The start of a beautiful friendship. . .or not.
Who: Miniyal and J'cor
Where: Weyrleader's weyr
When: 19:41 on day 10, month 11, turn 2 of the 7th Pass.
What: Miniyal stops by to attempt to clear the way for another interview. And conversation ensues.
11/27/2006 & 11/28/2006
At High Reaches Weyr, it is 19:41 on day 10, month 11, turn 2 of the 7th Pass.
Later in the evening, when most people are done with dinner some are still working. Sure, it's her own project she is working on, but Miniyal is still working. Once more she's made her way towards the home of the weyr's leader. This time she hasn't even bothered with her writing case. She just comes along, hands twisting at her dress absently until she must use one hand to knock upon the door. There's very little hesitation in it, just a little tiny bit. After all, this time she's just popping in and maybe he's busy. She waits quietly, feet shuffling, to see if the knock is answered. Releasing her dress from nervous fingers she smooths her hair down and flicks a bit of imaginary lint from her sweater.
The first response to her knock is a slow, quiet scraping of what could only be draconic claws, fading as the dragon in question makes his way out to the ledge. The second response goes in the opposite direction: after a shouted, "One moment!" there comes the tramp of boots approaching the door, then the swing of hinges as the Weyrleader pulls it open and blinks to find the guest who confronts him. He puts on a pleasant smile for her nonetheless. "Ah, Miniyal. Good evening." Though her visit's unannounced, he acts as if it were no surprise to see her. He has answered the door with one hand twisted behind his back, but the familiar woodsmoke smell that washes out through the open door makes it no mystery that he's at his pipe again.
"Hi. Umm. Am I bothering? I can go away. It's not a big deal." Miniyal smiles apologetically about intruding, sure she is intruding somehow. "I can come by another time. Or not at all." Because, really, most people do tend to wish she had not come by at all eventually. Biting her lip she pulls her hands behind her back to fold them together out of sight. "If you're not busy I thought maybe we could talk? If you don't mind."
J'cor's smile falters at her hesitant rewording, though he seems more puzzled than displeased. "That's all right, Miniyal, now will be fine for whatever you've come for. I am not," and the smile shifts again, becoming ever so faintly wry, "as it happens, working." He curves his free hand around the edge of the door and steps back with it, leaving the way open for Miniyal to enter the den of smoke. Beyond the doorframe, his things are neatly in order, except for the mussed curtain through which Karth evidently retreated.
Since the doorway is now open, Miniyal steps through it, nodding her head at him as she passes through. "Thank you. Sorry. I mean, I'm not sure I handled our last meeting well, you know? I guess I'm a little. . .I was a little unsure if you'd want to see me. I mean, you know?" Shaking her head she smiles ruefully. "Are you well this evening? Are you sure I am not intruding? I mean, just because you're not working does not mean you were not planning on a quiet night or some such."
J'cor brings the pipe back out once she's through - trapped! - but only because, in shutting the door behind her, he's now put enough space between them that he can smoke without puffing directly into her face. "It's truly all right," he says, his words twisting around the corner of the pipe - he just has to give it a quick puff, to ensure it keeps going strong. "I don't mind speaking to you again, and I have had my fair share of quiet nights. Will you sit?" He gestures to the area behind her, but gives her no time to answer the question as he steps past to scoop up a neat pile of papers off the small table, taking them away to his desk.
Miniyal glances about as if she expects there to be people hiding somewhere behind the furniture or something. But, since there doesn't seem to be she goes ahead and moves herself to a couch where she sits down. Back straight, hands folded neatly in her lap, the picture of good manners. It is only when she speaks that those manners seem to be forgotten. "Thank you. I was sort of at loose ends tonight and thought to take a chance and see if you were free."
J'cor's good manners adapt themselves to a more casual air - once he's moved his papers to the desk, he returns to take a comfortable armchair for himself, crossing an ankle over his knee even as he echoes her straight-backed propriety. "Ah, yes?" he asks, pleasant if a little automatic in his answers. "Well, I am free. What was it you wanted?" A smile comes out - he's become rather generous with them, of late - to soften his direct path to her purpose.
"Nothing. I mean, not really. I think my approach is flawed." Miniyal smiles a bit at this and shakes her head. "I sort of got set in this one approach, you know? Well, you don't. But, I did. I mean, it's tough to find the right approach with people. Lots of people here I know. Or sort of know. Or know through my parents. So there's something I can go on. But I've only spoken to you a couple times and I wasn't sure how to go about speaking to you. All I knew was that you expected the rules to be broken for you." She shrugs at this, as if it is nothing. Not nothing enough to go without mention, of course.
J'cor picks up his pipe about midway through her answer - he's begining to get the idea that, with her, he has a good deal of time to smoke before he'll be expected to repsond - and the fact that he's puffing on it saves his mouth from giving away any expression when she brings that up. His eyes, less guarded, give him away with a blink, but he stills them into neutrality. "I don't believe that I expected the rules to be broken for me," he responds, pulling the pipe out of his mouth as he cups it by the bowl. "I expected that I would break the rules. Had I done so, I also expected to receive the consequences you outlined." An eyebrow arches slowly upwards as the pipe makes its way back to be smoked.
"Actually, that was not-" Here she stops, abruptly and quite in the middle of some thought that she thinks better of. Or at least Miniyal is quiet on whatever else her brain might say. Instead she smooths, absently, her skirt and then catching herself refolds her hands. "I'm sorry. I didn't really come here to. . .well, start something. Forgive me." Here she nearly smiles although she doesn't seem to expect to have her lapse in manners let go. "I just thought if I knew you a little better I might have an idea better the right questions to ask."
J'cor's eyebrow makes another jump upwards when she starts to, apparently, correct him. "Perhaps," he answers, letting his expression slide back down into neutrality. A beat allows some confusion as to just what part of her many-part explanation he's answering, but he pulls smoothly to his own next part: "You are welcome to ask what you like, but I fear I may again disappoint you. I have no more intention now of answering that which I did not the last time, but you are welcome to ask whatever other questions you might choose."
Miniyal shakes her head rapidly, glancing around the room. "No, I was incorrect in asking that question. I do not expect an answer to it. Not to that question." She means something by that, but she's not going to explain that either. It's just something in the way she continues to look around the room and straightens her back as if her posture were not already as perfect as turns of a somewhat overbearing mother can make it. "I thought you could tell me about yourself. Off the record and all." She lifts her hands and waggles her fingers. "No pens or anything."
J'cor holds doggedly onto his neutral expression, even (for the moment) without the aid of his pipe. He keeps his attention on her face and only notices those small clues of posture only peripherally, but no doubt he notices them just the same. "Ah." The simple response buys him a second in which to rearrange his hands, left cupping under the right while he holds onto the warm pipe bowl. "I am, I fear, of such an age that that question can really only be answered in a vague outline - first this, then that. Unless you have a specific area you would like me to reprise?" The neutrality breaks off to allow just a thin corner of a smile.
"You don't really want to talk to me, do you?" Because if he does he's clearly giving the wrong impression. Miniyal tilts her head to the side and doesn't speak again, waiting to see what the answer is going to be to that question. Or not. "If that's the case why did you let me in? It would have been easier to just tell me. It's not a big deal. Lots of people don't want to talk to me. Although I'd be curious as to why. Not that you have to tell me or anything."
J'cor gives her straightforward question time enough for him to consider his response, watching her levelly except for a faint blurriness that suggests draconic contact somewhere down the line. "I don't really want to talk about myself, to put it broadly." When he speaks, the words come suddenly and the draconic contact breaks away at once. "Since you ask, and you deserve an answer, I tell you that I don't relish the prospect of putting my life on display for the sake of research. I consider, however, that as Weyrleader I ought to expect such a thing, and I consider it also my responsibility to contribute what I find appropriate to an historical account of my time here."
Miniyal listens attentively, a skill. She focuses on him as he speaks, head tilting over just a fraction to one side. There is no attempt to speak in the middle of his words, she just lets him have his say. "I understand." Well, if anyone would understand a desire for privacy around these parts it would be her. "I would say I have not come to pry, but that would be a falsehood. I suppose what I am doing is exactly that, prying. It's not a task I relish, to trade honesties. I would rather someone else were doing this, but no one else is doing it. By the time someone else might get started too much would be lost. And there is no guarantee that they would speak to the same people, learn the same things. Or even show their results to anyone." Pausing she plucks at her skirt before closing her eyes a moment. "Perhaps we might trade." Said once she is looking at him again. "I will stick to as broad a question as I can and if you feel it is too much prying you may ask me something in return. On any topic you feel I might know something of use to you on."
