Logs:The Legend of Mother Sea
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| RL Date: 21 January, 2012 |
| Who: Iolene, Leova |
| Type: [[Concept:{{{type}}}|{{{type}}}]] |
| What: Leova takes a respite from the rain. Iolene splashes in puddles like a child and shares a story from her childhood. |
| Where: Hatching Galleries, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day {{{day}}}, Month {{{month}}}, Turn {{{turn}}} ({{{IP}}} {{{IP2}}}) |
| Mentions: K'del/Mentions, Tiriana/Mentions, Ali/Mentions |
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| It's raining, not too hard, and it's cool, not too cold, and Leova was only just walking along the Bowl, not even very /fast/... but abruptly she had to stop and just let the rain fall on her. Stop and wait. Stop. It's a few minutes before she can start up again, and even then it's to shuffle to the mouth of the huge cave that hadn't been her first choice or even her second until it wound up being the closest place to go that wasn't going back. It's dry. Even at the outskirts, it's warm. She'll stop there, just inside. Even not too hard rain can create puddles, particularly in spots where dragons used to sit in. Whether it's reflective of her age, her upbringing, or a need to disperse weyr-fever induced fidgeting, Iolene is jumping in those puddles, much to the chagrin of a gold perched on her ledge not so far away. From just the cock of Ysavaeth's head and Iolene's less than mature response of a stuck out tongue, the conversation the two share could probably be deduced. Until, in a reverse psychology voice of suddenly bored disinterest, Ysavaeth says, /much louder/ but in a very deliberate sharesies-with-green-dragons sort of way: « Vrianth's rider can probably see you. » To which Iolene responds by halting abruptly and casting her dark blue gaze about. Ahhh, there. There's nothing much to see for a while there, just Vrianth's rider with her eyes closed. When she opens them again, it's to the backs of her hands where her palms are curled upon the cool metal of the railing. "Vrianth's rider," she says, Vrianth herself playing along from her fretful watch upon a lower, outer ledge, "Is tired. /Should/ I look? Does she want me to." There's this moment, this overly long second where Iolene just stares at the closed-eyed Leova and how the greenrider, upon opening her eyes, looks down. The teenager looks down too, at the sands and the few puddles that have dripped down from the sky entrance to the ledges, and the one leg that was held up in ready to leap once more drops with a sad little splish into the puddle she stands in. "She says I should act like my rank," says the goldrider a little forlornly. "I tried to explain that we used to jump in puddles all the time when it was warmer out, and here-, here was the only place I could manage it. Please don't look," adds the girl quickly as she takes one long sidestep out of a puddle. Then, "Please don't splash me," is all Leova has to say, that little bit of an otherwise-askew mirror. It's enough to stand there in her fur-lined boots with her wooly socks and trimmed nails and simply not make her hips move, letting the bar take more of her weight. Iolene could skip. Dance. Skip. Prance. There's no grunting, no moans, no overt signs of discomfort beyond simply and steadfastly waiting it all out, as though she could stand here for the rest of the day and more. "I won't," is Iolene's quick response. Her hands tuck into the pockets of her neatly tailored pants, the bottoms of which are a darker, damp shade of khaki. The fact that there is someone else present in her private moment of splashing in puddles dampens the delicious secrecy of it all -- of being a child again, of doing things that don't befit her station or age really anymore. Pleased Ysavaeth sits back the flutter of her wings as they settle against her regal frame, less tense, as she watches the shift in her rider. Slow steps take her to the boundary between sands and galleries and her sharp chin lifts to look up at the pregnant greenrider. "You look- tired," is what she ultimately decides to opine with. "I wish I could be tired like that some day." Her head turns, just her head and the long support of her neck within its furred collar, amber eyes on dark blue. "Can't you?" Then, "I hope you will like it, when you are." This silences Iolene. That and the small smile that plays on her lips as she follows the various curves of Leova's tired body. Distracted. Then, "I don't have anyone to get to that state with." Her hand drifts from pocket to her neck, where a small double-helix lavaliere is played between her fingers. "Are you very tired? Would you like to hear a story my mommy once told me?" To a girl who lost her mother at four, she will always be mommy. "Not just anyone will do, sounds like," Leova says rather than suggests, her voice a low murmur that leads to more movement, if only the brush of hair away from her own forehead. Her mommy isn't here to do it either. "I'd like that." Vrianth might too, there on her borrowed ledge, the tip of her so-long tail twined about that of the ledge's owner and no more. Ysavaeth can't be bothered to look towards a green, even one so much older and potentially wiser than she is in her absolute youthful righteousness; so she won't really spare