Logs:Ripples
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| RL Date: 27 February, 2008 |
| Who: Leova, Milani |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Leova on the rocks. Milani in the water. Ripples. |
| Where: Fishing Pond, HRW |
| When: Day 16, Month 6, Turn 15 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Jasvie/Mentions, Lujayn/Mentions, L'vae/Mentions |
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| Fishing Pond, High Reaches Weyr This little finger of the Weyr lake feels solitary and quiet compared to the ramblingly large main lake, which is divided from this pond by a natural land bridge. The silvery waters are calm, disturbed only by the infrequent splash of a fish jumping high into the air before loudly bellyflopping back onto the lake's surface. The forms of underwater rocks are just visible, adding greens and blues to the shallow parts of the water. The Weyr mountain walls loom above in the warm summer air. The evening is clear, not a cloud to be seen, giving you a perfect view of the stars. The smaller Belior winks as a waning crescent while Timor shines in half moon. A light wind blows and the summer air temperature feels comfortable.
Into all that lovely silence comes Milani, feet loud on the odd rock, making a pebble or three clatter, skirts swishing, muttering to herself even as she walks. She's tugging down her hair as she goes, shaking it out to fall around her shoulders and huffs out a long, tired sigh as she kicks off shoes and starts to wade out into the pond. "Shells, my feet. Sharding long day," she says to no one in particular except maybe the fish, or so she thinks, the ripples expanding from her calves breaking up the reflections in the darkening water. Leova tilts her head up a little, the whites of her eyes and the off-white of her tunic reflecting the moons' light, the only things bright about her except a little moonlight deep in the pupils of her eyes. She watches Milani go barefoot into the water, and watches the ripples circle, and then tips her head back again. Under her own boot a pebble moves. That slight sound of pebble rolling attracts Millie's notice and she turns a little, spotting the patch of white in the dark. "Oh hey, someone's there? Sorry, didn't mean to disturb. Just been /one of those days/ you know? You too I guess, since you're all sacked out out here." And a giggle follows, merry, belying her claim of fatigue perhaps. Still the assistant headwoman knots up her skirts and wades out a little more deeply, head tilted back to Timor's light. "Pretty night, isn't it? Sad thing is, it was a nice day too and I missed most of it stuck back in Stores." She's gone out deep enough now that she can reach fingers down to trail through the water, making more ripples, vee-shaped to intersect the rounder ones that spread out from her legs. The other woman tilts her head back up again, only her brows stay low and get lower. Talkative Milani. Merry Milani. Giggly Milani. And it had been a long day, both of them assisting Hayda, though Leova in a less skilled way. Still, there are the ripples: catching the moonlight like thin silver reins in the water around the whiteness of Milani's skin, breaking themselves against rocks dark as hooves. She lets them catch her attention for a little while longer. The stars draw her up again, and she watches them. Eventually, though, so she doesn't seem some stalker in the dark, "Really nice. The night." And laughingly again: "Oh it's /you/. Shells. And you should know about the tired. Hayda just had us all hopping today, didn't she?" Still with the talkative and the chatty and Milani's fingers drift back the way they came making squiggly lines all along the water's surface now. She turns and approaches the white-clad woman, standing in the pond still, but facing towards Leova instead of away. "Very. I really /am/ interrupting aren't I? Tell me if you want me to shut up. I /can/ be quiet if I really have to." And there's a flash of moonlight on teeth as she smiles widely and looks over at the Tillekian. "Leova," she says to the stars, in case. And then, sounding a little surprised at herself even as she says it, "It's all right." Her eyes reflect the constellations and she plays connect-the-dark, a maze, find your way out without getting burned. And she figures it out. "You remind me of a friend. Back at Tillek. She's like that." "I know your name. Memorized the whole list of Candidates." And Milani sounds proud of that too. Then she's beaming for that acceptance. "Oh good, because I hate to bother people, but it /is/ harder to shut up than to talk. Though like I said," quick shrug, "I /can/ do it." The assistant headwoman moves a little closer, head tilted to the side curiously. "Yeah? Big talker, your friend?" "Matched with voices, even? Faces?" Boots scrape against gravel again, Leova bending her knees into two tiny mountains. "Really big. Writes long letters too... Sideways and crosswise both." More silence, more darkness, the safe place between stars. "She's doing all right." "Yep! The whole lot. Have to really otherwise it'd be hey you, Lu, Lou, whatever all day long." One long-fingered hand waves loosely and Millie moves to perch on a half-sunken boulder, drawing wet trails of water up behind her, though it's dry on the rounded top. "I'm not so much with the letters. I just talk a lot. Numbers are my game. Though I do like to /read/." Beat. "Good that your friend's all right. She worried