Logs:The Importance of the Past
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| RL Date: 24 August, 2011 |
| Who: Iolene, Kesil |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Iolene is on a quest to find a place to study and finds a familiar face instead to chat with until Ysavaeth lays the smack down. Study. Right. |
| Where: Nighthearth, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 2, Month 8, Turn 26 (Interval 10) |
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| This summer morning finds Kesil sitting hunched over the round table near the centre of the cavern that is the nighthearth. It is generally sparsely populated, especially in the morning, which may be why the young man has brought himself here. A small piece of hide sits on the table in front of him, a writing implement in hand and a small mug nearby. When a person shifts about, enters or leaves the cavern, he glances up, the calm expression on his face looking forced. On the island, really another lifetime, Iolene used to be a hunter of sorts, generally of fish, or whatever other tiny animals managed to breed in such barren wastelands. But her tenure at the Weyr's made for those silent footfalls to become decidedly less so and her arrival into the nighthearth is weighed down by a stack of study guides. Looking haggard in a different way than their last encounter (more awake and stressed rather than sleeping standing up), a quick survey of the lay of the land draws Kesil into her line of sight and an unbidden smile emerges as quick as the steps it takes to shove her face in between his and the hide he writes upon. "Good morning." All smiles and sparkles, never mind all the studying she has to do. Kesil may have glancesd up absently as just another person enters the room, most likely soon to part. However, unbeknownst to him, this person makes it much harder for him to ignore by placing her head just so with the oh-so cheerful greeting. Giving nothing short of a spectacular start, Kesil barely grabs the arms of the chair to prevent an overbalancing, arms immediately after thrown out to hastily flip over the piece of hide. His return greeting is stammering at best, "Good morning to you, too. What brings you to this nook of the Weyr?" Iolene glances back to the hasty flip curiously but with all the maturity of her oh so many years, refrains from asking. Having captured Kesil's attention, Iolene takes a few steps back and then a few steps to the side, planting her stack of study guides on the table and plants her elbows on the top in a forward lean. "We're going to be given exams soon and Ysavaeth- Ysavaeth says I need to study so I don't fail them and said she's heard from other dragons that the nighthearth is a very quiet place." Usually, when teenage girls aren't chatting up boys they've just met. "And if I could just learn how to tune her out in my head, I wouldn't, but she seems to know exactly what I'm doing when I'm doing it and I clearly still haven't learned those lessons of weyrlinghood yet." The rue in the last comment returns a sheepish smile to her lips. "What about you? Writing secret love letters?" "Something like that..." Kesil murmurs, shoving the hide away from the weyrling, or at least far enough that he could intercept any attempt at taking and absconding with it. "Super secret." His voice has reached some level of normality, but his beathing remains heightened, and looking like his heart may still be pounding in his throat. To shift attention, he asks, with what looks genuine curiousity, "What sort of things are on these exams? I daresay I am ignorant when it comes to the aspects of dragons." He lets out a small chuckle, "At least it sounds more pleasent then that rider I ran into that claimed his dragon used that bond to do nothing but constantly argue with him. Though-" The chuckle fades to a frown, "-he seemed to believe that there isn't real honour in riding." This may be a gross misinterpretation, but the young man seems truly perturbed. The curiosity of a too-recently-brokenhearted seventeen year old girl follows where that hide goes exactly and seems to weight the benefits of reaching for it versus the difficulty of it all. At least, that's what it might seem those narrowed, speculative eyes might be thinking, but in the end, Iolene shrugs her slender shoulders up and gives up without an attempt instead turning her undivided upon Kesil himself. "They want us to... They say all their riders need to be educated. So we're going to be tested on reading, writing, maths, and history." The last quirks her lips in a funny manner. "But I somehow doubt it's very comprehensive history. I'm learning-," Io sinks her knee down into the chair by her, the rest of her following slowly atop, "-That history isn't always the truth." Seeing his letter is safe, Kesil turns his attentions to the weyrling, no longer making what he hopes were sneaky glances at the hide. He lifts a hand to rest his cheek upon as he regards the young woman, "Being educated isn't something bad, is it? I don't regret what I know, nor the time spent to learn it. Why I..." He pauses, knitting his brows before carefully adding, "I had a... father who wanted me to be smart. For him." Her remark on history gets a frown, and a drop of Kesil's eyes as he avoids making an immediate response by trying to take a sip of the liquid in the nearby mug. Only a little passes his lips before he places the mug back with a grimace, muttering, "insipid stuff...." He schools the frown into something more neutral, offering an encouraging look as he replies, "What makes you feel it isn't the truth? Or isn't comprehensive?" Iolene's sharp chin finds a hand to cradle it in and she leans the light weight of her body into the elbow that digs into the table. "I guess, back home, knowing how to read and write and add and subtract didn't put food into our mouths," is her immensely practical reasoning. "I don't really know how it is here though or how knowing all that makes you a better person. And it's hard, sitting and listening to the harpers and reading the texts, to believe anything they say when no one seems to know why we- I mean, our great great great grandparents were exiled in the first place. Like they were ashamed of what they did." Her words are for Kesil, but her eyes have again drifted to that hide. "Is she pretty? Your girlfriend?" "It still doesn't, but it lets you join a group that is a requirement for those people who wouldn't even be able to hunt or live, to do so." Kesil begins, before pausing with a thoughtful knit of brow, "I don't really know why I am defending the riders or their ways. I don't know why you'd need those things to do what you need to do. Doing what you need to do is always what is most important." Kesil manages to remain surprisingly even at the mention of the exiles, only letting out a quiet