Logs:Not Upset
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| RL Date: 26 June, 2015 |
| Who: Ebeny, Casseny |
| Involves: Fort Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Casseny brings her mother tea, and news of her Standing. |
| Where: Weyrlingmaster's Office, Fort Weyr |
| When: Day 2, Month 2, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Early in the morning and late in the evening, the cold rain falling turns to almost-pleasant snow, but most of the day is mired in a bleak, gray drizzle. |
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>---< Weyrlingmaster's Office, Fort Weyr >------------------------< This small cavern opens off the Complex and serves as a more private meeting space for small groups of the weyrlings and an office space for the Weyrlingmaster. Just within the door, an oval table set about with six chairs is kept stocked with mugs and a fresh pitcher of water and carafe of klah. A blackboard hangs on the wall to the left of the table, often marked with notes or diagrams from lessons. Past the blackboard, a broad-topped desk is arranged with two comfortable chairs in front to welcome guests, while a sturdy, straight-backed and only lightly-padded chair sits behind the desk for the Weyrlingmaster's use. The desk boasts many drawers and a blotter top. A shelf hangs from the wall above and to one side of the desk, extra storage space for stacks of vellum, ink and pens, sealing wax and other odds and ends. Against the back wall a subtly set door leads the way into the Weyrlingmaster's personal weyr. When a learned routine abruptly changes, it can be very disconcerting. Which is how Casseny appears, when she does: disconcerted. Lux's Ledge led to an involuntary outpatient regime for Ebeny, crusaded by her healer daughter and a regularly schedule apprentice lunch break. The usual midday hour come and gone might seem as though the Weyrlingmaster is finally off the hook. But for Casseny's late arrival, stepping inside after a soft knock that never asks for a reply, and smelling of nut but also a heavier, herb-y, perfume. In her hand, a mug of cold tea. Despite inviting herself in, as common, she halts just in the door, assessing even the familiar surroundings like new. It can't be helped that much of Ebeny's work, of late, has involved giving guidance and instructions from behind her desk, her mending body too fragile to stand up to much more than basic exercise. If she's not out watching the weyrlings, she's in her office or the barracks, even if she can't really /run/ around after anyone yet. Today, she's waited beyond the time she's come to expect Casseny to appear, weyrling files on the desk before her, though in the process of being gathered together, like she might soon make her escape. When her daughter finally does make an appearance, she watches her and waits, easily on edge thanks to the simple matter of her stopping in the door. "Cassie?" Seeing her mother's condition brings a sprig of liveliness back to Casseny. "I've kept you," she admonishes, turning her effective observations in on herself as she steps out of the doorway's framing. After that wash of purpose, it's hard to say she looks particularly upset. Her mood: a dangling question mark at the corner of her mouth where she always appears just about to speak. Coming close to the desk, Casseny leans one hip into and slides the mug down-- conspicuously less full than usual. Though, "The tea's cold," is admitted, she still seems quite certain Ebeny will-- must-- drink it. "New blend from this morning." And while her mother's doing that, the daughter braces a couple fingers on the weyrling files, eyeing down at them. Ben looks Casseny up and down, then somewhat reluctant slides her gaze to that mug and reaches out to claim it within the curl of her right hand. The news that it's cold doesn't help her to appear any more enthusiastic about it than she otherwise might be, though she attempts to school her too expressive features to an even acceptance, shuts her muddy-green eyes and lifts the mug to drink. And drink. Until it's gone and over and she can settle the receptacle back on the desk and inch it back towards Casseny like a good patient. A moment later, she remembers to keep breathing, and a soft sigh precedes a deep breath in, just as she follows the line of her daughter's fingers to the files. "Well?" she presses, knowing better than to deliver a more specific enquiry. Casseny's side-eye as Ebeny drinks assures that the weyrlingmaster plays no tricks and downs her "medicine". She the mother in this instance. Lips press in practical satisfaction, though she can't be entirely unaware of her mother's forced expression, or