Homecoming Redux: M'sella's Welcome

[Omnia Munda]

He'd been almost an hour just sorting out the whole story with his own wingriders. Their perspectives varied widely and J'fel was trying hard, still, not to let the spinning in his head show. What did they think he'd said? What had they done?

Things were, he had to admit, feeling clearer than ever - but the clarity didn't stop it from being hard to keep focus. The boy weyrleader paced the length of the council room beneath M'tani's great portrait (did he remember thinking that it was just some pastoral thing he could replace with the painting of Jordeth and Pelegaoth? he couldn't be quite sure), stretching his jaw, making a fist and unmaking it again. He prowled like an animal, like he always did, not knowing his own grace - or the ferocity that his frustration lent it.

He stopped by the console table to take up pitcher and glass and refill himself a swig's worth of iced water. It was cold, like Telgar, not quite the welcome warmth that klah would be - but J'fel found the water just as good for brightening his awareness and honing his focus. After swallowing he poured a second glass full and put it down on the table. Perhaps his guest, the dragonrider stranger who'd come along with the remnants of his investigative party, would be thirsty.

[Xinnai]

M'sella felt the nerves eating at the lining of his stomach, slight but there; acid that sought to rip holes within his flesh and devour him from the inside out. The brownrider refused to let them get to him as he walked through the stony halls. He was merely meeting with the weyrleader of Telgar. If he thought that was all, he was sadly mistaken. Of course. He was meeting with the weyrleader of Telgar from his future. Or was it his present now? And he was from the man's past-all of Pern's for that matter.

The thought set his dark-haired head to spinning so he stopped it. He was fast approaching the man's quarters now and he swallowed reflexively, tasting the sourness of apprehension on his tongue. This man held all of M'sella's future within his powerful hands. Did he realize it? Josteth's rider certainly did.

He stopped before the entrance to J'fel's rooms, running gaunt fingers through his thatch of shocking black hair. The scars on the back of his hand flashed pearly with light as hand dropped and he adjusted the bright emerald scarf about his neck. Telgar was much colder than his own Igen had been. Shoulders squared and he held himself at his own veritable height-a proud brownrider with no fear.

He knocked then at the jamb, ducking inside to bow low, his movements elegant on his thin body. "My greetings, Weyrleader J'fel of bronze Jordeth. I'm M'sella, of brown Josteth. I'm from Igen, during the Sixth Pass." Dark, liquid eyes glanced up from beneath his lashes. Just how would this man-who looked no more than a boy really, come to think of it-react to this?

[Omnia Munda]

J'fel smiled. It was not meant to make the man feel welcome, but the weyrleader couldn't help the curve from shaping his lips just the same. It was such a relief to be spoken to directly, to be answered before he'd had to ask. Where are you from. What is your business here. Well - before he had to ask everything, anyway.

"Telgar's duties," said J'fel, rather than anything he'd just thunk, letting the warmth of his smile make it sound like he was feeling hospitable. A gesture of his hand welcoming M'sella to come take a chair on the portrait's side of the room, beside him, added to the sense of hospitality. "Beg your pardon, but did you say the Sixth Pass?" Bemusement shone in his eyes. "Where, I take it, the weyrleaders aren't as strict about timing it as they are here."

He picked up the glass he'd drunk from, refilled it again from the pitcher, then went to a chair of his own. There he waited for the brownrider to join him before sitting. "So what should I do with you, M'sella-of-brown-Josteth?"

[Xinnai]

J'fel handled it rather well, it seemed. The bronzerider knew what he was about, at least. M'sella felt a nervous twitch coming on and hid his hands in his pockets, a slight smile flashing across his face. "Ah, of course." He took the chair as gestured, feeling the gaze of the painted man and the real. M'tani and J'fel. How...disconcerting. He folded his long-limbed body into the seat, noting the glass of water as he faced the weyrleader, lips tilted into a curious, guarded smile. "Yes, I suppose you could say that."

