Haunted
Where: Kitchens, HRW
Time: day 11, month 1, Turn 16
Summary: Ghosts aside, Lujayn is caught trying to create a new taste sensation and has questions over drinks with Satiet.
Hours after lunch but before the dinner rush, the kitchens have finally quieted down, the cooks taking long-awaited breaks and the dishwashers flicking pieces of wheat at each other in one corner. At one end, where the food service shafts are located, Satiet stands with a handyman and the head cook, the latter taking turns at peering up into one, dubious sets to their knitted brows. "You sure it ain't ghosts then?" inquires the cook, near accusatory to the handyman who shrugs in response. Ghosts? So not his line of expertise.
No one is expected to be working, much less preparing a meal, but there crouches Lujayn along one row of cupboards. She rummages through its contents, several jars of spices already arranged on the counter above. The weyrling stands again with a smaller canister in one hand, reading the label with an expression that hints at her inexpertise. A small pot bubbles over one hearth, hardly one portion of thick porridge being cooked up. Grabbing up two of the spices at random, Lu approaches to continue her mad experiment - but can't help halting. "Ghosts?" She peers around, gray eyes alert as they focus on the little group. "Someone's seen a ghost in here?" She always knew the kitchens were just too weird.
Lujayn's interruption is timely, all of Satiet's logical sensibilities about to rear their rather ugly heads in a screwed up expression and less than kind words for the superstitious cook and the equally daft handyman. So, one might say Lujayn is their unlikely saviour from being at the receiving end of a tongue lashing from the weyrwoman, for the blonde teenager's approach slowly uncurls the senior weyrwoman's fists to lie palms flat against her side. And that big, deep, calming breath that she releases. Her, "There are no such things as ghosts-," is quickly cut off by the cook who insists, "Is so, my grandmother swore up and down that my grandpap haunted the hallway outside their room when she took up with the old bluerider. And there's been funny noises up there suddenly." The aging cook is as suspicious of the food shafts as the handyman looks bored of the entire spectacle.
Lujayn glances between Satiet and the cook, then up to the shafts as if expecting to see something drop from one or the other. Head still tilted back, she asks "What kinds of things do you normally hear coming down from them, then?" Ghosts or no ghosts, she just wants to know what's going on. Refocusing on the group before her, she shrugs and smiles at Satiet. "If there are ghosts, Satiet'd scare them right out of here, don't you worry." The porridge on the hearth is boiling down, the faint smell of scorched grains wafting past. Someone had better stir that, but the someone responsible is distracted with ghosts. "I thought I saw one once, when I was a kid in Fort," As if it helps. "Inching down in the lower caverns. Don't they like dark, spooky places?"
Satiet, on a second study of Lujayn, finally notes those spice pots and looks beyond the weyrling's shoulder to the bubbling pot. She stares, giving time for the cook to share her theories with the other goldrider, one who seems far more likely to listen to her. "Well, we haven't really heard much. It echoes so, but it feels like the spirits, they're haunting these shafts. Noises like you wouldn't believe. Hestaine," a sharp chinjerk to one of the dishwashers blowing bubbles at another girl, "Was here the first time it happened." She nods sagely, skirting a quick, surreptitious glance at the preoccupied weyrwoman and lowers her voice, "Some of us can see 'em, I think. Others, they don't believe." Like Satiet, who voices, incredulously figuring out what's going on: "Are you /cooking/?"
"I've got one of those chutes in my weyr," Lujayn frowns, another suspicious glance upwards as she thinks. "I'll try to look in there more often. Maybe I'll catch them at it. Whatever it is that they're doing. Whoever it is." A decisive nod, but Satiet's sharp question tears her mind from ghosts and back to the porridge. And what's that smell? "Oh shards, yes I am," Turning on her heel, Lu closes the distance to the failing breakfast fare and grabs up a large spoon. "I'm helping plan out the breakfasts now, for the past month or so," Explaining hastily, trying to stir some life into the sticky substance. "But it's getting so boring. Porridge and pastries and fruit, puffed cakes and porcine strips, all that over and over. I thought I could make something new out of something old. Spice it up a little?" A suggestive shake from one of the spice pots, a hopeful smile from the weyrling as she turns back to the Weyrwoman.
