Logs:Knock Knock
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| RL Date: 8 June, 2015 |
| Who: Farideh, R'van |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: R'van comes bearing a gift and an apology for Farideh, and then they actually talk, without the yelling. |
| Where: Farideh and Roszadyth's Weyr, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 10, Month 13, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Windy, cold. |
| Mentions: Irianke/Mentions, K'del/Mentions, Itsy/Mentions, Drex/Mentions, Liandra/Mentions, Z'kiel/Mentions |
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| A blustery and cold weyrbowl makes the perfect excuse for sitting inside and enjoying a carefully tended hearth, the warmth of furs, and solitude. It's at the end of the evening that finds Farideh sitting back on her heels, leaning over the short coffee table in front of the fireplace, mulling over a series of documents. She looks like she's been at it a while, shuffling stacks and re-organizing certain papers when it strikes her fancy, and she even has a glass of wine set off to the side, well away from her elbows and the possibility of knocking it over. Inside the weyr itself, it's warm and tidy, showing no evidence of the scuffle from days before. Knock, knock. Knuckles rap on stone near the entrance of Farideh's weyr, where R'van hovers for a moment before stepping further in. He's got a small, wrapped package tucked under one arm: one with distinctly bottle-shaped proportions. He still has a mostly faded bruise on his face. And while he doesn't exactly wait for an invitation to come on in, at least he's noticeably hesitant when he does step on forward. A couple of heartbeats past before Farideh glances up from her work, lifting her pen long enough to strain her neck, trying to glance around the furniture. She can just make out R'van's form there, but her reaction isn't visceral this time. "R'van," she greets, setting her pen down altogether and rubbing her wrists; she's watching him with curiosity, clearly uncertain as to his reason for visiting. "Do you need something? Did Z'kiel send you?" "Why would Z'kiel send me?" R'van wonders, but it's an idle sort of question as he continues on in. The wrapped bottle is held out to her when he's closer. "I wanted to drop by. With this," he tells her, somewhat awkwardly. "As an apology-slash-weyr-warming gift." Even the idea of apologizing grates in his teeth, but he's trying. "Because I didn't do my fair share of one-legged sprints around the bowl?" Farideh replies, offhandedly, but she's already staring at the wrapped bottle he's offering. "An apology--" Her brow furrows, her hands bracing on the table as she pushes herself to her feet. "What did you do?" is asked, accusingly, which does not prohibit her from walking towards him and holding her hands out to accept his present. "Z'kiel can be his own enforcer. I've done my time," and R'van just sounds aggrieved about the entire thing, even now. But he does hand over the bottle with a dry smirk. "You can't think of anything?" he asks, lifting a brow. "I'm sure you can make up something at the very least." A beat. "Sorry," he says, for that comment too. Time is allotted to marvel over the newly-acquired bottle, with Farideh turning it around and around, as though she could see what happens to be inside just from the shape besides the obvious. Her glance up, to R'van's face, is punctuated with a frown. "What did you do?" is more serious, this time around. "You even said: don't apologize if you haven't done anything wrong." A pause. Begrudgingly, R'van concedes, "I... might have done something wrong." He rubs the back of his neck, studying the bottle she turns over before admitting, "Drex's and my drinking got a little out of hand the other night, and I'm afraid your weyr suffered for it. So--." A little nod indicates the wine bottle, house warming and apology both. Tension seeps into her posture, and the barest signs of displeasure show in her face, though she keeps her voice just as level and calm as it was before. "That was you?" Farideh turns and walks to the sideboard where the rest of her tiny drink collective is set. "He said there was a little fight and-- well, I guess he replaced the chair, and the rug." She looks back, over her shoulder, lips pursed. "Thank you-- for this, and-- the apology, and if you want to get drunk and break things, next time, maybe you can do it somewhere else?" "It was little," R'van agrees with that much, grimacing. "He hit me once, we broke the chair... It was very minor. But still." Now that he's sober, he's glancing around the repaired weyr idly, with a rare actual smile for Farideh's latter words. "In my defense, he started it, but then, I did call you a bitch. So maybe not in anyone's defense. Regardless, no, I don't plan on another night like that. You're safe." While R'van talks, Farideh cautiously peels the wrapping off the wine bottle and, after it's exposed, gives it a look of longing. She eventually sets it aside, next to a half-empty bottle of red and a full, skinny bottle of something clear. "You called me a bitch?" It might be surprise coloring her voice, but it's just as easily incredulity at his gumption for insulting her in front of the sailor. "Do you think I'm a bitch?" is posed, her arms crossing over her chest. Almost as an afterthought, she adds: "Sit? Make yourself