[M'try] Deja vu.
RL Date: 6/14/10
IC Date: 13/10/22
Herb Garden, Fort Weyr(#792RJs$)
The herb garden is a veritable feast for the eyes and nose. All manner of herbs from medicinal to edible are grown here and tended on a regular basis. The area is fenced in, separating it from the rest of the grounds around it, with a trellis arch over the gate leading into it. The pathways are lined with irregularly shaped stones that lead between the various plots and patches of exquisitely aromatic plants, each section labeled clearly. Pots and boxes provide alternative growing spaces for plants that do not thrive in Fort's native soil.
Benches scattered throughout the sprawling garden, provide places for quiet conversation or for gardeners to take a rest. In the southeastern corner of the garden is the shed where gardening tools and supplies are kept.
The beginning of winter may not be the finest time to be out and about in the herb garden, but M'try seems pretty content out here for the moment. There's a bit of ice to the breeze, it's true, and most of the plants have been turned under or gone brown on their own, but the paths and benches are maintained and everything's nice and tidy and-- what's more-- there's not another soul around for acres. Sitting on the ground in front of one of those benches, using the seat of it as a support for his shoulders, he's bent over a notebook in an attitude of devout industry, a pencil flying over the page in a flurry of what appears to be inspiration. Writing writing writing.
Shal comes through the garden with her sweater thrown carelessly over her shoulders. She's got a sack with her, and sooner or later she sits down on the ground next to a bench. She takes out these massive blocks of soap and a wire, and starts cutting them with the bars with the same level of industry that M'try is exhibiting. She looks curious at all of that writing, but there's no reason to disturb the man.
Deep, deep in his own zone is M'try, so deep that he utterly fails to notice the arrival of another person. His pencil moves along almost like it's got a mind of its own, finally stopping after a full five minutes straight-- gotta be some writer's cramp in there-- and he finally looks up and around the immediate vicinity, eyes lighting on the girl for a moment with a thoughtful frown coming to light. For a while, he watches with what looks like increasing confusion before, finally, lifting his voice, he calls across the distance, "It's soap, isn't it?"
"Yes," Shal replies, holding up a bar to inspect the cut. She smooths away some rough spots. "Gotta cut it down to managable bars." She suddenly grins as she realized he'd been confused. "What did you think it was?" Talking doesn't keep her from working. She lays the wire on the next segment and cuts down. Everything is cut with such precision that the bars are mostly the same size, or at least close enough to the same size that a tunnel snake could starve on the difference.
M'try answers her question pretty succinctly: "Soap." He thought it was soap. Hence the guess. Talking does keep him from working, but that's perhaps not a surprise considering his industry was writing and not carving soap, but-- with his pencil tucked behind one ear-- it seems like he's ripe for a break at this point anyway. "You're a soapmaker?" It's an almost wary question in tone, eyes on the shaving she's doing all the while.
"I am," Shal says, nodding as she finishes the block. She stacks them in a pyramid with holes between, then brings out another big block. "What were you writing so intently?" A pause, a blink. "If it's not a secret."
As sure as he was about the soap, M'try is sure about this fact: "You don't want to know, miss." His smile flickers quickly, reassuringly, and he flips the cover of the notebook closed, drops it onto his lap, and continues along with the conversation essentially without missing a beat. "If you don't mind my asking, what would bring you way out here for such work? It's a touch chilly, isn't it?"
"It's chilly," Shal agrees. "But I'm feeling stir crazy, so I'll bear the cold to sit out here and do it. A body needs fresh air, even if it's cold fresh air. And with it being nearly winter, well. I'm going to savor outside time while I can get it, up until the point where it becomes totally and /completely/ impractical." She pauses to push an errant curl behind her ear.
There's a thoughtful pause while M'try digests the logic behind that, finally, with his forehead lowering, he answers, "That's a fair enough answer. After all..." He trails off, one hand indicating his own person, out here doing something not so very far off of her occupation. That is, it's not exactly hard labor he's up to. "I realize there's no way to mask the rudeness behind this question, but should I take your familiarity with the impending impracticality of the winter weather to mean that you're a native?" There's a pause and he adds, "That is to say-- I don't believe we've met."
"I am. My name's Shal." The girl studies him for a moment with those intense hazel eyes. "It's a pleasure to meet you. And if our schedules don't match too well, it is reasonable enough that we never would have met." She hardly seems fussed by the question. "So I don't see any rudeness at all."
