Log: A Difficult Request
Who: Hattie, Palia
When: Month 5, Turn 36 of Interval 10.
Where: Council Room, Fort Weyr
What: Hattie has a request for Palia that entails some inner turmoil for the Harper.
Council Room, Fort Weyr
The Weyr's meeting space is a long, oval space with a large stone table placed in the middle. There's seating enough for twelve around the table: plenty of room to welcome most of the Weyrleaders and a good portion of the Lords Holder from the north, though additional seating might be needed if a Pern-wide meeting were to be held here.
A sideboard stands ready to serve, regardless of the occasion and is kept well-stocked with carafes of wine, water and several fine liquors. Fresh flowers, appropriate to the season are changed out regularly in the vase atop the sideboard. Tapestries depicting Fort's illustrious history from founding, to Moreta's role in the Plague to Lessa's arrival to bring the Weyrs forward in time bedeck the walls, leavening the omnipresence of cool, gray stone. Well-lit, the chamber boasts glows in niches around the room, as well as oil lamps hanging from the ceiling.
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As ever, Hattie continues to spend much of her time in the council room and caverns. She’s managed to get as far as the council room this morning, though her progress through the usual hidework is a slow, distracted thing, her focus easily absenting itself, jitters betrayed by the near-constant tapping of her left foot against the stone floor. It’s as the morning unfolds, and this state doesn’t change but for /some/ work done and several cups of tea consumed, that she eventually gives in and sends the drudge who looks in on her to locate Palia, wherever she may be.
Palia is easily found in the teaching rooms, wrapping up the morning’s lessons with the younger children. Upon being given notice that the Weyrwoman wishes to see her, the harper releases her pupils a few minutes early to get lunch. She takes a moment to check her hair and smooth down any flyaway curls that may have escaped her braid before setting off through the caverns and out across the Bowl to the council room, appearing less than a half hour after Hattie sent for her. Within the entrance to the room, Palia pauses and clears her throat politely, before announcing herself: “Good morning, you wished to speak with me Weyrwoman?” Formal because it’s the Council Room she’s been summoned to and not Hattie’s quarters or other more informal locations.
Hattie looks up when she hears footsteps, another cup of tea halfway to her mouth, but she sets it down so that she doesn’t have to talk over it, or simply so that she isn’t left blinking up at Palia over its rim in a less than dignified fashion. “Sit, please,” she invites, gesturing, to, well, any number of the chairs near to her. She waits until the Harper chooses to or opts otherwise before speaking again, and it’s after a moment or two of studying Palia that she finally finds her voice again. “There’s something I’d like you to consider, and it may well end up sounding selfish.” Fair warning. “...I don’t know if your father ever spoke to you about the prospect of Standing, or if it’s something that you’ve thought about?”
“Thank you,” Palia answers the invitation to sit and elects a chair just one down from Hattie so she’s near enough for a conversational tone, but the Weyrwoman doesn’t have to turn her head at an awkard angle to see the harper. The chair legs squeak a little as the furniture is pulled away from the table and scooted back toward it now heavier by one young woman. Hattie’s silence and study are met with one of Palia’s steady looks in return. The Weyrwoman’s preamble sees a slight drawing together of the younger woman’s brows followed just as rapidly by a change of angle to surprised uptilt. “Yes, Papa’s talked about it before. We’ve covered almost every career option you could think of over the turns, until I made the decision to apprentice. He’s always wanted us to consider all the options, you know, follow our hearts,” she concludes earnestly. A pause follows and her head tilts to the side slightly. “Why?” Her eyes remain fixed on Hattie’s face, expression relatively neutral other than perhaps expected curiosity.
