Good For The Kids
Location: Weyrling Training Cavern and Weyrlingmaster's Office
Time: Afternoon on Day 5, Month 1, Turn 3
Players: D'ven and Roa
Scene: Roa goes to speak with the new Weyrlingmaster.
It's late in the afternoon, and the Weyrlings are still hard at it. In the case of several young unfortunates, this means running drills under the direct supervision of their Weyrlingmaster. "You!" D'ven bellows, pointing at one young man who has been unfortunate enough to lag behind. "What do you call that?". The boy's stammered answer that he is running only seems to make the bronzerider angrier. "Running? That's not running, that's mincing! You are mincing through drills like a little Blooded girl afraid to tire out her precious frail little body! Out-fucking-standing!" The entire tirade is delivered none-stop, at a healthy volume.
Coats are wonderful things. So are shoes. And heavy pants. Roa has a newfound appreciation for all of these things, and she's bundled up now as she heads into the training cavern to see weyrlings...doing laps. And getting tiraded at. She stays near the door, a small unobtrusive figure, leans against the wall, and just watches.
Once D'ven is finished yelling at the poor Weyrling, he sets him back to running. Thankfully for everyone concerned, nobody else manages to fall below his current standards and before too long he's dismissing the drill. Salutes are given and returned, and then the Weyrlingmaster is turning and heading towards his office.
The Weyrwoman waits until the weyrlings are dispersing, looking perhaps a mite sore and a mite out of sorts (that isn't, after all, how -R'vain- does it), before she pushes back from the wall and heads towards the office. There is a soft knock to announce her presence, and then she peeks her head inside. "Weyrlingmaster?" There is just the tiniest quirk of her lips, as Roa uses that title.
"Weyrwoman." D'ven's expression is guarded, as eyes raise from his desk to meet hers. There's no coldness in his voice, but neither is there any affection. Where once he greeted her like a pet overjoyed at her return after even the smallest of absences, now his greeting is professional. It's but a moment before he's on his feet, and saluting.
"Oh," Roa murmurs, slipping inside and shutting the door. "You -are- mad at me." She begins to unbutton her coat and blinks slowly, head canting to the side. The salute is handled with a small nod that notes it was done, but nothing more. "Will you tell me why?"
"Yes." D'ven replies, and it's not clear which question he's answering as he lowers the salute. "I will, if he want me to." He finally allows, determined not to let his resolve to stay mad ebb as it has done with her before. "But I shouldn't have to tell you, if you think about it."
"May I sit?" She glances over to the chair in front of the desk, but Roa makes no motion to move without D'ven's permission. "You're upset because I left and didn't say anything. I made you feel like I'd changed my mind again." Buttons of her coat all opened, her hands fall to her sides. "Am I missing anything?"
There's a moment where it seems like D'ven will be petty and keep her standing. But then as she speaks he changes his mind. "Sure, sit down." He murmurs, flopping into his chair. "You've pretty much got it. I'm sure you had good reason to go. You always do, you're not the type to do something like that for no reason. But, you could have said something. Anything. Sometimes lately it feels like I kind of fade away when I'm not useful to you."
"I didn't tell anyone." Roa moves forward, shrugging out of her coat and draping it over the back of her chair before sitting down. "I couldn't, really. I mean, it wouldn't have been...I don't know." She exhales slowly, settling her hands in her lap. "I left so she'd rise. I would have come back a little sooner, but I missed the signals and..." her shoulders lift and fall. "I'm sorry I hurt you."
D'ven blinks slightly. "So she'd rise? Huh, you figured it out then. That's...pretty smart. And more than a little worrying, if.." He trails off then, remembering he's still mad at her. "You didn't just hurt me, Roa. You abandoned me. Just like..." He trails off into a thoughtful silence, then a half smile slowly spreads across his face. "But you came back." His tone is that of someone having a realisation.
Blink. "Well...of course I came back. This is my home. There is where the people that matter to me live. You thought I'd..." Roa leans back in her chair a little, eyes widening. "You thought I'd just gone away? For good?"
"No." D'ven replies with a shake of a head. "Of course you came back here. What I mean is you came back to me. And you said you were sorry. Nobody ever did that before." Of course some of them tried numerable times, but the bronzerider doesn't see it that way.
"Oh," A faint smile touches Roa's lips and she asks, a bit off the current topic, "sinking your feet right into the job, I see."
"R'vain had me up before dawn the day after the flight." D'ven answers with a smile for the memory. "And yeah. No sense in messing around, that'd be unfair on the Weyrlings. Straight into things, start as we mean to go on and all that."
