Logs:Conscripts At Rest
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| RL Date: 25 October, 2013 |
| Who: Aukiri, Rhey |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Log |
| What: Cold and hungry conscripts talk about the fire. |
| Where: Winter Camp, Nabol Hold |
| When: Day 1, Month 2, Turn 33 (Interval 10) |
| Mentions: Ienavi/Mentions, Rone/Mentions |
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| Winter Camp, Nabol Hold It's cold and bleak and not terribly pleasant. That's life in Rone's army for you, I guess. Only the luckiest of Rone's people get to stay in the warm, cozy Hold over the winter season - they're the well-trained ones, the professionals, the kind of people trusted to keep their 'Lord' safe. Meanwhile, winter's half gone and it's only now that the rest, the conscripts, are really beginning to make a proper, semi-permanent camp for themselves. The tents are drafty, but there are bonfires at regular intervals, and if there's not much food, well, they're still probably doing better than a lot of Nabolese, this winter. It's evening, now, and a cluster of boys are sitting around one of the fires, trying to stay warm. Alikos' is a familiar face - he's done well, made himself relatively indefensible, and has been correspondingly awarded for it. The boy next to him is smaller, probably barely in his mid-teens, and - according to Alikos - has been drilling with one of the groups across the other side of the camp, until now. That Rhey looks slightly better fed than most of the others has led to some grumbling, but: "Maybe I just have light fingers." He waggles them, just for show. "Or maybe I was a little butterball before all this mess." "I swear, next time, I'm just going to leave him under that tent and hope it smothers him." Newcomer to this fire, this night, but not an unfamiliar face is Joran, who gives Alikos' shoulder a hearty shove as he sidles up next to him. "Maybe if it snowed and he was face up," pipes up the freckled boy trailing behind Joran, one Aukiri, whose grin and generally over-joyous disposition has yet to be erased by underfeeding or rough conditions. Kiri just gives Rhey a greeting of, "Hey Butters," when he pulls up alongside the other boy, tugging at his own mitts. Alikos is more inclined to the serious than the jovial, but he grew up with brothers, and it's instinctual, really, to return any proffered shoves. "You say that every time," he says, with a roll of his eyes, whether or not that's actually true. "Anyway. There's hot water in the pot; help yourselves." That hot water - not tea, and not klah, just plain water - is an evening staple, though Rhey, for one, makes a face at mention of it. "Never thought I'd see the day that I'd have that nickname, except out of-- what do they call it, when they call a fat man skinny Joe? You know. That. Perhaps they'll call Rone 'The Peaceful', one day." Joran is more interested in holding his hands near the fire. Kiri might be caught glancing to him before tugging off his mitts, pinching them between his knees, and doing the same. But it's Rhey - Butters - who's got most of his attention. "I think that's just called 'lying'." It's, again, Joran who corrects, "Irony," with the sort of exasperation that comes from having had puppies following him around all day. And now sharing his fire. The look Alikos gives Rhey, and then Joran and Kiri in turn, is not easily identified, though the tightening of the line of his mouth when he glances away again might say something as to his thoughts. Rhey is rather less serious, though the astute might suspect it's not his natural milieu. "Irony," he repeats, shifting his position uncomfortably. "Fancy word. D'you do something all book-learn-y, before, then? I always wished I was smart like that." Aukiri offers, "Hey, even I've heard people say things are ironic," in time that Joran closes his mouth, and looks, thoughtfully, over at Alikos, not answering. "Like getting told how there's a real chance to make a real difference, change Pern, and now just sitting around here." But he's still smiling, even when he reaches for one of the mugs near the fire on the ground, and ladles himself up some tasty, tasty hot water. "You believe all that? Changing Pern?" Rhey sounds eager when he says that, and a glance in his direction will show shining eyes... though that could be the heat of the fire on his face, since that certainly has to account for the flush about his cheeks. "I guess even revolutionaries can't make it easy to travel in winter. It seems like a waste, though. We should be getting ready for... for action. Surprise them all, come Spring." Someone, one of the older boys further around the fire, snorts. Alikos' mouth twitches. "Butters." Aukiri shrugs, and his mitts fall out from between his knees, not when he'd scooched forward for water, but on the way back, when he's trying not to spill it. "I don't know. Is it going to change Pern, who's in Nabol?" For just a moment, his