Log: Supposed to Be
Who: Palia, Vidar
When: Day 28, Month 5, Turn 36 of the 10th Interval
Where: Infirmary, Fort Weyr
What: Injured Palia meets wounded Vidar and attempts to draw him out gently. They talk about the paths they've taken and what was or wasn't, is or isn't supposed to be.
Vidar
Tall and lanky and composed of pure awkwardness, this young man is just barely cresting his middle teens. He's slowly growing into his too-long appendages, but not fast enough to avoid the inevitable ungainliness of his build and slumped posture. His features are nondescript, with a smattering of freckles over his nose and cheeks. His eyes are a haunted hue of green under a perpetually troubled brow; his hair is a scraggly blond that's overdue for a trim. His healthy, tanned complexion has gone sallow and the whole of him is bent under an unspeakable burden.
His clothing is utilitarian in unassuming, earthy tones. At his shoulder is a bronze weyrling's knot from Fort Hold, though it's been frayed considerably - as if it had been knotted and unknotted over and over again.
It's later in the afternoon and the Infirmary's still relatively calm, save for a handful of residents who filter in with minor injuries. A Healer remains in the quasi-quarantined area of the facility, where Vidar still resides in curtained-off near-solitude. Or, rather, where his bed is; the youth is up and moving a bit, either forced - or forcing himself - to get some light exercise in. His gaze is still distant and it's clear that his appetite's still gone - or so says the untouched tray of food near his bed - but the lad has some color to him and he seems as alive as one could possibly expect him to be.
Among the mini-rush of minorly injured, is one of the Weyr's harpers, specifically the current youngest and most inferiorly ranked of them. Palia's got a towel wrapped around her right hand and wrist and has a rather put out expression on her face. The towel betrays signs of blood seeping through, but not so much that it's an immediate emergency. She's pacing to and fro just outside the area where the healer on duty is seeing patients, waiting her turn. Vidar's exercise crosses her path and Palia makes a rueful little face: "Whoops, sorry. Didn't mean to cut you off."
The bloodied towel is the first thing that catches Vidar's eye and a moment of clarity ensues. A blink brings him into the present and his lips part, but no words immediately come. Another blink brings his gaze up to seek out hers, while her apology is left to fall on deaf ears. Or, rather, uncaring ears. "You're hurt," is issued in a thick voice. "S'okay. Sorry. Shoulda been payin' more attention." He shuffles back to clear the way for the harper to continue on, though his brow is pinched just a little with something or another.
"It's not too bad, just a tool-slip," the harper claims and she offers a slight shake of her head as Vidar steps aside. "I'm just ... antsy while I'm waiting," she explains and chin-lifts toward the treating healer, to indicate the busy-ness of said healer. "The person ahead of me stepped on a nail and they're pulling it out." Her gaze drifts to Vidar's frayed knot and a flash of recognition crosses her face, maybe putting two and two together, but she doesn't say anything.
"Oh." Vidar looks dumbly at the towel and then at the harper's face again before his gaze skitters directly to the floor. The fingers of a hand lift to fiddle with the knot and it's hard to tell whether he noticed her spotting it or not at all. His fingers pluck at the frayed strands with a nervous energy - until, at long last, he just pulls it free so both hands can work it over. Unknot. Reknot. And, all the while, he murmurs, "S'okay. They'll fix you up soon. They're good with that kinda thing." His mouth pulls to a side and he, belatedly, glances to the Healer she indicated earlier. "Nails and slipped tools, I mean. Bloody things. They're good with that."
Gray eyes meet Vidar's briefly if his gaze lifts that far before hitting the floor. Palia's gaze remains steady on the former weyrling's face as he speaks, starts picking at the knot. "Yes, the Weyr has good healers," she replies and the hand holding the towel to her cut shifts a little. A grimace twists her features as air finds the cut and it stings until she re-adjusts the towel over it. "I shouldn't have been so careless," she notes of her own injury. "The price of distraction - I shouldn't have attempted an instrument repair when I was thinking about -- something else."
There is a moment where gazes meet, but it's all-too-short-lived. Vidar twists away slightly under the weight of her scrutiny - real or imagined as it may be - and the knot continues to be and not to be while she watches. A thin noise escapes him, some barely breathed word or two that holds no shape past his lips. It's only her speaking that seems to keep him reasonably anchored for the time being; he blinks again as she elaborates and he looks up, if only to issue a shallow, understanding nod. "Happens t'the best, I guess," he muses, only for that furrowed brow to make another appearance. "What-" and, here, he pauses, gaze sliding off to study what he can of the towel and her hand. "-What were you- what happened? Why?"
