Logs:Square Holes
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| RL Date: 24 May, 2015 |
| Who: Farideh, T'mic, R'van |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Farideh and T'mic enjoy drinks after weyrling duties, but R'van ruins it all! |
| Where: Snowasis, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 21, Month 11, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Rainy. Cold. |
| Mentions: K'del/Mentions, Irianke/Mentions, Quinlys/Mentions, Z'kiel/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: I probably forgot a pose or two.. but, maybe language and lots of angst-y-ness. |
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| Rainfall throughout the day has made the bowl quite a sight, with its divots and puddles, mud and muck. It's the perfect kind of day to hole up in Snowasis after a long day of physical training, lessons, and leadership lessons. To be certain, it's no surprise that Farideh chooses to pick one of the booths along the wall for her impromptu meetup with T'mic, where they can talk (mostly) without interruptions and the catcalls from the game tables. She spreads out her notes on one side, and when the waitress comes to take their orders, asks for a large glass of red wine to start with and an appetizer; just from her order it's easy to surmise that she's both tired and plans to stay for a while. But for now, for T'mic, there's an easy smile, as she plunks one elbow on the wooden table and offers a friendly, "How's your day been otherwise?" T'mic orders a beer for himself - a rarity for the bluerider, but one perhaps explained by the fact that he's second at the table to order, and well, Farideh did get that glass of red wine after all. Fried tubers for him, not necessarily because he plans to stay, but because he loves them so much; it's evident in his voice and face and the grin of anticipation as the server walks away. A quick scan of the gaming table, before Farideh's voice brings him around. "Otherwise?" And that gets a laugh. "I don't think there's been an otherwise. Jorrth was flying this morning, though." The grin's there again. "He likes landing in mud. It slides." "Otherwise-- from the leadership lessons?" Farideh answers with a bright laugh that restores some of the vitality in her round face that's not been there of late. "I've never been particularly good at saying the right things or reading intentions," she says, letting her eyes trail the movements of a swaggering brownrider for a moment. "Roszadyth has never been happier, I don't think. Not besides the day she Impressed, which is my bias," she muses, good-humoredly, "but flying comes like breathing, to her. It should, of course. I just didn't think she would enjoy it as much." There's a pause, and she wrinkles her nose in dislike. "What is it with them and mud? Mud." "Oh," says T'mic. "Well... lots of lessons, I guess. Just the regular ones. K'del was saying how it's only a few more months, though..." A moment of reflection, and T'mic laughs, and shakes his head, and makes a point of easing back in the booth, and heave a big sigh, and let those broad shoulders relax. "Well it's the slipperiness. Jorrth likes dry dirt better, just for being in, but it doesn't slide nearly so good. I can't wait for him to see snow. Like, the big snow, that piles up." In the evening, after the typical weyrling drudgery is over and rain stands in the way of outside excursion, Farideh and T'mic have escaped to Snowasis and occupy one of the booths in the back. "A few more months until?" Her eyebrows lift in question, obviously waiting for whatever advice it is that the Weyrleader has given her fellow weyrling. "Snow," is an exhale. "It's coming soon. I so dread all of the snow and the cold and the--" But she's saved the chore of explaining her hatred of winter by the waitres who returns with their drinks and appetizers. "Few more months, for all the classes and stuff. It's so busy, you know?" It only takes him a moment to realise it's Farideh he's talking to, and there's a soft acknowledgement of, "Guess it'll probably be different for you, though. Or, busy, always, anyway, huh." Oh man, fries. "Oh, they're hot," comes shortly after T'mic's grabbed one and tried to bite it. The fry is removed, flopped over where it was wounded by bluerider teeth. And just like that, R'van appears with a beer in hand and his ass in the booth with them, without so much as a by-your-leave. Private conversations are apparently for people that aren't him. "I'd suggest you return whence you came," he picks up on Farideh's words first, tone smirking, "but that doesn't seem to have worked so well for Z'kiel already." Pragmatic, for once, Farideh picks at the fruit plate she ordered and suggests, "You