Fill in the blank title: Deal with the _____
Who: Ownah and Derek
Where: Derek's room
When: 11:21 on day 26, month 10, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
What: Ownah appears to collect laundry from the once leader of the exiles. What she gets, instead, is questioned. To say she might be in over her head is something of an understatement. But everyone wants something.
5/22/2007
At High Reaches Weyr, it is 11:21 on day 26, month 10, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
Late morning at the hold doesn't create too much traffic outside the rooms of those who have earned for themselves some private space. There is too much to do for there to be lingering around here. At least for those with no business here. A few footsteps do echo down the hallway, sometimes accompanied by whispers of conversation or even some giggling. In a short while there will be more footsteps as the break for the noon meal comes and sends people not just eating but handling other business. Amidst all the noise and the non-noise there is another set of footsteps. Alone. Down the hall comes Ownah with a couple of baskets in her arms one stacked atop the other. Inside work today and despite that she doesn't seem too horribly disappointed. If the humming is any indication anyway. Youthful cheer and exuberance accompany her and she enters and leaves rooms, the balance of linens shifting in the baskets from more clean to more dirty.
And her steps eventually wind her up outside the room of the former exile leader. Without any hesitation she knocks on the door and in a cheerful tone calls out, "Hello? Laundry. Are you in there? Need ta change those linens."
Derek is in there. Not at first to be seen, but the fire is recently fed and there's a hot pot of steaming something set upon the table, a little round handle-less cup beside it: gruel? soup? tea? klah? More telling there are some small shuffling sounds, followed by a white sail of fabric flying up over the screen, settling in a loose fold atop it. One of 'those linens' the odd-jobber laundress calls for, then. "Ownah," says Derek, coming then out from behind the screen, a pillowcase in his hands; he doubles it, quarters it, as if it were clean rather than going out in the wash. "Have you a moment? Come in," whether you have a moment or not, for the onetime leader pads barefoot toward the door to pull it even wider and gesture the woman inside. "Set down your burden. I would like to talk to you."
"Oh! You're here! Hello, sir. Oops. Sorry. Derek." Ownah affords the once leader with a bright and welcoming smile. "Guess I got a minute and all. Yer almost my last stop before I kin run get lunch." So, in she comes through the door and down go her baskets. "Kin make your bed while we talk, you want. Got ta be done anyway and only takes me a little while. Dirty stuff is on tha bottom." Inside she is, although she hasn't stepped too far in, as if not sure he was meant to be invited /all/ the way in or meant to stay by the door with her work. Better safe than sorry. Whatever the case, she keeps her full attention on the man in the room, waiting to see what is up with no signs of worry or concern.
"Rather you didn't," Derek says quietly, of bedmaking. "We'll trade before you leave, and I'll make up on my own." He drops the folded pillowcase neatly next to the basket, not yet to bother with the digging out clean so that he can put dirty at the bottom of the pile, and gestures again to welcome Ownah in - very specifically, this time, he offers her one of the chairs by the fire. "Come in," he reiterates, and goes to close the door.
Ownah's expression shifts slightly to puzzled, but she just nods her head. "Sure thing. I mean, ain't gonna make no man's bed he don't want me to. Trade ya off before I go and that's fine." Now she looks towards the chairs and the fire they are set by. "Oh. You meant 'come in' not. . .sorry. Ain't always sure what people mean." With a look at her baskets she crosses to a chair and sits down. Not a care in the world. Or at least not the appearance of a care in the world.
"I meant," Derek clarifies after pressing gently closed the door, turning around to consider his guest, "Come in, set down your burden, and let's talk." He smiles, then starts toward the table, lifting a hand so he can smooth the smile away with a quick groom of moustache. "Would you like something to drink? I have a few things." From a shelf beside the table he takes down glasses, then puts up his hand for a flask, waiting like so to hear her opinion: "Klah here, but some spirits too, if you like. I thought we might discuss the guard at the Weyr."
With hands carefully clasped together in her lap Ownah watches the room's resident as he moves about. "Oh, umm. Could have a drink, I guess. Klah though is fine. Workin' and all. Shouldn't be drinkin' nothing else. But thank you." One hand rises so she might swipe at bangs before it settles once more into her lap. "Discuss tha guard? I don't think I can tell ya much. Was just married ta one. He didn't talk much about his work ta me. Talked ta the others about it I guess. I mean, talked ta some of the other wives and such. Girlfriends and the like, ya know? But they weren't interested in, you know, just was interested in tha men is all." A trace of scorn, disapproval, marks those last words. "Why? Don't think they got enough there to cause trouble here."
