Difference between revisions of "Logs:Nobody to be Somebody"

Count small blessings, that's the way to get through the colder seasons. The threat of rain hangs high and and ionized in the low, heavy, grey clouds, but they keep there peace now and have done so long enough to that a few people have braved their fickle temper to gather on the patio, though few drift far from any shelter, because nobody can trust a cloud not to rain. Faryn, despite her often vocal aversion to the cold and wet, is one of the few who stakes claim to a table several feet from the shelter, with her feet reaching out to the chair across from her, toeing at the edge of the seat.

From the direction of the Snowasis, Keysi arrives out on the ledge. It's not a surprise that she's here, given the sorrel-crowned, shadow-bellied blue-sized brown dragon is settled in the bowl only paces away from the steps that lead up to the furniture ladened ledge. The brownrider has a mug of klah in her hand. She doesn't seem tired, and her pace is naturally swift as if she has somewhere to be now, then, all the time. But she doesn't, for now, and comes to a pause with a brief search of that intense observative gaze she has that sweeps those few willing to brave any possible autumn Reachian storm- would it be cool rain or hail-laden blizzard? A familiar face, though it's been quite some time, draws her pale stormy attention, and she closes the distance to Faryn's chosen table. "G'day." Is a quiet, level greeting that's not precisely unfriendly. "Mind company?"

Faryn isn't drinking klah, or if she is, she's only added enough to take off the bite of something harder. It's smells vaguely like cinnamon around her, but more it smells liquor astringent, all of it mingling in with that miserable promise of rain, sooner or later. Faryn looks up through her bangs at the sound of approach, taking in Keysi with a neutrally controlled expression that eventually shifts off, some semblance of a smile. Then she looks back down into her mug. The seat, where her toes still can't get much purchase, jolts violently backward as she kicks out, to push it away. Invitation, apparently. She takes a drink, considering the brownrider over the curve of the mug. "It's been a while."

A slight smile turns the corner of the lips of her otherwise stern expression as she hooks the back of the 'offered' seat and turns it out to sink into it with a weight that says something about a long day- week, month? "Awhile." Is an agreement of sorts. "What's the occassion?" Keysi asks as she tips her non-alcoholic drink in the direction of Faryn's as she takes her sip from it. It seems to be her way of asking 'how's it going', for what it's worth. The brownrider, maybe not so stiff as she's traditionally has been, bends one knee up on the seat with her, the other hanging over it in a lack of rigidity that seems like she's been practicing less militial behavior.

"A toast to the eventual arrival of noon? It wakes me up faster than just klah, or tea. I need something stronger to get going." Faryn watches Keysi with an expression that's certainly slightly perplexed by her movements. That relaxation is natural for other people, not for the woman she knew, and so it stands to reason the ex-crafter would mark it, scoff a little, and murmur, "You're not Keysi. Keysi would never sit like that. What've you done with her, imposter?" That she'll tip a look back at that tiny brown dragon means she knows the absurdity of it all.

"Eventually." Keysi echoes with a slightly risen brown that doesn't change the level expression she still wears, "Wake you up or prepares you? Quite a move you made, going from beasts to Farideh." The fact that she can say that with a straight face is still proof that she's Keysi afterall. But to Faryn's observation, she pauses a moment to tip back her own drink now that some time has given it the chance to cool. A heavy sigh follows it, as if the taste is more than welcome, "I have been spending quite a bit of time at Holds and-" a slightly dismissive half-hearted shrug exaggerates it, "places. People don't readily talk to me when I walk around saluting and sitting in the stiffest chair I can find."

"Eventually," confirmed, as Faryn takes another bracing drink. "A little of both. I'm not fancy enough for brunch mimosas." There's a slight grimace - or forced smile? - at mention her move, and the herder abruptly shakes her head. "It's not much different. I'm still...herding things and dealing with shit. Just less literally, and Farideh...she's really not as bad as all that. I maybe timed it poorly." Faryn, who has always been a little less stiff and with her foot prop thus claimed, draws, both legs up so she can press her chin into her knees, holding her mug in both hands just in front of her. "You. Talk to people? What has Savannah done to you?" Time apart notwithstanding, Faryn's apparently kept some track of her friends.

Keysi watches the ex-crafter studiously, intently. Pale eyes monitoring her expression and mannerisms both, whether it be over the edge of her mug or just as she sits there with a slight turn to her shoulder. The odd mixture she is now of trained 'relaxed' posture but with the soul-searching stare. "Who is?" She asks off-handedly of the note of mimosas and fancy, "What about it wasn't good timing? Seems like she could use help from someone she knows well." Her lack of tone fluctuation doesn't make that easy to discern her meaning from it- though it doesn't seem to suggest that Farideh needs more help than any other new weyrwoman might. And as if that wasn't digging deep enough, "What about T'mic?" The questions enlightened to her own situation draw that little bit of color to her pale face that speaks of pride, a hint of a smile that she doesn't- can't?- hide completely in regards to certain things, "Purpose, opportunity. Not what I expected."

