Difference between revisions of "Logs:Normal"

Nighthearth, High Reaches Weyr

With its entrance located between the kitchen and the living cavern, this tiny bubble cavern is cozy, always kept warm and is filled with comfortable chairs and a small round table. At the far end, there's a hearth, outlined in ruddy, aging bricks, where a pot of stew simmers in the evening hours. Generally quiet, the nighthearth is the haunt of insomniacs and those seeking quiet from the bustle of daily Weyr life.

Lovely summer evenings mean the Nighthearth is not terribly crowded, even if there is still a card game going on at the big table - regardless, it's still a good place for a quiet, leisurely meal. Madilla's finished hers, an empty stew bowl sitting tidily by her feet alongside an equally empty mug, and now she's taken out her sewing, quilting together a handful of brightly coloured square patches with careful, methodical stitches.

Near the entrance there is W'chek. When did he get there? At some point. Not long ago, maybe. Now he's there, standing, watching. Bravery still isn't exactly his byword. It takes some time to get up that nerve, to take the steps forward to sit down at a polite distance from Madilla, which is to say at least two seats down. Not presuming, certainly. Even a little time after that to actually find words: "Hi." Well, one word, anyway.

Madilla remains utterly oblivious, throughout all of that, right up until the point W'chek actually speaks. To her discredit, the sound of his voice - or is it just the surprise of being addressed? It's so hard to know - makes her flinch. Then, gaze lifting from her work, she turns her attention towards him, expression unreadable. After a moment more, "Hello."

Well, there's awkward. W'chek leans forward in the chair to rest his elbows on his knees as he looks over at her for a moment, then seems intensely interested in the state of his fingernails. Then finally looking back to her again, with a good try at a sheepish smile. "I just... thought I'd see how you were doing over here. Another quilt, there? It's very pretty." When all else fails, discuss the totally irrelevant.

Madilla's gaze, once tilted towards W'chek, doesn't shift, regardless of what he's looking at in the meantime. "It's a baby blanket, for Delifa. Her baby is due in a few months." Although she answers the question readily enough, her expression suggests it's hardly at the forefront of her thoughts; that becomes even more clearly as she adds, smoothing hands over the fabric in her lap, "You didn't really come here to talk about quilts, though. I'm fine, W'chek."

The fact that she keeps looking makes it harder for W'chek to hold her gaze; instead he ends up looking at almost anything else in the cavern except her as time passes. "Well, no. I mean, I'm glad you are. I didn't come to talk about anything in particular. Just to see. That's all." Pause. "Do you want it back? The quilt. I folded it up but I don't know what to do with it now."

Madilla looks uncertain, despite the steadiness of her gaze, particularly as W'chek speaks. Mention of the quilt makes her wince, though, and her answer to that comes immediately: "No! Whatever-- it's yours, W'chek. Please keep it." Her hand drops to the pocket of her skirt, drawing out the necklace that has been kept in there, for-- what, a month now? She extends her hand without looking at it. "But you should have this back." And; "How are /you/, W'chek?"

The necklace gets regarded like it might well sprout fangs and bite. Then W'chek sighs. "Do you really--I mean, look. There's never going to be anybody else for me to give it to. You might as well keep it. Or give it away. I don't care." So he waves at her hand like that might dismiss it. "I'm--" Stop. Pause. "Still breathing, I guess. Most I can ask at this point. Seeing Carobet again, on orders this time. Fat lot of good it does. But still breathing."

"It was your mother's," says Madilla, as though this makes all the difference in the world. "Shouldn't-- I don't know. It stay in your family?" She looks sad, now, and no, that gaze still hasn't shifted away from him; nor has the hand. She has to take a deep breath before she can continue, and when she does, there's obvious concern in her tone. "Maybe she can help, if you let her. Please let her. I don't want to see you unhappy." Which she has evidently decided he must be.

A little snort of an almost-laugh. "My brothers' wives and my sisters cleaned out my mother's jewelry box long since, I think. What's one more thing? I'm not--" Airflow strangled there, the words cut off until W'chek can clear his throat. "That is to say, it's not like--" He doesn't really make it any further that time. "Never mind. I don't care what you do. If you really don't want it, I can shove it in a box somewhere, I guess. It'll just end up in storage eventually, that way." Deep breath. "She doesn't have the faintest idea what it's like."

Madilla's eyes look awfully big, when she's watching someone like she is right now, and particularly, when she looks as sad as she does. Her head shakes, though, finally, and after a momentary pause after that, she extends the necklace further. "One day, you might have a daughter who ought to have it," she tells him, in a low calm voice. And; "Perhaps she doesn't. But talking things out can help sometimes. Or perhaps you should be talking to someone who does understand. There must be other--" She swallows, then pushes the final words out forcefully, as though it's taken quite a bit for her to get that far, "/Gay, holdbred riders/."