Palia takes in Vidar's reactions and shifts her gaze to relieve him of that sense of scrutiny, so that when he looks up, she's still facing his direction, but her eyes track just over his right shoulder instead of focusing right on his face. "Heh. I'm far from the best when it comes to making instruments, but I can keep mine in good repair." The towel earns another light squeeze and red blossoms slowly beneath the pressure, but only a little. "I was cutting a piece of wood to insert into the busted neck of my gitar. One of my students knocked it over during lessons."
"Just sayin'," but whatever Vidar meant is cast off with a shake of his head. He worries his lower lip just a little, his attention fluctuating between Palia's face and the new, bloody blossom on the towel. Eventually, her face wins out - but only by a narrow margin. "Fixing- that seems difficult." His fingers seem to have given up fixing his knot, for that matter; the mass of strings is just bundled up in his hands, fingers laced and white-knuckled around the bundle. "You're like a Healer," he supposes. "Just- for instruments." A beat. Two. Then: "Do you only play gitar?"
"It can be, but this was the kind of break that's relatively simple to deal with, otherwise I'd probably need to bring it down to the Hall," Palia admits and his description of her as a healer for instruments earns a quirky, deeply deepled, sideways grin. "Well, for that gitar at least. Mostly, I'm a teacher." Pause. "For now." Palia's head shakes back and forth though in answer to his question. "No, it's not even the instrument I play most. I can play pipes as well and violin is what I'm best at and what I like to play the most, when I perform."
There's a brief ducking of Vidar's head while he listens, brows knotted with concentration. Her smile, at least, brings a reciprocal smile of his own - tired and heavy, but a smile all the same. It falls quickly and he shifts his stance a little, the better to speak to her; the better to look at her. "Violin," he echoes. "And pipes? And teaching?" He rolls the last around in his mouth for a while, drawing the word out a beat or two longer than necessary. "D'you... what d'you think you were meant to do? Most, I mean. What did you always know you'd be good at? What you were- what you were supposed to do?"
"All posted harpers need to be able to play more than one instrument," Palia notes pragmatically. "It comes with the job." But then he's asking about what she was /meant/ to do and that shades her expression thoughtful. "We-ellll ... everyone always thought I'd follow in my father's footsteps," the harper answers candidly, "and take up the Baker craft and running his restaurant when he retired." A hint of rue slides across her face. "It didn't work out that way. I decided to apprentice at Harper Hall instead. I was always good at lessons and history and this ... felt more right than other things at the time." She's quiet for a moment or two then says softly: "But sometimes I think about cooking ... and the restaurant and how things could have been different if I'd stuck with the plans I made when I was a girl."
"Maybe, maybe, maybe," is plainly a thought that should have been kept under wraps, but wasn't. Vidar winces just a little at his own utterance and dares to peek at the strings in his hand, as if some answer might be found there. In lieu of that, he murmurs, "Maybe y'should still. Cook, I mean. Maybe you can't do like your father, but..." he trails off with a lopsided shrug. "Couldn't hurt, could it? Maybe what you were meant to do just needed time for you to catch up?" His tone is achingly hopeful - but for her? Him? Impossible to say. He tries another smile but it withers too quickly, and he's forced to try something else, instead. "'M V'd-" and it starts off wrong and ends up worse when he corrects himself with a strained, "Vidar. Vidar. Sorry."
Palia lets the mistaken utterance slide and when he peeks downward at the knot's frayed and separated threads, she forgets to hold the towel onto the nasty cut that slices down the outside of her wrist along her forearm and reaches over, meaning to rest her fingers lightly atop his. "I do, sometimes, for fun, but I don't often have the time. When I visit, Papa and I cook together." There's extra warmth in her voice when she speaks of her parent. "I think I'm okay with it being just a hobby. Though that might change if I can't manage to walk the tables and earn my journeman's knot." His 'sorry' is answered with a quick: "It's okay." And an echo: "Vidar. I'm Palia."
The contact is only allowed for a scant second or two before the hand holding the knot retreats, leaving her with only one to make contact with. The sight of the wound is enough to stir Vidar into motion - namely, to try to get her seated on a cot with a hurried, "Sit, sit; please. They need t'see to that." His troubled expression lingers, even after the rest of her words - and his reply is muted, a mild, "Things- things sometimes happen like that. You think you're supposed t'be one thing - but you're not, not really. But you can't quite hear it- what you're supposed to do, I mean." And never mind the knot he's now crushing in that hand, as if to hide it further. "S'nice to meet you Palia. Thank you."