M'try, waving a finger through the air, traces out the letters; "S-H-A-L-L, Shall? As in, 'shall we sit and talk pleasantly in the garden even though it's already plowed under?'" With his brows knit, there's some obvious doubt in his expression about that spelling, about that name, about that verb even. Though the knit subsides in favor of a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, something like a smile though it doesn't quite get all the way there. "It's a pleasure to meet you, too," he answers back, a little too bright in his own eyes; probably because he hasn't actually offered a name yet, himself, but she's dispensing with the pleasantries anyway.
"Shal, one L, and I didn't ask for the name," Shal replies, shaking her head from side to side. "There probably should be an h in there, but I didn't ask for the spelling either." She pronounces it a bit more like Shawl than Shall. "I mean. Another h." She lifts her eyebrows. "And your name?"
With a short laugh, M'try offers, "S-H-A-U-W-H-L, in that case? Might as well take it to extremes?" Shaking his head, amusing himself if nothing else, he goes right on into the answer of her latter question with a pleasant, "M'try. Who would never have imagined to meet yet another soapmaker at the Weyr. What, if I may ask, compels a young woman to seek out such a hygienic profession?"
Shal stares at him for a moment, her expression very serious until a hint of mischief starts dancing around the edges of those eyes. "Well, Rider," she drawls, "when I need to wash someone's mouth out because they're making fun of my name, I have all the tools I need to hand almost every time I need them."
"Should I be making ready to run?" M'try answers, too casual to sound especially threatened by the notion. Perhaps because, "I'm not especially quick, you see, and I'll need a sizeable head start if you do intend to assault me with soap." He leans slightly to one side, peering down the open path that leads to the bowl like he's mentally planning his route here. "Do you find yourself doing this often?"
"Which part, cutting soap, sitting in abandoned gardens or chasing people down to wash their mouth out because they make fun of my name?" In spite of her threat Shal doesn't precisely jump up. She just pulls out the next set of soap. She goes to cut it, then grimaces, waving her hand in the air. She chucks that one in a different sack and grabs another bar.
After a glance skyward as if for inspiration, M'try finally answers, "Any of those. All of those. Pick the one that you would most like to answer and answer that one." There's a slight twitch of his brows, and the addition of, "We'll consider it a glimpse into your psychology, which question you preferentially answer." Although still curious, as evidenced by the fact that he's still attending Shal's occupation, he makes no effort to come closer or prod with questions or anything useful like that.
Shal studies M'try for a long moment. "Yes, soap cutting is practically a part of my daily routine," she says. She tilts her head at him, her blink slow. She says, "And what, pray tell, does that tell you about my psychology?"
"I'm afraid," M'try begins casually, lifting one shoulder in a helpless-looking shrug, "that, if I tell tell you what it tells me, it will give you a similar glimpse into my own psychology." With tremendous seriousness, it would seem, he looks back at Shal, apology written on his expression. "And I'm afraid, Shal, that we simply cannot have that." There's a well-timed beat before he adds humorously, "All of that to say-- neener, neener, I'm not telling."
Shal sticks her tongue out at him, the way one child might when another child says neener neener. "Or," she says, "it's a great way to say you're just messing around and you don't /really/ have any idea, which is what I'm inclined to think." She gestures threateningly with the soap without ever getting up from her seated position.
Leaning his head into a thoughtful tip, M'try offers, "Granted, you could have a valid point. You could. But you'll never really know for sure, will you?" That last is tacked on with a particular type of mirth, one that seems to enjoy being 'in the know' about things while the rest of the world is left wondering.
The wire slides down and a block of soap falls, and Shal says, "No, I suppose not." She arches a brow at him. "Of course, while you're making assessments about me, I'm making assessments about you. After all, really, /anything/ you say could give hints about people's psychology."
"Oh, naturally," M'try grants with a wave of his hand, a hand that falls loosely across his bent knee afterward, now as lacking in industry as it was busy earlier in the day. "Fortunately for me, Shal, I'm very confident in the knowledge that there is almost nothing you could justly assume about me from casual conversation that's even comparable to the truth about my psyche." His smile is flawless, pristine, briefly vapid, even. Then-- "Can you say the same?"
