Difference between revisions of "Logs:Mother(s) To Be"

Greenhouse, High Reaches Weyr

A rustic and unadorned vestibule leads in from hewn spiral steps to a refitted ledge, enclosed by limestone pillars. Sturdy wooden framework captures elongated glass panes, tilted to absorb the most light during the day. The wash of heat from within, lush and humid, persists even into the dead of winter; the air is heady with the scent of fresh-turned soil and various flora.

Long, deep troughs of soil line the inner stone wall, planted with an assortment of broad, leafy tropicals - practical and decorative alike. Fruit and vegetable baskets hang from rafters, optimizing space, tempting in reach with a perpetually ripening harvest. A series of stone shelving is devoted to flourishing, aromatic herbs and new green shoots; even the softest touch releases a burst of savory scent from tender leaves. Amidst the greenery, a handful of wooden benches have been scattered, making this a temptingly warm and secluded spot to sit.

Shuttered vents serve to regulate humidity and heat given off from a small hot spring recessed into an alcove at the back; a secondary pool with cooler waters siphons off to provide a constant, fresh supply for irrigation. A small potting station nearby is cluttered with watering cans and gardening tools of various uses, with a wooden bin for composting materials tucked underneath.

The fog is so thick, this afternoon, it's hard to see anything out of the greenhouse's glass walls-- but perhaps that just serves to make it a more pleasant place, warm and snug against the ravages of winter. It's warm enough inside that Madilla has removed her shoes, and sits cross-legged in the dirt as she weeds and harvests, all very relaxed. She's more than halfway through her pregnancy now, and it shows, though she looks nothing but comfortable in her own skin - and peaceful in her work.

The greenrider sheds her clothing along her way to Madilla like so many breadcrumbs, her outer coat inside the craft complex's entrance, her cap and thick sweater a ways in, more just outside the greenhouse proper. Now she trails inside with her socks pushed down, her tunic rumpled where it had been crammed beneath the wool but its sleeves rolled up, a long scarf her last token of the cold. She spots the healer soon enough, but doesn't hurry, walking near enough to the glass that she can now and again draw a little arc or spiral in the condensation. Madilla's always her goal, though, and eventually she's close enough to say, smiling, "Found you." Like it was an accident, like they hadn't planned it.

Madilla smiles, too, as she turns her head away from the garden and drops her hands back down to her diminishing lap. "Next time," she tells the greenrider with faux solemnity, "I shall hide behind the taller plants and make you really hunt for me." The sleeves of her shirt - shirt and skirt being the outermost layers of her own clothing, the rest long since abandoned - are rolled up around her elbows. She wipes her hands on her skirt, and then adds, "It's so lovely in here, in winter. And peaceful. A hideaway. How are you today, Leova?"

"And dress you up like a rock," Leova teases before, ever so gingerly, settling herself at the healer's feet. "Feels like we should have a big blanket, a picnic..." which is to say, "/Miss/ just going. South. Maybe next Turn, hm?" The rusty head's right at Madilla's knee, like a child, or a particularly fuzzy feline.

"A rock? Yes. Yes, that should do nicely. Of course, someone might think me the perfect boulder to sit on, and /then/ where would we be?" The lightness of Madilla's voice is matched in her expression; the gaze she aims at Leova as the greenrider settles down is entirely fond. "So do I," is her softer remark. "Next turn. Yes. Though-- that's not so long away, really. Turn twenty-seven." Beat. "Which means it's your turnday soon, too."

"There's a story about that," the greenrider muses of rocks and people turning in and out of rocks, only then she's twisting to look up at her friend, just a glimpse of amber eyes beneath the raggedy fringe. "Suppose you're right." Her shoulders tighten. "How'd that even happen? I know, I know, every /Turn/, but still..." She breathes in deeper. "At least /you/ glow." Unless it's just that they're both sweating in this humidity.

Madilla's toes dig idly into the dirt, careful not to disturb any of the plants still /growing/ (as opposed to the weeds she's oh-so-carefully pulled). "It'd be a useful skill," she opines, of rocks and people and turning one into the other, but it's the rest she focuses on. "Time just flies away, doesn't it? One day after another until... how are you doing? Feeling?" She /does/ glow, but her interest in wholly focused upon her friend.

"Until, until, until," Leova mutters, and then just leans to lay her head against her friend's knee, shoulders slumping, the rest of her too. "Not... different. I know: early. But still. Keep hoping this one has claws." She reaches for the hem of the healer's skirt, the better to have something to mess around with, something less breakable than mere leaves. "Tell me more. Name? Do you have names?"

