Dreamwalker

Chapter Eight

“I See, with my small eye, something yellow.”

Everyone groaned. Ted smiled sheepishly as one of the injured warriors in Rol'ei's wagon glared over at him.

When they'd first set out, with Ted and Rol'ei each riding a direhorse and tugging a wagon load of injured warriors behind them, teaching them the “I Spy” game had seemed like such a lovely idea. Sure, in the forest it has been entertaining. With so many colors and different things around, there was a lot of variety; it was a challenge.

As they passed into the open plains and rolling hills between the Omaticaya's territory and the Ikran Clan's territory, the game became monotonous in the extreme. Only one of the one young women in Ted's wagon seemed intent on continuing the painful torment.

Of course, now it felt like proper retribution to the cold shoulder he was getting from the Singer.

Ted sighed.

“It's grass,” another of his passengers commented with a grumble. “Don't you know any other games?”

“Let me think,” Ted said, really not coming up with anything. He'd been trying to think of a new game since noon the first day. All of the traditional road trip games he knew were things like license plate bingo, or the alphabet game, or punch buggy. Unless they were punching from seeing real bugs, he had no idea.

“Well, it is traditional to sing on a road trip... Rol'ei, can you think of anything?”

The Singer looked up after one of his passengers poked his direhorse in the rump. “Hm?”

“Songs,” Ted said, hopefully. “I was thinking maybe you could sing for us?”

“I don't really think I'm up to it.”

Ted's eyebrows pulled together in concern. Rol'ei's eyes returned to their dead stare off into the distance, never really focusing on Ted or anyone else. What was wrong with him?

“We don't want to hear his songs anyway. How about you sing for us?”

“Yes, please! I only got to hear the second half of Robin and the Arrow, could you tell it again?”

Ted felt his cheeks heat. “I think I've told that one enough, for now.”

“What about that instrument that Lisa insisted you bring?”

Of course Rol'ei would pipe in with that. Ted sighed. “I don't sing... but here, could you hand me my pack first?”

Ted leaned back to snatch the strap of his bag from the outstretched hand. His laptop didn't have much music, but surely he'd have something he could play to.

After a bit of a search, he gulped in embarrassment. Yes, it was his laptop, and his music... but he hadn't opened it in ages, and there was a definite flavor to the music he had queued up on the small machine.

“What is that?” Nari, the young gal who'd been so fascinated with the I Spy game leaned over the edge of the wagon to look over his shoulder. “Are those little Sky People?”

“It's an image of humans, from a concert, a gathering where many people gather to listen to people sing.”

“What are they wearing?”

Oh, how to explain corsets? “It's a special erm... support.”

“Are they alive? They look frozen!”

Ted smiled and set the video to play. How bad could it be? None of them knew enough English for it to be too much trouble. He showed the young woman how to switch between the small collection of Wet Spots videos he had on the small machine, then handed it back for them to watch; the screen impossible to enjoy from a distance.

From the back of the pa'li, he could barely hear the tinny sound from the speakers, far from the rich melodies he enjoyed from the long-gone but still sexy duo.

“It's called lounge music,” Ted said, trying for the life of him to watch Rol'ei out of the corner of his eye without being noticed. “The style, I mean. There's some other music by different people, if you'd like to listen to something else.”

“I like them,” Nari said. “I mean, I like their voices. What are they singing? Could you translate for us?”

The song had switched to Labia Limbo, his favorite after Bi-Curious George.

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If you're curious what song I'm referencing, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P30Efndzm4

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“Well, this is mostly nonsense sounds that can't really be translated,” he fibbed some. Mostly true. Oh! Rounds! Maybe he could think of a couple rounds to teach them, then they could all sing to pass the time. “Besides, their songs are a bit mature, maybe something...”

She pulled back the laptop when he reached for it.

“Mature? You know, I think I just realized what I don't like about dreamwalkers. They treat us like children-”

“It's not that!” Ted quickly interrupted, though he knew others who were responsible for that kind of treatment. “It's more that... I get embarrassed easily and...” he sighed. “I'd feel weird teaching you raunchy jokes when you don't even know the 'Inglisi alphabet.”

Nari laughed, unconcerned. “Well maybe I'll be more interested in the boring stuff after you teach me something fun.”