can always quit?" before popping a ripe berry in her mouth. She chews while she listens, and even when she takes a sip of her red wine, her eyes are focused on the bluerider. "Busy, but at least Irianke has time to go to gathers and dances and live her life on the arm of her suitor-of-the-day." She smiles a genuine smile, despite her jealous words. "You'll have time to go whatever you please--" And there's R'van, with his beer and his smirky-smirk face, and hers twists into distaste. "Rafe." "We're not gonna just quit," says T'mic, and though it's not exactly steel in his voice ('cause he's still T'mic), his tone certainly doesn't look to leave room for questioning. "Yeah, but you'll get to-" and he's looking up, looking over to the newly-arrived. R'van receives a far more welcoming, "Oh, hey," from T'mic. It's a moment to try at that fry again, which, by the awkward chewing, is still hot, but not prohibitively so anymore. "Nah, we need you here," goes back to the goldrider. Farideh's question and its subsequent answer earns T'mic a considering look from R'van, his up-nod of greeting slower than the other man's. "T'mic. Farideh," he greets them both aloud before reaching for a fry himself. "Is that the goal, then? Dancing and gathers and suitors-of-the-day? I think I'm failing already. I have no suitors." He makes it sound so pitiful, too. "It was only a suggestion," Farideh says, eyebrows hiking, though her eyes are picking over the selection of nibble-worthy items on her plate. "Leadership isn't for everyone," and no, the look she cuts to R'van isn't imaginary. "It's definitely an honor that they chose you, but-- do you ever wonder why?" She's back to chin propped on her fist; hazel eyes slanting back to T'mic for his answer, after which her gaze will rake over R'van, accompanied by a sardonic smile. "The goal is to have a life beyond my servitude to the Weyr. Beyond paperwork and political events and meetings, and search." Almost innocently, she adds, "Don't worry, Rafe. There will be plenty of eligible men lined up at your door soon enough." T'mic takes another fry, and manages a bite of this one without required pause. The plate is pushed out a little toward the middle of the table, an offer, though his mouth is full, so it's not made aloud. "Yeah," answers Farideh's question. "Edyis said she thought it was about teamwork." Those big shoulders come up, and drop back down. "Made sense to me. How about you?" He pushes his lips together and focuses on his fry, any appreciation of Farideh's remarks suppressed, and any sense of feeling bad on R'van's account directed to the half-tuber in hand. "Ah," says Rafe, like he knows an answer and thinks better of it. His smile is deliberately bland, and he grabs another fry in the meantime. Instead, "As soon as I can get my own, I hope. The barracks would be very crowded if everyone came chasing me there," he tells Farideh. "You're definitely the nicest one out of us all and you don't let things bother you as much," Farideh muses aloud. "I wonder if Quinlys picked you or--" She ends her sentence before finishing her thought, but offers an unconcerned shrug as she picks up her wine glass. "I don't really have a choice. Do I?" A smile transforms her face right as she sets her lips to the edge of her glass, to drink long and lingeringly. "This silver thread only gets replaced by a more complicated knot, eventually," she murmurs, when she's finished. R'van's answer warrants another stretched smile. "How can you expect that they stay away from your charm?" More seriously, somehow less catty, she idly asks, "What about you? Don't you want a silver thread?" "Or?" It's not a pressing need for more information; it's curiosity as to where she was going. T'mic keeps on with those fries, a few more before he's remembered his beer. "Be hard to concentrate," gets tossed in, for R'van's imagined barracks crowd. "Think they'd line up all outside your couch, or think you'd lose some?" Oh right. He has a beer. T'mic has some. In return, Rafe's brows furrow, like he doesn't entirely understand the question. "No," he answers Farideh, head tilted. "It's a carrot. What, exactly, are you leading? There's no actual thought or innovation to it; they tell you exactly what to do, what to think, and expect that announcing you as leaders will help other people follow." "Quinlys has assistants. They may have helped make the choices. K'del and Irianke might have had a say as well. Still," Farideh glances from T'mic to R'van, considering, "it's curious that neither of the two bronzeriders in our class got silver threads." She is on the verge of laughingly saying something else to T'mic, but draws back, mouth compressed, as her eyes snap to the blonde-haired