"Oh, shells, sorry, it really isn't that bad, it just /looks/ ugly," Palia claims, making another face, though she does avail herself of the nearest cot and sits, clamps the towel back in place. She looks up at him as he continues on about supposed-tos and might-have-beens and chooses her next words very, very carefully. "Sometimes ... you have to just try something, I think. Take a risk. And if it's not meant to be, you'll probably figure it out pretty quickly." Her smile returns, carving deep dimples into both cheeks this time. "Likewise, Vidar." There's a little hesitation then: "Do you like music?"
Of the wound, he says no more; Vidar's eyes linger on it only until it's wrapped up again and then his attention sits more appropriately on Palia's face. Her words, careful as they are, spur only a faint noise from the lad - and a tired shake of his head. "I did," he says. "I did." And there's nothing more to say, nothing at all, not even in the face of that smile or the returned gratitude. Her question, too, might seem to be left unanswered by the lad that's gone so eerily silent - but he does, eventually, answer, "M'parents were both Harpers. So, I guess I like music well enough - just didn't have talent to make it."
What can Palia say in the face of a risk taken that turned out the way it did? Especially /this/ particular flavor of tragedy. She swallows hastily and makes much of winding the towel around her forearm so she doesn't have to hold it and lets both hands rest atop her thighs. "I was actually wondering if maybe you'd like me to come play for you sometime? While you're still figuring things out."
It's perhaps just as well; Vidar's Healer 'handler' seems to have been keeping an eye on things and is slowly approaching, even while the young man starts to step back. Both hands gather over the ruin of his knot again and, though he watches her wind the towel, it's with a distinct sense of detachment. He sucks his teeth at her question and looks at her - or, more accurately, through her - before issuing a shallow nod. "If you want to. If you're not too busy, I mean. I can- I'll tell them to let you visit." And the timing is such that the Healer manages to catch his elbow, prepared to steer him away so he's not disrupting the 'regular' patients.
Palia looks up as the handler approaches and catches at Vidar's elbow and offers the the healer a smile though it's the former weyrling she addresses: "I'd be happy to. And maybe we can talk a little more about the things you like to do and I can tell you stories about growing up at Ista," the harper says clearly. "Just make sure to add Palia to your list of allowed visitors," she notes further with a little nod for the healer. The patient with the nail in his foot has been seen to and the main healer on duty picks up his clipboard and steps out, calling briskly: "Next! Palia?" and scans the room for the harper.
When: Day 28, Month 5, Turn 36 of the 10th Interval
Where: Infirmary, Fort Weyr
What: Injured Palia meets wounded Vidar and attempts to draw him out gently. They talk about the paths they've taken and what was or wasn't, is or isn't supposed to be.
Vidar
Tall and lanky and composed of pure awkwardness, this young man is just barely cresting his middle teens. He's slowly growing into his too-long appendages, but not fast enough to avoid the inevitable ungainliness of his build and slumped posture. His features are nondescript, with a smattering of freckles over his nose and cheeks. His eyes are a haunted hue of green under a perpetually troubled brow; his hair is a scraggly blond that's overdue for a trim. His healthy, tanned complexion has gone sallow and the whole of him is bent under an unspeakable burden.
His clothing is utilitarian in unassuming, earthy tones. At his shoulder is a bronze weyrling's knot from Fort Hold, though it's been frayed considerably - as if it had been knotted and unknotted over and over again.
It's later in the afternoon and the Infirmary's still relatively calm, save for a handful of residents who filter in with minor injuries. A Healer remains in the quasi-quarantined area of the facility, where Vidar still resides in curtained-off near-solitude. Or, rather, where his bed is; the youth is up and moving a bit, either forced - or forcing himself - to get some light exercise in. His gaze is still distant and it's clear that his appetite's still gone - or so says the untouched tray of food near his bed - but the lad has some color to him and he seems as alive as one could possibly expect him to be.
Among the mini-rush of minorly injured, is one of the Weyr's harpers, specifically the current youngest and most inferiorly ranked of them. Palia's got a towel wrapped around her right hand and wrist and has a rather put out expression on her face. The towel betrays signs of blood seeping through, but not so much that it's an immediate emergency. She's pacing to and fro just outside the area where the healer on duty is seeing patients, waiting her turn. Vidar's exercise crosses her path and Palia makes a rueful little face: "Whoops, sorry. Didn't mean to cut you off."
The bloodied towel is the first thing that catches Vidar's eye and a moment of clarity ensues. A blink brings him into the present and his lips part, but no words immediately come. Another blink brings his gaze up to seek out hers, while her apology is left to fall on deaf ears. Or, rather, uncaring ears. "You're hurt," is issued in a thick voice. "S'okay. Sorry. Shoulda been payin' more attention." He shuffles back to clear the way for the harper to continue on, though his brow is pinched just a little with something or another.
