PM to join Weaver's Morning

[Aramenta]

Spring 42
Endrykas, Stonewhistling Pavilion
---------------------------------------

The sky was dark, still, the air still the domain of the crepuscular hunter-and-prey of the dying night. The sky was muffled with a heavy dew: Livvy, ever practical, had her mucking boots on. Ara was quite the opposite, dressed in little more than a bleeding-skirt and light blouse, a wool knot-shawl thrown across her shoulders. Her hair was not even pulled up into braids yet, having unwrapped it the night before so that Livvy could wash the dust of travel from it. And her feet, these she left as bare as a summer cloud, closing her eyes as she left the confines of the tent, and feeling the thousand-thousand minuscule drops of grass-dew soak her soles, her ankles, her undyed skirt around her calves. The sky in the east wore purple boots, the hue just illuminated by the coming light of the sun, still musing just below the horizon.

Ara sat on a camp stool, Livvy chafing her hands as she pulled up a proper chair just behind her, before setting her rough fingers into her mistress's hair.

"Pretty morning, Missy Ara."

Ara smiled, and nodded quietly. Her hands were full - one with a spindle, the other with the long pointed rod of a distaff, and she sat facing away from Livvy, so there was little more she could do in the way of speech. And that was enough. Looking back at the years since her voice had been lost, this had been one of the hard lessons Ara had learned - that, in the end, people simply spoke more than they needed. Speech was, in her opinion, equal parts communication, lubrication, and mask. The gift of having that mask denied one, was that one learned to truly trust those who did not need it.

She leaned back against Livvy's knees, as Livvy, humming to herself, started braiding Ara's hair. Are closed her eyes for just a moment - finger gathering, gently tugging, weaving, twisting her hair, the whole process was one of the small, sensual pleasures of everyday life. She'd thought more than once about what she would miss if Livvy were to go free - this was one thing, the feeling of hands in her hair, of sitting quietly while someone else assembles you.

She closed her eyes, bathing in the sensation for a moment, and it was so powerful, it made her slip, for a moment, down, down from herself and into the web, the call of it irresistible, just for an instant, and she lay back in her here-body, still feeling fingers in her own hair, then tracing her there-hands down into the strands of the web beneath her, stroking, playfully twisting and plaiting lines of djed for a moment. She concentrated herself into a song, and murmured softly, not sure if her real lips or only her dream-lips moved, and she sang, ever so softly, ever so faintly, pulling strands of djed out from lips.

"A girl before morning,
Looking for the sun,
She say how long before my morning come?

A girl before morning,
Looking for the sun,
She say how long before my morning come?"

It was a morning song, one of Livvy's, a slow, gently urgent song, the sort of song that woke one, gently. And while she sang, she gathered up the djed of it, and moved her dream hands, weaving it into the web, and drawing it out into a complex knot work of braids and runs and gathers, her hands moving in sync with the hands she still felt on her own scalp. She closed her eyes - this she felt in both places. She ran her fingers round and round, whirling the shape of the hair into a cohesive whole. And then it was - her hands had move faster than her slave's - or no… Livvy had stopped weaving, her fingers simply interwoven into her mistress' hair, the rough fingertips gently massaging Ara's scalp. In Ara's own hands, she felt what she had spun there on the web - an echo of her, a set of webbing strands projected upward from the trunk line, making a minuscule model of the hair of her own head, a sort of ghostly echo of her own face. She stroked the little shape with her hands.

//Ara, wake up! Wake up, go back!//

She jerked back into herself very suddenly unsure of where in her mind the thought had come from, but her eyes opened again. In her body again, her hands, like ghosts, were spinning lacemaker thread in a long, steady strand. She stared at them queerly, shuddering just slightly. The hands on her scalp stopped, just for a moment, but Livvy said nothing. Ara half turned to look at her, inquiringly, not sure what she was asking, but asking it, nonetheless.

Livvy said nothing, just sang softly, as she looked down, and returned to braiding the hair.

