Logs:Teaching Independence
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| RL Date: 21 October, 2015 |
| Who: Dee, Hattie |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Weyrwoman Hattie teaches soon-to-graduate Dee a lesson on independent action. |
| Where: Council Room, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 23, Month 1, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Ali/Mentions, Lilah/Mentions, Orialu/Mentions |
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>---< Council Room, Fort Weyr(#839RJs$) >------------------------------------<
The Weyr's meeting space is a long, oval space with a large stone table
placed in the middle. There's seating enough for twelve around the table:
plenty of room to welcome most of the Weyrleaders and a good portion of
the Lord Holders from the north, though additional seating might be needed
if a Pern-wide meeting were to be held here.
A sideboard stands ready to serve, regardless of the occasion and is kept
well-stocked with carafes of wine, water and several fine liquors. Fresh
flowers, appropriate to the season are changed out regularly in the vase
atop the sideboard. Tapestries depicting Fort's illustrious history from
founding, to Moreta's role in the Plague to Lessa's arrival to bring the
Weyrs forward in time bedeck the walls, leavening the omnipresence of
cool, gray stone. Well-lit, the chamber boasts glows in niches around the
room, as well as oil lamps hanging from the ceiling. As the months have gone by, weyrling duties have becomes more reasonable and more practiced, taking less and less time. Even now, while shadowing the wings, the senior weyrlings have more time on their hands than they did in the early months of weyrlinghood. Most of them, anyway. For Dee, however, it's simply been a sliding scale of 'so very busy'. As weyrling duties lessen, goldrider training requirements increase. Spending more of her time with Hattie, Erinta and the others who are lending her experience under supervision. This morning, Jasper Wing doesn't need Dee, and so she arrives in the council chambers in search of Hattie to find other matters to occupy her. Perhaps it has become habit for Hattie to have her own work and more prepared of a morning - or of any time of day - for beside the usual stack of reports and ledgers and requisition forms, there's a small collection of parcels and messages sat so very clearly separated from the hidework. Elaruth's straps are slung across the back of the usual chair she's adopted at the head of the table, and the dress the Weyrwoman might normally wear has been exchanged for snug leathers, despite the fact that she is doing nothing more than neatly printing data across a row on the nearest hide. "Have a seat," she invites, without looking up, footsteps evidently all that are required to draw words from her. Dee's eyes draw to the correspondence and packages as they habitually do. It's always a small effort to suppress the childlike excitement for packages that might mean something wonderful, but by now, it's routine to do so and only the twitch of fingers betray her want to open them now. "What's on the docket for today, ma'am?" Dee inquires as she shrugs out of her worn out flight jacket to wrap around the back of her chair before taking her seat. "I'm taking Citrine out on a training exercise and then South for a few hours," Hattie supplies of her own plans so far as much of the day goes, just as she finishes writing a last few numbers and sets her pen down. She doesn't exactly slouch in her chair, but she sits back, shoulders straight, and regards Dee with a steady, dark-eyed stare. "They," a nod towards the messages and so on, "are for you to deliver." Except for one, which she reaches out to curl fingers around and draw closer to her, its Smith mark clear only as she moves it. "They're inconsequential, mostly. Excuses, really. But they'll take you to several of our wealthier holds." Explanation does not follow; she waits. For questions? Dee is nodding along right up until what her duty entails becomes clear. Then her head stills and wide hazel eyes have rounded as she regards the Weyrwoman. "Ma'am?" is uncertain, followed by, "Do you want me to go-- alone?" To the wealthy Holds where she might mess any number of things up when left to her own devices. Those fears are plain enough on her face. "Independently," is Hattie's word of choice to counter alone. "Without me and without a bronzerider of any description playing escort or tag-along. None of the messages or packets contain anything that you'll be interrogated about, but it's important that you're seen to be making journeys and visits of your own without holding anyone's hand or anyone trying to get in good via your status." She gestures to the little pile again. "Locate the people they're for, if you can, and spend some time speaking with them. If you can't find them, then use your best judgement and find the next best person. Speak with them too." There no sense as Dee looks to the packages that the young woman thinks of previous visits with bronzerider (or otherwise) escorts as having been wrong. Perhaps she's never been taught that lesson, if indeed there's a lesson to be taught there. This time her eyes settle on the parcels with quiet alarm instead of wonder. It's a different kind of excitement to be sure. "That's-- what I'm going to have to start doing, isn't it." It's not really a question, and it's not really about the parcels. She looks to Hattie. "I'm going to start doing things independently now. That's what graduation is