lackthereof. At least someone else has mysteriously emptied the mug partially for Ebeny already. "It's more frivolous," she does admit, though with something of an overeager lick of her lips. "I'll make a better to-morrow." Little recalculation mid-word, her eyes hopping to the ceiling and back. Better being rather relative. It's better for you than klah, has been a mantra. Ebeny's inquiry falls as if on deaf ears-- not that Ebeny would ever mistake it as such. She can only ride out Casseny's quiet, all the while tilting her head just so as she stares down upon the weyrling's write-ups in judgment on-high. "I'm not upset," she reports, deliberately letting out a long breath. "It's nowhere near as tasteless or yucky as some of the things the rest of the healers have had me down in my time," Ben answers easily, though she does remain terribly still for a moment or so, as if expecting the tea to start having some sort of immediate, noticeable effect. "Or some of the things you've tested on me before," she adds a touch more dryly, or what serves for dryness from her, her voice gentled to tease, if lightly. "You're a step ahead of your Uncle Tasessin, anyway. He's never cared what any of it tastes like, as long as he can collect data." She even shivers, some distant memory brought forth. The words, nearly all of them, are unnecessary, her rambling habitual, and they buy her time before she can claim and accuse, "But you are /something/." If not /upset/. "You're my mother." A judicial sentence condemning Ebeny to a lifetime of being tested. An accusation questioning her impartiality. A commendation celebrating her unique ability to recognize her daughter's mood. In three, or so, words. Casseny's command of her tone sometimes a miracle belying her age. And other times: she waffles about, chewing on every possible phrase and swallowing it bitterly before it comes out. "I'm upset," she levels, pausing to shift agitatedly against the desk so that, at first, that seems to be all. But then, "That I'm not upset." Her mouth frowns, recognizing the childishness of it all yet feeling everything all the stronger as a teenager. Even wallowing in her own head, the girl spares a second to put two fingers in the mug and slide it her way, tipping it slightly to eye from her height at the insides. Empty but for a few, inevitable speckles. Good. "And you're my daughter." Whether Ben speaks on one matter or the other - whether she's submitting or carefully needling - is not so obvious, yet her focus narrows completely to the girl before her when she props her elbows on the desk and rests her chin on her hands. "But I'm not, however I might wish to be, a mind reader," she confesses, deliberately making much of that being a source of /woe/. "I think you're going to have to start at the beginning, because I feel like you've given me a book with only the last few lines written." Her shrug is overplayed; too dramatic. "You know that if it's /someone/ who's upset-not-upset you, Laurie will eat them." "Ah, yes," Casseny deadpans effortlessly, "Laurie. My avenger. I should like to see that. I will be on her shoulders when it happens." Yes. Good. Amusement that never quite made it to her face visibly falls anyhow. Her shoulders droop minisculely. She lifts her chin at a tiny, defiant angle. "Unfortunately, it's not so easy as gulping someone." Catching her hands wanting to be fidgety, Casseny drops them to her legs, pressing out the creases of her pants along the thighs. "I knew I wanted to be a healer most of all," her head drops, "And I'm so glad somebody showed me what I could be good at," lifts again, angled to a high corner of the room, "So I felt certain I would defend it. To anybody." Her fingers had started to fish into a breast tunic pocket and now, from it, she produces the re-straightened white knot. "But I took the knot to Stand. Like it was nothing." Not nothing for poor Hattie who had to suffer through all that silence. "Now I'm that girl who only goes back to healing because she didn't Impress." Her shoulders rise and fall, taking her hands with them, so that they drop back onto her legs, boneless, with a resounding thump. "And I'm not even mad." Ben is not prone to long silences, yet she allows herself /some/ small measure of time to processes the news she's presented with before galloping on ahead. Her glance down at the weyrling files betrays something instinctive, but then her shoulders straighten and she sits back in her chair, affectedly lazy, though she has always been good at artificial distance and a casual air. "Would it mean anything to you if I told you that Laurie has wanted you on the Sands since you were thirteen or so?" she puts