The weather's killed off most of the annoying summer bugs, but there may well be a vtol buzzing around Faryn's head with the gesture, her hand flipping to shoo something away. Maybe a thought; maybe an answer, because she doesn't answer about mimosas. The way she looks at Keysi is a touch suspicious. "It's not about Farideh. It's - you must have heard they're not letting anyone from the Beastcraft be Searched." There's a certain, weighty guilt to the way she says it, and it is part of the way Faryn makes a choking sound at the mention of T'mic, and there it is: all of her problems on the table between them, so to speak, with her uncurling a tiny bit so she has the maneuverability to drink down her whiskey-touch-of-klah. "R'hin's good," is what she decides on in the end, setting the mug on the counter. "I'm happy for you. You'd sort of...disappeared."

"I did." Keysi replies, though gives nothing to her opinion of the matter in tone or gesture. "Do you think it'll be something that blows over eventually, or something they're going to hold pretty tight to?" That particular thing comes as if it's been nagging at her and she hasn't had the opportunity to ask. Stoney gaze is averted briefly when the bluerider's name evokes that particular response- though it looks like she may have anticipated it to some degree. "What happened?" Although she isn't the most comforting of people, she seems open to listening much more than she used to be. Faryn's return observation earns little more than a slight shake of her head, "I lost focus on what I wanted." Seems simple, worded that way, but hedging, "I just needed a little.. help finding the right direction."

Faryn looks a little regretful at the ultimate demise of her mug, looking at it with her brows dropping in consternation. She ends up hugging her arms around her legs, clicking against the back of her teeth with her tongue. "I think if Hanson realizes she can stop them, she'll keep in control. It's what I would do." Her nose wrinkles up, like she's tasted something extremely bitter for having said it. "How many were in the clutch we stood for? Seventeen? Fourteen? I could yell loudly from the edge of this patio and get fourteen kids who want to Stand for eggs, not counting anyone who is in another craft. Why should she give up people she's invested in?" Quieter, after a long beat, "I should have just stayed, is the point. She wouldn't have barred them all if I hadn't so blatantly left." And as for T'mic? Mournful look at her empty mug, for him or for it's state, and dry, so she just parrots Keysi's words back, with an addendum: "I lost focus on what I want. And he can't be part of that right now."

Keysi is thoughtful in that blank-slate way of hers, leaning back with mug still in one hand, the other palm rested on the tabletop. One finger taps once, a second follows and then no more. "It's not enough." She says eventually, easily. "If you remember, there was concern last clutch on having enough candidates. And even if you get fourteen people to Stand for fourteen eggs, that guarantees-" Her expression very briefly scrunches in a very disapproving manner. "We talked about it forever ago," Her hand lifts dismissively for all of a second, only to be set back on the table. "It didn't happen for that clutch, but they lost a green in Elaruth's at Fort. You get one Craft doing it, surely another will follow and then you have barely anyone to Stand. Master Madilla has been trying to keep good relations with the Hall and here for the Healers, but I can't say there's many more advocates in other areas." A studious pause follows at the parroting, her ever-so-slight grin waning but not gone, "Can't be- as his decision or yours?"

The ex-herder grunts into her knee, letting her eyes drift closed. "I know it isn't. But she doesn't. Or she does, and won't care. K'del asked me to try and...spin this, somehow, in the weyr's favor. I'm nobody, though. I'm the brat who spit in Hanson's face by leaving, and she didn't even have the courtesy to make me her martyr by saddling me with th bill. I got out untouched. I'm lucky." The last word drips cynicism, her eyes opening to peg Keysi. "I don't know what he thinks I can say. And now he's in Southern." Thanks, K'del. Another brief silence. "His," Faryn says evenly of decrees, because by the strictest letter of the law, "he told me to leave. I made a mistake, and...." There's another flippant wave of her hand, less grand in gesture. It just flutters a bit near the wrist it had gripped moments before. "It hardly matters. There will be eggs on the Sands soon, and I'll move wherever I need to go. He can't come with me. He moved on without me, once."

"I think being stabbed in the back gives him a fairly good excuse for an absence." Keysi's protectiveness is a little more prominent in that statement than she intends, and it's covered by a longer drink from her mug that, ultimately, polishes off what remained. "Nobody." She echoes the word, and in her monotonous way it sounds uglier than it is. "You can't be a nobody if you were an exception to start with. But you can become a nobody if you try hard enough." There's an intentional draw of silence following that, considering options, the ex-herder's words, everything. She seems comfortable, even in silences that are clearly 'too long' to be socially acceptable. "T'mic's changed a lot from weaving bracelets with weyrbrats." Has, and in other ways hasn't, "But he doesn't seem like the type to never forgive a mistake." Her grey eyes search Faryn's expression, though hers remains stagnant, "If you stand and Impress here, you don't need to go anywhere."

