Trinity: Eagles
Jan. 5th, 2006 03:39 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsIn some more downtime in the camp before heading off to investigate the school the next day, Nathan indulges in a very old Kazakh custom. He talks Haroun into getting on a horse and coming with him. Unused to riding, Haroun takes a spill out on the steppes. And Nathan leaves him there.
"~I think I'm possibly out of practice,~" Nathan said to the old man standing beside him, eyeing the very large bird on Baurzhan's arm.
Baurzhan laughed. He was the younger brother of Farkhan, the man whose family had taken Nathan in twenty years ago. Nathan had been saddened to learn that the old patriarch had passed away, but Baurzhan had immediately taken on his brother's duty of hospitality, enthusiastically so. Nathan had a number of very good memories of this man from twenty years ago, and age hadn't dulled him.
"~You took to it quickly enough all those years ago,~" he chided Nathan. "~And he'll smell fear.~"
"~I'm not afraid of you,~" Nathan told the eagle with a raised eyebrow, and then took him from Baurzhan.
Haroun, standing well-back of the raptors and the nomads, watched with something of an impartial air. He'd seen men go hawking before - a spoiled indulgence of the terminally wealthy - but not with birds that big before. Haroun felt insanely jealous of them, how they took to the sky effortlessly and glided on soaring thermals.
Nathan swung up into the saddle, his wrist protesting the weight of the eagle even though he was wearing the customary support. The bird ruffled his feathers in a way that reminded Nathan of Bella, although the noise he emitted was far more fierce-sounding. He saw Haroun watching and freed one hand from the reins to wave.
Haroun waved back, glad that Nathan was having a good time. Someone ought to be on this miserable trip. He was cold, hungry, tired, sore, and generally miserable. He thought he was in shape enough to handle everything, thought he could handle the stresses, but his grip was clearly beginning to falter. Worse than that, his back was starting to hurt again.
Nathan picked up the reins again and started over, careful to balance the eagle. The horse tossed her head, as if taking exception to Haroun, and Nathan gave the mare a level look. "Sure I can't talk you into a ride?" he asked.
"Who, me?" Haroun asked. "I'm really not sure I'm up for it..." he said, and then shook his head. "Screw it. I'm in." he said, eyeing the horse. "I presume you ride one of these things like you ride a camel?" he asked diffidently.
"~Can we get a nice, gentle horse?~" Nathan called back over his shoulder at Baurzhan, who nodded and immediately led another horse, this one a much smaller gelding, over to Nathan and Haroun. "More or less," Nathan said, turning back to Haroun. "Different gait, obviously."
Haroun eyed the horse with a great deal of skepticism. "I'm not much of a rider..." he warned, then awkwardly climbed onto the horse, nearly sending himself spilling over the other side.
"~My young son rode this horse when he started to learn,~" Baurzhan volunteered with a spark of mischief in his dark eyes. "~It is a very gentle animal.~"
"Baurzhan says the horse is an easy ride," Nathan translated loosely. "And we can keep a slow pace."
Haroun looked at the pagan horseman and somehow managed to keep his features clear. "All right. Let's go kill some animal with your bird." he said in Arabic.
They started off at a brisk walk, although Nathan itched to let his mare have her head. She was one of Baurzhan's best, and it had been a long time since he'd ridden a Kazakh horse. "You look cranky," he observed, eyes sliding sideways to Haroun as he unhooded the eagle, who let out a loud, challenging cry, eyeing him.
"Good. I've always preferred honesty to lies." he said testily. "I'm tired, I'm cold, and I hurt all over. This was a bad idea, Nate. I'm just slowing you down."
"We're not going anywhere particularly fast," Nathan pointed out. "Wanda and I will play journalists and go check out that school tomorrow. Who knows where this will go from there."
Haroun nodded. "Still don't much care for being deadweight." he muttered as the two men trotted out on horseback deeper into the steppes.
"I asked you to come for your insights, not to do any heavy lifting or fighting," Nathan said as the two horses crested the top of a gentle rise. The snow-covered steppes stretched out to the horizon, and Nathan smiled. "It's gorgeous. You've got to admit that."
Haroun took a look at the snowy steppes. "It's OK." he said grudgingly. "Not quite my idea of a perfect landscape." he admitted. "I like deserts."
Nathan flung the eagle upwards into the air, and the bird let out another, louder scream as he caught an updraft. "I wished for years that I'd been able to stay, you know," he said quietly, watching the eagle soar upwards. "For probably three years, I dreamed of these people every night."
