Friends don't let friends cry drunk
Who: Essdara, Penny
When: After her meeting with Sefton
Where: The store rooms
Comment: Might be a bit disjointed, it took us three days to do this relatively short scene. Dara came very close to telling someone her own secret, without meaning to, and is glad she was probably too drunk to even remember the hint.
Stores
Upon entering this immense cavern, the nose is assaulted with a miasma of scents-- spices and old hides and stored clothing and dry goods and an older musty smell that is likely linked to dust and the inevitable decay that strikes any storage cavern. While the Weyr does follow a strict organizational system that ensures that like is stored with or near like, it's still possible to lose one's self here without a solid knowledge of the shelves' layout. These shelves are impressive, too. They rise from floor to shadowed ceiling, wall to distant wall, separated by wide aisles that hold carts and ladders for the fetching and transportation of required goods. Two tunnels exit this cavern. The first is a short tunnel that leads to the upper caverns. The second, much longer, takes a person directly to the kitchens.
The stores are dark, the glows long left unchanged, the hour being much later than anyone has reason to be in the stores. It's just as well, for if someone were to venture far enough down the maze of shelves and crates, they would almost certainly hear a woman crying in the silence. Penny sits with her back against the cold stone wall, in a space between two shelving units, a shielded glow at her feet that leaves her in the dark. She does not wail, or sniffle, or sob in a feminine, acceptably woeful way -- she cries with a sort of grim determination, that of someone forcing a catharsis, here in the dark where she can't be laughed at or pitied for it.
Alas for Penny, who sober might know better, but Dara is on her normal nightly explorations of the caverns. Ears picking up the sound in the otherwise silent cavern, she makes her way towards the source. When she gets close enough for her own glow to illuminate Penny, she looks surprised, and concerned. "Penny? You ok? What're you..." She cuts that off; what she is doing is bloody obvious. The girl moves to kneel by her. "What happened?" She asks, instead.
Caught mid-gasp for breath, Penny looks up into the sudden light of the glow, which glistens on her wet cheeks. "Dara," she gulps, valiantly and somewhat frantically attempting to pull herself together. She actually does a fairly decent job of it, all the pieces of her expression sliding into place with a familiarity that borders on rote habit. "I'm-- not-- I can't--" And that's all she can say, a little catch in her voice signifying the end of coherent, non-tearful speech. She seems to know this, falling silent and just staring into the light like some nocturnal animal caught -- well, in a beam of light.
Essdara sets the glow aside carefully, light away so they can see, without being directly in it, and touches her shoulder lightly; the hug is plainly offered in her stance. "You can't what, Penny? What happened? Did someone..." She trails that question off; some things even she can't ask. She lapses quiet, then, decideing that perhaps the best thing now is to not try to make the girl talk.
Penny's eyes slide from Essdara's face, not able to look into that concern. She seems a bit unfocused, and her movements are heavy; to someone experienced enough, she would certainly appear slightly intoxicated, or at least very tired. She shakes her head then, a twitch of a smile coming to her lips. "No, I'm not-- I wasn't--" The tears have stopped, immediately ceased as soon as Essdara's presence became known, only the dampness on her cheeks remaining as evidence of their existance. That and the redness about her eyes and nose, and the somewhat swollen, darker red lips.
Essdara, seeing she's not needing immidiate comfort, instead sits down beside her, and looks out into the darkness. After a long moment, she speaks. "Nothing wrong with crying you know. Can help a lot. I can't even begin to tell you how much better I felt about Roa rejecting me, after I had the chance to just have someone I trust hold me, and let it all out. Needed that, badly, and don't think I could really think properly about the situation until I did. S'why I've been so depressed."
"The therapeudic qualities of a good cry are widely known," Penny says, seizing on something -- anything -- to say and finding something that makes her sound far much more like her healer friend than her typical self. "Some mindhealers are starting to actually recommend that people do it on purpose now and again." She sounds like a textbook, still not looking at Essdara; the glow light, for the moment has captured her attention.
Essdara doesn't seem keen to force eye contact, or anything similar. No, she keeps looking out in the darkness. "I don't think." She says, carefully, "They recommend finding a dark corner to crawl into, and cry in the darkness." She sighs, softly. "Though I admit, I've done plenty of that myself. It didn't help."
