Logs:Trust Issues
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| RL Date: 30 April, 2013 |
| Who: Meara, Telavi |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: The day after Telavi's first flight, she comes to see Meara as requested. |
| Where: Weyrlingmaster's Office, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 25, Month 8, Turn 31 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: K'del/Mentions |
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| Weyrlingmaster's Office, High Reaches Weyr Made private by a thick, insulated door that blocks out most of the noise from the barracks beyond, the Weyrlingmaster's Office is a comfortable, quiet alcove. Instead of an imposing desk, much of the room is taken up by a large round table, with five chairs spaced around its edges. Beneath it is a square rug pieced together with twisted rags that stretches from wall to wall, just leaving room for the long bookshelves and filing cabinets. On the back wall, a tapestry of the Weyr's badge is hung, providing both insulation and decoration. In one corner sits a small green plant, growing strong despite the lack of sunlight in this windowless room. Beside it rests a tea cart, prepped and ready. The day after Solith and Telavi flew for the first time, otherwise known as the day after it was so awkward that Telavi got told to just shut her eyes and hang on, or the day after the flying got better but something else got worse and Meara told her to report to her office the next day... there Telavi is, reporting, and on her lunch hour, no less. She'd scarfed down a quick meal and now has a bowl of fruit with her as she dithers in the training cavern by the big game board. She doesn't delay long, people will start showing up soon after all, but she does triple-check the pins in her hair and cast one longing look at the Bowl before crossing to the office doorway. Of course the office door would have to be open, no delaying with a knock there. All she can do is look inside and try not to fidget. It's not hard to look serious. "Weyrlingmaster?" It's weyrlingmaster policy to make sure that someone is on duty in the office at lunch, and today is Meara's rostered day-- information that is publically available, since some weyrlings seem to have a preference. The remains of the greenrider's lunch are sitting on the table across from her, and include most of a side salad (but none of the 'good' stuff: that is all gone). "Come on in, Telavi," she says, without glancing up from the records she's been going over. "Shut the door behind you. And then you may tell me what's going on." Telavi does come on in, and Telavi does shut the door behind her, and she even takes the liberty of sitting down. It's awkward, a round table with five chairs: she can't sit across from Meara if she's to leave them evenly spaced, and there's the older greenrider's lunch besides, but sitting next to her seems forward, and in the end Telavi leaves a chair between them. As compromise, in front of that chair she sets the bowl of fruit (maybe that counts as 'good' stuff?), so they can both reach. "I'm not sure what to say, ma'am. Though I'd like to?" Or... maybe the bowl of fruit is really a bribe for the ghost of Moreta to come and join them. At least the ghost of Moreta would fill in the gap further around the curve of the table, where those three seats sit empty. The right corner of Meara's mouth twitches as she glances in the direction of the fruit, but it's Telavi who gets the most of her attention. "In that case," she says, tapping one finger against her lip, "tell me how things are going. Between you and Solith. What's your relationship like?" Telavi can't reply right away, for all that she must have been expecting that question or one that's similar. Nor, after looking at the weyrlingmaster for several long moments, can she seem to bring herself to put up more of a facade, even at the risk of disappointing the other woman. It's time. "I try to take care of her, I really do. I... I know it's not like the others'." And there's the inevitable reaction, not surprised, somehow, but nonetheless emotional: that sucked in breath, that abrupt sadness that even Meara's best efforts can't hide completely. It rather looks as though she's trying not to look sympathetic, or perhaps it's just that she's trying desperately not to look pitying. "Not even at Impression?" she wonders, quietly. And those blue-green eyes fill with something perilously close to... to something Telavi has to blink away, a few quick times, though she doesn't turn her face away from Meara's look. "I don't know. I can't know, can I? We did Impress each other, I know it can't be anything else, and I know," she knows, "there are others who took a while, to adjust. She's sweet, she really is." "No," allows Meara. "I suppose you can't." One of her hands twitches atop the table, as though it wants, more than anything, to reach out and comfort-- but it resists. "Yes, of course. Sometimes it takes a long time to properly click. You aren't blocking her out, are you? You're letting her in?" Tela's eyes don't widen so much as to show a ring of white around their irises, but it's close. She holds on to the arm of her chair. "I'm not sure what you mean." Her lips rub against each other momentarily. "Could you give me something... concrete? Please? Weyrlingmaster?" Meara licks her lips, cautiously, as if to give herself something to do while she works out what to say - or, at least, how to put it. "Do you share your life with her, Telavi? Do you let yourself feel what she feels-- and vice versa?" She pauses, then evidently changes her mind, asking, instead: "What's she doing, right now? What's she feeling?" "Of course we," but Telavi's words fade beneath what must be a strong sense that just walking, oiling, sleeping together aren't enough, a sense deepening with every word that Meara says. 