"Klah it is." Derek upturns a handled glass and pours klah from the pot into it. "So he spoke about his work to women who were willing to fake some interest. I suppose I can understand that. But I don't mean to ask about the nature of his work." The exile leader glances up with some kind of flicker in his pale eyes, then comes over with the cup, holding it out for Ownah to take. "You might be surprised how effective only a few men can be, if their training is right. But that's not quite my interest, either."
"Don't think he talked about it ta women at all. Not sure." Ownah takes her cup and smiles brightly. "Thank you." A small drink is taken, testing the heat of the cup's contents and then she holds it carefully in both hands so she might talk. "He didn't think it were no woman's business. Certainly wouldn' talk ta me about it considerin'. . Well, anyway. I'll tell ya what I can, I guess. I mean, it's ok, yea?" The question is the only indication that she might be wondering about the wisdom of having this conversation in this place with this man.
Derek retreats from his guest once she's taken the klah, backing toward the chair across from her, at the other side of the hearth. When his calves bump the cushion he sits, slowly and quietly, all the while his eyes on the woman. "It's okay." The prompt is gentle: "Considering?"
She lets herself then be reassured then by his prompt that it is going to be fine to have this talk. "Ain't nothing. Just, he weren't interested in talkin' ta me about his work. Were stuff between us." Ownah may sometimes be unwise in her conversational partners and what she might tell them. However, this is one instance where she is keeping her mouth shut. Down go her eyes to peer into the mug held tightly in her hands.
A little silence passes. Derek folds his hands over his stomach, elbows on the arms of the chair. No small man, he is nevertheless unassuming in physical presence, and when he leans into the cushions the wings of the chairback seem almost to dwarf him. "I'm sorry," he says, voice a little high for a man, a little sandy and soft, sweet. "Is it 'stuff' you wish to resolve before you go back to him?"
It seems that trying to drop the subject isn't quite going to work. Well, then, Ownah will try to keep it casually vague then. "Not sure it can be resolved. Not something that is, you know, resolvable. Not like that. Was just somethin' I said once. Just some dumb idea I had when I was a kid." Turns and turns ago when she was a kid. Unlike now when she is so much older and wiser and mature. "Ain't nothing."
And married. Derek smiles a little, perhaps insightful, or merely amused, or trying to be comforting - but one shouldn't put one's marks on that. "If it was only a kid's dumb idea, please tell me it has nothing to do with him being there, and you being here, and the delay in one of those two things changing."
"Not why I came here." Which is not an answer exactly to the statement that was made to her. That said she looks up and over towards the man she should, perhaps, be having nothing at all to do with. And yet she does not set down her cup or stand or announce her departure. Instead Ownah just shakes her head and smiles, a little shy. "Goin' back. When it's time. Ain't got no plans to remain here. And he won't be comin' here. Not unless- He ain't knowin' I'm here. Not gonna- Maybe I can't ever be doin' what it is I want, but I don't have to stay like I was. With him."
Another small silence allows Derek, perhaps, to reflect upon what Ownah's said. He certainly seems capable enough of pulling out of her relatively large number of words the ones most promising for further prying. "What you want," he muses, over the crackling of the nearby fire. "Oh, I didn't - do you want anything to put in that klah?" You know: sweetener, cream, brandy.
What she wants is to not talk about that anymore and so Ownah lets him have his statement with nothing but a blinking stare in return for it. A sip is taken from her cup as her head shakes. "Oh, no need. Really. M'fine." See? She even takes another drink. So, all is clearly fine.
"All right then." Derek refolds his hands; he'd barely moved. "So you aren't writing him, or any of his fellows in the guard?"
"Ain't written to no one since I left. Got no reason to. Don't want him knowing where I am in case. . .he might come looking for me." Ownah considers this possibility as she continues to watch the man seated with her. "He comes lookin' for me there'll be trouble. Someone'll wind up dead. That's all. Better for him he don't ever come lookin'. Thinking of my husband's safety like a good wife." A good wife who may have just said she might kill her husband. But only if one insists on reading into things.
Or that - "There's someone at Five Mines who - has something so dire against the man?" Derek slips free from the left hand the fingers of his right and wriggles them, a sparing gesture. His bare feet angle up a little, toes stretching against the floor; he tips his head toward the fire - all in all the most moving he's done since he sat down.
