Torment
Location: Classroom
Time: Late afternoon on Day 6, Month 2, Turn 2
Players: Roa and Penny
Scene: Roa and Penny renew a very peculiar sort of friendship.
Classroom
One of several classrooms used by the Weyr, this is the largest and most versatile. The walls adjacent to the bowl are lined with sandtables and high shelves that neatly store a variety of writing implements. Rather than the typical arrangement of student desks and benches lined up to face the front of the room, that furniture has been arranged in a broad semi-circle surrounding a bare work area. A single desk occupies the corner nearest the door exiting into the records room, providing a place for the current instructor to store their materials.
The last class of the day concluded perhaps twenty minutes ago but Roa still sits at her desk, hides out, pen and inkwell at the ready. The pen is, in fact, clasped in her hand and held over a blank hide which the girl stares at distantly. Occasionally her wrist dips down, pen lowering into an idle tap-tap that leaves a cluster of tiny black dots in the corner of the page. Slung over her chair is her heavy riding jacket and a scarf, items likely used to keep her warm while trudging through the bowl.
Penny enters, her satchel hanging low around her hips, the strap digging into her shoulder -- full of books, and in addition to the stack of three that she carries in her arms. No doubt searching for a quiet place in which to study, she enters the classroom somewhat more noisily than is her wont. She's got her back to the room as she grapples with books and door, and it isn't until she's fully inside and pulling the door closed again that she sees the goldrider. "Roa!" Ahaha. Whoops. Guess you can't avoid someone forever. Penny makes a valiant recovery, though, turning the knob on the door again. "I didn't think you-- I wasn't, I just was looking for somewhere to... I'll just..." Flee?
At her name, the Telgari looks up with a start, nearly dropping the pen before correcting her grip and setting it lightly in the inkwell. Roa pushes back her chair and stands, approaching Penny quietly and simply holding her arms out to take on some of the burden the smith carries. The books, she means. "I wasn't doing much actual studying anyhow. It's all right. Can I help you get settled? I promise that after I'll go and leave you be."
Penny looks down as Roa approaches, then back up, blankly. "Your leg," she says, intelligently, as if Roa might not have noticed that her leg was no longer in a splint. With an effort, Penny gets ahold of herself and actually attempts a smile, with partial success. "I mean-- thank you. It's good to see you're doing better." Look who's talking. She surrenders the books in her arms without protest, using the time spent getting situated to recompose herself, running a hand through her hair. Something about the younger woman's words has troubled her; her brow is furrowed, her expressive face betraying her disquiet.
Roa follows after Penny and lets her pick a seat before setting the extra books down on the chosen desk. "Yes," she says with a smile. "Splint came off about six days ago." The leg lifts and extends outward slightly, foot wiggling. "I have entirely new appreciation for my own mobility. "And you...well, it's good to see you back in classes. Rumors flew rampantly where you were absent those few days."
"Stomach flu," Penny replies instantly, and along with her easy smile, actually manages to blush a little, the lie so engrained now that she can react accordingly. "Embarrassingly anticlimactic, I know. Rumors of my dropping dead in the middle of the caucus compound were, I assure you, greatly exaggerated." Flippant response done with, the smith sets her bag down on the seat at the desk, slipping the strap over her head and then straightening back up. "I really don't wish to disturb you," she says then, quietly, eyes shifting off to the side. But that brings her to look at the instructor's desk, where, barring the few incidental encounters since, was the last time Penny and Roa actually spoke. Penny looks away again, hurriedly.
.
Roa ahs softly, nose wrinkling sympathetically. "Stomach upsets are always wretched," she murmurs. And then, helping finished, the girl is moving to her own desk to begin to put away her things. "I, um," she begins as she caps the inkwell, "I never got the opportunity to apologize."
"Wretched," Penny agrees, feelingly. In this, at least, there's no need for good acting skills. She bends a little, unbuckling her bag and reaching in for a stack of hides. She pauses then, while hauling them out, frozen momentarily by the Telgar's awkward statement. It lasts a second before she finishes her task, setting the hides neatly onto the desk before straightening. "Apologize for what?"
"For the things I said. Before. It was...I hadn't any right to say any of them, and I'm sorry." Pen is tucked carefully away in Roa's satchel and the hide with its corner of small black dots is lifted and slowly rolled, the shush-shush noise floating about the room.
Penny is silent for a few moments after Roa speaks, making the soft noise of the rolling hide that more noticeable. Eventually, eyes on the desk, she says evenly, "You said what you thought you needed to say. I can hardly fault you for it." Another silence, and then, quietly, as if speaking the words too loud would make them more true, she adds, "You... weren't wrong."
Roa looks up from her packing at that last, gaze flitting to Penny and then down to the desk and back to the satchel. "I see," is all she says a little lamely. "I never was so good at fixing things," she adds after a bit. The remaining hides on her desk are lifts and tapped on their end to align them with each other. Tap tap.
"It isn't your responsibility to fix it," Penny says, turning finally to look at Roa. Her tone isn't harsh, though, a little weariness the only thing marring its characteristic warmth. "And perhaps now you can rest a little easier knowing that... well, there isn't really anything to fix." One hand still rests on the hides, a solid touch as though it might ground her. "It's an addiction, like any other. Given time, and-- and space..." There's a twitch of her lips then, and a wry, "I think I'm trying to say that yes, you're forgiven, that I'm sorry too, and just..." Don't do it again? "Just let it go. All of it."
The little goldrider finishes packing up her satchel, though at the mention of Penny and Jensen's relationship as an 'addiction', her lips flatten together into a carefully sealed line. But at least the girl has a learning curve. She doesn't do it again. "Sure," she says, her words still barely above a murmur. "Of course."
"You disapprove." It's not a question. Penny shifts, leaning back against the desk, arms folded low across her stomach. Odd, how now she seems so much more willing to discuss the issue, when before she was fighting to leave.