Haroun was ignoring his friend in favor of watching the bird take to the sky. That's where Haroun belonged - in the sky. Free, and unfettered. Not bound to the ground, a broken wing unable to take to the air.
"Why don't you join him?" Nathan asked, his eyes going back to Haroun.
"Don't fuck with me, Nathan." he said, still watching the bird fly.
"I'm not. Your power went on during our climbing lesson."
"And it nearly killed me." he replied, still watching the bird fly. "I don't dare take that kind of chance again. Especially not here."
"Being a little overdramatic, aren't you? It did no such thing." Nathan gave him another sideways look, then abruptly dug his heels into his horse's side. The mare took off like a shot, and Nathan bent low over her neck, relishing in the feel of the wind in his hair as she streaked across the steppes.
Haroun watched Nate take off. He itched to join him, but he knew damned well he wasn't a good enough rider to be able to keep up with Nate - who moved like he was born in a saddle, damn him! - without serious injury to himself. The horse seemed to know the way, so Haroun let him have it as he kept his eyes on the majestic bird high above.
Nathan looked up in time to see the eagle dive, and turned the mare in that direction. She didn't want to stop, when they got there - liked having her head a little too much, Nathan thought, patting her neck as he swung down from the saddle.
"Rabbit. Nice job," he said cheerfully to the eagle, who shrieked at him and took a stab at his hand. "Mind your manners, feathers," he said.
Haroun also watched the bird dive, and nudged his horse in that direction. Eventually, he'd catch up to Nathan. Nate was a telepath, he'd have no trouble finding Haroun out here in this blasted steppe.
Nathan, retrieving the rabbit, much to the eagle's anger, waited patiently for Haroun. He didn't want to lose him out here, after all...
Did he. His eyes narrowed as he fastened the rabbit to his saddle. Interesting thought. He had cleared a certain amount of latitude with Alison, after all.
Haroun made his slow and steady way across the steppe towards where he saw the eagle dive from. But distances were deceptive out here, and he didn't have access to onboard GPS anymore to nail down his location with any sort of degree of accuracy. The horse bucked at that point, rearing back on its hind legs and slashing at something on the ground before it. Haroun, used to camels and not horses, took a harsh spill to the ground that rang his bell but good.
Nathan froze, 'listening' carefully. When Haroun seemed to more or less shake off the fall, he pursed his lips and considered the situation. The eagle shrieked again as he lifted him back to his arm, then made a happier sound as he launched him back into the air.
He would just... continue right on. Keeping a telepathic watch on Haroun, of course.
When Haroun came to, he was sans horse, sans gear, and very, very alone out on the steppe. "NATE!" he yelled, both physically and in his head. The fall hurt, but nothing seemed to be permanently damaged. Sighing, he took stock of his surroundings. A whole lot of nothing out here. Just steppe as far as they eye could see.
--
As he tries to find his way back to the camp, not understanding why Nathan hasn't come back for him, Haroun focuses on the one thing that keeps him going.
It had started to snow. Fat fluffy flakes for now, but the snow wasn't the largest of his concerns. Not by far. No, the real problem was the wind. Knife-like and keening, stealing precious warmth away with its bitter caress.
Haroun was really, really starting to hate that wind. No way to get out of it, no place to hide from it, and its caress was especially biting to both his Beber and Moorish sides. But he had to keep moving. His horse was gone – it had reared up at nothing in particular and thrown him, and he was too poor a horseman to keep his seat at the face of such an extreme move. He had no supplies, no food, no water, and no shelter.
He was going to die on these God-cursed steppes.
He knew that the Kazahk horsemen had a camp within a few miles at best of where he now stood. The problem is that he did not know where. And without a compass or internal GPS reckoning – not that he was entire sure GPS would work in the ass end of nowhere – he couldn't get his bearings, know which was the way north.
A related thought bubbled to the front of his consciousness, one that he couldn't help but smile at. He also didn't know which way was south, and so praying to Mecca was at best a wild guess. He could be praying to Moscow for all he knew.
Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot.
Keep moving. Let the teeth chatter, it will give them something to do. Brush the snow off your scalp, wish bitterly for the nineteenth time that you'd brought a warmer hat. Yell for Nathan – maybe he'll hear. Speculate wildly about why he's not answering – he should be well within even Cable's range. Ambush? Poison? An excess of drink? All possibilities.
Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot.
Keep two images in mind, to keep yourself warm. One's the rude huts of the quasi-nomadic herders of these God-forsaken steppes. They kept roaring fires to ward off the chill. Nice, big, warm fires. The other one's a smile. A flash of blonde hair, a low sultry laugh. Blue eyes, wide with wonder. Narrowed with suspicion. Wincing in pain. Sparking with good cheer.
He loved her eyes.
The fires of the nomads would warm his body, drive away the chill. The blue eyes would warm his soul.
Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot.
Keep moving. Keep mentally yelling. Brush off the snow. You're too ornery to die, Haroun. Too much to live for. Keep moving. Don't think about how you can't feel your fingers. Just keep flexing your hands, keep the blood flowing. Think about those nice warm fires in the tents. Don't wonder if you're walking in circles. Don't think about being offline. Don't …
Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right…
--
Instinct takes over, and Haroun finally stops overthinking. His power kicks on to save him from hypothermia, and Nathan, who's been watching all along, judges it an opportune moment to go fetch him. An enraged Haroun actually makes a second and much more startling breakthrough, but is typically ungracious about it.
Haroun shivered on the ground, miserable in his hunger and his bone-aching cold. He didn't even notice that his skin was free from any sort of snow accumulation, or that instead of a snowbank he was laying in a puddle of lukewarm melted snow. He was in a fetal ball to preserve his body-heat and to try to get some rest before continuing his travels. He was navigating blind, and he had no idea why no-one had come by to get a fix on him telepathically. Something must have happened to Nate and the others - betrayal, perhaps - and someone had to reach civilization to bring in a rescue.
There was the sound of hoofbeats, and a familiar mare appeared at the top of the rise above him. "Taking a break?" Nathan's voice asked.
Haroun lifted his head, blinking to clear snowmelt from his face. "Whafuck?" he said, groggy and not firing on all mental cylinders.
Nathan, still in the saddle, raised an eyebrow at him. "Why are you in a puddle?"
Haroun blinked again as he processed those words. He ... wasn't cold. At all. He was before he collapsed, but now he wasn't. He looked at Nate, then back at the puddle, then at Nate on top of his horse. Slowly, he stood up, examining his absolutely waterlogged garments and the Haroun-shaped depression in the snow. "Son of a BITCH!" he said, and leaped into the air to tackle Nathan off his horse. The leap was powered by more than just his artificial leg muscles - there was definitely a low roar of chemokinetic thrust behind the jump.
Nathan hadn't quite anticipated that. Haroun's tackle connected squarely, bearing him out of the saddle, knocking the wind out of him.
Haroun didn't let gravity carry them both to the ground - he was still too blindingly furious to let them fall. They rocketed across the steppes, Nate held in Haroun's clenched fists but not so far off the ground that Nate's heels weren't bouncing off of every protrubance on the steppe. "You. Left. Me. Out. There. To. DIE!" he screamed at his friend. "WHY?"
When he had enough breath back to laugh, that was precisely what Nathan did. "Idiot!" he wheezed gleefully. "Look at yourself."
Haroun didn't heed Nate's words right away. Instead, he rocketed the two of them across the steppe. When it finally did dawn on him what had happened, that's when his power cut out and sent the two of them in a very flat arc headed right for the ground.
Which was where Nathan's telekinesis took over, and brought them to an only slightly jarring landing in the snow. Nathan flopped over backwards, laughing uproariously. "Ow..." he finally protested, between laughs. "I think you broke something."
Haroun walked over and slugged his friend in the jaw.
Nathan saw stars, briefly, but instinct had him rolling away and back on his feet before his vision cleared. Haroun was coming at him again when it did, and Nathan gestured casually. Haroun abruptly found himself floating several inches off the ground, his forward movement arrested.
Haroun settled for the Glare of Death (tm) at Nathan. "Put me down you son of a bitch." he said in a low, murderous tone. "You left me out there to die of exposure."
"Bullshit," Nathan said, rubbing at his jaw. "I knew precisely where you were the entire time. If you'd had any real difficulties, you big baby, I would have been back there to get you right away."
"Why did you leave?"
"Why were you in a puddle?" Nathan countered, his eyes alive with amusement, despite the fact that his jaw was throbbing and his chest ached from where Haroun had slammed into him. "Why were you flying the two of us across the steppes, hmm?"
"You couldn't have known!" he shouted.