There is no humour in Faryn's snort, though ostensibly it is an expression of her amusement at Keysi's declaration. She sobers shortly after, murmuring, "I heard it was pretty bad. I'm glad he won't..." Die. It's good she trails off though; it puts her in just the position to give Keysi a bland look in response, her slender eyebrow rising at the brownrider's assessment. At length, she notes, "Haven't changed that much, I see. If you've any suggestions that might convince the Masterherder that her reasoning is flawed, I'm all ears," with a little wrinkle of her nose. "T'mic's changed a lot. And I haven't changed enough to be what he wants. Needs. What he thinks he wants. I always had my doubts. Should have kept my hands to myself." There's a tumult in Faryn's browns that is plain, despite the way her expression stays even. She's thinking too hard, too many gears behind them working. "I just mean, I can't be with him and Stand, and ...it's better I'm alone right now."

"I've never met her." Keysi starts as if that gives her an easy-out, but she doesn't use it as such. Or maybe it was just to avoid furthering the subject of K'del. "Things change, times change. Interval this and that." She's apparently tired of that excuse by the trailing off of her voice, though she maintains her unreadable expression. "But I can't see the day when apprentices being off-limits from any craft is.. acceptable." But her own mind is churning, deep in thought beneath the rest. "The Weyr needs herders, and for riders to come in with herder experience. As much as leatherworking, healing, smithcraft- More, I think. Knowledge is appreciation of the Craft. It would be a shame to wipe that out." Most of her reasoning still seems to be going on internally, but a disconnect at knowing how to word it properly makes her lean to rest her chin on a hand, thoughtful. "Aye, maybe you should've." Isn't helpful, but it's only a package with her dry humor in regards to her love life, "But if you still feel so strongly, it must have been good while it was." This is probably the last person on Pern to get relationship thoughts from.

"You think they're going to put up with the weyrs without any fuss at all? Word is, even the holds have started bucking. The power isn't in the weyrs anymore. If she wanted, she could just pull her crafters all together, leave the weyrs to manage their own -- ugh. What good is a dragonrider, in an interval, to a craft? Appreciation of knowledge is hardly enough. If it was just that, dragonriders could start their own small halls in the weyr, removed from the Hall based on their own novel experiences." Her level expression on Keysi's face seems to be searching for any indication the brownrider is kidding in her final statement, but when she detects no levity she huffs a laugh, shaking her head. Her hands uncurl so she can cover her face; it's likely that the ambiguous sounds coming from behind them continue to be amused. She's not a crying sort. Muffled, then: "I learned my lesson, Keysi. I'll never talk to any boy who makes wrist bracelets or smiles."

"An interval is just an interval." Keysi starts, a slight edge to that though it's very short-lived. "Beyond sweeps, taxiing, transport?" She starts, brows slightly raised curiously as if that's just the tip of the iceberg, "I don't know much about herding; Fairly sure with what you've seen of Weyr life and your experience in herding, you're still the best voice we have to figure out some sort of connection, some sort of.. mutual benefit." She shakes her head, "That would only be able to be sustained in either direction for the interval, maybe not even all of it, and then chaos breaks loose when people are scrounging for all the traditions they've left behind and forgotten." And on the thoughts of boys? "That doesn't sound like a very good lesson." Keys offers the slightest grin at that, amused in her own right, "Sounds like the avoidance of a lesson."

"Hundreds of years is not just anything, Keysi. It's enough time for revolutions and re-evaluations and wars when there's no common enemy." Faryn uncurls her arms slowly, chewing tentatively on her thumbnail as she considers. "I wish I could say I trusted people not to set themselves on fire in an just an interval, but I don't." She pushes her chair out, reaching for the mug and shaking it like it might have magically filled itself; no luck. "I'm going to get more. You can give me relationship advice when you've had one to draw conclusions from. Unless you're just really holding out on me and keep some secret boy - or girl - locked up in that weyr of yours."

"It's not so long when you consider it in the light of only a couple- a few- generations. Just enough time to screw it up if people forget what's important when there's nobody to try to be somebody." Keysi pauses, spreading her arms in an encompassing gesture, "Then?" She asks, curious but not looking for an answer, "They either got it, or they figure it out the hard way." The brownrider stands a few moments after Faryn does, a cough of a laugh, muffled that hardly sounds like what it is, is her response to the last. "No guy." Is her answer, amused but challenging in her slightly lowered volume, "I learn plenty enough watching all of you." She raises a hand as a casual farewell of sorts as she starts to head back towards the stairs and the bowl beyond.

"You're always so sharding reasonable," sounds like a condemnation. So, too, does, "May you suffer less than we do," and Faryn turns away, spinning her mug on her forefinger as she goes the other direction for her announced refill.