An appointment.
A'son meets with Carobet. It goes about as well as can be expected.
Logfile from NC2.
Mindhealer's Office, High Reaches Weyr
It is nearing the time of A'son's appointment, and Carobet already occupies her office, waiting for him to appear. She sits stiffly in one of several high-backed, well-stuffed armchairs, flipping through a file-- presumably his. The rest of the furnishings in her office are likewise formal; a desk, a wooden table, and that signature Mindhealer chaise. The door has been left ajar, an invitation to her patient to let himself in.
A'son approaches the door to the office, taps once on the partially open entranceway and then lets himself in. There's a quick scan of the room in general, before he even really looks at Carobet. There's a certain wariness to his eyes as he looks at her across the room. "Hello, I'm A'son. Ready to see me?"
Carobet glances up from her perusal of the file at the sound of a voice in the doorway. "Why, yes. Please come in. Feel free to choose your seat." Meaning, an armchair, or the chaise: A'son's first Rorschach test? She smiles reassuringly, then adds, "I'm Carobet. Although I'm sure you could have figured that for yourself."
"I guess you could have figured out I was A'son for yourself too. But introductions are customery, right?" He replies before looking at his available seats. There's some hesitance, like there's too many choices. After what could seem like a few awkward moments, he sits down at the edge of the chaise. Right at the edge, like a man ready to bolt. "So, uh. How are you?"
"Customary, that's very true," Carobet agrees as A'son makes his choice. "I'm well, thank you. But I'm not the one we're here to talk about right now." She continues to smile pleasantly, seemingly unfazed by the fact A'son has barely settled into his seat, or that the silent moments in the room could be awkward. Perhaps, in this room, that's just par for the course. "I assume that you know why you're here today?"
"Why not? Don't you get bored talking to everyone else about their problems?" A'son fires back, seemingly casual. The unfazed, pleasent smile looks as if it unsettles him a little. He shifts back on the chaise, closer to the door. Slowly, "Oh, just some little incident. Something about a bed being thrown off my ledge."
Carobet shakes her head. It's a calculated movement, her brown hair tossing just so. "No, never. That's why I'm a Mindhealer." She looks at him intently as he speaks-- smile faded now, but the unerring eye contact likely just as unsettling. "I'm curious as to the way you describe it. 'Little' incident. Clearly not everybody thought so, or you wouldn't be sitting--" she juts her chin out slightly, indicating that close-to-the-door edge of the chaise-- "there."
"Well, clearly there are some people around here who are bored and like to make a fuss. I deserve punishment, not this." A'son's hands gesture around the room. As if there couldn't be anything worse in the world than being here. His eyebrows furrow together when she stops smiling but continues the eye contact. "So, tell me. What do I have to do to get out of here? Apologize? Show I feel bad? Write an essay?"
"Nothing quite that complicated," Carobet assures. "You just have to talk." And she flips over the hourglass on the table next to her. "For about forty-five more minutes." She weaves her fingers together and cups her hands over her knee, her legs crossed, sitting a bit like a nanny about to address a gaggle of children. "So! What would you like to talk about? It's entirely up to you. It doesn't even have to relate to beds in the least. Falling or otherwise."
"If that's the case... can we just pretend that I talked to you and I can leave? I'm sort of hungry. I didn't eat before I got here." A'son proposes this, but he doesn't appear as if he really thinks Carobet is going to go along with it. So he launces into conversation, "Do you like roasted wherry? I'm not a fan. It's a little too dry for my tastes. Unless you have it with a good wine. But I'm not really a wine fan. I'm more into the harder stuff. But now, I hardly ever drink that either. Klah, juice, water. That's more my thing now."
Carobet raises an eyebrow, but goes along with it. "No." Simple answer to the first question. "Roast wherry is good, when it's made by the right cook," she says. "And you're right, especially with a good glass of wine." But that's as far as she'll let him off the hook. "You made the conscious choice to stop drinking? Why was that?" Her head tips ever so slightly to one side, listening intently. And every now and then, she jots something down on a pad of paper.
"Why shouldn't I?" A'son shakes his head. "I'm getting a little old to be drunk all the time. I'm on the wagon. Again." Answering her question is second to wanting to know what she's doing, "Hey, what are you doing? Are you writing about me? Who sees that? Do I get a copy? Does that get saved?"
