Konrad had heard that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man was king. He often doubted the wisdom of that (still some poor twat with one eye, and what petching use is everyone else to you?) but he understood the concept. Enough to apply it to the Pridesun pavilion, or more accurately, his place in it.
His status, as it were. Because come the Spring and the new, fresh, untouched 517th year after the Great Calamity, Konrad felt like a living soul among corpses. Around him, dozens of Drykas and walahks lived and worked and strove, but it was more a matter of... maintenance, than truly living. They sustained themselves and that was all. The believers among them, especially, did the bare minimum and spent the rest of their time staring into the fires, or the horizon, or the sky and the grass, as if waiting for their Prophet to return.
And do what? Lead them again? Or take them with him?
He shook the thought from his head, and a shower of water fell with it. That he should even be wasting the stuff was a luxury in and of itself, or would have been, a season ago. But now Endrykas was swinging up north, like an uppercut fitting to break Kenash's jaw, traveling up the river and thus never too far from fresh water. Konrad actually had a full bucket to do his laundry in, and dunk his head in afterwards.
Take care of your clothes, lad, he thought, smiling softly as his mother's words came to him. They ain't cheap, and neither is needle and thread, and most of all, no-one wants to hang around a smelly bastard.
The Sunberth man held up his shirt and turned it around, still stinking of water and lye. Soap was a precious commodity out in the plains, but with so much animal fat available, it could be worked into life. Konrad had yet to see that strange natural magick in action, but for now, he had the fruits of it to enjoy. He'd scrubbed his clothes one after the other, clad now in dry breeches bereft of the majority of their stains, and now he perused the sopping, soaking shirt.
The smiled again. This time not softly, not in memory, but in the mien of a man accepting a challenge.
The more you do it, the easier it'll get...
He hung the shirt up on a tent pole and held up his hands. Breathed in and closed his eyes, until the bottom of that breath reached the depths of his lungs, and below... deeper... into the djed he had within him... and he brought it forth-
Out.
-with a mere thought. He opened his eyes on the exhale, and a ball of res was oozing eagerly out of his palms, coalescing into a ball of res that grew as he willed it, fat and swirling and barely even stressing his hands. He raised it higher, closer to the shirt, and this was the tricky part.
Come out... come on, now...
It was no longer just fire he attracted; now it was water. He squinted at the shirt until he was glaring, focusing all the screeds of will he had left on imbuing that res with the thought, the idea, the simple reality that he'd like. Namely, a dry shirt. And the best way to get that?
Take the water out.
The sodden cloth started to tremble. As Konrad watched, droplets started to seep and float out of it, like berries picked from a bush. His smile grew and soon a minor shower was being pulled out of the shirt, soap scum and trapped fragments of dirt coming with it. Well, that couldn't be avoided, but a good boiling would get rid of that gunk. Konrad took a step back and dragged more water out, feeling the wind on his bare back etched with ink and scars, a raged chuckle escaping him as he realized he was actually doing this-
"Oi, Hans?"
Petch it!
Focus. That was what a reimancer needed. Will and ken was one thing, but without the focus, it was for naught. Like a master swordsman without a blade. Sedon's grunted words shattered what focus he had and as he turned-
-the water splashed down... onto his boots.
"Aw, fer... shyke, Sed, petch y'want fer-"
Then he turned and got his answer. And realized he was half-naked. That shouldn't have mattered, of course. She was a married woman now, or so he'd heard. A "fine" husband, and the quotes were his own, since all he'd seen of Haigen had been the kind of dour, quietly brutal bastard who'd give Sunberth housewives black eyes if dinner was five chimes late. But that wasn't his fight, nor his concern.
He still smiled. He couldn't help it. They'd been parted for a while, and the last time... well, he'd made a new deal with her. She had much to teach, and so did he. But the timing had to be right, and if she was there now... clearly that time had come.
Gods, she better not have sodding run off.
"Oh... 'ello," he snatched up his still-damp shirt and hoisted it quickly over his bare torso. Screw it, dry enough. "Thank you, Sed." He even signed the words as he spoke, a habit first observed and now becoming his own, more and more, without even thinking.
The cook just grunted and moved away. No smile, no smirk, no winking eyes or silent promises for a ribbing later. As lifeless and listless as the rest of them, and for that one in particular and myahp only, Konrad felt a twinge of regret.
Then he remembered Jonas and what he would have wrought, and squashed it.
Petch him.
"What brings yeh 'round?" He said as he slipped on those damn wet boots, trusting the still-sweltering heat to dry them off once Syna finished rising. "Been a while, eh?"