sixthiterationlogs | Under a sky, no one sees Waiting Watching it happening

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Under a sky, no one sees Waiting Watching it happening

WHO: Bodhi
WHERE: Around town, the inn
WHEN: Forward-dated to March 18
OPEN TO: All!
WARNINGS: None, will update
STATUS: Open

The storms didn't bother him a bit--he had far more on his mind when he first arrived, and wild weather has always been a bit of a specialty of his. The odd little flickers of light excited his curiosity, but he's known planets with much odder bits of phenomena. The soft, wet cold is just as unusual by his standards. Fog is kind of fun. Not, it turns out, the best thing to wander into alone, not when he can't trust his memory to race away to unsafe places, when shifting shapes and unpredictable dimness can so easily evoke... Well, he learns not to stay too far after the first time out.

Aside from that, he doesn't give the little lights or insects or weather much thought. He has Jyn's crisis to deal with, after all, and while he has yet to really find his niche, he's always intent on staying busy, contributing enough with odd jobs to justify the time he spends meandering physically and mentally. He doesn't try to avoid the little lights.

He notices the fever itself. He was a sickly kid, and he's not particularly sturdy now, but what he lacks in immune system, he makes up for in resilience. He moves a little more slowly, takes a few more breaks, but he keeps going. The other symptoms come on more slowly, and these, Bodhi doesn't notice. He's always sure he's doing everything wrong and that if anyone knew the truth they'd hate him. He glances to the side too quickly to see shifting shadows that couldn't be there more often than he'd like to admit. It's a little bit of a bad day, but he's not feeling well. It'll work itself out.

There are slips he doesn't usually make, though, or not without checking carefully to see if anyone's around. Talking to himself--a low, constant murmur, hard to make out any individual pieces. Drumming his fingers in complicated patterns against each other and whatever satisfying surface is nearby (actually, he's done that all his life, but if people notice they sometimes ask, and he gets flustered by having no answer). Long moments that, left uninterrupted, stretch on and on of just being... absent. It's so easy to slip back under, let bor gullet have him. Keeping his head together is the hard part.

There's nowhere he really does belong, and he winds up in the trees and the fog over and over again, but once in a while he gets lost near the inn, his usual base of operations.

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It's the lure of the fog that draws Ned out into the town. He's been mostly lurking at the Inn, no official chambers he's yet claimed, attempting to make the acquaintance of those in the town, knowing that a land is only as good as its people. He's met a handful of the other villagers - most notably his children (with whom he'd ideally spend the vast majority of his time, though he's been hesitant to thrust his presence on them for fear of hovering too much; he respects the fact, despite the unbearable urge to somehow latch onto them and never let go, that they're adults now. Forever his children, but grown and with their own lives, however strange they might be in this .. place) - but otherwise, he's spent his time exploring every nook and cranny of the area. He'd originally been searching for the Lord or Lady of the stead, thinking that perhaps he'd been rude - simply arriving, failing to make an introduction - but it'd been explained to him that no such person existed here.

It was simply .. democratic.

It reminded him of what lie north of the Wall, the Free Folk - derogatorily the Wildlings, which Ned had the nasty habit of using to refer to them. He needed to correct that, eventually. But they'd had a system a bit like this, he thinks, based on the limited interactions he'd had. Never answering to the Crown or the Realm - having a leader, but chosen by the people and not given the title through blood or marriage. All together strange and foreign to Ned, a man grown up with Lords, and Princes, and Kings.

He's been spending a good chunk of time loitering around the blacksmith, poking around a bit at what equipment is there (not much) and what could possibly be forged (even less). Not that he's got even the inkling of a smith's knowledge, but - it could prove to be useful. It's at least something familiar, something close enough to home to make him temporarily release the memory, a leaf on the breeze.

