Logs:Good Listeners
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| RL Date: 24 May, 2015 |
| Who: Dee, Paislie |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: The day after the landslide, Dee and Paislie meet and listen to each other. |
| Where: Nighthearth, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 20, Month 11, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Jemizen/Mentions, Lilah/Mentions, N'jem/Mentions, Oenamis/Mentions, Zennia/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: Played 5/27/15 and backdated. |
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>---< 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. The rescue is finished, but the restoration project is still underway at the unfortunate Hold. Now the rumors are enough that no candidate can ignore the absence of one of their own. Dee's tall sturdy frame blocks one of the tables of snacks as she stares at an indistinct point in space, her hands arrested in their work of restocking the sweetner, of stacking any clean cups left haphazardly about by the still sleep-deprived rescuers or those others that have a reason not to sleep. Dee, herself, looks in need of a nap (or a full night, if only the hours could be prevailed upon to bring sundown sooner). Paislie hasn't been to the hold where so many people have been helping in the clean up efforts, but it's almost certain that she's heard about most of the things that have happened and that she's been busy helping pick up the slack here at the Weyr. "Excuse me," the small redhead murmurs from behind Dee, glancing at the table in a way that makes it obvious she's not wanting to impose but would really like something there. "If I could just... If you don't mind." Startled from her daydream, Dee jerks, bodily, and then glances back toward the redhead as if it takes that moment to brush aside whatever thoughts were consuming her, to get to the point of processing the young woman's request. "Oh," there it is, finally; the candidate steps aside with an embarrassed look. "Sorry, I didn't mean to--" a hand starts to gesture to the table, only then she realizes she's still holding the distinct double-handed bowl of sweetner. With a blush, she leans in to replace it in its designated spot, hopefully not further bungling Paislie's refreshment efforts, but the brunette is not altogether with it just now so anything's possible. With a weak quirk of a smile, Paislie eyes Dee as she moves closer to the table, attention only shifting away once she's within reach of what she wants. It's a sweet roll and a mug of klah, and she does add a bit of sweetener to it before she takes an experimental sip. She glances at Dee again while she sips, turning away from the table, but she pauses when she's facing the girl and asks quietly, "Are you okay? You seem... not." For all that Dee only rocked back onto her heels after placing down the sweetner and hovered, her attention is already into the nebulous nothing of empty space when Paislie speaks to her again. "Huh?" The mental gears grind slowly and with effort. "Oh, no. I mean, I should-- sorry. No. Not really." If she were a better person, perhaps a person with more control, she would've lied. She gives Paislie an apologetic look. "Sorry. I'm just thinking about the boy who died yesterday." A closer look at the candidate shows hints that she hasn't been dry-eyed about the loss for all that she can't have known him well. "I'm sorry," again, "I'm Dee," she offers a hand toward the shorter girl. Paislie still looks uncertain, but that might just be her natural expression. She also looks empathetic to the candidate's situation. "It's okay to not be okay," she tells the girl with a hint of sadness in her attempt at a comforting smile. "I'm Paislie," she says, looking at Dee's hand for a moment before gesturing to seats nearby instead of taking it. "That's awfully formal. Would you like to sit with me? We don't have to talk if you don't want to, but if you do want to, I'm a pretty good listener." Dee sinks into a seat with a sigh. "Thanks." No offense is taken to the lack of handshake. The thanks is for several things at once - perhaps all the recent things. The permission to be not-okay, the invitation and the talking. "I didn't know him well," she tells Paislie after a moment, her fingers finding her knees, twisting in the skirt material there. "I feel guilty I didn't know him better. That's... weird, isn't it?" She seems uncertain, looking to the redhead as if she might have the answers. The redhead settles into a seat nearby, taking a small bite off of her sweet roll as she crosses her legs and listens to Dee. "I think it just means that you care about people because you're a nice person. And that's not weird, is it?" Paislie uncrosses her legs and pulls them up into the seat with her instead. "I think it's probably normal to want to have been there for someone before they knew they needed someone there. But I'm sure other people knew him pretty well. He probably wasn't alone." She looks down at her klah, probably trying to decide if she's be helpful or unhelpful. Paislie's assessment makes a short-lived laugh jump from Dee's lips. She looks briefly surprised by it herself and casts the older girl a grateful sort of look. "Maybe. I feel guilty for then feeling guilty because that makes it about me and not him, and he's who's important, you know?" It's so fresh though, so this might be the jumbled and nonsensical ramblings of the sleep-deprived and grief-touched. The brunette reaches up a hand to briefly pinch and rub at the