Out of shoes and howling at the moon (Hirem)

[Dhanya]

Timestamp: 42nd of Summer, 510
Tagged: Hirem

Desert grasses, she mused, tasted like shit. They were even worse the second time around, she'd never vomited grass before. Waiting for the bleary queasiness to go away only left time for thought. To her great surprise, she felt a little bad for her behaviour the day before.

Well, she also thought back on it with a high-pitched sense of general ill feeling towards mankind but that had been par for the course in recent weeks. She just felt slightly less justified about it. It wasn't as if she knew how to break down her feelings into reason and response, she just felt them and ran with them. This time, it just seemed a little guilt had followed.

Even if she did think the human race was an eyesore that existed just to abuse (have different needs) young (well, adult) Kelvics, she had set them up a bit the day before. She'd much preferred Endrykas, they knew what Kelvics were in a vague sense and the horses had been worth spending time with. The grass had not only been greener in a literal sense, it had also tasted better.

She could have followed Khiara... She was stupid not to have done so, in her own opinion.

And she needed to apologise to Hirem, in as much as she was capable of doing so.

Sighing goatily to herself, she limped back to her tent to find a cloak and dragged it along behind her until she found his tent. She nudged her way inside and changed with a bright flash of light, wrapping the cloak around herself. She might not have had to bother with Van, not so quickly. But then, she had been trying to get into his pants. Hirem had more beard than she cared for or she might have had a rebound crack at him too.

"Hirem, you in?" She said, pausing for a moment, if he were in he'd have heard her sigh. "I'm sorry I threw a shoe at you yesterday."

[Hirem]

He was in a tent. He was in a tent and Dhanya was angry at him. Her mouth was opening and her eyebrows were furrowing and a shoe hit him in the face. Stupid shoe. He was trying to ask her something, he realized. He was in a tent and he was trying to ask Dhanya what it was. What was he trying to ask the goatwoman? Oh wait. He was trying to ask her why she was a goatwoman. So he asked her why she was a goatwoman, in a tent.

She was really angry now, and another shoe hit him in the face. Then she took the shoes off of her hands and hit him in the face with those. She was now on her four legs, bleating at him angrily because she was a goat. She was a goat now, angry at him and throwing shoes at him. He didn't want to be here anymore, so he politely turned around and ran out of her tent at full speed. Or he would, if his father hadn't been standing in the doorway.
Tentway.

He was about to ask his father what he was doing in the tent when his father threw his shoes at him too. It was weird behavior for his father, or maybe it wasn't, since his father was now a goat, laughing at him with his weird goat voice and goat beard. He was quite shocked to learn that his father had been a goat, and was about to ask where his mother was when his mama-goat plodded right next to his father and bleated at him, explaining that she had no shoes to throw at him.

The next moment he was running for all his worth, out of the goat-tent and into the goat-caravan, heading into the goat-desert. The goats were complaining about his leaving, but he politely explained to him that he wasn't a goat and couldn't turn into a goat and couldn't understand how people would want or even care to be a goat, and why he wanted to know if people that he was saving were goats and how Netanel could have taken away his army if he could only bleat out his stupid goat warning. Stupid goats.

Hirem opened his eyes suddenly, seeing nothing but the rough canvas of his tent and the light that was shining from the open flaps of the tent, and he sighed in relief. So it was just a nightmare, he thought. Just a horrible, strange nightmare. He smiled to himself as he realized this, and was about to close his eyes again for another deep nap when Dhanya's voice cut through his weariness and made him realize that he was now fully awake. He groaned out before he could do anything else and turned his head to see Dhanya, rustling about in his blankets as he did so.

"Yeah, I'm... I'm here." He rubbed a hand through his hair, and tried to remember what else she had said. "Your shoes are fine, I didn't do anything to them." He turned his back to Dhanya, snuggling back into his blankets as he groggily said, "Today I get a day-off, so let me take it. I got a lot of work the next few weeks... I need shut-eye."