Someone handed him the funky instrument that Lisa insisted was a Na'vi-sized guitar; Ted insisted that no sane guitar has eight strings.

Too bad she wouldn't be moved, and he had more than enough time learning how to put those extra strings to use... kind of like having your own bass attached.

He started with Labia Limbo, deciding he might as well teach them how to do a round anyway, since the chorus repeated well enough that it could be done. He didn't really explain the meanings behind all of the phrases, but Nari seemed to understand more than he was telling... probably because she hogged the laptop for herself and timed the duo's amusingly graphic movements to the noises he taught them.

With a bit of work, he got a rough, really rough, translation of the introductory verses, which had the wounded laughing hard, as the men and women sang out responses.

They worked collectively on the songs, Ted teaching lyrics to things he knew how to play, then letting the other's do the hard work, until Rol'ei barked out a quick note that silenced everyone.

“There,” he said, simply, pointing off into the distance.

“Looks like a cloud of dust,” Ted replied. He shielded his eyes. Were those dark little dots in the middle of the dust cloud?

“Nantang,” Nari whispered. Ted looked back into the wagon, realizing that most of his passengers had hidden behind the waist high walls that Rol'ei had insisted the wagons have.

“Nantang?” Viperwolves? “Surely not this far from the forest?”

“Another tribe,” one of the men from Rol'ei's wagon stood up, using his bow to lean against. “They're nomads.”

“Aren't the people at peace?”

“No,” Rol'ei said. He slid down the side of his pa'li. Ted jumped off to steady him on the ground. Rol'ei gave him a quick, grateful glance, before turning to glare in the distance again. “They raid our land, when they can. Normally they are no match, but...”

“Do they have ikran?”

“No, they don't fly.”

They all waited, pensive, for several long minutes, watching to see what would happen. Ted hoped that the Nantang had not noticed the small wagons at all... but the cloud never veered, simply got larger and larger against the horizon. They were coming.

“Do you have a plan, Singer?” asked the man with his bow.

“Torukmakto on the cliff's edge.”

A murmur surrounded them. Ted looked around, confused.

“Cliff's edge?”

“Singer, I-”

Rol'ei cut him off with a glance. He lifted his chin and blasted out a painfully loud whistle. In the distance, Ted could hear Ratche calling back him him. The ikran had been circling the entire trip. She landed close by, while the others remained aloft.

Rol'ei had explained that they were ikran who'd stayed behind after the battle, either because they had been too wounded to return earlier, or their people were in the wagons below, or their people were never to return to them, and Ratche had heckled them to follow the group.

“Singer, you can't-” Rol'ei glared at Nari now, silencing her.

He touched Ted's shoulder a moment, not meeting his gaze before stamping off to Ratche, hiding his limp as best he could. Ted followed.

“Rol'ei, what does 'Torukmakto on the cliff's edge' mean anyway?”

“It is a tactic.”

“As in, something only a Torukmakto would do?”

Rol'ei bent down to a reddish patch of dirt that'd been upturned by the pa'li's feet. He gathered a handful, and smeared his face with his Singer markings.

“Come.”

Ted stepped up to him, unsure. Rol'ei applied the markings once more. Ted could feel his fingers trembling.

“Hopefully, if they catch you, they will honor the marks. They do not know as much about the Sky People, and the Dreamwalkers, as the other clans do, so maybe they will not harm you.”

“What are you-” Rol'ei silenced him with a dirty finger on his lips.

“Nari has been running her mouth so much, and she is young. Put her on my pa'li and run. Run as fast as you can to the east. I will hold them off as long as I can.”

“Rol'ei...” Ted didn't like the tone of his voice, the quiet acceptance.

“I am sorry that I've been-”

“Stop,” Ted said, covering the Singer's hand in his. “The way you're speaking, one would think you don't expect to see me again. You will hold them off, we will run, and you'll meet up with us again.”

Rol'ei's smile was a sad one. Ted touched his forehead to the Singer's, then pulled him into a tight hug.

“I love you, Rol'ei,” Ted said, with finality. No more couching words, no more hiding it. “Come back to me.”

Rol'ei pulled back. His eyes moist. He swallowed. Nodded. Ratche cooed worriedly. Rol'ei touched his cheek one last time, then hopped onto Ratche's back with a limberness that Ted wondered at. With a whoop, they took off into the air. Ted stood for a moment, transfixed, as Ratche circled the remaining ikran, and herded them straight for the Nantang.