Carobet nods several times, in even motions, as he speaks. She glances absentmindedly down at her scribbles. "Hm? Oh. These are notes for your file. It's so I can remember what we've covered when-- if! If you come back again." She sets down her stylus for the moment and adds, "Nobody sees them but me. And you, if you'd like. But not right now. You have to request a copy." Then: "And has this helped you? The not-drinking?"
"I want a copy. Consider it requested. Like, right now. I want that one." A'son points at the one in her hand. "How long do you keep it for? If I never come back? A day, a week?" Then back to the drinking. "What? No, I'm miserable. But someone will make snide remarks if they come back and I fell off the wagon. If it wasn't for that, I'd drink everyday. Regularly. It's not like it affects anything."
"There's a form," Carobet says offhandedly, pretending to be distracted by the very document in question. "So, you're concerned about people making snide remarks? That's what's motivating you here? More than, say, your own health?" She looks up once more at him, directly. Patiently waiting for an answer.
"It's a complicated relationship. You wouldn't get it." A'son points at the document. "Where is the form?" Not to be distracted.
"I'll give you one when your session is over," Carobet says firmly. She re-crosses her legs, re-folds her hands over them, but barely breaks eye contact. "I might," the Healer insists. "It's part of our training. Understanding complicated relationships."
The way Carobet must be described sounds, at first, nondescript: brown eyes, brown hair, average height, average build. But there is something in the way that each of these features work together that make Carobet herself anything but nondescript; striking is a better word. Her hair, far from mousy, is a rich chestnut brown, long and thick. Her eyes are framed by high-arched brows and dark lashes, and are often accented with kohl. She carries herself with a high, proud carriage that expresses confidence and no lack of self-assurance.
Her clothing does much to accent this outward persona: it is expensive, fashionable, and well tailored. A small number of finely made dresses make up her wardrobe, accented with ribbons and trims that are easily alternated between, to help assuage the fact that the way she would actually like to dress is beyond her means. Slippers made of a fine sisal adorn her feet, similarly decorated with various buckles. An Apprentice Healer knot graces one shoulder, alongside one in the colors of High Reaches Weyr.
A'son does break eye contact. To watch her recross her legs. When she speaks again, he looks up. "I doubt it. I don't need my relationship examined and pulled apart either. It's based on mutual "possible" respect. There's a balance. It has to sort of stay maintained. I guess. Or else we'd like each other or something. Then it would be awkward. Is my time up yet?"
Carobet glances at the hourglass next to her. "Not yet. Almost. More than halfway done." Her voice lilts upwards just slightly as she says this, encouraging. You can do it! "Those kinds of relationships are what some people like to talk about with me," she points out helpfully. "You don't have to share specifics. Or you can. Whatever is said in this room never leaves it." Unless, that is, someone requests their file. "Really, there must be /something/ gnawing on your mind that you'd like to discuss?"
"It's a /guy/ relationship. I'm not talking about that with you. You don't know me. I don't know you. We're not friends. I don't even have friends I'd talk about my friend with. This is really awkward. There's nothing wrong with me, I was just a little mad. I threw my bed off the ledge. It broke into a gazillion pieces, I helped clean it up." Exasperated sigh. "No. Nothing. I'm fine. Why do you have to look for problems?"
"Exactly. I'm not your friend. Thats part of the point," Carobet says. "I'm trained to keep a certain amount of distance between me and my clients. I'm trained to listen, and to be objective." She shifts slightly in her chair, settling back a bit, crossing her arms. "You were more than just a /little/ mad, if you endangered whoever was below your ledge by dropping a bed. I think you should work on admitting that to yourself."
"Well, to be completely honest? I think that sucks. I don't want to talk about my problems, that I don't have, with someone I don't know. I don't want objectivity." A'son firmly crosses his arms over his chest. "I was a little mad. It was way, way, way, late at night. Pretty much morning. There was hardly anyone down there. Give me a break."
"I'm not trying to be hard on you," Carobet insists. "I'm just trying to get you to shift your thinking, instead of looking at things in a certain way. You seem very convinced that what you did was no big deal. And yet you were requested to see a Mindhealer. Those two don't generally go hand-in-hand," she points out. "If you don't want to talk about your relationships, that's fine. We can go back to roast wherry." For a few minutes, at least. The hourglass has tricked down to just a handful or so of grains.
