Logs:Unfeeling
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| RL Date: 8 May, 2009 |
| Who: K'del, Rika |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: K'del suffers from tantrums of teenage girls, but meets, as a result, brand new candidate Rika. |
| Where: Kitchens, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 8, Month 9, Turn 19 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Tiriana/Mentions |
| Rika has finally found something to do with herself, something that gives her an excuse not to deal with people. She's stirring a large pot of something, in a section of the kitchen that's too warm for most of the other helpers to want to go near. Hard work and isolation; this is exactly the way she likes it. K'del is a distinctly more noticeable figure than Rika is, and that's ignoring his knot, not to mention his height. He trails one of the full-time kitchen assistants in from the storerooms; they're mid-argument, from the sounds of it. "Forget it, Elma," says the young man, loud enough for the sound to carry right through the cavern. "Not interested. Try someone else." The girl, in her mid-teens, lets out a little cry, and hightails in the other direction, leaving K'del to look quite adrift. Rika looks over at the couple having the loud argument... and then at the two other kitchen workers who follow their friend with righteous indignation on her behalf. Rika sighs. She's seen this sort of thing at the Hold. She leaves her soup and goes over to pick up the trays of half-finished meat pies the women left behind; she can fold them while she stirs, once they're at her station. K'del stares after the poor, tearful Elma and the others who follow with a very teenage disgruntledment, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and - ah yes, there it is: sighing. Rika's movement, barely in his peripheral vision, draws his attention in that direction, and, with a couple of long, lazy steps, he heads in her direction. "Do you know her at all?" Elma, presumably. "Is she going to make my life miserable, now?" "I don't know her." Rika is startled into actually answering. "I just got here this morning. But she probably *is* going to make your life miserable. I've seen girls like her." K'del leans, ever so casually, up against a nearby bench, and grimaces in response to what Rika has to say, his head bobbing. "Probably. Shells. Always get myself into this kind of thing, somehow." His head tilts to the side more curiously, though, as he considers the rest of what the girl has to say. "Candidate? Oh - congratulations. Welcome to the Reaches. And hard at work, already." Rika says, "It keeps me from having to talk to people," Rika explains, not noticing the incongruity of saying this to someone who somehow ended up talking to her anyhow. "I'm from High Reaches Hold. We're not as big as the Weyr, and there's always the mountains to get away to. Is there any way, do you know, to get to the high parts of the Weyr without a dragon to take you? I'm going to lose my mind if I stay half buried down here till the eggs hatch and I can go home." K'del, however, /does/ seem to notice the incongruity of this, and amusement flashes over his expression. "Ah, nice place," he says, nodding enthusiastically some more. "Mm, not sure. Don't /think/ so, though. Not weyrbred, myself, and never thought to explore like that. Probably get a few chances to get out, though, before the eggs catch. When /I/ was a candidate, we went to pick apples at Nabol." Beat. "There's always the diving cliff. Not /that/ high, maybe, but by this time of turn, most people'll avoid it." Rika sighs. "That's something. I didn't bring my rappelling cords, but maybe I could go get them. Maybe some of the places that aren't *meant* to be accessible can at least be climbed." "Rappelling cords?" K'del sounds instantly impressed. "You're really serious about all of that. Just - you know, be careful? Break a bone, we won't let you stand, and then you wouldn't be able to climb, either." He pauses, running a couple of fingers through his hair, and then, finally, adds, "And, of course, if you Impress, won't even be able to do that for a while." Rika smiles, the first genuine smile since she arrived here. Someone who actually thinks that climbing isn't just another sign of her being nuts... or at least seems to think it's an interesting sort of nuts. "I'll be careful. I've been climbing the mountains around here since I could walk and I haven't fallen yet. I've dropped things once in a while," she adds dryly, "but so have your riders." K'del matches her smile with one of his own, though it's not as though he hasn't been smiling already; this one is just warmer. "That long? Wow. Must be lonely, though, all the way out there on your own. Or do you take people with you?" There's a further tilt of her head, as he adds, "Do they? We? You know." "My parents sometimes. My father taught me to climb, but usually I go by myself. And I think a rider *must* have dropped something, because there was a piece of harness up on Mount Hammen that was was too big for any runner. I brought it back here about a sevenday ago, and it took me half the afternoon to walk with it, it was so heavy. I don't imagine it was a very important part, or it would have been attached to the rest of the harness better than that, but they should still be careful. It would probably have killed someone if it landed on them." 