Shal shrugs her shoulders and says, "I can say that though I was briefly curious, I...don't really care about what you think is in my psyche, truth or not?" Another bar of soap hits the bench, ker-chunk. "Assume the truth, assume the lie, assume whatever you like to assume. People make judgments about people all the time, right or not."
Readily agreeing, M'try answers, "They do, they do." Make judgments about other people. "I do it almost constantly, myself. But, as evidenced, I also generally keep my own counsel about any conclusions I jump to, so it's generally harmless in my case. It's really only problematic when people start sharing what they assume with others, I find." There's the offer, in his tone, that she's welcome to chime agreement or beg to differ, he's open to conversation.
"Yes, that makes sense," Shal agrees, nodding. "Because that's when it grows hurtful. Unless of course it's complimentary, in which case people might wish to speak up more often. There are few people who can't use a little building up, from time to time." More blocks get stacked onto this soap pyramid she's building as the sack holding her work grows smaller and smaller. She pulls out the next block, though she pauses to rub at her hands. The wire makes little dents in her fingertips that reddens them, and after a time it gets a little painful.
It doesn't necessarily fit into the stream of conversation, but-- "Gloves." M'try lowers his forehead to her bothered fingers, nodding briefly at his own genius suggestion without lingering over it beyond that. "Whether hurtful or helpful, I generally find it behooves me, personally, to play things close to the breast, as they say. Probably because I'm opinionated and condescending, as a general rule." With an oh-well shrug.
"Gloves," Shal agrees, ruefully. She keeps shaking her hands out though, as if wondering why she'd never thought about that before. She says, "So you've gotten into trouble for speaking your mind before?"
With a casual carelessness, making little of the matter, M'try answers, "To the extent that it was made clear that my opinion wasn't welcome. And that I was very nearly barred from Ista Weyr. And that our Weyrleaders and theirs had to have a discussion as to the accusations inherent in my opinion." /No big deal/, right? "I also once shared my opinions," cough, "with someone in your not-so-rarified profession, actually. I haven't spoken to her in a number of years, perhaps as a result." Another oh-well shrug, it's all too much for him.
Shal listens to this narrative with her eyebrows lifting higher and higher. "That /is/ a lot of trouble just for opening one's mouth," she replies. She grabs the wire back and slices into the soap once more. She doesn't have gloves /today/. "I can see why you've made the decisions you have then, since."
M'try, lightly, "In my defense, I maintain that everything I was opining was entirely true and justified." With a slight but firm nod, so there. "Thank you," he adds with a short, light laugh after her latter words. "Your validation of my decisions means a great deal, Shal." Remember how he said he was condescending? Yeah.
But Shal only nods gravely, her own particular brand of dry humor letting the condescending words roll straight off her back. "I'm sure they do," she says. "In the great scheme of things, the psychological scheme of things, you might have very well started this conversation so that you could, in fact, tell me of this decision and demonstrate all the reasons it's the right one, because it's not one you're sure of yourself. Perhaps you wonder if you've comprimised something by being silent ever since. So you speak to someone who does not matter in your grand scheme of things--a 16 year old soapmaker in a cold garden who reminds you of the soapmaker you offended--and work through that a little bit so you can validate your own decisions while maintaining the validation of said decisions doesn't matter." Ker-chunk. "Alternatively, you're just bored out of your mind today."
With his lips pursed thoughtfully, like he's giving her assertion due consideration, M'try asks after a few moments, "Do I seem unsure? To you? I'm rather timid by nature, you see." Understatement of the century. "So I suppose it may occasionally come across even when I don't mean it to." As something of an afterthought, he adds, "You don't especially remind me of said soapmaker, for the record, excepting the identical professions and a similar remarkable intellect for your age." No argument about the level of his boredom. He has, after all, been sitting her uselessly all this while.
Now here Shal smiles. "Do you seem unsure...now should I answer that, or play the cards close to my chest? Hmmmm." She tilts her head and says, "You actually do not seem that timid, really. As for intellect," she raises her reddened hands again. "I think to wear gloves for the lye and then don't think of them to cut things with wire. I hope the years give me a bit more."