bridge of her nose before she is up again, moving to the spot they only just abandoned to collect a mug for herself. As she does, she considers the rest of what Paislie has to say, "He's from here. Did you know him?" It occurs to her to ask, a glance cast over her shoulder. Paislie might say something about that guilt, but she stops herself and only smiles in her warm, sad way instead. The rest has her shaking her head slowly, sipping at her klah before she offers, "I'm not from here. I might have met him once or twice, but I don't really remember faces very well." So it could have been anyone, maybe, if she's being honest to begin with. "It's nice that you care though. That probably would have meant something to him, even if you didn't know each other very well." "It might not have," Dee worries her lower lip as she turns back with her mug. "Some people aren't the sort to care. Would you? If it had been you? If that's not too morbid to talk about," there's an embarrassed flush to go with those last words and she doesn't look back at Paislie until she's settled. "Where are you from?" She asks, too, probably both because she's interested (perhaps doubly so in the wake of the peripheral loss) and to offer an avenue of less awkward conversation, just in case. "If I had died?" Paislie considers the question, not seeming terribly put off by the thought experiment. "I'd want someone to remember me fondly, I suppose. My sister might. But I won't actually care once I'm gone. Grief is for the living. It's all for the living. I don't think you care about much of anything once you're gone." She chews on her lip for a moment, drawing in a long breath and sighing it out before glancing over at Dee again. "I'm from a cothold," she says with an airy gesture of a roll-filled hand. "Red Cairn." "Might?" The idea that any sibling might not seems to puzzle Dee. She lifts her brows. "Are you and she... not close?" She moves her mug toward her lips. "Where's Red Cairn?" These are easier questions to address than the deeper ones. Those take a moment of klah-blowing thought. "I suppose you're probably right. But I think everyone wants something in regard to their passing even if they don't really think about it. It's visceral," she touches her chest briefly before the hand goes back to the mug. "Do you care now? Or--?" Maybe Dee's feelings on the subject don't hold true for everyone. "Not very, no. But I'm closer to her than the rest of my family. Closer than she probably wants me to be sometimes, I think." Paislie tries to smile, looking at her klah again. It comes out as a half quirk of her lips. As for Red Cairn, Paislie offers a vague idea of where Dee could look for it on a map, "But I don't know if you could actually find it on a lot of maps. It's small." And she doesn't seem very interested in talking about it in anymore depth. Talking about death seems to be preferential. "No, I guess I don't. It's seemed better than the alternative sometimes." The last is admitted more absently, but she must realize she's saying it out loud. "Oh," shows sympathy for the words of her sister. "That sounds..." she starts, and then pauses to swap words, "I would have a hard time with that. But I don't have any sisters, just the one brother. Has it always been that way between you and your sister?" Dee wonders as though this is preferential to death, even if death is preferential to her home. It's likely a product of her mental slowness that it takes her that long to register the redhead's last words, "What?" is shocked and it sees the candidate suddenly leaning forward, her klah sloshing a not insignificant drop onto her lap. It must not be too hot anymore, though, because her focus is hardly taken from Paislie as she sets the mug aside and wipes her hand on her thigh. "She's older than me. She left home when I was still pretty young." Paislie explains, smiling again. Smiling is probably her main, and most widely used, defense mechanism. The shock makes her flush with embarrassment and she starts moving as though to rise, hesitating in a precarious perch on the edge of her seat. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean--" She does rise, then, saying, "I should go. There are things to do. I hope you feel better, Dee." Another smile, but slightly anxious now. "Oh," is a sound that indicates this explanation helps Dee make sense of things for her, though her expression is distracted. A hand goes out to try to catch Paislie's arm, to keep her from rising or at least from leaving if she can manage. "No- I'm sorry, you just surprised me, that's all. I--" The words have to be found, and quickly, "I'm all jumbled up right now, but I really am a good listener, too," if the fingers have caught, there's a light squeeze. Her face is open, there's concern there, but not any kind of look that suggests the brunette thinks she's some variety of head case (in point of fact, if actions speak louder than words, if anything Dee might fit that description better here). Paislie's arm jerks away reflexively from Dee's touch, but she doesn't leave. She also doesn't look at Dee, but she forces herself to relax before she sits down again on the edge of her seat again, looking down at her thigh to flick something off of it. Probably a crumb from her roll, if anything at all. "You don't have to keep apologizing," she murmurs to the candidate. And then she continues as though everything is just fine and dandy, "You said you have a brother? What's he like?" Dee's hand draws back as in mirror of Paislie's reflex, drawing back to her lap. "I'm-" starts