Friendly Enemies
Location: Exile Beach
Time: Afternoon on Day 12, Month 6, Turn 2
Players: J'lor and Derek
Scene: Two men chat companionably on a beach. Everything's just fine here. Really.
J'lor
Dark brown hair has been gathered back into a queue that falls from the nape of this man's neck to the base of his shoulders. His face is angular, a widow's peak adding to the edges of his features. His eyes are almond-shaped and wideset, an unremarkable carob-brown beneath dark slashes of brows. A spinner's web of tiny lines have begun to fan out from the corners of his eyes. Nose is small but sharp and his mouth is thin. While clean-shaven seems to be the general intent, the man's jawline is often darkened by forgotten-about stubble. Perhaps the most endearing and unexpected feature, a deep dimple flashes in his left cheek when he smiles. Weather and time have deepened his skin into a warm tan.
Tall and lean at 6'4", the man is clothed in a shirt of rough linen dyed a deep wine red. Stitches along the shoulder are too large and the right side sports a patch of cloth that unsuccessfully attempts to mimic the same shade as the rest of the shirt. Sleeves have been rolled up to the elbows and long arms are corded not with bulk but with wiry strength. Legs have been tucked into brown trousers, more properly made and of wherry hide, and shoes are formed from the same material though colored a little darker.
The man looks to be somewhere between forty and fifty turns.
Derek
Darkened by the sun, with black hair going thin at the crown, Derek is aging but likely still intimidating. He is tall, disciplined of posture, swarthy and sinewed. His face is broad, pocked around the temples by old acne scars, dominated by a flat nose and heavy mustache trimmed flat above the mouth. His eyes are light blue and steely, hardened by squint-lines around them and the contrast they pose to his dark skin and hair. Gray mottles his beard, which is trimmed short above the jawline and kept smooth below it in defense against excess heat.
He's dressed in a manner befitting warm humidity, but his clothes are some of the best on the island short of the dragonriders' leathers. To be sure, these worn, loose-fit trousers are probably cooler than leathers. The same could be said for a linen shirt, sleeves rolled high up, unbuttoned halfway down in front. He forgoes as often as not sandals made of old leather and handwoven cord.
It is one of the wet seasons now which means the island is unavoidably...wet. Sand is dark with absorbed water, flattened and packed down by days of rain. The sky is grey and heavy, winds whipping hot thick air around, pushing it to and fro but doing nothing to cool it. It is days like this that can make one wish for snow.
Seated on the beach is a common figure, long, lean, and stooped. Shirt sleeves have been rolled up and shoes have been removed to rest a few feet away. In his hand, the middle-aged bluerider holds a stick with one end whittled to a point. He uses it to etch thoughts onto the sand, brows drawn, mouth moving silently every now and again. For perhaps five feet in every direction, patterns surround him. Arrows, Xs, dots and dashes. Wing formations in the making, and J'lor's cup runneth over this afternoon.
Two significant facts: First, that five feet is greater than conversational distance. Second, that Derek tends to walk about the island barefoot more than not. And now those calloused soles leave their broad prints in a waketrail behind him as he pads up the shoreline, walking close enough to sea that the sand is not just wet, but soaked firm and salty. By the largest part his attention seems distracted by the waves, his bright little eyes narrowed and keen against the thick gray light. But from time to time the island's self-elected master looks inland, and luck would have it that he catches sight of the bluerider up on shore. Luck would have it that Derek might peacefully smile and turn his path that way.
Thus it comes to pass that the swarthy man stops an inch or two less than five feet from J'lor, his toes obscuring and destroying one X and one dash, left and right feet respectively. "Lovely weather we're having," he says, his strangely gentle voice even stranger for the gentility of its words.
J'lor does not look up. It will do no good in the first place and in the second, the bluerider always prefers for Derek to not so much see that quick tremor of worry that comes and vanishes whenever the new leader deigns to pay the old one a visit. "I cannot imagine the weather comes as much of a surprise to you by now, Derek." His writing stick finishes off another long arrow and stops, planting itself in the sand. There is a glance at the other man's bare feet and where they are placed. "You're standing on Cassiel and L'lan."
