Logs:Trial It
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| RL Date: 18 September, 2015 |
| Who: Hattie, E'dre |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Weyrleaders meet and discuss tithes and transfers. |
| Where: Council Room, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 8, Month 11, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: X'vin/Mentions, N'muir/Mentions, N'rov/Mentions, Nala/Mentions, Astivan/Mentions, Vaion/Mentions, Lilah/Mentions, Farideh/Mentions |
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| From one meeting to another, the morning's work is well in hand by the time it nears the allotted time for the Weyrleaders to communicate what they cannot simply in passing or in the shorter moments when paths cross. Out on the Weyrwoman's ledge, Elaruth lies in a lazy curl with a Bijedth recently returned from drills, her eyes a slow whirl of the blue of contentment, near enough to the shade of the clear skies overhead, while inside the council room Hattie looks more like the tea girl than the Weyrwoman, as she steps slowly around the table, gathering empty cups and plates and all sorts onto a tray for collection. "Shouldn't someone else be doing that?" E'dre asks dryly as he enters the room, looking freshly scrubbed from a recent bath. He flicks his fingers through his still damp hair, sending his hair to spike above his forehead. He, too, seems to be of the mind to do tasks sometimes left to staff members as he's carrying a tray full of edibles that look appropriate for a lunch time meal. He sets this on the table and then steps forward to help Hattie with her dish collection. "Such a pair we are. We can retire and become caverns staff. Our dragons can be mere ornaments to our lives." "I generally believe that you shouldn't ask anyone to do something you're not willing to do yourself, at least so far as the working day goes." Hattie shrugs, conveying no indication that she has any grasp of the understanding that there is no division of the day like that for her. "Elaruth likes ornaments," accompanies another shrug, as she settles the tray at the far end of the table. "She might enjoy being one. Or pretending to be one. Not just yet, mind." She eyes the other tray and begins to stroll back towards the head of the table. "If I've the records right, the clutch of the 'Reaches junior will be of her blood," she remarks as she settles. "I suppose I should find that ironic." "You shouldn't mind doing menial tasks, if there's a need to do them. But if there isn't, why do it? You don't see people rushing in here to help you with your hidework and meetings, do you?" E'dre replies, shrugging as he pours himself a mug of klah. He sniffs it, takes a sip, and grimaces. "Someone keeps burning this." He grabs a blank ledger and other writing material before he slides into a chair. He glances at Hattie with a lifted brow, "Anything that they do in 'Reaches is enough to give you pause." He shakes his head as he takes another sip at the klah. His nose crinkles and runs his tongue out from between his teeth to try and clean the taste from it. "No good." "No, and if they did, I'd tell them where to shove it," Hattie declares, straightening her shoulders. "Only more diplomatically, hopefully, depending on how diplomatic they are about suggesting I require assistance." She glances down at the hides before her and gives a rueful twitch of her lips, "That it is, but I suppose it's nice to know that there'll be more of her line, especially after..." Eliyaveith? She can't - or won't - say it. The goldrider wrinkles her nose in unconscious echo of E'dre and remarks, "I don't know why you drink that stuff." A sigh precedes, "I should bore you with the tithes, I suppose? Fort Hold's situation cannot be entirely a surprise, I'm sure." E'dre doesn't stop the chuckle that follows Hattie's declaration. "You're the only one who would take an offer of help to mean you're lacking." He shoves that klah away from him like its presence is offensive. "Elaruth has a very solid line," he vouches, unable and unwilling to find any reason to not believe that. He grabs his ledger and pulls it closer, stylus up and then set to tapping on the table. "It's not as if Fort Hold's situation hasn't been a surprise for turns now. Haven't they been sending meager tithes now for awhile?" Hattie inclines her head a little. "Not that Astivan seemed to actually care," she says dryly, still bitter over the man the boy became. "His brother is a vast improvement in that department, if nothing else. Whether he can actually produce the rest of what he owes us to supplement the spring tithe... is another matter." Her lips tug to one