Chap. 139 The Apology

Chap. 139  The Apology

K'ndar was relaxing by the fire in the center of the pavilion. D'nis had had it built after the hurricane. From his spot, he could see the night sky, the stars on the horizon clear and bright. Far out to sea, he could see torchlights on a fishing ship. The flames from the fire made shadows dance.

Siskin was curled up in his lap, asleep. 

Trees that had been thrown onto the beach from the storm surge had been used not only to support the roof, shingled in thin sheets of slate, but also to create large, comfortable benches and individual chairs. In the center was a large firepit. A chimney of cunningly fitted rock served to keep the smoke from bothering the weyrfolk. 

A chest high wall of volcanic rock served to keep the cool, onshore winds off one's neck, but otherwise, the pavilion was open to the elements.  The moment it had been finished it had been used almost nightly. 

The summer harvest season was done. K'ndar had spent the last two weeks harvesting klah bark.

He'd never spent much time in a forest, but now he understood why some people loved them. It was full of birds and small animals. The forest canopy had kept the hot summer sun from roasting him, and the work itself had been, if time consuming, far easier than baling hay. He had kept a mental catalog of all the things he wanted to go back and see-the birds, the wherries, the animals, the insects-the forest was a biologist's playground.

B'rost, he thought, you did me a favor by busting my nose, it kept me from busting my arse, he thought. 

Normally, he'd have a mug of klah in his hand right now, but for the moment, his nostrils were filled with the scent of the bark. It wasn't a bad smell, in fact, it was pleasing, but it killed any desire he had for some of the resulting drink. 

Children ran and played through the pavilion. Several of them had fire lizards. Some of their parents were with them, several with tiny babies. Two Oldtimers were there, teenagers were whispering amongst each other, or flirting, or just being teens. He remembered being that age, not so long ago, but growing up on a remote cothold meant he'd had very little socialization and no friends his age. Was that why he was a loner, still? But he wasn't these days, was he?

A blue fire lizard appeared in front of them. He whickered, and Siskin awoke immediately.

"Hello, Roany, where's your mum?" K'ndar asked, recognizing the fire lizard as Greta's.

"Right behind you, K'ndar, is this chair taken?" the geologist asked.

"No! Have a seat! Haven't seen you in a while," he said. The two fire lizards began to talk to each other. 

Greta sat down with a thump.

"I am so glad THAT's over," she said. She, unlike K'ndar, had a mug of klah. She threw her head back and ran a hand through her hair. He found himself liking that motion in her.

"What did they have you doing?" K'ndar asked.

"Bagging up wheat seeds. Thank the stars I didn't have to thresh them. That's a pain in the arse, let me tell you. Even so, it gave me an entirely new appreciation for bread," she said. She forcibly blew her nose. "I still have the dust in my nose, even though it was fairly clean, and I got a shower every night after work," she said. 

"I remember my mum having big sacks of flour brought in, it never occurred to me to ask how it got that way," K'ndar said.

"It's work, let me tell you, and that's even without the cutting, the threshing, the milling…"

"What's work?" a voice behind them said.

K'ndar knew without looking that it was B'rost.

Siskin, who'd been up in the rafters with Roany, flew down to K'ndar's shoulder and hissed softly.

Greta craned her head to look at the blue rider.

"Bagging up wheat, that's work," she said, wondering who this person was.

"Greta, this is B'rost, rider of blue Rath. B'rost, this is Greta, rider of green Earth."

"Earth? Like in…Terra?" 

Greta smiled. "I get asked that all the time. She told me her name, and I didn't question it," she said. There was an uncomfortable silence, broken only by snatches of conversation of others in the pavilion.

B'rost looked down at the two. Siskin watched him, eyes a whirling yellow. HE knew who B'rost was and what he'd done.

K'ndar stroked him gently. Roany flew down to Greta's shoulder, wondering at Siskin's reaction to B'rost. 

K'ndar looked expectantly at B'rost. 

"Um, um…" B'rost stuttered.

Greta flinched. Earth had transmitted the information that this was the man who'd punched K'ndar in the nose. She decided to keep quiet, to see how things worked out.

"Looks like..like your nose is better," B'rost said. He suddenly sat down in a heap in front of the two.

"It's getting there," K'ndar said, keeping a chill in his voice. It'd been two weeks since the assault, and this was the first time he'd seen B'rost.

"You know what I've been doing, once hay baling was done?" B'rost started.

"It's all done?" he thought, happy that he hadn't spent anymore than one day at it. 

