sunburned | (no subject)

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cities

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The city hasn't changed very much, in the time since he was last there. The market still heaves with bodies, the air heavy with spice and incense. He finds himself remembering the scraps of Hindi that he learned when he was here last. He doesn't know the others well, but he tries to keep them in the corner of his eye - particularly Kivrin, who he knows matters to Julie.

"There has to be some way back," he says, to nobody in particular. "To the island, I mean? We cannot be stranded here?"

ooc: gathering post! This is where they get separated, so choose the groups you will, darling ones! :D

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Kivrin leans into him, almost unconsciously grateful for the reassurance. "My implant will pick it up," she says hesitantly, leaving unspoken the if we're here for very long. None of them know how long this is likely to be.

"Hopefully, we won't be here long enough for it to need to," he says, valiantly fighting to put Julie and Laurence both out of his mind. "the island's capricious at best; it whipped us here, it may well whip us home again."

"Yes," Kivrin says, not at all surprised he'd all but read her thoughts. "Honestly, I don't think at all that it's going to be permanent. Longer than we'd like, maybe, but that's mostly because we didn't have time to pack or leave a note. I expect Pangur will find someone to feed him."

"Julie's pregnant." He says it absently, not entirely sure that it's his news to tell, but it's all that he can think about. It fills his mind entirely. "I refuse to think that I am stuck here without her and Laurence both."

"I know." She'd figured it out, once she stopped being so distracted by the mist and her Oxford and her time lab and started paying attention to her friends' actual lives. "But it seems unlikely somehow, that we're stuck here forever. It's a bit like back home. The drop is stuck, or off-timed, but we'll find it and we'll get back. Or someone else will come for us."

"I dread to think what Laurence'll get up to while I'm not there," says Granby, because thinking about that means he doesn't have to linger on the thought that he might get stuck here. "He's already brought up marriage and she's only been with child for five minutes."

"Mischief. But nothing they can't solve," Kivrin promises. "And we'll have a story to tell them, when we get back. More likely they've missed you already and are trying to rush in to fetch you back."

"If Laurence has done anything other than locked Julie in a room, I'll kill him," says Granby, grimly. "He can come himself, if he likes, but he'd best have taken measures to stop her."

"I'm staying out of it," Kivrin says, quickly and firmly, not feeling entirely qualified to offer suggestions on other people's impending babies. "With any luck we can bring them back a souvenir."

"Souvenirs," says Granby, trying to nod, trying not to take everything so far to heart. "You're right. I must find her something she'll really like. Lauence is far easier to please."

"That's the trouble with contented people," Kivrin laughs. "It's so hard to find things they like more than what they already have. But look, does that look like a bazaar to you, over there? We could go see."

He nodded and then, almost as an after thought, offered her his arm.

"Excuse my manners," he says, giving her a crooked smile. "Laurence would reprimand me for the most horrific sort of scrub."

Kivrin laughs, and takes his arm. "It's all right, I won't tell on you."

"Good," he says, smiling, a faint flush starting under his ever present sunburn. "Because I think that having both of them angry at me would be something like between trapped between a devil and the deep blue sea. They've both got a temper, though Laurence is far more difficult to find."

"I wouldn't wish it on you," Kivrin laughs. "See, it's convenient to have nobody to get upset with me but a greedy cat." It has its downsides, too, but at least guilt isn't one of them.

"I'm used to a dragon who holds me to account," he says, pausing to examine a stall full of jewelled rings far too big for Julie's fingers, far too flashy for Laurence's. "You'd think I'd be used to it by now."

Kivrin leans over to inspect an amber ring, but more out of curiosity than interest. "You would, really. I admit I'm still not used to the idea I don't have to report to anyone. I keep thinking my tutor's going to want udpates on everything."

"My mother sent me to the Corps when I was eight years old," he says, pausing as she looks at the ring. "I've been trying to remember that I do not have to snap to constantly, but training is hell on a man. Though, I imagine, Laurence would have something to say about the quality of my discipline from time to time."

"Eight!" Kivrin looks startled, though it probably isn't that different from being sent off to school like she was. "That seems awfully young."

"My father died and she couldn't afford to keep all of us," he says, no emotion - just a fact to be stated. "It was that or let my sister starve, I suppose."

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