Logs:Your Future
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| RL Date: 3 August, 2015 |
| Who: Dee, Lilah, Eliyaveith, Taeliyth |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Dee finally follows Celestra's advice and volunteers her role in the stores thefts to her Weyrwoman. Lilah is not surprised. |
| Where: Council Room, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 10, Month 6, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Ebeny/Mentions, E'dre/Mentions, Erinta/Mentions, Hattie/Mentions, N'muir/Mentions, Paislie/Mentions |
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>---< Council Room, Fort Weyr(#839RJs$) >------------------------------------<
The Weyr's meeting space is a long, oval space with a large stone table
placed in the middle. There's seating enough for twelve around the table:
plenty of room to welcome most of the Weyrleaders and a good portion of
the Lord Holders from the north, though additional seating might be needed
if a Pern-wide meeting were to be held here.
A sideboard stands ready to serve, regardless of the occasion and is kept
well-stocked with carafes of wine, water and several fine liquors. Fresh
flowers, appropriate to the season are changed out regularly in the vase
atop the sideboard. Tapestries depicting Fort's illustrious history from
founding, to Moreta's role in the Plague to Lessa's arrival to bring the
Weyrs forward in time bedeck the walls, leavening the omnipresence of
cool, gray stone. Well-lit, the chamber boasts glows in niches around the
room, as well as oil lamps hanging from the ceiling. The meeting of the Headwoman and the area heads with Lilah is not a warm, enthusiastic affair. The Acting Weyrwoman clearly prefers her meetings to be short, efficient, and, at times, cutting. She doesn't spare the sharp humor that meets anyone that misspeaks or says something displeasing, but she is quick to move past it and focus on /solutions/ rather than problems. When the rest are dismissed, Dee is gestured to stay, at least for the moment, though now the goldrider will get to her feet to fetch a glass of wine from the sideboard. "Tomorrow, I am meeting with the acting Weyrleader. I will tell Ebeny to adjust your schedule so that you can attend," she tells the weyrling only once everyone else has gone. For all that Dee is taller than the redheaded Weyrwoman and sturdier of frame, the way in which she sits at a chair far enough down the table that her role as 'observer' is made obvious makes her look better suited to sitting in Harper lessons, young and small in this very grown up cavern. Her clipboard and the paper on it is receiving the nervous fidgets of fingers, curling the edge of the paper near the clip. Hazel eyes follow Lilah as she moves and returns to the table. "Yes, ma'am," is the expected and given response before the girl lapses into awkward silence. Lilah does not offer Dee any of the wine she pours for herself, for all that she is generous in the amount of the red that splashes into that glass. "It will be good for you to see a Weyrwoman and Weyrleader's interactions," she explains to Dee, her gaze only drawing lightly over the nervous young woman rather than anything sharp or studied. She has done that all meeting, only sometimes seemingly remembering the goldrider's presence and then looking away. She admits wryly into her glass as she lifts it to her lips, "Sometimes, I wish that Hattie hadn't had her weyrmate as a Weyrleader. I never got the same preparation for a Weyrleader in that way." Surely, that excuses her behavior with E'dre. "Yes, ma'am," is actual agreement, not just appeasement when it comes to the older woman's thoughts on why the younger should attend the meeting. "Or-- for so long, I'd imagine." This supposition on Dee's part is awkward and quickly amended, "I mean, I think the longer you work with anyone, the easier it gets to at least understand them even when you're butting heads or disagreeing-- you can at least trust them to be themselves even if you can't trust them." She stares at her page. The breath is taken and what she has so nearly said so many times before, she finally articulates now and carefully, "Weyrwoman, I've let you down. And Taeliyth, I've let her down too. And the Weyr. And Nasci. And her people." She swallows, but doesn't stop. "I've been young and I've been foolish and I thought-- I thought I could help, and I've only hurt everyone involved, even if not all of them have known it." Now she lifts her eyes, now she slides from her seat and stands, her hands folding in front of her. "Ma'am, I'm to blame for the missing stores." There it is. It's out. Something about that has the tension in her