e’d hoped for the slightest, driest little smile in Aremu’s eyes. He remembered him in Sweet Waters, wary and quiet, but with that sharp-edged wit; it’d never been easy to make him laugh, not like some kov, but he’d thought a joke might set him at ease. It had the first time. It had —
Instead, the imbala crept back, ‘til he couldn’t feel the press of his field. Tom didn’t blame him; he wished he hadn’t put him through it in the first place, lying out on deck like a landed fish.
The smile on his face flickered as Aremu dipped in an awkward crouching bow. When he insisted he’d been the disturbance, Tom made a little tut in the back of his throat, frowning briefly, but he didn’t say anything.
He didn’t say anything, neither, when Aremu nodded his head and made to get to his feet; he half-wanted to, but he knew it’d be selfish beyond reason. He nodded back, and smiled tightly, and watched as the imbala edged round.
Tom lowered his head back down to the deck, and knit his fingers back over his chest, and sighed. He crossed his ankles, in the hopes it made him look more relaxed and less dead.
When he was sure Aremu’s back was turned, fair sure he wasn’t looking back, he lolled his head on one side to watch him pad away. He squinted, scanning the dark pane of the cabin wall for anything like rungs, a ladder. Then Aremu was clambering up on the railing, balancing himself with as much grace as Tom remembered. One long arm stretched up to the roof, feeling the edge out careful-like with familiar thoughtful fingers, and then that one arm was pulling the weight of him up and over. A smile broke across Tom’s face; he couldn’t help it.
He sighed again. He felt the deck shift a little more underneath his back, but he wasn’t worried. Aremu flattened against the roof, and when the rocking stilled, he was up again. Tom tilted his head back to study the sky as Aremu turned and sat on the edge. He’d half-expected him to make for the rigging, but it was tangling something tsuter right now. That was Yaris for you, he reckoned.
He could still see the imbala, but he found himself relaxing; he shifted, stretched, pillowed the back of his head with his hands.
He smiled suddenly, again, lifting his head a little — he’d found it. He thought. Puzzled, he lowered his head back, tilted it. He traced the head, the handle, with his eyes; he squinted them, so the stars melted together again, and no point quite so bright drew him away. On second thought, he wasn’t at all sure; he frowned, pursed his lips. But what other landmarks had he to know it by? Sighing, his eyes wandered away, and the hammer looked less and less like a hammer. He searched for other shapes, but he didn’t think he was fair good at it.
Once or twice, the Uccello gave an even greater heave, and Tom felt it creak underneath him; he saw the slim shadow of Aremu sway, just a pina, on the roof. It didn’t set his stomach to lurching anymore. Once or twice, he thought to say something, to point out a scattering or whirl or winding path of stars he thought comely; he had the strangest urge to ask if he knew their names. You know them by their shapes. His heart sank.
The Uccello rocked, and creaked out a deep complaint, and the chainmail skin of the artevium balloon shivered. Moonlight shimmered over it; like lightning, he thought, and wondered what that’d look like. He ached; Aremu perched there, in the corner of his eye, like a held breath. Tom felt like his own breath was held, and in that second, it became unbearable.
“D’you see that star, there? The red one?” he called, soft, and only half-hoped his voice carried over the wind; he pointed, looked at it down the length of Anatole’s thin, wavering finger. “I see it sometimes on clear nights, but it's hard to see, in the city. Sometimes I wonder what it’s called — it reminds me of a coal.”
He regretted it the moment it came out of his mouth. He folded his hands back over his chest, swallowing thickly. He felt like he’d laid a flooding laoso obligation on him, and they’d both come out here to be alone; he shouldn’t’ve had to babysit the incumbent in the first place. He shut his eyes momentarily, feeling tsuter, hoping the wind died down sooner than later.