J'cor's eyebrows go straight up, and he does not consider this proposal for very long. "And you would know many things of current use to me?" He puts away the question with a single shake of his head, pulling his pipe away from its cup of hands and pressing it into the corner of his lips. He holds it there, hand partially covering his mouth, while he speaks. "I would request rather that you specify than that you ask broadly, for it gives me a better path down which to guide my answers." A short puff of smoke punctuates his response as the hand holding his pipe still draws away.
A shrug of her shoulders, dismissing her offer. Nothing more than a quiet, "Clearly I would not," offered in response. Miniyal smiles, barely and for just a moment. "Specifics I can do then. Although an answer too clearly guided gives an untruth. I would hope you will accept I cannot give you too narrow a path to walk down or else the whole project is pointless."
J'cor tilts his head slightly at that response, taking careful and visible note of her bare smile. "I leave it to your discretion. A historian cannot entirely divest herself of the responsibility of guiding questions down a certain path, however; narrowness may be of use in certain pursuits." His free hand, now with no pipe to cup, flips over in a gesture that is at once helpelss dismissal of his reflections and an invitation for her to begin.
Miniyal plucks at her dress again before stopping herself. A momentary nervous gesture or thoughtful gesture or something. She is silent for several moments, gathering her own thoughts perhaps or simply trying to find the right question to ask. Just as she looks ready to ask her question she tips her head over to one side before giving it a small shake. Changing direction mid-thought or something similar. "Do you feel the punishment laid upon E'sere and Aivey was proper?"
J'cor puts out a long puff of smoke at that question, his gaze flicking down to the hand that so recently fidgeted with her dress. It returns slowly and via the roundabout route of her arm - a direct route up would appear improper. Speaking of which: "Proper. I would say, necessary, for it is not the job of a punishment to be proper. To be more direct, yes, I feel it was necessary."
"Necessary then, to continue to shed blood. You truly feel that?" She leans forward, fidgeting gone as she waits for the answer. Miniyal seems ready to ask more, but she has learned, somewhat, the necessity of asking one question at a time and so she does so. In the absence of fidgeting there is no movement from her at all. There is just the steady regard she gives to the weyrleader and the air of someone ready to ask her next question, but holding onto it because she must.
"A sentence to the mines might have left us all with more clear consciences, but it would not have left Aivey any more alive." It is a rebuke, perhaps, but he speaks it with a distant and disinterested air. It may or may not be the dragon to cause his lack of focus this time; certainly Karth has remained perfectly, physically quiet out on his ledge. "Small communities may expel their troublemakers without worry, but as those troublemakers pass into wider and wider circles of community, there is nowhere left to push them - save the ends of the earth - and it is only a danger to keep them ... in storage, as it were. With E'sere, the latter recourse - a bloodless one, I note - was necessary, if in its way less fair."
"What about other alternatives?" The question doesn't seem to be what Miniyal intended to ask because once it is out she blinks and looks away, randomly selecting an area to study as if she finds it interesting. "Do you not think our current system is somewhat broken in its treatment of criminals? Well, nevermind. I'm sorry to drag this off on a tangent that's my own curiosity and not anything that truly pertains to the subjects at hand."
J'cor's left hand stretches down to his knee, bracing on it while he considers her. His right goes up to reclaim the pipe, holding it close by his mouth while he gives himself a break. "It is a fact of historical composition, Miniyal, that the interests of the historian influence the text. Even in the case of interviews, as here, your questions - and even your responses - influence what you hear. Objectivity is admirable, but in the highest sense impossible. A long way of telling you to say what you think; consider it my 'trade,' if you will, for answers I have given and will give."
Miniyal shakes her head, sending hair that was tenuously hiding behind her ears falling forward. Those locks receive a somewhat annoyed sweep of her hand so she might remove them once more, tucking them back into place. All of this as she listens, nothing at all really, just what she has to do and it doesn't detract from her listening. "I still have to try and I won't concede your point, but will let it pass. I merely meant it was not my purpose to come here and speak on my opinions on what I feel is currently wrong with things." Things. Any old things. "Forgive my lapse."
J'cor tucks the pipe back into the corner of his mouth. "Forgiven, but you have not acknowledged my request. Namely, that in return for my answers, you will share your thoughts."
Looking down at her hands, neatly folded, Miniyal shakes her head gently. "I'm afraid that sharing my thoughts is not a talent I am adept at, sir." Looking up again she grins ruefully. "If you're looking for a way to not have to speak to me there are less painful ways for the both of us. For me. I say things I should not when I am too free with my words. If it is a condition of our conversation than I will acquiesce to it." Biting her lower lip she tips her head. "Why do you want to know them?"
J'cor puffs contentedly at his pipe, filling their area with that woodsmoke scent while she talks. "Because it is a condition of our conversation that we have a conversation," he says, having some difficulty with a few of those longer words as he fights to wrap them around the stem of his pipe.
Miniyal bites her lip again, suppressing what sounds to be a laugh. Although she coughs and if that is what it was conceals it behind that cough. "When did we decide to have a conversation? I was under the impression this was an interview? Did that change somewhere, sir?" Here she pauses and this time there is a thread of amusement in her voice when she picks up again. "If we're conversing it's polite to offer me a drink. As an interviewer I wouldn't dare suggest, but if we're going to be conversing-they are two different things I am sure you are aware."
J'cor raises his brow up, tilts his head dow - a study in contrasts. He pulls out his pipe. "I was under the impression that it was a conversation and not an interview, since you have left your stylus behind and I am less inclined to be interviewed than conversed with. If however you would like a drink, I can most certainly provide - although I warn you that my rather small collection of drinks contains, at the moment, only a bottle of Igenite whiskey. Quite strong." Only one eyebrow drops down, leaving the other up as an unspoken query - dare she try his whiskey?
Miniyal grins for a moment and then nods. "You're right. It's not an interview. But. . .well, I am not sure it was quite a conversation. Then again, my social skills are decidedly lacking so there's no need to think I'd have much of a clue as to what is going on." Shaking her head she asks, "Are you tired of me offering to go? Because I assure you, I can continue to ask until you get sick of it. I'm not quite sure how this-conversation ended up here. I had things all planned out quite nicely in my head before I even knocked and it still got off track." To the question of whiskey she blinks and then nods. "That would be lovely." Lovely? Well. "It's my own fault for being rude and pointing out a lapse in your hosting." That's probably rude too, but it's said in an offhand manner, as if it's nothing to her. Not teasing, never, but nothing of consequence.
J'cor has been letting various rude comments of Miniyal's slide off his back since the beginning, and he is not about to break his trend now. "It would be more productive, I expect, if you assume that I will ask you to leave if I choose to, and that there is no need of your checking in with me in the meantime." Wedging the pipe stem between his fingers, he braces both hands on the arms of his chair and pushes to his feet. Although the weyr has a sideboard for drinks, he does not have his whiskey there - perhaps he thinks it would look lonely - but tucked away in his private living area. Interrupted at times by the clinking sounds of his retrieval, the Weyrleader's voice trails over a shoulder: "Your thoughts, then, while I pour."
People keep letting her rude comments go she'll only make more of them. Then again, she's aware of them on her own so there's no real need to point it out. "I'll keep that in mind then, sir." Miniyal shrugs, no big deal. Does make it easier just waiting to be dismissed. Story of her life. "The winter is going to be rough I think. Rougher than usual. At least the air has that feel to it." He said share her thoughts. He gets what comes to her mind. "People adjust, of course. Some don't, but some aren't really here that long. Just one more problem of the caucus." Rambling now or so it appears. "I will be glad to see the end of this turn."
J'cor fully turns a look over his shoulder at the subject he chooses, but that silent shake of his head doesn't interrupt her, at least. "One more problem of the Caucus is that they leave too quickly?" he inquires when she's finished, turning back with two drinks (and a pipe) in his hands - it appears he'll be joining her. He hands off the drink that wasn't near his pipe when he gets back to her. "Or perhaps that they complain excessively of cold."
Miniyal blinks and then clears her throat. "See? Anyway, that they complain endlessly. Not all of them, of course. Some are from climates not so different, but some just won't shut up. At least the first turn." Shaking her head she takes her drank with a nod of thanks. "Is it hard?" She would explain, but she must first take a cautious sip from the glass in her hand. A fraction of an inch of whiskey disappears from her glass and when that glass is lowered again to be held in both hands she tips her head and then nods. "Not bad."
