Afternoon Tea (Sam)

[shinigamikitsune]

It was another typical day in the infirmary. Nothing out of the ordinary aside from the expeccted usual bumps and scrapes, broken bones and severed fingers. Seriously, whomever it was that was going around chopping people's fingers off needed to stop. It was a good thing that she'd learned long ago how to use her vitokenesis in order to re-attach severed limbs... as long as they hadn't been severed for too long.

For the past hour she had been going over the daily paperwork needed to be done. After signing the last document in the pile she'd been working on, she set the pencil down and leaned back in a stretch. She'd file them away later, for now she needed to prepare for where she needed to be next.

Pushing back from the desk, she rose out of the chair. Back in the corner of her office was a little make shift kitchen unit, which contained a small fridge, a microwave, an electric kettle and a few dishes. Nothing too fancy, but just enough that should she need to be in the infirmary for longer periods of time, at least she wouldn't starve. There was also a single basin sink, which she took the kettle over to. Turning on the cold water, she filled the kettle up, then plugged it into the wall and set it to boil. Next she turned on the hot water, allowing it to reach it's highest warmth while she retrieved her cast iron tea pot. Filling the black pot with hot water from the tap, she set it aside to allow it time to warm up while the kettle was heating the water for tea.

Speaking of tea, Callista collected one of the tea jars she kept in her office. This one holding green tea leaves within it. She hated tea that came in those little bags. Sure they might be conveinent, but it just didn't taste the same to her. Setting the jar aside, she collected of the things she'd need. Pulling out the specially made black quilted carrying bag, she opened one of the side pockets and slid the trivet, along with the two handleless cast iron tea cups. The cast iron was nice, since it kept the tea piping hot, along with warming your hands without being too hot for them.

Once the water finished boiling, she emptied the warm water from inside the tea pot. She carefully scooped the tea leaves into the pot, then poured the water from the kettle in as well. By the time she arrived to where she was going, the tea would be perfectly steeped. For now she placed the rubber stopper into the spout, and set the lid in place. It also fit snuggly so that it wouldn't spill while in transit.

With the tea all asembled, she carefully placed it into the larger part of the bag, and securing the quilted divider into place. There was now just enough space for the little bamboo box of short bread cookies. She had made them last night once during her small amount of freetime before she went to bed. The bamboo box helped to keep them from picking up that odd flavour that came from storing them in plastic containers.

Now that she was ready, she picked up the bag and left her office. She stopped by the reception desk to inform them that she was going out for a little bit. They knew where to find her should she be needed. It was always on this day of the week, and at this time that she'd venture to the training sims. She'd take a moment to look aound and see if there was anybody needing any medical attention, then she'd go and check over the schedual for who had booked time and when. This way she would have an idea on when it was likely that she'd have more people coming into the infirmary. After this she'd stop by to check in with Alesku, to see if he had tweeked any of the current programs or added in new ones.

Leaving the infirmary right on time, she started the trek to the training sims. As always, the clicking of her heels warned others of her approach. Most learned to move out of the way when they heard the warning soon enough. Though occasionally there would be the odd gracie that would freeze up in the middle of her path when they saw her coming. Those were amusing moments, which were ususally dealt with a pat on the gracie's head and the giving of one of her lollipops.

It didn't take long for her to arrive at the sims, and do her initial look over things. Finding Alesku in his usual spot, she gave a little knock on the open door. "Good afternoon, my dear Alesku. Have time for some tea and a little chat?" She smiled as she held up the little bag a bit. Although the question wasn't needed, it had sort of become tradition by now.

[Anonymous]

Alesku had the simulation set to Default.  It was easier to build from a base, and control had become intuitive over the years.  A formless white plain tapered, in all directions, to meet an invisible horizon line.  When he'd been a gracie, the default setting had disoriented him.  Soon enough its emptiness had come to seem like home, an extension of his own body, one of the few realms still in his control.  

Now, of course, the domain of his control extended throughout Haviah...

"Never hubristic."

Alesku answered Calliope with the white flash of an internal smile.  "Never."  She knew he wasn't, and he knew, and knew well, that all of his power traced the strength of the Dragons' only faintly and contingently.  But of course mankind had its limits, and he'd reached perilously over and beyond.

