[Log] But What's It /Mean/?
Who: Alina, Dziban
When: Day 9, Month 2, Turn 200
Where: Landing Field, Southern Weyr
What: Alina and Dziban discuss poetry and history.
Notes: Partial log.
---| Landing Field |--------------------------------| Southern Weyr (#33) |---
The dense jungle has released a large, spacious field from its clutches, stretching in a slightly irregular circle and large enough for an entire Flight of dragons to land or take wing comfortably. The ground is formed of slightly sandy but mostly hard-packed dirt blanketed by short blades of grass, Southern's testament to grow anything, anywhere. The larger foliage is reserved for the edges of the clearing where lush green ferns emerge from the fertile soil, and trees spread their branches in an attempt to reach the sky, shading the jungle's undergrowth in partial shadow.
Sunlight bathes every blade of grass and warms the hardened ground and the hides of several dragons basking in the sun while their riders run errands. A breeze blows through the Field, bending the grass blades to its will and causing the larger foliage to rustle and sigh.
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People: Dziban
Obvious exits:
Courtyard Lakeside Meadow Northern Weyrs Southern Weyrs
Alina enters from a verdant clearing housing dragons, riders and various tropical flora and fauna.
Alina has arrived.
Alina
Alina would stand out in any crowd. This is partially due to the fact that she looms over quite a number of her fellows, though not N'all... sorry. It could also have something to do with the wild, untamable cloud of violently flame-red curls standing out in a downright hard-to-miss halo about her head. Do these befit her temper... ahem. Look at her directly and several aspects are readily noticeable. A light dusting of the freckles possessed by most red-heads are of course there, as well as the perpetual tan of a Southerner and the windburn of someone who *cough* doesn't always wear her goggles in flight? Oops. In the midst of it all are a pair of the most strikingly vibrant jade green eyes you will ever see. A ready, lopsided grin rarely leaves this woman's face and if it does, something is definitely awry. But if one were to look closer, beneath even the finely-strung cords of muscle denoting a life not alien to its share of the rough and tumble, one would notice the almost birdlike structure of her frame. Alina is, almost surprisingly, delicate to the point of the elegance of a dancer. Her bearing speaks of fire-lizards, light and unflappably agile. Alina is outfitted in the standard uniform of any dragonrider... with her own personal touch of course, or it wouldn't be Lina. Flying helmet, jacket, boots and gloves are all created of the same shade of warm sienna brown wherhide, shining faintly in stronger illumination. Said helmet could either be on her head or dangling from one hand, depending if she's actually on her dragon or not. The pants and tunic beneath her flight attire are of equally soft but nonetheless eye-catching green, as close to malachite as can be concocted from a Weaver's dye. This is either done as a compliment to her unmistakable fire hair or she has a lifemate bias. Not sure which. On one shoulder, Alina wears the emerald, pale green and black knot of a Southern Weyr wingrider, twined with a strand of swirled malachite as a symbol of that lifemate she seems to have a bias toward... oops, admitted it after all.
Dziban
At some sixteen turns, Dziban has reached a height of 5'7" and gained a decent figure to go along with her new-found maturity. Unfortunately, she seems to care very little for her appearance. Reaching to just between her shoulderblades, her dark brown hair is curly -- and tangly and frizzy, too, as though she never brushes it. While her face isn't stunning by any means, she isn't ugly, either. Her lips are full, but chapped and bitten, often to the point of bleeding. Her eyes are sharp and intelligent, though their color is an unremarkable hazel. With her tanned skin (though still bearing a few freckles across the bridge of her small, snubbed nose), it's obvious she spends a lot of time outside.
Dziban sits idly in the middle of the field, chatting with a bluerider for the time being. When the boy moves off with his dragon, however, she stands and ambles over to a fresh spot at the edge of the clearing to stretch out in the shade of a tree, heedless of the fact that she's rather in the way.
Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. Alina would probably be watching where she's going... and that's probably seeing as she's not known for her attentiveness on the best of days... but her nose is buried in hidework as she walks. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle--"Oof!" Tripping over thin air is uncoordinated but not unheard of, and so it goes as the greenrider ends up kneeling in the dirt. "Ow. Uh... hi. Nobody saw that right? Did somebody see that?"
