What we learn from the learners
Who: G'thon, Saramia
When: Day 28, Month 2, Turn 1 of the Seventh Pass
Where: Council Chambers
What: G'thon welcomes a new Caucus arrival with tea for two.
Saramia arrives from the upper caverns.
Saramia has arrived.
Saramia knocks on the council room door, neither timidly nor boldly. Loud enough to be heard, at any rate and waits just outside to be hailed inwards. She took a long enough detour by her cot to toss on the one presentable dress she brought with her and tidy up her hair, so she doesn't look quite as flyaway as usual, but she hasn't exactly spent hours primping for the summons.
"Come in." G'thon's voice is telltale - it is rough, hollow, almost morose now, but there is the echo of a smoother and more mellow sound beneath it. The door is unlatched, and within he waits - not seated, but with a chair drawn out on the far side of the long, polished table and a teacup perched there, steaming, awaiting him. The man himself is in the process of striding around the table's far end to the nearer side, there to pull back a seat for his guest; he walks as if his long legs can't quite cover the ground they might once have, steps stunted. Between this chair and the one opposite rests a tea service in silver, pot and remaining cup and saucer, petite spoons and tiny creamer of milk, sweetener in crusty lumps. "Saramia, I hope?" A little unguarded, he turns just enough to check the door, to check who might come through.
Brown-haired and brown-eyed, this young lady would appear to be in her later teens, except that she hasn't quite developed a figure yet. Coltish and lean, she careens about the world in tangle of long limbs and even longer curling hair, barely kept tame by an impatient braid, forever coming loose. Saramia favors practical clothing: trousers and tunics in earthen shades, though rank often prevails upon her to wear skirts and attempt to look pretty. Despite her frequently fly-away appearance, Sara is possessed of a grace of movement that belies the seeming awkwardness of her body. Also at odds with the rest of her is her face, which some might call pretty if she were more careful about her grooming: expressive dark eyes perch above a straight, lightly freckled nose and small, but full mouth all set within a heart shape.
Saramia slips through the door, more than enters and closes it carefully behind her. "Yessir," blurts out the holder girl, colors a little and then straightens her posture, tries a curtsey which comes out surprisingly graceful despite the fact that the girl looks like she's made up all of arms and legs, then she steps forward to take that seat. "Big Bay's duties, to High Reaches and her queens," she adds on, remembering that particularly nicety just before she sits down. "It's a pleasure to meet you Weyrleader."
"I'm sure you offered duties upon your arrival here," G'thon replies in a dry chuckle. A sparkle almost wants to light the corners of his eyes, but cannot quite get a good foothold there. He slides the chair forward beneath her gracefully enough, however, and walks back around the table's head to the other side. Though quite long, it is narrow enough for two to have tea across its width, and so the Weyrleader has arranged them, almost dab smack in the center. "Though I thank you for them, and I'm sure the queens do as well." That's almost sardonically said. G'thon leans over the table, taking up the teapot in long, pale hands to pour a second cup, presumably for his guest. "I'll let you make your own amendments," he murmurs, replacing the pot with a gesture of those slender fingers toward the sweetener and milk. "How are you settling in so far?"
"I ... yes, of course sir," confirms Saramia, coloring just a little. "My father sent me here to learn to be a proper lady, I thought I ought to ... try to make good on his purpose," she says a bit too quickly, nerves apparent. She accepts the tea cup with a nod of thanks and an audible "Thank you," before adding milk but no sweetener. "Other than a slight mishap with the wrong dormitory ... I think ... well so far. That is, I've no complaints and I don't know if anyone has any about me."
"Ah, then you'll be taking Lady Sian's etiquette lessons and Ama's instruction in conduct, certainly," G'thon supposes, turning from the table to get a tray of rolls surrounding a small wheel of soft white cheese from a sidebar. "What interests you? Will you sneak in some economics, maybe politics? Sefton's classes are becoming rather renowned." He turns about again and places this tray down beside the other; small bent butter knives accompany the cheese, the rolls small enough to be eaten without need of sectioning. With the food within reach, he sinks into his own chair - a little gingerly he goes, testing himself as he bends like a man much older might - and finally lifts his own cooled tea. Cradling the cup in a saucer made of his other palm, he blows softly over its surface, then muses at it, "It's kind of you to accept my invitation."