“Come, Little Singer,” someone said behind him. He rubbed at an eye quickly, before anyone saw, and ran to hop back onto the pa'li.

One of the wounded hunters loaned him her bow and arrows, even when he plead that he had never shot one before. “Better to have a chance at defense than none,” she insisted.

Rather than have Nari hop onto an unfamiliar animal, in fact none wanted the job at all, Ted had them tie the lead rope of the second pa'li to the back of his wagon. With little encouragement, both direhorses took off at a dead run. East wasn't the opposite direction of the Nantang; it was the direction of their home.

He forced his mind to catalog plants as they went, rather than wander in the direction of the acute angle of their travel compared to the unseen enemy. Rol'ei would give them enough time to make up for the longer distance they needed to travel...

Ted hoped that the great beasts had enough strength in their legs to get them there.

* * *

They ran silently, desperately, until the pa'li's sides heaved and bellowed and the dust cloud receded behind them. Ted pushed them further still.

He finally slowed when he felt one of the Na'vi touch the pa'li's rump to get his attention.

“Give them a break,” Nari said somberly. “Tamaro can take them for a while.”

The man, his arm still in a sling, took the lead rope. Ted slid down, his legs rubber weak, and went to sit in the back of his wagon.

He watched the horizon, adopting Rol'ei's earlier posture. Nari passed him a skin full of water. He sipped sparingly, not knowing when they would see more.

“What did he mean?” Ted asked.

“By what?”

“'Torukmakto on the cliff's edge.'”

Nari looked to a couple of the older warriors.

“Tell me, please.”

“If he meant you to know, he would have said so.”

“He as much as told me he won't come back alive.”

She sighed. “Torukmakto, the third Torukmakto, had to defend his home and his people. In a great battle, he had his Toruk take great boulders, fly them high above the people's enemies, and drop them, smashing all below him. Rol'ei thinks he will frighten off our pursuers if he does the same.”

“Toruk is much larger than ikran... will Ratche be able to lift boulders large enough?”

“She will heckle the others to make them listen. If they each take up smaller rocks, they might be able to frighten them away.”

“Or stall them until we're far enough away.”

She nodded.

Ted looked back at the second pa'li. Even without a rider, he could see see the skin damp with perspiration and the head lolling. They were used to the cool forest, and only having one or two riders, not this hard work.

He checked the horizon again. Nothing, yet.

“Anyone who can walk, get out of the wagons. We can't stop, but we need to give the pa'li a break.”

As the able got out to walk, Ted gave both direhorse a few licks from the container of nectar he'd collected in the forest, and as much water as they wanted. They all walked until he could put his hand on the broad shoulder without feeling a burning heat. He bundled everyone back up into the wagons with a worried glance back at the horizon. A haze had developed, one that might be a dust cloud, or just atmosphere.

He didn't immediately take them back to a gallop, but a ground eating trot felt slow when everyone kept looking backwards. The tense silence continued, keeping everyone on edge, until finally Nari could take it no longer and hopped up behind him in the saddle.

“Oof! Could we go slower for a little? I think they're tired.”

Ted eyed her over his shoulder, then checked the horizon. The haze had cleared. He frowned. Clear enough for now. He slowed the pa'li.

“Not exactly like an ikran, is it?” She commented, shifting her weight and inadvertently rubbing against him. At least, he hoped it wasn't intentional.

“I wouldn't know... how were you injured anyway?”

Nari tapped her temple. “Was knocked into Dreams for a couple days. When I woke, my ikran was gone and I couldn't balance right. Mo'at says I'm not all here anymore, but I can't tell a difference.”

Her bright, slightly wild smile made Ted lean in Mo'at's direction on that diagnosis.

“Would you like to guide the other pa'li?”

“Oh no, this is odd enough.”

She started humming and picking at his queue.

“Rol'ei's disguise wouldn't've worked,” she commented conversationally.

“Disguise?”

She leaned around and poked at a smudge of reddish dirt on his cheek.

“He likes you.”

Ted frowned, glad that his blush was hidden by dirt. How much had everyone heard? How much would he care? What if he didn't... “I like him too. He's a good friend.”