There's concern in the healer's expression, now, though it combines with that perpetual fondness. "I hope so, too," she murmurs, with a twist of her mouth. "Take it easy. Get him to pamper you." So says the healer who has made no mention of a father in relation to her own pregnancy. And names? "Names. You know, I have no idea. We didn't decide on Lilabet until after she was born; I'm hoping something will come to mind, eventually. It feels different... maybe it's a boy, this time. Though I'm not sure if I believe you can really tell, you know? Fifty-fifty chance."

"Mm. He doesn't know yet." And: "/Names/," Leova prompts, turning up the hem, examining the stitches that hold it: tidy as Madilla's patchwork is tidy, or less so, for other reasons? "Still curious, you know. Even if I haven't asked about him. Are you..." She hesitates. "He's not..." She looks up, eyes Madilla sideways, like the man's name could be written on her forehead. Which makes her smile sideways, too.

"Ah," says Madilla, understanding immediately. "Of course." The stitches are tidy: small, even, perfectly spaced. As tidy as everything in Madilla's life - except perhaps her family status. Her smile turns rueful as Leova eyes her that way, but her shoulders only shrug. "He's not in the picture. So... it just isn't relevant. Or important. It doesn't bother me. In some ways... it would be different, if I had someone. A partner. But I don't. And that means, it's sort of... easier, this way." Beat. "Except," laughingly, "for picking names."

The greenrider's mouth quirks up that much more: with her head at that angle, it's nearly vertical. "Mm," she says. And: "So it's not... more than one, then. So you were confused. About which one. Or maybe he was someone you oughtn't," all the while gauging Madilla's cheeks for extra not-just-humid blush. "And probably not at the Weyr, or there'd be that question about who he's... the baby's... related to down the road. Will his name be part of yours, at least? If you can think of one?"

Oh yes - there's a blush. Not so deep a blush as there might have been, once upon a time, but it's present nonetheless, darkening the humidity-painted pink of her cheeks. Amused, she agrees, "No, there's no confusion. For the rest..." Another shrug of her shoulders. "I don't think there will be any confusion. Later. I suppose there's always--" A beat; her mouth twists thoughtfully. "Dillan? Adlan? It's possible. We'll see."

Relieved, Leova settles back again, not even questioning that sentence fragment any. After all, she has to inspect those nice neat stitches for knots. "Two l's or one? Dilan-an-an-an-an," she plays. "Suppose Adlan could become A'lan, if it came to that. Or A'dan. Either way. If it wouldn't be too strange..." If Madilla's son, Impressing, wouldn't be too strange. If Madilla's son becoming old enough to Impress wouldn't be too strange.

"Two," starts Madilla, though after a moment she adds, "Though one might look tidier. Dilan. Adlan. /A'lan/." It's a thought that seems to amuse her; she grins down at the greenrider, shoulders rolling. "It's a little hard to imagine. But-- not impossible, really, is it? In a weyr. Even in an interval." Looking satisfied, she concludes, "I've always maintained, my children will do what makes them happiest. Whatever that will be."

"You're so... so... so /relaxed/ about it," Leova says on a sigh. "People say that sometimes. Once in a while. I've heard it. But. Reckon, with you, can actually believe it. Unnatural, Madilla, I tell you," but there's such a smile in her voice as she turns the hem this way and that, flipping it back and forth as though the inside could really be the outside after all. "Wonder how we'd have turned out if all our parents were... that way. Kind. Like you."

Madilla's cheeks go pink for a second time; she's clearly pleased by the compliment, but more than a little embarrassed about it. "I don't know," she says. "One of these days, I'm sure Lily is going to start pushing boundaries, and I'm not going to know what to do." She reaches out, pressing one hand flat onto the warm earth, eyes closing as she adds, "I can't imagine raising my children then way I was raised. Everyone's happier, this way."

"Start?" Leova says on a laugh. "How old is she now, anyway?" By now she's folding the hem accordion-style, back and forth and back and forth, using up the length of the fabric. And then her shoulders do that thing again, the way they tighten beneath the still-wrinkled homespun. Her fingers go still. And then there's that half-shrug, and her hands move, if only infinitesimally: if only to hold the creases tight.

Madilla's gaze drops towards her accordion-hem, her eyes showing visibly her amusement. "Well. For the moment, she's mostly very good, except for the escape act; she likes to wander. She'll be four by the time this one is born, or close to it." As her mouth closes, her eyes lift, until she's watching the greenrider with careful thoughtfulness. "Are you all right, Leova? I mean - really all right?"

If Madilla's skirt were even more voluminous, Leova would be able to flap it like a fan. As it is, she can only twitch it. And even that, it's after silence. Still, "Don't get your healer-face on," the greenrider tells her. "Just the usual." Except: "What if Lily /wanted/ to go back and work the cothold? Or if she liked girls. Or if she seduced Rorkes. You know. When she's older. Older than the twins. Or... she started the healercraft, she was good at it. And quit."

