singillatim | (closed)

“Mm.” Raju keeps studying the ice, half to watch his footing and half curiously, not noticing any lost dignity at all. He’s in too good a mood with company that, at this point, knows him too well, and at least he’d caught himself.

If it were anyone else walking beside him maybe he would mind, a little; even after staying upright his walking isn’t easy or graceful. He moves gingerly over the ice like a strong gust of wind would take him down. Maybe it would.

“It must never melt. You cut through all of it first before you fish?”

"It should melt, unless Milton's weather is as strange as everything else in this damned place. There'll be constant sunlight in the summer, no darkness at all." That famed Midnight Sun, which was about as maddening as the constant darkness.

"There are hand-cranks that'll drill through the ice, but the holes should still be mostly open." He hopes anyway, he's been lucky enough so far to find slush in the ice holes each time he'd come out to fish.

Edited 2024-04-04 02:13 (UTC)

Raju makes an acknowledging noise, and for a moment his steps slow even more as he grimaces up in the direction the sun might be. It's something he tries not to do more often than he has to; it usually puts him in a worse mood, always seeing clouds instead of sky. He doesn't expect that to change even if the sun starts shining all the time, theoretically, somewhere behind all the murk.

He looks back down quickly. It would be a shame to think too much about it now. "And the fish should jump onto the line. That's what you said, wasn't it? That fishing here is easy work?"

“Mhm. They’re lethargic during the winter, and hungry. Resources are limited at the bottom of the lake.” Or at least that’s how it was before his string of bad luck, but that’s seemed to have subsided for the time being.

He brings them out to his preferred ice fishing hut, finding it empty as he swings open the door with a quick shove of his shoulder to knock out the frost and snow in the crevices. It’s dark inside, the wood stove in the corner not yet lit.

Raju's moving toward the stove almost before he's finished glancing around, kneeling in front of it as he slips the mittens off and looks inside it, then starts stacking some of the wood left nearby. He'll have to remember to leave more firewood here some time after they finish.

"Speaking with your men," he says, glancing over his shoulder as he asks. "It went well? Everything sorted out?"

Whilst Raju busies himself tending to the stove, Crozier starts poking at the hole in the ice with the iron awls and drills in the corner of the ice hut. It’s mostly frozen over, but he can work with mostly.

“Mhm. Doctor Goodsir will be well-cared for, and Jopson’s agreed to join me in accompanying the party to the mine.”

“Good, someone to help you see them off.” Francis won’t be worrying on his own, that way. He remembers Seetha growing further away on the shore, the crowd of everyone who’d ever really known him standing behind—

Probably because he’s trying to make a spark into the tinder now. He’d watched Seetha do this more times than he’d ever done it himself at home, at least without matches, and doing it here always seems to bring her to mind.

At least Goodsir and the rest aren’t planning on being gone as long as Raju was.

“Methuselah didn’t say how long to go through the mines, did he?” Raju looks behind him at the noise of Francis at the hole in the ice and then keeps looking, paying almost as much attention to it as to the flint and steel in his hand. The only reason he keeps kneeling here starting the fire instead of satisfying his curiosity is because it’s so damned cold.

“I’m sure no more than a day, when it was in use,” he remembers to add, after a moment of splitting his attention. “And then a couple more days in case the mine is blocked, or to scout out whatever’s on the other side.”

“He didn’t,” he mutters, “he was purposely vague. If they need to break trail it’ll be a slog.”

But Goodsir will be with them, and that brings him a tremendous amount of comfort. Goodsir will take care of them.

He listens to the clicking of Raju attempting to start the fire in between strikes at the thinner ice in the hole. He start chipping at the edges, pausing to shake his hand out for a few beats before getting back to it. It’s familiar enough work that he falls into a bit of a trance as he picks and prods and drills at the ice until he eventually finds water.

While he's refilling this place's firewood he should make up some tinder too, having some ready from whoever was in here last is helping speed up— ha. There.

Raju makes a faint triumphant noise and leans forward to gently blow at the spark until it grows into real flames, then moves over toward Francis, glancing back at the fire as he does. But the hut isn't very large at all; once the fire grows a little more being here will be like being beside it.

"How close are you?" he asks, tucking his hands up underneath his arms absently as he leans forward to see. "Could I help?"

He doesn't hesitate at the request and hands over the mechanical drill. It needs two hands to operate anyway. "We need to make the opening at the rim there bigger. Aim it down and turn the crank, but be careful not to over-balance. You'll fall on your face when you hit water otherwise."

At the warning Raju settles more securely on his knees, so he'll be able to manage his balance. His trousers aren't quite thick enough to be spending so much time directly on the ice this way, but there's no point in complaining; when he gets back to the cabin he's using, he'll try to find something better.

The drill is cold, too, under his bare hands. But he's already almost started, no point in pausing to put the mittens back on yet. He tightens his fingers around the cold drill, sets it in place, and then starts turning the crank, watching the opening he's meant to widen as he speaks. "How do you manage this part, usually? When you're in here not avoiding people?"

Crozier peers down over Raju’s shoulder as he turns the crank. “I usually chip at it for an hour,” he mutters. “Or try to sneak into an ice hut that’s been recently used. I’m not above poaching a spot.”