going to mean for me?" Now she asks, brows dipped down, concern touching her face. The self-doubt is that of one who's never tested their independence. Of all the weyrlings, Dee has opted more than most to be a homebody, to stick around the Weyr to learn things here instead of going out into the world to explore it and gain experience that way. That she hasn't is telling in her expression and the way this idea unsettles her. "You're going to need to be seen and you're going to need it known what kind of woman you are." Hattie states that without any sentimentality or even much emotional investment, her words crisp and clear, quite as if sending someone to war, not on a theatrical delivery round. "If you're perceived to lean on others wherever you go, you'll never be seen as your own person. People will engineer reasons to be near you and help you, or find others to do so for them. Worse, they'll cut you out entirely and deal with those you're seen with most often. Who, in turn, will deal with you." She lets that Smith-marked parcel reach a halt just to one side of her hidework. "You need to forge your own links and introductions, without someone there to prompt, 'Have you met weyrwoman Dee'?" She wrinkles her nose. "Dahlia." Hattie's words leave Dee's forehead wrinkled as she looks at the packages, obviously mulling over everything the Weyrwoman has said. "Dahlia. I introduce myself as Dahlia. Weyrling Dee, weyrwoman Dahlia." She slips out of her chair to move to begin looking over the labels on the packages, to where she will be going. "Is the whole world out to use me or abuse me?" This question almost doesn't surface, but in the end it's voiced quietly. "As cruel as it may sound, I think you've an opportunity there," Hattie answers slowly. "If you can make that distinction between Dahlia and Dee. I never managed to be anyone but who I thought I needed to be. I don't suppose I've ever thought I should try." She's matter of fact about it, no irony conveyed; no indication of the construct acknowledging herself. "You need to be aware that most people will take anyone else for whatever they can get. Your links to and potential to give people what they wish is just all the more obvious." "It's a little strange for me," Dee admits after a slow nod for Hattie's words about an opportunity. "Dee was always the loved daughter and Dahlia the one to get in trouble. It's odd now that Dee is the one with room to err and Dahlia needs to get things right." She shifts another parcel. "I believe people are good, but that even good people need things, want things, and some choose stupid ways to get them." The touch of a blush to her cheeks shows she counts herself among that number. "But I can't stop seeing the person just for how they might use me." She tilts her head toward the older woman, expression thoughtful, "I'm not good at this, you know?" She nods to the parcels, but she must mean the wider task of interacting with the Holds. "I'm sooner found in a Hold's orchard talking about grafting techniques than I am in the Holder's parlor talking about Weyr relations. I see my weaknesses and am trying to learn from people whose strengths are in where mine are not. In a sense, I'm using them as much as they're using me." There's a touch of wryness to that thought. "If you learn anything at all, you'll come to understand exactly when they are trying to exploit all that you can do for them." Hattie twitches one shoulder in a rather stiff motion. "There's no shame in beating someone at their own game. And you have a much greater need for self-preservation than many others, if only because your fate is tied into those of people you may never even meet. If you learn enough, you might even work out how to turn being supposedly not good at this into something that will work for you." One finger taps the small package that she's drawn close. "This one is for you, when you return and have completed reports about your visits." Dee's lips press together, tightening as she listens. There's briefly a look that flashes, close to disappointment, as she dips her head a little to squint at one of the smaller labels. She straightens to look over at the package indicated by the older woman. "What is it?" seems the logical question of the package and is asked as she moves to collect her jacket, shrugging it on. "Something that might remind you what you are, when you need it." What, not who, her words chosen carefully. Hattie watches Dee for half a moment more, then deliberately directs her gaze towards her hidework and retrieves her pen in quite an affected manner. "...Ali needed a mother," she says more quietly than anything she's uttered so far. "Orialu needed an enemy. Lilah needed someone to stay her hand against herself, at times." She begins to write. "Forgive me, but I don't think you need any of those things. You need a teacher; you have that. Should you need anything else..." It's an offer, if not a terribly accessible one, not when she can't manage to look at her. Dee's hands slow on her buckles, eyes settling on Hattie, expression conflicted. In the end, it's a simple, "Thank you, ma'am," for the offer, for the package that will await her. Collecting the parcels, she draws them against her chest. "I'll see to my duties, by your leave," is the only other answer she manages, expression still digesting that offer, those words. Hattie only nods, without looking up at all, the focus on her work a dismissal of one variety, and her silence one of another nature completely. |
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