comfortable-- not that I need to tell you that." So R'van sits down, beside the spot she's claimed for herself. The question, he considers from that spot by the fire. "I think you're bitchy," he concedes that much. "And overemotional, and illogical. But I also like prodding at sore points to see what happens, or just because it's there when I'm drinking. So, don't take it too personally." "Don't take it too personally?" Farideh laughs, torn somewhere between genuine humor and disbelief. "And what if I called you a rude, egotistical, selfish, arrogant asshole who can't see farther than his own dick?" She jerks her chin, but remains by the sideboard, arms crossed, considering him with an overall calm demeanor despite the insults she just flung at the other weyrling. "Would you not take it too personally?" "I meant more--it was less about what you are or do," R'van explains, in that infuriatingly patient teaching-moment tone they thought they saw left behind when Z'kiel took over. "Than poking at Drex." His shoulders lift, and he frowns at her then, brows all furrowed. "I object to the part regarding my own dick. What does that even mean?" The rest stands, apparently. A subsequent eye roll follows the explanation, and Farideh grabs another glass off the sideboard along with the half-gone bottle of red wine. She brings both with her to the table, setting them down on the corner nearest R'van. "Don't worry, I'm sure your dick is just fine," she says, wryly, uncorking the wine and pouring him a drink whether he wants it or not; then she sits, folding into a cross-legged style, and grabs her own glass. "Have they moved you into your own weyr yet?" "Seriously, though," says R'van, though he doesn't sound miffed so much as confused. Still, he lets the comment go in favor of accepting the glass of wine, sniffing it and giving it an idle swirl in the glass. "No," is the unhappy answer to the latter. "More's the pity. Logistics, I suppose. Some of us don't have one designated for them since impression." "You might be bad at flying?" Farideh must be joking! Except her upward winging brows and pursed lips convey mild amusement, that is until she takes a sip and scoots closer to the table, to leaf through the papers on top. "I doubt any of them will be to your satisfaction. I've heard the headwomen complaining and fussing, and heard others' gossiping about how they must be the worst of the worst-- but at least it's your own place?" Added at the end, with a bobble of her head back and forth, "You love yourself, R'van." "No, we've been practicing longer than anyone," R'van dismisses that thought even if he knows she's teasing, smirking as he takes a sip of his wine. There's a slow consideration of the latter thought. "I've never had a place for myself before," he admits with a shrug. Any further revealing thought on that topic, though, is derailed by the last. R'van, paused with his glass halfway to his lips again, asks with a snort, "Are we still speaking in the metaphorical, egotistical sense, or...?" "When you get yours, I'll bring you a much better weyr-warming gift, and I won't even have to destroy your weyr first. Though it might benefit from the change--" Farideh's lips quirk and then flatten, as she lifts her glass again. "Never? Not even with your parents? I did, but it wasn't this big. It did have windows however," and she sounds glum about that. A sigh later, she slants him a come on stare. "I mean you only care about yourself, and you can't be spared to consider someone else, or their feelings, or their experiences-- you're stuck, looking at your--" It's probably best that she takes that moment to sip her wine. R'van shrugs. "I'm one of the younger ones in my family. I remember having a bunk bed with my brother Hanowar--he got the top one--and a couple of my cousins in the other one, but..." He just eyes her for a moment then, mouth curved wryly. "Not all of us are so privileged as some--" read: Farideh "--and my family was honestly relatively well-off." But when it comes to the latter, his lips purse, fingers drumming on the side of his glass idly. "It's not that I don't care," he says, frowning. "I just value other things more. I mean, even I get hurt or mad sometimes; just, if it's not rational--if it's not something that can be fixed--then there's no basis for it." "And look what happened to that," Farideh returns, tilting her wine glass towards R'van. "It will be nice-- it is nice. To have someplace to yourself. You had roommates at the Hall? Here, in the candidate quarters, and the weyrling barracks-- it's like taking a breath of really fresh air, every time I wake up, because there's not sixteen other people-- snoring, eating, talking, yelling, staring--" She shakes her head and takes another sip of wine. "But not everything can be rationally explained." The most Farideh talks about it, the more R'van's fighting against letting any wistfulness into his expression. He just nods in the end, and answers the latter rather than engaging further on the subject of weyrs. "No. But if it can't, it's not--hm. It's not real, if you can't back it up with the evidence. If it's just feeling without substance behind it, unjustified." Now, Farideh is frowning at R'van. "It's unjustified because it's only emotional? Fear? Anger? Jealousy? Love? Are none of those real or justified then? You're a strange, strange--" Rather than finished her