Vrianth a glance. Not /really/ at any rate. Not enough to count, right? A sidelong flicker doesn't count _at all_. "Oh," Iolene's pretty face scrunches up and a flush colors her cheeks. "Not just anyone. But not anyone particularly," she adds, distracted from the story by her quick protest. Surely it doesn't count, especially as it's an outside ledge, with the same fresh, cool air that had chilled her rider. And if something of Ysavaeth's not-really-attention impinges... there's no ping in return. Nobody's looking. Ysavaeth could prance, too, if the world ever came to its end. "No? That's more difficult then," Leova sympathizes. "At least if there's someone, a girl can go after him." No her. Not with babies on the line. And if she looks maybe a little wistful about that missing story... well. "Yeah. And if that someone didn't already have a someone." There's a wistful note to Iolene's quieter reply, her body bending in a slump against that bordered rail and stone between spectators and spectated. She's quiet. So quiet and pensive for Iolene, and her head drops as her body drapes to rest against the coolness of the stone galleries. Then, a quiet: "Once upon a time," as all fairly tales must start, "There was a girl who grew up on an island, who owned nothing other than the name she was given with and the family who loved her." "Oh," is Leova's quiet murmur, the consonant drawn out ever so softly in that smoky voice of hers, and maybe it's Iolene's own movement that does it: she shifts at last, if only to turn and lean her hips against the brace of the metal intead, letting it support her as she stretches her legs slowly. One at a time. She's the audience, after all. Here, Iolene feels compelled to note, "The story always changed just a little bit." Or maybe the time since she was four has changed it on its own. "But the little girl was pretty and the apple of her mommy and daddy's eyes until one day, she was stolen away by the sea." The tonally rich voice drifts a little, softened about the edges into a dreamy quality. "And after that, she became mother sea's daughter, and the little lady of the oceans." The greenrider laughs softly, and then hushes, for the sea and the sea-speaker. "The mommy and daddy searched everywhere for their lost daughter and wept when they couldn't find her. They pleaded with the elders to do anything in their power to retrieve their daughter and the elders replied, 'There is nothing we can do for you.' And so the mommy and daddy returned to their home." Iolene kens to the laughter ever so briefly, only after she's spoken, so fixed is she on what happens next that externals are only recalled to be noticed afterwards. There's a small smile, however sad, about her mouth. "Meanwhile, the little girl was being raised under the green and blue waters, deep into the darkest parts of the sea. She cried at first, but being surrounded by such pretty things, she began to smile a little, and then laugh and laugh some more and the mother of the sea was pleased for she loved this girl as if she were her own." "/Two/ mothers," murmurs the quiet voice, less comment than encouragement: how lucky? "Except," Iolene corrects, her head twists upwards just slightly to catch sight of Leova all the better while she speaks, cheek still to the cool stone. "The little girl slowly forgot her land mother. And time went on. And the mother and father had another little girl, one they protected fiercely. They wouldn't let anyone take this girl from her, and she was, maybe, more loved than the first daughter. If only because the mommy and daddy knew what they had lost." The greenrider presses her lips together at that, silent. "But the little girl in the ocean grew up, and as she grew up, mother sea was pleased and told her a story of the land and the people of it. The little girl had forgotten a time when she could walk on land and when she had more than the watery shape she now had changed into. Fascinated, the little girl, now big girl, swam to the shores and watched the birds and the insects and the animals. She saw the people and the island." Iolene drops her cheek back down fully again and drifts her eyes from Leova at the pressed lips. "And her heart hurt. And when she swam down and asked her mother what that feeling was, this hurt she had never known, or remembered to know, her mother, the lady of the sea, could not lie and told her the truth. But that there was no way to return. That she only took willing people, little girls, who might one day replace her as it was meant to be." Iolene pauses long enough to exhale a breath. "The big girl wept as her memories came back, and when she wept now, the oceans called and listened to her. They roiled and raged as her tears grew stronger. The winds above shrieked as her wails grew louder. And still," the blonde girl says, a glimmer of liquid caught in her lashes, "Mother Sea was pleased and disappeared into the water, becoming... just water and no more Mother Sea." "And she was alone," but Leova frames it half as a question: it's not, after all, her story. "She was alone." Iolene repeats, agreement. "And when she was no longer sad, she wept, quietly now. What could she do? She was now Mother Sea and the sea must be mothered." "Did she steal anyone?" Leova has to ask. Iolene pushes herself off that boundary