smith-rider. "We're setting an example. We're getting practice for the possibility of responsibility in the future," is level, and obviously is taking her an effort not to lash out at him in anger; constrained. "What would you have them do, instead?" "It's not about leading right now," T'mic enjoins, a little bit over top of Farideh. He waits to explain further, until she's done, "You don't have to follow us and we're not leading anyone any more than we were before. It's about us." And here, he nods, and points a recently gathered fry back over toward the goldrider. What she said. "An example of...?" R'van prompts, his own tone more patient as he entreats them, glancing between both Farideh and T'mic. "I've seen little enough about teaching people to lead in those classes so far, and plenty about how to manage. And there's a place for managers and paper-pushers and people with responsibilities, of course, but." But. A pause, another fry and a sip of his beer. "Regardless, it's not curious at all that Z'kiel and I weren't chosen. He'd be at Igen now if he had a choice in the matter, and it should be obvious that my interests don't dovetail with what the weyrlingmaster thinks are the Weyr's interests." The sense that the bluerider speaks with gets an amiable smile, which dies swiftly when her head turns back towards R'van. "An example of how not to be a spiteful ass," Farideh informs R'van, falsely pleasant. "You're the reason there are silver threads. You can sit here and run your mouth about the weyrling program, but what will you do about it? Will you tell K'del how you feel? Have you told Quinlys? What about Irianke? Do you have a proposed way to change it or do you want to just pick it apart?" There, she leaves it, to finish off the rest of her wine and crane her neck, waving her hand at the waitess-- over here. T'mic has fallen quite silent, and even manages to develop a look of consternation as Farideh starts listing off those big names. His eyes fall to R'van. He forgets to eat his fries or drink his beer, and instead, stares at the bronzerider at the table. Consterned. The quiet of a vacant room, the chime of a mantle clock, and the soft sway of a breeze heralds Roszadyth intrusion into her lifemate's thoughts. « Farideh, » she begins, soft and gentle, but with an underlying strength that commands her rider's attention, « you must not speak to Vadevjiath's so. » Her softness, gilt is interrupted by the calming sway of the sea; of them, as she remembers. « Can you not try to understand his side? » (To Farideh from Roszadyth) "Am I?" R'van answers Farideh's challenge with a look to T'mic: the bluerider is the tiebreaker here, clearly. As for his plans-- "I haven't, no. I need proof of concept before I speak to the Weyrwoman--" not the Weyrleader "--, and regardless: I don't have issue with the program except in what it purports to do, and the apparent superiority complex its faulty logic produces in certain personalities. Don't you remember, the conversation we had once?" That, to Farideh specifically, as R'van turns to regard her. "Lessa, or Fax?" "Hm," says T'mic - not right when R'van looks at him, but once he clears up his position a bit - and sits back. And reaches for another one of his dwindling fries. A glance goes to Farideh next. He's still got nothing to say. But he remembers that beer of his again, and even, at one point, casts a strange little look out toward the bowl. Feathers? "Don't try and put T'mic in the middle of this. He's too nice to call you out on your faults," Farideh says, sitting up straighter, chin lifting. She opens her mouth to speak, and promptly closes it with an audible snap, her lips pursing in obvious agitation. Lessa or Fax, it would seem, she remembers, and isn't amused by his reference. "Isn't it too late for that? Neither of us have any choice except to be a Lessa anymore. You wouldn't get very far trying to be the other, and frankly I don't think the Weyr wants to teach anyone how." R'van slants a look over at T'mic in response for that sound, just a moment. "Then he's failing even at managing," he answers Farideh's claim then, with bemusement. "You can still be reasonably competent, and entirely forgettable," he adds a beat later, with a shrug. "As I believe we established. I'm sure your program will do wonderfully at that." T'mic has managed to finish his beer, and most of his fries. R'van gets a look, then. "It's not about managing. And it's not about glory or anything, either. It's about work." With a bit more of an apologetic look to Farideh, "I should probably go do more, or else we're going to get really behind." R'van just gets a passing nod, thoughtful in its way, and not as friendly as the bluerider's norm. And he's off.
