Logs:We are all Other
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| RL Date: 16 June, 2011 |
| Who: Devaki, Riorde |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Devaki and Riorde are up late. Ri vouches for Raum, and Devaki has plans he's not sharing. |
| Where: Resident Common Room, HRW |
| When: Day 13, Month 13, Turn 25 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Raum/Mentions |
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| It's late at night, and a wracking cough has kept Devaki from sleeping. Unfortunately, it is /his/ wracking cough that keeps him awake, and thus he's escaped the barracks and moved into the common room to spare his fellow sleepers from another sleepless night. With him, helping him to keep steady, he has his grandfather's roughly-hewn walking stick. Whether that's a sign of the elder's state is difficult to tell, since Viremi hasn't been seen since he was sent to the infirmary. Devaki, for his part, still looks pale, and looks as if he's yet to recover the strength he had before he was sick. The common room isn't empty despite the hour. Riorde has no particular excuse for not being in bed except that she can't sleep and thus came here seeking a little solitude away from the noise of people shifting in their sleep and the low murmurs of one or two still awake. Devaki's cough, along with the thud of the walking stick against the floor, draws her attention. "I think it must be dawn, out there." Her reason for why she's up, though Devaki hasn't asked for it. "On the islands." "Yes," Devaki's quick to agree, his gaze settling on Riorde. "Xoami and I would be preparing to head off. Maybe you'd even be coming with us, out to fish. You'd a knack for it." There's an oddly wistful tone to his voice as he closes the distance between them, sinking down onto a couch near her. With a slow exhale, he lets the stick rest across his knees, and appears to wave away the reminiscence. "Not a life we can return to now, I suspect. But, I'm glad I caught you." His gaze drifts, seemingly casually, about the room before settling back on her again. "I want to talk about the Other." "I did, didn't I." Riorde catches herself using the past tense and is startled because of it, sliding from the couch arm she'd taken up residence on to land on the sofa cushions proper with a whump. She curls up in the corner opposite Devaki, pulling out a throw pillow from behind her - too much, all that unaccustomed comfort. For the moment she doesn't know what to do with it, so hugs it to her chest. "You do, do you?" She can't help it; Riorde is no good at being completely straight-faced, and her rhetorical reply comes out slightly mocking. "We might start using his name, since we're all just as Other as he is now. It'll start to get confusing." Devaki looks surprised, then thoughtful then, with a grimace, resigned. "We are all Other," he concedes, if a little uncomfortably. "Raum, then." He's noticed mocking tone though is, perhaps, choosing to pretend otherwise. "That day, when the dragons came, you were... defending him. What made you change your mind about him?" He holds out a hand, as if to prevent any quick response, and says, "This is important. I need you to be -- I need honesty." There's something intent in the way he leans forward, expectant of any answer. Riorde remains still and watchful, and the precautionary hand lifted towards her proves unnecessary. She looks at it and at Devaki almost curiously, and the appeal for honesty makes her brows lift. "Is that your question?" Not just any question - the Question, the one won out of her. "Very well then." She sounds calm rather than resigned, although candor is one of her least favourite practices. Her reply has the same directness as her gaze. "I spoke up for him because what he wants - wanted," another quick adjustment, as Riorde's still struggling to put the islands wholly behind her, "was the same as us. He wanted to get off the islands." There's a grimace, but he seems to concede the need for truth with a single nod in response to her question. Devaki's brow furrows at the answer, like it's presented more of a puzzle than an answer, and he doesn't seem pleased with it. "Not sure how we could help him get off the islands, when we'd been unable to for eighty Turns. Did he think the elders had a boat stashed secretly somewhere?" With a shake of head, he dismisses it as unimportant. "Now that we're off the islands, then, do you still speak up for him? Do you trust him?" He tips his head, hands folding over the top of the walking stick. Despite his attempt at looking at ease, there's something anticipatory in the way he watches his fellow islander. Riorde appears not to think the first question requires an answer, and she just shrugs. Not quite Devaki's dismissal, but something that is relevant neither here nor now. "Do I speak up for him." She considers that, thoughtful in the way she looks back from the other end of the couch. "That's a different question than the one on trust - this reminds me of the other day. I don't trust anyone, remember?" Does she speak up for him. Does she speak up for him. The question rattling round in her brain is echoed in the gentle tattoo of her fingers drumming against the cushion she still holds. "Yes," she says at last. "For now. To an extent. I don't think what he wants is so different from what we want - at least, I think. How can we ever really know what he wants?" Her tone takes on a sort of bitter wistfulness for all that unknown experience. This begs the question - "Why?" It's her turn to lean forward and fish for an answer. There's an odd kind of expression as she makes her comment about trust, though Devaki's quick to hide any reaction; his gaze is downwards, fingers tightening somewhat on the stick sitting on his lap. "I need his -- experience. His knowledge. His... help." His voice is markedly neutral, though the expression doesn't stay long, as a coughing fit fills his focus for a time. Pale, his hands are shaking noticeably as he finally straightens. His voice is rough when he eventually continues, "What do you plan to do with yourself, Ri? I've heard some of the others talking about their plans, here in the Weyr." Riorde, subjecting Devaki to a certain level of scrutiny, may catch something of his expression though she says nothing to draw attention to it. "So ask him." She quits fiddling with her cushion only to toss it at Devaki - to