In which Aida plays dumb like a thing what is dumb.
Who: Roa, Aida
Where: East Weyr
When: Late evening on day 24, month 9, turn 2 of the 7th Pass
What: Aida goes to Roa to talk about Nari, and they end up discussing debate camp. Aida does her best impression of stupid. Roa catches her at it. Aida continues being stupid. This is totally leading a horse to water and the horse absolutely refusing to drink. Roa is patient with her. Poor Roa.
At least it's not the middle of the night, yet. Aida actually slides through the tunnels during an hour which people are still up and about, though dinner time was left behind a while back. Quiet feet carry the young woman down the tunnel that specifically leads into this weyr, and she slows a ways down and lets her feet carry her just a bit more heavily for that final approach. Just in case, and all. Still, she doesn't call out, drawing up just at the end of the tunnel to peek into the weyr beyond. She looks a little worn down and generally tired, but that's nothing new -- especially not at the tail end of what has likely been another long day.
There is little inside the weyr at the moment to warrant the need for discretion. Tialith sleeps on her couch. Roa is seated, crosslegged, on the bed, reading over a collection of hides. Her expressin is tight, lips pressed thin, knuckles white where they hold the text. Even with Aida's audible footfalls, the weyrwoman remains oblivious until Tialith opens a single, glowing eye. Then Roa lifts her head with a start, flipping the hides over before calling, "Aida? Come in, of course."
Exhaling a huff of a sigh when she's noticed, Aida puts on a wry smile, lifts a hand to wave to Tialith before she slinks across the room. She steps out of her little slippers -- looks like the boots have finally been given up -- and moves to flop down across the bed on her stomach, giving Roa and her hides as much room still as she can manage. Only then does she offer a quiet, "Hi."
The hides are gathered up and pushed into the corner of the bed as Aida flops, and the little weyrwoman manages a small smile for the Headmaster's Assistant. "Hi," she murmurs. "I'm sorry I've been so scarce." And, truly, except for stopping by to pick up or drop off Lorna, well, she has been. "How are you?"
"Uh, you're a little busy," Aida points out, folding her arms and resting her cheek down against them. "I think I'll forgive you for it. This time, though. Only this time." She puts on her own smile, letting her eyes focus up on Roa's face. "From now on, I expect to come /before/ your duties as a weyrwoman and to everything else. Priorities, woman. Priorities. I'm okay."
"Yes'm," Roa murmurs solemnly. She even lifts her hand and knocks off a sloppy salute before scooting back so she can affect Aida's pose: flopping on her belly and facing the other woman. "So?" she asks, brows lifted a bit. "What's up?"
Aida laughs, at that. She even rolls her eyes. The humor fades away pretty quick though, and she exhales a soft sigh and closes her eyes after a moment, wiggling just a bit and stretching until she's fully comfortable in her sprawl. "Your bed is more comfortable than mine, I thought I'd move back in," she explains lazily. Two beats of a pause, and she's continuing, "There's a greenrider. Nari. One of the Benden transfers, I don't know if you know her. She's messed up something fierce, up in her head. She's three cee, so I'd usually take it to Br'ce, but it's things between her and Br'ce that are parts of it, and. Well. We're still not talking. She could probably use you looking in on her."
"Nari? She runs with D'ven and T'ral and all the others, doesn't she? I know of her. We haven't met." Roa pillows her chin onto her folded arms and her lips quirk upwards just a tiny bit. "Mmm...you'd better not move in just now. Place'd be a mite crowded." Her eyes dart towards the wardrobe, with its door ajar. Within sit her clothes and, down at the bottom, two pairs of boots. One pair is likely Roa's. The other pair....significantly larger. "I've never met Nari," she repeats, looking back to Aida. "You think she'd appreciate my swooping in, knowing she's a mess?"
"She does," Aida says, lifting her head enough to glance where it is that Roa's eyes are going. The wardrobe is studied, and then she's smirking briefly and putting her own chin down, rather than her cheek. "Run with them, I mean. And no, she won't. She'll skin me alive for coming to you about this, too. But she's that badly off." One shoulder is shrugged. "You're smart. You can figure an excuse out to go see her. Can't you?"
Roa stares ahead, gaze distant for a bit as she ponders. "I could see about learning more on the boys from her, but if they're part of the problem, that wouldn't work overwell. She's newer here, isn't she? Just from the last couple of months? I guess, maybe, a welcome to the Reaches from one of the weyrwomen might be in order..." Her legs bend at the knees, toes pointing to the ceiling. "She have any hobbies or anything like that I could use as an in?"
Smile briefly turning up her lips at the corner, Aida looks -- just for a moment -- vaguely smug. It vanishes fairly shortly after, and she drops her cheek back down against her arms, closing her eyes again. Comfy. "She's pretty new, yes. The last transfer of their set," she replies lazily. "Hobby wise...she's a daredevil, I know. Plays dragon poker, don't know how much she likes it. Goes drinking with the rest of them. If she's got any particular hobbies beyond that, I don't know 'em. We haven't been particularly close, as much as I like her."
