Application for Renata Leynier (Darkover canon)

[renata_leynier]

A mist swirls in the middle of the Sorting Room. Out of this mist steps a young woman in long woolen skirts, her copper hair held back from her face with a butterfly clasp. She looks uncertain, though not disoriented or distraught, and she answers aloud the questions posed to her. A Dictaquill takes down the answers so that persons who arrive at

Comments

[world_builder]

Slartibartfast read the application carefully. Yet another person who wasn't an Earthman...he was surprised at how many people here weren't. And...

"You, ah, you can read minds?" he asked. "I've, well, I've known many people and, and, and, you know, races, but I've never, uh, never come across a telepath."

[renata_leynier]

Tolerant of verbal quirks, Renata listened patiently until the man finished his question, then nodded. "I can, to an extent; with others so gifted, and I would only do so by consent, or if my duty dictated it. The Leyniers are a minor family of the Altons, but I have not the Alton Gift, to force rapport." She almost shuddered as she described it. "That is a heavy burden, not mine to carry. Like a great many monitors, I am an empath, too, and the emotions and physical feelings of persons even ungifted with laran I can share. But I have had the necessary training to guard myself against an unwanted sharing, and that for my own sanity and well-being."

[world_builder]

Empathic as well...all in all, it's a talent he was glad he didn't possess. "I would, really I'd think you'd have to be good at it. Keeping, ah, keeping people out, I mean. I can't, you know, I can't imagine what it would be like, getting flooded with everybody else's thoughts and feelings."

Ever the enginner, he had to add, "What, ah, what is your world like? Geographically, I mean." Socially it was all the same to him--his company engineered the planets, not the inhabitants.

[renata_leynier]

So this man was not Darkovan. Though she had already suspected as much, Renata had suspended judgement; mayhap he was from the Dry Towns, or some other place, somewhere remote enough from the Seven Domains that he might not know of the Comyn and their ways. His talk of her 'world' decided the matter entirely. This determined the slant of her answer. To a Darkovan, she would not have described the color of the sky ...

"My world we call Darkover," she said. "I know not why it is named so, save that the skies are often clouded; poets term ours 'the bloody sun', from the color of the sky, reddish or even violet in cast. The poets are fond of rhapsodising on the four moons as well," she added. "Shall I enumerate them for you? Liriel, the violet moon; Kyrrdis, which we call 'peacock-blue' though whatever animal or gem is meant by 'peacock' must have been lost to us long ago; Idriel, green with forest; and Mormallor, the smallest moon, a pearl of a moon

[world_builder]

Oh, this was planet engineering heaven. He didn't know who'd worked on that one, but he wished it had been him. Red giant star, four moons (multicolored, at that!)

"Four moons?" Some of the gas giants he'd worked on had had more than that, but never in such a variety of colors. "That must, ah, must be a very complicated orbit to, to manage. I know it took, really it took ages to fine-tune Neptune's moons..." Slartibartfast probably would have gone off on some tangent, but by some miracle his attention returned to the conversation at hand. "And they've, you know, got forests? We've never, ah, never made a moon capable of, you know, of sustaining life. Do any of them have any fjords?"

Yep. Slartibartfast was indeed in planetery geek-mode. And of course he had to ask about the fjords.

[renata_leynier]

"Why, as to that, I cannot say," Renata admitted. "I have never been to a moon. Of late aircars have been developed as an innovation in the Lowlands, and I have learned to ride the air currents in a glider, but to fly beyond the bounds of the sky?" She shook her head. "For all I know, the forests of Idriel may be only a poet's fancy, for its green color. As for fjords, I fear I must beg you to explain what is meant before I can say whether or no they are to be found on Darkover."

[world_builder]

Aha, someone who actually wanted to know about fjords? The poor woman had no idea what she'd started.

"Ah, so, so no one's ever seen them? Pity." A habitable moon would probably be too much to ask.

"A fjord is, well, it's a kind of, of bay, you know, along a coastline...they're terribly difficult to, to make, with all the, you know, the little detailed fiddly bits. I, well, I made the ones in a place called Norway, here on Earth, and I always, you know, always like to hear about them in other places. Very, ah, very important to coastline ecology, fjords."

[renata_leynier]

"Coastline ecology?"

Yes, Renata was actually genuinely interested. (Gods help her.)

"Planetary ecology is certainly of interest to us, in matrix circle work," she said. "It is important not to disrupt the ecology -- to throw it out of balance -- when we manipulate the soil, or the energy field of the planet. What of these fjords is essential?"

[world_builder]

Wait, she actually wanted to know? She actually wanted to hear about actual fjords? That...was novel.

"Well, you see, fjords are made by, you know, by glaciation--the glacier moves very slowly and, and carves out the fjord. They're, ah, they're very deep, narrow inlets, you see? In terms of, you know, of animal life, they--especially in very cold waters, like, you know, like those around Norway--they shelter oceanic life-forms when there are, ah, storms. The open ocean--I mean, at least here--is very, really is very rough and stormy. Fjords are usually much calmer, and have their own very delicate ecosystems--some have, well, they've got plants that don't grow anywhere else, things like that. Of course, I would, you know, I'd have to see the fjords on your world, to tell you much about, ah, about them specifically."

He'd do it, to. He'd go on about them as long as he was let.

[renata_leynier]

"I see," said Renata, picturing the landforms he described as best she could, and regretting that he did not have laran so that she might enter into rapport with him, see the fjords for true. "You would be traveling in Aillard lands, then, and Elhalyn. Myself, I have not a great familiarity with the coastal lands; but should there ever be some way found to travel from this place to Darkover, I could of a certainty procure for you safe conduct." Connections, you know.

[world_builder]

"I would, really I'd be fascinated to see your, your world's coastlines," he said. "And, you know, if you, if you need to see anything on, ah, on other worlds, I'm thinking of, you know, of taking people on a tour of the factory--the one we, the one we used to build Earth. You could probably, you know, see a lot of different landforms." The first tour had been a great success, and there were many people now--like Renata--who might benefit from a second.

[renata_leynier]

"What means this word, a factory?" Renata was unfamiliar with the concept altogether.

[world_builder]

"Oh, it's a, ah, it's a large place where things are made," he said. "There are factories for, you know, for a great many things--clothes, weapons, tools. The one I, the one that I work for builds planets." Slartibartfast had worked there so long that he'd grown used to it, but if his first tour was any indication, it was rather amazing for people who'd never seen it before. Even if some of them did get airsick.