Roa chuckles, shaking her head. "And all that," she agrees. "You're very..." one brow tips upwards as she searches for the proper word, "...assertive with them." The fingers in her lap tap the back of her other hand.
D'ven nods firmly. "It'll be good for them. They've got to be told what's what, got to learn discipline. They're going to be the best, they should be ready to go into any Wing and fit right in. It's like I said to them, they may think I'm their worst enemy but I'm their best friend. Because I want them to live and excel, and I'll do what it takes to get there." There's a pause. "They'll come around. They're not used to as many rules, or for them to be so strictly applied."
"I suppose they're not. Things were somewhat different than the way you plan to run them." There is another shrug, as if the running of such things one way or the other doesn't distress her. "But they...I mean...there's other things that come with impressing a dragon. Problems. Questions. Don't you worry you'll make yourself unapproachable?"
"They're always welcome to come to me." D'ven replies, apparently meaning it. "But I know what you mean, yes. It's like I told R'vain. They need mothers. So I need to find some assistants of a mothering bent, who they can go to with that sort of thing. I want to bring things back up to a full staff, like we had when I was a Weyrling."
"Hmm..." Her fingers still their tapping as she ponders, and then it resumes again, but more slowly. "So you run the tight ship, and they have others they can talk to if they need something more than orders. Wait..." Roa's head cants to the side. "A full staff? Of what?"
D'ven shuffles some papers on his desk for a moment, before speaking. "Well, a full staff is just a fancy grand name for it. A couple of full-time assistants is what I mean, perhaps someone to do administrative tasks and so forth. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary." Unsurprisingly, he's going for a very traditional arrangement.
"Anybody in particular you have in mind for those jobs?" Roa asks, her interest clearly piqued. "That'd be two or three people, probably a couple of them riders, right?"
"No, not yet. I'm thinking real hard on it, since it can't be just anybody but they also have to want the job." D'ven replies, seeming pleased at the obvious interest. "Both the assistants should be riders. The admin work can be done by either a rider or not. And maybe one other person, depending on how things pan out." That last does sound like someone very specific.
"Oh? Who would that be? That mystery person?" Roa cants her head to the other side as her fingers finally settle flat against the back of her other hand.
"Vanya." D'ven replies, having found whatever it was he was looking for on the desk. "As I understand it, she's not been deknotted by the Hall. Just is no longer posted here, but she seems to want to stay. Seems to me we have an opportunity to have a Healer dedicated to the Weyrlings. Maybe she could learn Dragonhealing too. That'd be real good for the kids."
"I..." Roa's lips thin, "Vanya? She's...isn't she already employed? With Sinopa?" She shakes her head slightly. "There's only forty-or-so weyrlings at a time, and they ought to all be healthy. I mean, I could understand her teaching some classes on massage or alternative healing practices but...the hall removed her from her posting. We can't..." She shakes her head slightly. "We have dragonhealers. She's had hardly any training with it."
D'ven half-shrugs. "It was just a thought. Frankly, it was very low in the list of priorities anyway. The thing I want most are people for the Weyrlings to go to." Things on the desk are shuffled and reshuffled. "And yeah, I know about the lack of training. It was why I said learn. Anyway, it was just a thought."
"It's not a bad one, exactly. It's only that if the hall hasn't posted her to the weyr, and the weyr hires her anyhow...well, it makes a mess." Roa's lips quirk again, "And I wouldn't say that I'm all that opposed to making messes. It's just that in this case, I think you could arrange to have her meet with the weyrlings anyhow without making us look like we're flicking our noses at Healer."
"I see your point." D'ven replies with a slow nod. "And while you may not be opposed to making messes, I am unless it's absolutely utterly necessary. Which as you say, it isn't."
"Well good. Then I can push you to make a few more messes and you can push me to stop making so many." Roa nods a little then, with a quirk of her lips she asks, "Did you panic, yet?"
D'ven shakes his head. "I have no idea what you mean, Roa." There's a pause, and his face stays straight for a little time before his lips quirk in reply. "Yeah, just as soon as R'vain had left my weyr, I think. Did you?"
"Oh. No. Of course not." Roa glances down at her hands and then peeps up and over at the newly appointed Weyrlingmaster. "Twice, now," she admits.
"I guess it shows we're taking things seriously." D'ven replies with a half-smile. "We'll probably still be having moments of panic even after we've been doing this....for a while."
"Yeah. Maybe. Maybe we'll just get better at it. Or...used to it." She swallows sharply and then clears her throat. "I sort of can't believe...well. Anyhow. Yeah. Shells, I used to be articulate." Roa shakes her head slightly, a smirk curling at her mouth.