[Dhanya]

A wiser person would have let the man sleep. She wasn't wise, however, or particularly clever. She'd been bred not to be.

"What do you mean, work? The only communal work is the fire and food, some child-wrangling... Everyone else handles their own..." A thought occurred. "Are they getting you to jobs for them? You're an idiot, don't let them take advantage of you."

Dhanya didn't get taken advantage of on long trips, mainly because she was useless as anything but a performer. She was perfectly content with it.

"Wake up, wake up, I came here to talk to you. It's too hot to sleep. Talk to me. Hiremmm!"

She was capable of keeping her racket up for hours and would until Hirem gave her the attention she wanted or snapped at her.

[Hirem]

Hirem wasn't inclined to being lazy, nor was he eager to surrender himself into sinful sloth. However, he was caught in that period where he couldn't bring himself to rise from his slumber, and so he stayed in bed as Dhanya badgered him to wake up. Yet, he knew that Dhanya wasn't going to leave him alone anytime soon, and so he had no choice but to acquiese to her request. He could tell her to go away, but he wasn't going to get angry over something as trivial as this and Dhanya was probably right to wake him up before he spent the whole day sleeping.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position, and sighed, rubbing his eyes blearily. "I'm not getting taken advantage of... I like helping people." In the Benshiran Tents, everyone did their own share of work and did their part to aid the community, but this wasn't a Benshiran Tent. It was organized chaos compared to his home, but Hirem wasn't going to complain. Instead, he had offered himself willing, trying to work out the moral issues that lay unresolved in his soul. That, and Hirem was terrible at figuring out when he was being taken advantage of. "Dhanya, where would you be if I didn't like helping people?"

He chuckled to himself, and shook his head wearily. "Fine, fine, I'm getting up. Let me get on my clothes and I'll meet you outside the tent." With that, he quickly shooed the woman out from his tent, doing so in a manner that he thought was both polite and clear on what he wanted. In actuality, he just did a halfhearted shove towards the flaps of the tent, his wits still dulled by the lengthy doze he had just experienced. When she had cleared out of his tent, he quickly pulled on his clothes, ditching the head covering since he doubted that Dhanya would want to leave the camp and go out into the desert.

He rejoined Dhanya a chime later, recovered fully from his morning daze and fresh and alert for whatever was coming his way. "Well, I'm awake now. What did you want to talk about?" He already guessed as to what the answer was though, as he and Dhanya had parted ways in a manner that was less than satisfactory. Actually, he had fled from her and she had thrown a shoe at him, but he wasn't bothered by that. It was more the fact that Hirem had no idea on how to traverse a topic like what Dhanya was, and more forays into that conversation would only leave daggers at his throat.

[Dhanya]

"Yeah but I needed the help! They're just too lazy to find their own tinder..." She complained lamely, hopping out the door clutching her cloak as Hirem shooed her out.

She sat outside, brows low and pouting so strongly that her lips resembled two segments of an orange, squeezed together. Well, redder than that. The rest of the members of her caravan paid her no mind, save the boys. They were all used to her Kelvic ways by then, it was just that bare legs and arms and scant clothing attracted young men's gazes no matter what they were attached to. They seemed somewhat disappointed that less beastly girls hadn't followed her fashion trend.

When Hirem finally arrived, she had not moved at all from where he'd left her. Her sore leg was poking out and her chin was in her hands. She hadn't even tried to flirt with anyone that had walked past.

"Well, I threw a shoe at you, figured I should say sorry." She replied to him. "That's what people do... Isn't it?"

It hadn't been a part of her lessons, Jenon had never considered it and neither had her tutors. Her mother would have recommended throwing something with more heft to it.

[Hirem]

Hirem looked out to his surroundings, trying to get a feel for the current mood of the camp before turning to Dhanya, shifting his gaze back to her with a passive look on his face. "Why, yes, that's what people do. Is that something that people where you come from don't do?" He shook his head after that, closing his eyes. "Ah, forget I said that. No, it's really no problem, but I'm grateful for your apology."

