Weyrling Interview (Salina)

[blueaid]

((I will be tagging as many weyrlings as possible, so keep eyes peeled!))

Rivaly waited. Placidly.

I'dalyn had made it fairly clear in their brief, um, meeting that these interviews may not be well-received by all weyrlings, being an infringement on their precious free time. She sent out a note to the new goldrider anyway, just a short snippet in a painstakingly precise handwriting: Salina. I would vastly appreciate your time. Rivaly. With a brief addendum on time, date, and the request that they meet in the empty office off of the barracks.

She gave the room a brief look of distaste while she walked around the edge of the very plain desk. It was hardly as comfortable or conducive as her own quarters, the chair a simple wooden thing, the lighting just a plain glowbasket, but it would have to suffice. Fighting the Weyrlingmaster seemed like an uphill battle, so she really should take heart in even small victories.

Sitting in the chair on the backside of the desk, she arranged her pencil with precision in the middle of the clipboard and looked expectantly toward the entrance. Any minute now...

[Xinnai]

Salina had received the note and upon doing so had stared at it for a moment in blatant disbelief. Was this really serious? After a few moments of internal debate, the little goldrider had given up and tucked the note into her pocket, the time and date burned into her mind. It cut into what very little free time she had as a weyrling but it would have been more than rude to refuse it. She wouldn't dare.

So it was at the appropriate time that Salina made her way to Rivaly's quarters, slight nerves clawing at her stomach though they weren't reflected in her smooth and serene face. She looked calm and composed as she knocked briefly at the entrance and stepped inside, hands instantly smoothing the charcoal trousers she wore.

The sigh of the woman behind the desk fit in with the vague image that the weyrling had of the journeywoman. Blond like she was, pale too and quiet-looking, though pleasant as well. She had an air about her that Salina linked with Aderes. It was that subtle grace, that innate elegance. In all honesty though, Deoneth's rider couldn't term the woman facing her as elegant. It didn't fit. It was more a sense of the polished, the genteel. She thought it meant to come across as soothing, but she found it made her all the more nervous. She thought off herself as ladylike, but she could in no way put herself together like Rivaly.

She took a quiet, long inhale to put herself in order before she was smiling politely. "I'm Salina. You asked to see me?"

[blueaid]

The borrowed office wasn't the most inviting place to receive someone, but Rivaly made the best of it, her smile warming the corners of the drab room. This space office, presumably unused by a member of the weyrling staff, did seem a little brighter when she stood with that smile in place, with her hand extended quickly and graciously while she approached the newly entered goldrider. "I did, and thank you so much for coming. I realize what a horrible thing it is to hack away at someone's precious free time." But she offered no excuse for it.

Coming around the desk, hand outstretched, she offered a wholly congenial front to meet the weyrling, whom she took in with a glance that nonetheless tracked all the little nuances of Salina's entrance-- the polite smile, the reticence at the entrance, the statement-phrased-as-question, the whole of it. "It was not my preferred venue, but we do what we must, hmn? Please come in. Sit. I promise not to take up too much of your time."

Just some.

[Xinnai]

Salina met Rivaly's palm with her own, delicate fingers folding about the other woman's. The journeywoman smiled and it made the nerves decrease slightly, but the way those eyes were regarding her, she felt as if her every move were being judged. And from the vague bits and pieces she knew of mindhealers, it was what they did best. Not judge, but put a person together from tiny bits and pieces.

She took the seat as requested, golden head bobbing slightly before her lips were forming a reply. "It's not a problem really. I recognize this is of some importance, so I thought it best I help out since I was asked." Another small smile before one leg was crossing the other, the gray of her trousers a nice background for the light blue tunic she wore. She waited then, pleasantries over, wondering what she could possibly be doing here to help out.

[blueaid]

And it was hardly uncommon for people to get that vibe after one of Rivaly's better glances-- the sense that a person had been summed up and weighed, but there was a certain soft acceptance about the woman that universally conveyed the sense that no one was ever found wanting. All the little idiosyncrasies were taken as part-and-parcel, and people were simply accepted for the sum of who they were. For all her role in life was to help people, to fix people, she gave off the sense that she wouldn't change a thing about anyone she met. And that's what she essayed in the smile that accompanied her handshake.

"It's mostly just questions," she explained in that mellow voice, taking a seat, finding a piece of hide on the top of the stack, one with very minimal scribbling on it so far. All that was really legible were the words Salina, Weyrling, Goldrider penciled across the top. "I'd like to understand the dragonrider mentality, and I think weyrlings would be a superb place to begin. So let's start with something simple. Tell me about yourself."

As if that were the easiest of questions to answer! Her only prompt was a mild, "Where you're from, what are your parents like, things like that."

[Xinnai]

They sat across from each other, the girl and the woman, regarding each other with that air of professionalism cushioning the space between them. For all that they looked even moderately alike, they were very different people. Salina felt that innately. When Rivaly sat, the goldrider caught a glimpse of the paper the mindhealer picked up. She caught the slightest flash of her name. So, there were going to be notes taken?

Gaze slid up at the words that were directed towards her. Lips moved in an upward motion. She was interviewing weyrlings to understand the dragonrider mentality? That was an oxymoron. She angled her head slightly, words fluttering in her mind. She thought for a moment, her response quick but carefully thought out.

"I was born and raised here at Telgar, in the weyr. My parents were nonexistant, to say the least. I know little of the man who sired me, other than his rank as a rider. My mother did not want me. I was a fosterling of the woman who takes in choiced orphans such as myself. That's it simply." Smile curved again, warm and genial. "What else would you like to know?"

