Difference between revisions of "Logs:Work, Work, Work"

Kitchen, High Reaches Weyr

Polished marble and granite surfaces, gleaming metalwork and pale woods characterize the vaulted fastness of the kitchen. Several large hearths gape red-mouthed against the outer wall of the cavern, their fires almost always stoked for the constant cooking the Weyr requires to feed its denizens. Sinks line the wall to one side of the hearths, providing ample space to wash large quantities of dishes, while to the other, cabinetry and a deep pantry provide storage space for items commonly needed on a day-to-day basis.

The remaining wall space is taken up by passageways and extra seating: swinging doors that lead variously to the main living cavern, the inner caverns and the storage rooms, a counter-height pass-through for food service to the Snowasis, and a series of nooks equipped with tables and benches for quick, out-of-the-way meals any time of day.

It's one of those beautiful, warm summer afternoons: the kind of afternoon where no one in their right mind would stay indoors if they could possibly help it. No doubt that means Madilla is not in /her/ right mind, since rather than packing up a picnic lunch to take out with her, she's nestled in one of the little nooks in the kitchens, meandering through her lunch with a book laid out beside her. The kitchens aren't too busy, for once, given lunch was sandwiches, and dinner is still hours away, which makes it a surprisingly peaceful spot.

"You're out of your fool mind, staying inside on a day like this." Hey, Z'yi's just vocalizing what everyone else is thinking. Reflective, "Guess that means I am, too." He settles down across from Madilla without even a by-your-leave, settling his plate in front of him, stacked high with late-made sandwiches, heavy on the cheese and meats and mustard. The cooks love him, or maybe they just had pity on his post-sweeps dusty self. His black leathers look all but grey, chalky with dust and-- ash? Maybe.

Madilla's expression is verging on guilty as she shoots a glance up at the bluerider; it softens almost immediately to a smile, though, which blossoms genuinely across her face. "We'll have to be out of our collective minds together, then. How are you, Z'yi?" The healer reaches for one of her own sandwiches, picking it up between careful fingers as she adds, "And-- goodness. What have you been doing to come back so filthy?"

In contrast, Z'yi's assault on his own sandwich is messy, straightforwards, and messy. Oh, and messy, too. After sufficient time to inhale half of the rather large sandwich in two spectacular bites, Z'yi washes down dust and cheese alike with a swig of cider and offers Madilla something of a crooked expression, mustard-smeared cheek and all, for her collective-minds remark. For the rest, "We're testing the rookies on fire rescue. I'm the poor bastard that gets to set 'em off." His head shakes, dark eyes focusing in on his food again. That apparently suffices in his book for how he's doing, all at the same time. "How are you?" He squints-- "Anything interesting?" --regarding the book laying open.

"Oh!" says Madilla, surprised, but also somehow amused. "I hadn't thought of that. As being something you need to train people on - though, of course, it makes perfect sense." She sets her sandwich back down, reaching for her glass of water, though it gets transferred from one hand to the other, then back again, as she talks. "The book? Just some new research, out of the Hall. Probably only interesting to me. I'm--" She pauses, taking a sip from her drink before answering. "Well enough. Thank you." It's not an enthusiastic answer, even by Madilla's distinctly lessened standards, but she smiles, nonetheless.

"Yeah, we can't do it too often, but fire's something... different. People react strangely to it when they have to deal with it." Z'yi, himself, is impassive about a great deal of things that would phase a sane individual, thanks to the singular fact that his lifemate is Isforaith. "New research? On...?" His dark eyes flicker to it again, then back up to Madilla. A brief look, and he's settling down his sandwich without taking another bite out of it. "Are you okay?" Most people would just rate a grunt of acknowledgement, but most people aren't Madilla, either.

"And," says Madilla, sounding thoughtful, her head tilting just slightly to one side, "I suppose it's important, to keep things... interesting. Different things. Otherwise, it would just be the same drills all the time, and you can't actually hope for something that needs you to put things in action." She flicks a glance at the book, then turns her attention back to Z'yi, answering the rest as she picks up her sandwich again. "Treating arthritis. It's-- complicated." That latter bit might well be answer to the question of whether she's okay. Or not. It's hard to tell. "I'm fine. It's just been a difficult couple of months."