Now, once words have been said, the brain kicks in. A large gulp of klah is taken to buy herself time. If it is too hot and burns her mouth that's just more time to wait. Ownah's gave slips towards the fire as she shrugs and takes another drink, this one smaller. "It's just- I just ain't gonna put up with it no more. He comes and makes trouble. . .I just ain't gonna be that person no more. And I don't care- I just ain't gonna. Do what I have to so he leaves me be. That's all I'm sayin'."
Derek makes a small noise of assent, understanding and sweet with a little nod of his head. He, too, looks toward the fire; if Ownah were to regard him again, she might see the little quirk of a smile promised in the curl of the corner of his moustache. "It doesn't sound like returning to the weyr, where he works, is actually any kind of reasonable plan for you, Ownah."
"Got no plans to stay here the rest of my life." A shake of her head accompanies the slightest of sighs. "Not sure what I'm gonna do ta be honest." Ownah doesn't sound upset about this, a wee bit concerned, yes, but an uncertain future is nothing to cry and wail over. "He might not even be there still. I mean, I ain't got no way of knowin' where he goes. I'll figure it out. Right now it's ok here and all. Didn't plan on bein' here more than a turn and it ain't been that yet."
Derek turns his gaze back from the fire to Ownah. The smile is gone, and his voice is softer than ever, but there's a quiet intensity present in both his tone and in the clear, grey regard of his eyes. "Would you like to know what he does and where he goes?"
Ownah's timing is such that she is just glancing once more over at Derek when he turns his attention from the fire to her. So she is rather caught by that gaze and after a moment it has her shifting back in her seat and pulling her own eyes down to her cup. "Got no way to know. Just got to hope for tha best. Would like. Why do ya ask? What do ya want?"
"I have need of information from the guard there," says Derek, a little slowly; his turn, perhaps, to wonder if he's confiding in the right soul. "I would be happy to share with you, if we're able to devise a way to convey it. You do not write to your husband - would he be surprised if you began?"
"He probably wouldn' even read it were I ta write. Told ya, left him. Can't imagine he were too happy about it." Ownah gives the contents of her cup another look and she seems to be debating the wisdom of finishing it off and leaving. Or, something has captured her attention so completely about the cup and its contents. When she looks back up she wastes no time in glances to the fire or back to her cup or around the room. Instead she stares right at he who has need of something. "I try, won't do it for nothing. You want my help it ain't free."
"I am not a man of many marks these days, Ownah," laughs Derek. Laughs: as in, with a smile, tipped-up head, eyes crinkling around the corners. None of these things should be mistaken for pleasure. He straightens his face and looks at her as levelly as she looks at him. "How would you like to be paid?"
The laugh may have fooled her. It is entirely possible. It would explain, were she fooled, why she doesn't shrink farther back into her chair or make good on an escape. But if Ownah has come this far she is not, apparently, likely to back down now. Regardless of the wisdom of such an action. "Marks I can earn. Need. . ." There is now a flicker of her eyes that sends them away for a minute. When she looks back she nods her head once. "Need ta learn things. Kin fight and take care of myself. Taught myself as a kid an' all when I shouldn't have been shown any such thing. But I ain't ever learned proper. Teach me how ta defend myself, how to fight better than what I just picked up on my own, how ta- They say you killed people. Need to know how."
Serious matters deserve serious expressions, so Derek smiles a moustache-curling, private little smile, eyes beady if pale. "I assure you my reputation has been inflated by persecution and rumor," the island king replies. Then he glances at her cup - she was so interested in it earlier - and asks, "Can I get you more klah?" Apparently he's getting up anyway; he rises from his chair and goes toward her, a hand out in case she should like more drink. "Still," he adds, continuing from pre-tangent, "I have training enough in lethal force. I'm not sure how much of it a woman could learn - but I wouldn't mind finding out."
"Teach me. Teach me an' I'll write him a letter. Tell me what you want me ta find out and I will do my best to find it out. If not from him- I could think of someone else ta write there maybe." Looking at the hand, Ownah hesitates before she holds her own out, cup within it. "Could maybe have a little more, please." Polite in the agreement to his offer. And fully confident as she says, "I can learn anything you teach me."
"I can think of people there to write also, Ownah," says Derek pleasantly, taking her cup. He retreats to the table and pours klah for her, then takes down a flask to pour something quite otherwise for himself, a simple golden liquid low in the bottom of a glass. "The first thing I would like to know is whether your husband might be able to distribute messages to the other men."
