Too little, too late
Derek comes across J'lor and a long-overdue conversation regarding the revelations of the all-exile conference and vote takes place. Fuckups occur. You can almost feel the doom creeping in.
The late afternoon finds islanders (riders, weyrlings and non-riders alike) finishing their chores before dinner will be laid out. J'lor is no different from any of the others, although Vellath wings far overhead with a passel of young dragons from Diya's clutch zipping behind him. The sight has occasionally caused more than one islander to stop and watch. Aerial flashes of bronze amid blue, green, and brown is still an unusual enough sight to be worth observing for a minute or two. The bluerider is working on one of the boats. The rudder has several spots that are beginning to rot through, and J'lor is in the process of whittling out the small concentrations of rotten wood.
Derek follows, in his slow and meandering way, the path of the dragons above. They zip; he watches their shadows morph and distort along the grass and rocks, then walks where those shapes had been. In time he winds down to the beach, pausing once there to pick up each foot and slip off his sandals, one by one. He walks again, then, head down and hands busy. He cleans, meticulously, stuck leaves and grains of sand from his poor, ragged footwear. He then unties one of their straps and loops it through those of the other, reknotting it. Then the sandals can hang by his fingertips as he walks, and he raises his head again.
Well, hello, here's J'lor only a few feet ahead with an upsy-daisy boat. Derek regards this work, and the workman, with an empty, mock-surprised expression for some long minutes before exhaling softly, as though his breath had been held. "Going somewhere?"
The bluerider is either oblivious or in denial. He continues to work at the rotten wood through Derek's soft arrival, his fussing with his sandals, and even his sudden proximity. It isn't until the mustached man speaks that J'lor looks up and over, the blade in his hand pausing so as not to jab anything unintended. "Yes, certainly," comes that warm and rolling tenor. "Just as soon as the rudder's ready and I've flipped her back over, I'll be making sail." One brow arching, he returns to his work.
Derek's fingers, the ones on which his sandals are hung, curl and uncurl, a lazy flexing that makes the sandals swing back and forth. "Better take some provisions. I have some dried mussels, if you'd like them." Swing, swing, swing. His gaze falls upon the rudder, then slips far enough along it to focus on the rider's working hands. "You probably have whatever you need from Nera, I suppose."
"I'm sure dried mussels and my own thoughts will get me there," J'lor agrees amiably. "They've sustained me this long." He runs a calloused thumb over the light wood, now that the brown spot has been carved away. With a small nod, he begins on the next.
"At least we've been able to share the mussels," Derek further supposes, voice amicable, a little bit sweet. The sandals swing beside his hip, forth and back, fro and to. "You'll be missed."
It is the sweetness that has a bluerider stopping yet again and regarding Derek. On the island leader, sweetness is unbecoming. "S'val's not getting any better," the weyrlingmaster says a bit suddenly. "The healer doesn't know what he's got, but it's not what she originally thought he's got. She says she doesn't have what she needs to treat him. Treanth isn't eating."
Derek nods, then nods again, then again - three of J'lor's points are unsurprising. But the last one, about the dragon, have the island leader looking up with a blink. "That's bad," he infers, more sandy than sweet, a bit quieter, perhaps even respectful. He looks on J'lor for a moment, then with a little flip of his hand sends the sandals off to the side. They land in the sand with a soft thump, and Derek untucks from his pocket his ancient penknife, worn mother-of-pearl flashing softly in the light. "What -does- she need?"
"She has a list. Various mainland herbs in unspecified but copious quantities. As she doesn't know what he has, she doesn't know how to treat it. She'd need raw materials to experiment with. I don't..." J'lor falls quiet to stab a bit more at the rot, shoving dark brown and softened wood off and away. "I don't know how we're going to move him. I'm...afraid there will not be a need, soon."
"'Copious quantities' meaning more than we could stuff into a dragon's pack, or something a bit more reasonable?" Derek unfolds the penknife and steps up to the side of the boat across from J'lor, reaching out a weathered fingertip to test with thickened nail at a dark spot in the rudder. "Best thing sounds like it's to get him over it before moving's an issue. You just carving the bad stuff out, or is there some design intended for what's left behind?"