He flexed the fingers of his left hand and felt the prickling thrum of electricity as it swarmed the inside of the electrostatic glove.  The right.  The rest of the armor fitted to his body, its charge flowing to keep time with what his body could sustain.  Some Pilots were burdened with elemental magics; Alesku's ability, grounded in neuronal impulse, had no such restriction.  He could meld it, on his own, to the opposing electrical impulse in his body.  If he maintained the proper balance of charges, he could create an impulse around his body that would kill anyone who tried to touch him.

He'd only done that once.

In any case, it was exhausting to maintain that sort of balance.  The armor had been engineered to carry a mirror charge to any he impelled, protecting him without the necessity of constant autarkic control.  He'd been working on the suit with the engineers for nearly six years, and it still had its kinks.  Designed to connect to Calliope's data-processing loop, it didn't always work quite as advertised, though his link with Calliope remained good enough that he got a warning instead of three thousand volts straight to the chest in case of any malfunction.

"Ready?"  

She was.  She wound the crackling threads of her immediate consciousness through his, and Alesku reached out into the programming, moving rapidly and intuitively through bundles of code.  He summoned up a series of simple geometric blocks, arranged on the floor.  

Telekinetic force was, at its bottom, based in electrical activity.  Alesku's variant was less directly useful, for that purpose, than most, or it simply operated at a more finely-grained remove.  In any case, he'd sorted out a relatively workable substitution based on the same opposition of forces he'd used to create his armor.

After a few simple telekinetic experiments, he let the blocks drop and frowned to himself, peeling off the gloves and running one forearm over his sweaty face.  The armor, when he and Calliope released it, stripped itself from his body, and, gone liquid, pooled itself neatly at his feet.  The thermodynamics--they had yet to solve that problem.  

"Calliope, crack the door, please, in case someone has to use this room."

And then there was the lingering inertial problem of the sims.  The damned mass simulator refused to cooperate.  He replaced his visor and tapped its side, keyed in to the simulator, sifting code.  Mass simulation was--

"Oh!  Hello."  He turned and caught a glimpse of Callista, offering tea.  "Well noted.  I should get out of here and give the Candidates a chance, I think there's a class booked for oh-sixteen-thirty."  He knelt to gather the bundled armor, which, compressed into a practical, small disc, threw off a shifting sheen, and the gloves.  He still felt damp with sweat.  "Iced tea, maybe.  How are you?" this last with half his attention focused on keying out of the system mentally, before he stepped efficiently out of the room and nudged the door shut with one foot.  "I'm... much too excited, actually.  The armor's working really well, overheating aside.  I mean, look."  He held out the disc.  "Calliope has a handle on the charge this time, and it's really working."

[shinigamikitsune]

She should have known that Alesku would have been working on his armor again. At least he wasn't coming into the infirmary with an extended list of wounds from testing anymore. Of course he'd worked most of the major kinks out since then, so he hadn't visited her in the infirmary with Armor related injuries for quite a while now.

Callista smiled as she waited for him to finish keying out of the system. "If I had known that you would have been working on this, I certainly would have brought some. However, all I have to offer this time is hot green tea, and shortbread cookies I made last night."

Once Alesku was out of the room she stepped into place next to him. She'd followed his progress with the armor since near the beginning of it's concept. So she was understandabley pleased to hear how well it had performed this time. "That is wonderful. You've been working on that problem for a while now." She took a look at the disk that was in his hand. "You've probably already though of this, but what about finding a way that would take the energy that caused the over heating, and setting up a system that would use that energy in order to run a cooling system?"

[Anonymous]

"Oh, I'm sorry."  Alesku realized, a few beats late, that it hadn't been exactly polite to denigrate her offer.  She'd made hot tea.  He should've thanked her.  "That sounds wonderful."  

He fell in beside her as they walked down the hall, and let the air flow cool him down.  He could already feel the blood leaving his face.  That felt good.  At her show of interest, he handed the disc over to her.  Callista wouldn't be able to use it as he did; that was part of the point, it was strictly an electrokinetic's tool.  He pointed out the little scrolling data panel on the back, where it'd recorded the information on this session's use.

"I've tried to make it energy-neutral," he added, frowning, rubbing at his beard.  "But you're right, I still need to straighten out the thermodynamics... maybe a material adjustment.  At least I'm not burning myself anymore."  They neared the break room, and Alesku slowed down, looking around, then took a step forward and opened the door.  He held it for Callista.  An old-fashioned gesture, to be sure, but he'd always thought it was a nice one.  "After you."