J'cor opens his mouth to answer the question, but seeing her raise the glass without a pause he closes it again, and waits. A small nod accepts her judgment as he settles back into his chair, taking a small sip from his own whiskey. "It is one of Igen's better forays," he allows with a small smile. Since she is so conversationally stunted, perhaps she will not notice when he changes the subject without bothering to segue: "What was it you were saying about alternative punishments? With E'sere, that is, and Aivey."
Miniyal has learned, at least, to be more careful with her alcohol consumption and so the glass is used as a prop and not as something to empty as soon as possible. Yet. "I just think the current way we handle criminals is flawed. It's wrong. I mean, for one thing there is no justification for hurting another person. Ever. Even as a punishment. Because it's not. It's a revenge. People can claim otherwise, but that is not the case. I think there are other alternatives to how we currently handle things. I mean, it's silly to continue to do this the same way simply because we have done it the same way. Our society is better than what we do. And if it's not it is our own fault." Now she takes a drink, still a small one, but still.
J'cor prefers to lean on his pipe as a prop, rather than the glass of whiskey; after that short sip, he wraps the fingers of his left hand around the top and lets it dangle while his arm rests on the chair. "Certainly all punishment is a form of revenge. I am not convinced that this invalidates it. I will confess that I do not see the alternatives you propose - in such a community as this, I do not think mere censure would suffice, not do I think it tied closely enough to allow any realistic hope of reform in the majority of cases."
"I don't think there are truly that many people who cannot be reformed." Miniyal points out with a frown into her glass. A shake of her head before she speaks again. "There are alternatives. I'm-well." The abrupt stops are another charming part to her conversations. Chewing on her lower lip she looks at her glass again. "Well, I have an idea is all, but I am still researching it and I have some more work to do on it and, well, not that I figure I'll probably get a chance to really /do/ anything with it. But at least, well. I don't know. Right now we just toss people away. That's not right."
J'cor arches a brow when she starts to speak of her idea, but it goes back down once she directs away from it. "From an individual's perspective? Perhaps not - it is not moral. From a communal perspective, again, I am not sure that it is ineffective, though it's unpalatable." A small smile breaks into his words. "Well. I am a skeptic. But I wish you the best of luck with your alternate idea, truly." He gives the glass of whiskey a small tip towards her, then takes a drink.
Miniyal shakes her head slowly and peers into her glass with a thoughtful expression. "But if there were an alternative? Would you be willing to listen to it? Or would you dismiss it out of hand?" Worrying at her lower lip she stops it by taking another small sip from her glass. "A community is made of individuals. Forgetting that is what leads to trouble. When people focus on the whole and miss the parts of it? It's just. . .wrong. It's one of the problems we have as a society." Here she pauses and then just mumbles, "Well, I think."
J'cor pauses with the drink in his mouth, his lips pressed together over it. He swallows it down with a small 'ah' of breath let out, lowering the glass away from him. "If you are saying it, then it's what you think," he answers first, watching the glass for a moment. Another small smile slips onto his features as he meets her eye. "I would listen, but if so you would do well to complete your researches swiftly. It cannot be long before a new queen rises."
Miniyal's head tilts to one side and she watches him more curiously, nearly puzzled as she asks, "And that would be the end of your interest? If you were no longer weyrleader you would not think you could still help me?" Not that she has actually come out and asked for help. "I don't believe that just because you are replaced it will negate the value of any assistance you might offer to any cause. Unless you mean to not. . .care?" More puzzlement as she shakes her head. "As for saying what I think, sir? It's hardly often I can stop myself from saying what I think in some circumstances. A bad habit I am told."
J'cor lifts a finger off the glass to forestall her, shaking his head. "Ah, no, I am not faulting you for saying what you think. Merely pointing out that it needs no - nevermind." That small smile interrupts his words again. "It's unimportant. To go back to the topic at hand, no, I don't think that my assistance would be negated by the loss of my current knot. I cannot, however, promise my continued involvement in the Reaches past that point."
Miniyal lifts her glass to take a drink, but doesn't actually do it. Instead she peers at the remaining whiskey and then lowers her glass again to hold in both hands. "Well, no one faults me for it overly much as it just means I've given too much away." A shrug because that's the way it goes. "That doesn't matter. Neither does any involvement you have here or not. I'm talking about. . .well. More. I mean, what I have in mind reaches beyond here. It's, well, like I said, I don't imagine it ever happening. I don't really have a voice people want to listen to. No authority and all. Assistants are rarely allowed a chance to truly change things."
J'cor brings the pipe back to his mouth, taking a few slow puffs while he listens to her. A thin smile twisted out around the edge of it greets her inability to keep her opinions under her hat, but the smile doesn't last long. His answer, when he speaks it, is simple, and neatly dodges any question of his own future involvement anywhere: "I'm intrigued, Miniyal." He puffs his pipe.
Miniyal hesitates with a drink from her glass and an absent smoothing of her skirt. When that is not enough she tucks hair behind her ear that was already neatly tucked. "I haven't really worked on, well, an explanation. I mean, I haven't talked to anyone about it. My thoughts are sort of, well, right." One more drink from her glass and then she clasps it tightly between both hands the remaining liquid invisible thanks to the way it is held. "The current method of dealing with things is not entirely wrong. But there are many aspects of it that are. The idea of exile is not bad, but it's handled poorly. Wrong. There are ways to do it that could help everyone. Not just. . .toss people aside. Like they don't matter."
J'cor stops puffing for a while when she starts discussing the exiles, flattening his expression into neutrality while he listens. "There are," he concedes around the pipestem, "certain difficulties involved in exile. You might do well to take into account, though, that part of the punishment /is/ treating the criminal as if they don't matter. Having impinged on society's laws, that is, they lose their privilege to be considered by that society. Possibly not as productive as what it is you have in mind, but - since we admit that punishment is the same as revenge - likely more satisfying to those who, having been assaulted along with the laws, seek revenge within the laws. Better that than they seek it without."
"But it's not the same thing. I mean. . .it's a death sentence. Sending people into exile is the same as killing them. Only no one gets their hands dirty, right?" Miniyal is earnest now, leaning forward and forgetting the glass in her hands to focus on what she is saying. "I'm not saying coddle people. I'm not saying they should not be punished, but I am saying that killing them is not the answer. Violence is /never/ the right response. Did anyone ever speak to the people who commit the crimes that call for exile or the mines or leaving them out to die? How many of them felt already that society didn't give a damn about them? So we enforce that belief and toss them aside? Like they're nothing? Like they don't matter and we go back to our lives and we pretend that it's all alright because the bad people are gone now?"
J'cor gives the pipe a parting puff, almost a sigh, and watches the smoke trail upwards from it while he lowers the bowl into his hand and rests it, once again, off the arm of his chair. "You have told me a great deal of things which you are not saying, yet you still have not said what it is you /are/ saying. You disapprove of violence, but not of exile - or at least, some manner of exile - and you seem to hold out hope for the reform of certain criminals, but that act is not so easily effected. I would guess that you have a more tangible plan than you are willing to share with me, but if so you mustn't torment me with the possibilities." A smile would be called for here - it is more a less a joke, to close his statement - but though his lips tug towards one they don't make it all the way, and he soon gives up the effort.
Miniyal releases her prop by finishing the last half inch of liquid in her glass without a thought. She swallows, ignoring the burn and setting the glass down on the table. Then she folds her hands in her lap. "I think with proper planning a place to send people could be found. An island they would live on. One where they could have food and water and shelter even if it needed to be built for them. Supplied and resupplied as needed. With guards and mindhealers to assist them in being rehabilitated if they could be. I concede the point that not everyone can be, but I think most can. The guards could be sent from every hold." She goes on without pausing, as if afraid of losing her nerve if she stops. "They would need protection from threat, but that is why the weyrs would trade off on who should cover it. They are the responsibility of everyone. We should all shoulder the burden of taking care of them." Now she stops, just staring at him and waiting to see what he will say, braced for the worst.