Hmmmmn, echoed right back to her, and M'try clarifies, "Perhaps timid isn't the word..." He thinks, thinks, comes up with, "Cowardly? Yes, I think that's a bit closer to the matter." He looks at her red hands when they're exposed, some measure of sympathy for her while he shows his own, not at all thusly abused, speckled with paint and ink but not painful in anyway, poor girl. "Forethought and intelligence aren't necessarily the same things, Shal," he points out with that same sympathy.
She flashes a grin and gets back to work, at least nearly at the end of the matter. "You don't seem cowardly," she says, shaking her head. "Prudence is no more the same as cowardice than foresight is to intelligence." She considers that and says, "But I can see how holding your tongue when your desire is to say /exactly/ what's on your mind might make you feel that way."
"Yes, I'm well aware of that one," M'try answers for the difference between prudence and cowardice. "I also rather like the one about discretion being the better part of valor, but neither change the fact that I am, in fact, as yellow as buttercups." And unembarrassed about it, which-- really-- props to him for that. "But we're getting rather deeply intellectual here, I'm afraid, when we ought to still be on the matter of 'hello, it's nice to meet you.' So, to that end, were you raised here, Shal?"
"Yes," Shal replies with a nod of her head. "My father also makes soap," she gestures to the soap, "And my mother works down in the kitchens. How about you?" Another chunk of soap comes out, and again when she handles this one she grimaces and chucks it right into the reject pile before grabbing the last of them.
Like he expects it to come as no surprise, M'try answers with a hand flipped vaguely in the direction of this location, "Harper Hall." Absently, having been watching all the while without interrupting the actual work excepting the chit-chat parts, he adds, "Why do you keep pitching some of them aside? Is there such a thing as defective soap?"
"Sort of," Shal says. "The two I pitched are a bit caustic still. There's still some lye in there that hasn't combined and changed well, and it will feel like it's burning your skin when you use it if I cut those up and distribute them. They won't really /burn/ you, there's not enough of it for that, but it won't feel very good either. So I'll grate those back up and add more oils to them to soften them up, work them and mold them again and then they will be just fine."
Light; "Wouldn't that make those especially good ones for the washing out of people's mouths, as you were alluding to earlier?" M'try blinks with innocent seeming curiosity at his own question, all the rest of it-- oils and burns and grating and such-- has likely gone completely past him.
"Mmmhmmmmmmmm," Shal says, flashing another one of those grins as she draws out the word. But she doesn't add the 'so watch yourself,' as he's pretty well established he /is/ watching himself.
"I wonder," M'try begins like the thought's just occurred to him, like he hasn't been sitting here formulating how best to phrase this so it sounds /just/ enough like it's not accusation that maybe she won't throw something at him, "does your father know that you've taken his profession and turned it into an outlet for sadism?"
"Of course," Shal says, grinning like a fiend. "Be sure to let him know though. He'll be extra special proud of me when he receives it in the form of a comment or concern from a Rider." She nods her head as if that seals it right in.
Whether or not M'try actually means to go through with it is debatable, but he does reach for his pencil with one hand and his notebook with the other, flipping some pages busily until he finds one suitable for scribbling at the margins. "His name? Your father's?"
"Juran," Shal says with a smirk. Her final bar of soap is cut, and she puts it on top of the stack, only to start unloading all of the stack back into the very bag she was using for the larger bars. She has to go find a more appropriate place to dry the smaller bars now.
M'try takes a guess on, "J-U-R-A-N? E-R? I'd hate to write it down wrong and get caught for it later." His pencil hovers, having gotten no farther than the J for the moment. Captain Courage isn't willing to risk a misspelling even in private!
"J," Shal says, drawing out the letter, "Uuuuuu, Rrrrr, Aaaaa, Nnnnn." She confirms it. Then she slings both bags over her shoulders. "Be careful though. Who do you think /taught/ me about washing people's mouth out with soap?" She stands, eyes twinkling.
Writing them as they're spelled, M'try makes rather elaborate gestures with his pencil. Hard, blocky letters look to be spelled out in the margins, then underlined twice, the last time punctuated by a firm nod. "Thank you. I assure you, I am always careful, especially when it comes to the fathers of young women who carry around lye soap and far-reaching threats." A gentleman might offer to carry some of her stuff; he, notably, does not.
She tilts her index finger at him, wagging it a few times. "And with that, I must be off, M'try. I have more work to do about, and my excuse for being out her is over. Thank you for a lovely conversation."
M'try's, "Good luck," seems genuine. Though, really, who knows.
