Logs:Fluke
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| RL Date: 30 August, 2011 |
| Who: Iolene, Tiriana |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Tiriana patronizes. Iolene asks questions. Ysavaeth bristles. Iovniath condescends, motheringly. |
| Where: Records Room, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 20, Month 8, Turn 26 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Devaki/Mentions, E'gin/Mentions, Emme/Mentions, Quinlys/Mentions, Rhaelyn/Mentions, Riorde/Mentions |
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| Studious, most likely /only/ due to her dragon's influence, Iolene sits at one of the tables, head bent and writing chicken scratch onto her notepad. Every so often, she'll look to the text her fingers keep open, braced in between the bindings. It's a quiet evening, and as the summer sun outside is only just beginning to set, most people have abandoned studies or work in favor of enjoying the weather: one of those beautiful, crisp dusks. The day's work is done for Tiriana already, because while she has a sheaf of things in her arm, she's only here to deposit them on an assistant headwoman and the harper apprentice stuck filing for the day. And with her load passed off, she seems ready to head on out again, except one blonde little head bent over her work still draws her attention that way. Tiriana stiffens, but a moment later, she begrudgingly steps over to Iolene's table, to hover over her junior in glowery silence. Sometimes, being oblivious is a good thing, whether it's genuine or not is another story, however, given Iolene, in another lifetime, was once a hunter. It's a wonder she's stayed alive if she doesn't even notice Tiriana having stepped over or the glowery silence hovering somewhere over her blonde head. Read. Read. Write. Write. Write. Taking notes from the looks of it on the history of the area, though there are a few notations to the side of her notepad that appear more chicken scrawl than anything legible. It's only after she flips the page that the weyrling's rich voice remarks lowly, "Would you like to take a seat?" This is then punctuated with a hesitant smile upwards. Brave or foolish, you pick. "I would not," though whether that's true or just face-spiting is questionable, given it's Tiriana. She continues to stand, at any rate. "Do you have your own exile alphabet or something? That's illegible," she points out the obvious. "What are you studying now?" The already faltering smile disappears and leaves Iolene's lips to twitch briefly, uncertain, before they purse. There's a mild correction uttered in a voice much softer than the one just seconds before. "We're not exiles." Fact or back talk? Certainly it can't be the latter, this is Io after all. The hand that keeps the text open balls lightly, before, as if remembering herself, they flatten to splay fingers along the gutter of the massive text. "See, that's not the way I reckon it," Tiriana notes, rather lightly. For all she doesn't sit, she does lean one hip against the table idly, mouth twitching into a smirk for Iolene's correction. "Maybe you weren't actually /exiled/, but you come from exiles and that makes you one, too. Blood always tells, you know. Everyone knows that." She doesn't precede it with 'I have a question,' and yet it still is one when Iolene ventures curiously, "What were your great great grandparents?" Her hand balls up again in a reflexive action at the implied mocking from the Weyrwoman, and this time remains in that loose curl. Where her fingers once were, there are now damp imprints, just visible in the glowlight. "Holders, most of them on my daddy's side," Tiriana notes, easily enough. That lean turns into half a sit, as she makes herself a little more comfortable by degrees. "Weyrfolk and riders on my mother's. My mother was a goldrider, too, down at Southern, and my daddy was Ierne's Weyrleader for years before he retired." Even now, there's more than a hint of that old pride in her lineage as she eyes her less-pedigreed junior. "Some of us, we aren't a fluke. We were /born/ to this." "Like Quinlys," remarks Iolene, a woebegone look cast down to her incredibly neat legible notes with their unreadable chicken scratches on the side. "My great great grandparents were Holders." You can almost her the emphasis that capitalizes that, for whatever might not sink in about current history or Weyr hierarchy, this- /this/ she knows. "Perhaps, there were dragonriders in my past too." Again, the indefatigable smile returns, hinting about the corners of her mouth as she looks up to