Roa folds over the flap of her satchel. All ready to go. Yep. Ready. To go. But she doesn't lift the straps or slide them onto her shoulder. "Are you quite certain," the younger girl begins carefully, "that you want me to answer that?"
"I think your disapproval cannot be harsher than that I've had from... others." Penny's warm voice doesn't change, but the way her words grow more formal by the moment betray her confusion and discomfort. And yet, she does seem determined to draw Roa's ill opinion from her, some sort of masochistic sense of guilt. Yes, hit me again.
"I just don't understand why it is you have any interest in mine," Roa counters. But she draws a deep breath and exhales softly. "The reference you used, an addiction, it just seemed sort of cold. But, I expect that was the point, anyhow."
Penny just looks back at her, looking sort of vaguely interested, like a child with a pretty stone. "I'm interested because, at one point, I think we were friends." She gives herself a little shake, lowers her eyes finally. "Roa, I can't even begin to understand what's going on in-- his head. The past sevendays have proven, though, that there's something beyond..." She hesitates, and then stops for a moment of silence. "Giving it up isn't so simple as saying that it's over. The allure of wine, or of fellis, or of whatever you might care to name -- sometimes destructive forces can masquerade as something wonderful and seductive." She grimaces then, a flicker of humor there. "Wrong word, perhaps. Do you really not understand?"
"I..." the weyrwoman quiets as she considers. "I suppose I do. I guess I just don't entirely understand why your, well, your relationship falls into that category. Of something destructive. I suppose because it cannot be reconciled with gaining your Mastership?" Her hands lift the strap of her satchel, fingering it and squeezing it. "I *am* sorry. To have done something that makes you no longer consider me a friend."
"You've never seen us together," Penny says drily, chin dipping as she regards the ground. "We either fight or we..." Uh. "Roa, it wasn't bad until it started to become obvious that this wasn't something that'd be over and done with in a few months. The longer he and I... associate, the harder it'll be in the end." Her expression gives her away -- earnest, determined. "Believe me, I was perfectly happy in it until... well. He'll be back at the Hold in no time, and I will eventually return to the Smith hall. I hope he remembers me fondly, but in light of recent events, I very much doubt it." She raises an eyebrow. Friends? "Don't you not consider me one?" Double negatives, a slip in Penny's too-formal way of speaking.
Roa only listens quietly. "No," she agrees, "I haven't. And what you wish to do is, of course, your choice. And I think if he is thinking on anyone without fondness, it is only himself." And then, well, her eyes roll. Because does he ever take on the weight of the world on his shoulders and does she ever know it. "I suppose I consider you someone who had no wish to speak to me anymore, with valid reason. I...I should *like* to consider you a friend." The last is said quite softly, almost apologetically.
"I think he blames himself for the--" Penny's eyes had been rather distant, thoughtful, focused on Roa but not really -seeing- her. Her near slip-up brings her back, though, gaze refocusing sharply. "The-- whole thing. He shouldn't, but I think he does." She shakes her head again. "I'm not so stupid that I don't see it, Roa. I just like to think I have enough rational thought in my brain to know when to let something happen and not cling to what's well on its way to destroying itself." A pause. "With valid reason," she repeats then, musingly, teeth catching at her lower lip for a moment. "You can stand there and tell me everything I'm doing is more or less reprehensible and that I'm single-handedly messing up the head and heart of a friend of yours and that you wish to be my friend?" Her own eyes roll, upwards. "You're a very strange person."
Roa picks up her bag, but only to move it from the chair so she can sit down again, resting her chin in her hands. "Yeh," the girl agrees all too easily. "I am. One of the strangest." But now she's not watching Penny anymore, only staring at one of the glowbaskets on the other side of the room. "I suppose I just like understanding both sides of anything." The smile that touches on her lips at this point is anything but happy, but it's gone soon enough. "I didn't say what you were doing was reprehensible," the Telgari corrects. "Just that I had a hard time understanding it. And Jensen, well, sometimes I think he messes up his own head and heart better than anybody else possibly could." The whole slight hiccup on Penny's part is simply not noticed or ignored.
"He does, doesn't he?" There's a moment's fond smile, almost before Penny realizes it; she clears her throat then, watching Roa seat herself but not yet moving to do the same, still leaning against the desk. She's quiet a while, arms hugging herself lightly across her midsection. And then, "If you were me... what would you do?" Bewilderment.
"Oh shells, how would I know?" Roa says with a small laugh. "I mean, I can try to imagine myself in your place technically. In the crafts, caught up the way you are, all of that. But I can't...I mean I have no real sense of what you actually want. Or, I guess, what I'd want in your case. If it were me, I think I'd be more upset at the system than at the other part. But...that's me." Her nose wrinkles a little. "You see?"
Penny wrinkles her nose. "It was kind of a ridiculous request, wasn't it?" She laughs as well, perhaps a tad nervously. "I don't know. I just mean that... I'm doing the best that I know how. It seems such an alien concept for a man to..." She hesitates here, uncertain, and ends up repeating herself. "I don't know. Want me. Want -me-." The change in the stresses is noticeable.
Roa's brows lift in obvious surprise which is echoed in her voice a moment later. "Truly?" Then, she thinks quietly. "I suppose being the daughter of the Mastersmith would be a bit intimidating for suitors, not to mention the time it must take to excel in your craft. But, well, it shouldn't. Seem so alien, I mean. The concept." Yep.
Penny laughs again, this time the sound emerging more realistically. "The prospect of my father's wrath ensured that I was very much left alone for most of my life, yes. There were a few daring enough to risk it, but..." She shrugs. "Most of the time, it was the thrill of the illicit. Thumbing one's nose at the wild side of life." Another eyeroll. "Jensen, obviously, suffers from no such problem."
"I believe, when your father was looking for you at Turn's End, the entire room was privy to his exclamation," Roa says. She bites down on her lower lip, but the smile sneaks through anyhow. "And Jensen thumbs his nose at anything, anywhere, anytime so long as it isn't people he cares for or his duty." Another small laugh. "He's a little impossible." Telling, perhaps, that she finds it easy to talk about him as if she hasn't been avoiding him for the last seven. But then, Penny wouldn't know that.