"Where else would you suggest I do it?" asks Penny, raising an eyebrow, a bit of dark humor creeping into her voice. Yes, she has herself under control now, the tight control of someone absolutely determined not to shed another tear in someone else's presence. "You know as well as I do how little privacy there is in this place. I thought about going for a walk, but it's very cold out, and I'm... not feeling too well," she says, somewhat lamely, of her being somewhat under the influence.
Essdara sighs, softly. She is quiet a few long moments, uncertain of what to do. Finally, though, she has to say something. "Penny... I think, if you found me here, crying alone in the dark... You would do whatever you could to help me, to make me feel better... I know we haven't known each other long, but you seem to care. Well... I do too. And I don't like what I am seeing and hearing. What can I do to help you? I am here, and I am your friend, and whatever happened, whatever has you so sad... You know I won't judge you, or spread rumors, or any of that."
Penny listens to Dara's little testimonial evenly, not making any efforts to cut her short. She even smiles a little, at the end, a whimsical little quirk of her lips that would, if Dara had known her then, put her in mind of Penny as a little girl. "You're quite right," she replies. That said, she doesn't seem inclined to offer to shed any light on her condition, falling silent again for a long time before she murmurs almost apologetically, "I don't do this often." Though whether she means cry, or talk to another person in such a personal way, it's hard to tell.
Essdara looks over at her. "I can't say do this often myself. There's not ever been many people I cared enough about, really, to want to help. T'zen, not that he'd ever notice. Roa, who I'd never be able to help anyway. You... And I don't know if I can or not. But I... I don't want to leave you here, alone and sad. I'd never forgive myself for not trying."
Penny's eyes flicker towards Essdara finally, meeting hers for just a moment before she looks away again. "I understand." And it sounds as though she really does, a note of apology somewhere underneath that understanding. Her expression twists momentarily, and it's after a long pause that she finally speaks. "There are no female smiths," she says finally. "It doesn't happen. My craft, though I love it, is not the most accepting of change -- ironic, considering we are the ones that create the inventions and processes that change Pern." She stops, clearing her throat of any lumps that might be hiding there. "I don't think I would have been one, were I not my father's -- Derien's -- daughter." Her mention of the well-known Mastersmith's name is an afterthought, as if it just occurred to her that Dara might not know whose daughter she was. She doesn't really sound as though she's finished, though she stops, swallowing.
Essdara says, softly, "It takes a lot of courage to do something that the world doesn't think you should, Penny. But you are amazing, and can handle it, I know you can. And anyone who looks down on you just because you are a girl is a fool. There's nothing boys can do that girl's can't do just as well, if not better, and you are proof of that."
Penny turns a smile on the girl, head tilting slightly to the side as she regards her with a bit more warmth. "You're sweet to say so. I have no doubts that I'm just as good as any of the male journeymen who'll eventually be vying for a master position -- if not better. The problem is that Pern in general, and specifically the Conclave, has to agree." She looks away, out into the dark stores, musingly. "I came here in order to meet the right people, the future leaders -- I have no doubt that when I'm up for mastership, every one of the Conclave will be someone who was at one time a member of the Caucus. I planned to come here and focus on charming all the important people. I'm very likeable." She says it quite frankly, matter-of-factly, as if saying the time of day.
Essdara agrees. "You are very likable. Certainly, I wouldn't be here with you if you weren't! And that sounds like a logical plan to me, there are certainly enough Important People," She makes the words an insult, "To choke a starving dragon. But, I dare say, most of /them/ aren't likable, and... Wouldn't the ones who are open to liking you like you either way, meeting you before or not?"
Penny shrugs, lifting one shoulder absently. "Who can say? But the idea was to focus entirely on these people, the heirs and future craftmasters, to the exclusion of all others whether I liked them or not. I couldn't afford distractions. But the truth is, I found myself meeting people I genuinely liked, and having an aversion to those I didn't -- and one day of 'Oh, I'll just relax this one' turned into two, and into a sevenday, and a month, and now, a Turn later, I've nothing to show for myself except for so much knowledge about fashion I might turn into Bailie." A bit of humor is injected here, a dry twist that aids her in avoiding the teary end of the spectrum. "The Headmaster was so kind as to point this out to me. A rude awakening that merely confirmed the doubts I was trying not to think about." And this caused her to cry so bitterly? Strange indeed, if so.