'Mount Hammen' evidently means very little to K'del, from his expression, though he nods his way through Rika's words without a hitch. "Really? You're right - could've done some serious damage. Hope we avoid that, in future. Why go by yourself, though? You-- shy? Don't like people much? Sounds awful to me - no offense, or anything. I'd go nuts." Rika laughs. "You're about the fourth person to say that to me since I got to the Weyr, not to mention the Weyrwoman saying something very like it when I came to return the strap. What is it about weyrfolk? Wouldn't a dragon be enough company most of the time?" K'del grins ruefully, dropping his hand back towards his pocket. "Cadejoth'd never let me go climbing like that - he'd resent not being able to join in. So then, maybe he'd be in my head, sure, but I'd still be wandering on my own. Dragons aren't /quite/ replacement enough for people. That's why riding sweeps can be so damned boring. We're just social people, a bunch of us. And you - you're avoiding my probing questions." He's not offended, though; his tone remains light, as he adds in this last remark. "I am?" Rika honestly hadn't noticed. "I'm sorry. Um... no, I don't like people much, or at least I never know what to do with them or say to them, and they don't much seem to like me. I like my family, and at the Hold at least I know how not to annoy people. I'm not sure, here." K'del watches her, suddenly thoughtful, his expression more serious than it was only moments before. "Don't know you all that well, but you seem nice enough to me. Maybe a little strange, but," and he winks, "aren't we all? Got to be a bit of an adjustment, coming here. So many new people." Rika nods fervently. "The rider who brought me didn't say much. He just dropped me in the candidate barracks, told them not to give me trouble, and left. Why did he tell them that? Do they usually give new people trouble?" "Who was it, do you know? The rider who brought you in, I mean." K'del has straightened, for this, looking sympathetic. "Some of them do. Not most, though; there's a whole bunch of you coming in from outside the weyr, so it's not as though you'll be the only brand new one, promise. It's just-- an adjustment. Milani and her staff, though, they'll help out if you have any problems." "I don't know who he was. He had a really bony bronze who likes hard landings," she adds ruefully. K'del makes a face; "Sorry about that. Some of them-- well. You're here, anyhow. Did you tell me what your name was; if you did, I've forgotten, which is awful of me." Rika says, "It's okay, I didn't. I'm Rika. Who are you?" "Rika," repeats K'del, trying the name out for himself. "Candidate Rika. And I'm K'del - it's nice to meet you." He extends his hand to shake, then hesitates, evidently intending to draw it back again; "I shouldn't take your hands away from your work, should I?" Rika has managed to fold a lot of meat pie crusts while she's been talking. "Probably not, since you took three other people away from their work," she acknowledges, and keeps folding. "I suppose they'll come out when *she's* finished crying and *they've* finished getting all the news and clucking over how unfeeling you are." K'del makes a face, blandly. "Sorry about that. /She/ thought showing up in my weyr, naked, was a-- I shouldn't probably repeat all of that. It's a long story, and not terribly fun for anyone involved." He lets his hand drop back towards his side, and adds, "I'd offer to help, but shells knows, I'm no good at it. My mother never let me in the kitchen, at home." Rika says, "If you can keep moving a stick in a circle, you can stir this while I finish the pies and get them in the oven. What is it about some silly women that makes them think, even though they'd scream if a man they didn't favor touched them, that there's something horribly offensive about any man who wants to turn them down?" K'del considers this task for a moment, and then nods. "Reckon I can manage that much. Owe it to you, I guess, for all of this." So he launches himself off of