His words earn him another look of confusion from Ownah. "If you got people ta write I don't know why you need Urbann. I don' want ta get him in trouble. He's still my husband and- And I probably shouldn't care none, but I do." And if now she thinks better of all this she still doesn't try to get out of it. "I kin write him. And I kin find out. Why?"
"If you're contemplating his demise," says Derek, looking up from the flask he's restoppering with eyes suddenly very grey indeed, brows crouched low over them, "I would recommend you get some emotional distance between yourself and your dependence upon him - now. You are acting as an unmarried woman might act." The stopper goes into the neck of the bottle with a soft pop and Derek reaches up to replace it on the shelf. "Think and feel like one, too."
"I-umm." Oh, she had said something like that, hadn't she? Ownah looks away from him to stare at nothing at all. Whatever thoughts run through her head are concealed. FInally she closes her eyes for a moment and when they reopen she nods decisively. "You're right. I can't. . .He'd do nothin' for me now. Ain't no reason to think of him before I think of myself. If he's useful then. . .then so be it. I'll use 'im."
"Correct," replies Derek, and lifts the glasses. He walks over to Ownah and offers her not one, but both. "You will find out for us whether he can distribute messages among the other men. Oh - " He'd forgotten a detail, perhaps. A smile lifts the corners of the moustache. "I know it may be difficult, but - try to answer objectively. How smart is this man?"
Her eyes drift from him to one glass to the other. Still, when the time comes and she lifts a hand it is to take the one she had originally. Ownah doesn't take a drink, but she holds it. Again she decides that the best place to look is at the fire. "He ain't dumb. But he ain't. Been a guard long enough he were smart enough or at least knew how to act like his superior wants he could have advanced. But he ain't. He's- what's tha word. . .Com-Wait. Complacent. An' he thinks he's smarter than me. Maybe he is, but I ain't ever seen no proof. He don' think. Don't matter how smart he is he spends his time chasin' skirts and drinkin' when he ain't doin' just what he's told."
Derek retreats to his chair with the other glass, untroubled, unphased, possibly even unaware of Ownah's choice in beverage. "Complacent," repeats the guard, retaking his seat. "Not a bad choice, then, for our purposes. Will you need any help composing a letter that will gain an answer to our question?"
"I just need-a couple days." Ownah almost asks that, but it's not quite a question. She is not exactly asking permission to take a few days to compose a letter to her husband that runs the risk of getting him in trouble. Still, it can't hurt to seem like one looks to someone else. If it creates a fine line to walk to be sure it doesn't happen completely, well, deal with that later. "Know what ta say. Just gotta, you know, say it right. Can do it on my own. Know him. Was married to him."
"A few days should be fine. Our messages take as long to get there - I expect they will only take longer as the Weyr becomes more interested in their contents." Derek smiles a little more, then lifts up his glass and tips past his lips the minimal golden contents. He washes his mouth with it, then swallows. "When you have sent it, come to me and we'll talk training. You'll take your lessons from me - I assume that will do."
"Ok. I'll work on it when I ain't workin' on. . .other stuff I gotta do." Without tasting the second cup poured for her she rises to her feet. "Will let ya know when it is sent." Ownah walks to the table to set down her glass and then to her baskets to begin to get out the clean linens before taking up the dirty ones. "That'll be fine. Learnin' from you. Will be a good student, promise. Won't complain or whine or nothing. We got a deal. I won't mess it up. Promise."
Derek, too, gets back to his feet. He reaches up to leave his emptied glass on the mantel rather than make a trip by the table; he has other distance to cover. The sheet hung upon the screen; the receiving of clean bedding in exchange. "I am more forgiving than you make me sound, Ownah," says Derek, one arm out for the linens, the other prepared to open the door for her once she's got her baskets again. Of course, when the door's open, he has to say something different: "Thank you for visiting."
Ownah does a shift of linens with practiced ease. A laundress by profession even if it's not the one she ever desired. Taking up her baskets she nods once as the door is opened. "Was a pleasure. Probably see ya next week same time. Some of tha women ain't so willing ta come and collect yer stuff is all. Have a good day." And with that she's in the hall, hurrying to finish up her laundry gathering rounds so she can get to a belated lunch. Whatever song she was humming before the visit she picks up again. If there's any shift in her mood it's certainly not displayed for anyone.