Essdara tilts her head, "The headmaster? I met him the other day, he was... Strange, but he didn't seem mean." A quiet moment. "Penny, isn't it more important to be /yourself/? If you just manipulate people of influence into liking you... Could you like as that kind of person? Lying, misleading, pretending to be things you are not and hiding the things you are? I don't think anyone would be happy like that, and least of all you. I know you want to be a Master. But I think you will get there just fine without subverting yourself and twisting yourself to get there. Because if you become a master, but all you have left is the shattered remains of a life... What was the point?"
"He's not mean at all," Penny says, surprised, glancing over at Essdara. "He's one of my dearest, oldest friends. We grew up together." Her voice, as she speaks of him, carries with it a certain special brand of warmth, no doubt intensified by the alcohol in her system. "He said the things he said for my own good. He said nothing I didn't know was true." She shakes her head, quirking a smile. "I don't have to be ruthless and inhuman to get there, no. But I can't afford... complications." There's the briefest hesitation before the word. "I don't mean to sound like my every move must be thought of in advance; but the truth is that my first Turn here has been wasted on people I will only know, at best, for a few more Turns, and who will not be able to assist me in the future." She lifts a hand to her head, closing her eyes against the dizzying effects; her tongue is noticeably looser, but so are the tears, as evidenced by the faint tremble of her lips.
Essdara can't entirely hide the hurt at those words, but does her best to hide them. "That depends on your definition of helping you, I guess. If all that counts is influencing the conclave, then no. But if supporting you and caring about you do, then I'd like to think we aren't quite so useless." She touches the woman's shoulder again lightly, "And I do care, and I will help how I can. Maybe... Maybe he didn't say what is true, but what you THINK is true, and he wanted you to think about, perhaps, other ways of reaching your goals other than the one you have chosen? He seems to like to make people think... How does making you cry do that, if it's just things you know but don't want to pay attention to?"
"I don't want to... hurt," Penny says, staring absently into the darkness, "when I leave here. There are people I've started to care about as genuinely as my family at home, and I have such a short time here." She can't have seen the hurt in Essdara's expression at her previous sentences, staring off into space the way she is, and yet her words address that very issue. She sighs, looking down at her lap, spots from teardrops wet on her skirt. "I don't think so -- it's not Sefton's style, as far as I'm concerned. He was very serious. I can't do both, you know; I can't ever have that... that..." And here she comes perilously close to losing again. "I can't be a master and a wife, or a mother. I would never be happy abandoning my craft for that, and yet I would never be satisfied letting someone else raise my children so I could work. It's one or the other, and the more I dally in the one, the harder it becomes to go back to the other. Sefton knows me, and knows the family I grew up in and how strong the appeal of such a life is; he said what he said because someone needed to say it to me. I don't imagine he enjoyed upsetting me." Her voice sounds as smooth as ever, but now a tear begins making its way slowly down her cheek again.
Essdara is quiet a long moment as she tries to assimilate that. "I don't want you to hurt, either. I can't imagine having to make that choice, between family and work. I know I'll only ever have the one, so I don't have that temptation. But... Why can't you be both? Masters have been doing that for enturies, haven't they? Would it be so bad to compromise, that little bit, if it meant you could have everything you want?"
"Male masters," Penny corrects Essdara, irritably brushing the tear away. "Not female ones. The amount of work it takes to reach master status is staggering, particularly for a woman, and as far as the records show, there's never even been a female one among the smiths. There's simply no way that I could be a good wife to a man and raise his children; and I don't think I could tolerate a man who'd be content to sit in his wife's shadow. Sefton understands that far too well." There's the slightest hint of bitterness there, though just then a little of Essdara's speech penetrates Penny's misery, and she looks at the girl in puzzlement. "You never know. You're very young to say that you'll never find love or family that way."
Essdara says, "I never said I wouldn't find love. But I assure you, Penny, there is a lot more to the world, and to happiness, and to family, and to love, than children. OK, you will never be Pern's best mother. But that doesn't mean you can't ever have anything that fulfills you, emotionally, does it?""
Penny laughs, a low chuckle. "You've very correct, Essdara." She shakes her head. "I assure you, I'm not usually like this. It was just one too many things at once. Sefton was... is, I suppose, probably the one person that knows me best in the whole world, by a long way. To find him disappointed in me... I find it's almost unbearable." And she really does seem miserable, eyes lowered and blank; no doubt she's thinking.
Essdara sighs and, for lack of knowing what else to say or two, turns and wraps her arms around the smith. "If he knows you as well as you say he does, if he was as good a friend as you say, and if they were really things you needed to hear... Wouldn't he have to say them, and mean them, even if he knew it would hurt you? I dunno, I've only met him the once. And I admit, in some ways... He really intimidated me. but he didn't seem like the type of person who would do something like this to someone he likes, if he didn't absolutely have to?"