Any thoughts of ghosts or the argument that they don't exist fly out of Satiet's pretty, horrified head, though the cook seems appreciative and says as much in her, "Good, good, we'll keep watch from both sides and make sure there ain't no funny business going on in the shafts." - "You. Are. Cooking." It seems the weyrwoman needs to repeat this, as a statement rather than a question, but no less incredulous. The slighter woman follows after, her twitching noise disagreeable to the odor of burnt wheat, leaving the cook and handyman to complete the repairs to the food shafts. "That's not your job, weyrling."
Dragon> Rielsath senses that Lujayn sends silvery mist floating up from the elevator shaft. "Can you tell if anything's in there? Maybe just a firelizard that got confused, but still."
Dragon> Lujayn senses that Rielsath blows away the mist with a solar flare, the young gold a bit too large to stick her snout down there (but certainly not for lack of trying). << I want to see, >> This is intriguing. Creatures in the food chutes? Things eating up the meals before they can reach their destinations? Mischief, mystery, conspiracy! << It's too dark. It just goes down and down some more. >> Too bad she doesn't have real light to throw down there, though a sunbeam streaming from the shaft would likely spook the cooks that much more. << Are you down there? >>
Lujayn is as glad to have reached an agreement about ghosts, a thought filed away for later and a pause all too commonly seen on dragonriders' faces. Only a moment later there's a clanging noise from the up in the shafts, and a puff of air to go along with it. One could almost put two and two together, but Lujayn seems unconcerned about the noise. "I'm not going to know what's good unless I try making it first, and it's my job to help with the breakfast meals." She reasons, turning from Satiet to sprinkle some more of whichever spice is handy into the porridge. The brightness of her eye is for hope, real belief that she might create something splendid and otherworldly. Maybe the latter is feasible, but not in the good way. "Maybe if we stick the porcine in the porridge with some egg, it'd be like a mash? And we could fry it up?" Hm. Lu's philosophy with cooking seems to be 'the more ingredients, the better.'
In a day where everything seems to defy logic, her own brand particularly, Satiet just stares at Lujayn as if the future weyrwoman has sprouted a second head in the last five minutes. The subject of ghosts and food service shafts are secondary as the pale eyes flick quickly, keenly honing on the various pieces of evidence that point to the fact that Lujayn, while trying hard, is no quick, before finally landing on the stick that stirs the muck that might have been porridge in more expert hands. "This was an exercise in how to best use what the Weyr already has. Such as the cooks' endeavor with jam rolls for weeks on end, despite the complaints from practically everyone. Not for you to become a cook. If that is what you wanted, you might as well have apprenticed to the baker craft rather than Impress." To the point in her bluntness, the older woman meets the younger's brightness in a flat look. "Do you have so much free time on your hands?"
Something sounds dangerous. Lujayn stills, eyes scanning the kitchens before coming to rest upon Satiet. "Lectures are done for today," Recognizing what the question about free time might lead to, trying to be more careful with how she explains herself. It almost works. "And Rielsath is keeping an eye out for things in the shafts. If I can figure out how to make something new out of what we already have, isn't that useful?" The ball of verbosity is rolling once more, and perhaps the weyrling oversteps in saying, "Besides, this is fun."
Fun. It must be a word so foreign to Satiet's lexicon, the nearing-middle-aged weyrwoman not really known for ever having much fun. And somehow, this goldrider, so young, so unlike her at the same age, perplexes the weyrwoman, flat look shifting, brow puckering the more Lujayn speaks. Fun. So it's unsurprising that when Satiet finds her voice again, it's only to say, "Fun isn't part of your duties, particularly when you're wasting good ingredients that could be better used to actually eat. Clean up your messes before Myriana catches you and join me for a drink." Her one attempt at kindness, not informing the baker master of Lujayn's indiscretions in the kitchens. "She banned Josilina from the kitchens after a particularly delectable fiasco with things that might be cookies."
Dragon> Rielsath bespoke Lujayn with << Next time will be better. >> Bright, reassuring. She wants to make something new, too. << Try something different, not that awful porridge stuff. >>
Dragon> Rielsath senses that Lujayn is as close to sullen as she ever gets, and there's nothing pleasant about her tone. "You just can't /do/ anything with porridge. Never liked it, anyhow."
Lujayn has reached for the spoon, hoping to keep the porridge fluid and edible, but by the time she dares to look away from Satiet it has almost glued itself into place. Removing the small pot from the hearth and giving it a forlorn look, she sighs. "Well then." It's not much to clean up, though whatever Lu's just created resists many attempts at being scraped out. A new adhesive, perhaps? Going about the task in silence, she at last looks back to where the weyrwoman waits after stowing all the spice canisters - more or less where she found them. "I could use one of those," She admits about the drink.
