Logs:Deficit or Surplus
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| RL Date: 17 May, 2015 |
| Who: Lilah, Isidro |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Adventures in Bookkeeping |
| Where: Records Room, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 28, Month 10, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| As evening settles on the Weyr, the records dies quickly into an abandoned quiet. The only people that can be found here so late in the evening are the recordskeeper on duty and usually only one or two of the more studious residents, especially with the Senior Weyrwoman Sands-bound with her queen. Tonight, however, Lilah has enough work to catch up on from the last sevenday that she's claimed a table to herself. The recordskeeper isn't even giving her trouble over the steaming mug of klah she keeps at hand as she attempts to work through hides and numbers and records that have fallen behind, fingers tangled up in golden-red curls with a hint of frustration as she goes over a column of figures once again, words forming on her lips as she does but never making a noise. Studious! Is Isidro? Maybe not. He doesn't walk in with the sort of bookish reverence that one would expect. More of a casual stroll, fingers in the pockets of his slim-cut trousers, thumbs hooked, big eyes looking around like a tourist. Or a newbie exploring this great big Weyr and just happening to stumble upon the place. Except without stumbling. No faltering in the step. "Farrrranth." Is it supposed to be quiet? He's not particularly quiet. The sound of a voice is enough to bring the flick of dark eyes up from those numbers eagerly enough to find the cause of the sound and pin its source with a narrowed gaze. This leaves the junior weyrwoman staring at Isidro, the hint of a brow curving upwards for the exclamation. At least she is helpful enough, to some degree, to add, "Can I help you?" "Didn't figure--our records room back home was--was--" Isidro's eyes finally drifts down from all that shelving and the tapestries down to the carpet, which he scuffs at with the toe of one (hopefully clean) shoe. "Mustier," he finally settles on as words go, before setting about a more determined wander, looking at things as though looking requires personally having contact between his fingertips and whatever it is. Except the junior weyrwoman, of course. When he gets to her, he settles for eyes alone, and a smile with teeth. "Sorry. I'm interrupting. You're doing--is it something important?" Lilah's gaze trails after him as he wanders, though she offers a dry, "You wouldn't be the first person to be struck by the size of this room, and you won't be the last." The goldrider seems unimpressed by smiles (though she's likely grateful for the lack of fingertips), as those brows curve only slightly more upwards before she corrects, "Ma'am." Surely, she's not calling him that. "Or weyrwoman. You must be new; I have been-- behind on my duties these past few days." "Yes, ma'am, of course." A drawing-up, a straightening of shoulders, narrow as they might be. "Pardon, I'm not accustomed to--this." Which part of this? An overly large gesture takes in the room, but maybe more than just the room. "My father is absolutely 'sir', but my mother isn't that sort, and I'm not sure even my father ever spoke to Lady Boll." Establishing a place in the food chain, after a fashion, but with a deep, perhaps lifelong, awareness of how middling that place is. "Anything madam needs is my pleasure, or I can be going." His thumb hikes back towards the exit. "But I've no other commitments until breakfast service, if I can be of any help." Sleeping should probably happen in there somewhere, but there's enough natural energy there to make one question whether he intends to. "Once is an acceptable mistake, especially when you are new. Twice is stupidity. Anymore than that is a particular snub," is said in a dismissive way, of his mistake and of the apology both as Lilah studies the young man who straightens so suddenly in front of her. "Holder or crafter stock?" she questions of that established rank, curious. "And how are your numbers?" Though he doesn't relax precisely, Isidro does crane his neck a little, as though trying to get a glance at just what it is she's working on, now that he's offered. Second thoughts? "Hold, thank you, ma'am. Cotton, which is--well, you expend nearly as much to pick it as you get for it." The face he makes is as good an indication as any for why he's here, if the combination of Holders and his manner weren't enough. "Good enough at sums, with marks." Fractions! "More than that, if I were you I wouldn't trust me with it." He has the grace to look a bit sheepish about the last. "The numbers aren't adding up, here. I think I have been looking at them too long; just go through and see if it equals out or if you get a deficit or surplus, ok?" Lilah tells him, sliding over the hide that she's been reading so that he does not even have to crane to look at it anymore. It is-- a fearsome amount of