Logs:Admissions (2)
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| RL Date: 15 September, 2014 |
| Who: Katriona, Ulyana |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Ulyana talks with Katriona. Truth is exposed - and so is Hope. |
| Where: Resident Quarters, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 24, Month 10, Turn 35 (Interval 10) |
| Laundry duties are done for the day, and Katriona has collapsed onto her bed in the resident dorm she shares with Ulyana. Her blanket is thrown atop her pillow, while Kat herself lays widthwise across the bed and stares intently at the ceiling. It's an uncharacteristically pensive behavior for the young resident; while collapsing across the bed is hardly unusual for her, the staring at the ceiling in silence is somewhat new. Who knows how long Katriona's there before Ulyana finally arrives. Her steps are as ghost-quiet as ever, though she's burdened with a satchel that's slung cross-wise over her person and a knotted kerchief in one hand. The latter is clearly filled with some kind of food - a snack, probably, since the girl isn't known for eating regular meals. Both of these things are neatly deposited on her bed in silence before, finally, she sits and pulls the bag into her lap to start sifting through the contents of it. Her attention might be on the bag but her words are decidedly for her fellow soon-to-be-Candidate: "Are you well? I have some ginger crisps if you would like one." A blink, as Kat tears her attention from the ceiling to her dorm-mate. "Oh.. no, I'm fine. Just thinking." She sits up, resting a hand on the blanket that is piled on the pillow. (Did it just move? No, it must have been her hand on the cloth.) More brightly, she adds with a smile, "Though I wouldn't say no to a ginger crisp, if they're fresh!" "They are. I helped make them." Hey, Katriona can't be the -only- uncharacteristic one. Ulyana hands the kerchief over, leaving the other girl free to take as many as she'd like. They are quite fresh, still warm, and with just a smidge of granulated sweetener on top. The motion forces her attention away from the bag in her lap - and it lands, if briefly, on that slight twitch of blanket. Her mouth pulls to a side, but the movement is dismissed for the moment. "What are you thinking about?" It's a flat question, but earnest in its curiosity. "It must be heavy to weigh you down like that." A long silence. "Why people like someone... or don't. The things that make them resent you, or accept you," the laundry-girl finally says, her tone somewhat somber. The effect is ruined, perhaps, by the fact that she munches on one of the ginger crisps only moments later. "These are very good, 'yana!" The girl is perfectly comfortable in that silence - and when the answer is given, Ulyana closes the satchel up and slides it carefully to the floor. Her hands fold in her lap and her back is straight - as always; it's the curiously mechanical tilt of her head that, ironically, lends a sense of humanity to her. "People are... illogical about who they choose to like or dislike," she observes dully. Still, one corner of her mouth tweaks, a wry half-smile threatening to be born, only to die. "Does someone dislike you, Katriona?" Her head straightens up in those moments after the crisp is eaten. "'Yana." The nickname is repeated, rolled around on her tongue, and - perhaps curiously - is kept, rather than tossed aside with a shake of her head. "Thank you. They are a favorite of mine. The cooks are very nice here." "No, but they might." Kat pauses, putting aside the ginger crisps. "There's something I kept secret, because I thought some people would resent me for it." She doesn't really meet Ulyana's gaze. "But keeping it secret almost got me in trouble, too." It's Ulyana's turn to be silent for some time, her gaze steadily fixed on the other girl - even if she isn't exactly looking back. It's an inscrutable thing, that weighty look, but there is no hint of judgment. Perhaps she's not capable. The silence likely twists into uncomfortable territory before: "Secrets are burdens. They grow lighter if you share them with others." Something else seems to have seized her features, twisting them just a little into something sour. "I do not think this secret of yours is so terrible. It cannot be." A pause. A rather lengthy pause. Then: "Did you kill someone?" "What? No!" Katriona sounds genuinely surprised by that, shaking her head vehemently. "Why would you think that? First Egg, 'yana, I said /resent/, not /hate/ or /jail/ or something! I meant something that some of the others would be /jealous/ over, so I kept it a secret." She pauses, the rush of words stopping for a moment as she gathers her thoughts. "Do you remember that day in the baths, when you were there and I was there and we talked, and there was a little green firelizard that flew around us for part of the conversation? The firelizard's name was Hope." She pauses, and lifts the blanket off the pillow, revealing the aforementioned green firelizard curled up there. There's a slow lift of one eyebrow at that response. Ulyana