Logs:A Rough Time
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| RL Date: 12 October, 2015 |
| Who: K'del, Keysi |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: K'del debriefs Keysi after Crom. They also talk about what next. |
| Where: Council Chambers, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 24, Month 13, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Aughan/Mentions, Farideh/Mentions, Jo/Mentions, M'kris/Mentions, Pia/Mentions, Quinlys/Mentions, R'hin/Mentions, R'vel/Mentions, Telavi/Mentions |
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| Under normal circumstances, K'del would have called people in sooner-- but these are not normal circumstances, and between one thing and another, it takes until today for Cadejoth to reach out to Neianth. « Mine wishes to speak to yours in the Council Chambers, » he says, with a rattle of chains. He's recently fed, lounging up upon the rim in a 'Lord of all he sees' kind of fashion, but there's a tension to his thoughts, too. « Immediately. » The afternoon is wearing on, snow falling still, and inside the chambers, K'del waits. The great table is empty except for his hands, pressed flat atop it. The rattle of chains begins the spread and multiplication of ripples instantly, like a drop of water on a previously undisturbed perfectly reflective pool. But it's that instantaneousness, that promptness of that disturbance in answer that give the sensation that they may have been waiting for that summons. « She comes. » Are the two simple words that are carried with him, before the ripples fade into the mirror they once were. It's only minutes before she arrives, a film of snow over shoulders and head. As she steps into the chambers, it's with stiffness of formality, stopping only a foot or so within the doorway before she lifts her hand to salute. The lack of distance she manages gives to the hesistancy she otherwise keeps wrapped. "Weyrleader." It's short, but of level tone. "Brownrider." K'del doesn't sound angry, at least, though he's had a few days to get over that-- and perhaps he's simply starting gently. He gestures towards the chairs immediately opposite him, across the table, and says, "Imagine you've been expecting this. Been a rough time." Keysi takes a bare moment before she moves, intense pale eyes- not without the shadows around them that tattle of things much less stoic- shifting from K'del to the chair before leaden steps take her to it. Gaze remains downcast as a hand draws the chair out just enough, the wingrider slipping into it. She sits stiffly, but that's nothing abnormal, hands in her lap before she looks back up at him. "Aye." She states, "I have. A rough time for many." But she waits, then, steely quiet. There's a pause, then, as K'del licks his lips, rather as if he's struggling to know where to begin. What he says, finally, is slow and quiet: "He was my mentor, too, in a way." But for all of that, that is not the reason he's here, and they both know it; must know it. "Need to know what happened at Crom, Keysi. All of it. Tell it to me plain." Her chin falls a degree, head tipped down just enough to look at the council table in front of where his hands lay. Keysi almost comments on the first, but silence wins to it, a notion of understanding in that downcast look. But when he requests what she's here for, she studies his expression, his eyes. "I was about to join Quinlys, Farideh.." Her sentence fades as she fails to remember the other names to faces in the group, "I arrived late. Most of the morning I was at High Reaches Hold." For that, she glazes over, "I heard what everyone else did. The dragon roaring. People getting upset." She starts to shake her head, but pauses part way through. "Neianth warned me that he was concerned about Leiventh. Said that Olveraeth was trying to reach him and getting nothing for it." She stops abruptly and then, "I made a mistake, but I wouldn't take it back." That bit of honesty comes quickly, as if its importance is more than that of the facts themselves. "You rushed for the tent." K'del's words are very quiet, a prompt that barely is. His eyes study Keysi in return, his expression now neutral except for the thoughtful creases about his eyes. "To see inside?" Keysi nods, though her verbal answer takes a few beats longer, "I didn't believe the keening. Neianth tried to chase Leiventh- for all the good that would do. I had to see him, sir. After you had been.." She clears her throat, "It couldn't have happened again." But it did. "My actions-" From the tones that had fluctuated just slightly softer, there's vehemence that takes its cue, "Were an embarrassment to you, the Weyr, and for