numbers, all in tiny neat printed marks along columns, but there must be hundreds of transactions, both front and back in three columns each. She watches him thoughtfully once she's freed of that sheet of hide, considering his words. "Cotton, hm? Well, it could always be worse. Did you not like farming?" Invitation implied, at least, Isidro draws up a chair so as to be able to sit down and start squinting himself at that fearsome line of totals. "I suppose it's a necessary thing, but it's not one that's ever done much good at holding my attention." A minor talent: he seems to be actually counting as he says this, mouthing a number here and there but otherwise not seeming to struggle with the multitasking. Of course, if she were to start spouting off random numbers, that might get harder. "And small Holds..." A few moments' pause. "...are very small places." "You wanted to be in a larger place?" questions Lilah in natural prompt, her attention lingering on the man as he mouths those numbers. "And how is our larger place so far for you...?" "Sometimes a person just needs space, you know?" Isidro's eyes don't leave the hide in front of him, but his hands spread out in front and then stretch to the sides, palm up, with a little flourish. The second question he doesn't answer right away. As the numbers get bigger, he's more inclined to mumble about them, until he reaches the end of one column and recites off a total aloud. "Only off by a mark--I haven't seen enough, I don't think, to tell, ma'am. I mean, I've seen plenty." Tap of finger just to the side of one eye. "But it's hard to tell if it's bigger, or just bigger." Is that what he meant to say? He already seems to have gotten into the next column. Lilah makes a soft, understanding noise for that, though she tells him, "You will have to report to me when you decide. I think I am no longer an unbiased judge about the amount of space one can find in this Weyr." She pauses, studying Isidro again before she questions, "What did you say your name was?" That comment warrants a long and curious look at the junior weyrwoman, warrants lips pursed like a question is sitting just inside them--but it's swallowed back. And, unfortunately, his finger trails back up like he's had to start from the beginning. "Faranth." Wait, that's not an answer. His oaths: not very creative. "Isidro," correction. The curve of Lilah's brows lift immediately at that first name, but there is a hint of buried humor in dark eyes as Isidro continues. She introduces herself, "Lilah of gold Eliyaveith. You have been settled away with a job and a residence, I take it?" He could put it to words: He knows. The flip side of that food chain, the impossibility of anonymity when junior weyrwomen are in short supply. But Isidro doesn't say that, doesn't say anything until he's a little further down the column. Repeating a number twice before he says, "Yes, ma'am. Running plates, mostly. Bit of food prep." Said like it's a pleasing state of affairs, this demotion in the world, followed immediately by more muttering, more counting. "Good, good," repeats Lilah, approving, of the job the Headwoman's staff had done in the time of her distraction. Not, say, that the junior weyrwoman would be seeing to that personally, but it may seem that way when she adds simply to Isidro, "If there is anything else that you need in settling in to the Weyr here, let me know. We do want your time here to be productive and comfortable." A pause. "Did you come for the eggs on the Sands?" This time, a longer delay in the answer. She can go about the pleasantries, but the question--Isidro nearly opens his mouth to answer before he stops, finishes the column. "This one looks right." A delay, then, before getting into the third. "Seems worth seeing, once in my life, a Hatching. But I wasn't thinking of it until I got here and someone mentioned. Aren't Weyrs the place that Hold-folk go when they don't fit? Seems like that's how the stories always go. I figured it would feel more different, somehow." "Nothing in life is ever what you expect. That, at least, you can always bet on," Lilah tells him dismissively, though not without an appraising look over the young man. A noise, something like agreement: "Mm." The last column seems to give Isidro substantially more trouble than the first two. Even without answering aloud, it takes him several times restarting, and a few furrowed brows, to make it any distance at all. More of a challenge, or just fading already after this? "I think--I don't think I know where it's coming up wrong, here, but I can't get the same total twice. I'm sorry. Ma'am." If it were a test, having Isidro work at those numbers, the grade that he receives isn't communicated in any way in the neutrality of Lilah's tipped nod. "I will have someone else look them over," is all she answers, holding out her hand to the young man to take the hide back. "But for now, I do have to get back to the work you interrupted. Welcome to Fort Weyr, Isidro." |
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