Penny smiles, somewhat ruefully. "My father will always think that I am approximately eight turns old," she murmurs. "But truth be told, I prefer it that way." She gives a little shiver, and finally sits down, pushing her satchel aside to make room. Her head tilts as she regards Roa, expression rather distant. "Impossible," she agrees mildly, letting the quiet stretch for a few long moments. "Roa, do you--" But she stops. "No. Never mind."
Roa leans back a little, chin tucking down towards her chest, one single brow arching. "Do I...what?" She laughs lightly, "Fancy him?" The other brow lifts and she waits to see if, perhaps, that was the vetoed question.
Penny just shakes her head, helplessly, closing her eyes. "It was a stupid question," she protests. After a moment, though, her eyes open again, fixing themselves rather guiltily on Roa's face. Curiosity is ever one of Penny's vices.
Roa has, actually, practiced for this moment. In front of a mirror no less, because one never knows when such a question will get thrown a girl's way. So the smile that touches her lips now is easy, perhaps even a little condescending, as she slowly shakes her head. "He's a good friend," she says with a little chuckle, "but only that."
Penny smiles back, though perhaps there's a little bit of relief in her face. "He is a good friend," she agrees quietly. "In a lot of ways I regret that I can't-- quite-- have his friendship without the rest of this mess." There's another of those awkward pauses in which Penny looks down, fingering the material of her skirt as if brushing away imaginary lint. "I think the notion of you two being friends was strange to me, to say the least. Jensen never struck me as the sort to have a lot of female friends. I'm not really sure why." It's becoming easier for her to say his name.
Roa hmms, again lowering her chin to rest it in her hands. "He's a bit gruff and tumble. Hard to imagine a girl wanting to be friends with him, I suppose. But we manage well enough. I don't really know how it happened. We kept running into one another in the main rooms when neither could sleep, and in such situations you find yourself talking and..." a small shrug, "it just worked, I suppose."
"Only gruff on the outside," Penny mumbles, distractedly, before she blinks and her cheeks darken a little bit. "I mean, yes, it isn't surprising most people don't ever really get to know him." Her lips purse a little as she looks over at the Telgari while she describes the nature of her relationship with the guard. "I'm a little envious," she says eventually, softly.
"What of?" is the easy reply Roa offers. And then, tentatively, "How did *you* meet him, then?"
"That you can be with him," is Penny's answer, uncharacteristically simple in its honesty. She gives herself a little shake, and then smiles. "It's a little silly, really. Since I can remember my father would bring me out to watch the sunrise on my turnday every year. Just one of those little family traditions that I never could see the point of, but I couldn't -not- do it just because I was away from home. This year -- I guess, what... five or six months ago, now? Jensen found me that morning, and took me for a walk to see the dawn. We knew each other before then, but... that was really the first time we met, I think." Pensive.
The smile that touches Roa's lips now in considerably softer. "That's painfully sweet." As far as being with him? Well, it seems Penny has made her choice on that one so Roa doesn't speak to it. Not yet, anyhow. "How did he know? It was your turnday, I mean?"
"It is, isn't it?" Penny lifts her eyes to the ceiling, letting out a distinctly unladylike snort. "Something out of a ballad. It's almost too good to be true -- the gruff, hardened soldier with a mushy heart of gold on the inside." She looks back down, grins at Roa, the expression nicely hiding her distress. "I told him. It was very early when I encountered him in the living caverns. He went into the kitchens and got them to bring out water for my tea, and found out why I was up before dawn. The clearing was his idea."
Roa tilts her head so her mouth is hidden by her hand, though with the way she's been shifting from smile to smile, it's a little silly that she wants to hide the one evoked at Jensen's expense. "And *why* is it you can't keep him anymore?" the tone of the question implies that it's only a joke but then the weyrwoman blinks, frowning. "No, I'm sorry," she says softly, "don't answer that, of course."
Oddly, Penny doesn't seem too offended by Roa's half-joking remark. She just sighs, leaning her elbow on the desk and lowering her head onto it. "The real question is how I was dumb enough to think at the outset that it would just be about... um. That it wouldn't involve any kind of emotional attachment." She gives a little groan. "It just... all got so complicated before I even knew what was happening. If you even knew..." She just presses her lips together in a little line, closing her eyes. "Ah well. Live and learn, hmm? Someday I'll be able to afford such a relationship." And by that point, Jensen will be long gone.
Again, the stuttered and halted bit is ignored by the goldrider. And that, in itself might be a little suspicious. After all, she's pretty perceptive when it comes to everything else, but Roa just keeps on missing those accidental clues. Instead she only asks, "But here, it isn't possible?"
"I don't think so, do you?" Penny turns clear eyes on the other woman, frank for the moment. "It isn't as though I can marry him. And that, alas, is what good holdbred girls do when they get..." Knocked up? "...involved. I'm still young enough that a romance of the kind I had with Jensen would be scandal enough to wipe me from the list of viable, promotable journeymen -- assuming I've even managed to prove I belong on that list yet. Not to mention the fact that my father would probably start chopping heads off, and the Headmaster..." Another of those grimaces where her lips press together. "It seems there are too many complications, even outside of the limited time frame, to make it even remotely worth the effort for him. For us, I mean."
"It's not a question of whether *he* would do it," Roa says softly. Because, of course, he would. "I guess, yes, it's a question of risk versus gain. And in your position, with things as they are, you have a great deal more to lose than he does." And her attention moves back to the glowlamp. "It's not very fair, is it."
"Of course it is, it's exactly that question," Penny replies, frowning a little, the response immediate before she pauses, rethinking. "What I mean is, he's started to understand what I've been trying to tell him this whole time. You weren't wrong, when you said he did the only thing he could think of to do when he ended things. It had to be his decision in the end." Penny is firm on this point, laying the blame for the rocky halt to the affair on Jensen's shoulders. "And no, it isn't, but fairness rarely comes into the equation. I don't think you can grow up, being female and wanting to be a smith, and still be able to complain about fairness." Far from self-pitying, Penny actually smiles at this point, lifting her head from her arm.