"Just carve it out. Then I'll remove rudder, sand it down, cover the whole thing with resin. Extra over the holes so it's even." J'lor lifts his chin so he can peer at Derek over the rudder. "Treanth isn't eating. It's already an issue. He hasn't been lucid in several days now." The bluerider shakes his head. "I think most of it could fit into a dragon's pack. It depends on the herb. There's one, you need a lot of it to boil it down into a very small amount of actual medicine. We could send someone to ask Odern."
"Before -moving's- an issue," repeats Derek, the emphasis careful, as though he might not have been heard or understood. -Moving.- Not moving. -Moving;- it's different. "She can't even get the fever down?" He adjusts his hand on the rudder, keeping it well away from the angle of J'lor's larger knife's aim, and puts out his own blade to start prying out soft, decayed wood. "I assume she's spoken to your goldrider."
"We haven't the medicine to get him over it," J'lor replies quietly. "No. She cannot. And yes. She has." The dark wood gets a firm stab and with a final twist, another bit of waterlogged wood is freed.
Derek's hands lie still for a moment, while J'lor stabs so hard at the other side of the rudder; thus the island king keeps his worn hands safe from accident, and after goes back to prying out rot. "No guarantee Odern has what we need," he observes, among the soft sounds of knives and wood.
The bluerider runs his hand over his side of the rudder which is now dimpled with small divots but free of bad wood. "Well we know for certain -we- haven't got it," J'lor replies tersely. "I don't see what harm asking will do."
"It's a trip," Derek says, tilting his head to the side for a better squint at the divot he's now hollowing carefully out of the side of the rudder, making of it some fibrous sort of swiss cheese. "Every trip's a risk. Of course, sending one rider and a couple of men on foot's not much, by comparison. An acceptable risk, I'm sure."
"Whenever you say 'I'm sure', what you mean is that you think I'm being unreasonable," is J'lor's assessment of Derek's gentle words. "What should we do, then? He won't last much longer, if something does not change."
"No," says Derek, simply. Correction, reply, and command all in one. He pauses in his carving, the knife blade still set into the hollow spot in the rudder, and looks up from his hands to J'lor's face. His own is grim, stern, and something else. Mournful, in his way - eyes unblinking, grey and distant; mouth drooped, but tense. "I think you've been unreasonable," he lets out in a voiceless breath, emphasis on the change of tense.
Brief confusion dissolves into sudden and sharp understanding. "Oh," J'lor murmurs, his eyes darting quickly beyond Derek and to the beach. checking to make sure that no extra bodies are quietly creeping closer. But finding none, he clears his throat and says, "I was wondering when you'd have something to say about that."
Derek's gaze, now focused, does not stray. His expression improves, however - if straying from grim and mournful to merely offended can be considered improvement. It is, certainly, less threatening. "I was wondering when you would," he offers, one thick brow lifting in its artificial way.
"I wasn't," is the bluerider's blunt reply, his dark eyes lowering to the rudder. "It's done now."
"I see," replies Derek, and looks back down at the rudder. After a moment's staring consideration, his knife moves again, and the soft whisper of wood being carved away - presumably it is rotten stuff - substitutes for speech.
"I didn't..." J'lor clears his throat. Apparently silence was not expected. Not, at least, from this particular man. "It was important to me. That it get done. Telgar was my home."
Shhhk. Shhhhk. Sssshk. Derek's hands work. His eyes watch them. His breath is slow, steady, and any sound it might make is swallowed by the susurrus of the sea.
So there is quiet. And staring at a boat. And, occasionally, J'lor's weight being shifted from one foot to the other.
"You're under the impression," says Derek, in a while, perhaps once he's sure the bluerider's as uncomfortable as he can possibly make him without touching or looking at him, "I'd have done something to -stop- you?"
"Are you suggesting you wouldn't have?" J'lor counters, a touch incredulous. "You didn't even want us flying over Nabol, let alone interfering with mainland Weyr politics."