face falls some, but he's back to that easy grin with, "Sounded exciting, though." He's looking across to Alikos when he insists, "Well we should. I mean, otherwise, why don't we all go find other places for home, and wait there?" Which has Joran looking their way too. "It'll change Nabol, anyway," decides one of the other boys; Rhey is silent, watching people's reactions with more interest than his thus-far happy-go-lucky demeanour has suggested would be the usual. "I don't know about the rest of you," he says, after a moment. "But I didn't get the choice. I thought it would be more exciting, though. And less cold. More fool me, maybe." Rhey grins, abruptly. "But maybe he'll reward us all, when he wins." "Maybe," Aukiri agrees, licking at his lips, and then lifting the cup of warmth (even if it is only warmth by way of water) to his lips. "Maybe we'll even win real quick. Are there any other groups? Big as we are?" It's Joran who's ignoring Kiri's flood of words, and who manages to command at least some attention with a flat, "What did you do?" directed at Butter-Rhey. "Out where I am," on the other side of the camp, or so he says, "there's a rumour going 'round that the weyr's going to support the Lady. Ienavi, I mean, and her kid." Rhey's wide-eyed for the telling of this little factoid, but shakes his head soon after. "But they'd be stupid to get involved, right? I mean." He seems conscious of Joran's question only belatedly, and laughs. "Nothing but a farm boy, hooked up to join when they decided I was old enough. Unless I wanted them to burn it all, of course. Kin to Alikos here." Beat. "Distant kin, anyway." Aukiri's attention is, for a moment, divided between Rhey's explanation and the kid from the other side. It's the latter he looks to in the end, shaking his head. "Can't be the whole Weyr. Or else why'd they have guys looking for guys to come join up here?" So many guys. He shakes his head again, and then snorts. "Maybe the Weyr'll start getting people camped out in the cold too, until they decide what they want to do." Did he hear Rhey? Maybe. One of the boys laughs, nervously. "Or maybe they'll come here with their dragons and burn us all to death. Which," he sighs. "At least we'll die warm, right?" Rhey shifts uncomfortably, casting a glance around the circle, his teeth set deep into the skin of his lip. "I'd rather not die at all," he decides, eventually. "It all feels less exciting when you talk about dying like that. I wonder if they'd miss us, if we just ran away." "I always got told dragons weren't allowed to hurt people," pipes up another. Aukiri's now, at least, focused on Butters, next to him, and ignores the ensuing discussion about legality in general in favour of nudging at Rhey with his elbow. "Where would you even go?" But he has to speak up with that, because it's getting loud around this here fire. Rhey turns, regarding Kiri levelly. "Not sure," he admits. "Maybe I'd flag down a passing dragon. Or walk to... somewhere. Someone would take me in eventually, before I froze." He sounds surprisingly sure of that, somehow - perhaps it's just the confidence of youth. "You have to wonder what they intended, sometimes. I mean, maybe. What's the point of an army sitting around doing nothing?" "We have been sitting around here for a while, huh?" Says Kiri, says one of the newer-comers. But it draws some consensus from across the fire. He drinks a bit more from his cup, and shifts his feet, kicking at his mittens from either side. "Maybe there won't be any fighting at all," sounds glum. Kick. Rhey exhales, and something about his expression shows... what, satisfaction? It disappears again quickly. "Maybe there won't be. Maybe we'll just sit here until spring and then it'll all be over. Maybe Rone doesn't even know what he's doing." There's a muffled grunt from one of the others. "Just as long as they don't hang us as traitors or something, if he loses." "They wouldn't do that," Aukiri decides, standing on tip-toe to peer around the camp, to other fires, other groups. After a few moments given over to inspection, he settles again, nodding firmly. "They'd run out of rope." |
Comments
K'zin (K'zin (talk)) left a comment on Tue, 29 Oct 2013 05:55:10 GMT.
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I'm trying (seriously!) to get better with my comments. My first instinct is to just gush about how much I loved this scene (because I did; I felt like I was reading a passage from a novel and got to the end and was disgruntled because there wasn't more). But toward the goal of being a better comment-maker, I specifically really enjoyed seeing a scene from Rone's army on the whole; it helps fill in a lot of blanks. I really loved Butters. I think the thing I enjoyed most was the flow and back and forthing with the use of the NPCs; it all knit together and seemed very 'real' to me. Which brings me back to <3ing a shameful amount.
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