Difference between revisions of "Logs:Always Choices"

>---< Nighthearth, Fort Weyr(#2044RJs$) >------------------------------------<

  An irregular archway leads into the alcove that houses the Nighthearth.   
  This cozy little nook contains a hearth, protected by a grate that can be 
  used to prop chilled feet to warm on cold days, that is surrounded with a 
  several leather, upholstered chairs. A small table pushed against the same
  wall as the hearth is kept stocked at all times with fresh, hot klah, a   
  pot of stew, and a basket of baked goods including breads and both savory 
  and sweet filled rolls. The Weyr's aunties also keep the space supplied   
  with a stack of perpetually renewed afghans in interesting color choices, 
  while the Headwoman's staff ensures that some of the older towels are     
  always on hand on a row of hooks for riders ducking in off of sweeps in   
  bad weather. Otherwise, the Nighthearth is undecorated but for the motley 
  collection of mismatched mugs, bowls, and spoons that line the mantel for 
  general use.

When the weather without is as it is today, a snowy, rainy mix of yuck, the Nighthearth sees an increase in use, cozy as it is with it's hearth, drinks and stew. Dahlia is stripping free her frost-sleet-wet slicked riding jacket in front of the hearth, helmet, goggles and gloves already arranged on the stones in front of it to dry. Her jacket joins them shortly and she snags up one of the old towels provided here to scrub down each leg to dry her leather pants as best she can.

Catling comes to the Nighthearth, shivering a little in her long sweater-jacket. It is rather wet, as are her boots. She shakes herself, moving close to the fire, and pulls off the jacket. She nods to the weyrwoman, ducking her head shyly. "Is there a little more room, weyrwoman? I was mistaken as a valid target in a slushball game."

Dahlia's smile for Catling is sympathetic, pausing in her rubbing efforts to lean down and shift her items a little more to the side, even if there's already plenty of room at the wide hearth. "One thing a person learns quickly is that at Fort, everyone is a valid target of snowballs, or slushballs." She resumes her drying as she goes on. "This is only the beginning of the season. A word of advice?" She offers, but goes on without waiting for permission, "Learn to dodge well, or throw well. Might not help in the end, but more fun if you're playing too."

"I throw well enough. And dodge well enough. I just can't dodge that many at once." Catling grins shyly. "Learning how to dodge and run... it helps a lot. I'm used to winter, though we're further north and higher up than where I grew up. So it comes a little later..."

Rain, and snow, and snowy rain, and erstwhile snowballs are not going to wipe the customary grin off of a certain bronzerider's face. It is that same bronzerider that drips his way through the caverns, leaving a trail of water behind him. "Not you too," A'sran announces loudly, pausing in the entryway to the nighthearth to stare with open amusement at the goldrider by the hearth. "I had hoped the rain spared you, but alas.." As he moves inward, taking strides towards the brunette, his blue eyes flick towards Catling with obvious inquisitiveness.

"Ahh," the weyrwoman accepts the younger girl's answer with a nod. "Then the next step, since throwing and dodging aren't problems, is getting friends enough that you can outnumber them." Dahlia's already smiling her amusement before she turns her head to glance over her shoulder at the new arrival, saying, "Shockingly, bronzerider, the rain does not part just for my being." The mock pout she takes on briefly manages to stay exaggeratedly serious through her addition of, "It was a surprise to me, too." Goldriders being magic and all that. Then she grins, shaking out her towel and offering it his way.

"I'm... ah... working on it ma'am," answers Catling. "Hello, sir," she adds to the bronzerider. "Do... ah... either of you need more towels? I can get some..." She places her sweater out to dry, then huddles near the fire to get warmed up, but trying to stay out of the way. She sits down and starts to tug off her boots as well. "Bother. The slush just gets everywhere, doesn't it."

The sir is enough to startle him out of his smile, but it makes a comeback with his swift, "A'sran, please." He sidles up to the hearth, where everyone else seems to be congregating, and presents to it his damp backside, for the warming. "I cannot believe it. I thought goldriders only bathed in the glory of the sun, and here you stand, throwing all my prior dillusions to the wind." His smile is warm when he turns the fullness of it upon Dahlia. "Is this your friend? Now that I have introduced myself, I think it is only proper I find out her name," with his eyes coming to rest on Catling once more.