Tiriana, ignorant of the older woman's pride in her lineage as she tries to find common ground. And then it sinks in and her expression falls. "Oh. I'm the fluke." "Exiled holders," Tiriana is not letting the point go; that, or the latter one. She might as well pat Iolene on the head, for all the motherly condescension in her latter words. "You're the fluke. There's no /shame/ in it, I suppose--I mean, there are whole dragonriding families that have that one person who never impresses, and so forth. Just, don't go getting any ideas about just where you stand." To Iolene, Ysavaeth is a sudden presence in Iolene's mind, a very alert, astute one that's paying her rider her full attention now, rather than the half-ear from moments before. « You are no fluke, » is her sudden very angered touch. Much like her sire, those bells turn into the clanging of chains now infused with the sour touch of Isath's tartness. But a sudden awareness, perhaps a mental whimper that speaks of all the tears Iolene doesn't shed, brings her back from the brink of an even sharper anger, and causes Ysavaeth to cradle Iolene's emotions more gently. Repeated, « You are no fluke. » There's a sudden flare of weyrling baby anger, colored in orange and the sun's brightest gold, that then recedes after a split-second. (Ysavaeth to all High Reaches dragons) It's in answer to that outburst, but more private, that Iovniath reaches out. « Daughter, » she says, patronizingly cloy, with huge clinging snowflakes that melt only slowly in the light of that sun. (Iovniath to Ysavaeth) On the verge- she's on the verge of so much. That hand curls a little bit more, though fails to form a fist. Those lashes waver, possibly glistening with unshed tears. But they're all gestures that don't quite complete, receding when Iolene takes a very deep breath. "Then," she pushes a forced smile past the blanched shame of her cheeks and looks to Tiriana with those large eyes and too-long blonde hair framing her skinny face. "Maybe you can teach me. Where I stand and how I might be better. I'm sorry we ruined your plans for Quinlys. I offered her a trade and she said it isn't possible and I'm sorry I don't measure up to what you wanted." Despite the flash that would say otherwise, Ysavaeth is all prettiness and radiant light, the sun's golden gleam pulses to melt the snowflakes her dam's seen fit to share all the faster. It sparkles rainbows against the dampness Iovniath's introduced, and she shares, sheepish, « A vtol crept into my rushes. He wouldn't leave even after I tried to tell him he was a twatwaffle. So I stepped on him. » (Ysavaeth to Iovniath) To Ysavaeth, Iovniath is smarter than to fall for that, and those melting snowflakes reflect and intensify the light back on Ysavaeth. But all she says is, « Your language is unbecoming of a lady and my daughter. » Tiriana is not oblivious to the effect she's having on her poor weyrling charge. Her eyes flicker down briefly to that hand that doesn't ball and there's something very much like disappointment that the gesture never completes itself. "I've told you where you stand," she answers, dismissive of that much. "As to getting better--well. I don't know what to tell you. Iovniath says we've all got our crosses to bear." And Iolene is apparently Tiriana's. To Iovniath, Ysavaeth flinches, retreating back into her own mind to lick the wounds of her weapon thrown back into her own, proverbial eyes. « Is it? » Then, less quickly, a capitulating agreement, « It is. » The sun shines a little less brightly now, a little less golden and blonde, muted into a child's obedience to her mother. There's a note of distraction in Ysavaeth's mental bolstering of her rider, the gentle tremors of sunlight dimming as she fends off the intrusions of her golden mother. « Don't back down, » is all she's able to say in the tightest band before she switches back to Iovniath. Mustn't keep mommy dearest waiting. (Ysavaeth to Iolene) "Quinlys says I'm a goldrider now. That I'll be a weyrwoman one day. Like you." Iolene's start is as uncertain as she is of the place Tiriana has put her in. "I'm not sure if I want that, but the weyrlingmasters have told me I don't really have a choice." Such a cross to bear for the beleaguered Weyrwoman. "I don't know how to do anything other than fish." So innocently, and ever so curious, Iolene's dark blue eyes lift to find Tiriana's face, the wobble of liquid in them a clear indication that the unwept tears are still lingering somewhere too close to the surface, "Since you were born to greatness, were you trained from the start to be a