"A girl before morning,
Looking for the sun,
She say how long 'fore my morning come?"

Ara turned back, and looked out over the chill dew of the grasslands, her eyes troubled. She rocked her hand gently, to keep the spindle whirling, and felt the the fine, soft cotton smooth between her fingers.x

[Khida]

He seemed preoccupied this morning, broody over something. He had been for a couple of days, Khida thought... though it was hard to distinguish her partner's pensive silences from his normal ones. With his distraction, she had found herself at loose ends this dawn, and gone to pass the time in the air's embrace. The falcon lofted above the grasslands, watching as horses bestirred themselves to crop at the grasses and humans emerged from their tents to greet the new day. The resident complement of songbirds were already soundly engaged in that activity, announcing their claims to territory, their fitness as mates and rivals, or even just their ordinary joy in Syna's approach. The peregrine overhead turned her idle contemplations towards those noisy little birds in all their breeding-season splendor. One of them would provide an adequate breakfast, if it was fool enough to make a target of itself. Hopeful of such an occasion, she scanned the earth as she soared overhead, keying in on those little flickers of brown and red, blue and orange, as they flitted from cover to cover or perched on some of the more prominent vegetation. But none quite presented the opportunity Khida sought, not before her course carried her more over the encampment proper. Here, tents and men and dogs and hunting cats all provided incentives for broody birds to occupy other territories, where there was less traffic and less risk. The falcon swung through a wide circle, intending to come about and proceed away from the tent-city's footprint, seeking other opportunities at prey. What caught her eye, instead, were two familiar profiles seated outside a pavilion which itself was also familiar. Two, not one; Aramenta had been away a while, but now, it seemed, she had returned. Her interest piqued, Khida shortened her wings and angled down in a glide towards the space before the Stonewhistling Pavilion. As the falcon approached the grasses, she flared her wings wide to achieve a stall, then dropped down to the earth. There, she shifted, a glimmer of grayish light replacing birdshape with a crouching woman. Khida then rose and approached the young women, casting a curious glance to the odd apparatus she held -- a stick with fluff on it, and a lump of yarn-wrapped wood in the other hand. Odd, at least, to the Kelvic, whose experience with thread mostly amounted to the fabrics made from it. "What are you doing?" she asked, her curiosity as usual far outshining the mundane concerns of politesse. Such things as proper salutations, that would be, or going clothed in company.

[Aramenta]

A great-winged raptor bird swung wide, lazy circles in the sky. Ara, shuddering from the queerness of her drift into the web, focused on the beautiful bird, watched it, whirling, whirling, in slow circles, like a counterpoint to the spindle that her rocking hand kept whirling at the end of the cotton-thread drop.

She wondered idly, at it, at the way the world echoed the great in the small, the simple in the profound. The bird hunted her morning's prey, perhaps. The voles were certainly out - she'd had to chase them from the stores of hardtack that morning. This was the reasonable explanation. She discarded it. Those great circles were too round, too entrancing and regular and beautiful to waste on reason, the falcon's wings tipping with all the gentle, assured competency of a spinner keeping her spindle at work - but in the falcon's work, she herself was the spindle. And what the thread?

Livvy pulled gently the hairs behind Ara's ears, her fingers tracing the edges neatly into the braidwork. The fingertips behind her ears felt wonderful, and Ara half-closed her eyes, dreamily again. The spindle wobbled slightly, and she flexed her fingers - a little rough irregularity in the yarn, but the rocking of her hand changed the rotation, just so, wrap it a little more tightly, to smooth and finish it. She reached her index finger back to draw a bit more beeswax from the reservoir hanging across her palm from her middle finger, returning it to the threads. Her spine shivered at the sensation of her skin, again, of the slow, relaxing process of the wild unbound hair of the night being gently drawn up into the taut and well-knit day.