that I apologize." Sounds practiced almost, but unsurprisingly so. "But he shouldn't have been alone." Reference to his own injury has K'del licking those lips again, his gaze shifting, but not dropping altogether. "I understand," he says, quietly. "Truly. When it was Iolene..." But that's a thought that doesn't need finishing. More firmly, he adds: "Won't deny that Lord Aughan and his Lady are very angry; your behaviour, Jo's behaviour, and the fact that it happened at their Hold altogether. Don't imagine we'll be welcome at Crom for a long time." He hesitates, clearly torn between saying something more, and not. Keysi allows her strictness of her gaze to ease, finally, at the notion of Iolene. "He made that quite clear." From the yelling to the guards, but given her earlier statement, she finds no further words to explain it that she hadn't already used. At his hesitation, she waits, her quiet a gentle prompt. K'del sucks a breath in, and then exhales. "I've seen the harper's report," he says. "There was a scuffle. That's what was said, yes? Between R'hin and M'kris. It wasn't... can't have been pre-meditated." It wasn't murder, then. K'del's expression is hard: he watches for the answer, clearly depending on it, somehow, even if he knows it, already. "He didn't speak to me about Monaco, Oriane, M'kris- any of it." Keysi doesn't full evade sounding lightly apologetic, though even-keeled. With effort. "What I knew came from the wing." She trails off, not delving into those details. But there's a breath taken then before she can continue, "What I know of what happened within the tent is what Jo said, and therefore what's written in the reports. He-" She avoids the name, "Confronted M'kris after Jo brought him to the tent. They started arguing-" She trails off. This had all been heard, or at least read, before. "Not pre-meditated." That conclusion, at least, the brownrider's words agree upon. "But he did..." This time, K'del's exhale is softer. Not relieved, and yet... and yet there's something in it, something that has him closing his eyes for a moment before he turns them back upon Keysi, nodding just once. "What am I going to do with you, Keysi? Savannah's leaving, and it's plain you'll need to avoid Crom for some time-- rather not inflame any tempers, there, though I'll also not be delivering anyone on a platter to their fury." This, Keysi has no answer for. And it evokes more from under that stiffly steeled expression. She studies K'del in turn, at a loss and obvious in it. "I could have done a lot of good." Her volume falls to almost a mumble, though still just audible enough. "I don't want to give that up. And Telavi.." She utters of her wingmate, soon to be down the same river. "Do we have a choice?" Of where to go, she seems to mean. On avoiding Crom, there's a short shake of her head, "That won't be an issue." "Do you wish to go to Monaco with Savannah?" K'del is prompt in asking that, leaning slightly forward. For the rest, he has no answer. Even the faint consideration of the possibility is cut short after only seconds with a slow but determined shake of her head. "No, sir." Keysi says quietly, looking down, eyes narrowed just slightly in her focus. "What I was doing was right because I was doing it for Reaches." K'del watches, taking in this answer in silence. Is he relieved? Perhaps he is. "What would your preference be, then?" he wants to know. "Aside from the obvious 'keep doing what you've been doing.'" Keysi appears to want to say something, but doesn't, looking faintly angry. Instead, "I spoke to Telavi. I wanted to stay with her. But the there's eggs on the sands- she'll be with the new weyrlings." She looks back to study his expression, his reaction, looking perhaps for his answer, "I don't think I'm suited for that." K'del's aware of that anger, though probably not the reasoning behind it. He hesitates; he nods. "That'd be up to Quinlys," he says. "If it's something you wanted to try, you'd be welcome to talk to her. Otherwise..." A long pause. A breath, sucked in and then released. "There's been discussion of a wing of former crafters," he says, lifting one hand as if to forestall any objections. "Don't think it hasn't occurred to me that roaming healer would have opportunity to keep her head to the ground, hear things as they happened." "My motives wouldn't be what would be helpful to her." Keysi doesn't answer directly, though she does briefly close her eyes as he speaks of the conceptual wing. "Aye.. Madilla spoke to me about it some time ago." She admits slowly, "I thought you may mention it." But the way he words it draws out her response, choppy in the wake of taking it into consideration- maybe