Where: Derek's room
When: 11:21 on day 26, month 10, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
What: Ownah appears to collect laundry from the once leader of the exiles. What she gets, instead, is questioned. To say she might be in over her head is something of an understatement. But everyone wants something.
5/22/2007
At High Reaches Weyr, it is 11:21 on day 26, month 10, turn 3 of the 7th Pass.
Late morning at the hold doesn't create too much traffic outside the rooms of those who have earned for themselves some private space. There is too much to do for there to be lingering around here. At least for those with no business here. A few footsteps do echo down the hallway, sometimes accompanied by whispers of conversation or even some giggling. In a short while there will be more footsteps as the break for the noon meal comes and sends people not just eating but handling other business. Amidst all the noise and the non-noise there is another set of footsteps. Alone. Down the hall comes Ownah with a couple of baskets in her arms one stacked atop the other. Inside work today and despite that she doesn't seem too horribly disappointed. If the humming is any indication anyway. Youthful cheer and exuberance accompany her and she enters and leaves rooms, the balance of linens shifting in the baskets from more clean to more dirty.
And her steps eventually wind her up outside the room of the former exile leader. Without any hesitation she knocks on the door and in a cheerful tone calls out, "Hello? Laundry. Are you in there? Need ta change those linens."
Derek is in there. Not at first to be seen, but the fire is recently fed and there's a hot pot of steaming something set upon the table, a little round handle-less cup beside it: gruel? soup? tea? klah? More telling there are some small shuffling sounds, followed by a white sail of fabric flying up over the screen, settling in a loose fold atop it. One of 'those linens' the odd-jobber laundress calls for, then. "Ownah," says Derek, coming then out from behind the screen, a pillowcase in his hands; he doubles it, quarters it, as if it were clean rather than going out in the wash. "Have you a moment? Come in," whether you have a moment or not, for the onetime leader pads barefoot toward the door to pull it even wider and gesture the woman inside. "Set down your burden. I would like to talk to you."
"Oh! You're here! Hello, sir. Oops. Sorry. Derek." Ownah affords the once leader with a bright and welcoming smile. "Guess I got a minute and all. Yer almost my last stop before I kin run get lunch." So, in she comes through the door and down go her baskets. "Kin make your bed while we talk, you want. Got ta be done anyway and only takes me a little while. Dirty stuff is on tha bottom." Inside she is, although she hasn't stepped too far in, as if not sure he was meant to be invited /all/ the way in or meant to stay by the door with her work. Better safe than sorry. Whatever the case, she keeps her full attention on the man in the room, waiting to see what is up with no signs of worry or concern.
"Rather you didn't," Derek says quietly, of bedmaking. "We'll trade before you leave, and I'll make up on my own." He drops the folded pillowcase neatly next to the basket, not yet to bother with the digging out clean so that he can put dirty at the bottom of the pile, and gestures again to welcome Ownah in - very specifically, this time, he offers her one of the chairs by the fire. "Come in," he reiterates, and goes to close the door.
Ownah's expression shifts slightly to puzzled, but she just nods her head. "Sure thing. I mean, ain't gonna make no man's bed he don't want me to. Trade ya off before I go and that's fine." Now she looks towards the chairs and the fire they are set by. "Oh. You meant 'come in' not. . .sorry. Ain't always sure what people mean." With a look at her baskets she crosses to a chair and sits down. Not a care in the world. Or at least not the appearance of a care in the world.
"I meant," Derek clarifies after pressing gently closed the door, turning around to consider his guest, "Come in, set down your burden, and let's talk." He smiles, then starts toward the table, lifting a hand so he can smooth the smile away with a quick groom of moustache. "Would you like something to drink? I have a few things." From a shelf beside the table he takes down glasses, then puts up his hand for a flask, waiting like so to hear her opinion: "Klah here, but some spirits too, if you like. I thought we might discuss the guard at the Weyr."
With hands carefully clasped together in her lap Ownah watches the room's resident as he moves about. "Oh, umm. Could have a drink, I guess. Klah though is fine. Workin' and all. Shouldn't be drinkin' nothing else. But thank you." One hand rises so she might swipe at bangs before it settles once more into her lap. "Discuss tha guard? I don't think I can tell ya much. Was just married ta one. He didn't talk much about his work ta me. Talked ta the others about it I guess. I mean, talked ta some of the other wives and such. Girlfriends and the like, ya know? But they weren't interested in, you know, just was interested in tha men is all." A trace of scorn, disapproval, marks those last words. "Why? Don't think they got enough there to cause trouble here."