“I would like,” Hattie replies, “a Harper who speaks for the Weyr; who looks to the Weyr first and not the Hall.” She gives a dissatisfied twist of her lips as she admits, “What I had hoped M’vyn would choose to do, one day, once he’d become accustomed to being a rider, but all he’s done is made me think all the more that there are too many people who /aren’t/ suited or can be trusted to take on what I want.” It might be automatic, that she pours another cup of tea and sets it down in-front of Palia without asking whether or not she wants it. “You’re not long off twenty-two,” so, she does remember her turnday, “and you’re undoubtedly of /a/ Weyr, depending on which, or all, you’d like to be attributed to.” She takes deep breath before concluding, “...And, sooner or later, there will be a clutch on the Sands - likely one of the junior queens’.”
A slight crinkling of Palia’s brow betrays potential confusion or inner turmoil in response to the first half of what Hattie says and the harper continues silent while that cup of tea is poured and set before her. It’s perhaps a convenient distraction to lean forward and cup both of her palms around the mug. “Yes, there will be eggs again,” is perhaps the easier thing to address, Palia’s gaze lingering on the steam rising from the mug before lifting to Hattie’s face. Slowly and on the soft side: “What do you want from a riding harper, Hattie?” The weyrwoman’s name this time, not the title, as the apprentice seeks understanding on maybe a more personal basis.
“I want someone my people can trust,” is the first response, and seems to cost Hattie more than any selfish or matter of fact admittances so far. “I want someone who is /one of them/. I want someone /I/ can trust, who can think for themselves and /speak/ for themselves.” Hattie gives a vaguely dismissive wave of one hand, casting the gesture towards the nearest wall. “I’m not planning on setting up our own spying initiative, or planting people in Holds to /listen/,” she drawls somewhat derisively. “But I want the Harper singing or playing in the caverns to be one of us. I want a Harper I can trust with our records. M’vyn’s betrayal has undoubtedly cast the trustworthiness of people of your Hall into doubt.” So, why is she asking a Harper at all? “...I’m not asking your knot. Or your Hall. I’m asking /you/,” the Weyrwoman murmurs. “And maybe some part of me doesn’t trust your Hall with /you/.”
The more words Hattie speaks, the deeper Palia’s brow furrows and her gaze falls back to the contents of her mug, once the Weyrwoman has finished speaking. She’s silent for a while, clearly struggling with what’s being asked of her. “M’vyn … has certainly called a lot of things into question,” she finally says, slowly, thoughtfully, “though I can’t claim to understand it all.” Pause. “I’m just an apprentice and not privy to a lot of the … political things that go on. I’m not sure I’d /want/ to be privy to most of them, in fact.” Another pause in which troubled gray eyes lift to Hattie’s face. “I’m very happy being a teaching harper.” Her mug lifts and she takes an absent-minded swallow of the liquid within it. “I lack ambition. It could be one of the reasons why they sent me here. Is that … one of the reasons why you wouldn’t trust the Hall with /me/?”
“In all honesty, the less you know in that respect, the better off you are,” Hattie utters dryly, a fair hint of bitterness seeping into her tone. She folds her hands before her, but really only ends up curling the fingers of one hand around the other and applying more and more pressure until her knuckles whiten. “...I don’t want the Hall to do to you whatever they’ve done to M’vyn to get him to end up like he did. Has.” Murmured, with a glance down at her hands. “I don’t know what their plans are for you. As Weyrwoman, your Journeymen and Masters are just that, and it’s not really any of my business, but as...” She gestures in vain and doesn’t find the word she’s looking for - at least not any she dares use. “I don’t want them hurting you. And maybe it’s a foolish idea, thinking anything could work for any of us by involving a dragon, but if I look back in a decade’s time and I didn’t suggest it... then I... didn’t suggest it.”