"Flying over Nabol was thirty dragons with no chance of secrecy," whispers Derek across the rudder, drawing back his knife with a snap, folding it into his palm. The other hand remains on the boat, slipping from the rudder to the curve of the hull to rest there, twitching. He looks up now, eyes cloudy, the sky's blue gone all out of them. "And I didn't stop you."
"Yes," J'lor agrees quietly "but you could have." He reaches his hands around the rudder and hefts upwards. Fasteners already loosened, the piece of wood comes free and J'lor steps backwards, crouches, and sets it on the sand.
"Your logic escapes me," Derek remarks. "I could have stopped you, but didn't. Yet you assume that because I -could- stop you pursuing Telgar, I would have?"
"I'm saying I couldn't risk you trying. And I didn't know. So it seemed safer not to bring it up at all." From his pocket J'lor pulls a piece of sandpaper, or the island's closest approximation. He settles the square onto the rudder and begins smoothing down the whole thing.
"Let's set aside for the moment the fact that it sounds like you're trying to oust an undeserving weyrleader," whispers Derek, drawing back his hand from J'lor's boat so it can twitch beside his hip instead, out of the sun. "And focus only on the fact that it sounds like you're trying to get fair penitence for what was done to Cassiel." Grim, his mouth disappears in a moment's silent press beneath the moustache; his eyes, less beady than they should be, reflect the bent shape of the bluerider, the boat that half-obscures him, the rudder and the coastline, nothing of himself in them at all. "You couldn't risk me -trying?-"
The bluerider's expression has tipped downwards into an unhappy frown as he works the 'sandpaper' over one side of the rudder. But he doesn't say anything more. Boat. Sanding. Can't talk.
Between the sanding and the whisper of the sea, the island king's breath is likely impossible to hear. But that breath comes slow and deep, moving the immovable man's chest, the only thing about him alive while he looks so long, and so silent, upon J'lor with eyes gone dead. Then Derek turns to walk away, sandals left behind.
The bluerider glances up only after Derek's back is turned. He scowls mightily, so much more open with his expressions than the island's current leader. It is not until Derek is nearly out of hearing range, however, that J'lor speaks. "I'm sorry." And then his head lowers, and he goes back to sanding.
The late afternoon finds islanders (riders, weyrlings and non-riders alike) finishing their chores before dinner will be laid out. J'lor is no different from any of the others, although Vellath wings far overhead with a passel of young dragons from Diya's clutch zipping behind him. The sight has occasionally caused more than one islander to stop and watch. Aerial flashes of bronze amid blue, green, and brown is still an unusual enough sight to be worth observing for a minute or two. The bluerider is working on one of the boats. The rudder has several spots that are beginning to rot through, and J'lor is in the process of whittling out the small concentrations of rotten wood.
Derek follows, in his slow and meandering way, the path of the dragons above. They zip; he watches their shadows morph and distort along the grass and rocks, then walks where those shapes had been. In time he winds down to the beach, pausing once there to pick up each foot and slip off his sandals, one by one. He walks again, then, head down and hands busy. He cleans, meticulously, stuck leaves and grains of sand from his poor, ragged footwear. He then unties one of their straps and loops it through those of the other, reknotting it. Then the sandals can hang by his fingertips as he walks, and he raises his head again.
Well, hello, here's J'lor only a few feet ahead with an upsy-daisy boat. Derek regards this work, and the workman, with an empty, mock-surprised expression for some long minutes before exhaling softly, as though his breath had been held. "Going somewhere?"
The bluerider is either oblivious or in denial. He continues to work at the rotten wood through Derek's soft arrival, his fussing with his sandals, and even his sudden proximity. It isn't until the mustached man speaks that J'lor looks up and over, the blade in his hand pausing so as not to jab anything unintended. "Yes, certainly," comes that warm and rolling tenor. "Just as soon as the rudder's ready and I've flipped her back over, I'll be making sail." One brow arching, he returns to his work.
Derek's fingers, the ones on which his sandals are hung, curl and uncurl, a lazy flexing that makes the sandals swing back and forth. "Better take some provisions. I have some dried mussels, if you'd like them." Swing, swing, swing. His gaze falls upon the rudder, then slips far enough along it to focus on the rider's working hands. "You probably have whatever you need from Nera, I suppose."
