Who

T'ral, Doji

What

While a sandstorm is outside, Doji and T'ral end up having a conversation in the archives. (No chairs were harmed in the making of this scene)

When

It is afternoon of the nineteenth day of the ninth month of the eleventh turn of the 12th pass.

Where

Igen Weyr - Archives

OOC Date 17 Aug 2017 05:00

 

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"Yes, the key is to strike a balance. Wingleading is… it's a lot about balance."


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Archives

A grand room, lost to more pressing concerns, the Archives hold many treasures well past their prime, from instruments to examples of older flying gear and agenothree tanks. Faded and disused Records lean tiredly against their shelves, their bindings peeling and creating layers of dust on surfaces long left without maintenance. The floors are dirty, various footprints creating crisscrossing paths between rickety wooden chairs and drunkenly off-kilter tables. Columns rise upward to the ceiling, hung with glow-baskets scarcely tended and fast losing their strength. The hum of activity is duller, here in this forgotten space — few visit in search of historical facts.


There's a sandstorm outside. Portals to light are shuttered and shudder against the battering winds. Sand piled in the high sills sifts down in intermittent spills. The ever present sound of bristles on stone is a constant soothing sussurus in counterpoint to the shriek of wind and rattle of shutters. A man leans on a table, arms spread to brace his weight as he looks over a series of tomes open to pages. There are charts and tables with eye-twistingly small entries, column after column, row after row. He straightens a bit and fiddles with the beads of a calculator before making marks on a wax tablet. He stares blankly at the tablet for a moment, lost in thought.

It's easy to find time slipping away from you in the depths of the archives. Find a particularly interesting (or particularly difficult) volume and it can just suck all your attention in. At least, that's what happened to Doji until there was a particularly violent gust of wind shaking the closest shutter causes her to jump. And blink. What time is it? Hard to say, but judging from the crick in her neck she's just now discovering and trying to massage out, a little bit too long. She takes a quick glance around the room, trying to find maybe some more hints about what time it is but her attention get caught on one figure and his charts and wax tablet and tomes. It doesn't take her long to get her own much more meager selection of reading material and notes in order before she's walking over towards the table quietly, trying to get a closer look at just what he's doing.

Closer, the man is T'ral, bluerider of Sirocco. The charts appear to be all manner of weather data from a variety of sources and, given the age of some of the tomes, times. He shifts back to brace on the table and peruse again, his head shifting at the soft scrape of a nearby boot. Without looking up, he murmurs, "Thanks, you can leave those there." The fingers of a braced hand flicker, indicating a blank spot on the table. Belatedly looking up, he blinks, not expecting Doji. A glance at the materials she holds. Those are not the materials he'd requested. A hand drifts to the page nearest him and he glances down to shift a marker to a particular row. "Doji." He nods at Doji's reading material, "Are those Starcraft records by chance?" There's a bit of a smile in the request.

Doji knows that the volumes that she has in her hands are indeed not Starcraft records, but it doesn't stop her from looking down as if to doublecheck that they didn't somehow transform themselves when she wasn't looking. Nope, still not Starcraft records. "Uh, no sir." And belatedly a salute once she shifts the volumes to free up a hand. "Just more formation theory." She glances over her shoulder to see if the expected person might be arriving any second and so she needs to get out of the way, but the coast is clear for now. "What exactly is it that you're doing? Trying to figure out weather for future Falls?"

T'ral's brows lift at Doji's reading choice and he gives her a purselipped nod. In the shift to salute, her new knot becomes visible and T'ral straightens, delivering her a crisp and respectful return of courtesies, "Wingleader." He grins, "Studying up?" He glances up and around, "Who are your 'seconds?" His eyes fall inevitably back to the charts at Doji's question and T'ral takes a deep breath. He gives his head a bit of a shake, "After a fashion. I'm not doing anything the Starcrafters haven't done already. And probably better. But I like to get my hands dirty and-" He shoulders drift, a faint shrug, "-look for patterns." Unseen, there's a clack-clack-clacking of heels across the archives. The bluerider looks in that direction. Atop a nearby stack there's a low, warning growl from a brown gargoyle of a firelizard. T'ral squeezes his eyes shut and presses fingertips into his sockets and the bridge of his nose. He lets out a breath at a gust and looks at Doji, eyes red from the rubbing, "Who've you got there? I was always partial to G'bar. Though since moving here, I've grown fond of Safila's work." Safila, an Igen Queenrider from the last Pass.

"Uh, thank you, sir." Doji's blushing a little at the reminder of the all too new knot on her shoulder. "I don't know who my 'seconds are yet. Half the class still hasn't finished their first between lessons yet." She was 'lucky' enough to be one of the first. And with the double clutch… it's gonna take a while to work through them all in small groups. She tilts her head to look at the charts again. "Well, it can't hurt to have more eyes on it, right? Because you'll see the weather more from the air, when the starfcrafters see it from the ground? So different points of view." Literally. "It was Safila… I don't think I've read G'bar yet. I take it I should?"