"No, thank you," Dahlia replies easily to the younger girl. "There are some just there," she makes gesture to where they hang on hooks ready for just such occasion, "and I like to do what I can for myself." Certainly, crossing the room for another towel falls within the realm of her abilities. The look she returns to A'sran has a very carefully neutral smile, "This is Catling. It's her first winter at the Weyr." The description is careful, but it opens the door certainly for the girl to provide more for herself.

"I found myself with an... ah... unexpected opportunity to travel and see a little more of the world," murmurs Catling, not quite looking up. She rubs the back of her neck nervously. "So here I am. I've been here about a month. Everyone's been very welcoming. And I am glad to meet you s-- A'sran. I hope you and your dragon-- are well? Then she looks at Dahlia. "How is Taeliyth, ma'am? If I might ask."

"Welcome to Fort Weyr, Catling. I hope everyone has been treating you well. I know firsthand how much of a shock it can be, if, like me, you are from a Hold and not from one of these fine establishments," the bronzerider says, lopsided smile and a wink at the end. "We are indeed, yes. Leczuth tells me the wind is fine for flying, but I told him unless you want to see the death of us both he will have to see this one out alone. Not that he goes far these days." A'sran's murmuring ends with another grin and a pointed glance towards Dahlia.

"She's well, thank you. Hungrier than usual today," Dahlia might add that last to her answer for Catling for A'sran's benefit. "It can be just as shocking if you come from somewhere with plentiful sand, jungle and structures with four walls and a ceiling rather than all this rock." She adds her own experience, wryly, before moving to pour herself a mug of klah, offering over her shoulder, "Klah?" to either of them. "Tell Leczuth," she adds for the bronzerider, that there's still at least a month before there will be eggs." There's warm amusement for the behavior of the bronze though.

"I'm used to the cold and the rock," murmurs Catling. "It was a small cothold, but comfortable. What's weird is.... having choices." She reaches up to un-pin her long braids that are coild up. "What's weird is..." She pauses a moment with her braid in her hand, then giggles softly. "Well, yes, him." Then she shakes herself. "My father's best childhood friend Impressed. He used to take him flying before my father left the Weyr. He never talked about it much, the Weyr, dragons, anything. But when he talked about flying, his eyes would light up."

"Southern weyrs are different I will give you that." A'sran gives his red-blonde head a shake, dispelling water droplets here and there, and leans a little further back, getting his backside real nice and close to the fire's warm. "Hm? Choices? I think we all have choices, but weyrs make people feel like they have a better chance at snatching them up somehow. You did have the choice to leave, and took it I gather," he responds to Catling, his mouth spreading wider and a bit toothier. It is Dahlia's comment to Leczuth that earns her another glance from deep blue eyes. "I do not think he cares for the difference," wry.

"No?" is too innocent from Dahlia for Leczuth's demeanor toward eggs, something mischievous in the look of her eyes. "Always choices. Even the Weyr can feel limiting that way, if you let it." The goldrider seems to agree with A'sran, glancing curiously to Catling, her eyes lingering. "Have you flown yet, Catling?" is her question when she speaks again.

"I... erm... didn't have a choice about leaving my old home. But... I did have a choice where to go. I think I took the right road," answers Catling, still shy. She sighs, then looks over at Dahlia, shaking her head. "No ma'am, I've never flown. Never touched a dragon. When I got here was the first time I ever saw one up close.." She shrugs.

"No," A'sran sighs, so put upon by these draconic obligations. "It could be seven turns from now and he is still not leaving the weyr for any extended period of time. He can be.." He lets that thought dangle in the air as his eyes flick between the woman and the girl, observing their conversation with little input except for a merry, "You picked well."

Dahlia's brow puckers a little in concern as she looks at Catling and her answers. But by the time she says, "Oh," to A'sran, her look has become an exaggeration of that feeling, "Well, then I suppose you oughtn't tell him that we've been escaping as frequently as we can. For lunch, for a stroll, for a flight. And definitely don't tell him that we're planning to attend the Vintner festival later this seven, or the Southern Hold gather next seven." Hazel eyes shift to Catling, "You might see about finding riders going to one or another of the events around Pern to hitch a ride with. Easy rides is one of the perks of living in a Weyr. I wouldn't recommend a gold be your first dragon experience. They are rather large. A nice green or blue might do well. One who's friendly, ideally."

"They all seem rather large to me," admits Catling. Then she blinks. "Oh. I'll get to go to the Gathers? Really?" She looks pleased, then embarrassed, then crestfallen. "I've only ever been to one Gather. That was a bit ago. But I don't have anything proper to wear...."

