Logs:What are the Odds
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| RL Date: 14 February, 2014 |
| Who: Lilah, Faye, Finne |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: One out of these three will Impress according to the odds, Faye isn't holding her breath for it. |
| Where: Galleries, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 27, Month 13, Turn 33 (Interval 10) |
| Late evening finds the galleries empty, though the Sands never are, not with the presence of that queen guarding her clutch that consumes a good portion of the area. Lilah is not quite at either place, really, where the woman has taken a seat on the step that separates the galleries from the Sands, her arms hooked easily around bent knees and her chin resting against them. Dark eyes watch Elaruth and those eggs, not daring to get any closer. Faye is not one for watching the eggs. If she's ever been spotted in the galleries, she must have been on some errand or another, her visits to the stands few and far between. This evening is no different, and while others might stop and stare at queen and clutch, she stops to stare up at the rows of seating, searching for what she doesn't immediately find. It draws her up into those rows, where she wanders idly along until she spots Lilah and begins to make her way back down to more or less ground level. "Here," is what she greets her with, a scrap of hide held out between two fingers. It's nothing fun, just a minute adjustment to their Dice shifts. Lilah doesn't quite startle, not where footsteps warn her of the other Candidate's approach, however, she only untangles limbs reluctantly to reach out to take that scrap of hide, glancing over it before shoving it into her pocket. "If I'm going to work Turn's End, I hope the tips are at least worth it," she breathes lightly, unconcerned despite her teasing. Instead, her gaze returns to the Sands. "They are getting harder, I think. They look firmer, when she turns them." "It matters little. It is not as if we have a choice," Faye replies, opting to stand some way behind Lilah, her hands shoved into her pockets. "Hoping and wishing will change nothing." Is she addressing the matter of Dice or the eggs? Maybe any teasing has gone right over her head. "She must know what she is doing," she sighs, rocking back a little on her heels. "I cannot say that I have ever seen her move them." "You haven't? It's a process, it takes quite a while and she does it a lot," Lilah replies, her gaze lifting to examine Faye at the other woman's admittance. She adds, a twist of a self-deprecating smile and wry words, "I watch whenever I can. I don't know what I think, that I'll find some way to make the eggs bond with me just by being here." Faye gives a stiff, awkward shrug. "I would rather not bond with any of them," she says bluntly. "If none of the dragons are certain to be mine, then I do not wish to become overly attached to anything that I cannot have." Though she stands at military attention while in the line of sight of the queen, like she could deflect her gaze away if she tries hard enough. "I suppose, if not this clutch, there is the other for you to try." "There's always another. And then Southern, and Igen, and High Reaches," lists Lilah quietly, her lips lifting only slightly in a curve even where her gaze draws back up to Faye, a quiet, dark thing that weighs on the other woman. "That is likely a good way to think about it. The eggs mean nothing if none of the dragons inside choose you, hm?" "Perhaps if one of them does choose me, I will find meaning in its shell, but, for the moment, they are merely... eggs." This shrug is easier, dismissive, even. "And I can think on them - or what they represent - just as well away from them as in their company." Faye maintains her distance, both from Lilah and the edge of the Sands, a good several feet between the two Candidates. "Travelling the world in search of the egg that might hatch a dragon for you seems a rather... empty existence." This late at night, Finne's prone towards restless wandering, her tracks leading her through the new fallen snow just outside leaving boot tracks, and trails wet prints up into the galleries and across the front where the railing is. Her fingers dance along the railing and she stops just short of where Faye stands, where Lilah sits, and just happens to overhear the willowy brunette's words. A sharp turn of her face takes in Faye, pale eyes keenly observant before the flicker dissipates behind curiosity for her fellow candidates. Lightly, with the undertones of a laugh hinted in her words, "Having second thoughts too?" Lilah folds herself back down onto that step, her chin tucking back against her knees as she murmurs quietly, "It is, isn't it? It's better than--." Her words catch sharply as Finne appears and draws into distance to hear them, cut off as her gaze lifts to the younger woman. "I think she is," she offers instead to Finne, humor teasing along them as she glances to Faye. "Not second thoughts," Faye steadily replies, tipping a quick look across at Finne. "Simply not /certain/ thoughts. Assumptions. To claim an egg or assume one to be mine and tell myself that I will have a dragon from it is foolish." If anything, Lilah's teasing tone makes her posture all the more rigid, the sting of the accusation drawing her chin up and features into even sterner lines. She doesn't look at either of her fellows then, her gaze fixed on some distant, blank point across the cavern. "Believe what you