"No, but the folk of Tillek will remark upon the rain and the folk of Ista will remark upon the heat, and it's only our right to remark upon the - " Derek pauses, lifting a hand as if feeling for the fall of raindrops. But this is a heavier, thicker wet than that; it's not that it's raining so much as that the air is soupy. "- whatever this muck is," he completes, then dances back a lightfooted step and looks down. "Am I? I hadn't noticed." But his lie is casual and smirky, not the kind he expects J'lor to take seriously. Here, he'll even help: one big toe pokes out and sketches into place a 'C' and then an 'L' where the X and dash had been. Whether he gets them correct or not is hard to say. "And what sort of pattern are your squiggleriders fighting today?" Derek smiles and drops to a seat, shifting backwards enough that he can put his knees up in front and hang his arms over them, posture not at all unlike the rider's. To soaking sand he seems indifferent, but then, he's already rather damp all over.
"Ah," says the bluerider. "Courtesy. Of course," although despite himself, there is a small chuckle as the intolerable weather is called for what it is. Muck. Indeed. That Derek sits on the edge of J'lor's work places them at a funny distance, but the rider does nothing to correct it, just yet. The L and the C, properly placed or no, are left as they are. "Well," and Derek has tapped into one of Those Topics. The sort J'lor will go on endlessly about if left to it. "This one," the stick is lifted and pointed to an area to the right of him, "Is because the winds this season have been stronger and I haven't sufficiently accommodated for the resulting drift. That one," a gesture to the dots and dashes directly in front of him, "Is another attempt at a fishing formation. The nets make it trickier. And that," Here the stick reaches and jabs into the design Derek has seated himself near, "is for the beach when Nenuith's clutch has arrived."
"What's this," replies Derek over the threat of a laugh. "J'lor didn't have a backup plan for strong wind already? I'm in shock." He's no such thing. But he drops an arm off of his knee and flattens a palm in the sand, leaning into his arm so he can look a little closer at the designs jabbed by the rider's stick. Fishing, for the moment, is of no interest. His brow furrows as he squints at the beach-protection plan. Clearly he can't read the symbols in any meaningful way; a few things there may be familiar to him, but he isn't fluent enough to understand. So he has to ask, a little grimly, not yet judgmental but with plenty of threat of anxiety, "That's not going to be the whole complement, is it?"
The bluerider leans forward as well, resting his weight on one hand as he reexamines his own work. "Wind currents are hard to predict," he begins. His flight patterns are one of the few things he truly prides himself on. "I needed to fly them before I could really...oh." And finally, J'lor does look up, frowning just slightly. "You were joking." His head lowers again, studying the pattern that seems to evoke particular concern. "Yes," begins J'lor. "When the fall is directly over the beach, obviously we'll all be there. But before the brunt of it comes, and after it passes, we'll have five assigned specifically to keep overhead around the clutch site. Three higher, two lower. Green, blue, brown for up top. Brown and green below." He taptaps a point on the design. A rather large X. "I'm not certain what Nenuith will be doing. If she'll insist on flying or keeping over the eggs." And then, murmured much more to himself than his company, "Did she bring a flamethrower, I wonder?"
"When 'fall is directly over the beach it'll be moving inland," growls Derek, "and there's fruiting plants and - well, J'lor, I shouldn't have to remind you there's things up there to protect." He moves his head the least increment, chin pointing up the path to the settlement among the trees. "I understand the dragons aren't likely to let the eggs go uncovered, and I don't imply they should, but there can't be a gap." He's malcontent for a moment longer, his lips going thin and grim in the deep shade of the thick mustache, until he can't stand it any more and raises a hand to rub over his mouth and chin. "Mmmcan't say. She's no one that I'd know her inclination," he says, a little muffled. With the unbusied hand he reaches out a vehement point at the diagram. "Can you split off enough to be sure there's no gap, or have you got something else in mind?"