J'cor has yielded his pipe, but he still has props to cover him, and it's the whiskey that comes to his aid now. His drinks have been really very small, so he still has plenty left for all that Miniyal's finished her portion - and when she does, he remembers his role as host, tilting his own drink towards her with an eyebrow arched in silent question. Refill? Again he holds the whiskey in his mouth for a while, lips pressed down, before he answers. "It removes the revenge aspect, but I am still not convinced that it's a good aspect to remove. Assuming also that you mean to send all criminals to this island you theorize, you would soon find that guarding and healing such a large population - including those sent to the mines, and staked out for Thread, and left Holdless - would present a great drain on mainland resources. Not only in the logistics of supplying sufficient numbers, but in the emotional toll taken on those selected to perform that duty. I will say," and he punctuates this injunction by raising his glass abruptly, "that I agree with your principle that exiles ought not to be left to their own devices, and there is something to be said for making their lifestyle a less desperate one. On the other hand, too comfortable a living might lead to other problems, and at any rate who is to be the judge of a truly reformed candidate for return?"
"I told you I did not have it all worked out yet." Well, she did. The tilt of the glass and she hesitates before nodding a fraction. Wise? Probably not, but since she was offered she will accept. A second glass won't kill her. "I do not think that it would be such a drain. I'm. . .not sure about the people now. I am loathe to not try to help them, but it may not be possible. I don't. . .I am not sure yet on the details. I am not saying make their life easy. I am saying give them a chance to continue to live like human beings. Not like animals discarded." Biting her lip Miniyal frowns a moment and then shakes her head. "If you rotate them out often enough it would not be so bad. As for who. . .I don't know. A panel of people. It's not perfect, but it could work. There are details I've not considered. I'm trying to work on them."
J'cor shifts the pipe into his other hand, holding it carefully alongside his own glass while he gets up to take hers from her. "You did. If I have pointed out only the issues that you are already aware of, I hope you won't hold it against me." His smile has more success sparking to life this time, though it's still short-lived; he holds it only for the moment it takes him to receive the transfer of her glass, and then lets it drop as he turns back to his quarters to fetch her refill. "Even the smallest use of /our/ resources for /their/ livelihood - you understand, I draw the distinction to illustrate a perspective - would be too much. That is not to say that intelligent argument on the subject is impossible to maintain. Only difficult." With the bottle already out and opened, it takes him considerably less time to refill her glass and bring it back to her than it took to fetch in the first place; on his last words, he's already back at her seat, holding the glass out to her.
Miniyal closes her eyes when he goes to refill her glass. Whatever she's thinking is not visible by the time he returns. Taking her glass back she nods her head and offers a flicker of a smile. "Thank you." A tiny sip and then she holds her glass. So much for not using a prop. "It is not an us and a them. It is all an us, J'cor. We're a society. From the best to the worst and we need to own up to that and accept it. The way we treat our worst is how we should judge ourselves. It's easy to be kind and to. . .care about our best. Even those of us hovering somewhere in the middle out of sight. But those we would rather despise and forget about? That is hard."
J'cor settles back into his chair as she speaks, and of course the pipe is already at hand for him to smoke. "Forgive me, I didn't express that clearly. I am in the habit of challenging a point by taking positions in which I do not necessarily believe. 'Us' and 'them' is, I would agree, far too simplistic a separation, and hardly a useful one. Your counter-argument holds weight with me, but will it hold weight with those who understand the situation in the terms which I outlined?" He allows the question to hold a moment, then shrugs it off. "Perhaps and perhaps not. At any rate, it may be impossible - though you are more optimistic than I am - to sway such minds. It would on the other hand be essential to prevent other minds, not yet so compartmentalized, from being swayed by them. This is what I was referring to, when I mentioned intelligent argument."
"I know." Since she has the prop she makes use of it. Two sips this time and then she sets it on the table, folding her hands in her lap. "I'm not even sure if I worked out all the problems in my own head I could even, I mean even if I could get people to listen I am not sure that I could get them to. . .listen. To me. I mean, you see how I suck at this. Even with all the enforced practice I am getting these days." A wry smile at this and a small laugh that trails off. "I have to think I can do it or I'll give up entirely and it's important and someone has to. . .to try. I mean, someone has to. Sometimes no matter what, even if you're pretty sure you'll fail you have to try. For the important things." Miniyal stares at her glass, but doesn't pick it up.
J'cor turns a faint smile down on his own glass - he was just with the bottle, but he didn't refill his own dwindling supply - and then pulls his lips in to tuck it away. "Indeed." He raises his gaze, thoroughly neutralized, back to her face. "I would say there are many methods, once you have the goal worked out. A recordskeeper, I am sure you do not underestimate the value of a written tract - carefully edited, and properly publicized, a written work can have great impact. Then of course there are whatever contacts you may make and, if you are not too impatient, all the time you might need to establish yourself as an authority on the subject."
Miniyal takes note of the glass he holds and looks at her own, comparing as if it means nothing. Then she nods her head once and smiles faintly. "The written word is only powerful if it reaches the right people. And if the one who writes it can discuss it. Without making a fool of themselves. Patience I have, you can't be me and not have it." Whatever that means. "But that's what I am trying to do. Make contacts." Meaning him. "Right now most of the people I know who might help are based here and I don't have a lot of people outside the weyr, you know? But with people who have those contacts. . .I mean, if I could convince them what I wanted was worthwhile."
J'cor, if he understands that he has been added to that list of contacts, shows nothing of it. He simply nods, placid. "If the written word reaches someone who can read it at all, then it can do a great deal. I am certainly assuming that what is written will be well-discussed, and I would also hope accessibly composed. If you have patience, then you have time to practice - with other matters, mind you, given you are still refining this one."
Miniyal twists absently at her skirt before she nods once. "There are other things I am working on. This is just sort of. . .it's something I've been thinking about for a long time. In the back of my mind but I never really thought I might. Anyway. I'm sorry. I've been babbling on and wasted your night. I didn't mean to. I just stopped by to see if we might try the interview thing again. You've been really kind to put up with me for so long."
J'cor inclines his head graciously, taking the finishing swallow of his whiskey before he sets it on the low table between them. "It was engaging, and an interesting change from my usual evenings. Thank you, Miniyal." His smile gets to live for a good half-second before he pops his pipe back in, interrupting it.
Miniyal laughs, eyes rolling. "Yes, I'm always so entertaining. You must have very boring nights if this was a interesting change. Although, I'm not sure interesting is what I want to hear. Not that I expect nice, but still. I'm sorry, don't mind me." Shaking her head she reaches for her glass to takes a few sips, slowly emptying it. "It was nice. .no, really, talking to you. It's not often I get to talk to people outside the tiny circle that is my. . .you know, circle. Of people."
J'cor is actually surprised into a low chuckle, though it may be hard to recognize as such with the twisting effect of his pipe on sounds he tries to make. His fingers go up to pinch the stem again, drawing it out for a moment. "Have I phrased myself poorly again? Forgive me. It was, yes, /nice/ talking to you." He echoes her word with a smile, but while it's as small as all the others have been it seems, for the moment, more genuine. "I use half-mark words where an eighth would do."
Miniyal finishes her drink and sets the glass down on the table. "Much better. Although I think I prefer the truth so I will allow interesting. It's rarely nice to talk to me. Or it's rarely nice for me to talk to people because I wind up saying the wrong thing. So. I think I will talk my leave. Otherwise I'll find something else you're not really interesting in hearing me expound on and carry on for too long." Rising from her seat she smiles. "Thank you. I had a lovely evening, sir. I'll call again soon. If that's alright?"
"As you prefer," J'cor allows with a gracious tilt of his head. He follows her to his feet, extending his pipeless hand across the table for a parting shake - not that he won't also escort her to the door. Once he's been reminded of his duties as a host, he carries them out to the letter. "Your return would be welcome - and interesting," he revises, arching a brow briefly. "I am but rarely out of the weyr at this time, if you again find yourself at loose ends."
"With Gans teaching now I'm sometimes at loose ends in the evening when his students come by." The hand is taken to shake and then she does go to the door, shaking her head. "Do you play chess? Maybe we can play some night. I've not played with someone different in a long time." Miniyal pauses at the door and smiles once more. "Thank you again, sir, for putting up with me. Have a nice evening. I'll see you again." She will linger by the door so he might say goodbye before she slips out and leaves him be.
J'cor reprises his greeting of so much earlier in the night, tucking the pipe away behind his back and pulling the door open behind him, holding it for Miniyal's parting. "Chess?" he echoes, and continues to echo: "I have not played in a long time. I like to think, however, that I accept defeat graciously, so for all that I would be pleased to try my hand at it again. Enjoy your evening, Miniyal. I shall see for chess, some time."