intones, "It was to point out that whatever secret you have cannot be that terrible." Her shoulders rise and fall, boneless and strange in that motion. Indifference made manifest. That impassivity continues, even as the explanation is given and the end result revealed. The result? A singularly bland, "I see," is uttered. Her attention slides to the creature, then lifts to Katriona again. "I thought it was yours at the time. Your behavior and its were too familiar; your defense of it too... eager, I suppose. If others are jealous or resentful of you for having it, then they are not people who are worth your time." Her attention strays back to the creature with a furrowing of her brow in thought. Hope lifts her head, and chirps curiously at Ulyana. Stretching, she hops down from the pillow and moves to investigate the ginger crisps. Kat watches this in silence before turning back to Ulyana. "Was it really that obvious?" she asks finally. "That Hope was mine, I mean. And... you don't mind her being here?" There is only that lingering look and a flattening of Ulyana's mouth into a thin and bloodless line. The moment passes and the girl looks back at Katriona with a slow blink. "It was obvious to me," but that's worth a one-shouldered shrug. "I have found most people do not pay much attention to things." She reaches for the bag again, though only to gently urge it under her bed. To the last, she says only, "As long as it does not bother my things," of which she has precious little, but that's not the point, "I do not care." Her eyes drop to the green, as if to address her directly: "Do not make me care." The little green firelizard chirps at Ulyana again, this time with half of a ginger crisp in her mouth. She flexes her wings, as if prepared to go airborne and come visit the other girl. Apparently, she is a very friendly firelizard. "Oh, she won't," Katriona assures Ulyana. "She's curious, but she doesn't move things around. She'll go and look, but otherwise she's very well-behaved!" Hopefully this is the truth, and not just wishful thinking. The crisp is sacrificed, but there is no protest from Ulyana. It's at that unfurling of wings that the girl's eyes narrow just a little. Tension winds its way through her, stiffening her already proper posture and turning her folded hands into a knot of knuckles. "I can only trust that is the case," she intones slowly. Unfortunately for the green, the full brunt of the girl's unblinking gaze lands squarely on her, as if assessing her movements and calculating just what she'll do. As an aside to Katriona, she wonders, "Can they digest things that are not meat?" "Oh, she's just curious and chewing on it, not actually swallowing," Kat muses, as she looks over at Hope. Sure enough, the crisp has been demolished, left as a little pile of crumbs on the blanket between the green's forelegs. This is, perhaps, not the most reassuring sight to see, in terms of 'don't worry, she'll respect your things'. But then Hope flutters her wings and takes to the air, circling the room once before settling onto Kat's shoulder. That sense of tension lingers for quite some time - and it may well be a permanent state for Ulyana at this point. The activities of the firelizard are tracked with a keen eye that's loath to blink, lest that act end up with chaos erupting and the world falling apart or somesuch thing. The mess, the short flight, all of it is taken in and filed away. "I see," says she of the cookie mess, but it's plain enough that her tenuous offering of trust is already starting to wither. A slow, deep breath is drawn in and released with a measured hiss past her lips in lieu of any further words. Hope chirps in a cheerful manner at Ulyana, and then curls up to sleep on Kat's shoulder. "I know you two will get along fine," the laundry girl offers brightly, though the edge to her tone suggests she's hoping to make this true through sheer willpower. Because if she's going to stop hiding the firelizard, she'd like her friend to get along with it! As the creature seems to settle in, Ulyana spares a sidelong look to Katriona. She finally folds forward to get her bag - or, more precisely, to dig out a book from inside it. The cover is well-worn, the title obscured, and the girl scoots back on her bed to better balance the book on her lap. It's open and her hands rest atop it lightly, the tension slowly bleeding out through contact with the tome. "How did you acquire it?" The interest is purely preventative, of course; for as much as Katriona might hope for an amiable accord between the Cromese girl and the green, it's likely to stay as a dubious truce. "Its not a very interesting story," Kat offers, tilting her head to let the firelizard sleepily nuzzle her ear. "I kind of got her by accident; there's no way I could have afforded to buy one, really, not with what people ask for firelizard eggs." She stifles a yawn herself, though offers Ulyana's book a curious glance. "What book is that, anyway?" "It's a story," Ulyana replies with a crease to her brow. "Stories are always interesting." The answer, of course, is far from satisfactory