xp_logs | Tuesday afternoon, Jamie and Nathan in the stables

x-crowdofone.livejournal.com posting in

In which Nathan makes the mistake of moping where Jamie can catch him, and Jamie demonstrates that he's already started putting his sketchy knowledge of the Askani language to nefarious purposes.

There was no one in the stables. Nathan was glad. He had been right outside the door when it had struck him that he might have run into Paige, which would have been awkward, but a quick scan - which he could manage now, astonishing what sleep could do - had reassured him that the place was empty, save for the horses. Who were a definable telepathic presence, but a soothing, low-level one.

"Hello," he said quietly to one that stuck its head out of its stall, regarding him thoughtfully. Stepping closer, carefully - he had decided to go without the cane today to see how it went, and his balance was a little iffy - he let the horse get a good smell, taste, whatever it was doing to his hand. "Don't have anything for you, I'm sorry..."

Hoofbeats sounded in the stableyard as Jamie and a brown mare stepped out of the trees shrouding the entrance to one of the riding trails. Jamie swung down and walked the horse back into the stable; he grinned at Nathan as they passed him. "There's carrots in the bin by the door. You feeling better?"

Nathan smiled a bit faintly. "Hey, Jamie. And yeah... amazing what sleeping for a day will do." He went over and got a couple of carrots, then came back. The little black horse seemed thoroughly delighted by the sudden appearance of food, and Nathan felt his smile lingering. "Greedy thing," he chided lightly.

Jamie led the mare into an empty stall and unsaddled her; she whuffled at the appearance of carrots across the way, and Jamie rolled his eyes and produced a couple of apple slices from his pockets. "All of them are. I think it's a horse thing. And I'm sure you've heard this from everybody and their pet lizard already, but it doesn't spoil the sleep to break it up and have it over a few nights in a row, y'know."

Two days ago he would have snapped, or glared. Today, though, he managed a wry chuckle as he offered the second carrot to his new friend. "So people keep telling me. I've been quite comprehensively lectured, not to worry." He sighed a little, rubbing the horse's face as she - it was definitely a she, he thought - chewed happily on the carrot. "My own stupid fault, and now I'm two days behind on classes. Not to mention Manuel, who will probably demand a threefold repayment of the missed training time."

Jamie snorted. "You should've gotten here earlier, I shoveled out about twenty pounds of the perfect answer to Manny this morning. C'mon, it's summer, nobody's going to mind you being a couple days behind on completely elective classes they're mostly just taking for fun anyway."

"Maybe I should wait another couple of days before starting them up again, then," Nathan mumured. "Let everyone... get a little more breathing space." He found that he was rather caught by the way the horse was looking at him. "You remind me of a horse I knew in Kazakhstan," he said to her. "Not done any running across the steppes in your time, have you?"

"Not unless Canada counts. Which it might, but I dunno if she's from the right part of Canada." Jamie rubbed the brown mare down with a soft cloth, and peered over her back at Nathan. "Breathing space from what? You're speaking English and, y'know, not visibly keeling over as we speak."

"From me?" Nathan suggested, more lightly than he really felt. "Don't want anyone thinking that if they mispronounce something I'm going to dunk them in the lake."

Jamie snickered. "Hold class in the afternoon, and that actually starts sounding kinda fun."

Nathan gave Jamie a bit of a perplexed look. He did seem serious... or not-serious, however you wanted to describe it. "Think I want to be minimizing the... uh, unteacherly behavior as much as possible," he muttered, a bit confused as he turned his attention back to the black mare, who was clearly not satisfied by a mere two carrots.

"Spoken like a man whose idea of 'teacherly behavior' doesn't include getting lectured by Ms. Munroe complete with emphasizing rolls of thunder. That's much more intimidating than it sounds like in the movies, by the way." Jamie grinned. "You're really overthinking this, you know. Relax, have fun. Not everybody is going to like you. It won't kill them."

"It's not about being liked or disliked," Nathan said, telekinetically acquiring another carrot. The black horse was very appreciative. "Trust me, in my prior line of work, I was very used to not being liked."

"So what is it about?" Jamie finished the side he was working for and moved around to the other, patting the mare on the nose as he passed.

What was he doing? What was with these kids, that they didn't let a guy stick to being strictly professional? It was sneaky. They were sneaky. Sneaky, devious kids. The black horse whuffled at him, and he patted her again, almost absently. "Not trusting my judgement, I guess," he confessed a bit reluctantly, not looking at Jamie. "Guess it was sort of naive to think I could jump right from blowing shit up for a living to teaching."

Jamie snorted. "In case you haven't figured it out yet, there aren't a whole lot of teachers around here who went to college for it straight out of high school. You're doing all right. You just need to relax a little, stop worrying you're going to scar us for the rest of our lives." Jamie shot a mischievous glance over his shoulder, then continued in careful Askani. "~Elder brother, may I ask you a . . . duck? No, question. May I ask you a question?~"

Nathan gave Jamie a faintly wary look. "~Fire away,~" he said, his lips quirking into a smile as he reflected that the idiom in Askani was almost identical to the one in English.

