Roger made a face as he sat in his cabin. He wasn't pushing himself away! It wasn't Terrence's place to comment on such things, anyway - he wasn't Roger's friend like Alek was, and even Alek didn't comment on how Roger acted or what Roger did. Quite frankly, he didn't find it to be any of Terrence's business. He sighed and thought about how Alek was doing, as he had found himself doing every day of this voyage - he did hope that his friend was doing alright, and that Cathy and Theo were able to do without him.
Praskovia sat next to him as a cat. "I think that he misses us, you know," she said plainly, curling up and twitching her tail near her nose. Roger frowned.
"Well, he shall have to bear with it, I can hardly turn the boat around."
Praskovia sniffled. "You would, if you could, and you know it. You do miss them all," she said rather pointedly, and Roger shrugged, not wanting to reply to that. He did, but there was nothing he could do about it, so he should do his best to work efficiently and disregard his emotion if it had the possibility of impairing his work.
So what if Terrence didn't think too much of that? It wasn't his to think of! He moved over and took his notebook out, sketching a small picture of a seagull, working upon the wings and belly for rather a long time before sighing. He didn't much like the feelings being brought back to his attention.
Closing the notebook with a snap, he pulled a book of plants out and began to read. Praskovia settled down in the form of a mouse next to his ear, curling up and settling down properly. It was too cold not to curl up.
...
Terrence sighed and moved over to Bill. He was rather worried about the fact that Roger had not been on deck for a while, and as far as he knew Bill was closest to the boy out of everyone on the ship.
"Bill, get yourself down to Roger's cabin and check on the lad, would you?" he asked and his younger brother frowned for a minute.
"What did you do, Terry? Did you upset him?"
Terrence cursed Bill's intuition inwardly before nodding. "Told him not to push away how he felt and how he missed his friend. He just slipped away and ain't been on deck for two hours or so." His daemon perched on his shoulder and Bill sighed.
"You can't do that, you have to let him figure something like that out himself." He nodded before moving below deck to get to Roger's cabin.
...
The old Professor of Linguistics was sitting in his cabin, having claimed a headache to retire. He couldn't stand being in the same room as the others after a while, and he did like brushing up on the languages they would be speaking as a sort of recreational exercise. He remembered the last time he had been to the Scandinavian clans, and sighed - Loskiya Mestigi was probably looking as young as she had when he had last seen her, decked in harebells and meadow-rue as she ran about the hills and pulled him along by his hand to meet the others, who had smiled indulgently as she chattered to him, clapping occasionally when he managed to get a word in edgeways. They had been the best of friends when he was a student travelling about, but he had not heard nor seen of her since his return to his own country. He sighed, remembering where he was - not in the Norwegian hills, but on a large boat headed there. His daemon, a silvery grey fox, curled at his feet.
"She won't have forgotten us, but...I think she'll be surprised at our age. I was barely settled when we went there, 'member?" She snuffled a little.
He coughed, before answering. "You still were very well pleased with your form, dear heart." He reached a shaking hand down to pet her head and she craned her neck up for the attention.
The Fisco boy walked past his cabin, knocking on the door next to his, and the Professor heaved himself up to walk over and shut the door.
...
Roger had fallen asleep, but the knock of the door woke him and he raised his head before turning over and moving the book to safety before tumbling out of bed and walking over to the door.
Bill Fisco was there, looking at him oddly. "Did Terrence put his foot in it? If he did tell me as much an' I'll deal with him and his meddlin'."
Roger yawned. "It's fine, it didn't much bother me," he fibbed, and Bill looked at him for a minute before sighing.
"He don't mean it, he just don't know how to deal with people properly. He's rude, but he's that way to everyone but Ma, an' that's only because she'd give him a hiding if he ever was rude as he is with other people to her. He truly don't mean to upset people, but don't do nothing to work on it either." He looked anxiously down at the boy who simply yawned again.
"He should work on it, then," Roger said eventually. "I'm rather tired, so please allow me to go back to sleep." He shut the door without waiting for an answer, flopping back on the bed and closing his eyes, breathing evenly in an attempt to relax enough to actually fall asleep. So what if Terrence hadn't meant to offend him? He wasn't offended, just too tired to go on deck! It was none of Terrence's business where he pleased to be!