“He's a prickly friend,” she said with a loud laugh. “Thinks too much. Takes everything too seriously.” Her fingers ran through his hair several times, before tugging at the tie. “This, though, would have told them you're a dreamwalker. I'm going to braid it better.”

“Nari, I appreciate the thought, but-”

“Best to just let her braid it,” one of the older men said. Bandages obscured half of his face. “She had it right, anyway. You'll stand out. Bad enough you're wearing Sky People clothes. Us, they'll kill outright. You, they'll torture.”

Ted looked back and forth between some very serious faces before finally sighing. “Fine. Just don't shave it.”

“Hmph.”

Odd though Nari was, she worked quickly, partitioning and drawing a section of his hair into a thick French braid. She started at his forehead, mimicking the Na'vi's bulge along the top of his skull, and coiled it tight against his skin, before finally incorporating the false queue into his real one. Ted twitched, thinking about Jake's shaved pate, the marine's way to make the resemblance stronger.

“Need to do the sides,” the bandaged man commented.

“Little braids,” Nari decided, her fingers flicking fast and practiced, tossing finished ones into his eyes to keep them out of her way. “I like the way his hair flows. It's so soft.”

His passengers snickered. He waited patiently, surprised how fast she was and how gentle.

“We need something to decorate you. No singer would be outside of his hammock without something shiny.”

“I'm not really-”

“Oh! Stop the pa'li!”

She jumped off before he stopped completely, collecting delicate fluff from the plants about.

“Might as well take the pants off, while we're stopped.”

Ted glared at the bandaged man. What is up with these Ikran People and their discrimination against pants?

He grumbled, sliding off long enough to switch to the Omaticaya clothing he'd brought with him, feeling a tad ridiculous in the loincloth and waist cincher with its decorative stitching; Rol'ei's idea. Theoretically for any ceremonies on their return to the ocean.

“Here.” Nari grinned. She lifted a handful of seed fluff, long leaved grasses, and even a small seedpod for his inspection. Ted smiled.

“You know, I think these suit me more than any other decoration you could have chosen.”

Her grin looked as though it might tear her mouth at the corners. She urged him back onto the pa'li, eager even in her half-mad state to continue the trek, and settled herself behind again so she could weave her decorations into his slim braids.

* * *

They pushed on well into twilight, Ted too nervous to allow them to stop for anything longer than the necessities, and the occasional refill of the water bladders when they found a fresh stream. The darker it got, the more worried he became.

“He will be alright,” Nari would occasionally reassure. Ted wished he could believe it.

“I give up,” Ted finally said.

“Give up?”

“It's too dark.”

“Let's go to that ridge,” someone behind him urged. “It's close to home.”

Ted pushed the pa'li onward. A whoop behind him startled him, then cheering. Off in the distance, he could just make out great fires.

“Can the pa'li go farther, Ted? We're so close!”

Ted grinned. “We'll try.”

The light in the dark gave them all hope, the direhorse a second wind. They galloped along the ridgeline as though they had not been running for their lives all day long. Ted's voice joined the joyous chorus.

They arrived with little ceremony but plenty of warm hands helping injured from the wagons. For some reason, all of the Ikran Clan seemed to be awake and ready to help.

“I'll lead to you to the rookery,” Nari said, staying in the wagon with him. “There is some space behind it that the pups play in. It will be safe for the pa'li until you take them home.”

The ikran's area was an interesting mix of cavelets, crags, and walkways leading down to the cliffs, and presumably, the ocean. Ted led the exhausted pa'li well away from the main area. He helped Nari down from the wagon, unconsciously held her shoulder when he saw her sway, and asked her help to remove the traces from the poor beasts. They had sores from the ropes, sweat, and exertion.

Ted opened one of the containers of nectar and left it between them, so they could drink their fill.

He turned to the ocean, the breeze cooling against his damp, sore flesh. He wondered if there was a way he could take the two of them down to the water for a good scrub down. Tomorrow, perhaps. Tonight...

Wait. That silhouette.

One of the ikran raised its head, eying the animals on the edge of its area.

“Are you sure they're safe here?” Ted worried.

“Sure as... hey!”

At the sound of their voices, the ikran bounded over to them. Ted laughed for joy.

If the silhouette seemed vaguely familiar, that silly, boneless hop was doubly so.

“Ratche!”

Ted caught her about the snout, rubbing the ridge under her jaw and let himself get bowled over.

