I wouldn't know
Aivey and Derek confer about Five Mines. Aivey asks a question she probably shouldn't. Derek answers.
Like most of the displaced exiles now refugee at Five Mines, Derek takes occasional shifts of labor. He works most often in the shallow, long fields planted on the ledges up the south-facing slope of the pit, and sometimes, from up there, he stops and looks down into the bowl below. Sometimes, he catches sight of something to stop his toil over and jump down the levels to the stone floor of the mine, someone to speak to or something more in need of doing than the farmwork - which makes those around him sometimes uncomfortable to have him doing - he keeps himself entertained with.
He's the only one up there this late in the day, with the red-gold of sunseat leaking in over the mountains to the west. And something catches his eye, down on the mine floor. So Derek leaps down, pausing once on flat rock to put one hand into the small of his back and stretch, then starts out for the hold's poorly-defined 'courtyard.'
Aivey has no need to work in the pits. Visiting them is another matter entirely, and though she's done so on occasion, today is not one of those occasions. So it comes to be that she's in the courtyard, at an angle not kind to the entranceway of the mine shaft though this is soon remedied as her progress takes her further into the area and into view. A cloth is wrapped around her head, doubled as a cap with a twin-tail; one hangs down across her back, the other dangles over her shoulder. Her clothes are stained with the days work - tiny bits of dried food and food byproducts adorn the apron tied about her waist while a pale, dusty grime colors the front of her shirt. As she walks, she massages her shoulder and watches her feet.
It might be Aivey herself Derek saw from the fields; it is, certainly, she that he approaches once he's into the shadow of the Hold. He speaks her name in little more than a whisper, though with the air still in anticipation of a storm and the courtyard mostly deserted by people preparing for evening meal, she might hear him anyway. No matter: he turns into her path and waits there for her to look up, or find him otherwise waiting.
Aivey's reaction to hearing her name is a subtle lifting of her eyes and a search for the source. That it's her father she finds draws an immediate spark therein, and the slightest brightening of her features. Surely it can't be helped or even realized, otherwise she might make some effort at curbing it. And yet the only thing she curbs is her original destination, for she now aims for him. Her hand is dropped to her side, her posture straightened and any sores that balk at such treatment are promptly ignored. As she gets closer, there's a definite sweep of her attention over him; assessing not so much for risk as general well being.
Derek is several things she has never seen him. Dressed - if not like a captain or a leader or a lord, at least like someone who owns more than one shirt - in long sleeves and clean (above the ankles, which are dusty) pants, leather boots new and polished at some point before his wandering through the cropbeds above. He is no longer sunburned; the fact that he often was, before, becoming obvious only by its absence now. Some of his weariness has left him, despite the fact that his back obviously does not appreciate weeding as a pasttime. "You've been - cooking," he suggests, with a glance over her that assesses, if not for general well-being, at least for clues.
Aivey's amusement is evident, "I don't think they'd call what I did cooking. It's edible, though." She thumbs the edge of the apron, briefly breaking sight with her father to look at the stains, "Mines, right?" Is her next askance, and it comes with a float of her eyes from those new boots, to his highwaters to the shirt and eventually back to his eyes. The lack of weariness might not be commented on, though it is noticed and earns a gentle, half-smile. She is, on the whole - well and whole; her clothes are still cast-offs, shoes as dusty and dirty as the cuffs of her too-long pants. A long sleeve shirt is cinched at the waist with a knot, though it is still obviously a size (if not more) too large.
"Fields," corrects Derek, with a wince. "Open air." His head turns without taking the focus of his eyes with it, but the direction his features face is up the south-facing slope, where the Hold grows crops in levels. "I need to keep an eye out, for now. Aivey." He speaks her name again, more or less in the same manner he did the first time: quiet, a call to attention. His eyes shift, and then his body, and he takes a step in that direction, toward the wall of the Hold. "What do you make of it here?"