D'ven laughs softly, shaking his own head. "Part of the benefits of having things the way we do. We can be inarticulate in front of one another. You heard me out there, I can go like that without stopping for what seems like forever. But catch me with my angry face off, and..." There's a grin and a helpless shrug.
"I think I prefer you without the angry face," the Weyrwoman murmurs, struggling to keep her smile small. "I did like that one song you sang once. How did it go? About a sharding cap and something stuck in it?"
"I figure the Weyrlings probably would too." D'ven admits, before the question of the song comes up. "Oh, that one! Yes, all around my hat. It doesn't actually go like that originally, it's a Harper song about false love and this that and the other. But I like my version."
"Well, so did I." Roa's mouth remains open as if she might add something else, but then she closes it and shakes her head. "Are we okay, then?"
D'ven nods. "Yeah, we're okay." He murmurs, before just letting the silence hang for a while. Eventually, he offers "I missed you."
"Yeah?" She blinks, brows lifting. "Well. I sort of missed you too. I wouldn't have minded a nonsensical game of cards while I was waiting for something to happen." Roa pauses to consider before asking, "Do I ever get to learn the rules of that thing?"
"Yeah. It wasn't quite the same without you causing trouble for me." D'ven replies, and there's a light tease to his tone. "As for the game...maybe. I'll speak to Tiv, see if we can get another game together. It's an old tradition."
"Tradition or trick?" but Roa only sounds bemused. "I'll see what I can do about that trouble. And on that cheery note...there's a lot of hidework that needs some sort of organization attached to it. I think that's my job now..."
D'ven smiles. "Yeah, I'm still sorting through all the stuff here. Good luck with that hidework, I have to admit I don't envy you." He stands then, to see Roa out. "Thanks for dropping by. And feel free to pop in whenever."
Roa pushes upright, scooping up her coat and slipping back into it again. "Just at the moment, I don't envy me, either." She begins to head to the door, but does glance over her shoulder to note, "You know I will." Pop in. Whenever.
"I know, but it's worth saying anyway." D'ven murmurs, watching Roa leave. Once she's gone, he sits back down and rearranges a few more bits of paper. "She actually apologised." He murmurs to himself thoughtfully as she works. "Maybe she really did mean what she said, after all."
Time: Afternoon on Day 5, Month 1, Turn 3
Players: D'ven and Roa
Scene: Roa goes to speak with the new Weyrlingmaster.
It's late in the afternoon, and the Weyrlings are still hard at it. In the case of several young unfortunates, this means running drills under the direct supervision of their Weyrlingmaster. "You!" D'ven bellows, pointing at one young man who has been unfortunate enough to lag behind. "What do you call that?". The boy's stammered answer that he is running only seems to make the bronzerider angrier. "Running? That's not running, that's mincing! You are mincing through drills like a little Blooded girl afraid to tire out her precious frail little body! Out-fucking-standing!" The entire tirade is delivered none-stop, at a healthy volume.
Coats are wonderful things. So are shoes. And heavy pants. Roa has a newfound appreciation for all of these things, and she's bundled up now as she heads into the training cavern to see weyrlings...doing laps. And getting tiraded at. She stays near the door, a small unobtrusive figure, leans against the wall, and just watches.
Once D'ven is finished yelling at the poor Weyrling, he sets him back to running. Thankfully for everyone concerned, nobody else manages to fall below his current standards and before too long he's dismissing the drill. Salutes are given and returned, and then the Weyrlingmaster is turning and heading towards his office.
The Weyrwoman waits until the weyrlings are dispersing, looking perhaps a mite sore and a mite out of sorts (that isn't, after all, how -R'vain- does it), before she pushes back from the wall and heads towards the office. There is a soft knock to announce her presence, and then she peeks her head inside. "Weyrlingmaster?" There is just the tiniest quirk of her lips, as Roa uses that title.
"Weyrwoman." D'ven's expression is guarded, as eyes raise from his desk to meet hers. There's no coldness in his voice, but neither is there any affection. Where once he greeted her like a pet overjoyed at her return after even the smallest of absences, now his greeting is professional. It's but a moment before he's on his feet, and saluting.
"Oh," Roa murmurs, slipping inside and shutting the door. "You -are- mad at me." She begins to unbutton her coat and blinks slowly, head canting to the side. The salute is handled with a small nod that notes it was done, but nothing more. "Will you tell me why?"