Palia takes her time, hearing Hattie all the way out this time, before speaking again. Her hands remain curled around her mug the entire time, though she doesn’t drink again. Gray eyes remain fixed on Hattie’s face, maybe taking in the shifts of expression, or maybe it’s just that old habits die hard. Finally, quietly: “Hattie, most harpers /don’t/ turn out the way M’vyn did. I don’t know him well, or at all, really. But from what I’ve /heard/ … well the man’s had issues since before he became a harper or a rider.” Her head tilts to the side slightly and she blows out a long breath. “I … can see how it might seem that some harpers wind up walking a long, hard, road, but I don’t think it’s a definite fate for every one of us.” The apprentice sets her mug aside and reaches across for Hattie’s hands. “It means a lot to me that you don’t want to see me get hurt, but I don’t think that’s really something any parent can completely prevent. Shells, Papa did his level best, but I /have/ been hurt, many times in my life, by things he did or didn’t do, or things he didn’t even realize I was /aware/ of. That’s not his fault, really, except maybe that he was too easy too fool, too willing to think the best of me and I wouldn’t want him not to. You know?” Pause. Breath. “I also don’t think that standing and impressing are necessarily the solution here, not to mention that I’m very uncomfortable with the idea of breaking harper neutrality. I get that it seems like maybe the Hall is digging its own grave on that already, but /some/ of us have to stick to the principles that we’re supposed to, don’t we? Otherwise the Hall’s name will always be tarnished.” Another pause follows, before Palia adds softly: “I decided a long time ago, that I didn’t want to be a rider, Hattie. That hasn’t really changed. I’m willing to consider it, think about it a bit more. But the sacrifices a person has to make to be a good rider aren’t ones that I’m really willing to make, unless there’s a very compelling reason for me to make them.”
Hattie can’t help herself when she insists, “And perhaps those who trained him sought to exploit those... issues,” under her breath. Still, she surrenders her hands to Palia without any fuss and tries to listen to the rest of what she says without interrupting, though the pinching of her expression says much for what she believes about the Hall’s neutrality, or its desire to maintain it. “I don’t want you to be unhappy,” she says eventually. “Right now, I can’t believe that the Hall makes anyone happy, but then I don’t hear those secrets whirling around within those walls.” She gives a little shake of her head. “The way some things happen, maybe you’d best not be in the cavern at all when any eggs hatch. Not even the stands are safe.” It’s a dry, wry remark, and then she moves to sit back in her seat. “It’s your decision,” the Weyrwoman says gently. “But if I could ever have a Harper for the Weyr that was /of/ the Weyr, it would be you.”
“When I was there, studying as an apprentice … there weren’t really any secrets whirling around. At least not where most apprentices would pick up on them,” Palia says with a quiet sigh and gives Hattie’s hands a light squeeze, withdraws hers after a moment. “If you love music and history and everything that goes along with those things … the Hall is a wonderful place to be, to learn,” the apprentice says with a slow smile that tips up crookedly along one side of her face, slowly fades. “Maybe,” she agrees with Hattie. “We’ll see. If a dragon did come chasing after me that far, I think I might have to set my reservations aside, because … well maybe then it’s a meant to be. I’m not completely against the idea, just … it’s not something I’d seek out, on purpose.” She looks off to the side for a moment, something complicated lurking beneath the surface of her expression before she returns her gaze to Hattie. “Thank you. That -- that means a lot, Hattie, it really does.” Palia pushes her chair back, rises and comes around to Hattie’s side of the table, leans in to offer the Weyrwoman a hug.
Gently, at first, Hattie wraps her arms around Palia, yet she can’t help but eventually hold her tighter, better able to convey how she feels through that than anything else; any words she might find to provide. Soon, she loosens her hold and looks up at her, head tilting as a subtle, odd little smile curves her lips. “Be good, Palia,” she says gently, teasing and not, and then she’s prepared to surrender her back to her duties, and return to her own, to see most of the day out getting through all that hidework.
Palia is not at all averse to lingering in that hug, arms returning the embrace. Hattie’s teasing admonition draws the harper’s laughter: “Oh Hattie, when am I /not/ good?” and she gives the Weyrwoman her best ‘pure innocence’ look, dimples and all before she executes a more properly formal bow and turns about to find her way back to her duties for the day.
