Difference between revisions of "Logs:Fears and Feelz"

>---< Candidate Quarters, High Reaches Weyr(#286RAJ) >-----------------------<

  Two caverns lead one right into the other from a hallway just off the     
  Common Room. Taking advantage of the high, vaulted ceiling, bunk beds     
  march in five neat rows of five beds each allowing up to fifty people to  
  sleep in one cavern, although one of those caverns is presently largely   
  closed off. Functional and spartan in atmosphere, there's little in the   
  way of decoration here, just the one tapestry depicting a hatching on the 
  wall of the first cavern and eggs on the sands in the second.             
                                                                            
  Each bunk is made up when there are candidates in residence, with standard
  sheeting, gray woollen blankets and somewhat lumpy pillows. A trunk stands
  at both the head and foot of the bunks, providing a little space for the  
  occupants to store their belongings while the wait for the eggs to hatch. 
  The archway between the two spaces is covered over with a hide hanging,   
  easily hooked back when both caverns are in use, but tacked into place    
  when only the first is needed. A proper wooden door closes out noise and  
  drafts from the hallway.

It's just after morning chores that the candidates are ambushed. Really, ambushed. True, the faces that greet them are smiling gently as an infirmary aide passes out pencils and paper on clipboards to those candidates who come through the door. Once you're in? Well, it might take something creative to get back out. Bunks on one side of the two-cavern space that makes up the candidate quarters have been shifted, with care to allow a circle of chairs to be put in place. There aren't so many candidates, so the circle doesn't need to be so large a space, but in a chair already is the young, unfamiliar, smiling face of Tess, her knot showing her to be a journeyman and badges denote not only her craft as healer, but her posting as Fort Weyr. "Please, come and join me when you're ready," she invites as the candidates arrive. Surely, she must mean in the near future.

Although not a mindhealer, and indeed, not even officially a High Reaches healer any more than Tess is, Madilla has taken up a position against the wall, well outside the circle of chairs. It's not quite a lean - that would require a less formal posture - but it certainly says what it is probably supposed to: she's here, but only in an observational capacity. Still, despite the furrow in her brow, she's quick to aim encouraging smiles to those being drawn in; everything's fine.

Farideh tried to backpedal when she stepped into the candidate quarters, but it was hard to refuse the dogged persistence of the infirmary aides. She's been wearing the same perplexed look on her face since she was handed a clipboard, a pencil, and sat down in the circle of chairs surrounding the healer. Her hands are gripping the clipboard hard, but her eyes are on the woman in the middle, regarding her like an alien creature that rises unbidden from the sea. There may even be conspiratorial looks left and right to see if anyone else understands why they're being forced to side like the weyrbrats or if anyone else thinks this woman is as weird as she does.

Too late to escape, Edyis knows this as soon as someone drops a clipboard and pencil on her cot next to her face. Afternoon naps, ruined! A furtive glance to the healers, noting faces perhaps, as she studies the blank pages, bracing her back against the headboard of the cot. It's a minute or two before reluctantly she sighs, slipping out of the bed and eyeing one of those chairs with great suspicion. Her focus goes to the clipboard as she settles into the chair backward, using the back as a brace for the clipboard. Curling, dancing lines start to edge around the edges of the paper.

On mornings when she can finagle it, Laine has been bringing her leatherwork with her into her cot and drawing her makeshift curtains closed around her bottom bunk and lately, she's been more and more of a fixure in the candidate quarters than usual. But with those sheets loosely shrouding her bed, it might not've been apparent that the tanner was there at all--that is, until the candidate comes spilling out of her cot, shaking herself free from entangling curtain, her short, tousled hair flattened on one side and standing stark upright on the other. There's a caged look around the room. When exits are all proven to be blocked, Laine warily claims a seat next to Farideh, blinking blearily at the clipboard and pencil thrust into her hands.

If everything is, indeed, fine, then why is there a circle of chairs and a Fortian healer? The question remains unposed, because Faryn is bogged down in the entryway, where she's entered, spotted the setup, and tried to retreat under the pretense of having forgotten something. The candidates behind her are not obliging in letting her through, and she's eventually resigned to snatching a clipboard and pencil from the aid, slouching as she enters the circle of chairs and settling down into a seat one removed from Farideh and Laine, her gaze focused on Tess suspiciously. Her body language says everything she doesn't: arms crossed, shoulders hunched, brows knit together.

