Logs:The Grand Tour
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| RL Date: 28 February, 2012 |
| Who: K'del, Toren, Viveili |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Apprentice Viveili arrives at High Reaches, and is met, by chance, by K'del and Toren. |
| Where: Bowl / Craft Complex, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 6, Month 2, Turn 28 (Interval 10) |
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| Western Bowl, High Reaches Weyr The bowl's vast dirt floor extends in a rough oval from west to east, only sparse clumps of grass surviving between the crisscrossed pathways of daily traffic. To the northwest stand massive gates to the world beyond, allowing people, livestock, and tithes to pass beneath some of the seven jagged spires that stand sentinel over that area of the bowl. In late afternoons, their spindly, fingerlike shadows stretch over that end of the bowl all the way to the living cavern's hulking brass doors in the far north. Eastward, the bowl sprawls on toward the lake, sloping slightly downward to allow runoff from rain and snowmelt, but to the south it's caged by more cliffs of dark, rough-cut granite. Rocks poke up from the ground here, a few large boulders and many smaller outcroppings worn smooth in spots by time and use. A few ground weyr entrances dot the wall, the most frequented ledge set up like a patio while the largest ledge services the Weyrleaders' complex, directly beside the huge entrance to the hatching sands. A more human-sized entrance, left of that, leads to the galleries. A layer of gray clouds hangs oppressively around the spires. The air is humid and cool, but there is no snowfall today.
Cadejoth is aloft, this evening, his pale, green-bronze form weaving idle circles around the spindles far above the bowl - one after another after another. He greets the Telgari blue with a warm, overly enthusiastic bugle, but doesn't interrupt his flight beyond that. It's coincidence that, a few moments later, his tall, lanky rider can be seen departing the caverns, out into the chilly evening. It's coincidence, too, that has his path aiming him vaguely in Viveili's direction, close enough, ultimately, that her words of choice carry towards his ears. His laugh is wry; his words, less so. "Need a hand there?" Toren is bundled up against the cold and perhaps even more so his guitar is bundled up to protect it against the cold. He spots the dragon come down and drop off the girl. He moves over and give a smile, "Hello there! Welcome to High Reaches Weyr! I'm Toren, apprentice harper." The laughter catches Viveili's attention, her immediate reaction of annoyance riddled across her brow; that her nerves are frayed is patently obvious to most. She takes as good a look at K'del as she can in the moonlight when he speaks, however, and the words along with noting his shoulder knot instigate clearing her throat and attempting to straighten her posture. With another sigh, she drops the duffle bag and her words come out in a rush, "If you're inclined to be more helpful than that feckless fool from Telgar who dropped me on my rear and took off without doing much, then I would appreciate that. I probably should have waited to tip him. I have the appropriate letters in one of my bags. I was to hand one to the Weyrleaders and another to the Journeyman Starsmiths posted here." That out, she sighs again, and glances towards Toren, favoring the young apprentice with a smile. "Thank you for the greeting. I'm apprentice Viveili of the Starsmiths, by the way." The last sentence is directed at both K'del and Toren. To his credit, K'del seems genuinely apologetic, and almost immediately. Viveili's words have a distinct result, too: he straightens, his posture turning ever so slightly more formal, his expression likewise. He's obviously noted Toren, but aside from a vague nod in the harper's direction, his attention remains rather more focusedly on the starsmith. "Sorry about Telgar's rudeness, in that case; it's not something /my/ riders would get away with. At any rate, you're in luck: can take one of those letters, myself, and show you where the other needs to go. And where /you/ need to go, at that. Welcome to High Reaches, Apprentice Viveili. Let me carry something for you." Toren blinks as he looks at K'del, the person he was talking to about the snowball fight with the two little boys, "You're the Weyrleader?" He blinks as he was never introduced to the Weyrleader, although his parents no doubt where." He clears his throat and he troes to make himself helpful, "Here let me help you with your bags if you don't mind." "Thank you, Weyrleader. I'll get the letter out as soon as I can," Viveili says politely, offering a rather charming smile to the man. "That rider wasn't even punctual in his arrival time for conveyance, as my master and I had stipulated in the letter to Telgar. Perhaps the letter was off-putting or confusing. Would you mind grabbing the duffle from the ground, sir?" She glances back to Toren and smiles winningly at him as well, "Perhaps you could carry one of these tubes? Can you manage it and your guitar? They aren't heavy, just a bit bulky, but they contain my charts and maps so I clung to them for dear life. I was, admittedly, a bit afraid of accidentally dropping them /between/." Clearly, if nothing else, Viveili is a young woman used to delegating some tasks. Casually, K'del remarks, "Would have thought recognising Weyrleaders was something they taught at the Harper Hall; perhaps not." It doesn't sound as though he's offended - and, in fact, a moment later he's grinning at Toren - but there's something pointed about it nonetheless. Turning his attention back to Viveili, he nods, reaching down to grab up the duffle and swing it over his shoulder. "Sounds like it's been quite difficult; I'm sorry to hear it. Least you've made it here in one piece, right? Smooth sailing from hereon in. Now - Craft Complex is over the bowl, here. Bit nasty when the snow gets heavy, but there's plenty of room." He indicates with one hand, pointing a path out towards the eastern end of the bowl. Toren nods, "Well I know all the names of all of them, would you like me to recite them for you?" He asks as he nods to Viveili, "Sure I can take the tubes." He goes to take the tubes and he picks them up carefully. He knows how to be careful with stuff that is treasured. "Come on let's get out of the cold." He looks over to K'del, "Lead the way." "I wouldn't say difficult, really, just inconveniencing to more than one person," Viveili remarks to K'del after he finishes explaining the layout, "and a bit annoying since I did tip that man well, above what the Hall usually pays for transportation of Starsmiths to their posts." Once the last of her cargo burden is remitted to the Weyrleader and the harper, Viveili slips her hand into the bag at her hip and pulls out two folded letters, each addressed to a set of recipients and sealed by the Master Starsmith. Viveili peers at the first letter, squinting in the moonlight to read the script on the surface. "Aha! 'To the Weyrleader and Weyrwoman of High Reaches Weyr'. I suppose this should go to you," she tells K'del with a sly smile as she tucks the second letter back into the bag. She considers Toren and her tubes of maps, charts and materials, telling him, "You probably can't see in the light, but one is marked 'maps' and the other is marked 'charts' with some sort of more permanent ink designed by the smiths." K'del is pretty hasty with his, "Think I can do without that, Toren, but thanks all the same. I believe you!" He gives that apprentice a wry little smile to go with it, then turns his attention back to Viveili, with whom he is a little more serious. "Even so, you've surely had enough to deal with, in making the move. You're happy to be here, I hope?" He accepts the letter with a dip of his head, tucking it carefully into the pocket of his coat as he says, "I'll pass it on to my Weyrwoman in the morning, and have it put in the records." Leaving the two apprentices to talk, he indicates the way for a second time, and, this time, commences walking towards the far end of the bowl. Toren smiles back at the Weyrleader, "Okay." He nods to Viveili, "I'll be careful with them all like they were my own instruments. I'm sorry about the rider just dropping you off like that. What did you think of between? It was super scary wasn't it." "I was originally apprenticed as a smith at the Igen Smith Hall, and then within a few months I was sent to the Starsmiths at Telgar, so moving isn't an unfamiliar concept," Viveili tells K'del with a resigned shrug. "I wasn't expecting to leave the Crafthall this early, however. I was posted because my mentor decided I needed a new environment to inspire worthwhile research." She delivers the last sentence tonelessly, the stark blandness conveying what might be impolitic to express in words: her displeasure at reassignment. As they begin the trek across the Bowl, Viveili rubs at her nose to consider her answer to Toren's question. She finally confesses, "My first time /between/ I was scared senseless, to be sure. I am somewhat used to it now, but it still leaves me feeling a bit uneasy." K'del listens more than he converses, as they walk, casting the occasional glance back to one apprentice or the other. He's careful to keep his stride short so that they can keep up, too - perpetually conscious of his own much longer legs. "Ah," he says, quietly, perhaps as much to himself as to Viveili. "Yes, of course. Can imagine it would be difficult, as a crafter. Posted wherever you're posted, at the whims of your masters." Of Between, he seems disinclined to comment; they probably can't see the amused smile that settles onto his expression, the one that only lasts a few seconds, but is genuine all the same. Toren nods, "Did you grow up with parents who are smiths? Both of my parents are harpers and they are posted here at the Weyr. I got to come with them when they were posted here to gain some experience. They treat me just like they would any apprentice. Well I hope you like it here. The people are very nice here that I've found so far." He nods, "Makes you appreciate what dragonriders have to go through every time they go between." Viveili glances sideways at K'del for his comment. She clears her throat gently and then pays attention to her surroundings and the path from where she was dropped off to her destination. "When you apprentice, you agree to the tenets and precepts of your craft. Or for some, your parents agree," she says with a slight smile, her gaze darting from the path to Toren. "My parents aren't smiths. They farm river grain in Igen. I have eight siblings, and even if apprenticing me to the Smiths lost one worker, it was at least one less mouth to feed." As if expecting criticism of that thought, she immediately continues speaking, "It was the best choice for me and for them. I am not the best laborer, but I am good with numbers." "Of course," agrees K'del, smoothly, not glancing back this time as he leads them across towards the man-made structures that mark out the