Logs:Open to Having It All
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| RL Date: 7 June, 2015 |
| Who: Dee, Hattie |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Dee makes good on the information owed Hattie. Hattie shares wisdom and life experience, some current and some past. |
| Where: Lakeside Grove, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 7, Month 13, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: From morning straight through until well into the night, large, soft-looking snow falls steadily. |
| Mentions: Bridget/Mentions, Cirse/Mentions, Jemizen/Mentions, W'ton/Mentions, Zennia/Mentions |
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>---< Lakeside Grove, Fort Weyr(#2047RJs$) >---------------------------------<
Hardy mountain trees cluster together on the far end of the lake,
providing a shady retreat beneath high, spreading branches. Right along
the edge of the trees, several stone picnic tables are set up to welcome
fresh air diners. Here and there within the grove, tumbled boulders from
ages ago provide places to sit for those taking a break from a walk around
the shore. Toward the Bowl wall, the trees grow more closely together
providing a somewhat secluded spot for a private conversation or quiet
contemplation.
From morning straight through until well into the night, large,
soft-looking snow falls steadily. The snow is not yet so treacherous, nor is it the horrible, harsh, sharp-edged sleet kind of downpour that sends people racing for cover. In places, it's beginning to heap up, a silent encroachment on the Weyr, and, for now, most people seem to be enjoying it more than complaining, children racing back and forth while the conditions are pleasant. In the somewhat sheltered safety of the grove, the Weyrwoman is sat at one of the tables, snow dusting down around her and the healer journeywoman sat opposite, a late breakfast or early lunch being idly consumed. Hattie even has the beginnings of a smile for the woman as the healer prepares to depart and gathers up the remains of her meal before she moves off through the trees. The goldrider remains, letting the snow fall on her as if it's nothing of consequence. Dee is probably too old to be looking at the snow with the same wonder and delight as a four turn old being set loose in the first of the season. And yet, though this isn't the first, the frolicking, stop-and-go run that brings Dee twirling into the grove as if making the snow some sort of charming dance partner (complete with unprompted fits of laughter) makes her seem more like to join the children that run than the Weyrwoman that sits. Still, when she stops to puff out a visible breath - which seems to make her laugh all over again - and her eyes fall on the Senior, it's to her that Dee gravitates, not the children, her smile still wide and innocent and joyous. "Good morning, Weyrwoman Hattie!" Hattie can't really manage anything near joyous, yet she at least finds herself able to keep from glowering at Dee in answer to the cheer that she cannot summon. She merely observes her for a moment or two, a blatant look up and down dragged over her, then, as she looks away and down at what remains of her food, she says only, "Dee," in a voice more gentle than low or unkind. She lifts bite of bread to her lips and chews, manners maintained, before she hazards, "I suppose you don't experience this sort of thing in the South." "No, ma'am, and not in Lemos neither," Dee's delight draws forth some measure of oddly accented speech, but she seems to swiftly realize either her own patterns or simply Hattie's lack of joy and attempts to temper her own. She manages to force a lack of smile, but her hazel eyes are still bright. "It's wonderful!" pops out despite her efforts. "Are you well?" is possibly as innocuously worded a question as the candidate can muster, her gaze briefly flicking in the direction the healer departed in and back to the goldrider who remained. "Elaruth enjoys it," Hattie allows, a glance through a break in the trees to the bowl beyond given, as if she could catch a glimpse of pale gold hide against snow. Her queen must be more distant than near, for she doesn't look that way for long, and instead continues eating in a more mechanical fashion than she was while the healer was present, her attention half on her breakfast-lunch and half on Dee. "I am as I was yesterday and the day before," is a dry, if not deliberately evasive answer. "And I'm reminded that you owe me some answers, since you shopped me to the healers and got me kept in the Infirmary all afternoon." "I'm only sorry for that if it did no good," Dee tells the Senior respectfully if unrepentantly. The last words are take as invitation and Dee moves to perch in the place the healer vacated. At least the candidate seems to know its not her place to press for answers about Hattie's state of health. "Do you think they know?" It's asked quietly and seriously, the cheer that was roaring fire dwindling down to embers in the face of this topic. "The hatchlings. Do you think they know if you're open to it? Really open?" Without pausing for answer, she explains in