Window
Location: Small Clearing
Time: Afternoon on Day 25, Month 1, Turn 3
Players: J'lor and Derek
Scene: Derek has heard some things. He tells them to J'lor.
The air is thick and heavy and damp. It turns cloth into sticky, cloying substances and makes breathing comparable to drinking. There is not much respite, save if one is a dragonrider that decides to go flying up above the thickness. J'lor is, but he has not. While the weyrlings are busy with their chores, the weyrlingmaster does some of his own. It is a task he has often been assigned, the repetitive *thwack* *thwack* of the ax suggesting that the bluerider is quite adept at chopping firewood in the small clearing designed for such. His feet are bare, his pants rolled up to his calves, and his shirt lies at the base of a tree in a sloppy heap. Technically, his eyes are on the wood he chops, but there is a glaze to his focus that suggests he has actually turned his gaze inward.
One more suited to carrying rocks might have no cause to come upon J'lor, quiet, on bare and muddied feet at the edge of the clearing; one more suited to carrying rocks might be busy carrying rocks, not standing in silence, grey eyes steady on the rhythmic pull and bunch of ax-throwing muscles in the bluerider's shoulders. But Derek is, though assigned often to it, not more suited to carrying rocks. His breath draws and heaves in time with the axblade's falls, and when J'lor sets aside a piece of wood to place a new one the island leader breathes not at all.
But in time he tires of watching, and pads forth from the shadows of the trees; they cling to him, like the humidity does, and he brings up a hand to wipe moisture from his brow, casting off dark. "J'lor."
*Thwack.* The ax falls again, and the piece of wood tumbles to either side of the stump that serves as a chopping block, split in two. Shirtless, the tension that gathers in his arms and shoulders is obvious, there is no other reason for those muscles to tighten when the ax is at rest. Carefully, they are relaxed and as muscles settle again, the skin smoothes. J'lor lifts his head and peers over at the other man, rocks and all. "Derek."
Those are cast off too, and Derek lurches closer, putting out a hand. An offer for the ax, or a hand, or anything - palm curved, thick fingers gently splayed. "What got you solitary?"
What Derek gets, instead of rocks, it the two pieces of fallen wood and a chinjerk towards the little pile that has begun to amass a few feet away. "Weyrlings," he offers simply. "How to best teach them wing formations. I wish writing hides were more prevalent."
"You mean how to teach them to write their own," says Derek in that high, soft voice that never bodes well for kindness or mercy. "They'd march yours on the ground." And yet there's nothing about this that sounds like disapproval. The island's leader goes pacing a slow, thoughtful path with head tipped down, circling the bluerider with his eyes on the log and the split bits of wood beside it. "Charcoal on walls. Knives and rocks and wood. Sticks and leaves." His eyes travel up from the stump to J'lor's knees, then higher, finding in time his face. "I'm tired, J'lor."
The circling is not exactly appreciated. J'lor works his jaw slowly and swallows once, turning so his back is never exposed to Derek as he moves. "Of course to teach them how to write their own," the bluerider agrees. He nods vaguely at the list of suggestions, one hand flicking them away with a quick gesture. "I know what I can use. I just wish we had more hides." That last, though, has J'lor's brows lifting and his head tipping a little to the side. "We're all tired."
"You should be," replies Derek, still walking; but as he starts this circle, his second, he keeps his eyes on the bluerider's head: face, when that's in sight line; hair, when not. "What if we had someplace to get hides from?"
The bluerider stops his own turning, squaring his shoulders, arms crossing over his chest. "That would be a new development." Those dark eyes meet the grey-blue of Derek's own when his motions allow it and narrow just slightly. "What have you been up to?"
"Nothing new." But Derek stops at the one-eighty point of his circle and looks down again, at the wood that stands between them; then he glances at J'lor's ax. A smile twitches curls into the corners of his mustache. "There's a new Lord at Nabol. Ever wonder what happens to old ones?"
"They sulk, presumably," the bluerider offers. "And I indulge myself in thinking that they briefly wonder if we weren't right after all." His feet shift, heel grinding into the soft dirt beneath it.