"History ..." replies Saramia, her hands wrapping around the cup, seeming to seek the warmth radiating off the sides. She doesn't reach for the food right away, lifting the cup to her lips and sipping slowly. "And I hope ... politics ... management ..." she adds once she's swallowed the milky liquid. "Kind? I wouldn't say so sir, it didn't really occur to me to decline ..." a hint of confusion huddles on Saramia's brow. "The tea is very good. The Weyr is ... well it's very different than I imagined. Fascinating."
"History, politics, management. An excellent triad for a Lady Holder." G'thon gets right to this, lifting his cup for a sip of his own milkless tea. "Though were I forty turns younger and here as a student I'd study the same. - In what way is it different?" He sets his cup down on the table, surveys the tea service, the rolls and the cheese, eyes glancing over them all, seeing and yet unseeing. For a moment, he seems elsewhere, though not the concrete and comforting elsewhere of draconic conversational absenteeism. When he looks up, he suppresses a bit of a startled manner, pale brows sliding slowly upward.
Saramia takes another sip from her cup, hands tightening on it a little bit. She swallows and sets the cup down, reaching for a roll and some cheese, spreading carefully, over-precisely even. "Being a Holder or a Weyrleader you mean, sir?" she finally answers the question with a question of her own and observes the Weyrleader's skipping gaze, brows knitting a little at his apparent confusion. Her eyes drop away, back down to the cheese that is now too thickly layered on the roll. She puts down the little bent knife and takes a healthy bite out of the finger food.
"How is the Weyr different than you imagined," offers the man, gently. The hollows beneath his eyes threaten now and again, particularly at this moment, to swallow his gaze in shadow; he turns in his chair and lifts one leg to cross over the other at the knee, lifting his tea to let its steam reach his nose. "I have to ask, because it's different than I imagined, too. Everything has changed in the past few days, and I find it a little comforting to hear I'm not the only one seeing it that way."
Color rises in Saramia's cheeks once more but she swallows rapidly as understanding crosses her face and promptly sets herself to coughing. She picks up her cup once more, takes a quick gulp, coughs a few more times, waving her hand in front of her face. "Well, it's a lot bigger than I ever thought," replies the girl from Big Bay, back on more solid ground now. "There's a lot more people too and so many of them aren't dragonriders. Growing up in a hold ... I guess I always pictured it as ... a home for dragons. But ... it's not just that. There's so many kinds of people here ... it's not actually that different from home really, just ... bigger and well, there's dragons and there's only the watchrider at Big Bay. And yet, well it just -feels- different here. From home I mean." She stops, turning the bread and cheese in her hand this way and that. "I'm not explaining this very well sir."
"That's all right. I understand." G'thon smiles a bit, just the slightest lift of the right-hand side of his mouth, and looks down at his tea for a long, quiet moment. "Even at a Weyr, Saramia, everything is about people. Dragons do not politick. They do not have strange, convoluted dreams and schemes; mostly, they wish to fly and feel good and do what is right. They're not the reason we live here, not the reason we live in Weyrs separate from the rest of the world." The Weyrleader pauses, sips tea, sets the cup down and turns in his chair, uncrossing his legs and wincing slightly as the movement sets in various small aches somewhere in his recently mended flesh. "People are."
Saramia digests all that, while chewing on the roll in her hand until there's none left and she pulls her teacup back into her hands once more. "Because ... of all the different ways they think?" she finally says very slowly, and looks up at the Weyrleader, looking for a sign that maybe she got that right. "The ... rules do seem different here too," she adds on and absently sucks a bit of cheese off the end of her thumb. "Are you all right sir?" the wince registers.
"Because of what happens to us." G'thon slides out of the chair, straightening in a motion so fluid it defies the wince and the shortness of the stride he'd displayed earlier. That's where such comfort ends; as he paces a short path around the back of his chair and returns, the natural grace of his bearing continues its battle with the damage Thread has done. That battle carries on in his gaze as well, and there, it seems Thread might be wining. "It's been a difficult sevenday and some since I - woke up, Saramia. I beg your forgiveness; I am usually a better host."
"Right and what people think about it," says Saramia, impulsiveness taking over now that nerves have quieted and the veneer of good manners has gone with it. "If you need to rest sir, there's no need to push it on my account. I mean, not that I'm not honored to be asked to have tea with the Weyrleader but ..." she trails off, uncertain what else to say and drains the tea out of her cup, replacing it on the table and subsequently has nothing to occupy her hands with so she rests them on the arms of her chair and watches the Weyrleader pace.