He thinks to perhaps return to the inn, fill his belly with something there. As he draws closer, he sees a rather aimless shadow floating around - then, with each step further, hears more and more what sounds like muttering. He wonders if it's a strange insect or creature nearby until he realizes it's the figure - a man. A very frail, wisp of a thing. He looks quite agitated, concerned, worried - yet somehow vacant. He'd seen men lose their minds before, sometimes from war, sometimes from death of loved ones, sometimes from isolation. Man's mind is fickle, he knows, and he wonders what might've happened to this one to make its owner act so erratically.

When he's close enough, he decides to call out.

"Are you lost?"

Edited 2017-03-14 08:40 (UTC)

Bodhi jumps rather obviously, cut off mid-mutter. He can't place the voice, can't slot it into any of the plans he's making or the ideas flitting through his head. He doesn't feel up to something new, making room for yet another variable, but the idea of upsetting someone is paralyzingly distressing. He doesn't dart into the mist as much as he wants to, turns instead, slowly, chin down, peering up around heavy brows in a way that lets him avoid eye contact. Good, he was right. A stranger. He's having a harder time being right lately. It's probably being sick.

The production takes entirely too long, and there's another pause while, once he's sort of facing Ned, he has to actually reach back into his head for the question. Lost. He's suddenly afraid he might be, glances around quickly (still keeping his gaze low), and determines he's pretty sure he's not. He can identify the way back to the inn. "N-no." Though the word's barely stuttered out before he checks again, just to make absolutely sure. No, that's the way. Not lost. He takes half a step to the side so he's facing the way back. It has the added bonus of putting his back to the broad trunk of a tree. He checks once more that he does know the way and only then drags his attention back to Ned.

Not the right approach, he realizes too late. Though, he imagines, there'd be no interruption of the man's seemingly endless tide of thoughts (non-sensical or otherwise) that would've made the reaction any less jolting. He could've approached the situation a bit more delicately, though - spoken more softly, taken more care with how he edged in closer, been conscious of his posture and his voice to make them softer, smoother, less threatening. All great in hindsight, but not as useful now. Though he does take his own advice and relaxes his posture, warms the steel of his face (he's never been a garishly expressive man, but he's not without emotions all together), keeps his hands visible to show he's in possession of no weapon, there's no intend to harm here.

The man is troubled, to say the least. Whatever race he's been running in the desert of his mind, it's far from over, and who knows how long it's been going on in the first place? Ned inches closer still, bit by bit, mostly to aid in his own strained hearing of the man's voice, barely audible. It's hardly above a whisper, and though Ned's only seen 35 name days, the weathered crag of his face - the depths of the trails chiseled around his eyes and forehead, the peppering of white in his seedling hairs on his chin, the weariness that clouds his light eyes - all suggest a man significantly older than his chronological age - and his hearing has suffered a bit, after years at war.

He keeps his gaze steady on the man's face, not entirely trusting of his insistence of knowing where he is. It's fairly obvious that he might think he does - but whether his waking dream matched his reality is a different tale all together.

"I'm Eddard," he begins, voice low and gentle, "Though those closest to me often call me Ned." An open-ended introduction, a beckoning for the man to return the gesture without verbal force.

Edited 2017-03-15 00:31 (UTC)

The slow approach doesn't do the man any favors. He doesn't like anyone in his space that he hasn't invited there, and the inching forward feels like an attempted incursion. Not that he does anything about it--he hates to be a bother, he might make the man angry, he knows it's irrational--but it doesn't make him any happier. He plucks nervously at the sleeve of his scrubs--he's not really dressed for the weather, the cold not deep enough to bother him when the fever's making it hard to tell one moment to the next what the temperature is, the fog warming to shimmery little beads of water on his hair and beard and making everything sort of soothingly clammy.

Having to find his own words (being polite is important if you don't want to upset people) increases the surge of nerves. One hand moves from his sleeve to his ragged hair, the ponytail already pulled halfway around by this same habit, his worrying fingers making even more of a mess of it.

