Logs:Timing
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| RL Date: 28 July, 2013 |
| Who: Quinlys, Telavi |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Telavi misses being a weyrling (or something). |
| Where: Weyrling Barracks, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 17, Month 5, Turn 32 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Aishani/Mentions, Azaylia/Mentions, E'sren/Mentions, I'zech/Mentions, Meara/Mentions, N'gan/Mentions, Quielle/Mentions, Z'ian/Mentions |
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| Not for the first time, a greenrider emerges from the mist like some herald of what should be spring but isn't. A tendril of that fog tries to follow her into the barracks, grey and clammy and stealthy, but she outpaces it-- for all that later on she pauses, looking around, listening, loitering. Telavi doesn't call out for anyone, just wanders over to the game table and shuffles a piece or two about. There's a damp spot on the shoulder of her jacket. The period between clutches is a quiet one for weyrlingmasters, even when there is already some suggestion of future clutches on the horizon. The clammy, soupy mist is probably doing terrible things to Meara's joints, making it a reasonable assumption that Quinlys is the one puttering around down in the barracks, humming an off-key kind of tune beneath her breath. The red-headed bluerider comes up for air, and there's Telavi, an unexpected visitor whose presence has the weyrlingmaster jutting her hip against the doorway between barracks and training cavern, and, "Missing us that much?" The blonde head turns, Tela's hair today arranged in a swath of many fine braids, unbound except for the single strip of thin leather that pretends to keep it confined at her shoulders. "Here and I thought it was I'zech," she teases right back as the rest of her turns too, "all cheerful and all. Missing us weyrlings that much, that you had to prompt Hraedhyth to give you another set?" "Far as I'm concerned," says Quinlys, blithely cheerful, "Hraedhyth can keep her legs crossed a few more months at least. Maybe change her mind, take a vacation or something." Telavi shows dimples at that. "I wonder where she would go, if she could. Either of them, really. Should they hold off enough that little Quigi could Stand? Though," she adds, "people say she was traveling, and that was half the warning." Quinlys' grin broadens. "A good twelve odd turns, that'd do us nicely, don't you think? No baby dragons to take up all our resources, no work for me... I could take up sunbathing or something." Says the girl who burns the moment she goes outdoors, of course. "Mm, I heard that, too. I suppose it's better she's got it out of her system, in that case. How is the baby of the hour? Well. His mom, more to the point." "Wouldn't that require you to sit still?" Tela teases, never mind burns or freckles or any of that. Not that she can stand still just now, from toying with a tree to flicking irritably at the air above her shoulder. "He expels liquids at any opportunity, which is just like a boy, don't you think? She seems besotted, with him, with, 'Dear N'gan, he does love us!'" and it may be an exaggerated rendition, but the timing is on. "Point." Sitting still, her expression allows, is not a strong point. Neither is an interest in babies, though Quinlys' grin is broadly amused for that description even so. N'gan, however, draws a wrinkle of her nose. "She'll take him back, won't she. If he goes that far, and it's not just a 'hey, I have a kid, and maybe that's cool' thing that doesn't last ten minutes." Tela rolls her eyes at that last, nodding, and tap-taps her fingertips lightly along the edge of the table: two taps forward, another sideways or back and then back again. "And then the whole thing will happen again," she predicts direly. "And she did the thing, you know what they do, where she insists he smiled at her but everyone else tells her it's just gas," said with Tela's gaze sliding away in a way that's a touch sheepish, a touch guilty... before realization of how it might sound jerks her gaze back to Quinlys, brighter now, laughing. "Quigan, I mean, not N'gan. Although I suppose it could go the other way around, gassy." "Not sure I'd want N'gan's gassy smiles," chortles Quinlys, evidently delighted with the possibility of that switch, though it's obvious she's more inclined to the eyerolling over the rest of it. She straightens from the door, now, meandering towards the couch to run her fingers over the top of it, tendrils of hair escaping her topknot. "My sister was the same, with the whole smiling thing. Not the N'gan thing - thankfully. Oh, Quielle. Like I needed another reminder of why having kids is not for me." "I'd hope not," says Telavi, mock-offended at the sheer possibility. As for Quigan's, well, if