"Mmf," Roa mumbles as she considers. "Welcome wagon visit it will have to be." And then her eyes narrow just slightly. "By the way. What was that look, just then?"
"What look?" Aida tries for, but she doesn't follow through with the attempt at innocence, laughing quietly a beat later. "Just knew you could figure something out, s'all," she explains quietly. "Nothing big. Sorry, I don't have more info about her than that, but...that's all I have to work with, too."
The little weyrwoman shifts her weight, lifting up a hand so she can give Aida a small poke on the shoulder. "So much faith, mostly unwarranted. I'm all talk." She smirks, shaking her head. "And, as Miniyal would say, I'm young. And an idiot. Are you doing all right with Lorna?"
"Ow," Aida complains, playing up the wounded note in her tone in response to the little poke. "Watch out, I'm delicate." Another under the breath chuckle follows those words, and then she's making a little 'enh' sort of noise. "Enh. Why don't you let me decide whether or not my faith is unwarranted or not, huh? It's okay if you're an idiot, as I'm one, too. 'M doing fine with Lorna. I think her ear might fall off one of these days with all of the talking I do, but she hasn't tried to smother me in my sleep yet, so I think we're good."
"She likes to listen,," Roa notes quietly, "and she needs to learn as much as possible. Talking's good." Legs kick slowly, swaying forwards and back. "Quite a turn this has been so far," she muses with a little shake of her head. "At least it's two-thirds over."
"It is," Aida agrees quietly, shoving up just enough to roll over onto her back, flopping down again bonelessly. "I've been here almost a turn, myself. Seems like so much longer, and yet...not. At all. Goes quick."
"I think time feels different depending on what it's filled with," Roa considers "And how much we change. We're both different, I think, from who we were at Turn's End. We've both grown."
"Of course," Aida says, folding her arms under her head and then turning it to look over at Roa again, watching her. "Can't go through what we've gone through and /not/ be different, I don't think. I've...yeah. Grown. Changed. Stuff."
A soft laugh. "Stuff. Loads and loads of stuff." Roa's face is buried in her arms with a groaning laugh. "So much stuff."
"Hey, it was short notice, I didn't have a better word," Aida protests, closing her eyes again and resting her head back. She gives a quiet chuckle herself, though it trails off into a soft sigh. "Is it just me, or do you feel drained, too?"
"I feel drained too. Better, lately, actually," Roa confesses quietly. "But...tired. And just when things feel like they're going stable, whoops, someon has to tip them upside down again."
"What now?" Aida asks, her eyes reopening and her head turning so she can eye Roa almost a bit warily. "Anything I don't know about, or just the stuff before?" Not that the stuff itself is actually named. Avoidance is good.
"Nothing for now. Everyone eneds a chance to breathe. For things to quiet. Trying anything now would hurt more than it could help. Just keeping eyes and ears, open, I think." Roa is silent a while before she asks, suddenly, "What ddi you think about the debate in the Headmaster's rooms?"
"What now, as in 'what's happened now', not as in 'what are we doing now'," Aida points out dryly, letting her head drop back down as she chuckles again, lowly. Her eyes reclose, of course, at that last question, and she lets out a huff of a sigh. "I think it was a debate," she opines. "In the headmaster's room." Helpful, that. "On violence." /So/ helpful, Aida. So very, very helpful. She does, after a pause, add, "And that it went remarkably well, given the topic and the participants and things. Nobody really even got too very mad, which was amazing."
"Oh. Well, Weyr council and then go from there. Wait for a queen to rise. So, no. Nothing new." Roa blinks slowly as Aida gives her synopsis. "Was that all you saw?" she asks the other girl quietly.
That draws out a decent laugh, it does. Aida's lips curve up into a smirk for a brief moment, but the expression gives away to a thoughtful sort of look fairly quickly, and she's...quiet. Mulling it over. Eventually, she replies, "No. It wasn't. I saw a lot of people playing to the audience and doing very little sharing of their actual opinion -- Ginella, I think, is probably the only one that was entirely honest with her answers. Possibly Issa - I don't know her well enough to say. Most everyone was being very careful of the others in the room, watching them just as much as they were contributing. And folks were being really careful to avoid giving...actual answers, too. It was all real careful."
"Nobody really trusted anybody else," Roa agrees. "Sefton is doing his job well, in that respect." A wry twist of Roa's lips at that. "And nobody wanted to give away that they didn't trust anyone, save Reyce. But that's his perpetual persona, so there was no risk."
Tugging one arm out from beneath her head, Aida flops it over her face, covering her eyes with it as she exhales a quiet sigh. "It was all a big game," she says quietly. "I'm not sure who all was playing it, and who was just being played. Not much we can take away about people's actual opinions from it, unfortunately."
