Denusk Family Reunion I - The Lone Horseman

[Aramenta]

The Sea of Grass, North of Riverfall
Spring 53, 513AV
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Ara felt Canter's gait slow before she coudl sense any change in speed. The horse quivered slightly underneath her, and almost shook its head. Ara frowned. Canter was not one to startle in the worst of times, usually, and this was strange. The grasslands looked empty. but for, far off, the faint smear of misty air and hills, that was Riverfall - Ara had never been there, and had recognized it that morning only when it was pointed out to her.

ARa leaned close to the Strider's ear, "What is it, Canter? You smell something?"

She had visions of terrible things. Glassbeaks? But Canter was too smart for that. The worst thing to do if he smelled a glassbeak would be to slow down, after all. And now, the horse stopped, snuffled, and shook her neck, batting her mane against Ara's face. ARa frowned, and laced her fingers into the mane, thick strands of horsehair, like the web. The web? Perhaps. She closed her eyes. The knots and cords of it were torn and trembling here, still waiting her team to repair them, but perhaps. She closed tight, and found the immediate rushing fullness of being in the Web.

The song here was broken, very broken. This land had been torn by the great Storm, and the sound of it was a sound of broken things, of melodies that half played, then loft off in ragged, flapping cords. Of memes, of knots half-unravelled. Of little energies trapped, and seeking outlet. She resisted the urge to start fixing - much of this work, she knew, she ought to be with a wiser webber than her to do anything to these grand, ancient cords, after all. But the chattering snapping of the threads grated on her. She hummed softly, a queer, discordant tune, trying to make a sense of the inbetween, and gently ran her fingers along the fabric of her surroundings.

Drykas. Well. That was something. Perhaps? And underneath her own song she coudl feel the strange unfathomable chanting of the Strider's soul, and feel, perhaps, the shadow of it reaching in this same direction. A Drykas. Very close he was, too. She gently reached out the shadow of herself towards the knot of the man - a man, yes. Not webbing, not that she could tell, not actively. But the echo of importance about him, perhaps. He too needed a bit of webwork, hard to read, but she teased out a few things. Vanator of the Denusk Pavilion. She did not know the name, though the memory of it teased at her brain, echoing down the cords in her fingers. She breathed deeply. A man, simply, a Drykas, windmarked, that much was true. She pulled back, gently, then, pulled back into herself, and Canter sat still underneath her, and the sky was the sky again, the earth the earth, and she, herself. Seh always knew the feeling, with eh quiet regret that always came with a return from the web - for she felt her voice dissolve from her.

But now, she opened her eyes, and frowned. She nodded soft, and whispered to Canter, softly, squeezing her knees against the STrider's flanks, "Good work, sister, you're right. I don't know the fellow either. We should find out about him."

She pulled gently on the horse's mane, no longer at the scout's gallop she had ridden before. She had been sent to scout the area around the Webbing camp. This was business. They made a quiet trot, a trick Ara had learrned in the long summer-grasses, of pulling herself low to horse's body, gripping with her knees, to be less visible. They rode then, quietly, toward the place she had felt the knot of a man, of one of the rising hills that led to Riverfall. She sniffed gently at the air, to see if the smell of a camp met her nostrils.
x

[Vanator]

Sirocco had worked up quite a lather, the Strider stallion snorting and shaking out his dark mane after Vanator had urged the steed into a breakneck sprint. The djed-fueled gait of the dun-colored Strider was a joyful exercise for both rider and horse, the beast stretching its muscle and sinew to full speed, the Drykas feasting on the thrill of the dynamic communion between man, mount and their land.

In fact, Vanator had not intended to penetrate the grasslands so far, as Sirocco settled into a much more leisurely pace, and the rider had surveyed the surroundings in caution, the Drykas looked back over his shoulder. He could still see the Fringe Forest in the distance, the top of the woodland's canopy visible above the low, rolling plains, while Riverfall was beyond view. The Denusk's gaze shifted northwestward, in the direction of Endrykas' Spring grounds. He longed to see the tent city again, at least part of him did. But the ghosts of memories he feared he could not bear to revisit certainly lingered in the recovering Drykas town. Perhaps next season, before they traveled too far, he would venture to Endrykas.

Vanator relaxed in his yvas, breathing deeply of the fresh grass, the leather of his tack and the musky odor of Sirocco's sweat-slick hide. Those too held memories, but fond ones they were. Such were the aroma's of Drykas life, at least while in the grass. Tactile sensations too stroked Vanator's perceptions, a steed's barrel between his knees, the sway of a Strider's gait, leather beneath the pads of his fingers, the stiff breeze against his face, unhindered by mountain or tree. The man reveled quietly in his sensory consumption of his surroundings, identifying every bird song, sung over a whoosing timbre of wind-whipped grass.