The bluerider nods, "Who would you pick?" T'ral's eyes find Doji's, looking intently at her, unblinking, all of his considerable attention now right very here. To her suggestion, he nods and looks at the charts, "No, it can't hurt. And we're going to take some 'crafters aloft in the coming sevens with their instrumentation. See what comes of blending those points of view." A smile ghosts across T'ral's face and a sort of shrug ripples through him, "Ah, I don't know. I liked G'bar because he was a bit of an iconoclast. He turned traditional formations inside out and broke all sorts of conventions about how to use smaller chromatics. His legacy is… checkered." That intent gaze settles again.

Doji tilts her head and furrows her brow a little at the question. "I uhh… don't know. Maybe one of the older weyrlings? Sa'rak possibly? He was also a starcrafter before…" Which seems relevant given the topic of conversation. "It seems like it would be difficult to take measurements in the air though… Are they going to rig up something to fasten their instruments to the straps in case they accidentally drop something it doesn't crash to the ground?" And break those poor, expensive instruments. "Checkered? How? Did some of the theories not work or something…?"

"Who would you pick for your Wingseconds." T'ral clarifies, he really wants to know. He's more familiar with this class than any in the past as a member of the mentor Wing, but this is an interesting opportunity. He makes a few marks on his tablet, nonetheless. Sa… rak. "We're not sure what instruments they want to bring up." How big? How bulky? How heavy? Surely no heavier than firestone. "It does seem difficult." T'ral nods, he doesn't seem particularly dissuaded by this notion. "Plenty of them were poor or dangerous." T'ral waves a hand, "Some of them were brilliant. He was as brutal a critic of his work as anyone. His personal life was… well." T'ral clears his throat, "He was a real piece of work. And he embarrassed some important people."

"For 'second? I still think at least one of them I'd want to be older," Doji fidgets with the volumes she has in her hand, shifting from one arm to another. It wouldn't be hard to find a potential second older than the girl, since she's one of the youngest. "But also need to make sure it's someone who can stay calm. And decisive." But apparently names are hard to come up with. "They're probably thinking about that though, right? What instruments they need and how they can get them on dragonback?" Because surely the starsmith's are concerned with the safety of their instruments. She winces as he mentions poor and dangerous formations. "How is it that new formations actually get tried out? Without getting folks hurt if it doesn't work out?"

"Don't want to name names, eh?" Dark eyes stay on Doji, note her fidgeting. T'ral nods, "Calm and decisive are good traits for wingleadership. G'bar was never a Wingleader. Maybe a little too decisive." The bluerider grins, "He was transferred too frequently to settle in anywhere. I don't think anyone's ever assembled all of his writings." They're sprinkled all around Pern in different places. Even some holds where he was sent to do a turn as a watchrider. That gives the bluerider a thoughtful moment. He refocuses on Doji, giving her a nod, "Yes, they're thinking about it. You can be sure." There's a really simple answer to Doji's last question, "Drills." The older man's eyes fall on an open page, one that has an inset image of Keroon. "I barely remember my first Threadfall." Doji might sense a theme with those first intense experiences. He laughs a bit, bleak humor, "You don't have to remember what you can't erase, eh?" The sounds and smells and images are graven into his memory. "You remind me a bit of my weyrling Wingleader. Yules. A brownrider."

Doji forces a smile at that question. She is indeed guilty of not wanting to name names. Can't try to slip that past this particular bluerider. But she nods as he continues about G'bar. "I can see why too decisive would be a problem. You do need to take some time to think about actions and how they'll effect others… but you can't think about it too much or you'll never get anything done?" And by you, she means her as she turns her attention to look down at that page with the map of Keroon. "You barely remember it?" Her eyes dart back up to look at the man. "There has still been times I can't get the memory of my first Threadfall as a healer on groundcrew out of my head." But it's barely been two turns since that day. The last comment though really catches her offguard, causing her to blink yet again. "Really? How so?"

T'ral's come-and-go smiles comes again, "No, no." He holds up a hand, forestalling. "He wasn't impulsive, he was arrogant. And stubborn." Neither of which seem to be stumbling blocks for Doji. "Yes, the key is to strike a balance. Wingleading is… it's a lot about balance." There's a hungry look that flashes briefly, intent and intelligent, before T'ral's posture slumps, "Ah. I meant more that it's a blur and … it's a bit of a weak turn of thought I play with," it'll probably turn up as a lyric some day, "You can't remember what you can't erase. Like, if it never leaves you, are you really remembering it?" He spreads his hands. See, Doji? Maybe not. "Hmm?" T'ral laughs, "Yules is … unflappable." He slouches into a hipshot posture, "I wonder how she's doing, it's been an interval since I saw her." He shakes his head a bit at the way the Turns have tumbled.