[blueaid]

Rivaly acknowledged receipt of Salina's look, a smile catching the corner of her mouth where she accepted that the young woman had realized there were going to be notes taken, but she neither apologized for nor offered the possibility that she would do otherwise. Yes; there were notes that were going to be taken.

But she had practiced that way of writing things down without breaking stride, of putting pencil to hide without breaking eye contact, without really drawing attention to what she scribbled-- which might account for why her handwriting was tremendously illegible? She leaned back in the chair, her head tilting with curiosity that seemed real, not the professional necessity of her job. "That's a lot to digest for a little girl, unknown father and unwanted by your mother. Is it a common thing here? Something that felt natural?"

[Xinnai]

There was the gentle shrug of shoulders, a delicate movement that hardly stirred her small frame. She'd seen the gentle movement of the mindhealer's writing utensil and ignored it. It didn't help her. Salina was shifting back in the chair, lounging idly, a bit more relaxed.

Eyes met her companion's, gentle humor moving her lips once more. She didn't seem terribly affected by her shortened life's story. "It's common enough. Some women don't appreciate having a babe planted in their bellies. They just want to have sex-no consequences. You find the solace and comfort of parents instead with your friends and the other people of the lower caverns. We're very-open here, I suppose you could say."

[blueaid]

"So you think," began Rivaly, her pencil paused, her eyes raised to meet Salina's from across the desk. Her smile was thoughtful, whimsical even, somewhere between entertained and confused by the dissected anatomy of a Weyr upbringing viewed through the scope of the goldrider's history. "That being born and raised in a Weyr means a parentless childhood is essentially normal?"

How many Turns of practice had it taken to find that way of speech, that cadence, that lilt that questioned without assumption or accusation? She was seemingly fascinated with Salina's history in and of itself, without judgment.

[Xinnai]

Eyes met and there was a comfort there, a soft landing no matter the calculations and conclusions that were running through the other woman's head. Salina paused for a moment, debating her answer. After all, she was a mindhealer. The words sprung from her without hesitation. She couldn't exactly lie, now could she?

"Not exactly," she answered frankly. "There are some who are able to enjoy the full privelege of parents and all its commodities. It's just that most of us do tend to be fosterlings. Does it not happen within the holds as well? We learn and grow from it. It's nothing to find lack of in yourself anyhow." Another gentle shrug-was she picking up such habits from the boys?-before she subsided into silence again, watching Rivaly calmly as she waited for the next volley of questioning.

[blueaid]

You give a little to get a little; this Rivaly knew so well by now. "Fostering is important to holders, certainly, but so is lineage. Different priorities, I suppose." She shrugged benignly at the fundamental, insurmountable differences between Weyrs and Holds, certainly not a problem these two women could hope to understand let alone resolve.

So, seamlessly, she moved on. "Tell me about hour foster mother. Did you bond to her as you might have your birth mother? Are you close to her now?"

[Xinnai]

Salina paused for a moment once more, brain whirring rapidly. When she spoke, there were brief moments where no words spilled into the air as she cautiously spoke. "I suppose I did bond with her like that. My foster mother was the woman who took in all the children in the lower caverns. I wasn't her only fosterling and I definitely wasn't her last. As for being close to her now..." This pause was the largest as she struggled internally to explain something even she couldn't explain. "No, I'm not. When I was old enough to take care of myself, I did. No looking back."

Eyes grew fierce then in her normally composed and gentle face. The goldrider couldn't look like a warrior in all honestly, but the battle light lit at her features. "And then I was given this life, the only one I've ever wanted. I haven't looked back, not for anything. And no one is going to take this from me." She stopped then, gaze sliding to Rivaly. She wasn't going to apologize for her outburst.

[blueaid]

Nothing registered on Rivaly's face for Salina's sudden outburst except continued, passive interest. She listened, and she was good at it, her head cocked just a little, her eyes quietly attuned; she didn't write anything, not right now, just the pencil held still against the hide. "Do you think that people want you to look back, or that someone wants to take it from you?"

She held Salina's fierce gaze relentlessly, likewise without apology or the expectation thereof from the young goldrider. Whatever she knew of Salina's reputation-- and there must be rumors!-- she gave no indication that any preconceived notions had entered the room with her. For all the world, she took this weyrling at face value, at her word, on her own worth.

[Xinnai]

The girl was glad that the woman held her gaze, no apologies or shock written across her brow either. It helped Salina to settle as she inhaled once, twice, rolling Rivaly's question around in her head thoughtfully. She wasn't sure quite how far she could go with this. She decided to toe into the flood of water her answer could release, rather than letting the damn burst.

"I don't know that there is anyone who wants me to look back but there are always those who wish to knock you down and take any accomplishment from you. It's just that sometimes, the people are much more powerful than you had anticipated." There, that seemed a nice enough answer, without incriminating her thoughts.

[blueaid]

Except that the very nature, the very turn of the conversation was practically an incrimination. Rivaly's head stayed cocked, her smile stayed lightly curious, her attention stayed pinned to Salina's every nuance. She listened, registered a thoughtful expression for the girl's comments, then proceeded to ask yet another question-- always another question, forever another question. "You anticipated that someone would try to take this accomplishment in particular from you?"

Briefly, a flicker of movement, those bright green eyes went beyond Salina to the weyrling barracks, all quiet and peaceful at this time of day. "Perhaps I misunderstand the nature of the bond, but that seems a baseless fear. No one can take away your Impression, can they?"