"Formations, any formation, is designed to stay with the fall and anticipate the leading edge. All the rest is just rigamarole to find how to do that the most effectively. When thread is over the beach the twenty six will travel with it. Five will get there first and stay behind to ensure nothing gets through. Usually it's just sand and surf. We haven't had to worry about it so much. But now...that is going to be our most precious commodity, Derek." Another glance upward. "I hope you understand that." Then back down to study his squiggles. At the lecture, the question of a gap, the bluerider's shoulders square. "No gap," he says tersely. "We'll have to practice flying with twenty six, instead of thirty one, but we'll have it down by the time it's necessary. Our fruits and our people will be safe. *I* am not the one that barters with human lives."
"-Your- most precious commodity," snaps the island's leader, but the snap lacks teeth; it's one of any thousands of snarky little jabs he's exchanged with J'lor in ten turns of exile, and by now he saves his energy for the ones he really intends to rile. Such as this one: "Your riders in the sky and the living, breathing men and women are mine." But he delivers that gently, as if he were paternal about his people, the same people he's used as mass hostages against the rider with whom he now converses. Maybe it's J'lor's reassurance that there will be no gap, no harm to the resources past the beach that has Derek's tone gentling. "You bartered in human lives the whole time you led the rebellion," he adds, reproach more than dagger, and pushes himself away from the designs so he's even farther from the other man, but may turn to regard him head-on. "You just didn't see it. Like any lord or master, so distant from the trenches you couldn't smell the carnage."
On the eggs and their worth, the bluerider only insists, hotly, "All of ours," What he does not do is elaborate, but rather picks up his writing tool as if to go back to his sand and his scribbles and leave Derek behind to his own thoughts. It won't be the first time he's done such a thing, and Derek's barb, created to spear just so, is not the first that hits its mark with ruthless precision and derails that plan entirely. J'lor's head snaps up, eyes locking onto the ex-guard's face. "We belong to no one but ourselves, and that is not something you will be able to take from me, regardless of your threats. And as for...before. Those attacks were your doing. Nera never would have considered them until you curled into her ear. I shouldn't have been so blind for so long." One hand reaches out and swipes sharply across the formation in front of him. No more fishing, it seems. Just smeared sand and hand prints. "I will not make that same mistake twice."
"Oh, no, sir." Derek does not use titles without irony, though the richness of sarcasm is something his slightly sandy, gentle voice has always been ill-equipped to convey. He smiles for a moment, peaceful and patient. "Let me suggest you not be so quick to defy all involvement. It's your cause that benefits when its enemies disappear. It's your cause that benefits when the numbers sway in your favor." The captain turned criminal shifts his weight about and pushes himself to a crouch, then straightens in a singular movement, an unthinking and frankly unintentional display of the physical prowess he has maintained. He may not have to meet Threadfall, but the occasional need to pulp one of his own men in a private match as example to the others along with the daily work of survival has done his musculature no harm. He does not, however, loom or threaten or cast his shadow across J'lor; he makes no effort to intimidate. He is, simply, planning to leave.
"And yet, here we are," says J'lor rather bluntly as he stares down as the smear in the middle of his drawings. "When violence and murder become the tools of my cause, then it is no longer my cause. It is something else, and I want no part of it." His head tips to the side as Derek rises in that fluid motion. As a dragonrider, J'lor is well toned and has the necessary agility required for his task. But he has never spent a great deal of time using those skills on other men. And he knows it. "I am aware of all of my mistakes."
"That's a rather bold statement, J'lor." Derek sounds kindly. It is but a natural effect of his lilting, sandy voice; it is not to be believed. He turns away from the other man and gazes out to sea, apparently contented despite the cloying humidity and gray sky. "It's not one that I'd care to make. But I tell you where we differ, rider." A glance back over his shoulder, then back out at the endless horizon. He nods once, and starts back down the beach even as he speaks again. "When mine catch up to bite me - I'm prepared to bite them back."
The rider opens his mouth, perhaps to offer up some retort, but Derek is leaving. Better he leave with the last word than stay, rebuffed. So J'lor rolls his shoulders and picks up his writing tool once again. With quiet focus, he tries to put back those dots and dashes and lines his own hand erased. But after a few minutes, the stick is thrown down in frustration, because he simply cannot remember.