side before she hazards, "...And I'm not sure you'll like what I want to suggest." "At least he's no longer our concern," E'dre remarks with a shrug. He eases back in his chair, lifting a brow at Hattie. "Let me guess," he doesn't hide the smile that surfaces, "you want me to have riders hunt in the wilds for their meat and the other half of the Weyr will become farmers." He flicks his fingers towards his notes, "Am I close?" "...You'll have to accept my belated apologies, but I've already got some of your wing doing the former..." Hattie replies not terribly apologetically, though she at least manages to be a little contrite about it. "But no," she clarifies. "And I'm assuming some of that was sarcasm..." As for how much, well. "Let Vaion defer the rest of the goods until the spring. In the meantime... assign each wing to a major, minor or large Hold that provides our tithe, to assist them through the winter. They need help, then they request that wing. If riders want to supplement their income... there are plenty of smaller holds to help when they're off-duty." She hesitates. "Essentially... help Fort - and the others - make sure they can make their tithes." "I'm not surprised and perhaps I've heard something about that," E'dre drawls with a shrug as he stills his twitching of the stylus. His lips tighten as the rest of Hattie's suggestion begins to be laid out. "If we start such practices now," he begins, "they will come to expect it. I don't agree with Flint's involvement - and let's be honest here, X'vin's over-involvement with the Holds. To start something similar," he shakes head. "They need to supplement their income by turning into drudges for the Holders? When N'muir started helping with the harvests that seemed harmless enough but this..," the sigh that escapes sounds aggravated, "we might as well dissolve the Weyr and blend with a Hold." "I imagine X'vin is doing it to prove a point and prove that he's the best man for your knot, regardless of his less than thrilling ways of going about it," Hattie says slowly. "And though I truly wasn't thinking of him, assigning the wings to the Holds would essentially bring what Flint is doing into line with actual orders, rather than whatever they please." She pauses again, watching E'dre closely, just to see how that thought goes over. "By the time this Interval is over, if we're all at each other's throats, then everyone is going to suffer. I don't agree with being at the beck and call of our holders, but they feed us, and we don't have anything like death to hold over them. N'muir gets on well with Vaion. Trial it. Assign Hematite to Fort and see what happens?" "I hadn't directly confronted X'vin on his actions because all he is doing is making it known that he is making political plays. However, his focus is outside of this Weyr. How he thinks that'll gain influence here is beyond me," E'dre's reply has tinges of bitterness to it. "All he proves is that he puts those holders he courts ahead of the riders." His falls into a scowl as Hattie continues, her point made enough to soften the severity of his brows and finally he sighs a signal of his defeat. "We need to work out limitations. I am not going to hand over our riders freely to see them abused however a Hold may seem fit. And if Fort can barely tithe us, how could they pay our riders for their time?" He shakes his head. "Why riders from other Weyr's keep seeking transfers here is beyond me," he grumbles, fingers flicking the edges of the hides in front of him. He certainly has the look of a petulant child as he glances back at Hattie. "I could keep fighting you on your idea," he tells her, "but I know better than to do that by now. I hope your political insight better serves us than my under involvement tends to." "Because Ruatha's tithe turns up and their people sing his praises. That's how." Not that it sounds at all like praise from her, her tone blandly matter of fact. "It's not the holders he puts ahead of anyone else, but himself, which I find more deplorable, for all your dislike of them." Hattie takes a breath and looks down at the table before she can say anything more, some less than subtle effort made to keep from launching into a lecturing tone. "...They tithe because we assist and sweep. Doing a little more to make sure they can tithe shouldn't require payment; a better tithe should be enough." She rolls her eyes. "Not that I'd be saying it if was still Astivan there, mind you, so I'm not exactly unbiased." On the subject of transfers, she smirks. "We have a high-end bar and a gambling den of maybe-not-so-ill repute. Need there be more?" "I still want a drafted agreement and only those riders you