IC Date: 13/10/22
Herb Garden, Fort Weyr(#792RJs$)
The herb garden is a veritable feast for the eyes and nose. All manner of herbs from medicinal to edible are grown here and tended on a regular basis. The area is fenced in, separating it from the rest of the grounds around it, with a trellis arch over the gate leading into it. The pathways are lined with irregularly shaped stones that lead between the various plots and patches of exquisitely aromatic plants, each section labeled clearly. Pots and boxes provide alternative growing spaces for plants that do not thrive in Fort's native soil.
Benches scattered throughout the sprawling garden, provide places for quiet conversation or for gardeners to take a rest. In the southeastern corner of the garden is the shed where gardening tools and supplies are kept.
The beginning of winter may not be the finest time to be out and about in the herb garden, but M'try seems pretty content out here for the moment. There's a bit of ice to the breeze, it's true, and most of the plants have been turned under or gone brown on their own, but the paths and benches are maintained and everything's nice and tidy and-- what's more-- there's not another soul around for acres. Sitting on the ground in front of one of those benches, using the seat of it as a support for his shoulders, he's bent over a notebook in an attitude of devout industry, a pencil flying over the page in a flurry of what appears to be inspiration. Writing writing writing.
Shal comes through the garden with her sweater thrown carelessly over her shoulders. She's got a sack with her, and sooner or later she sits down on the ground next to a bench. She takes out these massive blocks of soap and a wire, and starts cutting them with the bars with the same level of industry that M'try is exhibiting. She looks curious at all of that writing, but there's no reason to disturb the man.
Deep, deep in his own zone is M'try, so deep that he utterly fails to notice the arrival of another person. His pencil moves along almost like it's got a mind of its own, finally stopping after a full five minutes straight-- gotta be some writer's cramp in there-- and he finally looks up and around the immediate vicinity, eyes lighting on the girl for a moment with a thoughtful frown coming to light. For a while, he watches with what looks like increasing confusion before, finally, lifting his voice, he calls across the distance, "It's soap, isn't it?"
"Yes," Shal replies, holding up a bar to inspect the cut. She smooths away some rough spots. "Gotta cut it down to managable bars." She suddenly grins as she realized he'd been confused. "What did you think it was?" Talking doesn't keep her from working. She lays the wire on the next segment and cuts down. Everything is cut with such precision that the bars are mostly the same size, or at least close enough to the same size that a tunnel snake could starve on the difference.
M'try answers her question pretty succinctly: "Soap." He thought it was soap. Hence the guess. Talking does keep him from working, but that's perhaps not a surprise considering his industry was writing and not carving soap, but-- with his pencil tucked behind one ear-- it seems like he's ripe for a break at this point anyway. "You're a soapmaker?" It's an almost wary question in tone, eyes on the shaving she's doing all the while.
"I am," Shal says, nodding as she finishes the block. She stacks them in a pyramid with holes between, then brings out another big block. "What were you writing so intently?" A pause, a blink. "If it's not a secret."
As sure as he was about the soap, M'try is sure about this fact: "You don't want to know, miss." His smile flickers quickly, reassuringly, and he flips the cover of the notebook closed, drops it onto his lap, and continues along with the conversation essentially without missing a beat. "If you don't mind my asking, what would bring you way out here for such work? It's a touch chilly, isn't it?"
"It's chilly," Shal agrees. "But I'm feeling stir crazy, so I'll bear the cold to sit out here and do it. A body needs fresh air, even if it's cold fresh air. And with it being nearly winter, well. I'm going to savor outside time while I can get it, up until the point where it becomes totally and /completely/ impractical." She pauses to push an errant curl behind her ear.
There's a thoughtful pause while M'try digests the logic behind that, finally, with his forehead lowering, he answers, "That's a fair enough answer. After all..." He trails off, one hand indicating his own person, out here doing something not so very far off of her occupation. That is, it's not exactly hard labor he's up to. "I realize there's no way to mask the rudeness behind this question, but should I take your familiarity with the impending impracticality of the winter weather to mean that you're a native?" There's a pause and he adds, "That is to say-- I don't believe we've met."
"I am. My name's Shal." The girl studies him for a moment with those intense hazel eyes. "It's a pleasure to meet you. And if our schedules don't match too well, it is reasonable enough that we never would have met." She hardly seems fussed by the question. "So I don't see any rudeness at all."