When: Month 5, Turn 36 of Interval 10.
Where: Council Room, Fort Weyr
What: Hattie has a request for Palia that entails some inner turmoil for the Harper.
Council Room, Fort Weyr
The Weyr's meeting space is a long, oval space with a large stone table placed in the middle. There's seating enough for twelve around the table: plenty of room to welcome most of the Weyrleaders and a good portion of the Lords Holder from the north, though additional seating might be needed if a Pern-wide meeting were to be held here.
A sideboard stands ready to serve, regardless of the occasion and is kept well-stocked with carafes of wine, water and several fine liquors. Fresh flowers, appropriate to the season are changed out regularly in the vase atop the sideboard. Tapestries depicting Fort's illustrious history from founding, to Moreta's role in the Plague to Lessa's arrival to bring the Weyrs forward in time bedeck the walls, leavening the omnipresence of cool, gray stone. Well-lit, the chamber boasts glows in niches around the room, as well as oil lamps hanging from the ceiling.
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As ever, Hattie continues to spend much of her time in the council room and caverns. She’s managed to get as far as the council room this morning, though her progress through the usual hidework is a slow, distracted thing, her focus easily absenting itself, jitters betrayed by the near-constant tapping of her left foot against the stone floor. It’s as the morning unfolds, and this state doesn’t change but for /some/ work done and several cups of tea consumed, that she eventually gives in and sends the drudge who looks in on her to locate Palia, wherever she may be.
Palia is easily found in the teaching rooms, wrapping up the morning’s lessons with the younger children. Upon being given notice that the Weyrwoman wishes to see her, the harper releases her pupils a few minutes early to get lunch. She takes a moment to check her hair and smooth down any flyaway curls that may have escaped her braid before setting off through the caverns and out across the Bowl to the council room, appearing less than a half hour after Hattie sent for her. Within the entrance to the room, Palia pauses and clears her throat politely, before announcing herself: “Good morning, you wished to speak with me Weyrwoman?” Formal because it’s the Council Room she’s been summoned to and not Hattie’s quarters or other more informal locations.
Hattie looks up when she hears footsteps, another cup of tea halfway to her mouth, but she sets it down so that she doesn’t have to talk over it, or simply so that she isn’t left blinking up at Palia over its rim in a less than dignified fashion. “Sit, please,” she invites, gesturing, to, well, any number of the chairs near to her. She waits until the Harper chooses to or opts otherwise before speaking again, and it’s after a moment or two of studying Palia that she finally finds her voice again. “There’s something I’d like you to consider, and it may well end up sounding selfish.” Fair warning. “...I don’t know if your father ever spoke to you about the prospect of Standing, or if it’s something that you’ve thought about?”
“Thank you,” Palia answers the invitation to sit and elects a chair just one down from Hattie so she’s near enough for a conversational tone, but the Weyrwoman doesn’t have to turn her head at an awkard angle to see the harper. The chair legs squeak a little as the furniture is pulled away from the table and scooted back toward it now heavier by one young woman. Hattie’s silence and study are met with one of Palia’s steady looks in return. The Weyrwoman’s preamble sees a slight drawing together of the younger woman’s brows followed just as rapidly by a change of angle to surprised uptilt. “Yes, Papa’s talked about it before. We’ve covered almost every career option you could think of over the turns, until I made the decision to apprentice. He’s always wanted us to consider all the options, you know, follow our hearts,” she concludes earnestly. A pause follows and her head tilts to the side slightly. “Why?” Her eyes remain fixed on Hattie’s face, expression relatively neutral other than perhaps expected curiosity.