"But we can take away who provoked whom and wonder about why. Reyce wanted to see the Headmaster squirm. Ginella, I think, simply didn't wish to squirm herself. Issa was feeling around. Me, I was trying to provoke anyone, really. G'thon...he likes watching anybody attempt to think about something th don't wish to consider. And the Headmaster..." Roa's eyes had closed, but now they flit up to Aida, "what did you see from him?"
On the spot. Aida is quiet for a long moment, and then she's dropping her arm away from her face, shifting to push up until she's sitting up most of the way and leaning on both of her hands. Only then does she turn her head to regard Roa, and her smile turns up and touches wry. "He was doing his level best to avoid giving his own opinion, as he always does," she replies quietly, after a good long moment of consideration. "Never share, always draw out. I don't know, Roa -- I gave up on trying to figure that man out ages ago. He does what he does, and I might as well wonder why the rain falls when and where it does. Whatever conclusion I /might/ be able to draw, I'd have to think about whether or not it was that conclusion he wanted me to reach, and I've not been able to figure that out yet."
"Don't try and figure him out," Roa says simply. "You won't. You can't. He's too good at his games. But you can learn from what he does. You can predict and anticipate. Don't study Sefton in relation to him. Study him inr elation to you, what you can take away. He'd want you to, or he wouldn't have had to there. The Headmaster was doing more than just avoiding. Think about it."
Tilting her head back, Aida turns her eyes up towards the ceiling, staring up that way. "You don't understand," she points out softly, her tone threaded with something wry. "I work with the man day in and day out. I've trained myself to not try and figure him out, otherwise I'll just go mad. What did /you/ see?"
"I'll say it again. Don't try and figure him out. Try and learn from him. It's very, very different. You can learn about his games without learning who he is." Roa shakes her head slowly. "I'm not going to tell you this one. I want you to figure it out. We can go over the debate bit by bit, if that will help."
Was that a curse? Yes, it was an under the breath curse, and it sounded mightily displeased, too. Aida sits forward abruptly, leaning forward over her legs and stretching out, reaching for her toes. "He was provoking G'thon," she states flatly. "Possibly feeling him out in relation to the ethics course, I don't know. Possibly punishing him, I don't know. A lot of his focus was there."
A small sharp nod. "Damn straight, he provoked G'thon," Roa agrees quietly. "You think he did so for his ethics course? To test him?"
"Possibly," Aida says, giving a little shrug of her shoulders and glaring down at her ankles. "It seems the most likely explanation. It would...make sense, all things considered, really."
"Really?" Roa asks. "You think that after workign with G'thon for a turn as Weyrleader, after getting him under his employ, he would invite the man into a sea of less-experienced and poorer-versed students to test and unnerve him?"
Silence, this time. Aida stares down at her ankles for a long moment, then shakes her head slowly. "No," she returns, a little bit sullenly. "I don't. That's dumb."
There is no nod this time. Only a quiet question from the goldrider. "Why, then?"
"I don't /know/," Aida points out, tone touching defensive now. "I don't know, Roa. I can't guess, I can't figure it out. I don't know what he was thinking or what he was doing, I just saw that he provoked him and was interested."
"That's a start. Break it into smaller pieces now. What did he do that provoked G'thon?" Roa is watching carefully now, head lifted, feet still.
Jaw setting stubbornly, Aida lifts her chin, turns her head so that she can fix her eyes on Roa. "He got the conversation maneuvered to the issue of Yevide," she says, tone one of reluctance. Oh, so much reluctance. "Her transfer, her murder, the abuse of power in relation to those things."
Another nod from Roa. "And when did he do that? What happened prior?"
"We were discussing whether one man had the right to make the decision for all," Aida replies, the defensive note fading from her tone, the tension winding back out of her jaw. "I'm still not putting this puzzle together, Roa." As if that needed to be noted.
"And who introduced that topic?" comes Roa's next question. Aida's side cmment is wholly ignored.
There's a long moment's pause, as Aida contemplates the question, and then she's shaking her head lightly. "I don't remember how we got to that point," she finally states, giving another shake of her head once the words are spoken, too. "It seemed to gradually evolve that way."
"It evolved that way," agrees Roa, "but it was nudged. Who was asking the questions as the topic shifted. Do you recall?"
"The headmaster," Aida replies easily, looking down to her ankles again. "He was asking /most/ of the questions. The headmaster introduced the topic, seems like. And the one before that, too."
"Was he the only one?" asks Roa.
"I don't know," Aida points out, giving the other woman a helpless sort of look. "He wasn't the only one asking questions or poking at the topics, but it was just...a discussion. It went that way. I'm really not sure, Roa."
"We were all talking," Roa concedes. "But we hoevered. And then Sefton would speak, and the topic would jump and we'd hover around something else. Then G'thon would speak and the same thing would happen. And then G'thon asked whether it was better for a whole people to fight to end their suffering, or whether is was better for a single leader to take it into their own hands."
Stilling for a moment, Aida then looks back down at her ankle, drawing a finger around to poke at the bone there with a single fingernail. Poke. "Okay," she agrees. "So G'thon brought that topic up, and Sefton brought it around to the thing with Yevide?" Uncertain, there.