Penny stiffens noticeably as the girl embraces her, eyes flickering over to the side at Dara's head. But she's not so cold that she doesn't appreciate her gesture, forcing herself to relax and patting her somewhat awkwardly on the hand. "I don't doubt he means it for the best, and it's something I know I have to hear. I'm afraid he and I are starting to grow apart, though. He used to treat me differently." She blinks, shaking her head. "I've no idea why I'm talking about Sefton." She clears her throat, blinking a few more times and straightening up. "I'm afraid I feel like I'm sobering up. I either need to find another drink or I need to get away somewhere before the headache hits me."
Essdara lets go, and pulls away a little bit with a sigh. "If you have to go, then make it to bed. Wine won't solve your problems. It never does. Just... Go to bed. Sleep. Feel better in the morning. And if you need to talk, find me. Or something. Or don't. Whatever you need to do."
Penny's lips quirk again, this time into a more natural-looking smile. "You're sweet," she tells the girl, touching a hand gently to her cheek before letting it fall. "Sleep, I do believe, will cure quite a lot of things." She makes as if to stand, but then hesitates, glancing at the cook. "I'm sure that I don't need to ask this, but... don't tell anyone about this? I think at this point my reputation could hardly stand being found tearful and rather drunk in the storerooms in the middle of the night."
Essdara laughs softly, "If you can keep the secret that I'm in love with a goldrider, I think I can keep the secret that you're human. Go, and rest, Penny. And if you have a nasty hangover or anything in the morning... Come see me. I know a few things that help there, too."
That elicits a laugh from Penny, in spite of herself. "It seems I have people reminding me left and right that I'm human," she murmurs wryly, getting slowly to her feet accompanied by the pop and groan of her joints, stiff from sitting so long on the stone floor. "Perhaps I should start listening, hmm?" Her look is fond, but also containing some of its usual distance, noticeable only because of the contrast to her earlier vulnerability -- she's got it together again now. "Goodnight, Dara, and thank you."
Essdara looks up at her, leaning back against the wall they shared. "Good night, Penny."
When: After her meeting with Sefton
Where: The store rooms
Comment: Might be a bit disjointed, it took us three days to do this relatively short scene. Dara came very close to telling someone her own secret, without meaning to, and is glad she was probably too drunk to even remember the hint.
Stores
Upon entering this immense cavern, the nose is assaulted with a miasma of scents-- spices and old hides and stored clothing and dry goods and an older musty smell that is likely linked to dust and the inevitable decay that strikes any storage cavern. While the Weyr does follow a strict organizational system that ensures that like is stored with or near like, it's still possible to lose one's self here without a solid knowledge of the shelves' layout. These shelves are impressive, too. They rise from floor to shadowed ceiling, wall to distant wall, separated by wide aisles that hold carts and ladders for the fetching and transportation of required goods. Two tunnels exit this cavern. The first is a short tunnel that leads to the upper caverns. The second, much longer, takes a person directly to the kitchens.
The stores are dark, the glows long left unchanged, the hour being much later than anyone has reason to be in the stores. It's just as well, for if someone were to venture far enough down the maze of shelves and crates, they would almost certainly hear a woman crying in the silence. Penny sits with her back against the cold stone wall, in a space between two shelving units, a shielded glow at her feet that leaves her in the dark. She does not wail, or sniffle, or sob in a feminine, acceptably woeful way -- she cries with a sort of grim determination, that of someone forcing a catharsis, here in the dark where she can't be laughed at or pitied for it.
Alas for Penny, who sober might know better, but Dara is on her normal nightly explorations of the caverns. Ears picking up the sound in the otherwise silent cavern, she makes her way towards the source. When she gets close enough for her own glow to illuminate Penny, she looks surprised, and concerned. "Penny? You ok? What're you..." She cuts that off; what she is doing is bloody obvious. The girl moves to kneel by her. "What happened?" She asks, instead.
Caught mid-gasp for breath, Penny looks up into the sudden light of the glow, which glistens on her wet cheeks. "Dara," she gulps, valiantly and somewhat frantically attempting to pull herself together. She actually does a fairly decent job of it, all the pieces of her expression sliding into place with a familiarity that borders on rote habit. "I'm-- not-- I can't--" And that's all she can say, a little catch in her voice signifying the end of coherent, non-tearful speech. She seems to know this, falling silent and just staring into the light like some nocturnal animal caught -- well, in a beam of light.
