Difference between revisions of "Logs:Fears, Hopes and Promises"

>---< Ancient Baths, Fort Weyr >---------------------------------------------<

  The stairs into this underground cavern have been restored to neat        
  evenness and are well-lit by glows, as is the chamber that they lead down 
  into. Its smooth walls are washed in a swirling pattern of blues and      
  turquoises, the careful tiling work simple and organized in precise lines 
  bordered by a thin outline of black.                                      
                                                                            
  Through the carved and linteled opening on the far side of the cavern, a  
  bubbling spring can be found, the water naturally warm. The spring bubbles
  up in the middle of a tasteful fountain and is channeled into several     
  bathing pools around the room. These pools vary in size, depth and        
  temperature, though each have carved seating around their edge for bathers
  to perch upon. A series of long benches sit alongside one wall, piles of  
  fluffy towels available on the shelves above, baskets waiting below to    
  receive those discarded. As well as towels, a number of oils are available
  to be claimed, notably the cheaper varieties, though a notice stands      
  beside them detailing where and from whom the more luxurious sorts might  
  be purchased. In one of the darker corners of the chamber lies a wooden   
  door, unlabeled and seemingly impassable unless attended.

The Ancient Baths are still strange to Dee. Strange in a wondrous sort of way, but still strange. By now, she's settled a familiar routine of arriving, stripping her clothes to leave on a bench along with her boots and other belongings and the claiming of two towels, one to put on the bench and the other to take with her. The oils are always eyed with a measure of suspicion in the manner of one wholly unaccustomed to such things, but never taken and used. Her habit leads her feet toward one of the more comfortable pools with a low occupancy this morning, flashing a smile as she arrives in a friendly, if not actively engaging, manner.

More than likely it was the low occupancy that brought Paislie to this particular pool in the first place. The motion of Dee's approach makes the small redhead look up with a moment of anxiety, but she relaxes slightly when she realizes it's just Dee. The return of her own smile is brief and demure, probably mostly habitual, and then her attention returns to the brushing of her fingers through her long hair while staring at the surface of the water.

Dee's smile brightens slightly when she catches sight of red hair and she sets her towel on one of the seats that edge the pool before she slides into it herself and shifts nearer to Paislie - not overly near, but close enough that they can converse without inviting an abundance of conversational participants. "Hi Paislie," is cheery as Dee settles in, the teen's face vanishing briefly as she dunks her head and resurfaces. "Have you decided about Standing?" is not small talk, but it's asked with an earnest concern and quiet importance that's echoed by the intense look of the younger girl's face.

"Hello," Paislie returns in her soft voice, only glancing at Dee because she's come closer. It's apparently not close enough for the redhead to feel the need to shift away, so she stays settled where she is. The next question draws her attention more firmly, though, even if her answer takes a few moments longer than that and her eyes contact is fleeting at best. "No. Not... really." It's pretty clear that she realizes this probably isn't the answer that Dee is looking for from her.

"Oh," is a crestfallen syllable as she looks at Paislie. "But... the green." It's quiet and Dee looks at Paislie with questioning eyes. "It was horrible. Were you there?" Could she have been and still be undecided is the implied subtext.

Paislie looks away from Dee when she's looked at with those eyes, back down at the surface of the water and maybe her knees underneath. "I was there," she murmurs. Then she's glancing at the other girl again. "It was bad enough watching, knowing that she'd rather die than pick someone out of all of those people." Her included. "I can't imagine actually being on the sands when that happens."

Dee's "Why?" is plaintive. "It wasn't our fault," theirs, all of theirs. "We chose to be on those Sands," her voice wavers, enough to sound unconvinced and unconvincing. "It can't be because we didn't want her, can it?" Hazel eyes rise from their fall to the water at some point in her other words and look to Paislie as if the older girl might have the answers.

"No," says Paislie with an emotional sort of firmness that doesn't really suit her very well. "I don't mean it was your fault. Or anyone's fault. I just mean... I don't know if I could handle it. It's complicated." She's not brushing her hair with her finger so much as fidgeting with her hair with her fingers now. "Maybe something was wrong with her. Like how sometimes a foal can't stand up for too long after it's been born."

"Is it really so different than being in the Stands?" Dee wonders, though without the sense of pressure the question might easily carry. "Maybe her lifemate just wasn't there. Can you imagine? If your lifemate were there and just couldn't reach you? I don't know if there's a limiting distance for Impression. It seems like it can't be far from where they shell." Dee chews her lower lip, not looking at Paislie now. "What if it happens again?" is quiet and quieter is Dee's confession, "I don't know if I can handle it either."