Once it seems that all the candidates arriving have arrived, those with the clipboards set about removing empty chairs to bring the circle to be more intimate. Once that's done, and Tess' seat is shifted in closer to the rest, with an encouraging gesture that they all do the same, she addresses those seated. "Hello, everyone, I'm Tess." It's a safe enough start, right? "The Headwoman has been kind enough to give you all the afternoon off, for the low, low price of a little time spent here with me. I promise not to keep you from the lovely afternoon any longer than need be." She moves on, lest someone argue there's no need. Her next words are said clearly, calmly and slowly, "Weyrwoman Azaylia is dead." They surely all know that, but perhaps there is something to her saying the words that way. "Some of you may have known her, others not, but you are all candidates in the Weyr that mourns her loss. As candidates, we felt it was important to offer you a forum to talk, if you want to talk, or to listen to those who feel called to do so. About Azaylia, about the Weyr, about taking the Sands in no great amount of time." She looks around the circle. "Is there anyone that would like to speak now?" Before, presumably, she prompts them.

Madilla, from her position up by the wall, winces only faintly at mention of the former Weyrwoman's name; otherwise, she manages to keep her expression relatively neutral. A closer inspection would show a tightening of her hands, perhaps, but that's certainly not immediately obvious. The healer lifts her chin, casting a glance around the assembled candidates. Next to her, she has a pile of clean handkerchiefs; perhaps that's why she's here.

No one else gives voice to their concerns or annoyance at the occasion, at the healer in the room, so Farideh stays wisely silent. Her attention only wavers from the woman when Laine sits down next to her and she frowns at the other girl's tousled hair. Wordlessly, she reaches a hand to try and smooth down the hair standing-on-end, because it's a better diversion than submitting to the reality of being given paper and pencils, which can have no other purpose than to write things down on; gross. Only when she's satisfied does she lean forward to look down the line, noticing other faces, like Edyis and Faryn, and giving them looks with eyebrows raised. It's Tess' voice that brings her gaze back to that particular woman, and that with brows furrowed, expression sullen.

Edyis's brows draw faintly together at the announcement. One brow arching, sharply at the blunt delivery. Those lines become more intricate, framing the open space of the page. "Does healer hall think we are cursed too then?" We, meaning Reaches, her face a perfect blank, devoid of expression as she waits for the verdict. Her eyes rest on Tess, quietly though they do drift back to Madilla for a moment, her lips twitching downward faintly. Her focus goes back to the page.

Where did this clipboard even come from? Laine half-stands to set that clipboard on the floor, pencil rolling away, then resettles herself, folding her feet under her bottom and propping her elbows on her knees. She looks tired as she nestles her chin in her hands, but attentive enough to punctuate Tess' introduction with a few acknowledging nods. Those eyes close entirely when Farideh begins to flatten her hair, and Laine even cants her head closer to the laundress, leaning into the touch. "What am I supposed to do with her commission?" It's mumbled, weak and near-inaudible, for no one's benefit, then she breathes a hard little laugh.

Closer? Faryn holds out as the empty chair between her and Farideh is taken away and the circle closes, but the pressure of being so literally outside of the group eventually serves to pressure her to scoot closer and fill the gap, grudgingly. Her body language still communicative of unwillingness, even more cloistered than it started out, if that's possible. Farideh's look earns an eyebrow raise from the herder. Then Edyis' voice breaks the tensioned silence; her mouth pulls into a strange grimace at the question, but still has no contributions, yet.

Tess' smile is reserved, such is the seriousness of this occasion, but still faintly there in the curl at the edges of her mouth. "I suspect," she directs to Edyis, "that the Healer Hall is reserving judgment until they can do more studies on the notion," there's a trace of humor there, that makes the turn of her head toward the ranking healer carry a touch of tension. Perhaps Hall humor doesn't have a place here now, even if laughter is the best medicine. "Master Madilla?" She inquires. She must not have heard Laine's words, but did the candidate really intend her to?

Madilla's seriousness is caught for a loop by Tess' remark; the journeyman's tension is equally apparent in the master's reply. "There's no such thing as a curse," she says, gently, but firmly. "What the Hall does think is that these events can be difficult, especially when you're already in a time of upheaval. Does it frighten any of you, knowing High Reaches' past misfortunes, when facing the Sands yourselves?" In the glance she aims at Tess now there's a hint of apology; she may not have meant to step in like that.