"And again, bullshit. Who was with you on the climbing wall? Who saw your power kick on when it needed to?" Nathan waved a hand at him, letting him sink slowly back to the ground. "If you hit me again," he said warningly, raising a hand, "I'm kicking your ass and apologizing to Alison after the fact."
"You're lucky my knife is back with the rest of my gear." he said sullenly. Then, feeling the telekinesis let go, he jumped into the air to try to take flight. And looked patently ridiculous when nothing happened and he almost fell upon landing.
Nathan sighed. "Suppose we should have expected that," he said. "You were thinking about it, again. Instead of just wanting to drop me from five thousand feet."
Haroun glared at Nathan, his thoughts seething. "Let's get back to camp, assuming you're not going to dump me across the border into Siberia this time." he growled.
Nathan started back towards where his mare was waiting patiently. "Tell me that didn't prove a point," he said, rubbing at his jaw again. Ow.
Haroun told him what he could go do with his points in scathing Arabic.
"Oh, would you stop complaining? I told you, I was telepathically monitoring you the whole time. If you'd been in serious trouble, I'd have been right here. I was barely out of sight range the whole time."
Haroun settled into an icy silence for the remainder of the ride back to camp. "You are your father's son." he said nastily. "Leave a man out in the steppe, see if he lives or dies."
The telekinetic shove that sent him out of the saddle and back to the snow was not at all gentle. Nathan swung down out of the saddle. "You want to get on your feet and say that to my face? You flew, you dumb shit, and if you have objections to my successful methods, fine. But if you want to compare me to the old psychopath, I'm not going to be the only one begging Baurzhan's wife for soup for dinner."
Haroun slowly - painfully - climbed back to his feet. "You tell me you kept your eye on me. Fine. You say you were just out of sight range. Fine. But that doesn't negate the fact that you left me behind out on the steppe to make my own way, in a strange country, without any gear or provisions. Do I even have to MENTION the number of ways the whole thing could have gone horribly wrong? You got lucky, Nathan, and I don't appreciate you taking risks with my life. Not when I'm here as a favor to you."
"How precisely could it have gone horribly wrong? When I was five minutes from your position at all times?" Nathan asked. "If a snowsquall had blown up, I'd have been right there. If your power had kicked on and then back off again, I would have caught you. Do I need to be anywhere approaching line of sight for my TK, you stubborn ass? If you'd shown any signs of real distress, you would have been back to the camp as fast as I can fly, where they have what, three perfectly well-trained doctors?" Just because the clan had gone back to the traditional ways didn't mean that they hadn't taken some of the more useful modern ways back with them. "Your melodramatic comments about our incident on the climbing wall aside, you did yourself absolutely no physical damage there. Believe me, Moira was quite clear about that when I checked with her to make sure it was safe to bring you this far away from the mansion."
"You're not the most stable of individuals. A crack to the head, a surprise attack, and if you go down I die." he shot back. He was about to continue his diatribe when a gigantic sneeze ripped through him. "And I think I've caught a cold."
"And this is why Wanda would have been out here with Baurzhan and half the clan if I didn't check in with her telepathically every five minutes," Nathan pointed out. The mare walked up to him, nudging him with her head, and he stroked her face. "I fought for years beside a probability warper, Haroun. You don't think I know how to manage variables?"
Haroun snarled again at the oblique mention of Domino. But he held his tongue, even if his thoughts were drenched in acid.
"You flew," Nathan said, a bit coldly. He'd probably be laughing about this again in the morning, but right now, Haroun's choice of jabs was a little too much. "Maybe not consciously, but you were airborne, as if you'd never been grounded. You weren't making a damned bit of progress at the mansion, stewing and fretting and overthinking everything. I don't expect thanks - I expected you to be pissed at me, but you're wrong about one thing. If I'd been my father's son, I never would have done this. Because my father wouldn't care enough, and if he did, he'd be laughing off your anger if he was standing in my place." Nathan's hand clenched around the reins as he swung himself back up into the saddle, not offering Haroun a hand up behind him. "When I was laughing? It was with fucking joy, you son of a bitch. At seeing you back where you belong, even if you were pummeling me at the time. So fuck you." Nathan dug his heels into the mare's sides again. "The camp's just over the next ridge," he shot back over his shoulder as she started forward at a gallop.
