[Log] So Here I Am
Who: Aida, Katric (NPC)
When: Day 16, Month 5, Turn 2, 7th Pass
Where: Holding Room, High Reaches Weyr
What: Aida comes to talk to Katric after his capture.
It's been a few days since the incident on the sands, and Katric is still being held in an unused room down in the lower caverns. There are guards posted constantly at the door, but inside the little space he's alone, left to his thoughts. Most of his time has been occupied with pacing restlessly across the length of the room, counting steps after he discovered that banging on the door, that yelling, all was to no avail: the guards are ignoring him; he's alone.
It is with some measure of trepidation that Aida slips down in the direction of the unused room, the young woman not quite sure if she really wants to do this. When she sees the guard already present she relaxes some, exhaling a soft breath of air and losing some of that reluctance. There's an older man trailing her at this point, but she draws up and turns her head to offer a few quiet words, gesturing to the guards already present. A bit of brief discussion, and then she's finishing the rest of her walk, putting on a wry smile for the guards. "Evening," she greets, drawing up a polite enough distance back. "I'd like to see him, if that's alright."
One of the guards, a stiff-necked, burly fellow, opens his mouth to retort a reply, undoubtedly a refusal; but the second guard, with an officer's knot, lifts a hand to quiet him. "No, no. She's okay," he tells his companion. "Aida, right. We was told you might be down this way. Have at--we'll be right out here if you need us." And he reaches to open the door for her, gesturing inside. Within, Katric freezes, stiffening as the door swings inward to allow the visitor.
"Yes," Aida agrees with a smile, giving a little dip of her head. "I would be her. Thank you." Gracious, that smile, that little bowing of her head. "And thank you; I am hoping that I will not need assistance, but..." She trails off there, leaving the implication to make her point for her. With that said, she moves to step in through the open door, chin high. "Katric." Aside from the splint on her wrist, she is most certainly looking none the worse for wear.
Except for his caged-animal pacing and a distinct tiredness to his eyes, Katric looks much the same as the last time she saw him. Raking a hand backward through his hair, he pulls his lips back in a strained smile, not particularly humorful. "Aida." He relaxes only slightly to see it's not J'cor, or Yevide, or anyone else here to decree his fate. "I didn't... What are you doing here?" he asks. The two guards, though they're not really eavesdropping, keep the door half-open to keep an eye on proceedings.
Good, the door stays open. Aida brings her good hand up to rub a finger along the bridge of her nose as she eyes the former healer, circling over to lean up against the wall not too far from her escape route. "I was told that you asked to see me," she points out quietly. "So here I am."
"Oh. That." For all it was his request, Katric doesn't look terribly thrilled to find Aida before him. He fidgets, tugging on the hem of his shirt and finally sliding to the floor himself, where he seats himself cross-legged and glances up at the woman on the other side of the room. "So, uh. How are you? You look--well, you look fine," he says lamely. "I didn't really... I hadn't really thought about it, see, what I'd do if--" He glances around the room, to the guards lurking outside, to indicate his captivity "--and so I just kind of... blurted out the first thing I thought of," is his eventual slow explanation.
Leaning her weight back against the wall, Aida slides herself down along it and into a crouch, wrapping her arms loosely around her knees. It's a ready posture, but she does at least seem somewhat relaxed. Not too surprising, with the guards so close. "I'm fine," she replies, giving a little shake of her head. "Another week or two, and the splint will even be off. I've been having nightmares like you wouldn't believe, but..." She trails off, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. "Blurted out, huh? Didn't expect me to actually come? Lot of people wondering, now, why I was involved in eggs being smashed."
Katric turns now to plucking absently at a string on his pants, tugging at it until finally it breaks off. Then, he rolls it between the thumb and forefinger of one hand, restless, but with nothing else to do. "Sorry," he tells her, though without much genuine apology in the tone. "Guess I didn't think about that. You, uh... Why did you come? Really?"
"Because you asked to see me," Aida points out patiently, giving a little shake of her head at him and offering a small smile. "That's the long and the short of it. I...wasn't sure if there was something you wanted, or needed, or...whatever. I can go, if you'd rather I do so?" And she unwraps her arms, starting to straighten up from her crouch.
"No, no!" Katric hastily reassures Aida, rising as she moves to do so, and holding his hands out to stay her. The guards, at his raised tone, peek in the door, and he meets their gazes warily, resettling himself quickly. "You don't have to," he offers again, quieter. "I--the company's nice." A shrug. "Didn't really have anything in particular on my mind right then, just... Well. Anyway. I--so how are you?" He asked that already. He tries again: "You didn't... You didn't really mean all that stuff you said, did you?"
Turning her head to glance over her shoulder towards the door, Aida offers a reassuring smile. All is well, really. She settles herself back into her crouch, eyes swinging back to Katric as she regards him evenly. "A lot of it, no," she answers honestly. "Parts of it, certainly. Which bits, precisely, are you asking about?"