Still feeling those slight nerves, he shifted, chuckle escaping from his lips. "Well, I had hoped you would allow me to stay...That is, of course, up to you though." Polite. Controlled. He wanted to stay here, after all.

[Omnia Munda]

J'fel had benefited from an hour of debriefing his own riders, it was certain. Even P'nset's more - difficult - contributions had only left him better prepared to handle M'sella. He was no longer deeply disturbed by the notion that figures from ancient history was here in the flesh to haunt him, nor by the idea that life had been different yesterday than it was today - that especially was quickly fading in his mind, fading like a dream in the harsh light of reality.

And the man at his council table was reality, he reflected as he took his seat. The question that remained was a simple one.

"I'd like you to stay. I can't send you back, can I? The danger's unacceptable." This from a man who supposedly sent a whole slew of dragons and people into a time over a hundred turns ago to make major alterations to continental history. Nonetheless, J'fel seemed utterly serious; there was nothing wry about it. "So tell me what it is about there such that you'd rather be here."

[Xinnai]

Danger. A brow cocked at that, but M'sella kept silent. They weren't to discuss the causes for him being here, then. That was fine. That was better than fine. He didn't want to speak about what had ocurred. It made him naseuated to think of it. He'd come from hundreds of years from the past to the future-and in season as well. He could feel the slight chill of impending winter in his bones.

The answer to the question was simple though. Horribly so. Undeniably so. "You've no Thread." Just one short sentence, but it evoked memories of the burn of threadscore, the screams of dragons and men. A horrible and terrible sort of glory that possessed a man when he was flaming the spore from the sky. "That's all I need to know."

[Omnia Munda]

J'fel leaned back in his seat, expression unchanged. Nevertheless, it was clear in his eyes and in his posture that he was stunned by the brownrider's forthright explanation - and it took the young weyrleader a few moments to contemplate and recover from those words.

Coward, was the first thing he thought. The word came in I'den's voice, stern and disapproving. But J'fel's own experience moderated that harsh judgement. A child of the Interval, he'd never known Thread himself, and never would. Aderes was innocent of the old threat, too. Even S'lyn and Ramla could not personally fathom the danger and horror the man before him had witnessed. Had experienced. In their voices, J'fel counseled himself to be kind.

"I understand," he said, and by then it was true. "You understand this is Telgar? I can't promise you a place in the wings at - your old Weyr."

The young man's mouth twisted wryly around those words and his brows lofted high. "But I can give you a place at mine, and a good one. If you agree, we can discuss the first service I need of you."

[Xinnai]

M'sella could see it, could see how poleaxed J'fel was. He almost smirked. The man might think him to be some soft sort of coward, but he thought he was smart. He was getting out before it killed him, before he died dragonback like so many of the men he knew.

A nod answered J'fel. "Yes, I know. If I had wanted to go there, I would have." A slight smile. "I would appreciate it very much if I could stay here. And I'd willing to help with any services you needed of me...?" The sentence was left hanging, poised as a question. Asking for more information.

[Omnia Munda]

"I'm going to need your help and Josteth's," J'fel replied, picking up his water glass for a swig that punctuated the pause between his words. He swallowed, then put the glass down again. "We're going to need images, several of them, from your time."

The weyrleader leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms slowly over his slim chest. "The riders you returned with were sent to find a number of children that have been kidnapped from the Telgar vicinity."

He thought it better not to address directly the business of 'plague' and went on. "The woman who came with you - Rosie - seems to be one of those children, grown up." As grown up as me, anyway, thought J'fel, which would have explained the quick twist of a smile on his lips if only M'sella had been able to hear it.

"So I now have reason to believe that for some reason, somehow, those children have been kidnapped to your time. It's not my intention to send you back there - you'll have to learn about our time, and train with the wing - but I need to rely on you to guide the riders that will go."

J'fel unfolded one hand from the crook of his elbow and gestured, palm upraised in questioning. "I hope you understand?"