“Eh, I was wondering what the old girl was getting up in a fuss over.”

Ted craned his neck up to try and see who approached. He could make out one foot, and the light of a weak torch.

“Txantslusam!” Wise-one?

Nari pounced whomever carried the torch with as much exuberance as Ratche. Ted worked his way out from under Ratche's enthusiastic mass.

At first glance, Txantslusam looked like an incredibly wizened Na'vi, certainly the oldest Ted had ever seen but then... a certain sinewiness to the muscle perhaps? Or the uneven strength of how he caught Nari's form? Ratche stayed glued to his side as the Na'vi approached.

“I see you, Little Singer of the Omaticaya.”

“I-” Ted wasn't sure how to correct him... and tried not to stare at anything other than his eyes.

No, not old. Perhaps no older than Rol'ei, but disfigured. His skin covered in so many old scars they looked like the winkles of age. Burn scars. Chemical burns.

Ted'd seen injuries from the Sky People, but these... these were brutal. Torture.

“I see Ratche is here! Does that mean Rol'ei is here?”

“He speaks with Olo'eyktan,” Txantslusam told Nari, his eyes soft when he looked at her. How had his eyes remained so perfect in the ragged horror of his face?

“I'll go tell him we're here safe!”

She bounded off to where the na'vi gathered around large, wedge-shaped tent structures.

“Why don't you stay here, Little Singer. Things are... chaotic, and I'm sure they are not prepared to receive outsiders.”

“What happened?”

He tipped his head, first one way, then another, so his hair, unbraided and unadorned, fell over his face.

“Come, I have my duties to finish.”

Ted checked on the pa'li quickly, then caught up with Txantslusam as he wound his way around the ikran nests.

“With all of the uproar of the Great Singer returning, the ikran have been in a flurry.”

Ted patted Ratche's neck as she ambled along beside them.

“But, you asked what happened. Rol'ei has returned shortly before sunset, and there has been a conference since. The Nantang have been threatening lately, without the warriors here to protect us. Now they count our number, and see injured returning, and count us weak. The Great Singer and the Olo'eyktan are deciding the best tact to take.”

“I see,” Ted said, not really.

As Txantslusam spoke, we checked on very young ikran within the nests of their parents. Ratche seemed to know the pattern, distracting the parents while Txantslusam lifted the young, check it, fed it a little something, then set it back in the nest. They moved their way down to a larger grotto, this one filled only with adults. Several Ted recognized from the journey.

“I suppose I should introduce myself, I'm-”

“I know who you are.”

The flare of life, of anger, in Txantslusam's eyes, as he spun on Ted, made him realize how very much an outsider he was. Working with the Omaticaya could easily make one forget.

“I have known the Sky People better than most, and well before any of the dream walking demons came to our shores. But I will treat you civilly, and keep you safe here, away from the people, because our Great Singer requested it of me.

“He speaks well of you. And Ratche likes you. If it were not for that, I would spit you here.”

At her name, Ratche butted first against Ted, then against the na'vi, and turned to lead the way into the wounded.

“I am to stay with you?”

“Most likely Rol'ei and the other able-bodied warriors will go to run the Nantang off.” Ted did not miss the emphasis on “able-bodied.” “I will keep you safe.”

Ratche let out a distressed yelp. Ted passed Txantslusam and went straight for where he saw a flurry of wings as Rol'ei's friendly ikran forced her way through grumpy, wounded, and tired ikran. Ted's passage behind her was barely registered.

When he'd finally caught up, he found her cooing, nosing, at a an eerily still ikran on the ground.

Txantslusam skidded to a stop a moment behind him.

“Ah, it is only Tanhi Taftxuyu.”

Star Weaver.

Ratche nudged him, calling urgently, looking to Txantslusam in panic.

“I am sorry.” he said to her, remaining where he stood.

Ted moved to comfort her, circling an arm around her muzzle, intent to lead her away from another victim of the battle. A cry, so quiet it was barely more than the hissing exultation of air, stopped him, and sent Ratche further into a panic.

“He's still alive! You must do something!”

Txantslusam shook his head slowly, remaining still.

“Here we have the wounded. Many here have lost their people. It is an injury to the heart that can never be fully healed. Without their makto, they might leave these cliffs, but most stay. A few take new makto. No one can replace what is lost; the bond is often weaker because their heart has broken and they can not stand to give it away again.