"All of it in general?" suggests Katric. It's his turn now to lean against the wall, frowning at the crouched girl. "Just... What /was/ the truth? Just so I know. Do--" a glance to the guards; he doesn't finish the name "--he said it was all just lies, but." A shrug.
"Of course he did," Aida replies quietly, chuckling softly and rolling her eyes. "It wouldn't do for you to feel kindly towards me, especially if there's the potential you're going to have to hurt me again." And with those words, her eyes lift to catch and hold Katric's gaze. Go go, eye contact. "Would it? You think I'd be here if it was all lies?"
Katric snorts. "What's one more, at this point?" he asks her in return.
"Okay, I'll grant you that point," Aida replies promptly, rolling her eyes and glancing away from him. "Logic, though, Katric. What do I gain from lying to you at this point? You're caught. I'm *here* because you *asked* for me. You can read whatever you want to into that, or take whatever /Donavon/ said over my word, but it's not *my* word that's got you *here*, now, is it."
Like a rebellious teenager tuning out a parent, Katric glances away and rolls his eyes, shoulders lifting in a half-hearted shrug. "I guess, whatever," he agrees. "Anyway, so what part of it was the lie, then?"
Thud. That would be Aida planting her behind on the floor, her posture relaxing considerably further. She wraps her arms around her legs again, setting her chin on her knees and fixing blue eyes up on his face again, all attentiveness. "It's easier if I'm a liar, isn't it?" She asks, tone touching with a sympathetic note. "Am I just making this worse?" One shoulder is lifted in a little shrug of her own. "You expect me to be able to remember everything I said? I'm sorry; I don't. Most of it's a blur. If I said I agreed with your methods...I don't. If I said I understood your position? I do."
"If you understood, you'd agree," Katric answers flatly. "We got to do what's best for the Weyr, in the end, and, well. It sucks some people got to get hurt in the process, but them's the breaks. We give them plenty of time to make things right, and they're just too stupid to see it, too stupid to take it." Pause. "Easier?" he adds after a moment, glancing back at her. He still hasn't reseated himself.
"What did a few baby dragons dying accomplish?" Aida points out softly, giving a little shake of her head. "I can't agree. I just...I can't. There has to be a better way. But I'm an optimist, and an idealist, and...stupid, I guess." Her lips twist into a wry smile, and her eyes drop again to settle on the floor between where she sits and where he stands. "Easier on you, I mean. If I'm just some lying bint without a brain, you can be mad at me." Her eyes lift, focus on him again. "I still don't understand why you asked for me, if you despise me so much."
Katric's brows knit as he regards Aida again, finally slipping down the wall himself to the floor, where he sprawls gracelessly. "I can be mad at you anyway," he protests, though he quickly adds, "I never said I despised you, though. What... What would /you/ do, then? You'll all gung-ho yay Igen, right. You're /happy/ they've just marched in here and took advantage of our Weyr, used our--our Ganathon to get a foothold. And now they've thrown him away again. We deserve better than them, all of us. Even Sinopa'd be better, because at least she means well and she's not smart enough to mess things up /this/ good."
"I did not say I am either gung-ho yay Igen /or/ that I'm happy about the circumstances," Aida snaps, voice finally sharpening as she narrows her eyes at him. "But there is a whole /world/ between 'yay, Weyrleaders' and 'I'm going to kill the baby dragons'." There she pauses, and her voice softens again, calming bakc out. "Just because I don't agree with what you did, it doesn't mean I deserve to be hurt. I don't know what I'd do, because I'm not you, and I don't have the ability to change this thing. I don't /know/."
Katric snorts again, shaking his head. "So you know we're right, you're just scared to do something about it. Faranth. We can change the world if we want to--the Instigators did." Nevermind they got exiled for their efforts. "We can, too. /We're/ right here, and we're going to win. Doesn't matter if they caught me, there's still plenty of people out there to fix things."
"And look what happened to them," Aida points out, giving a little shake of her head. "They didn't change the world; they stirred things up. There's a difference. And even /they/ tried reason /first/, rather than leaping straight to killing people. I'm not *scared*, Katric. I think there are other avenues that ought to be pursued before you go to such extreme measures. That's just how I feel. I *do* understand that the ends justify the means. I understand. But I don't agree." Beat. "I also don't have to, because how I feel doesn't matter. At all."
"So what do we do, then? They won't listen to us unless we make them," insists Katric. "Your opinion doesn't matter because you don't make it. You have to take what you want, 'cause no one is going to give it to you. Reason? We've tried reasoning with people, for all the good it's done. We've warned them and told them and now we're showing them." It's as simple as that in his mind.
"And what good has this done?" Aida asks, tone gentling again. "Persuasion is different than threats, Katric. It just is." She shakes her head again, drops her chin down to set it on her knees. "It's a moot point, anyway. Are you holding up okay?"