"I'm sure dried mussels and my own thoughts will get me there," J'lor agrees amiably. "They've sustained me this long." He runs a calloused thumb over the light wood, now that the brown spot has been carved away. With a small nod, he begins on the next.
"At least we've been able to share the mussels," Derek further supposes, voice amicable, a little bit sweet. The sandals swing beside his hip, forth and back, fro and to. "You'll be missed."
It is the sweetness that has a bluerider stopping yet again and regarding Derek. On the island leader, sweetness is unbecoming. "S'val's not getting any better," the weyrlingmaster says a bit suddenly. "The healer doesn't know what he's got, but it's not what she originally thought he's got. She says she doesn't have what she needs to treat him. Treanth isn't eating."
Derek nods, then nods again, then again - three of J'lor's points are unsurprising. But the last one, about the dragon, have the island leader looking up with a blink. "That's bad," he infers, more sandy than sweet, a bit quieter, perhaps even respectful. He looks on J'lor for a moment, then with a little flip of his hand sends the sandals off to the side. They land in the sand with a soft thump, and Derek untucks from his pocket his ancient penknife, worn mother-of-pearl flashing softly in the light. "What -does- she need?"
"She has a list. Various mainland herbs in unspecified but copious quantities. As she doesn't know what he has, she doesn't know how to treat it. She'd need raw materials to experiment with. I don't..." J'lor falls quiet to stab a bit more at the rot, shoving dark brown and softened wood off and away. "I don't know how we're going to move him. I'm...afraid there will not be a need, soon."
"'Copious quantities' meaning more than we could stuff into a dragon's pack, or something a bit more reasonable?" Derek unfolds the penknife and steps up to the side of the boat across from J'lor, reaching out a weathered fingertip to test with thickened nail at a dark spot in the rudder. "Best thing sounds like it's to get him over it before moving's an issue. You just carving the bad stuff out, or is there some design intended for what's left behind?"
"Just carve it out. Then I'll remove rudder, sand it down, cover the whole thing with resin. Extra over the holes so it's even." J'lor lifts his chin so he can peer at Derek over the rudder. "Treanth isn't eating. It's already an issue. He hasn't been lucid in several days now." The bluerider shakes his head. "I think most of it could fit into a dragon's pack. It depends on the herb. There's one, you need a lot of it to boil it down into a very small amount of actual medicine. We could send someone to ask Odern."
"Before -moving's- an issue," repeats Derek, the emphasis careful, as though he might not have been heard or understood. -Moving.- Not moving. -Moving;- it's different. "She can't even get the fever down?" He adjusts his hand on the rudder, keeping it well away from the angle of J'lor's larger knife's aim, and puts out his own blade to start prying out soft, decayed wood. "I assume she's spoken to your goldrider."
"We haven't the medicine to get him over it," J'lor replies quietly. "No. She cannot. And yes. She has." The dark wood gets a firm stab and with a final twist, another bit of waterlogged wood is freed.
Derek's hands lie still for a moment, while J'lor stabs so hard at the other side of the rudder; thus the island king keeps his worn hands safe from accident, and after goes back to prying out rot. "No guarantee Odern has what we need," he observes, among the soft sounds of knives and wood.
The bluerider runs his hand over his side of the rudder which is now dimpled with small divots but free of bad wood. "Well we know for certain -we- haven't got it," J'lor replies tersely. "I don't see what harm asking will do."
"It's a trip," Derek says, tilting his head to the side for a better squint at the divot he's now hollowing carefully out of the side of the rudder, making of it some fibrous sort of swiss cheese. "Every trip's a risk. Of course, sending one rider and a couple of men on foot's not much, by comparison. An acceptable risk, I'm sure."
"Whenever you say 'I'm sure', what you mean is that you think I'm being unreasonable," is J'lor's assessment of Derek's gentle words. "What should we do, then? He won't last much longer, if something does not change."