craft complex. "We all do our duty." It's only as they begin to get closer that he glances back, remarking, "You get used to it, Toren. Some dragonriders enjoy the exhilaration of it. The thrill. Others-- well, it's better than flying straight everywhere, no matter what my Cadejoth says." He shifts the bag on his shoulder, continuing easily, "I've eight siblings, too. Easier on a family, when some of them move on. So it's numbers you're best with, Viveili? That your speciality?" Toren nods, "You don't have to tell me that, I'm just lucky I'm good at music and I like music. I think it would break my father's heart if I hated music and wanted nothing to do with it. Wow! That's alot are you the older or the youngest or somewhere in the middle? I'm my parents only child. They got it right once and didn't want to mess with perfection." He looks towards K'del, "I don't know how you get used to it or could find it fun. It's just nothing, cold nothing, darker that the darkest dark." "Yes, most of us do our duties, even it chafes," Viveili says somewhat blandly, but if one manages a good glimpse of her face, a faint smile tugs at her generous mouth. She's quiet during the explanation of /between/, and after a quiet moment, she speaks of family and mathematics. "I was the sixth of eight children, so it took six attempts and two accidents before my parents found perfection and realized it," she says wryly. She pauses to let that sink in and then continues, "I was more adept at counting for a quota or turning numbers over in my head or on a slate or in the dirt than I ever was at being a farmhand. That was usually what my task was when it came to harvests, but while math is a talent of mine, it isn't my specialty as a Starsmith. I haven't fully specialized, really, but I wanted to find applicable models for using the star charts and our knowledge of the moon and tides to aid farmers in planting and harvesting. I was told to find something else to research." She grimaces. "But you /do/ get used to it," says K'del, firmly, even if he's got an understanding expression on his face for Toren's distaste. He leads the way past the outdoors equipment, carefully sweeping wider than he needs to to avoid any possible collision given the evening's darkness. "Planting and harvesting?" Surprisingly, the Weyrleader sounds genuinely interested. "Why wouldn't they want you to research that? Sounds useful. We've always had ambitions," by 'we', he clearly means himself, "to have our own farmland, here. It'd make a huge difference, having that kind of information at hand. Can't imagine anyone can afford not to have as much information as possible." Beat, "In here, anyway. Warm and bright inside, I promise." He swings open the door, gesturing for the two apprentices to proceed him through to the complex within. Toren continues to walk with the others and he nods, "I understand. I never really liked learning all those drum codes, but I did it even though it was a lot of memorizing. Even though I disliked it I put myself fully into it so that I could learn it faster and get it done with. The actual drumming of the messages was fun to learn about." Toren nods a little bit, "Hey did you hear there was a hatching at Fort Weyr? I didn't get to go but my parents did. That's one of the reasons I'm glad I'm at a Weyr I can see the hatching first hand instead of having to hear about them." He wrinkles his nose a little bit at farming, but he doesn't say anything as he's learned over the past seven day it's best sometimes to keep your mouth shut. Viveili blinks rapidly until her eyes adjust to the lighting as they step inside: indoors here it is brighter than the dark evening. "My advising Master didn't find it to be useful work, and I'm afraid that is mostly the end of it -- said something about Pern doing fine with farming since before written record." The words carry a hint of bitterness, and Viveili merely shrugs. "If I'm still feeling rebellious and subversive over the next month, perhaps I'll find research the craft finds suitable and do MY preferred research on the side. Meanwhile, it seems I'll be tracking the night skies to find something else to model. I'll probably become acquainted with the nighttime watchriders." She pauses to look around, and then tells Toren, "That Telgar rider mentioned something about Fort having a hatching in some attempted pithy but ultimately useless comments about politics." "Unfortunately, our relations with Fort are currently... less robust than they have been," says K'del, ever so carefully, in a way that largely glosses over the why: something about High Reaches stealing Boll from Fort, if they've been listening to gossip at all. "Or more people may have attended the hatching. No doubt there will be more for you to watch, Toren. Wait long enough, and any weyr you can name will have one." His expression is rather less careful with regards to his opinion of Viveili's masters - he's clearly not impressed - but he aims for something relatively neutral with his, "Ah, well, I hope you can find some way of making it work for you. Do you want to simply see the dorms for tonight, and worry about reporting formally in the morning?" Toren nods a little bit, "I've heard something about that. I think it had to do with a spy or something like that. I wouldn't want to go around repeating gossip that I've heard. I'd rather know the truth of what's going on, but unfortunately apprentices doesn't get to hear the news very often from first hand sources often time it's only third or fifth hand sources." He looks