Where: Weyrleader's weyr
When: 19:41 on day 10, month 11, turn 2 of the 7th Pass.
What: Miniyal stops by to attempt to clear the way for another interview. And conversation ensues.
11/27/2006 & 11/28/2006
At High Reaches Weyr, it is 19:41 on day 10, month 11, turn 2 of the 7th Pass.
Later in the evening, when most people are done with dinner some are still working. Sure, it's her own project she is working on, but Miniyal is still working. Once more she's made her way towards the home of the weyr's leader. This time she hasn't even bothered with her writing case. She just comes along, hands twisting at her dress absently until she must use one hand to knock upon the door. There's very little hesitation in it, just a little tiny bit. After all, this time she's just popping in and maybe he's busy. She waits quietly, feet shuffling, to see if the knock is answered. Releasing her dress from nervous fingers she smooths her hair down and flicks a bit of imaginary lint from her sweater.
The first response to her knock is a slow, quiet scraping of what could only be draconic claws, fading as the dragon in question makes his way out to the ledge. The second response goes in the opposite direction: after a shouted, "One moment!" there comes the tramp of boots approaching the door, then the swing of hinges as the Weyrleader pulls it open and blinks to find the guest who confronts him. He puts on a pleasant smile for her nonetheless. "Ah, Miniyal. Good evening." Though her visit's unannounced, he acts as if it were no surprise to see her. He has answered the door with one hand twisted behind his back, but the familiar woodsmoke smell that washes out through the open door makes it no mystery that he's at his pipe again.
"Hi. Umm. Am I bothering? I can go away. It's not a big deal." Miniyal smiles apologetically about intruding, sure she is intruding somehow. "I can come by another time. Or not at all." Because, really, most people do tend to wish she had not come by at all eventually. Biting her lip she pulls her hands behind her back to fold them together out of sight. "If you're not busy I thought maybe we could talk? If you don't mind."
J'cor's smile falters at her hesitant rewording, though he seems more puzzled than displeased. "That's all right, Miniyal, now will be fine for whatever you've come for. I am not," and the smile shifts again, becoming ever so faintly wry, "as it happens, working." He curves his free hand around the edge of the door and steps back with it, leaving the way open for Miniyal to enter the den of smoke. Beyond the doorframe, his things are neatly in order, except for the mussed curtain through which Karth evidently retreated.
Since the doorway is now open, Miniyal steps through it, nodding her head at him as she passes through. "Thank you. Sorry. I mean, I'm not sure I handled our last meeting well, you know? I guess I'm a little. . .I was a little unsure if you'd want to see me. I mean, you know?" Shaking her head she smiles ruefully. "Are you well this evening? Are you sure I am not intruding? I mean, just because you're not working does not mean you were not planning on a quiet night or some such."
J'cor brings the pipe back out once she's through - trapped! - but only because, in shutting the door behind her, he's now put enough space between them that he can smoke without puffing directly into her face. "It's truly all right," he says, his words twisting around the corner of the pipe - he just has to give it a quick puff, to ensure it keeps going strong. "I don't mind speaking to you again, and I have had my fair share of quiet nights. Will you sit?" He gestures to the area behind her, but gives her no time to answer the question as he steps past to scoop up a neat pile of papers off the small table, taking them away to his desk.
Miniyal glances about as if she expects there to be people hiding somewhere behind the furniture or something. But, since there doesn't seem to be she goes ahead and moves herself to a couch where she sits down. Back straight, hands folded neatly in her lap, the picture of good manners. It is only when she speaks that those manners seem to be forgotten. "Thank you. I was sort of at loose ends tonight and thought to take a chance and see if you were free."
J'cor's good manners adapt themselves to a more casual air - once he's moved his papers to the desk, he returns to take a comfortable armchair for himself, crossing an ankle over his knee even as he echoes her straight-backed propriety. "Ah, yes?" he asks, pleasant if a little automatic in his answers. "Well, I am free. What was it you wanted?" A smile comes out - he's become rather generous with them, of late - to soften his direct path to her purpose.
"Nothing. I mean, not really. I think my approach is flawed." Miniyal smiles a bit at this and shakes her head. "I sort of got set in this one approach, you know? Well, you don't. But, I did. I mean, it's tough to find the right approach with people. Lots of people here I know. Or sort of know. Or know through my parents. So there's something I can go on. But I've only spoken to you a couple times and I wasn't sure how to go about speaking to you. All I knew was that you expected the rules to be broken for you." She shrugs at this, as if it is nothing. Not nothing enough to go without mention, of course.
J'cor picks up his pipe about midway through her answer - he's begining to get the idea that, with her, he has a good deal of time to smoke before he'll be expected to repsond - and the fact that he's puffing on it saves his mouth from giving away any expression when she brings that up. His eyes, less guarded, give him away with a blink, but he stills them into neutrality. "I don't believe that I expected the rules to be broken for me," he responds, pulling the pipe out of his mouth as he cups it by the bowl. "I expected that I would break the rules. Had I done so, I also expected to receive the consequences you outlined." An eyebrow arches slowly upwards as the pipe makes its way back to be smoked.
"Actually, that was not-" Here she stops, abruptly and quite in the middle of some thought that she thinks better of. Or at least Miniyal is quiet on whatever else her brain might say. Instead she smooths, absently, her skirt and then catching herself refolds her hands. "I'm sorry. I didn't really come here to. . .well, start something. Forgive me." Here she nearly smiles although she doesn't seem to expect to have her lapse in manners let go. "I just thought if I knew you a little better I might have an idea better the right questions to ask."
J'cor's eyebrow makes another jump upwards when she starts to, apparently, correct him. "Perhaps," he answers, letting his expression slide back down into neutrality. A beat allows some confusion as to just what part of her many-part explanation he's answering, but he pulls smoothly to his own next part: "You are welcome to ask what you like, but I fear I may again disappoint you. I have no more intention now of answering that which I did not the last time, but you are welcome to ask whatever other questions you might choose."
Miniyal shakes her head rapidly, glancing around the room. "No, I was incorrect in asking that question. I do not expect an answer to it. Not to that question." She means something by that, but she's not going to explain that either. It's just something in the way she continues to look around the room and straightens her back as if her posture were not already as perfect as turns of a somewhat overbearing mother can make it. "I thought you could tell me about yourself. Off the record and all." She lifts her hands and waggles her fingers. "No pens or anything."
J'cor holds doggedly onto his neutral expression, even (for the moment) without the aid of his pipe. He keeps his attention on her face and only notices those small clues of posture only peripherally, but no doubt he notices them just the same. "Ah." The simple response buys him a second in which to rearrange his hands, left cupping under the right while he holds onto the warm pipe bowl. "I am, I fear, of such an age that that question can really only be answered in a vague outline - first this, then that. Unless you have a specific area you would like me to reprise?" The neutrality breaks off to allow just a thin corner of a smile.
"You don't really want to talk to me, do you?" Because if he does he's clearly giving the wrong impression. Miniyal tilts her head to the side and doesn't speak again, waiting to see what the answer is going to be to that question. Or not. "If that's the case why did you let me in? It would have been easier to just tell me. It's not a big deal. Lots of people don't want to talk to me. Although I'd be curious as to why. Not that you have to tell me or anything."
J'cor gives her straightforward question time enough for him to consider his response, watching her levelly except for a faint blurriness that suggests draconic contact somewhere down the line. "I don't really want to talk about myself, to put it broadly." When he speaks, the words come suddenly and the draconic contact breaks away at once. "Since you ask, and you deserve an answer, I tell you that I don't relish the prospect of putting my life on display for the sake of research. I consider, however, that as Weyrleader I ought to expect such a thing, and I consider it also my responsibility to contribute what I find appropriate to an historical account of my time here."
Miniyal listens attentively, a skill. She focuses on him as he speaks, head tilting over just a fraction to one side. There is no attempt to speak in the middle of his words, she just lets him have his say. "I understand." Well, if anyone would understand a desire for privacy around these parts it would be her. "I would say I have not come to pry, but that would be a falsehood. I suppose what I am doing is exactly that, prying. It's not a task I relish, to trade honesties. I would rather someone else were doing this, but no one else is doing it. By the time someone else might get started too much would be lost. And there is no guarantee that they would speak to the same people, learn the same things. Or even show their results to anyone." Pausing she plucks at her skirt before closing her eyes a moment. "Perhaps we might trade." Said once she is looking at him again. "I will stick to as broad a question as I can and if you feel it is too much prying you may ask me something in return. On any topic you feel I might know something of use to you on."