"Yes. Aye. For a while, I never thought I'd be so hot, so tired, so itchy, so…they had me atop the wagon load. I was with two kids, catching the hay bales as they were tossed up to us.  Those kids, they're just kids, and they worked me to death. I fell off twice. It was go go go. The only rest was in between wagons. I'm sunburned, I keep coughing up chaff, I swear I'll never…I'll hope to the stars they find something else for me to do at harvest," he said, idly scratching at a spot on the back of his neck.

"Was that your punishment for punching me in the nose?" K'ndar said.

B'rost hung his head.

"No. No. Once I got back from the hayfields, M'rvin let me shower and get a meal, then I had to go to the smithy. You know, where they make tools and stuff from iron. They have these big ovens that they melt the ore in. Those things, they get hot and stay hot. Even though there was nothing being smelted this week, those ovens retain heat. I had to do what they call 'scaling'. It's chipping metal off the walls inside the oven. Even at high temperatures, a film builds up on the inside, and gets thicker and thicker, and that causes uneven temperatures. The mastersmith is a big lout named Harlan. He knows you, K'ndar, and his first question to me was quote, "What the bloody shaf was I thinking, punching you in the nose, was I a twit?" 

K'ndar had to laugh. Harlan wasn't the type of man you'd call a lout to his face-or if you did, you only did it once.

 Greta giggled. B'rost shook his head in dismay.

"I thought baling hay was hard work. Nay, it's a walk on the beach in comparison. At least you're standing up and moving around, not kneeling on a rocky floor with your head and shoulders and arms inside an oven that won't let you move more than a half an arm length. That bloody scale, it does NOT want to come off, not without a big fight. There's dust in that oven, no matter how much it's been swept out, and there are tiny bits of metal that stick you if you touch it. You're sweating like a pig. You have a hammer and a chisel that is utterly useless, well, almost, the scale comes off in tiny little bits no bigger than your thumb. And those ovens are big. It took me three days to get the first one done, all by myself. Harlan would come by once in a while to check up on me. That ba..that man, could find the smallest bit that I couldn't even see, and point it out for me. "Don't miss this spot. What are you, blind? Are you planning on actually WORKING at this?"  I hated that man. 

He turned his hands over. There were blisters on blisters. 

"It took me two weeks-two weeks, of working on them until I was too tired to lift the hammer, one night I didn't even go back to my weyr, I  just climbed up on one of the worktables and slept. Rath was upset, I had to care for him, and wasn't. 

I finally finished the ovens and was going to leave when Harlan started giving me another task, something probably even harder. So I just lost it. I threw the hammer at him and missed. He didn't move a muscle. He said, "Boy, I’m going to give you a second chance. You go get that hammer, you throw it at me and this time, make sure you hit me. Make sure you knock me out, because if you miss again, you'll be sorry you were even born." And he said it low, and quiet. Scared the piss out of me. 

I picked up the hammer and put it in the tool rack. Then he asked if I thought he was being too hard on me and I said yes. He said, he was being hard on me on purpose. And that "the one person who can release you from your punishment is you. I have lots more tasks for you, if you want to keep on with this, just keep up that pigheaded pride that's keeping you from apologizing for your assaulting K'ndar," he said.

You could have heard a pin drop. Everyone in the pavilion was listening without being obvious about it. The only sounds, now, were the crackling of the fire and the soft sound of the ocean in the background.

A tear rolled down B'rost's cheek. It cut through a dust they'd not noticed before.

K'ndar felt a strange mix of guilt, satisfaction,  and schadenfreude. He'd been waiting for B'rost's apology, and as time passed, began to wonder if it would happen. He'd been convinced that B'rost was the sort of person unwilling to admit wrongdoing, or find a way to get out of apologizing. 

"He was right. I didn't want to admit I was wrong. I shouldn't have punched you, K'ndar, and I am so sorry. I was sorry the moment I did it, but …I couldn't admit it. I was mad at you, I was, because I thought you were ignoring me, I was jealous, because of all the things you've done, and no one was saying things about me," he said. 

He stood up.

"So, I'm sorry, K'ndar. You were right, I was being an arse, I was rude to that woman, who I am still looking for so I can apologize to her, and I will never do it again."

K'ndar felt something indescribable in his heart. He got out of the chair.

"I accept your apology, B'rost. Thank you," and stuck out his hand to shake. 

"Oh, shards, no, please…I can't even comb my own hair, my hands are so sore. Just-I'm sorry, K'ndar," B'rost said.

The crowd in the pavilion burst into cheers.