"Klah it is." Derek upturns a handled glass and pours klah from the pot into it. "So he spoke about his work to women who were willing to fake some interest. I suppose I can understand that. But I don't mean to ask about the nature of his work." The exile leader glances up with some kind of flicker in his pale eyes, then comes over with the cup, holding it out for Ownah to take. "You might be surprised how effective only a few men can be, if their training is right. But that's not quite my interest, either."
"Don't think he talked about it ta women at all. Not sure." Ownah takes her cup and smiles brightly. "Thank you." A small drink is taken, testing the heat of the cup's contents and then she holds it carefully in both hands so she might talk. "He didn't think it were no woman's business. Certainly wouldn' talk ta me about it considerin'. . Well, anyway. I'll tell ya what I can, I guess. I mean, it's ok, yea?" The question is the only indication that she might be wondering about the wisdom of having this conversation in this place with this man.
Derek retreats from his guest once she's taken the klah, backing toward the chair across from her, at the other side of the hearth. When his calves bump the cushion he sits, slowly and quietly, all the while his eyes on the woman. "It's okay." The prompt is gentle: "Considering?"
She lets herself then be reassured then by his prompt that it is going to be fine to have this talk. "Ain't nothing. Just, he weren't interested in talkin' ta me about his work. Were stuff between us." Ownah may sometimes be unwise in her conversational partners and what she might tell them. However, this is one instance where she is keeping her mouth shut. Down go her eyes to peer into the mug held tightly in her hands.
A little silence passes. Derek folds his hands over his stomach, elbows on the arms of the chair. No small man, he is nevertheless unassuming in physical presence, and when he leans into the cushions the wings of the chairback seem almost to dwarf him. "I'm sorry," he says, voice a little high for a man, a little sandy and soft, sweet. "Is it 'stuff' you wish to resolve before you go back to him?"
It seems that trying to drop the subject isn't quite going to work. Well, then, Ownah will try to keep it casually vague then. "Not sure it can be resolved. Not something that is, you know, resolvable. Not like that. Was just somethin' I said once. Just some dumb idea I had when I was a kid." Turns and turns ago when she was a kid. Unlike now when she is so much older and wiser and mature. "Ain't nothing."
And married. Derek smiles a little, perhaps insightful, or merely amused, or trying to be comforting - but one shouldn't put one's marks on that. "If it was only a kid's dumb idea, please tell me it has nothing to do with him being there, and you being here, and the delay in one of those two things changing."
"Not why I came here." Which is not an answer exactly to the statement that was made to her. That said she looks up and over towards the man she should, perhaps, be having nothing at all to do with. And yet she does not set down her cup or stand or announce her departure. Instead Ownah just shakes her head and smiles, a little shy. "Goin' back. When it's time. Ain't got no plans to remain here. And he won't be comin' here. Not unless- He ain't knowin' I'm here. Not gonna- Maybe I can't ever be doin' what it is I want, but I don't have to stay like I was. With him."
Another small silence allows Derek, perhaps, to reflect upon what Ownah's said. He certainly seems capable enough of pulling out of her relatively large number of words the ones most promising for further prying. "What you want," he muses, over the crackling of the nearby fire. "Oh, I didn't - do you want anything to put in that klah?" You know: sweetener, cream, brandy.
What she wants is to not talk about that anymore and so Ownah lets him have his statement with nothing but a blinking stare in return for it. A sip is taken from her cup as her head shakes. "Oh, no need. Really. M'fine." See? She even takes another drink. So, all is clearly fine.
"All right then." Derek refolds his hands; he'd barely moved. "So you aren't writing him, or any of his fellows in the guard?"
"Ain't written to no one since I left. Got no reason to. Don't want him knowing where I am in case. . .he might come looking for me." Ownah considers this possibility as she continues to watch the man seated with her. "He comes lookin' for me there'll be trouble. Someone'll wind up dead. That's all. Better for him he don't ever come lookin'. Thinking of my husband's safety like a good wife." A good wife who may have just said she might kill her husband. But only if one insists on reading into things.
Or that - "There's someone at Five Mines who - has something so dire against the man?" Derek slips free from the left hand the fingers of his right and wriggles them, a sparing gesture. His bare feet angle up a little, toes stretching against the floor; he tips his head toward the fire - all in all the most moving he's done since he sat down.