[shinigamikitsune]

When Alesku handed her the disk, she began to look it over. The younger man had come a long way since he'd first started working on the device. When prompted, she flipped it over to look at the data on the back.

"Ah yes. I remember the first time you came in to have those burns treated. I honestly thought you were a bit off your rocker at the time." She couldn't help the soft chuckle that escaped as the smile came to her face. Callista paused while Alesku opened the door for her. She remembered a time when the gesture was still more widely used. Heck, she remembered when Alesku was just starting out as a candidate. Then again she knew most of the current pilots from when they all were just candidates.

Sometimes she felt like her dragon. Old.

That's because you are. The old Battle Dragon grunted at her.

Callista mentally shushed him. As she passed Alseku, she reached up to lightly pat his cheek. "Thank you." Then she proceeded towards a table.

Setting the tea caddy down, she started unpacking the little bag. The bamboo box of cookies were set down first, then the trivet was brought out so that she could set the actual teapot onto it. Lastly the tea cups were set onto the table, then the bag folded up neatly and set aside for now.

While she waited for Alesku to join her at the table, she rumaged through her pockets some. She was notorious for carrying nearly anything that she might need within the various pockets of her lab jacket. Of course all of her jackets had been specially made to her specifications. Finding what she needed, she pulled out one of the packets that a person could snap and crush, and when the materials inside would mingle, it'd grow cold. With that done, she took out the large cloth bandage and wrapped the cold pack into it, in a way that it could be wrapped around something and tied into place.

"I know this isn't the same as iced tea, but it should help with cooling your body down." Once the other pilot was seated, she pressed the wrapped up cold pack against the back of his neck. There was a spot there, that regulated the body's temperature. The effects should be felt immediately, even if the body temp was still high, he should feel as though he was cool.

[Anonymous]

Alesku liked to be around competence.  He didn't exactly put words to it when he thought about it, but there was something soothing about people who came prepared, moved with conscious care, and knew what they were doing.  Doing the job, that was what he called it.

Still, the skin between his shoulders crawled for a split second at the icy cold of the pack Callista pressed to the skin under his hair.  He felt a chilly drop snake its way down under his shirt collar and moved his jaw a little, easing the tickle.  

"Thanks," he said at last, canting his head forward and closing his eyes.  He brought one hand up to clamp the cold pack in place himself, so she could step back.  He didn't really like being pampered, but Alesku did appreciate small moments of physical comfort, and he liked Callista's matter-of-fact medical approach.  

"So--"  He slid the cold pack out from under his hair and used it to mop at his temples, then under his chin, around his beard.  "--how've you been?  I didn't ask, I got so caught up in that."  He tapped the disc he'd set on the table.   "Not to mention everything else; I'm sorry."  A gesture waved vaguely at recent subversive activity, the Candidates he was mentoring, and everything he'd had to take on as a Seeker.  Sometimes he thought he might've tackled too much.  But he had the keen sense that if he didn't do it himself, someone else would screw it up.  Best he could do was some time off every day.  Now, for example.  He looked back toward Callista, letting the tension in his forehead ease.

[shinigamikitsune]

Callista moved to take a seat at the table close to Alesku. She glanced over him to see how he was taking care of himself. It was something that was second nature to her now; quickly scanner the pilots and candidates to see if there were any hints of possibly anything more serious then what could be seen. The most that she could see wrong with the other Royal right now was a higher level of stress then usual. Of course it was to be expected now that the man was a seeker.

She took the lid off the bamboo box of cookies and pushed them in Alesku's direction. Then she carefully poured them each a cup of the green tea. If the man preferred to have his cold, then he could wait until it cooled on his own. "I've been somewhat busier the usual this past little while. It almost seems as though people have become restless and decided to take their frustrations out on each other." There had been some unusual cases in the infirmary the past few weeks. If it kept up, she'd be forced to do something about it.

"Aside from that, things have pretty much been the same. I did have a candidate floating around, though I think he might have been trim'd or something." She gave a little shrug at this. The boy would have only had her for a mentor as a short while anyways. Having read through his file, he didn't have any talent in healing. Whenever there was a candidate that showed promise with healing or medicine, she would take over as that candidates mentor. It was only a matter of time before conflict broke out again, and she wanted to make sure that there were as many battle mages as she could train.