"Right on both counts," tosses back Derek, glancing up from the ax at the face of the man who wielded it. "That's how it looks, anyway." On that his eyes narrow, turning sky-blue and beady; he turns away, putting his back to the other man, tipping back his head for a squinting look up into the heavy, oppressive sky.
"This...once Lord of Nabol is sulking and thinking about us?" J'lor asks. Then the ax is still no longer as the bluerider wrenches it upwards and puts it to work again. *Thwack* "What is he thinking, specifically?" *Thwack* "Do you know?"
"He's sulking and thinking about different ways to do things," Derek corrects, though gently. He keeps his head back, but each of the falls of the ax bring his shoulders incrementally higher; the twitching of those muscles is subtle, but their accumulative effect is increasingly tense, and that tension rolls off of Derek like the humidity does. "Seems he's holed up in an old mountain minehold. And he's gathering people. People who aren't happy, I suppose. Not happy with a new lord just being put in, all of a sudden." He raises a hand and shields his eyes so he can stare openly into the sky, as though watchguarding.
"Considering he had no problems with that when he was the old lord," *thwack* The ax stays buried, the combination of speaking and chopping making J'lor just a touch breathless, "I am not sure he suddenly wishes for equal opportunities for all. Still. Change is change."
"Of course not. He wants equal opportunities for the oppressed, and fuck the privileged. It's a common first step." One some men never reach past. Derek turns around so he's facing J'lor, but doesn't make much advantage of facing him - he keeps looking skyward, bringing up his arms to fold them over his chest. "He's looking."
The bluerider draws a slow breath in and then out again. He keeps his eyes on Derek, for once. "Looking," he repeats softly, the word pronounced very precisely. "For." It ought to be a question, it just doesn't come out right.
"An opportunity." Derek finally draws down his gaze and fixes J'lor in it, eyes for eyes.
His mouth opens as if he might say something, but then J'lor closes it again as his gaze drops to examine the ax handle. "There's..." but that doesn't happen either. Dark brows furrow and the bluerider rolls his shoulders. He sucks in another slow breath and lifts his gaze. "We could give him one."
"He could give us one," provides Derek; and then, with a note of concern, frowning up at the man who's his closest counterpart, he adds, "There's...?"
A small shake of J'lor's head. "Nothing," he says. "I lost it, whatever it was going to be." Another swallow. "He could. I don't want to risk a rider winging into the middle of Nabol. Someone who's adept at travel. When thread's just fallen and isn't due to fall again for a time."
"Not the middle. Five Mines. But no rider. I agree." Derek's mustache twitches again into that curling trace of a smile, and he unfolds his arms, then starts away from the bluerider in a slow, padding gait through the woodchips and flown bark. "I just need someone fast to drop a man off, then someone else - can't risk sending the same rider twice - to pick him up. When we have assurance it's safe - and more information - we'll do something more."
"If he wants to speak with us, would he suggest it was unsafe to do so?" J'lor arches a skeptical brow. "I'll take him. Whoever you send. S'val will bring him back."
"No one said we'd have assurance from the deposed Lord Odern," says Derek, and there's the sweet, soft voice all over again, as if the bluerider's a little simple; but then, perhaps he is. "I'll find a volunteer. Do you want to time it any special way? Threadfall?"
"I'll look over the charts again. I want at least a few days, in case it goes poorly and he has no offered shelter. Soon, I suppose." J'lor either pretends or truly does manage to ignore that soft and sweet tone that suggests he's a bit of a dullard.
"Soon, then." As if Derek takes this, as an order, from J'lor. And he smiles, a small twitching smile, reward for that order having been made. "I'll bring you anything else I find. Anything I know." He turns back to take a last look at the bluerider, from the clearing's edge. "Do you think - " The smile vanishes. His eyes narrow, thoughtful, even fearful. He shakes his head, then, and lets out a sigh, an exhalation of disgust. "I probably hope too high."
"Better that," J'lor offers. "Always better that than its opposite." Another slow breath and the bluerider looks down. Another chunk of wood is set on the slab and cleaved. This time, he works in silence. The guardsman, it seems, is dismissed.
Derek waits for J'lor's head to go down, for his gaze to recenter on the wood he chops and the inward space the chopping gives him excuse to explore. Then he smiles again, untwitchingly, and nods once. His aims affirmed, Derek creeps on dirty feet into the trees.