J'cor's eyebrows go straight up, and he does not consider this proposal for very long. "And you would know many things of current use to me?" He puts away the question with a single shake of his head, pulling his pipe away from its cup of hands and pressing it into the corner of his lips. He holds it there, hand partially covering his mouth, while he speaks. "I would request rather that you specify than that you ask broadly, for it gives me a better path down which to guide my answers." A short puff of smoke punctuates his response as the hand holding his pipe still draws away.
A shrug of her shoulders, dismissing her offer. Nothing more than a quiet, "Clearly I would not," offered in response. Miniyal smiles, barely and for just a moment. "Specifics I can do then. Although an answer too clearly guided gives an untruth. I would hope you will accept I cannot give you too narrow a path to walk down or else the whole project is pointless."
J'cor tilts his head slightly at that response, taking careful and visible note of her bare smile. "I leave it to your discretion. A historian cannot entirely divest herself of the responsibility of guiding questions down a certain path, however; narrowness may be of use in certain pursuits." His free hand, now with no pipe to cup, flips over in a gesture that is at once helpelss dismissal of his reflections and an invitation for her to begin.
Miniyal plucks at her dress again before stopping herself. A momentary nervous gesture or thoughtful gesture or something. She is silent for several moments, gathering her own thoughts perhaps or simply trying to find the right question to ask. Just as she looks ready to ask her question she tips her head over to one side before giving it a small shake. Changing direction mid-thought or something similar. "Do you feel the punishment laid upon E'sere and Aivey was proper?"
J'cor puts out a long puff of smoke at that question, his gaze flicking down to the hand that so recently fidgeted with her dress. It returns slowly and via the roundabout route of her arm - a direct route up would appear improper. Speaking of which: "Proper. I would say, necessary, for it is not the job of a punishment to be proper. To be more direct, yes, I feel it was necessary."
"Necessary then, to continue to shed blood. You truly feel that?" She leans forward, fidgeting gone as she waits for the answer. Miniyal seems ready to ask more, but she has learned, somewhat, the necessity of asking one question at a time and so she does so. In the absence of fidgeting there is no movement from her at all. There is just the steady regard she gives to the weyrleader and the air of someone ready to ask her next question, but holding onto it because she must.
"A sentence to the mines might have left us all with more clear consciences, but it would not have left Aivey any more alive." It is a rebuke, perhaps, but he speaks it with a distant and disinterested air. It may or may not be the dragon to cause his lack of focus this time; certainly Karth has remained perfectly, physically quiet out on his ledge. "Small communities may expel their troublemakers without worry, but as those troublemakers pass into wider and wider circles of community, there is nowhere left to push them - save the ends of the earth - and it is only a danger to keep them ... in storage, as it were. With E'sere, the latter recourse - a bloodless one, I note - was necessary, if in its way less fair."
"What about other alternatives?" The question doesn't seem to be what Miniyal intended to ask because once it is out she blinks and looks away, randomly selecting an area to study as if she finds it interesting. "Do you not think our current system is somewhat broken in its treatment of criminals? Well, nevermind. I'm sorry to drag this off on a tangent that's my own curiosity and not anything that truly pertains to the subjects at hand."
J'cor's left hand stretches down to his knee, bracing on it while he considers her. His right goes up to reclaim the pipe, holding it close by his mouth while he gives himself a break. "It is a fact of historical composition, Miniyal, that the interests of the historian influence the text. Even in the case of interviews, as here, your questions - and even your responses - influence what you hear. Objectivity is admirable, but in the highest sense impossible. A long way of telling you to say what you think; consider it my 'trade,' if you will, for answers I have given and will give."
Miniyal shakes her head, sending hair that was tenuously hiding behind her ears falling forward. Those locks receive a somewhat annoyed sweep of her hand so she might remove them once more, tucking them back into place. All of this as she listens, nothing at all really, just what she has to do and it doesn't detract from her listening. "I still have to try and I won't concede your point, but will let it pass. I merely meant it was not my purpose to come here and speak on my opinions on what I feel is currently wrong with things." Things. Any old things. "Forgive my lapse."
J'cor tucks the pipe back into the corner of his mouth. "Forgiven, but you have not acknowledged my request. Namely, that in return for my answers, you will share your thoughts."
Looking down at her hands, neatly folded, Miniyal shakes her head gently. "I'm afraid that sharing my thoughts is not a talent I am adept at, sir." Looking up again she grins ruefully. "If you're looking for a way to not have to speak to me there are less painful ways for the both of us. For me. I say things I should not when I am too free with my words. If it is a condition of our conversation than I will acquiesce to it." Biting her lower lip she tips her head. "Why do you want to know them?"
J'cor puffs contentedly at his pipe, filling their area with that woodsmoke scent while she talks. "Because it is a condition of our conversation that we have a conversation," he says, having some difficulty with a few of those longer words as he fights to wrap them around the stem of his pipe.
Miniyal bites her lip again, suppressing what sounds to be a laugh. Although she coughs and if that is what it was conceals it behind that cough. "When did we decide to have a conversation? I was under the impression this was an interview? Did that change somewhere, sir?" Here she pauses and this time there is a thread of amusement in her voice when she picks up again. "If we're conversing it's polite to offer me a drink. As an interviewer I wouldn't dare suggest, but if we're going to be conversing-they are two different things I am sure you are aware."
J'cor raises his brow up, tilts his head dow - a study in contrasts. He pulls out his pipe. "I was under the impression that it was a conversation and not an interview, since you have left your stylus behind and I am less inclined to be interviewed than conversed with. If however you would like a drink, I can most certainly provide - although I warn you that my rather small collection of drinks contains, at the moment, only a bottle of Igenite whiskey. Quite strong." Only one eyebrow drops down, leaving the other up as an unspoken query - dare she try his whiskey?
Miniyal grins for a moment and then nods. "You're right. It's not an interview. But. . .well, I am not sure it was quite a conversation. Then again, my social skills are decidedly lacking so there's no need to think I'd have much of a clue as to what is going on." Shaking her head she asks, "Are you tired of me offering to go? Because I assure you, I can continue to ask until you get sick of it. I'm not quite sure how this-conversation ended up here. I had things all planned out quite nicely in my head before I even knocked and it still got off track." To the question of whiskey she blinks and then nods. "That would be lovely." Lovely? Well. "It's my own fault for being rude and pointing out a lapse in your hosting." That's probably rude too, but it's said in an offhand manner, as if it's nothing to her. Not teasing, never, but nothing of consequence.
J'cor has been letting various rude comments of Miniyal's slide off his back since the beginning, and he is not about to break his trend now. "It would be more productive, I expect, if you assume that I will ask you to leave if I choose to, and that there is no need of your checking in with me in the meantime." Wedging the pipe stem between his fingers, he braces both hands on the arms of his chair and pushes to his feet. Although the weyr has a sideboard for drinks, he does not have his whiskey there - perhaps he thinks it would look lonely - but tucked away in his private living area. Interrupted at times by the clinking sounds of his retrieval, the Weyrleader's voice trails over a shoulder: "Your thoughts, then, while I pour."
People keep letting her rude comments go she'll only make more of them. Then again, she's aware of them on her own so there's no real need to point it out. "I'll keep that in mind then, sir." Miniyal shrugs, no big deal. Does make it easier just waiting to be dismissed. Story of her life. "The winter is going to be rough I think. Rougher than usual. At least the air has that feel to it." He said share her thoughts. He gets what comes to her mind. "People adjust, of course. Some don't, but some aren't really here that long. Just one more problem of the caucus." Rambling now or so it appears. "I will be glad to see the end of this turn."
J'cor fully turns a look over his shoulder at the subject he chooses, but that silent shake of his head doesn't interrupt her, at least. "One more problem of the Caucus is that they leave too quickly?" he inquires when she's finished, turning back with two drinks (and a pipe) in his hands - it appears he'll be joining her. He hands off the drink that wasn't near his pipe when he gets back to her. "Or perhaps that they complain excessively of cold."
Miniyal blinks and then clears her throat. "See? Anyway, that they complain endlessly. Not all of them, of course. Some are from climates not so different, but some just won't shut up. At least the first turn." Shaking her head she takes her drank with a nod of thanks. "Is it hard?" She would explain, but she must first take a cautious sip from the glass in her hand. A fraction of an inch of whiskey disappears from her glass and when that glass is lowered again to be held in both hands she tips her head and then nods. "Not bad."
