Logs:Paranoid? Or Justified?
| |
|---|
| |
| RL Date: 9 June, 2011 |
| Who: Devaki, Riorde |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Devaki and Riorde can't sleep. So they go for a walk in the snow, as you do when you're freaked out. |
| Where: Candidate Barracks, High Reaches Weyr |
| When: Day 26, Month 12, Turn 25 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Xavior/Mentions |
  |
| It's the middle of the night. Most of the exiles sleep, if fitfully. There's an audible tone to the breathing of the islanders -- a wheezing noise, broken by the occasional cough. It's clear that, as the days go by, more and more people are getting sick, and few yet have proved immune. Devaki and his family -- sister Evali, and grandfather Viremi -- are settled near the front of the barracks. However, not all are asleep. Devaki's up, a fur draped around his shoulders, pacing silently on barefoot back and forth in the small amount of space near the doorway of the barracks. A couple of the guards standing at the door are watching him with an expression of wariness, though there's nothing in the boy's demeanor to warrant it. Other then the incessant pacing, and the slight sheen of sweat across his forehead. Riorde sleeps fitfully, slipping in and out of something feverish. Her actual fever's gone however, leaving only strange dreams about dark places. After having spent the last couple days in quarantine she's been cleared to return to home-sweet-home. The rest of her family hasn't fared so lucky; her grandmother, elderly and already sick this past season, was one of the first to pass. Her brother - who is a teenage boy and therefore whiny when he gets sick - is still infirmary-bound along with her father, so Riorde's alone in waking, rolling over on her pallet and staring out to see who else can't sleep. Devaki crosses her line of sight, and after a few long moments, Riorde drags herself up, pulling the blanket with her, and stands upright watching him pace. Devaki slows as he notices the moment, his steps jerky, then finally stops in front of her. His eyes are kind of vague, like he's not totally fixing on her, though he's cognizant enough to identify her. "Riorde," he says, frowning, studying her as if looking for signs of sickness. "I'm sorry, about your grandmother." The words have a feeling of rote to them. He shifts the furs around his shoulders, settling them in place with one hand, while his other one snakes out to press against arm in sympathy more genuine than the bland words. His gaze drifts past her, noting, perhaps, the absence of the rest of her family. His frown deepens, but he doesn't dare ask. "It's okay." Without much emotion, Riorde gives an automatic response. "She was old. It would've been this winter or the next." She looks past Devaki rather than at him, eying the dark figures of the guards, and only comes back to herself with the touch. With a greater sense of present awareness reaching her eyes, she more or less echoes the other's expression of sympathy though it sounds pathetic to her ears. "Kiami - I'm so sorry." There's little in his face or posture to acknowledge that he hears the words, though Devaki's fingers drop quickly enough from her arm. "Let's go for a walk," he says, abruptly. There's a flush to his features that isn't normal, but could be the sole indicator of his present mood. Condolences given for early deaths shouldn't be a thing one starts to feel accustomed to, or the responses they provoke. Riorde has little else to say so she just nods and waits to fall in step, pulling her wool blanket tightly around her until the outline of her bony shoulders is clear. The guards eye the pair of exiles and share a frown, clearly unhappy about letting them out. "It's the middle of the night." Devaki squares his shoulders, and lifts his head. "We're going out," he says, "Whether you come with us or not is your choice." There's a faint pause, and the guards exchange a look, shrug, then one leads the way out. Devaki reaches out as if to slip a hand through Riorde's, his skin warm to the touch in contrast to the chill wind that whips through the bowl as they head outside. It's snowing, though the mindhealer seems unaware of it, despite his bare feet. Riorde turns a fixed, set stare on the guards rather than trying for something harmless. Though usually standoffish she doesn't pull her hand away, unnerved as she's been since life on the little nowhere island turned inside out. She exits the barracks alongside Devaki, not one to be led, and keeps close - he's the one with the furs, after all. Riorde was given slippers at some point during her infirmary stay, but they're thin and light and will soon be soaked through. Devaki seems set on making his way around the bowl, with no particular destination in mind. The