Time: Afternoon on Day 12, Month 6, Turn 2
Players: J'lor and Derek
Scene: Two men chat companionably on a beach. Everything's just fine here. Really.
J'lor
Dark brown hair has been gathered back into a queue that falls from the nape of this man's neck to the base of his shoulders. His face is angular, a widow's peak adding to the edges of his features. His eyes are almond-shaped and wideset, an unremarkable carob-brown beneath dark slashes of brows. A spinner's web of tiny lines have begun to fan out from the corners of his eyes. Nose is small but sharp and his mouth is thin. While clean-shaven seems to be the general intent, the man's jawline is often darkened by forgotten-about stubble. Perhaps the most endearing and unexpected feature, a deep dimple flashes in his left cheek when he smiles. Weather and time have deepened his skin into a warm tan.
Tall and lean at 6'4", the man is clothed in a shirt of rough linen dyed a deep wine red. Stitches along the shoulder are too large and the right side sports a patch of cloth that unsuccessfully attempts to mimic the same shade as the rest of the shirt. Sleeves have been rolled up to the elbows and long arms are corded not with bulk but with wiry strength. Legs have been tucked into brown trousers, more properly made and of wherry hide, and shoes are formed from the same material though colored a little darker.
The man looks to be somewhere between forty and fifty turns.
Derek
Darkened by the sun, with black hair going thin at the crown, Derek is aging but likely still intimidating. He is tall, disciplined of posture, swarthy and sinewed. His face is broad, pocked around the temples by old acne scars, dominated by a flat nose and heavy mustache trimmed flat above the mouth. His eyes are light blue and steely, hardened by squint-lines around them and the contrast they pose to his dark skin and hair. Gray mottles his beard, which is trimmed short above the jawline and kept smooth below it in defense against excess heat.
He's dressed in a manner befitting warm humidity, but his clothes are some of the best on the island short of the dragonriders' leathers. To be sure, these worn, loose-fit trousers are probably cooler than leathers. The same could be said for a linen shirt, sleeves rolled high up, unbuttoned halfway down in front. He forgoes as often as not sandals made of old leather and handwoven cord.
It is one of the wet seasons now which means the island is unavoidably...wet. Sand is dark with absorbed water, flattened and packed down by days of rain. The sky is grey and heavy, winds whipping hot thick air around, pushing it to and fro but doing nothing to cool it. It is days like this that can make one wish for snow.
Seated on the beach is a common figure, long, lean, and stooped. Shirt sleeves have been rolled up and shoes have been removed to rest a few feet away. In his hand, the middle-aged bluerider holds a stick with one end whittled to a point. He uses it to etch thoughts onto the sand, brows drawn, mouth moving silently every now and again. For perhaps five feet in every direction, patterns surround him. Arrows, Xs, dots and dashes. Wing formations in the making, and J'lor's cup runneth over this afternoon.
Two significant facts: First, that five feet is greater than conversational distance. Second, that Derek tends to walk about the island barefoot more than not. And now those calloused soles leave their broad prints in a waketrail behind him as he pads up the shoreline, walking close enough to sea that the sand is not just wet, but soaked firm and salty. By the largest part his attention seems distracted by the waves, his bright little eyes narrowed and keen against the thick gray light. But from time to time the island's self-elected master looks inland, and luck would have it that he catches sight of the bluerider up on shore. Luck would have it that Derek might peacefully smile and turn his path that way.
Thus it comes to pass that the swarthy man stops an inch or two less than five feet from J'lor, his toes obscuring and destroying one X and one dash, left and right feet respectively. "Lovely weather we're having," he says, his strangely gentle voice even stranger for the gentility of its words.
J'lor does not look up. It will do no good in the first place and in the second, the bluerider always prefers for Derek to not so much see that quick tremor of worry that comes and vanishes whenever the new leader deigns to pay the old one a visit. "I cannot imagine the weather comes as much of a surprise to you by now, Derek." His writing stick finishes off another long arrow and stops, planting itself in the sand. There is a glance at the other man's bare feet and where they are placed. "You're standing on Cassiel and L'lan."