between her and Leova and looks up, the sad tears that welled up before dribbling down her cheek. "No. But she wanted to. She wanted to take her mommy and daddy's new little girl. The little girl so loved by her mommy and daddy." Io's voice shifts, turning small. "My grams told me that she might have taken the little girl, except one day, Mother Sea realized the little girl no longer had a mommy and daddy and took pity on her. She took the bodies of her mommy and daddy, the ones she had left and the ones who had left this new girl, and put them in the sky as stars to twinkle down on both their daughters." The greenrider's hand cups about her mouth, though not to retch, and then she sets it gently down. She's looking at Iolene too, now. "Did she say... did the sisters ever get to meet?" "No." Iolene shrugs and flashes a sheepish smile upwards. "It was one of my favorite stories growing up. It's the only one I really remember, probably because I asked for it all the time. Grams said my mommy would tire out her voice telling me this story. I like to think the sisters loved each other, in their own way, and knew. It's kind of sad," no really, "But it's how they explained why sometimes the sea would be very angry at us and sometimes, it would be so nice, like our best friend." "It's lovely," Leova says quite truthfully. "Have you... ever thought of telling it to a harper? Or," and her hand hovers, now, just above the swell of her stomach without quite touching: to her daughter? Or son. Or whatever the creature inside her is. "I like those... stories like those, that make the world make sense." "No." Iolene startles after her negation and then laughs. "I don't think a harper would think much of a child's story. But I only really like the sad stories. Don't you ever get those times when you wish you could just cry so you read a sad story or ask someone to sing you a sad song or sing a sad song yourself so you can just cry without people thinking you're crazy? It's a lot easier to laugh without people thinking you're crazy." "A... /real/ harper would," the greenrider murmurs, but it's more to herself than even to Iolene, and even then there's there's a scarcely-audible touch of self-inflected surprise. "We... need all sorts of songs. I wish it were more... all right to be sad. Or mad, even. I don't know much about crazy." Iolene purses her lips a little at the emphasis, some of the spell of childhood's magic disappearing from her features. But maybe she's growing up. Maybe she just hates conflict. She doesn't say what she might, instead inquiring, "Do you think you know what you're having? Do you want a little girl who might be Mother Sea one day, or a little boy who might become a sea monster?" Startled, Leova looks down. Her hands cup her stomach again, again not quite touching, but at least there's the two of them. "I try not to think about it," she admits. "As long as it's one or the other. And healthy. I... whatever I could hope, Io, it couldn't change a thing. Not about that." She glances away, then, towards the Bowl as though she could see the long-winged dragon who waits for her, who watches over her, who watches out for her. Who would watch every move she made, if she could. Vrianth /would/. "Do you-," Iolene eases herself away and steps, inadvertently, into a puddle (and just as her pants were drying off from the heat!). "Are you happy?" "Among other things," the greenrider replies, one shoulder sinking deeper than the other in a shrug. "There's so /much/." She says to the exit then, almost offhandedly to this girl who's been trained so differently than Lujayn had been, "It's one thing I miss, her flights. Though. As you can see." She gestures towards the awkwardness of it all, the part that she carries around with her. The subject of flights stills Iolene a moment and she looks to the baby, wanting to ask and yet... not. "Oh," is her very small answer. "I don't think I'd even mind a baby from a flight. Like Lujayn has apparently. I'm surprised Tiriana and K'del have never m-," she flushes and shrugs. A tester balloon is sent out in the most overtly nonchalant tone, "I heard Iovniath was really angry about Cadejoth chasing that Fort gold." "She sure seems happy, Lu does," Leova can say, maybe even reassure, with nearly-unalloyed relief that shifts into something else when their weyrleaders are mentioned. "They say Tiriana's loyal to her weyrmate," she can at least suppose, and then continue more mildly for the nonchalance, "Sounds as though she's, ah. Possessive. Can't blame her, though. And yet." She hitches a shoulder. "Don't know that Wyaeth chased much beyond Teonath, either. If at all. But she was..." she hesitates. Glances at Io. Unseen, Vrianth's tail curls and uncurls, a glint there in her eyes. Iolene waits. But it's an answer she's never bound to get as her eyes suddenly round large. "I forgot I had to meet with some of the weavers. I'm sorry. Maybe-, maybe you can tell me a story next time. About," well, what she's really curious about is what Leova hesitates over but she can't say that, can she? "Anything. Bye! I hope you are less tired." It's not really a coincidence, Leova watching or no, that Io manages to splash in every puddle on her way back up to the weyrleadership's area. |
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