Logs:Constant
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| RL Date: 25 October, 2015 |
| Who: Tabitha |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Vignette |
| What: In which the safest path is... the safest. |
| Where: Records Room, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 7, Month 2, Turn 39 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Hattie/Mentions, N'muir/Mentions, Palia/Mentions, Gethin/Mentions, Mimi/Mentions, Nimarie/Mentions |
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| Of an evening, when most others had left to attend the evening meal, the silence in the records felt... lonely. It was better, Tabitha had long ago decided, than being in the living cavern, where people would ask her how her day was and what she had done, when she would have to try and make her work sound more exciting than it was. When she was younger, she had answered such questions by sharing details from the stories she was reading, but the more and more that people had looked at her as if she was quite mad, the less and less she had done so. Now, the silence was preferable, if a reminder that she was alone. If she finished her work early, she would get first pick of some of the new literature, and that wasn't so bad, really. Stories were more easy to understand than people. Stories helped her understand people. She liked to think that she was good and kind and all those other things that they wanted, but she equally knew what they said about her. Strange. Fantasist. Distant. Some mornings, she would take her work upstairs and sit with her mother, the silence one that she felt content with. Of course, she accrued more work directly by being at the point of origin for requests for copies of one document or another, but the more work she found herself with, the less time she had to think of other things. Their handwriting was not so dissimilar, though hers was apt to be more curvy than the Weyrwoman's. It was clear, she thought, and that was the aim. To be clear. There was something forced and sharp about Hattie's mode of print, when it was employed. She wanted to think that it meant something, yet she most often simply found herself grateful that it was so much easier to read than N'muir's chicken scratch. Was this how she would spend her life? Copying down and editing what other people wrote? Oh, she loved the books and scrolls and the rest. Loved reading them; letting them take her away to other times and other places, without anyone to interfere or tell her what was and what wasn't. But... if she had apprenticed to the Harpers, like Palia, would she have found someone else copying down her great words, some day? If she had gone to the Starsmiths, like Gethin, would she see the world in a whole different way? ...If she had become a Smith, like her father - like that man - would she have... run into him? Would he have known her? Was that exactly why she hadn't dared to? Would she spend her life close to home, too afraid that what she read about the world would turn out to be untrue if she went and looked at all of it? Would she spend turn after turn with a white knot, watching dragons pass her by and face her mother's disappointment time after time? If she never set foot on the Sands, it would never be an eventuality. She knew Nimarie wanted to Impress a queen; had heard N'muir tell her that she might, one day. But Nimarie could claim her parents had been Weyrleaders. More people knew who Nimarie was. Did anyone know who Tabitha was? Did Tabitha know? She was the constant. People left and found their own ways, and she would be waiting for when they needed her. She would be there, sensible as always. Dependable as always. Someone had to be. |
Comments
Aleudre (08:27, 26 October 2015 (PDT)) said...
Lovely
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