Katric doesn't meet Aida's eyes at her question, only frowning and turning his face away, toward the guarded door. Silence. Then: "I'm fine. Just... fine. Waiting for them to make up their minds what to do. My money's on exile now--if they were going to kill me, they'd've done it right away, while everybody was still all worked up about it." A shrug, as though it were no difference to him.
"I doubt they'll kill you," Aida agrees, letting her lashes drift down over her eyes to obscure her gaze. "Hopefully. I haven't really heard anything about what's going to be done, though." Those words are followed by a quiet little sigh. "Anybody else been to see you, yet?"
"Is that concern I hear?" queries Katric as he glances back, managing a dry smirk for the seated girl. A snort. "Anybody else? Like who, Donavon?" Since she's said the name already, he's not so shy about it. "Faranth, like they would, even if they /could/. And there's nobody else."
"Pfft, I'm incapable of concern," Aida tells him dryly, lashes lifting once more so she can look back up towards him with her own wry little smile. "Sorry. And...yeah, I don't know. I just figured somebody might have been. It'd be dumb of them to, though. Sort of sucks, being cooped up and isolated, huh?" With that question, she offers up her most angelic smile. "I sympathize."
"We took good care of you," Katric retorts, his tone sour again, though whether that change is due to her mention of the kidnapping or her declared lack of concern is debateable. "And you were outside, not locked up in a little room. They don't even talk to me!" He gestures wildly at the door, earning a stern look from the guard who catches the movement.
There's no argument given, exactly; Aida instead lifts her broken hand up so he can see it, then drops it again to wrap her arm back around her leg. "I was teasing, you know," she points out. "You're supposed to find it funny. And of course they don't talk to you -- need I remind you that /you/ were the only one who talked to me, and you kept getting griped at and smacked for it?"
Katric looks shifty as Aida points that out. He shrugs, not exactly confirmation or denial, and finally settles for noting, "I didn't think it was very funny."
Okay, she can't help it. At that? Aida's lips curve up into an impish smile. "Come on," she points out. "If I can joke about my experience, you can at least /try/ and find the humor, here. I think I'm taking all of that pretty well, don't you?"
"Yeah, you got brought back home just fine," retorts Katric, though his peevishness is thinly veiled over grudging amusement. "Nobody's been threatening to leave you out for Thread. So you're... okay. Guess that guy of yours was happy to see you back, huh?" he asks casually.
"No, I do believe you were talking about just slitting my throat," Aida observes, flashing a grin up at him. It fades a bit at his last words, and she gives a roll of her eyes. "Yeah, I guess," she says. "We've been fighting a lot. But he's thrilled. Of course."
Katric's brows arch. "Hey, now, that was Donavon. I think. I'd've just fellised you up, like Ley--" he breaks off, too late recalling that's probably not something she's aware of. Quickly, he glosses over that, noting, "Fighting? Shards, the man is an idiot. I sure wouldn't pick a fight soon as I got you back. I'd be giving you whatever you wanted."
An eyebrow quirks, but Aida does not press on the issue of that first statement. No, she doesn't really *need* any more than that. She sets her chin back down on her knees again, giving a little shrug of her shoulders. "It happens," she says. "I mean...well. It happens. I don't know if I agree that he's an idiot."
"People never see it when they're in love," agrees Katric sadly. "It's only afterward that they realize they've been idiots, too, sticking it out that long when all they do is fight and make-up and all that. It's not healthy--I know. I took some mind-healing classes." He nods sagely, apparently the expert on this subject.
"Well, I fight with everyone," Aida points out, giving another little shrug of her shoulders. "Which no, is probably not healthy, but...oh well?" She lifts her chin, turning her head so she can look up towards the door. "I should probably get going, soon." Not that she moves to actually get up, just yet.
Katric shrugs as well. "We're not fighting," he points out. "Debating, arguing, maybe, but not /fighting/. That's different." Another shrug. He's silent several seconds, watching her, before he cuts his eyes sideways to the door again. "Oh, right. Yeah, it's... probably late, I guess. Wouldn't know--haven't seen daylight in... a while," he finishes lamely.
"It's pretty late," Aida agrees, uncurling and shifting to shove herself up to her feet. A bit too much weight pressed onto her bad hand draws out a squeak and a wince, but it only takes her a heartbeat to compensate and slide up. "And yeah, it is different. But..." Another shrug. "I'll visit again."
Katric's lips purse as he watches Aida rise, particularly as she aggravates her injury. "Yeah. I... I'll see you around," he agrees, with a small smirk. "Good night, Aida." The guards, catching these words, peek around the doorway as well, and the officer bumps it open a little wider for her to exit. Katric doesn't move from his spot on the floor.
"Night," Aida says lightly, offering a reassuring smile. Nothing more than that; she lifts a hand to wave, and then she's turning to slide back out the door. "Thank you," she tells the guard, giving a dip of her head in thanks. It's only /after/ the door has been shut that she allows herself to make the face and to shudder.