Eddard. He's bad at names. Not as bad as at faces (the face itself isn't especially threatening, nor the voice, which in Bodhi's current state just fails to scare him more, rather than calming him), but he hopes he doesn't lose it immediately. Right, his own comes next. It's a script. He can talk if he knows the steps. He's fine when he knows. Why can't he settle into the way this conversation works? "Bodhi Rook." It's just as soft and shaky, and his eyes dart to the ground.

The stiffening of the man's posture is enough to keep Ned's feet firmly planted; he'll strain to hear the whispers that escape the man's mouth, rather than risk further upset and discomfort. He peels the coat from his body - his Northern blood quick to adapt to the cold fingers that wrap themselves around him after he does - and holds it out to the man from where he stands. No obligation, just as he'd left the introduction open - but there, should the man decide he wants or needs the extra warmth. Ned's still not entirely comfortable or pleased with the attire here: rather thin fabric a far cry from the beautifully crafted leathers, furs, and pelts he'd known in Winterfell - or even the skilled tailors and seamstresses of King's Landing (though he'd never think all that fondly about warmer weather). Even still, the cold is slow to seep into his skin.

"Bodhi Rook," he repeats, committing it to memory. "A name unlike one I've ever heard before. Where are you from, Bodhi Rook?"

Edited 2017-03-15 20:32 (UTC)

Bodhi doesn't even look at the coat. It doesn't seem to be a threat, so why would he? Too much going on. If he could get away to somewhere quiet maybe he could sort things out, but he doesn't trust himself to move fast in the dim light, not when the terrain is so odd to him (not that any terrain would really be familiar--he's a city boy).

The question is innocuous, but he doesn't trust it. He's not cut out for this life, not brilliant like Galen or clever like Cassian, who knows what secrets he might accidentally let slip if he lets himself just talk at his usual heedless speed he knows better but he doesn't know what to do instead and the answer is Jedha and he can't even think of it without his heart going colder than the air in his chest how do the others go through their days without freezing how does he--

Just because the words aren't escaping his mouth doesn't mean they don't spin around, and he has to pull free of the buzzing to even try to comply. Letting secrets go would be bad (for reasons he can't quite recall, but that's nothing new, and it's enough to know his duty and not the whys), but getting in trouble would be, too. "NiJedha," he says, because he can't think of anything else. The bit of string tying back his hair fails under the stress his twitching fingers put it under, letting the tangled strands fall forward.

Seeing that Bodhi is unlikely to take the coat from his hands, he instead lays it on the ground between them - inched a bit closer towards Bodhi than himself. Takes a few steps back, allowing the man the room he seems to require in order to function, though it's obvious even to a stranger than the man's barely doing so. And, instead of letting his gaze linger too long on the twitching, nervous man, he lets his eyes wander to their surroundings - staying aware of what might be lurking in and behind the thick curtain of the fog. He's yet to see threats - at least like the ones he's used to - but he knows not to be complacent.

He'd been too trusting in King's Landing, put too much faith in the hearts of men not knowing they'd been already turned black, already corrupted. The Game doesn't seem to be played here - no Royal Family, no crown to speak of, no throne, but it doesn't mean there is no danger to be found. It may have simply taken another form, one he might not be expecting.

"NiJedha," Ned repeats quietly, feeling the sound out on his tongue as he slowly brings his attention back to Bodhi. "I've never heard of it before." He considers the man, hair now blanketing his face, then asks, "Do you have any friends here, Bodhi? Someone to come help you?"

The question gets his hackles up immediately. For... more than one reason. At the moment he can't help feeling like the answer is no. Jyn and the Captain are near strangers and superhuman and he's afraid of them both, admittedly for different reasons. Calling them friends would be presumptuous and wrong. There are people he's spoken to, whose company he sort of enjoys, but friends? He doesn't really think so. People willing to put up with him to the degree you could call it friendship are awfully rare. He's hardly worth that. He was hardly worth that when he was just a dull, ambitionless cargo hauler, and now he's that plus trouble, and of course he doesn't have any friends.