sentence, she takes another, long drink from her wine. "Maybe," agrees R'van, toying with his wine before he takes another sip. "Some people get jealous, or angry, over nothing. Things that aren't a threat, or that they have no right to ask of people. I don't know. It's an ideal, probably unreachable, but--. I can't explain it to you, I don't think. I don't know how your brain works but it's not like mine." Truer words, never spoken. He just looks rueful for that. "Because you never ask-- why are you mad at me, Farideh? Why didn't you throw a chair at Itsy's head, Farideh? Why don't you want to be the Weyrwoman, Farideh? You could get answers, if not complete understanding. I thought that was how you--" Farideh waves a hand indistinctly in the air. "Researched?" R'van frowns. "I don't research people," he notes. "Or--I have, I can, but. Things are... not working out as intended, for me. Which I realize tends to make me more single-minded, and selfish, and, uh. Asshole-ish." A pause; he shakes his head. "Why don't you want to be Weyrwoman?" "Why do you say that? That things aren't working out for you? You've passed all your classes thus far, got top marks, and--" Farideh lifts her brows, questioningly, and then settles down into a contemplative expression, her gaze roaming idly to the flames in the hearth. "I've never wanted to be-- at the top. Being famous-- being a legend like Lessa-- is one thing, but I've never wanted to shoulder the responsibility. Everyone watches what you do, mimicks what you wear, picks apart everything you say. You start to become-- not yourself. I've only ever wanted to just be-- me, and happy. I never wanted to carry the weight of a Hold, much less a Weyr. It's too heavy." R'van snorts. "I am an acceptable dragonrider," he notes, voice gone dry. There's more than a little bitterness threatening around the edges--though rather that's a rational emotion is debatable. "A mediocre bronzerider at best, and no Smith at all. Exactly the opposite of what I want to be--even despite Vadevjiath." He shrugs, turning a considering look on her. "People will pick at you regardless, because that's what small people do, regardless of the circumstances. You should be yourself more. You're likable, generally." "And here I thought bronzeriders were defined by the flights that they won. You haven't won any yet. You still have time to prove your glory, but smithing--" Farideh frowns, again. "I can't do anything there. I wouldn't know the proper channels. If you suggested, to Smith Hall, I'm they'd-- if they haven't accepted riders as viable candidates for rank promotion in the past, I doubt they would now. You probably need-- big players in your corner," whatever that means. His other comments actually earn a smile, which broadens as she lifts her wine glass a little higher than mouth-level. "To being likeable?" "Yes," says R'van, just a hint of the usual impatience creeping in. "Which I have none. Liandra, our Craftsecond, is far from my biggest fan. And Irianke thinks I'm a rash fool more concerned with my own projects than others' well-being." So, basically accurate. He shakes his head. "Can I drink to that?" he wonders, even as he lifts his own in toast. "Who do you think you would need? Irianke's support? K'del's support? Or something more widespread? Multiple Weyrs? Holds? It seems like-- a big project, in itself." Farideh momentarily looks a little confused -- overwhelmed? -- by the sheer scale of R'van's big plan, but there's a shrug and a solid smile to go along with her smile. "To being more likeable? To winning over the right people? And not making anymore messes." "I think--all of those," R'van admits. He hesitates, lips pursing as he studies Farideh, like he's not sure he can trust her with his plans. But, a beat later, he leans forward, with a determined expression that so easily brings to mind Vadevjiath's single-mindedness. "If I can make my craft accept me as a journeyman--I have the project for it, I've been working on it for months--then I can push that into a wider acceptance for craft-riders in general. The crafts, none of them have an actual policy for it now, or any real support for the movement. I could do that. If I had enough riders who were interested in taking up their craft again or fuck, just starting one, and we had the Weyrleaders behind us to leverage against the crafts--." He has to take a deep breath, excited at the thought of it. It's as animated as R'van gets, honestly. "We could really change something. As a Smith, even a master Smith--the Master Smith--I wouldn't be able to bring anything that revolutionary forward. But Vadevjiath changed the entire game." Farideh is fascinated; it's not often R'van gets enthusiastic about something, unless it's boring (to her). "You have to work on the other side, too. You can't just get caught up in the project-- you even said, you need the riders' interest and the Weyrleaders' support. You'll have to win them all over, if it's going to work," she says, levelly. "You'll actually have to make friends," or at least minions! She studies him quietly, but with a little sigh -- and likely against her better judgement -- waves her hand at him. "Tell me about your plans. Something I can understand." And so he talked, and she listened, and there was no more blood shed, chairs broken, or rugs ruined. The end. |
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