will," she murmurs, ice in her words. Finne breathes in deeply, raising and dropping her shoulders with the depth of this action as she exhales. "Smell that? That's the smell of hopes and dreams sizzling on those sands." A quick grin steals across her lips, her fingers continuing to dance a syncopated rhythm on the rail. If the too hadn't been indication enough, the once trader, once vagrant, once homeless nobody breathes out, words lower than she's known to speak before, "I am. I'm having trouble understanding why people would put their lives in stasis. Limbo. Paused waiting. This rider I spoke to the other day... she wasn't Searched until the night before the hatching and- I wish that had happened to me. Too much time to think y'know? And question and ask and question and ask and... it's enough to drive even my pretty little head into a tizzy. Whew. I shouldn't think so much." She skips a beat and ventures a look to Faye, "You look like you're the s'cretly dancin' type." The heavy twang of Pern 'country' drops into that phrase as if it'd alwaysbeen there in a heavy tease. "It's worse if you don't Impress the first time, and it is likely that you won't, given the number of Candidates," Lilah tells Finne, her voice falling serious again. "Three Candidates to every egg. They'll give you the option to stay at the Weyr, if you want, though. And then all you have to do is think until the next clutch." She does lift her gaze, curious and studying at Faye's reaction, but she doesn't press that topic of her second thoughts. "I rather think the Weyr would have you be more productive than leave you to just /think/ for all that time," Faye declares, the continued fix of her gaze at that distant point addressing her reply to neither Finne nor Lilah in particular. "The way some of them go on, every question is answered in seconds and it all suddenly makes sense, if you do not leave the Sands alone. I find it difficult to believe that anything, much less the thoughts of a infant dragon, could make /everything/ make sense. A grown dragon, perhaps." One foot scrapes against stone for half a second as she adjusts her stance, then slowly swings another look over at Finne. "A /what/ type?" she queries, not aggressive, but to the point. "The secretly dancing type. The type that dances in dark shadows when you think no one's watching." Finne's teasing twang fades, but then again, she's no longer looking at Faye or Lilah either and her bright senseless-seeming chatter has dropped a few pitches, mired by distraction. Her gaze has slipped to the eggs once more, lips pursed thoughtful. "It's like... like your first kiss. Or your first time. Or any first. You're never quite the same afterwards. Never can quite remember what it was like before. Dragonriders are unreliable witnesses to the whole process." Lilah will be the one looking at someone, though hers lingers on Faye before she only answers with a quiet, thoughtful noise caught in the back of her throat. "Mhmm." It isn't all that elaborate in terms of communication, though the older woman moves to unfold herself from her seat. She answers Finne, though, with softened words, "I remember my first kiss and my first time perfectly." She even offers the girl a smile, a brief flash in the corner of her lips before its gone again. Around the time Finne starts speaking of /firsts/, Faye begins to look decidedly pale, her lips pressed firmly together in some effort to exert control and maintain a blank, unreadable expression. "She is addressing the /after/," so she believes, "not the events themselves," she tells Lilah, finally darting a quick look towards her. Her focus drifts down and to her own feet, something discomforted drawing brows together for a fraction of a second. "I do not dance," she proclaims, as she takes a deep breath and looks back up, "and I have done that which I came here to do." A nod is given Finne, curt, yet not cold, and then she's excusing herself without further comment, headed straight out without another look at the Sands. "That's not what I me-," but then Faye's speaking and Finne quiets her protest. Fascination and empathy watch Faye move away, but it's only after she's out of earshot that the auburn haired girl murmurs in quiet singsong, "I bet you /do/." Louder, "Doncha think? You're Lilah right? I've seen you around. You work at the Dice." Even though there's the lilt of a question it's not very quizzical. "I'm Finne," in case the other woman doesn't know. "I think you shouldn't push the topic, Finne," is what Lilah answers, her gaze sliding only briefly after Faye before settling on the younger woman. "I do work at Dice, yes." "I find her fascinating. I'd like to get to know her better, but she's so rarely in the barracks. You must know her well. She works there too, right?" Finne hops onto the bench by Lilah and starts doing toe dips along the sides, walking a short length away, and then returning. The dismount she does is flawless for all 2 feet of it but it has her smiling again at any rate. "It must be incredible work at the Dice. I haven't thought to go in there yet, though I feel I must have explored most of the Weyr itself." Lilah shakes her head in slow dismissal, answering simply, "Not as well as you'd think." She watches the younger girl, still in comparison where she barely moves her hands, even. "It's inaccessible unless you get a ride on dragonback, but it's worth it if you're looking for an evening of entertainment and have a mark to spare." Finne laughs at that, this