Fic: Closer Together and Further Away. (10/11)

[silver_sun]

Things settled into a routine without too much difficulty. Each morning Ianto would go to work with Pon-Pel, Owen would go to learn about herbs with Cisca-Mar and Jack, in an attempt to make their house a little more comfortable, joined the group of older Star-Chosen spent much of each afternoon making the woven grass matting.

As the Double Moon festival got closer the whole village seemed to get involved in the preparations. Cooking fires burnt despite the warmth of the day, and the number of people in the village seemed to increase daily, new boats being moored up every few hours.

Given that the population of the village was around two hundred and Cisca-Mar had told him that six hundred had safely come off the Perssion two to three generations before, Ianto knew that he shouldn't be surprised that there were other settlements, but it seemed strange to realise that their village was not the only one.

There were, he found out from talking to the new arrivals, two villages on the coast and one closer to the mountains where the land was more heavily forested. It made a lot of sense for everybody not to have ended up living all in one location. Actually getting enough resources to survive must have left them with very little choice apart from splitting up.

So in addition to the preparation for the festival there was a great deal of activity around the boats. Grains and plants from the marshes were traded for wood and iron from forest village, and salt, dried fish and seaweeds from the coast. There was a little good natured haggling, but for the most part what was going to be exchanged already seemed to have been decided. Cargoes were loaded and unloaded with the minimum of fuss, the crews talking as they worked together, swapping stories and gossip about what was happening in their villages.

Unsurprisingly, their own arrival in the marsh village had become a topic for discussion, and there were many curious glances in their direction.  Although once they'd realised that they hadn't actually done anything all that interesting or surprising, their attention turned back to more pressing matters.



“How often are there double full moons?” Ianto asked as he helped Pon-Pel set out tables on the floating platform that had been built between two of the jetties, as there wasn't a large enough space between the tightly packed houses to hold the festival.

“Twice a year. This one and the one at the end of winter.” She put down the bundle of rush lights that she had been carrying onto the table and started to fix them into their holders. “This one marks the end of summer. The days are getting shorter already, you must have notices how the heat doesn't last so long after the sun has set.”

The weather had been good for so long it seemed almost impossible that it was shortly going to come to an end.

“Don’t look so worried,” she said, with a laugh. “The lake isn’t going to freeze overnight. We’ve got a good few weeks until there even a chance of a frost. They’ll pass quickly though, there’s always so much to do to make sure all the harvests and fuel are safely stored away.”  

“I'll be travelling down to the coast once the festival is over,” Pon-Pel continued as they started on the second row of tables. “There will be room in the boat if you, Jack and Owen want to come too. It will probably be your only chance until next spring.”

“Are you leaving?” Ianto asked, remembering what Pon-Pel had said about the couple who'd had the house moving away.

“No. I'd never get Rila to move away from here, and I'd not go without her.” Putting down her hand full of rush lights, Pon-Pel sat on the edge of the table. “It's just a trading trip really and a chance to gather plants and herbs that only grow by the sea.  Cisca-Mar has decided that she's too old to make the trip this year, so Rila's going. It would probably be an idea for Owen to go as well, so he can see where the herbs grow and know how to find them.”

Ianto looked at Owen who was helping move some small barrels from the hall out to the square and then at Jack who was sitting with the group who where preparing the lanterns that were to be hung around the edge of the village. “I'll ask them later,” Ianto said, hoping that they would agree. A trip out of the village and a chance to explore more of the world that was fast becoming their home sounded appealing.


X0X0X0X

The Double Moon festival started as soon as the moons rose, the night sky clear and bright with stars. The lanterns hung around the village and the firefly like insects skimming over the lake seeming to mirror them on the ground.

The village was the busiest that Ianto thought he'd ever seen it, with everybody trying to congregate in the small, table filled space in front of the village hall.

It was a rather more disorganised event than Ianto had been expecting after all the preparations that had gone into it, with everybody just doing their own thing. He'd supposed that it would, given the time of year have something of a harvest festival about it and that there would be some kind of thanks given for the year. Instead, food and drink was brought out and put on the tables so everyone could help themselves, while the children, allowed to stay up late, ran wild through the crowds of adults, shouting and playing.

The good mood of everyone there seemed to be infectious and as the music started to play and the dancing began, Ianto found himself joining in, Jack asking him and Owen to dance.

As the moons reached their highest, brightest point, Pon-Pel climbed onto a table and whistled loudly. Once she'd got everybody's attention she leant down, and taking Rila-Bek's hand, helped her up onto the table beside her.

Pon-Pel took off her second necklace and then bowing to Rila-Bek, held it out to her.

“What's going on?” Owen asked, finding the combination of dim light and distance particularly hard without glasses. The fact that he had struggled to learn the language not helping either.

“I think they got engaged or possibly married,” Ianto said as Pon-Pel and Rila-Bek climbed down from the table, while the crowd whistled and offered them drinks. The conversation got faster and more excited until Ianto couldn't follow what was being said.

“Who did?” Owen asked, as he tried to focus.

“Pon-Pel and Rila-Bek.” Ianto smiled as he watched them, happy that his friends were able to declare their love for each other openly and be accepted for it.

“They make a lovely couple,” Jack said, getting up to go and congratulate them.