"Maybe you can find out who she was close to, and give it to them. The Weyrleader, perhaps?" Farideh murmurs quietly to Laine, briefly letting her eyes skim over the other candidate, before she sighs and glances up sharply when Tess speaks to Madilla; from her confused expression it's obvious she didn't even notice the other healer was there, before. She certainly doesn't look like she's going to be giving up any deep inner musings, and her body language is equally as unrepentant, but it's with gravity that she stares at the older woman, her knuckles on the clipboard going white. And because no one else speaks up quite fast enough: "I don't want to die," quiet, strong, but with a touch of hysterical.

Dark eyes blink owlishly at the Hall humor, one brow arched faintly. Madilla's words earn a deep exhalation. "No, there isn't. But that is what many believe outside of these walls." The other candidates are watched and studied. Farideh's last words though, have Edyis looking back to the paper. back to the paper. The blank space in the middle now being filled with lines and curves.

There's a crack in Laine's lidded eyes and that lazy-tilted head lifts as she tracks voices from Tess to Madilla to Farideh to Edyis. Her lips purse. "You're not going to die. Well. Now. Yet." It's probably spoken sharper than intended, judging from the faint wince that follows, and Laine elects to Shut Up. Her jaw tightens as she swings a socked foot out to nudge at her clipboard on the floor. The look she lands on Tess next almost seems accusatory. Look what you did to Farideh!

Not an entirely flat joke, Faryn's snort is vaguely amused, even as she picks up the pencil and begins drawing small, absent scribbles on her blank page. It will be unfortunate if she's expected to take notes on everyone's grief, because the way the corner slowly fills up with dark graphite marks suggest her goal is to blacken the entire thing. She's zoning out in the task until Farideh speaks. It's not that the herder didn't expect Farideh to pipe up during this, but rather that she didn't expect that particular statement to be what she started with. There are a couple whispers of agreement, and Faryn's pretty certain the choked sound on the opposite side of the circle is Yesia, but it doesn't warrant a look, apparently. The herder has turned her attention to the girl beside her, and is steady when she says, "She's right. And most of the time it's not so...." She shrugs, not finishing that thought and instead carrying on, "It might be better to say you don't want to die...badly." Which is maybe not the best way to put it.

Tess' head inclines just slightly to show her deference to Madilla's expertise. She may not be the mindhealer, but she's the ranking healer in the room and also familiar with 'Reaches, so that is all worth something. She even makes gesture with one hand to invite Madilla to the empty seat (was it left on purpose? Must have been) beside her. "It's a reasonable fear," the Fortian healer validates, "in light of all that's happened. Reasonable, but unlikely. Azaylia wasn't all that much older than many of us," she notes with some small measure of sadness, tone sobered. "Is there anything any of you can think of that could be done by the Weyr to help alleviate your fears? Have you talked among yourselves about the risks of Standing?" Accidental fiery deaths aside.

Madilla does not... look all that thrilled to be joining the circle, but she does so anyway, pressing a gentle smile back into service as she sinks into the proferred chair. The handkerchiefs, now, are piled up in her lap, ready to be handed out at a moment's notice. "It's a very reasonable fear," she agrees. "Death is something I think most of us fear, in one form or another."

It might be obvious to everyone else that those are reassurances, but from Farideh's reaction they might as well be hanging up on her. "How do you know? I could be walking down the hall and the ceiling cave in, or get trapped in the kitchen during a fire. Or, one of the hatchlings could-- could--" Her hands grip the clipboard that much tighter and her eyes drop to the blank page, her lower lip only slightly trembling. "I don't want to die in this place. Since I've been here, there was that storm where who knows how many sailors and Aishani died, and Lady Issedi, and that Telgari goldrider, and now Azaylia. Not to mention those thieves who went off killing people in Nabol." Laine doesn't even get a guilty look, but Tess gets some inscrutable stare. Cursed.

Edyis is listening at this point, and her mouth opens and closes a few times, as she thinks better of speaking. Yesia just makes her nose twitch. "Other than betweening accidents, firestone accidents, and maulings?" Edyis shrugs, "Reaches hasn't lost a weyrling in a long time." Go Quinlys. "And thread's gone. What is there to be afraid of, you are going to die eventually there is no escaping that. Dying badly... that is unlikely."