after you? Or glad you're here?" Leova laughs, quiet but blunt like water slapping rocks. "I hear you there. And her writing, it's not so easy to read," but it's worth it. It wouldn't be hard to picture Jasvie's face in the constellations just now, dark enough that nothing is distracting except the thousands of tiny burning holes. "She's glad enough. Maybe a little puzzled. What do you read?" "I guess mine's not so much either, only when I'm writing figures," Milani concedes with another tooth-flashing grin across the water. "Puzzled huh? Because you went, or because you got Searched at all?" Her head tilts downward, hair falling foward to obscure her face further, one hand rubbing at the top of one foot. "Lots of stuff. Mostly I'm into stories that aren't romantic, but I'll read those too, for the words." "Figures?" Space to space to space, circling around the stars. "Oh. Numbers. Maybe some of both," Leova says slowly, "Though she's loyal enough to not say the last." Gravel against rock might be a shrug, might just be her shifting her boots again, both adding up to about the same thing. "Didn't know there was much in the way of stories, either. We mostly tell tales. Not much written down." "I'm good at numbers. Putting the ledgers together." Milani's head lifts and she shakes her hair back over her shoulder again. "Hm. Is that loyalty though, or just trying to be polite? I mean, what's wrong with being honest so long as you say it right, yeah?" Her head bobs in the moonlight. "Oh sure. You know, harper stuff. More and more every turn. Since the last Pass, or well the one before the one my parents were born in. But I like listening to tales too. 'Specially new ones like when the traders come to visit." "Don't have to throw things in people's faces," Leova says plainly, no bitterness there: maybe she's thought about it long enough to understand her friend, or maybe she never understood the situation either. She asks the stars, "What kinds of tales?" "Well yeah, doesn't have to be that way at all see, but honesty's important too." Millie's arms wrap around her legs and she draws knees to chest. "Oh shells, all kinds. Ghost stories and mysteries and sea chases and adventures ... just nothing schmoopy." "Didn't say it wasn't," Leova says. The ripples are quieter now, and so is she. A little while later, time to decide whether to pursue it, "She didn't have to say it. She knew that." Leova knew that. She adds, "Not sure how they would talk about sea chases, to make them exciting. Without the teller's voice and all. And that's a funny word. Schmoopy." "Oh." Milani eyes Leova curiously over the tops of her knees. "Sounds like a complicated situation," she finally opines then shrugs. "They're just tales ... made up stories you know. Ships racing storms and battling big scary critters from the deep." A giggle follows about the word. "Yeah well, there's a reason I'm expanding my vocabulary. Mostly, I don't like stupid romances with dumb girls who have no spine and expect the hero to sweep them off and make everything right. I mean, everybody knows it's not /like that/." Could be, Leova's slow smile shows through in her low voice. "It isn't really. Not everything has to be talked and talked about, is all." Even for Jasvie. Slower, "But writing the story down, seems like... there's just a storm. The ship tries to get out of the storm. It does or it doesn't. Don't have to wait, you just read. Ahead if you want to." There's that rattle of gravel against rock again, and then quiet. "Dumb girls believing it." "Tell that to us jabbermouths!" Milani declares with a bright laugh. "I dunno. I like being able to read if there's no one around to tell. Books don't walk away. Well. Much." That's followed by a short, reflecting silence and then a snort. "Yeah well, apparently a lot of them do. Not me though. Mostly because I see how my parents are. They love each other to bits, but it's hard work staying together." Leova might have chuckled if it were just reading, just books, just books walking away. As it is, she shifts, pushing her jacket under her arm so she can slide onto her side. "Not so much where I come from. You get together, you stay that way." Or else. "Yeah well, Weyr's not a hold. Not many people get married here. And it's a lot harder to stay with a person when there's a dragon eating up so much of your time. I guess though that's true too. You could wind up totally stuck with someone you can't stand out there." And her eyes bug out a little and she sticks her tongue out. "Ew. No thanks. Very happy to be /here/ where there's plenty of choices." That said she slides off the rock with a soft splash and wades back towards shore. She pauses, looking down at Leova and waves her fingers in a wriggly sort of wave. "I better hit the sack, tomorrow's probably going to be crazier than today even. You should go rest too. I'll see you 'round, Leova." And the assistant headwoman steps over to her shoes, picks them up and skips away, still barefoot and damp, humming a less-than-polite tune with her skirts still all rucked up. Leova does go rest, or at least back to the barracks, but not right away. She rests where she is until not only is Milani gone but the ripples are too, the starlight a shimmering silver gloss upon the pond. Satisfied, she stands and starts to head back... only to have a real live fish break the water all over again. Leova laughs, and keeps walking. |
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