Difference between revisions of "Logs:Homework"

It was chilly when he dropped her off, sure, but the sun's not gone down yet, and some of its heat is still floating around - not to mention some of its light, which dances on Arekoth's hide when he appears from between, almost as if he'd planned it that way. But surely, surely, dragons don't do that. Kairek waits in the courtyard, where he's insisted on holding at least one of the treat bags (can you call extra studies treat bags?) while they wait. It's usual Kai conversation; witty, perhaps a bit abrasive, happy-go-lucky. At least H'kon and Arekoth were prompt in their arrival.

Oh, what a day! Lilabet has been pretending not to be excited for days now, of course, and probably scarcely slept a wink last night. By now, she's high on exhilaration, and if that means she talks just a little bit faster and more energetically than usual... well. She's eleven. These things happen. As Arekoth appears above, her posture straightens, though the glance she aims at Kairek holds some regret. "I wish I didn't have to go home, but thank you. Today's been... enlightening. Shall I take that now?" She must be destined to be a harper, honestly, given how excited she seems to be about the prospect of extra work.

"Nah," says the full-fledged Harper, waving a hand absently in front of him, "you've got more work there than they'd put you to here anyway." The bag is then held out, one skinny arm extended, and strong enough that the load at the end of it doesn't wobble. Arekoth gets bigger and bigger. "Just make sure you stick your head up long enough to enjoy being at the Weyr before you get tied to the Hall for ever and ever. Learn all the good rider's curses. Find a boy to kiss while Hal's watching and see what he does." Okay, those last may well be because the brownrider is close enough to have caught a sentence or two. Kairek's grinning like a little boy, even when he offers Lilabet's shoulder a quick squeeze, and then shove toward the dragon. Good-naturedly.

Lilabet accepts the bag, gathering it into her arms with a look of single-minded determination, albeit one that turns abruptly into laughter as Kairek continues. The grin she aims at him is just short of cheeky, but she's been shoved forward and so, she takes her leave. "Thanks again!" she calls over her shoulder, as she approaches brown and rider, grinning brilliantly. "Hi H'kon, hi Arekoth. Thanks for coming to pick me up."

Kairek raises a hand in farewell, calling "Come back when you're through that. There's more where it came from." He's at least good enough to spare his brother any extra words, just an obvious wink (or maybe that was for Lilabet?). H'kon is all Face, until he looks a bit down from his brother's face, to the girl's. (Which is probably more like straight on at this point, but nevermind.) The pull at the corner of his mouth might almost be smug; it certainly is well-timed with Arekoth's wing-shuffle and head-tilt. "You're welcome." Final glance to his now-retreating brother, and the hand-off is complete.

For Kairek, there's one last brilliant grin, and then Lilabet turns her attention more permanently onto the brownrider in front of her. "It's been amazing," she reports. "There's so much to learn. I've got homework." She sounds ridiculously pleased about this, and looks... well, more like her little brother, somehow, given how excitable she presently is, as though she can't possibly manage to hold herself still.

H'kon's twinge of a smile fades into something more of the rider and less of the dragon, content enough, if not a smile. "Good. I believe learning was much the purpose of this trip." One short arm is held out for that homework, while Arekoth cranes his neck forward, more to peer at that more-familiar-now face than the luggage. "What sort of work has he given you, then?"

Lilabet hands over the homework cheerfully, not possessive of it despite her glee at having it in the first place. Because, obviously, knowledge is contained in the mind not on the page. She grins up at Arekoth, though her attention's quick to refocus upon his rider as she says, "Oh, all kinds of things. Different poetry forms, and some of the long sagas to read and understand, and some essays and-- I'm going to be the best prepared apprentice there ever was, by the time Mama lets me come."

H'kon's eyebrows are raised, even, by all those things. "I do not doubt you will be," is quite sincere. The rider steps up to his dragon, and Arekoth is good enough to crouch to make his straps the more accessible, for the stowing of all those pages. "And you'll need be mindful to thank her for sending you off here, tonight." Straps and buckles close off one of those side bags. Safely put away. "So. Will you be practicing recitation in all this studying of forms, or looking mostly at the composition?" The boy raised by an almost-Harper, all grown.