Time: Afternoon on Day 25, Month 1, Turn 3
Players: J'lor and Derek
Scene: Derek has heard some things. He tells them to J'lor.
The air is thick and heavy and damp. It turns cloth into sticky, cloying substances and makes breathing comparable to drinking. There is not much respite, save if one is a dragonrider that decides to go flying up above the thickness. J'lor is, but he has not. While the weyrlings are busy with their chores, the weyrlingmaster does some of his own. It is a task he has often been assigned, the repetitive *thwack* *thwack* of the ax suggesting that the bluerider is quite adept at chopping firewood in the small clearing designed for such. His feet are bare, his pants rolled up to his calves, and his shirt lies at the base of a tree in a sloppy heap. Technically, his eyes are on the wood he chops, but there is a glaze to his focus that suggests he has actually turned his gaze inward.
One more suited to carrying rocks might have no cause to come upon J'lor, quiet, on bare and muddied feet at the edge of the clearing; one more suited to carrying rocks might be busy carrying rocks, not standing in silence, grey eyes steady on the rhythmic pull and bunch of ax-throwing muscles in the bluerider's shoulders. But Derek is, though assigned often to it, not more suited to carrying rocks. His breath draws and heaves in time with the axblade's falls, and when J'lor sets aside a piece of wood to place a new one the island leader breathes not at all.
But in time he tires of watching, and pads forth from the shadows of the trees; they cling to him, like the humidity does, and he brings up a hand to wipe moisture from his brow, casting off dark. "J'lor."
*Thwack.* The ax falls again, and the piece of wood tumbles to either side of the stump that serves as a chopping block, split in two. Shirtless, the tension that gathers in his arms and shoulders is obvious, there is no other reason for those muscles to tighten when the ax is at rest. Carefully, they are relaxed and as muscles settle again, the skin smoothes. J'lor lifts his head and peers over at the other man, rocks and all. "Derek."
Those are cast off too, and Derek lurches closer, putting out a hand. An offer for the ax, or a hand, or anything - palm curved, thick fingers gently splayed. "What got you solitary?"
What Derek gets, instead of rocks, it the two pieces of fallen wood and a chinjerk towards the little pile that has begun to amass a few feet away. "Weyrlings," he offers simply. "How to best teach them wing formations. I wish writing hides were more prevalent."
"You mean how to teach them to write their own," says Derek in that high, soft voice that never bodes well for kindness or mercy. "They'd march yours on the ground." And yet there's nothing about this that sounds like disapproval. The island's leader goes pacing a slow, thoughtful path with head tipped down, circling the bluerider with his eyes on the log and the split bits of wood beside it. "Charcoal on walls. Knives and rocks and wood. Sticks and leaves." His eyes travel up from the stump to J'lor's knees, then higher, finding in time his face. "I'm tired, J'lor."
The circling is not exactly appreciated. J'lor works his jaw slowly and swallows once, turning so his back is never exposed to Derek as he moves. "Of course to teach them how to write their own," the bluerider agrees. He nods vaguely at the list of suggestions, one hand flicking them away with a quick gesture. "I know what I can use. I just wish we had more hides." That last, though, has J'lor's brows lifting and his head tipping a little to the side. "We're all tired."
"You should be," replies Derek, still walking; but as he starts this circle, his second, he keeps his eyes on the bluerider's head: face, when that's in sight line; hair, when not. "What if we had someplace to get hides from?"
The bluerider stops his own turning, squaring his shoulders, arms crossing over his chest. "That would be a new development." Those dark eyes meet the grey-blue of Derek's own when his motions allow it and narrow just slightly. "What have you been up to?"
"Nothing new." But Derek stops at the one-eighty point of his circle and looks down again, at the wood that stands between them; then he glances at J'lor's ax. A smile twitches curls into the corners of his mustache. "There's a new Lord at Nabol. Ever wonder what happens to old ones?"
"They sulk, presumably," the bluerider offers. "And I indulge myself in thinking that they briefly wonder if we weren't right after all." His feet shift, heel grinding into the soft dirt beneath it.
"Right on both counts," tosses back Derek, glancing up from the ax at the face of the man who wielded it. "That's how it looks, anyway." On that his eyes narrow, turning sky-blue and beady; he turns away, putting his back to the other man, tipping back his head for a squinting look up into the heavy, oppressive sky.
