Difference between revisions of "Logs:Where You're Placed, Where You're Headed"

Is it any surprise that Riorde gets called in one morning? /Right/ after she'd have washed up after feeding Sforzath, too, quite as though a certain rangy green had been watching from the ledge she's claimed above the barracks. Which she probably had. She doesn't even get the weyrlingmaster herself. Though Meara's chair is occupied by that green's relatively taciturn rider, it's been pulled over to the side of the desk, near to a second chair that's serving as footrest for said rider's bare feet. Leova's got a knife in her hand, and a little block of wood that's serving as the focus of her knife's attentions. Vrianth's got a quick-flicked image of the place for Sforzath, more than a hint, not quite a puzzle... though it comes with a tag-line jolt of electricity, just in case he's inclined to be sleepy. « Send her there, hm? » Send her there, little one. Send yours there, your rider. That one.

Riorde's blood-spattered shift has been traded for a fresh one, though it is guaranteed to be just as dirty by the end of the day, if not dirtier. She's clean and presentable when Sforzath jolts into alertness, ill-inclined to do anything but doze and drowse on his bellyful of meat. « There? » he repeats, not quite certain of the image afterburned into his mind. « There! » he directs Riorde, making up for the lack of clarity with sheer force and sharing with Vrianth too. See, he listened. His young rider must have figured it out, because she appears under the lintel a few minutes later. Standing in the doorframe, uncommitted to entering the office, Riorde looks at the knife longer than she looks at Leova. "You wanted me?"

Sharing has its rewards, with an indulgent sense of good Sforzath, learning Sforzath, possibly-even-/quick/ Sforzath. And look, she made it there safely, so now-he-can-go-back-to-sleep Sforzath. He won't miss out on the /good stuff/. Really. As for Leova, and the knife, the latter peels off a last bit of the wood before the former looks up, amber eyes watchful if not unwelcoming. "Morning," she says. "Have a seat, if you want." The greenrider gives the other chair a brief heel-push, opening it out to Riorde's angle, and puts her feet more-or-less on the floor before scraping the woodshavings into a little bag she's got with her and stowing her knife, too. In case: "Have a sudden yen to grow your hair out?" Right after feeding time?

Praise works well on Sforzath, almost as good as (and occasionally better than) other rewards in his young dragon life: food, oiling, playtime after demanding concentration. He pulses with satisfaction, a drumbeat that steadily dwindles to match the rise and fall of his chest, as quiet as his breathing as he slips back into slumber. At the door, Riorde tests the offer by declining. "That's alright. I'll stand." She crosses the room nonetheless and places her hands on the back of the empty chair, lightly bracing herself as she faces Leova. "Not in particular," she answers cautiously, with a question in her expression but nothing voiced. "I keep it back." There's that typical defensiveness of hers, just a hint to justify herself in the light of perceived criticism.

To which Leova double-checks, "Don't want it trimmed, then? Got the shears," and a sideways glance turns into a confirming nod with her chin: there they are, the perhaps-not-unfamiliar things, costly metal sitting innocuously upon Meara's desk. They're polished, though not to any particular shine. No rust for /them/. "But we can skip 'em. Whichever." Something, in Riorde's new life, may actually be up to Riorde herself to decide. As long as she doesn't take too long about it. At least her brown isn't taking so long, sleeping, and the sense of Vrianth's attention stays with him a little longer before stretching back out into the world. Leova stretches too, if only an absent roll of her shoulders. Waits.

Riorde has a half-frown, suspicious of some sort of trick to the question and the choice. "No," she answers, coming around her chair and then closer. "I could use a trim. Maybe I'll like the change I was thinking, here." She puts her hand to just below chin-height and looks at Leova expectantly. Then Riorde reaches for the shears without permission, drawn to them with that fascination for all things never-before-seen that the exiles seem to have got in their bad, exiled blood.