Laine is listening, one ear cocked for each of those overlapping voices (and those murmured words rising from her follow candidates around the circle), but her hands are tightening, knuckles whitening, as she does. She's toeing absently at her clipboard when suddenly it goes skittering across the circle, under a chair on the other side, and she tightens stiffly. "They died too, Farideh," she levels hotly at the laundress. "Everyone dies eventually. Get over it."

Scribble scribble. Anyone who cares - which quantifies as maybe two people - will notice when Faryn's hand speeds up, when it slows down, that it stops she speaks. Now it's almost frantic, those small circles on the page. Stops, abruptly, when Laine's clipboard is kicked. She's holding her breath, staring at the pair just beside her, her face schooled into something that's more or less neutral, waiting for a reaction from the healers. "More people die in their sleep than in fires and cave-ins," she eventually says, lowly, her tone edging against accusatory. "You're not crying over them, because you don't notice. We just take it for granted, and then we get to move on."

There's a nod for Edyis' contribution then, "Candidate," is addressed to Laine for lack of a name, "is there something you'd like to share with the group?" It's an encouraging tone, more so than the calm one that addresses, "Farideh, is there somewhere else you'd rather die?" Tess quickly adds, "What I'm saying is that I think it seems more present and possible here, in a place that has suffered losses and over a short period of time. Certainly there are examples in every place," perhaps of less significance and gravity, "of times in history when there has been an unusual concentration of losses. So even if you pack up and go home now, avoid the Sands and possibly leave your lifemate to die in the shell or out of it, you're still at as much risk here as you are if you moved to Ista and went for a swim and got pulled out to sea with the undertow." She's helping, really! Just like Faryn!

Madilla shoots a wary glance at Tess, in the wake of those words, but schools her expression back to neutrality a moment later. "Death is ever-present," is what she says, quietly. "But that doesn't make it any easier to deal with, when it gets pushed to centre-stage." Her hands, in her lap, tighten.

Edyis feels her shoulders tense at the word fires, and dark eyes shift to rest on Faryn then, as she, erupts? "Yes. People die every day; it isn't just Weyrwomen, or Lords and ladies, it's also people I bet you are just as guilty of never thinking about." Edyis gives in Laine's defense, "And since we are on the subject of places we want to die, Might it be better to discuss, living? You know, with the fear that fire will sear this place down, or caverns will colapse at a moment's notice or some crazy blood will get it in their head to play Lord Fax again and starve the weyr out?" Patience is thinning quicker and quicker.

First things first, Farideh leans to the side, towards Faryn and away from Laine, so she can stare with wide eyes at the short-haired candidate and her sudden aggravation. "I think, out of everyone who died here recently, they deserved it the most. What do you expect when you're friends with thieves, Laine?" She sounds both annoyed and plaintive, somehow, before turning her head to give Faryn the eye. "Young people? Healthy people? People keep dying for no reason, randomly, horribly, and no--" She shoots Tess a perturbed glance. "I haven't noticed this anywhere else, but then again as everyone says, I'm Holdbred. I was sheltered, so what do I know. You," accusing the healers both, "asked how I felt and I told you." There, she crosses her arms over her chest, clipboard left in her lap, and glowers sullenly towards nothing in particular.

Deprived of anything else to kick, Laine crosses her arms. Uncrosses them. She flicks a vexed, narrow-eyed glance at Tess and bites out, "No." She doesn't give Farideh the benefit of eye contact. Or even anything beyond a single word, spat out with a hard laugh, "Deserve." Leaning forward so her head is almost between her knees, she scrubs her hands through her thick hair. When she straightens again, it's with a frenetic brightness in her eyes. Her question is for the healers, sweetly: "Who deserves to die?"

"Yes!" Faryn huffs, and she uses her weight to push her chair slightly away from Farideh's, her expression disgusted. "Young people, healthy people. Shit happens, the difference between sick and not sick is...what? A cough? A sneeze?" She looks to the healers, either for clarification or to see if they're going to intervene. But more than anything, she seems incensed in the same way Laine is, and her sneer is mocking. "What's a good reason to die, Farideh? Name one." The challenge is there, but her gaze flicks away to Laine, whose sudden saccharine tone puts the herder even more on edge.