While Lujayn covers her tracks before Myriana ever finds out, except through gossip, Satiet moves away with one last dubious shake of her head, headed towards one of the islands of food and drinks and ladles out two mugs of spiced alcoholic cider, warmed. Drinks in hand, the slight woman takes up shop far away from discussions of ghosts and as far as she can possibly get from the smell of burnt wheat, slipping into one side of the carved out breakfast nook, and pushing the second drink across the way to indicate where Lujayn might sit. "You'll be graduating soon," noting yet another reason for Lujayn to possibly need more than 'one of those.'
Everything in order, the weyrling passes by the cook and handyman with just one last look for the chutes. No ghosts appear, and she's free to slide into the seat opposite Satiet. Appreciating the warmth, Lujayn wraps both of her hands around the mug with a smile of thanks. "Yeah," She agrees casually, taking a sip to test out what's been given her. Crossing her ankles, she props up her chin on one hand and looks thoughtfully across the table. "Is everyone looking forward to that?" A little smile, already knowing some feelings about being free of a weyrling class.
"I wouldn't know." And she doesn't care. Satiet's own hands curve about the warm mug, drawing it close to the edge of the table and holding it there, patient to allow the steam to rise to her chin and the liquid to cool enough before attempting a sip. While Lujayn adopts casual in the rest of her elbow on the table, Satiet merely relaxes a fraction, leaned against the stone backing to her bench. "Shouldn't you know better than I would? As everyone's peer, rather than their Weyrwoman?" Perhaps the question is rhetorical, the older woman quick to move on in her low-pitched, cool alto. "I do wonder, however, how you feel about it."
Lujayn shrugs, looking down through her cider when the question is tossed back at her. Not forcefully, true, but the weyrling still needs time to think. "It'll be different. We're already out on our own now, so it almost feels like it's that time already." Just a taste of freedom, enough to get them eager for graduation. "No more lectures, but joining a wing and fighting Thread..." Her voice is quieter, a touch pensive as she swirls her mug about. "I know we'll be more useful when we've graduated. We'll be able to actually do something." Lu's focus shifts, looking back to the scene of an attempted porridge.
"Nothing's changed for you?" That's it. One simple question in return that keeps Satiet looking and conversing, rather than drinking, though the mug's now moved to hover beneath her lower lip.
"Changed?" Lujayn can only parrot the question, but doesn't waste time guessing at what Satiet is trying to find out. "Everything's changed since I came to High Reaches. What do you want to know?"
Belatedly, Satiet follows after Lujayn's glance to the attempted porridge, pale eyes training onto the other side of the kitchen and the scene that transposed there. "The classes, lectures, notes, they're all pretty additions to your schedule, but have you learned anything? Figured out anything?" All these questions are also just pretty additions to the low-spoken one that concludes the weyrwoman's thoughts, "I can't recall if you mentioned, perhaps you did and my old age memory is failing me. You're Fortian bred, not of this area or this Weyr. Why did you agree to stand?"
"Maybe. It sounds familiar, anyhow." Lujayn responds after a moment, bypassing the pretty questions to answer the one at the heart of it all. It doesn't take her long to find an answer. "Standing was my duty, just like anyone else who was searched for Teonath's clutch." Lu shrugs lightly, looking up from her cider to Satiet with a small smile.
The next question is easy, a quick follow up in the lowest pitch her cool alto is capable of. "And your duty now?" Perhaps a genuine brand of curiosity tilts Satiet's head to one side as she regards the other goldrider, this younger, foreign-bred weyrwoman.
Lujayn pauses, surprised by the other woman's sharp curiosity. "Rielsath," Is what her instinct comes up with when her tongue's tied, and a moment after that thought there's an amendment from her brain: "And High Reaches," Her dragon and the Weyr. "Like everyone else." Equally curious, but there's no quesetion at the ready.