“I would like,” Hattie replies, “a Harper who speaks for the Weyr; who looks to the Weyr first and not the Hall.” She gives a dissatisfied twist of her lips as she admits, “What I had hoped M’vyn would choose to do, one day, once he’d become accustomed to being a rider, but all he’s done is made me think all the more that there are too many people who /aren’t/ suited or can be trusted to take on what I want.” It might be automatic, that she pours another cup of tea and sets it down in-front of Palia without asking whether or not she wants it. “You’re not long off twenty-two,” so, she does remember her turnday, “and you’re undoubtedly of /a/ Weyr, depending on which, or all, you’d like to be attributed to.” She takes deep breath before concluding, “...And, sooner or later, there will be a clutch on the Sands - likely one of the junior queens’.”
A slight crinkling of Palia’s brow betrays potential confusion or inner turmoil in response to the first half of what Hattie says and the harper continues silent while that cup of tea is poured and set before her. It’s perhaps a convenient distraction to lean forward and cup both of her palms around the mug. “Yes, there will be eggs again,” is perhaps the easier thing to address, Palia’s gaze lingering on the steam rising from the mug before lifting to Hattie’s face. Slowly and on the soft side: “What do you want from a riding harper, Hattie?” The weyrwoman’s name this time, not the title, as the apprentice seeks understanding on maybe a more personal basis.
“I want someone my people can trust,” is the first response, and seems to cost Hattie more than any selfish or matter of fact admittances so far. “I want someone who is /one of them/. I want someone /I/ can trust, who can think for themselves and /speak/ for themselves.” Hattie gives a vaguely dismissive wave of one hand, casting the gesture towards the nearest wall. “I’m not planning on setting up our own spying initiative, or planting people in Holds to /listen/,” she drawls somewhat derisively. “But I want the Harper singing or playing in the caverns to be one of us. I want a Harper I can trust with our records. M’vyn’s betrayal has undoubtedly cast the trustworthiness of people of your Hall into doubt.” So, why is she asking a Harper at all? “...I’m not asking your knot. Or your Hall. I’m asking /you/,” the Weyrwoman murmurs. “And maybe some part of me doesn’t trust your Hall with /you/.”
The more words Hattie speaks, the deeper Palia’s brow furrows and her gaze falls back to the contents of her mug, once the Weyrwoman has finished speaking. She’s silent for a while, clearly struggling with what’s being asked of her. “M’vyn … has certainly called a lot of things into question,” she finally says, slowly, thoughtfully, “though I can’t claim to understand it all.” Pause. “I’m just an apprentice and not privy to a lot of the … political things that go on. I’m not sure I’d /want/ to be privy to most of them, in fact.” Another pause in which troubled gray eyes lift to Hattie’s face. “I’m very happy being a teaching harper.” Her mug lifts and she takes an absent-minded swallow of the liquid within it. “I lack ambition. It could be one of the reasons why they sent me here. Is that … one of the reasons why you wouldn’t trust the Hall with /me/?”
“In all honesty, the less you know in that respect, the better off you are,” Hattie utters dryly, a fair hint of bitterness seeping into her tone. She folds her hands before her, but really only ends up curling the fingers of one hand around the other and applying more and more pressure until her knuckles whiten. “...I don’t want the Hall to do to you whatever they’ve done to M’vyn to get him to end up like he did. Has.” Murmured, with a glance down at her hands. “I don’t know what their plans are for you. As Weyrwoman, your Journeymen and Masters are just that, and it’s not really any of my business, but as...” She gestures in vain and doesn’t find the word she’s looking for - at least not any she dares use. “I don’t want them hurting you. And maybe it’s a foolish idea, thinking anything could work for any of us by involving a dragon, but if I look back in a decade’s time and I didn’t suggest it... then I... didn’t suggest it.”