bright sound filled with translucent soap bubbles. "Oh, don't you worry about me, sweetheart. I'm sure I could finagle someone into taking me up there. Dal maybe. Dal most likely. He's my secret boyfriend you see. He'd do anything for me." Riiiight. A healthy wink accompanies this phrase, the big joking kind that then sends the spritely girl in a twirl without skirts. "But the mark might be harder to come by. But that's a worry for another day. Did I hear you mention this isn't your first time standing? Or were you just trying to scare me earlier? Three-in-one, right? I'm no good at odds or betting, probably better not to go to the Dice, but it sounds interesting and I've never seen a place like that outside of Bitra. It means," her thinking face comes on, with furrowed brows, tilted head, and a finger twirling through her messy hair, "When Faye was here, only one of us had a shot. I'm not sure if I like those odds." "I wasn't just trying to worry you," Lilah replies, the slow curve of her brow upwards an amused reaction for Finne's talk of N'dalis. "This will be my fourth time Standing, and hopefully my last. But, yes, out of you, Faye, and I, only one of us would Impress, given the odds. Two of us would be left on the sands and given the usual speech for those that don't." "This is my first. It might be my last. Do you automatically get to Stand again? When do you stop? Until you Impress? Why?" The last one is the one where Finne stops talking. Where she stops moving. Where she /looks/ at Lilah in honest bafflement. And if she hadn't heard it before, the girl asks, a little breathless and earnest, "Why?" Lilah shakes her head at the flood of answers, her lips pressing together only briefly before she approaches each separately, explaining, "You can continue to request to Stand if you remain a resident of the Weyr, or if a dragon Searches you from any Weyr, though they won't continue to let you once you reach a certain age. Some people choose never to Stand again, even when they don't Impress. Some of us--just really want to Impress." She doesn't gesture to herself, but it is clear in tone that she falls into the latter category. "But... why?" Finne presses. "I wanted to stay some place longer than a week or two. To finally sit and make friends and just... not move constantly. But the more I hear stories and meet people, the more I think that wasn't the right choice. I mean, to Stand in order to stay. Leaving my family was probably good for me. And for them. But I feel like I'm Standing for all the wrong reasons. You know? I keep working up my courage to tell someone in charge this and then running away instead and then meeting Ebeny yesterday..." Her voice trails off into a shrug. "I guess I either find courage to stay or courage to go. I'm not so very good at courage." "I'm probably not the right person to ask. There are people that believe that I am Standing for all of the wrong reasons as well," Lilah replies, studying Finne with a quiet thoughtfulness. She adds, "Don't let anyone make you feel like your reasons aren't right. Hopefully you get the courage to do whatever you want." Throughout Lilah speaking, Finne looks to Elaruth and then the eggs she's turned. Her head bobbles and her mouth works in a silent count until she's done counting and Lilah's added her encouragement. "Hey!" The interjection interrupts the conversation at hand. "Hey." Said again, it's more cajoling than attention getting. "What do you do for fun?" In light of all the other hard-hitting questions she's asking, this one seems from out of nowhere, except Finne's looking down at the seated candidate, eyes gleaming with all sorts of pent up fun. Lilah's brow quirks upwards in a curve again, but she only answers wryly, boringly, "I read. I can't really drink anymore, but--." "Why can't you drink?" is Finne's next question. "But--?" She drags that one word out with the trailing quizzical lilt in mimic of Lilah, but question style. "Have you ever skated on the lake? Or thrown a snowball at someone you sort of like, but /don't want them/ to know about? Have you ever sat on a hill and looked up at the stars and just sighed for the beauty of it all and wanted to climb up there? I think...," her head throws back, the messy tousle of hair hanging down past her waist, and looks to the ceiling of the caverns, but more likely beyond to the stars and skies above that stone. "I think that's why I want to Stand. I want that hope, that some day, I can reach those stars." "It's against the rules. You can't get drunk, while you're a Candidate." Lilah offers that with the flash of a smile, though she considers Finne's questions with a quiet moment. After another, she answers, "I had a 'rider wrap my hands in his scarf, in the snowy night. But, he is in a relationship, and I'm interested in making my life messy right now." She pauses, where Finne talks about reaching stars, nodding. "Then I hope you get the courage to stay." But it seems on that note, that Lilah intends to leave, starting towards the separation of the cavern and Bowl. "But... but.." Finne can't help the little splutter there. "But that doesn't mean you can't drink unless..." Sudden empathy floods the girl's face and she reaches down to Lilah's shoulder, but the girl is heading away. Her voice suddenly drops to an actual whisper that may or may not be heard. "Are you an alcoholic? Do you always get drunk when you drink? Oh, I feel awful now. I hope she's ok." |
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