a rush, "I keep thinking that if I were falling in love with someone, even though I know it's not really like that, I'd want to fall for someone who wanted me, not just someone who'd have me." Biting her lower lip, Dee falls silent, looking at Hattie with too wide, seeking eyes; the girl is always seeking some kind of answers in life, now she looks to the Senior for them. Something, somewhere in Dee's phrasing makes Hattie jerk her head up from her food and look off through the trees once more, where a flicker of gold might be glimpsed through the breaks in snow-laden branches. "...My Weyrwoman once described Impression to me as falling in love," she quietly admits a moment later. "I've learned, over the turns, that not everyone has the luxury of wanting to Impress for pure reasons," is a little darker and heads some way towards businesslike. "I might not agree with why they choose to Stand, but I suppose, for some, there's a fine line between being open to the idea of a dragonet choosing them, and deciding that they'll just accept one as a needed means to an end." Dee's brows lift in a sort of surprise, and in return, with like tones, she murmurs, "My mother described it that way, too. Not my dad, but he's not a romantic like that." She reaches up to tuck a dark lock behind her ear and adjust the knit hat on her head with a mittened hand. She might like the snow, but her bundled layers of winter-wear are more than enough to betray her as not native to the climate. "It's stupid and self-centered, I know, to think I could've been different, more open, and it might've mattered, but I feel like--" she could. She should. Shame claims the candidate's features as she stares at the table with its dusting of white. After a breath, she starts to draw in the snow with her mitten. Just lines like tilled earth. "I'm Standing still because I wronged you. Because I wronged Fort, and Southern, that poor green, and myself. I thought I was being selfless in Standing because people needed to Stand, but I was wrong. I did it wrong. Even if it wasn't my fault that the green..." she trails off, the emotion thickening her alto just before it vanishes into the silence of a swallow. There is the answer Hattie was owed. "...Half the people in the galleries could have been more open and it might not have made any difference," Hattie answers, the twitch of her shoulders not quite a shrug. "I'm quite certain that the outright rejection in some cases didn't do any good, if she could..." she swallows hard, "feel that from them." She lingers on that thought, letting it school her expression into a more distant, cool shadow that settles heavily over her. "...There's no knowing what could have happened. Perhaps the person she needed simply doesn't exist. Perhaps her hurt and panic clouded her mind and made her incapable of finding anyone." Against her will, her voice has shaded hoarse by the time she reaches that last, stressed word. Silence, again, then she murmurs, "You would wrong yourself further if you don't truly want to share your life with a dragon; you would wrong your potential dragon partner too." Dee's expression is so open as she looks at the older woman that her understanding can be seen, along with the sadness and continued guilt of the whole situation. "I'm so sorry, ma'am." She has to say it, it seems like, "For Elaruth, for you, for--" the green, and probably so many more. She's quiet, thinking a moment. "I hate to think of it. Of her feeling that way." The mitten pauses in the snow. "The longer it went on, the more I did want her." It's a quiet admission. "I don't know if I wanted her for the right reasons, I don't know if there are right reasons. But I wanted to help her. Maybe too late. Maybe I never could have. Maybe no one could have." As Hattie has said, maybe there's no way to know. "Is... Elaruth... does she mourn? Does it end at keening for them?" It's asked in a way that suggests she's already doubtful of an affirmative answer. However Hattie interprets that apology, she is nevertheless quick to insist, "It wasn't your fault," just as quickly as before, her focus fixed on an untouched, snow-covered portion of the table between them. "We all have to believe that, if she had wanted you, she would have chosen you. The same goes for anyone there." And it does sound like she means it, the practical bent to her words lending them weight, not heaviness. Before she knows she's doing it, she flinches away from Dee's enquiry about Elaruth, her retreat further into her own space one she tries to undo a second or so later by sitting a little straighter. "...Perhaps, for some of them," she supposes. "I imagine some of them have forgotten. Forgot quickly." She looks up, determined to manage that much as she says, "She remembers her children, even the one that's missing. She blames herself, sometimes." Dee's caught breath is obvious from the way it doesn't come out in a tiny chilly cloud for a moment as the Senior makes that assurance. There's a moment in which the girl looks up at her as if deciding if she should allow herself the luxury of being comforted by the practical words. The exhale of her breath