"More than one. More than two." Aivey agrees solemnly. She waits until Derek has taken that full step before following, and its as though she's stepped from one shell to another in that move for all that her entire demeanor changes. "It wouldn't take much for unwanted company to make themselves welcome. Help themselves to whatever they wanted," Aivey's focus falls on a point just above and to the side of her father's head - the skyline and where it pales against the mountains - "That there are a few pits I wouldn't mind storing some people in - wouldn't really be opposed to that idea in general, either." Her reply is direct though still hesitant, if over her fathers assessment is not yet obvious.
"Better be cold ones." Derek deadpans this, but adds on for clarity, "Otherwise the smell might be unpleasant." He walks along toward the hold structure, a place beneath the Threadfall shutters of the second-floor windows apparently beckoning him with shadow from the sky. "We're not here to use this place up and dry it out. It needs to last us a while. Can turn people to thinking our way?"
"A tad unpleasant," Aivey agrees without skipping a beat. To his later, she nods. "Without a doubt. I don't know their names, yet, but there's a small handful. Not everyone here is in love with Odern. They abide because they have no other choice." An idle scratch at the back of her neck hazards, "Getting people won't prove a problem. It's the handful *he* has that will."
"Identify them, then. The problems. Not just the reluctant. Not those who'll follow anyone who's offered. They don't bother me." Derek stops walking by the hold wall, turning to face Aivey with a solemn stare. "Make a list in your mind and bring it to me." A pause. The stare narrows; as he has done before it might seem that Derek tries to read his daughter, to judge her, by simply looking into her skull. His voice is suddenly sandy: "Nera's our leader, now."
"A man with an unhealthy interest in young kids... Dumal, I heard him called. A couple of the women I work with; Sinya - a tall blonde with ample assets to get nearly any man on her side, and her sister Dina. They think Odern is - they think of him first and will do what it takes to keep him there. Jakin... he works the pits and I haven't seen a man he works with turn their back to him. A man I saw when we first arrived, but he's slippy. I can't find much on him, yet. There's a few we came with," A gentle break there, met with Aivey hesitating for all of a second to garner his reaction, "A man or two who spent too long on the bad side of the island. They'd be where I'd start." She stills with that short list, trying to still measure up to Derek's assessment, trying not to reveal terribly much at the unveiling of the new leader save for a committed nod.
Derek tips up his head and rolls his eyes skyward as Aivey begins her already-prepared list. Exasperation, or calling her attention to the windows they stand below, take your pick; he looks back at his daughter in a moment's time. "The bad side of the island," he replies, at length, voice soft, "was the Alley. But I know what we brought with us, yes. I intend to prove them here, or finish our acquaintances, soon."
Neither Aivey's focus nor her features change come Derek's reaction to their position and her ill-timed reply. There's only another nod, a showing of acceptance with what her father has declared. She makes but one request, and it's as soft spoken as ever. "Be careful." Not expecting or wanting an immediate reply to that, she adds, "If we get guests?"
To Aivey's question, Derek smiles. Really: it shapes his moustache with curls in the corners and betrays the existence of at least his lower lip and a few teeth. It lasts for an instant, unmissable. "I couldn't be happier," he replies. "I only hope for good ones. If they send numbers - well. It's my Lord Odern who's responsible for handling that." The smile comes again, twice in as many minutes, and yet Pern does not tremble.
"Your Lord Odern," Aivey repeats, only barely maintaining a mirror of Derek's smile. Sans teeth and motivation as it's entirely reflexive of his. "I am entirely comforted, knowing that." Possibly it's true. Most likely it's not. What is asked next is quite possibly the most obscure question of the entire conversation. "Are you happy?"
Derek is entirely pleased that Aivey is (not) entirely comforted. It does -him- no harm, anyway. But her question breaks his smile, and then it breaks his demeanor, too. The onetime island king turns halfway from her, his face going dangerously blank. He does, however, come up with an answer; it's delivered in a voice too high and sweet and faraway. "I wouldn't know." His eyes come back to her but barely, from their corners. "Look out for new faces, Aivey." That serves, it seems, as his farewell; after it, he strikes out for the hill again, maybe unnerved.
Aivey tips a nod in his direction, seen or not, it is confirmation on the farewell. She lingers under the window, watching his back until it's no longer important to do so. And then she tilts her head back, casts her eyes up to the window before rolling her shoulder against the stone of the building. It's into the building she heads after turning from her father.