M'try, waving a finger through the air, traces out the letters; "S-H-A-L-L, Shall? As in, 'shall we sit and talk pleasantly in the garden even though it's already plowed under?'" With his brows knit, there's some obvious doubt in his expression about that spelling, about that name, about that verb even. Though the knit subsides in favor of a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, something like a smile though it doesn't quite get all the way there. "It's a pleasure to meet you, too," he answers back, a little too bright in his own eyes; probably because he hasn't actually offered a name yet, himself, but she's dispensing with the pleasantries anyway.
"Shal, one L, and I didn't ask for the name," Shal replies, shaking her head from side to side. "There probably should be an h in there, but I didn't ask for the spelling either." She pronounces it a bit more like Shawl than Shall. "I mean. Another h." She lifts her eyebrows. "And your name?"
With a short laugh, M'try offers, "S-H-A-U-W-H-L, in that case? Might as well take it to extremes?" Shaking his head, amusing himself if nothing else, he goes right on into the answer of her latter question with a pleasant, "M'try. Who would never have imagined to meet yet another soapmaker at the Weyr. What, if I may ask, compels a young woman to seek out such a hygienic profession?"
Shal stares at him for a moment, her expression very serious until a hint of mischief starts dancing around the edges of those eyes. "Well, Rider," she drawls, "when I need to wash someone's mouth out because they're making fun of my name, I have all the tools I need to hand almost every time I need them."
"Should I be making ready to run?" M'try answers, too casual to sound especially threatened by the notion. Perhaps because, "I'm not especially quick, you see, and I'll need a sizeable head start if you do intend to assault me with soap." He leans slightly to one side, peering down the open path that leads to the bowl like he's mentally planning his route here. "Do you find yourself doing this often?"
"Which part, cutting soap, sitting in abandoned gardens or chasing people down to wash their mouth out because they make fun of my name?" In spite of her threat Shal doesn't precisely jump up. She just pulls out the next set of soap. She goes to cut it, then grimaces, waving her hand in the air. She chucks that one in a different sack and grabs another bar.
After a glance skyward as if for inspiration, M'try finally answers, "Any of those. All of those. Pick the one that you would most like to answer and answer that one." There's a slight twitch of his brows, and the addition of, "We'll consider it a glimpse into your psychology, which question you preferentially answer." Although still curious, as evidenced by the fact that he's still attending Shal's occupation, he makes no effort to come closer or prod with questions or anything useful like that.
Shal studies M'try for a long moment. "Yes, soap cutting is practically a part of my daily routine," she says. She tilts her head at him, her blink slow. She says, "And what, pray tell, does that tell you about my psychology?"
"I'm afraid," M'try begins casually, lifting one shoulder in a helpless-looking shrug, "that, if I tell tell you what it tells me, it will give you a similar glimpse into my own psychology." With tremendous seriousness, it would seem, he looks back at Shal, apology written on his expression. "And I'm afraid, Shal, that we simply cannot have that." There's a well-timed beat before he adds humorously, "All of that to say-- neener, neener, I'm not telling."
Shal sticks her tongue out at him, the way one child might when another child says neener neener. "Or," she says, "it's a great way to say you're just messing around and you don't /really/ have any idea, which is what I'm inclined to think." She gestures threateningly with the soap without ever getting up from her seated position.
Leaning his head into a thoughtful tip, M'try offers, "Granted, you could have a valid point. You could. But you'll never really know for sure, will you?" That last is tacked on with a particular type of mirth, one that seems to enjoy being 'in the know' about things while the rest of the world is left wondering.
The wire slides down and a block of soap falls, and Shal says, "No, I suppose not." She arches a brow at him. "Of course, while you're making assessments about me, I'm making assessments about you. After all, really, /anything/ you say could give hints about people's psychology."
"Oh, naturally," M'try grants with a wave of his hand, a hand that falls loosely across his bent knee afterward, now as lacking in industry as it was busy earlier in the day. "Fortunately for me, Shal, I'm very confident in the knowledge that there is almost nothing you could justly assume about me from casual conversation that's even comparable to the truth about my psyche." His smile is flawless, pristine, briefly vapid, even. Then-- "Can you say the same?"