the counter he's been leaning on, ready to go. "Don't know," he adds, honestly, perplexed. "Never understood it. Hate women throwing themselves at me; not that I don't like women, of course, but... You know." Rika hands over the spoon. "I suppose there must be men who *do* like that kind of thing, or the girls wouldn't keep thinking it might work. But I've never met one." She shrugs. "I'm odd. We established that already." K'del accepts the spoon, wielding it awkwardly at first, though he seems to get the rhythm after a few stirs. "There are men who like it, I'm sure of that," he agrees. "And that's fine. Just... Not me." He tilts a glance back at Rika, grinning again, "Never mind. She'll get over it, find someone else to plant her desires on, I guess." Rika folds the last of one big tray of pies, and leaves briefly to go put it into an oven on the far side of the kitchen, then comes back to start work on the second tray. "Oh, I'm sure she will. They always warn us about weyrfolk at home, but all the riders who came to the Hold have kept their hands to themselves. Some of the Hold men, however, couldn't be trusted further than I could fling them." While she's gone, K'del keeps his attention firmly on his stirring: stir, stir, stir. "Reckon that's probably true of people everywhere. Though," he pause a moment before he finishes, "Guess weyrfolk being - generally freer with their affections means there's more respect. Don't /need/ to try things on someone, if you can just ask if they're interested." "There is that," Rika agrees, still failing to notice that she's actually having a pleasant conversation with someone she barely knows. "Even if some people need to learn to take no for an answer." She glances over at the side door where Elma and her friends left. "She'll work it out eventually. She's probably just - testing things out. And there's probably some kind of status for some people, in having scored with the Weyrleader." K'del says all of this musingly, still stirring away industriously. "Oh well." Rika says, "You're the Weyrleader? I didn't know." Weyr knots aren't something Rika's learned to read yet. Her mouth twitches in a suppressed smile. "Does that mean I shouldn't have made you stir?"" K'del's grin drops down to a distinctly rueful, and part-way embarrassed, expression. "Sorry," he tells her. "Kind of easier, when people don't-- reckon you're still allowed to make me stir. Kind of refreshing, actually." Rika says, "Well, I like it better when I *don't* have to treat people like they're some kind of big deal. So if you don't actually want me to, I won't." There's K'del's grin, back again. "Even better. It's awkward - all these people turns and turns older than me, calling me sir. Crazy, you know? So you can keep thinking of me as just plain K'del, and I won't object." Rika grins back, warmly. This is the girl who thought it was going to be awful here because she'd have to TALK to PEOPLE? Wouldn't know it from her apparent ease with the Weyrleader. "All right, then. You're just plain K'del, and I'm Rika, the odd one." She does spare a hand to offer, now, halfway through the second tray. K'del takes the offered hand, shaking firmly; his grip is confident. "Done deal," he tells her. "And-- look. If you start feeling like you're going to go nutty, with all the people? At least until the eggs are really hard, there's no reason you couldn't get taken out-weyr for a bit. Got to keep you people sane, else how'll we get those dragons safely Impressed?" Rika laughs. "Are all dragonriders sane, then? I hadn't heard that." Her face softens. "But thank you so much. I don't even need to be taken, I can walk if I have leave, and I won't go far, or at all once the eggs are close to ready." "Oh, mostly they go insane /after/ they Impress," laughs K'del, plainly teasing. "Voices in your head, you know. Nutso." He's still smiling, though less enthusiastically, as he nods in response to the rest of what she has to say. "Reckon we can work something out. Good." Rika giggles. "Then I suppose the dragons must be insane too, since they also have voices in their heads. I don't think I want to think about something insane that's that big." She tilts her head curiously. "What's your dragon like? As a person. Or whatever, you know what I mean." K'del nods, mock-serious. "Quite, quite insane. We have to watch them, make sure they don't knock their own heads into walls, things like that. Very sad." He can't keep his face straight for that: he grins, and grins, and grins. "Cadejoth? He's-- dog-like. Which sounds nuts, but isn't really. Loves people, playing, enormously enthusiastic about everything, but super loyal, too. Can't sit still. And he feels like metal chains, in my head, which really /does/ sound nuts." Rika smiles. "He sounds adorable, if anything that big can be considered adorable. I'd love to meet him sometime." "He /is/. Except when he's woefully embarrassing. Drove me a bit nuts, in weyrlinghood, except that he's just so--" K'del trails off, awkwardly, with the expression of a person who knows he can't explain, and is embarrassed about it. "Reckon I could introduce you, sometime, while you're here. Though if Iovniath ever lets him near the sands, that'd help, since you'll be going out there eventually." Rika says, "Why won't she let him near? I would think he could be there if *anyone* could." K'del makes a face. "You'd think, right? But he wasn't the one she wanted to catch her - I mean, obviously, right? No one picks a seventeen turn old Weyrleader. So she just doesn't want him around, at all. Reckon it would drive him nuts, being stuck on the sands, but he'd like to visit: they're his kids, too!" "No, not yet," agrees K'del, grinning. "Which is probably why I found going out to touch the eggs not all that exciting." He's lying - misremembering? - not that it shows. Rika says, "I haven't seen them yet. Are there a lot?" K'del is proud of the eggs; that much is visible in his expression. "Sixteen. Which is pretty good, being Interval and all. The clutch I Impressed at only had fifteen. And they're-- well. A bit bizarre looking, some of them. Tiriana's pretty unimpressed." Rika stifles a laugh. "I did meet Tiriana. She didn't seem easily impressed by anything." K'del doesn't stifle his. "No, she's not. In fact, I'd go so far as to say she's very easily unimpressed by everything." Rika says, "She didn't believe me that I'd found that piece of strap on the mountain. But she couldn't come up with any better explanation for why I had it. It's not like I could very easily have flown up to someone's weyr and stolen a piece of strap leather, even if I'd had any reason to want one... and which still wouldn't explain why I walked three hours to give it back."" K'del, with a roll of the eyes, "Sounds like Tiriana. Not," he adds hastily, "that I should be saying that. I am, of course, completely supportive of my Weyrwoman, you know?" If he nods enough it'll look convincing. Maybe. "It was good of you, to bring it back. If she didn't thank you - well, accept my thanks, instead?" Rika blinks, surprised at the thanks. "You're welcome. I wanted it off the mountain. It's pretty up there." K'del, pleased, nods his head enthusiastically. "Can't pollute the mountains with random debris, right. Wouldn't be fair." Rika says, "Is it hard being Weyrleader? I mean,. you're no older than me, and I wouldn't want to be running the Hold." She shudders a little at the thought. "You said nobody wanted a seventeen-turn Weyrleader. Did that include you?" That pretty much wipes the smile from K'del's face; he grimaces, instead. "Yeah, it's hard. Hard for anyone, probably, but harder for me: who respects someone my age?" He takes in a breath, then adds, "/Wanted/ to be weyrleader... eventually. Not now. But. It happened, and here I am. So." "They'll respect you more in the long run, if you've taken it on early and show you can handle it. But yeah, that's one very big mouthful to chew." She grins mischievously. "Get lessons from Cadejoth in chewing big bites of unpalatable stuff? K'del gives Rika a thoughtful glance, and nods. "Hope so. Reckon things'll work out in the long run, probably, once we all settle in. It's been a tough turn." He laughs for her joke, adding, then, "Good idea. We'll work on that one." Rika folds the last pie and conveys the remaining tray to the oven. "You can stop stirring that now, it's as melted in as it's going to be. Look, here's Elma and her friends back. Gertin," she calls, with unexpected authority in her voice, "I just put in the pies you were working on. So you can watch them from here." K'del dutifully takes the spoon out, shaking it off, though he turns around immediately at mention of Elma and the others. Though he's silent while she calls out, his gaze slides from Rika to the others, and then back again. Murmuring, "Reckon that should be my cue to get out, before we have another scene?" Gertin doesn't look too impressed at having been shown up by a newcomer, and scowls, saying nothing. Thank yous would be too much to ask. Rika says, "You might do best to, yes. I think I will too. I wasn't asked to do this, I wanted some hard work to take up my time, and having done mine and Gertin's besides, I think I can fairly leave." "Sounds fair to me," agrees K'del, grinning suddenly, despite the murderous glances aimed in his direction by the returning group. "Come on - let's get out of here." |
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