Her hands now empty, Lilabet tucks them behind her back, doing her level best not to rise up onto her toes and wiggle. Nonetheless, she manages to be serious, even solemn, when she says, "I will, I promise. I'm so very grateful to her for allowing me to come, H'kon, I promise." It has her chin lifting in a rather determined kind of way as she continues, rather more level this time, "I want to do composition, mostly, but I suspect I'll need to learn recitation, too. Works that are meant to be recited need to be composed with that in mind, after all. I don't know that I'd like to do it in front of a lot of people, though. It seems like that would be... more terrifying, don't you think?"

H'kon is up with a handhold on those straps, balancing and working to unhook a secondary belt, where he has it stowed neatly along one of those strips of leather. "I know," he confirms. "As does she, but... It seems to me there are some things worth hearing, nonetheless." The frown with that comes quickly, almost as a wince, as he eases back down. The belt is held out to Lilabet. "I have never had the taste for that sort. Even in riding, a rider's duties, it took time."

"I know it's difficult for her," allows Lilabet, carefully. "But of course, you're right. We all like the acknowledgement, don't we? Even if we know already." She's watching H'kon as he unhooks that belt, and as he climbs down again; she accepts it wordlessly, though further words do eventually come: "I suppose it must be so for a lot of people. We're not all natural... I don't want to say 'leaders', because that's not what I mean, but 'performers' isn't right, either. But you know what I mean, I think." With practiced hands, she puts on the belt, as she talks.

H'kon nods to the first, waiting for the girl to prepare herself. "I suspect I do, yes." Arekoth is shuffling his wings again. This time it's the dragon, looking to the hall, but the brother is long gone.

Lilabet's answer is quiet but also firm. "Good," she says. As she finishes with the belt, she releases her hands from it, turning her attention back on to the brownrider. She's watching him, with half an eye spared to his dragon, even if she doesn't turn to follow his attention.

H'kon is watching Lilabet now; watching her still. It doesn't go on too long. "I suppose we should be back. Your mother will be anxious to know you've not stowed away in the apprentice dorms, hm?" Even if he's not yet moving for Arekoth. Who's still watching the hall.

Those dark brows of Lilabet's raise as she regards H'kon in return. "I suppose," she agrees, seriousness fading into a smile. "I wouldn't want her to think that." Not that she moves, either - except, after a few moments, to turn her head to glance back at the hall. "What's Arekoth watching for?" she wants to know, abruptly.

H'kon turns to look up at the brown, for that. Lilabet would probably need to have her ear right up against the man's stubble to hear the tap-tap of his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he considers an explanation. Finally, "Procrastination, I suppose," he decides at last. One eyebrow raises, and he glances sidelong to the girl.

"Procrastination," repeats Lilabet. And then she laughs. "Perhaps he's giving me my opening to dash back towards the hall and refuse to leave." She's glancing back at H'kon, then, and grinning as she does so. "I don't suppose I'm allowed to claim asylum or anything, the way people do in tales." A pause, and then she adds, quickly, "Not that I would. I will abide by Mama's ruling."

"You could take it as such," H'kon muses, secure, perhaps, in the girl's obedience even before she's spoken it... or at least secure in the fact that he and Arekoth would manage to catch her. He waits a few moments before prompting, "Surely there are things you enjoy, though. Of your home."

Lilabet's silence lasts only a few, thoughtful moments, and then she's smiling across at the brownrider again. "Of course there are," she says. "And I will miss it desperately, when it's time to leave. I'm glad I was raised at the Weyr. I wouldn't have wanted to be raised at Healer Hall, or even here. But... I need to know things, H'kon. I need to... I know what I want, and it's hard, so hard, to have to wait. And..." She breaks off, biting her lip in an abruptly uncomfortable way. "Everything's different at home, now."

H'kon's mouth is halfway open to speak when the girl gives that last. It closes right back up, and twists into what's nearly a wince. "I imagine it has changed quite a bit, from what you'd been accustomed to." Arekoth is looking at them, now, but slyly. Askance.