There's a note of hesitation, this breath where Satiet seems about to say something and then abruptly wipes that slate clean. Instead, the raven-haired woman leans back to consider Lujayn's answer: Rielsath, and then High Reaches, before she elects to speak again. "In my time as weyrwoman, there've been three women I've had the pleasure of working alongside. You would be the fourth and the youngest. I wonder of your loyalty." A hand lifts to hold back any protests or comments that might rise out of that statement. "As you didn't precisely choose to be here, other than by a candidate's duty to stand when asked. Maybe it's unfair," she concedes, "I didn't stop to ask N'thei when Wyaeth won Teonath's flight where his loyalties lie." Perhaps she didn't have to, says the deliberate silence that hangs for seconds thereafter. "I'd like to know that we can work well together. I'd," the thin features twitch, "Appreciate that."
Lujayn dares to look offended for the briefest second, accused (however subtly) of disloyalty. "I-" The hand stops her, just barely. And she waits. "What do you want me to do?" The question is as much of a challenge as it is simply a question, lips pressed into a grim line.
The weyrwoman's pale eyes, so bright in their blueness and so free of guile in this moment, study the offense Lujayn takes. They take in the younger girl's reaction impassively except for the subtle rumination of her teeth against her lower lips and a faint flare of light, surprise?, in her expressive gaze. Satiet wets her lips lightly with a sip from her mug and drops it between both hands, cradled there, and her answer is slow coming, thought weighed in the few words she chooses to say. "Nothing. I would ask nothing of you that duty doesn't already demand. You've done well in your training." It's no ending at all, or at least a poor one to their conversation, but the slender woman stands from her chair. "Enjoy your time as junior goldrider, Lujayn," her attention drifts to the would-be burnt porridge, and when she returns to focus on the young woman, the faintest tendrils of regret color her voice, "It passes by too quickly sometimes. Mmm?" And then she's moving to leave.
Lujayn leans back against her chair, letting out a tense breath. "Well," She sighs, reacting to Satiet's calm words with a hint of embarrassment for her own attitude. Candidacy, Weyrlinghood, it all passes by quickly, but Lu's not a full rider yet and can't forget it. "Thank you." She manages to tack on a somewhat satisfactory ending as Satiet excuses herself from the conversation, still seated with only the remainder of her cider and some errant thoughts for company.
And the handyman and cook still arguing the possibility of ghosts in the food service shafts; can't forget those. Satiet sure can't even as she's exiting, for a glance slants back at the bickering pair, brow knitted in distaste, before she's exited and out in the lower caverns.
Time: day 11, month 1, Turn 16
Summary: Ghosts aside, Lujayn is caught trying to create a new taste sensation and has questions over drinks with Satiet.
Hours after lunch but before the dinner rush, the kitchens have finally quieted down, the cooks taking long-awaited breaks and the dishwashers flicking pieces of wheat at each other in one corner. At one end, where the food service shafts are located, Satiet stands with a handyman and the head cook, the latter taking turns at peering up into one, dubious sets to their knitted brows. "You sure it ain't ghosts then?" inquires the cook, near accusatory to the handyman who shrugs in response. Ghosts? So not his line of expertise.
No one is expected to be working, much less preparing a meal, but there crouches Lujayn along one row of cupboards. She rummages through its contents, several jars of spices already arranged on the counter above. The weyrling stands again with a smaller canister in one hand, reading the label with an expression that hints at her inexpertise. A small pot bubbles over one hearth, hardly one portion of thick porridge being cooked up. Grabbing up two of the spices at random, Lu approaches to continue her mad experiment - but can't help halting. "Ghosts?" She peers around, gray eyes alert as they focus on the little group. "Someone's seen a ghost in here?" She always knew the kitchens were just too weird.
Lujayn's interruption is timely, all of Satiet's logical sensibilities about to rear their rather ugly heads in a screwed up expression and less than kind words for the superstitious cook and the equally daft handyman. So, one might say Lujayn is their unlikely saviour from being at the receiving end of a tongue lashing from the weyrwoman, for the blonde teenager's approach slowly uncurls the senior weyrwoman's fists to lie palms flat against her side. And that big, deep, calming breath that she releases. Her, "There are no such things as ghosts-," is quickly cut off by the cook who insists, "Is so, my grandmother swore up and down that my grandpap haunted the hallway outside their room when she took up with the old bluerider. And there's been funny noises up there suddenly." The aging cook is as suspicious of the food shafts as the handyman looks bored of the entire spectacle.