Essdara sets the glow aside carefully, light away so they can see, without being directly in it, and touches her shoulder lightly; the hug is plainly offered in her stance. "You can't what, Penny? What happened? Did someone..." She trails that question off; some things even she can't ask. She lapses quiet, then, decideing that perhaps the best thing now is to not try to make the girl talk.
Penny's eyes slide from Essdara's face, not able to look into that concern. She seems a bit unfocused, and her movements are heavy; to someone experienced enough, she would certainly appear slightly intoxicated, or at least very tired. She shakes her head then, a twitch of a smile coming to her lips. "No, I'm not-- I wasn't--" The tears have stopped, immediately ceased as soon as Essdara's presence became known, only the dampness on her cheeks remaining as evidence of their existance. That and the redness about her eyes and nose, and the somewhat swollen, darker red lips.
Essdara, seeing she's not needing immidiate comfort, instead sits down beside her, and looks out into the darkness. After a long moment, she speaks. "Nothing wrong with crying you know. Can help a lot. I can't even begin to tell you how much better I felt about Roa rejecting me, after I had the chance to just have someone I trust hold me, and let it all out. Needed that, badly, and don't think I could really think properly about the situation until I did. S'why I've been so depressed."
"The therapeudic qualities of a good cry are widely known," Penny says, seizing on something -- anything -- to say and finding something that makes her sound far much more like her healer friend than her typical self. "Some mindhealers are starting to actually recommend that people do it on purpose now and again." She sounds like a textbook, still not looking at Essdara; the glow light, for the moment has captured her attention.
Essdara doesn't seem keen to force eye contact, or anything similar. No, she keeps looking out in the darkness. "I don't think." She says, carefully, "They recommend finding a dark corner to crawl into, and cry in the darkness." She sighs, softly. "Though I admit, I've done plenty of that myself. It didn't help."
"Where else would you suggest I do it?" asks Penny, raising an eyebrow, a bit of dark humor creeping into her voice. Yes, she has herself under control now, the tight control of someone absolutely determined not to shed another tear in someone else's presence. "You know as well as I do how little privacy there is in this place. I thought about going for a walk, but it's very cold out, and I'm... not feeling too well," she says, somewhat lamely, of her being somewhat under the influence.
Essdara sighs, softly. She is quiet a few long moments, uncertain of what to do. Finally, though, she has to say something. "Penny... I think, if you found me here, crying alone in the dark... You would do whatever you could to help me, to make me feel better... I know we haven't known each other long, but you seem to care. Well... I do too. And I don't like what I am seeing and hearing. What can I do to help you? I am here, and I am your friend, and whatever happened, whatever has you so sad... You know I won't judge you, or spread rumors, or any of that."
Penny listens to Dara's little testimonial evenly, not making any efforts to cut her short. She even smiles a little, at the end, a whimsical little quirk of her lips that would, if Dara had known her then, put her in mind of Penny as a little girl. "You're quite right," she replies. That said, she doesn't seem inclined to offer to shed any light on her condition, falling silent again for a long time before she murmurs almost apologetically, "I don't do this often." Though whether she means cry, or talk to another person in such a personal way, it's hard to tell.
Essdara looks over at her. "I can't say do this often myself. There's not ever been many people I cared enough about, really, to want to help. T'zen, not that he'd ever notice. Roa, who I'd never be able to help anyway. You... And I don't know if I can or not. But I... I don't want to leave you here, alone and sad. I'd never forgive myself for not trying."
Penny's eyes flicker towards Essdara finally, meeting hers for just a moment before she looks away again. "I understand." And it sounds as though she really does, a note of apology somewhere underneath that understanding. Her expression twists momentarily, and it's after a long pause that she finally speaks. "There are no female smiths," she says finally. "It doesn't happen. My craft, though I love it, is not the most accepting of change -- ironic, considering we are the ones that create the inventions and processes that change Pern." She stops, clearing her throat of any lumps that might be hiding there. "I don't think I would have been one, were I not my father's -- Derien's -- daughter." Her mention of the well-known Mastersmith's name is an afterthought, as if it just occurred to her that Dara might not know whose daughter she was. She doesn't really sound as though she's finished, though she stops, swallowing.