Lilabet caught that twist, that nearly-wince; it makes her frown. "It's not... I mean, not all bad. It's just different. And it's getting better. I mean, Raija's doing better, isn't she? But it's still different, and sometimes I just wish... change is hard. At least if I were here, I'd be in control of the change."

H'kon listens carefully, giving only a quick affirmative, "She is," on the topic of that little girl. That Face surfaces up again soon enough, and leaves H'kon more thoughtful. "You'd be in control of that initial change, yes... but even then. There's much unpredictable, in my experience. Even when you've taken some initiative."

Lilabet's hands have clasped behind her back again now, and she's turned her attention directly on to H'kon. There's something almost pleading in the way she speaks - or, rather, it's just that she's eager to be understood, and desperate not to be misunderstood. "Yes," she agrees. "I know that's true. And I know it would be difficult, and sometimes I'd probably just wish to be home again and safe. But at least I'd feel like I were... progressing." A pause, and an exhale. "I'm not trying to convince you. Or anyone. I understand the reasons. I know I'm too young. It's just hard to wait."

"I suppose," H'kon starts, at the end of all that, having listened carefully to the whole explaination, idly tugging at one part of his dragon's straps within his reach, "that you've got homework now. At least."

"Yes," says Lilabet, quickly. "I have homework. It's something... concrete to work on, and I'm glad of that. And I can visualise everything so much better, now that I've seen more of it." She's desperately earnest, her eyes very nearly shining. "I'll be patient. I'll try not to make Mama sad. Or Dee." Or Raija. Or H'kon himself. "Just don't have any babies until after I've gone, okay? More babies."

That, at least, manages to tug at H'kon's mouth, a little bit, though his eyes stay quite serious. "No. I doubt there's any likelihood of that." He's tilted his head now, looking just a bit more like his dragon (still watching askance) might. "No more changes, then. You'd rather."

A smile tugs at Lilabet's mouth, too - a pleased one - though there's a furrow to her brow, too, very almost reminiscent of the one H'kon so often wears himself. Still, it's a more neutral answer that she offers, as confirmation: "No more changes. Which is ridiculous to wish for, because isn't that what always happens? But. It would be nice."

"And there are some changes which are in our control," the brownrider adds, thoughtful, careful. He's mid-step to clear the path to Arekoth's straps for Lilabet when he stops, pins a look straight on her, serious, to bring, "You know... that I've never meant to make your home feel in any way foreign."

Immediately, Lilabet's cheeks flush; for a moment, she looks very much like her mother. "No," she says, quickly. "No. It's not you. You've... been with us for turns now, and it's not..." Words fail the harper-to-be. Frustrated, she exhales sharply. "I didn't mean to imply that you have. Or that I resent you, or anything like that, because I don't. Truly, H'kon. I don't." She takes half a step forward, hands unclasped and brought back in front of her, though she doesn't actually, in the end, reach for H'kon. "Dee was a change. Losing Auntie Delifa was a change, and Mama being Weyrhealer. And you. And Dee's father. And Raija. And... all of it is change. But none of those things are bad, except that, together, they've changed things. Complicated them. And sometimes that's just hard."

A short moment, and H'kon is nodding. "I know. I remember. We've spoken of this before, to some extent... I'd just have you know that I've not forgotten you - or Dilan, or Raija now - in any considerations." It ends with an uncertain twist of his mouth, but this time, the brownrider does step aside, and wave her toward the straps. Arekoth is crouching. Arekoth is ready. Arekoth was totally not listening and commenting this entire time.

Lilabet's mouth opens, but she ultimately seems to decide against whatever it was she was about to say. Instead, she nods: first a short, slow one, and then a couple more, just for emphasis. "I know," is what she says, finally. "I do know." And perhaps she could say more, but perhaps she doesn't need to. No doubt Arekoth is saying enough for everyone. In any case, she chooses not to, and instead approaches the brown to climb her way up and attach her belt. It's time to go home.