Logs:Who Are You?
| |
|---|
| |
| RL Date: 19 February, 2014 |
| Who: Madilla, Suireh |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Madilla and Suireh run into each other at Healer Hall. Difficult questions are asked. |
| Where: Healer Hall, Fort Area |
| When: Day 16, Month 1, Turn 34 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Anvori/Mentions, Devaki/Mentions, Dilan/Mentions, H'kon/Mentions, Leova/Mentions, Lilabet/Mentions, Raija/Mentions, Satiet/Mentions |
  |
| Healer Hall, Fort Area Patterned after its Harper neighbor, the Healer quadrangle is a couple of centuries newer and the cut of its stone is noticably different, as is the tiling on the roof, which is brown instead of orange. Most of the windows on the second floor are paned with clear glass, set back on deep sills from where the heavy bronze shutters cling to the walls. The west-facing front wing of the building is set with a gate that guards the archway into the courtyard and a gatekeeper often sits on duty just outside on a chair. Within the courtyard itself, wrought iron benches are scattered strategically along the walls, right beside the doors that grant access to each wing. Usually quiet but for the hum of apprentice conversation and the clatter of feet on the flagstone paved ground, the hall is a fairly restful place for those who have come for specialized treatment. Just outside Healer Hall, sandwiched between its southern wing and the northern wing of the Harper Hall, a series of gardens serving culinary, medicinal and decorative puposes are bordered by the cliff wall to the east and open meadow to the west. The hold road travels northward to the hold itself and eventually to Ruatha and the Reaches and in the opposite direction far south to Southern Boll and the Weaver craft. It's a beautiful, sunny, cold winter's afternoon, and afternoon classes at the Healer Hall have just gone back into session, sending a horde of exuberant teens back indoors, leaving behind snow forts and snowmen. Madilla travels against the tide of apprentices, making her way out the great doors at a slow and even pace. There's no dragonrider escort awaiting her in the courtyard, and nor does she seem to expect one; instead, she angles her path around, bypassing one of the forts in order to head towards the road to Fort Hold. There's another figure making its way against the tide of teens, a grimace marring her pretty features when jostled this way and that, or when an acne-covered boy might get too close. An all too relieved sigh escapes as a visible breath when Suireh finally comes out, alive, at the other end. Her tightly gauze-bound wrist presses against her chest, as if to catch her breath, and she takes a moment to give a rather baleful glance backwards. "Was I ever so young?" is the self-mocking, clear question asked of a snow man. Madilla is some paces ahead, and has clearly not been paying attention to anyone else fighting against that tide, and so she's surprised by the sound of Suireh's voice - though her head turns immediately to identify the other woman. "Physically, at least," she answers with a laugh, though surely she recognises that the question was not precisely asked of her. "Did you ever build one? I think I only ever watched, at least until I had children of my own to help. Hello, Suireh." This snow man has a familiar voice -- at least, that would be one explanation as to why Suireh startles, noticeably enough in a shoulder twitch and a raised brow. That is, until she looks around, none too surreptitiously, and finds Madilla. Some magic is lost from the harper journeyman's expression when she spies the healer, perhaps that's her face falling out of wonderment into her more put together look. "Madilla," she greets cordially. "I think I must have, once. A long time ago in another time and place. Most likely at one of the Reaches' Turnover bonfires. Here to teach?" What a pity, really, to destroy that magic. Madilla's expression shows some hint of that sorrow, though it's buried quickly beneath her warmer smile. "Brrr," is the healer's answer to that. "I know there's a certain... something to spending the evening outdoors, with the skating and the fireworks and all of that, but it's always so very cold. No," she adds, turning her gaze away to study the line of the Hall's structure, those windows laid out so carefully above. "Here to insist, again, that my name not be put forward for Mastery exams." It explains the formality of her clothes, though they're mostly hidden beneath her heavy coat. "And you?" beat. "Your wrist." Madilla is a fun crusher. Or a magic crusher. Or just a Suireh brain crusher. The harper stares at Madilla, skipping over the cold of