But maybe the question is intended to dig out information. He defected. He's a constant risk, isn't he? He was just assuming the Imperials had no power here, but he can't remember how he came to that conclusion, and wouldn't it make perfect sense if this were some kind of elaborate head game? Kriff, doesn't need to be the Imperials. Were the rebels really any better? At the moment, Saw's dungeon feels awfully close.

"I don't need help," he says too fast. It's true--he's better off out here than he would be where there's more noise, more people, more input he needs to be aware of tearing his attention apart. But it's also defensive. He's not giving anything away.

"Clearly; you seem like a man more than capable of taking care of himself," Ned soothes, no hint of sarcasm or snark in his voice. Perhaps better to go with the man on his winding, rambling path, rather than trying to edge him off of it, onto something straighter and more direct. He offers a very faint smile - the light of it showing up more in the hues of his eyes than on his lips. "Perhaps you could show me a safe area? I've only just arrived and haven't learnt much about the grounds." Only partially untrue; Ned knew the location of only a handful of locations: the Inn, the blacksmith, and the houses of his children. He'd thought to explore a bit more but the lack of energy has left his body feeling riddled with creaks and moans; he reminds himself a bit of old Maester Pycelle, as upsetting as it is. "If you'd be so willing and courteous to do so, that is."

It's a clever move, if only because it forces Bodhi to think about something other than himself. A distraction, a moment outside the demanding buzz of potential threats. The path his conclusion takes soothes a little, too, as he comes to the conclusion that he can't think of any dangerous areas. Perhaps his perspective is a bit skewed by what he lived through before his arrival, but the place isn't dangerous. Even his induced paranoia creates dangers out of people and memories and distant possibilities, not actual dangers he's seen.

Bodhi doesn't seem any better, but he doesn't try to retreat further, talking more or less steadily to the ground a few feet in front of him in a more or less audible fashion while his fingers keep up their nervous plucking. "I don't--Um, what I mean is... I don't think I'd know if... I don't think the places are dangerous."

"That's rather comforting to know," Ned thinks aloud, and part of him truly does mean it. The last months of his life - before he'd found himself floundering in the waters of the fountain - had been prisoner in the royal dungeon. Prior to being tossed in there like refuse, he'd begun to question his sanity, everything around him, everyone around him. A man of deep, unrelenting honor and conviction of self and duty, he'd mistakenly expected the same in those around him without question or possible thought they'd not adhere to such a strict moral code. It's what did him in, in the end. Believing in the hearts of men when they'd already gone black.

"I heard rumors of a spring somewhere to the south; do you know of it?"

"Um." The question is a good one in that it's not touching on anything he can't handle, anything that makes it worse. It's less than helpful in that it makes him realize he doesn't know the local geography all that well yet. "Ground water like that, I... it's... I'm not the best person to ask." He doesn't know who that would be instead, especially as the water seems to be basically potable without needing any treatment. That strikes him as odd, but given everything else about the place that's clearly under the control of external forces and unknown masters, and, kriff, what do they want? Normally they feel faintly benign to him, given it he weren't here he'd be a bit of a smudge on smoking ship debris, but right now...

He extends his hand, stretches it as though trying to wake the muscle and bone within. Gaze falls to it, considers it as he continues to stretch it before raising his eyes to scan Bodhi's face, his own expression one of silent apology and and quiet hope.

"The trouble of the matter is, I've seemed to have injured my hand. I'd been rather foolish and had caught it in a door," he explains. It is technically true, he had injured it, but it had been his own foolish behavior (slamming a fist into the wall out of anger and sadness at the three missing memebers of his family who had not yet shown up). "I'd heard rumors the spring was apparently useful in healing injuries; is there another place you could take me, perhaps? As I've said, I've not yet learnt the entire village."