J'cor opens his mouth to answer the question, but seeing her raise the glass without a pause he closes it again, and waits. A small nod accepts her judgment as he settles back into his chair, taking a small sip from his own whiskey. "It is one of Igen's better forays," he allows with a small smile. Since she is so conversationally stunted, perhaps she will not notice when he changes the subject without bothering to segue: "What was it you were saying about alternative punishments? With E'sere, that is, and Aivey."
Miniyal has learned, at least, to be more careful with her alcohol consumption and so the glass is used as a prop and not as something to empty as soon as possible. Yet. "I just think the current way we handle criminals is flawed. It's wrong. I mean, for one thing there is no justification for hurting another person. Ever. Even as a punishment. Because it's not. It's a revenge. People can claim otherwise, but that is not the case. I think there are other alternatives to how we currently handle things. I mean, it's silly to continue to do this the same way simply because we have done it the same way. Our society is better than what we do. And if it's not it is our own fault." Now she takes a drink, still a small one, but still.
J'cor prefers to lean on his pipe as a prop, rather than the glass of whiskey; after that short sip, he wraps the fingers of his left hand around the top and lets it dangle while his arm rests on the chair. "Certainly all punishment is a form of revenge. I am not convinced that this invalidates it. I will confess that I do not see the alternatives you propose - in such a community as this, I do not think mere censure would suffice, not do I think it tied closely enough to allow any realistic hope of reform in the majority of cases."
"I don't think there are truly that many people who cannot be reformed." Miniyal points out with a frown into her glass. A shake of her head before she speaks again. "There are alternatives. I'm-well." The abrupt stops are another charming part to her conversations. Chewing on her lower lip she looks at her glass again. "Well, I have an idea is all, but I am still researching it and I have some more work to do on it and, well, not that I figure I'll probably get a chance to really /do/ anything with it. But at least, well. I don't know. Right now we just toss people away. That's not right."
J'cor arches a brow when she starts to speak of her idea, but it goes back down once she directs away from it. "From an individual's perspective? Perhaps not - it is not moral. From a communal perspective, again, I am not sure that it is ineffective, though it's unpalatable." A small smile breaks into his words. "Well. I am a skeptic. But I wish you the best of luck with your alternate idea, truly." He gives the glass of whiskey a small tip towards her, then takes a drink.
Miniyal shakes her head slowly and peers into her glass with a thoughtful expression. "But if there were an alternative? Would you be willing to listen to it? Or would you dismiss it out of hand?" Worrying at her lower lip she stops it by taking another small sip from her glass. "A community is made of individuals. Forgetting that is what leads to trouble. When people focus on the whole and miss the parts of it? It's just. . .wrong. It's one of the problems we have as a society." Here she pauses and then just mumbles, "Well, I think."
J'cor pauses with the drink in his mouth, his lips pressed together over it. He swallows it down with a small 'ah' of breath let out, lowering the glass away from him. "If you are saying it, then it's what you think," he answers first, watching the glass for a moment. Another small smile slips onto his features as he meets her eye. "I would listen, but if so you would do well to complete your researches swiftly. It cannot be long before a new queen rises."
Miniyal's head tilts to one side and she watches him more curiously, nearly puzzled as she asks, "And that would be the end of your interest? If you were no longer weyrleader you would not think you could still help me?" Not that she has actually come out and asked for help. "I don't believe that just because you are replaced it will negate the value of any assistance you might offer to any cause. Unless you mean to not. . .care?" More puzzlement as she shakes her head. "As for saying what I think, sir? It's hardly often I can stop myself from saying what I think in some circumstances. A bad habit I am told."
J'cor lifts a finger off the glass to forestall her, shaking his head. "Ah, no, I am not faulting you for saying what you think. Merely pointing out that it needs no - nevermind." That small smile interrupts his words again. "It's unimportant. To go back to the topic at hand, no, I don't think that my assistance would be negated by the loss of my current knot. I cannot, however, promise my continued involvement in the Reaches past that point."
Miniyal lifts her glass to take a drink, but doesn't actually do it. Instead she peers at the remaining whiskey and then lowers her glass again to hold in both hands. "Well, no one faults me for it overly much as it just means I've given too much away." A shrug because that's the way it goes. "That doesn't matter. Neither does any involvement you have here or not. I'm talking about. . .well. More. I mean, what I have in mind reaches beyond here. It's, well, like I said, I don't imagine it ever happening. I don't really have a voice people want to listen to. No authority and all. Assistants are rarely allowed a chance to truly change things."
J'cor brings the pipe back to his mouth, taking a few slow puffs while he listens to her. A thin smile twisted out around the edge of it greets her inability to keep her opinions under her hat, but the smile doesn't last long. His answer, when he speaks it, is simple, and neatly dodges any question of his own future involvement anywhere: "I'm intrigued, Miniyal." He puffs his pipe.
Miniyal hesitates with a drink from her glass and an absent smoothing of her skirt. When that is not enough she tucks hair behind her ear that was already neatly tucked. "I haven't really worked on, well, an explanation. I mean, I haven't talked to anyone about it. My thoughts are sort of, well, right." One more drink from her glass and then she clasps it tightly between both hands the remaining liquid invisible thanks to the way it is held. "The current method of dealing with things is not entirely wrong. But there are many aspects of it that are. The idea of exile is not bad, but it's handled poorly. Wrong. There are ways to do it that could help everyone. Not just. . .toss people aside. Like they don't matter."
J'cor stops puffing for a while when she starts discussing the exiles, flattening his expression into neutrality while he listens. "There are," he concedes around the pipestem, "certain difficulties involved in exile. You might do well to take into account, though, that part of the punishment /is/ treating the criminal as if they don't matter. Having impinged on society's laws, that is, they lose their privilege to be considered by that society. Possibly not as productive as what it is you have in mind, but - since we admit that punishment is the same as revenge - likely more satisfying to those who, having been assaulted along with the laws, seek revenge within the laws. Better that than they seek it without."
"But it's not the same thing. I mean. . .it's a death sentence. Sending people into exile is the same as killing them. Only no one gets their hands dirty, right?" Miniyal is earnest now, leaning forward and forgetting the glass in her hands to focus on what she is saying. "I'm not saying coddle people. I'm not saying they should not be punished, but I am saying that killing them is not the answer. Violence is /never/ the right response. Did anyone ever speak to the people who commit the crimes that call for exile or the mines or leaving them out to die? How many of them felt already that society didn't give a damn about them? So we enforce that belief and toss them aside? Like they're nothing? Like they don't matter and we go back to our lives and we pretend that it's all alright because the bad people are gone now?"
J'cor gives the pipe a parting puff, almost a sigh, and watches the smoke trail upwards from it while he lowers the bowl into his hand and rests it, once again, off the arm of his chair. "You have told me a great deal of things which you are not saying, yet you still have not said what it is you /are/ saying. You disapprove of violence, but not of exile - or at least, some manner of exile - and you seem to hold out hope for the reform of certain criminals, but that act is not so easily effected. I would guess that you have a more tangible plan than you are willing to share with me, but if so you mustn't torment me with the possibilities." A smile would be called for here - it is more a less a joke, to close his statement - but though his lips tug towards one they don't make it all the way, and he soon gives up the effort.
Miniyal releases her prop by finishing the last half inch of liquid in her glass without a thought. She swallows, ignoring the burn and setting the glass down on the table. Then she folds her hands in her lap. "I think with proper planning a place to send people could be found. An island they would live on. One where they could have food and water and shelter even if it needed to be built for them. Supplied and resupplied as needed. With guards and mindhealers to assist them in being rehabilitated if they could be. I concede the point that not everyone can be, but I think most can. The guards could be sent from every hold." She goes on without pausing, as if afraid of losing her nerve if she stops. "They would need protection from threat, but that is why the weyrs would trade off on who should cover it. They are the responsibility of everyone. We should all shoulder the burden of taking care of them." Now she stops, just staring at him and waiting to see what he will say, braced for the worst.