G'thon turns toward the table, stopping the pacing, fitting his hands together behind his back. He looks at her for a moment, just looks - then smiles that tiny bit again, just on the right side. "I have always asked new members of Caucus up for tea, one at a time, when they arrive." This is neither confession nor boast, and he continues too quickly for it to be intended as a correction to the notion of the ritual being an honor. "I believe we who host the Caucus have as much to learn from it as its members do; perhaps more. I have no intention of ceasing learning." The smile broadens the slightest bit, though the shadows linger, and his voice remains grim. "I appreciate you taking the time to instruct me, Saramia. We shall have to meet again when you have - no." The smile vanishes. "When I have had a chance to better settle in."
"Oh," Saramia answers brilliantly, then makes a face, that probably states, clear as day, the inward conversation that goes "Idiot! It's the -Weyrleader- think of something better to say!" She chews all that over for a bit. "Well sir, I certainly hope that I learn a lot. And um ... that you do to," is what she comes up with and then rises and offers another curtsey, interpreting that last bit as a dismissal. "I'm sure I'll find the time if I'm invited again and I hope you feel better soon." It's sincerely meant, all of it, in the straightforward way this holder girl has. "The tea was lovely," she tacks on, drawing on those manners that have a bad habit of dropping out of sight.
"It's always up here," G'thon mildly observes, half-turning so the young woman has a view of him in profile and he, for his part, may lose his gaze into an unseen distance. "At this time of evening. The tea. Whether I am here or not. If you ever have need of a place to duck in, feel free. I expect if there's a big collection of dragonriders using the room for something you'll be able to tell with ease." Something about this seems to be rather funny to the old man, tugging up the right side of his mouth again, but the smile has a sad quality to it now. "Thank you, Saramia."
Now that really is a dismissal and the only really appropriate thing to say, is "Thank you sir," as Saramia slips back out the door, with a brief backward glance at the injured man and then she's gone, doubtless to try to sort the encounter out, or put it out of her mind completely with her own more immediate concerns.
Saramia departs the council chamber.
Saramia has left.
When: Day 28, Month 2, Turn 1 of the Seventh Pass
Where: Council Chambers
What: G'thon welcomes a new Caucus arrival with tea for two.
Saramia arrives from the upper caverns.
Saramia has arrived.
Saramia knocks on the council room door, neither timidly nor boldly. Loud enough to be heard, at any rate and waits just outside to be hailed inwards. She took a long enough detour by her cot to toss on the one presentable dress she brought with her and tidy up her hair, so she doesn't look quite as flyaway as usual, but she hasn't exactly spent hours primping for the summons.
"Come in." G'thon's voice is telltale - it is rough, hollow, almost morose now, but there is the echo of a smoother and more mellow sound beneath it. The door is unlatched, and within he waits - not seated, but with a chair drawn out on the far side of the long, polished table and a teacup perched there, steaming, awaiting him. The man himself is in the process of striding around the table's far end to the nearer side, there to pull back a seat for his guest; he walks as if his long legs can't quite cover the ground they might once have, steps stunted. Between this chair and the one opposite rests a tea service in silver, pot and remaining cup and saucer, petite spoons and tiny creamer of milk, sweetener in crusty lumps. "Saramia, I hope?" A little unguarded, he turns just enough to check the door, to check who might come through.
Brown-haired and brown-eyed, this young lady would appear to be in her later teens, except that she hasn't quite developed a figure yet. Coltish and lean, she careens about the world in tangle of long limbs and even longer curling hair, barely kept tame by an impatient braid, forever coming loose. Saramia favors practical clothing: trousers and tunics in earthen shades, though rank often prevails upon her to wear skirts and attempt to look pretty. Despite her frequently fly-away appearance, Sara is possessed of a grace of movement that belies the seeming awkwardness of her body. Also at odds with the rest of her is her face, which some might call pretty if she were more careful about her grooming: expressive dark eyes perch above a straight, lightly freckled nose and small, but full mouth all set within a heart shape.