and she digs a little deeper. "What sort of accident results in a firelizard? Or is that another secret?" Sleep will likely be some time off for her, but that's nothing unusual; it's unlikely Katriona's ever actually seen her sleeping unless it was in the middle of the night. She glances at the book, then back at Kat with a mild, "A book of stories. Children's stories." "Oh? Which stories?" Kat settles onto the edge of her bed, looking over at the book curiously. "As for Hope... there was a merchant, traveling with three firelizard eggs he was going to sell at Gather. We were in the same caravan; I was headed to see if there was work at the Hold." She pauses. "He asked me to watch the eggs for him, while he was drinking. He had so much to drink he passed out, and while he was one of the eggs hatched. I didn't know what to do, and then Hope poked her head out, and..." She rubs the little green's head, and adds fondly, "He was /very/ cross at me." "Holder stories," Ulyana replies. She flips through a few pages, handling them with the utmost care. "Little Red Cloak, the Lady of the Tower, the Sleeping Maiden..." She trails into silence, leaving the way open for Katriona's answer. Silence braces the response, too; she waits a long moment or two before commenting, "It is his fault for leaving you in the care of eggs so close to hatching." Her mouth pulls slightly to a side. "He has no reason to be upset for something like that." All the while, she keeps flipping through the book, past a cluster of illustrated pages that have faded with time. "What work did you hope to do at the Hold?" "I didn't really have a plan, I guess. Just... something," Kat replies, laying back on the bed carefully, so as not to dislodge Hope. The firelizard still makes an offended peep and crawls off onto the pillow, curling up again. "Maybe working with herdbeasts, or sewing. Just something that would be better. Than the alternative." She turns to look at the book, stifling a yawn despite herself. "Why are you reading children's stories? Do you like them? I guess they can be like a comfortable blanket, can't they? Is that why?" She's back to her usual rush of words now, it seems. "I see," says she, and Ulyana seems contented with the answer. At the very least, she doesn't dig in any further. Of course, Katriona's yawning might be part of it, too. Her answer, however, doesn't come for a long time, perhaps out of a strange hope that the other girl would fall asleep before she gives it. Regardless: "I suppose so. I have always tried to find myself in them." Her forehead creases and her gaze drops to the book. The firelizard is forgotten for now in a bizarre turn of events - but, then, it seems that most things are dropping away, the deeper she gets into that book. "But all the stories about the banished Ladies or forgotten Lord's daughters end... well, if not happily." "I like those sort of stories," Kat says, draping an arm over her eyes sleepily. "The ones where the exiles get to come home, or the forgotten children get a place where they belong." Letting her arm drop, she shifts onto her side to watch Ulyana. "Do you think it ever really happens that way? I mean, do the exiled children, the forgotten ones, get a /good/ ending?" "Would you like me to read to you?" Ulyana's head tilts a little and she glances up briefly. "There is a story in here about the forgotten children of a long-lost Hold. They're rescued by a Lord's bastard son, I think, but it's still a good story." She's in the midst of flipping to that story when the other question catches her. Something twists at her features and she shifts uncomfortably, head down. She sucks her teeth, worries at her lower lip, and utters a low and strangely weighted, "I hope so - else there is no reason to hope at all. Someone, somewhere, must have had a good ending." And something in Ulyana's reply catches at Kat, in turn; she studies the other girl with a new intensity, albeit only briefly. She seems about to ask something, it's clear... but then she decides to let it rest. Instead, she says, "I'd love a story, 'yana." And she settles into her bed, finally slipping beneath the blanket as she turns to listen. Nothing more is said of it. Ulyana finds what she's seeking in the book and tucks her feet up under her in an uncharacteristically comfortable posture. She's silent for a moment or two but, when she speaks again, it's to start with, "Once, many, many Turns ago, there was a Hold. 'Twas so old and distant that no one remembered its name. The Lord and Lady and their children were all that were left - until a very wicked trader came and lured the children away with promises of sweets..." Her reading voice is far from the dull, flat affect of her usual speaking one - and that's not to speak of the fact that she does all the voices with fitting accents, either. The story unfolds exactly as it should; the children are in perilous straits, the ailing Lord is forced to seek aid - and aid does come, as a forgotten bastard son of another Lord proves his worth and saves the day. |
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