The Benshiran man held up a hand before she got a chance to talk. "I'm sorry for intruding into your past, Dhanya. It is not my place to ask of such things, and I'm also sorry for asking rudely about your... background. Again, not my place." He tried to find a smile, and indeed found it, chuckling as he started to walk into the camp proper, signalling for Dhanya to follow him. "And before you ask, yes it did take me all night to figure out how to say that."

He sobered up now, his tone becoming more serious and solemn. He wasn't a man that joked often, or indeed found humour in many things. He had seen too much, done too many things to be bright and optimistic anymore. He found that on rare days he would find a smile and laughter in things, but those days were few and far between. His life was dedicated to wandering, to waking up every day and moving on, traversing alone and in peace. The times that he found company often turned out... disastrous.

However, Dhanya and her group seemed pleasant enough, and with the addition of Ari'Yahal and her boy, he had a little taste of home as well. As people nodded towards him and Dhanya, faces kind and open to him, he felt a rising feeling in his chest, one of rightness and pleasantness. Some faces were still guarded or cautious, but those were people that he wasn't going to be talking with much. Instead, he saw a lot of people that looked at him with hungry eyes, taking in his bulk and automatically thinking of what he could do for them. It was a bit unnerving, but he shrugged it off easily.

As they walked, he inclined his head to Dhanya and furrowed his brow. "You know, you have some similarities with a Benshiran matron. My people are proud to a fault, and stubborn too. And when something offends us, we can hold a grudge for quite some time. I'm not saying that you can hold a grudge like that, but..." He shrugged, letting the issue drop as well as the questioning look on his face. He was still a man that didn't engage in conversation much, so talking with Dhanya, or anyone for that matter, was a bit strange to him.

[Dhanya]

Dhanya let the man speak, content to wait until he had articulated all he needed to. She'd already determined that he was sorry for upsetting her and that was all she truly cared about. She was quick to anger but also easily ameliorated, usually. Dhanya did note that Hirem had said more to her in a moment than he usually said in an hour. She didn't know whether he had a weighed mind or just a whim for it. She liked to imagine it meant something, though she didn't know what.

"I know what you mean about pride and stubbornness." She was a goat, after all. "I'm not much for grudges, I save them for special occasions."

A good grudge was something to be savored and also something to be chosen well. Dhanya could see the merit in grudges. If you were going to get annoyed, a grudge was a good place for it. Better that than someone you cared for or someone who provided you with oats.

"You and I are very different. People like me, we're never matrons. It's not what we do. Other races are leaders." She hadn't intended to tell him about herself but now that he was offering something, she could as well. "You don't have to worry about me causing that woman and her boy trouble. I'm capricious, not malicious."

Jenon had made sure she was aware of the difference. He'd even demonstrated with some of her dolls, paints and brightly coloured woodblocks. Her mother's advice had centered more on killing potential threats but they had both conceded she wasn't made for it.

[Hirem]

Dhanya had told him something of her race, which had been his goal yesterday, but now he wasn't pressing for that answer. The fact that she could turn into a goat at any time still was strange to him, but he had a good feeling about Dhanya. At the very least, a goat wasn't something that was going to bring harm to him. No, if he was to be scared of anything about the goatwoman, it was the mind that dwelled inside the woman.

He was curious about her race though. All the tales he heard of these shapeshifters were about the actual forms of them, not about the psychology that dwelled inside those forms. According to Dhanya, they were followers, which didn't explain much. He supposed that it was useless trying to discern the secrets of her race from the clues she gave in her speech, and a waste of time when he could be concerned with other things. After all, how many times could he run into people that shapeshifted for a living?