"There is a... balance. We have to do things reactively because we have trained to do them reactively, but we also have to adapt for situational changes." Maybe Z'yi's writing a resource manual. Sounds like something Mielline would make him do. "And we have to keep people from burning out." There's a flicker of that expression again. "Literally." Back to food, and considering his tablemate for a moment or three. "I understand that. Feels like I've had a difficult couple of decades." That last is hardly a mutter, but less grousing than a mutter would entail; just something spoken quietly. "I'm sure some of the older riders will be singing your praises, if that new research /works/." He offers her a way out, perhaps, of continuing a delicate line of conversation.

Madilla's lips twitch at that 'literally' - and then she smiles outright again. "Balance," she repeats, sounding thoughtful, as though she's considering that word on a much deeper level than just the surface. "Mm. Tricky. I suppose it keeps you busy, keeping that balance. Busy is good." Her sandwich is abandoned again; Madilla rests her forearms upon the edge of the table, and rolls her shoulders back. "I hope it will. We'll be giving it a try, at least - it's hard for people. Mind active, body not working the way it should. Difficult decades aside, there must be good things going on, I hope? More than work, work, work."

"I don't do the hard work," Z'yi's gravelly basso tones don't hesitate to point out; "Mielline does all of that. I just do what she tells me to do." Since he's such a good workhorse -- or something. Or /something/. "Drive a person batty, I imagine-- not being able to do what you used to." Someday, Z'yi's going to make a very bitter old man. "What is there aside from work, work, work?" Dark eyes are amused, his gaze on Madilla again, a quirk for the line of his mouth. "How is your daughter?" Since some people rather obviously do have things aside from work, work, work.

Madilla's head dips: of course, Mielline does the hard work. "She seems to get you doing more than a lot of your wingmates," she puts in, though, even-toned. A flush creeps across her cheeks at that repetition of work, work, work; it's not as though the healer isn't guilty of that, herself, and she obviously knows it. Still, "We're all supposed to have lives outside of it, you know. It's healthier. Lily is excellent, thank you. Walking, talking, running; all those things they do, which make you miss how they used to curl up in your arms and coo. Even if the sleep is better, now."

"We have a lot of kids." Z'yi swishes off the rest of it as water under a bridge. "Someone has to do it." It helps that Z'yi has very little social life and thus attempts to fill the void with work. Speaking of which, "Why?" Frank, honest, not so much a challenge against Madilla somuch as against the concept itself. "Work makes me happier than the rest." A better topic is that of Lily, however; the way Madilla speaks of it has him ruefully shaking his head. "I'm sure she still needs her momma's arms to curl up in every once in a while. I reckon all that running around has to wear her out at some point, right?"

"Still," persists Madilla. "She ought to make you Wingsecond or something, if she's going to get you to do everything. And-- other things are supposed to make you even happier." Which is a feeble answer, and she seems to know it, shaking her head ruefully. "She does. Though at the moment, she seems more interested in wandering away from where she's supposed to be, off in her own dream world, than running and playing with the other kids. I think she's half scared of most of them." And with genetics from B'tal and Madilla... who can blame her?

An eyebrow furrows in consternation. "R'vel is the wingsecond, and he has plenty to do that I don't want any part of." All that diplomacy crap, totally not in Z'yi's career track. "Don't even try to convince me-- you, of all people, trying to say that there are things other than work?" That is the judgemental face, that one, right there, with the creased brow and amused-but-skeptical slant to dark eyes. "With a daddy like Bety, I think it's probably just her blood coming out. She'll open up, I bet, when she finds where she stands. She's half-you, right?" Captain Obvious over here, clocking in for his shift.

Madilla's hands get raised: peace, peace. "No Wingsecond's knot, then," she says, hurriedly. "I suppose that's fair enough. I don't think I'd want to be promoted beyond where I am, either." As her hands settle back down on the table, she admits, "I suppose I don't have a leg to stand on, do I? I did /try/... having something beyond work. Beyond Lily. It didn't work out." And so, here they are: two workaholics, eating indoors on a beautiful summer's afternoon. "I'm sure she will. She /is/ still little." And yes, half-Madilla: she nods her head.