And then, the falcon-spindle dropped, the air spun into an invisibile thread of speed and force. The ground approached it, and it billowed its wings out. Livvy's hands stopped,and Ara's eyes trained on the bird as it slowed, and then: A grey light, just before them. And a woman. Ara started, a sharp intake of breath. Livvy, not impeded by a broken throat, spit out an expletive.

"Petch me, what was that?"

And then, the answer was clear: 'that' was the woman they had met, returned again. Ara's spindle wobbled wildly and she had to balance her hand. The woman seemed to think nothing peculiar of this, stood and approached as if she'd simply cantered up on horseback - Ara's curiosity rose like a wild horse into her gorge, and she sat dumbstruck for a moment.

It was Livvy that broke the silence, her confused mind discarding the woman's question. "You a... you a grass witch! Like in a story, changing shapes!" The phrase was delivered in fluent, rattling Pavi, and was thus unlikely to do much good anyway.

Ara, though, heard the question, though her surprise kept her from answering - and the occupation of her hands kept her from speech. So, with careful balance she simply stood, her fingers interlacing with the half formed thread, to stop it without losing its twist. She turned and whispered to Livvy, "Guest, Livvy. Go get her her clothes, hmm?"

Then she turned, offering her hands silently up to the taller woman, distaff and spindle set and at the ready, nodding quietly. If the woman wanted a more specific, or verbal answer, Ara was patient. The witch, or shifting bird, or whatever, would lean forward, aware enough now of Ara's limitations, id she wished Ara to describe the process.

Livvy ducked inside to pull the dress out.
x

[Khida]

Khida paused as the short-haired girl spilled forth quick, loud words in Pavi, of which she caught not a single one. The tone of their speaking, and of the girl's posture, confused her no less; abrupt, astonished... possibly even wary, though she was less sure of that. She glanced between Livvy and Ara, suddenly made cautious in her approach by the unexpected not-exactly-welcome, her hand tracing through the sign for confusion. Still, once Livvy had ducked off to the pavilion, the quiet girl offered her hands and their odd tools up for Khida's inspection. She gave the Drykas girl's face a close scrutiny before nodding once, stepping forward to examine the things more closely. She examined with hands as well as eyes, poking at the cotton fluff on the distaff and running light fingers down along the nascent thread. But when she regarded Aramenta again, Khida asked a different question entirely from her first. "There is a problem?" she asked of the quiet girl, inwardly grappling against her caution so that she might lean in close enough to receive a murmured reply.

[Aramenta]

Ara watched the slow inspection, quietly, aware of the slow, cautious ways of the woman now. Her heart burst to lean forward and ask what had just happened, but she looked at the falcon-woman, and waited, waited. She would not wish to be interrupted. Wait for her to be ready. Don't press. She dropped her eyes delicately to the yarn in her hands, so as not to stare at the breasts that sat her eye level.

The woman then leaned forward and asked, and Ara's whole body relaxed the tension it had held. She leaned forward, her chalk-whispery voice sifting Commontongue through her lips into the woman's ear.

"Surprise. You... eh... you shifting? You are witch? Change bird form? You fly... like real bird pretty."

Ara frowns, blushes in mild frustration, and quickly winds and sets the spindle, so it will not unravel, then tuck both it and her distaff underneath her arms to free her hands to speak. She speaks simply, in Pavi, to try to emphasize.

"The wizard-bird, maybe, it flies?"

As she says flies, she signs movement in front of her lazy, graceless, clumsy inside of it. Unnatural. She makes an empty, wooden face to try to emphasize the emotion.

"You, as a bird, you fly."

The word is the same, on her tongue, but the movement of her hands is much more different, her eyes close, and her hand flows fluid, graceful, the tips of her fingers curling and uncurling like the tips of wing feathers in a dive.

