Post by Felina on Sept 11, 2008 14:36:56 GMT -5
In Which the Unwilling Gets a Haircut
I found out today about Neisk. It's hard to keep a secret from us here in the Lower Caverns, since everything passes through here eventually, and we tend to see or hear just about all of it. The new woman's requests seemed odd at first, but I thought nothing of it in a Weyr full of Riders and their bizarre habits. It was Noelle who noticed the way she squinted in the light and sometimes seemed hardly to notice that we were there. Like a Rider, even though she wasn't one. I didn't put it together with the Weyrwoman's insistence that we aid her until a few days afterward.
Brave Sitareh! I know she has her faults, but how many other women could be so certain of danger in the near future and still manage to keep their heads? Not many, I am sure. Certainly not many of the women here in the Lower Caverns. A few of them are close to panic, and poor Noelle went to sleep crying last night. I try to comfort her, but what can you say to a woman so timid she jumps when she sees her own shadow on the wall beside her?
Rumors have started, each nastier than the last. It is a dangerous time to be in the weyr, I think. Perhaps more so for those of us, however few we may be, who still support the Weyrleaders. Noelle says that we will be silenced by the others, so that no one will protest when the rebellion really strikes. That they would go against all of their silly ideals to become as tyrannical as they claim the current reign is.
Her ideas are absolute malarkey, of course, but there is a small grain of truth in what she says. If anything does happen, we won't be wanted around here, though I doubt anyone would go so far as to kill us.
Unfortunately, her suggestions for remedying that problem were even more ludicrous than the idea of it happening in the first place. Cut our hair, change clothes and names, and pass as boys? I pointed out that while she may still be young enough to pull that off for a couple of Turns more while she finishes her growth, people will be bound to notice a "young man" that doesn't grow, won't take his shirt off, and looks suspiciously like a woman named Corenne.
She kept on insisting, though. That we needed to do something to make us less recognizable. I'm to call her Elle now, though that won't happen, and she says that I should be Ren. As though I would allow anyone to call me by that silly nickname. Though originally, she'd been gunning for Cor which, I suppose if it came down to it, would be worse.
I keep on feeling the end of my hair now. It hardly seems as though it's mine. Short, much shorter than had been intended, but how was Noelle to know that if you cut curly hair when it's wet, it gets considerably shorter when it's dry? And apparently curlier as well, if she is to be believed. I likely should have warned her, but when she had the scissors in her hand, I didn't really want to confuse the poor woman. She really isn't the brightest.
I have to wonder if he would recognize me now. A'tair. With my hair cut short, wearing dresses he's never seen, walking confidently through these halls I have come to know so well. It's been two years- more, actually- and we've only spoken a couple of times in passing save for that one argument.
Things change. Like this new haircut, like the gradual realization that I am better off without A'tair. Everything, in the end, works out for the best.
I found out today about Neisk. It's hard to keep a secret from us here in the Lower Caverns, since everything passes through here eventually, and we tend to see or hear just about all of it. The new woman's requests seemed odd at first, but I thought nothing of it in a Weyr full of Riders and their bizarre habits. It was Noelle who noticed the way she squinted in the light and sometimes seemed hardly to notice that we were there. Like a Rider, even though she wasn't one. I didn't put it together with the Weyrwoman's insistence that we aid her until a few days afterward.
Brave Sitareh! I know she has her faults, but how many other women could be so certain of danger in the near future and still manage to keep their heads? Not many, I am sure. Certainly not many of the women here in the Lower Caverns. A few of them are close to panic, and poor Noelle went to sleep crying last night. I try to comfort her, but what can you say to a woman so timid she jumps when she sees her own shadow on the wall beside her?
Rumors have started, each nastier than the last. It is a dangerous time to be in the weyr, I think. Perhaps more so for those of us, however few we may be, who still support the Weyrleaders. Noelle says that we will be silenced by the others, so that no one will protest when the rebellion really strikes. That they would go against all of their silly ideals to become as tyrannical as they claim the current reign is.
Her ideas are absolute malarkey, of course, but there is a small grain of truth in what she says. If anything does happen, we won't be wanted around here, though I doubt anyone would go so far as to kill us.
Unfortunately, her suggestions for remedying that problem were even more ludicrous than the idea of it happening in the first place. Cut our hair, change clothes and names, and pass as boys? I pointed out that while she may still be young enough to pull that off for a couple of Turns more while she finishes her growth, people will be bound to notice a "young man" that doesn't grow, won't take his shirt off, and looks suspiciously like a woman named Corenne.
She kept on insisting, though. That we needed to do something to make us less recognizable. I'm to call her Elle now, though that won't happen, and she says that I should be Ren. As though I would allow anyone to call me by that silly nickname. Though originally, she'd been gunning for Cor which, I suppose if it came down to it, would be worse.
I keep on feeling the end of my hair now. It hardly seems as though it's mine. Short, much shorter than had been intended, but how was Noelle to know that if you cut curly hair when it's wet, it gets considerably shorter when it's dry? And apparently curlier as well, if she is to be believed. I likely should have warned her, but when she had the scissors in her hand, I didn't really want to confuse the poor woman. She really isn't the brightest.
I have to wonder if he would recognize me now. A'tair. With my hair cut short, wearing dresses he's never seen, walking confidently through these halls I have come to know so well. It's been two years- more, actually- and we've only spoken a couple of times in passing save for that one argument.
Things change. Like this new haircut, like the gradual realization that I am better off without A'tair. Everything, in the end, works out for the best.