[Log] Planning
Who: E'sere, Lucian
When: Day 12, Month 4, Turn 3, 7th Pass
Where: A Room, Five Mines Hold
What: E'sere 'runs into' Lucian again. They talk.
Five Mines is a hard-working kind of place. By mid-morning, most of its residents have dispersed around the mountain to tend their various chores, leaving the hold proper fairly empty. Not entirely empty, though, as the soft sound of gitar-strumming attests: the hold's resident harper, whose only chore seems to be waiting on Odern and livening the workers with evening song, has retreated to a small sitting room to practice and wile away the hours. The open doorway frames him at his work, sitting on an old wooden chair and taking experimental plucks at the strings of his gitar, tuning it tenderly.
Donavon, having spent his evening passing himself off as a new refugee and making friends with the lower orders, disappears with most of the work crews early, leaving E'sere on his own to poke around the Hold proper. The bronzerider has wandered, passed greetings to the few people he encounters, but for the most part laid low, as the more recognizable and notorious figure. Now, heading down one tunnel, he pauses at the sound of the guitar, a slow, pleased smile spreading across his face before he turns toward the sound and goes to loiter at the doorway, not interrupting Lucian for the moment.
Lucian continues twisting at his strings for a little while, but he doesn't have a harper's ear for nothing. "Bronzerider," he says, lifting his eyes to the presence at the door only after he's guessed its identity. Finding himself correct, he twangs three little notes, musical echoes of his delight to find himself correct. When he speaks again, however, he flattens his palm over the strings to stop their vibrating hum. "How does the morning treat you?"
"Journeyman," E'sere adopts the title when his own is used. He slips further into the room then, toward Lucian, and adds, "Don't let me interrupt you if you're busy. I was just looking around a little and the sound intrigued me. The morning goes well, though. A little dull, at present--it seems strange to be missing chores on the island--but the relaxation is nice. How are you?"
"Interrupt me, interrupt me," Lucian begs with a trickling smile. "I can put my guitar away. I dislike the men who insist on playing while they speak; I find it - trite." His smile dances higher as he punctuates the word with a sweet strum on said guitar, but no sooner has the chord sounded than his long, slim fingers slip up to the neck of the guitar and transfer it away, leaning it gently against the side of his chair. While turned to do that, he lifts his gaze back to E'sere. "To answer your question," rather belatedly, "I am well."
E'sere breaks into a smile himself, nodding. "All right, then, if you insist. I have to say, it's good to run into someone I've met before--so many new people here, even if they've mostly gone to work. It's almost overwhelming, really, after months with only the same people over and over." he notes lightly, shoulders lifting. "Have you been here long, Lucian?"
The guitar set aside, Lucian begins to fold his hands together over his lap - but it occurs to him that he's not being a good impromptu host. Unlike Odern's chamber, this room has plenty of chairs, and he lifts a permissive gesture at one with a raised brow to invite E'sere to sit. "I have been here three months. And you, on your island - half a turn, if I recall? Or am I wrong?" A simple smile allows the possibility that he may very well be.
"Thank you," E'sere says as he moves to seat himself, pulling up one of the chairs and sliding into it with a pleased smile--there was a day when chairs weren't such luxuries to him. Now, he looks back to Lucian from that position, nodding slightly. "That's right, yes. It was month nine of last turn that I went there, though... Well." Whatever he was going to say, he brushes off with an airy gesture. "I should thank you, by the way, for last night. I'm afraid I've brought enough problems down on Lord Odern's head that he doesn't particularly care to entertain me now; I think you saved my mission."
His duties as a host fulfilled, Lucian laces his hands together and sets them lightly over his lap. The shift into a thanks has his eyebrows going up, but a smile is quick to follow them and bring what appears to be genuine pleasure to the expression. "I'm glad to have been of use, to you and my lord. Do you think, then, that your - leader -" his smile brightens for the word - "will be pleased by the outcome?"
"Much use indeed," agrees E'sere, nodding. "And--I do hope so," is added after a moment, as he leans back more comfortably in his chair, enjoying it. "Though his reactions are somewhat difficult to predict--moreso than Lord Odern's, I think. It seems to me--" and he leans forward now, almost conspiratorially "--that whatever one suggests to Lord Odern, he is against it. It takes him time, and a bit of wheedling persuasion, to bring him around to new ideas, yes?"
Lucian's teeth appear, just barely, nipping childishly at his lower lip. A spark of the same excitement that animated him when their meeting with Odern first began reappears, though by the time he's shifted in his chair, responding to that conspiratorial lean, it has been muffled again. "My lord enjoys being correct," he responds. "All ideas are his own." The excitement breaks loose, and his teeth reappear on his lower lip. "You are planning?"
"Most men do," agrees E'sere, nodding once, and starting to lean back again, a move he pauses to look again at Lucian, one brow arching. "Planning?" he returns innocuously.