"No, but the folk of Tillek will remark upon the rain and the folk of Ista will remark upon the heat, and it's only our right to remark upon the - " Derek pauses, lifting a hand as if feeling for the fall of raindrops. But this is a heavier, thicker wet than that; it's not that it's raining so much as that the air is soupy. "- whatever this muck is," he completes, then dances back a lightfooted step and looks down. "Am I? I hadn't noticed." But his lie is casual and smirky, not the kind he expects J'lor to take seriously. Here, he'll even help: one big toe pokes out and sketches into place a 'C' and then an 'L' where the X and dash had been. Whether he gets them correct or not is hard to say. "And what sort of pattern are your squiggleriders fighting today?" Derek smiles and drops to a seat, shifting backwards enough that he can put his knees up in front and hang his arms over them, posture not at all unlike the rider's. To soaking sand he seems indifferent, but then, he's already rather damp all over.
"Ah," says the bluerider. "Courtesy. Of course," although despite himself, there is a small chuckle as the intolerable weather is called for what it is. Muck. Indeed. That Derek sits on the edge of J'lor's work places them at a funny distance, but the rider does nothing to correct it, just yet. The L and the C, properly placed or no, are left as they are. "Well," and Derek has tapped into one of Those Topics. The sort J'lor will go on endlessly about if left to it. "This one," the stick is lifted and pointed to an area to the right of him, "Is because the winds this season have been stronger and I haven't sufficiently accommodated for the resulting drift. That one," a gesture to the dots and dashes directly in front of him, "Is another attempt at a fishing formation. The nets make it trickier. And that," Here the stick reaches and jabs into the design Derek has seated himself near, "is for the beach when Nenuith's clutch has arrived."
"What's this," replies Derek over the threat of a laugh. "J'lor didn't have a backup plan for strong wind already? I'm in shock." He's no such thing. But he drops an arm off of his knee and flattens a palm in the sand, leaning into his arm so he can look a little closer at the designs jabbed by the rider's stick. Fishing, for the moment, is of no interest. His brow furrows as he squints at the beach-protection plan. Clearly he can't read the symbols in any meaningful way; a few things there may be familiar to him, but he isn't fluent enough to understand. So he has to ask, a little grimly, not yet judgmental but with plenty of threat of anxiety, "That's not going to be the whole complement, is it?"
The bluerider leans forward as well, resting his weight on one hand as he reexamines his own work. "Wind currents are hard to predict," he begins. His flight patterns are one of the few things he truly prides himself on. "I needed to fly them before I could really...oh." And finally, J'lor does look up, frowning just slightly. "You were joking." His head lowers again, studying the pattern that seems to evoke particular concern. "Yes," begins J'lor. "When the fall is directly over the beach, obviously we'll all be there. But before the brunt of it comes, and after it passes, we'll have five assigned specifically to keep overhead around the clutch site. Three higher, two lower. Green, blue, brown for up top. Brown and green below." He taptaps a point on the design. A rather large X. "I'm not certain what Nenuith will be doing. If she'll insist on flying or keeping over the eggs." And then, murmured much more to himself than his company, "Did she bring a flamethrower, I wonder?"
"When 'fall is directly over the beach it'll be moving inland," growls Derek, "and there's fruiting plants and - well, J'lor, I shouldn't have to remind you there's things up there to protect." He moves his head the least increment, chin pointing up the path to the settlement among the trees. "I understand the dragons aren't likely to let the eggs go uncovered, and I don't imply they should, but there can't be a gap." He's malcontent for a moment longer, his lips going thin and grim in the deep shade of the thick mustache, until he can't stand it any more and raises a hand to rub over his mouth and chin. "Mmmcan't say. She's no one that I'd know her inclination," he says, a little muffled. With the unbusied hand he reaches out a vehement point at the diagram. "Can you split off enough to be sure there's no gap, or have you got something else in mind?"