"~What . . . number? Of the Canaanites, to change are needed a . . .~" Jamie paused, struggled for a moment, then shrugged, switching back to English. "Lightbulb."

Nathan gaped for a moment, then laughed helplessly, letting his head rest against the side of the stall for a moment. "Go on," he said, wheezing a little. "This I've got to hear."

"Mind if I stick to English? I'm about out of my Askani vocabulary and it's hard to get translations over instant messaging." He grinned. "The answer is, none: a lightbulb that burns out has proven itself to be weak, and if it can't change itself it doesn't deserve any help." He paused a beat. "Now, how many Askani does it take to change a lightbulb?"

Hysterical laughter was not on. Definitely not on. "How many?" Nathan said carefully, deliberately not looking at Jamie.

"Also none. It's the lightbulb's nature to be burned out, and we should accept it for what it is without prejudice." Jamie grinned.

In the back of his mind, the Askani were giggling. It was very disconcerting. "You... are a very strange young man at times," Nathan said, his voice quivering as he tried to hold in the laughter. "Not that... that's a bad thing."

"And you need to relax, and I obviously need to work on my jokes. Think I should've gone with my other punchline for the second one? 'One, but all two-and-a-half million of them are suggesting different ways to do it?'"

This time, the laughter did slip out, a short, almost incredulous laugh, as if he couldn't believe his sense of humor was actually in functioning order. "That's... too good, Jamie. Really." He batted the mare's nose lightly as she tried to eat his hair. "Ohhh... I ought to do a talk on Askani humor," he went on as he straightened. "It's very odd."

"You could do that, yeah. Or, y'know, you could just tell a joke."

Nathan glanced sideways at Jamie, smiling almost involuntarily. That had sounded almost like a challenge. "Why..." He paused, wrestling for a moment with the translator. "Why did the tiger - it's not quite a tiger, but that's our closest modern parallel - walk with the child in the noon sun?"

"Got me." Jamie raised his eyebrows quizzically, and fed the mare another slice of apple.

"Because they were looking for water," Nathan said with as close to a deadpan look as he could muster.

Jamie snickered. "That's a good one--laughing at yourself for coming up with all the weird explanations in your head before you hear the punchline, huh? Subtle."

"They had interesting humor," Nathan said reflectively, leaning against the stall. "And hell, now that I'm hearing them properly again, I could put together a whole stand-up routine, I bet."

"You should. It'd make for a fun class."

"I'm really tempted," Nathan replied almost wistfully. "Wouldn't mind the happy thoughts at all..."

"Do it. Dooo iiiit. No reason you shouldn't, lots of reasons you should, even by unteacherliness-minimizing logic it's a good idea. And hey! It'd be fun. Bonus."

"I bow in the face of your superior logic," Nathan said with a smile, surrendering. Humor was an important element of a culture, after all, and there wasn't anything wrong with making them laugh, was there? Even if his motivations in doing so were partially selfish. "And expect you to play guinea pig ahead of time, if I'm really going to do this. I make an idiot out of myself on a regular enough basis as it is."

"Aah, of course. You want to make sure you're making the right kind of idiot out of yourself, you go to the expert." Jamie bowed. "Happy to help. I just wish I'd videotaped the skit I did with 'Yana when she was still little, so I could give you a standard."

"Oh, I'll muddle through," Nathan said. "I was actually undercover as a stand-up comic once. Well, for one night."

"You're kidding." Jamie laughed. "How many tomatoes?"

"No tomatoes. Lots and lots of bullets, but no tomatoes."

"Tough crowd, huh? You probably needed some foreign-language lightbulb jokes. Those kill."

Nathan grinned briefly, almost despite himself, and then shook his head at Jamie. "You need to wear a sign, you know. 'No moping around me'. Just to give everyone fair warning."

"It's a gift. The fuzzy animals help, though. S'hard to mope when there's a horse trying to fit its face into your pocket." He grinned wryly. "Besides, you're the one running yourself into the ground trying to be a role model here, what're you doing moping? Us impressionable kids might pick up on that and start going on about how horrible our lives are." He paused a beat. "Wait a minute . . ."

Nathan couldn't help another snicker, and raised a defensive hand. "Enough," he protested, smiling. "You win. I'm done being morose..." At least until he went back inside and got daggers glared at him by someone. He looked up at the black mare, then shook his head. "To hell with it," he said, stepping closer to the stall door so that he could get a good look at the size of her. Plenty big enough to carry him. "Is she okay to ride?" he asked, glancing back at Jamie. "It strikes me suddenly that I haven't ridden since I spent a year pretending to be a Kazakh horse nomad, and I rather liked it."

"Dinah? Yeah, she's fine. All the horses are saddle-trained, I'm just used to Cricket." Jamie patted the brown mare fondly. "Have a good ride."

"Thanks," Nathan said almost absently, but then stopped himself, smiling more warmly at Jamie. "I mean that."

Jamie smiled back. "You're welcome."