"Shift my thinking to what? That I'm fucked up? Because I kind of like thinking that I'm normal. Helps me sleep at night. Sort of." Then, instead of continuing the conversation about roast wherry, he stares balefully at the hourglass. "Do I have to keep coming back?" He adds towards the end.
"To something more flexible," is all Carobet says. "I'm not saying you're... fucked up. Or crazy. Or normal, for that matter. Who's normal, really?" She cracks her knuckles and glances at the hourglass herself-- maybe A'son's not the only one counting down the minutes. "My recommendation is that you do," Carobet answers his last. "But Healer's recommendations are often, woefully, ignored."
"Woefull. That's very dramatic. Can I have that elusive form now?" A'son asks, pointing to the thing. "Who do I hand it into?" He gets to his feet, taking a step over to her desk. He limps a little more than usually when he moves over to her, stops and massages his calf.
Carobet stands up, walks to the other side of her desk, opens a drawer. Ruffles through things. Pulls out a form from near the bottom. It's slightly dented and dog-eared; doesn't look like these are requested very often. She hands it to him. "Me." Then, a quizzical note is made of his limp and the subsequent massage. "Are you okay? Do you need that looked at?"
He flips up his pant leg a bit, ugly scar. "Not unless you can turn back time. That's what I got from Ista." A'son smiles a bit grimly, giving the calf another firmer rub. "It just gets... weird sometimes. I don't know. Painful." He straightens up and puts his hand out, accepting the form. "I'll give it back to you soon. Promise."
"Nah, I live with it. Reminds me." Of what? A'son begins backing up and turning around. Her ending note catches him, "I don't sleep on a bed. It's more like a nest. Nice to meet you too, I suppose. Have a lovely evening." He smiles, sort of. Before exiting quickly out the door.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------<
To: Carobet
Subject: Form
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whenever Carobet next goes into her office she'll find A'son's form
slipped under the door. It's been filled out in its entirety, with his
neat, straight handwriting. It's also been carefully folded and slipped
into an envelope. He wrote her name on it.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------<
Logfile from NC2.
Mindhealer's Office, High Reaches Weyr
It is nearing the time of A'son's appointment, and Carobet already occupies her office, waiting for him to appear. She sits stiffly in one of several high-backed, well-stuffed armchairs, flipping through a file-- presumably his. The rest of the furnishings in her office are likewise formal; a desk, a wooden table, and that signature Mindhealer chaise. The door has been left ajar, an invitation to her patient to let himself in.
A'son approaches the door to the office, taps once on the partially open entranceway and then lets himself in. There's a quick scan of the room in general, before he even really looks at Carobet. There's a certain wariness to his eyes as he looks at her across the room. "Hello, I'm A'son. Ready to see me?"
Carobet glances up from her perusal of the file at the sound of a voice in the doorway. "Why, yes. Please come in. Feel free to choose your seat." Meaning, an armchair, or the chaise: A'son's first Rorschach test? She smiles reassuringly, then adds, "I'm Carobet. Although I'm sure you could have figured that for yourself."
"I guess you could have figured out I was A'son for yourself too. But introductions are customery, right?" He replies before looking at his available seats. There's some hesitance, like there's too many choices. After what could seem like a few awkward moments, he sits down at the edge of the chaise. Right at the edge, like a man ready to bolt. "So, uh. How are you?"
"Customary, that's very true," Carobet agrees as A'son makes his choice. "I'm well, thank you. But I'm not the one we're here to talk about right now." She continues to smile pleasantly, seemingly unfazed by the fact A'son has barely settled into his seat, or that the silent moments in the room could be awkward. Perhaps, in this room, that's just par for the course. "I assume that you know why you're here today?"
"Why not? Don't you get bored talking to everyone else about their problems?" A'son fires back, seemingly casual. The unfazed, pleasent smile looks as if it unsettles him a little. He shifts back on the chaise, closer to the door. Slowly, "Oh, just some little incident. Something about a bed being thrown off my ledge."
