Who

Sabina

What

Sabina finds herself reminiscing while she works.

When

It is just after dawn of the fifty-eighth day of Summer and 21 degrees.

Where

Residential Dorms, Southern Hold

OOC Date

 

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Residential Dorms

Hold-style dorms: no vast barracks spread, but a ton of little rooms and suites for roommates and families. There are a lot of potted plants in here, and the smell of fresh laundry.


This time of morning the dorms are eerily quiet. All of the residing adults are off to their various tasks and jobs. The sound of children is but a memory now. The candidates one and all have been scooped up and taken back to the Weyr. Which leaves a good portion of the dorms bereft. Only the untidy cots and random scraps of belongings left behind.

Sabina is spending the day cleaning up what the candidates left behind. Lost in her thoughts while she works. ‘I’m almost sad to see them gone,’ she thinks to herself. ‘It’s going to be a lot quieter around here for sure.’ One of the cots looks like a whirl wind hit it.

“Goodness but they left quite the mess,” she muses aloud. No one is in this part of the dorms to disturb after all. Leaning over Bina strips the messy cot and tosses the blankets and sheets into an ever growing pile. A stray sock falls out of the bundle and is kicked toward the pile.

On to the next room of cots. And Sabina steps in something sticky. Her boot squelching as she lifts it from the floor with a perturbed expression. “I really DON’T want to know,” she announces to no one as she steps carefully around the goo. Where teenage boys abound one is never sure if it’s food or something less deserving of thought.

Another cot down and Sabina straightens to her full height. All 5’3 of it. So it isn’t a lot of height. A good stretch is in order however, and her hands go to her lower back. Exhausting work is all part of the life she leads. And her back twinges in protest as she moves on to yet another cot. “May Faranth guide and protect them all.” Tug, whoosh, and toss of yet more bedding. “And may I be granted the strength to wash all this!”

In the back of her mind she is still reliving her dinner with the Headman. Dwelling on it would be a more proper honesty. “At least I’ll be free from further surprises,” she muses to herself. Her tone slightly sad despite the words. In fact she is grateful to the meddling candidates who set her up. She’d have never had the gall to attempt such a thing without their trickery.

Sabina hasn’t seen Renalde since the dinner. Well to be more accurate she is fairly certain he hasn’t seen her. A few times she spotted him hobbling around on some errand or another. But the task of keeping the Hold free of dust and grime is a large one. And the staff in residence is still quite small. Not that she minds the work.

“I have to wonder how he feels about that escapade after a good deal of time to think it over.” Sabina straightens a cot mattress after stripping it down. “Bet you a whole Mark he’ll never speak to me again.” She looks down at the large pile of bedding as though it might take her up on the bet. It does get rather lonely sometimes as she works herself to exhaustion.

A single cot is left to go. This one neatly made with the blankets folded crisply below the pillow. Sabina is almost sad to strip it down. She settles on the bare mattress across from it for a moment. Taking a brief and rare moment of rest. “Nothing less than I deserve if he doesn’t.” With a sigh she smoothes her sweater and picks away a stray string from the sheets that clings to the fabric. She lapses into silent thought. Lest she be over heard somehow in this oh so quiet room.

Sabina sits and considers the dinner once more. A forbidden moment of delight it was. An evening she’ll not likely ever forget. It both appalls and intrigues her that she carries such a torch for the austere Headman. Most tremble at his name for fear of reprisal. And yet Sabina merely carries on with her work. Confident that any criticism would be well placed and not to be taken lightly.

“I must be frozen through!” Sabina shakes her head and sighs. A frozen brain is the only explanation she has for her wayward thoughts. The daydreams of what it would be like to really be noticed by Renalde. What life would perhaps be like if he were not the Headman, or even more farfetched that she herself were something more than the help.

Rising from the mattress Sabina attacks the neatly made cot as though it has offended her. In truth she has offended herself. Blankets and sheets whip off the mattress with a snap of fabric. “Get a grip on yourself! You are who you are. There ain’t no changing that,” she repeats words told to her often growing up. By one adult or another. No sense dilly dallying in daydreams when there is work to be done.

Sabina finds that she is resigned to be merely the help for the first time since she was a very young girl. Where normally there is contentment with her lot in life, now there is an ache. An ache for things that simply cannot be. And for the first man in her adult life she felt any attraction for. Her work is her life and there has never been time for a man in it.

The bedding is dumped atop the pile resting almost in the middle of a large square of cloth on the floor. Sabina looks down at it all and sighs. It will have to be drug to the laundry. There is no way she can pick all of that up. She’s gotten carried away in her thoughts and out done herself this time. “I suppose the time to bellyache has passed.” It does her no good to wish for more. No good to contemplate ways to break through that formidable frown for the pleasure of seeing him smile. It’s no good.

Walking around the bedding, Sabina gathers the corners of the borrowed cloth tarp. “Time to get out of my head and back to my business.” The words are firm and almost commanding. As though she is demanding that she stop dwelling and get back to the business of working. Which is just what she does. Putting her back and legs into the work of pulling the mass of blankets and sheets to the wash.

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