the next person told about the smiles winds up being informed that it's not gas and that Tela agreed that he was smiling at his mama too... well, the greenrider's unlikely to be around for that. She shifts as Quinlys does, leaning her hips back against the protective raised edge of the game table. "Older sister, younger sister? I'm glad her family supports her, anyway. It's too bad you're not for children, though, you know; you and N'gan could have a 'Quiga' with the most adorable dimples, that wouldn't be confusing at all." "Younger," is Quinlys' breezy answer on the topic of her sister. "She Impressed when Aishani did, down at Monaco, and didn't do all that much better than Quielle as far as waiting goes... though at least she waited until she was graduated, I guess." The bluerider hoists herself onto the back of the couch, now, balancing her weight carefully on the precarious edge. "'Quiga', hah. I'm just glad Quielle didn't go for Quinegan or something... that really would be confusing. Though I don't suppose any child they have will ever be confused for mine. But still. How's rider life treating you, Tela?" A slight, knowing twist of Telavi's lips precedes, "I hope it was on purpose, anyway," and a stretch that sends the fine whiskey-blonde braids falling over one shoulder. "Quinegan." She has an equally easy laugh for that, and another for confusion's lack before she sobers. "It's, hm. It's good. Boreal's gotten to be an up-and-coming wing, they say," this with enthusiasm that's more polite than otherwise. "Z'ian has his act together, there's-- I'm sorry. Did you want the 'I'm thrilled!' answer?" and that might as well have had triple exclamation points to go with it, given the greenrider's bounce on the thankfully over-engineered table-edge and her thoroughly sparkling smile, just for Quinlys. Quinlys' smiles, offered so easily during those former few statements, falter as Telavi falters; her acknowledgement is in the wry twist of her expression, and that barely-there nod. "No," she says, adjusting her position upon the back of the couch just so. "If I wanted the polite answer, I wouldn't ask at all; I'd just assume everything was amazing and react accordingly." Her gaze is searching, thoughtfully so. "You can always move wings, you know. Later. I never especially clicked with my wing, either, even though they asked for me specifically. But then, I always knew I wanted to be here." Search and she will find... Telavi accepting the negation with a slow nod that doesn't take her eyes off the other rider, a quirky smile toying with her lips a moment later. Her pose isn't quite balanced, resting her weight on one foot while the other barely touches toes to the ground, but she doesn't shift again. "Which wing was that? He said that too, that I could move, later... and that he'd asked for me," she has to add that too, along with the slight lift of her chin that, at least around Quinlys, freely admits to a share of pride. That much, she'd like to think she'd earned. But, "How did you know, here? What was that like?" Quinlys draws one foot up onto the couch back, draping her torso and arms over her raised knee. "It's a nice feeling, being asked for," she agrees, her smile suggesting pleasure for the other rider's good fortune (and presumably skills). "Icicle. The truth is, Olly's never been much for aerial acrobatics, and I have honestly no idea why they thought we'd be a good fit. Though," she's cheerful enough with the acknowledgement, however it makes her look, "we could've done better if I'd wanted us to try, I suppose. I think I worked out a couple of days after we Impressed that I wanted to teach, and that Olly would be perfect for it. Part of it was probably because there'd been all this pressure on me to Impress Ysavaeth, but... it just felt right. And strange, because I was learning but also trying to learn about the teaching, and I probably drove Meara mad." But not so mad that the bluerider didn't later earn her position. Telavi has to share that smile-- and who taught her those skills, after all? follows by a lift of her brows for that very particular wing. "Solith would like to be that acrobatic," she murmurs, and the information in that statement may not be new but the sentiment is softer than it might have been, even just a month or two prior. It lingers, warming her smile at the mere mention of so-perfect Olveraeth. "Why did you want to teach? Or... do you, if that's changed? Is it that you think you have a better way?" "Solith..." but Quinlys doesn't have a proper descriptor for the green: just a warm smile, affectionately approving of the young dragon. The bluerider splays fingers over her knee, and considers Telavi's question. "Yes," she concludes. "I think I have a better way - I mean, with some things. I think I can connect to people in a different way to Meara, and