Roa does not say what she finds scandalously on the tip of her tongue with regards to fairness and female smiths. No, she does not say 'you should'. Instead her expression gentles and she addresses, quite softly, the other matter. Blue eyes meet brown and ask, perhaps, for a sort of understanding. "Penny," she begins, "No. It isn't."
Penny starts to reply and then stops, caught perhaps by that request in the goldrider's eyes. She hesitates, confused, and then shakes her head. "It -is-," she protests, closing her eyes. "It isn't up to me. And even if it were I wouldn't change the outcome."
"That last part," the nod is almost audible in Roa's voice, "that last part is likely true. But the rest..." her words trail off and it is a long moment before she says anything else. "Consider the rest. Because you will, turns and turns from now. Be honest with yourself now, and don't regret things later. If this is your choice, make it your choice and don't imagine it otherwise." So much for keeping her wondrous thoughts to herself.
Penny makes the mistake, then, of lifting her gaze again. Because, with Roa looking at her, it becomes so much harder to continue lying through her teeth. "I-- don't--" But it's too much work. Her lips tremble. "I -know- it's all my fault, Roa. I do. But the truth is that after-- there have been things. That have happened. And I think, I really do, that he's finally seeing me now, not as this fantastic girl he met at dawn one day six months ago, but as -me-, Penny, far more work than she's worth. And perhaps the two are not so quickly reconciled, but he -does- see me now, and that's why he and I haven't so much as exchanged one word since--" But she's reached the end of her speech, the words that had been tumbling out one after now drying up and sticking in her throat.
"Since your stomach flu," Roa provides the words for her. "You said all you ever do is fight and," a small cough, "well, that this relationship was never an easy thing. Do you think he truly saw you as something so whimsical and now he doesn't?" Her head shakes slowly. "This is Jensen," she murmurs, "and he holds onto such things beyond any point of reason. I think it's simply who he is. If you don't wish it, that's one thing. But, Penny, you must realize he's waiting for you. Right now, if you wanted."
The look directed at Roa as she mentions Penny's illness is sharp, a flare of suspicion visible before it's quickly quelled again. She listens, miserably, caught again by the same onslaught of good sense that the Telgari inflicted on her the -last- time they spoke. She almost twists under that blue-eyed gaze, not quite able to look away. "I can't go to him," she says finally, almost fearfully. She's like an alcoholic being presented with a free skin of Benden red; an addict. "I won't."
"Okay," Roa says as easily as if she was being offered a second helping of mashed tubers. "That's your choice, and you've a right to choose what's ultimately going to be less painful. I'm not trying to make you feel otherwise. Only...to help you fully understand the situation."
"Is he really--" What? Waiting? Penny's expression twists momentarily before she passes a hand over her face. "No. What's done now is done, and he knows it as well as I do. He has to know it. He isn't anywhere near as simple as he acts." She hesitates a moment longer and then gets to her feet, beginning to shove her books and things back into her bag, evidently in preparation to run away again.
Roa leans down as well, scooping up her own packed satchel and sliding it over her shoulder before she rises to her feet. "Simple? No. Stubborn?" A small shake of her head. That one doesn't even need to be answered aloud.
"I am stubborn too." The words are quiet, but with a bit of Penny's spine coming back through again. Moments of weakness passed, she finishes packing up her things and turns, seeing Roa's own preparations for leaving. It's a little awkward, storming out, if the person ends up coming with you. She just stands there, lips pressed together flatly for a few moments. "Roa, why are you doing this? What does it matter to you? If what you say is true, the longer Jensen... waits... the harder it'll be for him. Why encourage me to waffle on the subject?"
"I don't know," Roa sighs. She hangs back, leaning against her seat. No rush. Storm away, Penny. "I suppose, I'd just like to see him be happy. And I don't mean to encourage waffling." She quiets, blinking at that word choice. Waffling? "I think, if you're going to end it, you ought to be honest to yourself as to why. And I poke at things I shouldn't." And, what will never be spoken: it's utterly wretched to be overlooked for a woman that doesn't even *want* him.
"Honesty." Something about the word is amusing, a sort of dark humor visible in Penny's eyes. There's a long, long silence before she speaks again, one that suggests that perhaps she's done speaking entirely. It's much later that her voice comes again, a little hoarsely, eyes fixed somewhere in the middle-ground, on a vacant desk. "If I were to stay with him, I would never want to leave." It's another long moment before she blinks, refocusing. "And that would be a betrayal of more than he and I." She's a little stiff, now, the moment of honesty leaving her awkward and confused. "Do me the favor of allowing me to leave this time. I don't fancy sitting in here alone again; last time, that didn't end up working so well for me." Yes. Passing out and being carried to the infirmary by Jensen himself? Not so well at all.
Roa only nods once and lifts a hand, gesturing silently towards the door. She herself remains stationary. "This time," she begins, a bit of apology apparent in her voice, "you did ask. Good evening, Penny."
Penny crosses to the door, slinging the strap of her satchel over her head and across her shoulder. It's when she reaches the door and has one hand on the knob that she pauses, head down. She turns and says, "This is going to be a very odd friendship if you insist on putting me through the emotional equivalent of full Fall and fire everytime we speak." But then she manages a smile, the corners of her lips quirking. "Jen has a good friend in you, I think." And then she's gone, leaving somewhat more quietly than she arrived.
Roa watches Penny go and it's only after she can no longer hear footfalls that the Telgari buries her face in her hands with a miserable groan. "Roa, Roa, Roa..." she murmurs to herself, "You're a very silly girl and you *do* talk too much." But after taking some more time to inhale several deep breaths and calm her features (and after peeping down the corridor to make sure Penny has had enough lead time to be well and truly gone), the weyrwoman departs as well.