'Let' has her stirring in her seat for an uneasy moment, but still she doesn't adopt the facade she's capable of. Her eyes close. "She's in the Bowl," Tela reports without too much of a delay, but then that's a big place, and where else other than the barracks or the Rim would Solith be? "She's sunning. I don't want to bother her." Meara's brows lift as she waits, the line of her mouth tightening slightly. It's when Telavi finishes that she shakes her head. "You shouldn't need to bother her," she says, quietly. "Isath is up on the rim. She's sunning, too, and it's such a beautiful day-- she's feeling sleepy and content, and the ache in her back leg is less pronounced than it has been. U'sot's blue curled up with her, earlier, and she's feeling smug; she's still got it." The dip of her head seems to be intended as encouragement: you try. "Close your eyes and relax," she suggests. "Just try and feel." As Meara describes the situation, the weyrling greenrider is starting to look worried... and then all of a sudden she's giggling, a quick, shaky thing, but giggling nonetheless. She stops. She shuts her eyes again. "Okay?" There's that restless shift again. "I'm guessing you... didn't just mean feeling the seat of the chair." Telavi's giggle makes Meara smile, but not, admittedly, for long. After the weyrling stops speaking, there's a long pause. "No," she agrees. "I didn't. Seek Solith out with your thoughts-- try and feel her. Focus less on being you, and more on being her. If you can." Tela's eyes stay shut, tighter now. But a few moments later, her voice low, "It feels like I'd be... invading her privacy. She deserves to not be poked and prodded all the time." "Do you... want privacy from her, Telavi?" Meara's voice is equally low, though her gaze is intent and intense, and when she's not actually talking, she's biting at her lip. And then, "You can open your eyes. Tell me about Solith. What do you think of her? What do you think about her?" This time, Tela's shift is increasingly uneasy, the weyrling winding her ankles around the legs of her chair. "I don't like people prying at me," she says hesitantly, and Meara's doing just that but she's making herself sit for it anyway... if perhaps not sit still. She does peek at the older greenrider on command, though her gaze soon drops to the bowl of fruit, and she looks up again only to look down again. "She's 'nice'. She's cheerful? She means well. She likes getting into things. She likes playing. She's excited about flying. But," here she looks even more tense for a moment, with the distance of a rider checking on a dragon, and the tenseness doesn't go away when the distance does. She whispers, guiltily, "She's not very smart, is she?" Meara's mouth opens; she takes in a deep breath, and then she exhales it, trying to smooth out the creases in her forehead. "Does she need to be smart?" she wonders. "Do you need her to be smart?" Tela's gaze lifts, miserable. She can't seem to answer. Meara doesn't push. Instead, she's quite conversational when she says, "K'del needed Cadejoth to be smart - smart, and authoritative, and dignified. His records suggest he fought him an awful lot, and that he... undermined him, sometimes, because he wanted him to be different. He made it hard on himself. They worked it out, eventually, though. He let Cadejoth in, as he was. And he learned to enjoy the things that frustrated him so much, early on." Hurray for K'del. It's not quite written in Tela's expression, except perhaps for the flat press of her lips. And if she's been thinking of H'kon and Arekoth, she doesn't betray their names. "I'm glad they worked it out," but something of the lift of her voice suggests that they're a world apart. "Do you resent her, Telavi?" Meara's voice is quiet. That at least Tela can answer quickly, lips parting and relaxing... escept she doesn't. She thinks about it for a moment, and then another, just in case. "No. No, I don't, or I don't think that I do? I only wish that I could make it work better." "A better question, then," says Meara, thoughtful. "Can you learn to trust her? Can we work on this? Isath and I will help, as much as we can." "I do tru-ust her..." Telavi's hand lifts, an abortive gesture that finally results in her setting her hand back down. "I trust her to be who she is? That's how I trust people." She gives Meara a long-lashed look that holds nothing of flirtation. "Or who I think she is, I guess you would say." "Do you?" Meara lets that hang in the air for several seconds, and then amends, "Do you trust her to keep you safe, when you're flying together? To move with her? Do you trust her to carry you Between, in a few months time?" "I need to be able to," is Telavi's slow, resigned answer. "But I need to be able to do that rightly, don't I?" She presses her eyes shut, then opens them, and though her gaze is nowhere near relaxed... at least it's not so bleak, even if her mouth has pulled slightly to one side. She admits, "It's a little strange, being able to talk about it this way. I'm grateful." For more than Meara's presence. Meara's answer comes in a nod, one that gets repeated for emphasis several times - though they're all slow, careful nods. "I'm glad," she says, quietly. "I hope you'll always consider this office a safe space in which to discuss... anything you need to. SO - we'll work on this. We'll help. You don't need to be as close as Isath and I are; every pair is different. But the trust-- that's important." As Meara begins speaking, Telavi echoes those nods with her own, not the first one but the second, third. And yet, "I do trust her," she insists. "I just can't just blindly... not for that, not until we can get that to work." Not for everything. Meara has another nod, for that distinction. "No," she agrees. "Of course. You can't. Well-- we'll work on it. The four of us." The big wooden door blocks out the noise of the other weyrlings returning from lunch, but evidently Isath hasn't fallen asleep in the sun yet, because the old greenrider shifts in her seat and says, "But right now, we have drills. Come on." That shift is enough to make Telavi sit up straighter, that instruction enough for her to take it as a command, pushing her chair in on the way out and leaving that bowl untouched. It's just as they exit that she looks back long enough to murmur, "Just give me some thing to do, something I can hold onto. Please?" She can't expect Meara to come up with something this instant, but at least the older woman will know. This time, Meara can't help but show her feelings on her face, almost as much an open book as her co-weyrlingmaster can be: she looks sad, sad and frustrated, and at first, all she can do is nod. "I'll try," she promises. "I'll do my very best. I promise." |
Comments
Azaylia (Dragonshy (talk)) left a comment on Wed, 01 May 2013 07:23:35 GMT.
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Woooooow. That is... Wow. Honestly, the first thing that comes to mind is 'fascinating'. This... explains so much, and it's really tragic. It can't be that rare of an issue, and yet one would think that if they aren't, they don't go on for months and months. I'm so interested to see how Telavi learns to trust Solith... if she even can learn. Ooh~
Alida (Alida (talk)) left a comment on Wed, 01 May 2013 07:41:16 GMT.
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And here I thought that K'zin and Alida were the only ones to have had problems with their bonds to their dragons. Welcome to the club, Tela! >.< ^^
Tela (Tela (talk)) left a comment on Wed, 01 May 2013 19:51:21 GMT.
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Thank you both! It's been there since day one, but until they started flying together, it wasn't a problem and even was often more of a help.
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