He's sympathetic to clumsy injuries. Bodhi's never without a few weird bruises in inexplicable places, sometimes with very little idea where he got them or what he did to deserve it. Though as a rule he doesn't do anything about them except note their existence sometimes. A life spent tripping over things is a life that leads to pretty solid pain tolerance. "I'm sure you could, um, get directions from someone at the inn." The inn is Bodhi's answer to everything, the closest thing he can get to a cantina and a wonderfully convenient way not to have to commit to anything much because there are always bits of news and people passing through and mildly useful tasks to be found there.

Normally. Right now, the inn means people and noise and he'd really rather not. "I... I could show you where..." He'd rather not, but appealing to his sense of duty is quite effective.

"And if the Inn is empty?" He hasn't spent enough time in the establishment to know whether such a thing was likely, but if it was anything like the ones he'd known in Westeros, there were always cyclical lulls in the day. Evenings drew the most crowds, mornings and early afternoons were a bit more desolate. Besides, his children had mentioned something about a Maester - or at least someone like it - somewhere in the town; if he could just get Bodhi to take him there ..

"Do you know if there's a Maester here? Or a healer of some kind? There's just enough pain in the bone to make me worry that perhaps I've broken something."

Maester doesn't mean anything to him, but healer does, of course. And there is a doctor of some kind, though Bodhi has never sought him out, just acknowledged that information as important to have tucked away in his head somewhere. Which just makes him feel sillier not being able to pull it out. Details are very hard right now, and a name he's never used and a face he's never tried to retain aren't working. "I... There is, but, um, not sure where to look..." He's just very bad at being a worthwhile and functioning person, isn't he? Now if only cringing away would get him further from himself.

"Could I trouble you? To come with me to find him?" Ned assumes it'll be a man simply because it always was a man back home, though he's also vaguely picturing the Maesters with which he's familiar: simple robes of uncomfortable fabric; heavy chains of varying metals, each one forged when they'd mastered a new discipline; weathered faces of a man who's poured himself into the well-being of others. "I don't think I'll run into much difficulty, but it'd be better having someone with me in case I do. If I remember correctly, it should only be a bit further south from here," he says, gesturing in the proper direction with his unbattered hand.

It's fortunate that Bodhi has more better nature to go around than he gives himself credit for. He'd so much rather walk away and leave directions to the inn in his wake, but he's not letting himself ignore need anymore. That's what got him into that uniform in the first place. He'll do it. "I don't know how much help I'll be," he warns, but he falls into step. Sort of. The distance between them is more than is reasonable, and he's still holding himself stiffly and scanning his surroundings every moment. Not the attitude of someone who's actually used to survival--he'd get himself killed faster that way, if anything actually wanted him dead.

"Even if it's to run and find help should something happen to me, it is more than I could do on my own," Ned replies gently, grateful that Bodhi - for all of whatever might be plaguing him - seems to still cling to some moral compass. Some sort of compassion and sympathy to help a person in possible need. He follows a few paces behind - just enough to allow the man enough space, to not feel overly crowded, but enough to keep him in Ned's sights. "You're quite kind, to help," he adds, glancing down to his battered hand.

"I'm a pretty good messenger," Bodhi agrees, buoying his own mood a little with the joke that would be totally incomprehensible to almost everyone, especially a stranger. That does as much to bolster his focus as being given a mission does. "Can't--can't be that useful, um, in any other ways, though, probably..." Walking quickly and scanning the path, the space the man's giving him, all of it adds up to letting him stay on task. Minimally. Enough that he doesn't bolt off into the trees.

Ned can only nod to Bodhi's first statement, no frame of reference for him to either agree or disagree. It certainly seems to hold true, however, given their circumstances and given the help he has agreed to give to a stranger. He tilts his head as Bodhi continues on, both out of strain to hear and out of curiosity. The man seems to be rather eager and rather adept at being the first to speak in an ill manner of himself.

"None of us can be useful or skilled at everything," he replies, "If we are gifted at one or two things, then we are luckier than many."

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Under a sky, no one sees Waiting Watching it happening

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