Difference between revisions of "Logs:Boring Babies; Annoying Kids"

Craft Complex, High Reaches Weyr

A passageway hewn into the rock and heavily patched with cement leads a short distance in to the bowl wall, with a door on either side. Aside from the light of regularly spaced glowlamps, the walls are bare, with just a coating of whitewash to cover the otherwise uneven layers of stone and cement. To the left of the entranceway, just a single step inside, a spiral staircase opens out of the wall, leading upwards through the stone. There's a door on either side of the corridor, staggered by a few feet, and at the end of the corridor there's another staircase hewn from the stone, leading upwards to the residential corridor, as well as a door that leads off into bathing facilities. One final door leads into a short corridor containing a few more residential apartments.

The door leading to the east opens into an expansive room that seems to provide both a general working space with long, bare benches and chairs, and what will probably be a cozy lounge once it gets more than a single fuzzy armchair. Three tall windows carved into the stone offer air and light when the heavy wooden shutters are left open, though the lounge area has to make do mostly with glows. A hearth at the back of the room provides both heat and basic cooking facilities. The western door leads into another passage, off of which the main workrooms have been built. The loading dock is to the northern end, leading back out into the bowl, with the rest of the rooms leading deeper and deeper into the wall.

It's been a lovely day at the 'Reaches: sunshine-y and not /too/ cold, though as the afternoon begins to wear on, a chill steadily returns to the air. In the lounge of the Craft Complex, however, the window shutters remain flung open, letting the last of the sun provide heat and light to those at work. Amongst them is Madilla, evidently not actually engaging in the work she's paid to do: she's spread out her latest quilt on one of the work benches, and is piecing together a 'picture' out of scraps of fabrics.

Also not engaging in the work she's paid to do? Tiriana. She's wandering the halls of the craft complex now, with only vague nods of acknowledgement for those she passes who defer to her. Eventually, though, the trip seems to tire her, for she stops and leans against Madilla's table for a few moments at least. "Hey," she offers in greeting, after about three glances at Madilla: the length of time it takes for her to actually put together who the girl is.

Madilla can't be unaware of the Weyrwoman's presence, but for reasons not immediately obvious, she neither pauses her work nor glances up until receipt of that 'hey'. Needless to say, however, there is no delay between her upwards glance and the warm, steady smile and greeting that follow. "Good afternoon, Weyrwoman. I trust you find the complex in good order?"

"Yeah, yeah," says Tiriana, still distracted. "It's fine, whatever." It's the most enthusiasm she can muster, and with another glance around the cavern, she sinks down to a seat on the bench alongside Madilla. "What are you working on now? Practicing for stitching people up or something?" Because who would sew for fun?

There's something subtle in Madilla's expression that suggests she finds Tiriana's answer somehow amusing, but in the end, it's little more than a twitch to her lips, one easily covered by the continuing smile. Apparently unconcerned by the Weyrwoman's attention, the healer tilts her gaze back towards the quilt, explaining, utterly cheerful, "Oh no, this is just for fun. This one's for in here, actually: to hang on the wall." It looks as though it's intended to illustrate the weyr, complete with spires and star stones, the border around the edges done in black and blue.

Tiriana only looks more confused for the explanation, twisting her head around to eye the walls, the quilt, and finally Madilla again. "Don't we have weavers for that?" she wonders. "You know, people we pay to do crap like that? Hell, we gave them a nice new workroom down here, didn't we?"

"Oh, of course, and I would never suggest my work was anywhere near as good as theirs," says Madilla, hastily, though her smile hasn't diminished even the smallest amount. "I just enjoy it. It's a hobby. Something to do in the evenings when the baby is sleeping - it keeps my hands busy."

"Yeah. Baby," says Tiriana, in the absent sort of way that implies she's just tuned out everything but that one word, itself emphasized by a wrinkle of her nose to make her opinion even more plain. "How old is that thing now, anyway?"

Madilla, though, seems quite used to that kind of opinion. Or just difficult to offend. "Lilabet is nearly seven months," she says, tone unchanged. "She's getting huge. I can't bel-- but you're not interested in that, I know. That urge hasn't hit you, yet."

But despite her words, Tiriana turns a moderately more interested gaze at Madilla when her interest is dismissed. "I asked, didn't I?" she points out.

"But your--" begins Madilla, flustered, now, for the first time during this conversation, her cheeks pink. Hastily, she corrects herself, explaining, "I can't believe that she used to be as small as she was, sometimes. And she's just much more interesting than she used to be, because she reacts to things. She smiles, and laughs. Has likes and dislikes. More than she used to, anyway. It's very interesting - to me, at least."

"Well, duh. Of course she's more interesting /now/," says Tiriana, with a sniff. Tell her something she doesn't know. "Babies are boring. And kids are annoying. And then they get interesting about the time they're in their twenties--except by then I'll probably be so old I'll think they don't get interesting until they hit forty. /Forty/." Shudder.

Placidly, "I don't think /all/ children are annoying, though I'll grant you, there are certainly things I'm not looking forward to, as she gets older." Madilla only smiles, though, apparently not too concerned by this, whatever she says. "Forty isn't so very old. Some women even /have/ babies when they're forty." Just not many. And not... all that successfully, sometimes.

"I don't want to be doing that when I'm forty," Tiriana says with a delicate grimace. "I don't want to /be/ forty in the first place. And girls--hell no. Girls are even worse; if I end up with one of those, I'll... do something." Which ends lamely, at best, as she frowns and puzzles over just what to do with a girl-child.

"Foster her," says Madilla, promptly, coming up with an obvious, if not terribly exciting, answer. If the attitude bothers her, she does a good job of hiding it. "That would be the easiest thing, anyway. You're busy - it's not as though people would expect you to care for your children primarily, anyway." After a moment, she wonders, sounding shy, "Does that mean you /might/ let a pregnancy go to term, one day?"

"Yeah, but..." Tiriana trails off there, looking no happier for the suggestion. "Nobody else is getting hold of my kids," she finally announces, though not without some difficulty. Even more difficult is the next answer, preceded as it is by an unhappy sigh. "I don't know. Maybe. Yeah, sure."

All this? Definitely a surprise to Madilla - but not an unwelcome one; she even nods, somehow understanding, at that very last answer. "There's always the way I do it, with a single caregiver for while I'm working. It works out-- and it would be easier for you, because there would be two of you." Her smile is obviously intended to be encouraging. "I don't think I could give a child of mine away, either, no matter how busy I was. It seems like it would defeat the purpose."

"Right," agrees Tiriana. "Total waste of nine months of your life, if you're just going to... you know... I have to go. Iovniath--" Handy excuse, that, and true or not, the rattled-looking Weyrwoman is already moving to get up and head away from Madilla, with only that to serve as parting.

Handy, and possibly not entirely convincing, though, as always, Madilla is polite about it: she only nods her farewell, smiling still.