High Reaches and any protests of how it isn't that cold to settle on, "Why?" Why? Why wh-- oh. Madilla's cheeks turn pink. "Because I don't want to come back to the Hall and teach full time. I don't want to be Assistant Apprentice Master, or... or whatever else they come up with for me." There's a laughing note to her voice, one that suggests she doesn't expect the other Journeyman to understand. "I actually like what I do now. Besides, I have more than enough on my plate, believe me." "And you don't have enough seniority to be a posted Master elsewhere. If Healer Hall even does such things?" Suireh wonders aloud. Her wrapped hand reaches out to brush snow off the top of a snowman's head, fingers rubbing against each other until the snow becomes beads of water on her hand. "Do you plan on being a journeyman your entire life then? I'm sorry," is said right on the heels, almost as if it were planned, "That was rude of me." "Not rude," Madilla excuses, shaking her head. "It's a good question, and one I don't know the answer to. It's very rare for the healers to post a Master to a Weyr. I suppose I could angle for the High Reaches Hold posting; Lord Devaki has certainly suggested it, but I don't want that... and I get the impression that they want me here." She waves a hand, gesturing towards the Hall. "I have children who consider High Reaches Weyr home. I have a lover who certainly does. That's the problem with making connections, I suppose. You, I imagine, will be hoping for Mastery at twenty-eight? Earlier, if you can?" Suireh's lips purse and then flatten, a look all too reminiscent of her mother. "Lord Devaki," starts the harper, in a voice of utmost politeness, "Certainly seems to suggest many things." A thin smile can be heard in her voice, even if it's not seen on her features, but the sentiments (and Devaki) are shook off in the next moment with a physical shimmy of her shoulders. "I suppose this is why the Master tries to make sure his journeymen, well, journey. Ties... the potential of settling in sounds nice, but can be hard for everyone involved." The young woman doesn't seem to intentionally sidestep the question of becoming a master, but she seems rather intent on Madilla's quandary. "If you had had the choice, would you have wanted to travel more before-" Before all that baggage. There's something interested, and also quietly amused, in Madilla's expression at Suireh's comment on Devaki, though she makes no comment on it. Of the rest of Suireh's thoughts, she's more considering, hesitating in answering for several long seconds after the Harper has finished talking. "In retrospect," she muses, "Maybe. The Weyr became home very quickly, though, and... between one thing and another, I didn't care to leave." The way she looks at Suireh, just for a moment, suggests something, too: perhaps she's thinking about Satiet. Or perhaps not. She wraps her arms around herself, a gesture that seems to be idle rather than protective. "I also had my daughter not so long into my Journeymanship. In general, though, I do think journeying should be more strictly that." "You love your children." It's a statement that lacks judgment, and carries notes of consideration. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, a sharp breath catching as a gusty winter breeze makes its way through the courtyard. "Do you think-," Suireh pauses, head tilting as visible thought furrows her brow, "Do you think you love your children and life more than you love your craft at this point?" It's a statement, and not a question, that first remark, and yet Madilla answers it anyway: a nod that is as simple as the statement is. Yes, she loves her children. Not 'of course she loves her children'; just yes. That gusty breeze has her shivering, and has a loose curl batting about her face, but the healer otherwise remains silent until, finally, "I don't know. I suppose it could be said that my craft has taken a backseat to my family, especially of late. And yet, I'm still High Reaches' Weyrhealer. I take that responsibility very seriously. And," abruptly, she smiles, "I don't know that I wished to be a master even when I was an apprentice." "Then why apprentice?" Such a simple question said in such a coaxing tone. And such surprise, on receipt of it. Madilla's cheeks turn pink. "I was sent to the Hall by my uncle. He wished a properly trained healer who could return home and care for our people." Suireh's thin eyes crinkle at that, some humor touching those pristine features. "Oh. That turned out so well." The younger woman eases her lithe frame up and down again, so her boot heels dig into the ground a bit, burrowing through the snow to find flagstone. "My