Lujayn glances between Satiet and the cook, then up to the shafts as if expecting to see something drop from one or the other. Head still tilted back, she asks "What kinds of things do you normally hear coming down from them, then?" Ghosts or no ghosts, she just wants to know what's going on. Refocusing on the group before her, she shrugs and smiles at Satiet. "If there are ghosts, Satiet'd scare them right out of here, don't you worry." The porridge on the hearth is boiling down, the faint smell of scorched grains wafting past. Someone had better stir that, but the someone responsible is distracted with ghosts. "I thought I saw one once, when I was a kid in Fort," As if it helps. "Inching down in the lower caverns. Don't they like dark, spooky places?"
Satiet, on a second study of Lujayn, finally notes those spice pots and looks beyond the weyrling's shoulder to the bubbling pot. She stares, giving time for the cook to share her theories with the other goldrider, one who seems far more likely to listen to her. "Well, we haven't really heard much. It echoes so, but it feels like the spirits, they're haunting these shafts. Noises like you wouldn't believe. Hestaine," a sharp chinjerk to one of the dishwashers blowing bubbles at another girl, "Was here the first time it happened." She nods sagely, skirting a quick, surreptitious glance at the preoccupied weyrwoman and lowers her voice, "Some of us can see 'em, I think. Others, they don't believe." Like Satiet, who voices, incredulously figuring out what's going on: "Are you /cooking/?"
"I've got one of those chutes in my weyr," Lujayn frowns, another suspicious glance upwards as she thinks. "I'll try to look in there more often. Maybe I'll catch them at it. Whatever it is that they're doing. Whoever it is." A decisive nod, but Satiet's sharp question tears her mind from ghosts and back to the porridge. And what's that smell? "Oh shards, yes I am," Turning on her heel, Lu closes the distance to the failing breakfast fare and grabs up a large spoon. "I'm helping plan out the breakfasts now, for the past month or so," Explaining hastily, trying to stir some life into the sticky substance. "But it's getting so boring. Porridge and pastries and fruit, puffed cakes and porcine strips, all that over and over. I thought I could make something new out of something old. Spice it up a little?" A suggestive shake from one of the spice pots, a hopeful smile from the weyrling as she turns back to the Weyrwoman.
Any thoughts of ghosts or the argument that they don't exist fly out of Satiet's pretty, horrified head, though the cook seems appreciative and says as much in her, "Good, good, we'll keep watch from both sides and make sure there ain't no funny business going on in the shafts." - "You. Are. Cooking." It seems the weyrwoman needs to repeat this, as a statement rather than a question, but no less incredulous. The slighter woman follows after, her twitching noise disagreeable to the odor of burnt wheat, leaving the cook and handyman to complete the repairs to the food shafts. "That's not your job, weyrling."
Dragon> Rielsath senses that Lujayn sends silvery mist floating up from the elevator shaft. "Can you tell if anything's in there? Maybe just a firelizard that got confused, but still."
Dragon> Lujayn senses that Rielsath blows away the mist with a solar flare, the young gold a bit too large to stick her snout down there (but certainly not for lack of trying). << I want to see, >> This is intriguing. Creatures in the food chutes? Things eating up the meals before they can reach their destinations? Mischief, mystery, conspiracy! << It's too dark. It just goes down and down some more. >> Too bad she doesn't have real light to throw down there, though a sunbeam streaming from the shaft would likely spook the cooks that much more. << Are you down there? >>
Lujayn is as glad to have reached an agreement about ghosts, a thought filed away for later and a pause all too commonly seen on dragonriders' faces. Only a moment later there's a clanging noise from the up in the shafts, and a puff of air to go along with it. One could almost put two and two together, but Lujayn seems unconcerned about the noise. "I'm not going to know what's good unless I try making it first, and it's my job to help with the breakfast meals." She reasons, turning from Satiet to sprinkle some more of whichever spice is handy into the porridge. The brightness of her eye is for hope, real belief that she might create something splendid and otherworldly. Maybe the latter is feasible, but not in the good way. "Maybe if we stick the porcine in the porridge with some egg, it'd be like a mash? And we could fry it up?" Hm. Lu's philosophy with cooking seems to be 'the more ingredients, the better.'
In a day where everything seems to defy logic, her own brand particularly, Satiet just stares at Lujayn as if the future weyrwoman has sprouted a second head in the last five minutes. The subject of ghosts and food service shafts are secondary as the pale eyes flick quickly, keenly honing on the various pieces of evidence that point to the fact that Lujayn, while trying hard, is no quick, before finally landing on the stick that stirs the muck that might have been porridge in more expert hands. "This was an exercise in how to best use what the Weyr already has. Such as the cooks' endeavor with jam rolls for weeks on end, despite the complaints from practically everyone. Not for you to become a cook. If that is what you wanted, you might as well have apprenticed to the baker craft rather than Impress." To the point in her bluntness, the older woman meets the younger's brightness in a flat look. "Do you have so much free time on your hands?"