"Did you watch him at all? Sefton?" Roa tips her head to the side. "You were movign about, gettign tea and such. I couldn't tell. Did you see him, when G'thon changed the topic?"
"I didn't," Aida admits, shrugging her shoulders and poking at her ankle again. "I was sort of distracted watching everybody else. There was a lot going on, and I'm used to paying attention to others. What did I miss?"
"He...I'm sorry. A tangent. Have you ever heard Sefton speak on eye contact? How to best utilize it?"
"I don't believe so," Aida replies, jabbing again at her ankle. "If I have, I don't recall what it is that he's said, which means it's likely a 'no'. I don't understand what you're /getting/ at. I'm not seeing this."
"Work the edges. Stop trying to plow straight through. Here is what the Headmaster says about eye contact." Roa draws in a small breath. "He says that you give it as an offering. You withold it intentionally. It is a tool, like anything else. But. When he was speaking with G'thon, just before he started to poke, he was staring. He struggled to look away. What do you think about those two facts, side by side?"
She starts to jab at her ankle again, but catches herself. The last time smarted, after all. Instead, Aida sits up straight again, curling both hands into loose fits and resting them on her thighs. "I think that for some reason he set aside his rule," she replies. "Be it because he was distracted by something, or because it was purposeful, to cause some sort of reaction."
"I think he was surprised," comes Roa's very soft suggestion.
"Surprised by what?" Aida asks, giving a little shake of her head. "G'thon surprised him? Okay?"
"Yes. I think G'thon surprised him. I think that his question caught his attention. And then Sefton asked another and G'thon evaded. And the Headmaster got stuck staring."
"So, G'thon threw the headmaster off his game," Aida returns, shaking her head a little bit. "It happens to everybody."
"Not to Sefton," Roa notes quietly. "You're thinking more than you're letting on, Aida."
"I am /not/," Aida's voice is pitched with frustration now, and she lifts her chin and sends a dark look over Roa's way. "I don't understand. I'm /thinking/, yes, but I'm reaching absolutely no conclusions and just getting frustrated."
A small but final nod. "Sit on it then. Roll it around. And we'll talk about it later." And that ends the section of the evening in which the debate is discussed. "How are folks taking the news about Aivey and E'sere?"
For a moment, that frustration washes over Aida's face. Still, she exhales a huff of a sigh, nods her head. "Alright," she agrees, letting all of it go with that. "Some are taking it well, others not so much. Mostly, folks are just glad that it's over and that it's safe again. That's the general sentiment. I haven't heard much grumbling on E'sere's behalf, and certainly none for Aivey."
"So folks feel then..." and Roa pauses so she can shift from laying on her belly to laying on her back, "that it's over? They're alive but long gone, for the most part?"
"Seems that way," Aida says, lifting her shoulders and then dropping them again, something of a shrug. "There's upset about them having escaped, but the tension has apparently broken. They're gone, you know? I do admit I've been really focused on other things, though, and I haven't been listening as much as I should."
"Well, Faranth forbid you put your own life and work before snooping for me," the weyrwoman chides. A gentle reversal of Aida's former words.
"Hey, I've been /listening/, and that's generally what I've heard," Aida protests, smile finally bringing her lips up at the corners. "I just haven't gotten any digging in deep." She rolls her eyes, then. "I did hear a rumor that the reason Telgar transferred you here was because you were sterile. Sinopa and Vanya were discussing it during a crowded lunch in the living cavern."
That one evokes a small laugh of surprise, Roa's head lifting and her brow arched. "Doesn't Sinopa just wish." Her head flops back down. "Tia's never risen. It's possible. But, so far as I am aware, nobody has presumed such. Yet."
"The rumor bothers me less than the fact that the acting senior weyrwoman was discussing it in a lunch crowd," Aida points out dryly, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. "Careless and thoughtless. That really bothers me, you know."
"If Citalth flies, she'll learn. Somehow. I'll find a way to help her." Roa exhales slowly. "It's...a bit of a low starting point, however."
"Yeah," Aida comments dryly, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. She brings both hands up, to rub at her face lightly. "I need to go get some sleep," she points out. "Sorry I'm dumb."
"You're not dumb. I'm just a very unpracticed teacher. Think on it. Rest. We'll talk later." Roa pushes herself up into a sit and peers over at Aida. "Thank you for visiting."
Aida gives an agreeable enough nod, then scoots forward on the bed and hops up to her feet. "You're welcome. Sorry I haven't been by more, but we've both been busy. Sleep well, when you get there?"
"Oh," a tiny and almost smug little smile. "I will. And you. Good night, Aida."
There's a moment of a puzzled pause, and then Aida's eyes go briefly wide. She's laughing a beat later, flashing a grin. "Yeah," she says. "Night, Roa." A hand comes up, giving a flippant salute, and then she's turning to skulk back in the direction she came from, waving to Tialith as she goes.