"I'm not a mindreader!" he called after Nate, then sighed in frustration. His anger was already starting to ebb, and Nathan did have one very important point. He did fly again. Even if he couldn't do it consciously right now, for a few glorious moments he was airborne. Sneezing again, he started to trudge back to camp, shedding as much of his wet gear as he could.
"~I think I'm possibly out of practice,~" Nathan said to the old man standing beside him, eyeing the very large bird on Baurzhan's arm.
Baurzhan laughed. He was the younger brother of Farkhan, the man whose family had taken Nathan in twenty years ago. Nathan had been saddened to learn that the old patriarch had passed away, but Baurzhan had immediately taken on his brother's duty of hospitality, enthusiastically so. Nathan had a number of very good memories of this man from twenty years ago, and age hadn't dulled him.
"~You took to it quickly enough all those years ago,~" he chided Nathan. "~And he'll smell fear.~"
"~I'm not afraid of you,~" Nathan told the eagle with a raised eyebrow, and then took him from Baurzhan.
Haroun, standing well-back of the raptors and the nomads, watched with something of an impartial air. He'd seen men go hawking before - a spoiled indulgence of the terminally wealthy - but not with birds that big before. Haroun felt insanely jealous of them, how they took to the sky effortlessly and glided on soaring thermals.
Nathan swung up into the saddle, his wrist protesting the weight of the eagle even though he was wearing the customary support. The bird ruffled his feathers in a way that reminded Nathan of Bella, although the noise he emitted was far more fierce-sounding. He saw Haroun watching and freed one hand from the reins to wave.
Haroun waved back, glad that Nathan was having a good time. Someone ought to be on this miserable trip. He was cold, hungry, tired, sore, and generally miserable. He thought he was in shape enough to handle everything, thought he could handle the stresses, but his grip was clearly beginning to falter. Worse than that, his back was starting to hurt again.
Nathan picked up the reins again and started over, careful to balance the eagle. The horse tossed her head, as if taking exception to Haroun, and Nathan gave the mare a level look. "Sure I can't talk you into a ride?" he asked.
"Who, me?" Haroun asked. "I'm really not sure I'm up for it..." he said, and then shook his head. "Screw it. I'm in." he said, eyeing the horse. "I presume you ride one of these things like you ride a camel?" he asked diffidently.
"~Can we get a nice, gentle horse?~" Nathan called back over his shoulder at Baurzhan, who nodded and immediately led another horse, this one a much smaller gelding, over to Nathan and Haroun. "More or less," Nathan said, turning back to Haroun. "Different gait, obviously."
Haroun eyed the horse with a great deal of skepticism. "I'm not much of a rider..." he warned, then awkwardly climbed onto the horse, nearly sending himself spilling over the other side.
"~My young son rode this horse when he started to learn,~" Baurzhan volunteered with a spark of mischief in his dark eyes. "~It is a very gentle animal.~"
"Baurzhan says the horse is an easy ride," Nathan translated loosely. "And we can keep a slow pace."
Haroun looked at the pagan horseman and somehow managed to keep his features clear. "All right. Let's go kill some animal with your bird." he said in Arabic.
They started off at a brisk walk, although Nathan itched to let his mare have her head. She was one of Baurzhan's best, and it had been a long time since he'd ridden a Kazakh horse. "You look cranky," he observed, eyes sliding sideways to Haroun as he unhooded the eagle, who let out a loud, challenging cry, eyeing him.
"Good. I've always preferred honesty to lies." he said testily. "I'm tired, I'm cold, and I hurt all over. This was a bad idea, Nate. I'm just slowing you down."
"We're not going anywhere particularly fast," Nathan pointed out. "Wanda and I will play journalists and go check out that school tomorrow. Who knows where this will go from there."
Haroun nodded. "Still don't much care for being deadweight." he muttered as the two men trotted out on horseback deeper into the steppes.
"I asked you to come for your insights, not to do any heavy lifting or fighting," Nathan said as the two horses crested the top of a gentle rise. The snow-covered steppes stretched out to the horizon, and Nathan smiled. "It's gorgeous. You've got to admit that."
Haroun took a look at the snowy steppes. "It's OK." he said grudgingly. "Not quite my idea of a perfect landscape." he admitted. "I like deserts."
Nathan flung the eagle upwards into the air, and the bird let out another, louder scream as he caught an updraft. "I wished for years that I'd been able to stay, you know," he said quietly, watching the eagle soar upwards. "For probably three years, I dreamed of these people every night."