Well… stubborn Doji can be, but it needs to be the right circumstances. She's really more persistent than stubborn. But she does nod along with what the older rider is saying. "Arrogant and stubborn… could see why that would get someone transferred constantly. Especially if he had just enough streaks of brilliance to believe he was smarter than everyone else, even if some of his other ideas were awful." As for the witty turn of phrase, she gives a small smile and a shrug. "I'm not the best with metaphors or uhh… other stuff." All that wordplay harpers tend to do. It might just be a fault in the audience in this case. "Unflappable? That's what a wingleader should be, right?" Doji did just say she she'd look for someone calm and decisive for a wingsecond, so unflappable seems pretty similiar.

"And so you see the dilemma of his legacy." T'ral flares his hands. For Doji's lack of skill with metaphor, T'ral just snorts, "That I enjoy it doesn't make me good at it either." T'ral nods in a narrow amplitude, but vigorously, "Yes. Unflappable." T'ral is only agreeing with Doji and her Weyrlingmasters. "The weyrlingmasters chose well, I think." No? Raised eyebrows invite Doji's thoughts on the matter.

"Yeah… but mistakes are still something to be learned from," Doji reshuffles her books yet again, this time to get her notebook on the top and flipped to a blank page. Pencil that had been stored behind her ear comes out and a brief note is jotted down just so she doesn't forget the next time she's digging even further into formation theory. Which will probably be tomorrow or a couple hours from now or whenever she gets more free time from the way things have been going. "A lot of them just seem to go over my head." She offers a small smile at that and a shrug. She's learned to accept it and move on. As for the weyrlingmasters' choice, she blushes a little. "Uh… I guess they did? They all have turns of experience." Maybe not as weyrlingmasters, but with them all combined together, there's all sorts of experience in the weyrlingmaster team. "So definitely not a choice they made lightly."

"Mistakes? He was unequivocally a genius." T'ral accepts this as truth. "His mistake was in not developing relationships. Or… I don't know." The bluerider squints, "Maybe that wasn't a mistake, so much as he couldn't." There's another shrug, "We'll never know, perhaps." T'ral's lips twitch at Doji's blush. She's a little flappable it seems. "How are you planning to divide you riders? You've about two or three times as many dragons as fly in a Wing, Wingleader. An embarrassment of assets."

Doji frowns a little at that. "But… relationships are needed. If you have good ideas, but nobody will listen to them, what good is it going to do anybody?" There's a little headshake as it is a philosophical discussion that could just keep getting dug deeper and deeper and getting stuck into philosophical loops isn't something she planned for today. "That's something I'm still talking with the weyrlingmasters about." Logistics are hard, especially when wing stuff is planned for around thirty-ish and she's got over seventy. "Even the bronzes and browns may be practicing changeovers."

"And we're back to the dilemma." Perhaps T'ral misunderstood what mistake Doji originally referred to. "He was, at least, dedicated to writing. Though reading his accounts is trying in its own way." He shakes his head and waves off the conversation, also uninterested in debating the semantics of the man's person, his ideas were much more interesting. "You could split the Wing into sections, and have your 'Seconds also lead. Appoint their own 'seconds." He pauses, head tilted, eyes narrowed, "Thirds?" Yeah. He nods, decisive, "Thirds." He whistles low, "I can't believe we're going to have that many new riders soon." T'ral's eyes widen and he looks into the distance. His eyes clear and he looks at Doji again, "All of you who've cleared ::Between:: will be joining us at Katz Field next seven, yes? Do you want to join Sirocco for pre-sweeps, Wingleader Doji?" The bluerider's voice roughens into it's deeper registers, bright tenor with resonant undertones.

And that's it for the discussion of G'bar, although Doji does still have that note. Future reference and all that. She does tilt her head as she considers the possibility of splitting the wing into sections. "So we'd basically be a whole flight of weyrlings…" Which opens up a whole different level of tactics and formations she'd have to consider. Another note is jotted down and she nods at the question. "Yes, sir… at least the first half of us who have cleared between and have had enough additional practice." Of course the weyrlingmasters will be extra thorough in their clearing of people for first Falls. "Pre-sweeps? I would like that, sir!" The girl's face practically lights up with excitement at that idea.

"Yes." The gears spinning in T'ral's head are nearly audible as he considers what to do with five dozen dragons in the air. "Though flying resupply is wholly different than formations facing Thread." At the glow that lights up on Doji's face at flying pre-sweeps, T'ral can only reflect a smile back. Infectious, that enthusiasm. "I'm sure Wingleader R'ku would be happy to discuss how Sirocco can use you. I'll speak with him, you speak with the Weyrlingmasters." The shutters rattle again and more pooled grit spills from the high sill. The sound of clacking heels draws closer. T'ral watches the stream of sand with a look that suggests he might feel sympathy for it. Doom approaches. He takes a deep breath, "I think I might relocate, would you mind helping me?" There's fixing to be a different sort of sandstorm in here. One with blond hair and blue eyes and a mission to eradicate sand from the archives. "Not far." He begins gathering up his things and ferrying stacks to a different, distant, table where, once re-entrenched, his work begins again. "Thank you, Wingleader." T'ral smiles, "I think we have one of G'bar's journals. Check with the-" the clack-clack-clacking stops. Ominously. "Maybe check tomorrow. Have a good rest of your evening."

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