for the first time. "Roaming is a difficult concept. But after everything that's happened, I know there's a need or at least.. a desire. How significant do you feel the benefit is of such a wing?" Interested in Keysi's reaction, K'del is silent and reflective as she speaks, giving her the time she needs to get those words out. "If things go poorly with the crafts, going forward," he says. "We may need our former crafters, to make up for not having posted ones. Don't think it's likely to get that bad, but... it's Interval. We should be making use of the skills we have, whatever they are." Be they healing skills... or something less formal, though that goes without actual comment. "It'd give a person more freedom, a wing like that. To work on their craft. To pursue what they need to." "Neianth won't settle for the sort of practice that Leova does. If I'm tied to the infirmary in place of all the Hall healers sent elsewhere. The amount of hours required to replace losing them, especially if we have minimal trained riders." Keysi's slightly strained at the what-could-be. But she doesn't disagree with the latter, and her arguement fades with something almost-sold to ask, "Who would lead it?" K'del shakes his head, though it seems to be because he's agreeing with Keysi, not disagreeing. "Imagine you more as out-in-the-field. You're not an Infirmary healer, not really. Not now." Of the wing, he's more certain. "Nothing is confirmed, yet, but Mielline has been pushing for R'vel, and I'm not discinlined to that; he was nearly a Journeyman Smith, once, and he's been a wingsecond a long time, even if this will be a rather different venture." There's no denying it's an opportunity, and Keysi draws her hands up onto the table, moving some part of herself for the first time she'd so rigidly sat down. "If I agree," Though her reservation doesn't seem so resolute against it now, "When do you think it will happen?" The wing, she seems to mean, lacking for better terms in the moment. "Will I go somewhere else in the interim?" "We've likely got a candidate coming in with the very intention of Impressing and then continuing craft-related work," explains K'del. "And as part of the negotiations over that, I'd like to be able to demonstrate that there is a place for such things. It'd be my intention to get that wing established in short order. At worst, you might wish to go to Snowdrift temporarily, since you'd be in a position to work with R'vel there, too." Keysi turns her pale eyes across the room, watching the far wall with a distanced look. "Much has happened." An unnecessary recap. But where words are again lost on her, she inquires quietly, "Do I have time to give you an answer or do you need one this evening?" Quietly; "Take your time. Savannah does not leave until after the Weyr Council has met, and even then. Consider your options. Want you to be happy, Keysi. Know this..." K'del doesn't have the words to finish. "Difficult to make decisions, when you're emotionally compromised. Don't want you to decide something you'll regret, one way or another... not that a decision now has to be final, forever. Just... think about it." Beat. "And one way or another, keep out of trouble. Stay safe." "I want to spend whatever time I have left with them." Keysi closes her eyes briefly with that, and when she opens them again she's watching the Weyrleader, "I found my place once. I'm sure I can again. And do what it is that the Weyr needs of me." There's a pause, "Thank you." To which part, the compromise he strived to offer, the understanding of her outburst, the not serving her on a platter to angry Lords- it's probably all of the above. "And I'm sorry. You have so many fires to put out. You lost someone too." "I understand," says K'del, simply, and with genuine-- something. "It's-- it's my job. We'll manage." He looks tired, though, even if he does manage a one-sided smile. "When you're ready, let me know. It's not a secret; you can talk about it, if you like." But for now, she's more or less dismissed. Keysi slides back, standing with the sense of dismissal. There's not really an agreement to what he says, but she lets it be for now. "Clear skies, sir." As she rises to her height, she salutes, though maybe slower, and as it falls she adds, "Quiet skies." For all that High Reaches needs that perhaps more. And she turns to leave, her posture, somehow, looking no less tense than when she'd come. |
Comments
Edyis (22:43, 12 October 2015 (PDT)) said...
So many choices, Poor Keys.
Alida (23:02, 12 October 2015 (PDT)) said...
His death is tough on more people than R'hin might have thought.
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