Haroun was ignoring his friend in favor of watching the bird take to the sky. That's where Haroun belonged - in the sky. Free, and unfettered. Not bound to the ground, a broken wing unable to take to the air.
"Why don't you join him?" Nathan asked, his eyes going back to Haroun.
"Don't fuck with me, Nathan." he said, still watching the bird fly.
"I'm not. Your power went on during our climbing lesson."
"And it nearly killed me." he replied, still watching the bird fly. "I don't dare take that kind of chance again. Especially not here."
"Being a little overdramatic, aren't you? It did no such thing." Nathan gave him another sideways look, then abruptly dug his heels into his horse's side. The mare took off like a shot, and Nathan bent low over her neck, relishing in the feel of the wind in his hair as she streaked across the steppes.
Haroun watched Nate take off. He itched to join him, but he knew damned well he wasn't a good enough rider to be able to keep up with Nate - who moved like he was born in a saddle, damn him! - without serious injury to himself. The horse seemed to know the way, so Haroun let him have it as he kept his eyes on the majestic bird high above.
Nathan looked up in time to see the eagle dive, and turned the mare in that direction. She didn't want to stop, when they got there - liked having her head a little too much, Nathan thought, patting her neck as he swung down from the saddle.
"Rabbit. Nice job," he said cheerfully to the eagle, who shrieked at him and took a stab at his hand. "Mind your manners, feathers," he said.
Haroun also watched the bird dive, and nudged his horse in that direction. Eventually, he'd catch up to Nathan. Nate was a telepath, he'd have no trouble finding Haroun out here in this blasted steppe.
Nathan, retrieving the rabbit, much to the eagle's anger, waited patiently for Haroun. He didn't want to lose him out here, after all...
Did he. His eyes narrowed as he fastened the rabbit to his saddle. Interesting thought. He had cleared a certain amount of latitude with Alison, after all.
Haroun made his slow and steady way across the steppe towards where he saw the eagle dive from. But distances were deceptive out here, and he didn't have access to onboard GPS anymore to nail down his location with any sort of degree of accuracy. The horse bucked at that point, rearing back on its hind legs and slashing at something on the ground before it. Haroun, used to camels and not horses, took a harsh spill to the ground that rang his bell but good.
Nathan froze, 'listening' carefully. When Haroun seemed to more or less shake off the fall, he pursed his lips and considered the situation. The eagle shrieked again as he lifted him back to his arm, then made a happier sound as he launched him back into the air.
He would just... continue right on. Keeping a telepathic watch on Haroun, of course.
When Haroun came to, he was sans horse, sans gear, and very, very alone out on the steppe. "NATE!" he yelled, both physically and in his head. The fall hurt, but nothing seemed to be permanently damaged. Sighing, he took stock of his surroundings. A whole lot of nothing out here. Just steppe as far as they eye could see.
--
As he tries to find his way back to the camp, not understanding why Nathan hasn't come back for him, Haroun focuses on the one thing that keeps him going.
It had started to snow. Fat fluffy flakes for now, but the snow wasn't the largest of his concerns. Not by far. No, the real problem was the wind. Knife-like and keening, stealing precious warmth away with its bitter caress.
Haroun was really, really starting to hate that wind. No way to get out of it, no place to hide from it, and its caress was especially biting to both his Beber and Moorish sides. But he had to keep moving. His horse was gone – it had reared up at nothing in particular and thrown him, and he was too poor a horseman to keep his seat at the face of such an extreme move. He had no supplies, no food, no water, and no shelter.
He was going to die on these God-cursed steppes.
He knew that the Kazahk horsemen had a camp within a few miles at best of where he now stood. The problem is that he did not know where. And without a compass or internal GPS reckoning – not that he was entire sure GPS would work in the ass end of nowhere – he couldn't get his bearings, know which was the way north.
A related thought bubbled to the front of his consciousness, one that he couldn't help but smile at. He also didn't know which way was south, and so praying to Mecca was at best a wild guess. He could be praying to Moscow for all he knew.
Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot.
Keep moving. Let the teeth chatter, it will give them something to do. Brush the snow off your scalp, wish bitterly for the nineteenth time that you'd brought a warmer hat. Yell for Nathan – maybe he'll hear. Speculate wildly about why he's not answering – he should be well within even Cable's range. Ambush? Poison? An excess of drink? All possibilities.
Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot.