Shal shrugs her shoulders and says, "I can say that though I was briefly curious, I...don't really care about what you think is in my psyche, truth or not?" Another bar of soap hits the bench, ker-chunk. "Assume the truth, assume the lie, assume whatever you like to assume. People make judgments about people all the time, right or not."
Readily agreeing, M'try answers, "They do, they do." Make judgments about other people. "I do it almost constantly, myself. But, as evidenced, I also generally keep my own counsel about any conclusions I jump to, so it's generally harmless in my case. It's really only problematic when people start sharing what they assume with others, I find." There's the offer, in his tone, that she's welcome to chime agreement or beg to differ, he's open to conversation.
"Yes, that makes sense," Shal agrees, nodding. "Because that's when it grows hurtful. Unless of course it's complimentary, in which case people might wish to speak up more often. There are few people who can't use a little building up, from time to time." More blocks get stacked onto this soap pyramid she's building as the sack holding her work grows smaller and smaller. She pulls out the next block, though she pauses to rub at her hands. The wire makes little dents in her fingertips that reddens them, and after a time it gets a little painful.
It doesn't necessarily fit into the stream of conversation, but-- "Gloves." M'try lowers his forehead to her bothered fingers, nodding briefly at his own genius suggestion without lingering over it beyond that. "Whether hurtful or helpful, I generally find it behooves me, personally, to play things close to the breast, as they say. Probably because I'm opinionated and condescending, as a general rule." With an oh-well shrug.
"Gloves," Shal agrees, ruefully. She keeps shaking her hands out though, as if wondering why she'd never thought about that before. She says, "So you've gotten into trouble for speaking your mind before?"
With a casual carelessness, making little of the matter, M'try answers, "To the extent that it was made clear that my opinion wasn't welcome. And that I was very nearly barred from Ista Weyr. And that our Weyrleaders and theirs had to have a discussion as to the accusations inherent in my opinion." /No big deal/, right? "I also once shared my opinions," cough, "with someone in your not-so-rarified profession, actually. I haven't spoken to her in a number of years, perhaps as a result." Another oh-well shrug, it's all too much for him.
Shal listens to this narrative with her eyebrows lifting higher and higher. "That /is/ a lot of trouble just for opening one's mouth," she replies. She grabs the wire back and slices into the soap once more. She doesn't have gloves /today/. "I can see why you've made the decisions you have then, since."
M'try, lightly, "In my defense, I maintain that everything I was opining was entirely true and justified." With a slight but firm nod, so there. "Thank you," he adds with a short, light laugh after her latter words. "Your validation of my decisions means a great deal, Shal." Remember how he said he was condescending? Yeah.
But Shal only nods gravely, her own particular brand of dry humor letting the condescending words roll straight off her back. "I'm sure they do," she says. "In the great scheme of things, the psychological scheme of things, you might have very well started this conversation so that you could, in fact, tell me of this decision and demonstrate all the reasons it's the right one, because it's not one you're sure of yourself. Perhaps you wonder if you've comprimised something by being silent ever since. So you speak to someone who does not matter in your grand scheme of things--a 16 year old soapmaker in a cold garden who reminds you of the soapmaker you offended--and work through that a little bit so you can validate your own decisions while maintaining the validation of said decisions doesn't matter." Ker-chunk. "Alternatively, you're just bored out of your mind today."
With his lips pursed thoughtfully, like he's giving her assertion due consideration, M'try asks after a few moments, "Do I seem unsure? To you? I'm rather timid by nature, you see." Understatement of the century. "So I suppose it may occasionally come across even when I don't mean it to." As something of an afterthought, he adds, "You don't especially remind me of said soapmaker, for the record, excepting the identical professions and a similar remarkable intellect for your age." No argument about the level of his boredom. He has, after all, been sitting her uselessly all this while.
Now here Shal smiles. "Do you seem unsure...now should I answer that, or play the cards close to my chest? Hmmmm." She tilts her head and says, "You actually do not seem that timid, really. As for intellect," she raises her reddened hands again. "I think to wear gloves for the lye and then don't think of them to cut things with wire. I hope the years give me a bit more."
Hmmmmn, echoed right back to her, and M'try clarifies, "Perhaps timid isn't the word..." He thinks, thinks, comes up with, "Cowardly? Yes, I think that's a bit closer to the matter." He looks at her red hands when they're exposed, some measure of sympathy for her while he shows his own, not at all thusly abused, speckled with paint and ink but not painful in anyway, poor girl. "Forethought and intelligence aren't necessarily the same things, Shal," he points out with that same sympathy.