Now, once words have been said, the brain kicks in. A large gulp of klah is taken to buy herself time. If it is too hot and burns her mouth that's just more time to wait. Ownah's gave slips towards the fire as she shrugs and takes another drink, this one smaller. "It's just- I just ain't gonna put up with it no more. He comes and makes trouble. . .I just ain't gonna be that person no more. And I don't care- I just ain't gonna. Do what I have to so he leaves me be. That's all I'm sayin'."
Derek makes a small noise of assent, understanding and sweet with a little nod of his head. He, too, looks toward the fire; if Ownah were to regard him again, she might see the little quirk of a smile promised in the curl of the corner of his moustache. "It doesn't sound like returning to the weyr, where he works, is actually any kind of reasonable plan for you, Ownah."
"Got no plans to stay here the rest of my life." A shake of her head accompanies the slightest of sighs. "Not sure what I'm gonna do ta be honest." Ownah doesn't sound upset about this, a wee bit concerned, yes, but an uncertain future is nothing to cry and wail over. "He might not even be there still. I mean, I ain't got no way of knowin' where he goes. I'll figure it out. Right now it's ok here and all. Didn't plan on bein' here more than a turn and it ain't been that yet."
Derek turns his gaze back from the fire to Ownah. The smile is gone, and his voice is softer than ever, but there's a quiet intensity present in both his tone and in the clear, grey regard of his eyes. "Would you like to know what he does and where he goes?"
Ownah's timing is such that she is just glancing once more over at Derek when he turns his attention from the fire to her. So she is rather caught by that gaze and after a moment it has her shifting back in her seat and pulling her own eyes down to her cup. "Got no way to know. Just got to hope for tha best. Would like. Why do ya ask? What do ya want?"
"I have need of information from the guard there," says Derek, a little slowly; his turn, perhaps, to wonder if he's confiding in the right soul. "I would be happy to share with you, if we're able to devise a way to convey it. You do not write to your husband - would he be surprised if you began?"
"He probably wouldn' even read it were I ta write. Told ya, left him. Can't imagine he were too happy about it." Ownah gives the contents of her cup another look and she seems to be debating the wisdom of finishing it off and leaving. Or, something has captured her attention so completely about the cup and its contents. When she looks back up she wastes no time in glances to the fire or back to her cup or around the room. Instead she stares right at he who has need of something. "I try, won't do it for nothing. You want my help it ain't free."
"I am not a man of many marks these days, Ownah," laughs Derek. Laughs: as in, with a smile, tipped-up head, eyes crinkling around the corners. None of these things should be mistaken for pleasure. He straightens his face and looks at her as levelly as she looks at him. "How would you like to be paid?"
The laugh may have fooled her. It is entirely possible. It would explain, were she fooled, why she doesn't shrink farther back into her chair or make good on an escape. But if Ownah has come this far she is not, apparently, likely to back down now. Regardless of the wisdom of such an action. "Marks I can earn. Need. . ." There is now a flicker of her eyes that sends them away for a minute. When she looks back she nods her head once. "Need ta learn things. Kin fight and take care of myself. Taught myself as a kid an' all when I shouldn't have been shown any such thing. But I ain't ever learned proper. Teach me how ta defend myself, how to fight better than what I just picked up on my own, how ta- They say you killed people. Need to know how."
Serious matters deserve serious expressions, so Derek smiles a moustache-curling, private little smile, eyes beady if pale. "I assure you my reputation has been inflated by persecution and rumor," the island king replies. Then he glances at her cup - she was so interested in it earlier - and asks, "Can I get you more klah?" Apparently he's getting up anyway; he rises from his chair and goes toward her, a hand out in case she should like more drink. "Still," he adds, continuing from pre-tangent, "I have training enough in lethal force. I'm not sure how much of it a woman could learn - but I wouldn't mind finding out."
"Teach me. Teach me an' I'll write him a letter. Tell me what you want me ta find out and I will do my best to find it out. If not from him- I could think of someone else ta write there maybe." Looking at the hand, Ownah hesitates before she holds her own out, cup within it. "Could maybe have a little more, please." Polite in the agreement to his offer. And fully confident as she says, "I can learn anything you teach me."
"I can think of people there to write also, Ownah," says Derek pleasantly, taking her cup. He retreats to the table and pours klah for her, then takes down a flask to pour something quite otherwise for himself, a simple golden liquid low in the bottom of a glass. "The first thing I would like to know is whether your husband might be able to distribute messages to the other men."