"Formations, any formation, is designed to stay with the fall and anticipate the leading edge. All the rest is just rigamarole to find how to do that the most effectively. When thread is over the beach the twenty six will travel with it. Five will get there first and stay behind to ensure nothing gets through. Usually it's just sand and surf. We haven't had to worry about it so much. But now...that is going to be our most precious commodity, Derek." Another glance upward. "I hope you understand that." Then back down to study his squiggles. At the lecture, the question of a gap, the bluerider's shoulders square. "No gap," he says tersely. "We'll have to practice flying with twenty six, instead of thirty one, but we'll have it down by the time it's necessary. Our fruits and our people will be safe. *I* am not the one that barters with human lives."
"-Your- most precious commodity," snaps the island's leader, but the snap lacks teeth; it's one of any thousands of snarky little jabs he's exchanged with J'lor in ten turns of exile, and by now he saves his energy for the ones he really intends to rile. Such as this one: "Your riders in the sky and the living, breathing men and women are mine." But he delivers that gently, as if he were paternal about his people, the same people he's used as mass hostages against the rider with whom he now converses. Maybe it's J'lor's reassurance that there will be no gap, no harm to the resources past the beach that has Derek's tone gentling. "You bartered in human lives the whole time you led the rebellion," he adds, reproach more than dagger, and pushes himself away from the designs so he's even farther from the other man, but may turn to regard him head-on. "You just didn't see it. Like any lord or master, so distant from the trenches you couldn't smell the carnage."
On the eggs and their worth, the bluerider only insists, hotly, "All of ours," What he does not do is elaborate, but rather picks up his writing tool as if to go back to his sand and his scribbles and leave Derek behind to his own thoughts. It won't be the first time he's done such a thing, and Derek's barb, created to spear just so, is not the first that hits its mark with ruthless precision and derails that plan entirely. J'lor's head snaps up, eyes locking onto the ex-guard's face. "We belong to no one but ourselves, and that is not something you will be able to take from me, regardless of your threats. And as for...before. Those attacks were your doing. Nera never would have considered them until you curled into her ear. I shouldn't have been so blind for so long." One hand reaches out and swipes sharply across the formation in front of him. No more fishing, it seems. Just smeared sand and hand prints. "I will not make that same mistake twice."
"Oh, no, sir." Derek does not use titles without irony, though the richness of sarcasm is something his slightly sandy, gentle voice has always been ill-equipped to convey. He smiles for a moment, peaceful and patient. "Let me suggest you not be so quick to defy all involvement. It's your cause that benefits when its enemies disappear. It's your cause that benefits when the numbers sway in your favor." The captain turned criminal shifts his weight about and pushes himself to a crouch, then straightens in a singular movement, an unthinking and frankly unintentional display of the physical prowess he has maintained. He may not have to meet Threadfall, but the occasional need to pulp one of his own men in a private match as example to the others along with the daily work of survival has done his musculature no harm. He does not, however, loom or threaten or cast his shadow across J'lor; he makes no effort to intimidate. He is, simply, planning to leave.
"And yet, here we are," says J'lor rather bluntly as he stares down as the smear in the middle of his drawings. "When violence and murder become the tools of my cause, then it is no longer my cause. It is something else, and I want no part of it." His head tips to the side as Derek rises in that fluid motion. As a dragonrider, J'lor is well toned and has the necessary agility required for his task. But he has never spent a great deal of time using those skills on other men. And he knows it. "I am aware of all of my mistakes."
"That's a rather bold statement, J'lor." Derek sounds kindly. It is but a natural effect of his lilting, sandy voice; it is not to be believed. He turns away from the other man and gazes out to sea, apparently contented despite the cloying humidity and gray sky. "It's not one that I'd care to make. But I tell you where we differ, rider." A glance back over his shoulder, then back out at the endless horizon. He nods once, and starts back down the beach even as he speaks again. "When mine catch up to bite me - I'm prepared to bite them back."
The rider opens his mouth, perhaps to offer up some retort, but Derek is leaving. Better he leave with the last word than stay, rebuffed. So J'lor rolls his shoulders and picks up his writing tool once again. With quiet focus, he tries to put back those dots and dashes and lines his own hand erased. But after a few minutes, the stick is thrown down in frustration, because he simply cannot remember.