Cresting a small rise, Vanator's astute gaze discerned an object moving carefully through the grass, much closer than he would have liked, or would have expected. Slowing the Strider's pace, squinting eyes detected the shape of a rider, bent over its mount. A hand slipped to the head of the battle ax hanging from a leather loop on the yvas, easing it upward. But closing distance revealed the stranger as a young woman, Drykas if judged by garb and yvas, upon her horse. The weapon was slid back to its resting place.

Setting a course to intercept, Vanator kept Sirocco's gait even and non-threatening. As the distance closed, Vanator lifted an open hand to the rider, a rather young and slight female. With sign and raised voice, he greeted the stranger in Pavi.

"Greetings! What pavilion are you from?" The question was intended to be innocuous, one that would confirm the girl's origin, whether Drykas or no, either by her words, or the manner in which she spoke them. The Denusk donned an honest smile, halting his movement at a safe distance.

[Aramenta]

Ara frowned, thoughtfully, seeing the horseman appear, and squeezed her leg gently on her striders back, pulling her hand back to encourage Canterfoot into a halt. Ara was no fighter, and the instincts of one who knows that, in a fight, she will almost certainly lose, now tempered her natural curiosity and the ignorant confidence of youth. Luckily, the man did seem to be a Drykas. She had smelled the windmark on him over the web. The gait and tone of the horse were certainly those of a strider, well-kept. His Pavi was flawless and unaccented. And then, of course, there was the matter of his name and Pavilion, attached to the web with a webber's hand. She relaxed a bit - just a bit. Friend or foe, after all, too much time on the Sea could make the fellow a bit skittish, if nothing else.

She raised her hand above her head in greeting, maintaining a polite, but cautious distance. Her lips, of course, remained shut - in her own body, there was no point trying to whisper across a valley, after all. But she raised a hand in a greeting that spoke 'Friend, Drykas, Official Business', all at once, then made the sign of the Stonewhistling Pavilion, inflected with a tone of peace and harmlessness. The man, she figured, would quite likely not even recognize the sign, but at least he would recognize the surrounding framework that implied it was a pavilion name, a subtle enough construct to imply that it was unlikely she was too much the outsider. Her hands traced out the ribbons on her yvas, long and dyed in violet and white - Amethyst, they spoke, at least, and she reinforced the gesture with a sign.

This established she thought a hard moment, about next steps - diplomacy was so difficult with the strictures of grassland sign without its accompanying spoken tongue, more suited to the expression of tone and intention than the exchange of concrete information. She raised her hand again, signed, simply, "Cannot shout." The construct was clumsy, not because of a lack of fluency, but because the Pavi sign was more precisely suited to a martial situation, and implied the need for quiet and stealth, but at least, she hoped, it would get enough of the point across to imply the need for closer speech. She raised a sign one more time: "Approach", but inflected into the air of a request, and polite inquiry, with an undercurrent of apology and embarrasment.

Then she took her tomahawk from where it hung at her belt and ceremoniously unlatched it, hanging it instead from the horse's tack - it was a simple gesture: I am disarming, you need not fear me. And after all, from a strategic perspective it made little difference for Ara. IF the man was a threat? The only real weapon she would have would be the speed of Canter's legs anyway.x

[Vanator]

The young Drykas woman was cautious. It was wise, Vanator conceded, though there was nothing to fear between members of the horse clans. But the world of the Drykas had changed since the storm, or so he understood. When the rider drew her Strider to a halt some distance away, The Denusk brought Sirocco to a respectful stop.

The woman would not lift her voice in response, relying solely on sign. Her communication was understandable, confirming that she was indeed Drykas, and that she intended no threat. He did not recognize the sign for the pavilion she claimed, but the ribbons tied to her yvas were indicative of the Amethysts. Convinced the rider was who she claimed to be, Van was still curious regarding the motivation for her silence, and Vanator's head swiveled to carefully survey the surroundings, searching the grass and low rises for some danger that compelled her quiet. Finally, he gathered that something else prevented her from yelling back in response, and her invitation was clear.

Van urged Sirocco forward slowly, the Denusk drawing his own hand ax from his belt and hanging it from the yvas as the woman had, a gesture of peace more than a practical disarming, as he was able to draw his battle ax from the yvas and have it in hand in one swift movement.

Once within a comfortable distance for conversation, Vanator again brought his dun stallion to a halt. "I am Vanator, of the Denusk Pavilion, Sapphire Clan." He spoke with a spark of pride, a tone that always accompanied the announcement of his heritage. "I am simply traveling through the area. What business brings you here?"