goldrider?" Grimly, "That's what they tell me." Tiriana is not excited about that prospect, though the latter question is enough to catch her off-guard. Her brows furrow. "I watched my daddy lead Ierne," she says, maybe just a beat too slow. "And then my uncle, he was a wingleader at Telgar and I was friends with our Weyrwoman there. Hell, they sent me along on a diplomatic mission to the Reaches when I was still younger than you." No need to tell Iolene how that ended, though. "So you were-," Iolene pauses with eyes turned to the ceiling, as if hunting for the right word which just magically appears in her head, "Groomed." It's possible there was some prompting with that word and it begs the question of: can a dragon be smarter than the rider she's attached herself to even at such a young age? "So you... you knew you would Impress Iovniath." Having had no such expectations, or pressure for that matter, Io wavers between looking relieved for herself or daunted by what might lie ahead. "That must be very nice. To know your place in the world so certainly and have everyone know it too. I wish-," her lowered voice falters, but picks up strength enough to finish her confession, "I wish I knew what my life would be like better. I wouldn't be so scared half the time I think, if I knew like you did." And then some. "I wish a lot of things. That I was as pretty as Rhaelyn. That I was as smart as Emme and as brave as Riorde. I wish I could make people laugh so easily like Xoami and was as convicted as Elgin and Devaki are to believe things. I wish..." And there the rambling train of thought trails off. To Ysavaeth, Iovniath, in return, lets her snow melt into a milder mist, a fog that slides its cool tendrils around Ysavaeth's mind to damper her light just a little more, all in motherly care, you see. To Iovniath, Ysavaeth allows the mist to soothe her, to envelope her and cover her in its motherly care. But in that way when you tuck a child in to bed in the middle of the night and you know they're still awake, only because they're concentrating way too hard on appearing asleep. For just a moment, Tiriana waffles, and seems about to let that little lie of omission slip past. But, a beat later, she admits, "I didn't /know/ know. About Iovniath. Nobody really knows for sure with the dragons. But I knew I was meant for something more than just--mucking stables, fucking around. Being a nobody." Her shoulders lift, just barely, before she snorts. "There's your first mistake. You've got a gold, for Faranth's sake. They should be wishing they're /you/." "But why?" Iolene's gaze upon Tiriana falls to her notes, the pen she still holds tracing one of her illegible words. "Other than the ability to make eggs what makes being me and Ysavaeth any different than being Emme and Rhazekth? She's smarter than I'll ever be. Wouldn't she be better at managing the Weyr?" Tiriana huffs out a breath at the sheer denseness of her new protege. "Because, if she were the best-suited, she'd have got the damn gold. Do you listen to anything I say?" she answers, rolling her eyes. "The dragons always know because Faranth forbid Ysavaeth be as thick as you. It's--they pick the best person and the best person is the one they pick." Which is all kinds of circular but it seems to make sense to Tiriana. "Iovniath picked me because I was meant to lead this Weyr, and I lead this Weyr because Iovniath picked me." Poor Iolene. So confused by Tiriana's circular logic that doesn't seem to make sense, but does at the same time, and also fails to answer her question. So her mouth parts with, "I have a question though," but then concludes with, "No. It's ok. I'll figure it out on my own," as she quickly changes her mind of just how much she'd like to further this conversation with Tiriana. Right now? Right now, she can escape with some shred of dignity intact; before tears. "Thank you, for answering all my questions, Tiriana." She must have failed weyrlign etiquette on top of all her history exams. It's really too bad she hasn't gotten far enough along her lessons to learn just how Tiriana actually came to lead the Weyr: flying fucks. "I should finish studying for my classes tomorrow. Ysavaeth isn't pleased when I don't know the answers to things." It's a good thing Iolene cuts her question short, because Tiriana is leveling a look at her that doesn't seem too pleased at having her entire worldview questioned yet again. Instead, she nods once and straightens to leave herself. "Good. Goodnight, then," she tells the weyrling as they part ways. |
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