"I am not entirely sure that he does not already know, but he still prefers to keep himself.. accessible." A'sran keeps that statement cryptic, and shortly there is a small crowd passing by the nighthearth that pulls his attention further. "Ladies," he says, sweeping them both a grand gesture, "I am afraid I will have to leave you. I have to see a man about.. some straps." He gives each a smile, the goldrider one with a hike of eyebrows, before he is striding off in the wake of that group of riders.

"They all are rather large," Dahlia admits to Catling, "But greens and blues smallest of all." She looks to the bronzerider taking his leave an she smiles, "I'll see you later?" It's only half a question, perhaps sure enough of the response to not let her attention linger on him as he goes. Looking back to the young woman and over what she's wearing, Dahlia's brows knit a little, "What's wrong with what you're wearing now for a gather?" Her riding leathers, if they tell anything about the goldrider's style of dress, indicate that though they're relatively new and well-fitted, they're not the least bit extravagant; they're the same sort of leathers a person would see on any rider of average means.

"It's not very... pretty," murmurs Catling. "And... I mean, I work in it. And..." She looks down. "And it's not..." She twists her hair around her fingers. "Is it... really acceptable? It's good enough?" Even if it's ugly and old and faded?" She bites her lip and looks up. "I thought people always dressed up for Gathers."

"Catling," Dahlia pauses after saying her name, lips pressed, expression saying that she's searching for some words that aren't readily there. "Gathers are for all kinds of people. The people who enjoy them most are the people who don't have to worry about if their hem dragged in the mud. There are more people with every day jobs and every day clothes at gathers than there are weyrwomen or fancy Lords and Ladies for whom keeping up appearances might be important for what it says about the area they represent. As it happens, I have only two gather dresses available to me. One was inherited from someone who passed away, and one is borrowed from a friend from my childhood."

"Oh." Catling looks up at last. "She looks down at her dress again. "Well... maybe I can work to get a pretty dress for next year, and just.... go and enjoy myself in this, this time. It..." She tilts her head. "I guess sometimes you don't really know where you come from until you're not there anymore." She turns her head towards the fire, then roughly rubs her cheeks.

"You could check with the stores assistants to see if there's something nicer that might fit you, though it might be difficult with your stature," is a friendly suggestion with logical caveat, nothing judgmental from the tall brunette. Dahlia looks thoughtfully toward her jacket on the hearth, "These past turns have been hard on Fort Weyr. Hard on the area. It's not been a time for luxury purchases in quite some time. But with the dearth of deaths in the plague, you never know what's made it into the stores." That makes the weyrwoman look uneasy, but it's the way of things in a Weyr. "When I was an apprentice, I wore dirty pants, shirt and dirt-encrusted nails to the Nerat gathers. No one there ever minded." That she noticed, but perhaps apprentices are below notice.

"My stepmother wouldn't let me go. Always an excuse for it. Too young, had to watch my half-brothers, had to watch the animals, and most of all, could not go because I had no suitable clothes and no sense of.... decorum, and I would disgrace my father..." Catling's voice trails off as she focuses on Dahlia's uneasy look, and she reaches out her hand to the goldrider. "It was hard. I'm sorry for your loss... losses. It's hard to just go back to doing normal things. I have...." She flushes. "I have a toy firelizard. It's made of wool. My father made it for me. And.... every night I tell it... her.... the story of my day. So that he'll know. Even if he's gone. And that maybe my mother, wherever she is, will know. So. Your lost ones.... their love doesn't ever die. Never ever as long as you live."

Dahlia shies away from the reached hand, only just enough to step neatly out of range, expression not betraying more than the uneasiness that was already there in that moment. Crouching, the weyrwoman runs a hand down her jacket to check it for relative dryness. It's a moment before she speaks, but when she does, not looking at the younger woman, she replies, "It's good that you've found a way to cope with your losses. We all must find a way, all must carry on with what's needed for the living." She sounds older than nineteen when she says it, but then she's seen a lot and more and earned that maturity. Gathering her things, tucking gloves into jacket pockets and putting the jacket over an arm, helmet and goggles dangling from the hand not occupied by her mug of klah, "If you'll excuse me, Catling, I have duties to attend to." There's a polite smile from the goldrider before she's turning to go.

Catling draws back, and she nods her head. "Of... of course," she says softly. She bites at her lip, then shakes herself. "I hope you enjoy the Vintner Gather if I don't see you before then," she adds. Then she holds her hands out to the fire, rubbing them together, trying to draw in the warmth from the dancing flames.