Livvy comes out again, abashed, not wary so much as intimidated. In her arms, she bears the same white dress, thought carefully cleaned and folded. Her eyes are the wide eyes of a child in front of a superior. She shuffles forward, almost shyly, now - perhaps it is that she is unarmed, for in the early morning light, she does not wear her hatchet. Perhaps it is respect. She offers the dress silently to the Grass Witch, her eyes scanning her face.
x

[Khida]

Khida's expression took on a different flavor of bemusement, as Ara spoke of some things which were plain as day to her, as inherent as breathing -- and others which were utterly foreign. She glanced back as motion at the corner of her sight heralded Livvy's return. Regarding the short-haired girl for a long moment, she nodded briefly, then stepped forward to accept the dress. She would play by the human rules, for now at least. Khida paused, considering Livvy's hesitant demeanor, and offered a brief "Thank you" in return for the garment. After settling the dress into place, she turned to put both girls in her field of view -- then shook her head at Aramenta. "I do not know witch," she said. Or... any of several other words the girls had used. "This --" She echoed the quiet girl's gesture, the fluid curling of fingers. "-- flying, of course I fly. I am falcon; I have wings. Creatures with wings fly." Khida cast about and found another camp stool, moving over to sit on its edge. "My sire did not have wings. He was a jackal. He taught me to hunt. My dam was osprey." The Kelvic woman shrugged her shoulders. "Witch, wiz... wizard-bird, I do not know what these mean. I am Kelvic." She paused, a thought occurring to her. "Does Pavi have a different word for Kelvic?"

[Aramenta]

Ara and Livvy both frowned, more puzzled than unhappy. The woman, at least it was clear, seemed to consider herself to BE a bird, rather than... magic-ish. A more sharply analytical mind, perhaps would have taken this opportunity to pick apart the woman's statements. Ara did not have this tendency - particularly today, when she was preoccupied already with her own thoughts. She simply accepted this - not necessarily comfortably, she certainly had the natural human tendency to be intimidated but what one does not understand. But the woman still stood here interested, and quiet, and interesting in return. She was a bird and a woman. What good would it do to probe the issue further? IF the woman felt Ara should know more, she would tell her. She would serve no good purpose to the woman's desires by needling her.

Livvy, on the other hand, was fascinated. Handing the woman the dress, she had to fight the urge to reach and touch her back, where the wings should have been - would there be some mark or touch, there? Some evidence? She wanted to ask a thousand questions, about what it felt like to fly, about where her feathers went when she changed, about if she laid eggs. Instead, she listened, and restrained herself, cogitating. Watching closely, her dirty-lidded eyes sharp and close.

Ara, on the other hand, considered the topic closed, unless the woman reopened it. "I not know this word Keelfeck. Good word I know now."

She took the spindle back up, then. This was what the woman had wished to know, she could explain it. She held it out almost reverently.

"Spindle." she leaned forward and intoned the word in Pavi, and made the sign of spinning before her body. She repeated it again, "Spindle." Then she held the distaff up, and did the same with it: "Distaff." She made a sign now for pelt, fur, wool, fiber. "Distaff."

She switched to Common. "You say now? I make cloth-things, for eh..." she tried to find the word, but her knowledge of Common came largely from overhearing outsiders horse-trading with her father, "For mating time? Matching persons?"

Livvy listened to all this, but was partly absent from it at the same time. And then, without warning, she blurted out, "You will marry a bird? Your babies, they will be like birds?"

Ara opened her eyes wider and looked at Livvy. Livvy, fascinated, but aware she'd said too much, blushed hard, but her eyes on the woman had melted entirely, no longer suspicious and wary, just fascinated, and small now. Despite her younger age, Livvy seldom had the luxury of feeling like a child. It came upon her now, so powerfully she could hardly contain it.


x

[Khida]

