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The memory of the desert heat is still beating down on Tharkay's shoulders when he enters the stateroom. The men there are, to a one, staring at him with surprise and barely-concealed disdain. He delivers his message, and leaves.
He interacts with Captain Laurence, again. It's as bad as the first time. The man doesn't know what to do with him, with how Tharkay can meet him with cool and educated British English, complete with the accent and with equal disdain. Doesn't know what to do with the way Tharkay knows the wild way, too, with how Tharkay has learned very quickly to not flinch when faced with dragon teeth.
Temeraire is alright, Tharkay will admit. It is the captain he cannot stand, Captain William Laurence, with all the pride and false honour of his countrymen and none of the good sense to stay in dreary England and leave the rest of the world to those who don't want to destroy it.
He will get them to Istanbul, if it kills them all. There is a sandstorm, and missing supplies, and Captain Laurence clearly thinks him to be the thief, but if he is not willing to say it aloud, then Tharkay will not give him the pleasure of being the one to bring it up. It is standard British behaviour, to be suspicious without proof, to glare and look the other way and think the worst of those who differ in the smallest of aspects.
The dragon loves him, though. It is an odd thing, to see this upright Brit, this caricature of an Englishman, turning to a beast with teeth as tall as a man and calling him dearest.
They share an accent, when Tharkay wishes it, and perhaps some childhood memories of the same countryside, and perhaps even, given the incestuous nature of English nobility, some fraction of blood. Here, sharing sewer gunk on their boots and a rush in their lungs, Captain Laurence looks him in the eye and apologises.
It is an odd thing, Tharkay thinks to himself, feeling his hatred abruptly die, withered of the fuel which sustained its flame. It is an odd thing, the quintessential Englishman taking his hand and shaking it like he means it, like he feels the strength of it more than the shade of it, and saying I would be sorrier to lose you than I yet know, some absurd platitude Tharkay would normally take as nothing but a signal of future employment, but which, oddly, he believes Laurence truly means.
He has spent a lifetime learning to expect the worst, and he has rarely been disappointed. He knows what to make of Englishmen and their smiles and their promises and the way they wipe their hands so discretely after shaking yours.
He does not know what to make of William Laurence, but he knows that, somehow, this man has earned some measure of his respect.
Laurence is truly the stereotype of a British Nobleman, but he means it, and this is a personal tragedy for Tharkay. He can feel himself falling further and further into this impossible man, into how Laurence keeps recalibrating his beliefs, keeps widening his world view, keeps becoming more and more unexpected while being utterly predictable.
William Laurence commits treason. Tenzing Tharkay comes to bring him home, once, twice. He should feel pity, watching Laurence unwilling to leave a burning prison. All he feels is anger at Laurence's government, which has treated him wretchedly. He should feel angry, watching Laurence command a slaughter. All he feels is sorrow.
"What are you doing?" he asks, and Laurence crumples. Tharkay thinks he might cry. Tharkay embraces him. He should not, likely. He should maintain his distance. He cannot. It would be impossible.
Impossibly, Laurence shakes apart and back together in his short embrace. Impossibly, he minds Tharkay's words, and changes again, again, again, for the better.
Tharkay still does not understand it. Laurence stands for everything Tharkay thought he hated, honour and nobility and self-sacrifice. Yet, Laurence is everything Tharkay wants.
They send him to Australia. Tharkay has to follow him. There is no other option. There is a ship and a new horizon and there is Laurence, blond hair trying to rip free of its neat queue in the wind, face a study of misery and mourning.
Laurence has been everything he thought England wanted of him.
Unlike Tharkay, he has never learned that England does not want anything it claims to want. England wants the subjugation of a thousand other nations and their wealth at the cost of lives. England wants to wear a white glove of honour over bloody hands, a facade of nobility. Laurence, who could not separate the glove of honour from his own bloodstained skin, is not what they wanted, not at all. Not in the slightest.
Temeraire, who had raised hell when Laurence was to be executed, is still not pleased by the outcome. "They are to send us away from the war?" he keeps asking. "Why? I am an excellent fighter. I could take any of the French dragons in battle, I am sure, and protect the littler dragons in doing so. Why will they not let me fight?"
Tharkay knows the answer: they can afford to not have him, right now, and it is embarrassing to rely on the wings and weapons of traitors, so they shall send him away. They will not kill them, because that would be a diplomatic disaster and could be shooting themselves in the foot if the war swings the other way again, but for now, they want them far out of sight. Visibly disgraced, if alive.
Laurence knows it, that much is clear.
He could run away. Tharkay has offered to show him the way, once. Tharkay will offer it again, soon, he is sure. For now, Tharkay is full of anger and hatred for this country again.
He will be glad to be rid of it, no matter what he's heard of the colonies. They cannot possibly make Laurence more miserable than this. It is impossible.
Years from now, he will look at Laurence's head across the width of their bed and think this was impossible. Laurence's smile will be impossibly bright and Tharkay will be impossibly light and there will be, impossibly, a dragon resting on a hill that was his childhood haunt. Impossible, impossible. Tharkay cannot even hate England for it, for the turns and twists that have brought them here, happy, happy, impossibly happy.