clearing of his throat before, "Do not let the faults of your-" He pauses, looking conflicted, "-the faults of all our ancestors get you down. You have earned where you are on your own, no matter to who or where you came from." The last comment causes the young man to offered a pained smile, a glance of his own at the hide, "I wouldn't know. I haven't met one. It isn't like that..." A flicker of surprise sends her lashes up again from that hide. "I'm not ashamed of my family," is her very firm assertion. "I wonder if the people who exiled them are ashamed of what they did. I'm gathering from my reading, that the winners usually like to gloat their victories or the bad people they execute or exile. Why-," Iolene poses the question with tilt of her all to blonde head, "Was there no gloating this time? No mention? No celebrations that the people who did such wrongs were sent to die? What happened that was so wrong?" Perhaps the last carries in it a plaintive note, a briefly checked sigh that expels finally when those steadfast blue eyes drop back down to her study guides. "These don't hold the answer." "I have heard that, and this is just what I have heard, I assure you," Kesil seems all too eager to convince that the second part is mean as hearsay and nothing more. "Some of the exiles claim to be of the blood." He doesn't explain further, just treating that phrase as if obvious. "Maybe there is political machinations behind this. Hiding the usur...." He trails off, offering an apologetic grin, the word most likely cut off before it could be interpreted, "people, so that there is no backlash. Why else would they not just have been executed on the spot?" He seems oblivious of how tactless that may have been. His gaze softens slightly as he looks at the weyrling, "Is your past really that important to you?" Listening intently, Iolene is jarred out of that glazed look when Kesil replaces one word for another, the initial confusion sliding away when he continues. "When people come and take you away from your home and give you a new home, saying you shouldn't have been living there in the first place, wouldn't you wonder why? It would have been easier if the Weyr had just minded its own business." That this conversation troubles her is visible in the sorrowful pain in her dark eyes and in the sudden change of subject Io offers a very poor attempt at a tease. "Tell me about yourself. About your girlfriend that you've never met and yet still write to." At least, this brings back a semblance of her smile. "Would you prefer to be still where you were? Still on the islands without Ysavaeth-" He says the dragons name hesitantly, as it is likely wrong, "-without the opportunity before you?" While still oblivious to the extent this topic troubles the girl, he can still see the pained look and puts out his palms to indicate no need to continue that thread of conversation or answer of his questions. The change of topic gets his eyes to look past her head, as if having to remember to answer her question, "I'm just a lonely little hold boy. Grew up in a small cot hold over-" a hand absently waves in a westernly direction, "-that ways. My father insisted I be trained by a harper and I attended the classes at the main hold. I am here because I'm making my own way and learning what I can from the world." He gives a small, twist of a smile, "There is no girl, though not that I would ever avoid that." She's passed the subject he continues to comment on, though she can't help the twitch that claims her features at the mention of a life without Ysavaeth. Iolene is passed all that and her elbow braced against the study guides falls so both arms stretch forth across the length of the table, hands clasped. "So it's not a love letter then," says the girl, infusing cheer, however false it might be, into her voice. "I'm Iolene. I don't think I remembered to introduce myself before. So many people seem to know my name now without me telling them too. It's... different." "Nope." Kesil replies with a grin, the false cheer enough to fool the occasionally oblivious young man. "And no, you didn't remember to give your name before, but since you did, I'm Kesil." He pauses, the cheerful grin fading slightly, "I guess it is quite the change to come from where you did and end up riding a gold dragon at one of the Weyrs. I couldn't even imagine." "I'm learning," is all Iolene says of how she manages, "What it all means. Quinlys was helping me for a little while." Her voice trails off and a glance casts over her shoulder. "But I guess we're all busy lately, learning how to be dragonriders. Everyone said she was going to Impress the gold dragon. I tried to see if she wanted to trade, but I guess it's not possible. I wouldn't really want to trade Ysavaeth anyway," is added in a lower, confidential tone and a quirked, more genuine smile. "Well, I can believe that you'd be busy!" Kesil offers a conciliatory smile. "I still would just be mindlessly blubbering with how overwhelming all that would be, or at least from what I can decide based on what riders tell me." The smile shifts to a cheeky grin and he leans casually on an elbow, "I am not really one to be able to tell anyone what being a rider all means, but if you just need a body to talk to, I'd like to say I'm good at it." "Really?" Iolene looks one part flattered and one part grateful at his offer. A hand reaches forward for Kesil's hand, so she might clasp it in her small fine-boned hand. Kind, "I appreciate that," but, "Maybe if we get to know each other better." She laughs, a noise that sounds a little foreign and hollow coming from her throat now, as if she might be mocking her forthcoming words: "I'm not ready to share all my deep dark secrets with you just yet. Not that I really have any any more that everyone doesn't already know." Emo and passive-aggressively concluding her thoughts, the seventeen year old shifts backwards and picks off the top of her study guide. "Do you mind if I just study here, quietly for a bit? Ysavaeth says I need to stop talking to you. For now." Kesil accepts the offered hand to clasp his own, but he makes no move to do anything but leave it, unmoving, on the table until she may decide to remove it. "I didn't mean your deepest secrets or anything of the sort. Just-" He waves a hand, searching for the word, "-a conversation when you just need to relax and stop worrying about all that may be getting you down." He offers what is hoped to be a genuine, caring smile, though it looks as though it is an unfamiliar expression, a caricature of itself. At her request, he stands to his feet, hand immediately packing the hide into his back pocket. "Good luck on your studies. I won't let myself be a distraction!" And with that, the young man strides, relaxed in step, out of the cavern. |
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