The woman was little more than a child. Though her features suggested even younger, the set of her eyes and the development of her petite form suggested a mid-teenager. Her youth did not sway the older Drykas to judge her as inferior, for the horseclans taught their children from a young age the skills needed to survive. Still, it was unusual for one so young to be riding alone in the grass. There was more to tell with her, Van believed.

[Aramenta]

With any disability, perhaps, there is some degree of tragedy, of a surety. But, then, to the mind open to vast possibilities of human experience, there are equal amounts of comedy.

At the moment, Ara saw precisely none of this comedy.

She stood atop her horse now, at a polite distance, the fellow looking, perhaps, slightly confused, but tremendously polite. Her general paranoia - all this business of doing things on her own was still new to her - was abating, slowly, to where the cloak of caution no longer gave her a clear excuse for her general tentativeness. The man was at least twice her age, probably more, almost undoubtedly thrice her experience, and she sat here as the official representative of her people to him.

This official status, clearly, was what she would next half to communicate. She reached up leaving the silence awkwardly for a few seconds as she thought about how, her burn scarred hand scratching at the dusty-sweaty skin at the lower edge of her braided mass of hair. Of course, she had to answer, and in the hypersensitive way of an intimidated teenage mind, she saw the potential disaster involved in all possible options. She could say nothing, but only sign - but of course, this would look stranger, and she was not enough of a poet of the hands to tell a voiceless story with the content, "I can't talk, I can only whisper, so I'm going to have to lean in close to your ear, I hope that's alright." There was the option of simply turning tail and riding away. This was a tempting one. But aside from this being both humiliating and a clear abandonment of her duties, there was the practical thought that the man might think this strange, and take off after her, and being the older, more experienced horseman, overtake her, and overtaking her, demand she explain herself. Thereby putting her in the same position, but with a suspicious element to his interrogation.

So, contrary to common sense, the most direct, bold route presented itself to her as the most plausible. She blushed, a deep, childish blush, staining her fresh, dirty cheeks, and patted canter gently, riding right up beside the man. Here she hesitated a moment, before putting a hand to the man's shoulder and leaning in close to his ear - she spoke quickly, in case the man should pull away in surprise, in the hopes that the scene would only have to be gone through once.

"Aramenta, of Stonewhistling, of the Amethyst Clan."

Her own voice is delivered as strongly as she can, which, with the push and squeeze of air through her throat gives it a strained, uncomfortable sound.

"The web is damaged here, I am scouting the forward guard for a webber's team from Endrykas. Whence do you come and where are you headed? Have you seen danger my compatriots should be aware of?"
x

[Vanator]

The young woman was acting curiously, not in a manner which Vanator found threatening, yet, the cautious man would not dismiss anything out of the ordinary within the confines of the Sea of Grass. There were too many dangers, even oddities since the djed storm ravaged the plains. He could see a pensive debate playing across the cherub-like features of the girl, and, as if in a state of resolution, she urged her mount to approach the older Drykas. The gait was casual, the woman's behaviour unchanged, her hands neither reaching for a weapon, nor poised to cast some form of magic.

Stock still, Vanator's nerves still remained lively, ready to react in an instant should the innocence of the encounter suddenly give way to something more malevolent. But no such danger presented itself. Instead, the girl boldly placed a slight hand on his mailed shoulder and leaned in towards his ear. It was a gesture of which the experienced man was not unaccustomed. Many a brash young Drykas lass had tilted her lips to the shell of his ear to whisper words of affection and temptation, some so explicit to have made the man blush. Yet, the air of this woman's intent was void of any such carnal suggestions, nor did Vanator foster any such inclinations to toward the girl, who seemed no older than his own Kelvic daughter in appearance.

Instead, he leaned in his yvas, offering himself more readily to receive the hushed words of the stranger, the soft tickle of her young voice revealing what one would not expect from such a youthful countenance. A scout for a repair team, no small task for anyone, as it left a rider alone and vulnerable. Was the girl so talented, or the decimated ranks of the Drykas so desperate to charge such a young one with a task of this nature?

Vanator leaned back, so he could look into Aramenta's eyes. He nodded, and spoke, his hands signing in support. "I am a resident of the Sanctuary at Riverfall, but my blood calls me to ride the grasslands frequently, my purpose is no more than that. I will return home soon. As for dangers your team should know...I have encounted none. Though I heard the roar of a male lion a bell ago. Know too that the shortage of food has emboldened the starving snarlwing to become more aggressive, seeking what small domestic animals or supplies could provide them food."