Time: Late afternoon on Day 6, Month 2, Turn 2
Players: Roa and Penny
Scene: Roa and Penny renew a very peculiar sort of friendship.
Classroom
One of several classrooms used by the Weyr, this is the largest and most versatile. The walls adjacent to the bowl are lined with sandtables and high shelves that neatly store a variety of writing implements. Rather than the typical arrangement of student desks and benches lined up to face the front of the room, that furniture has been arranged in a broad semi-circle surrounding a bare work area. A single desk occupies the corner nearest the door exiting into the records room, providing a place for the current instructor to store their materials.
The last class of the day concluded perhaps twenty minutes ago but Roa still sits at her desk, hides out, pen and inkwell at the ready. The pen is, in fact, clasped in her hand and held over a blank hide which the girl stares at distantly. Occasionally her wrist dips down, pen lowering into an idle tap-tap that leaves a cluster of tiny black dots in the corner of the page. Slung over her chair is her heavy riding jacket and a scarf, items likely used to keep her warm while trudging through the bowl.
Penny enters, her satchel hanging low around her hips, the strap digging into her shoulder -- full of books, and in addition to the stack of three that she carries in her arms. No doubt searching for a quiet place in which to study, she enters the classroom somewhat more noisily than is her wont. She's got her back to the room as she grapples with books and door, and it isn't until she's fully inside and pulling the door closed again that she sees the goldrider. "Roa!" Ahaha. Whoops. Guess you can't avoid someone forever. Penny makes a valiant recovery, though, turning the knob on the door again. "I didn't think you-- I wasn't, I just was looking for somewhere to... I'll just..." Flee?
At her name, the Telgari looks up with a start, nearly dropping the pen before correcting her grip and setting it lightly in the inkwell. Roa pushes back her chair and stands, approaching Penny quietly and simply holding her arms out to take on some of the burden the smith carries. The books, she means. "I wasn't doing much actual studying anyhow. It's all right. Can I help you get settled? I promise that after I'll go and leave you be."
Penny looks down as Roa approaches, then back up, blankly. "Your leg," she says, intelligently, as if Roa might not have noticed that her leg was no longer in a splint. With an effort, Penny gets ahold of herself and actually attempts a smile, with partial success. "I mean-- thank you. It's good to see you're doing better." Look who's talking. She surrenders the books in her arms without protest, using the time spent getting situated to recompose herself, running a hand through her hair. Something about the younger woman's words has troubled her; her brow is furrowed, her expressive face betraying her disquiet.
Roa follows after Penny and lets her pick a seat before setting the extra books down on the chosen desk. "Yes," she says with a smile. "Splint came off about six days ago." The leg lifts and extends outward slightly, foot wiggling. "I have entirely new appreciation for my own mobility. "And you...well, it's good to see you back in classes. Rumors flew rampantly where you were absent those few days."
"Stomach flu," Penny replies instantly, and along with her easy smile, actually manages to blush a little, the lie so engrained now that she can react accordingly. "Embarrassingly anticlimactic, I know. Rumors of my dropping dead in the middle of the caucus compound were, I assure you, greatly exaggerated." Flippant response done with, the smith sets her bag down on the seat at the desk, slipping the strap over her head and then straightening back up. "I really don't wish to disturb you," she says then, quietly, eyes shifting off to the side. But that brings her to look at the instructor's desk, where, barring the few incidental encounters since, was the last time Penny and Roa actually spoke. Penny looks away again, hurriedly.
.
Roa ahs softly, nose wrinkling sympathetically. "Stomach upsets are always wretched," she murmurs. And then, helping finished, the girl is moving to her own desk to begin to put away her things. "I, um," she begins as she caps the inkwell, "I never got the opportunity to apologize."
"Wretched," Penny agrees, feelingly. In this, at least, there's no need for good acting skills. She bends a little, unbuckling her bag and reaching in for a stack of hides. She pauses then, while hauling them out, frozen momentarily by the Telgar's awkward statement. It lasts a second before she finishes her task, setting the hides neatly onto the desk before straightening. "Apologize for what?"
"For the things I said. Before. It was...I hadn't any right to say any of them, and I'm sorry." Pen is tucked carefully away in Roa's satchel and the hide with its corner of small black dots is lifted and slowly rolled, the shush-shush noise floating about the room.
Penny is silent for a few moments after Roa speaks, making the soft noise of the rolling hide that more noticeable. Eventually, eyes on the desk, she says evenly, "You said what you thought you needed to say. I can hardly fault you for it." Another silence, and then, quietly, as if speaking the words too loud would make them more true, she adds, "You... weren't wrong."
Roa looks up from her packing at that last, gaze flitting to Penny and then down to the desk and back to the satchel. "I see," is all she says a little lamely. "I never was so good at fixing things," she adds after a bit. The remaining hides on her desk are lifts and tapped on their end to align them with each other. Tap tap.
"It isn't your responsibility to fix it," Penny says, turning finally to look at Roa. Her tone isn't harsh, though, a little weariness the only thing marring its characteristic warmth. "And perhaps now you can rest a little easier knowing that... well, there isn't really anything to fix." One hand still rests on the hides, a solid touch as though it might ground her. "It's an addiction, like any other. Given time, and-- and space..." There's a twitch of her lips then, and a wry, "I think I'm trying to say that yes, you're forgiven, that I'm sorry too, and just..." Don't do it again? "Just let it go. All of it."
The little goldrider finishes packing up her satchel, though at the mention of Penny and Jensen's relationship as an 'addiction', her lips flatten together into a carefully sealed line. But at least the girl has a learning curve. She doesn't do it again. "Sure," she says, her words still barely above a murmur. "Of course."
"You disapprove." It's not a question. Penny shifts, leaning back against the desk, arms folded low across her stomach. Odd, how now she seems so much more willing to discuss the issue, when before she was fighting to leave.