"See what?" Dziban asks almost immediately, pushing herself partially upright to eye the greenrider. "Did you fall? How do I miss all the good stuff?" is asked, her tone just a bit whiny. Then, pausing, she remembers her manners and stands up. "You okay?" wonders the girl as she ambles over to Alina and offers a hand. "Didn't hurt yourself or nothing, didja?"
Alina can't exactly miss the girl walking over, nor can she miss the hand offered to her. She'll miss everything else, but close proximity is hard to ignore. That hide is shifted to one hand, the better to accept the assistance up. "Cheers... uh, no, nope I'm fine, Kiri'd kill me if I wasn't... well ok, maybe not literally do me in, she's sorta my lifemate. But anyway, I'm fine. Wishin' I hadn't done that. Thanks Khysta." Khysta? Name exchange ahoy! "Er... wait, you're not Khysta...?"
"Dziban, actually," the girl corrects cheerfully, as though the name mix-up is nothing out of the ordinary. "Who're you? Have we met? You look kind of familiar, but then again, you don't. So you're an, um--" she does a quick knot check "--greenrider? With... Kiri? Odd name for a dragon, huh?"
Somewhere, someplace out of the hearing of the two humans, a green dragon is snorting in consternation at her quirky rider. "Kirienth," Lina corrects, clouding eyes telling tales of a silent rebuff for the nickname. "And it's Lina... er, Alina she's making me say, yeesh girl keep your tail out of a knot! Not you, Kiri I mean, you haven't got a tail and... hmm? Oh, Dziban, ok sorry. My blunder. Anyway well met and all that... stuff like that. Did I drop the--" a glance skitters downward, green gaze finding the hide still clasped in one hand. "Oh there it is."
Dziban blushes slightly. "Oh. Right. Kirienth," she agrees, nodding quickly. Even she, though, looks a bit lost as Alina talks, cocking her head slightly. "Dziban," she repeats, just for something to say. "And don't worry about it. I'm kind of used to it, I think. Most people can't even say my name, let alone remember it. I mean, even my mom has to run through several before she gets it right." Pause. "Couse, if I had a dozen kids, I think I'd be hard pressed to keep up with names, too. Shells, I'd have a time keeping up with the kids." She grins crookedly, then, noticing the hide, wonders, "What's that?"
Alina ill suppresses a smirk at the kids comments, "'Tis why I've only got the one... the one kid that is, not the one hide. Trust me I've got more than that... oh, this. Nothin' much, poetry is all. Not very good even, I've just got ideas up the everywhere these past couple days and have to write 'em all down or forget... either that or have Kiri talk my ear off till I found my stylus. And anyway, well--wait, I said that." Absent is the filter between brain and mouth it seems, and equally absent-minded fingers flick one corner of that ever talked about hide. Verses are visible for a half second with every rustling *flick*.
Dziban grimaces. "Poetry, huh? I'm bad at that. Tried to write a song once, with a friend of mine, about when we all went back in time to the other Pass, and it, um, well. Didn't turn out too well, anyway," she admits, shrugging. "Can I read it?"
Alina unconsciously--consciously maybe? clasps that hide just slightly closer to herself, verses vanishing from sight for the moment. "'Tisn't very good, trust me... you did? Ooh! Last time I tried writing anything was after the last Fall we all flew in the other time, before everybody came here. Or wait... maybe 'twas the last time Kiri was proddy--" aha! Could that explain the rambling? "Anyway... it's about... well never mind what it's about. Like I said it's crummy."
Unceremoniously, Dziban takes a seat on the ground and leans back to stare up at Alina. "Aw, come on. It can't be /that/ bad. When me and Aedajja tried writin' that song, the only thing we could come up with is that B'asil's really short. Which is true, but hardly the epic we really wanted it to be. So what's it about? I'm curious. Can't you at least tell me that?" Invitingly, she gestures to the ground beside her.