Carobet shakes her head. It's a calculated movement, her brown hair tossing just so. "No, never. That's why I'm a Mindhealer." She looks at him intently as he speaks-- smile faded now, but the unerring eye contact likely just as unsettling. "I'm curious as to the way you describe it. 'Little' incident. Clearly not everybody thought so, or you wouldn't be sitting--" she juts her chin out slightly, indicating that close-to-the-door edge of the chaise-- "there."
"Well, clearly there are some people around here who are bored and like to make a fuss. I deserve punishment, not this." A'son's hands gesture around the room. As if there couldn't be anything worse in the world than being here. His eyebrows furrow together when she stops smiling but continues the eye contact. "So, tell me. What do I have to do to get out of here? Apologize? Show I feel bad? Write an essay?"
"Nothing quite that complicated," Carobet assures. "You just have to talk." And she flips over the hourglass on the table next to her. "For about forty-five more minutes." She weaves her fingers together and cups her hands over her knee, her legs crossed, sitting a bit like a nanny about to address a gaggle of children. "So! What would you like to talk about? It's entirely up to you. It doesn't even have to relate to beds in the least. Falling or otherwise."
"If that's the case... can we just pretend that I talked to you and I can leave? I'm sort of hungry. I didn't eat before I got here." A'son proposes this, but he doesn't appear as if he really thinks Carobet is going to go along with it. So he launces into conversation, "Do you like roasted wherry? I'm not a fan. It's a little too dry for my tastes. Unless you have it with a good wine. But I'm not really a wine fan. I'm more into the harder stuff. But now, I hardly ever drink that either. Klah, juice, water. That's more my thing now."
Carobet raises an eyebrow, but goes along with it. "No." Simple answer to the first question. "Roast wherry is good, when it's made by the right cook," she says. "And you're right, especially with a good glass of wine." But that's as far as she'll let him off the hook. "You made the conscious choice to stop drinking? Why was that?" Her head tips ever so slightly to one side, listening intently. And every now and then, she jots something down on a pad of paper.
"Why shouldn't I?" A'son shakes his head. "I'm getting a little old to be drunk all the time. I'm on the wagon. Again." Answering her question is second to wanting to know what she's doing, "Hey, what are you doing? Are you writing about me? Who sees that? Do I get a copy? Does that get saved?"
Carobet nods several times, in even motions, as he speaks. She glances absentmindedly down at her scribbles. "Hm? Oh. These are notes for your file. It's so I can remember what we've covered when-- if! If you come back again." She sets down her stylus for the moment and adds, "Nobody sees them but me. And you, if you'd like. But not right now. You have to request a copy." Then: "And has this helped you? The not-drinking?"
"I want a copy. Consider it requested. Like, right now. I want that one." A'son points at the one in her hand. "How long do you keep it for? If I never come back? A day, a week?" Then back to the drinking. "What? No, I'm miserable. But someone will make snide remarks if they come back and I fell off the wagon. If it wasn't for that, I'd drink everyday. Regularly. It's not like it affects anything."
"There's a form," Carobet says offhandedly, pretending to be distracted by the very document in question. "So, you're concerned about people making snide remarks? That's what's motivating you here? More than, say, your own health?" She looks up once more at him, directly. Patiently waiting for an answer.
"It's a complicated relationship. You wouldn't get it." A'son points at the document. "Where is the form?" Not to be distracted.
"I'll give you one when your session is over," Carobet says firmly. She re-crosses her legs, re-folds her hands over them, but barely breaks eye contact. "I might," the Healer insists. "It's part of our training. Understanding complicated relationships."
The way Carobet must be described sounds, at first, nondescript: brown eyes, brown hair, average height, average build. But there is something in the way that each of these features work together that make Carobet herself anything but nondescript; striking is a better word. Her hair, far from mousy, is a rich chestnut brown, long and thick. Her eyes are framed by high-arched brows and dark lashes, and are often accented with kohl. She carries herself with a high, proud carriage that expresses confidence and no lack of self-assurance.
Her clothing does much to accent this outward persona: it is expensive, fashionable, and well tailored. A small number of finely made dresses make up her wardrobe, accented with ribbons and trims that are easily alternated between, to help assuage the fact that the way she would actually like to dress is beyond her means. Slippers made of a fine sisal adorn her feet, similarly decorated with various buckles. An Apprentice Healer knot graces one shoulder, alongside one in the colors of High Reaches Weyr.