Where: East Weyr
When: Late evening on day 24, month 9, turn 2 of the 7th Pass
What: Aida goes to Roa to talk about Nari, and they end up discussing debate camp. Aida does her best impression of stupid. Roa catches her at it. Aida continues being stupid. This is totally leading a horse to water and the horse absolutely refusing to drink. Roa is patient with her. Poor Roa.
At least it's not the middle of the night, yet. Aida actually slides through the tunnels during an hour which people are still up and about, though dinner time was left behind a while back. Quiet feet carry the young woman down the tunnel that specifically leads into this weyr, and she slows a ways down and lets her feet carry her just a bit more heavily for that final approach. Just in case, and all. Still, she doesn't call out, drawing up just at the end of the tunnel to peek into the weyr beyond. She looks a little worn down and generally tired, but that's nothing new -- especially not at the tail end of what has likely been another long day.
There is little inside the weyr at the moment to warrant the need for discretion. Tialith sleeps on her couch. Roa is seated, crosslegged, on the bed, reading over a collection of hides. Her expressin is tight, lips pressed thin, knuckles white where they hold the text. Even with Aida's audible footfalls, the weyrwoman remains oblivious until Tialith opens a single, glowing eye. Then Roa lifts her head with a start, flipping the hides over before calling, "Aida? Come in, of course."
Exhaling a huff of a sigh when she's noticed, Aida puts on a wry smile, lifts a hand to wave to Tialith before she slinks across the room. She steps out of her little slippers -- looks like the boots have finally been given up -- and moves to flop down across the bed on her stomach, giving Roa and her hides as much room still as she can manage. Only then does she offer a quiet, "Hi."
The hides are gathered up and pushed into the corner of the bed as Aida flops, and the little weyrwoman manages a small smile for the Headmaster's Assistant. "Hi," she murmurs. "I'm sorry I've been so scarce." And, truly, except for stopping by to pick up or drop off Lorna, well, she has been. "How are you?"
"Uh, you're a little busy," Aida points out, folding her arms and resting her cheek down against them. "I think I'll forgive you for it. This time, though. Only this time." She puts on her own smile, letting her eyes focus up on Roa's face. "From now on, I expect to come /before/ your duties as a weyrwoman and to everything else. Priorities, woman. Priorities. I'm okay."
"Yes'm," Roa murmurs solemnly. She even lifts her hand and knocks off a sloppy salute before scooting back so she can affect Aida's pose: flopping on her belly and facing the other woman. "So?" she asks, brows lifted a bit. "What's up?"
Aida laughs, at that. She even rolls her eyes. The humor fades away pretty quick though, and she exhales a soft sigh and closes her eyes after a moment, wiggling just a bit and stretching until she's fully comfortable in her sprawl. "Your bed is more comfortable than mine, I thought I'd move back in," she explains lazily. Two beats of a pause, and she's continuing, "There's a greenrider. Nari. One of the Benden transfers, I don't know if you know her. She's messed up something fierce, up in her head. She's three cee, so I'd usually take it to Br'ce, but it's things between her and Br'ce that are parts of it, and. Well. We're still not talking. She could probably use you looking in on her."
"Nari? She runs with D'ven and T'ral and all the others, doesn't she? I know of her. We haven't met." Roa pillows her chin onto her folded arms and her lips quirk upwards just a tiny bit. "Mmm...you'd better not move in just now. Place'd be a mite crowded." Her eyes dart towards the wardrobe, with its door ajar. Within sit her clothes and, down at the bottom, two pairs of boots. One pair is likely Roa's. The other pair....significantly larger. "I've never met Nari," she repeats, looking back to Aida. "You think she'd appreciate my swooping in, knowing she's a mess?"
"She does," Aida says, lifting her head enough to glance where it is that Roa's eyes are going. The wardrobe is studied, and then she's smirking briefly and putting her own chin down, rather than her cheek. "Run with them, I mean. And no, she won't. She'll skin me alive for coming to you about this, too. But she's that badly off." One shoulder is shrugged. "You're smart. You can figure an excuse out to go see her. Can't you?"
Roa stares ahead, gaze distant for a bit as she ponders. "I could see about learning more on the boys from her, but if they're part of the problem, that wouldn't work overwell. She's newer here, isn't she? Just from the last couple of months? I guess, maybe, a welcome to the Reaches from one of the weyrwomen might be in order..." Her legs bend at the knees, toes pointing to the ceiling. "She have any hobbies or anything like that I could use as an in?"
Smile briefly turning up her lips at the corner, Aida looks -- just for a moment -- vaguely smug. It vanishes fairly shortly after, and she drops her cheek back down against her arms, closing her eyes again. Comfy. "She's pretty new, yes. The last transfer of their set," she replies lazily. "Hobby wise...she's a daredevil, I know. Plays dragon poker, don't know how much she likes it. Goes drinking with the rest of them. If she's got any particular hobbies beyond that, I don't know 'em. We haven't been particularly close, as much as I like her."