Keep two images in mind, to keep yourself warm. One's the rude huts of the quasi-nomadic herders of these God-forsaken steppes. They kept roaring fires to ward off the chill. Nice, big, warm fires. The other one's a smile. A flash of blonde hair, a low sultry laugh. Blue eyes, wide with wonder. Narrowed with suspicion. Wincing in pain. Sparking with good cheer.
He loved her eyes.
The fires of the nomads would warm his body, drive away the chill. The blue eyes would warm his soul.
Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot.
Keep moving. Keep mentally yelling. Brush off the snow. You're too ornery to die, Haroun. Too much to live for. Keep moving. Don't think about how you can't feel your fingers. Just keep flexing your hands, keep the blood flowing. Think about those nice warm fires in the tents. Don't wonder if you're walking in circles. Don't think about being offline. Don't …
Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right…
--
Instinct takes over, and Haroun finally stops overthinking. His power kicks on to save him from hypothermia, and Nathan, who's been watching all along, judges it an opportune moment to go fetch him. An enraged Haroun actually makes a second and much more startling breakthrough, but is typically ungracious about it.
Haroun shivered on the ground, miserable in his hunger and his bone-aching cold. He didn't even notice that his skin was free from any sort of snow accumulation, or that instead of a snowbank he was laying in a puddle of lukewarm melted snow. He was in a fetal ball to preserve his body-heat and to try to get some rest before continuing his travels. He was navigating blind, and he had no idea why no-one had come by to get a fix on him telepathically. Something must have happened to Nate and the others - betrayal, perhaps - and someone had to reach civilization to bring in a rescue.
There was the sound of hoofbeats, and a familiar mare appeared at the top of the rise above him. "Taking a break?" Nathan's voice asked.
Haroun lifted his head, blinking to clear snowmelt from his face. "Whafuck?" he said, groggy and not firing on all mental cylinders.
Nathan, still in the saddle, raised an eyebrow at him. "Why are you in a puddle?"
Haroun blinked again as he processed those words. He ... wasn't cold. At all. He was before he collapsed, but now he wasn't. He looked at Nate, then back at the puddle, then at Nate on top of his horse. Slowly, he stood up, examining his absolutely waterlogged garments and the Haroun-shaped depression in the snow. "Son of a BITCH!" he said, and leaped into the air to tackle Nathan off his horse. The leap was powered by more than just his artificial leg muscles - there was definitely a low roar of chemokinetic thrust behind the jump.
Nathan hadn't quite anticipated that. Haroun's tackle connected squarely, bearing him out of the saddle, knocking the wind out of him.
Haroun didn't let gravity carry them both to the ground - he was still too blindingly furious to let them fall. They rocketed across the steppes, Nate held in Haroun's clenched fists but not so far off the ground that Nate's heels weren't bouncing off of every protrubance on the steppe. "You. Left. Me. Out. There. To. DIE!" he screamed at his friend. "WHY?"
When he had enough breath back to laugh, that was precisely what Nathan did. "Idiot!" he wheezed gleefully. "Look at yourself."
Haroun didn't heed Nate's words right away. Instead, he rocketed the two of them across the steppe. When it finally did dawn on him what had happened, that's when his power cut out and sent the two of them in a very flat arc headed right for the ground.
Which was where Nathan's telekinesis took over, and brought them to an only slightly jarring landing in the snow. Nathan flopped over backwards, laughing uproariously. "Ow..." he finally protested, between laughs. "I think you broke something."
Haroun walked over and slugged his friend in the jaw.
Nathan saw stars, briefly, but instinct had him rolling away and back on his feet before his vision cleared. Haroun was coming at him again when it did, and Nathan gestured casually. Haroun abruptly found himself floating several inches off the ground, his forward movement arrested.
Haroun settled for the Glare of Death (tm) at Nathan. "Put me down you son of a bitch." he said in a low, murderous tone. "You left me out there to die of exposure."
"Bullshit," Nathan said, rubbing at his jaw. "I knew precisely where you were the entire time. If you'd had any real difficulties, you big baby, I would have been back there to get you right away."
"Why did you leave?"
"Why were you in a puddle?" Nathan countered, his eyes alive with amusement, despite the fact that his jaw was throbbing and his chest ached from where Haroun had slammed into him. "Why were you flying the two of us across the steppes, hmm?"
"You couldn't have known!" he shouted.
"And again, bullshit. Who was with you on the climbing wall? Who saw your power kick on when it needed to?" Nathan waved a hand at him, letting him sink slowly back to the ground. "If you hit me again," he said warningly, raising a hand, "I'm kicking your ass and apologizing to Alison after the fact."