Like most of the displaced exiles now refugee at Five Mines, Derek takes occasional shifts of labor. He works most often in the shallow, long fields planted on the ledges up the south-facing slope of the pit, and sometimes, from up there, he stops and looks down into the bowl below. Sometimes, he catches sight of something to stop his toil over and jump down the levels to the stone floor of the mine, someone to speak to or something more in need of doing than the farmwork - which makes those around him sometimes uncomfortable to have him doing - he keeps himself entertained with.
He's the only one up there this late in the day, with the red-gold of sunseat leaking in over the mountains to the west. And something catches his eye, down on the mine floor. So Derek leaps down, pausing once on flat rock to put one hand into the small of his back and stretch, then starts out for the hold's poorly-defined 'courtyard.'
Aivey has no need to work in the pits. Visiting them is another matter entirely, and though she's done so on occasion, today is not one of those occasions. So it comes to be that she's in the courtyard, at an angle not kind to the entranceway of the mine shaft though this is soon remedied as her progress takes her further into the area and into view. A cloth is wrapped around her head, doubled as a cap with a twin-tail; one hangs down across her back, the other dangles over her shoulder. Her clothes are stained with the days work - tiny bits of dried food and food byproducts adorn the apron tied about her waist while a pale, dusty grime colors the front of her shirt. As she walks, she massages her shoulder and watches her feet.
It might be Aivey herself Derek saw from the fields; it is, certainly, she that he approaches once he's into the shadow of the Hold. He speaks her name in little more than a whisper, though with the air still in anticipation of a storm and the courtyard mostly deserted by people preparing for evening meal, she might hear him anyway. No matter: he turns into her path and waits there for her to look up, or find him otherwise waiting.
Aivey's reaction to hearing her name is a subtle lifting of her eyes and a search for the source. That it's her father she finds draws an immediate spark therein, and the slightest brightening of her features. Surely it can't be helped or even realized, otherwise she might make some effort at curbing it. And yet the only thing she curbs is her original destination, for she now aims for him. Her hand is dropped to her side, her posture straightened and any sores that balk at such treatment are promptly ignored. As she gets closer, there's a definite sweep of her attention over him; assessing not so much for risk as general well being.
Derek is several things she has never seen him. Dressed - if not like a captain or a leader or a lord, at least like someone who owns more than one shirt - in long sleeves and clean (above the ankles, which are dusty) pants, leather boots new and polished at some point before his wandering through the cropbeds above. He is no longer sunburned; the fact that he often was, before, becoming obvious only by its absence now. Some of his weariness has left him, despite the fact that his back obviously does not appreciate weeding as a pasttime. "You've been - cooking," he suggests, with a glance over her that assesses, if not for general well-being, at least for clues.
Aivey's amusement is evident, "I don't think they'd call what I did cooking. It's edible, though." She thumbs the edge of the apron, briefly breaking sight with her father to look at the stains, "Mines, right?" Is her next askance, and it comes with a float of her eyes from those new boots, to his highwaters to the shirt and eventually back to his eyes. The lack of weariness might not be commented on, though it is noticed and earns a gentle, half-smile. She is, on the whole - well and whole; her clothes are still cast-offs, shoes as dusty and dirty as the cuffs of her too-long pants. A long sleeve shirt is cinched at the waist with a knot, though it is still obviously a size (if not more) too large.
"Fields," corrects Derek, with a wince. "Open air." His head turns without taking the focus of his eyes with it, but the direction his features face is up the south-facing slope, where the Hold grows crops in levels. "I need to keep an eye out, for now. Aivey." He speaks her name again, more or less in the same manner he did the first time: quiet, a call to attention. His eyes shift, and then his body, and he takes a step in that direction, toward the wall of the Hold. "What do you make of it here?"
"More than one. More than two." Aivey agrees solemnly. She waits until Derek has taken that full step before following, and its as though she's stepped from one shell to another in that move for all that her entire demeanor changes. "It wouldn't take much for unwanted company to make themselves welcome. Help themselves to whatever they wanted," Aivey's focus falls on a point just above and to the side of her father's head - the skyline and where it pales against the mountains - "That there are a few pits I wouldn't mind storing some people in - wouldn't really be opposed to that idea in general, either." Her reply is direct though still hesitant, if over her fathers assessment is not yet obvious.