"Yes." D'ven replies, and it's not clear which question he's answering as he lowers the salute. "I will, if he want me to." He finally allows, determined not to let his resolve to stay mad ebb as it has done with her before. "But I shouldn't have to tell you, if you think about it."
"May I sit?" She glances over to the chair in front of the desk, but Roa makes no motion to move without D'ven's permission. "You're upset because I left and didn't say anything. I made you feel like I'd changed my mind again." Buttons of her coat all opened, her hands fall to her sides. "Am I missing anything?"
There's a moment where it seems like D'ven will be petty and keep her standing. But then as she speaks he changes his mind. "Sure, sit down." He murmurs, flopping into his chair. "You've pretty much got it. I'm sure you had good reason to go. You always do, you're not the type to do something like that for no reason. But, you could have said something. Anything. Sometimes lately it feels like I kind of fade away when I'm not useful to you."
"I didn't tell anyone." Roa moves forward, shrugging out of her coat and draping it over the back of her chair before sitting down. "I couldn't, really. I mean, it wouldn't have been...I don't know." She exhales slowly, settling her hands in her lap. "I left so she'd rise. I would have come back a little sooner, but I missed the signals and..." her shoulders lift and fall. "I'm sorry I hurt you."
D'ven blinks slightly. "So she'd rise? Huh, you figured it out then. That's...pretty smart. And more than a little worrying, if.." He trails off then, remembering he's still mad at her. "You didn't just hurt me, Roa. You abandoned me. Just like..." He trails off into a thoughtful silence, then a half smile slowly spreads across his face. "But you came back." His tone is that of someone having a realisation.
Blink. "Well...of course I came back. This is my home. There is where the people that matter to me live. You thought I'd..." Roa leans back in her chair a little, eyes widening. "You thought I'd just gone away? For good?"
"No." D'ven replies with a shake of a head. "Of course you came back here. What I mean is you came back to me. And you said you were sorry. Nobody ever did that before." Of course some of them tried numerable times, but the bronzerider doesn't see it that way.
"Oh," A faint smile touches Roa's lips and she asks, a bit off the current topic, "sinking your feet right into the job, I see."
"R'vain had me up before dawn the day after the flight." D'ven answers with a smile for the memory. "And yeah. No sense in messing around, that'd be unfair on the Weyrlings. Straight into things, start as we mean to go on and all that."
Roa chuckles, shaking her head. "And all that," she agrees. "You're very..." one brow tips upwards as she searches for the proper word, "...assertive with them." The fingers in her lap tap the back of her other hand.
D'ven nods firmly. "It'll be good for them. They've got to be told what's what, got to learn discipline. They're going to be the best, they should be ready to go into any Wing and fit right in. It's like I said to them, they may think I'm their worst enemy but I'm their best friend. Because I want them to live and excel, and I'll do what it takes to get there." There's a pause. "They'll come around. They're not used to as many rules, or for them to be so strictly applied."
"I suppose they're not. Things were somewhat different than the way you plan to run them." There is another shrug, as if the running of such things one way or the other doesn't distress her. "But they...I mean...there's other things that come with impressing a dragon. Problems. Questions. Don't you worry you'll make yourself unapproachable?"
"They're always welcome to come to me." D'ven replies, apparently meaning it. "But I know what you mean, yes. It's like I told R'vain. They need mothers. So I need to find some assistants of a mothering bent, who they can go to with that sort of thing. I want to bring things back up to a full staff, like we had when I was a Weyrling."
"Hmm..." Her fingers still their tapping as she ponders, and then it resumes again, but more slowly. "So you run the tight ship, and they have others they can talk to if they need something more than orders. Wait..." Roa's head cants to the side. "A full staff? Of what?"
D'ven shuffles some papers on his desk for a moment, before speaking. "Well, a full staff is just a fancy grand name for it. A couple of full-time assistants is what I mean, perhaps someone to do administrative tasks and so forth. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary." Unsurprisingly, he's going for a very traditional arrangement.
"Anybody in particular you have in mind for those jobs?" Roa asks, her interest clearly piqued. "That'd be two or three people, probably a couple of them riders, right?"
"No, not yet. I'm thinking real hard on it, since it can't be just anybody but they also have to want the job." D'ven replies, seeming pleased at the obvious interest. "Both the assistants should be riders. The admin work can be done by either a rider or not. And maybe one other person, depending on how things pan out." That last does sound like someone very specific.
"Oh? Who would that be? That mystery person?" Roa cants her head to the other side as her fingers finally settle flat against the back of her other hand.
