What were they supposed to do? Jeer at her menacingly? They had a few weapons, but nothing that would touch her if she wore the shield he’d last given her and she was a moron if she wasn’t, with a war on and all.
Tilting his head he regarded her carefully.
“Someone had to take up the slack that Debri house left in the orders. What the hell is with that? The whole retooling barely coming up with two hundred fifty units per month on the flyers? About four hundred shields? You should be doing that per day. Or… I don’t know, are you guys hiding them or selling them at inflated prices to the black market or something? The military said they’re still willing to pay the same for them, no matter how many are produced, so I don’t think it’s a great strategy if you’re sitting on them. Plus, with the war, we all need to be doing whatever we can, not worrying about making gold, yeah?” He didn’t really expect her to answer him. On the good side, unlike that last time they met, he didn’t sound angry, just exhausted. At least part of that was because he hadn’t really woken up yet for the day. If she had a problem with that, she could try showing up at a more appropriate time. Not that he really could call this early, since it was light out.
She blinked rapidly, changing thoughts in mid stream if he still recognized the look. If he’d ever really known what it meant to begin with. His eyes finally focusing he noticed that the hair cut wasn’t the only thing that had changed. Instead of student brown, or in her case black, she wore a dark leather outfit, a brown that should have been so dark as to look black, but was scuffed and covered with dust so as to look a much lighter. She had soft looking boots that hit past her ankles, also dyed to match the outfit she wore, but made, he saw, of heavy material, only the soles were leather, or at least something like it.
“Tor… only you would look at the largest device manufacturing effort in history and put it down as not good enough. Just because you can work yourself to death and past it like this over and over again doesn’t mean regular people can. Anyway, I didn’t come to talk business… I came to see my friend…”
That got his attention.
Of course, he hadn’t been thinking about anyone else in all this, just himself and Trice. Rolph and Sara hadn’t been able to hang out for months because of him making her go away. It had been a little thoughtless and cruel of him. Well, a lot more than just a bit. Duh. Well, he could fix that.
“Right. One moment. I’ll get him.”
Rolph woke up grumpily, throwing a pillow at Tor that hit him in the head, uncannily accurate considering the plates had only been turned on enough to dimly light the cavernous space within the hut. Laughing Tor jumped in and grabbed an over-sized arm, pulling on his friend to very little effect.
“Hey, you have a visitor! Get up before she goes away and you’re stuck with only me for company again today.” He added in a few playful pokes to the ribs just for good measure. Rolph didn’t like to get up sometimes and had to be prodded into it.
It was enough to get his attention and only three minutes later he stumbled out into the bright light. He straightened up and smiled when he saw who stood waiting for him. The wall of red hair and lanky muscle slid towards the girl smoothly, taking her up in a hug that was returned joyfully enough. As they made happy sounds at each other Tor made his way off to the restroom that everyone staying at the little compound shared. It was big enough for about twenty people, but they never had more than a half dozen around at any one time now. Most of those were just people coming in for a single night to pick up devices or make materials deliveries.
They had a cook too, or at least he thought they did. He’d never seen the man, or woman, but the food had suddenly gotten a lot better a few weeks back and stayed that way. Not palace level maybe, but not hunks of day old bread and hard cheese either. It was also just possible that someone flew food in from the Capital instead of wasting a whole cook just on them. He hadn’t asked, because there really didn’t seem to be any reason too. They had food, it was good enough.
He went to his little cabinet in the bathing area, a separate facility from the restrooms and took out some clothes and his cleaning gear. The other men had to keep their clothes locked up, so that people wouldn’t “borrow” it when they ran out of clean clothing between wash days. Tor didn’t have to worry about that yet, even though someone had brought him a shipment of nice things, silk and soft leather stuff, along with a pile of much more practical green canvas that he suspected came from Dan Green or that side of the family, since it looked like the outfit that man had worn. No one else could have fit in his stuff, not here at least.
Not wanting to make a poor impression, since Sara was likely to tell Trice about how bad he looked anyway, Tor made a point of dressing nicely. Not the best clothes he had, but a nice deep green silk shirt, leather trousers and a vest that nearly matched the pants. He had to slip the soft brown shoes back on, because they were what he had. It was the best he could manage, even if the face in the mirror didn’t look good enough to go out in public. Tor shook his head and stopped the thought in place.
That wasn’t really fair he knew. He looked normal enough, thin and small maybe, but he had clear skin and good teeth, his hair was longer than it had been, but not so much that anyone would think he was a girl yet or anything like that. He certainly wasn’t any worse looking than average, just smaller and that only here.
All the people that came through were those that had flying rigs and that meant, by and large, royals or military elite. Both groups tended to be tall.
Taking a big breath and letting it out with a blubbering of lips he walked back to his hut. If he was lucky Sara would have taken off already and he wouldn’t have to talk to her. He really didn’t want to go over everything and discuss how he felt. It should be clear that he felt bad. Other than that, what did it matter, since he couldn’t do anything about the situation at all?
Well, he had work to do anyway, so at least there was that. If you can’t be happy, be busy.
Sara and Rolph weren’t out front of the hut when he got there, so he walked in wondering if they’d gone inside to talk and wait for him.
In the low light he saw instantly that they weren’t talking at least. Blushing he backed out of the room. There had been too little clothing in that scene for his mind to really process, but he had a general sense of what they were doing. Definitely not chatting.
Fine, but did it have to be done in his work space? Not, he knew, that they had anywhere else to do it, but… He felt jealous and a flash of bitterness passed over him for a few moments. Tor worked himself half to death and what did he get? More work.
Rolph sat and brought him water and food occasionally and had women showing up to do things that they’d never even consider doing with Tor. It softened the blow a little that Rolph was the Prince and heir, of course women would want him, but Tor had an odd feeling that it would have been happening if Rolph just been a merchants son too. His big friend had always been popular, even with people that didn’t know he was the Prince of anything. Tor on the other hand, had always been avoided by women, or at least ignored. Unless they wanted something from him.
Well. Tor didn’t know what to do, but figured that he shouldn’t go back for at least an hour and even then he did he should probably call out first. Sara was good looking, but seeing Rolph’s hairy butt pumping in the air didn’t thrill him at all. The image hovered in front of his eyes still, burnt in place in a fashion that it wouldn’t have been if it Tor had wanted to remember it. He sighed and started wondering around. He wasn’t dressed for running and didn’t feel like changing yet, and while he could eat it was likely a bit before any food would be ready, early as it was. So, instead, he walked around looking at what had sprung up when he wasn’t paying attention.