and the relaxation of her shoulders affirm the genuineness of her accepting nod. The relaxation lasts only a moment, though, returning at the flinch, confusion consuming her expression. "No!" is an involuntary murmur of apparently visceral protest of Elaruth's blame for herself. With winter already coloring Dee's cheeks, it's impossible to tell if she blushes but she looks to the rows she's made on the table. "Everyone knows if she could have done ought for her daughter, she would have." Don't they? She looks up at Hattie, a little helplessly. "Can she... find joy in the rest? The rest were-- are fine. I've spoken with some of the weyrlings, and they're so pleased in their new life, with their new lifemates," it's almost a desperate telling, as if the girl might somehow comfort the gold through her rider. "...It's one thing to be told that, and another to believe it." The curve that Hattie's lips form is certainly not a smile, but a faint, bitter grimace. "Their memories-- are a curse and a blessing. They can make things new just as much as eliminate them forever. Sometimes, she forgets that she asked about this eventuality, or that one, or if she could have done anything." Her grimace sharpens, just for a moment. "If not for my memory, she might have forgotten by now and only remember the rest." The Weyrwoman takes a deep breath and nods more to herself than Dee. "When," not if, spoken with determination, if not full conviction, "she forgets, it will be easier to look upon the rest." Her dark eyes narrow slightly as she considers the Candidate before her. "Perhaps it will be the same for you. ...If you take the memory onto the Sands with you, it may be harder to be open to the new hatchlings." "Oh," is a soft noise of realization and understanding. Sympathy reigns Dee's expression as she looks at Hattie briefly before looking back to the table. "It must be difficult for you, to remember and everything that comes with it." To have to reassure and to simultaneously be the cause of the need for reassurance, the thing keeping Elaruth from forgetting, perhaps. There's another of those swallows from the candidate and she folds her mittened hands together now on the table before her. "With respect, Weyrwoman Hattie, I don't want to forget. I want to be better. I'd rather remember the way that wasn't right so I don't repeat it, if I can. I can't say I yearn for a lifemate, can't say I'm unhappy in the life I came from, can't say I won't be glad to see Southern again if I don't find a lifemate among Eliyaveith's clutch," can't, because none of that would be true. "But I can say, now," if not before, "that I would choose this, too, if it's there for me to choose." Her smile dares to try to appear, if with a delicacy that isn't usual, "I like the snow," as if that were the thing that made the decision for her. Perhaps it's not surprise that Hattie confirms nor denies anything about what suffering the cycle of memories causes either her or her queen, if only to maintain her composure and out of a sense of self-preservation. However, she does acknowledge that understanding by meeting Dee's gaze, even if she isn't capable of so much as a nod. The rest, she listens to as well, without providing a counter argument, yet, she does, eventually confess, "I'd no sooner see you unhappy than I would see a young dragon in such a position." The Weyrwoman peers down at the remnants of her meal, which she's done pretty well at actually getting through. "A life is a long time for regrets, and a long time for a dragon to be reminded that they were a choice their rider wishes unmade." Dee manages to limit her sympathy to the moment in which their eyes meet, but there's probably a cache from where that came from should Hattie ever wish to tap it. The candidate nods slowly to the Weyrwoman's confession and is silent a moment before saying, "I think... we should be grateful for the good fortune of a long life in which to have regrets or otherwise." She pushes the snow to either side as her hands part. "Will you let me Stand? Do you think a rider has to want to be a rider to be a good one?" "I couldn't care less about the desire to be a rider," falls out of Hattie's mouth before she can stop it. A flash of something close to frustration passes across her features before she can contain it. "...The 'being a rider' part of Impressing is only one component. For all the time I spend in the air with Elaruth, or doing what other riders do, you could understandably argue that I'm not a rider," she attempts to explain, her manner a touch slow and halting. "We train weyrlings to be riders; to be competent at the things they're supposed to be. To have those skills and not shirk duties. The rest... is just you and your dragon." A breath, or a sigh; it's hard to tell. "That's what I think you have to want, or be open to. If you can manage that, then you should Stand." Surprise meets the first and then wide-eyed active listening. Dee's paying attention to what the Senior is willing to offer her by way of explanation. If nothing else, she's willing to listen, willing to learn. "That... I hope I could do." Dee's teeth trace across