Essdara says, softly, "It takes a lot of courage to do something that the world doesn't think you should, Penny. But you are amazing, and can handle it, I know you can. And anyone who looks down on you just because you are a girl is a fool. There's nothing boys can do that girl's can't do just as well, if not better, and you are proof of that."
Penny turns a smile on the girl, head tilting slightly to the side as she regards her with a bit more warmth. "You're sweet to say so. I have no doubts that I'm just as good as any of the male journeymen who'll eventually be vying for a master position -- if not better. The problem is that Pern in general, and specifically the Conclave, has to agree." She looks away, out into the dark stores, musingly. "I came here in order to meet the right people, the future leaders -- I have no doubt that when I'm up for mastership, every one of the Conclave will be someone who was at one time a member of the Caucus. I planned to come here and focus on charming all the important people. I'm very likeable." She says it quite frankly, matter-of-factly, as if saying the time of day.
Essdara agrees. "You are very likable. Certainly, I wouldn't be here with you if you weren't! And that sounds like a logical plan to me, there are certainly enough Important People," She makes the words an insult, "To choke a starving dragon. But, I dare say, most of /them/ aren't likable, and... Wouldn't the ones who are open to liking you like you either way, meeting you before or not?"
Penny shrugs, lifting one shoulder absently. "Who can say? But the idea was to focus entirely on these people, the heirs and future craftmasters, to the exclusion of all others whether I liked them or not. I couldn't afford distractions. But the truth is, I found myself meeting people I genuinely liked, and having an aversion to those I didn't -- and one day of 'Oh, I'll just relax this one' turned into two, and into a sevenday, and a month, and now, a Turn later, I've nothing to show for myself except for so much knowledge about fashion I might turn into Bailie." A bit of humor is injected here, a dry twist that aids her in avoiding the teary end of the spectrum. "The Headmaster was so kind as to point this out to me. A rude awakening that merely confirmed the doubts I was trying not to think about." And this caused her to cry so bitterly? Strange indeed, if so.
Essdara tilts her head, "The headmaster? I met him the other day, he was... Strange, but he didn't seem mean." A quiet moment. "Penny, isn't it more important to be /yourself/? If you just manipulate people of influence into liking you... Could you like as that kind of person? Lying, misleading, pretending to be things you are not and hiding the things you are? I don't think anyone would be happy like that, and least of all you. I know you want to be a Master. But I think you will get there just fine without subverting yourself and twisting yourself to get there. Because if you become a master, but all you have left is the shattered remains of a life... What was the point?"
"He's not mean at all," Penny says, surprised, glancing over at Essdara. "He's one of my dearest, oldest friends. We grew up together." Her voice, as she speaks of him, carries with it a certain special brand of warmth, no doubt intensified by the alcohol in her system. "He said the things he said for my own good. He said nothing I didn't know was true." She shakes her head, quirking a smile. "I don't have to be ruthless and inhuman to get there, no. But I can't afford... complications." There's the briefest hesitation before the word. "I don't mean to sound like my every move must be thought of in advance; but the truth is that my first Turn here has been wasted on people I will only know, at best, for a few more Turns, and who will not be able to assist me in the future." She lifts a hand to her head, closing her eyes against the dizzying effects; her tongue is noticeably looser, but so are the tears, as evidenced by the faint tremble of her lips.
Essdara can't entirely hide the hurt at those words, but does her best to hide them. "That depends on your definition of helping you, I guess. If all that counts is influencing the conclave, then no. But if supporting you and caring about you do, then I'd like to think we aren't quite so useless." She touches the woman's shoulder again lightly, "And I do care, and I will help how I can. Maybe... Maybe he didn't say what is true, but what you THINK is true, and he wanted you to think about, perhaps, other ways of reaching your goals other than the one you have chosen? He seems to like to make people think... How does making you cry do that, if it's just things you know but don't want to pay attention to?"
"I don't want to... hurt," Penny says, staring absently into the darkness, "when I leave here. There are people I've started to care about as genuinely as my family at home, and I have such a short time here." She can't have seen the hurt in Essdara's expression at her previous sentences, staring off into space the way she is, and yet her words address that very issue. She sighs, looking down at her lap, spots from teardrops wet on her skirt. "I don't think so -- it's not Sefton's style, as far as I'm concerned. He was very serious. I can't do both, you know; I can't ever have that... that..." And here she comes perilously close to losing again. "I can't be a master and a wife, or a mother. I would never be happy abandoning my craft for that, and yet I would never be satisfied letting someone else raise my children so I could work. It's one or the other, and the more I dally in the one, the harder it becomes to go back to the other. Sefton knows me, and knows the family I grew up in and how strong the appeal of such a life is; he said what he said because someone needed to say it to me. I don't imagine he enjoyed upsetting me." Her voice sounds as smooth as ever, but now a tear begins making its way slowly down her cheek again.