and I agree upon to go," E'dre negotiates his grin returning even though it tilts towards a smirk, "as we wouldn't want to send someone unqualified to handle the relationship." The unspoken: someone of his nature. He makes a few notations on his ledger, circles a word and then sets his stylus down as his gaze returns to Hattie. "If our high-end bar and gambling den is enough to draw a crowd and make people want to stay we should up our prices," he adds, "and consider if that is the reason for requests that we may be bringing in more of that not-so-ill repute here." "If you wish," Hattie concedes. "Though with two riders grounded and one of them in the infirmary, I do wonder if it's safe unleashing you lot on Vaion." For all her seriousness, there's also the slightest hint of a tease to her words. "Dice needs a new manager," sobers her quite abruptly. "...I'd held off, hoping-- I don't know what I was hoping, but it needs new management. If no-one here is suitable, it might be something we consider putting about, to see if any potential transfers would be interested?" She shrugs. "Whatever's bringing them in, I think we can be sure it's not the pay. There are several roles that could do with new blood, if only other Weyrs wouldn't think we were poaching." Whatever was present of E'dre's smile evaporates at the mention of the grounded riders. "N'rov made me regret tapping him for a second. I hope he can shape up and find better means to handle such outbursts from his fellow riders in the future," he shares as he scrubs his hands through his hair abruptly. He's quick to latch on to another topic and so he follows her train of thought. "We could," he allows, "seek outside interest on the management of Dice. No rider nor resident has approached you about filling in the spot? They may not realize or want to, really, realize that the position is vacant." He sighs and reaches to draw the earlier discarded klah back in front of him. "Poaching sounds dramatic. I doubt we'd be going after their juniors or wingleaders. What other positions do you see needing to be freshened with new outlooks? Transfers of X'vin's ilk," he shakes his head, "I could do without. But there are others who would do well here." The Weyrwoman looks a little regretful that she has to say, "...Nala was managing the books for Dice. Or is. I'd hazard that she's not doing so now, however." Hattie squares her shoulders and lets out a quiet sigh. "But no, no-one has outright said that they want the job. ...Perhaps for the same reasons that I haven't announced that there's someone needed." She wrinkles her nose again when he draws the klah nearer, but refrains from commenting. "A lot of our wingleaders are set in their ways... We might not be after juniors and wingleaders, but we could do with some 'seconds who could refresh their ideas." "I don't know what to do about Nala," E'dre admits with a sigh, that klah mug is lifted and a portion is gulped down fast enough that hopefully the taste that so bothered the brownrider doesn't linger. "She's unstable. She isn't happy in Hematite but I don't know where I'd transfer her to. At least, when she's in my wing, I can do my best to keep an eye on her." He sets the mug down again and nods at her mention of refreshing ideas. "Everyone could use new perspective. In the past, many of our weylings have brought us that. Especially those who had been craftbred or," he allows the next with a small smile, "holdbred. But we've been lacking with new insights here. I'll make inquiries next time I visit some of the other Weyrs." "...Some things need time," Hattie says gently. "But some of us don't always get what we want even after that time has elapsed." And maybe that reminder is why she abruptly gets to her feet and gathers up what hidework she's not yet cleared away and filed. "Do me a favour and make it subtle enquires, hmm? Don't stand on their star stones and ask if anyone fancies running away to Fort." She's so deadpan with it that it's not clear whether she believes he might actually do that. "I've got menus to plan with our cooks." Though that makes her eye the tray at the end of the table. "Eat enough lunch for me too, huh?" Since she's not stopping, for lunch or for anyone, as she makes her way out. "Oh, I plan on making a big banner to wave behind Wroth as I travel from Weyr to Weyr," E'dre's reply is dry and he watches her go with more amusement than he was prone to show earlier in their meeting. He certainly doesn't mind having the lunch tray to himself and has the decency to remove it and any remaining dishes with him when he heads out to the rest of his day. |
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