She flashes a grin and gets back to work, at least nearly at the end of the matter. "You don't seem cowardly," she says, shaking her head. "Prudence is no more the same as cowardice than foresight is to intelligence." She considers that and says, "But I can see how holding your tongue when your desire is to say /exactly/ what's on your mind might make you feel that way."
"Yes, I'm well aware of that one," M'try answers for the difference between prudence and cowardice. "I also rather like the one about discretion being the better part of valor, but neither change the fact that I am, in fact, as yellow as buttercups." And unembarrassed about it, which-- really-- props to him for that. "But we're getting rather deeply intellectual here, I'm afraid, when we ought to still be on the matter of 'hello, it's nice to meet you.' So, to that end, were you raised here, Shal?"
"Yes," Shal replies with a nod of her head. "My father also makes soap," she gestures to the soap, "And my mother works down in the kitchens. How about you?" Another chunk of soap comes out, and again when she handles this one she grimaces and chucks it right into the reject pile before grabbing the last of them.
Like he expects it to come as no surprise, M'try answers with a hand flipped vaguely in the direction of this location, "Harper Hall." Absently, having been watching all the while without interrupting the actual work excepting the chit-chat parts, he adds, "Why do you keep pitching some of them aside? Is there such a thing as defective soap?"
"Sort of," Shal says. "The two I pitched are a bit caustic still. There's still some lye in there that hasn't combined and changed well, and it will feel like it's burning your skin when you use it if I cut those up and distribute them. They won't really /burn/ you, there's not enough of it for that, but it won't feel very good either. So I'll grate those back up and add more oils to them to soften them up, work them and mold them again and then they will be just fine."
Light; "Wouldn't that make those especially good ones for the washing out of people's mouths, as you were alluding to earlier?" M'try blinks with innocent seeming curiosity at his own question, all the rest of it-- oils and burns and grating and such-- has likely gone completely past him.
"Mmmhmmmmmmmm," Shal says, flashing another one of those grins as she draws out the word. But she doesn't add the 'so watch yourself,' as he's pretty well established he /is/ watching himself.
"I wonder," M'try begins like the thought's just occurred to him, like he hasn't been sitting here formulating how best to phrase this so it sounds /just/ enough like it's not accusation that maybe she won't throw something at him, "does your father know that you've taken his profession and turned it into an outlet for sadism?"
"Of course," Shal says, grinning like a fiend. "Be sure to let him know though. He'll be extra special proud of me when he receives it in the form of a comment or concern from a Rider." She nods her head as if that seals it right in.
Whether or not M'try actually means to go through with it is debatable, but he does reach for his pencil with one hand and his notebook with the other, flipping some pages busily until he finds one suitable for scribbling at the margins. "His name? Your father's?"
"Juran," Shal says with a smirk. Her final bar of soap is cut, and she puts it on top of the stack, only to start unloading all of the stack back into the very bag she was using for the larger bars. She has to go find a more appropriate place to dry the smaller bars now.
M'try takes a guess on, "J-U-R-A-N? E-R? I'd hate to write it down wrong and get caught for it later." His pencil hovers, having gotten no farther than the J for the moment. Captain Courage isn't willing to risk a misspelling even in private!
"J," Shal says, drawing out the letter, "Uuuuuu, Rrrrr, Aaaaa, Nnnnn." She confirms it. Then she slings both bags over her shoulders. "Be careful though. Who do you think /taught/ me about washing people's mouth out with soap?" She stands, eyes twinkling.
Writing them as they're spelled, M'try makes rather elaborate gestures with his pencil. Hard, blocky letters look to be spelled out in the margins, then underlined twice, the last time punctuated by a firm nod. "Thank you. I assure you, I am always careful, especially when it comes to the fathers of young women who carry around lye soap and far-reaching threats." A gentleman might offer to carry some of her stuff; he, notably, does not.
She tilts her index finger at him, wagging it a few times. "And with that, I must be off, M'try. I have more work to do about, and my excuse for being out her is over. Thank you for a lovely conversation."
M'try's, "Good luck," seems genuine. Though, really, who knows.