"And one day pigs might fly." There's no way for W'chek to keep the bitterness out of his voice, there. But he does, finally, take the necklace back, holds it in his palm, then shoves it into his own pocket. "Seems like none of 'em much liked where they came from. None of them were much happy with the idea of living like that. So they come here and they're happy and terrific. It's... not the same." The hand stays in the pocket once it's there, fingers still curled around its contents. "It's all right. I'll be all right. I don't want to burden you with all of that. Not yours to bear."

Madilla's hand stays where it is for just a few moments longer than necessary, and then it gets dropped back into her lap. "You never know," she says, not quite chiding, but that would be the next step. "I don't mind. It's not a burden. W'chek... it's not as though I don't care about you, now. You understand that?" For a moment, she lets that hang, and then, "You really were happy with the idea of living like that. Weren't you."

Finally the hand releases, extracts itself, folding with the other between W'chek's knees as he sits in silence for too long. That shouldn't be something all that hard to answer. "I wish you didn't," finally. "I was. Yes." Pause. "Why does everybody find that so hard to believe? I must have had some nefarious plan to be horrible just for the sake of being horrible. I can't possibly have wanted just to live out life like a normal human being. I can't be allowed even that?"

"Why? Why shouldn't I care about you?" That answers has clearly taken Madilla by surprise; she looks hurt by it, more visibly unhappy than ever. And the rest: "I don't find it hard to believe. I never doubted..." She pauses to take a breath, swallows, and then adds, "I still don't doubt. It just surprises me. That having someone you love isn't enough."

A deep breath first, then: "Because it'd be better for you. That's all. It's not that I mind. It'd just be better for you, I would think. If you could just... rage and be done with it." W'chek sits back in his chair, then, one hand on each knee, fingers squeezing almost white-knuckle hard. "Enough for what? It doesn't last, you know. The feeling. It passes. It's not a real commitment. Not a family." Shrug. "Aside from," and there's that bitterness creeping back again, "the fact that it's just not right."

Madilla sounds rueful as she says, quietly, by way of confirmation, "Tiriana thought I should hurt you back. I'm not like that, W'chek. Perhaps it would be simpler, but it won't happen." She bites at her lower lip as she finishes saying that, considering W'chek, then shaking her head. "You're not a monster, W'chek. You're not /wrong/. I wish you'd... I wish I could help. I hate seeing you unhappy." Her sewing remains abandoned, though one hand creeps towards the needle, securing it in her work without glancing at it: her gaze doesn't waver.

"Tiriana," W'chek repeats, almost uncomprehending. "Tiriana knows?" Well, that's news, yet. But he shakes his head, too, like an echo. "I'm glad you don't think so. I guess. I'll be all right." How many times has he said that now? Is it any more true now than it was the first time? "It's not about my being happy or unhappy. Can't define it like that. Maybe I am happy sometimes, but then sometimes I'm not. That'd be the same either way, wouldn't it?"

Madilla's stilted nod is followed, after a moment, by, "She's been very-- nice to me." But that doesn't seem to be the focus of her thoughts - no, that would be /him/, given the way she reaches across to put her hand on his knee, holding it as she says, "You keep saying that. And-- sometimes I find it hard to believe you. Like sometimes you're actually determined to be unhappy, to see the worst in things. It doesn't have to be that way."

At least W'chek, likewise, seems inclined to drop the issue of the Weyrwoman just as quickly. Madilla's hand gets the same might-be-a-tunnelsnake look from earlier, but he puts his over hers for a moment. Fingers curl around hers, and then gently lift it away, push it back towards her. "Two things in life ever made me happy. One of them's a sickness and the other one's a lie." Then his voice softens noticeably, "I'm sorry. This is just... it's still hard. I should have just left you alone."

Madilla looks... frustrated, perhaps, or disappointed, or both, as her hand gets pushed away. She doesn't press the issue, just sets it back down in her lap, but her unhappiness is easily betrayed in her voice. "Don't leave me alone, W'chek. /Don't/. And don't apologise. I don't want to... It's just, did it never occur to you that some things /haven't/ changed?" There's resolve now, in her expression, and in her tone.

A moment of something wide-eyed which comes almost to staring except that W'chek looks away, then, and shakes his head. "No. Some things haven't changed. I want you to have a good life and a family and to be happy." He stops, puts his head back to look at the stone ceiling instead. "I haven't done so hot at learning how to think about you as just this girl I know. And I don't want to hang around making a total fool of myself. I do... enough of that with Bety these days." Momentary awkwardness about that last sentence, still not having an easy time talking about such things.