"There was also an incident the other morning with one of my former candidates." She picked up her little cup of tea and took a sip. "The poor thing had been handcuffed to his bed sometime during the night, and left without a shred of clothing. Then he made it worse by putting out a broad message for somebody to come and help him." She shook her head a little as she remembered the scene she'd walked in on. "It's a good thing that I decided to check in on him after hearing the SOS or he probably would have been detained long enough to make him late for work that morning." The staff at the infirmary knew that Callista loved to assign them to bedpan duty should any of them show up late. She smiled faintly going over Loki's situation once again. "In a way, it kind of made me miss my children when they were that young."

Lately Callista had been thinking more and more about children, especially with how many young ones seemed to keep being brought in for candidacy. When it came to kids, she was a big softy at heart. Though her own children knew that didn't mean that they could get away with whatever they wanted. She was probably harder on her own kids then she was with the candidates. Of course the harder she was on a person she was training, the more she showed she cared when the times called for it.

[Anonymous]

"You don't know what happened to your Candidate?"  Alesku looked sharply up at Callista, eyebrows nearly touching in appalled disbelief.  "I'd have expected better of you."  He pushed his chair back and held himself there, arms extended, fingers clenched on the side of the table.  He examined his knuckles, and the faint, nearly white hairs shining over the veins in his hands, and completely ignored her anecdote about Pilot Rasmussen, whom he didn't respect.

"You know, you're right," he said, just a little bitterness edging his voice.  "People are restless.  People are this, people are that.  It shouldn't matter, and I am..."  Alesku paused, calming himself.  It took a moment, though usually he stayed even-tempered.  His emotions waited neatly for him to call them forth, like water behind a dam.  Once he lifted the floodgates, they rushed out in service to his purposes.  Alesku's anger was almost always righteous, and always slow to boil.

"... I am tired," he said at last, simply, flexing his hands, "of watching Pilots make a mess of things." Carefully, almost delicately, he shrugged his shoulders.  The collar of his uniform chafed at the chill that had spread across the back of his neck.  "Sometimes I think the Dragons could do better without us, but--"  He shrugged again and let his shoulders fall and his mouth pull into a tiny smile.  "--Ah."

[shinigamikitsune]

As Alesku's anger flared, her own fired up to match it. She held it in as the younger pilot's emotions ebbed and flowed. This was not the place for heated words, nor the time. Words could be just as devastating as any weapon, and leave a much deeper scar.

Callista watched as Alesku calmed himself, listening to his words and watching his mannerisms. The fires of her anger still sparked, though they soften as well.

"Do you honestly think that I am one to care so little about a candidate? Especially one that is mine?" She spoke with an even tone, though Alesku might pick up that it was a tone that she used when she expected better of somebody. Especially a pilot. "While it's true that I may not have been as focused on this new one as I have with previous others, for the time it's to be expected though. There is little I can do when my job demands that I am needed for greater healing, such as a candidate having his eye destroyed by another candidate... or another candidate having his vocal cords removed by a fresh-faced pilot. Not to mention the every day wear and tear that is placed upon all these youths. Most of whom will never make it all the way through."

She paused to take a sip of her tea, and allow her emotions to settle a little more. "So you'll have to excuse me if I might seem 'flipant' about this particular candidate. I might not have had the time to check his current file status to see where he is, but that does not mean that I do not care. Considering that he was originally a bio-engineered experiment from TRIM, it only seems natural that he would be sent back there should his potential be low."

Callista frowned a little at the last part and shook her head. "I am unsure if things would be better if they did not have us pilots. After all, pilots act in part as a buffer between the dragons and the regular people. Should we pilots cease to exist, I am almost completely certain that it would result in utter devastation and anarchy. It is within people's nature to resist a foreign authority which dictates what is best for them.

"It is a harsh existence that we were thrown in to live, but that's all the more reason for us to be here. We are the ones strong enough to survive in order to be able to work towards a better future... even if there are some of us who have forgotten about such things along the way. So we do our best, and we take interest in the younger ones, care for them and help them along so they hopefully survive through things a little better then we did."

