Logs:Everyone Makes Mistakes
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| RL Date: 7 June, 2015 |
| Who: Farideh, K'del |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Farideh talks to K'del about her problems. |
| Where: Weyrleader Complex, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 7, Month 13, Turn 37 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Itsy/Mentions, Irianke/Mentions, Nimae/Mentions, Tiriana/Mentions, H'kon/Mentions, Teris/Mentions |
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| It's only a short, relatively sheltered walk between the Weyrleader's weyr and the council chambers, but it is bitterly cold out there this afternoon, and K'del pulls his heavy coat closer as he walks. The stairs are slippery, and so he takes them slowly: one step at a time, one foot in front of another, path aimed directly towards the presently-unused Weyrwoman's weyr (and the council chambers beyond). His expression is neutral, clearly inwardly focused, but not moody; perhaps today is even a good day! As luck would have it, High Reaches' newest goldrider is just coming up the stairs to the Weyrleader Complex, her own shorter, slimmer form cloaked in a dove-gray coat and huddled around a pile of books. Her eyes are on the ground, though when she reaches the ledge, she does glance up in the just in case type of way; she comes to a sudden halt when she sees K'del, her face blanking from its formerly thoughtful, distracted expression. "Weyrleader, sir," is Farideh's quiet greeting, her hands tightening over her armload. Blanking, it seems, is now considered an improvement and not an irritation; K'del's expression doesn't shift in the wake of it, though he pauses his own passage down those steps in order to consider Farideh. "Weyrling," he greets, evenly, managing to convey very little in his tone. "Irianke's in the council chambers, if you were looking for her," he offers, then. "I--" Farideh steals a soft inhale, that she holds, her eyes flicking to the entryway of the council chambers. Her cheeks start to flush pink, and not due to the cold, her eyes shifting back to K'del. "--don't think she wants to see me just now." K'del, still impassive, nods. "Probably true," he agrees. "Worked out a plan for how you're going to win back her approval, yet?" One of his hands steals into the pocket of his coat, fingers warmed by the wool lining. Still, he's yet to make any move to end this little encounter. "A plan?" Mild frustration fills her voice, but it's fleeting as Farideh ultimately lowers her gaze back to the ground, shuffling her boots in the snow. "It's not like I'm conniving-- I'll just-- do my job, do what she wants me to do, and try to be-- good. At it." The corner of K'del's mouth twitches, just once. "Sure," he says, foot lifting and then dropping towards the step below the one he's paused on. "Good. You had a turnday, didn't you? And now it's nearly turnover. Might as well use the opportunity to turn over a new leaf." Another step. "Last month I made twenty turns," Farideh replies evenly, studying K'del contemplatively as he takes one step and then another step. "Yes. I suppose I should. Are you?" Turn over a new leaf, presumably, and without any kind of intentional malice linked to the words, even! "Last month Cadejoth did, too," says K'del, those thoughts obviously more at the forefront of his head than actually answering Farideh, though it's plain he has heard her. "Always," is the answer, when it comes. "Always feels like a new turn means we start clean. Can't forget everything we've done before, but can try and do better. Be better." "But does wanting, trying, wishing, to be better, always make it better?" Farideh is still studying the bronzerider as she speaks, still clutching her books securely like a lifesaver. "No." That comes without so much as a moment's pause, and K'del's head shakes as he says it. "But it's a good first step, isn't it? Pretty much the only first step, far as I can see." He's stopped moving again, that other hand joining the first within a pocket. "What's the point if it's only for show? If it's not going to actually work?" That frustration, again, makes itself known in her words, in the subtle creasing of her forehead. "To make other people feel better? To what-- it's not--" Farideh presses her lips together and looks off, towards the junior weyrs. "I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I thought I did but--" Pause. "Everything I do is wrong, and I don't know what to do to fix any of it." "I know," says K'del, very quietly. "It all gets fucked up somehow and suddenly you're in the middle of it and... it sucks. But it's not for show. It's... about intention. You intend to be better, and if you work hard at it, maybe it starts to work. Fake it until you make it. Makes other people feel better, sure. But it also makes you feel better. Because it's