"That," Madilla corrects, but only lightly, "was my concerned friend face. But - okay." All those hypotheticals give her pause, and she shifts her position, staring up at the foggy sky over head. "I hope I'd be okay with all of that. It's difficult to tell from here, though, I suppose: it's easy to say something would be fine, until it's there and then maybe it isn't. I hope, though."

The correction gets a gruff, pretty-much-amused noise, and then Leova shuts up and listens: listens, and if the air weren't so foggy, the glass would reflect a look of increasing disbelief. Only then she shakes her head and self-corrects: "Hope. You said /hope/. Because... I wouldn't. Be okay. I just wouldn't. And I'd be nosing into its business. All the time. And... /And/." There's a slight pause. "/Are/ any of your sisters like you? At all? Aunts? Are you sure you're your father's daughter?"

"No?" Madilla turns away from the glass to consider Leova, her mouth pressed into thin line that is neither straight nor twisted - and rather more thoughtful, instead. "I don't mean that it would necessarily sit easily with me. I'd worry. I'd be concerned. I think-- I want my children to be happy. Eventually, they need to live their own lives. I think it works out, though. However you parent. Most people turn out okay, right?" She's got more amused for the last of it, her head shaking. "It was my aunt who convinced my uncle to send me to the healers. But-- life was different. We're so lucky, here. They just struggle to understand what /can/ be."

"/Eventually/." Leova waves a hand. "Someday. When they're..." She glances over her shoulder at Madilla, decides, "Twenty. Maybe nineteen, if it's really good. But you know it wouldn't be." As though catching herself in angst worthy of that same nineteen-Turn-old, she quiets then: even later on, there's no agreeing about the most-people, just a ducked head half-muffling a murmur of agreement about /aunts/. A little more audibly: "Has your aunt ever wanted to... go anywhere? Even just for a Gather day. If she could handle it. Flying."

Madilla's mouth twitches. "/Twenty/. You do realise that I was a Journeyman by then?" But then she's smiling, albeit ruefully, expression fond all over again. She stretches, shifting her position ever so slightly, her posture straightening. "I don't know," she adds, more quietly, audibly sad, about her aunt. "I don't think she's ever really imagined it. If it weren't for my uncle, she probably would. But - she had to work very hard to get him to let me go. He'd never let her." Beat. "He didn't even want my mother to see me."

A little mild scoffing, as /though/ a child even getting journeyrank should prevent its parent from getting nosy, leads to quietness for Madilla's quieter tone and then silence. And then, abruptly, "/What./" Leova's even let the hem slip free. "Why did I think it was your father."

A short shake of the head, accompanied by a wan smile, provides an initial answer to that particular statement. "My uncle was the oldest brother: he made all the decisions. My father... followed his direction. Follows." She stares at the plant in front of her, shoulders a little hunched again. "And that's why I haven't been back in turns."

"Oh." Leova's voice is very quiet. "I'm sorry." And: "Suppose /he'll/ live to be ancient. They tend to."

Madilla turns her attention back, and gives a quiet, barely-visible shrug of her shoulders. "He probably will. It's-- it is what it is. I understand. It would be worse now. With Lily. And this one." The unborn one. "They wouldn't understand, and I respect that. My choices-- aren't the kind that work, out there. So. It's fine. I'm happy here." She'll even turn on a smile, as if to prove it.

"But you miss her," Leova half-guesses even so, again with that upward glance. "Even if... I suppose you can't tell her. Or can you? Though she helped you, if even she couldn't understand..." She leaves it there, on a waiting breath.

"I do," agrees Madilla, quietly. "I miss all of them. But - no, I can't tell them. I don't want to make things awkward and awful, by visiting. And most of them can't read. I couldn't." She twists her expression again, but forces it, after a handful of seconds, back into a half-smile. "But it is what it is. I don't regret any of it." Beat. "I thought, after B'tal died, that I could go and say Lily's father had died... but it didn't feel right."

"One could read to..." but it's faint, and Leova leaves it unfinished. "It isn't /lying/," she stays instead, of B'tal. "Though they would want to know everything, if your aunts are like mine. I..." She hesitates all over again. "Was going to ask. If you would foster it. If I, if anything, if anything happened. If it hangs on. But. Was there more? About him, about B'tal."

One /could/ read to, and the thought gets a faint nod, but an uncertain one, and gets abandoned, instead, for her quiet, "Yes, exactly. And Lily's old enough that she'd talk, and too young to understand why she shouldn't." It takes her a moment - as she's talking - to properly parse the rest before a genuine smile curves about her mouth. "Of course I would. /Of course/. If it came to that. Yes." The last, however, draws her head to a quizzical angle, and, "More? More than?"

(TBC)