She looked down at her teacup, and to the average person they wouldn't see a change. However, Alesku would notice the subtle weariness in her eyes. "I care about all of you young ones so much, that sometimes it's hard not to just step in and be the protector. To keep all of you safe and tell you that everything is going to be alright, or to go and beat the life out of whomever it is that is harassing you. However, that's not something that I can do and keep my sanity during those days that the candidates are TRIM'd, or one of the pilots are set free or do not return."

Callista was allowing Alesku to see the rare softer side of herself. She trusted this man, and respected him a great deal more then most of the other pilots. She looked up at him with a sad little smile. "When you've been around as long as I have, you need to become a little more detached, or you're threatened to be over taken by these emotions of helplessness when the little ones that you've come to care about so much are taken away, never to return."

[Anonymous]

Alesku shrugged carefully, but he sat forward again, pressing his palms and lips together flatly while he listened to Callista.  

"I tell myself I serve something higher than each individual," he said at last, carefully.  His protective instincts probably weren't the same as hers.  Alesku simply suborned his feelings to reason most of the time and looked at what he had to do dispassionately, even mathematically.  Would the benefit to future generations outweigh the inconvenience to this one?  What did it mean to damage the 'freedom' of someone who wouldn't be alive without the policy they trespassed against?  

Very few people even tried to see the world that way, though Alesku knew it came close to the Draconic viewpoint.  Of course, their mindset was inutterably more sophisticated than his.  

He did understand what she meant by detachment, certainly more than most people would.  His close relationship to Calliope meant he was attuned to how the emotions of someone much older than himself worked.  

"If the Dragons really do need us," he said at last, "we should be humbler about it.  It's just frustrating to me that most Pilots don't even try to reach the standard they set.  I don't see why the Dragons should respect us sometimes, and it bothers me."  

He wasn't angry at Callista any longer.  Her explanation made sense.  He recalled that Candidate, and of everyone to make the trip to TRIM, he was probably the one most likely to find the lab relatively safe.  

Alesku still hated the exchange they made, though in theory he believed in the importance of research.  TRIM's research was another story.  TRIM hadn't given them truly important advances.  They were far too much involved in pharmaceuticals and neurochemistry and not enough involved in the ecological sciences.  But the TRIM research program wasn't his business, as his brother had told him often.  And look how well that'd worked out.  

He picked up his cup of tea and felt it for heat.  By this time it'd reached a temperature closer to lukewarm than steaming, but he didn't mind.  He sipped at it slowly, savoring the bitter taste; it tickled the back of his tongue on the way down.

"Thank you for the tea," he added, more quietly, a sign that he knew there wasn't much that could be said one way or another in this sort of conversation.  The expression of gratitude also hid a tacit apology for his tendency to venture into unanswerable philosophical and emotional puzzles.

[shinigamikitsune]

Callista pushed over the box of cookies to Alesku as well. "Even if a person is a Pilot, youth and inexperience blinds a person at times. It's simply human nature to take for granted things that they can not understand what it would be like to live without. Only once they have seen what life is like without such things, can they begin to understand and appreciate those things." That went for what life would be like without the dragons as well.

It didn't matter which civilization or point in time, there was always those who held power over the majority. As well, there were those who did not agree with those in power, and sought to over throw them. It was a topic that could be debated over without any real satisfactory conclusion drawn.

She offered him a soft smile and shrugged. "We each have our own parts to play. Though it's not always clear right away just what that is. It can be hard to show respect, when you're still floundering around trying to find your proper place in things. I think that is why many of the younger Pilots seem so disrespectful. They haven't been forced to find their proper place as quickly as us older pilots were." War did have that sort of reaction on people, if you were able to survive it.

"But enough of such things. I'm certain that those young pups will be able to find their own way along." She settled back in her chair and crossed her legs at the knee. Taking a sip of her tea, she observed Alesku for a moment longer. The poor man really did seem to be stretched a bit to thin and perhaps over stressed.

"Have you been taking care of yourself lately?"

[Anonymous]

Alesku reached into the box of cookies and chose one at random.  He shook it free of crumbs before lifting it to hover over his cup of tea, where he held it poised, then leaned forward to take a neat bite.  

"... Gods," he added, smiling a little back at Callista.  "I feel old.  Youngsters.  I don't think I've even thought about the age difference between the new Pilots and myself, but I suppose I was misguided when I was younger, overexuberant, arrogant... you'd remember, I guess."  He tipped his head to one side a little, self-mocking.  