His words earn him another look of confusion from Ownah. "If you got people ta write I don't know why you need Urbann. I don' want ta get him in trouble. He's still my husband and- And I probably shouldn't care none, but I do." And if now she thinks better of all this she still doesn't try to get out of it. "I kin write him. And I kin find out. Why?"
"If you're contemplating his demise," says Derek, looking up from the flask he's restoppering with eyes suddenly very grey indeed, brows crouched low over them, "I would recommend you get some emotional distance between yourself and your dependence upon him - now. You are acting as an unmarried woman might act." The stopper goes into the neck of the bottle with a soft pop and Derek reaches up to replace it on the shelf. "Think and feel like one, too."
"I-umm." Oh, she had said something like that, hadn't she? Ownah looks away from him to stare at nothing at all. Whatever thoughts run through her head are concealed. FInally she closes her eyes for a moment and when they reopen she nods decisively. "You're right. I can't. . .He'd do nothin' for me now. Ain't no reason to think of him before I think of myself. If he's useful then. . .then so be it. I'll use 'im."
"Correct," replies Derek, and lifts the glasses. He walks over to Ownah and offers her not one, but both. "You will find out for us whether he can distribute messages among the other men. Oh - " He'd forgotten a detail, perhaps. A smile lifts the corners of the moustache. "I know it may be difficult, but - try to answer objectively. How smart is this man?"
Her eyes drift from him to one glass to the other. Still, when the time comes and she lifts a hand it is to take the one she had originally. Ownah doesn't take a drink, but she holds it. Again she decides that the best place to look is at the fire. "He ain't dumb. But he ain't. Been a guard long enough he were smart enough or at least knew how to act like his superior wants he could have advanced. But he ain't. He's- what's tha word. . .Com-Wait. Complacent. An' he thinks he's smarter than me. Maybe he is, but I ain't ever seen no proof. He don' think. Don't matter how smart he is he spends his time chasin' skirts and drinkin' when he ain't doin' just what he's told."
Derek retreats to his chair with the other glass, untroubled, unphased, possibly even unaware of Ownah's choice in beverage. "Complacent," repeats the guard, retaking his seat. "Not a bad choice, then, for our purposes. Will you need any help composing a letter that will gain an answer to our question?"
"I just need-a couple days." Ownah almost asks that, but it's not quite a question. She is not exactly asking permission to take a few days to compose a letter to her husband that runs the risk of getting him in trouble. Still, it can't hurt to seem like one looks to someone else. If it creates a fine line to walk to be sure it doesn't happen completely, well, deal with that later. "Know what ta say. Just gotta, you know, say it right. Can do it on my own. Know him. Was married to him."
"A few days should be fine. Our messages take as long to get there - I expect they will only take longer as the Weyr becomes more interested in their contents." Derek smiles a little more, then lifts up his glass and tips past his lips the minimal golden contents. He washes his mouth with it, then swallows. "When you have sent it, come to me and we'll talk training. You'll take your lessons from me - I assume that will do."
"Ok. I'll work on it when I ain't workin' on. . .other stuff I gotta do." Without tasting the second cup poured for her she rises to her feet. "Will let ya know when it is sent." Ownah walks to the table to set down her glass and then to her baskets to begin to get out the clean linens before taking up the dirty ones. "That'll be fine. Learnin' from you. Will be a good student, promise. Won't complain or whine or nothing. We got a deal. I won't mess it up. Promise."
Derek, too, gets back to his feet. He reaches up to leave his emptied glass on the mantel rather than make a trip by the table; he has other distance to cover. The sheet hung upon the screen; the receiving of clean bedding in exchange. "I am more forgiving than you make me sound, Ownah," says Derek, one arm out for the linens, the other prepared to open the door for her once she's got her baskets again. Of course, when the door's open, he has to say something different: "Thank you for visiting."
Ownah does a shift of linens with practiced ease. A laundress by profession even if it's not the one she ever desired. Taking up her baskets she nods once as the door is opened. "Was a pleasure. Probably see ya next week same time. Some of tha women ain't so willing ta come and collect yer stuff is all. Have a good day." And with that she's in the hall, hurrying to finish up her laundry gathering rounds so she can get to a belated lunch. Whatever song she was humming before the visit she picks up again. If there's any shift in her mood it's certainly not displayed for anyone.