"Mmf," Roa mumbles as she considers. "Welcome wagon visit it will have to be." And then her eyes narrow just slightly. "By the way. What was that look, just then?"
"What look?" Aida tries for, but she doesn't follow through with the attempt at innocence, laughing quietly a beat later. "Just knew you could figure something out, s'all," she explains quietly. "Nothing big. Sorry, I don't have more info about her than that, but...that's all I have to work with, too."
The little weyrwoman shifts her weight, lifting up a hand so she can give Aida a small poke on the shoulder. "So much faith, mostly unwarranted. I'm all talk." She smirks, shaking her head. "And, as Miniyal would say, I'm young. And an idiot. Are you doing all right with Lorna?"
"Ow," Aida complains, playing up the wounded note in her tone in response to the little poke. "Watch out, I'm delicate." Another under the breath chuckle follows those words, and then she's making a little 'enh' sort of noise. "Enh. Why don't you let me decide whether or not my faith is unwarranted or not, huh? It's okay if you're an idiot, as I'm one, too. 'M doing fine with Lorna. I think her ear might fall off one of these days with all of the talking I do, but she hasn't tried to smother me in my sleep yet, so I think we're good."
"She likes to listen,," Roa notes quietly, "and she needs to learn as much as possible. Talking's good." Legs kick slowly, swaying forwards and back. "Quite a turn this has been so far," she muses with a little shake of her head. "At least it's two-thirds over."
"It is," Aida agrees quietly, shoving up just enough to roll over onto her back, flopping down again bonelessly. "I've been here almost a turn, myself. Seems like so much longer, and yet...not. At all. Goes quick."
"I think time feels different depending on what it's filled with," Roa considers "And how much we change. We're both different, I think, from who we were at Turn's End. We've both grown."
"Of course," Aida says, folding her arms under her head and then turning it to look over at Roa again, watching her. "Can't go through what we've gone through and /not/ be different, I don't think. I've...yeah. Grown. Changed. Stuff."
A soft laugh. "Stuff. Loads and loads of stuff." Roa's face is buried in her arms with a groaning laugh. "So much stuff."
"Hey, it was short notice, I didn't have a better word," Aida protests, closing her eyes again and resting her head back. She gives a quiet chuckle herself, though it trails off into a soft sigh. "Is it just me, or do you feel drained, too?"
"I feel drained too. Better, lately, actually," Roa confesses quietly. "But...tired. And just when things feel like they're going stable, whoops, someon has to tip them upside down again."
"What now?" Aida asks, her eyes reopening and her head turning so she can eye Roa almost a bit warily. "Anything I don't know about, or just the stuff before?" Not that the stuff itself is actually named. Avoidance is good.
"Nothing for now. Everyone eneds a chance to breathe. For things to quiet. Trying anything now would hurt more than it could help. Just keeping eyes and ears, open, I think." Roa is silent a while before she asks, suddenly, "What ddi you think about the debate in the Headmaster's rooms?"
"What now, as in 'what's happened now', not as in 'what are we doing now'," Aida points out dryly, letting her head drop back down as she chuckles again, lowly. Her eyes reclose, of course, at that last question, and she lets out a huff of a sigh. "I think it was a debate," she opines. "In the headmaster's room." Helpful, that. "On violence." /So/ helpful, Aida. So very, very helpful. She does, after a pause, add, "And that it went remarkably well, given the topic and the participants and things. Nobody really even got too very mad, which was amazing."
"Oh. Well, Weyr council and then go from there. Wait for a queen to rise. So, no. Nothing new." Roa blinks slowly as Aida gives her synopsis. "Was that all you saw?" she asks the other girl quietly.
That draws out a decent laugh, it does. Aida's lips curve up into a smirk for a brief moment, but the expression gives away to a thoughtful sort of look fairly quickly, and she's...quiet. Mulling it over. Eventually, she replies, "No. It wasn't. I saw a lot of people playing to the audience and doing very little sharing of their actual opinion -- Ginella, I think, is probably the only one that was entirely honest with her answers. Possibly Issa - I don't know her well enough to say. Most everyone was being very careful of the others in the room, watching them just as much as they were contributing. And folks were being really careful to avoid giving...actual answers, too. It was all real careful."
"Nobody really trusted anybody else," Roa agrees. "Sefton is doing his job well, in that respect." A wry twist of Roa's lips at that. "And nobody wanted to give away that they didn't trust anyone, save Reyce. But that's his perpetual persona, so there was no risk."
Tugging one arm out from beneath her head, Aida flops it over her face, covering her eyes with it as she exhales a quiet sigh. "It was all a big game," she says quietly. "I'm not sure who all was playing it, and who was just being played. Not much we can take away about people's actual opinions from it, unfortunately."