Lucian draws back, his hands winding together as he sets them on his knee. "Planning," he confirms, tilting a look down at his fingers. He wiggles the tips of them, amusing himself while he speaks. "Why else does one ask how to convince a man to do something?" His smile lifts back to E'sere briefly.
"In case one should need to plan, of course," returns E'sere, with a smile that tilts just a little crooked, amused. "It seems prudent to be prepared, in this day."
Lucian's turns his attention wholly back to E'sere this time, his lips parting for a full-on grin. "Precisely," he responds, settling his fingers calmly on his knees. "Perhaps your leader will accept this idea, perhaps not, but a man must know how to bargain. Hmm?"
"Indeed," agrees E'sere, smile broadening as he leans back finally, snuggling into the chair again to watch Lucian once more. "I imagine, whether our leader chooses to accept or not, there will be more negotiations in our future."
The prospect delights Lucian, clearly, the sincere spark returning to his eyes. His grin fades, covering the teeth again, but his smile only seems to stretch the broader for it. "Renegades and exiles, then, perhaps not so unalike as they may seem."
"No, I don't think so," says E'sere with a faint shake of his head. Then, he pauses, smile dimming slightly as something comes to his mind. He asks then, "Lord Odern mentioned his rules, but seemed loathe to clarify them for me. Would you, Lucian? If you're at liberty to say?" He arches a brow, smile returning.
The use of his name causes Lucian's smile to stretch a little wider, but there it reaches critical mass and must collapse back in on itself, leaving only the ready shadow of a smile upon his lips. "He clarified them insofar as they exist," the harper responds easily. He lifts his hands from his knee and begins to tick off points on the tips of his long fingers. "Loyalty. Obedience. Deference. A motto for life."
"One our leader already lives by," agrees E'sere, nodding, his smile pleased as well. "I hope that those similarities will make him more willing to consider the offer, or make any... future transitions easier. We've our own codes, but they aren't any different, I don't think, than what any other leader would expect of his people."
There's a tiny shiver, controlled but not suppressed. Lucian stretches his fingers out, sweeping them in a vague gesture of agreement, then clutching his knee. "Then I don't foresee any problem." Yet he smiles at this, a secretive smile that's soon banished in favor of an intense examination, his head tilted to one side as he watches E'sere. "You must tell me what it is like, sometime," he adds in a murmur. "Your island."
"I would be happy to," E'sere returns easily, scooting back in his chair and resting left ankle atop his opposite knee, posture relaxed. He adds, after another moment of regarding Lucian, "You'll have to tell me more about Five Mines, too. I'm quite curious--I'm not familiar with the area more than flying over it."
"I can tell you what a harper knows, but what a native thinks -" Lucian allows the idea to trail off into nothingness, giving his fingers a little waggle. "No matter. It has a history of nearing death, and Odern is not the only one to have brought in renegades to bolster his head count. So long as one lives respectably, and works reliably, Five Mines is willing to forget. You spoke of chores," he says, apropos of nothing. "They have you do chores?" A curious, sweeping glance appraises the neat clothing E'sere has scrounged up for this visit, and lands expectantly on his face.
Apparently as fascinated with news of Five Mines as Lucian is with that of the islands, E'sere nods slowly, thoughtful as he takes in what the harper says. "A harper--any outsider, can often see things the natives cannot," he notes lightly. "Though I'm sure the opposite holds just as true." He's silent a moment, then, recalling the question put to him, nods once. "That's right, we do," he shares. "It's all we have to do, really. Gather wood, fish, cook, drill for Thread--we riders, at least. The things necessary for our survival."
Lucian allows for the value of his outsider's perspective with a gentle incline of his head, though even so the movement does not break his gaze from E'sere. "Not chores a bronzerider is trained for," he muses, absent smile curling higher. "But you do them as well."
"I do them as well," concedes E'sere, dipping his head in acknowledgement of that fact. "We all do. We do not have the resources for any to not--and anyway, we do not believe in not pulling one's own weight."
"A bronze pulls a great deal of weight," Lucian says. His tug of a smile suggests this is a joke, for all that the intense interest never leaves his eyes, throwing it off somewhat.
"Only in fish and lumber," quips E'sere in return, with a dry smile.
"Admirable," Lucian answers. His hands stir on his lap, the fingers twitching till he winds them together and forcibly holds them still. "And curious. I look forward to hearing more about this island, someday."
"Then I hope you get that opportunity, Lucian," says E'sere as he starts to unfold himself from his chair, rising. "I'm sure I've kept you tied up too long, however; you have other things requiring your attention." He smiles slightly, amused--by 'things' he likely means 'Odern.'
Perhaps Lucian gets the joke, for now a real amusement tips into his smile, sparkling with mischief. "I'm sure," he says, yet it is to his guitar that he reaches, simply closing his fingers around it. "Yet it has been a pleasure. May you your stay worthwhile."
E'sere dips his head once to Lucian, offers a last smile and a parting, "Good day, Lucian." Then, he turns to stroll out, unhurried, to continue his explorations of Five Mines.