Essdara is quiet a long moment as she tries to assimilate that. "I don't want you to hurt, either. I can't imagine having to make that choice, between family and work. I know I'll only ever have the one, so I don't have that temptation. But... Why can't you be both? Masters have been doing that for enturies, haven't they? Would it be so bad to compromise, that little bit, if it meant you could have everything you want?"
"Male masters," Penny corrects Essdara, irritably brushing the tear away. "Not female ones. The amount of work it takes to reach master status is staggering, particularly for a woman, and as far as the records show, there's never even been a female one among the smiths. There's simply no way that I could be a good wife to a man and raise his children; and I don't think I could tolerate a man who'd be content to sit in his wife's shadow. Sefton understands that far too well." There's the slightest hint of bitterness there, though just then a little of Essdara's speech penetrates Penny's misery, and she looks at the girl in puzzlement. "You never know. You're very young to say that you'll never find love or family that way."
Essdara says, "I never said I wouldn't find love. But I assure you, Penny, there is a lot more to the world, and to happiness, and to family, and to love, than children. OK, you will never be Pern's best mother. But that doesn't mean you can't ever have anything that fulfills you, emotionally, does it?""
Penny laughs, a low chuckle. "You've very correct, Essdara." She shakes her head. "I assure you, I'm not usually like this. It was just one too many things at once. Sefton was... is, I suppose, probably the one person that knows me best in the whole world, by a long way. To find him disappointed in me... I find it's almost unbearable." And she really does seem miserable, eyes lowered and blank; no doubt she's thinking.
Essdara sighs and, for lack of knowing what else to say or two, turns and wraps her arms around the smith. "If he knows you as well as you say he does, if he was as good a friend as you say, and if they were really things you needed to hear... Wouldn't he have to say them, and mean them, even if he knew it would hurt you? I dunno, I've only met him the once. And I admit, in some ways... He really intimidated me. but he didn't seem like the type of person who would do something like this to someone he likes, if he didn't absolutely have to?"
Penny stiffens noticeably as the girl embraces her, eyes flickering over to the side at Dara's head. But she's not so cold that she doesn't appreciate her gesture, forcing herself to relax and patting her somewhat awkwardly on the hand. "I don't doubt he means it for the best, and it's something I know I have to hear. I'm afraid he and I are starting to grow apart, though. He used to treat me differently." She blinks, shaking her head. "I've no idea why I'm talking about Sefton." She clears her throat, blinking a few more times and straightening up. "I'm afraid I feel like I'm sobering up. I either need to find another drink or I need to get away somewhere before the headache hits me."
Essdara lets go, and pulls away a little bit with a sigh. "If you have to go, then make it to bed. Wine won't solve your problems. It never does. Just... Go to bed. Sleep. Feel better in the morning. And if you need to talk, find me. Or something. Or don't. Whatever you need to do."
Penny's lips quirk again, this time into a more natural-looking smile. "You're sweet," she tells the girl, touching a hand gently to her cheek before letting it fall. "Sleep, I do believe, will cure quite a lot of things." She makes as if to stand, but then hesitates, glancing at the cook. "I'm sure that I don't need to ask this, but... don't tell anyone about this? I think at this point my reputation could hardly stand being found tearful and rather drunk in the storerooms in the middle of the night."
Essdara laughs softly, "If you can keep the secret that I'm in love with a goldrider, I think I can keep the secret that you're human. Go, and rest, Penny. And if you have a nasty hangover or anything in the morning... Come see me. I know a few things that help there, too."
That elicits a laugh from Penny, in spite of herself. "It seems I have people reminding me left and right that I'm human," she murmurs wryly, getting slowly to her feet accompanied by the pop and groan of her joints, stiff from sitting so long on the stone floor. "Perhaps I should start listening, hmm?" Her look is fond, but also containing some of its usual distance, noticeable only because of the contrast to her earlier vulnerability -- she's got it together again now. "Goodnight, Dara, and thank you."
Essdara looks up at her, leaning back against the wall they shared. "Good night, Penny."