Curious as in strange
The morning is well underway for most on the exiles' island, judging by the hub of activity contained in the central area of their little paradise. Like most of her weyrling counterparts, Lili isn't exempted from daily chores simply because Emieth is immature; the young green dragonet is dozing by her equally juvenile bond's side as Lili multitasks - gutting fish for the day's lunch, and practicing her literacy with large letters inscribed in the dirt in front of her. Slow drawls of, "Ee, ef, gee," accompany her rhythmic slicing. Currently, the pile of gutted fish (settled on a palm leaf to protect them from the filth of the ground) is small, suggesting she's only just begun the task.
"Aich, aie, jay." The voice is soft, sandy, a little high-pitched for a man, especially for this man; perhaps he's mocking. His footsteps are soft, the padding of bare soles against soil and stone and leaf-litter, and he arrives from having stepped off a path that rings the clearing, by the oft-called 'feasting square' which is only rarely the former and never at all the latter. "Good morning." Derek stops a few paces away, distracted from wherreever he may have been headed by the literacy self-lesson in progress, or else by the fish; whichever. He tips his head down, moustache twitching until a lift of one hand and a gesture of thumb and forefinger smooths it into stillness. A glance at the green, and back at the stuff on the ground: fish, and letters. "J'lor's suggestion?"
His voice is in unison with her own repetitions, and startles young Lili. Consequently, Emieth stirs, her tail lashing and head twitching jerkily. As her dark blue eyes find the bare feet of the man intruding on her lesson, Lili frowns. They trail up, however, and a few innocent blinks later she's got a smile for the instantly recogniseable face; "Good morning, mister Derek!" Brightened, she flicks the knife in her right hand deftly to point the blade toward her as a mark of etiquette. "Yessir, we have to learn to read. It's a bit funny, this alphabet business, you know? But it sure makes guttin' fish a lot more interesting!"
His mouth thins and nearly disappears into the shadow of his moustache; a steely glint of his gaze reflects upon the movement of the knife, then reflects that reflection in consideration of the girl's face. He's smiling; it generally can take a moment or two to realize it. The somewhat warmed tone of his soft voice may help. "It is pretty funny. Abstract shapes to represent real things. Or sounds, I guess, as the alphabet's concerned." Derek crouches. It's abruptly but smoothly done and in a second's time he's squatted across the fish and letters from their keeper, elbows on his knees, one hand up over between them and the other reached out to point. "Turn this one over." It's the p he points out, though as he does so there's a wary glance shot Emieth, and the pointing finger curls back in swiftly, lest it look too much like a snack to idiotic young dragon eyes. What does he know?
Lili's all the more friendly as she spots that smile under his moustache, and watches carefully as Derek drops to a crouch, her fish-task practically abandoned. Emieth lazily unlids once, her eyes still covered as she jerks her head again. Colour rises in her lifemate's cheeks as the older man points to one of her widely-drawn letters. "Oh, is it wrong?" Lili wonders embarassedly aloud. "I always mess up the round ones with tails. There's so many of them, it's confusing!" Hurriedly, she adds a quick, "Sorry, sir."
"No, no. It's not wrong. But if you turn it over it's the same as one of the others. That's probably why you confuse them." Derek looks away - by chance, at the green again - and shakes his head a little, as though abashed. "I didn't mean to make it worse. So you're doing letters now? J'lor's the one teaching you, or is anyone helping him?" It might seem a lot as if he's asking Emieth, until he (belatedly) looks back at Lili, his hand withdrawing. "He must have his hands just about full."
Lili twists her head to look at 'p' from a different angle as Derek explains, causing a little cricking noise in her neck. Her smile returns, and she shakes her head to fix her hair (since both hands are occupied, one with fish and one with knife) as she straightens. "Well, so it is! Ain't that odd? It's a wonder not /everyone/ gets them confused, I reckon." She opinions, rather self-importantly. Following his lead, her eyes flicker to Emieth, and it's probably some silent communication there that prompts the further unlidding of the green's eyes, to stare boldly back at Derek. Lili nods. "There're a few others helping him out, sir. Nice folk. But I still don't know why we gotta learn it - innit enough to be learning all about Em, as well as normal chores? Apparently not. Still, I guess you shouldn't be complainin' if someone's willing to teach you a new skill, should you?" Another afterthought: "And I'm not complainin', mister Derek."
"I've thought about trying to get the whole island up to speed on reading," replies Derek, voice becoming softer still. His gaze slips downward, taking in the letters, the corners of his moustache curling with the strain of some hidden smile. He puts a hand down, knuckles to the ground, and lets himself down out of the crouch into a sit by leaning. "Why 'mister?' I don't need a title." This is expressed in such gravity that there's certainly something left unsaid, something he perhaps decides not to say after glancing up again at the girl. "What do you call J'lor?"
Lili nods again, perhaps agreeing with the idea of educating the masses. "It's tough, but if I can learn it, I reckon anyone can." Her shoulders hunch as he calls her for titling him, and she pauses for a moment to consider her reply. "Innit just polite? I don't mean to upset you, sir. Um. Derek, I mean. Everyone gets 'mister', unless they tell me otherwise, or are my age. Or littler. It'd be weird to call a kid 'mister', don't you think? Oh, and the women, I call them 'miss'. Makes 'em smile, mostly." Her eyes drop back to the alphabet, lighting up as she stumbles across another of those confusing lookalike letters - "Oh, the... 'm'! It's like that 'w', upside-down. Isn't that funny, like they couldn't come up with enough shapes, so they just re-used them," she chuckles.