towards K'del, "So were you there are the party? Was there really a spy there to assassinate the Lord Holder's favorite um...well you know how lord holders have all them girls." He's not really sure what to call those ladies. "Hmm," intones Viveili at K'del's comment on politics. "That bluerider tried to be witty about the situation, and I would be lying if I said his comments were intelligent or humorous. Perhaps he dropped me and my things in the middle of the Weyr bowl because I didn't laugh at his jokes. We Starsmiths are a humorless lot, though, and perhaps no one informed him of our shortcomings." Again, her wry humor surfaces (although Viveili may be bordering on melodrama at this point.) She lets out an exaggerated sigh, and then smiles at both K'del and Toren, glancing between the two. "Toren, you might want to watch what you repeat, but taking in information and learning to sift the chaff from the grain would certainly be the making of a great Harper. Now, Weyrleader, I do believe that settling into the dorm should be my priority before my sharp tongue has my betters getting the better of me. In the morning I will report to my superiors here, and if I'm looking for gossip, I suppose I shall seek out Toren." "Toren!" K'del seems surprised, and not so much /offended/ as, perhaps, concerned. "Is that what they're saying? Wouldn't repeat that one, if I were you, not sure that'll do anyone any favours. Not true, so far as I know, anyway." Viveili's reaction to the remarks draws a nod from the Weyrleader, who allows, "I guess that's what harpers are good at, at any rate. Well - Dorms are just down there," he indicates, with his hand, the door at the end of the corridor. "Welcome to High Reaches, Viveili. If there's anything you require, don't hesitate to ask. The Headwoman and her staff are here to support our crafters, just as much as everyone else." Toren looks over at Viveili, "I am striving to find the truth and you find out the truth by asking questions and by listening. I've been listening and now that I know that it's not true I can tell everyone that asks that it's not true. That's what Harpers do is that we find out the truth and than tell everyone about it." He looks to K'del, "The harpers strive to tell the truth, it's just finding the truth sometimes. So what did really happen at the party?" "You do have me there, but perhaps you should learn better discretion when repeating what you've heard," Viveili tells Toren with a laugh. At least the walk to the craft complex and the chat seem to have put her in a better mood than what her unceremonious arrival prompted. Inevitably, she favors both the apprentice harper and the Weyrleader with a sharp bow to each. "I suppose I will see the both of you around the Weyr, then," she says, relieving both of them of the belongings they had carried for her, and she makes her way towards the apprentice dorm, pausing and turning awkwardly. "Thank you for carrying my things. I appreciate it." With another awkward swivel she turns around and disappears into the dorms. It's not until after Viveili has left - accompanied by K'del's good wishes and friendly farewells - that the Weyrleader turns back to Toren, his mouth twisting back into that so-often-seen rueful smile. "Wasn't there, myself," he says, with a shrug. "Heard a few accounts, but none of them details. Ultimately, it's a dispute between Lord Boll and Fort Weyr, and we've just put ourselves in the middle of it by making a deal with Lord Boll. Could say a lot more about some of it, but-- no. I won't." Toren nods a little bit and he looks up at the Weyrleader, "I'm just curious but doesn't that go against the traditional autonomy that the Weyrs have from each other? I mean what if Lord Boll was wrong and Fort Weyr is right you'd be backing the wrong runner." A little smile plays upon K'del's mouth as he says, "You're sharp, aren't you? All that harper training, I guess." He takes his time before answering the question, though it's obvious from his expression that he's thinking about it, and what he intends to say. "Fort Weyr made some stupid mistakes, and did some pretty unforgivable things, in my opinion. It's a long series of events, longer than just that party, or anything that's happened since. But we-- all we're doing is providing a service. We're not trying to make Boll part of our coverage area, and we're not trying to usurp them. If they can sort things out, fix the damage they've done, we'll step back. In the meantime, I'm looking after my weyr. Things can be-- difficult, during the Interval." Toren smiles, "I try to be, sometimes too smart for my own good though." He ohs a little bit and nods, "As I thought there would be more to it than just a party. I hope that it gets resolved soon, having the weyrs mad at each other can't be very good." After a low exhale, K'del agrees, "No. It's not ideal." He doesn't, however, seem /too/ worked up about it: indeed, his expression is neutral, even placid. A moment later, he's straightening so that he can add, "I ought to be heading back. It's too late for bedtime stories with my boys, but I'd like to check in on them, nonetheless. Have a good night, Toren." Toren nods, "I would imagine not." He smiles, "Please don't let me keep you, have a good night Weyrleader." K'del tips his head at Toren once more, then turns to depart, heading back out into the chilly night and the bowl beyond. |
Comments
Viveili (Viveili) left a comment on Thu, 01 Mar 2012 08:22:19 GMT.
Thanks, K'del, for adding this log!
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