Roa folds over the flap of her satchel. All ready to go. Yep. Ready. To go. But she doesn't lift the straps or slide them onto her shoulder. "Are you quite certain," the younger girl begins carefully, "that you want me to answer that?"
"I think your disapproval cannot be harsher than that I've had from... others." Penny's warm voice doesn't change, but the way her words grow more formal by the moment betray her confusion and discomfort. And yet, she does seem determined to draw Roa's ill opinion from her, some sort of masochistic sense of guilt. Yes, hit me again.
"I just don't understand why it is you have any interest in mine," Roa counters. But she draws a deep breath and exhales softly. "The reference you used, an addiction, it just seemed sort of cold. But, I expect that was the point, anyhow."
Penny just looks back at her, looking sort of vaguely interested, like a child with a pretty stone. "I'm interested because, at one point, I think we were friends." She gives herself a little shake, lowers her eyes finally. "Roa, I can't even begin to understand what's going on in-- his head. The past sevendays have proven, though, that there's something beyond..." She hesitates, and then stops for a moment of silence. "Giving it up isn't so simple as saying that it's over. The allure of wine, or of fellis, or of whatever you might care to name -- sometimes destructive forces can masquerade as something wonderful and seductive." She grimaces then, a flicker of humor there. "Wrong word, perhaps. Do you really not understand?"
"I..." the weyrwoman quiets as she considers. "I suppose I do. I guess I just don't entirely understand why your, well, your relationship falls into that category. Of something destructive. I suppose because it cannot be reconciled with gaining your Mastership?" Her hands lift the strap of her satchel, fingering it and squeezing it. "I *am* sorry. To have done something that makes you no longer consider me a friend."
"You've never seen us together," Penny says drily, chin dipping as she regards the ground. "We either fight or we..." Uh. "Roa, it wasn't bad until it started to become obvious that this wasn't something that'd be over and done with in a few months. The longer he and I... associate, the harder it'll be in the end." Her expression gives her away -- earnest, determined. "Believe me, I was perfectly happy in it until... well. He'll be back at the Hold in no time, and I will eventually return to the Smith hall. I hope he remembers me fondly, but in light of recent events, I very much doubt it." She raises an eyebrow. Friends? "Don't you not consider me one?" Double negatives, a slip in Penny's too-formal way of speaking.
Roa only listens quietly. "No," she agrees, "I haven't. And what you wish to do is, of course, your choice. And I think if he is thinking on anyone without fondness, it is only himself." And then, well, her eyes roll. Because does he ever take on the weight of the world on his shoulders and does she ever know it. "I suppose I consider you someone who had no wish to speak to me anymore, with valid reason. I...I should *like* to consider you a friend." The last is said quite softly, almost apologetically.
"I think he blames himself for the--" Penny's eyes had been rather distant, thoughtful, focused on Roa but not really -seeing- her. Her near slip-up brings her back, though, gaze refocusing sharply. "The-- whole thing. He shouldn't, but I think he does." She shakes her head again. "I'm not so stupid that I don't see it, Roa. I just like to think I have enough rational thought in my brain to know when to let something happen and not cling to what's well on its way to destroying itself." A pause. "With valid reason," she repeats then, musingly, teeth catching at her lower lip for a moment. "You can stand there and tell me everything I'm doing is more or less reprehensible and that I'm single-handedly messing up the head and heart of a friend of yours and that you wish to be my friend?" Her own eyes roll, upwards. "You're a very strange person."
Roa picks up her bag, but only to move it from the chair so she can sit down again, resting her chin in her hands. "Yeh," the girl agrees all too easily. "I am. One of the strangest." But now she's not watching Penny anymore, only staring at one of the glowbaskets on the other side of the room. "I suppose I just like understanding both sides of anything." The smile that touches on her lips at this point is anything but happy, but it's gone soon enough. "I didn't say what you were doing was reprehensible," the Telgari corrects. "Just that I had a hard time understanding it. And Jensen, well, sometimes I think he messes up his own head and heart better than anybody else possibly could." The whole slight hiccup on Penny's part is simply not noticed or ignored.
"He does, doesn't he?" There's a moment's fond smile, almost before Penny realizes it; she clears her throat then, watching Roa seat herself but not yet moving to do the same, still leaning against the desk. She's quiet a while, arms hugging herself lightly across her midsection. And then, "If you were me... what would you do?" Bewilderment.
"Oh shells, how would I know?" Roa says with a small laugh. "I mean, I can try to imagine myself in your place technically. In the crafts, caught up the way you are, all of that. But I can't...I mean I have no real sense of what you actually want. Or, I guess, what I'd want in your case. If it were me, I think I'd be more upset at the system than at the other part. But...that's me." Her nose wrinkles a little. "You see?"
Penny wrinkles her nose. "It was kind of a ridiculous request, wasn't it?" She laughs as well, perhaps a tad nervously. "I don't know. I just mean that... I'm doing the best that I know how. It seems such an alien concept for a man to..." She hesitates here, uncertain, and ends up repeating herself. "I don't know. Want me. Want -me-." The change in the stresses is noticeable.
Roa's brows lift in obvious surprise which is echoed in her voice a moment later. "Truly?" Then, she thinks quietly. "I suppose being the daughter of the Mastersmith would be a bit intimidating for suitors, not to mention the time it must take to excel in your craft. But, well, it shouldn't. Seem so alien, I mean. The concept." Yep.
Penny laughs again, this time the sound emerging more realistically. "The prospect of my father's wrath ensured that I was very much left alone for most of my life, yes. There were a few daring enough to risk it, but..." She shrugs. "Most of the time, it was the thrill of the illicit. Thumbing one's nose at the wild side of life." Another eyeroll. "Jensen, obviously, suffers from no such problem."
"I believe, when your father was looking for you at Turn's End, the entire room was privy to his exclamation," Roa says. She bites down on her lower lip, but the smile sneaks through anyhow. "And Jensen thumbs his nose at anything, anywhere, anytime so long as it isn't people he cares for or his duty." Another small laugh. "He's a little impossible." Telling, perhaps, that she finds it easy to talk about him as if she hasn't been avoiding him for the last seven. But then, Penny wouldn't know that.