shoulders taking new meaning, losing some of the nerves and fear that might've held them before and instead finding quiet dread, resignation and anticipation; come what may, it will what it will be now. Now Dee will earn the weighted study of the Weyrwoman, those dark eyes piercing into the weyrling even as she speaks, but Lilah does not interrupt. She doesn't even speak for a moment after the goldrider has confessed. When she does, it is with a challenging question of, "Did you think that I didn't know? You'd be surprised, weyrling, of the breadth of my knowledge." She takes a seat now, leaving Dee standing as she settles so comfortably in her chair. "For example, I know you didn't do it alone. I know who helped you and who didn't." "I didn't know what you knew. I was going to come to you, after I Impressed but Taeliyth-- She hoped we could fix it. Put things back before people noticed, but with baby dragons and--" Dee stops herself in the process of explaining, sighing softly and bowing her head. "I was there the day the sky fell, ma'am, we both were. I only wanted to help. I know, know," one hand rises to touch over her heart, the emotion strong in her voice at how deep that going goes, "that I went about it wrong." "I remember," answers Lilah in dismissive counter of the emotion the younger woman feels, not apparently affected by the same. "But the difference between you and I is that I knew what I was doing and what the Weyr could support. And, that left on their own, the hold would be fine." But, the sharpness of that statement dulls, even, as she presses on to add to Dee: "You are going to find yourself in impossible situations as a weyrwoman if you don't quickly learn to shed your desire to help everyone." Dee's hazel gaze meets Lilah's darker one. Her words are quiet, but enunciated clearly, "Impossible situations sound like everything I've been through this turn. My dragon has been angry with me since she chose me." She bites back anything more. A pause, "How did you know? How did you know the Hold would be fine? If they weren't going to be... would you have done something?" There is almost a smile for those quiet words, almost a hint of amusement in the acting Weyrwoman, but she only answers those questions with a simple, dismissive, "Because I had more information than you did, as a Candidate. There is a reason there is a structure of rank in a Weyr. There is a reason that I make the decisions and you don't." She sets her wine glass down, rather than drinking further, and twists the conversation suddenly to tell Dahlia, "You will need to return everything, immediately. You can take it all to the Headwoman with a written apology for her. I expect that you will write an apology to Hattie, N'muir and Ebeny, too." Dee's look at the Weyrwoman's first is almost one that would argue, only there's not much to argue with: rank and structure have their place, isn't that what last month's etiquette lessons were all about? The rest leaves the teen perplexed. "Is-- that all?" Clearly, she expected more, and worse. "What would you have me do, Dahlia?" asks Lilah calmly, observing the goldrider with only the hint of a brow dragging upwards. "Send you to bed without supper? Bend you over my knee? Stake you and Taeliyth out as an example to starve?" "We--" Dee starts, her cheeks coloring. It's a caught breath before she can say, "We thought you would want to send us away." The rigidity of her frame holds the months of fear and anxiety that rose out of the imaginings of this moment. "And who would want a half-trained weyrling who steals from her own Weyr?" is Lilah's question in turn, though it lacks any edge to the words. It is more musing, reserved. But then, the Weyrwoman presses on to tell Dee, "I want you to write the names of the people who assisted you. And let me make this perfectly clear, I want all of them, whether my own sister is on it or not. I promise that no one will see this list but me." Dee's jaw sets; it's possible to see that this is one stand she was prepared to make. Rather than making it immediately though, she asks, "Why do you want the names, Weyrwoman?" "Because you didn't act alone. Do you think that your act of contrition is enough to cover everyone that helped you? That they shouldn't be responsible for their own actions?" challenges Lilah, her brow only slightly curving as Dee's jaw sets. "Everyone that helped me only helped me because I asked. It was my idea." Dee answers the challenge. "If you're going to expel someone from the Weyr or stake someone out to starve it should be me." There's a wince almost immediately because it's no longer just Dee. Dee is part of a package pair. Lilah's brow does