[Xinnai]

M'sella listened, rapt with his attention, though it skittered at the mention of his aiding with images from his time. Which only meant one thing. After all, weyrlings had the phrase "you have to know where you're going when you go between" drilled into their heads and the brownrider had been no different.

He refocused his attention on the weyrleader, watching with frank eyes even as his mind was reeling. Numbly, he reached out for his own glass of water and took a hesitant sip, listening to the explanation of why such a crazy venture was needed. M'sella could only feel some sort of relief knowing he would not have to go back.

Lips pursed for a moment as he phrased his words carefully, not wanting to offend, but wanting to get his point across all the same. "I'm sorry, sir, if I'm impeding or questioning you at all but do you think this idea wise? I understand the need for finding the missing children but...I can only see that the risks and consequences outweigh that need."

It had been skewed already. He'd found that M'tani was remembered as a hero here rather than the sourpuss he'd been. Thankfully, the Igenite rider hadn't had much to do with Telgar. He'd heard whispers from the other riders of the expedition, whispers that they had reversed history by the sinking of the ship. And Rosie. What would her presence in this time do?

[Omnia Munda]

"I can only see that the needs outweigh the risks," replied J'fel, though his tone was a measured one, deep with sympathy. "Here in our time, M'sella, I have a whole people - some couple hundred or more, their women and children - whose lives and livelihoods may depend on the Weyr making every effort it can to recover the children we've lost."

He smiled a wan smile and picked up his water, though he didn't drink. It was autonomic, imitative even - a gesture inspired only by the brownrider's own, similar movement. "This time, my men will know not to interfere, not to make alterations, not to act on their own. They will recover young people who never belonged there at all, and bring them home - and few need ever know that they went somewhen, rather than somewhere."

The young weyrleader's brows arched. "May I count on your help, M'sella, or must I rely on the images my own riders brought back?"

[Xinnai]

The reasons made sense, of course. The brownrider had been sure they would. The only thing that really reassured him at all was the weyrleader's guarantee of no interference. That was what he had wished for.

Feeling tension leak from his frame, the former Igenite rider leaned back in his chair, now drinking of his water in full, feeling the cool liquid revive him. He smirked around the rim, setting the glass down as somberness returned to his quicksilver features; there, in the lines about his eyes and how they stared, deep and intent.

"I give you my very assurance that I will help, sir. My every assurance that I will help recover the lost children in any way I can." Words rang with his sincerity as head inclined in a gentle manner of the inferior to the superior.

[Omnia Munda]

J'fel's response was immediate; M'sella's words were, it seemed, what he'd been waiting for. He set down his water and put out his hand.

"Then welcome to Telgar Weyr," he said. "Jordeth will show your Josteth to a couple of weyrs you can pick from. Take tomorrow as a rest day, and join us for drills on the morrow morning after. I'll have your knot for you - and Blizzard's wing patch - then."

[Xinnai]

M'sella took J'fel's hand, giving it a good solid shake. A whirlwind seemed to have passed right over him. From outsider to part of the team. So quickly. A grin came to his face as he nodded.

"My thanks, sir. It's appreciated. I hope my saying that you won't regret this won't be too much of a cliche?" A short laugh and he stood, taking the end of their strange little conversation as a dismissal. "Still, I think it might be true."

[Omnia Munda]

"I'm sure of it," replied the weyrleader, standing as well. He offered his hand and a popped brow, too, expression almost coy in its wryness.

The handshake formalized the end of their meeting. It wasn't until M'sella had gone that J'fel turned again, this time to grin up at M'tani's glowering countenance. He wondered for a moment if Igen's weyrleader - he couldn't quite summon the name out of his history lessons - had been such an influence on his times.

Eventually, J'fel retreated from the council's chamber to his own. It had been such a long day and it wasn't even noon.

OOC: End, I think. Timeline-wise, J'fel sees I'dalyn after this. Slowly I get caught up!