"But we can take away who provoked whom and wonder about why. Reyce wanted to see the Headmaster squirm. Ginella, I think, simply didn't wish to squirm herself. Issa was feeling around. Me, I was trying to provoke anyone, really. G'thon...he likes watching anybody attempt to think about something th don't wish to consider. And the Headmaster..." Roa's eyes had closed, but now they flit up to Aida, "what did you see from him?"
On the spot. Aida is quiet for a long moment, and then she's dropping her arm away from her face, shifting to push up until she's sitting up most of the way and leaning on both of her hands. Only then does she turn her head to regard Roa, and her smile turns up and touches wry. "He was doing his level best to avoid giving his own opinion, as he always does," she replies quietly, after a good long moment of consideration. "Never share, always draw out. I don't know, Roa -- I gave up on trying to figure that man out ages ago. He does what he does, and I might as well wonder why the rain falls when and where it does. Whatever conclusion I /might/ be able to draw, I'd have to think about whether or not it was that conclusion he wanted me to reach, and I've not been able to figure that out yet."
"Don't try and figure him out," Roa says simply. "You won't. You can't. He's too good at his games. But you can learn from what he does. You can predict and anticipate. Don't study Sefton in relation to him. Study him inr elation to you, what you can take away. He'd want you to, or he wouldn't have had to there. The Headmaster was doing more than just avoiding. Think about it."
Tilting her head back, Aida turns her eyes up towards the ceiling, staring up that way. "You don't understand," she points out softly, her tone threaded with something wry. "I work with the man day in and day out. I've trained myself to not try and figure him out, otherwise I'll just go mad. What did /you/ see?"
"I'll say it again. Don't try and figure him out. Try and learn from him. It's very, very different. You can learn about his games without learning who he is." Roa shakes her head slowly. "I'm not going to tell you this one. I want you to figure it out. We can go over the debate bit by bit, if that will help."
Was that a curse? Yes, it was an under the breath curse, and it sounded mightily displeased, too. Aida sits forward abruptly, leaning forward over her legs and stretching out, reaching for her toes. "He was provoking G'thon," she states flatly. "Possibly feeling him out in relation to the ethics course, I don't know. Possibly punishing him, I don't know. A lot of his focus was there."
A small sharp nod. "Damn straight, he provoked G'thon," Roa agrees quietly. "You think he did so for his ethics course? To test him?"
"Possibly," Aida says, giving a little shrug of her shoulders and glaring down at her ankles. "It seems the most likely explanation. It would...make sense, all things considered, really."
"Really?" Roa asks. "You think that after workign with G'thon for a turn as Weyrleader, after getting him under his employ, he would invite the man into a sea of less-experienced and poorer-versed students to test and unnerve him?"
Silence, this time. Aida stares down at her ankles for a long moment, then shakes her head slowly. "No," she returns, a little bit sullenly. "I don't. That's dumb."
There is no nod this time. Only a quiet question from the goldrider. "Why, then?"
"I don't /know/," Aida points out, tone touching defensive now. "I don't know, Roa. I can't guess, I can't figure it out. I don't know what he was thinking or what he was doing, I just saw that he provoked him and was interested."
"That's a start. Break it into smaller pieces now. What did he do that provoked G'thon?" Roa is watching carefully now, head lifted, feet still.
Jaw setting stubbornly, Aida lifts her chin, turns her head so that she can fix her eyes on Roa. "He got the conversation maneuvered to the issue of Yevide," she says, tone one of reluctance. Oh, so much reluctance. "Her transfer, her murder, the abuse of power in relation to those things."
Another nod from Roa. "And when did he do that? What happened prior?"
"We were discussing whether one man had the right to make the decision for all," Aida replies, the defensive note fading from her tone, the tension winding back out of her jaw. "I'm still not putting this puzzle together, Roa." As if that needed to be noted.
"And who introduced that topic?" comes Roa's next question. Aida's side cmment is wholly ignored.
There's a long moment's pause, as Aida contemplates the question, and then she's shaking her head lightly. "I don't remember how we got to that point," she finally states, giving another shake of her head once the words are spoken, too. "It seemed to gradually evolve that way."
"It evolved that way," agrees Roa, "but it was nudged. Who was asking the questions as the topic shifted. Do you recall?"
"The headmaster," Aida replies easily, looking down to her ankles again. "He was asking /most/ of the questions. The headmaster introduced the topic, seems like. And the one before that, too."
"Was he the only one?" asks Roa.
"I don't know," Aida points out, giving the other woman a helpless sort of look. "He wasn't the only one asking questions or poking at the topics, but it was just...a discussion. It went that way. I'm really not sure, Roa."
"We were all talking," Roa concedes. "But we hoevered. And then Sefton would speak, and the topic would jump and we'd hover around something else. Then G'thon would speak and the same thing would happen. And then G'thon asked whether it was better for a whole people to fight to end their suffering, or whether is was better for a single leader to take it into their own hands."
Stilling for a moment, Aida then looks back down at her ankle, drawing a finger around to poke at the bone there with a single fingernail. Poke. "Okay," she agrees. "So G'thon brought that topic up, and Sefton brought it around to the thing with Yevide?" Uncertain, there.