Saramia slips through the door, more than enters and closes it carefully behind her. "Yessir," blurts out the holder girl, colors a little and then straightens her posture, tries a curtsey which comes out surprisingly graceful despite the fact that the girl looks like she's made up all of arms and legs, then she steps forward to take that seat. "Big Bay's duties, to High Reaches and her queens," she adds on, remembering that particularly nicety just before she sits down. "It's a pleasure to meet you Weyrleader."
"I'm sure you offered duties upon your arrival here," G'thon replies in a dry chuckle. A sparkle almost wants to light the corners of his eyes, but cannot quite get a good foothold there. He slides the chair forward beneath her gracefully enough, however, and walks back around the table's head to the other side. Though quite long, it is narrow enough for two to have tea across its width, and so the Weyrleader has arranged them, almost dab smack in the center. "Though I thank you for them, and I'm sure the queens do as well." That's almost sardonically said. G'thon leans over the table, taking up the teapot in long, pale hands to pour a second cup, presumably for his guest. "I'll let you make your own amendments," he murmurs, replacing the pot with a gesture of those slender fingers toward the sweetener and milk. "How are you settling in so far?"
"I ... yes, of course sir," confirms Saramia, coloring just a little. "My father sent me here to learn to be a proper lady, I thought I ought to ... try to make good on his purpose," she says a bit too quickly, nerves apparent. She accepts the tea cup with a nod of thanks and an audible "Thank you," before adding milk but no sweetener. "Other than a slight mishap with the wrong dormitory ... I think ... well so far. That is, I've no complaints and I don't know if anyone has any about me."
"Ah, then you'll be taking Lady Sian's etiquette lessons and Ama's instruction in conduct, certainly," G'thon supposes, turning from the table to get a tray of rolls surrounding a small wheel of soft white cheese from a sidebar. "What interests you? Will you sneak in some economics, maybe politics? Sefton's classes are becoming rather renowned." He turns about again and places this tray down beside the other; small bent butter knives accompany the cheese, the rolls small enough to be eaten without need of sectioning. With the food within reach, he sinks into his own chair - a little gingerly he goes, testing himself as he bends like a man much older might - and finally lifts his own cooled tea. Cradling the cup in a saucer made of his other palm, he blows softly over its surface, then muses at it, "It's kind of you to accept my invitation."
"History ..." replies Saramia, her hands wrapping around the cup, seeming to seek the warmth radiating off the sides. She doesn't reach for the food right away, lifting the cup to her lips and sipping slowly. "And I hope ... politics ... management ..." she adds once she's swallowed the milky liquid. "Kind? I wouldn't say so sir, it didn't really occur to me to decline ..." a hint of confusion huddles on Saramia's brow. "The tea is very good. The Weyr is ... well it's very different than I imagined. Fascinating."
"History, politics, management. An excellent triad for a Lady Holder." G'thon gets right to this, lifting his cup for a sip of his own milkless tea. "Though were I forty turns younger and here as a student I'd study the same. - In what way is it different?" He sets his cup down on the table, surveys the tea service, the rolls and the cheese, eyes glancing over them all, seeing and yet unseeing. For a moment, he seems elsewhere, though not the concrete and comforting elsewhere of draconic conversational absenteeism. When he looks up, he suppresses a bit of a startled manner, pale brows sliding slowly upward.
Saramia takes another sip from her cup, hands tightening on it a little bit. She swallows and sets the cup down, reaching for a roll and some cheese, spreading carefully, over-precisely even. "Being a Holder or a Weyrleader you mean, sir?" she finally answers the question with a question of her own and observes the Weyrleader's skipping gaze, brows knitting a little at his apparent confusion. Her eyes drop away, back down to the cheese that is now too thickly layered on the roll. She puts down the little bent knife and takes a healthy bite out of the finger food.
"How is the Weyr different than you imagined," offers the man, gently. The hollows beneath his eyes threaten now and again, particularly at this moment, to swallow his gaze in shadow; he turns in his chair and lifts one leg to cross over the other at the knee, lifting his tea to let its steam reach his nose. "I have to ask, because it's different than I imagined, too. Everything has changed in the past few days, and I find it a little comforting to hear I'm not the only one seeing it that way."