As they made their way through the camp, he felt like someone was watching him from behind. He turned his head to look at whoever it was, he caught a flash of brown and grey and suddenly someone was grabbing his arm, turning the Benshiran man to face them. He had a look of surprise on his face as he registered a small, elderly woman staring up at him with a pleading look on her face. She reminded him of an elderly bird, too old to fly, with her skin stretched over her bones and her clothes draped over her body like ruined wings. Whoever it was, though, Hirem had never seen her before in the camp.

She apparently knew him, however. "Hirem, Hirem boy... I need your help dear." Before Hirem could bring up a response to this, she continued on, shaking his arm urgently with her voice turning to a very high pitch. She wasn't doing too well under the desert heat, it seemed, sweat glistening on her brow and a desperation in her eyes. She definitely wasn't a worker in the caravan... perhaps a wife or relative. "I'm so thirsty I could die. I know you went to the oasis yesterday and picked up your Benshiran friend... could fill my waterskin for me?"

She almost shoved her skin into his chest, and he could do nothing else but accept it, offering a half-hearted nod in response to this. "I'll... do my best." The old woman seemed content with this, and nodded graciously, moving off into her tent as Hirem turned to Dhanya and gave a confused shrug, inclining his head towards the outskirts of camp. "Shall we go, then?"

[Dhanya]

Dhanya waved to the woman casually as she walked away, not bothering to chat.

"My leg is still giving me gyp. Let me change and I can follow you." She replied. "I'll be slow though."

Her fall had sprained her ankle and while it was better, the minutes they'd spent talking weren't restorative enough to make her want to limp on it with two legs. She flicked her cloak so the collar no longer wrapped around her shoulders. Hirem saw an expanse of bare skin for barely a second before Dhanya exploded with bright light. A moment later he was staring at a goat through the afterimage. It had been like staring at the sun.

Dhanya bleated at her cloak, nudging it with her nose. She'd forgotten to ask if he'd carry it for her but she figured she'd be able to get her meaning across. She stepped out of the fabric and nudged it once more, before looking out towards the Oasis.

[Hirem]

Hirem squinted as his friend burst into white light, and covered his eyes for a moment. The flash dominated his vision for a moment, making him keep his eyes shut as the lights flashed in his eyes. It was like staring at the sun for an hour condensed into a second of intense, blinding light. Once it was done, he shook his head clear of the blindness as he looked down to see his companion bleating on the ground, wobbling on three good legs and nudging her cloak with the tip of her nose.

The Benshiran man bent over and pulled the cloak up into his arms, wondering if shapeshifters all had to go through this ritual. Magic was something that Hirem didn't know anything about, but it had to have rules and processes, or else it would be far too chaotic to control. Was this one of the rules, always appearing naked when they transform? He had resolved not to delve too much into her topic, but magic both alarmed and excited him, a forbidden subject that he wanted to explore. It wasn't every day he found magic in the air.

Once all was ready, he started his way through the clustered tents and people, taking care not to trod upon any loose end of a canvas, or any unwitting toes. As he did so, he examined the people that he now travelled with, comparing their faces with the faces of the desert peoples. They were very different, both from the people of the desert and from each other. Some were fair-skinned, others had much darker tans. Some had braids in their hair and some wore them straight. These were physical observations, ones that didn't mean much, but it made him wonder where they came from.

Once they were out of the camp and heading to the Oasis, he turned to observe Dhanya as she walked. She seemed okay at traversing sand, but he could tell that it was not something that she was used to. Bring a stranger into the desert and they were sure to make their way awkwardly through the terrain, never quite sure of the way the sand would sink beneath their feet. Even if that stranger was a goat. Hirem wondered what traversing Cyphrus was like, what traversing through tall fields of grass was like, what the restless wind felt like on your face. In Eyktol the air was hot, stale, dull. Unless it stirred up a sandstorm, the wind was very passive in the desert during the day.

"Dhanya, can I ask you something? What is Cyphrus like?" He took a quick breath and awaited her response with bated breath.