“Tanhi Taftxuyu has outlived four ikran makto. He returned before the battle was won. He has not eaten since.”

“Ratche.” she looked up as he called her name. He turned, and left to tend other wounds. Ratche looked back and forth a moment, unsure, before following.

Ted stayed, watching the great ikran as the light from the torch receded. In the light, Ted had been able to see tendrils of dark blue and hints of purple, but now, he could barely make out the nearly-black hunk. Even the bioluminescence seemed dim, compared to the bickering ikran around them. Vaguely, he could make out the glimmer of the eyes watching him weary.

His hands strayed to the beast's muzzle of their own accord; stroking the sides gently like Ratche seemed to enjoy. He could barely make out the poor guy calling out again for a na'vi he would never again connect with. Guilt tugged at his heart, along with the sorrow he saw naked in the ikran's eyes.

So much sadness. So much death.

Ted sighed and finally turned to follow them, aching for the vibrancy of Ratche's company, even if Rol'ei was busy elsewhere.

* * *

That night he slept in Ratche's rookery nook, since he was offered nothing else. Even when he'd return to his human body, miles and miles away, he'd barely had energy enough to eat and pull himself into the cot someone'd kindly situated next to the link-up.

When he woke, and awoke again, however, her big warm body was already gone.

So were many of the other ikran, he noticed.

“They've gone on the hunt,” Txantslusam said, simply. “There is work to be done here. They will return when they return.”

So, Ted hunkered down to help as best he could. The scarred Na'vi directed him to do everything from scrubbing out fecal matter to tending wounds, scrubbing bodies, and even preparing a fish mash.

Txantslusam left him alone frequently with his menial tasks to do the more interesting things. After scrubbing one particularly nasty nest out, he took a breather to watch as the Na'vi tenderly fed the mash to individual young ikran. The nest, it seemed, belonged to a cluster of freshly hatched banshees without parents to care for them.

The scarred Na'vi thought he was insane when he offered to try the technique with some of the ikran who were too wounded to eat, but bid him try.

He also wrapped the resulting wounds with more care than Ted's expected. And with no comments. However, Ted certainly didn't miss the I-told-you-so smirk.

He stuck to cleaning out the cesspits after that.

When the sun finally set, Ted fell back into Ratche's nest in an exhausted heap.

Only then did Txantslusam pass by with a water skin, a hunk of cold, raw fish, and a small grunt of approval.

“Thank you,” Ted said, meaning it. It felt good to be helpful... and it kept his mind off of worrying over Rol'ei. He “dozed off” before he could finish all of the meal, and ended up waking up to find one of the nestling ikran sneaking off with it.

The second day followed pretty much the same. He worried about the pa'li, but Txantslusam assured him that a mash made of broth and cooked grains would sustain them. Never-the-less, they fed them the last of the nectar Ted had brought.

“I'll have to leave tomorrow,” Ted said, worried.

“You can wait until the day after tomorrow,” Txantslusam said with a grunt. Ted quickly caught the other side of the strange ceramic vessel he'd been dragging. They moved it over a buried fire. “Leave the wagons here. They will travel faster. And we will see if they like this mash.”

Ted found himself liking the taciturn na'vi. He cared deeply for all of the ikran. Ted learned, from Nari when she brought over a meal on the second day, that Txantslusam had lost his ikran when he had been caught by...certain long dead individuals... and had not left the ikran rookery since.

“He is like the old ikrans here,” she said, talking with her mouth full of half chewed food. “Part of him wants to walk into the ocean, but there always seems to be something for him to do to keep him here, keep him working. A young one abandoned, an old one aching from the winter winds, learning to fly, to fish, to feed.... He does not come back to the village now, but we all trust him with our mounts. And we bring him food and clothing, if the ikran do not bring him what he needs.”

Ted smiled at that. He'd already noticed that most of Txantslusam's clothing was made from the skins of ocean animals, his food all fish brought to him by one ikran or another.

His thoughts turned to the ikran from the first night... he hadn't returned to see if Star Weaver still lived. There were enough other tasks to see to, and Txantslusam kept him well away.

Nari and Ted exchanged a few more pleasantries, before the scarred Na'vi found him slacking off and set him back to task. Too many wounded to be lazy and talk and eat. Ted grinned and went back to work.