[Aramenta]

The Drykas girl noticed the man's mild surprise and discomfort. But at least he let her speak and didn't say anything. That was something, a start. And he gave sound advice. She nodded, and sat back, and half bowed her head, respectfully, made a gesture of submissive thanks. The man was older, that was obvious earlier. He was clearly wiser, and more experienced, and gracious with his wisdom. That merited respect and admission of his value, which she offered with a good dose of the humility of a well-trained child, if perhaps not quite the maturity and dignity of a fully grown woman.

She leaned, then back in, her face blushing slightly less this time.

"I ride back soon. I am young, and can do little to aid a man of wisdom. But I will extend the rights of hospitality, if there is any way we can aid you? My team-master, I am sure will affirm that much. You are seeking? You are too wise, I think, to tramp the web-damaged land without good reason that a Drykas might be proud to aid."

Her throat, after the long speech was dry, and she coughed a quiet, asthmatic wheeze through her throat, into her burn-scarred hand. The fit lasted only a few seconds though. She half bowed again, the complex dance of deference.
x

[Vanator]

The reason for the young woman's hushed voice had puzzled Vanator at first, wondering again if she her wish was not to be overheard, even though they were obviously alone, but a much more ready explanation was some form of disability that prevented her from lifting her voice above a husky whisper.

Aramenta paused, acknowledging the older Drykas' words. She was courteous, for certain, her very demeanor suggested submission to the Denusk male's presence. Seeming to gather her words with care, Van inclined slightly to her and the young rider leaned forward again to speak.

With eloquence, Aramenta offered the customary hospitality with gracious laud and respect. Vanator leaned back into his yvas after the girl's questions, looking at her much too youthful face as he pondered. Aramenta was with a team of Webbers, one that is crossing the Sea to repair the Web. With a nod so subtle the Drykas woman may have missed it, Vanator spoke again, his hands raised to gesture sign as well.

"My reasons for wandering the grass outside my home are my own," the sign that accompanied this indicated that Van did not intend to be rude, "but I do have a request. Ask of your companions for word of any of the Denusk Pavilion of the Sapphire Clan amidst the grass, and if you or your company come across any with that name, please send word to me. I watch the Web with the faintest of hope that some of my family survived the djed storm. Those that did are at The Sanctuary at Riverfall, with me. Send any message there, or seek me among the strands of the Web in this area. If you would do that, you would earn my deepest gratitude."

[Aramenta]

The dance of deference and appreciation, of respect and acceptance of that request, to an outsider to the culture might appear oppressive, hierarchical. As a child, Ara remembered some of the others even rebelling against it occaisionally, in the way of children - rebellions usually rewarded with a stiff whipping. Ara never had, not really - the complex structure of respect and regard that kept order and predictability inside the egalitarian structures of a horse-camp was comforting to her. Familiar. It gave one a sense of one's place, and of who one must serve, and who one might ask for help.

The webbing crew she now followed let these rules slide in a way that sometimes left her uncomfortable, frightened even. This man, obviously with enough years and experience to understand his place, was thus a tremendous relief, a sense of rightness, and correctness infusing her. She bowed low, a gesture of acceptance of a burden, and held her chin just high enough to show her pride in being trusted, just low enough to show her humility at the task.

She leaned in again, now. It was difficult, with the limited range of her voice, to express emotion, but the movement of her free hand spoke very clearly: deference, honor, agreement, and the desire to serve. Hope and well wishes.

"Gratitude is for gifts. To carry your message, Vanator of the Denusk, is my duty, not my favor, and to be given such a duty is greater gift to me than you. We have... seen noone of your pavilion, Vanator, of the Denusk. But I will carry on your message, and pray to Semele that we might be able to bring your good tidings in the future."

She bowed then, and cantered her horse back a step. She was a Drykas woman, the man had no more business of her, and had granted her sufficient honor. She had fulfilled her duty to him in return, and now needed to finish her appointed rounds of scouting. The backstep would politely indicate her willingness to let the man on his way, and her slight bend of the back, would indicate her willingness to leave the decision of the final end of the interview to him.
x

[Vanator]

When Aramenta uttered her reply, Vanator was not dismayed. He held little hope that she, or anyone, had come across the lost Denusks. The pale light of that hope had been allowed to extinguish, permitted to give way to resolved memory, where it could inspire instead of deceive. Still, he felt compelled to ask, as if the simple act of inquiring did some small honor to his lost loved ones.

The young scout honored the older Drykas, admirably professional and proper in her demeanor. Vanator gave her a reserved smile, maintaining his role as the respected elder. With a raised hand, he gestured the traditional farewell given in the Sea. "Safe travel for you and your team, Aramenta." Then, with a dismissive nod, the Denusk backed Sirocco back a few steps before setting his course again at an angle to the path of the young rider.