that my way has merit, too. I want to prepare riders for a life without thread. For the life that we're all going to lead; Interval life." Different earns a quirky uptick to Telavi's lips, something both relaxed and amused about her eyes and the dimpled lift of her cheeks: Quinlys can say that again. "Tell me more about your way?" she invites. "What you want to prepare for, but how, too." That amusement only pleases Quinlys, her own amusement so-evident in the brightness of her eyes - though that might also be attributed to her obvious enthusiasm for the topic at hand. "It seems to me," she explains, "that while all the threadfighting-focused stuff is important, we can't just spend all our time preparing for something to train other people in, who will train other people in, all the way down the line until there's Thread again. We have to make our way in a different world, right? So maybe we can start training outside the box more, too." "Right," Telavi's quick to agree, still amused because how long has it been since Quinlys had someone to lectur...discuss things with, anyway? though her smile's been overcome by sheer focus. "But what kind of training is that, what does it look like? Training to do what, specifically I mean?" Someone better provide Quinlys with some weyrlings soon... otherwise, she might start lecturing everyone. Attentive ears make all the difference! "Well," she says, after a moment, scrunching up her features in thought. "I'm still working through some of that. But: I think we all need more skills. Marketable skills. Former crafters should keep up their ties, if they can. And... it's like making sure everyone is capable at first aid. And emergency roof patching, or something." "Do you think their crafts would let them?" Telavi can't help but glance toward where certain possibly-not-penitent bronzeriders' cots had once been, never mind the barrier of stone in the way. Back to Quinlys, she's nodding for first aid, for emergency, only to stop with a distinct curl of her lip when it becomes, "Roof patching, Quinlys. Really?" "Some might," says Quinlys, though her own gaze follows Telavi's, and she wrinkles her nose. "If the riders aren't complete dumbasses. And sure - roof patching. I admit, it's not the kind of thing I'd like to do, but wouldn't it make us more useful? If, in an emergency, we're actually able to step in and help? It's things like that that make people remember that we're useful and worthwhile feeding." Roof patching. Telavi might be a little fixated. "Not just putting a wing over the top or something for a few minutes? If we do those sorts of things, won't they think that we're not good for more, that we don't have better things we could be doing? And is this an actual proper stone roof? I know some of them 'thatch' these days," and Tela says this as a somewhat foreign word that she's picked up in her travels to less-civilized regions that indulge in similarly less-civilized and surely suspicious practices. Quinlys makes a frustrated expression and shakes her head. She's going to have to work on her pitch for this, clearly. "No, no, I mean... temporary stuff, in an emergency. It's not like we go out and do their work for them. No 'Dragonrider Builders' or anything. Just... it seems like it could be useful to be able to be useful, when we run into these kinds of things." At least Telavi doesn't seem to mind that show of frustration, but then, she should be used to it by now; rather, she sits up, listening, with a relieved exhalation at the lack of Dragonrider Builders. "How do you fix a roof even temporarily? How would we do that better than their neighbors?" "Honestly?" Quinlys grins, abruptly. "I have no idea. It's just an example. Maybe there are other things we can learn to do. Fix maps, maybe. Or - shells, I don't know. But it wouldn't hurt to cover the very basics of a bunch of different skills in weyrling training; that's my point. Be prepared for all eventualities, as much as we can be." By the brilliance of Telavi's smile, Quinlys gets considerable bonus points for the admission, even though she at least attempts to employ the frowny brows for the other rider using an example and not knowing. "Fixing maps not being an emergency thing, I hope. 