“He seems happier, doesn't he?” Ianto asked Owen as he watched him go.

Owen nodded, finishing his drink, then said, “He's getting there.”

“We all are,” Ianto replied, realising that both his own and Owen's moods seemed to have lifted in the time the three of them had been together. Whether it was just the first rush of excitement of a new relationship he couldn't say, but he hoped that it wasn't, and that this was just the start of something that would last a lifetime.

It wasn't how Ianto had ever pictured his life, living and sleeping with two men in a roundhouse on a lake on another planet. Because realistically, no one would ever picture that when they thought about their future. But for now it worked and they were happy.




X0X0X0X

The sun was shining brightly, although there was a distinctly autumnal chill in the morning air as they loaded the last of what they needed aboard the ship.

It was the largest that Ianto had seen in the village. With a wide flat deck, under which was substantial storage space and two broad sails it looked substantial enough to take onto the ocean. A number of other small boats including Pon-Pel's raft were moored alongside it, their small crews also loading on supplies for the trip.

Sitting beside Owen and Jack on the deck, Ianto watched as the village grew smaller in the distance as they set off across the lake to the river that drained from it, and which would lead them down to the coast.  

The river wound its way slowly though the marshes, the land slowly changing from the moorland type environment where they’d first arrived to salt marshes that teamed with insect and bird life. Ianto knew that technically the creatures they saw there were neither, but it they seemed to fulfil the same niches in the environment.

It was the longest Ianto had ever been on a boat, and by the first evening, he was already starting to regret it. The journey was smooth enough, the slow moving river and wide, shallow draft of the boat meant there was very little in the way of a rolling motion. The complete lack of privacy was worse part, he decided as he bedded down for the night under the awning that had been put up over the deck when they stopped for the evening.   The prospect of five day journey down to the coast seemed to stretch out endlessly in front of him.

The fact that, depending on the sleeping arrangements when they got to the village, it might be the best part of two weeks before he got to spend another uninterrupted night with Jack and Owen did little to help his mood. 

Not that it seemed to bother Owen, who was playing some form of dice game or Jack who was talking to the Mol-Jost, the ship’s captain, and pointing up at star constellations.  While Pon-Pel and Rila-Bek had taken their boat to the river bank to camp overnight and get a little privacy.

The river widened as they approached the coast, the banks retreating back out of sight beyond dozens of narrow, twisting channels.  Dropping the sails, oars were brought out as they slowly made their way through sandbars. 

Mol-Jost spent much of his time standing at the front of the boat, gesturing left and right as he guided them through. 

Eventually the main channel of the river opened out, and ahead of them they could see the sea. Wide and blue, under a sunlit sky, the waves broke with white crested surf on the shingle beach.  

X0X0X0X0X

The village was some way down the coast from the mouth of the river. Built from slabs of yellow-grey stone quarried from the nearby cliffs, the easily split shale had been stacked neatly to form a dozen dry stone walled houses.  Large, round structures they each had an open central courtyard with a fire pit surrounded by rooms radiating out like spokes on a wheel.

Sheltered from the wind by the dunes, the houses all had a small plot of land that was well tended and turned over to growing vegetables. Paths made of the same shale slabs led from the houses to the beach where five boats were berthed in stone-lined depressions just above the high tide line.

On the cliff tops were strange wooden frames that reminded Ianto of the clothes horses his Gran had used to dry bits and pieces of washing in front of the fire when the weather was too bad to put it out on the line.

“They’re for drying fish and seaweed,” Jack said standing beside him and looking up at the cliff top frame. “I’ve not see one like that since I was a kid.”

“You weren’t born on Earth, were you?” Ianto asked after a pause. The question had been a long time coming, but it was only recently that he’d had any hope of having it answered.

“It was an Earth colony. Right on the edge of… ” He stopped and smiled. Wistful rather than happy. “It wouldn’t mean anything to you or anyone else yet.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to know,” Ianto told him, hoping that Jack might tell him a little more about his past. “If I told you I used to stay at the caravan park near Llwyngwril you wouldn’t have any idea either.”

“I don't think I could even pronounce that,” Jack said amused. “So did you?”

“Yes.” Ianto smiled, remembering the caravan park overlooking the Irish sea. Halfway between Aberdovey and Barmouth it had hardly been the most exotic of holiday locations, but as a child the rocky beaches and sea caves had seemed to provide endless opportunities for adventure. “Mum, Dad, Nan and Granddad. Packed in like sardines into a caravan, determined to enjoyed our week by the sea whatever the weather.”

“I've never heard you mention any of them,” Jack said, moving slightly so that they were sitting shoulder to shoulder.

“They've all passed on. Some years ago now,” Ianto said quietly. “At least they aren't missing me and worrying where I am.”

“I'm sorry,” Jack said, putting an arm around him. “I forget how much you've lost sometimes.”

Ianto looked down at Owen who was talking with exaggerated hand gestures to Rila-Bek and a couple of other Star-Chosen from the beach village. He knew a little of Owen's unhappy childhood, and how out of all them he'd probably had it the hardest during those early years. It wasn't his story to share, but the little he knew explained so much about Owen. “We all have.”

Together on the dune top, they sat looking out at the sea until Owen came to tell them it was time help get the evening meal ready down in the village.

Link to part eleven