Rebuilding

[dharma]

Dharma shifted his hand over the area of green and watched it slowly transform into Ng-Tung trees, tall structures with large, tarp-like leaves and bright green bark.

Walking into the small grove, he breathed in very slowly, lifting his hands. The leaves died away and the branches splintered off, falling in a hail of crackling sounds about him.

The green poles remained, slowly drying as the moisture within them was turned to wood as well. It would further strengthen the wood, making it harder and more durable than it would normally have been.

Looking around him, he smiled to himself and walked over to the small bag and collection of tools near the compound wall.

A long bladed Oga would be used to cut the trees down. It was a great deal of effort, but Dharma thought little of it. It was merely his task in the current moment.

Sitting down and straddling the base of the first tree, he slid the flexible wire blade around it and hooked his hands into the handles on either end. Pulling one end and then the other, soon the wire was zinging in a quick rhythm. The pace was slow; it would take an hour or so to fell a single tree. But again, Dharma was placid; the tree would fall in its time.

[Pyro]

"How do you have so much patience?"

Pyro, who had walked away from the confrontation with Callisto feeling faintly agitated had been standing watching for a while. Patience - or indeed, attention span - had never been something he'd demonstrated much of in his life.

He was standing a little distance away from the newcomer, watching what he was doing with great interest. "Me, I'd burn most the ways through the trunk and then push it over." He ran a hand through his hair. "But then I tend to look for the quickest solution and fastest result."

Pyro took a few steps forward.

"That woman back there is called Callisto. She showed up 'bout a year ago originally. Threw herself in as Magneto's adviser. Disappeared after the battle we had at Alcatraz. Figured she was dead. Wishful thinking, it seems."

Aware that he sounded particularly bitter, Pyro tried not to think about it.

"So tell me what you're doing," he said.

[dharma]

Dharma paused in his motion, a third of the way into the first tree. Standing, he pulled off the shirt he was wearing, leaving him in black silk pants and bare feet. He was phenomenally built, discipline and hard work making a beautiful example of physical potential that possessed neither the bravado or drama of mutant physicality of the same nature.

He turned around and crossed his arms, looking at the trees.

"I am not patient." He said plainly. "I am only not impatient."

Dharma didn't like Callisto. There were many reasons not to trust her. And yet they allowed her in, so she must have some worth. It was not likely they took her in for charity's sake.

"She is seduced by her own ability. Drugged on the scent of her own power."

[Pyro]

Pyro was impressed by Dharma's physique, being in possession of a body like a racing snake himself. Skinny and under-developed, he knew a moment's almost childish jealousy. "I would say she probably thinks I'm pretty power-hungry myself. Odd, that, 'cos I'm not. Not really."

He looked at the blade in the tree and tipped his head slightly on one side. "Could I have a go?" he said, almost shy in the question. "Someone said to me once that manual labour was a good way to relax the mind and absorb yourself in something other than brooding. That was caring for roses, though."

The Professor's favourite method of reaching the 'harder' students at the Institute.

[dharma]

Dharma nodded. "Whoever told you that was very wise." He gestured to the blades. "You saw how it is done."

Sitting on a rock nearby, he observed the leader for the second time. He had shown strength and confidence earlier that may have mingled with arrogance in another, but in Pyro it seemed tempered by some sort of humility. It came to Dharma that it was likely that confidence was only a recent transition from defiant bravado. Not many young men made that change successfully. Nor so young.

Brushing sand off his hand, he reached over for a stick and shifted it into a plum. He rubbed his fingers over the cloudy red skin, watching Pyro.

[Pyro]

Almost embarrassed at being watched, Pyro crossed to the tree and took up the blade, working at it the way he'd watched Dharma do so. It didn't take much physical effort for the boy to work up a sweat, but he kept going, finding the work as therapeutic as he had suspected.

Even more so when he pictured the tree as being Callisto's neck.

A faint grin flickered over his face. "All the way through, or enough to fell it?" he asked his companion.

[dharma]

Dharma let his lips curve in a mild smile, walking over and touching the tree. "Just to get it to fall. There are many trees that need cutting, no need to waste your effort." He looked down. "You are halfway. a bit more, and we can push it over."

He let Pyro work a bit more, walking about the trees. With a sing of his arm he connected his forearm to a tree, pivoting, he placed his foot at the base of another. The trees became mock combatants, and his slow kata looked almost like a dance.

After a time he stopped, looked at Pyro's progress, and nodded. "I think that is enough."

[Pyro]

The young man looked up and mopped the sweat from his brow. Despite the obvious effort he had put in, he looked decidedly at peace with himself. "You have no idea how good that felt," he murmured, straightening himself up. "It's too easy to lock myself away in that office. Days have gone by when I haven't been outside."

That was just one of the things that Emma had altered in his thought patterns. She'd sensed the kid's reluctance to go outside, that he used the office and his computer as a sort of shield against the outside world, quite literally.

Pyro surveyed his own handiwork proudly. "Hey, not bad," he complimented himself.

[dharma]

Dharma smiled. "You are welcome to help with the rest. I know you have things to tend to, but this is important as well. Maybe not to the Brotherhood, but to you." He nodded, wondering if Pyro would understand what he had meant.

Leaning on the tree, he watched it fall with a thunk into the sand after knocking against a few adjoining trees.

"I will clear the ground between the trees and begin splitting them once you have dropped them. We can work a bit each day."

[Pyro]

"Thank you, Dharma," said Pyro after a brief moment of carefully scrutinising the other man to see if there were any underying currents in his tone of overt friendliness. Clearly the young mutant decided that there were not. "I think it would become a pleasure, not a chore to come out here and work with you. Probably do me good as well."

He wiped another few beads of sweat from his forehead. "I never realised how unhealthy I'd got. Used to do quite a lot of sports before I joined up here. Scary how quick you get complacent." He looked down satisfactorily at the felled tree. "That felt surprisingly good," he commented.

[dharma]

Dharma looked at him. He could see the pale undertone to his skin, the thin arms and frame. It was a sickness, of the heart. Dharma would fulfill his purpose if Pyro worked his way out of it.

Nodding, he gestured to the next tree. Saying nothing, he picked up the fallen log and hauled it off to the side, then got back to work, clearing out branches and fallen leaves.

[end scene]