to her child. "Would you ever have really believed me if she Searched you?" Genuine questions, yet it sounds like she has her own answers for them too. "You're the girl the Hall wanted. You're the girl who has a Craft, no matter what happens. You can love and want more than one thing, Cassie. If you /don't/ feel bad, then don't question it. It's a luxury. If you can /be/ more than one thing, what's the harm?" Casseny lets Ebeny's original questions fall rhetorically, choosing a deliberately close-mouthed expression that robs her smile over Laurie all of its mirth but none of its affection. Oh, Laurie. A clear emotional wrestle keeps her from answering anything else after that. She straightens her back, neck tensing equally in a quiet revolt to her mother's sentiments yet the grim way she keeps her mouth pulled is ruefully aware. Aware of the logic, but powerless to stop herself from feeling against it. Her posture doesn't relent. She rattles a couple fingers against the tea mug, yanks it an inch towards her, then abandons it, pushing off from the desk. The Candidate knot is smoothed and then disappeared inside her pocket. All tucked away; or loaded. Picking up the tea mug, one side is caressed as she eyes, again, the weyrlings between them. Her usual tone prevails from that bundle of teenager-ness, "Was it? Trouble?" Ebeny presses finger and thumb to the bridge of her nose, perhaps trying to ward off one of her not uncommon (since the landslide) headaches, though it's entirely possible that she seems uncomfortable for more than solely that. "...I don't know," she has to admit, her voice nearly not there. "I only briefly saw the Sands. I'd have guessed a green from its size... Maybe it's just a matter of whether you want to believe a life that goes on sprang from it... or a life that ended too soon." Her shrug is too light this time, too theatrical, rather than merely overplayed. "There's nothing any of us could've done. Don't upset yourself with the thought of it." Whether she will or not, it's a mother's instinct to try and stop all sorts of things before they happen. Moving swiftly on: "Are you going to go and live in the barracks?" Casseny's eyelids lower, gaze following, as Ebeny speaks on the green and then a moment of emotionless reflection after. No trace shows at least; an opposite to her mother's overacting. Fingers' tap, tap, tap partially for Ebeny's benefit. Absolute stillness tends to unnerve others. Mother's instinct also knows that there's no absence of thought behind unmoving eyes. Even so, quiet prevails; Casseny stands very tall, watchful, interpreting Ebeny's body language and with as much concern. She accepts the change seamlessly, only sniffing softly once she's answered, "No." Ben has nothing but patience for the girl before her, time given in the wake of even so brief an answer, a single syllable presented to her in return. "Why?" For or against, agreement or otherwise, she doesn't offer her own thoughts on the matter, not even after so many turns of seeing Candidates become weyrlings, and weyrlings become riders. She waits, idly - or not so - smoothing back her hair as she levels a faintly curious look across at Casseny. Her fingers linger too long at some pressure point at the curve of her skull, or she's just determined to smooth back that lock of hair. Her stare burrows in at that favored point. A mulish look overcomes Casseny, and is banished quickly like a bad idea. She's relatively at her own pensive ease when she, sliding her hands into her tunic pockets, half shrugs, "A feeling I have." Negative or positive, there is no hint. As easily meaning the mere nearness of the Hatching time, as her voice on the outcome. She leaves no trace to follow into the rabbit hole of her mind. It's with calmness that she steps back, bunching up with mere intention, not agitation. "But I should see the Headwoman. The Infirmary. The back of your head. In that order." "...Maybe you do get that from me." The comment, so soft as it is, seems more to herself than to Casseny, and Ebeny in turn adopts the silence of her daughter and offers no explanation as to what one, precise interpretation she might wish for her words. She settles for inclining her head a little in a tiny gesture that's as much acknowledgement as it is acceptance of what must be done, potentially of any one of those things on that list, or all of them. "Yes, Ma'am," is full of easy, wry humour. She's submitted to Casseny's care so far, and it seems that that will not change in the immediate future. "Go on." Encouragement, quiet as it is. She'll both let her go and wait for the moment of her return. |
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