"Anyway, I'm fine," he added quietly, nodding at the other Pilot, brows pinched into a frown.  "I've taken on a lot, but I know how to plan my time."   Alesku set the cookie down and thought about it for a moment, eyes focused on middle distance, palms set flat on the table.  He had felt pressure lately, but he'd never believed that stress was a mental illness.  Often enough he functioned better under pressure, though the issue with his brother had troubled him.  He couldn't mention that to Callista, of course, so he put it out of his mind and sat for a minute in pleasant silence, sipping tea, not feeling any real need to say anything to Callista.

After a bit, he swallowed and added, "You?  You certainly seem to spend your time looking after everyone else."  The lingering trace of his smile and the psychic sense he let through his shields would show her he  meant the comment sincerely, not mockingly.

[shinigamikitsune]

She chuckled softly as Alesku vocally wondered about what he was like as a younger pilot. "Back then, you came across as more of an idealist. You knew exactly what you were going to do, and how things should work in order for the world to be a better place." A smile came to her lips as she took a sip of her tea, remembering the younger Alesku. "I think you are still very much that idealist you were back then, only now you have a healthy dose of reality and experience to help balance you out, without allowing it to crush the idealist in you." Reality and experience did tend to crush most idealists when they were finally thrown against it. Thankfully Alesku wasn't one of those people, and he'd grown into a Pilot that Callista was happy to call an equal.

She nodded as the young Pilot spoke about how he was careful to plan his time. Though she still was a little concerned for him. Even if a person managed to plan everything carefully, there were things that could take a toll on the body without the person realizing it right away. She knew how Alesku felt about stress, but that didn't mean that it couldn't take its toll on him. "I'm certain that you've managed to adapt your new Seeker duties into your schedule without too much stress. However, I would like it if you'd stop by the infirmary when you had a free hour sometime in the next week. I think that you would benefit from a massage."

When Callista gave a massage, it was full body and worked to fully relax the muscles and work out knots. It was a relatively easy way to melt stress out of the body. She didn't give massages out all that often, but when she did, they were almost always within the infirmary, so that it would eliminate any confusion about the massages not being strictly on a professional level.

She knew that Alesku would most likely refuse, but she at least put it out there for him to think about.

By now any previous tension between them had passed, and she knew that Alesku was being sincere. The man was straight forward most of the time, and she liked that about him. One didn't have to worry about whether he was playing games or not. If he told you something, then you knew that you could take it at face value for what it was.

"Taking care of people is one of the things I do best." Her smile softened into one that was warm and inviting, almost like a mother thinking about her children... even if they were cranky, socially stunted, mentally scarred, beaten and aggressive children. "I enjoy taking care of them, even if most of them are a bunch of brats. They're still young and will hopefully grow out of it." She wasn't sure if there was much hope for Liv, Loki, and Trance. Though Loki had the better chance out of the three of them.

[Anonymous]

Alesku nodded slightly at the suggestion of a massage.  The persona he projected certainly didn't suggest he liked pampering, but he actually enjoyed massage, though he very rarely had the time to give his body that sort of care.  A free hour wouldn't be hard to come by, he thought.  Particularly if he didn't take lunch that day.  He skipped it often enough anyway, for a task that usually made him less productive in any case.  

"I'll take you up on that if I find the time," he said, then popped the rest of his cookie in his mouth and wiped his hands clean while he listened to her finish speaking.  

"You know, I've only just caught myself thinking of my Candidate as sort of my children.  It's still new to me.  I suppose conceiving of them that way helps with the... occasional frustration," he added, choosing the word with care.  It was not annoyance.  Callista understood his point of view probably better than many Pilots, and he appreciated it.  He tried to extend her the same courtesy, and found it not too difficult to imagine feeling maternal or paternal protectiveness toward Pilots and Candidates.  All too often, he took a somewhat colder Dragon's-eye-view of them all, and thought in terms that weren't exactly human.  

Of course, Callista wasn't exactly human, either.

The occasional frustration "... which I do feel," he admitted.  "But I suppose impatience is a flaw of youth, too, so I try not to react emotionally.  Maybe that's the problem.  Emotion, if not misguided, can be useful, particularly your sort of aggressive, protective care."  He took a thoughtful sip of tea.  "I'll get used to all the roles demanded of me in some time, I'm sure, isn't that so?"