The wide-eyedness is met straight by Madilla, which isn't to say that she's implying anything in particular with her gaze, just that - well, she's not ashamed? Perhaps. "You're not making a fool of yourself. And... you don't have to think of me that way. Whatever happens, W'chek, there /is/ more between us than just that. I want--" The words for whatever it is she wants aren't quite there; ultimately, she shakes her head. "Whatever happens, I will still care."

Ashamed is certainly a good enough word for the way that W'chek looks down at his hands again, this time. "It's nice that you do. I'm not saying that it isn't. But it makes me feel more like you feel sorry for me than anything else, and I don't need more of that," he admits after a moment. "I get enough of those looks from everybody else. Poor Whit. I don't want to *be* poor Whit."

Quietly; "I'd rather shake you than feel sorry for you, W'chek." Madilla looks less comfortable with owning up to this. "And believe me, if you think you're getting a lot of those looks?" She reaches up to twist a strand of her hair behind one ear, then shakes her head. "If you don't want people feeling sorry for you, then prove that you're not 'poor Whit'. Don't mope over what you've lost," there's a wry twist of her lips as she says this; it comes from personal experience. "Just enjoy what you haven't lost. The rest will work out."

"It's not feeling sorry for what I've lost." W'chek watches the twisting of the hair, pushes his hand back over his like he's suddenly been reminded of its existence. "Nobody seems to recognize that I've lost anything at all. It's poor Whit, who was so deluded he thought he could be normal. That. That's what I can't stand." Okay, so it's probably more like 'poor Whit, he's had such a hard time accepting himself', but he might not recognize that there was any difference at all between the two sentiments. "I don't feel like I'm moping." Beat. "Much. Anyway, you didn't lose anything. You're still going to have it all, someday." Nice shift in subject. Easier than defending his behavior as something other than moping, anyway.

Madilla doesn't, immediately, seem to know what to say to that, because she purses her lips and frowns, and is quite still and silent for several seconds. "I did lose something," she tells him, finally, in a quiet voice. "You'll remember, of course, exactly how many prospects I had before you. That would be how many I have, now. Did you know, I always intended to just-- ask someone, eventually. To give me a baby. I realise, I will have an easier time than you will, getting-- all of that back. But. You're not the only one who has lost something, W'chek." She looks away, finally, staring at the sewing in her lap, rather than let him see her expression - which is hurt.

That dismissive wave borders on rude, but at least when W'chek goes on, it's not in any kind of a hurtful way. "Don't you know how men are? It's that promotion business. Day after you walk the tables and have that new knot, you'll have them lined up around the Weyr, you know. Still *Weyrfolk*, mind," and how in the world can he manage to still say that straight-faced like it's a bad thing? "But at least the sort of guys who you won't spend the rest of your life hearing, 'She's with *who*?', so there's that."

"Perhaps," allows Madilla, putting on a smile, though whether she actually believes all this is harder to know; still, she's obviously not feeling too sorry for herself. Still; "You make it sound as though people were going to look askance at my being with you, even if--" She breaks off at that, leaving the rest unspoken. "I don't think they would have, Whit. I think-- we would have made it work."

Brows up. The moping, at least, seems to be forgotten in this almost-reminiscing. "Evidently you didn't get the same looks I did. The head-shaking 'I don't know what she sees in you' business." W'chek even actually smiles at that. "Not that we couldn't have made it work. You know. It just would have been with a certain amount of 'why in the world is she with that ass--'" Cut off, a little bit of a blush. "Sorry. You know what I mean, anyway."

Madilla purses her lips, head shaking sadly. "People just don't-- it isn't right." Probably, she got any number of the same looks, but never quite noticed. Much like she never noticed a lot of things. "You don't have to apologise. I've heard worse language. And perhaps I do understand what you mean, but..." She trails off, and then, after a moment more, rises towards her feet. "I would have lived with that. Perhaps... In some ways, I still might. But. I have places to be tonight, so I should take my leave. It was... nice. To talk to you again. W'chek. Look after yourself."

"Fact that you've heard worse doesn't mean I ought to talk like that. I really am sorry." W'chek stands as she rises, though he makes no move in her direction. Just politeness. The old manners, back again. The old distance, too, perhaps. "Of course. I don't mean to keep you. I'll see you around, I guess. Have a good evening, Madilla."

"I really don't mind," promises Madilla, though her smile as she says it is outright fond. "Perhaps we could have dinner again, sometime. Or-- just a conversation. Every now and then. I would like that. Good evening, W'chek." She doesn't wait for an answer to her suggestions, just gathers together her things, and takes her leave. The smile on her face lasts... well. Out the door, out of sight, but no further; after that, she just looks thoughtful.