Tess leans to pluck up Laine's lost clipboard from under the chair of the candidate next to her. She uses its back to slap against her opposite hand, making the claps louder than they would be simply hand to hand, trying to interrupt the tide of rising emotion in the circle. "Farideh's fears and feelings are valid, as are, yours," Laine, "yours," Edyis, "yours," Faryn, "yours," Yesia, and so on is the final gesture with the clipboard after each is indicated in turn. She doesn't answer Laine's question, however, nor does she answer Faryn's challenge (that wasn't to her anyway). "The papers that you each have," she says, rising and moving toward Laine to hold the clipboard back to her, "are so you can tell us, without having to share with the group if you don't wish to, what you need help with. What we can to to help you." We, presumably either the healers or the Weyr. Perhaps she thinks this group thing is a lost cause because she also adds, "Once you fill them out, you can go."

By the time the candidates have said their piece, Madilla has turned her gaze to stare at Tess, as if to challenge her to come up with an appropriate answer to all of this. Evidently she's at least partially satisfied with what the Journeyman comes out with, her expression softening as she goes. Glancing back at the candidates, now, she appends, "That's the whole thing with feelings; they aren't black and white, right and wrong. They just are. The important thing is that we express them, and support others in expressing theirs." After a beat, she adds, "I'm not a mindhealer, nor posted to High Reaches, but I'm happy to talk to anyone who needs it."

And because everyone wants to talk to Tess, for sure, she adds on the heels of Madilla's words, "I'm here until the end of the seven. You can find me in the infirmary if any of you would like to talk privately." If she just smiles nice, it will mean everything was fine.

"Wow, who appointed you judge and jury Farideh, suddenly you have any right to say anything at all? You who have done nothing but run from responsibilities because, OH gee I don't want my cushy life decided for me." Edyis snorts, "You don't know anything. Don't worry your pretty little head about any of it, since I was clearly wrong in thinking there was anything more to you than your looks. The sweet tone from Laine, Faryn's shift. The Mind healer just gets a look at the word valid. Frowning, "Valid." She echoes. She looks to Madilla, then and just shakes her head tossing the clipboard to land harmlessly at the healer's feet. "You all are fucked up. Myself included." She stomps off then in the direction of the workout rooms. The clipboard if anyone cares is a mess of intricate designs and faces, some recognizable, and some not.

A very loud scoff suffices as Farideh's answer to everything. She doesn't bother to give Laine, Edyis or Faryn her individual attention or stares, but while Tess is talking, and then Madilla, she is busy writing on the paper provided; her hand movements are harsh and fast, her pencil on the paper loudly scribbling out whatever it is she has to say. It is, after all, fairly elegant script that scrawls the paper, in cursive, but her abrupt stand and disdainful glower at the healers are anything but. "Here's your stupid answer," the candidate grounds out, before tossing her clipboard on her vacant chair, and stomping off to her bunk.

Laine starts at that loud clap from Tess and leans back in her seat, wary, when the healer approaches. There's one hand curled tightly on her thigh and bumping rhythmically, but Laine accepts (doesn't snatch) back that clipboard, lets it fall into her lap, and curls her lip as she clips at a thumbnail with her teeth. It's only once Farideh's left that Laine, jaw still pulsing, claims the pencil left behind on the laundress' seat, jots down something very short. She turns it in, without a word, and pushes out into the common room without a backward glance.

"I think I've had about all the talking I can take," Faryn says scornfully, not bothering to look at the healers as she takes up her pencil. Her curlicues are much less intricate than Edyis' sketches, just those quick small circles, and they take up more than half the page. There's fair little space for Faryn to write anything complicated. She is at least a bit more polite in turning it in, examining Tess' face when she says, "That went well, I think." It's devoid of sarcasm - or any other emotion, really - but she seems as keen as everyone to get out of the area, now.

Of all the candidates, it is Edyis whose response catches Madilla's attention, the healer going even so far as to half rise from her chair as if to follow. She doesn't-- but her frown makes it pretty clear she is rather beyond disapproval over that particular outburst. In the end, though, there's nothing doing but to begin gathering up clipboards; her expression now increasingly unreadable. She makes no effort to catch Tess' eye, nor does she offer a farewell before she slips out, handkerchiefs carried with her.

"That... could have gone worse," Tess murmurs to herself as she collects the clipboards some candidates left on the seats. "There's a first time for everything," is quieter still, but then she's tapped by one of the remaining candidates to talk. So it can't have been all bad. Can it?