Color rises in Saramia's cheeks once more but she swallows rapidly as understanding crosses her face and promptly sets herself to coughing. She picks up her cup once more, takes a quick gulp, coughs a few more times, waving her hand in front of her face. "Well, it's a lot bigger than I ever thought," replies the girl from Big Bay, back on more solid ground now. "There's a lot more people too and so many of them aren't dragonriders. Growing up in a hold ... I guess I always pictured it as ... a home for dragons. But ... it's not just that. There's so many kinds of people here ... it's not actually that different from home really, just ... bigger and well, there's dragons and there's only the watchrider at Big Bay. And yet, well it just -feels- different here. From home I mean." She stops, turning the bread and cheese in her hand this way and that. "I'm not explaining this very well sir."
"That's all right. I understand." G'thon smiles a bit, just the slightest lift of the right-hand side of his mouth, and looks down at his tea for a long, quiet moment. "Even at a Weyr, Saramia, everything is about people. Dragons do not politick. They do not have strange, convoluted dreams and schemes; mostly, they wish to fly and feel good and do what is right. They're not the reason we live here, not the reason we live in Weyrs separate from the rest of the world." The Weyrleader pauses, sips tea, sets the cup down and turns in his chair, uncrossing his legs and wincing slightly as the movement sets in various small aches somewhere in his recently mended flesh. "People are."
Saramia digests all that, while chewing on the roll in her hand until there's none left and she pulls her teacup back into her hands once more. "Because ... of all the different ways they think?" she finally says very slowly, and looks up at the Weyrleader, looking for a sign that maybe she got that right. "The ... rules do seem different here too," she adds on and absently sucks a bit of cheese off the end of her thumb. "Are you all right sir?" the wince registers.
"Because of what happens to us." G'thon slides out of the chair, straightening in a motion so fluid it defies the wince and the shortness of the stride he'd displayed earlier. That's where such comfort ends; as he paces a short path around the back of his chair and returns, the natural grace of his bearing continues its battle with the damage Thread has done. That battle carries on in his gaze as well, and there, it seems Thread might be wining. "It's been a difficult sevenday and some since I - woke up, Saramia. I beg your forgiveness; I am usually a better host."
"Right and what people think about it," says Saramia, impulsiveness taking over now that nerves have quieted and the veneer of good manners has gone with it. "If you need to rest sir, there's no need to push it on my account. I mean, not that I'm not honored to be asked to have tea with the Weyrleader but ..." she trails off, uncertain what else to say and drains the tea out of her cup, replacing it on the table and subsequently has nothing to occupy her hands with so she rests them on the arms of her chair and watches the Weyrleader pace.
G'thon turns toward the table, stopping the pacing, fitting his hands together behind his back. He looks at her for a moment, just looks - then smiles that tiny bit again, just on the right side. "I have always asked new members of Caucus up for tea, one at a time, when they arrive." This is neither confession nor boast, and he continues too quickly for it to be intended as a correction to the notion of the ritual being an honor. "I believe we who host the Caucus have as much to learn from it as its members do; perhaps more. I have no intention of ceasing learning." The smile broadens the slightest bit, though the shadows linger, and his voice remains grim. "I appreciate you taking the time to instruct me, Saramia. We shall have to meet again when you have - no." The smile vanishes. "When I have had a chance to better settle in."
"Oh," Saramia answers brilliantly, then makes a face, that probably states, clear as day, the inward conversation that goes "Idiot! It's the -Weyrleader- think of something better to say!" She chews all that over for a bit. "Well sir, I certainly hope that I learn a lot. And um ... that you do to," is what she comes up with and then rises and offers another curtsey, interpreting that last bit as a dismissal. "I'm sure I'll find the time if I'm invited again and I hope you feel better soon." It's sincerely meant, all of it, in the straightforward way this holder girl has. "The tea was lovely," she tacks on, drawing on those manners that have a bad habit of dropping out of sight.
"It's always up here," G'thon mildly observes, half-turning so the young woman has a view of him in profile and he, for his part, may lose his gaze into an unseen distance. "At this time of evening. The tea. Whether I am here or not. If you ever have need of a place to duck in, feel free. I expect if there's a big collection of dragonriders using the room for something you'll be able to tell with ease." Something about this seems to be rather funny to the old man, tugging up the right side of his mouth again, but the smile has a sad quality to it now. "Thank you, Saramia."
Now that really is a dismissal and the only really appropriate thing to say, is "Thank you sir," as Saramia slips back out the door, with a brief backward glance at the injured man and then she's gone, doubtless to try to sort the encounter out, or put it out of her mind completely with her own more immediate concerns.
Saramia departs the council chamber.
Saramia has left.