"This...once Lord of Nabol is sulking and thinking about us?" J'lor asks. Then the ax is still no longer as the bluerider wrenches it upwards and puts it to work again. *Thwack* "What is he thinking, specifically?" *Thwack* "Do you know?"
"He's sulking and thinking about different ways to do things," Derek corrects, though gently. He keeps his head back, but each of the falls of the ax bring his shoulders incrementally higher; the twitching of those muscles is subtle, but their accumulative effect is increasingly tense, and that tension rolls off of Derek like the humidity does. "Seems he's holed up in an old mountain minehold. And he's gathering people. People who aren't happy, I suppose. Not happy with a new lord just being put in, all of a sudden." He raises a hand and shields his eyes so he can stare openly into the sky, as though watchguarding.
"Considering he had no problems with that when he was the old lord," *thwack* The ax stays buried, the combination of speaking and chopping making J'lor just a touch breathless, "I am not sure he suddenly wishes for equal opportunities for all. Still. Change is change."
"Of course not. He wants equal opportunities for the oppressed, and fuck the privileged. It's a common first step." One some men never reach past. Derek turns around so he's facing J'lor, but doesn't make much advantage of facing him - he keeps looking skyward, bringing up his arms to fold them over his chest. "He's looking."
The bluerider draws a slow breath in and then out again. He keeps his eyes on Derek, for once. "Looking," he repeats softly, the word pronounced very precisely. "For." It ought to be a question, it just doesn't come out right.
"An opportunity." Derek finally draws down his gaze and fixes J'lor in it, eyes for eyes.
His mouth opens as if he might say something, but then J'lor closes it again as his gaze drops to examine the ax handle. "There's..." but that doesn't happen either. Dark brows furrow and the bluerider rolls his shoulders. He sucks in another slow breath and lifts his gaze. "We could give him one."
"He could give us one," provides Derek; and then, with a note of concern, frowning up at the man who's his closest counterpart, he adds, "There's...?"
A small shake of J'lor's head. "Nothing," he says. "I lost it, whatever it was going to be." Another swallow. "He could. I don't want to risk a rider winging into the middle of Nabol. Someone who's adept at travel. When thread's just fallen and isn't due to fall again for a time."
"Not the middle. Five Mines. But no rider. I agree." Derek's mustache twitches again into that curling trace of a smile, and he unfolds his arms, then starts away from the bluerider in a slow, padding gait through the woodchips and flown bark. "I just need someone fast to drop a man off, then someone else - can't risk sending the same rider twice - to pick him up. When we have assurance it's safe - and more information - we'll do something more."
"If he wants to speak with us, would he suggest it was unsafe to do so?" J'lor arches a skeptical brow. "I'll take him. Whoever you send. S'val will bring him back."
"No one said we'd have assurance from the deposed Lord Odern," says Derek, and there's the sweet, soft voice all over again, as if the bluerider's a little simple; but then, perhaps he is. "I'll find a volunteer. Do you want to time it any special way? Threadfall?"
"I'll look over the charts again. I want at least a few days, in case it goes poorly and he has no offered shelter. Soon, I suppose." J'lor either pretends or truly does manage to ignore that soft and sweet tone that suggests he's a bit of a dullard.
"Soon, then." As if Derek takes this, as an order, from J'lor. And he smiles, a small twitching smile, reward for that order having been made. "I'll bring you anything else I find. Anything I know." He turns back to take a last look at the bluerider, from the clearing's edge. "Do you think - " The smile vanishes. His eyes narrow, thoughtful, even fearful. He shakes his head, then, and lets out a sigh, an exhalation of disgust. "I probably hope too high."
"Better that," J'lor offers. "Always better that than its opposite." Another slow breath and the bluerider looks down. Another chunk of wood is set on the slab and cleaved. This time, he works in silence. The guardsman, it seems, is dismissed.
Derek waits for J'lor's head to go down, for his gaze to recenter on the wood he chops and the inward space the chopping gives him excuse to explore. Then he smiles again, untwitchingly, and nods once. His aims affirmed, Derek creeps on dirty feet into the trees.