He didn't feel he had to thank her for listening, but he was, as always, acutely aware that he'd been talking much more about himself than usual.  Alesku very rarely spoke about his own thoughts and feelings, at least to his colleagues, but Callista's age and personality made her more approachable in that way.

[shinigamikitsune]

'The occasional frustration' was a polite way of saying the young ones were brats. Sometimes they could be a lot worse then just brats, but thankfully not all the time. "A bit of emotion when handling the younger ones isn't a bad thing. It's just a matter of knowing how much emotion to use, and what type in order to be most effective depending on the situation. There's no simple equation to figure this out. It's a bit of trial and error when first learning, but over time it becomes easier to figure things out."

She reached for a cookies and to a little bite from it. "Nobody is ever perfect with that sort of thing when they're first starting out. Of course I wouldn't claim to know how to deal with every situation, though I do the best I can. I think one of the most important things if for the younger ones to feel as though you truly care about them as a person. They're more likely to listen and respect you later on."

Learning how to deal with the younger ones was like first becoming a parent. Nobody was perfect when they started, and it was certain that mistakes were going to be made, though hopefully nothing too devastating. As with parenting, some people were better at it then others, and then there were those who shouldn't even think about it.

"After learning how to mix in emotions when addressing the younger ones, then comes learning when it is best to keep emotions out of it. Such as those times when discipline is needed. However, that doesn't mean that a person can't offer emotional suppose after the fact. A bit of reinsurance that you still care about them and are looking out for them."

She had seen how Alesku handled the younger ones, and although she didn't always agree with it, she would admit that it did work for him. every person had their own ways to do things, and each fitted to work best for them. Though time and experience did help to evolve how a person responded.

"Everything comes in time and with patience. I'm certain that you'll adjust to these roles just fine. You've always been able to handle what has been given to you and adapted in order to keep yourself balanced as a person and a Pilot."

[Anonymous]

Alesku could feel his face warming, and he knew his cheeks had probably turned pink.  Sometimes praise did that.  It made him uneasy, uncomfortable, and embarrassed.  He'd been told 'well done' too many times, maybe.  He didn't have much patience for it.  

He sipped his tea and shrugged.  "It's probably a failing that I've always thought criticism more honest than reassurance," he said finally.  "Maybe because what we notice is not what's right but what's wrong.  If we're honest.  And might as well point it out."  

That was one of the difference between human beings and Dragons, a difference Calliope had great difficulty explaining to him at first.  Dragons saw things in order: both how they were and a thousand ways they could be.  Human beings were blinded by shoulds instead, and blind outside of them.  They didn't have the huge, encompassing structure of the Network.  

"... or maybe I just think that way because I'm a Seeker now."  Alesku shrugged philosophically.  "Well, it's my job.  Thanks again for the tea."  He looked at his watch.

[shinigamikitsune]

Callista smiled when she caught the light dusting of pink across Alesku's cheeks. It wasn't often that a person could actually catch the stoic Pilot in such a state, but she'd always found it nice when she could. It was even better when the result hadn't been one that was expected or hoped for.

She nodded as he spoke, then gave a little shrug. "Criticism can be more effective then reassurance at times, as long as it is given in a constructive manner. Though I don't think it's just that we notice what's wrong over what's right. I think it's more that we point out the parts that need improvement in order to guide the younglings in a way to better improve themselves, and hopefully succeed." Although candidates being TRIMed was nothing that could be avoided, that didn't mean the Pilots couldn't help them along to try to teach them in the areas they needed improvement in hopes that they wouldn't be TRIMed.

"Either way, now that you are a Seeker, I believe that you are learning to adapt to this new responsibility you've taken on. I know it's not for everybody, and many Pilots do not want to put in the time, or they unfortunately can not find the time around their initial responsibilities." Such as herself. Though working in the Infirmary was rewarding enough for her, and she knew that her job was just as important, if in a very different way. "Though I am certain that you have the skills and are more then ready to be able to integrate being a Seeker into your life."

Callista smiled softly as she started to pack up the tea. The cookies she'd leave for Alesku to take with him. "As always, thank you for the conversation. I always do look forward to these little breaks of ours. However short they might be."