R'van nods in return to T'mic, watching the other weyrling go before he turns back to Farideh with a frown. "Do you know how to make steel?" Non sequitor: go. "Steel?" Farideh's laugh is caustic, and lacks the usual vibrancy of even her heated words and angry expressions. "You already know the answer to that, and I wouldn't want to." "The explanation is long and honestly, somewhat tedious even to me--one of my roommates was specializing in methods of production--but," says Rafe, ignoring her ill humor. "But one of the important parts of the process involves tempering: that is, when you've shaped and cooled whatever you're making, it's extremely hard, but also brittle. You reheat it to make it more pliable, so it doesn't break the first time it's stressed in use." A pause, and he adds, eyeing her drinking for a moment, "This is to say, if your program can't withstand a little reheating from someone who barely knew which way to face on a dragon six months ago, then it's probably not a very good program." Throughout R'van's speech, his explanations as elegantly put, Farideh keeps glancing around him towards the bar; that waitress isn't coming quick enough. "How nice that you think you know better than the weyrlingmasters, than the weyrleaders. I'll still step aside and let you have my rank, if you'd like," she says, faux-sweetly, plucking another berry off her plate. "If it was someone with the expertise and the understanding questioning Quinlys' decision, I might agree, but it sounds like you're jealous, of all things. Ask for the stupid thread and get it over with. It's nothing special. It's more work and you're already so busy." "Would it make you feel better, if I were jealous?" It's an idle question, mostly, though R'van is sliding to the edge of the booth then, one hand on the edge of the table in preparation to leave. "Because if it does, by all means, continue. It won't change the fact I'm not, or what I'm going to do." His question startles her out of her apparent dissatisfaction, whatever caustic reply she had crafted next dying on her lips. "Shouldn't you be?" Farideh blinks a few times, before her face registers wariness, her brow puckering. "Leadership roles are traditionally held, when not a goldrider-specific, by bronzeriders and to a lesser extent, brownriders. Igen sees it that way," she says, contemplating him, and not necessarily noticing his desire to leave. "You don't care to? Is furthering your craft studies really the only thing you're worried about?"
Some frustration finally leaks into Farideh's voice, her fingers curling into fists when in her lap. "More? More than what? You could be anything as a bronzerider with hard work. A wingleader, a wingsecond, even the Weyrleader if you got lucky." "You're thinking square holes again," R'van repeats, with just a touch of impatience in his tone now. Catch up, Farideh! "Why not both? Why not wingleader, and master smith? Why not change the whole game?"
"We were talking," R'van replies, blowing out a breath; this time, he's the one frustrated. "About the purpose of the program and why I am uninterested in it, namely that it's designed to teach management through current roles--which makes you just as much a follower as anyone behind you. Also, how you're incapable of considering that someone might actually not be jealous of how special you are." A beat. "K'del?" That breaks his stride; he sounds confused. Any good-will that Farideh might have had, any sympathy is immediately dashed by his reply and she points to the outside of the booth. "Get out, now," is constrained but angry, and if he doesn't start moving fast enough she'll try to help by pushing him with hands and shoulder; out, out, out! "You don't even want to be one of us," she bites out. "I don't even understand why you stood." Out he goes, just ahead of those pushing hands. R'van's own smile is tight and knowing in answer to that final jab, as he turns to actually depart this time. "Good evening, Farideh." A farewell would be too kind, and so Farideh only glares after him. Her stare is broken when the waitress arrives with that second glass of wine. She settles into the booth she, now, alone occupies, one arm crossed over her chest, and sips her wine, but can't quite settle enough to remove the lingering irritation from her face. It will inevitably be a long evening pouring over her notes and slogging through emotions, again. |
Comments
Alida (04:03, 25 May 2015 (EDT)) said...
Ahhhhh..! There was almost a sense of a tiny connection beginning to build between Farideh and Rafe...*Poof* ^^
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