"Better be cold ones." Derek deadpans this, but adds on for clarity, "Otherwise the smell might be unpleasant." He walks along toward the hold structure, a place beneath the Threadfall shutters of the second-floor windows apparently beckoning him with shadow from the sky. "We're not here to use this place up and dry it out. It needs to last us a while. Can turn people to thinking our way?"
"A tad unpleasant," Aivey agrees without skipping a beat. To his later, she nods. "Without a doubt. I don't know their names, yet, but there's a small handful. Not everyone here is in love with Odern. They abide because they have no other choice." An idle scratch at the back of her neck hazards, "Getting people won't prove a problem. It's the handful *he* has that will."
"Identify them, then. The problems. Not just the reluctant. Not those who'll follow anyone who's offered. They don't bother me." Derek stops walking by the hold wall, turning to face Aivey with a solemn stare. "Make a list in your mind and bring it to me." A pause. The stare narrows; as he has done before it might seem that Derek tries to read his daughter, to judge her, by simply looking into her skull. His voice is suddenly sandy: "Nera's our leader, now."
"A man with an unhealthy interest in young kids... Dumal, I heard him called. A couple of the women I work with; Sinya - a tall blonde with ample assets to get nearly any man on her side, and her sister Dina. They think Odern is - they think of him first and will do what it takes to keep him there. Jakin... he works the pits and I haven't seen a man he works with turn their back to him. A man I saw when we first arrived, but he's slippy. I can't find much on him, yet. There's a few we came with," A gentle break there, met with Aivey hesitating for all of a second to garner his reaction, "A man or two who spent too long on the bad side of the island. They'd be where I'd start." She stills with that short list, trying to still measure up to Derek's assessment, trying not to reveal terribly much at the unveiling of the new leader save for a committed nod.
Derek tips up his head and rolls his eyes skyward as Aivey begins her already-prepared list. Exasperation, or calling her attention to the windows they stand below, take your pick; he looks back at his daughter in a moment's time. "The bad side of the island," he replies, at length, voice soft, "was the Alley. But I know what we brought with us, yes. I intend to prove them here, or finish our acquaintances, soon."
Neither Aivey's focus nor her features change come Derek's reaction to their position and her ill-timed reply. There's only another nod, a showing of acceptance with what her father has declared. She makes but one request, and it's as soft spoken as ever. "Be careful." Not expecting or wanting an immediate reply to that, she adds, "If we get guests?"
To Aivey's question, Derek smiles. Really: it shapes his moustache with curls in the corners and betrays the existence of at least his lower lip and a few teeth. It lasts for an instant, unmissable. "I couldn't be happier," he replies. "I only hope for good ones. If they send numbers - well. It's my Lord Odern who's responsible for handling that." The smile comes again, twice in as many minutes, and yet Pern does not tremble.
"Your Lord Odern," Aivey repeats, only barely maintaining a mirror of Derek's smile. Sans teeth and motivation as it's entirely reflexive of his. "I am entirely comforted, knowing that." Possibly it's true. Most likely it's not. What is asked next is quite possibly the most obscure question of the entire conversation. "Are you happy?"
Derek is entirely pleased that Aivey is (not) entirely comforted. It does -him- no harm, anyway. But her question breaks his smile, and then it breaks his demeanor, too. The onetime island king turns halfway from her, his face going dangerously blank. He does, however, come up with an answer; it's delivered in a voice too high and sweet and faraway. "I wouldn't know." His eyes come back to her but barely, from their corners. "Look out for new faces, Aivey." That serves, it seems, as his farewell; after it, he strikes out for the hill again, maybe unnerved.
Aivey tips a nod in his direction, seen or not, it is confirmation on the farewell. She lingers under the window, watching his back until it's no longer important to do so. And then she tilts her head back, casts her eyes up to the window before rolling her shoulder against the stone of the building. It's into the building she heads after turning from her father.