Something sounds dangerous. Lujayn stills, eyes scanning the kitchens before coming to rest upon Satiet. "Lectures are done for today," Recognizing what the question about free time might lead to, trying to be more careful with how she explains herself. It almost works. "And Rielsath is keeping an eye out for things in the shafts. If I can figure out how to make something new out of what we already have, isn't that useful?" The ball of verbosity is rolling once more, and perhaps the weyrling oversteps in saying, "Besides, this is fun."
Fun. It must be a word so foreign to Satiet's lexicon, the nearing-middle-aged weyrwoman not really known for ever having much fun. And somehow, this goldrider, so young, so unlike her at the same age, perplexes the weyrwoman, flat look shifting, brow puckering the more Lujayn speaks. Fun. So it's unsurprising that when Satiet finds her voice again, it's only to say, "Fun isn't part of your duties, particularly when you're wasting good ingredients that could be better used to actually eat. Clean up your messes before Myriana catches you and join me for a drink." Her one attempt at kindness, not informing the baker master of Lujayn's indiscretions in the kitchens. "She banned Josilina from the kitchens after a particularly delectable fiasco with things that might be cookies."
Dragon> Rielsath bespoke Lujayn with << Next time will be better. >> Bright, reassuring. She wants to make something new, too. << Try something different, not that awful porridge stuff. >>
Dragon> Rielsath senses that Lujayn is as close to sullen as she ever gets, and there's nothing pleasant about her tone. "You just can't /do/ anything with porridge. Never liked it, anyhow."
Lujayn has reached for the spoon, hoping to keep the porridge fluid and edible, but by the time she dares to look away from Satiet it has almost glued itself into place. Removing the small pot from the hearth and giving it a forlorn look, she sighs. "Well then." It's not much to clean up, though whatever Lu's just created resists many attempts at being scraped out. A new adhesive, perhaps? Going about the task in silence, she at last looks back to where the weyrwoman waits after stowing all the spice canisters - more or less where she found them. "I could use one of those," She admits about the drink.
While Lujayn covers her tracks before Myriana ever finds out, except through gossip, Satiet moves away with one last dubious shake of her head, headed towards one of the islands of food and drinks and ladles out two mugs of spiced alcoholic cider, warmed. Drinks in hand, the slight woman takes up shop far away from discussions of ghosts and as far as she can possibly get from the smell of burnt wheat, slipping into one side of the carved out breakfast nook, and pushing the second drink across the way to indicate where Lujayn might sit. "You'll be graduating soon," noting yet another reason for Lujayn to possibly need more than 'one of those.'
Everything in order, the weyrling passes by the cook and handyman with just one last look for the chutes. No ghosts appear, and she's free to slide into the seat opposite Satiet. Appreciating the warmth, Lujayn wraps both of her hands around the mug with a smile of thanks. "Yeah," She agrees casually, taking a sip to test out what's been given her. Crossing her ankles, she props up her chin on one hand and looks thoughtfully across the table. "Is everyone looking forward to that?" A little smile, already knowing some feelings about being free of a weyrling class.
"I wouldn't know." And she doesn't care. Satiet's own hands curve about the warm mug, drawing it close to the edge of the table and holding it there, patient to allow the steam to rise to her chin and the liquid to cool enough before attempting a sip. While Lujayn adopts casual in the rest of her elbow on the table, Satiet merely relaxes a fraction, leaned against the stone backing to her bench. "Shouldn't you know better than I would? As everyone's peer, rather than their Weyrwoman?" Perhaps the question is rhetorical, the older woman quick to move on in her low-pitched, cool alto. "I do wonder, however, how you feel about it."
Lujayn shrugs, looking down through her cider when the question is tossed back at her. Not forcefully, true, but the weyrling still needs time to think. "It'll be different. We're already out on our own now, so it almost feels like it's that time already." Just a taste of freedom, enough to get them eager for graduation. "No more lectures, but joining a wing and fighting Thread..." Her voice is quieter, a touch pensive as she swirls her mug about. "I know we'll be more useful when we've graduated. We'll be able to actually do something." Lu's focus shifts, looking back to the scene of an attempted porridge.