"You're lucky my knife is back with the rest of my gear." he said sullenly. Then, feeling the telekinesis let go, he jumped into the air to try to take flight. And looked patently ridiculous when nothing happened and he almost fell upon landing.
Nathan sighed. "Suppose we should have expected that," he said. "You were thinking about it, again. Instead of just wanting to drop me from five thousand feet."
Haroun glared at Nathan, his thoughts seething. "Let's get back to camp, assuming you're not going to dump me across the border into Siberia this time." he growled.
Nathan started back towards where his mare was waiting patiently. "Tell me that didn't prove a point," he said, rubbing at his jaw again. Ow.
Haroun told him what he could go do with his points in scathing Arabic.
"Oh, would you stop complaining? I told you, I was telepathically monitoring you the whole time. If you'd been in serious trouble, I'd have been right here. I was barely out of sight range the whole time."
Haroun settled into an icy silence for the remainder of the ride back to camp. "You are your father's son." he said nastily. "Leave a man out in the steppe, see if he lives or dies."
The telekinetic shove that sent him out of the saddle and back to the snow was not at all gentle. Nathan swung down out of the saddle. "You want to get on your feet and say that to my face? You flew, you dumb shit, and if you have objections to my successful methods, fine. But if you want to compare me to the old psychopath, I'm not going to be the only one begging Baurzhan's wife for soup for dinner."
Haroun slowly - painfully - climbed back to his feet. "You tell me you kept your eye on me. Fine. You say you were just out of sight range. Fine. But that doesn't negate the fact that you left me behind out on the steppe to make my own way, in a strange country, without any gear or provisions. Do I even have to MENTION the number of ways the whole thing could have gone horribly wrong? You got lucky, Nathan, and I don't appreciate you taking risks with my life. Not when I'm here as a favor to you."
"How precisely could it have gone horribly wrong? When I was five minutes from your position at all times?" Nathan asked. "If a snowsquall had blown up, I'd have been right there. If your power had kicked on and then back off again, I would have caught you. Do I need to be anywhere approaching line of sight for my TK, you stubborn ass? If you'd shown any signs of real distress, you would have been back to the camp as fast as I can fly, where they have what, three perfectly well-trained doctors?" Just because the clan had gone back to the traditional ways didn't mean that they hadn't taken some of the more useful modern ways back with them. "Your melodramatic comments about our incident on the climbing wall aside, you did yourself absolutely no physical damage there. Believe me, Moira was quite clear about that when I checked with her to make sure it was safe to bring you this far away from the mansion."
"You're not the most stable of individuals. A crack to the head, a surprise attack, and if you go down I die." he shot back. He was about to continue his diatribe when a gigantic sneeze ripped through him. "And I think I've caught a cold."
"And this is why Wanda would have been out here with Baurzhan and half the clan if I didn't check in with her telepathically every five minutes," Nathan pointed out. The mare walked up to him, nudging him with her head, and he stroked her face. "I fought for years beside a probability warper, Haroun. You don't think I know how to manage variables?"
Haroun snarled again at the oblique mention of Domino. But he held his tongue, even if his thoughts were drenched in acid.
"You flew," Nathan said, a bit coldly. He'd probably be laughing about this again in the morning, but right now, Haroun's choice of jabs was a little too much. "Maybe not consciously, but you were airborne, as if you'd never been grounded. You weren't making a damned bit of progress at the mansion, stewing and fretting and overthinking everything. I don't expect thanks - I expected you to be pissed at me, but you're wrong about one thing. If I'd been my father's son, I never would have done this. Because my father wouldn't care enough, and if he did, he'd be laughing off your anger if he was standing in my place." Nathan's hand clenched around the reins as he swung himself back up into the saddle, not offering Haroun a hand up behind him. "When I was laughing? It was with fucking joy, you son of a bitch. At seeing you back where you belong, even if you were pummeling me at the time. So fuck you." Nathan dug his heels into the mare's sides again. "The camp's just over the next ridge," he shot back over his shoulder as she started forward at a gallop.
"I'm not a mindreader!" he called after Nate, then sighed in frustration. His anger was already starting to ebb, and Nathan did have one very important point. He did fly again. Even if he couldn't do it consciously right now, for a few glorious moments he was airborne. Sneezing again, he started to trudge back to camp, shedding as much of his wet gear as he could.
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