"It was the only hatching I've been to. Is being on the sands different than just watching?" For whatever reason, Paislie seems to expect Dee to know the answer to that, but the rest of what the candidate says has the redhead looking more upset than she'd probably like to appear. "They say it doesn't happen very often, anyway." But doesn't that sort of make her reluctance to Stand moot, too? Logic is fun that way.

"Yes," Dee breathes out the answer and shifts so she sits a little deeper in the water. "It's different." The fact that she looks to the other girl a long moment before adding, "Maybe worse. But I've never seen anything like that before and I've seen more than just this one. But not from the Sands."

"I thought I wanted to Stand." It's admitted uncertainly. "But everyone can see you. Everyone knows who you are when you're out there. Don't you feel exposed? Everyone's going to remember all of you for being so unsuitable that a hatchling went between." It's possible that Paislie isn't trying to be hurtful. She's just a little caught up in herself right now.

Dee considers Paislie's concern in silence. She should reach for the soapsand and get down to business one of these turns, but she doesn't move now. "Maybe, if you stop to think about it. Really, everything's happening so fast and you're so focused on what's happening out there that it's easy to be lost in the chaos. I feel like they only see you if you Impress. If you get a name. And one of the weyrlings told me that in that moment, you don't notice anyway, because you're busy. Otherwise, we're all dressed the same, we're all... I mean, the dragons must know the difference between us, and maybe your hair would set you apart, but I think they brought in another redheaded girl yesterday," she offers this encouragingly to Paislie. "I don't think... anyone will remember us that way." This comes even slower than her first response. "If there's only one person for every dragon that comes along, is it any worse to not be the right person for a dragon than it would be to get dumped by a boy that's not right for you?" It's kind of the same, except for how it's not at all.

Paislie listens to everything that Dee says, even if she doesn't look like she agrees with very much of it. It's only the last, though, that makes the small woman lose her forced composure. "There's a difference between not being the right person and watching one kill itself. And Impressing a dragon can change your life. A boy will only ruin it." There's a waver in her voice and this is all enough to have her starting to shift up to stand, hands lifting to cover herself with all the modesty of a proper holdbred woman.

"It can change it for the better!" It's a desperate sort of argument, and one that seems to surprise Dee even as she makes it, one hand moving to cover over her lips, but it's out there now. Will it stop Paislie's exit? Dee doesn't seem to be doing anything else to keep her from going anyway.

It does stop Paislie's exit, for now, because she has to look back at Dee like she's said something strange. "I know," is her just slightly baffled answer. Maybe she's only just realizing that she might have been coming off in some other way entirely. And even though she's not moving to leave anymore, she's still just standing there with an arm crossed modestly over her chest. "It's not that simple. I can't just... Stand."

"Why not, Pais?" Dee's question is earnest, her voice hushed. Her expression leaves no room to doubt that she wants to understand, that she's trying to.

And Paislie's expression suggests that she'd like for Dee to understand. But her answer is, "I just can't. Not yet. I don't want them to send me back home. I can't go there." And that's evidently somehow relevant to her Standing for her sister's lifemate's not yet laid clutched. "I'll Stand, okay? Just... just not yet." Paislie looks up, to anyone else that might be nearby as though she expects to find somewhere there she doesn't want to see. Then she looks at Dee again and says earnestly, "Just don't tell anyone, okay?"

"Wouldn't-" Dee starts a question, her eyes still touched with confusion. Whatever she was going to ask is lost in the swallow that precedes her curt nod. "I won't. I promise." This sounds sincere. "I'll save you a bunk near me," she offers the other girl with a look that wants to be a worried smile but doesn't get past the worried.

Paislie can manage a smile, but she's had a lot of practice at them even when she doesn't want to be smiling. "Thank you, Dee. I appreciate it." That seems sincere, anyway. Then Paislie is turning away to step out of the pool and wrap a towel around herself.

"Pais!" Dee can't seem to just let the redhead go, rising half-way out of the water with perfectly weyrbred lack of concern for her own nudity. "Everything's going to be okay," sounds like a promise, the wording chosen as generally as might be uninteresting to eavesdropping ears. Even so, the brunette bites her lower lip and looks after the other a moment as if trying to divine a way to ensure that's the case.

She only stays long enough to get dressed as quickly as she can without flashing a lot of skin. Sure, there's a glance back to Dee, an acknowledgement that she's heard what she said, but Paislie doesn't give much indication about whether she accepts Dee's promise. And then she's disappearing back out into the light of the bowl.