"Nothing's changed for you?" That's it. One simple question in return that keeps Satiet looking and conversing, rather than drinking, though the mug's now moved to hover beneath her lower lip.
"Changed?" Lujayn can only parrot the question, but doesn't waste time guessing at what Satiet is trying to find out. "Everything's changed since I came to High Reaches. What do you want to know?"
Belatedly, Satiet follows after Lujayn's glance to the attempted porridge, pale eyes training onto the other side of the kitchen and the scene that transposed there. "The classes, lectures, notes, they're all pretty additions to your schedule, but have you learned anything? Figured out anything?" All these questions are also just pretty additions to the low-spoken one that concludes the weyrwoman's thoughts, "I can't recall if you mentioned, perhaps you did and my old age memory is failing me. You're Fortian bred, not of this area or this Weyr. Why did you agree to stand?"
"Maybe. It sounds familiar, anyhow." Lujayn responds after a moment, bypassing the pretty questions to answer the one at the heart of it all. It doesn't take her long to find an answer. "Standing was my duty, just like anyone else who was searched for Teonath's clutch." Lu shrugs lightly, looking up from her cider to Satiet with a small smile.
The next question is easy, a quick follow up in the lowest pitch her cool alto is capable of. "And your duty now?" Perhaps a genuine brand of curiosity tilts Satiet's head to one side as she regards the other goldrider, this younger, foreign-bred weyrwoman.
Lujayn pauses, surprised by the other woman's sharp curiosity. "Rielsath," Is what her instinct comes up with when her tongue's tied, and a moment after that thought there's an amendment from her brain: "And High Reaches," Her dragon and the Weyr. "Like everyone else." Equally curious, but there's no quesetion at the ready.
There's a note of hesitation, this breath where Satiet seems about to say something and then abruptly wipes that slate clean. Instead, the raven-haired woman leans back to consider Lujayn's answer: Rielsath, and then High Reaches, before she elects to speak again. "In my time as weyrwoman, there've been three women I've had the pleasure of working alongside. You would be the fourth and the youngest. I wonder of your loyalty." A hand lifts to hold back any protests or comments that might rise out of that statement. "As you didn't precisely choose to be here, other than by a candidate's duty to stand when asked. Maybe it's unfair," she concedes, "I didn't stop to ask N'thei when Wyaeth won Teonath's flight where his loyalties lie." Perhaps she didn't have to, says the deliberate silence that hangs for seconds thereafter. "I'd like to know that we can work well together. I'd," the thin features twitch, "Appreciate that."
Lujayn dares to look offended for the briefest second, accused (however subtly) of disloyalty. "I-" The hand stops her, just barely. And she waits. "What do you want me to do?" The question is as much of a challenge as it is simply a question, lips pressed into a grim line.
The weyrwoman's pale eyes, so bright in their blueness and so free of guile in this moment, study the offense Lujayn takes. They take in the younger girl's reaction impassively except for the subtle rumination of her teeth against her lower lips and a faint flare of light, surprise?, in her expressive gaze. Satiet wets her lips lightly with a sip from her mug and drops it between both hands, cradled there, and her answer is slow coming, thought weighed in the few words she chooses to say. "Nothing. I would ask nothing of you that duty doesn't already demand. You've done well in your training." It's no ending at all, or at least a poor one to their conversation, but the slender woman stands from her chair. "Enjoy your time as junior goldrider, Lujayn," her attention drifts to the would-be burnt porridge, and when she returns to focus on the young woman, the faintest tendrils of regret color her voice, "It passes by too quickly sometimes. Mmm?" And then she's moving to leave.
Lujayn leans back against her chair, letting out a tense breath. "Well," She sighs, reacting to Satiet's calm words with a hint of embarrassment for her own attitude. Candidacy, Weyrlinghood, it all passes by quickly, but Lu's not a full rider yet and can't forget it. "Thank you." She manages to tack on a somewhat satisfactory ending as Satiet excuses herself from the conversation, still seated with only the remainder of her cider and some errant thoughts for company.
And the handyman and cook still arguing the possibility of ghosts in the food service shafts; can't forget those. Satiet sure can't even as she's exiting, for a glance slants back at the bickering pair, brow knitted in distaste, before she's exited and out in the lower caverns.