"Vanya." D'ven replies, having found whatever it was he was looking for on the desk. "As I understand it, she's not been deknotted by the Hall. Just is no longer posted here, but she seems to want to stay. Seems to me we have an opportunity to have a Healer dedicated to the Weyrlings. Maybe she could learn Dragonhealing too. That'd be real good for the kids."
"I..." Roa's lips thin, "Vanya? She's...isn't she already employed? With Sinopa?" She shakes her head slightly. "There's only forty-or-so weyrlings at a time, and they ought to all be healthy. I mean, I could understand her teaching some classes on massage or alternative healing practices but...the hall removed her from her posting. We can't..." She shakes her head slightly. "We have dragonhealers. She's had hardly any training with it."
D'ven half-shrugs. "It was just a thought. Frankly, it was very low in the list of priorities anyway. The thing I want most are people for the Weyrlings to go to." Things on the desk are shuffled and reshuffled. "And yeah, I know about the lack of training. It was why I said learn. Anyway, it was just a thought."
"It's not a bad one, exactly. It's only that if the hall hasn't posted her to the weyr, and the weyr hires her anyhow...well, it makes a mess." Roa's lips quirk again, "And I wouldn't say that I'm all that opposed to making messes. It's just that in this case, I think you could arrange to have her meet with the weyrlings anyhow without making us look like we're flicking our noses at Healer."
"I see your point." D'ven replies with a slow nod. "And while you may not be opposed to making messes, I am unless it's absolutely utterly necessary. Which as you say, it isn't."
"Well good. Then I can push you to make a few more messes and you can push me to stop making so many." Roa nods a little then, with a quirk of her lips she asks, "Did you panic, yet?"
D'ven shakes his head. "I have no idea what you mean, Roa." There's a pause, and his face stays straight for a little time before his lips quirk in reply. "Yeah, just as soon as R'vain had left my weyr, I think. Did you?"
"Oh. No. Of course not." Roa glances down at her hands and then peeps up and over at the newly appointed Weyrlingmaster. "Twice, now," she admits.
"I guess it shows we're taking things seriously." D'ven replies with a half-smile. "We'll probably still be having moments of panic even after we've been doing this....for a while."
"Yeah. Maybe. Maybe we'll just get better at it. Or...used to it." She swallows sharply and then clears her throat. "I sort of can't believe...well. Anyhow. Yeah. Shells, I used to be articulate." Roa shakes her head slightly, a smirk curling at her mouth.
D'ven laughs softly, shaking his own head. "Part of the benefits of having things the way we do. We can be inarticulate in front of one another. You heard me out there, I can go like that without stopping for what seems like forever. But catch me with my angry face off, and..." There's a grin and a helpless shrug.
"I think I prefer you without the angry face," the Weyrwoman murmurs, struggling to keep her smile small. "I did like that one song you sang once. How did it go? About a sharding cap and something stuck in it?"
"I figure the Weyrlings probably would too." D'ven admits, before the question of the song comes up. "Oh, that one! Yes, all around my hat. It doesn't actually go like that originally, it's a Harper song about false love and this that and the other. But I like my version."
"Well, so did I." Roa's mouth remains open as if she might add something else, but then she closes it and shakes her head. "Are we okay, then?"
D'ven nods. "Yeah, we're okay." He murmurs, before just letting the silence hang for a while. Eventually, he offers "I missed you."
"Yeah?" She blinks, brows lifting. "Well. I sort of missed you too. I wouldn't have minded a nonsensical game of cards while I was waiting for something to happen." Roa pauses to consider before asking, "Do I ever get to learn the rules of that thing?"
"Yeah. It wasn't quite the same without you causing trouble for me." D'ven replies, and there's a light tease to his tone. "As for the game...maybe. I'll speak to Tiv, see if we can get another game together. It's an old tradition."
"Tradition or trick?" but Roa only sounds bemused. "I'll see what I can do about that trouble. And on that cheery note...there's a lot of hidework that needs some sort of organization attached to it. I think that's my job now..."
D'ven smiles. "Yeah, I'm still sorting through all the stuff here. Good luck with that hidework, I have to admit I don't envy you." He stands then, to see Roa out. "Thanks for dropping by. And feel free to pop in whenever."
Roa pushes upright, scooping up her coat and slipping back into it again. "Just at the moment, I don't envy me, either." She begins to head to the door, but does glance over her shoulder to note, "You know I will." Pop in. Whenever.
"I know, but it's worth saying anyway." D'ven murmurs, watching Roa leave. Once she's gone, he sits back down and rearranges a few more bits of paper. "She actually apologised." He murmurs to himself thoughtfully as she works. "Maybe she really did mean what she said, after all."