curve upwards in a more pointed way now, and she will point out, "But we have already established that I can't with you, haven't we? And as much as you would like to take responsibility for everything, everyone has their own free will, Dahlia." "I'm not going to give you names so you can stake people out to starve." Dee's voice has a hard edge now, her stance shifting subtly ready to make the fight now. "I can publicly take responsibility. No one would blame you for--" She bites her lower lip a moment, managing, "-whatever," after a moment. It's in that moment that Taeliyth reaches for Eliyaveith, « Mom? » She's upset, she's frustrated, she's scared and having a hard time hiding it. "You will do no such thing," is Lilah's sharp command. "Erinta, Ebeny, Hattie and N'muir--. They will be discreet with your involvement. There will be nothing public about it." She stands, finally, even if it does not bring her on level with the younger woman. Still, it does give her some height as she says, "Names or not, Dahlia, someone will need to bear the public blame of what you've done. Whether it is someone actually involved or not is your choice." The first thing that Taeliyth meets is disapproval, and it could be easy to mistake for her except that it is entirely for her rider's last words. Eliyaveith is quick to push that disapproval away, to meet her daughter with warm and love and reassurance. « No one will starve. No one, » she tells her gently, first. Dee might've focused on something else, but there's shock in answer to Lilah's last words. "What? You're going to-- just pick someone to blame?" She's appalled and it brings a flush of anger to her cheeks, eyes narrowing as she looks at the redhead, her fingers curling into fists. « Mom, they can't go. I can't lose them. » Taeliyth is desperate. « They're mine-- their riders may be as empty headed as mine, but they're-- » She sounds hurt, torn. Does Eliyaveith understand? Taeliyth doesn't know how else to explain. « I will not let any of you go, » is simple, warm steel. Eliyaveith's promise isn't so much as a promise so much as fact, and while they might be Taeliyth's, they are also hers. Her children. That she can't promise the same of those that weren't chosen-- That thought bleeds in, only briefly, before she pushes it away. « You will not lose them. » "You made this situation, Dahlia. I am making the best of it that I can, for your future," replies Lilah flatly, apparently unconcerned with the judgment that brings from the younger woman. "My future?" Dee's instinct to be disgusted by the idea that her future is being put ahead of anyone else's shows briefly but is quickly replaced by disgruntled confusion. « The others are hers. » Her lifemate's. Can Eliyaveith feel in the way Taeliyth opens herself up to her mother that Dee feels as keenly for those that weren't chosen as Taeliyth feels for her clutchmates? There is a pang of sympathy, of softening for how both Dee and Taeliyth feel, but even Eliyaveith cannot promise anything about the others. Instead, she only offers her warm, silent comfort to her golden daughter. "Your future. One day, you will be part of the leadership of this Weyr, whether you want to or not. And sometimes, that comes with hard decisions." A pause, before Lilah adds to the weyrling, "You are dismissed. If you are going to give me names, you have three days." It hurts her. The words relayed to Taeliyth. Not only Lilah's, but Dee's. « She doesn't understand, » her rider, her lifemate, about their future. It hurts. She might not even be conscious of sharing that hurt with her mother. It might also fuel what Taeliyth says next. « Tell Lilah Dee will make the list if she lets me choose. » Dee's eyes linger on Lilah but she says nothing. After a moment, the girl turns, heading toward the bowl. Eliyaveith takes that hurt without a word, only offering her steady, warm comfort in it's stead. And while Lilah may not give any indication of agreement or even lingering attention to Dee as the weyrling leaves, it is the queen that will allow of her daughter, of the younger queen, « You may choose. » There's weight in Taeliyth. It will hurt her to betray Dee, but Taeliyth can measure the costs, she can see the paths and where some lead. « I will choose carefully. » It's said more for her own unsettled mind than her mother, but said to her mother to serve as witness. Dee looks back, but only once, looking pale and shaken beyond what words can do. Then she's gone. |
Comments
Faryn (12:26, 4 August 2015 (PDT)) said...
Oh my.
Alida (02:28, 5 August 2015 (PDT)) said...
I'm interested to see just how this turns out... >.>
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