mother's mother. My maternal grandmother. There are stories that she once was a harper journeyman and gave up her craft and ambitions for love and family. I can't- I can't even imagine." Some of youth's naivety for sure, but also... a cooler grit that turns her pale eyes flinty. "I haven't even been back since I was... oh, eighteen, perhaps?" admits Madilla, delivered as something not dissimilar to a laughing confidence, though there's something solemn in her expression even so. The healer studies the harper, those green eyes thoughtful as they consider that flinty turn. "I can't either," she admits. "I was very nearly engaged to a man - a Journeyman - who wished me to come back to the Hall and teach, at his side. And I couldn't do it. A man who wished me to give up my craft wholesale? No." "I think it was her choice. But I don't know much. She doesn't talk of it much, except that I should follow where my heart takes me." Suireh grimaces, but in the fond way reserved for grandparents, the elderly, those stodgy people you love. "She didn't think she could have a family and journey. I don't think she would have made a very good master." Unable to keep still in the winter sun, she starts rocking forward again, her heels coming off the flagstone and her toes digging in. And then back slowly. "Madilla?" Madilla's nod comes after a moment's thought, cool and quiet. "I think... if she chose, then that's important. We all have to make our decisions for ourselves, don't we? Not for anyone else." It's musingly said, words released into the chill afternoon air gently. "Suireh?" "What do you remember of her?" The question, the way it's asked, doesn't need any explanations. Does it? Suireh certainly doesn't seem inclined to suggest more on that, those pale eyes looking past Madilla to the road towards Fort Hold. The way Madilla inhales so abruptly, so quickly, suggests she's reached an immediate conclusion. It takes her longer to formulate words, though, and she, too, is staring into the distance - the herb garden, the hall's structure, anything. "I didn't know her well. I remember how strong she was, facing the truth. How kind she was to me, when I was new to the Weyr, and feeling lost. I admired her." "I feel like I'm chasing a ghost." Which, as the self-deprecating look concedes, is true. "I can't tell where I start, where she ends, what I should be sometimes. I sometimes feel," the confession is quieter, "I'm just playing a part. I wish I could have the certainty you seem to. With all your choices." The way Madilla looks, it's likely she's just barely managing to restrain herself from hugging Suireh, or offering some other physical form of sympathy, empathy, or understanding. Instead, she exhales, letting her visible breath dissipate before she'll actually say so much as a word. "I pretend, too," she admits. "I hide. I ignore, and I bury, and I... I think we all do. All you need do is be yourself... but I know it's not so easy as all that." "And who are you?" Suireh asks. And as if she's aware of that urge Madilla might be having, takes a step back and then forward and then back again with her arms folding over her chest. Madilla stays where she is, feet flat upon the sand, resting atop some hard-packed snow. She hesitates. "Sometimes," she admits. "I don't even know. How do you define a person? I end up resorting to... I'm Lilabet and Dilan's mother. And Raija's. I'm Weyrhealer. I'm H'kon's. But... most of all, I'm just me, whatever and whoever that is. I react the way I do because that's what Madilla does. I do what I do because... that's how I do it." "And I'm-," the slender woman girds herself up and looks up at the sky, as if it holds answers, "I'm going to be Masterharper some day. You'll see." And whoever she has to be to get that, is the unspoken implication. "It was good to see you around, Madilla. Please send Leova my regards." "I believe it," is Madilla's answer, so simple, and - apparently - so genuine. "It was good to see you, too, Suireh. I'll do that. Look after yourself." And, after a moment's pause, "And your wrist." "Don't tell her. Or him." No names. It should be enough, right? Suireh turns her wrist up and around. "If I told you it was a boy you wouldn't believe me, right?" She might be joking, in a very dry non humorous way. "Or it could have just been too much gitar practicing." Or something. "Goodbye." That's enough for answers to questions she doesn't really want to shed light on. There are paths to cut across and Suireh utilizes one of them to cut across to Harper Hall. And Madilla, too, has places to be... though first she'll watch Suireh go, shading her eyes against the low glare of the winter sun. |
Leave A Comment