"It's not too bad, just a tool-slip," the harper claims and she offers a slight shake of her head as Vidar steps aside. "I'm just ... antsy while I'm waiting," she explains and chin-lifts toward the treating healer, to indicate the busy-ness of said healer. "The person ahead of me stepped on a nail and they're pulling it out." Her gaze drifts to Vidar's frayed knot and a flash of recognition crosses her face, maybe putting two and two together, but she doesn't say anything.
"Oh." Vidar looks dumbly at the towel and then at the harper's face again before his gaze skitters directly to the floor. The fingers of a hand lift to fiddle with the knot and it's hard to tell whether he noticed her spotting it or not at all. His fingers pluck at the frayed strands with a nervous energy - until, at long last, he just pulls it free so both hands can work it over. Unknot. Reknot. And, all the while, he murmurs, "S'okay. They'll fix you up soon. They're good with that kinda thing." His mouth pulls to a side and he, belatedly, glances to the Healer she indicated earlier. "Nails and slipped tools, I mean. Bloody things. They're good with that."
Gray eyes meet Vidar's briefly if his gaze lifts that far before hitting the floor. Palia's gaze remains steady on the former weyrling's face as he speaks, starts picking at the knot. "Yes, the Weyr has good healers," she replies and the hand holding the towel to her cut shifts a little. A grimace twists her features as air finds the cut and it stings until she re-adjusts the towel over it. "I shouldn't have been so careless," she notes of her own injury. "The price of distraction - I shouldn't have attempted an instrument repair when I was thinking about -- something else."
There is a moment where gazes meet, but it's all-too-short-lived. Vidar twists away slightly under the weight of her scrutiny - real or imagined as it may be - and the knot continues to be and not to be while she watches. A thin noise escapes him, some barely breathed word or two that holds no shape past his lips. It's only her speaking that seems to keep him reasonably anchored for the time being; he blinks again as she elaborates and he looks up, if only to issue a shallow, understanding nod. "Happens t'the best, I guess," he muses, only for that furrowed brow to make another appearance. "What-" and, here, he pauses, gaze sliding off to study what he can of the towel and her hand. "-What were you- what happened? Why?"
Palia takes in Vidar's reactions and shifts her gaze to relieve him of that sense of scrutiny, so that when he looks up, she's still facing his direction, but her eyes track just over his right shoulder instead of focusing right on his face. "Heh. I'm far from the best when it comes to making instruments, but I can keep mine in good repair." The towel earns another light squeeze and red blossoms slowly beneath the pressure, but only a little. "I was cutting a piece of wood to insert into the busted neck of my gitar. One of my students knocked it over during lessons."
"Just sayin'," but whatever Vidar meant is cast off with a shake of his head. He worries his lower lip just a little, his attention fluctuating between Palia's face and the new, bloody blossom on the towel. Eventually, her face wins out - but only by a narrow margin. "Fixing- that seems difficult." His fingers seem to have given up fixing his knot, for that matter; the mass of strings is just bundled up in his hands, fingers laced and white-knuckled around the bundle. "You're like a Healer," he supposes. "Just- for instruments." A beat. Two. Then: "Do you only play gitar?"
"It can be, but this was the kind of break that's relatively simple to deal with, otherwise I'd probably need to bring it down to the Hall," Palia admits and his description of her as a healer for instruments earns a quirky, deeply deepled, sideways grin. "Well, for that gitar at least. Mostly, I'm a teacher." Pause. "For now." Palia's head shakes back and forth though in answer to his question. "No, it's not even the instrument I play most. I can play pipes as well and violin is what I'm best at and what I like to play the most, when I perform."
There's a brief ducking of Vidar's head while he listens, brows knotted with concentration. Her smile, at least, brings a reciprocal smile of his own - tired and heavy, but a smile all the same. It falls quickly and he shifts his stance a little, the better to speak to her; the better to look at her. "Violin," he echoes. "And pipes? And teaching?" He rolls the last around in his mouth for a while, drawing the word out a beat or two longer than necessary. "D'you... what d'you think you were meant to do? Most, I mean. What did you always know you'd be good at? What you were- what you were supposed to do?"
"All posted harpers need to be able to play more than one instrument," Palia notes pragmatically. "It comes with the job." But then he's asking about what she was /meant/ to do and that shades her expression thoughtful. "We-ellll ... everyone always thought I'd follow in my father's footsteps," the harper answers candidly, "and take up the Baker craft and running his restaurant when he retired." A hint of rue slides across her face. "It didn't work out that way. I decided to apprentice at Harper Hall instead. I was always good at lessons and history and this ... felt more right than other things at the time." She's quiet for a moment or two then says softly: "But sometimes I think about cooking ... and the restaurant and how things could have been different if I'd stuck with the plans I made when I was a girl."