Z'yi offers a quick grin for those hands raised, a quick expression to ease any possible misunderstanding; he meant no harm, just explanation of motivation-- or lack thereof, in this. That grin dies a ghastly death at the mention of her failed attempt, however, leaving him with a rictus of expression that passes for a grimace. At least it passes, with a quiet, "I'm sorry to hear that," accompanying. "She'll figure herself out. With someone like you for a mom, she'll have all the help she needs to..." He gestures vaguely with a slice of pickle, as if to indicate the entire 'blossoming into wholesome maturity' with a gesture of vegetable.

Madilla understands: must do, because she nods, and allows a little smile to accompany it. But no, she has no smiles, nor grins, nor much of anything positive as he reacts to that admission of hers; she twists her mouth ruefully, ducking her gaze. "These things happen. I suspect it's for the best: Lily has to come first. I hope you're right. I admit, I don't especially look forward to ten turns from now, when she's a teenager, and... everything changes then, really, doesn't it." Not exactly a question. At least, talking about her daughter, she looks distinctly less bothered. Safe topic! "At least she'll grow up in an environment where she knows she can do anything, or be anything, she wants. I'm glad of that."

The Healer isn't the only one glad to abandon talk of titles and failed relationships, shuffling all aside in order to speak on the certain safezone of Lily; Z'yi's proof of that, with his threading-in of conversation. "You'll love her just as much then as you do now-- just not the people she hangs out with, I bet." The element of 'spawn of Bety' could again be applied here, right? "Watch. She'll get absorbed in some craft, just in time for a dumb dragon to come sniffing on her." A rueful tone there, basso wry.

Laughing; "That's probably true. It's strange, having a weyrbred child, when I am... so very much /not/. But the weyr is in her blood. B'tal, Teris, her grandparents. I'm sure she'll always feel at home." Even if she ends up running around screwing everyone. Hopefully, that's /not/ what is on Madilla's mind right now, about her toddler. "She probably will, too. Healer, or Smith, or-- I suppose she could choose anything. She's going to be fine." Which makes the healer sound pleased, and very, very content. "As long as she's happy: that's all I care about." Beat. "Here I am, blathering about my child with you. Parents are awful about that - I'm sorry."

"She should." Z'yi's agreement at Lily's feeling-at-home is idle, the end of his sandwich long past. "I think whatever she puts her mind to doing, she'll be able to do it." He'll make bets on toddlers-- he's weyrbred, after all. Gambling may as well be in /his/ blood, for all the lack of him wagering. "Oh, you're fine." He waves off the apology as if it is a spiral of smoke that could be dissipated by a swipe of a broad palm. "It's a pleasant subject to talk about." His gaze shifts, however, to the plate empty of everything but one last slice of pickle. "Though if I don't go scrub Isforaith down within the next half-candlemark, the smell will soak into him and my whole weyr will smell like a burning barn for the next seven."

Despite herself, Madilla looks relieved. Parents! Never knowing when to shut up about their offspring. "Oh, good. I-- forget myself, sometimes. Not everyone is as willing to hear such things." Her head turns, as if she's attempting to gauge the time from this far in the caverns - hardly possible - but as she turns it back, she agrees, "And I have duties to be back to, as well. At least it's a lovely day for the scrubbing down. Enjoy it, Z'yi - and look after yourself."

A flicker of a smile, again-- Z'yi's not one for big expressions, but this one is rarer than most, less of amusement and more of comraderie. "If you ever find yourself needing to talk, you know where I'm at." Or maybe she doesn't, but weyrfolk have ways. Damned spy network of old aunties... He shifts to his feet in a joint-cracking stretch, lifting his plate and unused fork at the same time. The last of the cider is finished off before he wields the empty cup in a salute. "I will, Madilla-- you do the same." Empties are dumped into the appropriate bin, and the ash-covered rider is ducking around the corner to navigate further the corridors of High Reaches.

A moment's pause - and then, "Thank you, Z'yi. I appreciate that." Madilla's genuine in that, her expression shading serious for it, though it doesn't linger: not when she can smile and add, "I will," as he takes himself off down the corridors.