Penny smiles, somewhat ruefully. "My father will always think that I am approximately eight turns old," she murmurs. "But truth be told, I prefer it that way." She gives a little shiver, and finally sits down, pushing her satchel aside to make room. Her head tilts as she regards Roa, expression rather distant. "Impossible," she agrees mildly, letting the quiet stretch for a few long moments. "Roa, do you--" But she stops. "No. Never mind."
Roa leans back a little, chin tucking down towards her chest, one single brow arching. "Do I...what?" She laughs lightly, "Fancy him?" The other brow lifts and she waits to see if, perhaps, that was the vetoed question.
Penny just shakes her head, helplessly, closing her eyes. "It was a stupid question," she protests. After a moment, though, her eyes open again, fixing themselves rather guiltily on Roa's face. Curiosity is ever one of Penny's vices.
Roa has, actually, practiced for this moment. In front of a mirror no less, because one never knows when such a question will get thrown a girl's way. So the smile that touches her lips now is easy, perhaps even a little condescending, as she slowly shakes her head. "He's a good friend," she says with a little chuckle, "but only that."
Penny smiles back, though perhaps there's a little bit of relief in her face. "He is a good friend," she agrees quietly. "In a lot of ways I regret that I can't-- quite-- have his friendship without the rest of this mess." There's another of those awkward pauses in which Penny looks down, fingering the material of her skirt as if brushing away imaginary lint. "I think the notion of you two being friends was strange to me, to say the least. Jensen never struck me as the sort to have a lot of female friends. I'm not really sure why." It's becoming easier for her to say his name.
Roa hmms, again lowering her chin to rest it in her hands. "He's a bit gruff and tumble. Hard to imagine a girl wanting to be friends with him, I suppose. But we manage well enough. I don't really know how it happened. We kept running into one another in the main rooms when neither could sleep, and in such situations you find yourself talking and..." a small shrug, "it just worked, I suppose."
"Only gruff on the outside," Penny mumbles, distractedly, before she blinks and her cheeks darken a little bit. "I mean, yes, it isn't surprising most people don't ever really get to know him." Her lips purse a little as she looks over at the Telgari while she describes the nature of her relationship with the guard. "I'm a little envious," she says eventually, softly.
"What of?" is the easy reply Roa offers. And then, tentatively, "How did *you* meet him, then?"
"That you can be with him," is Penny's answer, uncharacteristically simple in its honesty. She gives herself a little shake, and then smiles. "It's a little silly, really. Since I can remember my father would bring me out to watch the sunrise on my turnday every year. Just one of those little family traditions that I never could see the point of, but I couldn't -not- do it just because I was away from home. This year -- I guess, what... five or six months ago, now? Jensen found me that morning, and took me for a walk to see the dawn. We knew each other before then, but... that was really the first time we met, I think." Pensive.
The smile that touches Roa's lips now in considerably softer. "That's painfully sweet." As far as being with him? Well, it seems Penny has made her choice on that one so Roa doesn't speak to it. Not yet, anyhow. "How did he know? It was your turnday, I mean?"
"It is, isn't it?" Penny lifts her eyes to the ceiling, letting out a distinctly unladylike snort. "Something out of a ballad. It's almost too good to be true -- the gruff, hardened soldier with a mushy heart of gold on the inside." She looks back down, grins at Roa, the expression nicely hiding her distress. "I told him. It was very early when I encountered him in the living caverns. He went into the kitchens and got them to bring out water for my tea, and found out why I was up before dawn. The clearing was his idea."
Roa tilts her head so her mouth is hidden by her hand, though with the way she's been shifting from smile to smile, it's a little silly that she wants to hide the one evoked at Jensen's expense. "And *why* is it you can't keep him anymore?" the tone of the question implies that it's only a joke but then the weyrwoman blinks, frowning. "No, I'm sorry," she says softly, "don't answer that, of course."
Oddly, Penny doesn't seem too offended by Roa's half-joking remark. She just sighs, leaning her elbow on the desk and lowering her head onto it. "The real question is how I was dumb enough to think at the outset that it would just be about... um. That it wouldn't involve any kind of emotional attachment." She gives a little groan. "It just... all got so complicated before I even knew what was happening. If you even knew..." She just presses her lips together in a little line, closing her eyes. "Ah well. Live and learn, hmm? Someday I'll be able to afford such a relationship." And by that point, Jensen will be long gone.
Again, the stuttered and halted bit is ignored by the goldrider. And that, in itself might be a little suspicious. After all, she's pretty perceptive when it comes to everything else, but Roa just keeps on missing those accidental clues. Instead she only asks, "But here, it isn't possible?"
"I don't think so, do you?" Penny turns clear eyes on the other woman, frank for the moment. "It isn't as though I can marry him. And that, alas, is what good holdbred girls do when they get..." Knocked up? "...involved. I'm still young enough that a romance of the kind I had with Jensen would be scandal enough to wipe me from the list of viable, promotable journeymen -- assuming I've even managed to prove I belong on that list yet. Not to mention the fact that my father would probably start chopping heads off, and the Headmaster..." Another of those grimaces where her lips press together. "It seems there are too many complications, even outside of the limited time frame, to make it even remotely worth the effort for him. For us, I mean."
"It's not a question of whether *he* would do it," Roa says softly. Because, of course, he would. "I guess, yes, it's a question of risk versus gain. And in your position, with things as they are, you have a great deal more to lose than he does." And her attention moves back to the glowlamp. "It's not very fair, is it."
"Of course it is, it's exactly that question," Penny replies, frowning a little, the response immediate before she pauses, rethinking. "What I mean is, he's started to understand what I've been trying to tell him this whole time. You weren't wrong, when you said he did the only thing he could think of to do when he ended things. It had to be his decision in the end." Penny is firm on this point, laying the blame for the rocky halt to the affair on Jensen's shoulders. "And no, it isn't, but fairness rarely comes into the equation. I don't think you can grow up, being female and wanting to be a smith, and still be able to complain about fairness." Far from self-pitying, Penny actually smiles at this point, lifting her head from her arm.