"Did you watch him at all? Sefton?" Roa tips her head to the side. "You were movign about, gettign tea and such. I couldn't tell. Did you see him, when G'thon changed the topic?"
"I didn't," Aida admits, shrugging her shoulders and poking at her ankle again. "I was sort of distracted watching everybody else. There was a lot going on, and I'm used to paying attention to others. What did I miss?"
"He...I'm sorry. A tangent. Have you ever heard Sefton speak on eye contact? How to best utilize it?"
"I don't believe so," Aida replies, jabbing again at her ankle. "If I have, I don't recall what it is that he's said, which means it's likely a 'no'. I don't understand what you're /getting/ at. I'm not seeing this."
"Work the edges. Stop trying to plow straight through. Here is what the Headmaster says about eye contact." Roa draws in a small breath. "He says that you give it as an offering. You withold it intentionally. It is a tool, like anything else. But. When he was speaking with G'thon, just before he started to poke, he was staring. He struggled to look away. What do you think about those two facts, side by side?"
She starts to jab at her ankle again, but catches herself. The last time smarted, after all. Instead, Aida sits up straight again, curling both hands into loose fits and resting them on her thighs. "I think that for some reason he set aside his rule," she replies. "Be it because he was distracted by something, or because it was purposeful, to cause some sort of reaction."
"I think he was surprised," comes Roa's very soft suggestion.
"Surprised by what?" Aida asks, giving a little shake of her head. "G'thon surprised him? Okay?"
"Yes. I think G'thon surprised him. I think that his question caught his attention. And then Sefton asked another and G'thon evaded. And the Headmaster got stuck staring."
"So, G'thon threw the headmaster off his game," Aida returns, shaking her head a little bit. "It happens to everybody."
"Not to Sefton," Roa notes quietly. "You're thinking more than you're letting on, Aida."
"I am /not/," Aida's voice is pitched with frustration now, and she lifts her chin and sends a dark look over Roa's way. "I don't understand. I'm /thinking/, yes, but I'm reaching absolutely no conclusions and just getting frustrated."
A small but final nod. "Sit on it then. Roll it around. And we'll talk about it later." And that ends the section of the evening in which the debate is discussed. "How are folks taking the news about Aivey and E'sere?"
For a moment, that frustration washes over Aida's face. Still, she exhales a huff of a sigh, nods her head. "Alright," she agrees, letting all of it go with that. "Some are taking it well, others not so much. Mostly, folks are just glad that it's over and that it's safe again. That's the general sentiment. I haven't heard much grumbling on E'sere's behalf, and certainly none for Aivey."
"So folks feel then..." and Roa pauses so she can shift from laying on her belly to laying on her back, "that it's over? They're alive but long gone, for the most part?"
"Seems that way," Aida says, lifting her shoulders and then dropping them again, something of a shrug. "There's upset about them having escaped, but the tension has apparently broken. They're gone, you know? I do admit I've been really focused on other things, though, and I haven't been listening as much as I should."
"Well, Faranth forbid you put your own life and work before snooping for me," the weyrwoman chides. A gentle reversal of Aida's former words.
"Hey, I've been /listening/, and that's generally what I've heard," Aida protests, smile finally bringing her lips up at the corners. "I just haven't gotten any digging in deep." She rolls her eyes, then. "I did hear a rumor that the reason Telgar transferred you here was because you were sterile. Sinopa and Vanya were discussing it during a crowded lunch in the living cavern."
That one evokes a small laugh of surprise, Roa's head lifting and her brow arched. "Doesn't Sinopa just wish." Her head flops back down. "Tia's never risen. It's possible. But, so far as I am aware, nobody has presumed such. Yet."
"The rumor bothers me less than the fact that the acting senior weyrwoman was discussing it in a lunch crowd," Aida points out dryly, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. "Careless and thoughtless. That really bothers me, you know."
"If Citalth flies, she'll learn. Somehow. I'll find a way to help her." Roa exhales slowly. "It's...a bit of a low starting point, however."
"Yeah," Aida comments dryly, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. She brings both hands up, to rub at her face lightly. "I need to go get some sleep," she points out. "Sorry I'm dumb."
"You're not dumb. I'm just a very unpracticed teacher. Think on it. Rest. We'll talk later." Roa pushes herself up into a sit and peers over at Aida. "Thank you for visiting."
Aida gives an agreeable enough nod, then scoots forward on the bed and hops up to her feet. "You're welcome. Sorry I haven't been by more, but we've both been busy. Sleep well, when you get there?"
"Oh," a tiny and almost smug little smile. "I will. And you. Good night, Aida."
There's a moment of a puzzled pause, and then Aida's eyes go briefly wide. She's laughing a beat later, flashing a grin. "Yeah," she says. "Night, Roa." A hand comes up, giving a flippant salute, and then she's turning to skulk back in the direction she came from, waving to Tialith as she goes.