The expectant look gets an assessing look in return, a one-shouldered shrug and a, "Be a pain, I'd reckon. Too short to pull back well, 'less you just want to braid that bit by your temples. Too long to keep out of your face on its own." The frown got nothing at all, or rather, just more of the same: calm ease, a collected low-level confidence as though her seat were connected to the bedrock beneath them. Maybe she was born that way. Maybe her green gave it to her, some strange, dragon-infected blood. In any case, she watches Riorde. Watches Riorde reach. Watches what she does with the shears, if she does take them, in the end. Or, what she might do with other things: by those shears, there are some hides, the top one with Riorde's name on it. There's also a stoneware mug with the dregs of something dark and wet within, and a half-chewed-on rind of something citrus-y and green.

"Well what would you do, then? Guess I could cut it real short or keep it as it is but always wear it back." Riorde answers her own question as she turns the shears over in her hands, then makes a testing snip at the air. The metal blades snicker-snack open and shut. "Never had my hair cut with these. Always just a knife." And probably not even metal ones at that. Riorde goes to put the shears back down but pauses when her gaze skips over the hides and then returns, drawn to the letters of her name. Neglecting to ask for Leova's consent a second time, the young woman reaches for the hide with her other hand, collecting the things off Meara's desk. Shears and now hide. Her name, must be hers to take. "What's this?"

"/I'd/ cut it short," says the greenrider, low laughter in her voice that she half-explains with, "Mine's about due, anyhow. Easier to take care of, can pay more attention to other things." More interesting things, says her tone. It's more of an aside, her offhand reference to the shears, "With those, got to clean the hinge out extra well, after. Hairs like to get caught. Oil's not bad in and of itself, but when it goes bad, or..." but then Riorde's reaching. "One at a time, hm?" Leova holds out her hand: give her the shears or her hide. Her pick. Again. Meanwhile: "Review. Where you're placed at, where you're headed."

Riorde hands over the shears without much of a pause; she was about to put them down, anyhow. "Review," she repeats, looking at Leova. She could see for herself--the hide isn't just a talisman to hold onto--but asking is quicker. Besides, Riorde looks like she wants to hear it for herself. "Where did I place?" More importantly, "Where am I headed?" She pauses before the second question and pronounces it with greater reservation, waiting for Leova's response with a look of fixed concentration, more apprehensive than eager or eager-to-please.

But what she gets is a simple, "Where do you think?" Followed by, "/Not/ playing with you. No right or wrong. Want to see how you're looking at things, is all." Somewhere in there, Leova's stashed those shears away, just settled them on her knee.

The slim, narrow-hipped weyrling rider stands there and looks at Leova, really looks. "None of us could pass your exams." Us, them. An us that doesn't include all her fellow weyrlings. Your exams. A blunt bitterness in Riorde's tone that went down in her writing too. She does not enjoy being set up for failure.

Then she sees a rusty-haired, somewhat disheveled-haired rider, her figure obscured by the boxy cut of her shirts but certainly not narrow-hipped, with a level gaze and a slightly lifted chin. She doesn't smile, but there's a deliberate ease to the set of her shoulders, like she's not uncomfortable with where they're at. Listening. At the end, quite quietly, "You talk as if passing is the point." She lets that sit for a little bit. "Want to see where you're at, is the main thing. Where all the weyrlings are. If somebody's ahead, maybe they could stand to help others. If they're behind, don't want to leave 'em in a lurch. Wasn't exactly ahead, myself, at the beginning." And where is she now?

"Isn't it?" After the tone taken just previously, the rhetorical question is oddly devoid of rancor. Riorde listens to the view Leova puts forward and perhaps accepts it since she says next, "I can see that." She finally sits down, a tenser counterpart to the woman across from her, and reaches to undo the tie that keeps her hair back. "I want a trim," Riorde declares. But, operating in the knowledge that she makes it more difficult for herself, defines it further. "Not short just yet. Just something to even it out at the bottom."

Her reaction's taken as matter-of-factly as the rest: with a brief nod, a simple, "Take a look on your own time, bring it back after lunch." And, all right, a brief, sideways smile, perhaps the more so for that declaration, and then it's time to snip-snip-snip. Lucky for Riorde, Leova's gotten at least a little better at this over time, and as long as the weyrling doesn't move too much, she's likely to get a fairly symmetrical if uninspired cut. But then... it's what she asked for.