Logs:Shock
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| RL Date: 8 June, 2011 |
| Who: Emmeline, Riorde |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Morning after being brought to High Reaches, Riorde's in shock so Emmeline makes her drink some tea. |
| Where: Candidate Barracks, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 18, Month 12, Turn 25 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Tomaeran/Mentions, Taikrin/Mentions, Shimana/Mentions |
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| Though both Evie, Jaques, Grams, Iolene... had all been on Emme's mind through the night, her duty had to be to the children and keeping them calm so that parents could get settled in and the exiles could help each other through what proved to be a long night. She's fared no better with sleep than anyone else, having spent what time would have been sleeping tending to childhood nightmares and the fright of new surroundings. Thus, when people start to wake she was juuuuuust falling asleep and.. *groan*, so much for that idea. It's the whole 'running on empty' instinct that makes her seek out the few people she really calls friends. And the first one she spots is Riorde. Thus, she drags her sorry and sleepy ass over towards the other girl's pallet. "So are they comfortable to sleep on?" she wonders. Riorde retreated into herself and into silence as soon as she entered the candidate barracks the previous day. She let her brother talk her ear off about what 'his' dragon was like until he went looking for someone more responsive; she let the Weyr healers have a look at her, nodding and shaking her head instead of yeses and nos; she heard the news of the tragedies with a set expression as if bracing herself for worse and worse to come. In short, she's barely spoken a word since her arrival, and as she rolls over on the thin pallet, which is still a world better than what she's slept on her whole life, there's a significant pause before she answers, voice sounding rough. "It's strange." The pallet. Everything. "You're holding up ok, though?" Emme wonders, glancing over at Rio with the set expression. Hearing the rough voice is making her perilously close to losing her shit herself, so the harper just folds her arms up against herself and glances everywhere else. "Nobody's been able to keep any of the food down. Think we should try again to eat something this morning? Who brought you over, anyway? I barely remember getting here. Just sort of being grabbed and shoved on a dragon by someone who didn't want to talk. At all." Riorde slowly draws herself up to sitting, curving in on herself - indication of a sore stomach. She shakes her head, in no rush to try food again no matter how tempting all those strange, new flavours are. She combs her fingers through her dark hair, which cleaner perhaps than it's ever been. "Taikrin," Riorde remembers after a moment. "I was on the roof, trying to fix it..." She trails off, looks at Emmeline with a blank, open stare. "It was just yesterday." "Shells, Riorde. What were you thinking being on the roof trying to fix it?" Emme frowns over at her friend of course, concern marring what would otherwise appear to be an equally blank and dazed sort of expression. "If I'd known I'd have yelled at you soon as you stepped in here." Seeing as she's in no mood to see her breakfast after it's been regurgitated, she doesn't press the issue of food. Even if the healers will be around later trying to get them all to eat anyway. "If they make us go back --" Riorde starts and stops almost as if she's unable to hold the entire thought in her head. She swallows against rising bile occasioned by numerous shocks to the system. "She thought I was fifteen." A hint of hysteria rings through the last word. "If they make us go back we'll deal with it. Like we always do. If you lose it, Ri, I'm gonna lose it too for sure. Please don't. Please." Oh yeah, Emmeline was quick to pick up in the rising note of hysteria, which of course brings on a rising note of panic in her own. So, she just kind of huddles closer to her pal while they continue trying to come to grips with this really strange new place. "Maybe... they must have tea, right? Of some kind. That will help. I'll go get us some of that." This was one of the reasons that Riorde wasn't speaking - because when she does, the anxiety and shock starts to bubble out of her. She clamps down tightly when Emmeline draws attention to it, lips pressing together into a thin, white line and, after a minute, nods. It's both agreement that she'll try to keep herself together and concession on the tea. Emmeline all but bolts up to the front of the room to get that tea. She remembers someone mentioning something about tea that's supposed to help. It sort of went in one ear and out the other during the night. But, being who she is, the knowledge stuck somewhere to wait till it was needed. When she comes back laden with two cups of it, shaky hands press one of them towards Riorde. "Drink." She says firmly, even if the tone is belied by watery eyes. "I don't even know what to do, Ri. Do you?" Riorde clutches her tea tightly when Emmeline brings it back for her and does as she's bidden, lifting the ceramic mug to her lips. She shakes her head slowly and after a pause remembers to speak. "No." She sounds marginally calmer. The calm only lasts a second though, because words out of her have the cold, tight sound of anger. "They can't give us all this and then take it away again." In Riorde's mind, everything has become a worst-case scenario, and accordingly she anticipates and steels herself for it. Considering the bland food they've been eating all of their lives, even this tea is full of strange flavors. Some of them bad ones, obviously, that make Emme give her best 'yuck' face after a few sips. But, she drinks it anyway. It's warm, and the familiar act of drinking something in the morning is a bit of an anchor. "Warm clothes, real sheets, and blankets. Food. Better medicine. Don't even think about it. Let's just... not. How long is it supposed to be until the storm is over, anyway? Isn't is supposed to end by tomorrow?" Emmeline's accounting of all the good that's been heaped upon them makes Riorde look briefly wistful. She fights it down as she cautiously sips her warm beverage, not having the same reaction of dislike as the othe girl does. "Ask Shimana." A flash of the old Riorde, with her irreverent disrespect. "I bet she can still smell it from here." What sounds suspiciously like tea nearly being snorted out her nose comes from Emmeline's direction, following quickly by a series of coughs before there's brief silence on her end. It doesn't last too long though, because she soon lets go of a bit of a giggle at Riorde's irreverence. And that turns into full blown hysterical giggling... devolving from there down into hysterical /laughter/. And that, my friends, leads to tears just streaming down her face. Maybe from laughing so hard, and maybe that was just a convenient excuse. But after a hiccup, the girl finally adds. "Hey, I heard Tom totally pissed himself yesterday when it was his turn to come over. Bet /that/ will make you smile." "It wasn't /that/ funny," Riorde starts to say to Emmeline's giggles, but before long she's finding it difficult to keep a straight face thanks to the other's hysteria, and soon she's laughing along. She calms down before Emmeline does and applies herself to the tea, sipping so slowly that the mug is still over half-full. "Did he?" Predictably, Riorde enjoys this bit of information. She even manages a smile. It's short-lived though. "I feel a little bad," she admits something she never thought she'd say. "Hasn't been easy for him." "After the day we've all had, Riorde, it was definitely that funny." Emme argues, not even halfway through her own drink. "Mmm, no. I suspect it hasn't. His world's been kind of rocked lately, hasn't it. Hard labor, losing his sister, the fight with Azzarion, and now this." Unfortunately, she has a much more difficult time feeling sorry for Tom. "I should feel bad. I do feel sorrow for the loss of Kima. But for everything else? I wish I could. I imagine it would make me a better person to be able to. But, I just can't. You understand?" "Yeah," Riorde says eventually, but one has to wonder if she's just saying it to humour Emmeline. She stretches out her legs in front of her before getting to her feet. "I think," she says, "I want to see if they'll let me have a bath again." And if the escorts are willing, Riorde will probably stay and soak until she prunes up. That could very well be. And, Emme knows it. So she looks down into her cup when Riorde decides to go have another bath. "Sure thing, Ri. Catch you later." And she, will eventually go back to reading. Trying to find whatever details she can to support the exiles. Even those she can't stand. |
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