something, even if it sometimes also feels like nothing." "It doesn't," Farideh says a little too vehemently, "make me feel better. It's a fancily-dressed lie with a pretty bow on top. I don't want to lie to Irianke, or the Weyr, or--" She shoots him a nervous glance, "you. Isn't it better if I just announce what a horrible failure I am at all of-- this? Diplomacy? Leading? Being unemotional? Not reacting? Then, no one can get their hopes up and I won't--" Her lip curls, her words bitter, "Be a disappointment." K'del's exhale, white and cloudy in the chilly air, is full of regret. "No," he says. "You can acknowledge that you fucked up, but-- the thing is, Farideh, that you will get better. We all do. May not feel like it now, but I promise it will. The thing is to not let it paralyse you; you acknowledge it, and then you make it clear that you're learning from the mistake, that you want to do better. And you do. We all do. But giving up? That'd just make you miserable forever." "You make it sound easy." Farideh sighs quietly, slipping into silence while she adjusts the books in her arms. "It's been six months now. All of the other weyrlings have gotten better. I had a head start-- why haven't I? When will I? Five turns from now? Fifty? Will I have to keep making these stupid mistakes that make everyone hate me, just to get better?" "It's not easy. Not much is." K'del manages not to shrug, though it looks, for a moment, as though he might. "If it were easy..." But he breaks off. "You've a lot more to deal with than your clutchmates, Farideh. And a lot more eyes on you. Pretty sure you are getting better, whether you realise it or not. It's just... easy to make mistakes. Even Irianke makes mistakes." "Am I? Irianke wasn't call me a disappointment last month, or the month before, or-- ever." Farideh frowns to the point of furrowing her brow. "I'm getting worse. You should just transfer me out to Igen while you still have the chance-- Nimae will give you another Irianke, someone she's used to working with, someone who won't get into fights with sailors in public," is low, bitter, and of course, has her usual dramatic flair because she wouldn't be her without it. "I don't know how to be any other way than this." K'del presses his lips together, a thin line that breaks when he says, quietly, "If you'll recall, I publicly accused H'kon of murdering Iolene in the living caverns, and tried to start a brawl with him. Broke my hand punching a wall after Iskiveth ate firestone. Let Cadejoth chase not one but two different queens while we were Weyrleader to Tiriana and Iovniath. And that's just to begin with, isn't it?" He lets that hang in the air for a moment. "You don't have to be perfect, Farideh. No one expects that. Yes, Irianke is disappointed in you. You know what that means? Means she believes you can do better than that. She has faith. Find ways to channel your emotions. Punch walls, if you have to." "You're only the Weyrleader though," is, perhaps, unintentionally insulting. "No one ever holds men accountable for anything, but twenty turns from now they'll still be laughing over that stupid redhead who threw wine in my face, like it was the day before." Farideh's expression tightens, but her voice is still a maelstrom of frustration and despondency. "You all want to tell me to try and it will get better, but no one tells me how. How? I don't want to punch walls. I just want-- I'm tired of being the one everyone expected, such a letdown, a vapid stupid little girl, a stuck-up bitch, the Weyr's whore-- and I don't know how to make it stop." She shakes her head. "You probably don't even know either." "Work out the person you want to be, and aim for that. Half the time you'll miss, but at least it'll have meant you tried." K'del doesn't respond to much of that, though there is a faint lift of his brown for that insult, and another for her use of 'whore' as a descriptor. His voice is even; outright calm. "Prove them wrong. One day at a time. Some people find it easiest to learn not to care what people think: to power through it. Others... for me, it hurts every time. But you learn to accept that not everyone is going to like you, and that the most important thing is to do the best you can at the job you have. Make sure you have people around who can listen, and are willing to tell you when you're being stupid. Mostly, though... it takes practice. Shells, it takes a lot of practice." This time Farideh listens, in silence, giving K'del the room to speak and share his knowledge. It's at the end that she looks away, her lips pressed tight. "Thank you-- I-- need to go," her voice suddenly sounding shaky. She doesn't look back, but trudges the rest of the way towards the junior ledges, keeping her head down and her shoulders tense, until she disappears within the opening of her weyr. |
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