'Quick! E'sren! Pass the inkwell before it's too late!' And those different skills... who knows, maybe people will find new interest in something they hadn't gotten a chance to learn about before, not just to know a smattering but something more. It could happen." She'd been smiling, but now her mouth pulls sideways. "As long as it's not stitching throats." "Hey, now. An inaccurate map could be the difference between life and-- okay, now, I can't say that with a straight face." Nor can she: her grin is brimming with unexpressed laughter. "Right. New skills, new aptitudes. Maybe we can start sending riders to do paid training with different crafthalls or something. I guess that's not really my part of the whole thing, but it's interesting." Beat. "Stiching throats, Tela?" It's belated, but no less bemused for the untimeliness. "You are full of strange ideas." "It's not that an accurate map gets people out of an emergency, it's that an inaccurate map gets them into one," Telavi says with a sniff, her long nose in the air and her hand cupped about her throat. When she drops the pose, though, it's to glance more directly at Quinlys. "It's the skills-becomes-sewing plus emergency, I guess." It's rueful, but not exactly apologetic. "Don't worry, I won't linger. Though I should ask, did we ever learn more?" There are a lot of cheerful-and-potentially-fun things Quinlys could say, but that last question rather forestalls them. "No," she says. "Not unless someone did some investigation and didn't tell me." It has certainly wiped the smile off of her face, and leaves her - at least briefly - at a loss. "A person has to wonder, I guess, if we could have saved some lives, if we'd heard that ship go down in the first place - performed a rescue. But... We didn't. So we couldn't. End of story." A couple quick blinks are followed by, "I sure haven't." But hard on its heels, quieter, "I did take Aishani back to the site? And showed her where some of the boards and things were taken? If that counts." Telavi isn't smiling either. "High Reaches Hold knows we can." Her hands have moved back to the edge of the table, gripping it, and she wonders, "Are you ever tempted to go back between times... you know, to peek?" "Did you?" It's news to Quinlys, and not something she seems to have an opinion on, one way or the other. "Got to wonder what was on that ship at High Reaches, too. That anyone else was so interested to try and take. Unless it was, of course, entirely random." The bluerider is pressing her fingers deeply into her own knee, now, as though in doing so she's exerting some kind of control over something. "Between times? No. Shells, no. I'm not sure you can change things, anyway, and... it just feels like you'd end up feeling helpless. I'm not wholly sure I know how to do it, anyway, you know? Never tried." Her shudder suggests she's never going to. "She asked," and the inflection of Telavi's voice suggests something more cordial than a novice rider unable to say no to a weyrwoman. But it's Quinlys' reaction that has her pushing away from the table to join the bluerider, moving to sit on the arm of the couch instead and touch, for a moment, that hand if it's still on that knee. "No, no, not to change. Only to see what actually happened." Her voice is softer now. That hand is still on that raised knee, and Quinlys' gaze is now on the greenrider, giving her a sidelong, studying glance as she draws her expression into something perhaps predictably smirky. "The point is," she says, drawing back into teacher mode. "How do you know you're not changing things? What's that thing they always say, about how even the slightest shift in anything influences things across the other side of the planet? What if a dragon's wingbeats shift something else? It'd be a disaster." "You're the one who talked about not being sure we could, and now you're worrying about if we could? Weyrlingmaster." Except Telavi doesn't say it like she used to, and she's picked up with the smirkiness likewise. "Plus, doesn't the song say that the other Weyrs were already gone when Lessa brought them back? So the change was 'meant to be,'" said as swoonily as any teenaged girl, complete with fingers twirling in the air like little avians. Quinlys makes a face, as if to accuse Telavi of something - probably 'you used to respect me!', but really, it's all in good fun. "Meant to be, hah. I hate that. Anyway, whatever the whole going through time thing does, I don't like it. We're not meant to be flitting back and forth, knowing things we can't know. So don't let me catch you doing it, mm?" At least the glance she aims at the greenrider is inclined towards the affectionate. "That stupid song." "Dragons weren't meant to be flitting back and forth, fixing roofs," Telavi teases. "And you definitely won't catch me between timing... timing it between... whatever, to do it." She slips off the couch, stretching. "And let me know when you come up with something else, will you? For the Future that we get to the normal way? Aside from emergency map-making, I mean." "Dragons will do what we need them to do," says Quinlys, with an edge of something that could be seriousness. "Even though, I'll own, they - and we - don't like it much. Better that than us going hungry, right?" But a smile follows, bright enough despite that possible seriousness. "I will. And if you think of anything... I'm all ears." |
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