J'cor has yielded his pipe, but he still has props to cover him, and it's the whiskey that comes to his aid now. His drinks have been really very small, so he still has plenty left for all that Miniyal's finished her portion - and when she does, he remembers his role as host, tilting his own drink towards her with an eyebrow arched in silent question. Refill? Again he holds the whiskey in his mouth for a while, lips pressed down, before he answers. "It removes the revenge aspect, but I am still not convinced that it's a good aspect to remove. Assuming also that you mean to send all criminals to this island you theorize, you would soon find that guarding and healing such a large population - including those sent to the mines, and staked out for Thread, and left Holdless - would present a great drain on mainland resources. Not only in the logistics of supplying sufficient numbers, but in the emotional toll taken on those selected to perform that duty. I will say," and he punctuates this injunction by raising his glass abruptly, "that I agree with your principle that exiles ought not to be left to their own devices, and there is something to be said for making their lifestyle a less desperate one. On the other hand, too comfortable a living might lead to other problems, and at any rate who is to be the judge of a truly reformed candidate for return?"
"I told you I did not have it all worked out yet." Well, she did. The tilt of the glass and she hesitates before nodding a fraction. Wise? Probably not, but since she was offered she will accept. A second glass won't kill her. "I do not think that it would be such a drain. I'm. . .not sure about the people now. I am loathe to not try to help them, but it may not be possible. I don't. . .I am not sure yet on the details. I am not saying make their life easy. I am saying give them a chance to continue to live like human beings. Not like animals discarded." Biting her lip Miniyal frowns a moment and then shakes her head. "If you rotate them out often enough it would not be so bad. As for who. . .I don't know. A panel of people. It's not perfect, but it could work. There are details I've not considered. I'm trying to work on them."
J'cor shifts the pipe into his other hand, holding it carefully alongside his own glass while he gets up to take hers from her. "You did. If I have pointed out only the issues that you are already aware of, I hope you won't hold it against me." His smile has more success sparking to life this time, though it's still short-lived; he holds it only for the moment it takes him to receive the transfer of her glass, and then lets it drop as he turns back to his quarters to fetch her refill. "Even the smallest use of /our/ resources for /their/ livelihood - you understand, I draw the distinction to illustrate a perspective - would be too much. That is not to say that intelligent argument on the subject is impossible to maintain. Only difficult." With the bottle already out and opened, it takes him considerably less time to refill her glass and bring it back to her than it took to fetch in the first place; on his last words, he's already back at her seat, holding the glass out to her.
Miniyal closes her eyes when he goes to refill her glass. Whatever she's thinking is not visible by the time he returns. Taking her glass back she nods her head and offers a flicker of a smile. "Thank you." A tiny sip and then she holds her glass. So much for not using a prop. "It is not an us and a them. It is all an us, J'cor. We're a society. From the best to the worst and we need to own up to that and accept it. The way we treat our worst is how we should judge ourselves. It's easy to be kind and to. . .care about our best. Even those of us hovering somewhere in the middle out of sight. But those we would rather despise and forget about? That is hard."
J'cor settles back into his chair as she speaks, and of course the pipe is already at hand for him to smoke. "Forgive me, I didn't express that clearly. I am in the habit of challenging a point by taking positions in which I do not necessarily believe. 'Us' and 'them' is, I would agree, far too simplistic a separation, and hardly a useful one. Your counter-argument holds weight with me, but will it hold weight with those who understand the situation in the terms which I outlined?" He allows the question to hold a moment, then shrugs it off. "Perhaps and perhaps not. At any rate, it may be impossible - though you are more optimistic than I am - to sway such minds. It would on the other hand be essential to prevent other minds, not yet so compartmentalized, from being swayed by them. This is what I was referring to, when I mentioned intelligent argument."
"I know." Since she has the prop she makes use of it. Two sips this time and then she sets it on the table, folding her hands in her lap. "I'm not even sure if I worked out all the problems in my own head I could even, I mean even if I could get people to listen I am not sure that I could get them to. . .listen. To me. I mean, you see how I suck at this. Even with all the enforced practice I am getting these days." A wry smile at this and a small laugh that trails off. "I have to think I can do it or I'll give up entirely and it's important and someone has to. . .to try. I mean, someone has to. Sometimes no matter what, even if you're pretty sure you'll fail you have to try. For the important things." Miniyal stares at her glass, but doesn't pick it up.
J'cor turns a faint smile down on his own glass - he was just with the bottle, but he didn't refill his own dwindling supply - and then pulls his lips in to tuck it away. "Indeed." He raises his gaze, thoroughly neutralized, back to her face. "I would say there are many methods, once you have the goal worked out. A recordskeeper, I am sure you do not underestimate the value of a written tract - carefully edited, and properly publicized, a written work can have great impact. Then of course there are whatever contacts you may make and, if you are not too impatient, all the time you might need to establish yourself as an authority on the subject."
Miniyal takes note of the glass he holds and looks at her own, comparing as if it means nothing. Then she nods her head once and smiles faintly. "The written word is only powerful if it reaches the right people. And if the one who writes it can discuss it. Without making a fool of themselves. Patience I have, you can't be me and not have it." Whatever that means. "But that's what I am trying to do. Make contacts." Meaning him. "Right now most of the people I know who might help are based here and I don't have a lot of people outside the weyr, you know? But with people who have those contacts. . .I mean, if I could convince them what I wanted was worthwhile."
J'cor, if he understands that he has been added to that list of contacts, shows nothing of it. He simply nods, placid. "If the written word reaches someone who can read it at all, then it can do a great deal. I am certainly assuming that what is written will be well-discussed, and I would also hope accessibly composed. If you have patience, then you have time to practice - with other matters, mind you, given you are still refining this one."
Miniyal twists absently at her skirt before she nods once. "There are other things I am working on. This is just sort of. . .it's something I've been thinking about for a long time. In the back of my mind but I never really thought I might. Anyway. I'm sorry. I've been babbling on and wasted your night. I didn't mean to. I just stopped by to see if we might try the interview thing again. You've been really kind to put up with me for so long."
J'cor inclines his head graciously, taking the finishing swallow of his whiskey before he sets it on the low table between them. "It was engaging, and an interesting change from my usual evenings. Thank you, Miniyal." His smile gets to live for a good half-second before he pops his pipe back in, interrupting it.
Miniyal laughs, eyes rolling. "Yes, I'm always so entertaining. You must have very boring nights if this was a interesting change. Although, I'm not sure interesting is what I want to hear. Not that I expect nice, but still. I'm sorry, don't mind me." Shaking her head she reaches for her glass to takes a few sips, slowly emptying it. "It was nice. .no, really, talking to you. It's not often I get to talk to people outside the tiny circle that is my. . .you know, circle. Of people."
J'cor is actually surprised into a low chuckle, though it may be hard to recognize as such with the twisting effect of his pipe on sounds he tries to make. His fingers go up to pinch the stem again, drawing it out for a moment. "Have I phrased myself poorly again? Forgive me. It was, yes, /nice/ talking to you." He echoes her word with a smile, but while it's as small as all the others have been it seems, for the moment, more genuine. "I use half-mark words where an eighth would do."
Miniyal finishes her drink and sets the glass down on the table. "Much better. Although I think I prefer the truth so I will allow interesting. It's rarely nice to talk to me. Or it's rarely nice for me to talk to people because I wind up saying the wrong thing. So. I think I will talk my leave. Otherwise I'll find something else you're not really interesting in hearing me expound on and carry on for too long." Rising from her seat she smiles. "Thank you. I had a lovely evening, sir. I'll call again soon. If that's alright?"
"As you prefer," J'cor allows with a gracious tilt of his head. He follows her to his feet, extending his pipeless hand across the table for a parting shake - not that he won't also escort her to the door. Once he's been reminded of his duties as a host, he carries them out to the letter. "Your return would be welcome - and interesting," he revises, arching a brow briefly. "I am but rarely out of the weyr at this time, if you again find yourself at loose ends."
"With Gans teaching now I'm sometimes at loose ends in the evening when his students come by." The hand is taken to shake and then she does go to the door, shaking her head. "Do you play chess? Maybe we can play some night. I've not played with someone different in a long time." Miniyal pauses at the door and smiles once more. "Thank you again, sir, for putting up with me. Have a nice evening. I'll see you again." She will linger by the door so he might say goodbye before she slips out and leaves him be.
J'cor reprises his greeting of so much earlier in the night, tucking the pipe away behind his back and pulling the door open behind him, holding it for Miniyal's parting. "Chess?" he echoes, and continues to echo: "I have not played in a long time. I like to think, however, that I accept defeat graciously, so for all that I would be pleased to try my hand at it again. Enjoy your evening, Miniyal. I shall see for chess, some time."