Khida felt the intensity of the short-haired girl's attention at her back, but heard neither sounds nor words, nothing which suggested action on her part. Being stared at, she thought little cause for concern, so continued to regard Aramenta as the quiet girl indicated her tools. Spindle, distaff; she echoed the words at Ara's prompting. "Thread," she continued in Common, reaching out to touch the yarn which spanned the two tools. "You make thread to... weave, yes? Make into cloth, that is weaving?" For mating time, Aramenta said, but before Khida could reply to that, Livvy broke in on the same subject. The Kelvic woman glanced over to her, and despite the short-haired girl's blush, seemed not in the least perturbed by her extremely blunt question. No more than a horse might be... or a falcon. "You mean a bird? No," she replied, shaking her head. "Most birds are, are... small, simple. I would not want to mate one. A Kelvic, or a human; maybe my bondmate. I think that is normal, to marry a bondmate." Her gaze shifted away from the Drykas girls then, glancing off into the distance with an introspective expression. After a moment's reverie, she looked back to them, resuming the conversation. "Kelvics have Kelvic children. Or maybe human, I think, if they mate with a human. And if they are Kelvics, they are usually a different kind altogether." She'd already described her own parentage. Khida focused on Aramenta, then, and jumped the conversation back to her earlier remark. "You are mating, then? With another Drykas?" Not even blinking, at the forthright discussion of either Kelvic breeding or Aramenta's; never mind a blush.

[Aramenta]

Ara considered the question about the thread - it was, after all, for lacemaking, not weaving, and it took her time to try to imagine how to describe such a specialized activity - one which she did not even know how to perform, anyway - with her limited vocabulary. Her musings, though, were interrupted by the second question, about mating.

Perhaps, in a different moment she would have tittered embarrasedly after the matter of a young girl at the question - sans the noise of course. But today was a very different day, and both of the girls reacted in unexpected ways. Livvy, so recently in such a high interest receded into herself, stared at the ground. Her hands were as silent as her lips, only her eyes spoke - frustration. Unhappiness. An animal look, intimidating and upset.

Ara on the other hand, looked down at her thread, but with a certain sad softness. She leaned forward to the other woman, and struggled with her poor common, into her ear.

"I not mate… eh…" she fumbled for the right words, finally took the one the woman had said, hoping, rather incorrectly, it communicated what she intended, "Not bondmated? Must seek one, make children's. Drykas…" she wrinkles her brow, sadly, and shakes it gently, "Many Drykas die. Many Drykas killed, great storm of… eh… light-fire? You see great storm, twelve moon back? Many Drykas die. Then many sick, very sick, and fall dead. Many… many children dead. Must… mate, make new babies. City is hollow, sings for more children."

She nods softly, sits back, and her brows go up, and she leans forward again, "You bondmate? You pretty, strong, good-hands, good mouth. You bond mate, you, too, make children, you be here, with us."

She leans back again, and nods solemnly.
x

[Khida]

The girls looked... distinctly unhappy at the questions she asked, Khida thought, as her gaze moved from one to the other and back. More than any other reaction could have, that made her think the question might have been wrong, in the way that not wearing clothes was wrong in the eyes of her present company. "Is it a bad question to ask?" she said then, even as Aramenta leaned forward to reply. "Like the clothes? It bothers you?" But she wasn't going to abandon the topic for that reason, not when the girls met the question and continued on. Still, Khida was slow to respond to the Drykas girl's reply, lips pursing and head tilting as she considered Ara's choice of words. "No," she said finally, definitively, "that's wrong. Bonding is not for making children. Bonding is... is..." Is what? She didn't actually have the experience to know. So the Kelvic woman could only shake her head, when the silence stretched and still she lacked adequate words with which to explain her certainty. "It is a Kelvic thing. Like... like... like bonding is a Strider thing, and not with other horses." She was less certain on that point, not being personally familiar with Striders either -- except, now, to brush their coats and clean their hooves. "Mating is for making children. It is not the same." The rest of Aramenta's words, beyond that mistaken equivalence, supplied a tangle of concepts Khida struggled to quite follow. The great storm... she thought she knew what that referred to. The rest... the city sang? "The storm, I think I know; the one last spring." She paused, then shook her head, the sign for confusion again making an appearance. "How do tents and poles and horses sing?" That being all that the city was, if one left out the people... Children, hers. That possibility went past without any particular interest on Khida's part, lost beside the subjects she was trying to clarify -- or have clarified.