To this, there is only one answer. Lina breaks into a resounding laugh as Dziban's song lyrics get told. "That be all you--ah *shardit*! Now I wanna hear this!" The laugh is quickly followed by a *flump*, the sound of one Lina landing on the ground beside the hunter. Thud, and she's no longer such a torture to anyone looking up... and up, and well never mind. "Alright, alright, all *right* I'll talk. 'Tis about the leap forward but you didn't hear that outta me."
"I don't even really remember, but we went on in that vein for quite a while," Dziban admits, grinning. She leans forward to listen intently to Alina, brows arching. "Really? That was fun, wasn't it? I mean, it was the /past/. I loved it. Course, soon as I got back, Dad was grillin' me on what it was like 'n' all that, and it's too bad we were actually desperate enough to do it, but it was still worth it. So will you read some of it to me, then?"
Alina leans back, hide now scribbled side down in her lap as both hands brace against the ground. "Your past, my present, or... wait am I gettin' that right? Oh yeah I am, your present my--ah beans! Whatever, however that went, either way those were amazing times to live in. And yeah, 'tis a shame it had to be done but... right, what you said. It worked after all. You sure you wanna hear any of this? Mostly it's about the people from before, the ones didn't leap y'know."
"Um." Blink. Dziban looks lost again, but she shrugs it off, noting, "Yeah, sure. Go ahead. I mean, sure I don't know a lot of them -- most of them, probably, and the ones I do know, not so well, considering we, erm, weren't there for very long, anyway -- but I wanna hear it. It's interesting. I like history. Just don't tell my dad that, or I'll /never/ get rid of him." She focuses raptly on Alina.
"Yeah, I never told my family that either when I was living at the seahold... they'd have tossed me overboard next time I'd gone shipboard probably--ah shell it, you really wanna hear this?" Lina doesn't sound particularly thrilled at the prospect of reading her work aloud. A final muttered protest, a last resigned sigh and the hide does flip over however. "Kiri if she laughs I swear I'm gonna tell the whole shardling *weyr* 'twas you made me do it--" that said, the greenrider plunges onward. "When liquid embers blaze to dawn, when torchlight would all consume, when fire-bright and crimson wine by right their titles claim, two entwined would be their numbers, two in legend gathering, two at once and like no other--" pause, cough. "I dunno what goes next. I forgot the words."
"The thing about Dad," Dziban admits, "is that /he/ likes history, too. He does the archivist-type stuff, and he'd be pestering me all the time about it." She shrugs, though, and settles in to listen, plastering a goofy half-smile on her face as Alina continues. "Um. That's good. Really, uh, descriptive," she says when the woman stops. Then: "What's it mean?"
Alina would answer immediately, really she would. She's hindered by the radiant magenta flush that floods her face as Dziban asks the killer question. "Eep!" is the highly undignified peeping sound that squeaks out of her. "Um... sorry. I know I know it's weird, it's really weird and that's why I didn't wanna read it. I've just got all sorts o' verses like that in my head today, dunno why. It's about the double clutch, the one both the weyrleaders' dragons at Ierne hatched from, y'know. The one when... oh never mind."
"Oooh," says Dziban, thus enlightened. "I guess that makes sense. Yeah. I can see it now," she adds with a burst of confidence and what she hopes is a charming grin. "I don't know the Ierne people, though. Heard lots of stuff about them -- and that double clutch deal. So you saw it? What was it like?"
"What was it like?" Uh-oh. Poor, poor Dziban, she's hit the memory button. "Weeeell," and here Lina does a fair immitation of Khysta despite the name mistake of earlier, "for starters the eggs were all *amazing*. Fifty-one there were, so the candidate barracks were about to busting. Trust me on that one. And oh! The hatching was all rainy and drippy and you couldn't see a single shardling solitary thingie! Even the dragons had a time seein' things. My sister was a candidate and I couldn't tell if she was even down there for all the rain 'n' mist."
Dziban stares, wide-eyed, at Alina. "Really? That musta been /awful/. I mean, what if you got mauled or something? I remember way back when my second-oldest brother impressed: it was a clear day then and I still had a hard time keepin' up with everything. Course, I was still kinda young, but still. And that many eggs! That's just amazing in itself!"