Feeling Francis peering over his shoulder is a reversal; he doesn't look away from the ice, but the feeling makes him smile. "You should bring me, then. Next time I can open the ice for you and then leave, if you want; I know some fishermen prefer to do it on their own."

For a moment Raju pauses, still smiling. "Mostly the older, more temperamental ones," he adds, still watching the ice, as if it's an afterthought. Not relevant here at all, of course. Just idle thinking.

He exhales a quiet laugh through his nose. “Lucky for you that hole’s not big enough to fall through, else I’d be tempted to push you in for that sort of cheek.”

In the bag of gear that had been strapped to his back he fetches a pot, and he throws some snow into it for some tea and sets it on top of the stove.

Raju looks down at the hole in the ice like he's about to laugh and holding it back. Then, while he's looking over to watch what Francis is doing, he rocks forward suddenly as there's no more resistance against the drill. Francis' warning about that means Raju is too well-balanced not to catch himself and he leans forward on purpose instead, trying to look down into it as he pulls the drill back out and sets it aside.

Nothing there to see, of course. Even if the lighting had been better, it's only a long hole into water. He scoops up some of the newly-drilled slush from around the hole's edge, ignoring the cold burn of it against his skin long enough to dump it into the pot with the snow and then trying to rub a little of the cold out of his fingers.

"Mm?" he catches Francis' eyes and nods toward the pot. Francis hadn't said everything he'd had with him, had he? "Stew, or that flavoured water we have to call tea? Pine needles or something else?"

“Tea,” he says sadly, “a little leaf soup, as it were. Something to warm us up whilst we wait on these lazy fish to notice our bait.”

It looks like Raju’s drilled through to the water easily enough — good company and helpful with the more manual tasks.

“In my bag there’s a jar with some bait. There’s a pole in the wooden chest in the corner that should be serviceable.”

"Mm. Something warm would be nice, even if it is leaf soup." He walks over to the chest as he says it, picking the pole out and looking it over. He runs his fingers over the line and frowns at it, not liking the material he doesn't recognize and the reminder that this place is further than just Canada from any place that Raju knew.

But it does seem strong enough, he decides, and focuses on getting the jar next instead. "What bait do you use? I imagine worms would be impossible with the ground frozen like this, and anything edible you'd want for yourself. Fur, maybe?"

"Scraps mostly, whatever I have left from supper." In this case some fish that's about to go off, which'll be tempting enough for whatever's meandering at the bottom of the lake.

He's about as unfamiliar with the fishing equipment as Raju is. The line itself is exceedingly frustrating to deal with; he'd rather use a damned spear than have to deal with stringing up a tangled pole.

Raju makes a noise in acknowledgement and settles onto one of the benches, opening the jar of bait and taking a tentative sniff at it, then picking out a piece the right shape to thread onto the hook. If that isn't close enough to the way that Francis wants it Francis is going to have to do the rest; Raju puts the pole aside, rubbing his thumbs over his fingers and putting the mittens on again.

"Do you have a cup in that pack of yours?" He smiles, tucking his hands between his arms and his chest and hunches forward a little. "Or are we really drinking it like soup?"

“I have a cup,” he snorts. “Two cups, even, there’s one over by the stove if you don’t feel like sharing.”

He gets it; why kiss the same cup when there’s a bounty of two to be had.

He glances over his shoulder as Raju baits the hook, not so much minding him as watching him work with a vague sense of amusement and pride about it. Raju’s always so quick to learn; he figured he’d pick up on this as easily as had everything else.

"Mm." Raju thinks about the first meal they shared: one with the mug, the other with a canteen. And the way it's done at home probably isn't the way things are done everywhere. Francis probably prefers separate cups. Raju moves over to the stove for the other one, looking it over to try and tell whether it's dirty.

"How long do you usually spend out here? It's too far out to come and go whenever you need to eat or do anything else. Does it depend on how quickly the fish start to bite, or do you always have to spend a while settling in?"

“Typically I’ll plan to spend the day. I try to come out once a week, but it’s tedious work for someone with my limited capabilities.”

Gutting a fish alone can take an hour if it’s a particularly finicky breed.

“You can imagine my happiness at having some company this time around.” His smile is brief, but wholly sincere.

Raju looks up from the cup to smile back. "If you don't mind teaching me, I don't mind coming back next time. Once this business with the mines is sorted out."

He turns his smile down at the cup again, even though he's thoroughly inspected it. "If you're sure you wouldn't rather keep the time for yourself. I used to know some fishermen who said that was their favourite part." Not that Raju thinks that's likely, with the way Francis had looked just now. But for all Francis has made the commitment to stop keeping himself away from the rest of them, and for all Raju's teasing him about it, Raju doesn't have a sense yet for how much time alone Francis really needs. Best to let him know the opportunity will be there if he wants it.

“I’ve had plenty of solitude, enough for a lifetime. I have plenty of time to myself with all the walking we have to do to get from one place to another. Too much time to mull and morb, in fact.”

There’s still no avoiding solitude where it happens, but why fight companionship? Why fight the friendship? He enjoys having Raju around, very much so.

"We can't have that." Particularly not just now, with Francis' men going off into unknown dangers where he can't follow. No matter how well talking with them and arranging matters went, now probably doesn't seem like a good time for Francis to leave too much time for thinking. "It's too bad fishing is better for supplies than going for a run. Much better than walking at taking your mind off things."

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