another inevitable apology, but the younger girl seems to realize and bites her lower lip, shifting to pick up her klah. Once she has it, she'll go with Paislie's inclination for just moving along (for now). "He's awful. And wonderful." Dee answers, each word suffused with familial fondness. "Jemizen. He was the one who wanted to volunteer to come from Southern. I came along to keep him out of trouble. Then, of course, I end up the one of us in the barracks." She shakes her head. "Is your sister back home?" "I miss my brothers and sisters sometimes," Paislie admits. "The ones back home. But I can't-- I don't want to go back there. And maybe he'll end up in the barracks with you, yet." She falls silent for a moment, chewing on the inside of her cheek, then she glances up and shakes her head. "She lives here now. She's a dragonrider. She's why I came here. I didn't realize she was so... busy." And then another moment later, she asks, "Did you not want to become a candidate?" With the unspoken question of why is she one, if she didn't? "Maybe," Dee concedes of her brother. There's a little laugh, a knowing kind of one that carries sympathy with it. "Both of my parents are riders. I don't know how they managed to keep us with them as much as they did. Do you want to become a rider, like her?" The brunette asks, leaning back in her chair now as if they really have transitioned to a lighter conversation. "I don't mind being a candidate, it's-- what happens on the Sands and after that might bother me. But I don't-- how can anyone really know for sure?" Even after she's just asked the question about Paislie's desires. "Are you staying? Will you see them soon? Your siblings." "Not like her, no." Paislie seems almost embarrassed to say that out loud, but it's already out. "I guess sometimes like her. I don't know. I've never been around dragons at all before now and they just seems so... Red Cairn is a beasthold. None of the animals there were very smart." And dragons sort of are, must be the intended implication. "I'm staying. If I can. I don't know if I'll ever see them. Not unless I do get a dragon, perhaps." It makes her sigh, put upon. She clearly hasn't decided if Impressing is something she actually wants. Dee's brows knit at the first and second statements. "Not like her but sometimes like her," she repeats the words thoughtfully and then cants her head slightly letting her brows float up to make silent invitation of saying more. "Dragons aren't like beasts. I thought about apprenticing Beastcraft, but I can't imagine not pretending that they're like dragons. I miss dragons," she admits and then takes a moment. "Not that there aren't plenty of dragons here, but I miss having dragons that I can climb on and talk to. It's almost like I never knew, always living at home, that that was something I wanted in my life. It almost makes me--" She cuts off abruptly. The candidate tips her mug to take a swallow before saying, "You know, they need candidates. Not that they want to really say so. If you think you might... maybe you should ask to Stand," she suggests. "Lilah has her duties. I don't think I could do what she does. I like being... I like when people aren't paying much attention to me." Paislie glances at Dee as if to see if she can relate at all. "I don't like the idea of flights. Eliyaveith does that less often than the greens. Right?" She's not entirely sure. "And the males probably do that more often than the females combined." Just talking about it seems to make her uncomfortable. "I was told I could ask, though, if it's something I want to do." Dee's mouth hangs open a few beats after the first words are said. "Lilah?" Brows go up, up, and can go no higher. She sits up, looking at Paislie. It's obvious from the way she looks that she's pairing the girl's red hair and looks with that of the junior. "Oh," duh. The brunette blushes, but nods hurriedly, "Yes. Golds rise less frequently than greens," and just as quickly, "but my mother is a greenrider and she never seemed to have too much trouble with them, a handful of times a turn. It's just-- part of rider life. Flights. I'm given to understand it's different in Holds," but now it's her turn to sound uncertain. "There aren't any dragons in cotholds," Paislie agrees with a slightly more amused smile than she's had this entire time. "The first time I'd been on one was when I came here." Well, came to Healer. Details are unimportant. "I really should get back to my duties. There's been so much to do." But Dee is probably just as aware of that as Paislie. "If you need someone to talk to, I wouldn't mind talking again sometime." It's probably as close to 'let's be friends' as the redhead is going to get. She rises again, but more relaxed this time, heading for the table without rushing off to hide somewhere. Dee's rising to her feet after Paislie, klah set aside as if she might offer a hug or handshake or other odd gesture of farewell. As is, she settles for twisting her arms together and lacing her fingers together in front of her. "Yes," lamely answers many things at once - the dragons not in cotholds, there being much to do and the need to return to it and probably, too, the words about talking again. "Thanks!" follows Paislie as she goes, meant if once more awkwardly and too slowly delivered. |
Comments
Paislie (21:28, 27 May 2015 (EDT)) said...
I really enjoyed this scene and getting to see Paislie around a girl closer to her own age rather than around more authoritative figures or men. It was fun!
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