Roa does not say what she finds scandalously on the tip of her tongue with regards to fairness and female smiths. No, she does not say 'you should'. Instead her expression gentles and she addresses, quite softly, the other matter. Blue eyes meet brown and ask, perhaps, for a sort of understanding. "Penny," she begins, "No. It isn't."
Penny starts to reply and then stops, caught perhaps by that request in the goldrider's eyes. She hesitates, confused, and then shakes her head. "It -is-," she protests, closing her eyes. "It isn't up to me. And even if it were I wouldn't change the outcome."
"That last part," the nod is almost audible in Roa's voice, "that last part is likely true. But the rest..." her words trail off and it is a long moment before she says anything else. "Consider the rest. Because you will, turns and turns from now. Be honest with yourself now, and don't regret things later. If this is your choice, make it your choice and don't imagine it otherwise." So much for keeping her wondrous thoughts to herself.
Penny makes the mistake, then, of lifting her gaze again. Because, with Roa looking at her, it becomes so much harder to continue lying through her teeth. "I-- don't--" But it's too much work. Her lips tremble. "I -know- it's all my fault, Roa. I do. But the truth is that after-- there have been things. That have happened. And I think, I really do, that he's finally seeing me now, not as this fantastic girl he met at dawn one day six months ago, but as -me-, Penny, far more work than she's worth. And perhaps the two are not so quickly reconciled, but he -does- see me now, and that's why he and I haven't so much as exchanged one word since--" But she's reached the end of her speech, the words that had been tumbling out one after now drying up and sticking in her throat.
"Since your stomach flu," Roa provides the words for her. "You said all you ever do is fight and," a small cough, "well, that this relationship was never an easy thing. Do you think he truly saw you as something so whimsical and now he doesn't?" Her head shakes slowly. "This is Jensen," she murmurs, "and he holds onto such things beyond any point of reason. I think it's simply who he is. If you don't wish it, that's one thing. But, Penny, you must realize he's waiting for you. Right now, if you wanted."
The look directed at Roa as she mentions Penny's illness is sharp, a flare of suspicion visible before it's quickly quelled again. She listens, miserably, caught again by the same onslaught of good sense that the Telgari inflicted on her the -last- time they spoke. She almost twists under that blue-eyed gaze, not quite able to look away. "I can't go to him," she says finally, almost fearfully. She's like an alcoholic being presented with a free skin of Benden red; an addict. "I won't."
"Okay," Roa says as easily as if she was being offered a second helping of mashed tubers. "That's your choice, and you've a right to choose what's ultimately going to be less painful. I'm not trying to make you feel otherwise. Only...to help you fully understand the situation."
"Is he really--" What? Waiting? Penny's expression twists momentarily before she passes a hand over her face. "No. What's done now is done, and he knows it as well as I do. He has to know it. He isn't anywhere near as simple as he acts." She hesitates a moment longer and then gets to her feet, beginning to shove her books and things back into her bag, evidently in preparation to run away again.
Roa leans down as well, scooping up her own packed satchel and sliding it over her shoulder before she rises to her feet. "Simple? No. Stubborn?" A small shake of her head. That one doesn't even need to be answered aloud.
"I am stubborn too." The words are quiet, but with a bit of Penny's spine coming back through again. Moments of weakness passed, she finishes packing up her things and turns, seeing Roa's own preparations for leaving. It's a little awkward, storming out, if the person ends up coming with you. She just stands there, lips pressed together flatly for a few moments. "Roa, why are you doing this? What does it matter to you? If what you say is true, the longer Jensen... waits... the harder it'll be for him. Why encourage me to waffle on the subject?"
"I don't know," Roa sighs. She hangs back, leaning against her seat. No rush. Storm away, Penny. "I suppose, I'd just like to see him be happy. And I don't mean to encourage waffling." She quiets, blinking at that word choice. Waffling? "I think, if you're going to end it, you ought to be honest to yourself as to why. And I poke at things I shouldn't." And, what will never be spoken: it's utterly wretched to be overlooked for a woman that doesn't even *want* him.
"Honesty." Something about the word is amusing, a sort of dark humor visible in Penny's eyes. There's a long, long silence before she speaks again, one that suggests that perhaps she's done speaking entirely. It's much later that her voice comes again, a little hoarsely, eyes fixed somewhere in the middle-ground, on a vacant desk. "If I were to stay with him, I would never want to leave." It's another long moment before she blinks, refocusing. "And that would be a betrayal of more than he and I." She's a little stiff, now, the moment of honesty leaving her awkward and confused. "Do me the favor of allowing me to leave this time. I don't fancy sitting in here alone again; last time, that didn't end up working so well for me." Yes. Passing out and being carried to the infirmary by Jensen himself? Not so well at all.
Roa only nods once and lifts a hand, gesturing silently towards the door. She herself remains stationary. "This time," she begins, a bit of apology apparent in her voice, "you did ask. Good evening, Penny."
Penny crosses to the door, slinging the strap of her satchel over her head and across her shoulder. It's when she reaches the door and has one hand on the knob that she pauses, head down. She turns and says, "This is going to be a very odd friendship if you insist on putting me through the emotional equivalent of full Fall and fire everytime we speak." But then she manages a smile, the corners of her lips quirking. "Jen has a good friend in you, I think." And then she's gone, leaving somewhat more quietly than she arrived.
Roa watches Penny go and it's only after she can no longer hear footfalls that the Telgari buries her face in her hands with a miserable groan. "Roa, Roa, Roa..." she murmurs to herself, "You're a very silly girl and you *do* talk too much." But after taking some more time to inhale several deep breaths and calm her features (and after peeping down the corridor to make sure Penny has had enough lead time to be well and truly gone), the weyrwoman departs as well.