short time later into a much more comfortable, oddly inscrutable weight. It's a clumsy thing, that offering of an arm in a one-sided hug, but it's there. If accepted, it's a stiff thing - predictably awkward, but with the most genuine intentions. "I will. I promise." The hug is indeed accepted, and returned with enthusiasm. "Good!" Kat's bright attitude is firmly in place once again. "And don't you /dare/ leave without telling me! Were you really going to just leave without /saying/ anything?" "That was my intention," Ulyana replies after the hug is returned. The truth might sting - but it is the truth and she's not one to shy from it. She pushes to her feet and half-turns to start shifting the bags from her bed to the floor for the time being. One shoulder rises and falls in a lopsided shrug before she adds a matter-of-fact, "It is easier to do it that way." It does sting, a little, but Katriona does her best not to let it show. "Why? Because it's hard to say goodbye?" She shakes her head. "So don't say goodbye. Say 'see you later'; then it's not forever." "No." Ulyana straightens up, hands hanging limply at her sides. "It is easier to leave without farewells. There is no need for that extra step of informing anyone." A beat or three lingers before she adds, "Without the goodbye, you do not know what is gone. It is easier to take that way." Spoken from experience, given the slight shift in her expression, but it's a fleeting thing and quickly cast off. "Besides," she continues, her voice muted, "I did not know what to say to you." "Well, now you've said everything about /why/ you would leave," Katriona points out. "So all the hard parts are done, right?" "That is an unrelated point. And unimportant, now that you know my intentions." Ulyana studies Katriona for a long moment before, finally: "Why do you care whether I stay or leave?" It's not accusatory or derogatory in anyway; just another of those strange, flat questions of hers. "Because you're my friend," Katriona says, as if this was self-evident. Maybe, to her, it is; sure, she's cheerful towards almost everyone, but she and Ulyana have shared a room for months. They've discussed studies, philosophy, Candidacy... it's quite likely that Katriona has exchanged more words with Ulyana than she has with any other person in the Weyr. "Why?" Because the self-evident answer evidently isn't to Ulyana, who continues her slow study of the Candidate. Despite the time and the talking, it still doesn't seem to have 'clicked' for the oddling that is, presently, still standing in front of the other girl. Her features twist up with a modicum of confusion. "You have other friends that are better at reciprocating." It's baffling, really. "I don't have /that/ many friends," Kat replies, shaking her head, as she stands from the bed, walking over to examine the piled and packed set of Ulyana's possessions. She seems to be considering her answer, as she does so. When she speaks again, she tries to offer the logic. "And I guess it's because you listen to me. And you're curious, like me, even if you show that curiosity in other ways. And you always force me to explain things, and sometimes that makes me think about them; that can be good. And I liked spending time here with you." She turns back to Ulyana. "Does that explain it, a bit?" "I have two friends," Ulyana offers, but elaboration will wait. She listens with a slight tilt of her head and with her full attention resting on Katriona. Each point is taken, picked apart, and digested without a sound from the not-Candidate. In the end, a slow, measured blink signals satisfaction and she takes a half-step closer to Katriona. "It is a good explanation," she concedes. "I would say the same of you." A smile is attempted, but she should know better by now. Better for her mien to drop into impassivity than strain itself so. "That is why Jarmil is also a friend. Just like you. You are curious. You question." There's a slight pause, then a pointed, "More importantly: you answer. Not enough people do that." "The only reason to ask questions is to find answers," Katriona replies. Clasping her hands behind her back, she rocks back and forth from heel to toe, no doubt an extremely familiar mannerism to Ulyana. "If I want other people to answer /my/ questions, I should try to answer /their/ questions when I can. Right? And sometimes you learn as much from giving an answer as you do asking the question." She pauses in her rocking as Hope suddenly blinks into existence nearby, circling her once to settle onto her shoulder. It seems to draw her thoughts back to other things, and she sighs. "I should get back to my chores, though." There's a single up-down-center nod to Katriona's observations. Ulyana intones, "I know. That is my belief, as well. Explaining that to others, however, is difficult." It's well enough that Hope appears just then; the girl blanches just a little and slides a half-step away to ostensibly give the Candidate plenty of room to maneuver in the space. "I am sure someone will protest," because someone always does. "Take care. I will talk to a rider." And that's as much of a farewell as she seems willing - or able - to give. Katriona offers a wave, as she turns to depart. She doesn't ask for more farewell; she's already extracted her promise that Ulyana won't leave without telling her. For now, that's enough. Convincing her to stay... if that can be done, it can wait for later. |
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