"I ain't upset. Just - " Well, he hasn't really got a word for it, so he drops it there. But the smile becomes more apparent, in part by creeping into his eyes; it softens the steel there and turns the grey to ocean-sky blue, and little crinkles deepen at their corners. "I can see how 'miss' would make a lady smile." And there Derek himself calls women, in general singular, 'a lady.' This is an irony that's beyond him to grasp. What he does instead is reach out and draw 'W M E 3' in the soil with the tip of one stubby finger. "Or just twiddled 'em a little bit to try to make them -seem- different," he offers. "What's she make of all this?" His head jerks a little bit to the side; Emieth's indicated, but not looked at, and again - remembering and wary - Derek withdraws his hand, finger curling back up safe.
That reaction seems to please Lili, whose smile brightens again across her face, wide enough to dimple her slender cheeks. "But 'mister' doesn't make you smile the same way? Men are real funny creatures, I reckon." She keeps interested watch as he traces the four similar figures in front of her, chuckling. "Almost as funny as the alphabet, I reckon!" Emieth's still staring at Derek, albeit more placid than bold. She's still, and Lili shrugs without bothering to glance that way. "She thinks it's funny, like I do. But it doesn't interest her so much as food, or oiling, or gettin' all sandy after an oiling." Her grin slides to a lopsided smile, and the girl wrinkles her nose a bit. "They're a bit curious, the dragons. Don't you think?"
"I have been told that very little makes me smile." Derek glances over at Emieth, quiet while Lili describes her interests, and lacks of them, and for a long moment the island leader examines the dragon with uncommon care. His eyes track while he takes in knobs, muzzle, wingjoints, paws, and myriad other details; the more he looks, the less wary he seems, until he dares to stretch his legs out alongside the length of the alphabet and lean into one palm on the ground. Just a big kid sitting in the dirt, staring at someone else's dragon. "Curious as in strange, or as in eager to learn?"
Emieth, uncharacteristically slow-moving, slides a paw out from under her green muzzle towards Derek, claws raking across the dirt and catching mulch here and there. She stops short, and twists her head to get a better look through just one eye. "Curious as in strange," Lili chimes in, finally deigning to add the fish in her hand to the pile on the palm leaf. She drywashes her hand on her tunic. "Mostly, she sleeps while I learn - prob'ly coz I feed her before I start. Apparently they're like babies, like that. Feed 'em, and they nod right off."
"Never knew any babies very well. But I'll take your word for it." All of the comfort Derek had begun to exhibit falls away as that clawed paw comes reaching out toward him; his shoulders go stiff and his back straightens and the hand he'd been leaning into plucks up out of harm's way. Grey eyes regard that outreached paw with absolute maltrust. "I've always thought dragons were strange, little ones or not. But why do -you- say so?"
The dragon stills again, and closes one set of eyelids almost demurely. Nothing to be scared of here! "Me either," Lili confides with wide eyes, "But that's what everyone says." She ponders for a long moment, tilting her head skyward for a cursory look, as though the clouds may contain hints to her answer. "We-ell," she starts slowly. "For a start, they're so little when they hatch, but they grow so big. And they have wings, as well as arms and legs. But most of all, I think it's curious that they can speak plain in your head, but only make funny squawky noises aloud - it just doesn't add up, does it?"
"It doesn't," agrees Derek, eyeing Emieth - still warily. "I think it's the fact that they can listen in your head that gets me most. They can, right?" Finally his eyes come back to Lili, and he pushes himself back up into the crouch, bending knees beneath him with soft pops of overused joints. "Listen in your head."
"They can," the girl confirms, nodding. "I think mostly you know when they're doing it, though..." Lili doesn't sound convincing, and shoots an almost wary look at Emieth, who is probably dozing again judging by her lack of reaction. "Hum. Odd lil' creatures. But comforting, curiously. I can't think how to explain it, really, sorry mis- er, Derek." She blushes. "It's not bad," she concludes.
"Don't be sorry. Call me whatever you need to." Derek props his elbows on his knees, bouncing a little on his haunches, prepared to rise; but he waits a moment, to look clearly across at Lili. His mouth twists and the moustache wriggles in time. "Suppose it depends on what they'd have to listen to." This afforded, he tries a smile, the kind that people ought to be able to acknowledge and accept as a smile; it bends his mouth and suits his features badly, but does, for all intents and purposes, pass as the mask of pleasedness. "I should get going. See you, Lili." He knows her name. Of course he does. And remembers, as effortlessly as he straightens, one smooth motion unmarred except by another soft pop of his knees.
Lili returns that smile innocently, pride forcing it wider as her name passes his lips. He knows her name! Though a native, it still surprises the young girl, and sets a sparkle in her eyes. "Have a nice day, mister Derek!" Her free hand waves a short farewell, then she's quickly returned to her task, grabbing another fish for the gutting as Emieth slumbers on.