A'son does break eye contact. To watch her recross her legs. When she speaks again, he looks up. "I doubt it. I don't need my relationship examined and pulled apart either. It's based on mutual "possible" respect. There's a balance. It has to sort of stay maintained. I guess. Or else we'd like each other or something. Then it would be awkward. Is my time up yet?"
Carobet glances at the hourglass next to her. "Not yet. Almost. More than halfway done." Her voice lilts upwards just slightly as she says this, encouraging. You can do it! "Those kinds of relationships are what some people like to talk about with me," she points out helpfully. "You don't have to share specifics. Or you can. Whatever is said in this room never leaves it." Unless, that is, someone requests their file. "Really, there must be /something/ gnawing on your mind that you'd like to discuss?"
"It's a /guy/ relationship. I'm not talking about that with you. You don't know me. I don't know you. We're not friends. I don't even have friends I'd talk about my friend with. This is really awkward. There's nothing wrong with me, I was just a little mad. I threw my bed off the ledge. It broke into a gazillion pieces, I helped clean it up." Exasperated sigh. "No. Nothing. I'm fine. Why do you have to look for problems?"
"Exactly. I'm not your friend. Thats part of the point," Carobet says. "I'm trained to keep a certain amount of distance between me and my clients. I'm trained to listen, and to be objective." She shifts slightly in her chair, settling back a bit, crossing her arms. "You were more than just a /little/ mad, if you endangered whoever was below your ledge by dropping a bed. I think you should work on admitting that to yourself."
"Well, to be completely honest? I think that sucks. I don't want to talk about my problems, that I don't have, with someone I don't know. I don't want objectivity." A'son firmly crosses his arms over his chest. "I was a little mad. It was way, way, way, late at night. Pretty much morning. There was hardly anyone down there. Give me a break."
"I'm not trying to be hard on you," Carobet insists. "I'm just trying to get you to shift your thinking, instead of looking at things in a certain way. You seem very convinced that what you did was no big deal. And yet you were requested to see a Mindhealer. Those two don't generally go hand-in-hand," she points out. "If you don't want to talk about your relationships, that's fine. We can go back to roast wherry." For a few minutes, at least. The hourglass has tricked down to just a handful or so of grains.
"Shift my thinking to what? That I'm fucked up? Because I kind of like thinking that I'm normal. Helps me sleep at night. Sort of." Then, instead of continuing the conversation about roast wherry, he stares balefully at the hourglass. "Do I have to keep coming back?" He adds towards the end.
"To something more flexible," is all Carobet says. "I'm not saying you're... fucked up. Or crazy. Or normal, for that matter. Who's normal, really?" She cracks her knuckles and glances at the hourglass herself-- maybe A'son's not the only one counting down the minutes. "My recommendation is that you do," Carobet answers his last. "But Healer's recommendations are often, woefully, ignored."
"Woefull. That's very dramatic. Can I have that elusive form now?" A'son asks, pointing to the thing. "Who do I hand it into?" He gets to his feet, taking a step over to her desk. He limps a little more than usually when he moves over to her, stops and massages his calf.
Carobet stands up, walks to the other side of her desk, opens a drawer. Ruffles through things. Pulls out a form from near the bottom. It's slightly dented and dog-eared; doesn't look like these are requested very often. She hands it to him. "Me." Then, a quizzical note is made of his limp and the subsequent massage. "Are you okay? Do you need that looked at?"
He flips up his pant leg a bit, ugly scar. "Not unless you can turn back time. That's what I got from Ista." A'son smiles a bit grimly, giving the calf another firmer rub. "It just gets... weird sometimes. I don't know. Painful." He straightens up and puts his hand out, accepting the form. "I'll give it back to you soon. Promise."
"Nah, I live with it. Reminds me." Of what? A'son begins backing up and turning around. Her ending note catches him, "I don't sleep on a bed. It's more like a nest. Nice to meet you too, I suppose. Have a lovely evening." He smiles, sort of. Before exiting quickly out the door.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------<
To: Carobet
Subject: Form
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whenever Carobet next goes into her office she'll find A'son's form
slipped under the door. It's been filled out in its entirety, with his
neat, straight handwriting. It's also been carefully folded and slipped
into an envelope. He wrote her name on it.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------<