guard hovers behind them with his glowbasket, casting and faint light, and after a look or two, drops back far enough to afford the two ex-islanders privacy. "How many more of us do you think they'll kill off before they stop pretending we're prisoners?" he asks, leaning close, a twist of lips giving a sardonic cast to his features. A few more steps, and he extends the furs around Riorde's shoulders, too, gaze fixed mostly on the bowl in front of him. Riorde wiggles in beneath the fur with a quick look of gratitude. "You don't think - they're not trying to kill us," she protests, a little doubtful, squinting to scrutinise Devaki's face in the dark. "There's one, she brought me, she said we could stay." Trying to only report facts, Riorde holds back her hope, but some of it slips through. "Those that survive," Devaki utters in a low, almost leaden tone. "Don't you remember those first few days, when all of us were --" he doesn't say it, though the pointed pause is expression enough of the reaction they all had to the food at the time. "--what if it was because of what they put in it? We began to get sick right after that." There's little tonal change to his voice, though a faint exhale as he says, "Maybe Xavior was right. Maybe they're trying to hide their mistake, before it gets out." The intensity with which he fought such an accusation is notably absent in him tonight. The ground is chill underfoot, though Devaki, for his part, seems unaware of it. "Xavior's a nuisance and a know-it-all and has seaweed for brains," Riorde complains bitterly against the other man, roused out of her own benumbed silence with a flash of temper. She doesn't address the arguments themselves though, sign of her uncertainty. She falls silent for several paces, chin tucked in against the cold. "What does Viremi think?" "He's--" Devaki's voice actually goes uneven as he pauses to gather his thoughts. "He's not well. Not talking much sense. He thinks that I'm my father." His expression is neutral enough, however, aside from the ruddiness of his cheeks. He's silent, now, on the subject of Xavior, though the display of temper does, at least, draw his gaze, noting her huddled state. Abruptly, he begins to guide them back towards the barracks, circling around. "I guess it depends how many of the council survive-- this." Riorde doesn't know what to say and so says nothing at first. She looks out across the bowl, all that snow and stone and no sea, and it's the rising awareness of the vast unfamiliarity that makes her try to crowd in closer, not the cold. Hesitantly, she voices, "Maybe you are like your father." It's hard to tell what Devaki makes of that, at first; there's a slight faltering of his step, a faint noise that might be acknowledgement. "Maybe," he says, finally. "If I become anything like him, I think I'd be happy. So would Viremi." He tucks the furs closer around Riorde as he guides them back, deliberately not looking at the view Riorde takes in. Just the sensation of one foot in front of the other. "Be careful, Ri. Don't trust them. They have their own agenda. We can't trust anyone but our own," a brief pause, then, fainter, almost inaudible: "And maybe not even our own." "I don't know if I have ever trusted anyone." It isn't quite the confirmation Riorde could have given, admitted in quiet tones. It could make her suspect when she tries to pull Devaki to a stop so she can face him fully, expression anxious but hard. "Dev - if you go, if they make us go, will you -" Not quite sure what she's asking except that it's against a growing sense of isolation, Riorde says, muted and indistinct, "I don't want to be left alone." Surprise flickers across Devaki's face as stops as bidden, studying her face, pale blue eyes slight more focused than earlier. He's patient as she falters, pulling furs closer as he waits for her to finish. There's a smile -- faint, but a little more like his normal self -- that flitters across his expression in reassurance. He reaches out and, unless she resists, clearly intends to pull her into a hug. "You won't be alone," he murmurs in her ear. "Whatever else, I consider us family. We'll look out for each other. I'll look out for /everyone/. Okay?" Drawn in, Riorde's response is muffled against Devaki's shoulder as she turns her face away from the cold. "Okay." It's hard to tell how reassured she is at the point when she steps back and tugs Devaki towards the barracks. "Come on - it's cold." Devaki wraps the furs around them, creating a little circle of warmth in the midst of the snow. As she steps back, he drops his arms, letting Riorde tug him towards the barracks, nodding his head in acknowledgement of his wisdom, unprotesting. The guard paces him, lighting their way back to the warmth of the barracks. |
Leave A Comment