what? Lighten the mood? She has enough consideration to wait until after his coughing has subsided. "Do?" Riorde echoes blankly, devoid of speculation, voice as empty as her hands are now. "To be honest, I don't really know." She essays a laugh. "It seemed too early to plan, in case..." Straightening her shoulders, she forces upon herself a certain firmness and continues without ellipsis. "I would rather not hope too much in case it's disappointed. But now my father's talking about taking Eirdan down to the sea to see about some Craft," the word comes out unfamiliar to Riorde's tongue, "but I think maybe I've had enough of the sea for now. What about you - have you got plans?" "I will," Devaki says, "Now that I know that you speak for him." The implication, apparently, that he trusts her -- or at least, trusts her judgement. He lifts a hand as if to fend off the cushion, though kind of half-heartedly, a faint smile twitching his lips. His fingers brush the material of the cushion, marveling, perhaps, at the softness of the material. "In case?" he echoes, glancing back up at her. He's silent as she mentions a craft, though a grin does tug at his lips at her comment about being tired of the sea. "Me too," he agrees, fervently. "If I never eat another fish it'll be too soon." At her question, his eyes drop, focusing on the cushion, his fingers splaying across the surface. It's a mere distraction, though, enough to buy him time to answer, "Some. But plans have a way of," he kind of makes a throwing motion with his fingers. Riorde doesn't look quite certain that she wants responsibility for Raum, though. "Make it worth his while," she advises after a pause, her brows furrowed. "And don't trust him with too much." She leans back into her corner of the couch and stretches out her stockinged feet, mindless of whether she's taking up more than her fair share of the sofa. "Sometimes I think I miss it," she reflects, voice dropping with the confession she doesn't clarify, which could stand for many things. The fish, the island, the sea. The security. "Oh?" She questions the imprecision of Devaki's named plans and prompts greater revelations by poking at him with her toes. That response, and warning, elicits a low chuckle from Devaki. "I'll be careful. Especially if I have you to keep me on my toes." The words seem oddly serious and, after a beat, he fixes gaze downwards. He hesitates for a moment at her admission of missing the island, then agrees, "Sometimes, I do too." The single syllable doesn't do much to rouse any response, though the toe jerks his gaze up, and with a flicker of a smile, he tosses the pillow back in her direction. "Just following trails long gone cold. It's probably pointless, but I feel like I have to follow it to its end." "As long as they don't freeze off first," Riorde says, turning it all into a droll joke. Her levity doesn't last, overtaken by a sort of fierceness that overrides any thought of ferreting out more of what those cold trails may be. Riorde can glare when she sets her mind to it; she doesn't glare at Devaki, exactly, but he happens to get in the way of it. "Not that I want to go back. I don't." She catches the pillow, and that seems to soften her slightly. Devaki, after all, isn't the recipient of her glare, but rather a nameless, looming anxiety. "I can't get used to... shoes," Devaki admits. Even his use of the word is unfamiliar, not one they've ever used in their lifetime. "It makes me feel... enclosed. Trapped. It's strange. So," a grin touches his lips again, "They might very well fall off, at least until winter's over." Riorde's fierceness could hardly go unnoticed, and Devaki's certainly not immune whether he's the recipient or not, leaning back somewhat. A heartbeat passes, while he gets his bearings, then he leans forward and reaches out a hand, ostensibly to stay any return of the pillow to him, but more probably to provide a subtle reassurance in the touch of his fingers to her wrist. "No one can make you do anything you don't want to. We just need -- some time. To adjust. And we'll thrive, you'll see. These people think they've lived a hard life -- one of the riders actually tried to compare growing up on the mainland to our situation. They don't know anything. They don't know just how strong we can be -- not yet. But they will." All this talk of shoes makes Riorde give her toes an experimental wiggle to make sure that they're still there. "Aye, just need some time." She summons a smile, the sort one puts on when trying to be brave and show that another's attempts at reassurance have at least in part succeeded. She sits up a bit straighter, carrying resolve in the set of her shoulders. A twist of her lips expresses scorn that these soft, sheltered riders think to compare themselves to such as Devaki and she. In her mouth, the words she echoes sound more like an ultimatum than a promise. "You're right. They will." Devaki shares that smile, though his has a faint twist of something a little resigned to it. "I hope, one day soon, you'll find someone to trust in, Ri." He pushes himself up with the aid of the couch's arm and the walking stick both, though he manages to make enough of a show of it to make it seem casual, that way in which he leans on the stick. He's hardly one to want to show weakness anymore than her. He hesitates there a moment, looking at her, like he's trying to decide something. The moment passes, and he simply smiles. "Going to try and get some more sleep before morning. You should, too." He adds, though it's not a concern he seeks to enforce, knowing there's little more that he can do than express it. Riorde, drawing her feet under her, looks conflicted. Something in his response causes her discomfort, makes her start a phrase that never gets finished as she looks up at Devaki, now standing. "I didn't mean..." The words come out somewhere between an apology and a confession, but then Devaki smiles and moves on, and so she does too. In word at least; gesture lags behind, as her hand steals out with the intent to briefly touch his, the one resting on the walking stick. "Just a few more minutes," she replies, a child avoiding bedtime. Devaki hesitates as her hand stays his departure. The faintest twitches of lips acknowledges the unfinished sentiment. "Good night, Ri," is all he says, making his way slowly back to join their fellow exiles. |
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