"No," says Derek, simply. Correction, reply, and command all in one. He pauses in his carving, the knife blade still set into the hollow spot in the rudder, and looks up from his hands to J'lor's face. His own is grim, stern, and something else. Mournful, in his way - eyes unblinking, grey and distant; mouth drooped, but tense. "I think you've been unreasonable," he lets out in a voiceless breath, emphasis on the change of tense.
Brief confusion dissolves into sudden and sharp understanding. "Oh," J'lor murmurs, his eyes darting quickly beyond Derek and to the beach. checking to make sure that no extra bodies are quietly creeping closer. But finding none, he clears his throat and says, "I was wondering when you'd have something to say about that."
Derek's gaze, now focused, does not stray. His expression improves, however - if straying from grim and mournful to merely offended can be considered improvement. It is, certainly, less threatening. "I was wondering when you would," he offers, one thick brow lifting in its artificial way.
"I wasn't," is the bluerider's blunt reply, his dark eyes lowering to the rudder. "It's done now."
"I see," replies Derek, and looks back down at the rudder. After a moment's staring consideration, his knife moves again, and the soft whisper of wood being carved away - presumably it is rotten stuff - substitutes for speech.
"I didn't..." J'lor clears his throat. Apparently silence was not expected. Not, at least, from this particular man. "It was important to me. That it get done. Telgar was my home."
Shhhk. Shhhhk. Sssshk. Derek's hands work. His eyes watch them. His breath is slow, steady, and any sound it might make is swallowed by the susurrus of the sea.
So there is quiet. And staring at a boat. And, occasionally, J'lor's weight being shifted from one foot to the other.
"You're under the impression," says Derek, in a while, perhaps once he's sure the bluerider's as uncomfortable as he can possibly make him without touching or looking at him, "I'd have done something to -stop- you?"
"Are you suggesting you wouldn't have?" J'lor counters, a touch incredulous. "You didn't even want us flying over Nabol, let alone interfering with mainland Weyr politics."
"Flying over Nabol was thirty dragons with no chance of secrecy," whispers Derek across the rudder, drawing back his knife with a snap, folding it into his palm. The other hand remains on the boat, slipping from the rudder to the curve of the hull to rest there, twitching. He looks up now, eyes cloudy, the sky's blue gone all out of them. "And I didn't stop you."
"Yes," J'lor agrees quietly "but you could have." He reaches his hands around the rudder and hefts upwards. Fasteners already loosened, the piece of wood comes free and J'lor steps backwards, crouches, and sets it on the sand.
"Your logic escapes me," Derek remarks. "I could have stopped you, but didn't. Yet you assume that because I -could- stop you pursuing Telgar, I would have?"
"I'm saying I couldn't risk you trying. And I didn't know. So it seemed safer not to bring it up at all." From his pocket J'lor pulls a piece of sandpaper, or the island's closest approximation. He settles the square onto the rudder and begins smoothing down the whole thing.
"Let's set aside for the moment the fact that it sounds like you're trying to oust an undeserving weyrleader," whispers Derek, drawing back his hand from J'lor's boat so it can twitch beside his hip instead, out of the sun. "And focus only on the fact that it sounds like you're trying to get fair penitence for what was done to Cassiel." Grim, his mouth disappears in a moment's silent press beneath the moustache; his eyes, less beady than they should be, reflect the bent shape of the bluerider, the boat that half-obscures him, the rudder and the coastline, nothing of himself in them at all. "You couldn't risk me -trying?-"
The bluerider's expression has tipped downwards into an unhappy frown as he works the 'sandpaper' over one side of the rudder. But he doesn't say anything more. Boat. Sanding. Can't talk.
Between the sanding and the whisper of the sea, the island king's breath is likely impossible to hear. But that breath comes slow and deep, moving the immovable man's chest, the only thing about him alive while he looks so long, and so silent, upon J'lor with eyes gone dead. Then Derek turns to walk away, sandals left behind.
The bluerider glances up only after Derek's back is turned. He scowls mightily, so much more open with his expressions than the island's current leader. It is not until Derek is nearly out of hearing range, however, that J'lor speaks. "I'm sorry." And then his head lowers, and he goes back to sanding.