Palia takes her time, hearing Hattie all the way out this time, before speaking again. Her hands remain curled around her mug the entire time, though she doesn’t drink again. Gray eyes remain fixed on Hattie’s face, maybe taking in the shifts of expression, or maybe it’s just that old habits die hard. Finally, quietly: “Hattie, most harpers /don’t/ turn out the way M’vyn did. I don’t know him well, or at all, really. But from what I’ve /heard/ … well the man’s had issues since before he became a harper or a rider.” Her head tilts to the side slightly and she blows out a long breath. “I … can see how it might seem that some harpers wind up walking a long, hard, road, but I don’t think it’s a definite fate for every one of us.” The apprentice sets her mug aside and reaches across for Hattie’s hands. “It means a lot to me that you don’t want to see me get hurt, but I don’t think that’s really something any parent can completely prevent. Shells, Papa did his level best, but I /have/ been hurt, many times in my life, by things he did or didn’t do, or things he didn’t even realize I was /aware/ of. That’s not his fault, really, except maybe that he was too easy too fool, too willing to think the best of me and I wouldn’t want him not to. You know?” Pause. Breath. “I also don’t think that standing and impressing are necessarily the solution here, not to mention that I’m very uncomfortable with the idea of breaking harper neutrality. I get that it seems like maybe the Hall is digging its own grave on that already, but /some/ of us have to stick to the principles that we’re supposed to, don’t we? Otherwise the Hall’s name will always be tarnished.” Another pause follows, before Palia adds softly: “I decided a long time ago, that I didn’t want to be a rider, Hattie. That hasn’t really changed. I’m willing to consider it, think about it a bit more. But the sacrifices a person has to make to be a good rider aren’t ones that I’m really willing to make, unless there’s a very compelling reason for me to make them.”
Hattie can’t help herself when she insists, “And perhaps those who trained him sought to exploit those... issues,” under her breath. Still, she surrenders her hands to Palia without any fuss and tries to listen to the rest of what she says without interrupting, though the pinching of her expression says much for what she believes about the Hall’s neutrality, or its desire to maintain it. “I don’t want you to be unhappy,” she says eventually. “Right now, I can’t believe that the Hall makes anyone happy, but then I don’t hear those secrets whirling around within those walls.” She gives a little shake of her head. “The way some things happen, maybe you’d best not be in the cavern at all when any eggs hatch. Not even the stands are safe.” It’s a dry, wry remark, and then she moves to sit back in her seat. “It’s your decision,” the Weyrwoman says gently. “But if I could ever have a Harper for the Weyr that was /of/ the Weyr, it would be you.”
“When I was there, studying as an apprentice … there weren’t really any secrets whirling around. At least not where most apprentices would pick up on them,” Palia says with a quiet sigh and gives Hattie’s hands a light squeeze, withdraws hers after a moment. “If you love music and history and everything that goes along with those things … the Hall is a wonderful place to be, to learn,” the apprentice says with a slow smile that tips up crookedly along one side of her face, slowly fades. “Maybe,” she agrees with Hattie. “We’ll see. If a dragon did come chasing after me that far, I think I might have to set my reservations aside, because … well maybe then it’s a meant to be. I’m not completely against the idea, just … it’s not something I’d seek out, on purpose.” She looks off to the side for a moment, something complicated lurking beneath the surface of her expression before she returns her gaze to Hattie. “Thank you. That -- that means a lot, Hattie, it really does.” Palia pushes her chair back, rises and comes around to Hattie’s side of the table, leans in to offer the Weyrwoman a hug.
Gently, at first, Hattie wraps her arms around Palia, yet she can’t help but eventually hold her tighter, better able to convey how she feels through that than anything else; any words she might find to provide. Soon, she loosens her hold and looks up at her, head tilting as a subtle, odd little smile curves her lips. “Be good, Palia,” she says gently, teasing and not, and then she’s prepared to surrender her back to her duties, and return to her own, to see most of the day out getting through all that hidework.
Palia is not at all averse to lingering in that hug, arms returning the embrace. Hattie’s teasing admonition draws the harper’s laughter: “Oh Hattie, when am I /not/ good?” and she gives the Weyrwoman her best ‘pure innocence’ look, dimples and all before she executes a more properly formal bow and turns about to find her way back to her duties for the day.