"Maybe, maybe, maybe," is plainly a thought that should have been kept under wraps, but wasn't. Vidar winces just a little at his own utterance and dares to peek at the strings in his hand, as if some answer might be found there. In lieu of that, he murmurs, "Maybe y'should still. Cook, I mean. Maybe you can't do like your father, but..." he trails off with a lopsided shrug. "Couldn't hurt, could it? Maybe what you were meant to do just needed time for you to catch up?" His tone is achingly hopeful - but for her? Him? Impossible to say. He tries another smile but it withers too quickly, and he's forced to try something else, instead. "'M V'd-" and it starts off wrong and ends up worse when he corrects himself with a strained, "Vidar. Vidar. Sorry."
Palia lets the mistaken utterance slide and when he peeks downward at the knot's frayed and separated threads, she forgets to hold the towel onto the nasty cut that slices down the outside of her wrist along her forearm and reaches over, meaning to rest her fingers lightly atop his. "I do, sometimes, for fun, but I don't often have the time. When I visit, Papa and I cook together." There's extra warmth in her voice when she speaks of her parent. "I think I'm okay with it being just a hobby. Though that might change if I can't manage to walk the tables and earn my journeman's knot." His 'sorry' is answered with a quick: "It's okay." And an echo: "Vidar. I'm Palia."
The contact is only allowed for a scant second or two before the hand holding the knot retreats, leaving her with only one to make contact with. The sight of the wound is enough to stir Vidar into motion - namely, to try to get her seated on a cot with a hurried, "Sit, sit; please. They need t'see to that." His troubled expression lingers, even after the rest of her words - and his reply is muted, a mild, "Things- things sometimes happen like that. You think you're supposed t'be one thing - but you're not, not really. But you can't quite hear it- what you're supposed to do, I mean." And never mind the knot he's now crushing in that hand, as if to hide it further. "S'nice to meet you Palia. Thank you."
"Oh, shells, sorry, it really isn't that bad, it just /looks/ ugly," Palia claims, making another face, though she does avail herself of the nearest cot and sits, clamps the towel back in place. She looks up at him as he continues on about supposed-tos and might-have-beens and chooses her next words very, very carefully. "Sometimes ... you have to just try something, I think. Take a risk. And if it's not meant to be, you'll probably figure it out pretty quickly." Her smile returns, carving deep dimples into both cheeks this time. "Likewise, Vidar." There's a little hesitation then: "Do you like music?"
Of the wound, he says no more; Vidar's eyes linger on it only until it's wrapped up again and then his attention sits more appropriately on Palia's face. Her words, careful as they are, spur only a faint noise from the lad - and a tired shake of his head. "I did," he says. "I did." And there's nothing more to say, nothing at all, not even in the face of that smile or the returned gratitude. Her question, too, might seem to be left unanswered by the lad that's gone so eerily silent - but he does, eventually, answer, "M'parents were both Harpers. So, I guess I like music well enough - just didn't have talent to make it."
What can Palia say in the face of a risk taken that turned out the way it did? Especially /this/ particular flavor of tragedy. She swallows hastily and makes much of winding the towel around her forearm so she doesn't have to hold it and lets both hands rest atop her thighs. "I was actually wondering if maybe you'd like me to come play for you sometime? While you're still figuring things out."
It's perhaps just as well; Vidar's Healer 'handler' seems to have been keeping an eye on things and is slowly approaching, even while the young man starts to step back. Both hands gather over the ruin of his knot again and, though he watches her wind the towel, it's with a distinct sense of detachment. He sucks his teeth at her question and looks at her - or, more accurately, through her - before issuing a shallow nod. "If you want to. If you're not too busy, I mean. I can- I'll tell them to let you visit." And the timing is such that the Healer manages to catch his elbow, prepared to steer him away so he's not disrupting the 'regular' patients.
Palia looks up as the handler approaches and catches at Vidar's elbow and offers the the healer a smile though it's the former weyrling she addresses: "I'd be happy to. And maybe we can talk a little more about the things you like to do and I can tell you stories about growing up at Ista," the harper says clearly. "Just make sure to add Palia to your list of allowed visitors," she notes further with a little nod for the healer. The patient with the nail in his foot has been seen to and the main healer on duty picks up his clipboard and steps out, calling briskly: "Next! Palia?" and scans the room for the harper.