her lip. "When you Impressed, had you ever had a boyfriend? Or anything that was like that? Someone you had to share your space with, yourself with?" Perhaps she's trying to gauge her own suitability for doing so by the older woman's experience, since she adds, "I've always had Jem. Always, as long as I can remember, but I'm not sure if that's the same kind of thing because I can't remember not loving him. Well, except..." But she waves that off. Surely, it was some moment between siblings that she mightn't wish to recall or share just now. Hattie's glower can't be meant for Dee, but she's who it lands on before she realises that she's making that face and redirects her moment of anger or heated sadness down at the table. "I had... what you might term to be a boyfriend, during Candidacy," she admits with evident distaste. "/That/ came to a rather abrupt end when Elaruth rose for the first time. I'm afraid I can't say that it was ever like sharing my life with her, but then, I've come to realise that I was determined not to share anything with anyone." She seems more accepting of Dee's second notion, in that at least there's no shadowy look or almost immediate rejection of the thought. "I have difficulty remembering a time when I didn't love Elaruth. I think... that kind of love is more enduring than the romantic. Siblings, family... closer to that." Even if the glower isn't meant for Dee, it has her looking hastily down to the snow and her cheeks might be a touch redder than they were a moment ago. "That... well, it makes sense that the love would be more like family if the relationship didn't end when you Impressed." Her teeth are on that lower lip again. "Does it make it hard?" It's a slight departure from their current topic when she clarifies, "Loving your lifemate and having a partner? I think I want that someday. Children." A mitten lifts to gesture to the whole thing, "But not yet, not for a long time yet, and if I Impress..." Will it be harder? She looks up at Hattie with concern. "...I don't know what that relationship was," Hattie is honest enough to declare. "Sometimes, I think I just let myself be talked into it, despite my instincts. What I mean to say is... what I feel for Elaruth doesn't have the conditions or fragility of love of a romantic nature. It's closer and more similar to what I feel for my siblings, and yet I would always choose her over them." That, she's unashamed of stating, no hesitation there at all. It's the other subject that rises from it that makes her adopt silence, and then, once she can do more than sit there, unmoving and unspeaking, she begins to gather up the remnants of her meal in the cloth that it must have been wrapped in. "...Circumstances are highly likely to be what does harm, rather than what love you can give," she murmurs. "Children... will leave you with choices. What sort of mother are you going to be? Where do they stand in your life?" It's obvious from Dee's too honest and open face when the idea of choosing someone, anyone, over one's siblings shocks her. Perhaps it's not surprising given her reason for coming to Fort at all. The pull of her mittened fingers on the snow becomes tenser, more nervous and she looks away from Hattie, which at least helps make her reactions not quite so overt. "Can you have it all? It seems like you do," she lifts dark brows in innocent inquiry of Hattie. "It seems like so much to manage, but if you can do it, surely a greenrider or bluerider could?" One might imagine these are the colors Dee imagines for herself. "Do you think... do you think dragonriders could be crafters still? Or farmers?" Failing actual crafting. It may be an innocent enquiry, yet it leaves Hattie unable to contain the harsh bark of a sound that she supplies in answer, too much bitterness and despair there for her to form words around the tangle of emotions it draws forth. She can't speak on it any more than she can smooth her expression back to something - anything - that's not just raw pain, though when she does speak, the animation of her features helps to hide a good deal of it. "I've never had a craft," she rasps. "You'd be better asking a rider who was once an apprentice or Journeyman." Carefully, she swings her legs out from under the table and gets to her feet. "If you'll excuse me, I've a meeting with the Headwoman." If it's an excuse, she doesn't try to make it sound any more convincing. The sound, the expression, it leaves Dee speechless and blinking owlishly. She must, surely, in the back of her mind be wondering how she blundered this time, where it went wrong, and definitely how to fix it. But when the candidate speaks, just as the Senior is making to go, it is not to fix it. Rather, a simple "Yes, ma'am," that responds to both her answer and her excuse and polite manner. Once she's moving way, then, then, Dee can look down at the snowy table and mutter something inaudibly. It isn't too long before she's getting up herself and moving back toward the caverns and the warmth they offer, her mood considerably dulled by her thoughts, or perhaps the encounter itself. |
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